Secondary Sources: Top Ten

Secondary sources are a legal researcher\u27s best friend. They are a great place to begin researching a new topic as they provide a framework for understanding the subject. Not only will a good secondary source provide researchers with a way of approaching the topic, but it will also introduce beginning researchers to the language of the subject. Secondary sources also contain expert analysis, references to primary law such as cases, statutes, and regulations, and will also include such other resources as governmental reports, statistics, and other secondary sources. While secondary sources are an incredibly valuable research tool, they can offer such a wide array of options that researchers become overwhelmed with the sheer number of choices. This can strike anyone, even a fairly experienced researcher. Librarians, too, can become overwhelmed, especially when faced with teaching law students about the value of secondary sources and how to harness their power

Authenticity Key to Success in Life and in Legal Information

[Excerpt] Authenticity is defined as something that is not false or an imitation. Savvy consumers pay a premium for an authentic product and treat with suspicion a product that does not ring true. We have a system of trademark and copyright protections that protect a company’s intellectual property rights and brands and consumer protections to protect the consumer from counterfeit and unsafe products. Now, there is model legislation that will provide a systematic way to protect, preserve and provide better electronic access to the bread and butter of our legal profession: our official state legal documents

LLNE Letter to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick

A letter from Law Librarians of New England President Susan Drisko Zago urging Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to restore funding to the State Library of Massachusetts for FY 2010 and subsequent years to a realistic level needed to maintain and increase its collections and services

University of New Hampshire School of Law Library

Review of The University of New Hampshire School of Law Library, Concord, NH

Topological frustration of artificial spin ice

Frustrated systems, typically characterized by competing interactions that cannot all be simultaneously satisfied, display rich behaviours not found elsewhere in nature. Artificial spin ice takes a materials-by-design approach to studying frustration, where lithographically patterned bar magnets mimic the frustrated interactions in real materials but are also amenable to direct characterization. Here, we introduce controlled topological defects into square artificial spin ice lattices in the form of lattice edge dislocations and directly observe the resulting spin configurations. We find the presence of a topological defect produces extended frustration within the system caused by a domain wall with indeterminate configuration. Away from the dislocation, the magnets are locally unfrustrated, but frustration of the lattice persists due to its topology. Our results demonstrate the non-trivial nature of topological defects in a new context, with implications for many real systems in which a typical density of dislocations could fully frustrate a canonically unfrustrated system.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, 3 supplemental figures. For supplemental movies, see http://dx.doi.org/10.13016/M25H7

Loops with Transitive Automorphisms

AbstractIt is shown that isotopic loops with transitive automorphism groups are in fact isomorphic. A classification of loops with transitive automorphism groups is given. This classification is compared to one given by Barlotti and Strambach (1983) for loops with sharply transitive automorphism groups, and examples of several of the classes are presented. The approach is entirely algebraic