Conference Reports from 109th Congress Now on GPO Access

GPO Access, the U.S. Government Printing Office's
portal to official information from all three branches
of the Federal Government, has announced web access
to conference reports from the 109th Congress.

From the Conference Report web page:

"This page contains links to active ("unofficial") and
archived ("official") conference reports. Conference reports
are available to the public as a filed version prior to official
printing. Documents are available in ASCII Text and PDF."

New Schools Join SSRN Legal Studies Research Paper Series

The Law Librarian Blog (6/30/2006) lists the new
schools that have joined the SSRN Legal Studies Research
Paper Series, with links to subscribe and view the
papers. Schools include:

Temple University Beasley School of Law
University of Michigan Law School
University of Missouri - Columbia School of Law
University of Maastricht Faculty of Law

Coast-to-Coast Legal Podcast: The Fun Side of Lawyers

This week on Coast-to-Coast, Robert Ambrogi and Craig
Williams explore the 'fun side of lawyers.' Guests this week
are: Noley Bice, general counsel at the Baylor University Law
School by day and an Elvis Presley impersonator by night;
Elena Albamonte, a Justice Department lawyer who founded
the dating service for lawyers, Lawyers in Love; Grant
Hardacre, a lawyer with Blum, Propper & Hardacre and
president of the Association of Surfing Lawyers, and; Paul
Kenney, a trial lawyer and partner at Kenney & Conley, who
is also a book author, musician, composer and screenwriter.

As always, instructions on how to access and download the
podcast are included in the LawSites blog post.

On the Goals & Authority of Restatement of Laws

Orly Lobel on Prawfsblawg (6/27/2006) raises interesting
questions about the "goals and authority of restating a
particular field of law." Her article derives from ongoing
discussions about the ALI's attempt to restate employment
law.

New Articles on GlobaLex

The Law Librarian Blog (6/28/2006) points us
to new articles available on GlobaLex, NYU's
collection of electronic legal research articles
in international, comparative, and foreign law:

Sources of Online Legal Information for African Countries
Introduction to Researching South Pacific Law
A Research Guide to the Turkmenistan Legal System
UPDATE: Guide to Italian Legal Research and Resources on the Web

20 Federal Courts have Cited Wikipedia in Opinions

The controversy surrounding Wikipedia rages on.
The Tech Law Prof Blog (6/19/2006) has posted
an interesting article about incidents that inspired
Wikipedia's recent change in editorial policy that
allows site administrators to put edited content on
hold to prevent "editorial vandalism."

The article goes on to address the question of
whether the validity of Wikipedia entries have
any legal significance, stating that "Westlaw indi-
cates that 20 federal courts have cited Wikipedia
in opinions." The list of cases in question is included
in the blog post.

Fonts for Kids (and Some Grown Ups, Too)

For those of you with children or those looking for some
fun and unusual fonts, check out Fonts for Kids.
You can use the site to download hundreds of
fonts for personal use. Some of my favorites include
'Lemon Chicken,' 'Really Bad Typewriter,' and 'Stays in
the Cave.'

Here is a helpful tip about downloading fonts from the
site from the LibrarianInBlack blog (6/27/2006):

"The file you download from the site (simply by
clicking on the font you want) will be a .zip file,
so save it to your desktop. Then once it's saved there,
double-click and extract the file to the following path:
C:\Windows\Fonts\ Then the new fonts will auto-
matically show up in Word, Publisher, or whatever
other program you're using your fonts!"

Changes in Top Law Faculties, 2003-2006

Brian Leiter has posted a list of faculty changes
in top law schools since 2003. Schools are listed
based on their faculty quality rank in Leiter's
Faculty Quality Rankings: Scholarly Reputation,
2003-2004.

New on LLRX

The following new legal research articles on LLRX are
of possible interest to our Colleage of Law faculty:

Public Defense Systems (Ken Strutin)
"Highlights a selected collection of resources about
public defense systems in the United States. The
focus is on key studies, reports and reference materials
published on the web."

Pathfinder on the Generic Pharmaceutical Industry
(Susan Spear) "For individuals interested in the generic
pharmaceutical industry...includes descriptions of
and links to current laws, regulations, cases and news-
worthy articles concerning the industry."

The Government Domain: Google's New U.S.
Government Search (Peggy Garvin)
"Evaluates Google's recently released U.S. Government
Search."

E-Discovery Update - by Fios Inc.:
Controlling the Accidental Release of Digital
Information (Conrad J. Jacoby)
"Discusses examples of accidental lapses in digital
information management, their significant conse-
quences, and techniques to prevent these scenarios
from occuring in your organization."

