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April 2, 2009
Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews
Reviews published in the March 23, 2009 issue of InSITE:
International Law Institute
http://www.ili.org/
The International Law Institute (ILI) is a private, non-profit organization that assists developing countries in creating practical solutions to legal, economic and financial problems by providing education and training to government officials, legal and business professionals, and scholars. Located in Washington D.C., ILI describes its global mission as one designed to “raise levels of professional competency and capacity in all nations so that professionals everywhere may achieve practical solutions to common problems in ways that suit their nations’ own needs.” Originally founded as a part of Georgetown University in 1955, ILI established its independence in 1983 and now has regional centers in Kampala, Uganda, Abuja, Nigeria, Cairo, Egypt, Santiago, Chile, and Hong Kong, SAR. Since 1971, ILI’s staff of professionals has trained over 14,000 individuals from more than 185 countries. ILI provides education and training in procurement, privatization, arbitration and mediation, negotiating and implementing trade agreements, legislative drafting, judicial administration, corporate governance, and bank restructuring, among many other topics. In addition to training, ILI provides advice and consultation services for governments and multilateral organizations, while also publishing books on international and transnational commercial law, trade, litigation, commercial dispute resolution, foreign legal systems, U.S. law and many other areas. ILI’s books are written by both U.S. and non-U.S. authors, and ILI “welcomes publishing proposals from authors who have written, or might be planning to write, monographs, reference works, or practice guides.” ILI’s website primarily serves as a forum within which to market their various services. A link to the Publishing Catalogue provides the reader with a topical list of publications available. For those seeking a specific title, the list may also be viewed alphabetically. Clicking on the title of a book will provide an abstract of the book, a photo of the book’s cover, and pricing and ordering information. The books are very current, and there are notices about new items and updated editions that will soon be arriving. Although little of what ILI has to offer on its website is without cost, it does provide free access to its newsletter, where readers can gain a full appreciation of the depth of their expertise and experience. [AE]
LitiLaw: Legal Article Research Portal
http://litilaw.lexbe.com/
With the advent of new and expanded Continuing Legal Education (CLE) requirements for practicing attorneys, there has been a surge in materials generated for CLE conferences and seminars. Until recently there was no central location in which to collect the tremendous volume of resources created in response to the demand for CLE credit. Today, LitiLaw provides a free compilation of over 1,000 full-text legal articles that were written by lawyers and published for CLE purposes. Serving as both a portal and a database, LitiLaw links to copies of materials available on the Internet while also soliciting materials from individual authors to be hosted on LitiLaw’s site. Articles are available in PDF and PowerPoint format, and are organized by topic into more than 50 substantive and procedural areas of the law for browsing. Some procedural areas include alternative dispute resolution, appellate practice, ethics, civil trial practice, and evidence; a few substantive areas include antitrust, bankruptcy law, banking and finance, environmental law, trusts and estates, and tax law. The site provides a rudimentary search engine that performs best for broad search parameters. Users may need to conduct more than one variation on their search, then sift through the results. Although this serves as a manageable navigation method for now, LitiLaw would do well to consider upgrading its search engine to a more sophisticated model as the site continues to grow. Perhaps one that supports basic Boolean searching would be helpful. Currently, a search for “computer forensics” produces excellent results, but a search for “computer & forensics” produces no results. In light of these limitations, it is important to note that search results may be sorted by date written, date added, category, or article title. An online form is available for authors who are interested in providing links to their articles, or who are interested in uploading copies of their articles to be hosted by LitiLaw. LitiLaw provides clear credit for the articles, including title, author, publication, year published, and number of pages, as well as a description of the material written by the author itself. Authors are also responsible for including principal keywords for the search engine to retrieve, for selecting the category in which the article will be placed, and for obtaining appropriate permissions. Visitors to the site may sign up to receive RSS feed, and a periodic newsletter is available via email with features on best practices, tips, selective current articles, and independent software and technology reviews. Ultimately, the site serves to benefit all users by providing exposure for authors while at the same time providing a significant amount of high quality, topically specific material for readers. LitiLaw likely has the potential to become a notable resource in the realm of online legal research. [AE]
Nixontapes.org
http://www.nixontapes.org/
Historians Luke Nichter and Richard Moss have created the nixontapes website to make available, for free, the audio recordings and transcriptions of the many hours of President Nixon’s phone calls and meetings. Researchers would otherwise have to access this material at the Nixon Library or at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. Thus far, the nixontapes collection consists of 2150 hours in more than 6000 audio files. The site’s creators strive for a very high level of accuracy. Thus, they listen to the highest possible quality of digital audio and then review each transcript multiple times before posting. If there is disagreement about what was said on a particular segment of a tape, that segment is marked as “unclear” in the transcript. The site creators admit that it can be “very difficult to render the natural speech found on the tapes;” they welcome visitors who listen to the audio to provide feedback. While there are many transcriptions that still need to be posted, the material currently on the site is organized into three groups: conversations based on participant, thematic material, and chronological releases. When accessing any of these file groups, users will find a chart that specifies the date, time, and participants of the conversation. The audio for each is an MP3 file, while the transcript for each is in PDF. [MM]
InSITE contributors: A. Emerson, 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 evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them. This information can be accessed via the channels below, in addition to this mailing list:
http://www.ili.org/
The International Law Institute (ILI) is a private, non-profit organization that assists developing countries in creating practical solutions to legal, economic and financial problems by providing education and training to government officials, legal and business professionals, and scholars. Located in Washington D.C., ILI describes its global mission as one designed to “raise levels of professional competency and capacity in all nations so that professionals everywhere may achieve practical solutions to common problems in ways that suit their nations’ own needs.” Originally founded as a part of Georgetown University in 1955, ILI established its independence in 1983 and now has regional centers in Kampala, Uganda, Abuja, Nigeria, Cairo, Egypt, Santiago, Chile, and Hong Kong, SAR. Since 1971, ILI’s staff of professionals has trained over 14,000 individuals from more than 185 countries. ILI provides education and training in procurement, privatization, arbitration and mediation, negotiating and implementing trade agreements, legislative drafting, judicial administration, corporate governance, and bank restructuring, among many other topics. In addition to training, ILI provides advice and consultation services for governments and multilateral organizations, while also publishing books on international and transnational commercial law, trade, litigation, commercial dispute resolution, foreign legal systems, U.S. law and many other areas. ILI’s books are written by both U.S. and non-U.S. authors, and ILI “welcomes publishing proposals from authors who have written, or might be planning to write, monographs, reference works, or practice guides.” ILI’s website primarily serves as a forum within which to market their various services. A link to the Publishing Catalogue provides the reader with a topical list of publications available. For those seeking a specific title, the list may also be viewed alphabetically. Clicking on the title of a book will provide an abstract of the book, a photo of the book’s cover, and pricing and ordering information. The books are very current, and there are notices about new items and updated editions that will soon be arriving. Although little of what ILI has to offer on its website is without cost, it does provide free access to its newsletter, where readers can gain a full appreciation of the depth of their expertise and experience. [AE]
LitiLaw: Legal Article Research Portal
http://litilaw.lexbe.com/
With the advent of new and expanded Continuing Legal Education (CLE) requirements for practicing attorneys, there has been a surge in materials generated for CLE conferences and seminars. Until recently there was no central location in which to collect the tremendous volume of resources created in response to the demand for CLE credit. Today, LitiLaw provides a free compilation of over 1,000 full-text legal articles that were written by lawyers and published for CLE purposes. Serving as both a portal and a database, LitiLaw links to copies of materials available on the Internet while also soliciting materials from individual authors to be hosted on LitiLaw’s site. Articles are available in PDF and PowerPoint format, and are organized by topic into more than 50 substantive and procedural areas of the law for browsing. Some procedural areas include alternative dispute resolution, appellate practice, ethics, civil trial practice, and evidence; a few substantive areas include antitrust, bankruptcy law, banking and finance, environmental law, trusts and estates, and tax law. The site provides a rudimentary search engine that performs best for broad search parameters. Users may need to conduct more than one variation on their search, then sift through the results. Although this serves as a manageable navigation method for now, LitiLaw would do well to consider upgrading its search engine to a more sophisticated model as the site continues to grow. Perhaps one that supports basic Boolean searching would be helpful. Currently, a search for “computer forensics” produces excellent results, but a search for “computer & forensics” produces no results. In light of these limitations, it is important to note that search results may be sorted by date written, date added, category, or article title. An online form is available for authors who are interested in providing links to their articles, or who are interested in uploading copies of their articles to be hosted by LitiLaw. LitiLaw provides clear credit for the articles, including title, author, publication, year published, and number of pages, as well as a description of the material written by the author itself. Authors are also responsible for including principal keywords for the search engine to retrieve, for selecting the category in which the article will be placed, and for obtaining appropriate permissions. Visitors to the site may sign up to receive RSS feed, and a periodic newsletter is available via email with features on best practices, tips, selective current articles, and independent software and technology reviews. Ultimately, the site serves to benefit all users by providing exposure for authors while at the same time providing a significant amount of high quality, topically specific material for readers. LitiLaw likely has the potential to become a notable resource in the realm of online legal research. [AE]
Nixontapes.org
http://www.nixontapes.org/
Historians Luke Nichter and Richard Moss have created the nixontapes website to make available, for free, the audio recordings and transcriptions of the many hours of President Nixon’s phone calls and meetings. Researchers would otherwise have to access this material at the Nixon Library or at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. Thus far, the nixontapes collection consists of 2150 hours in more than 6000 audio files. The site’s creators strive for a very high level of accuracy. Thus, they listen to the highest possible quality of digital audio and then review each transcript multiple times before posting. If there is disagreement about what was said on a particular segment of a tape, that segment is marked as “unclear” in the transcript. The site creators admit that it can be “very difficult to render the natural speech found on the tapes;” they welcome visitors who listen to the audio to provide feedback. While there are many transcriptions that still need to be posted, the material currently on the site is organized into three groups: conversations based on participant, thematic material, and chronological releases. When accessing any of these file groups, users will find a chart that specifies the date, time, and participants of the conversation. The audio for each is an MP3 file, while the transcript for each is in PDF. [MM]
InSITE contributors: A. Emerson, 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 evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them. This information can be accessed via the channels below, in addition to this mailing list:
- Searchable database or by browsing current and archived issues on the web: InSITE home page (http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/insiteasp/)
- RSS feed (http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp)
- Print format for the Cornell Law School community.
April 2, 2009 in Reviews | Permalink
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