Despite our numbers, librarians’ families are generally an invisible community. For example, I can’t think of any TV shows or movies that featured librarians as parents, so we don’t get any Hollywood representation.

Because our stories are so rarely told, I’m sharing a few stories now.

Saturdays in the Library

Gail Schlachter at Cal State Long Beach circa mid-1970s

My mom worked as a reference librarian at Cal State Long Beach in the mid-1970s. She was the single parent of two children (me and my sister, 3 years older than me), working full-time and living on a librarian’s salary.

This was an era before workplaces routinely offered childcare to their employees. When mom had to work the reference desk on weekends or other days we weren’t in school, she couldn’t always obtain or afford childcare. Instead, she’d schlep her two young children with her to the library while she worked. She’d set us up in a corner of the library, away from the reference desk but in line-of-sight. We’d play, make art, and read while she worked.

As kids, we didn’t love this. It meant we’d be stuck indoors on beautiful sunny Southern California days. And if we had to be indoors, we’d much rather watch TV. Nowadays, if we had to go to the library with mom, she could set us up with an electronic device so we could binge-watch TikTok videos for hours.

Back then, we didn’t have anything so portable as a mobile device for entertainment. Instead, we brought all of our entertainment with us, which meant we’d bring stacks of our own books and art supplies, enough to keep us entertained, or at least distracted, for hours. I was a geography nerd back then, so I would also bring my 12-inch globe. I’d spend hours spinning the globe and memorizing far-away country names and capitals and rivers and mountain ranges. I can only imagine how I must have looked to library patrons…a young child in the library’s corner, randomly studying his globe.

My sister and I were good kids, mostly, and we didn’t want to make trouble for our mom as she worked. But we were kids, and sometimes youthful energy would overwhelm us. We’d start getting antsy and rowdy as kids do. Our mom would have to shush us, as librarians are always stereotyped as doing.

Family Vacations at the ALA Annual Meeting

Mom attended the ALA Annual Meeting faithfully. The conference was usually a highlight of her year—a chance for her to see her friends and colleagues and nerd out on librarianship. Bringing two small kids in tow surely wasn’t ideal for her, but it was her reality.

She made the best of the situation. We’d tag along with her to the social events. We enjoyed the free food, but we were bored by the adult conversations. The novelty of having young children at the professional event delighted the other attendees. Whenever I run into one of mom’s friends from the old days, they will inevitably (and truthfully) say “I remember when you were this tall!”

For us as kids, the conference exhibits were the highlight of the Annual Meeting. The 1970s was a different era: libraries had money to spend, and publishers competed to get it. The publishers would put on lavish displays in the exhibit hall, their booths loaded with free schwag. We’d grab an ALA totebag and then make our way up and down the exhibit aisles, taking one of everything. It was a bit like Halloween, except we didn’t have to say “trick or treat.” Many vendors had candy and pencils or pens, which we grabbed anyway despite their banality, but occasionally we’d find little toys or stuffed animals or items we could actually enjoy. We’d take our stuffed bags up to the hotel room and compare our loot, showing off the goodies we had found but our sibling had missed.

After my mom transitioned into the publishing industry, libraries remained a part of our family vacations. We’d go check out the local public libraries to see if they had copies of my mom’s books. It would be a great joy being in some obscure (to us) corner of the country, seeing my mom’s books on the shelves and imagining how she was helping people we’d never meet.

An Archivist’s Tale

My mom kept papers from everything. We sorted through dozens of boxes of papers after her death. She kept our art doodles from the long afternoons in the Cal State Long Beach library. She kept the internal staff newsletters for the Cal State Long Beach, written on typewriters and mimeographed. She kept her ALA papers, which now reside at the ALA Archive at University of Illinois. She kept a complete collection of the hundreds of books she published, which now reside at San Jose State University.

Like my mom, I’m an archivist. Over the years, I’ve cleared out some of my papers, but I still have boxes and boxes of papers in my garage. I have all of my childhood correspondence, papers from jobs when I was a young adult, and printouts of virtually every email I sent and received in the 1990s. I don’t envy the chore my kids will face sorting through my paper archives if I don’t clean them up before I die. At least my electronic archives won’t force them to park one of their cars outside their garage.

Freedom of Expression

My mom firmly believed in public access to information. She saw libraries as a way to reduce information divides and make available, free of charge, credible and reliable information to everyone.

For decades, this function of libraries has been under attack by censors who wish to control information flows to advance their normative or partisan ends. The library community is one of the OG defenders of free speech. In this respect, libraries are like canaries in the free speech coal mine, usually at the vanguard of the censorship battles. My mom started fighting those battles in the 1970s, and I’m sure she’d be aghast today at how censors continue to aggressively implement the same condemnable playbook decades later.

Even as the Internet plays an increasing role in our information ecosystem, the services provided by libraries remain a threat to those in power, and efforts to censor libraries are taking place in parallel with their efforts to censor the Internet. Just as libraries have been targets for decades, censors are trying to shape Internet content to serve their normative or partisan objectives. I’ve seen this story before through my mom’s eyes. As a law professor, I spend much of my professional time today carrying the OG free speech banner, with an emphasis on digital battlegrounds. My mom’s legacy includes my efforts to stand up for the freedom of information.

About the Author: Eric Goldman is a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law in California. He acknowledges Dusty Springfield for the title inspiration.

The post I Was the Son of a Librarian appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

[Note: I have been on three appointments committees, so many professors have far more experience with this topic than I have.]

* Be authentic. Don’t try to be whoever you think the committee wants to hire. Be yourself.

* If you are doing the interview via Zoom, remember that the camera subtracts some of your energy. Don’t act, but be as energetic as you can be. Also, present a positive Zoom image (good sound, good lighting, cleaned-up backgrounds). Free yourself of any external distractions, but I personally never mind when there’s a pet sighting.

* Most interviews will ask about scholarship, teaching, and service. You will want to have some concrete examples about each topic that showcase the attributes you want to highlight.

* My view is that you should answer any question “I don’t know” if you don’t actually know the answer, and then explain your thought process about how you would think through or research possible answers. Committees know you are an entry-level candidate and won’t know everything about being a successful law professor, but they will credit logical and thoughtful approaches to problems.

A specific example: you might get asked what casebook you would use to teach a specific class. If you haven’t gone through the casebook selection process for that course, you can answer this question by explaining how you would research the casebook options and what attributes you would emphasize or avoid. In other words, you turn this into a question about your pedagogical priorities and how a casebook might help or hinder that, rather than a mechanical question about which specific casebook you prefer.

* Be prepared with questions for the committee. The questions you ask signal your priorities, so use them to that effect. For example, despite the AALS guidance on the page I linked to above, I would recommend not asking a question about the interview process before the whole committee. That’s a missed opportunity to signal some other priority of yours. Ideally, you will have done enough homework about the interviewing school that you can ask questions specific to the school, not just a stock or standard question.

* Sometimes you will encounter jerk interviewers who punch down on interviewees. I’m sorry if you run into those. It’s their insecurities speaking, so try not to let them rattle you. You will find that most interviewers are nice and genuinely want you to be your best self.

* The screening interviews are two-way sales pitches. Every school wants you to come out of their interviews being enthusiastic about them. Don’t be surprised if the committee spends some scarce interview time touting how great their school is.

* Do some mock interviews, if you haven’t done them already. Practice but don’t rehearse.

Faculty hiring is a super-complicated and incredibly idiosyncratic process. There are many complex interpersonal dynamics on appointments committees (as the old joke goes, ask 5 law professors their opinions and you will get 6 answers), and committee members often bargain with each other over their preferred or verboten candidates while trying to optimize against weird and constantly changing institutional constraints. So much of the hiring process does not turn only on your strengths and weaknesses as a candidate. Go along for the ride, but don’t take anything personally if it doesn’t work out, because that may have nothing to do with you personally.