Coast-to-Coast Legal Podcast: Juror Background Checks

Robert Ambrogi and Craig Williams are discussing
juror background checks in this week's
Coast-to-Coast legal podcast. Joining the co-hosts
this week are Professor Randolph N. Jonakait,
professor at New York Law School and author of
The American Jury System, and Dr. Phillip K. Anthony,
CEO of DecisionQuest and an expert on trial consulting.

Cornel West - Why Democracy Matters - on Google Video

Thomas Nadelhoffer (Leiter Reports, 6/21/2006)
encourages us to check out Cornel West's inspiring
speech on Why Democracy Matters, available for free
viewing or download on Google Video. The speech was
made at the National Constitution Center on
September 15, 2005 and runs for approximately
1 hour: 45 minutes.

GlobalCourts: Access to Supreme Court Decisions Worldwide

Cornell Law Library's electronic newsletter, InSite
(6/19/2006) points us to GlobalCourts, a web
resource that "attempts to provide legal researchers
with direct access to the Supreme Court decisions of
countries around the world." Courts are organized
on the site alphabetically and by geographic region.
There is no search capability.

According to the site, access to decisions is usually
in their native language and free of charge. In some
instances you will need an account or a password,
or you may need to inquire by sending an e-mail
to the court.

Fair Use Network

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University
School of Law has created a Web site on fair use. Called
The Fair Use Network, the site says it attempts to alleviate
the "mass of confusion for artists, scholars, journalists,
bloggers, and everyone else who contributes to
culture and political debate." The site guides people on
what to do if they get a letter from a copyright owner
demanding that they cease and desist from making use of
the owner's work. The site also explains
how much people can borrow, quote or copy from another's
work.

Law Schools and Diversity Standards

An article in the Insidehighered.com (6/19/2006)
addresses the ABA's recently revised diversity standards
which will go before its House of Delegates in August for
approval. Under discussion is updated Standard 211,
which has been changed from "Equal Opportunity Effort" to
“Equal Opportunity and Diversity.”

The Insidehighered.com article includes the updated
text of Standard 211 and other relevant standards,
and discusses the lively five-hour briefing on the topic
held by the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

Legal Education Podcasting Project

The Law Librarian Blog (6/19/2006) points us to
CALI's Legal Education Podcasting Project and CALI
Executive Director John Meyer's interviews with law
faculty who have experimented with podcasting.

Mayer will post the results of an "end of semester"
survey that CALI conducted of the students in podcasted
classes at caliopolis.classcaster.org. A mid-semester survey (pdf)
is already available.

Access to CRS Reports in the Public Domain

The Open CRS Network, a project of the Center for
Democracy & Technology, provides convenient access
to Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports that are
already in the public domain. It is a searchable repository
of report summaries, with links to the sources of the full-
text documents. The site also provides
RSS feeds to recent and recently added reports.

Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation: Treaties and Agreements

The U.S. Department of State Bureau of International Security
and Nonproliferation (ISN) has posted the text of historic arms
control agreements on its web site. Treaties include
the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Geneva Protocol, the
Open Skies Treaty, the Outer Space Treaty, and the Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I and SALT II).

The U.S. Bureau of Arms Control and the U.S. Bureau of Non-
proliferation merged in 2005 to form the Bureau of International
Security and Nonproliferation.

Google U.S. Government Search

On June 15, Google launched its new U.S. Government Search.
According to the Official Google Blog (6/15/2006) you can use the
new site "to: 1) search across a huge index of U.S. Federal, state
and local government websites via a single search box, and 2) stay
up to date through personalized content feeds from government
agencies and press outlets."

The index includes U.S. federal, state and local sites with domains
such as .gov, .mil as well as select government sites with .com, .us,
and .edu domains. If you have a Google account, you can create
a customized page by logging into Google and selecting from a
"content directory" of popular RSS feeds. You can also search
the web for additional RSS feeds or enter a URL of a known feed
to expand your customized contents.

Stone-Posner Debate

The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog is
launching a debate forum "where ...bloggers will have
the chance to exchange ideas in a series of related posts over a
several day period."

The first debate will begin on Monday, June 19, with a debate
between Chicago faculty Geoffrey R. Stone and Richard
Posner on "Civil Liberties and the War Against Terrorism."
The debate will continue for the whole week.

PC World's "The 100 Best Products of the Year"

Check out what PC World.com (5/31/2006) lists as the
top 100 tech products of the year. According to the
article, ratings are based primarily on design, performance
and specifications.

