Digital Commons Network^™

Give ‘Em What They Want: Patron-Driven Collection Development, Karen S. Fischer, Michael Wright

Karen S Fischer

It’s unorthodox: a small number of libraries nationwide are opening up their acquisitions process for e-books and letting their users make the picks. Known as patron-driven acquisition (PDA), the process involves working with a vendor to develop an e-book subject profile, and then loading MARC records for e-books matching the profile into the library’s catalog. After a certain number of uses, the library owns the e-book and the vendor deducts payment from a deposit account. There is no intervention by subject-specialist librarians or even acquisitions staff.

The University of Iowa Libraries established a PDA pilot in September 2009 which has …

Dennis The Menace?: An Analysis Of Whether The Episcopal Church’S Dennis Canon Entitles The Church To An Exemption From Neutral Trust Law, Robert W. Humphrey Ii

Robert W Humphrey II

In 1979, the Episcopal Church amended its canons to include a provision whereby all dioceses and local churches agreed to hold their property in trust for the national church. The Dennis Canon, as it is known, was a response to a schism within the church and an attempt by the church to preserve real property owned by local churches. Many courts construing the effect of the Dennis Canon have found it applies even when common law trust principles would provide otherwise. However, the Supreme Court of South Carolina recently refused to give effect to it, stating it has “no legal …

Defragmenting The Regulatory Process, Stuart Shapiro

Stuart Shapiro

The regulatory process is often criticized for being cumbersome and slow, much like a computer whose hard drive is fragmented by files no longer used or useful. Like such a computer, the regulatory process contains many requirement of dubious utility. These include the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, and numerous executive orders. While other parts of the regulatory process such as notice and comment and cost-benefit analysis have received much more academic attention, these other parts of the process deserve examination as well. This paper argues that such an examination will reveal that …

The Influence Of Abraham Lincoln On The Supreme Court’S Interpretation Of The Constitutional Principles Of Liberty And Equality, Wilson Huhn

Wilson R. Huhn

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the Supreme Court has embraced Abraham Lincoln’s transcendent understanding of the principles of liberty and equality – transcendent in the sense that these principles are considered to be timeless, universal, and morally binding. The article briefly summarizes the Transcendental Movement, sets forth Lincoln’s understanding of liberty and equality, and describes how, in the modern era, the Supreme Court has “constantly approximated” the principles that Lincoln believed that this country is dedicated to.

The Ill-Made Prince: A Modest Proposal For A New Article Ii, Garrett Epps

Garrett Epps

ABSTRACT This Article considers the recent controversies over claims of extensive executive authority by the Bush Administration and suggests that they stem at least partially from the inartful and tentative phrasing of Article II and the resulting efforts by advocates of executive authority to transfer all available authority to the President. Its analysis begins with the drafting of Article II and the battles over its meaning during the Washington and Adams Administrations, then moves forward to illustrate the ways in which its negative features have repeatedly sparked political crises and inter-branch confrontation, particularly by those who read into the executive’s …

Fighting The Culture War As A Neutral Observer: A Profile Of Justice Scalia’S Machinations In Lawrence V. Texas, George D. Miller

George D Miller

The purpose of this comment is to identify and determine the function of those machinations in the culture war as well as to demonstrate their patent shortcomings. In Part I, it will examine how Justice Scalia plays the “lifestyle card,” a subtle but powerful sign of his allegiance to the far right social and political agenda. Because of the controversy of this charge, much evidence will be adduced to demonstrate that the contemporary use of the word “lifestyle” reinforces a negative connotation of a promiscuous lifestyle often associated with the myth of hyper-sexuality, suggesting gay people “recruit” vulnerable heterosexuals and …

From Universe To Polyverses, Rudolf Kaehr

Rudolf Kaehr

Some thoughts about the power of speculation behind important discoveries in mathematics, physics and computer science. The exercise shows that there is no need for a compulsory ultimate unifying universe. It is speculated that just this paradigm of a single ultimate universe is unmasking itself today as the main obstacle for further development in Western science and technology.

Secretly Falling In Love: America's Love Affair With Controlling The Hearts And Minds Of Public School Teachers, Kristin D. Shotwell

Kristin D Shotwell

The Protestant origins of American public schools, rigid gender roles, and obsolete legal doctrines combined to create a pubic identity for the female teacher as a chaste role model. This ideal of the teacher as an asexual, moral figure persists, and teachers continue to be discharged for private, legal behavior because it offends community morality. Drawing on work from religious, legal and educational historians, this article explores how Protestant values, coverture, male-only suffrage, and the spousal rape exemption led to the development of a stringent moral code for America’s earliest female teachers.

This article explores how teachers gained some due …

The Traditional View Of Hamilton's Federalist No. 77 And An Unexpected Challenge: A Response To Seth Barrett Tillman, Jeremy D. Bailey

Jeremy D Bailey

In Federalist No. 77, Alexander Hamilton writes that the Senate's consent would be necessary to "displace" a federal executive officer. Because Hamilton is well known as a defender of executive power, this comment has long been a puzzle. Seth Barrett Tillman proposes to solve this puzzle by reading "displace" as "replace" rather than "remove." If Tillman is correct, then he would not only solve a major interpretative dilemma, but also would liberate those who argue on originalist grounds for unilateral presidential removal powers. This paper responds to Tillman's argument by considering three ways to consider Hamilton's No. 77: Contemporary evidence, …

The Traditional View Of Hamilton’S Federalist No. 77 And An Unexpected Challenge: A Response To Seth Barrett Tillman, Jeremy D. Bailey

Jeremy D Bailey

In Federalist No. 77, Alexander Hamilton writes that the Senate's consent would be necessary to "displace" a federal executive officer. Because Hamilton is well known as a defender of executive power, this comment has long been a puzzle. Seth Barrett Tillman proposes to solve this puzzle by reading "displace" as "replace" rather than "remove." If Tillman is correct, then he would not only solve a major interpretative dilemma, but also would liberate those who argue on originalist grounds for unilateral presidential removal powers. This paper responds to Tillman's argument by considering three ways to consider Hamilton's No. 77: Contemporary evidence, …

Promised Land? Immigration, Religiosity, And Space In Southern California, Clara Irazabal, Grace Dyrness

Clara Irazabal

This article looks at how immigrants and their supporters appropriate and use religious space and other public spaces for religious and socio-political purposes in Southern California. While the everyday living conditions of many immigrants, particularly the unauthorized Latino immigrants, force unto them an embodied disciplinarity that maintains spatialities of restricted citizenship, the public appropriations of space for and through religious practices allow for them –even if only momentarily –to express an embodied transgression. This practice in public space helps realize spaces of freedom and hope, however ephemerally. Potentially, these rehearsing exercises can help revert internalized disempowering subjectivities and create social …