The Arizona Association of Law Libraries recently presented a full day program on Congressional Information that   featured distinguished speakers from the Department of Justice, the Federal Reserve Board, the Sunlight Foundation, GovTrack.us as well as the Arizona State Library and the ASU Law Library.  This blog will cover two of the speaker presentations: The Federal Legislative Process and Finding and Compiling a Congressional Legislative History. Part 2 will feature GovTrack.us and Congressional bill tracking.

Ellen Sweet, Legislative Reference Specialist at the Tax Division, U.S. Department of Justice, led the audience through the legislative process using a federal Indian law (NAGPRA) that included detailed information about the documents produced from the process and which of those documents are the most likely to yield legislative intent information. Excellent flowcharts illustrated the process. Her materials can be found starting at page 37 of the conference materials.

The excellent, up-to-date Finding or Compiling Federal Legislative Histories Electronically was presented by Rick McKinney, the Assistant Law Librarian at the Federal Reserve Board Library. Mr. McKinney’s expertise is the electronic availability of legislative documents and the chart that he included in his materials is a timesaver for anyone who does legislative intent research.

Ms. Sweet and Mr. McKinney are co- authors of the indispensable Law Librarians’ Society of D.C. Legislative Sourcebook 

Need help with a legislative history project? Ask a Librarian!

The latest printing technology is here in the form of a 3D printer.  The law must keep up with technology advancing so quickly.

For an examination of issues involving 3D printers and copyright law see Edward Lee, Digital Originality, 14 Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law 919 (2012), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2128799.

See also the New York Times article on the legal issues that can potentially arise from the use of 3D printers.  Nick Bilton, Disruptions: The 3-D Printing Free-for-All, N.Y. Times, Nov. 13, 2011, http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/disruptions-the-3-d-printing-free-for-all/?smid=pl-share.

An additional issue involve the hot topic of gun control.  See the New York Times article on the University of Texas law student.  The ATF would like to keep an eye on individuals who print guns with 3D printers - if it could.  Nick Bilton, Disruptions: With a 3-D Printer, Building a Gun With the Push of a Button, N.Y. Times, Oct. 12, 2012, http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/with-a-3-d-printer-building-a-gun-at-home/?smid=pl-share.

One could run amok with the AWR possibilities in this topic or addressing part of it...

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non-3D gun morguefile.com

Unlock your creative and artistic juices!  The West Virginia University Festival of Ideas in conjunction with the West Virginia University College of Law invites law students to submit abstracts for a student poster session.   The conference is titled "Business and Human Rights: Moving Forward, Looking Back." 

This is a unique opportunity to present and display your AWR thesis and conclusion succinctly and creatively on a large poster board.  Usually, conference poster sessions are held in a conference room or exhibit hall.  The posters are displayed and attendees browse the various poster displays.  The session enables scholars to showcase their research and answer questions about their work. 

The top three poster winners will present in a special session and will be invited to convert their posters into papers for potential publication.  Last but definitely not least, the first, second, and third place poster winners will receive a monetary prize.

For more information and deadlines, please consult: "Business and Human Rights: Moving Forward, Looking Back: Call for Papers." 

If you have any questions regarding this conference or this call for papers, please e-mail: dblanke4@mix.wvu.edu.

Important Dates:

Paper Submission Deadline: June 1, 2013

Notification of Acceptance of a Paper: June 30, 2013

Poster Submission Deadline: August 15, 2013

Conference Dates: September 23 – 24, 2013

Creating a Poster Tips:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/drs18/postershow/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqgjgwIXadA (how to video)

http://writingcenter.tamu.edu/2009/types-communication/academic-writing/research-posters/

http://www.writing.engr.psu.edu/posters.html  (free poster templates)

 Need to do a little fine tuning of the citations in your AWR paper? Need a review of footnoting? Then the Library’s workshop on Bluebooking for AWRs is for you!

Please join us on Tuesday April 30^th at noon in Room 1337 for this 50 minute workshop.

This is the last Library workshop for this semester,but in the future, take a look at our library workshops page to view a list of workshop descriptions and a link to the workshop calendar

Don’t forget the Library now offers legal research instruction tailored for your study group! Any group of 5 or more can order a custom session.To request a session, complete this form. 

The D.C. Circuit recently affirmed the decision to list polar bears as an endangered species. According to the court, “a number of industry groups, environmental organizations, and states challenged the Listing Rule as either overly restrictive or insufficiently protective of the polar bear.” This might be an excellent issue for an AWR! 

 In addition to the legal materials that you can find on Westlaw and Lexis, you should also explore the scholarly, non-legal resources in ProQuest Research Library on endangered species, climate change and the effects of the loss of polar bears on Native Peoples. ProQuest Research Library can be found in the drop-down menu on the Library’s website under Library Databases. If you need help searching ProQuest, you can always drop by the Legal Research Help Desk, Ask a Librarian  or if you are a self-learner, check out this research guide about how to use ProQuest Research Library.

Another Proquest Database, Proquest Congressional has this research guide on endangered species.  

Image from Morguefile.com