Libraries of the United Nations

Obtaining information about and from the United Nations libraries might be easier than you think. You can access information about them (They are located in Addis Ababa, Arusha, Bangkok, Beirut, Geneva, Nairobi, New York, Santiago, Tokyo & Vienna.) through the UN Libraries Central Gateway.

You can also access the "Ask a Librarian" pages for the UN Geneva Office here, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (Addis Ababa) here and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Bangkok) here.

Feed Link of the Day - Expatica

Expatica, publisher of the annual Expat Survival Guides (Click here to view PDF versions of the guides.), claims it is "the #1 English-language news & information source for expatriates living in, working in or moving to the Netherlands (Holland), Germany, France, Belgium or Spain." Expatica just added RSS feeds for their news for all five countries.

Here is the site link: www.expatica.com

Here are the feeds:

Belgium
http://www.expatica.com/RSS/RSS_feed_belgian_news.xml
France
http://www.expatica.com/RSS/RSS_feed_french_news.xml
Germany
http://www.expatica.com/RSS/RSS_feed_German_news.xml
Netherlands
http://www.expatica.com/RSS/RSS_feed_dutch_news.xml
Spain
http://www.expatica.com/RSS/RSS_feed_Spanish_news.xml

US Federal Grants

The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance is the best place to go to find US federal grants. However, it does have more than just grants. It also has surplus equipment, training and guaranteed loans.

Here is where you can search and browse the catalog.

You can browse just grants here.

Here is a link to the current OMB Application for Federal Assistance (PDF).

Here is where to find information on developing and writing grant proposals.

For more information on US federal grants, you may also want to visit grants.gov.

Exposing the Deep Web

TVC Alert mentions a paper by Tony Boston of the National Library of Australia. The paper is "Exposing the Deep Web to Increase Access to Library Collections." You can read it here.

Amazon? Dealazon!

Yesterday's Pluck RSS Feed of the Day was for dealazon.com feeds. Dealazon will provide you with the latest Amazon.com deals. Pluck thinks Dealazon is a much better solution than trying to pick out one of Amazon's many feeds. See Amazon's list here.

Annotated US Constitution Gets an Update

Law Librarian Blog and LLNE News both mention that a new edition of the Legal Information Institute's US Constitution Annotated is available. You can now link from it to US Supreme Court opinions. You can check it out here.

Best of the Web

beSpacific mentions Forbes Best of the Web Directory. You can check it our here. If you just want to see which blogs were mentioned, you can check them out by category here.

Feed Link of the Day - Slaw

Thanks to Steve Matthews, author of the Vancouver Law Librarian Blog (he is also the Knowledge Services Director for the Vancouver law firm of Clark Wilson LLP) for pointing out Slaw. Steve has this (and more) to say about it:

"Introducing Slaw! A uniquely Canadian legal research and IT blog, featuring an All Star Lineup of Canadian research and tech gurus, and some tag-along named Steve Matthews."

It looks good. Here's the site: http://www.slaw.ca/

Here's the feed: http://www.slaw.ca/wp-rss2.php

US & Canadian Uniform Laws

You can search US uniform and model laws and track legislation by state or by title at the The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws Web site. You can also obtain comprehensive legislative reports, legislative fact sheets, summaries and Q&A. Click here to search. Click here to browse.

For Canadian Uniform Statutes, you can visit the Uniform Law Conference of Canada's Web site here. Click here to browse the alphabetical list of Uniform Statutes and here to search.

What Does Steven Read?

Steven Cohen of Library Stuff has a post regarding the feeds he reads to "keep up." He links to a list of over 400 feeds, but says he only uses 3/4 of them for keeping current in the library/technology field. Here's the link to Steven's current list of feeds.

Feed Link of the Day - Microsoft Developer Net

"Keep current with all the new technical articles, columns, specifications, and resources published on the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN)."

Here's the site link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/

Here's the site feed: http://msdn.microsoft.com/rss.xml

How Courts Work

The American Bar Association's (ABA) Division for Public Education has a quick, multi-paged primer on "How Courts Work." You can access it here.

