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:
LexisNexis to Release New Jersey Annotated Statutes
University of Washington Offers Free Web Mini-Courses
LLRXBu zz Tour of 50 State Web Sites
LLRXBu zz Archives : April 3, 2000 – Present
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LexisNexis to Release New Jersey Annotated Statutes
LexisNexis plans to release the New Jersey Annotated Statues on July 1 to New Jersey legal researchers. The product will include annotated statues with links to New Jersey law reviews. It will also have links to related material from other state treatises including NJ Business Corporations as well as Labor and
Employment in New Jersey. Cost? No additional charge to current customers with online subscriptions that include the New Jersey state legal documents. Check out the press release about this new addition at
http://library.northernlight.com/FD20020521280000092.html.
Labor Law Database Released
Business for Social Responsibility has released its online labor law database. The product, Labor Law, includes supply chain compliance resources and reports documenting labor requirements in over 60 countries.
The front page at http://laborlaw.bsr.org/index.cfm lists the countries from where information is available. Clicking on a country will open an overview with population and historical details. Some other details are available but depend on the country. The detailed reports, available only to subscription customers, provide more specific labor issues such as freedom of association and child labor.
Additional features offered to subscribers include a search engine, issue briefings and tools/information. More details on the site are available from BSR’s press release at
http://library.northernlight.com/FC20020521920000163.html.
Politics 1
Politics 1 (at http://www.politics1.com/) is a non-partisan guide to American politics. The site features a What’s Hot update and a keyword search function.
A site directory is in the left column. Sub-heading under The Presidency include the Bush administration and the 2004 presidential race. Click on Pol. Parties to open a directory of political parties in the United States. Of course it starts with the Democrat and Republican parties, which are followed by a very extensive list of Third Parties including, the American, Grassroots, Independence and Libertarian Parties. Other parties conclude the page, parties which “that have yet to field or endorse any candidates for office” (I have never seen so many political parties on one page in my life.)
Sub-headings under issues run from Abortion to Women and include Left, Right, Radical and Immigration. I opened Education and found links to sources including newspapers, organizations, databases and more. Annotation is limited but political position of links are generally noted (Gun Issue links are noted as being pro or anti.) Other headings in the Site Directory include Political Consultants, Calendar and News Links. Lots of information here, certainly worth a look.
Google Updates Toolbar
Google has released version 1.1.56 of their toolbar with a couple of new features. You can download it for Internet Explorer at http://toolbar.google.com/ You won’t see the features immediately upon installing the new version; instead, you’ll need to go to the Toolbar Options page and choose the Experimental Features link — it’s towards the bottom of the page. Once there, you’ll have three options:
– Combined Search Button: This makes a drop-down button from which you can access Google search services (regular search, image search, dictionary, stock quotes, etc.) I did not see access to all search services: for example, I didn’t see a search for Google News or the new functions of Google Labs.
– The option to suppress the onUnload JavaScript event, which should suppress the “exit popup windows” you sometimes get when you leave a Web site.
– Search Results Navigation Options — The new toolbar offers next and previous buttons, which enable you to surf through a list of search results. Hit the first result, wander around in that site for a while, then hit the Next button and you’ll immediately move to the next result on the list. Nifty.
When I initially tried to download the new version, I had 1.1.54 loaded on my IE browser (it’ll be a fine day when this works in Mozilla.) I tried to download the new version on top of the old one, but that didn’t work. I ended up having to uninstall the old one, then install the new one. It’s worth it. Take a look.
More searching fun from Google! Check out the full article at
http://www.researchbuzz.com/articles/2002/googlelab0521.shtml.
University of Washington Offers Free Web Mini-Courses
Last week the University of Washington offered free mini-
courses from the OpenUW (http://www.outreach.washington.edu/openuw/). Courses include Greek Mythology, HTML Basics, and Business Communications.
After you’ve agreed to the terms of service and registered (registration requires name, zip code, e-mail address, and the confirmation that you’re above 13 years old) you’ll be given access to the mini-courses. The ones I looked at were multipart discussions of a particular topic, with quizzes at the end of each part and a concluding quiz.
These courses are non-credit and are designed to take just a few hours (though the may take a fast reader considerably less time than that.) They’re nothing like an actual credit course or even a good book, but they’re nicely designed and impart a digestible amount of information. Worth a look.