Also, you are in an incredibly talented pool of candidates. There are hundreds of other candidates who also have elite credentials and who will (or could have) become successful academics. You should feel good that you already have stood out to the committee sufficient to get a screening interview. You probably already have at least one champion on the committee. But the amazing talent in the pool means committees make impossibly fine distinctions between candidates, some of which will appear nonsensical or inexplicable to non-committee members. Sometimes those distinctions work to your benefit, sometimes not. You might be the committee’s top candidate on paper; or you might already have some skeptics who will downrank you no matter how your interview goes so that they can advance their preferred candidates. Believe in yourself and your strengths, and don’t let anyone take that away from you.

Finally, you have been preparing for these interviews all of your life. Screening interviews have their own rituals, but in the end the screening interview is just another process for getting to know each other and exploring matches. It’s nothing you can’t handle. You’ve got this!

* * *

UPDATE: I got the following comment:

As someone who just spent some time on the lateral market, I would suggest adding:

– Candidates should research the institution and its institutional mission. Is there a research focus? A teaching focus? Access schools have different operational needs (and budgets) than larger schools with a bigger research footprint. Some focus on first gen lawyers, others on big law. Your background and talk should be tailored to the school’s mission first and foremost.

– Ditto for the people on the search committee. If there is overlap in research agendas or teaching areas it can make relating to the search committee easier during the screener. If not, find something in their bio that you do relate to. A candidate in the IP space needs to find some way to relate to the criminal procedure experts.

– This also extends to the institutions culture/political leanings (they all have one, expecially given the current political environment). The same for parochial schools that may have a religious mission that candidates should be aware of. Some religious schools have a very passive religious mission, and others have full on embraced Christian Nationalism. Other culture things to think about include: does the institution still value and embrace DEI? Or is it in a state with legal restrictions on academic freedom like Florida? What sort of community outreach does the school do? Is there a robust alumni network or is it more of a commuter school? What is the regional/national reputation of the school? (not talking about U.S. News).

– Try to be human. I never thought reading directly from a CV was a useful exercise, search committees want to know what you are going to be like outside of the classroom too. Be open to sharing about hobbies, especially if you have a screener with something in the background of their Zoom call you can relate to.

The post Tips for Your First Law Professor Screening Interview appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

The event was structured like a poster session at an academic conference. Every participant displayed and stood next to a poster that summarized their summer activities, including trips, research, and administrative projects.

We had a total of 23 posters–21 from faculty and 2 from staff. As many of you know, it’s incredibly hard to get faculty to self-report about their activities, so self-disclosures from 21 faculty is a treasure trove of information for the marketing team.

We scheduled a noon event during the second week of classes. We had a good student turnout. I saw many positive community-building conversations, both amongst the faculty/staff and with the students. We left the posters on display in the atrium so more students and visitors could see them. I will be sharing the digital posters on social media as well.

If you want to try an event like this at your institution, let me know. I’m happy to share more details about the mechanics.

See a photo album from this event.

Here are the digital posters:

• Center for Global Law and Policy
• Law Enrollment and Operations
• Prof. Adam Abelkop
• Prof. Vangie Abriel
• Prof. Sean Bland
• Prof. Taylor Dalton
• Prof. Eric Goldman
• Prof. Sue Guan
• Prof. Brad Joondeph
• Dean Michael Kaufman
• Prof. Devin Kinyon
• Prof. Linsey Krolik
• Prof. Ed Lee
• Prof. Kerry Macintosh
• Prof. Laura Norris
• Prof. Michelle Oberman
• Prof. Tyler Ochoa
• Associate Dean Thiadora Pina
• Prof. Cathy Sandoval
• Prof. Nick Serafin
• Prof. David Sloss
• Prof. Tseming Yang
• Prof. David Yosifon

The post Recap of a New Community-Building Event: “What I Did This Summer” appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

How He Got Here

My son graduated high school during the pandemic shutdown in 2021. He went through the college application process in his senior year and even put down a deposit, but he never had the chance to do any college tours. After some reflection, he felt he wasn’t ready yet for college. Instead, he did a gap year at Tivnu, which proved to be a wonderful experience for him.