Feed Link of the Day - Powells Books

Powells Books has a number of interesting feeds available on their Web site. Here’s what they currently offer:

• Powells.com Overview (“The latest book-related content from Powells.com”)
  
  
• PowellsBooks.News (Powells newsletter)
  
  
• Review-A-Day (“Daily long-form book reviews by Powells.com partners such as Salon.com, The New Republic, Esquire, Atlantic Monthly, Christian Science Monitor, and The Times Literary Supplement”)
  
  
• Daily Dose ("Daily reader-chosen books from Powells.com")
  
  
• Author Interviews
  
  
• Author Essays
  
  
• INK Q&A ("Author Q and A" offers five questions to, and answers from, award-winning and bestselling authors.)
  
  
• Events Calendar

Here is where you can grab any or all of these feeds: http://www.powells.com/info/rss.html

Legal Writing Tips

There are several good sources on the Web for helping attorneys to improve their legal writing skills. Here are a few useful links:

“The Ten Commandments of Writing An Effective Appellate Brief” by Sylvia H. Walbolt and D. Matthew Allen (PDF link)

“How to Write a Good Appellate Brief” by Andrew L. Frey and Roy T. Englert, Jr.

“Improve Your Legal Writing With Five Simple Rules” by T. Evan Schaeffer

“Five Steps Towards Persuasive Writing” by T. Evan Schaeffer

“First Drafts Made Easy” by T. Evan Schaeffer

“Six Great Ways to Unmuddle Your Writing” by Dennis Kennedy

“Excercises from Legal Writing in Plain English” by Bryan A. Garner

“How to Write: A Memorandum from a Curmudgeon” by Mark Herrmann (PDF link)

APA Librarian's Resource Center

Peter Scott points out that the American Psychological Association has a Librarian's Resource Center page. You can check it out here.

Great RSS Guide

beSpacific mentions a great RSS guide by Marianne Lenox, Staff Training and Development Coordinator at Huntsville Madison County Public Library. It's really well done and worth looking at here.

Feed Link of the Day - Lifehack.Community

Last week, lifehack.org created a new “Lifehack Community.” It is in beta, but certainly looks interesting. Here’s what lifehack has to say about it:

“Lifehack.Community (http://community.lifehack.org) is basically a weblog (blog). A little twist on this site compared to lifehack.org homepage is that readers are in control in here - you can be an editor and post your own story. You can moderate what story to show on the front page.

• You can post questions or topic for discussion.
• You can post your own article to share your views.
• You can post news you saw from other web sites."

Here’s the feed: http://community.lifehack.org/node/feed

You can register to add content here. Read the FAQs here.

US State Records & Archives

The Council of State Historical Records Coordinators (COSHRC) has a nice, regularly updated directory of US "state archives and records programs" available here.

They also have a directory of US state archives digital collections and US state memory projects here.

Mamma's Health Search Engine

Traumatic Brain Injury Law Blog’s Bruce Stern has a post regarding Mamma’s Deep Web Health Search Engine. Stern thinks it “has a lot of potential.”

Thomson Acquires LIVEDGAR

Robert Ambrogi points out that Thomson has recently acquired Global Securities Information, Inc. (GSI), owner of LIVEDGAR.

Check Out Westlaw’s New Graphical KeyCite

NESLReference mentions Westlaw’s new Graphical KeyCite and links to this nifty presentation. Turn your speakers all the way up and boogie to Graphical KeyCite.

Feed Link of the Day - GPO Access

Library Stuff pointed out earlier this week that GPO Access now has feed available. Right now it is limited to a feed for the US Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) news. However, they mention "feeds" (plural) throughout the site, so hopefully there is a lot more to come.

One of the most recent items available through the FDLP feed is the new July 2005 GPO AALL Update (which was released at the AALL Annual Meeting this week). It’s 11 PDF pages long and is available here.

Here’s the feed for FDLP news: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/rss/fdlpnews.xml

Here’s the page where (hopefully) more GPO Access feeds will appear: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/rss

National Sex Offender Registry Now Live

The new US National Sex Offender Registry that I wrote about here is now available here. It looks like they still need to add more states and work out a few bugs. Thanks to TVC Alert for mentioning it today here.

EFF15 Blog-A-Thon

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is having a blog-a-thon in honor of their 15th anniversary. Read more about it at LawGeek here or at EFF here.

Please Donate Blood Now

This post strays a bit from my usual subject matter. I’m writing about blood donation because this is a topic that has always been very near and dear to my heart. Right now, the Washington, DC area’s blood supply is critically low. It’s not just DC, though. If you run a quick search on Google news, you’ll see that a lot of areas in the US have very low blood supplies. No doubt, many places all over the globe are in need. So, if you can give, please do.

