Quick link: Legal Journal links by USC

USC’s head of cataloging maintains a comprehensive list of law journal links. My favorite aspect of this resource is its regular updates. This one is worth bookmarking, so you will be ready the next time you are searching for a law journal article.

Hints & Highlights

• Journals are categorized by subject
• Choose the category of law journals that best suits your research needs – e.g., foreign law, commercial law, or general law reviews
• Beware, not all of these journals offer free copies
• Stick with the journals that show “F” next to their names – they allow access to the full texts of articles.

Quick link:  Google Guide
Quick link:  Google Cheat Sheet

Early last year, I attended Nancy Blachman’s presentation for librarians on using Google.  All the nifty features I had never noticed blew me away. Her Google Guide tutorial is excellent for improving your searching skills.

Nancy makes it a point to keep up with Google’s inhouse developments, and she seems to know people who work there.  However, her site is not affiliated with Google.

 

I want to highlight a sampling of the tips I learned from Nancy on using Google…

Hints & Highlights

• Use the tilde (~) to search synonyms of a word
  • Example: lighthouse ~glossary
  • This will search for glossaries about lighthouses (as well as definitions, terminology lists, and other related documents).
• Use two dots (..) to search within a range of numbers
  • Example: recumbent bicycle $250..$1000
• Include the hyphen (-) in your search where a term is sometimes but not always hyphenated
  • Do not search for “email”   (This search will only cover the exact word, email)
  • Do search for “e-mail”  (This search will include e-mail, email, and e mail)
• Use prefixes
  • define:   If I type “define:temerity” - Google gives me the definition of this word
  • movie:   If I type “movie:recruit”  -  Google gives me links to Web pages about the Pacino movie, The Recruit, and excludes websites about recruits or recruiting
  • weather:   If I type “weather:las vegas” –  Google takes me straight to Las Vegas weather sites

If you are a busy Googler reading this post, at least print out Nancy’s Google cheat sheet and keep it at your desk.

Quick link: JD.MD’s Medical and Dental Abbreviations Glossary

My most intimidating paralegal assignment always was a medical records summary. I probably took four times longer than I should have whenever I had a stack of medical records to tackle. Thank goodness for medical dictionaries!

Today I want to provide a link to an online medical and dental abbreviations glossary that seems quite useful.  JD.MD are medical and dental malpractice experts who put it together.

Hints & Highlights

• Download the PDF version for viewing or printing; or
• Use the alphabet menu to go directly to the webpage you need.
• Print out the 15-page glossary as a ready reference (but you may want to return to the site occasionally for updates).

The glossary is short but packed with abbreviations. It can’t replace a medical dictionary, but it seems like a handy, quick reference to either bookmark or print. They say they update it weekly and you can email them for help.

If anyone reading this is experienced in medical records summaries, please let me know what you think! I hope to develop more resources in this area.

Quick link:  Cornell LII – Constitutions, Statutes and Codes

In 1999, I discovered Cornell University Law School’s Legal Information Institute (LII) and I was hooked.  Cornell’s presence on the Web was progressive at the time.  Here was a law school giving me access to all state and federal laws in one place!  Today, I still consider it a favorite one-stop place for legal research and like to recommend it to other library students.  I have not found another law school to match Cornell’s service and coverage.   

Cornell’s page, Constitutions, Statutes, and Codes, is the place to go when you need to access federal or state laws.  Even if you know where to find your state’s codes online, remember LII for researching the laws of other states when the need comes up.

  
For state law:

• Just click on the name of the state you are researching
• The link will take you to more than just codes (including pending legislation, opinions, court rules, and bar associations)

For federal law:

Choose from the following links:
• U.S. Constitution
• Full U.S. Code
• Uniform Commercial Code (UCC)
• and more

Here’s a tip:

If you are unfamiliar with the code sections of a state but are clear about your topic, click the State Statutes by Topic link instead of clicking on the state’s name.

         Example:  I am researching South Carolina’s motor vehicle laws, but once I get to the code I probably will be lost trying to find the right sections. 
 
         Solution:  By going to State Statutes by Topic, I can see the links to the motor vehicles laws of all states.  The link for South Carolina takes me straight to Title 56, South Carolina’s motor vehicle laws.

I encourage everyone to explore LII.  You’ll be glad you did.

Quick link:  Law.com Dictionary

Don’t we all need an online legal dictionary at times? 

