Moritz Legal Information Blog

HeinOnline has just announced the addition of two new library modules. It has added the U.S. Federal Legislative Histories Library and the U.S. Statutes at Large Library. This looks like a nice addition.

The State of the Union Address is an annual event in which the President of the United States reports on the status of the country and outlines his legislative proposals for the upcoming year. Search the full-text of all State of the Union Addresses from 1790-2005 at askSam . From BarclayBlog

CQ has a new website and free email service targeted to political junkies. CQpolitics.com focuses on news affecting current political campaigns. A free weekday email summary of new headlines and an RSS feed is available. Sign-up for the email here . One really interesting feature is the 2006 Election Forecast Map , where CQ projects the results of 2006 House, Senate, and Governor races. The map is interactive: just click the state to view the state's recent news. [Congressional Quarterly]

The Ohio Department of Taxation has published a searchable, electronic database of taxpayers registered to pay the Commercial Activity Tax. The database is available on the ODT web site . From Ohio Law Ohio Ohio Tax

One of the most frequent questions asked of our reference librarians is how to limit searches on Westlaw or Lexis to a single Ohio appellate district. To do this in Westlaw , use the Preliminary field (PR) in terms and connector searching and use the number of the appellate district as your search term. So, to find only 10th District Cases, add PR(tenth) as a search term. This isn't perfect- it may find uses of the word "tenth" in other areas, but it is the best way to do this. In Lexis , use the Court segment the same way. So, to find only 4th District Cases, add Court(fourth) as a search term. [Post written by Sara Sampson ] [Ohio, Ohio Caselaw]

CRS reports are highly respected reports prepared for Congress by non-partisan staff of the Library of Congress. Obtaining these reports can be a challenge because CRS does not make the reports available to the public. Copies of the reports do, however, find their way onto the Internet. The websites listed below collect CRS reports. Open CRS Thurgood Marshall Law Library IP Mall (IP, eCommerce, and cyberlaw) National Council for Science and the Environment (environment) National Agricultural Law Center (agriculture and food law) US Dept. of State (foreign relations) [Post written by Sara Sampson ] [CRS]

If you should be so fortunate to do legal research in merry o’l England (1100s-600s), there are a couple of things you should be aware of. First, know when the various monarchs ruled because that is how citations will appear. For example, 1 H7 28, indicates the (year of reign) H7 (name of monarch – in this case Henry VII) 28 (page number of where the case appeared that year). In case you are unsure when various monarchs reigned, this page , will be most helpful. Second, page number in this case literally means that page. For example what we modernly count as page 3 would have been considered page 2 during those times. Also reprints maybe the only place to find some material, though these reprints will also be considered worthy of being a rare book collection, as well as the originals, because the publication dates can vary from 1600s-1800s. Finally, some of these materials have been scanned in as PDF’s or typed into electronic formats. To find what selection there is, go the OS

Now that the Alito confirmation hearings are over, you may want to watch the archived video or search the transcripts of the hearings. Archived video is available on C-Span . Archived audio is available on NPR . Archived transcripts are available from University of Michigan here . [Post written by Sara Sampson ]. [Alito, Congressional Hearings, Judicial Hearings, Hearing Transcripts, Hearings, Transcripts]