Here are selected, earlier blog entries posted by SaraJean Petite.
Slip Laws, Statutes, and Codes (March 7, 2012)
Many of you may have seen the Schoolhouse Rock video I’m Just a Bill, which tells how a bill becomes a law. But after the President signs a new law, the new law also needs to be promulgated, which Merriam-Webster defines as made known and put into action or force.
The new “session law,” or individual legislative enactment, is initially released as a “slip law.” Most slip laws are just one or two pages of paper, though major legislation can result in very lengthy slip laws. Most federal session laws are Public Laws (acts of general applicability) and are given a public law number communicating the Congress that passed them and a sequential numbering among the acts of that Congress — for instance P.L. 111-108 was the 108th Act of the 111th Congress. The GPO has digitally-signed PDF slip laws on FDSYS. Our library keeps print slip laws on a shelf just outside the 3rd floor computer lab.
At the end of a session of Congress, all of the slip laws are published in the United States Statutes at Large, which remains the permanent official source for positive evidence of federal law. (The page numbering is identical to the page numbering printed “ahead of time” on the slip laws.) Statutes at Large volumes from 2003 to 2008 are available on FDSYS. The Law Library’s paper Statutes at Large is shelved next to the slip law collection.
All permanent, public laws are then codified. This involves updating the existing sections of the United States Code to include the new legislative enactments. Non-permanent laws are not codified. An example of a non-permanent law is the annual budget legislation. The Government Printing Office publishes the official version of the United States Code. The official version contains the laws themselves, with nothing else. Digitally signed PDF volumes of the official version are available on FDSYS. The Law Library’s print volumes of the official United States Code are shelved with the slip laws and Statutes at Large.
The commercial publishers West and Lexis each produce annotated versions of the U.S. Code, which contain extensive references to cases relating to each code section. To illustrate the large volume of text added by, for example, West’s annotations, here is a picture of the official United States Code:
and here is a picture of United States Code Annotated:
West also produces an annotated version of the Ohio Revised Code, called Baldwin’s Ohio Revised Code Annotated. Lexis produces Page’s Ohio Revised Code Annotated. Print versions of both of these are available in the Law Library’s first-floor conscience area. Though the color-schemes used in the book design of these publications pre-date their acquisitions by Lexis and West, it turned out that the red set is now published by Lexis and the blue set by West.
The unannotated Ohio Revised Code is freely available online from LAWriter.
PACER (Feb. 3, 2012)
Do you need case or docket information from a Federal appellate, district or bankruptcy court? Public Access to Court Electronic Records (more commonly known as PACER), a service of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, provides online access to court records.
PACER’s date coverage varies by court. Its Court Information page contains specific dates covered. According to the CM/ECF FAQ , “[i]n January 1996, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts began development of the Case Management/Electronic Case Filing (CM/ECF) system.” PDF versions of many documents submitted through this system are available to PACER users. However, the coverage is spotty.
To illustrate some of the information PACER can provide, here are three cases the Counselors have studied this semester (the hyperlinks are to copies of documents):
Burr v. Burns, 439 F.Supp.2d 779, (S.D.Ohio 2006), is from 2006. When one views the menu, one sees options for Alias, Associated Cases, Attorney, Case File Location, Case Summary, Deadlines/Hearings, Docket Report, Filers, History/Documents, Party, Related Transactions, Status, and View a Document. When one is viewing the Docket Sheet, one can select any document with hypertext. For example, if one selects document 5 (the motion to dismiss), one can view the motion to dismiss, the brief in support of the motion, and the plaintiff’s answer. One can also view the state court compliant and the defendants’ answer.
Young v. New Haven Advocate, 315 F.3d 25631 (4th Cir. 2002), is from 2002. When one selects it from the results list, a General Docket opens, and one has the option of viewing the full docket for an additional fee. One may view a docket entry, but there were no links to documents in the entries I viewed.
Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 682 F.2d 338, (1st Cir. 1982), is from 1982, so there is not much information about it on PACER. If one does a party search for Hustler in the New Hampshire federal courts, one will find an entry for this case. The entry contains links for Associated Cases, Attorney, Docket Report, Filers, History/Documents, Party and Related Transactions. However, the Attorney link says no attorney is listed, the Docket Report refers one to the physical files at the National Archives, the History/Documents link indicates that the files have been transferred to NARA, the Party link simply gives the names of the parties, and the Related Transactions link is another reference to the NARA transfer.
