50 state surveys have long been a staple of summer work for associates, research assistants, and librarians.  Before you start searching every state code, be sure to check out compilations of 50-state surveys such as the ones listed below.  It's far easier to update someone else's survey than do one from scratch.

• National Survey of State Laws
• Subject Compilations of State Laws is a listing of published 50-state surveys.  It's arranged by subject. 
  
• The National Conference of State Legislatures keeps track of online compilations of websites that track laws and regulations across the 50 states. 
  
• Lexis: CODES;SURVEY
• Westlaw
• Statutes: SURVEYS
• Regs: REG-SURVEYS

The editors for the 19th edition of the Bluebook are soliciting feedback and suggestions.  Take the online survey or email the editors for a paper copy of the survey. 

The Supreme Court and the Second Amendment are analyzed in this recent CRS Report examining District of Columbia v. Heller.

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.

Have you been longing to see that hometown newspaper?  You've probably heard about the Newseum's grand opening this weekend on Pennsylvania Ave., but check out their website which displays the front page of hundreds of daily newspapers in their original, unedited form. You can sort the papers by region, scan through a list organized by state or click on a map to see the dailies covered. Once you view a paper, a direct link to the publication's website is available for easy browsing.

Join Jennifer Davitt in the EBW CLC on Friday, March 28 at 11:30 am to learn more about research in Administrative Law topics.

Sign up for this class and check out the other classes being offered throughout the Spring semester for Faculty Research Assistants here.

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.

Ever wonder how much money the U.S. government is spending on its contracts, or which contractor receives the most money from the government? A newly unveiled website, USASpending.gov, tracks federal contracting dollars and grant awards by contractor, contracting agency and place of performance in response to the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.



By the way, PepsiCo received over $191 million in 2007 while The Coca Cola Company received $27 million in the same year.

Join Marylin Raisch, the International and Foreign Law Librarian, in the EBW CLC today to learn more about doing research in International, Foreign and Comparative Law.

Sign up for this class and check out the other classes being offered throughout the Spring semester for Faculty Research Assistants here.

The Government Accountability Office Feb. 21 released a congressionally mandated report on currency transaction reports indicating that expanded use of existing exemptions could reduce the cost and regulatory burdens associated with anti-money laundering obligations.

Banks have promoted legislation that would allow them to extend current exemptions to include "seasoned" customers. The House passed the Seasoned Customer CTR Exemption Act (H.R. 323) in January 2007 and sought to attach such a provision to financial services regulatory relief legislation that cleared Congress in 2006 (125 PRA, 6/29/06 a0b2y6m8h0 ). Although lawmakers passed the Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act of 2006 without the additional exemptions for CTRs, they included a provision calling on the GAO to study the usefulness of the reports to law enforcement agencies.

The GAO examined CTR filings from 2004 through 2006 and conducted interviews with many banking officials. The report's findings suggest that CTRs remain useful to law enforcement agencies, which have greatly improved their ability to extrapolate valuable information about criminal activities from the data.

However, the GAO also recommended that Treasury routinely publish "summary information on law enforcement uses of CTRs, provide additional guidance on the documentation needed to demonstrate eligibility for some customers, revise certain regulations that deter exemptions, and provide Web-based material to help depository institutions interpret exemption requirements."


Read the entire article about the GAO report in the BNA story -- available through the library's institutional subscription.

The full text of the GAO report is online.