Jurist's US Law Professor Directory

Are you looking for a law professor? If you are, you might want to try Jurist's directory. You'll find links to faculty profiles, contact information and personal home pages. The listings are by school name and are divided into two main pages: A-M schools and N-Z schools. You can browse the schools or search for a professor's name. Click here to check it out.

Feed Link of the Day - Universe Today

It's Friday...time for a fun feed. Universe Today definitely fits the bill. It's a "must subscribe" for all of you astronomy fans. The feed includes graphic images and summaries of free full-text articles (which you can link to from the feed). Even if you don't have time to read the articles or the summaries, you'll love this feed just for the images.

Here's the site: http://www.universetoday.com/

Here's the feed: http://www.universetoday.com/universetoday.xml

Electronic Filing Resources

The ABA's Electronic Filing Resource Page has some good links on it. Among them are links to state court filing systems, state electronic filing rules, a list of e-filing vendors and even this e-filing blog.

US Federal Court Disruptions in October

Paul Bush of Legal Dockets Online Blog points out that Pacer is warning that many US district and bankruptcy court CM/ECF systems will be down at some point next month due to necessary upgrades. You can read that post here.

Also, Edison Ellenberger of The E-LawLibrary Weblog mentions US federal court disruptions in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas due to recent hurricanes Katrina and Rita. You can read that post here.

Feed Link of the Day - FreePatentsOnline

RSS Compendium Blog mentioned freepatentsonline.com's feeds today. They have an unbelievable number of patent feeds by category. I haven't tested them, but the site says they are updated weekly. If you need to track patents, this just might be the thing for you.

Here is where to access the long list of available feeds:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/rssfeed.html

Great KM Reading

First, several bloggers, including Joy London at excited utterances have posted a survey requesting information regarding the “need and interest of forming a national/international group focused specifically on legal KM.” Click here to learn more and to fill out the survey.

Second, Joy also has a very interesting post focusing on Ingo F. Forstenlechner’s , (European-based Knowledge Management Project Manager at an international law firm) thesis (not yet published) dealing with the impact of KM on law firm performance and his related article, "The Impact of National Culture on KM Metrics." You can read more here.

Last, Steve Matthews at the Vancouver Law Librarian Blog asks questions about legal KM economics and David Maister responds. You can read that here.

Feed Link of the Day - Securities Litigation Watch

Securities Litigation Watch is a blawg produced by Bruce Carton. Mr. Carton and his blawg represent the Institutional Shareholder Services’ (ISS) Securities Class Action Services. Mr. Carton was also a partner focusing on securities and commercial litigation, SEC enforcement matters, and corporate governance issues at Piper Rudnick LLP and he served as Senior Counsel in the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement.

I chose his blawg to be my FLOTD today because of this post emphasizing the importance of law firms incorporating RSS feeds into their Web sites. RSS is finally beginning to gain some ground in law firm Web sites. I completely agree with Mr. Carton that more firms need to jump on the RSS bandwagon.

Here’s the site:
http://slw.issproxy.com/securities_litigation_blo/

Here’s the feed: http://slw.issproxy.com/securities_litigation_blo/atom.xml

Bringing Books to Life

Earlier this month, Fodor's Travel Wire published an article about the popularity of literary tours. The article has links to several companies offering tours on such subjects as the Harry Potter series, Dan Brown novels, mystery books and classic British authors. It also mentions Classical Pursuits, Inc. which offers tours through Italy, Paris, Ireland, Greece, New Orleans (probably on hold) and New York. You can read "From Harry Potter to The Da Vinci Code, Lit Tours are All the Rage" here.

Feed Link of the Day - AAO Weblog

A couple of weeks ago the Financial Accounting Blog posted this statement:

"The Accounting Observer's blog is doing a much better job than this blog as far as reporting interesting items."

So, I checked it out and it looks pretty good. The AAO Weblog is written by Jack T. Ciesielski, who owns a Baltimore investment research and portfolio management firm. Mr. Ciesielski also publishes The Analyst's Accounting Observer (AAO), an accounting advisory service for security analysts.

Here's the site: http://www.accountingobserver.com/blog/

Here's the feed: http://www.accountingobserver.com/blog/feed/

2005 Food Code - Now Available

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued the 2005 Food Code today. According to the press release:

"This year's Food Code not only includes the best practices for the retail and food service industries but it also provides valuable resources on food defense that will assist in protecting Americans against threats to the food supply," said FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Director Robert Brackett.

You can access a copy of the new code here.

Judicial Conference Approves Rules

On September 20, 2005, the US Judicial Conference approved the following proposed amendments to the rules and forms:

Appellate Rule 25 and new Appellate Rule 32.1;
Bankruptcy Rules 1009, 5005, 7004;
Civil Rules 5, 9, 14, 16, 26, 33, 34, 37, 45, 50, and 65.1;
Civil Form 35; and
Supplemental Rules A, C, and E, and new Supplemental Rule G;
Criminal Rules 5, 6, 32.1, 40, 41, and 58; and
Evidence Rules 404, 408, 606, and 609.

(Approved new Appellate Rule 32.1 only applies to decisions issued on or after January 1, 2007.)

The proposed amendments will be transmitted to the US Supreme Court for final approval. To view the proposed amendments, click here.

