Law Resources

Andrew Evans spoke to an SEKLS workshop on March 6. He gave us a handout that gives links to online resources that libraries of all sizes can use to help their patrons with legal questions. He was particularly impressed with the Wilson County website because it included blank forms for many things people request. I was impressed with all the links that are available on the Washburn University Law Library site www.washlaw.edu.

Andrew graciously allowed me to share his handout on the idea blog so other librarians can access this information.

Law Resources Workshop for the Small Library Handout

Speaker: Andrew Evans, JD, MLS

Head of Reference & Government Documents Librarian

Adjunct Professor of Law

Washburn University School of Law

1700 SW College Ave

Topeka KS 66621

Introduction

Don't commit legal reference malpractice. The best method is to point patrons towards the information and do not interpret it. Oftentimes, the wrong kind of help can make the patron worse off.

Kansas Legal Services: 1-800-723-6953

Kansas Bar Association: http://ksbar.org/

http://www.martindale.com

Thoughts on collection development:

http://www.aallnet.org/products/pub_sp9912/pub_sp9912_ProDev.pdf

Good Legal LIS Resources

http://www.aallnet.org/products/

www.washlaw.edu

http://nolo.com/

***[highly recommended] Nolo’s “Legal Research: How to Find and Understand the Law” by Stephen R. Elias & Susan Levinkind (14^th edition), August 2007

http://www.nolo.com/product.cfm/ObjectID/ADA3D233-2448-4AFE-96BF37FF240C53F7/104/

Statutes

Every library should have a copy of its state's statutes or law. Kansas Statutes Annotated is available from the secretary of state's office. http://www.kssos.org/forms/Elections/LS.pdf

The online version is available for free but does not have annotations. Kansas state legislators can give away 2 sets of the state statues each year. If your library cannot afford to buy a set, ask your legislator to consider giving your library one of those free sets.

http://www.kslegislature.org/legsrv-statutes/index.do

Kansas Administrative Regulations

What are they? http://www.kslegislature.org/legsrv-kars/karInfo.do

The regulations for administrative agencies are also available online.

http://www.kslegislature.org/legsrv-kars/index.do

Internet

Google is very interesting. It is frequently mentioned in pop culture. Google is also a verb. I googled that person I met at the conference.

http://www.google.com

I like Google, but it’s not the end all and be all. Perhaps it can be a good place to start.

http://digbig.com/4tcdf

For my area of work, going to a specialized database is the best method. Also, I prefer starting my searches narrow and then broadening them out.

Washlaw

http://www.washlaw.edu

Washlaw is regularly updated by the librarians and staff of Washburn Law Library. The information on the website tomorrow will probably differ from what is available tomorrow. Legal information is placed in easy to find categories. Stay tuned for changes.

http://www.washlaw.edu/uslaw/states/Kansas/index.html

Let’s look at the state materials. For Kansas, one thing I want to point out is the Rules of Evidence. As you can see, it is a word document. Since no website has consolidated these, we decided to take up the project. It was a lot of cutting and pasting to get all the statutes together. Government documents are often in the public domain.

Kansas Statutes

http://www.washlaw.edu/uslaw/states/Kansas

Kansas Attorney General Opinions

http://ksag.washburnlaw.edu/

Other states are available through www.washlaw.edu

City Codes

http://www.washlaw.edu/cities/

http://www.municode.com

Fredonia http://www.fredoniaks.org/

http://www.lkm.org/publications/sto/2007-sto-order-form.pdf

http://www.lkm.org/publications/upoc/2007-upoc-order-form.pdf

County Codes

Wilson County http://www.wilson.kansasgov.com/ (none online)

Shawnee County http://www.co.shawnee.ks.us/counselor/pdf/SNCode.pdf

County Appraisers

http://www.co.shawnee.ks.us/Ap/R_prop/Disclaimer.shtm

http://www.elk.kansasgov.com/MV2Base.asp?VarCN=10

http://www.allencounty.org/apprais/index.htm

Bill Tracking/Lobbying

http://www.kslegislature.org/legsrv-legisportal/bills.do

Local Courts

http://www.kscourts.org/districts/

Wilson County

http://www.31stjudicialdistrict.org./atty0227wl.htm has attorney dockets

http://www.31stjudicialdistrict.org/Forms.html has very good forms available.

