ZiefBrief

The X Factor

Librarians are always trying out new search engines, and this month, we've found a twist on an old favorite that is quite exciting.  It's a beta version of Ask.com called AskX.  AskX offers video searching, something that's not available at Ask.com.  But it also packages search results in a more convenient way.  After you type in a search, the left-hand side of the screen suggests additional search terms that you can use to broaden or narrow your search.  You can also click on "Images," "Video," "News," or "Blogs" if you want to view expanded search results from just those categories in the middle portion of the screen.  The middle portion of the screen supplies typical Ask.com search results, including the ability to mouse over the binocular icon to view a preview of a website without actually clicking on the website link.  The right-hand side of the screen supplies results from Wikipedia about your topic, thumbnail images retrieved from Ask.com's image search, news results, and blog search results.  I think it's pretty handy to have an "all-in-one" search result screen, complete with suggestions for improving your search!

Penn. Law Review Joins Online Community

The University of Pennsylvania Law Review, not to be outdone by Yale's Pocket Part or Harvard's The Forum, has joined the growing number of law reviews that have created an online space for debate and commentary about their recently-published articles.  Penn's venture is called PENNumbra, and its latest debate focuses on Frederick Schauer's article, "On the Supposed Jury-Dependence of Evidence Law."  We'll be watching to see if Cornell Law Review jumps on the bandwagon and introduces online debate to its website!

New York Bar Backs Down on Advertising Regulations

A recent Law.com article reports that the presiding justices of the appellate division's four departments in New York have modified proposed rules governing attorney websites and blogs.  As we reported in earlier installments on ZiefBrief, web-savvy attorneys across the nation were more than a little annoyed with the original version of the proposed regulations, which would have subjected attorneys and law firms with a web presence to onerous record-keeping requirements.  More than 100 individuals and organizations wrote in to demand changes to the proposed regulations.  According to recent news reports, the authors of the revamped regs have tightened the definitions of "advertising" and "solicitation" and eased the record-keeping requirements in response to written comments.  The amended regulations should take effect on February 1, 2007.

FirstGov Morphs Into USA.gov

Our beloved government information/documents search engine, Firstgov.gov, has changed its name and its URL to usa.gov.  It's still the same great search engine, giving legal researchers easy access to federal, state, and local government statistics and documents.  You can also browse government information by subject, subscribe to a variety of free electronic newsletters from government agencies, or browse the site's extensive forms library. 

Fifty New Popular Film Titles Added For Your Viewing Pleasure

While you can't learn to be a lawyer just by watching popular films about law and lawyers you can learn a lot about what film makers (and by extension many non-lawyers) think about the legal process and community. You can sample lawyers as Saints (e.g. Henry Fonda in the title role of Young Mr. Lincoln and lawyers as Demons (e.g. James Woods as Roy Cohn in Citizen Cohn. If you prefer there are lawyers as buffoons (John Cleese's Archie in A Fish Called Wanda) or lawyers as folk heroes (Edward Arnold as the eponymous Daniel Webster in The Devil and Daniel Webster). We have added these and about 50 other popular films with legal subject to the collection in the last few weeks and they are available for USF law students to view in their copious spare time. Take a break, view a flick -- you  will feel better for it.

A full list of the latest 52 film titles added in the last month appear in the continuation to this post.

THOMAS Takes a Page From Google

Happy New Year to ZiefBrief readers!  THOMAS, the federal legislative information search portal, starts 2007 off with an array of exciting new search options!  Previously, THOMAS didn't offer users an easy way to search all of the federal legislative and executive documents available on its page at one time.  But THOMAS has introduced a Google-like search box on its new features page, which permits you to search all THOMAS information, including proposed and enacted legislation, the Congressional Record, committee reports, presidential nominations, and treaties. 

You can also browse legislation by sponsor, then search within those search results by key word.  For example, if I select Senator Barbara Boxer from the pull-down menu on the new features page, a new screen comes up, showing all 54 bills sponsored by Senator Boxer.  THOMAS has included a search box on the left-hand side of this screen, which permits me to search within these 54 bills for legislation about a particular topic.  Pretty handy!

Finally, THOMAS now provides a much-needed "browse legislation by topic" feature, so that users can review all of the current legislation in a particular area, such as health, education, or military and defense.

Thanks to beSpacific for highlighting these 2007 changes to THOMAS.