Law Librarian Blog

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the April 21st, 2008 issue of InSITE:

• IANSA: International Action Network on Small Arms
• Secrecy News
• Small Arms Survey
• Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society
• UC Berkeley Library's Congressional Research Tutorials

[RJ]

IANSA: International Action Network on Small Arms
http://www.iansa.org/

The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is a network of 800 organizations in 120 countries, seeking "stronger regulation of guns in society and better controls on arms exports." The website provides coverage of the activities of the member organizations and tracks current developments and news items related to small arms and light weapons (SALW) including the manufacture, licit and illicit trade, use, control and destruction of these weapons. The site seems very much "by and for" activists and advocates of arms control; the global breadth of the organization and its nature as a consortium of independent partners makes for some unevenness in content. The pages for some regions or specific campaigns are updated much more frequently than others. The site features a Google-based search engine which helps to locate specific content but also suffers from the usual problems of Google's algorithms. Multiple "rolls" of links and feeds along with minimal editorship make for a somewhat overwhelming feel. IANSA's website seems best used as an aggregation site for news items and links to member organizations and as a general survey of arms control issues. Users seeking in-depth, specialist coverage of specific issues on small arms control would do better to consult the Small Arms Survey (also reviewed in this issue of InSITE). [JPC]

Secrecy News
http://fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Secrecy News is the website of the Federation of American Scientists (“FAS”) Project on Government Secrecy.  FAS’s mission is to provide the public with timely, non-partisan analyses of global issues which involve science and technology.  The Secrecy News website is a subsidiary FAS project, written by Steven Aftergood, a senior research analyst at FAS.  The site is a blog, whose entries contain information and updates on government secrecy.  There are links to most documents cited in the blog postings.  Most of these documents are hosted on FAS website (www.fas.org), but are not created by FAS.  They are generally PDFs of publicly available documents, such as legal complaints, government investigation reports, and press releases.  The blog may also link to FAS web pages that index publicly available documents on specific topics, such as the State Secrets Privilege.  Secrecy News only contains links for blog entries, organized by date of posting; it is not indexed by topic areas or specific issues.  Users can run a simple search of the blog through a search box at the top of the page.  Secrecy News’ coverage begins in mid-January 2006 and is ongoing.  Users can receive security news updates from Secrecy News via email, or sign up for its RSS feed. [LB]

Small Arms Survey
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/

The Small Arms Survey is a research project of the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. As a research project, the Survey seeks "to act as a resource for governments, policy-makers, researchers, and activists in terms of information and research on small arms issues." The site has a functioning search engine and many of the links in the site map are only to brief, introductory descriptions of the topics listed. However the Survey is worthwhile for the reports available in the "Spotlight" and "Publications" sections. These documents (in PDF) include regional and annual reports on the trade, use and control of small arms, with foci on specific countries, campaigns, and economic and social aspects. For example, the 2006 annual report included a section on reduction for demand of small arms. The site is clearly intended for specialists and researchers, with possible secondary use by policymakers and advocates. As a whole, the site is more tightly focused on provision of in-depth information than is the more activist-oriented IANSA website. [JPC]

Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/

Housed at Stanford Law School, the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) is a part of the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology.  As a public interest technology law and policy center, CIS brings together academics, legislators, scientists, and others “to study the interaction of new technologies and the law and to examine ... how the two can either promote or harm public goods like free speech, privacy, ... and scientific inquiry.”  The website highlights the resources and activities of the Center, including the Cyberlaw Clinic and the Fair Use Project.  Designed to give students practical experience, the Clinic represents various litigants who are pursuing cases that affect the public interest and technological development.  The Clinic’s cases are listed with links to opinions, petitions, and other documents when these are available online.  The Fair Use Project has been active since 2006 working to expand creative freedom by clarifying and expanding the boundaries of fair use.  The content here, as with much of the site, is presented in blog format.  Also available on the site is Packets, the CIS newsletter.  Packets provides a concise digest of recently decided cyberlaw cases. [MM]

UC Berkeley Library's Congressional Research Tutorials
http://sunsite3.berkeley.edu/wikis/congresearch/

The tutorials on this site are the work of Jesse Silva, Federal Documents and Political Science Librarian, and Karen Munro, E-Learning Librarian at the University of California, Berkeley. They have created five videos covering the basics of Congressional research using the resource noted in parentheses:  how to find bills from 1989 to present, (Thomas), how to find a report (LexisNexis Congressional), how to find debates from 1873 to present in print (Congressional Record), how to find debates from 1989 to present online (Thomas), and how to contact your federal representatives (Senate and House web pages). The running time for each is noted at the beginning of the tutorial and times vary between two and five minutes. A pause button lets users go at their own pace and practice before moving on.  Each tutorial begins with a statement about what you will learn and concludes with a summary of what you learned. The tutorials use an actual research problem, such as finding a hearing on the 1979 nuclear reactor incident at Three Mile Island and finding debates on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Instruction is given via brief explanatory inserts highlighting relevant parts of the search pages.  The videos automatically click and type on web pages to demonstrate searches. However, a live web page that mirrors the lesson page is at the bottom of each screen if you want to point and click yourself. The tutorial dealing with the print Congressional Record features inserts over print pages and highlights where the debates are found on the page.  All of the tutorials are succinct and can be easily understood by the public as well as by law students and legal professionals. The tutorials give the viewer an appreciation of the scope of information available from each of the resources.  For more experienced researchers, the site features U.S. Congressional Search, a Google application by UC Berkeley that searches selected databases: Thomas, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Government Accountability Office (GAO), Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Washington Post, and several others.  [JC]

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

InSITE contributors: L. Buechner, J. Callihan, J. Cusker, 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:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived issues on the web:

        InSITE home page ( http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/insiteasp/)

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.

***A note to our readers: The InSITE website has been revamped and now features a quick search on the home page, in addition to the advanced search previously available.  We've also added a great new feature that allows anyone to search all the websites ever annotated by InSITE with a single click.   It's updated with each new issue of InSITE.  We hope you enjoy these new features of InSITE.
The contents of this publication and any recommendations therein are the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of Cornell University.