I have been exploring them, looking for (a) comprehensiveness and (b) ease of use.  Sadly, I had to discount several online sources for failing in either regard.  However, here is one worth bookmarking…Law.com Dictionary

 Hints & Highlights

• Search single words or phrases
• Use the first search box—Enter a Legal Term—to retrieve the definition of a word or phrase.
• Use the second search box—Search the Definitions—to retrieve results that have your search term inside a definition.
• Use the third search box—Choose a Letter—to browse the dictionary (nice because it gives you the feel of looking through actual pages). 
• Use the radio buttons as necessary to specify “any words” or “phrase”
• Check out the links to related terms at the bottom of dictionary entries. 

 

The masterminds behind this dictionary, Gerald and Kathleen Hill, are true scholars who have created a high quality resource.  The Law.com Dictionary meets my personal requirements of comprehensiveness and ease of use.  I particularly like the clear wording of the definitions.

Quick link: The Ultimates

The Ultimates is a megasite directory for finding people. It was created to offer people a fast and simple way of running searches across multiple directories. From one website, you can run your search through different resources.

This site is worth mentioning in my blog, but I must say it has dropped some of the free directories in favor of ones that charge for info, making it less useful than it used to be.

Hints & Highlights

• From the top of the page, select the feature that best suits your research needs…
• Use the Ultimate White Pages to find the phone number and/or address of a person
• Use the Ultimate Yellow Pages to find contact information for a business
• Use the Ultimate Email Directory to find a person’s email address
• Get to know which links take you to pay-only sites and learn to avoid them if you want free info
• Be patient with some links opening in a new window/tab, while others open in the same place you ran your search

Overall, this site is worth bookmarking. You just have to get a feel for which search buttons really lead to free results.

Quick link:  Law Reviews Online        

I certainly remember the days when I had to walk to a law school or public law library to make copies of law review articles.  Otherwise, I had to log in to Westlaw and pay for a copy.  Today, more and more law schools are making their journals available through their websites at no charge. 

Folks at the Library of Congress have been kind enough to organize links to law reviews online so we can access them from one place.

Hints & Highlights

• Free coverage of some journals is limited by date or featured articles
• Find and explore the back issues section of a law review’s webpage to see how far back the online coverage goes
• Scroll down to the bottom of the Law Reviews Online webpage for links to more resources
• If you have the citation for the article you want but don’t see the journal name here, go straight to the law school’s website; you just may find what you need

Quick link:  LexisOne Free Case Law  

LexisOne offers legal resources for small firms and solo attorneys.  Here, I am featuring their free case law research.

Hints & Highlights

• Register for free to retrieve search results
• From the LexisOne home page, follow the link to “Free Case Law”
• Search by keyword or citation
• Narrow search by state or federal court jurisdiction
• Narrow search by entering date restrictions

For keyword searching:

• Use ! to search all variations of a word 
  Example: acqui! – for acquire, acquisition, acquiring
• Use * to replace characters
  Example: wom*n – for woman and women 

For parties’ name search:

• Type “name” with the names in parentheses
  Example: name(Roe AND Wade)

Beware, the free stuff is limited.  You have to provide a credit card number for extra features, like to Shepardize or to follow links to cases cited within the case you looked up.  Many of the other LexisOne features lead to documents and services you have to buy; however, the prices do seem reasonable.

Quick link: Librarians’ Internet Index

Librarians’ Internet Index (LII) is a portal to websites librarians have evaluated and consider reliable.

Topics include business, government and law. It is an annotated directory of thousands of useful Internet resources, and they can be searched easily in one place.

For my market research on renewable wind energy, I started with a broad search in LII for “renewable energy” and retrieved links to 25 sites. From there, I narrowed my search by adding the word “wind” which reduced the list to ten. The site automatically pushed the ones most relevant to wind energy to the top of my relevancy ranking. LLI’s directory provided me with several reputable Web sites, particularly to government agencies.

Hints & Highlights

• For business research, click the Business topic and browse to find the best subtopic.
• For keyword searching, your results will be broken down into subtopics for easy narrowing of choices.
• When you find a resource you like, note the names of LII’s topics and subtopics for it, because those subject headings will be useful for all your library research on the subject.

The best thing about LII is it leads you to resources that librarians trust, so you can too!

Quick link: PeopleData

Earlier I highlighted ZabaSearch in my blog as a tool for finding people. Now I realize I need to add PeopleData to the list.

Lately ZabaSearch seems to be leaving out the dates the addresses were recorded. PeopleData, however, more consistently shows complete information. So, for now, I prefer PeopleData to ZabaSearch.

Hints & Highlights
 

• See the tips in my ZabaSearch post because they also apply to PeopleData
• Use PeopleData to figure out which address for a person was most recently recorded
• Just because an address does not show a date, that does not necessarily mean it is old, so still consider it
• Remember to follow up with WhitePages.com for a crosscheck

 

There are many more people-finding sites. I will continue to post them here.