If you’re in the US, click here to find out where and when you can give or call 1-800-GIVELIFE to make an appointment. If you’re nervous about what kind of questions might be asked of you, here’s a (PDF) list (current as of January 2005). If you haven’t been able to give in the past, check out these eligibility guidelines to see if those that affected you have changed. If you are like me and you travel a lot, you'll be interested to know that the vCJD eligibility rules have changed since they were originally written. Here are the vCJD donor eligibility rules as they read at the time of this post. If you think they’re still too stringent, you might want to check out this recent article to get a feeling for why they written that way.

For those of you not in the United States, here is a link to the “Red Cross Red Crescent Society blood pages” (I love that title.) as well as other international sites with blood donor services.

If I haven't convinced you yet, maybe this will. I gave blood yesterday expecting only to get a few cookies and a bottle of water. I ended up with a voucher for lunch, a T-shirt and a chance to win $250 at one of four local restaurants! I'm not saying you'll be so lucky, but you never know.... Oh, and I ate the entire bag of cookies.

Feed Link of the Day - Blinkx.tv

Library clips has a post about Blinkx.tv now offering SmartFeeds. You can click here to set up your very own personalized feed. To see what a Blinkx.tv SmartFeed for “supreme court” looks like, click here.

Directory of Licensing Boards

The Council on Licensure, Enforcement and Regulation (CLEAR), “the premier international resource for professional regulation stakeholders,” has a directory of boards of professional and occupational licensure in North America. You can browse by profession or jurisdiction here.

ALI Style Manual & Restatements Checklist

The 2005 American Law Institute style manual is available on the ALI Web site in PDF form here. It is titled, Capturing the Voice of The American Law Institute: A Handbook for ALI Reporters and Those Who Review Their Work. I like the 2d paragraph of the foreword which describes the invention of the Restatements. It begins, “Afraid of chaos in a legal world of 48 states….”

As long as I'm on the topic of the Restatements, ALI has the 2004 checklist on its site (as of the time of this post), but you can find a 2005 checklist in PDF form on the Thomson West site here.

Biography of John G. Roberts, Jr.

You can access the Federal Judicial Center's biography for new US Supreme Court nominee, John G. Roberts, Jr. here.

Feed Link of the Day - PDF for Lawyers

“How to use PDFs in the practice of law - Tips & Techniques” by Ernest Svenson and Dave Fishel.

Here’s the site: http://www.pdfforlawyers.com/
Here’s the feed: http://www.pdfforlawyers.com/index.rdf

US Code Classification Tables

The Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the US House of Representatives prepares and publishes the US Code. They also publish the classification tables online. The tables list where recently enacted laws will appear in the US Code.

To view the current (109th Congress) classification tables sorted in US Code order, click here and to view them in Public Law order, click here. To access earlier tables, click here.

Feed Link of the Day - Treo Today

If you have a Treo or are thinking about getting one, you might want to check out Treo Today. The tagline is “Living the Treo lifestyle. We talk about smartphones, software, accessories, tips and tricks.” Treo Today is a blog by Azizi Jennis from Kuala Lumpur.

Here’s the link to the site: http://treotoday.blogspot.com/

Here’s the feed: http://treotoday.blogspot.com/atom.xml

WebCasts from Library of Congress

The Library of Congress currently has 21 free WebCasts for librarians and archivists available here. Some of the more current titles are:

From the Page to Electrons
Is This Digital After All?
Quantum Computing
Universal Access to Knowledge
How and Where Blogs Work
Review of loc.gov Site

“FindLaw’s Aging Core” in 3 Parts

Robert Ambrogi has written a series regarding the decline of FindLaw’s functionality. Here are the links:

“Survey reveals FindLaw's aging core - Part 1”

“FindLaw's aging core, part 2: The numbers”

“The aging of FindLaw, part 3: Notes”

Update: “FindLaw responds, says update underway”

“You’ve Got To Find What You Love”

That is a line from the commencement speech given by Steve Jobs at Stanford University last month. I’ve seen multiple references to this on the blogosphere, but the thought of reading another commencement speech really didn’t appeal to me.

However, one post finally peaked my curiosity and I read it. Wow! I’m so glad I did. It’s incredibly short and the content is remarkably rich. No matter who you are or what you do, you really should read it. Here’s the link.

Feed Link of the Day - Short Online Tips

Quick Online Tips (a former FLOTD) has just launched a new sister blog named Short Online Tips. Quick Online Tips says the new blog is good for those who want links and don’t have time to read long posts. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but I think it’s also key to the Internet. I’m definitely going to check this one out.

