Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project

The Cornell Law Library's InSite current awareness
service (July 17, 2006) reviews the Marion Brechner
Citizen Access Project web site.

The Citizen Access Project was "designed to help citizens
and public officials better understand their rights to govern-
ment information in all 50 states and the federal government."
The project's web site offers a database that allows researchers
to view and compare summaries of access laws by topic.
The database also rates access laws, with 'sunny' being the highest
rank and 'dark' the lowest.

"Is There a Correlation Between Scholarly and Teaching Success?"

Brian Leiter (Brian Leiter's Law School Reports,
7/22/2006) points us to a recent SSRN article
by Benjamin Barton (Tennessee) entitled,
"Is There a Correlation Between Scholarly
Productivity, Scholarly Influence and Teaching
Effectiveness in American Law Schools?
An Empirical Study."

"Human Rights Tools" Web Resource

The Law Librarian Blog (7/25/2006) offers a good overview
of "Human Rights Tools," an excellent web resource that
includes: an annotated library of resources, sources for
country analysis, daily human rights updates/news, and
a newsletter that reviews 'new and notable' sources.

"E-Slacking:" Laptop Use or Misuse in the Classroom

An article in the Chicago Tribune (7/18/2006) by
Jodi S. Cohen discusses the impact of laptop use in
the law school classroom. The article offers insights
from faculty and students at a number of law schools about
perceived problems and potential solutions.
Cohen's article makes it clear that 'e-slacking' is a
controversial issue with no easy solutions.

International Judicial Monitor

The beSpacific blog (7/21/2006) points us to the
International Judicial Monitor, "an international law
resource for judiciaries, justice sector professionals and
the rule of law community." It is published by the
American Society of International Law and the
International Judicial Academy.

The current issue [July 2006, Volume 1, Issue 3] is now
available online, as are the archived first two
issues (March, 2006 and May, 2006).

Colorado Law Launches Online Global Energy Treaties Database

From a CU Law School press release of 7/12/2006:

"The Energy and Environmental Security Initiative at the
University of Colorado at Boulder School of Law has unveiled
an online global database of international energy treaties.
The database is called the International Sustainable Energy
Assessment and contains in-force energy treaties from all
192 countries in the world dealing with 45 energy-related
subject areas."

The free database can be browsed by topic or searched.

BarclayBlog Hiatus

The BarclayBlog will be on hiatus the week of July 17.

New York Courts to Make “Virtual” Case Files Available on the Internet

The New York Unified Court System has announced
in a press release (7/6/2006) that it is offering "free
remote access to a 'virtual' file of civil cases in Supreme
Court, including pleadings, preliminary conference and
other case-management orders, requests for judicial
intervention, notes of issue, orders to show cause and
notices of motion."

The pilot project will start with projects in Manhattan and
Broome County.

Enhance Your Classes With JURIST Video Clips

Faculty, as you begin preparing for your fall classes
don't forget about JURIST's Monitor weblog of legal
video webcasts. The webcasts include press conferences,
Congressional proceedings, UN meetings, and law school
lectures and panels. Recent webcasts include
Separation of Powers: Restoring the Balance Among the
Branches [ACS], Bloomberg immigration hearing testimony
[US Senate Judiciary Comm.], and 2006 US Supreme Court
review [ACS].

You can browse or search for webcasts back to September,
2004. You can also subscribe to a video alert email notification
service.

Georgetown Law Faculty Blog

A group of Georgetown Law faculty have
started a new blog. Recently, the blog has
featured a series of posts about the Hamdan
case.

Online Tool for Creating Flow Charts and Diagrams

ResearchBuzz (7/1/2006) brings our attention
to Gliffy, an online service that allows you to create
flow charts and other diagrams in your web browser.
The service is currently in beta test mode and is available
for free (for now).