A BLOG FOR LAW LIBRARIANS AND A GOVERNMENT BEST PRACTICES WIKI

RIPS Law Librarian is published by the Research Instruction & Patron Services Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries. Submissions from RIPS members are highly encouraged.

URL: http://rips-sis.blogspot.com/


Mike Kujawski [Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada] has created the Government 2.0 - Best Practices wiki with the intent “to compile a central list of current initiatives (and eventually “best practices”) involving social media and government. These can be internal or external, marketing, HR or IT, it doesn’t matter.” It covers the Canadian, US, and international governments.

URL: http://government20bestpractices.pbwiki.com/FrontPage

BLOG (AND MORE) FROM THE UK HOUSE OF LORDS

Several members of the House of Lords in the UK are contributing to Lords of the Blog. It "is an experimental project to encourage direct dialogue between web users across the world and Members of the House of Lords." It is conducted by the Hansard Society, "the UK's leading independent, non-partisan political research and education charity."

There seem to be 11 participating peers, all but three listed as "the Independent Peers." (What that means I have no idea.) There aren't a lot of posts, but it's such a fascinating idea.

Another project of the House of Lords is a presence on YouTube. There's an especially fascinating one that shows how little some Brits know about their government and some of the Lords try to explain what the House of Lords does. Check it out!

URLs:
Lords of the Blog: http://lordsoftheblog.wordpress.com
Hansard Society: http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/
YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtqWwCIhW4E

IF YOU TRAVEL, READ THIS

If you travel a lot--or even just occasionally--you should read this blog. Evolution of Security "is sponsored by the Transportation Security Administration to facilitate an ongoing dialogue on innovations in security, technology and the checkpoint screening process."

Recent hot topics have included: shoes; liquids; inconsistencies (!)' lighters, nail clippers and lithium batteries, and gripes and grins. The most recent post is a video on how they screen baggage. Very informative.

URL: http://www.tsa.gov/blog/

(I may have already posted this, I forget sometimes, but it is worth repeating.)

TWO NEW RESOURCES FOR LAW LIBRARIANS

The Public Library of Law is a free site that includes “all the available online caselaw, statutes, regulations, court rules and constitutions from the federal and state governments.” Acesss to the following is through FastCase’s “intuitive interface that woks like popular Web search engines” (read, Google©). The site is updated daily

“All” of the free legal resources that exist on the Internet

An additional 10 years of case law from all 50 states

U.S. Reports: Vol. 1-546, inclusive (1757 to present)

F.2d Vol. 178-999, inclusive (1950 to 1995)

F.3d Vol. 1-491, inclusive (1995 to present)

State cases from 1997 to present

Statutes, regulations, court rules, and constitutions of (federal and all 50 states)

Commonly used legal forms

URL: http://www.plol.org/Pages/Search.aspx

The Law Library of Congress now offers RSS feeds, consisting of headline, brief summary, and a link back to the website for more information. You can sign up for each of the 4 available feeds or receive the updates by mail.

that leads back to the Library's Web site for more information. You can also keep up with the LLOC by signing up for an email newsletter at http://service.govdelivery.com/service/multi_subscribe.html?code=USLOC&origin=http://www.loc.gov (free registration required)

Law Library News and Events: http://www.loc.gov/rss/law/news.xml
Legal Research Reports: http://www.loc.gov/rss/law/reports.xml
Law Library Webcasts: http://www.loc.gov/rss/law/webcasts.xml
Global Legal Monitor: http://www.loc.gov/rss/law/globalmonitor.xml

KEEP UP WITH THE TSA

Evolution of Security: Terrorists Evolve. Threats Evolve. Security Must Stay Ahead. You Play A Part is sponsored by the Transportation Security Administration to facilitate an ongoing dialogue on innovations in security, technology and the checkpoint screening process. If you travel a lot or have clients that do, you should monitor this blog. And you can even express your concerns or ask questions (but there’s no guarantee they’ll listen).

URL: http://www.tsa.gov/blog

TWO BLOGS I’VE JUST COME ACROSS

ECJBlog has “news and analysis about the European Court of Justice.” They’ve recently added a subscription service to their newsletter through FeedBlitz. The blogger is Allard Knook, a PhD Candidate at the Institute of Constitutional and Administrative Law, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.

URL: http://courtofjustice.blogspot.com


The Journal of Medical Internet Research’s blog has excepts from recent posts on various eHealth Blogs, such as davidrothman.net, The Krafty Librarian, Medicine 2.0 and more. A nice aggregator-type service. JMIR is “the leading peer-reviewed journal for health and healthcare in the Internet age, has been around since 1999 and is open access. It is sponsored by the eHealth RESEARCH Network and published by Gunther Eysenbach, Centre for Global EHealth Innovation, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

URL: http://www.jmir.org/cms/view/ehealth_blogs

ONLINE HELP FOR VETERANS

Project VetAssist is a free online service for veterans and their families. It will help with applying for the VA Improved Pension program, which is for financially limited veterans 65 or older or physically disabled who had at least 90 days of service in World War II, Vietnam, Korea, or the Gulf Wars. There are forms to download and step-by-step advice for filling them in. It is sponsored by the American Veterans Institute, Tipp City, Ohio. Information is also available at info@vetassist.org. (Found in the AARP Bulletin, January-February 2008.)