After Tivnu, he wanted help navigating the college experience due to his neurodiversity. This led him to CIP in Berkeley, where he could get professional support to enhance the skills he needs for college and life. CIP works with students attending Berkeley City College (BCC), so he started CIP in 2022 and BCC in 2023. While at BCC, he worked part-time, first as a law firm file clerk and then as a math tutor. He completed his Associates’ degree in math this semester.

The Drexel Decision

As a transfer destination, Drexel stood out on several fronts. First, it has leaned into support for neurodiverse students, which gave us some comfort that he could succeed there without CIP’s support.

Second, Drexel’s co-op program will help my son build the kind of work experience and professional identity that can help him make his next move after graduation. Drexel’s neurodiversity support includes help with the job placement function, which will surely benefit him, and which reduces the risk of him bouncing back home post-graduation (a common outcome for many college students nowadays, especially neurodiverse ones).

Third, the math department seemed like a good fit. The math department was big enough to provide all of the options my son will want, but the total number of math majors and the associated class sizes were small enough that students appeared to get personal attention from the professors.

Finally, I was impressed with the overall vibe at Drexel. It has all the resources my son will need, but it is not as overwhelming and impersonal as a big public university. The students we met with were focused on their professional development goals. The Jewish community seemed acceptable (we looked at Drexel’s Title VI complaint but could not validate the concerns).

Drexel’s main competition for my son’s enrollment was UC Berkeley. UC Berkeley is such a compelling option: his mom and 3 of his grandparents are alums, the city of Berkeley is a wonderful (if complicated) college town that he already knows well, he could continue his neurodiversity support with CIP, and it has better weather and is closer to home compared to Philadelphia.

And yet, the UC Berkeley transfer admit day was not great for him. For me, the standout feature was that the Berkeley speakers repeatedly hyped how students should feel honored that they got admitted to such a prestigious school, but not one speaker talked about employment outcomes. It was like job placement considerations were a non-priority to the institution. (I know that’s not true, but the silence loudly communicated that message). UC Berkeley provides stats about employment outcomes by year and major (yay for transparency), and the numbers for their math department were not comforting. A number of other red and yellow flags arose during the day, such as transfer students’ difficulties enrolling in upper-division math classes and getting dorm rooms. And, of course, UC Berkeley is a complicated community, especially for Jews.

* * *

My son made a major adult decision moving across the country to a new community, a new time zone, and a lot more weather drama. I am proud of him for creating great transfer options for himself, navigating the transfer decision-making process smartly, and being willing to take some risks. #ProudDad #ProudDrexelDad.

The post My Son’s Next College Destination appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

______

#ProudDaughter

Dear Dad,

I see you out there, feeding the stray cats when you think no one is looking. I see you, running around the house once the sun starts setting. You yell at everyone: “time is ticking!” and hustle us out the door to admire the colors. You take pictures of the sunset with your ancient Panasonic camera, and complain that it doesn’t capture the bright pinks you so love. I see you, pointing out the orange California poppies that bloom every spring. You appreciate them whenever you see them.

In many ways, you taught me how to love. Your love is daily, hard work that you start from the moment you wake up at 6 AM every morning. You would drive me to school in the morning before work. You would nicely cut up fruit from the Farmer’s Market and put it in a bowl next to my homework and call it a “cornucopia.” You would insist on taking high quality photos of every piece of art I’ve ever made. Your Zoom background is my watercolor of baby Yoda, peeking above your shoulder for everyone to see. You post all of my life events with a #ProudDad hashtag (and usually a few emojis). 

I know that you never got cornucopias growing up. Or a dad. So, you invented being Dad. You invented cornucopias and our annual Dina-Daddy trips. You woke up at 6 AM every morning to get started on loving me because you didn’t get a blueprint of how fathers should love their daughters.

I definitely don’t wake up at 6 AM. But once I do get up, preferably around noon, I love just like you. I work hard. I put full effort into every aspect of my life. I notice the tulips planted around the University of Oregon campus for spring term. Whenever I get the pleasure of seeing a cat, I pet them gently and take photos of them from every angle. I see how every day is new and different; an opportunity to love. Your catchphrase: “Another beautiful day in California.” I live in Oregon now. “Another beautiful day in Oregon.”