The list of PC World's 25 worst tech products of all time
is also fun to read. AOL, RealPlayer, and Microsoft Windows
Millennium (2000) take some hard hits in this impossible to
resist review of items that evoke, "what have I done to
deserve this?"

American Lawyer's Top Law Blogs

The Law Librarian Blog (6/8/2006) points us to
an article in the June 1 edition of the American
Lawyer that lists some of the top academic law blogs.

Amnesty International Annual Report on Human Rights 2006

Amnesty International has released its Annual Report on
Global Status of Human Rights: Report 2006.
The report is presented as a web site, and information
is organized by country, regional overviews, and topics
(including arms control, international justice, displaced
persons, "Stop violence against women," and the death
penalty.)

Cases and Materials on American Federalism

The Law Librarian Blog (6/3/2006) points us to
Cases and Materials on American Federalism, a
web resource (based on a published text) created
by Purdue University-Calumet for their American
Government and Public Policy courses. The site
provides the text of selected documents and review
questions on topics ranging from the Founding Fathers,
three branches of government, and civil rights.

Same-Sex Marriage Resources on Findlaw

Findlaw has compiled a list of online resources on
same-sex marriage and related issues. Categories
include: articles, documents, legal analysis and
commentary.

Rediscover "Neglected" Bookmarks with Google Toolbar

The folks at Google have devised a way to remind
us about bookmarks that we may have forgotten.
The new enhanced beta Google Toolbar can
help you rediscover "neglected" bookmarks. According
to the Official Google Blog (5/31/2006), "when you
start typing in the Toolbar's search box, relevant
bookmarks that you’ve saved with the Toolbar will
display in the list of suggestions."

Times of London Law Weblog

Robert Ambrogi (LawSites, 6/1/2006) and
PointofLaw.com (6/1/2006) point us to the
new Times of London law weblog. Outspoken and
provocative, this blog takes no prisoners.

Here is a quote from an entry entitled,
We should not be deprived of our rights just because
this Government has screwed up, which addresses
a proposed amendment to the (British) Human
Rights Act.

"Human Rights should apply to us as sentient beings,
as inhabitants of the earth - they should not apply
according to our geographic location. Still less should
they be responsive to political knee-jerk, press-released
legislation, cynically calculated to appeal to uninformed
prejudices."

Justice and Reconciliation Project

From Cornell Law Library's InSite electronic
newsletter (June 6, 2006):

Justice and Reconciliation Project

"Founded in California in 2001, the Justice and
Reconciliation Project (JRP) is a national nonprofit
organization dedicated to restoring the lives of those
harmed by crime by promoting forgiveness and
reconciliation between crime victims and offenders,
and by supporting restorative justice policies in the legal
system. The Project’s “Activities” section details the
organization’s projects and campaigns, such as the
“Victims' Voices Project,” “In-Prison Projects,”
“Violence Prevention,” “Clergy Sexual Abuse Cases,”
and “Rwanda 1994 Genocide.”

The organization also offers an online magazine, JRP Online
Magazine, available in HTML. Visitors to the site can also
read about the organization’s media buzz in the “Media
Coverage” section. The site is searchable."

Free Web Site for Creating Graphs

If you use charts and graphs in your teaching
or scholarship (or if you have kids!) be sure to
check out Create a Graph, brought to our attention
by InterAlia (5/31/2006). This free web resource
from the National Center for Education Statistics allows
you to create many different styles of 2D and 3D
charts and graphs in minutes. Documents can
be exported in PDF, JPG, or other image formats.

"Is the Tenure Article Extinct?"

Matt Bodie (Prawfsblawg 5/22/2006) ponders
reasons why writing articles for tenure may soon
be a thing of the past. In his post, Bodie links to
related blog entries from Richard Posner, Brian
Leiter and others.

Two New Modules on Hein Online

The William S. Hein Company has announced two
new modules on its Hein Online electronic resource.

The U.S. Presidential Library includes documents such
as the Code of Federal Regulations (Title 3), the Compila-
tion of Messages and Papers of the Presidents by James D.
Richardson, Economic Report of the President, Inaugural
Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, and the
Public Papers of the Presidents. Additional content will
be added to this new library module in future releases.

Through special arrangement with the International Law
Students Association (ILSA), HeinOnline’s Philip C. Jessup
Library offers the complete collection of the Philip C.
Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition,
including complete coverage of the annual Jessup Compendium
since 1960, as well as two periodicals published by ILSA (which
are also available in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library
collection). Future releases in this library will include works
related to Philip C. Jessup, as well as expanded coverage of the
current content as it becomes available.

(Hein Online Updates, May 15, 2006)