Here’s the link to the blog: http://shortonlinetips.blogspot.com/

Here’s the feed: http://shortonlinetips.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Search Law-Lib

If you’re not familiar with it, the Law-Lib ListServ can be a great place to tap into some wonderful law librarian minds. If you don't object to reading a lot of e-mail messages, you'll want to learn how to join the listserv here.

If you're like me and you can't take any more e-mail messages, you might want to search the archives to see if anyone has already answered your question. Since Law-Lib does not appear to provide a search engine for archived materials, you can simply follow the directions below. Let's say you want to search for any mention of AALL. Here's how:

1. Go to www.google.com
2. Type in this search:

site:lawlibrary.ucdavis.edu/LAWLIB AALL

Using Google to search this site will pull up archives from 1992 to the present.

Factiva Now on Yahoo!

SearchEngineWatch mentions that, as promised, LexisNexis & Factiva are now available through Yahoo!’s subscription search page. I tested Factiva and came up with thousands of results, but searching “Smith” (and a variety of words that would have to get hits) with the LexisNexis box checked, yielded no search results. No doubt, that option will be functioning soon, but at the moment it does not appear to be working. Keep your eye on it here.

Feed Link of the Day - Harry Potter

Some have already been able to get their copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, but for those of us in the States, we’ll have to wait until midnight tonight.

Chatting about Harry Potter on the way to work today, my neighbor said, “It’s like the whole world is teenaged!” I agreed. I didn’t mention how excited I am that my copy (that I ordered months ago) is about to ship from Amazon. 'Any time now…!

So, it seems fitting to make the FLOTD the Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator (HPANA). HPANA is an unofficial fan site that “was created to monitor several of the top news sources on the Web and provide near-instant alerts when new information is published.” I will spare you the site link since you will encounter pop-up spam there. So, here’s the feed:

http://www.hpana.com/rss.cfm

New US Supreme Court Nominations Table!

Check out the new US Supreme Court nominations table posted on the US Senate Web site today. The table lists the 148 nominees considered since the court was established in 1789. It also lists whom each nominee was to replace, which president nominated each (and the date), and the vote tally (and date), number and result. It also links to some roll call votes and biographies. Access the table here.

Are You Working as Efficiently as You Can?

If not, maybe you just need to re-arrange your computer work station. Here are the OSHA guidelines for adjusting your monitor, keyboard, mouse, wrist rest, desk, chair and telephone. Ah, that feels better.

New HeinOnline Newsletter

HeinOnline has a new quarterly newsletter out. It’s nicely formatted with charts and graphs. The best news is that a US Statutes at Large library is coming soon. Click here to read the Summer 2005 newsletter.

Feed Link of the Day - DC Bar!

Yes, the District of Columbia Bar has feed. Who knew? You can get news, announcements and upcoming event information for all CLE programs, Pro Bono programs and voluntary bar events. Here’s the site: http://www.dcbar.org/

Here’s the feed: http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/resources/rss/rss.xml

Gateway to Library Catalogs

From one page at the Library of Congress Web site, you can search a massive number of online library catalogs (from all over the world) using the Z39.50 gateway. Here's more information on Z39.50:

“Z39.50 is a national and international (ISO 23950) standard defining a protocol for computer-to-computer information retrieval. Z39.50 makes it possible for a user in one system to search and retrieve information from other computer systems (that have also implemented Z39.50) without knowing the search syntax that is used by those other systems. Z39.50 was originally approved by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) in 1988.”

Here's the link to the LC page of online catalogs.

Update: Check out what "may be the next Z39.50" via LJ Tech Blog here.

"Behind the Blogs"

Edison Ellenberger at The E-LawLibrary Weblog points out that the July/August 2005 issue of the ABA's Law Practice is largely about blawgs. There are a lot of feature articles that look like they'll be fun to read (and a non-feature about feeds) as well as a lot of names you'll recognize. Check out the table of contents and link to the articles here.

CS-SIS Blog Moves

The CS-SIS Blawgs Committee has moved its blog. If you're not familiar with CS-SIS, it is a committee of the Computing Services Special Interest Section (CS-SIS) of the American Association of Law Libraries. The committee consists of law librarians interested in professional and personal blogging.

The new link to the blog is:
http://cssisblawgs.blogspot.com/.