I love you, Dad.

Love,

Dina

Fig 1. You in a business meeting

Fig 2. #ProudDad and #ProudDaughter

Fig 3. Love, as you taught me

The post My Daughter’s Father’s Day Letter appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

* * *

Although we were three years apart, I “skipped” a grade so that I was only two years behind her academically. I spent much of my K-12 education trying to close that two year gap and catch up to Sandy.

It’s well-known that younger siblings benefit from their older siblings. As one study summarized, “First-born siblings engage in leadership, teaching, caregiving, and helping roles, whereas second-born siblings are more likely to imitate, follow, take on the role of learner, and elicit care and help.”

One analogy is to drafting in biking. Sandy was out in front, setting the pace. I was drafting in her slipstream, able to move forward faster and with less effort because she was doing the extra work. Or a hiking analogy: if you are climbing a hill covered in snow or up a sand dune, the easiest path is to walk in someone else’s footprints.

That’s pretty much what I did. Sandy blazed the trail, and I followed. I took the same courses she took, from the same teachers. I got involved in the same student groups she was involved in. In high school, we did Junior Statesmen together, and I got into student government because she did. She worked a summer at McDonalds (and was employee-of-the-month); they hired her little brother because they loved her, but I was never employee-of-the-month. I initially got so much goodwill from teachers and other adults because everyone loved Sandy Sunshine. They got quite a surprise when a moody introvert showed up instead.

* * *

Even though we are different personalities, in many other respects we’re essentially twins (not that you could tell from the photo below). In particular, since I graduated high school, we’ve pursued different professional paths but keep ending up in the same place.

Our first convergence was in college. Sandy started at UC Davis and spent a year abroad in Israel. During that time, I graduated high school and enrolled at UCLA to study economics. Coming back from her year abroad, Sandy decided to transfer to UCLA to be closer to our mom and grandma (and me). I was on a three year schedule and she was on a five year schedule, and that’s how we both graduated at the same time from the same university.

We even held a joint college graduation party.

Sandy went to Michigan for her masters in library and information science, while I worked two years in LA in commercial real estate. Sandy decided to continue towards her PhD, which led her back to UCLA. I decided to pursue a JD/MBA and that led me back to UCLA as well. So once again we were at the same institution at the same time. During this time, we ended up living just a few miles from each other on the west side of LA. This time, I graduated before Sandy.

After graduation, I decided to pursue Internet Law, which led me to the Silicon Valley. I worked at a law firm in Palo Alto, then as General Counsel of an Internet company on the Peninsula. Sandy got her PhD and a teaching job in Arizona. But after a few years, she and Jay decided to leave academia and get industry jobs, which led both of them to HP. They moved to Palo Alto in 1998, and we were in the same community again.

Another amazing convergence took place in 2001, when we were on a panel together at Comdex in Las Vegas regarding privacy. By that point, I was a Goldman and Sandy was a Hirsh, so the organizers had no reason to know of our sibling relationship—though it became pretty apparent when we stood side-by-side.

In 2002, I decided to pursue an academic career, which took me and my family to Milwaukee. Four years later, I got a full-time position at Santa Clara University, which brought me and my family back to the Bay Area. We bought a house in Mountain View, just 7 miles from the Hirsh’s Palo Alto residence. At SCU, I held a dual appointment as an professor and as an administrator directing the law school’s High Tech Law Institute.

In 2010, Sandy got the opportunity to direct the School of Information at San Jose State, where she was also appointed to the faculty. At that point, we were both professors and academic administrators. News about the Schlachter “twins” took over the SJSU Information School home page.

In 2020, Sandy got “promoted” into the role of Associate Dean of the College of Information, Data & Society at San Jose State. A year later, I got “promoted” to Associate Dean for Research at Santa Clara Law.

And so that takes us to 2024, when Sandy and I both held Associate Dean titles at universities located 4 miles from each other, residing in houses 7 miles apart. We went our separate ways when Sandy graduated high school in Santa Barbara, only to find ourselves 40+ years later back together again, with the virtually the same job titles and in each other’s backyards.

