JURIST

The start of your law school career (or just a new semester) is a great time to become acquainted with JURIST, the legal news and research site that continually brings you the latest legal developments from the U.S. and around the world.  Self-described as "the world's only law school-based comprehensive legal news and research service," JURIST is maintained by Professor Bernard Hibbitts and his law student editorial staff at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

For law students everywhere, JURIST means timely coverage focused on substantive impact, updates on major legal issues, and incisive commentary by experts. The Law Library's home page offers continuous breaking news feeds from JURIST, but smart students will also appreciate its numerous links to full-text court opinions, complaints, bills, and other primary source documents that are hard to find in coverage by standard news outlets.    

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

World Facts

Nationmaster.com is a great site for comparing countries for just about any statistic you can think of.  You can compare countries' facts and statistics ranging from Internet usage, salaries, crime and even happiness level.  The only category I could not find was number of virtual cats.  No web site is perfect.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Smart Phones and Privacy

See the following overview on Jurist for an interesting discussion of some of the latest developments regarding smart phones, tracking, and privacy issues.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Census Bureau Mobile App Now Available for iPhone and iPad

 "“America’s Economy,” the U.S. Census Bureau’s first mobile application, is now available for iPhone and iPad. The America’s Economy mobile app provides updated statistics on the U.S. economy, including monthly economic indicators and economic trends."

"The app consolidates indicators from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produce monthly and quarterly snapshots of key sectors within the U.S. economy. It provides smartphone and tablet users with real-time releases of 16 key government statistics that drive business hiring, sales and production decisions useful to small businesses, the construction industry, the banking industry, journalists, economists, planners, policymakers and anyone who wants to monitor U.S. economic data."

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Bluebook Is Now Mobile!

The Bluebook has an App!  The Rulebook App now includes the Bluebook, available for Apple devices.  There is a charge for the Bluebook addition to the Rulebook, but you will never struggle with a little spiral bound book again!



And as a bonus...tomorrow...August 22, 2012, "For one day only, August 22, 2012, the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, Bankruptcy Procedure, Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure and Evidence may be downloaded at no charge on the rulebook app.  All you need to do is download the free app and then download the federal rules, which will be priced "free" on that day."
(read more here: http://bit.ly/Nfemtk)
So, even if you don't decide to purchase the Bluebook, go get your free rules!

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Ask us a question by IM or texting

In addition to our in-person and telephone reference desk service, the Law Library also offers instant message and text message reference help. You can use your favorite instant messaging service or send a text message to ask a reference librarian a question.

We offer real-time virtual reference assistance through Google/Gmail Chat, America Online Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo Messenger, and MSN messenger. We also offer reference assistance via text message.

Our online reference hours are the same as our reference desk hours, which are normally Monday to Thursday 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m., Friday 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. and Sunday 12:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

This service is only for law students, alumni and faculty so you will have to ask us for our screenname for instant messaging or our phone number for texting. 

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat