Friday, October 24, 2008

Presidents past

With so much talk about who will be our next President, I found it useful to look at presidents in the past. You can now see the presidential papers and much more at the U.S. Presidential Library available on HeinOnline.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Thursday, October 23, 2008

FRASER

With the Federal Reserve Bank frequently in the news of late, FRASER might be of interest to readers of this blog.

FRASER--The Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research--is a project by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to expand its mission to provide economic information and data to researchers who are interested in the United States’ economy. Here, you will find links to scanned images of historical economic statistical publications, releases, and other documents, including recent economic indicators.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) is an agency of the United Nations established to assist Member States with issues concerning illicit drugs and international crime. UNODC’s online legislation legal library provides full text of drug control laws and regulations adopted by countries in support of international drug control treaties. It includes legislation adopted since 1948.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Predicting Sucess at Big Law

While GPA and school rank are important, a recent study concludes they are not the best predictors of success at large law firms. The study conducted by consultants from Kerma Partners and Redwood reviewed 1,300 associates at a top 25 law firm in order to identify attributes of the "outstanding" performers. It is a proprietary study so not all of the attributes are released but it is still interesting reading. The ABA provides remarks on the study.

Hat tip to Law Librarian blog.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Monday, October 20, 2008

Arts and Letters Daily

I've always been an erudite feline and I do like to read up on literature, history, art and philosophy. But, as you can imagine, the life of a law library virtual cat can get hectic! That is why I read Arts and Letters Daily. Created by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Arts and Letters Daily finds and links to interesting articles, book reviews and essays on the internet. It is updated daily and summaries of the articles are displayed at the top of each page--this makes it easy to scan and decide what I'm interested in reading without having to click into each article.

Recently, Arts and Letters Daily has linked to: a review of Paul Theroux's latest book from The New Statesman; an article on the "newspaper of the future" from the American Journalism Review; and an article from Slate about Emily Dickinson's secret lover. Happy reading!


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Sunday, October 19, 2008

CiteGenie

CiteGenie is a Firefox add-on that creates real Bluebook pinpoint citations from material you highlight in Westlaw. Normally, these kinds of features and applications aren't reliable, but CiteGenie received a good review here, so it may actually be worth trying.

(Of course, it should go without saying that if you never learn how to create citations, that will eventually be a problem for you.)


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat