Legal Research News and Information with an Emphasis on Wisconsin
The LRB has put together a nice, two-page guide on the Wisconsin Idea which explores its origins, importance, and future. What is the Wisconsin Idea? From the the guide: The most commonly offered definition of the Wisconsin Idea is that “the boundaries of the University are the boundaries of the state,” which refers to the …
For those academic librarians, like myself, who thought that LexisNexis Academic would never be metasearchable, I share the good news that they do have an XML gateway in production. According to an email received by a UW–Madison Library staff member from a product manager at LexisNexis Academic: “We are at different stages of implementation with …
MissPronouncer.com is a neat little site for “learning to pronounce stuff in Wisconsin.” From place names to politicians, this site will have you speaking like a native Wisconsinite.
It looks like EBSCOhost is offering a couple of new search enhancements: RSS Alerts for saved searches and a visual search interface. EBSCO has some great medical and business databases, many of which are available freely to Wisconsinites via Badgerlink. Visual search: This type of search is great for the visual learner. Search results are …
Lewis & Clark Law Professor Jack Bogdanski (of Jack Bog’s Blog! fame) has taken on a new challenge: Podcasting the Internal Revenue Code – one new section every day. From his blog: I’m all about public service, and I could not think of a more worthy internet project than to record a reading of the …
From Odd Wisconsin: On John Muir’s dorm room at the University of Wisconsin – Madison campus in the early 1860s: “I can vividly recall the tall clock which he made,” wrote Grace Lindsley in 1935, “and which was connected with his bed in such a way that when the time came for which he had …
Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with Barry and Jo from Court Data Technologies. They introduced me to their new CourtTracker service and I must say that I was impressed. Basically, CourtTracker takes CCAP case data (Wisconsin circuit courts) and allows you to search it in powerful ways not available via CCAP. It’s …
Georgia Institute of Technology’s Brian Matthews has published a thought provoking study on librarians monitoring student blogs for potential reference interactions. [L]ibraries are missing out on the potential of using blogs for providing valuable educational opportunities. Instead of forcing patrons to interact with us, we can enter their domain and seek new ways of providing …
From Jenkins Webblits: TechCrunch has a great piece on The State of Online Feed Readers. It includes a handy chart showing you all of the features each reader offers.
Today’s Odd Wisconsin is a classic The first legislature in 1838 met in a not-quite-finished Capitol building: According to one lawmaker, “the basement story was all open, and [a] large drove of hogs had taken possession. The weather was cold, the halls were cold, our ink would freeze – so that when we could stand …