PACER has its Training Manual available online, and the Government Printing Office has additional training material on its website.
PACER is a fee-based system. Users register for an account and provide a credit card number. If one wishes to practice using PACER without registering, one can use the PACER training site, which contains a selection of cases from New York. According to the current fee schedule, it costs eight cents per page to view documents, but there are no charges to the user if the charges are less than $10 in a quarterly billing cycle.
One can cut down on expenses by using the RECAP Firefox plug-in. According to the RECAP site, “RECAP users automatically donate the documents they purchase from PACER into a public repository hosted by the Internet Archive. And RECAP saves users money by alerting them when a document they are searching for is already available from this repository.” The alert appears in the form of the letter “R” in a small gray box next to the document. (Since the Counselors just discussed forum selection clauses this week, please note that the user agreement for RECAP includes a New Jersey forum selection clause.)
For additional information about PACER and RECAP, you may refer to Andrew Plumb-Larrick’s July 27, 2010 blog entry. If you have further questions about PACER, or need assistance with your research, please visit the reference desk at the library.
NTIS (Sept. 29, 2011)
The National Technical Information Service is a clearinghouse of scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information produced with government funding. It has statutory authority to charge fees to recover costs. Many of the publications it sells are sent to Depository libraries, but there are additional technical reports that may be found via the Products Search Page. The PDF NTIS Bibliographic Database Search Guide is available to assist with searching.
One title available though NTIS is JPRS Reports, which the Library of Congress described as “translat[ing] current foreign language documentary material without limitation to subject matter or language.” These reports are from the 1970s and 1980s, but they offer historical international perspectives on topics such as politics and international relations. Some particularly fascinating articles include:
“Opposition Leader on Internal Rebellion” (Near East & South Asia: Iraq, pg.4)
“Saddam Receives Tribal Chieftains, Notables” (Near East & South Asia, pg.9)
“Yugoslavia: Biographical Data, Background of Military Figures” (East Europe, pg. 27)
“Who is Breaking the Olive Branch? (Worldwide Report: Arms Control, pg.63)
“Imperialism without a Mask: Exporters of Death” (USSR Report: Military Affairs, pg.69)
Arms Control: Protocol to the Treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes
Latin America: Reference Aid. Glossary of Spanish and Portuguese Narcotics Terms
For a while NTIS had a partnership with the United States Federal Depository Library Program. Through this partnership, Depository libraries got free access to a segment of the digital collection. Unfortunately, this partnership has ended, but the material is still available for purchase.
CFPB (May 16, 2011)
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was created as part of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was enacted on July 21, 2010.
Its mission “is to make markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans—whether they are applying for a mortgage, choosing among credit cards, or using any number of other consumer financial products” (citation). According to its website, it will carry out this mission by educating consumers and overseeing financial institutions.
The website has a blog, which currently contains news about the Bureau, an “About the Bureau” page that tells about the bureau’s mission, functions, and structure, and a “Get Help Now” page.
The “Get Help Now” page contains information related to specific consumer concerns. The Consumer Question and Complaint Assistant asks a series of questions about the consumer’s concern and provides contact information for the government agency that can help the consumer.
The Get Help Now page also contains a topical list of resources related to financial issues. A quick scan of the resources reveals that many of them are on the MyMoney.gov site, which is a website where several agencies provide information about financial matters.
The New FDsys Collections (May 16, 2011)
Yesterday, the Government Printing Office released “6 new collections into the Federal Digital System (FDsys).”
The new collections, which are on the Additional Government Publications page, are:
Congressional Pictorial Directory (105th to 111th Congress) In addition to photographs, his publication provides names, states, districts, party affiliations, and number of terms served for each member of Congress. The directories for the 106th to 111th Congresses are available as complete PDFs, but the directory for the 105th Congress is missing the information for several states, including Ohio and New York.