Cornell Law Library URL:  http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the April 7, 2008 issue of InSITE:

• Canadian Forum on Civil Justice
• Center on Law and Security
• Copyfight
• Food & Water Watch
• Legislationline

[RJ]

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice
http://cfcj-fcjc.org/

The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) is a Canadian not-for-profit organization founded by the Canadian Bar Association and funded by Canadian law foundations and governments to "[bring] together the public, the courts, the legal profession and government in order to promote a civil justice system that is accessible, effective, fair and efficient."  The website offers access to all the research publications of the Forum, to a quarterly update called "News and Views on Civil Justice Reform", to the Inventory of Reforms (a collection of detailed descriptions of justice system reforms), and to the Civil Justice Clearinghouse, the most complete bibliographic database of Canadian civil justice and justice administration publications.  The Clearinghouse also provides access to the major civil justice publications from other common law jurisdictions. The search and other usability functions of the Clearinghouse are excellent and response time is short. Some of the materials cited in the Clearinghouse are linked to the full text. Updated regularly, the site provides excellent navigation and search tools. All materials in the site are available in both French and English. [ML]

Center on Law and Security
http://www.lawandsecurity.org/

The Center on Law and Security (CLS), based at the New York University School of Law, has been dedicated to “an informed understanding of the major legal and security issues that define the post-9/11 environment” since 2003.  The Center provides a forum for various experts in the field of security to boost awareness of issues and to make policy recommendations.  The website provides information on the Center’s programs, publications, and events.  CLS programs address domestic security, global law and security, and the Middle East and Islamic fundamentalism.  The Center’s publications, many of which are available for download, include books, the Terrorist Trial Report Card, and the NYU Review of Law & Security.  CLS sponsors various conferences, speaker series, and open forums.  Details of past and future events are provided.  Event topics include government secrecy, prosecuting terrorism, and the privatizing of defense. [MM]

Copyfight
http://copyfight.corante.com/   

Seven legal and technical expert contributors to this collaborative blog "explore the nexus of legal rulings, Capitol Hill policy-making, technical standards development, and technological innovation that creates -- and will recreate -- the networked world as we know it." Specific topics include "intellectual property conflicts, technical architecture and innovation, the evolution of copyright, private vs. public interests in Net policy-making, lobbying and the law, and more." The blog presents an informal, provocative, and informed view of the current issues from a user-rights perspective. Very current but neither comprehensive nor edited for balance, the blog has provided links into issues since 2004. Easy to use, but without any especially valuable search or archiving functions, the site does generate some conversation among readers. [ML]

Food & Water Watch
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/

Food and Water Watch (F&WW) is a non-profit consumer advocacy organization “that works to ensure clean water and safe food ... by empowering people to take action and by transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.”  The main page of the website links to four specific advocacy areas: "Food," "Water," "Fish," and "World."  The pages for each general area contain further information on issues specific to that topic; for example, the "Food" page contains sidebar links for factory farms and agricultural policy.  The “World” section of the site contains a limited amount of information in German, Spanish, French, and Polish.  The site’s blog contains information on recent state, federal, and international government actions related to its areas of concern.  Users can look at blog entries by topic area through sidebar links.  This site is of limited use for research because most of the information it contains is issue-based, and reflects F&WW’s position.  F&WW is a good way to track recent legal developments related to a specific area of interest.  The website is searchable, and contains a good advanced search engine, which allows users to limit the search by field and by type of document. [LB]

Legislationline
http://www.legislationline.org/

Legislationline.org is a free database available in English and Russian produced by Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), a part of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Launched in 2002, it is designed to assist OSCE member states in drafting legislation that complies with international human rights standards. In 2004 the Legislative Support Unit was created in the ODHIR to pursue legislative reform by providing legal expertise to assess compliance with relevant standards, making recommendations to improve draft legislation, and sharing good drafting practices through Legislationline.org.  The site is uncluttered and has obvious navigational and searching links. Standard information links on each page are: About Us, OSCE/ODIHR Legal Commentaries [on draft legislation], What’s New [enacted legislation], Resources [a link list to international organizations, human rights NGOs, legal resource portals and guides], and Newsletter [registration.] Searching entails using drop down menus to first select a topic. There are currently 10 topics, including terrorism, police, elections, and gender. Additional topics are “works in progress”:  prison service, right to fair trial, independent judiciary and hate crimes. The death penalty is listed as a distinct topic since the information provided deals with global standards of international organizations rather than specific national legislation. Researchers next select one of the 56 members of OSCE (countries essentially in the northern hemisphere). Each resulting country/topic page is in the same format, a summary followed by headings for constitutional law, legislation, case law, other, and news. Researchers can search the site using the advanced search option that allows searching by keyword, topic, country, inter-governmental organization, and date.  Although legislationline.org targets drafters, there is a great deal of information for human rights researchers, from primary law to legal opinions to an extensive list of resources. [JC]

InSITE contributors: L. Buechner, J. Callihan, M. Lines (guest contributor), 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:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived
   issues on the web:

        InSITE home page ( http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/insiteasp/)

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.

***A note to our readers: The InSITE website has been revamped and now features a quick search on the home page, in addition to the advanced search previously available.  We've also added a great new feature that allows anyone to search all the websites ever annotated by InSITE with a single click.   It's updated with each new issue of InSITE.  We hope you enjoy these new features of InSITE.

A Quick Look at PatientsLikeMe

PatientsLikeMe is a website that permits patients diagnosed with life-changing disease to share medical data and learn more about treatments, drug doses, clinical trials and symptoms of a variety of diseases. The site is establishing data-sharing partnerships with doctors, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, research organizations, and non-profits so if you are interested in participating in the site, read the privacy policy.

In Practicing Patients (New York Times Magazine, March 23, 2008), Thomas Goetz reviews the site and its implications. Goetz observes:

By telling so much, the members of PatientsLikeMe are creating a rich database of disease treatment and patient experience. ... The 7,000 members of PatientsLikeMe, in other words, are beta testers — they may be the vanguard of how we all will care and treat our resume of chronic diseases.

I highly recommend reading Goetz's article.

Personal Note. A friend has atypical trigeninal neuralgia, a very debilitating neuropathic disorder of the trigeminal nerve that causes intense pain in the eyes, lips, nose, scalp, forehead, and jaw. Trigeminal neuralgia is considered by many to be among the most painful of conditions and is often labeled the "suicide disease" because of the significant numbers of people taking their own lives when they cannot find effective treatments. [MedlinePlus Description | Patient Education Institute' Tutorial]. Oftentimes, I have suggest to her that she should share her experiences by creating a blog. PatientsLikeMe is probably a much better way to share experiences and information with other TN patients. [JH]

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the February 25, 2008 issue of InSITE:

• Iraq: the War Card
• Legacy Tobacco Documents Library
• Lincoln and His Circle
• OAKList Database
• State of Public School Integration

[RJ]

Iraq: the War Card
http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

Iraq: The War Card is a product of the Center for Public Integrity, “a nonprofit organization dedicated to producing original, responsible investigative journalism on issues of public concern.” Beginning with a detailed overview, which includes a chart of false statements by month, the project analyzes every public statement made by eight top Bush administration officials leading up to the U.S. war on Iraq, from September 11, 2001 through September 11, 2003.  Every direct and indirect false statement, defined in the site’s Methodology section, made during this time relating to Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and potential links between Iraq and Al Qaeda was counted.  The result is a searchable database of “380,000 words of Iraq-related public pronouncements by top Bush Administration officials.”  The site also features information on the officials at issue, highlights key false statements, provides an interactive timeline, reports public opinion poll results, and includes a bibliography.  The project has been extensively covered by the news media and should be of interest to anyone concerned with the U.S. war in Iraq. [JJ]

Legacy Tobacco Documents Library
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/

The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LTDL) is a digital collection within the Tobacco Control Archives at the University of California at San Francisco.  With more than forty-three million pages, the LTDL offers documents "created by major tobacco companies related to their advertising, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and scientific research activities."  The collection provides documents dating from the late 1800s, with the bulk of the material from the latter half of the twentieth century.  The collections in the library are organized by company or industry group, including Lorillard, Philip Morris, and the Tobacco Institute.  The site offers basic, advanced, and expert searching options with all three allowing searches to be narrowed by collection.  Basic searches can be limited to author, document type, text, metadata, and title.  Advanced searching provides additional features of basic Boolean operators and date restrictions.  Expert searching allows more complex search queries with the notable addition of searching by field.  The number of fields available is extensive so users will want to consult the Field Descriptions page.  Another way to access material is through the Popular Documents section.  In this section, selected documents are made available under the categories of Industry Activity, Marketing to Women, Secondhand Smoke, and Smoking in Movies. [MM]

Lincoln and His Circle
http://www.library.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=379      

Lincoln and His Circle is a project of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Rochester (New York).  The project is digitizing for online access the “letters to, from, and about Abraham Lincoln” held in the Department’s collections.  Project materials have been taken from the papers of William Henry Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, as well as materials donated by the Fred L. Emerson Foundation of Auburn, New York.  The collection includes letters written by Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, and Edwin M. Stanton, who served as Secretary of War.  The index to the collection may be browsed or searched by writer of the letter, recipient of the letter, or date.  Each index record includes the place of writing and the name of the collection from which it was drawn.  Each page of the letter is a separate image file linked from the index record.  The project is a work-in-progress and will be expanded in the future. [MM]

OAKList Database
http://www.oaklist.qut.edu.au/

The OAKList (Open Access to Knowledge), led by a team of law professors at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, aims to "facilitate better access to research, especially that which is publically [sic] funded … "  The OAKList database allows anyone to search for a publisher or particular publication to discover that organization’s open access archiving policy, i.e. whether authors may also publish or "archive" their work in an open access repository, such as SSRN or an institutional repository.  Policies are color coded: green allows both pre- and post-print archiving, blue allows post-print archiving, yellow allows pre-print archiving, and white indicates archiving is not formally supported.  The database draws upon a number of sources for information, including SHERPA/RoMEO and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).  For academic authors interested in open access to their work, this is a great resource to help them select OA- friendly publishers.  Currently, there are few U.S. law reviews included in the database, so its usefulness to U.S. law faculty is limited. [JJ]

State of Public School Integration
http://www.s4.brown.edu/schoolsegregation/

Brown University’s interdisciplinary initiative, the American Communities Project, provides information to scholars and the public about trends that affect neighborhoods, cities, and regions around the country.  It utilizes data from the U.S. Census and other specialized sources to provide visitors with demographic information over time.  The "State of Public School Integration" web pages provide analysis of trends in court-ordered desegregation in relation to the racial and ethnic composition of U.S. public school districts between the years 1968 to 2000.  Visitors may browse the site by school district to view ethnic and racial composition data along with cases (if any) that involved that district.  The visual representation of the demographic data allows for quick comprehension of changes over time.  This site also provides several reports on the state of school segregation in the present time.  Researchers and educators interested in the Brown decision will appreciate the site’s history and timeline of this landmark court case. [BWK]

InSITE contributors: J. Jones, 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
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:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived
   issues on the web:

        InSITE home page ( http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/insiteasp/)

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.

***A note to our readers: The InSITE website has been revamped and now features a quick search on the home page, in addition to the advanced search previously available.  We've also added a great new feature that allows anyone to search all the websites ever annotated by InSITE with a single click.   It's updated with each new issue of InSITE.  We hope you enjoy these new features of InSITE.

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the February 11, 2008 issue of InSITE:

• Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler
• Compassion Index
• Real Lawyers Have Blogs
• State Cancer Legislative Database Program
• Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice

[RJ]

Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler
http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/WhatWeHave/SpecialCollections/Donovan/Hitler/index.cfm

"The Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler" is a fascinating report that is part of Cornell Law Library’s Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection. The collection consists of nearly 150 bound volumes of Nuremberg trial transcripts and documents from the personal archives of General William J. Donovan (1883-1959). General Donovan worked on the staff of Chief Prosecutor Robert H. Jackson (later U.S. Supreme Court Justice Jackson) which gave Donovan a unique perspective on the war crime trials.  "Wild Bill" Donovan is better known for his work as head of the Office of Special Services (OSS) during World War II, which led to his recognition as the father of the CIA, which morphed from the OSS after the war. The report was commissioned by the OSS in preparation for dealing with Hitler and Germany after the war. The analysis of Hitler was compiled by Dr. Henry A. Murray, a pioneering psychologist of the time and Director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic. Only 30 copies of the report were created so the analysis has not been widely available. Cornell Law Library’s copy is the only copy easily accessible to the public online. The site includes a PDF version of the 227 page report.  The entire book or parts thereof can be downloaded from the Table of Contents page.  A “More Info” option gives links to related articles about the Nuremberg collection, Dr. Murray, and the OSS. The site provides an interesting look at Hitler and the emerging field of psychology. [JC]

Compassion Index
http://www.compassionindex.org/

The Compassion Index is an offering of the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI).  AWI is devoted to maintaining the well-being of animals by ensuring decent treatment by humans.  AWI has worked for the adoption of many federal animal protection laws, including the Endangered Species Act and the Humane Slaughter Act.  The Compassion Index rates members of Congress on their compassion toward animals by tallying key votes and positions taken on pending legislation.  AWI offers the index as a tool for both promoting legislative accountability and "to facilitate the advancement of federal bills benefiting animals and to defeat measures detrimental to their welfare."  The index may be searched by state, Congressional member's name, or by Zip code.  Each member of Congress is assigned a percentage rating based on his or her degree of agreement with AWI on various pieces of legislation.  There is an entry for each senator and representative detailing his or her votes and positions on legislation.  Currently, the index covers the 109th and 110th congresses.  The site also lists key legislation that AWI is tracking.  There are several bills before Congress of interest to the group, including the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act and the Pet Safety and Protection Act. [MM]

