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:
More Immigration Law Resources
Domania Acquires More Data on Home Sales
Foreview Launches Information Service
Ohio Offers Electronic Government Services
NY Times Introduces College Times
LLRXBuzz Archives: April 3, 2000 – Present
LLRXBu zz Research Tip Archives
The Latest on Legal Research
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More Immigration Law Resources
After reading last week’s LLRXBuzz, a reader sent me a note pointing me to ILW.COM, an immigration information portal at http://www.ilw.com. This site contains a directory of over 600 immigration lawyers (searchable by language, state, and specialty), has daily and weekly newsletters on immigration news, offers bunches of immigration forms, offers forums and chats with lawyers and immigrants — there’s just a lot of stuff here is all! Check it out.
Domania Acquires More Data on Home Sales
Domania <http://www.domania.com/index.jsp> has acquired additional information on the sales prices of homes, also called “comps.” Domania’s information covers 26 million records of home sales in 565 counties across the United States, including 84% of the largest metropolitan areas. Comps for Texas are not included because it is a non-disclosure state.
You get to the information from the front page of the site. You can search for sale prices on a specific address, the whole street, or the neighborhood. The
search covers 1987 through now. Search results will give you the address of the property, the month and year of sale, and the price. There’s a table for beds, baths, and assessed value, but that requires registration (registration asks for your name, e-mail address, and asks several questions about your home ownership status.) Not all information about bed, bath, and rooms are available, and assessment isn’t available all the time either.
Another feature of this site is Inside Scoop, for some not-so-practical information in real estate market news (not practical for us, anyway), and practical information, like what to avoid when buying a condo.
Foreview Launches Information Service
Foreview <http://www.foreview.com/> has launched an information service providing research analysis for businesses. Information can be requested in the form of a trend analysis or question to the experts. Trend analysis offers a literature search, with information focusing on the last six months and up to 25 articles.
A high-lit search has key points of the Lit Search highlighted, and a synopsis search provides a 3-5 page synopsis of the literature search. Expert questions can be answered by e-mail, conference call, or chat rooms.
Trend analysis cost can range from $395 for a literature search to $995 for a synopsis. Expert questions cost from $435 to $1,500, depending on how
many experts you want to respond to your question.
Additional features are the Foreview Magazine and Foreview University. The magazine requires registration to read. The University will begin offering its 30-60 minute classes during the third quarter of 2001. Topics will include subjects like “Intellectual property protection in Japan,” “Merging with a company in the European Union,” and “Outsourcing in India.”
Ohio Offers Electronic Government Services
The Ohio government has started offering electronic services to its citizens via the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) at http://www.oplin.lib.oh.us/ . To reach the services OPLIN offers, click on Discover Ohio and click again on Ohio Electronic Government Services. The three services currently available are: OPLATES, for renewing vehicle registrations; Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation; and the Ohio Secretary of State.
The Discover Ohio site is a good source of information, even if you’re not looking for electronic governmental services. It is a network of links to general
information sources about the state, like consumer info, Ohio travel, Ohio history and job postings. The Secretary of State’s site includes a campaign finance database for Ohio, while the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation has information on legal and filing issues for worker’s comp. Worth a look.
New York Times Introduces College Times
New York Times: March 28, 2001. The New York Times has launched the College Times Web <http://www.nytimes.com/college/> site. Information on the new site is categorized into academic disciplines for both college faculty and students. In addition to instructional resources, the Faculty section offers ideas for incorporating the NYT into class instruction, Teaching Strategies, education news, and suggestions for lectures, essays and test. Features for students include the latest college news, book reviews, technology reviews, news in their fields of study, and a chance to register for e-mail alerts.
Students and faculty can search the menu of disciplines or enter their field of study directly into a search box. (Coverage was good — The search engine
nonchalantly returned results for bioinformatics, music therapy, and golf management.) Search results include related categories (click on a category and get news from that category) and news related to the query
terms. I had thought that the New York Times only kept a couple weeks’ worth of materials on their site, but I when searching I found materials that went back to April 2000. It looks like you’ll have to register to access
this section, but it’s worth it. Lots of good stuff here.
Reference Book Database
The Bloomsbury Research Centre <http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com/ARC/Arc_home.asp> is a free online database of reference books (that Bloomsbury publishes) with over 17,000 entries. Resources include the Dictionary of English Literature,
Biographical Quotations, Bloomsbury Thematic Quotations, and the Guide To Human Thought.
Searching is through a simple keyword box. Results are listed in pages of twenty with an excerpt of the entry found, source, and a link to the complete entry. Search terms in the complete entry are highlighted in red.
Google Launches PhoneBook
Google <http://www.google.com> now offers a phone number lookup via their search engine. Enter someone’s name and state (abbreviation), and you’ll get phone number listings if they’re available.
Before you get started, I noticed that this search does not work using the “Bork Bork Bork” interface. I tried it using Opera and Bork Bork Bork, and it
didn’t work. Tried the same search using Mozilla and the standard English interface, and it worked fine. So if you don’t see the phone numbers, go to the plain English interface. Enter the person’s name and state
— like John Smith CA. If there are phone numbers available they will be put at the top of the search results. If they’re not, you’ll just get the Web results you’d normally get by searching for +John +Smith +CA.
If you don’t want your phone number listed, Google offers a form by which you may ask to have it removed from their search. It’s available at
http://www.google.com/intl/en_extra/help/pbremoval.html.