Feed Link of the Day - HowStuffWorks

HowStuffWorks - the name says it all. You can subscribe to the site's featured articles via RSS. Some examples of their articles include "How Poison Ivy Works," "How DSL Works," "How RFIDs Work" and much, much more. You can also search the site for any topic that interests you.

Here is the site:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/

Here is the feed:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/feature-article-feed.htm

Law Librarian Newsletters Online

Thomson West offers several free print newsletters. Most of them are are designed specifically for law librarians. You can access back copies in PDF format online for Law Librarians in the New Millennium (since Jan/Feb 2003), Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing (since Winter 2002), Practice Innovations (since March 2002), InfoEdge: Resources for Tomorrow's Information Leaders (since Fall 2001) and GlobalLaw Quarterly (since First Quarter 2004). You can also subscribe to receive future editions of 4 of the 5 here. You can subscribe to the 5th (GlobalLaw Quarterly) here.

Thomson West also offers free electronic newsletters for law librarians, lawyers and law students, corporate counsel, federal government agencies, state & local government agencies, Norton SupporTax™ subscribers and new associates. You can check out the list, access free back issues and subscribe here.

Feed Link of the Day - Plain Legal Writing

Earlier this week, Inside Opinions' Legal Blog Watch mentioned a legal writing blog that began this summer. It is called Plain Legal Writing and is authored by Wayne Schiess who is the Director of Legal Writing at the University of Texas School of Law. Mr. Schiess, who says, "I'm a bit too serious about legal writing." also authors legalwriting.net.

Here's where you can find Plain Legal Writing: http://plainlegalwriting.blogspot.com/

Here's the feed:
http://plainlegalwriting.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Legal Profession Statistics

The American Bar Association has a Web page devoted to resources for "research and statistics about lawyers and the legal profession." Some of the resources have been compiled by the ABA's Market Research Department (MRD) and others are available by linking out to other sites. You can find a PDF version of the MRD's 2005 "National Lawyer Population by State," information on salaries, mandatory CLE states, law firm rankings, demographics, legal career surveys and more here.

Feed Link of the Day - Consumers Union

Consumers Union, the independent, nonprofit testing and information organization that publishes Consumer Reports, has many great feeds available. You can subscribe to any of the following feeds:

• All CU Articles
  
• Health
  
• Food
  
• Phones and Media
  
• Money
  
• Product Safety
  
• "Other" Issues
  
• En Español
  
• The Scribbler Blog

Here's a link to the page where you can pick up these feeds: http://www.consumersunion.org/sitedetails.html

US Senate Judiciary Committee Vote on Roberts

Tomorrow, the US Senate Judiciary Committee will be voting on the nomination of John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. You can watch the committee debate and vote beginning at 9:30 a.m. on C-SPAN here.

US National Book Festival - This Weekend

The US National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held this Saturday, September 24th, on the National Mall (between 7th & 14th Streets) in Washington, DC. The festival will run from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. rain or shine and is free to the public.

For a list of authors, printable map, information on book signings, associated events and more, click here. For a chance to chat online tomorrow with some of the authors who will be at the festival, click here.

Feed Link of the Day - AALL LawLibAssist

The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) has a new blog devoted to providing assistance to AALL members' friends and colleagues who were affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Here's the site: http://aallnet.typepad.com/katrina/

Here's the feed: http://aallnet.typepad.com/katrina/rss.xml

Emergency Management Suppliers/Services

This is just a quick post to mention two vendor lists that are useful in planning for library disaster recovery. The first is a list of "Emergency Management Suppliers and Services" provided by Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) in Andover, MA. The list is not comprehensive, nor is it an endorsement by the NEDCC of any of the vendors in the list. However, it is a great place to start your search for vendors in the following areas:

• CLEANING SERVICES, FUMIGATION, FIRE AND SMOKE RECLAMATION
  
• COLD STORAGE FACILITIES
  
• CONSULTING SERVICES
  
• DRYING FACILITIES
  
• ENVIRONMENTAL STABILIZATION
  
• EQUIPMENT AND TRANSPORTATION RENTAL
  
• PEST MANAGEMENT
  
• SALVAGE - ELECTRONIC DATA AND EQUIPMENT
  
• SALVAGE - MAGNETIC MEDIA
  
• SALVAGE - MICROFILM
  
• SALVAGE - PHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIALS
  
• SUPPLIES
  
• WATER ALARMS

The list includes names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, Web site links and more. It is also regularly updated. As of the time of this post, it was last updated on September 6th, 2005. Here is the link to the list: http://www.nedcc.org/plam3/tleaf36.htm

If you are looking for something more comprehensive, you may want to check out Disaster Recovery Yellow Pages put out by Edwards Information. It is available in print or CD and contains over 3100 vendor listings. You can learn more about it or order a copy here: http://www.thedryp.com/about.html

Feed Link of the Day - The White House

I mentioned here that US President Bush is podcasting, but now the White House is offering even more feeds. RSS Specifications provided a link to additional White House feeds today.

Here's where you'll find feeds for Presidential News & Speeches, White House Press Briefings and the Presidential Weekly Radio Address in English and en Español: http://www.whitehouse.gov/rss/

And...I'm Back

That was a long commercial break, wasn't it? My PC was actually up and running on September 3rd (thanks to Geeks on Call). However, all of my data was lost.

The reason I haven't posted until now is because I went out of the country on the 4th and didn't return until late last night. So, I'm sorry for the long delay.