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The Home School Legal Defense Association maintains a nice page on their website summarizing the various state home schooling laws. A color coded map of the U.S. provides links to state “analysis.” This document includes statutory sections and educational requirements. Teacher qualifications and testing requirements are also covered. They also provide a page dedicated to legislation related to home schooling.

I was reviewing articles I had written years back and came upon one that I had written for Midwest Paralegal’s KeyNotes back in early 2000. Yep, over eight years ago. It was about evaluating web sites – my favorite topic. I found it interesting that the Internet has changed so much over the last eight years, but the majority of ...

Google announced that their “Suggest” product will now be incorporated into your searches. Have you noticed it yet when you search? (As of this writing, it is working in Classic Google, but not on my iGoogle page). Google Suggest is sort of like auto-fill. The searcher will begin entering in their query and Google will offer suggestions and the number ...

The SEC announced that they will be replacing the EDGAR database with a new system called IDEA. The press release link contains a video discussing the benefits of the new system. The SEC states: The new system is called IDEA, short for Interactive Data Electronic Applications. Based on a completely new architecture being built from the ground up, it will ...

The Department of Justice maintains a statistics page worth looking at. The page has statistical reports on crime, prosecution, corrections, law enforcement, sentencing, criminal records, and others. Many of the pages include graphs and annual reports. A topic’s initial page offers key data with links to more detailed reports. Each topic also includes a listing of relevant publications summarizing data ...

The University of Southern California’s law library has a nice little listing of law reviews that are available online. The index provides the name of the review (with an active link), a brief summary discussing its subject matter, and a code notation explaining what information is available. These notations include F for full-text, A for abstracts, T for table of ...

Occasionally, it can be a challenge to locate a company’s toll free number. I thought I would share a couple of Web sites that might help you find that information. The first is the Internet 800 directory. This directory allows searching by company, product, or toll free phone number. Refine the search by selecting a specific state. One thing missing ...

I can’t imagine too many of us go a day without using Adobe Acrobat. I wanted to mention a blog that you may find useful – Acrobat for Legal Professionals. Rick Borstein, a Business Development Manager at Adobe, is the author. The blog discusses new releases, redaction, e-discovery issues, metadata, and much more. It is the simple hints and reminders ...

The National Conference of State Legislatures is a “bipartisan organization that serves the legislators and staffs of the nation's 50 states, its commonwealths and territories.” Their website also provides researchers with a tremendous amount of information on state and federal issues. I recommend making a stop at this site when looking for legislative summaries, reports, 50 state surveys, etc. The ...

So many search engines, so little time. I realize I just posted on Sputtr last week, but I couldn’t pass up sharing information on another interesting search engine. Mary Ellen Bates of Bates Information Services has a terrific review of Searchme.com. If you are a visual person, you might really enjoy this engine. Others, however, might find the navigation a ...

Questions on fair use? Need guidance regarding the permission process? Interested in monitoring cases and legislation dealing with copyright and fair use? Well, the Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources, along with their sponsors, maintain a site that can assist with your questions. The collection of resources found at the Copyright & Fair Use Center is tremendous. Links to ...

I have often emphasized the importance of using more than one search engine when conducting research. Well, how about the ability to pick from a variety of engines from a single location? Check out Sputtr. First off, I have to say that the design is pretty cool. The page contains a search box and icons of numerous popular engines (e.g. ...

The Medicare website provides an interesting tool entitled “Nursing Home Compare.” The purpose is to “provide detailed information about the past performance of every Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing home in the country.” The site allows the researcher to query by geographical location, proximity or by specific nursing home. A significant amount of data is available from this site. The ...

The Martindale Law Digest is an extremely useful tool for obtaining information for various jurisdictions. For years, the Digest consisted of hardbound volumes within your Martindale set. As time progressed, they moved to a CD version. Well, now it is even easier to use the Digests, because they have been incorporated into the Martindale.com site. Users are required to register, ...

I am always looking for new websites that can help me be more efficient and effective at work. Over at Alt Search Engines, there is a review of a new online dictionary called MetaGlossary. So, I had to test it out. I put in the term “declaratory judgment.” First thing I noticed was a listing of related terms. The terms ...

