Many legal researchers may not be familiar with the Congressional Research Service (CRS), an arm of the Library of Congress that provides the Congress with research and analysis of legislative issues. For example, recently released CRS reports address such issues as:

• The Alternative Minimum Tax (ATM) for Individuals, Recent Legislative Activity
  
• Constitutional Limits on Hate Crime Legislation
• The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board

Access to CRS reports is inhibited by the lack of a comprehensive source the provides the full text of all CRS reports. The closest thing to such a database is the Open CRS site, which includes a search engine to locate reports that have been made available to the general public. This site is provided as a service of the Center for Democracy & Technology.

Continue Reading »

Find today’s BU news (and weather information) at the very great BU Today webpage.  Take a look!

See you at 2pm in room 312.

This week’s Weekly Workshop is on Keeping up with the Profession.  We’ll be going over ways to keep up with the latest legal news and developments.  See you Thursday at 2pm in room 312.

The site public.resource.org made its much anticipated debut this week, providing FREE federal District Court & Circuit Court cases from 1789-1880 in PDF format (F. Cas. vol. 1-30), Court of Appeals decisions from 1950 to present (178-999 F.2d, and 1 F.3d-present) and U.S. Supreme Court decisions from the 1754 to present (1 U.S.-present).

Also new this week is the Public Library of Law, containing all of the federal case from public.resource.org PLUS all 50 state case law from 1997-present, federal statutes and 50 state codes, federal and state regulations, court rules, and forms. 

Federal case law at both sites was provided by Fastcase.com.

If you missed our Weekly Workshop yesterday, you can catch up on Blogs and RSS feeds by looking at our presentation and the handout. 

For questions about Blogs & RSS feeds please see Steve Donweber (donweber@bu.edu) or Raquel Ortiz (rmortiz@bu.edu).

If you are curious about blogs and RSS feeds and want to learn how to use them effectively, this workshop is for you!

Please join us from 2-2:30pm in room 312

Read more about this workshop.

Congress has passed H.R. 5140, an “economic stimulus” package to pump money into the economy. The bill was presented to the President and signed into law on February 13.

Those who are studying tax and tax policy may have a particular interest in some of the details.

• The House Ways and Means Committee provides documentation, including a summary of tax provisions, on its web site
• The Senate Finance Committee has posted a staff summary and projected distributional effects of the legislation
• The Congressional Budget Office has provided a cost estimate for the legislation
• A Congressional Research Service analysis of economic stimulus proposals for 2008

For more information on the stimulus package, check the BNA Daily Tax Report or Tax Notes Today.

Please Deliver: Using RSS Feeds to Bring Information to Your Desktop
Thursday, Feb. 14 / 2-2:30pm / Room 312

Wondering what makes a blog better than a webpage?

Or have you noticed one of these symbols on a favorite blog?

All of these symbols mean that the web page or blog can be used with a feed reader to deliver the content to your desktop. The feed reader gets the content from those pages and stores it until you are ready to read it. By using a feed reader, you do not have to remember to visit the site on a regular basis!

Continue Reading »

The law library now subscribes to the MyiLibrary Cambridge University Press electronic book collection consisting of 104 books from 2005-2007, all available in PDF format.  Log in with your BU username and Kerberos password.

You may read the books online, copy text, and take notes online (with a free MyiLibrary account).  MyiLibrary online notes keeps track of the book and page where the text comes from, making it easier later to cite back to the material.

For a complete guide to MyiLibrary, go to our eResources Update.