[Reminder: in conjunction with Sandy’s birthday, I made a Spotify playlist and my daughter made a painting.]

The post A Tribute to My Sister Sandy Hirsh on Her 60th Birthday (Part 2 of 2) appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

Many of you probably assume it’s time for the little brother to roast his big sister. After all, I’m a GenXer and I’ve been honing my snarking skills for decades, since I was in the womb. And if this were Sandy’s 30th or 40th birthday, I probably would let it fly. But as much fun as it would be to take the express train to Snarktown, this is a 60th birthday and, as a sign of my newfound maturity, I’ve decided to respect my elders and actually try to be nice. Sandy, my birthday gift to you is that I’m keeping the embarrassing revelations about your youth secret until your next milestone birthday. You’re welcome.

* * *

Sandy and I are 3 years apart. We are both early-stage GenXers. Our parents were wartime babies, so they are technically late-stage Silent Generation instead of Boomers. But like many boomers, they married young, the relationship didn’t work out, they divorced, and they both went on to achieve personal and professional success separately.

Our parents’ split defined our childhood. We grew up in a single-parent household with a full-time working mom. It was just the three of us, but in fact for many hours of the day it was just the two of us. Like many GenXers, we were latchkey children. At a young age, we arrived home to an empty home with no adult figure awaiting us. In practice, for much of my childhood, Sandy was the closest thing I had to a parent for several hours a day.

Sandy and I have very different personalities. To oversummarize, I was a socially awkward and nerdy introvert, and Sandy was the socially gregarious extrovert. Sandy’s nickname was “Sandy Sunshine,” though I have no idea where that came from.

Some of you may not appreciate how significant Sandy’s interpersonal skills were to her childhood. Our mom shrewdly recognized that California real estate was a great investment, and she moved constantly in an effort to “trade up” and parlay her accumulated equity. This was a smart financial decision, but it came at a significant personal cost.

After our parents separated, we moved to the Los Angeles basin, where we lived for 5 years. We then moved to Davis, California, where we lived for another 5 years. We then moved to Santa Barbara, where we lived for another 4 years until I graduated high school. Across all of those relocations, we lived in 7 different houses.

The constant moving fragmented Sandy’s K-12 education. Over 13 years, she attended 9 different schools.

The relocation disruptions meant that Sandy was constantly saying goodbye to her current friends and having to make all-new ones. I’ve often wondered if Sandy’s social gregariousness was forged by these trials, or if it was innate and the secret to her ability to survive the dislocations.

In contrast to Sandy’s disjointed education record, mom’s moves synched up with my normal school transitions, so I only attended 4 schools total (K-3, 4-6, 7-8, 9-12). Even that degree of disruption was a lot for a socially awkward person like myself. I took a long time to build friendships and never built a lot, and each relocation broke the social progress I made.

I always envied Sandy’s social skills. I aspired to emulate her gregariousness because I knew that I would get more out of life if I could. Much of my life through my mid-twenties was defined by my efforts to be “more like Sandy Sunshine.”

Because of my difficulties making other friends, Sandy was always my best friend growing up. She was the one constant relationship in my life, the one person close to my age that I could count on, the social foundation I didn’t have to rebuild with each move.

When I got married, there was no doubt who should be my “best man.” Despite defying the gender expectations for the role, I knew who belonged at my side on that most important day. After all, she had stood by my side every other day.

[Stay tuned for Part 2]

BONUS 1: I prepared a Spotify playlist for Sandy’s birthday. It’s meant more as a soundtrack of her life than as a list of her “favorite” songs.

BONUS 2: My daughter made this painting of pomegranates as a birthday present for my sister.

The post A Tribute to My Sister Sandy Hirsh on Her 60th Birthday (Part 1 of 2) appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

Gail Schlachter, Palo Alto

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of my mom’s death. In many ways, it feels just like yesterday. I still think about her every day, and the entire family feels her influences constantly.

But, as the expression says, life goes on. This blog post rounds up some of what mom has missed since her death.

