LLRX Guide to International Refugee Law Resources on the Web

This new LLRX research guide, authored
by information specialist, Elisa Mason, "directs readers
to some of the key texts and resources available on the
Web that can help shed light on, and provide a context for,
many of the issues currently being deliberated in the
refugee law arena."

The guide covers international and regional
instruments, human rights and humanitarian law,
international bodies (especially the UNHCR),
national legislation, case law, and periodicals.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service

From the E Law Librarian weblog, 2/21/2005:

"The National Criminal Justice Reference Service has an
Abstracts Database that contains summaries of more than
180,000 criminal justice publications and a Virtual Library
of over 7,000 full-text publications. The Abstracts Database
includes federal, state, and local government reports; books;
research reports; journal articles; and unpublished research.
It has a Thesaurus Term Search and a Weekly Accessions List.
The Virtual Library searches the NCJRS web site and the Web
sites of the agencies of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office
of Justice Programs, and the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy...The NCJRS has an alphabetical list of
topics on its site."

NLRB Web Site Improves Legal Research Capability

From an NLRB Press Release, 2/3/2005
as reported in the E Law Librarian weblog,
2/23/05:

"The National Labor Relations Board has enhanced
the way in which the public can search for documents
posted on its Web site, particularly Advice Memoranda
issued by the Office of the General Counsel.
Advice Memos are now arranged on the Web site by date
of issuance with a year-to-year breakdown going back to
the 1960s. Previously, these memos were sorted by the
date of their release to the public. Another improvement is
a new tool that links a user to the most recent publicly
available Advice Memos.

These enhancements will enable the researcher to locate
released Advice Memos by topic, case name, and number
or date of issuance..."

King of Pop Grand Jury Proceeding Transcripts

The Smoking Gun web site is publishing transcripts
of the Michael Jackson grand jury proceedings.
Other legal filings in the case are also available at the site.

Federal Courts are Considering Changes in Civil Discovery Rules for Electronic Evidence

From the Law Librarian Blog, 2/17, 2005:

"Slashdot is reporting that the federal courts are
considering changes to the discovery rules contained
in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governing the
discovery and use of electronic evidence such as email.
The article contains links to the proposed rules, comments
by civil rights attorneys from the Impact Fund arguing
that the rules are too limiting, and comments by Microsoft
that the rules don't go far enough. ..See the proposed rules
See also Pending Rules, Comments, and other available sources."

Legal Technology Trends, 2005

From the Law Librarian Blog, 2/17/2005:

"The current issue of Law Practice Today features
articles on trends in legal technology. In What's BIG in 2005,
Frederick L. Faulker IV singles out RSS, desktop search
and collaboration tools such as blogs, Wikis and bulletin boards.
Faulker's article is a concise review that would be a good
introduction to these technologies for partners, faculty,
administrators, and other decision-makers."

UN Continues Ban on Testifying Before US Congress

From Jurist Paper Chase, 2/16/2005:

"The UN upheld its ban on its officials testifying in front
of US Congress in a letter from Mark Malloch Brown,
chief of staff for Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to
Senate investigating subcommittee chair Senator Norm
Coleman (R-MN) [official website] that was released
Wednesday. The letter is in response Coleman's
congressional probe [hearing agenda] into the UN
oil-for-food program. The Senate subcommittee had
wanted diplomatic immunity lifted for key directors and
access to various UN officials. The letter instead suggested
the Senate create a briefing schedule [UN News report]
that UN officials could attend. Reuters has more."

ABA Best Practice Guidelines for Legal Information Web Site Providers

The Elawyering Task Force, ABA Law Practice Management
Section and ABA Standing Committee On the Delivery of
Legal Services, has developed Best Practice Guidelines for
Legal Information Web Site Providers.

According to the web page, above, "the goal of these
guidelines is to promote the development of quality legal web
sites and to provide guidance to legal web site developers.
The purpose of the guidelines is to establish "best practices"
for both lawyers and other web site providers who offer legal
information, documents and other services to the public..
the guidelines encourage publishers of legal web sites to
provide information about the legal content of their sites that
assists a user in making a judgment on the quality of the legal
information that appears on the site."

Analysis on the Administration’s Social Security Plan

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has released
an overview of issues raised by the Administration's
Social Security Plan. Read the full report.

Web Guide to European Union Materials

Are you an infrequent or new user of European Union
materials? Do you need a good introduction to
EU research for your students? Duncan Alford's
"European Union Legal Materials: A Guide for
Infrequent Users" (97 Law Library Journal 49 [2005])
is a well-organized primer to the structure of the
EU and to basic EU sources of law and official documents.

The article is available in pdf through the American
Association of Law Libraries web site.

LII African American Experience Collection

The Librarians' Index to the Internet has
announced its updated and expanded
collection, "The African-American Experience:
Resources related to Black History Month and
Beyond." This fascinating collection provides
annotated links to web resources under
numerous subtopics, such as Civil
Rights Movement, Segregation and Discrimination,
Harlem Renaissance and Museums. Many of the
links are to educational or governmental sites
that may be unfamiliar to you. For example,
did you know that the Washington University
Library in St. Louis has a digital collection of
images and original documents relating to the
Dred Scott case?

11 Law Schools Committed to Reducing Length of Law Review Articles

From the Jurist, February 8, 2005:

"The ACS Blog ..reports that the law reviews at
eleven of the country's most prestigious law schools
have recently committed themselves to
reducing the length of their articles. Their decision
responds in large part to a recent survey of law
faculty by the Harvard Law Review, that indicates
near-unanimous faculty dissatisfaction with the length
of articles."

Foreign Law Related Blogs Site

From Tom Mighell's InterAlia blog,
posted Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005:

"Blawgs Gerais features law-related weblogs
from other countries, including Portugal, Brazil,
the U.K., Australia, Spain, France, Italy, and others."

USPTO Trademark Filings Now Available Via Web Portal

From the BeSpacific (Law & Technology News) blog
bySabrina I. Pacifica, February 1, 2005:

"The Trademark Document Retrieval (TDR), offers
the public an advanced electronic portal to PDF viewing,
downloading and printing of an array of information and
documents for more than 460,000 trademark applications
totaling more than eight million document pages. As new
applications are filed, they will be added to the database.
It is expected that more than 300,000 application files
will be added annually. Over the next five years, the
remaining paper files of approximately 1.2 million active
trademark registrations will be converted into digital
format for TDR access."

2005 Presidential Inaugural Address

The full-text of the President's
Inaugural Address of January 20, 2005
may be found on the official White
House web site.