State Courts

http://www.kscourts.org

http://www.osca.state.mo.us

http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/start.asp?viewtype=COURTS

Legal professionals who practice or work in Kansas, Missouri, or Oklahoma use these websites frequently. In addition to useful court information, one can also link to opinions of state supreme courts, state courts of appeal, and some of the district courts.

U.S. Court of Appeals

http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov

http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov

U.S. Supreme Court

http://www.supremecourtus.gov

Legal Directory

http://www.washlaw.edu/reflaw/refdir.html

News

http://www.washlaw.edu/news/index.html

Business News

http://finance.yahoo.com

http://finance.google.com/finance

http://online.wsj.com

Business Start-up

http://www.kssos.org/main.html

Securities and Exchange Commission

http://www.sec.gov

Guidestar

www.guidestar.org

Executive Paywatch

http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/index.cfm

Click on CEO pay database and check the database.

Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/olms/rrlo/lmrda.htm

Department of Labor

http://www.dol.gov/

U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services

http://www.uscis.gov

Listservs, Blogs, Forums, and Wikis

Listservs

http://www.washlaw.edu/discussion

http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo

http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html

Discussion groups are a great way to network. Forums tend to have a lot of strange members; however, one can learn what not to do.

http://chat.lawinfo.com

http://www.expertlaw.com/forums

http://forums.legalmatch.com

Blogs often allow readers to make comments.

http://law-library.rutgers.edu/resources/lawblogs.php

http://www.blawg.com

Wikis can be information but also serves as tools for information.

http://en.wikipedia.org

http://washalr.pbwiki.com/Annotations

People Finding

http://switchboard.com

http://accurint.com

http://www.melissadata.com
http://www.pretrieve.com

http://www.facebook.com

http://classmates.com

William Allen White Award Nominees Promoted on YouTube by Topeka Area Students

Robin Clark of Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library shared this with the members of Kanlib-L. What a wonderful idea!

Traditionally, William Allen White (WAW) book award nominee booktalks have been performed annually by Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library staff in person at local area schools. Realizing that it is impossible to reach all students in the service area in person, TSCPL bookmobile staffers Sandy Lane and Robin Clark collaborated with Topeka area gifted students to produce these highly creative student written and performed videos on Youtube featuring book reviews of the current William Allen White nominees for 2007-2008. The videos include interviews from “The Dr. Dyl Show”, several inanimate object reviewers, masked anonymous book reviewers, and one with exceptional headgear.

The boost in exposure includes posting the WAW video links on local, state, regional and national library listservs, the WAW official website, online library newsletters and blogs, as well as emails to area school media specialists.

Hopes are that as students view these peer produced video reviews, they will be more interested in reading the nominees and better prepared to vote by April 15, the end date for selection of the William Allen White award for 2008.

Videos may be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=TopekaLibrary

Leave a comment on Youtube and let us know what you think!

Booklist Book Group Blog

Does your library have a book discussion group? Are you always in the market for new books to discuss and information about those books? The American Library Association's Booklist magazine sponsors a blog called Book Group Buzz. The link is http://bookgroupbuzz.booklistonline.com. I did a quick browse of the blog. It might be enough to encourage me to leave my knitting groups and join a book discussion group. :)

The blurb that appeared in my inbox today reports:

This blog will entertain you as it keeps you up to date on all things book group. A corps of bloggers posts about books that worked well (or books that bombed), and provides organizational tips and read-alike insights. The blog also points you to Web sites that offer book club ideas, reading guides, and other helpful resources. This blog will entertain you as it keeps you up to date on all things book group. A corps of bloggers posts about books that worked well (or books that bombed), and provides organizational tips and read-alike insights. The blog also points you to Web sites that offer book club ideas, reading guides, and other helpful resources.

Parents Lead Fight for School Librarians in Seattle

Across the nation schools are trying to trim budgets by removing librarians from their libraries. We struggle with it here in Kansas just like the other states do. When I visit school librarians they are very aware that they need to be proactive in promoting their services and their value to their schools.

Librarians know that libraries are essential to education. One of the hottest topics for both K-12 and Academic Libraries is Teacher/Librarian Co-operation that brings library materials into the classroom in direct support of teaching units. They work everyday to remind teachers that they are not limited to the resources in their classrooms. The library puts a world of knowledge at their fingertips.

It's refreshing to hear that parents see this too. In Washington State, parents are standing up and demanding that the school libraries be staffed with trained librarians. In Seattle, Washington a loose-knit group of parents began defending their librarians and school libraries. They did e-mail campaigns and created a newsletter. They went to Spokane and lobbied their legislature.

The Los Angeles Times on December 23, 2007 reported

This month, they hand-delivered 2,500 signatures to a state government committee examining Washington's arcane school-funding system. "We did it to find out if anybody cared," said Layera Brunkan, who started the petition drive with Susan McBurney. Their children's elementary school was affected by the cuts.

"We realized that the school libraries are hemorrhaging, and it was far worse than we ever imagined," said Layera Brunkan.

State legislators, accustomed to professional lobbyists and official representatives of public education's many special interest groups, embraced the parents-turned-activists.

GOP state Rep. Skip Priest was buttonholed by the Spokane parents. He sits on the Basic Education Finance Joint Task Force, which will recommend education funding changes to the Legislature next year.

Here's a link to the full article from the Los Angeles Times as reported in American Libraries Direct. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-librarians23dec23,1,6494151.story?ctrack=2&cset=true

First-graders Solve Gingerbread Man Mystery

This was in this week's Coffey County Republican. It's such a creative way to reinforce a joy of reading that I had to add it to the blog. The picture shows Principal Houchin and two class members discussing the missing gingerbread man.

From the Coffey County Republican, Dec. 14, 2007, pp 7, 10.

Amy Johnson
Reporter

WAVERLY — Yvonne Houchin’s first-grade class began the day in an ordinary way, Friday, Dec. 7, with the usual reading and writing assignments. About midmorning,the class took a break and worked together to make a gingerbread man. When the class went to retrieve
the gingerbread man from the school’s kitchen, he was gone. School cooks, Sandra McNabb and Dana Kistner, told the class that when they took him out of the oven, he jumped off the cookie sheet and took off running down the hall. They tried to catch him, but were unsuccessful.

Confused and concerned, the first-graders returned to the classroom to put together clues about where their gingerbread an might be. Some of the clues included a note left by the gingerbread man saying he had just begun his life and didn’t want to be eaten, suspicious crumbs in the hallway, and many unconfirmed sightings of the wayward gingerbread man at different locations around the school. However, he still remained at large.

Houchin sent the students in groups to different classrooms to ask the teachers and students if they had seen their gingerbread man. Most said no, and a few just laughed when asked if they had seen a gingerbread man with licorice eyes and buttons running around the school. But, Waverly Grade School Principal Tony Houchin told two students he did see the cookie frantically running down the hall toward the library. He said he tried to catch him, because of his strict policy of no running in the hall, but the gingerbread man was just too fast.

School custodian Dennis Tyson also said he saw the gingerbread man hurrying toward the fifth grade room, but was also unsuccessful in catching him. Armed with this information, the students told their classmates, and the first-graders quickly and quietly rushed to Patt Bray’s fifth-grade room before he could get away again.

When they arrived in the room, the fifth-graders were gone to computer class. This made it easier for the first-graders to roam around the room to search for the gingerbread man, as they were sure he had to be there. Haley Fischer was the first to sight the gingerbread man underneath the fifth-grade Christmas tree. He was trapped in a large zip-loc bag and had unfortunately suffered a broken leg during the escape attempt. The first-graders decided after all of the trouble the gingerbread man went through to not be eaten, they would respect his wishes. The gingerbread man now sits in the classroom, watching over the students and enjoying his freedom.

Beginning Cataloger Tutorials

Are you cataloging more and enjoying it less?

If you are a beginning cataloger, you may find tutorials at one of the following sites useful. I queried catalogers on AutoCat (list for catalogers) and educators on CLENERT (The ALA Roundtable for Continuing Education instructors) for their favorite sites. Here is the response as I posted it to AutoCat. My thanks to everyone who responded to my query!


There is no special order to the list. I'm leaving in the commentary about the sites
because it is useful.


1. I don't know if you are an OCLC member library, but they have some decent online intro to cataloging tutorials: http://www.oclc.org/education/tutorials/default.htm.
Regardless of whether you use OCLC, all of the tutorials at this site are free and could have
potential value for other systems. I had my assistant work through the MARC tuturial as well as a number of the Connexion Client tutorials. She seemed to appreciate a better understanding of everything as she copy catalogs.

2. OCLC. Introduction to MARC Tagging: An OCLC tutorial. This tutorial introduces you to the basics of bibliographic records, specifically MARC (MAchine Readable Cataloging) format records-what they are, how and why they are used, and how to read them.
http://www.oclc.org/support/training/connexion/marc/default.htm

3. Idaho's Alternative Basic Library Education (ABLE) Program has a series of tutorials. Is this what you had in mind?

Introduction to Technical Services & Cataloging http://www.lili.org/forlibs/ce/able/course5/01index.htm

Introduction to Subject Headings
http://www.lili.org/forlibs/ce/able/course6/01index.htm

Introduction to the Dewey Classification System
http://www.lili.org/forlibs/ce/able/course7/01index.htm

Introduction to the MARC System
http://www.lili.org/forlibs/ce/able/course8/01index.htm

4. Idaho State Library. Includes: Introduction to Technical Services and
Cataloging; Introduction to Subject Headings; Introduction to Dewey
Classification; and Introduction to MARC Cataloging.
http://libraries.idaho.gov/able

5. Are you familiar with LibraryU (http://learning.libraryu.org/home/)? LibraryU offers 4 cataloging-related courses, that might be just what you're looking for.

6. You might also try WebJunction (http://webjunction.org/do/Home). There are several cataloging courses listed in the e-learning clearinghouse section of Courses.

7. I don't know if any of these will be of use to you, but these three tutorials are on the topic of cataloging. I am maintaining a website of free online library tutorials at
http://home.earthlink.net/~stephaniegerding/accidentaltechnologytrainer/ html

If you hear of any others, I'd be happy to add them. [I couldn't get this link to work. iij]

8. Utah State Library. A basic cataloging tutorial with many links. Explanation of the Dewey Decimal system, MARC records, and subject headings. Some information may be slanted toward Utah users, especially resources for obtaining bibliographic records, but most of the information would be useful to any librarian.
http://library.utah.gov/library_services/continuing_education/cataloging_basics.htm

and for good measure:

9. It's not a tutorial, but the most helpful web resource I've found is on the Follett software site. They list each of the common MARC tags with a link to a basic description of the information that belongs in the field.
The URL is: http://www.fsc.follett.com/clientsupport/community/tagofthemonth/index.cfm
I think that anybody starting out in cataloging will find it very useful.

10. I(Iris Jones) will add this one myself in the "not a tutorial, but useful category": Understanding MARC Bibliographic from the Library of Congress and Follett. http://www.loc.gov/marc/umb/

Organizing a Personal Library

Do you have so many books it’s getting hard to find the one you are looking for? Would you like to set up your personal library a little bit like the public library?It’s not necessary to put spine labels on the books or to follow the Dewey Decimal System. All you need to do is to create an index of your collection and keep it where you can find it – 3x5 cards in a box; a notebook; a computer file. Describe the location of the book on the entry and be sure to return the book to the same place when it’s used. To make it easier to find, you can arrange the books in alphabetical order by author or title in each bookcase.

The computer file is probably the most versatile because it can be sorted by the author field, or the title field, or the “wooden bookcase in the living room” field. If you have Microsoft Access on your computer, you can download a free template from Microsoft called the Book Collection Database. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC010186431033.aspx?pid=CT102144001033

Use the “notes” box to identify where theitem is located: “Bookcase in children’s room” “Stored in hall closet”, “Bathroom”. If you are experienced with Access, you can go into the “Table View” and add extra fields, such as “Topic” or “Location.” (That would let you use the Notes box for other information.)

Computers aren’t your bag? Write the information on recipe cards and file them. You can add ABC dividers to make it easier to sort the cards. Where do you store them? Cards can be kept in a recipe box, a shoe box, or a purchased a file drawer from an office supply. There are single drawer traveling boxes that will hold a large number of cards. (100 cards take about 1” of space.) The benefit of file cards is they can be rearranged and cards can be inserted (or removed) between existing cards. Ah ha! Your own Card Catalog!

If you prefer to use a notebook, use a small ring binder (5x7 or smaller) and write one entry per page. That way you can interfile new entries or delete records without having to rewrite entire pages. Tab dividers can be labeled ABC so you can flip through the notebook easily.