House Practice: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and Procedures of the House (104th and 108th Congress) This publication is available in PDF and text. Each section for the 108th Congress is a separate document, but the entire publication for the 104th Congress is contained in a single PDF file.
Riddick’s Senate Procedures (101st Congress) According to FDsys, “this Senate document contains the contemporary precedents and practices of the Senate.” The version on FDsys has each chapter as a separate PDF file. The summary contains a link to the version on GPO Access. The GPO Access version’s opening screen has a search box, but no apparent way of browsing the document.
The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation (1992 to 2008) The 1992 edition with its 1996, 1998, and 2000 supplements and the 2002 edition with its 2004, 2006, and 2008 supplements are available on FDsys. All of these documents are available in PDF. The supplements to the 1992 edition are also available as text files.
U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual (2000 and 2008) As the title indicates, this is the style manual for United States government printing. Both editions available on FDsys are in PDF format.
United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions (Plum Book) (1996 to 2008) According to FDsys, “The Plum Book is used to identify presidentially appointed positions within the Federal Government.” This volume contains the geographical location, title, name of incumbent, type of appointment, pay grade, pay plan, duration of appointment, and term expiration for these appointees. The 1996 edition has each chapter as a separate text file. The 2000 edition has each chapter as a separate PDF file. The 2006 and 2006 edition may each be viewed as a single PDF or text file, or their chapters may be viewed as individual PDF files.
Though not part of the official news announcement, this page also contains:
Precedents of the U.S. House of Representatives According to the description on FDsys, Hinds’ Precedents and Cannon’s Precedents form “an eleven-volume series containing selected rulings made by the Chair between 1789 and 1936. Volumes 1-5 are entitled Hinds’ Precedents and were published in 1907. Cannon’s Precedents entail volumes 6-11 and were published in 1936.” One can view each volume in its entirety as a PDF file, or one can view each chapter separately as a PDF or text file.
E-CFR (May 16, 2011)
In August, I wrote a blog entry about the Federal Register 2.0 website. A related new publication is the e-CFR
The GPO describes the e-CFR as “an editorial compilation of CFR material and Federal Register amendments produced by the National Archives and Records Administration’s Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and the Government Printing Office.”
From a practical standpoint, what does this look like? A rule is published in the Federal Register. As of the writing of this blog entry, this change was not incorporated into the published CFR. However, if one views the e-CFR section to which the rule pertains, it is included in the CFR text.
If a rule in the Federal Register is scheduled to go into effect at a future date, a link to the Federal Register will appear in the e-CFR before the text of the CFR section. The final rule for this CFR section is scheduled to go into effect on November, 12, 2010.
(This blog entry contains material excerpted from a presentation I am giving at the Ohio Regional Association of Law Librarians Annual Meeting on October 22, 2010.)
Canada (Agency/Department Budgets) (May 15, 2011)
This past week, I have been cataloging documents about the Canadian government’s budget.
Every year, each Canadian agency and department must submit its budget estimates in a Report on Plans and Priorities. These documents present overview of the agency’s budget and an “analysis of program activities by strategic outcome.”
At the end of the year, the agency must submit a Performance Report in which they describe their “performance by strategic outcomes and results.”
These titles would be useful to researchers interested in the priorities of specific Canadian agencies and departments.
In the past, we have received these documents in print, but now, we’re getting them via the web. To view the electronic issues, find the title in the library catalog and click the hyperlink that says “latest received.”
Government Information Subject Indexes (May 16, 2011)
On Tuesday, Kathy Amen announced to the GOVDOC-L listserv that the Government Information on the Web Subject Index St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas was recognized as an official Government Printing Office service partner.
The Government Information on the Web Subject Index contains a “keyword index of government information subject pages.” There is a list of subject terms, and one can search the entire site.
When one locates a topic of interest, one will find a link to at least one library’s guide to government information sources on the subject. Popular topics, such as international trade, will have links to guides from several different libraries.
Other Countries (Sept. 21, 2011)
The United States Government has many sources of information about other countries. Two of my favorites are the State Department’s Background Notes and the CIA World Factbook Both of these sources contain information about the people, economy, politics, and geography of the countries. In addition to information about countries, the Factbook has information about “locations,” such as oceans and Antarctica
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