Changes, changes...

Clocks are set for a change this weekend, and so is the Internet as you know it.

The nonprofit group that controls domain codes for Internet addresses announced yesterday that as of November 16, it will begin a "Fast Track" process for approving web addresses ending in non-Latin characters for the first time since the Internet was created. Rod Beckstom, President and CEO of the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), hailed this development as "an historic move toward the internationalization of the Internet." We should see URLs with country codes in Cyrillic, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, and other scripts by the middle of next year.

Expansion beyond the Roman letters A-Z for characters after the "dot" is expected to dramatically increase the number of Internet users among people worldwide that never use Roman characters, help local businesses, and make the Internet a more valuable resource for millions, including children. For more about this development, see ICANN's video and press release, and today's New York Times article.




Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Happy Black Cat day!!

Tomorrow is the world's annual celebration of Black Cats (a.k.a "Halloween" to less informed humans). As a virtual black cat (yes virtual cats get to choose their colors), I celebrate not by eating a lot of sticky sweet stuff, but by crawling the web for interesting black cat references. Did you know that some humans used to believe that black cats were originally people turned into cats? Personally, I think humans are just unfortunate transmogrified cats.

Black cats have our place in the law. I found both a serious, detailed discussion of "Cat law" as well as a more light-hearted one in my virtual prowling. There even is an in-depth research guide. And, in case you were wondering, we cats have our own rules for dealing with humans.

However you plan to celebrate Black Cat day, make sure to get some good purring in.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

The Art of Written Persuasion (V): Improve Your Vocabulary, Improve Your Success

Here is another good reason to read not just the law, but literature, history, etc. Reading is a time honored method of improving vocabulary. This article "The Art of Written Persuasion: Part V - Improve Your Vocabulary, Improve Your Success" is a discussion of what is meant by "good vocabulary" - it is more than big words - and describes how lawyers use vocabulary to persuade.

It is not a long article and is a fine explanation of why lawyers need a good vocabulary.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

GlobaLex: New and Updated Research Guides

Published by the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU School of Law, GlobaLex is an electronic publication dedicated to international and foreign research. New and updated research guides published by GlobaLex include:

New research guides:

• Law and Legal Research in Zambia by Alfred S. Magagula

Updated research guides:

• A Guide to the Republic of Azerbaijan Law Research by Ramil Iskandarov Avaz
• The Croatian Legal System and Legal Research by Dunja Kuecking, Milivoje Zugi, and Marija Gilbota
• Essential Issues of the Peruvian Legal System by Sergio Endress Gomez and Milagros Bustillos Pinto
• Doing Legal Research in Romania by Dana Neacsu - updated in 2009 by Anamaria Corbesc
  

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Split Circuits

To follow up from last Sunday's post on using blawgs for research, I've just discovered Split Circuits, a blawg dedicated to tracking . . . yes, circuit splits. This blog is good fodder for academics, paper-writers, and Supreme Court watchers.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat