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!

Hope you'll join me in attending this seminar on Friday, April 26th, 2013!

To Register Visit: http://www.aallnet.org/chapter/azll/legal-research-institute.asp

Registration for students is only $50!

Contact Jennifer Mannino at jmannino@risc-llc.com for more information!

**Earn 5 hours CLE credit!**

 Researching  a topic and want to know what congress has had to say about it? One of the best resources for congressional research is ProQuest Congressional .  Why would you use ProQuest Congressional instead of Westlaw and Lexis? Here are some examples.

Let’s say you are writing your paper on the Indian Court of Offenses and want to cite to the 1926 primary source hearings on that subject…it’s on ProQuest Congressional but not on WL or Lexis.  In fact, ProQuest Congressional has documents that go back to 1789! Maybe you are researching the recent Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 but want some historical perspective on the topic. ProQuest Congressional has hearings and congressional reports that pre-date the passage of the original Violence Against Women Act of 1990.  ProQuest also includes document types not found on WL or Lexis, like maps!  

ProQuest Congressional can be found in the drop-down menu on the Library’s website under Library Databases. 

It’s easy to see what you are searching when you go to the Advanced Search screen:

Questions? Ask a Librarian!

Visit http://www.phoenixlaw.edu/BAP 

From the American Library Association (ALA)...

"Three copyright-related bills are currently in play at the start of 2012 – all of which take aim at any website beyond U.S. borders that distribute counterfeit or copyright infringing products. All three bills operate under the assumption that there is a problem that needs to be solved – and the best, or only, way to combat online infringement overseas is with more law targeted at foreign websites. These bills have the potential to negatively impact fundamental library principles. The following chart [link] is for quick reference (not meant to be comprehensive), and outlines the primary issues and concerns of interest to the library community and those who use the Internet."

~Corey Williams, American Library Association.

Hat tip to the Law Librarian Blog, and beSpacific