Real Lawyers Have Blogs
http://kevin.lexblog.com/       

Kevin O'Keefe is one of the top industry-acknowledged experts in legal blogdom.  His company, LexBlog, offers lawyers a "turn-key, professional blog service" in the form of blog hosting and promoting.  "Real Lawyers Have Blogs" is Mr. O’Keefe’s own blog, which promotes this service but also acts as one of the best portals and tutorials for the world of legal blogging.  This blog, directed at practicing attorneys, covers law firm marketing, emerging Internet technology, blog basics, search engine optimization, and many other topics.  Substantive legal issues are not covered.  Unlike some blogs which offer a chronologically-arranged archive, this site arranges all content exclusively by topic.  User comments are welcome, and "Real Lawyers Have Blogs" is searchable. [BWK]

State Cancer Legislative Database Program
http://www.scld-nci.net/

The National Cancer Institute's (NCI) State Cancer Legislative Database (SCLD) is a database of state cancer-related legislation covering topics and issues such as tobacco, genetics, access to state-of-the-art treatment, and cancers of the breast, prostate, ovary, and other organs.  This database is a resource for research and analysis of cancer-related health policy, providing summaries of legislation affecting cancer prevention and control since 1989. Designed as a resource for Federal and state agencies, Congress, health departments, universities and research centers, professional organizations, and the general public, SCLD data is not generally available for free on the NCI’s website.  Freely available are fact sheets, the SCLD Update (the organization’s newsletter) going back to 1997, staff presentations, and the SCLD Tobacco Ratings.  The Tobacco Ratings are two indices that measure the extensiveness of state tobacco control laws related to youth access to tobacco and clean indoor air.   Researchers can also find summary information in the SCLD Legislative Snapshots, which contain graphic illustrations summarizing specific issues reported in the SCLD Updates. Custom research queries may be requested, but it is unclear from the website whether this is a fee-based service or not. [BWK]

Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice
http://www.sugarlaw.org/

The Sugar Law Center is a national, non-profit organization providing legal support and advocacy for working people and their communities by "binding corporations and government to their legal and moral responsibilities." The Center pursues aggressive enforcement of Federal, state and local laws governing corporate behavior.  The website is a neatly organized presentation of the Center’s projects and concerns. Highlighted on the home page (as well as listed in the navigation bar) is a link to information about  current efforts to revise the Federal Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification (WARN) Act, legislation that the Center supports. The WARN blog page provides links to proposed legislation, existing primary law, how to express support, and more resources. Also given prominence on the home page (as well as by a navigation link) is a link to “Workplace Concerns” including discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination, layoffs, and pay. The site gives workers a place to submit an online form about their problem for evaluation by the Center’s legal staff. The “Projects” page lists the Economic Bill of Rights, Fair Employment Practices, Workers’ Rights as Human Rights, Community Reinvestment (by corporations receiving tax breaks for creating jobs), and Environmental Justice as additional ongoing activities. The Center is a transparent organization that posts information about its staff, interns and Board members. It also posts its recent court filings and offers a free newsletter. Finally, a list of related websites organized by topic such as Living Wage Organizations, and The Effort to Change Wal-Mart are offered as resources for interested readers. Sprinkled throughout the site are links for those interested in working for the Center or funding it through donations or by purchases of its monographs. The vibrant, colorful website shows an organization actively pursuing its mission. [JC]

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 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:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived
   issues on the web:

        InSITE home page ( http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/insiteasp/)

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.

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]

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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
evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them. This information can be accessed via:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived
   issues on the web:

        Click InSITE at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Via e-mail subscription: send the following request to: lyris@cornell.edu:

        join INSITE-L "your name"

where your name (include the quotation marks) is the name you want to be available to the list's administrator.  You must send this message from the e-mail address where you want to receive the e-list's messages.

4. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.

The contents of this publication and any recommendations therein are the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of Cornell University.

Cornell Law Library URL:  http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

© 2008 Cornell Law Library

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the January 14, 2008 issue of InSITE:

• Debatepedia
• Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders: Crime Broadsides Collected by the Harvard Law School Library
• Human Rights
• Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute
• OpenCongress

Debatepedia
http://wiki.idebate.org/

The International Debate Education Association has teamed with students and alumni from Georgetown University to create Debatepedia, a wiki project that seeks to be the “Wikipedia of debate and deliberation.”  As a wiki, Debatepedia allows users to document published and original arguments, thus empowering individuals in the decision-making process.  Specific debate categories are organized by subject area, geographic region, and hot topic.  Subject areas include Business, Individual Rights, Legal, Religion, and Crime.  Hot topic categories range from Abortion to Welfare.  Under these groupings users will find specific debates.  Within the Legal subject area, debate topics include divorce, hate crimes, prisoners, and school prayer.  Each debate topic may include one or more questions to which users may contribute a pro or con argument.  Many of the debates are still being developed.  While the site can be fun to browse, students may find it beneficial to both read and contribute to the debates. [MM]

Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders: Crime Broadsides Collected by the Harvard Law School Library
http://broadsides.law.harvard.edu/

The Harvard Law School Library has digitized its collection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British crime broadsides, covering the years 1707 to 1891.  Broadsides were a form of street literature printed on one side of the page and were sold to the crowds that gathered for public executions.  Intended for the lower classes, broadsides recounted the crime, the trial of the accused, and included a purported confession.  Broadsides were often styled “Last Dying Speeches” or “Bloody Murders.”  Harvard’s collection of 500-plus broadsides is “one of the largest recorded and the first to be digitized in its entirety.”  The collection may be browsed by title or searched.  Keyword searching is available by title, name, date, site of publication, and subject.  The category search allows users to select one or more items from any of six categories: crimes, year of publication, site of publication, printers, condemned, and victims.  In addition to the Harvard collection, the site links out to other digitized broadside collections. [MM]

Human Rights
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/humanrights/

The Human Rights digital exhibit at the United Kingdom’s National Archives website uses original documents scanned from their collection to illustrate the progression of rights “we today take for granted.”  Covering the eleventh through twentieth centuries, the site is divided into discrete time periods for easy browsing.  Within each, background history for that period is presented, as is a timeline of major events and links to scanned documents relevant to the period.  A glossary provides definitions of less familiar terms, which are also hyperlinked within the exhibit.  For quick access to all the scanned documents, the document index lists in chronological order the exhibit images available.  As most of the documents are illegible to our modern eyes, transcriptions are provided, as are translations where appropriate.  For researchers interested in human rights or legal history, this is a worthwhile website that weaves together primary source material with historical context. [JJ]

Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/index.htm

The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute at Stanford University builds on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project undertaken by Stanford professor Clayborne Carson and for 22 years has served “as the institutional home for a broad range of activities relating to King’s life, the civil rights movement in the United States and the history of struggles worldwide to achieve social justice.” The site is divided into four areas in addition to a Home page with news, mission statement, requests for support, and FAQs.  Major navigation tabs link to the Papers Project, which in conjunction with the King Center is undertaking the task of publishing 14 volumes of King’s papers (Vol. V is now available for purchase); the Liberation Curriculum, to assist high school teachers in teaching about social justice; Public Programs such as conferences, seminars, workshops, dramatic workshops, and King Day celebrations; and About the Institute. The Papers Project has the most coverage on the site, including information about each volume published and a document inventory that is browseable by year and searchable by keyword. The Papers Project lists other publications by King and about King, such as compilations of sermons and speeches, and full text of some articles in HTML (many by Prof. Carson.)  A powerful segment of the site is “The Voice of King” which plays stirring excerpts from King’s sermons, speeches, and autobiography.  Overall, the Institute site contains an enormous amount of information via the King Encyclopedia, an Interactive Chronology, King biography, selected quotes, and daily “news” from the Civil Rights struggle with inspirational quotes from King’s Freedom Journal. Finally, the Institute lists recommended readings and additional links for researchers and offers a fee-based research service as well. The various types of information available make the site a bit confusing to navigate, so the best way to appreciate the wealth of information is by visiting the Site Map which neatly organizes the contents and makes selecting topics simple. [JC]

OpenCongress
http://www.opencongress.org/

OpenCongress is the latest project of the Sunlight Foundation, in partnership with Participatory Politics, designed to bring the full legislative process into the open.  Using bill texts, voting records, and committee reports from Thomas ( http://www.thomas.gov/); campaign contribution information from OpenSecrets.org; news from Google News; and blog posts from Technorati and Google Blog Search; OpenCongress brings together the “big picture” behind each bill on the Hill.  In addition to searching the site, users can browse by bill number, senator or representative name, House or Senate committee, industry, or topical issue, and track or share their interests using RSS feeds and tagging.  Voting trends are analyzed for every politician, stating with whom they most and least frequently vote.  For all categories, results can be ranked by name, most viewed, most blogged, most in the news, etc.  OpenCongress also provides a number of widgets and applications to download, as well as its own blog that reports on Congressional activities.  This is an informative site with a friendly user interface to track legislation and get the “behind the scenes” scoop on Congress. [JJ]

InSITE contributors: J. Callihan, J. Jones, 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
evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them. This information can be accessed via:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived
   issues on the web:

        Click InSITE at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Via e-mail subscription: send the following request to: lyris@cornell.edu:

        join INSITE-L "your name"

where your name (include the quotation marks) is the name you want to be available to the list's administrator.  You must send this message from the e-mail address where you want to receive the e-list's messages.

4. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the November 12, 2007 issue of InSITE:

• Impunity Watch
• Justice for All: the Legacy of Thurgood Marshall
• LOUIS (Library Of Unified Information Sources)
• National Women's Law Center
• Whistleblower Protection Program

Impunity Watch
http://www.impunitywatch.net/

Impunity Watch is a web-based publication offered by the students at the Syracuse University College of Law.  The site, drawing on a Commission on Human Rights report, defines impunity as “the impossibility of bringing human rights violators to account arising from, among other things, a failure of states to meet their obligations to investigate, prosecute, and punish violators . . . ”  Impunity Watch seeks to inform users about impunity issues by acting as a news source and a vehicle for scholarly publication, and by providing a voice to victims.  Taking the form of a blog, the site is organized into seven geographic regions, including Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.  For each region, editors post human rights-related news items — the most recent post under Asia covers the current unrest in Pakistan.  Longer, editorial-style pieces can be found in the Features section.  The Articles section has one submission currently; no doubt, the editors are working to solicit more of them.  Overall, Impunity Watch is an interesting student publication worth following. [MM]

Justice for All: the Legacy of Thurgood Marshall
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/tmarshall/

One of the publications within the State Department’s USINFO website is Justice for All: The Legacy of Thurgood Marshall.  A table of contents provides access to the components of the site, offering a thorough biography while illuminating the milestones of Marshall’s career.  The site covers Marshall’s work as a lawyer, including a section devoted to the Brown v. Board of Education case.  For additional insight, users will want to consult the interview with Jack Greenberg who, in 1954, was a 27-year-old lawyer working with Marshall on the Brown case.  Additional features of the site include a timeline of Marshall’s life, as well as a photo gallery and several video clips. [MM]

LOUIS (Library Of Unified Information Sources)
http://www.louisdb.org/

LOUIS (Library Of Unified Information Sources) is yet another project of the Sunlight Foundation, working here to bring the legal publications of the federal government out into the open for easy public access.  Their “ultimate goal is to create a comprehensive, completely indexed and cross-referenced depository of federal documents from the executive and legislative branches of government,” though they’re not quite there yet, as they freely admit.  Currently in beta release, LOUIS allows users to simultaneously or separately search the full-text of Congressional Reports, the Congressional Record, Congressional Hearings, the Federal Register, Presidential Documents, GAO Reports, and Congressional Bills & Resolutions.  Some advanced search features are available.  LOUIS also allows users to construct a “standing query” as an RSS feed that will alert you whenever a new document satisfies your search.  For those interested in simple access to federal legislative and executive materials, this “one-stop search engine” is a valuable tool. [JJ]

National Women's Law Center
http://www.nwlc.org/

Operating since 1972, the National Women's Law Center (NWLC) is a nonprofit organization focused on major policy areas of importance to women, including economic security, education, employment, and health and reproductive rights, with special attention given to the concerns of low-income women.  The NWLC’s website encourages political involvement through its “Take Action” section, and visitors can stay up-to-date with e-mail alerts.  Its “Information Center” offers a timeline of the Center’s activities, Center newsletters and annual reports, and biographies of the Center staff.  Many visitors will be interested in the site’s “Issues” section, which covers topics such as athletics, education, health, child care, employment, reproductive rights, sexual harassment, and women in the military.  These issue sections offer FAQs, published guides and brochures, press releases, fact sheets, amicus briefs, and Congressional testimony, when available.  The site is searchable and many documents are available in PDF. [BWK]

Whistleblower Protection Program
http://www.osha.gov/dep/oia/whistleblower/

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has designed the "Whistleblower Protection Program" website to provide the general public with an explanation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), and describes how OSHA oversees the whistleblowing provisions of multiple statutes which protect employees who report violations of various trucking, airline, nuclear power, pipeline, environmental, and securities laws.  This site provides the full text of the sixteen statutes enforced by OSHA as well as the regulations governing their administration.  Researchers and practitioners may be interested in the official Whistleblower Investigations Manual, which details the procedures for investigating discrimination complaints.   The site also offers in-depth guides for filing OSHA complaints, even discussing various scenarios and issues such as "imminent dangers," "refusal of dangerous work," and "discrimination for filing complaints."  The site's "A-Z Index" is a good starting place for the researcher, with its extensive list of topics as well as links to news releases, publications, and statistics.  Simple and advanced searching is also available. [BWK]

InSITE contributors: J. Callihan, J. Jones, 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
evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them. This information can be accessed via:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived
   issues on the web:

        Click InSITE at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Via e-mail subscription: send the following request to: lyris@cornell.edu:

        join INSITE-L "your name"

where your name (include the quotation marks) is the name you want to be available to the list's administrator.  You must send this message from the e-mail address where you want to receive the e-list's messages.

4. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the October 30, 2007 issue of InSITE:

• Guantánamo Testimonials Project
• IRIS Center at the University of Maryland, Department of Economics
• Privacy.org
• Rethinking Schools Online
• Workplace Fairness

[RJ]

Guantánamo Testimonials Project
The Guantánamo Testimonials Project strives to collect and make accessible in a single location all the available testimonies of prisoner experience and abuse at Guantánamo.  The project is a product of the University of California, Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA). Testimonies are organized by witness type and include statements of prisoners, FBI Agents, interrogators, prosecution and defense lawyers, military physicians, a chaplain, a marine, a CIA asset, and others.  Most statements are republished on this website in HTML, with links to the original source online where available.  CSHRA takes no stance on whether the prisoners are guilty or innocent, but seeks to assess how the war on terror has and does affect human rights in the Americas.  All testimonials are keyword searchable using the search box at the top of the screen.  The Guantánamo Testimonials Project is a useful, if harrowing, source of primary materials of the conditions at Guantánamo. [JJ]

IRIS Center at the University of Maryland, Department of Economics
The IRIS (Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector) Center, created in 1990 within the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland, focuses on the role of institutions and rules by which individuals organize economic, political, and social activity. By this study, IRIS gains insight into the sources of underdevelopment and advises client countries on remedies. IRIS is premised on the understanding that economic development of poorer countries depends on strengthening property and contract rights and protecting these rights via stable institutions of democratic governments. According its home page, IRIS has completed 190 advisory projects in more than 70 countries, and organized or participated in more than 300 conferences and workshops on topics such as anti-corruption reform, poverty assessment, judicial reform, aid effectiveness, small and micro enterprise development, and capital markets development. The IRIS site gives current news, highlights a featured expert, lists all the impressively credentialed IRIS experts, and provides geographical links to projects. The main substantive areas of the site are entered by tabs leading to IRIS’ four major areas of expertise: Economic and Institutional Analysis; Enterprise Development; Governance and Civil Society; and Legal and Regulatory Reform. Each tab provides an explanation of the scope of the area of study, lists experts, and links to topical articles.  Legal and Regulatory Reform projects include drafting laws (especially dealing with secured transactions), fostering private sector development, privatizing state businesses, training the judiciary, improving existing legal frameworks and access to justice, and establishing government accountability and transparency. In addition to the main center in the US, IRIS has offices in Armenia, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Georgia, and Peru.  IRIS is an excellent resource for economic, legal, and interdisciplinary analyses by experts on underdevelopment in poorer countries and on possible approaches to engendering global growth and stability. [JC]

Privacy.org
Privacy.org is a joint project of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Privacy International.  EPIC is a public interest research center dedicated to promoting awareness of civil liberties and privacy concerns.  Privacy International is a watchdog human rights group focusing on surveillance by governments and corporations.  Privacy.org offers visitors a daily news blog, a directory of news organizations and publications, and a listing of activities for political activists.  The site maintains links to other sites offering information and resources on issues which intersect with privacy concerns, such as children and privacy, consumer issues, and privacy initiatives undertaken by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the European Union (EU).  This site is syndicatable via XML, and is archived for one year.  Privacy.org is also searchable. [BWK]

Rethinking Schools Online
Published since 1986, the activist magazine Rethinking Schools has been addressing progressive policy issues such as vouchers and marketplace-oriented reforms, funding equity, and school-to-work, with articles written by and for teachers, parents, and students.  Rethinking Schools Online (RSO) provides the full text of selected articles from the publication’s current and archived issues, going back to Volume 11, No. 1 - Fall 1996/97.  The tables of contents for Volume 10 are also online.  RSO also provides an alphabetical index of all issues of Rethinking Schools from volume 1, no. 1 (Fall 1986), through volume 18, no. 2 (Winter 2003/04).  The index is by subject, author and headline.  RSO offers special article collections of in-depth analysis and commentary covering issues like the “No Child Left Behind” education policy, school vouchers, and teaching students about Iraq.  Rethinking Schools Online is also full-text searchable. [BWK]

Workplace Fairness
Workplace Fairness (WF), a California non-profit founded in 1994 as the National Employee Rights Institute, “provides information, education, and assistance to individual workers and their advocates nationwide.”  Toward these goals, the website offers workers and others information about employment rights and issues.  The site is organized into several main areas, as well as a set of pages designed for specific audiences.  Under the Your Rights and Job Survival sections, users will find straightforward explanation of various topics, including harassment, discrimination, whistle-blowing, and retaliation.  Within the Issues section, WF provides in-depth discussion of topics ranging from wages and healthcare to unions and undocumented workers.  Within each topic are sets of links to other sites that provide related material.  Pages for specific audiences offer an FAQ style explanation of various legal questions, as well as links to helpful agencies and organizations.  Users will want to consult the Courts and Legislative sections within the Features area.  The Courts section provides listings, by state, of employment cases making news, as well as a digest of cases organized by federal circuit.  The Legislative section offers a state-by-state news roundup of legislation affecting workers. [MM]

InSITE contributors: J. Callihan, J. Jones, 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
evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them. This information can be accessed via:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived
   issues on the web:

        Click InSITE at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Via e-mail subscription: send the following request to: lyris@cornell.edu:

        join INSITE-L "your name"

where your name (include the quotation marks) is the name you want to be available to the list's administrator.  You must send this message from the e-mail address where you want to receive the e-list's messages.

4. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the October 15, 2007 issue of InSITE:

• Cold War Files: Interpreting History through Documents
• Corporate Ethics International
• GlobaLex
• Nautilus Institute
• Pierce Law IP News Blog

[RJ]

Cold War Files: Interpreting History through Documents
The Cold War Files is a joint effort of the George Washington University Cold War Group (GWCW) and the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) and is funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant.  GWCW and CWIHP promote the dissemination of new information on Cold War history, as well as promoting research and scholarship on the Cold War period.  The website offers insight into the Cold War through various features.  The Events section provides a complete timeline from the surrender of Germany in 1945 to the official end of the Soviet Union in 1991.  Profiles of the major players in the Cold War are provided in the People section.  Users will recognize names such as Andropov, McNamara, and Ho Chi Minh, among many others.  The heart of the site is the Documents section, which has close to one hundred PDF files available.  United Nations resolutions, presidential statements, and correspondence from Stalin, Ulbricht, and Kim il Sung are included.  Users will also want to consult the Topics menu, which offers thorough accounts of major moments in Cold War history from the 1953 East German uprising to Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution. [MM]

Corporate Ethics International
The mission of Corporate Ethics International (CEI) is to "transform the role of corporations so that they are once again in service to and under the control of civil society."  Its site is designed for the public and "corporate campaigners" (groups that tackle the corporate issues and practices on CEI's list).  The Resources link is organized by tabs into five areas: Articles and Opinion Pieces, Flash Films (linked to Google video), Recommended Reading, Recommended Viewing, Reports, and Web Based Resources, which lists only two sites, both devoted to combating Big Box stores. The site is current as evidenced by the news articles and conference dates. It is easy to navigate, but some of the information appears under several topics which could cause confusion. CEI links to three current projects. The Business Ethics Network (BEN) pursues corporate issues concerning the environment, health, social justice and labor.  The BEN page updates current campaigns and lists victories, such as persuading Coca Cola to invest $60 million to build the world's largest plastic bottle recycling plant. The Strategic Corporate Initiative is geared to establishing a “road map” to combat transnational corporations that “have become too dominant within our society.” The Big Box Initiative is "to fundamentally change how this industry does business and address the tremendous costs ... from its practices."  Wal-Mart, as a representative of Big Box stores, is of key interest. The "Site Fight Resources" listed for this initiative link to reports, articles, and the two websites mentioned above on tactics to transform Wal-Mart and other Big Box businesses. The CEI site has an obvious slant and the information presented should be viewed in that light. [JC]

GlobaLex
GlobaLex is a product of the Hauser Global Law School Program at New York University Law School, providing specialty research guides in the areas of international, comparative, and foreign law, with nearly every foreign state included.  Written by expert researchers, the guides introduce the subject or jurisdiction at issue, then describe and link where possible to relevant primary and secondary sources, such as treaties, foreign laws, and intergovernmental and non-governmental organization websites.  Examples of topics covered include “International Marine Environmental Law,” “Religious Legal Systems: A Brief Guide to Research and its Role in Comparative Law,” and “A Guide to the Republic of Slovenia Legal System and Legal Research.”  The entire site and all guides are fully searchable.  GlobaLex is an outstanding resource for any researcher looking for authoritative legal research assistance in the areas of foreign, international, and comparative law. [JJ]

Nautilus Institute
Founded in 1992, the Nautilus Institute is a public policy think tank that addresses “critical security and sustainability issues.”  The Institute pursues a mission “to improve global problem solving by applying and refining the strategic tools of cooperative engagement” to problems that undermine global security and sustainability.  Nuclear war and nuclear weapons proliferation in Asia, with special focus on Korea, are issues of particular interest to Nautilus.  The website has several areas of interest. The Institute’s extensive publications are available and organized by both geography and project.  These projects cover energy and the environment, global peace and security, globalization and governance, in addition to the Pegasus Project, which is devoted to coastal ecology and youth education.  Users of the site may avail themselves of two current awareness services: the NAPSNet Daily Report that covers peace and security issues in Northeast Asia, and the EASSCNet that covers security issues in East Asia.  Also, visitors should take note of the Global Disclosure Project.  By utilizing various freedom of information requests, Nautilus has developed a collection of public information on nuclear and other security policy issues. [MM]

Pierce Law IP News Blog
Begun in May 2005, Pierce Law IP News Blog is devoted to news on intellectual property, commerce, and technology.  This blog is part of the Franklin Pierce Law Center IP Mall (annotated in vol. 3, no. 25 of InSITE), which is the definitive collection of intellectual property research materials on the Internet.  Updated frequently, posts are written by students and the occasional professor.  Most posts are extensive and full of original commentary and analysis.  Posts are archived by date and topic and the site is searchable, but does not appear to be syndicated.  Visitors may sign up for email notifications whenever the IP News Blog is updated.  User comments are welcome. [BWK]

InSITE contributors: J. Callihan, J. Jones, 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 evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to
them. This information can be accessed via:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived
   issues on the web:

        Click InSITE at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Via e-mail subscription: send the following request to: lyris@cornell.edu:

        join INSITE-L "your name"

where your name (include the quotation marks) is the name you want to be available to the list's administrator.  You must send this message from the e-mail address where you want to receive the e-list's messages.

4. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.

The contents of this publication and any recommendations therein are the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of Cornell University.

Cornell Law Library URL:  http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the October 1, 2007 issue of InSITE:

• ACS ResearchLink
• AltLaw
• FEC Watch
• Fragile States: the LICUS Initiative
• National Workrights Institute

[RJ]

ACS ResearchLink
http://researchlink.acslaw.org/

ACS ResearchLink is an innovative project, created by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS), designed to bridge the gap between the research papers law students must write and the needs of public interest lawyers.  According to the ACS website, public interest lawyers need legal scholarship to assist them in assessing the strength of specific novel theories, but have limited time and resources.  Law students must write substantial research papers that satisfy their schools’ writing requirements, but frequently struggle for appropriate and interesting topics.  ACS ResearchLink answers the question: Why not give students the option of creating relevant and timely scholarship that will simultaneously serve the public interest?  The interactive database allows lawyers to submit paper topics that students can search for ideas.  After papers are written and graded under faculty supervision, they will be posted in the online library (the library should have its first papers in 2008).  There are many paper ideas currently posted in the database from a range of organizations that include the ACLU, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, various legal aid societies, and more. [JJ]

AltLaw
http://altlaw.org/

In August 2007 Columbia Law School’s Program on Law and Technology, and the Silicon Flatirons Program at the University of Colorado Law School introduced a beta version of AltLaw, “the first free, full-text searchable database of Supreme Court and Federal Appellate case reports.” AltLaw’s mission is to make the law easily accessible to the public and is a resource for attorneys and legal scholars. Over 180,000 U.S. Supreme Court decisions and federal Courts of Appeal decisions dating back 10 to 15 years are now in the database. A chart lets the researcher know the scope of coverage for each court. The advanced search feature (the only search feature) is elegantly simple and includes Boolean and proximity searching as well as date and court parameters. The opinions appear as published by the courts, so the format and type are not standardized across circuits.  Westlaw citations are not yet available but will be included. The creators hope to expand coverage to include federal district and state courts as well.  The “About This Site” page reminds users that AltLaw is a work in progress and encourages researchers to double check results with another legal source. Researchers are also encouraged to check back frequently as new case law is added. [JC]

FEC Watch
http://www.fecwatch.org/

FEC Watch, a project of the Center for Responsive Politics, seeks “to increase enforcement of the nation’s campaign finance, lobbying, and ethics laws” by monitoring the Federal Election Commission (FEC), as well as other government entities.  In addition to educating the public, FEC Watch files complaints, petitions for rulemaking and comments on rulemaking, and submits amicus briefs in relevant cases.  The website is organized into two main tabs: "The FEC" and "The Law."  Under "The FEC" tab, users can learn about the agency, including its history, role, divisions, and its commissioners.  As well, the site explains the enforcement, rulemaking, and litigation functions of the FEC.  Under "The Law" tab, users will find explanation of and access to the various federal election laws.  In addition to PDF versions of the McCain-Feingold Act and various court opinions, the site offers details of regulations and advisory opinions.  Rulemakings are organized into tables that are categorized as active, inactive, or completed.  Also, the site provides an archive of FEC advisory opinions for the years 2002-2004.  Be sure to read the thorough discussion of the FEC advisory opinion process. [MM]

Fragile States: the LICUS Initiative
http://www.worldbank.org/conflict/

This site announces the World Bank's creation of a new unit which funds countries in need of assistance because of fragile governments or infrastructures, or because they are involved in conflict. Often these situations are related and occur in the same country. This new unit of the World Bank will serve as the corporate focal point for external partners, including the United Nations and the European Commission, that are working to provide assistance to states in need. The website presents the research of the World Bank's Task Force on the Work of the World Bank Group in Low-Income Countries Under Stress (LICUS), mostly in PDF.  Portions of site are available in French, Spanish, English, and Arabic. The site is searchable. [JG]

National Workrights Institute
http://www.workrights.org/

Based in Princeton, NJ, the National Workrights Institute (NWI) was founded in January 2000 by the former staff of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Taskforce on Civil Liberties in the Workplace. The Institute was created to be the premier organization championing human rights in the workplace, focusing not on enforcement of current laws but on recommending the promulgation of new ones.  The NWI focuses on issues such as alternative dispute resolution, drug testing, genetic and lifestyle discrimination, medical privacy, and other concerns.  These issue sections on the Institute’s website provides news items, statements, studies, speeches, articles, Congressional testimony, model policies, legislative briefs, and more.  The “NWI in the News” section provides links to relevant external news items, but is not available as an RSS feed.  The NWI site is searchable. [BWK]

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

About InSITE: 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:

1.  Searchable database or by browsing current and archived issues on the web:  Click InSITE at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Via e-mail subscription: send the following request to: lyris@cornell.edu:  join INSITE-L "your name"

where your name (include the quotation marks) is the name you want to be available to the list's administrator.  You must send this message from the e-mail address where you want to receive the e-list's messages.

The contents of InSITE and any recommendations therein are the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of Cornell University. InSITE is copyright protected by Cornell Law Library, © 2007 Cornell Law Library. Permission to republish InSITE issues on Law Librarian Blog has been granted. For permissions, contact Jean M. Pajerek [jmp8@cornell.edu].

Cornell Law Library URL: http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the September 17, 2007 issue of InSITE:

• AILA InfoNet
• American Constitution Society for Law and Policy
• Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
• Reflink
• SIPRI: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

[RJ]

AILA InfoNet

The American Immigration Lawyers Association is the professional organization for U.S. immigration lawyers, established to promote justice and to advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy.  This site is intended for the benefit of its members, as well as for journalists, managers, and others who need legal information on immigration.  In addition to federal and state legislation and cases, there is a unique section of Featured Topics, such as "Workplace Enforcement," "Violence Against Women," and "Comprehensive Immigration Reform."  Under each topic, materials such as press kits, proposed legislation, practice pointers, analyses, and conferences are gathered.  For a significant fee, members of the Association can access AILALink, a fully searchable, web-based immigration law library of immigration laws, regulations, court decisions, treatises, forms, and much more.  This website is up-to-date and easy to use, with an advanced internal search engine and a growing portion of the documents available in Spanish. [PC]

American Constitution Society for Law and Policy

Founded in 2001, the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) bills itself as “one of the nation’s leading progressive legal organizations.”  ACS is focused on ensuring that individual rights, equality, and access to justice occupy a central place in American law.  The website highlights ACS special projects and issue groups.  The special projects pages provide information on judicial nominations, as well as Supreme Court previews.  The issue groups are part of an ACS initiative, "The Constitution in the 21st Century."  The eight issue groups cover topics ranging from access to justice to separation of powers.  Within each issue group users will find news stories and links to relevant materials from the most recent ACS convention.  Under the "Separation of Powers" issue group, users will want to review the Index of Presidential Signing Statements, 2001-2007.  The index is published in PDF and for each act cites to the signing statement, indicates the provision objected to, and notes the reason for objection.  Also, each objection is assigned one or more categories from a set of twenty-three.  These categories include constitutional, doctrinal, structural, and other justifications for objection. [MM]

Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) strives to “promote innovative and practical research on the design and implementation of policies to foster democracy, to promote balanced and sustainable growth, and to advance the rule of law in countries undergoing dramatic change.”  Founded in 2002, the center supports specialized teaching, training, and outreach activities, as well as interdisciplinary research.  Program research focuses on five primary topics: evaluating international influences on democratic development, comparative democracy, democracy in Taiwan, economic performance, and the rule of law.  CDDRL’s publications include academic publications, working papers, reports and policy briefs, journal articles, books and book chapters, and op-ed pieces.  CDDRL also hosts frequent workshops and research seminars.  Select presentation transcripts are available. The site is keyword searchable. [JJ]

Reflink

Sponsored by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Reflink is a web portal of materials on refugee-related topics.  More than 300 links have been compiled and thematically organized to facilitate research and information searching on topics related to refugees and other persons of concern to UNHCR.  Users may access the portal through three main areas:  “Primary Sources,” “Subject-Based Sources,” and “Other Useful Sources.”  “Primary Sources” is broken down into subcategories such as “Academic Institutions” and “Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).”  The “Subject-Based Sources” area contains sub-categories such as “Ethnic Groups and Minorities,” “Guerrilla and Terrorist Groups/Terrorism,” and “Children.”  A drawback of the site is that the individual pages are not date-stamped, so users cannot easily determine when the links were last verified.  One nice feature of the site is that a separate page has been created which contains the entire contents for easy downloading and printing. [BWK]

SIPRI: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, was established in 1966 “to conduct research on questions of conflict and cooperation of importance for international peace and security…” The SIPRI home page is uncluttered and easily navigated. The News column on the left side, the Research column on the right, and the navigation bar across the top form a static frame for viewing selected information, so one is never lost. "News" refers to recent SIPRI papers, databases, surveys, and reports, all posted within the last three months.  "Research" focuses on arms