Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the January 28, 2008 issue of InSITE:

• BlackBoxVoting.org
• Blawg Search
• ELS Bibliography
• IRC: International Rescue Committee
• RJ&L Religious Liberty Archive

[RJ]

BlackBoxVoting.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

Black Box Voting is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit elections watchdog group that “investigates election problems, communicates the problems to the citizenry, and teaches citizens how to manage their own government -- which means teaching citizens how to identify elections problems and providing citizens with the tools to oversee elections.”  The group was founded in 2004 by Bev Harris, author of Black Box Voting: Ballot-Tampering in the 21st Century. The book is available for free downloading from various pages of the site. The top link on the home page is to the Citizen Tool Kit, a compilation of 20 modules on how to become involved through becoming a poll worker, auditing the election, monitoring the counting, and so forth. There are specific tool kit modules for candidates, celebrities, and affluent citizens.  The Press Kit answers basic questions about the organization and provides story angles, interview questions, contacts, and resources for reporters. The strength of the site is public participation via Forums where citizens post information about such matters as investigations, relevant news, the election industry, voting technology, and election processes by jurisdiction.  A Tree View of all the topics is helpful in locating and selecting forums. There is a sophisticated search function for all the posts, and archives are available. The threaded conversations are easy to follow and all post authors are required to post their names.  The latest resource is Black Box Videos with posts of investigative work and interviews. The videos are accessed via links to video.google.com. This is a site that reflects the members’ crusade for fair voting. It is neither slick nor fancy but succeeds in getting key information across and allows for citizen interaction. [JC]

Blawg Search
http://blawgsearch.justia.com/

To complement their other offerings, Justia provides BlawgSearch.  BlawgSearch allows users to find law-related blogs—blawgs—in multiple ways.  BlawgSearch offers a search engine, a directory, and a "most popular" section.  The search function is a basic keyword search on the postings of legal blogs.  On the main page of the site, Justia provides a list of recent search terms that are hyperlinked and can be clicked to run as search terms.  The blawg directory is very useful.  For topical access, users will find over 2300 blawgs categorized into 60 topics.  For geographic access, there are state and country listings.  In addition, 234 law school blawgs are categorized by 112 school names.  The most popular feature ranks blawgs by the number of visits originating from BlawgSearch.  Rankings are by current day, current week, current month, and all time.  Monthly rankings for all of 2007 are available, too.  If you do not see a blawg of interest on BlawgSearch, you may suggest it for inclusion. [MM]

ELS Bibliography
http://www.law.ucla.edu/home/apps/els/ 

A joint project between UCLA and Cornell, the ELS (i.e., Empirical Legal Studies) Bibliography provides bibliographic access to recent empirical legal scholarship.  Coverage of the database begins in July 2005, and it is current through July 2007.  Articles were culled from roughly eighty journals, including flagship law reviews from the top forty law schools, law school-based major specialty journals, relevant non-law school journals, and top journals in economics, psychology, sociology, political science, and anthropology.  Articles selected for inclusion in the database were subject to a set of protocols to ensure that they contained significant empirical research.  Each record in the database contains several pieces of metadata, including the author(s) and author affiliation, article title, journal, year of publication, and one or more assigned subject terms.  The database may be searched by one or more of these parameters.  In addition to regular updating of the database, there is a plan to extend coverage back to 2000. [MM]

IRC: International Rescue Committee
http://www.theirc.org/

Since its founding in 1933, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has provided hope and humanitarian aid to refugees and other victims of oppression and violent conflict around the world.  It is currently active in 25 countries assisting in the aftermath of natural disasters and armed conflict.  “Who We Are” identifies directors and officers, gives contact information, and posts complete financial statements for the past two years. Indeed, every page of the website highlights IRC’s high charity rankings for efficient use of funds and requests donations.  “What We Do” describes assisting in areas such as Anti-trafficking, Children, Economic Recovery and Development, Health, and Immigration Assistance.  Each area of assistance includes several specific programs. For example, “Children” includes youth programs, separated children, child soldiers, and education.  “How You Can Help” emphasizes advocacy to Congress on IRC target issues. Some programs have a Research Library link to websites and documents (project descriptions, lectures, briefings, and papers).  The “News from the Field” section is of  use to researchers looking for information on current events, with articles from around the world, staff blogs, a list of issues in focus, a “crisis watch,” and “hot zones.” A multimedia section offers podcasts, photo essays, videos, RSS feeds, and an e-newsletter to keep current on humanitarian efforts. The IRC site is complex and requires drilling down to find specifics. The site does a very good job in educating the world about its role and in highlighting important global issues. [JC]

RJ&L Religious Liberty Archive
http://www.churchstatelaw.com/

Sponsored by Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons LLP, the Religious Liberty Archive is an extensive repository of resources for anyone seeking information about state and federal laws pertaining to religious freedom in the United States.  Here visitors may view Supreme Court cases and commentaries, state statutes, and important historical documents and speeches relevant to religious issues in the United States.  Cases are browseable by topics such as “Abortion” or “Censorship,” or viewable by date or case name.  Some of these cases have commentary by the Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons law firm.  Statutes are browseable by act name.  The Archive also provides law review articles and treatise excerpts.  A wonderful resource of the Archive is the “Historical Documents Outline” section, which contains the full text of early colony charters, state constitutions dating back to 1776, Congressional debates, Presidential proclamations, ands statements regarding religion and religious liberty. [BWK]

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InSITE contributors: J. Callihan, B. Kreisler, M. Morrison, J. Pajerek (editor)

InSITE highlights selected law-related Web sites in two ways: as an annotated publication issued electronically and in print; and, as a keyword-searchable database. The law librarians at Cornell
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