The University of Georgia's new Civil Rights Digital Library provides organized access to the resources of nearly 100 digital collections to provide a single source for online civil rights research.

The excellent interface allows browsing (Events, People, Places, Topics, Collections) and searching of the collections. There are articles, photographs, legal and government documents, moving images, posters, broadsides and other sources (see the complete list of media types).  The collections of the Thurgood Marshall Law Library at the University of Maryland, the Tarlton Law Library at the University of Texas, Yale Law School, and the Virginia Center for Digital History Information at U.Va. are just a few of those included (click here to see more).

Did you know that law students do not generally have access to Lexis and Westlaw during the summer?

However, if you are in a summer academic program, working on a school project, working at a non-profit or unpaid internship, or studying for the bar exam, you may qualify for enhanced access.  Use the links below to register and for more information.

• LexisNexis Summer Access Program (for all summer access information)
  
• Westlaw
  
  • Academic, Non-Profit & Internship use (you will be required to sign in to access the form)
  • Bar Prep Access, sign on and click the banner ad on the right promoting
    the graduate survey and password extension program. Complete the survey and extend your
    password. 

The Georgetown librarians and Lexis & Westlaw reps (log in for contact info) are happy to help you with questions.

You may already be using OCLC's WorldCat.org to find book titles. Now, approximately 20 million records that describe journal articles have been added to the ones already in  WorldCat.org. These records represent articles in the British Library's "Inside Serials" service. If you find a WorldCat.org citation to an article that you would like to read, look at the bottom of the record for the link that says, "Check full text availability." This will take you to a screen that lists the databases (that Georgetown subscribes to) where the article is available. Click again to get to the journal online.

From Health Highlights:

Last week, California research librarian Gloria Won prompted Johns Hopkins officials to change a U.S.-government-funded web site dealing with population issues so that the word "abortion" was restored as search term in the site's search engine. In response to an inquiry from Ms. Won, Debra L. Dickson, an administrator of the POPLINE database, admitted that abortion had recently been made a stop word. "As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now," said Dickson. Dr. Michael J. Klag, Dean of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Friday (April 4) told POPLINE administrators to restore "abortion" as a search term "immediately."

I've always liked Google Scholar, but up until recently I haven't found it particularly helpful for finding law review articles.  Until today.  I just noticed that Google Scholar now searches HeinOnline, which has one of the largest online collection of law review articles.  I can't tell how much of HeinOnline is being searched by Google Scholar.

Google Scholar is different from Google because it searches only databases that have scholarly content and aren't searchable by Google as they aren't part of the free web.  Google Scholar doesn't provide access to the full-text of these articles (your library does that), but it is an quick and easy way to search multiple databases at one time. 

Georgetown students should be sure to set their Scholar Preferences  so that you'll have access to all of the databases that the Library purchases (including HeinOnline).  (To do so, search for Georgetown Law in the Library Links search box).

Facebook has been using the Facebook Beacon to track what web sites users use, and shares this information with its partner sites. The Idea Shower blog explains the concept, as well as how to block the Beacon, and provides interesting updates on public and media response.

KeyRules, a new tool just introduced by Westlaw, allows users to locate all applicable court rules in a jurisdiction using a single search.  According to West's recent press release, after running a single search, "KeyRules gathers all applicable rules governing common federal and state court procedures and condenses them in a single easy-to-read document" with links to the cited rules.  KeyRules is available in various locations on Westlaw, including the tabbed Litigation and State Litigation pages and the relevant state jurisdictional pages.  Note, however, that KeyRules is currently only available for all federal district courts, the Court of Federal Claims, and select state and local courts in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Texas.  Click here to see the full press release.

Portions of the Congressional Record that have never been online are now available on HeinOnline.  Currently, volumes 1-69 (1873-1928) and 121-182 (1975-2007) are online and fully searchable. 

For the first time, legal researchers can use online searching techniques to analyze congressional debates on legal topics that are still relevant today such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Ethics in Government Act. 

Hein is adding more volumes of the Congressional Record; soon congressional debates on other ground-breaking legislation such as ERISA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Voting Rights Act will be available. 

Georgetown users can access the Congressional Record online from anywhere.  Newer volumes of the Congressional Record  (1994 forward) are freely available from GPO Access, while a few of the first volumes are freely available online from the Library of Congress.

On February 21, 2008, Reed Elsevier, which owns Lexis/Nexis, announced its intention to acquire ChoicePoint Inc., a leading provider of information-based services to businesses and governments.  Reed Elsevier will combine ChoicePoint with the LexisNexis® Risk & Information Analytics Group.
More information is available through the Lexis/Nexis update page, or through news services such as the Washington Post story.

Check this out: The Public Library of Law provides:

• "Cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals
• Cases from all 50 states back to 1997
• Federal statutory law and codes from all 50 states
• Regulations, court rules, constitutions, and more!"

Free registration is required to view the full-text of cases and it doesn't quite offer all the bells and whistles of Lexis and Westlaw. Nonetheless, for "life after law school", it's a resource worth knowing about.