My mom derived great joy from celebrating her family’s achievements. She would make significant personal sacrifices to attend family events big and small, from major milestone birthdays to everyday school performances. She would have loved to be a part of our regular family gatherings for birthdays and Jewish holidays. She especially would have celebrated these major milestone events [this list is just for the Goldman family; my sister and the Hirsh/Halsner families would have their own list]:

• My son’s bar mitzvah
• My daughter’s bat mitzvah
• My son’s graduation from junior high
• My daughter’s graduation from junior high (disrupted by COVID)
• My son’s 18th birthday (disrupted by COVID)
• My son’s graduation from high school
• My daughter’s 18th birthday
• My son’s 21st birthday
• My daughter’s graduation from high school

At each of these events, we have felt my mom’s virtual presence, but she would have much preferred to be there in person.

Nowadays, my mom would be kvelling with grandmotherly pride at my kids’ college journeys–my daughter at University of Oregon and my son at Berkeley City College (I’ll have a post about the next step in his college journey shortly).

My mom would have also taken great pride in my professional and personal milestone events over the past decade. The ones I think would have meant the most to her:

• My Congressional testimony on the Consumer Review Fairness Act
• My Congressional testimony on FOSTA/SESTA (1, 2)
• My 50th birthday
• My university award for career scholarly achievement
• My “promotion” to Associate Dean for Research
• My university award for curricular innovation

(Other major milestones from the last decade relate directly to her passing, including liquidating all of her properties, closing her estate, and purchasing a vacation rental on the Mendocino Coast with her money. Those milestones would not have existed if she were still alive today).

With respect to my wife, she would marvel at the relative normalcy of my wife’s life 11+ years after her Stage IV lung cancer diagnosis.

On less happy notes, my mom missed the death of her dog Laddie, the death of her husband, Trump 1.0, the COVID pandemic, and Trump 2.0. All of these developments would have caused her great distress.

Blog Posts About Gail Schlachter Hauser’s Death

* I’ve Finished Work on My Mom and Stepdad’s Estates
* The Legacies of My Mom, Dr. Gail Schlachter Hauser (1943-2015)
* Announcing the “Gail Schlachter Financial Aid Directory Collection” at San José State University Library Special Collections & Archives
* How Reference Service Press Books Acknowledge My Mom’s Career & Life (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015)
* PROJECT COMPLETE: I’ve Finished Selling My Mom’s Real Estate Portfolio
* Announcing the Helen B. and Lewis E. Goldstein Scholarship Fund
* Remarks From Gail Schlachter’s Induction Into the California Library Hall of Fame (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015)
* Memorial For My Mom At The ALA Annual Meeting (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015)
* Patricia Schuman’s Remembrance of Gail Schlachter Hauser (1943-2015)
* Dimi Berkner’s Eulogy For My Mom (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015)
* Remembrance From My Mom’s Lifelong Friend, David Weber (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015)
* Remembrance from Sumyyah Bilal
* An Example of How My Mom’s Books Helped Students (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015)
* My Sister’s Eulogy For Our Mom (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015)
* My Eulogy For My Mom (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015)
* From my wife: Gail Schlachter, My Mother-in-law, Remembered
* Selected Remembrances of Gail Schlachter Hauser (1943-2015)
* My First Mother’s Day Without My Mom (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015)
* Signs That My Mom Is Still Thinking of Us (Gail Schlachter Hauser, 1943-2015)
* My Mom’s Idea of a “Really Good Day” (Gail Schlachter Hauser, 1943-2015)
* Initial Reflections on Losing a Parent (Gail Schlachter Hauser, 1943-2015)
* My Mom Died: Gail Schlachter Hauser, 1943-2015

The post Reflecting on the 10 Year Anniversary of My Mom’s Death (Gail Schlachter Hauser 1943-2015) appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

A rush of warm adrenaline surges through my body. I hear the buzz more than I feel the pain. I’m in the Triangle Tattoo Shop and Museum in Fort Bragg, California – a tiny NorCal coastal town. It’s tall and narrow, with funky staircases and walls crammed with framed tattoo pictures. It reminds me of 12 Grimmauld Place – a magical building impossibly squished between the houses of normality. My mom is next to me, squeezing my sweaty palm.