The new feed is:
http://cssisblawgs.blogspot.com/atom.xml.

Feed Link of the Day - Gallup Organization

A little over a month ago, ResearchBuzz announced that the Gallup Organization has feeds. They warned that the feeds are a mix of both free and fee-based content. Here are the different feeds that are available:

Analyses Channels
Government and Politics
Business and Economy
Health and Healthcare
Religion and Social Trends
Education and Youth

Commentary
The Nation's Pulse
PollTalk

Video
Gallup Poll Daily Briefing Segments

Here’s the link to the Gallop Organization site: http://www.gallup.com/
Here’s the link to the feeds: http://www.gallup.com/poll/rss/

Free US Politics & World News from LexisNexis

You can access free, current, full-text articles and TV transcripts from LexisNexis on a variety of subjects. The searches are pre-defined for specific “hot” topics. The article and transcript results are updated at least daily and you have the option to search within the results (similar to running a “Focus” command). The site includes “Special Coverage” topics too. Currently, they have special coverage for the “London Terror Attacks.” Click here to access the articles and transcripts by subject.

Feed Link of the Day - NASA Return to Flight News

With the Space Shuttle in the news lately, it seems now is a good time to make the NASA Return to Flight News feed the FLOTD. I discovered it while playing around on the NASA site when Deep Impact was big news. However, I noticed that Gary posted about this feed and a lot of other Shuttle links on ResourceShelf. You can check out Gary’s list of Shuttle links here.

Here is the link:
http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/main/index.html
Here is the feed:
http://www.nasa.gov/rss/rtf_news.rss

Information on Financial Institutions

The National Information Center (NIC) page of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council's (FFIEC) Web site allows you to obtain financial & performance reports, organizational hierarchies and institution histories for US and non-US financial institutions operating in the United States. The information provided, covers banks and other institutions for which the US Federal Reserve has a supervisory, regulatory, or research interest. You can search for information on financial institutions here (just click on the links in the blue banner).

NIC also lists the Top 50 Banks and the Top 50 Bank Holding Companies.

Feed Link of the Day - Working Knowledge

Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge provides management information for business leaders. Working Knowledge says, “You will find a wealth of resources and data that reflect the intellectual capital of Harvard Business School as well as insights from industry leaders worldwide.”

Here’s the site: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/
Here’s the feed: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/rss/rss.xml

New SCOTUS Nominations Documents

The US Senate reference page has added some new Supreme Court nominations documents today. You can now access the list of "Supreme Court Nominees Not Confirmed by the Senate" and the list of "Senators Who Also Have Served on the United States Supreme Court."

In addition to those new items, you can access a history of nominations, a 2003 list of "Supreme Court Nominations, 1789-present", and some more general nominations information.

Don't Count Them Out...Law Librarians, That is

"Don't Count Them Out" is the title of a July 1, 2005 article in the The American Lawyer. It was brought to my attention by a post at The E-LawLibrary Weblog today.

The article goes on to say, "Contrary to popular expectations, the digital age didn't supplant print. It complemented it." It discusses changes in law librarianship over the past decade. It's a good read for law librarians and attorneys alike. Here's the link.

Feed Link of the Day - UN Pulse

The United Nations has a blog. UN Pulse is a service of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library. Click here to read the latest post about the Security Council resolution adopted in response to the terror attacks in London. It includes a link to the resolution as well as a link to further UN actions against terrorism.

Here is a link to UN Pulse: http://unhq-appspub-01.un.org/lib/dhlrefweblog.nsf

Here is a link to the feed: http://unhq-appspub-01.un.org/LIB/DHLRefWeblog.nsf/blog.rss

Free Access to Online US State/Territory Codes

You probably already know that you can access free state codes online, but did you know you can access those offered by Michie from one page? Just go to www.michie.com and choose a jurisdiction from the drop-down menu under "Legal Resources." It's not a big list, but CA, DC, DE, MD and NY are included as well as the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

Feed Link of the Day – LISpodcasts

Yesterday, LibraryPlanet announced the creation of LISpodcasts.com. Here’s what Michael Pate has to say about his new site:

“LISPodcasts.com is your new single source for keeping tracking of all that is happening in the world of Library and Information Science Podcasting. While this is still a relatively new area, it will no doubt grow rapidly as interest in podcasting continues to increase.”

Here’s the feed: http://lispodcasts.com/feed/

London Bombings

My heart, thoughts and well wishes go out to all of those effected by this tragedy.