URL: http://www.vetassist.org

FOUR INTERESTING NEW WEBSITES

UNDERSTANDING PARLIAMENT?!
The UK Parliament now has a website with a glossary—“Parliamentary jargon explained.” Absolutely fascinating.
URL: http://www.parliament.uk/about/glossary.cfm

MAPS OF THE WORLD
This site has maps of almost anything you could want: cruises, honeymoon destinations, time zones, cities, USA state symbols, earthquakes, etc.
URL: http://www.mapsofworld.com/

COUNTRY PROFILES, FROM A CANADIAN VIEWPOINT
Citizenship and Immigration Canada has published cultural profiles of over 100 countries that have sent immigrants to Canada. It “provides an overview of life and customs in the profiled country…and the customs described may not apply in equal measures to all newcomers form the profiled country.” These are fine, but I prefer the CultureGrams, published by ProQuest. Originally written by Brigham Young University, they are “concise, reliable, and up-to-date reports on more than 200 countries, each U.S. state, and all 13 Canadian provinces and territories.”
URLs:
Canadian Cultural Profiles: http://www.cp-pc.ca/
CultureGrams: http://www.culturegrams.com/

GREEN SEARCH ENGINE
Greener is designed to “find green products, services, organizations, information” in over 9 million pages. There is no sign of who put the site up, so I’m a bit leery of it.
URL: http://greener.com/

WELCOME TO DIPNOTE

The US State Department has started a blog, Dipnote (jargon for a diplomatic note—“a formal communication between an ambassador and a minister of the host government or another ambassador.” They hope it “will provide you with a window into the work of the people responsible for our foreign policy, and will give you a chance to be active participants in a community focused on some of the great issues of our world today. With Dipnote we are going to take you behind the scenes at the State Department and bring you closer to the personalities of the Department. We are going to try and break through some of the jargon and talk about how we operate around the world.”

Articles on Dipnote as of today are: The Question of the Week: Who Should be Allowed To Possess Nuclear Technology? UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) 101, Protecting Diplomats at UNGA: The Inside Story, Direct from the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi (India), August in the Big Easy (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA), and an impressive Blog Roll.

It is probably worth checking out this blog just to get information on some the blogs the State Department follows.

URL: http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/P5/

IS THERE AN EMBASSY IN (INSERT COUNTRY HERE)?

Next time you are asked this question, turn to the online Directory & Search Engine of the World's Embassies & Consulates. Answer "whose embassy?" and "in what location?" and you're taken to list. You can also search alphabetically by nation and there are 34 pages of embassies inside the USA and an alphabetical list of US embassies worldwide, United Nations peprmanent missions, and links to other resources (international telephone directory, global reference desk, maps of the world, and international voltage directory).

I wish there were more contact information, but at least there are links to the embassies's websites. It seems to be sponsored by ads and links to international real estate, employment, and yacht websites. That's ok, I can ignore them to be able to access this information.

URL: http://embassyworld.com/

TWO NEW US GOVERNMENT PORTALS

the
Consumer Health Information for You and Your Family
http://www.fda.gov/consumer
This site from the US Food and Drug Administration has sections on general health information,medicines, medical devices and procedures, vaccines, cosmetics, protecting yourself, food and nutrition, animal health, and radiation-emitting products (such as cell phones). You can also sign up for e-newsletters and other consumer publications. There are links to sections just for women, seniors, teens, kids, and en espanol.

Google U.S. Government Search
http://www.google.com/ig/usgov
Here is a portal to government information, with sections from the American Forces Information Service, White House News, Government Executive, the Washington Post, and top Government stories. And, of course, there's a search feature for images, video, news, maps, etc.

And speaking of Google, try out the new personalization features for your Google page. I use mine as my home page and have included the weather, checking my Gmail and Yahoo! mail (you can check your other mail but I haven't been able to make it work), the day and time, top news, and local weather. I can even check and read my Google Reader RSS feed from the home page. Just go to http://www.google.com/ig and choose from lots of add-ins (not all from Google). I love this!

TWO WAYS TO KEEP TRACK OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Open Congress
http://www.opencongress.org/
“Open Congress brings together official government data with news and blog coverage to give you the real story behind each bill.” Categories: bills, senators, representatives, committees, industries, issues, and blog. Also can follow bills, including most viewed bills. From the Sunlight Foundation and PPF, both dedicated to getting the “real” story from Congress.

VA Watchdog
http://vawatchdog.org/
This time the site is “keeping an eye on the VA (Veterans’ Administration) because somebody has to!” There are news flashes, Congressional committee watches, VA press releases, links and tips to help veterans, podcasts and videos. It may be a bit biased against the VA, but is a good source of information anyway.

NEW GOVERNMENT RESOURCES from Australia, Tonga, and Canada

The Australian Parliamentary Library has a new RSS feed for their new documents and one for This Week in Parliament.
URLs:
New Documents: http://www.aph.gov.au/library/rsspubs_feed.xml
This Week in Parliament: http://www.aph.gov.au/rss.htm

Tongan Legislation Online is now available and searchable. It is funded by New Zealand's International Aid & Development Agency.
URL: http://legislation.to/cms/home.html

The Maps, Data, and Government Information Centre of Carleton University [Ottawa, Ontario, Canada] has made available a Google Custom Search for Federal, Provincial, Territorial, and Municipal Canadian Government Documents on the Web. Thanks folks.
URL: http://www.library.carleton.ca/madgic/