SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

September 17, 2018 by Gary Price

New Resource: Cornell’s Legal Information Institute Publishes Enhanced Constitution Annotated

September 17, 2018 by Gary Price

From the Legal Information Institute:

2018-09-17_12-17-57Cornell’s Legal Information Institute is celebrating Constitution Day by publishing the first publicly-available web version of the Congressional Research Service’s Constitution Annotated, a non-partisan publication that helps readers appreciate how Americans’ collective understanding of our governing principles has changed throughout our history on timely issues such as the scope of presidential power, limits on free speech, orthe right to bear arms.
While the Government Publishing Office makes the Constitution Annotated available in print and online as a 2800 page PDF, it does not release the software “roadmap”(XML) that other publishers need to make feature-rich variations.
With assistance from open government advocates Josh Tauberer of GovTrack and Daniel Schuman of Demand Progress, the LII re-created that map and then used it to improve upon the government’s PDF.
In addition to being fully up-to-date, LII’s Constitution Annotated is navigable, accessible, hyperlinked and searchable.  Subsequent versions will use Semantic Web technologies to assist interconnection and data integration with other online resources.
The projects started with a group of Cornell Computing and Information Science students –  Anusha Chowdhury, Garima Kapila, Tairy Davey, Brendan Rappazzo, and Max Anderson, organized with the help of Professor William Arms. They developed software to convert the original PDF into data the LII’s developers could use as a starting point to building out the full version you see today.
“We have created an enhanced version that will not only be better in and of itself, but also act as a resource for improving other parts of our collections, notably our set of Supreme Court cases,” explained LII Director Tom Bruce.  “For example, we can make use of citations in footnotes to establish relatedness between cases, allowing us to show which of the cases that are related to a particular case by citation are actually the most related with respect to a particular topic.  We think it is going to be quite something.”
The Library of Congress refers to the Constitution Annotated as “one of our most important resources in answering questions about the Constitution and its history.”  Former Senator Russ Feingold has described it as “an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and other individuals interested in learning how the U.S. Supreme Court interprets our nation’s governing document.” By publishing the text as XML, the LII and its colleagues hope to help the document live up to its full potential.

Direct to LII’s Constitution Annotated
Learn More, See: “Finally, The Constitution (Annotated) In Your Virtual Pocket” by Dan Schuman at Demand Progress

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Data Files, Libraries, News, Publishing

SHARE:

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

NY Times: "Turning Nairobi’s Public Libraries Into 'Palaces for the People'"

From The NY Times: In 1931, the first library in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, opened its doors — to white patrons only. Nearly a century later, Kenyans dressed in the slinky ...

UC Berkeley School of Law Library Reclassifies Indigenous Materials, Giving Them Their Own Place on the Shelves

From Berkeley Law: As part of its broader commitment to considering and fostering diversity and inclusion within its storied stacks, the Berkeley Law Library staff have taken on one prominent example of ...

Not Real News: An Associated Press Roundup of Untrue Stories Shared Widely on Social Media This Week

From the Associated Press: A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were ...

A Selection of New or Recently Updated Reports From the Congressional Research Service

An Introduction to Trade Secrets Law in the United States Oil and Gas Technology and Geothermal Energy Development Regulating Big Tech: CRS Legal Products for the 118th Congress Rules and ...

Deepfakes are Becoming a Cottage Industry; STM US Annual Conference 2023 to Take Place in DC (April 26-27);...

Columbia: A Judge Just Used ChatGPT to Make a Court Decision (via VICE) Coming Soon: STM US Annual Conference 2023 to Take Place in DC (April 26-27) FCC Announces Over ...

New Journal Article: "Sustainability 3.0 in Libraries: A Challenge for Management"

The article linked below was published today (February 3, 2023). Title Sustainability 3.0 in Libraries: A Challenge for Management Author Alice Keller University Library Basel, University of Basel,  Switzerland Source ...

U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Nobel Foundation to Hold Nobel Prize Summit on Countering Misinformation and Building...

From a National Academies Announcement: The Nobel Prize Summit Truth, Trust and Hope will bring together Nobel Prize laureates and other world-renowned experts and leaders for a global dialogue on how to stop ...

With Support From the Arcadia Fund, MIT Press Announces New Initiative to Flip Existing Subscription-Based Journals to a...

From a MIT Press Announcement:  In keeping with its mission and longstanding commitment to increase access to scholarship, the MIT Press is pleased to announce shift+OPEN. This new initiative is designed ...

A New EPUB Reader For E-Books From the Library of Congress Open Access Books Collection 

From a Library of Congress Blog Post: The Open Access Books Collection on loc.gov includes approximately 6,000 contemporary open access e-books covering a wide range of subjects, including history, music, poetry, technology, and works ...

Panel Discussion Video Recording: "Internet Freedom: Information Communication, Accessibility and Archiving"

The panel discussion video recording embedded below from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) was recorded on February 1, 2023.  Description This is a discussion on censorship-resistance, web archiving and ensuring ...

RLUK Releases Community-Driven Toolkit for the Development and Delivery of Virtual Reading Rooms (VRRs)

From RLUK (Research Libraries UK): The Virtual Reading Rooms (VRRs) Toolkit is a resource for all collection-holding institutions, including libraries, archives, and museums, which are interested in setting up a VRR consultation ...

Microsoft Bing to Rely on GPT-4, ChatGPT Mobile App Planned, Rumours Say; Senator Calls on Apple and Google...

Microsoft Bing to Rely on GPT-4, ChatGPT Mobile App Planned, Rumours Say (via The Decoder) & Microsoft Teams gets an AI upgrade with OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 (via The Decoder) Resources ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Tweets by infoDOCKET

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2023 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.