Academic OneFile

Just in time for paper writing, Hofstra has a new multi-disciplinary articles database: Academic OneFile. A premier source for full-text, peer-reviewed articles from the world's leading journals, Academic OneFile offers especially strong coverage of science and technology, health and medicine, economics, business and literature. Authoritative, comprehensive and updated daily, Academic OneFile brings together millions of articles from 1980 to the present, many of them available in PDF. Academic OneFile is an Axinn Library database accessible through the Hofstra Portal with a network password.
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Black Cat Day

Sunday is Black Cat Day. (You humans, for some undecipherable reason, call it "Halloween". Go figure.)

So being a virtual Law Library Black Cat (yes, virtual cats can have a color), I decided to stalk the Web for laws on Halloween. I have to give it to you humans (which is rare for a feline to admit), even if you cannot get the name straight, one of you did put together Weirdest Halloween laws in the country .

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Visual History of the Supreme Court

Timeplots.com has created a beautiful poster/webpage which diagrams the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, including all of its justices, who appointed them, when they served, and landmark decisions. It is viewable here. A snapshot of part of it is below.

This is part of a three-part project which also includes wonderful diagrams of the histories of the U.S. Senate and the Presidency.





Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Library of Congress: Guide to Law Online

The Guide to Law Online, prepared by the Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, is an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information.
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Justis: new to Law Library's online resources

Hofstra Law Library is pleased to announce that we now subscribe to Justis: it is the online legal library of UK, EU and Irish law dating from 1163 to the present day. If you are engaged in European Union legal research, this database is for you. It has complete information (full text) and a strong / flexible search interface. The historical UK database is also useful.

Justis may be found on the Law Library's website under online resources - foreign/comparative law; and online resources - international organizations.
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Just the Facts

With just over a week to go in what can safely be described as a contentious election, this is a good time to think about facts. Exactly how accurate are the claims of politicians and political advertising?

There are a number of good web sites to help answer this question. PolitiFact.com , sponsored by the St. Petersburg Times, provides a "Truth-o-meter" judging the degree to which a claim or ad is accurate. For another site, try FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center .

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

ABA May Support Greater Law School Transparency

ABA President Steve Zack recently told a gathering of law school deans and professors that the organization is considering a proposal that would require accredited law schools to disclose cost and employment statistics to all accepted law school applicants. Read more here.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Regulating the Legal Industry - International Perspectives

Think that the large number of U.S. law school graduates are making the job market too tough for young attorneys? Apparently other countries have problems with regulating the legal profession that make similar issues in the U.S. seem paltry. In India, there are over 1,000 law schools. And, in Japan, only 25% of people who sit for the bar exam pass (a huge increase from the previous number: 3%!). (from the National Law Journal)


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Law Library of Congress: Congressional Hearings

The Law Library of Congress contains approximately 75,000 volumes of printed Congressional Hearings.

"As part of the Law Library’s transition to the digital future, a collaborative pilot project was undertaken with Google, Inc., to digitize the entire collection and make it freely available to Congress and the world. Three collections have been selectively compiled to provide users with a test experience:"

• Census: U.S.
• Freedom of Information/Privacy
• Immigration

For each Hearing, all of the text is in searchable PDF format.
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

MetaLib

MetaLib is a federated search engine that searches multiple U.S. Federal government databases, retrieving reports, articles, and citations while providing direct links to selected resources available online. You can search in a variety of information resources, such as catalogs, reference databases, digital repositories, or subject-based Web gateways. These information resources can be local or remote. A search may be basic, advanced or expert.
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat