CRS Reports Now Harder to Obtain

This blog has posted several times about the usefulness of CRS Reports as research documents. Now, according to the CRS Director Daniel Mulhollan, CRS reports cannot be distributed to "non-Congressionals" without prior approval from CRS officials. See Mulhollan's memo here.
In 1998, the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration encouraged the publication of CRS Reports on the Internet, and over the years there has been support for making these reports widely available via the Internet. You can read an article written by Stephen Young for LLRX about CRS Reports here.
Here is a list of sites where you can find CRS reports on various topics:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/index.html
http://fpc.state.gov/c4763.htm
http://www.thememoryhole.org/crs/
http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/

CALI Reminder

With finals fast approaching, don't forget that CALI lessons are a great way to help you prepare for them! If you're unfamiliar, CALI lessons are interactive, computer- based tutorials provided by the non-profit Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (www.cali.org). There are over 600 CALI lessons available in 32 different legal subject areas. The lessons, written by law faculty/librarians, are available at no charge to all law students at Hamline because our law school is a CALI member.
If you are registering an account at cali.org for the first time, note that you must use our school's authorization code to create a new account on www.cali.org. You can get the CALI authorization code by asking a librarian for a CALI code card, or you can email Barb Kallusky at bkallusky01@hamline.edu.

Minnesota CLE Online Library Now Available!

The law library now has access to the Minnesota CLE Online Library for law students and faculty. What is this resource? It is an online library that enables users to download most of Minnesota CLE’s course materials. It has coverage back to 2000, and more materials are being added. Search options include searching by seminar, practice area, author, and keyword. Forms are also available through this online program.

Users will set up a password after entering the 2006-2007 discount code.
At the Reserve Desk you will find tutorial DVDs (Z711.O55 2007) that will explain the resource and guide you through the process of setting up access for using it as well as a brochure that explains it. The discount code is printed on the brochure.

Daylight Savings Time Starts Sunday March 11!

As a result of Congress passing and President Bush signing P.L. 109-58, the Energy Act of 2005, daylight savings time will go into effect on Sunday, March 11 this year.

IT departments all over the country are concerned about the effect the new (earlier) start date will have on computers, especially calendar and datebook applications. For anyone who has a microsoft product, you may want to visit their Daylight Savings Time Help and Support Center for more information.

OpenCongress.org

A new site is available that combines information about legislation before Congress with what media and blogs are saying about legislative activity. Here is what OpenCongress.org has to say about itself:

Sunlight is launching a new project this morning -- OpenCongress.org -- that we are very excited about. This is is joint effort with the amazing team from the Participatory Politics Foundation -- a group based in Worcester, Mass. that builds open-source software and web tools for civic engagement.
Think of this as a user-friendly Thomas, on steriods. We've brought together critically important information about what is happening in Congress --legislation and issue focused -- and combined that with what bloggers and the mainstream media are most talking about. We've added a component of social wisdom tracking what's hot and what's most-viewed on the site itself, along with what others are writing about. There are lots of links to other Sunlight projects like Congresspedia and Sunlight grantees like OpenSecrets.org. We are aiming to to offer a comprehensive, understandable, user-friendly snapshot of every bill and Member of Congress.