Tara Calishain is the co-author of Official Netscape Guide to Internet Research, 2nd Edition, and author or co-author of four other books. She is the owner of CopperSky Writing & Research.
In This Issue:
Find All Kind of Correspondence Information online at SendSpot.com
Supreme Court Adds Oral Argument Transcripts
CourthouseDirect Announces New Site
xrefer.com Search Engine Adds Encyclopedia; More on the Way
Guinness Book of World Records Launches
LLRXBuzz Archives: April 3, 2000 – Present
LLRXBu zz Research Tip Archives
The Latest on Legal Research
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New Links at Pac-Info
Public database index Pac-Info ( http://www.pac-info.com ) is both setting up a database engine for their site and preparing to create sections for more parts of Canada and Europe. In the meantime, here are some of the latest additions to the site.
Arkansas – Uniform Commercial Code Filings
Global – Attorneys
Global – Insurance Companies
Global – Intellectual Property Database
Global – Patents (WO)
Global – Shipping – Schedules by Departure Port/Arrival Port/Carrier
Global – Shipping – World Shipping Directory
Global – Shipping Directory of Owners, Managers, Port Authorities, etc.
Idaho – Business Entity Search
Idaho – Corporations & Assumed Business Names
Idaho – Lobbyists
Find All Kind of Correspondence Information O nline at SendSpot.com
There’s a new Spot in town. SendSpot ( http://www.sendspot.com/ ) provides the skinny on lots of different kinds of correspondence, including mail, packages, faxes, and, yes, e-mail. If you’ve ever wondered how to contact a company, get a new e-mail address, get advice on writing business correspondence, tracking packages, and more, you’ll get it all right here on one fast-loading page. If you like this spot, be sure to check out the other Spots – including LibrarySpot. You can get the whole list of spots at the bottom of this page: http://www.startspot.com/
Supreme Court Adds Oral Argument Transcripts
The Supreme Court has added oral argument transcripts to their site at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/calendar/argument_trans.html . The arguments are transcribed by an external company and are placed on the site after a 10-15 day delay. The arguments will be permanently archived on the site. The current arguments are from the October Term 2000, which lasts through September 30, 2001. At the moment , there are eight transcripts available. Transcripts are available only in PDF format, so make sure you’ve got a reader.
CourthouseDirect Announces New Site
Courthouse Direct has announced the launch of its website that provides electronic document images of Deeds, Mortgages, Releases, IRS Liens, Assignments, and other county Real Property and Official Record filings via the Internet. Users can obtain documents from 110 counties nationwide and obtain addresses, telephone numbers, drive-it maps, and links to free county and statewide databases of public records nationwide. The site contains over 1 billion pages with 150,000 more being added daily. Check out the press release at http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001023/tx_courtho.html .
Woo-hoo, Time for the Flu
It’s about that time of year again — flu season. This year The National Flu Surveillance Network is offering a Web site to track occurrences of influenza across the country. The site is at http://www.fluwatch.com , and unless you have the Flash plugin, you won’t see anything on the front page. Actually, I have the Flash plugin, and it’s enabled, and I still don’t see anything on the front page. You can give it a try.
However, you don’t need a Flash plugin — hooray! — to check out http://63.106.144.35/nycflu/ . The NYC Department of Health continues its streak of doing Really Cool Stuff online with a database of places where one may get a flu shot. Choose a borough from the list on the site, and you’re presented with a clickable graphic of the borough. Click on an area and you’re presented with a list of places to get a shot. (You can also just enter an area code.)
The list of places includes name of the facility, address, and fee. Clicking on the facility gives you information about its flu shot schedule, who they will give shots to (some places are senior centers and provide shots for those 65 or over or those who are high-risk only), and whether they accept Medicare or Medicaid. Nicely done, no Flash required, go take a look.
xrefer.com Search Engine Adds Encyclopedia; More on the Way
Reference search engine xrefer.com ( http://www.xrefer.com ) has added the 2001 Macmillan Encyclopedia to its content. The encyclopedia has over 25,000 entries and brings the whole engine count to 39 books and over 297,000 entries. An xrefer.com spokesman told me that there were several books scheduled to be added over the next month or so, including:
Oxford Companion to Philosophy
Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics
Fowlers Modern English Usage
Dictionary of English Place Names
A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford University Press
A Dictionary of Shakespeare
Guinness Book of World Records Launches
Yes, you can get all kinds of weird information at www.guinnessworldrecords.com/home.asp . Make sure you have a solid connection and the Flash plugin — this is kind of a heavy site. Keyword search is in the upper-left part of the page. Once you’ve entered a search term in there, a box will pop up with advanced search capabilities. Keywords will sometimes get you more than you bargained for — for example, searching for “oldest” brought 76 results, including “largest collection of nail clippers” and “coldest place on earth.” Clicking on a search result updates the main page. In the popup search box you can narrow your search by category, country, and date. Unfortunately, it appears that you have to have a keyword — you can’t, for example, request all the world records from France. If you’d rather browse the categories, look on the left side of the screen for Record Categories — you’ll get a drop-down menu of categories. From there you can browse through several pages of all kinds of things. There’s also a variety of other information here — the Daily Wow, information on applying to break a world record, and an option to register so you can build your own page of records of interest, etc. (I really like how they offer registration as an add-on and not an imperative for using the site. Smart move.) Worth a look.