I am currently on vacation in Idaho, so this post is going to be about something I enjoy — reading. (Big surprise for a librarian) My husband is an avid fly fisherman and I, well, sit at the campsite and read. I can easily go through 6 or 7 books during one vacation. Often I will begin a book and ...

Don’t forget to check the White House website for news and documentation from the Executive Office. The “Current News” section not only includes relevant stories, but can also provide audio, video, and supporting documents. Remember to look for related “Press Briefings.” Executive Orders and Proclamations issued during the presidency are listed chronologically on the site. The “In Focus” section of ...

Looking for drug information? There are several good sites out there. One you might want to check is PDRHealth. PDRHealth describes itself as a “consumer Web portal of the Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR®), which has provided trusted and authoritative drug and clinical information to physicians for over 60 years. The PDRhealth site offers consumer-friendly explanations of disease states and conditions ...

We spend time investigating many things in our lives, but often times we do not investigate the source of our online information. The Web is comprised of thousands of quality sites, providing invaluable data, research and guidance. Unfortunately, it also contains inaccurate, unverified and fabricated information. If we are researching something for work or personal use, shouldn’t we investigate the ...

Looking for documents from a defunct government agency? You might dig it up at the CyberCemetery. This website is a collaboration of the University of North Texas and the GPO. The site is described as “an archive of government websites that have ceased operation (usually websites of defunct government agencies and commissions that have issued a final report).” For example, ...

Over at the Law Librarian Blog and the Adjunct Law Prof Blog, are two great posts about the Open Government Guide. The guide is described as “a complete compendium of information on every state’s open records and open meetings laws.” I used it a couple times already in some recent research. The website reminded me of how much I value ...

UBS, the financial entity, has a nice banking dictionary on their website. It is currently in the 2007 edition. It contains over 2400 terms and is a very simple interface. It is one of the most comprehensive that I have seen online. Just choose a letter from the navigation list on the left side of the page. Another option is ...

The Reinvestment Fund has developed a new site called PolicyMap.com. This mapping website defines itself as “an innovative geographic information system which allows you to easily create custom maps, tables, and charts.” They offer “over 4,000 indicators related to demographics, real estate, crime, health, schools, housing affordability, employment, energy, and public investments.” Most functionality and data is available free, but ...

There are some noteworthy online resources for free legal citation information. The first is the Introduction to Basic Legal Citation part of Cornell’s Legal Information Institute. According to the summary page, “it was most recently revised in May 2007 to reflect changes appearing in the third edition of the ALWD Citation Manual, published in 2006. It is also keyed to ...

Environmental attorneys and those interested in wildlife might benefit from this news. Earlier this month, the Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN), released the Global Wildlife Disease News Map. WDIN (a collaboration of UW-Madison, the National Wildlife Health Center, and the National Biological Information Infrastructure) is a network of online resources and services, which provide data and links to information on ...

Many attorneys utilize Findlaw for case or statutory research, but did you know they maintain a Legal Technology Center? The focus of the site appears to be electronic discovery issues; however the researcher can find news on software, hardware, communications and networking. They have a neat E-Discovery Rule Wizard that supplies the text of the rule, a useful checklist, and ...

The University Of Connecticut School Of Law offers an insurance law program. As a result, they have a great research website that might be worth checking out. A collection of links to online resources is available in several categories including insurance organizations, social insurance links, and an extensive listing of insurance publications. They have also organized a terrific collection of ...

While not exactly law related, I had to do some research on gas prices. I thought I would share some of the data I found. The government offers some helpful information on FuelEconomy.gov. The EPA and Department of Energy maintain the site. It allows you to research gas prices, as well as, conduct a car comparison. Data includes “gas mileage ...

Consumer information on vehicle safety and recalls can be found at SaferCar.gov. The site is part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and offers several databases. Search for vehicle recalls/defects or child restraint recalls. A relatively new feature is the RSS option to receive notification of new recalls. Obtain crash test and rollover information from the homepage of SaferCar.gov. ...

When searching for government related information, many people rely on Google Government to help narrow their results. This is a great method to eliminate commercial sites. However, a query from this search engine can produce both Federal and State sites. This can be frustrating, however, if the objective is to locate information from just one State. One way to alleviate ...