CDC Releases Intimate Partner Violence Report

An excellent new resource for background and data on what is a public health as well as a criminal justice problem--domestic and intimate partner violence--is now available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  Based on a nationally representative, random survey of over 16,500 adults (both women and men) conducted in 2010, Intimate Partner Violence in the United States - 2010 is now freely available on the CDC website.  A publication of the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Division of Violence Prevention, the report covers the prevalence, frequency, demographics, and the impact in terms of physical and mental health, of physical and sexual violence, stalking, and psychological aggression by an intimate partner.  Anyone interested in domestic violence issues or related research should check out this new report.  

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New York State of Mind*

Our next Life-Line Research workshop will focus on how to research New York law efficiently and cost effectively.

When:  Wed, March 12 noon-1pm
Where:  Rm 014
R.S.V.P.:  lawdek@hofstra.edu
Plus:  lunch and surprise gift

* with admiration to Billy Joel




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Budget for the U.S. Government, FY 2015

On March 4, 2014, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released President Obama’s Budget for the U.S. Government, FY 2015. Have a look at the current and past U.S. budgets here.


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Research Resources: GlobaLex

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:

• Nuclear Law Research Guide By Linda Tashbook

Updated research guides:

• The Crisis in Darfur: Researching the Legal Issues by Amy Burchfield
• An Introduction to Sources for Treaty Research By Mark Engsberg and Mary Beth Chappell

To Access Globalex:

• Go to the Library's home page, click "Online Resources"
• Then, click on the "International Law" or "Foreign/Comparative Law" link
• Scroll down, click the "GlobaLex" link

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Hein Online Search Tip

The Hein Online databases contain an enormous quantity of useful legal material but is not the most user friendly interface.  So, here are some simple tips:

1.  Terms are not case sensitive but the connectors are.
2.  Place words in quotes to be treated as a phrase, ie "buyer beware".
3.  The connectors AND/OR must be in caps.  You can use & instead of the word AND.
4.  You can set a date range by date:[1938 TO 1945].  Note that the "TO" is in caps.
5.  The * is a multiple character wild card.  Use it in the middle of a word "lab*r to find all variations; or at the end of a word such as employ* to find words that have "employ" as the root.  It is the same idea but slightly different than how the wildcard and root expander work on Lexis and Westlaw. 

Remember that the documents in Hein Online are PDF so it is worth your time to learn to use properly.

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Research Resources: Product Safety & Liability Reporter (BNA)

If you are interested in a weekly publication that offers coverage of developments and issues in product safety, liability litigation and regulations, take a look at BNA's Product Safety & Liability Reporter.  The Reporter also contains information on product recalls, enforcement actions, litigation strategies and more.  Dates of coverage are from January 19, 1996 to the present.

To access the Product Safety & Liability Reporter (BNA):

• Go to the Library's home page, click "Online Resources"
• Click the "Consumer Law" link
• Scroll down to "Product Safety & Liability Reporter (BNA)"

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2013 Country Reports on Human Rights

This week the U.S. State Department released the latest of its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (known popularly as the Human Rights Reports), and submitted them to Congress, as required by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151 et seq.). The Human Rights Reports cover human rights developments and practices during 2013 in all United Nations member states and all countries receiving U.S. assistance. They inform and assist not only Congress in framing foreign policy legislation, but also other governments, journalists, researchers and non-governmental aid organizations worldwide.

The 2013, 2012 and 2011 Human Rights Reports, with global overviews, features for selecting reports on individual countries and filtering by issue across countries, and key United Nations human rights documents, are available here on the Department of State website.  The site also provides the text of all Human Rights Reports going back to 1999.

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Research Strategically

Discover how to develop a research strategy with smart ways to tackle tough questions at  the first of the Library's Research Life-Line Workshop Series.  

[This workshop had been cancelled from earlier in Feb. due to snow storm #87 - o.k., maybe that is an exaggeration, but you get the point.]

Date:  Wed. March 5
Time:  12:10-1p
Where:  Room 243

Lunch and surprise gifts for all attendees.
Please R.S.V.P. at  lawdek@hofstra.edu

See complete schedule of Research Life-Line Workshop series, for details on future workshops.

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Supreme Court Ruling in Recent Personal Jurisdiction Case

Does the phrase “minimum contacts” ring a bell (or evoke a shudder)? In a case that will trigger recollections of first-year Civil Procedure for upper-year students, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that “no matter how significant plaintiff's contacts with the forum may be, those contacts cannot be ‘decisive in determining whether the defendant's due process rights are violated.’ Moreover, the minimum contacts test looks to the defendant's contacts with the forum state itself, not the defendant's contacts with persons who 

reside there.”

Read more here.

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eBooks at Hofstra

"Did you know that many of the ebooks licensed by the Library can be downloaded to your computer or portable device?  The downloading capability is not available for all ebooks, because some publishers restrict downloading.  Most ebooks in the Library's collection from Ebsco, which comprises over 100,000 titles, can be downloaded.  

Unfortunately, the process is not as straight-forward as you might find on a Kindle or similar device, but with a little set up it is pretty straight-forward.  There is a LibGuide that outlines the process for the ebooks from Ebsco and from several other publishers.  It can be found here:  http://libguides.hofstra.edu/download_ebooks"

Hat tip Howard Graves

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