Legal Research News and Information with an Emphasis on Wisconsin
Boing Boing reports on Carl Malamud’s investigation of the exclusive deal in which the Government Accountability Office has contracted with Thomson West to provide complete federal legislative histories compiled by GAO law librarians. John Wonderlich of the Sunlight Foundation alerted me to a situation about a month ago that we’ve been pursuing (with EFF’s help) …
For the past few months, I’ve been involved with a project that I’m pleased to finally be able to officially announce: the Web 2.0 Challenge, an online course to introduce law librarians to social software and how to use it in their libraries. The course is sponsored by the AALL Computing Services Special Interest Section …
A recent study finds that children may offer more accurate court testimony than adults. The study was conducted by two Cornell University professors: Valerie Reyna, human development professor, and Chuck Brainerd, human development and law school professor. Science Daily reports: They say children depend more heavily on a part of the mind that records, “what …
The American Library Association has announced that Senator Russ Feingold has been awarded the 2008 James Madison Award which honors those who, at the national level, have championed, protected, and promoted public access to government information. “His work in the United States Senate to promote the public’s right to know has been extensive and effective,” …
From the Wisconsin Court System Headlines: The Wisconsin Supreme Court is historically among the most influential state supreme courts in the United States, according to preliminary findings of a study published in December by the UC Davis (University of California, Davis) Law Review. The study, which was highlighted in a March 11 column by New …
Per an email I received from developer Antonio Tomarchio, PreCYdent is reporting some new content: A collection of opinions from major states has recently been added with more to come Later this week, a GPO section will be added containing “all congressional records” I’m not sure what that means, but I’m eager to find out.
Steve Matthews over at Stem Legal has written a very useful article on managing your online reputation. He writes: Online reputation management isn’t a question of blogging gone badly, or someone posting drunken pictures in Facebook (although both are possible). It’s a business issue for every lawyer who practises, and it requires some form of …
Out of the Jungle reports that “Westlaw has removed all Dialog content with the exception of the copyright databases.” Worse yet, it seems that there was no prior notification. It’s uncertain whether this affects all Westlaw accounts or just academic ones. I’ve asked my Westlaw Librarian Relations rep about it, but haven’t heard back yet. …
Milwaukee Public Library has announced that they’ve recently acquired a collection of “Playaway” audio books. Playaways are the digital content of an entire book pre-loaded into a pocket-size player. There is no need to load CD’s or cassette tapes; you just press “play” and begin listening. Very simple to operate and light to carry, the …
Google has added a new feature in which a secondary search box that appears within some of the search results themselves. See, for example, the search results for a “NASA” search. Note the “Search nasa.gov” search box below the link. According to Google, This feature will now occur when we detect a high probability that …