This month Westlaw rolled out "Graphical KeyCite," which depicts the direct appellate history of your case and makes it much easier to grasps the twists and turns of those cases with complicated histories.
Diane Murley (of Southern Illinois University's Law Dawg Blawg) has written one of the best overviews of Graphical KeyCite that ZiefBrief has seen. Surf on over to her post, Westlaw's KeyCite Gets Graphical, for your introduction to this new Westlaw feature.
For detailed, authoritative information on the selection, evaluation, and confirmation of Supreme Court Justices, take a look at the 53-page, PDF Congressional Research Service report entitled Supreme Court Appointment Process: Roles of the President, Judiciary Committee, and Senate. This report, which was updated on July 6, 2005, is available on U.S. Department of State's Foreign Press Centers web site.
[Thanks to Sabrina I. Pacifici's beSpacific for the tip!]
Every so often, everybody needs to take a break and read some trashy light legal fiction. Toward that end, the Zief has amassed (well a small mass really, about 70 titles) a collection of popular legal fiction. From the most recent Grisham potboiler to some of the classics of the genre, you are sure to find something to suit your tastes.
The collection is physically located next to the Reference Desk on the 1st level of the library. To see a list of all the titles and their availability go to the library catalog, Ignacio and do a Keyword search for "zief library popular fiction"
All the titles in this collection are available to check out by anyone with a valid USF library account.
The Times of London, which had disappeared for a time from U.S. law school Lexis plans, is now back, with coverage from July 1, 1985 to the present.
The Times of London is just one of 16 national United Kingdom newspapers — both broadsides and tabloids — on LexisNexis. (The others are: The Business, The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, The Daily Star and Sunday Star, The Daily⁄Sunday Telegraph, The Express, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent and Independent on Sunday, The Daily Mirror and The Sunday Mirror, Morning Star, The Observer, The People, and The Sunday Express.)
To use the Times of London, sign on to LexisNexis, and follow this path in the "Look for a Source" directory: News & Business > News > By Country & Region > United Kingdom > The Times and Sunday Times (London). If you prefer, you may also use the short source name (NEWS;TTIMES) in the "Find a Source" feature. [Authorized LexisNexis subscribers may connect directly to the full-text search screen for The Times and Sunday Times (London) from this post.]
For a quick tutorial in all things John Roberts, surf on over to the Supreme Court Nomination Blog, where the good folks at Goldstein & Howe have been collecting and linking to opinions, analyses, news articles and commentary. (We at ZiefBrief especially appreciate their "We Read the Papers So You Don't Have To" feature!)
Responding to the recent spate of identity theft news, the Bureau of National Affairs (aka BNA) has published a Web Watch on Data Security. This Web Watch links to pending and in-force federal and state legislation, Congressional hearing testimony, an Interagency Guidance from the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, and materials from non-governmental organizations.
(Laura Gordon-Murnane of the BNA Library prepares BNA's Web Watches on selected topics of current interest.)
We use Google, we use it a lot. Our students and faculty use Google a lot. But often we librarians are able to find things on Google that our patrons seem unable to find. It isn't that we are Master Google Hackers, but we are more likely to know about and use some advanced Google techniques. My all time favorite technique is to Google just a particular website or domain. Suppose you want to look for pages that are only on a site maintained by the California State government. Just go to Google, type in the terms you are interested in and add site:ca.gov. Or suppose you just want to search sites from educational institutions: that's right, just add site:.edu
This article by Kenneth Wagner was recently added to the Picturing Justice site:
"In recent decades, television programming has been handling topics that were at one time almost unthinkable. Shows have dealt with issue such as racism, homophobia, same sex marriage, and interracial relationships. One topic that seems off limits however, is that of abortion. As Rachel Fudge points out in an article in Clamor magazine: 'As many commentators have pointed out, as all of the old you-can't-do-that-on-television taboos - sexual content, violence, cursing, nudity, homosexuality - have fallen away, abortion is the one hot-button issue that simply remains too hot for TV.'" Full article
[Picturing Justice, the Online Journal of Law and Popular Culture, was founded by USF law professor John Denvir and USF law alumnus Rob Waring. Its contributors explore the portrayal of law, lawyers, and legal issues in film (in the Silver Screen section) and on television (in the Small Screen section).]
The Zief Library has just received:
California Domestic Partnerships, by Sondra J. Allphin (Oakland, Calif.: Continuing Education of the Bar—California, c2005-) Law CEB Reserve KFC 118 .C285.
This CEB practice guide is the first to cover domestic partnerships. In one volume the guide covers: the creation of domestic partnerships; constitutional issues; property rights; employee benefits; health and medical issues; estate planning; evidentiary privileges; torts; support; parental rights and issues; tax; bankruptcy; public benefits; and terminations.
Westlaw has created a new database, IRAQ-DOCS, combining documents from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9-11 Commission), Congressional Record transcripts of the debate on whether or not to go to war with Iraq, and court documents from the case Doe v. Bush, challenging the legality of the Iraq war.
(The Congressional debates, 9-11 Commission documents and Doe v. Bush documents are also available separately in the GULFDEBATE, COM911 and DOEVBUSH databases.)