For years, I had shown her sketches. “No,” she said while slicing tomatoes in the kitchen. “No,” she said while filling in her sudoku. “No,” she said while stretching on her yoga mat. I show her a new sketch, this time of a manta ray – maybe I’ll get a different answer while she scrolls her iPad? “Hm,” she says. “Maybe,” she says. “Show me more sketches,” she says.

Maybe it was that I was leaving for college. Maybe it was that she has a Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis. Maybe it was because we had swam with the most beautiful manta rays in Hawaii. Maybe it was because in Moana, the dead grandma comes back to her granddaughter in the form of a manta ray. But somehow, we ended up in the magical Triangle Tattoo Shop and Museum in Fort Bragg California, getting matching manta ray tattoos on our wrists. They now tie us together 561 miles apart. I know that someday when she passes, they will tie us together through more than 561 miles of distance.

The post The Story of My Daughter’s Tattoo appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

Reconvening After a 6-Year Hiatus. The conference series started in 2011, rotating annually between Santa Clara Law and New York Law School until 2019. The 2020 NYLS edition was scheduled for mid-March 2020, but the pandemic shutdown kiboshed that plan. NYLS hastily moved that event online, but it wasn’t the same. Ironically, as much as this community relies upon and embraces the Internet, an Internet Law conference is better in person. As a result, there was a lot of excitment about reconnecting in physical space. Attendees traveled from all over the country and globe, with 16 states (including DC) and 4 continents represented.

ChatGPT-Scripted Introduction. I personally wrote my introductory remarks. However, in a nod to the community’s high interest in AI, I also asked ChatGPT to write a conference introduction. Initially, ChatGPT produced a bland and uninspired introduction, but its output dramatically improved when I asked for a rewrite referencing Star Trek. Here’s the final version:

Attention, Starfleet legal officers and esteemed scholars of cyberspace! Welcome to the 2025 Internet Law Works-in-Progress conference, where we boldly go where no Internet law conference has gone before!

The digital frontier is a chaotic Neutral Zone—AI is evolving faster than Data on an espresso binge, tech giants are amassing power like the Borg, and cybersecurity threats are multiplying like tribbles. The legal framework? Let’s just say we’re one bad ruling away from a full-scale temporal paradox.

This is a true Kobayashi Maru—no easy answers, just high-stakes dilemmas. Will we regulate or be assimilated? Will digital governance bring balance to the Federation, or are we hurtling toward a Ferengi marketplace of unchecked capitalism? Some of you are Kirks—breaking the rules to get results. Some are Spocks—insisting on logic. And some of you are definitely Q—here to stir up chaos just for fun.

But one thing is clear: resistance to this discussion is futile! So, set phasers to engage, prepare for warp-speed discourse, and let’s make this the most illogical conference to miss.

Helm, set course for the first panel. Engage!

Zentangle Art-Making. For game night, my wife Lisa Goldman taught a Zentangle class. With her guidance, participants made two art pieces (1, 2).

The US Copyright Office requires copyright registrants to disclose if they used generative AI in the process of creating the work, and the office denies copyright registrations for any portions created by generative AI. If participants want to register their copyrights in their Zentangle art, as a joke (?) we prepared a certificate a(i)ttesting that the Zentangle art was generative AI-free. The A(I)ttestation reads:

I, Eric Goldman, a human without any cyborg components or neural implants, hereby certify that the above-named individual prepared their Zentangle artwork at Santa Clara University School of Law on March 8, 2025, exclusively using their human creativity and without any assistance from artificial “intelligence,” generative or otherwise.

Associate Dean Eric Goldman
Chief Validator of AI Inputs
March 8, 2025

Next Year in NYC. The 2026 conference will be hosted by James Grimmelmann and Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island, NYC. More details will be coming soon. Hope to see you there!

Photo album.

Roundup of past Internet Law WIP events.

The post Recap of the 2025 Internet Law Works-in-Progress Conference appeared first on Goldman's Observations.