The next time you visit our Seattle branch, take a moment to check out a recent addition to our book collection, West’s Legal Checklists and its companion forms volume, Legal Checklists—Specially Selected Forms. The two volumes of Legal Checklists provide a well-organized, to-the-point outline analysis of a range of legal issues including federal taxation, real estate, employment, estate planning, and contracts. They also include checklists for important topics not usually covered in this type of work, such as legal checkups and avoiding legal malpractice. The companion forms volume includes model forms for a smaller range of topics. The forms themselves are not Washington State-specific. Currently, these volumes are on display on our New Books shelf at the information desk. When they are returned to the regular collection, the 2-volume Legal Checklists set will be shelved with our law practice management materials at KF 386 .L44 and the Legal Checklists – Specially Selected Forms will be shelved with our model forms materials at KF 170 .B43.
Author Archive
Having recently posted about the litigation surrounding Google’s Google Book project, we thought it would also be useful to share links to some of the other prominent resources which you can use to find free digital books.
Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg provides free access to over 33,000 titles in a variety of common file formats. Note their copyright caveat which reads “Our ebooks are free in the United States because their copyright has expired. They may not be free of copyright in other countries. Readers outside of the United States must check the copyright laws of their countries before downloading or redistributing our ebooks.”
The Online Books Page – The Online Books Page indexes over 1 million free digital books. It is the brain-child of John Mark Ockerbloom and is supported by University of Pennsylvania Libraries.
Open Library – Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive with the lofty mission of creating “one web page for every book ever published”. It indexes far more than just ebooks but it does boast that its collection includes over 1 million free digital editions.
U.S. Circuit Court Judge Denny Chin, Southern District of New York, in The Authors Guild et.al. v. Google, Inc. (05 Civ. 8136 (DC)) has denied the motion for final approval of the proposed amended settlement agreement between Google and the Guild, stating that the ASA is “not fair, adequate and reasonable”. Judge Chin also urged the parties to consider amending the agreement so that its “opt-out” provisions would become “opt-in”. For a good discussion of this issue, see the Library Journal’s e-newsletter article Google Book Settlement Rejected . For more information about the scanning project which prompted the on-going class action suit, see Google’s Google Books project page .
When ESHB 1787 was signed into law by Governor Gary Locke in May 2003, Washington State officially joined the ranks of states participating in a nation-wide effort to make it easier for citizens across the country to find and use the valuable public resources in their local areas. Known as WIN 2-1-1, the Washington Information Network serves as a both a telephone and Internet portal which residents can use to find information about a variety of local community resources. The database behind WIN 2-1-1 contains records detailing over 16,000 local services across the state, from legal aid offices to health care clinics and adult literacy programs. Citizens can use the Internet portal from home to search for services by keyword or topic. They can also dial 2-1-1 from anywhere in Washington State to speak directly with an Information and Referral Specialist. For more information about current WIN 2-1-1 activities, its funding challenges and its service statistics, see the WIN 2-1-1 Board’s latest quarter report.
Ask someone to list the resources they look to when doing legal research and they’re likely to mention specialized databases like Westlaw, Lexis or FastCase, and government or non-profit-sponsored web sites like the Washington State Court web site, GPO Access, the Municipal Research Services web site and the Northwest Justice Project’s WashingtonLawHelp site. A resource that is often missing from the list but can be extremely valuable is newspapers.
A great deal of law-related information appears in newspaper articles. If you are trying to research trial-level matters, a newspaper article may be the best place to start. Newspaper databases also provide a depth of historical information that is not always available from specialty databases, which tend to focus on recent material only.
Fortunately, newspaper databases are readily available. For our State, one of the best places to begin your newspaper research is at the Washington State Library’s Newspaper site. The State Library provides access to newspaper databases in paper, microfilm and digital formats. This site also provides handy links to the individual web sites maintained by Washington newspapers themselves. If you are eligible for a State Library card, you also have access to an excellent newspaper and journal database called ProQuest. The next time you need to do legal research, add newspapers to the list of resources you should consider using.
If you’d like to start following Washington State law-related blogs or would like to add to the list you already read, we suggest you take a look at the directory of Washington State law-related blogs published by Mary Whisner, Reference Librarian at the Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington School of Law. Mary’s directory is an easy-to-read list that arranges Washington State law-related blogs into 35 topical categories. It includes everything from Animal Law to Gun Law, Mining Law and Women’s Rights. If you follow the first topical link called Guide: Blogs and RSS Feeds, you’ll also find a general directory of legal blogs, information about setting up your own blog and links to guides discussing legal issues surrounding the publication of blogs. Also, if you publish a blog that focuses on Washington State legal issues or news and would like Mary to consider adding it to her directory, please contact her.
We’re happy to announce that we’ve added FastCase to the list of legal research databases now available in both our Seattle and Kent branches. Our subscription includes cases and statutes from all 50 states, federal statutes and cases, links to federal and state regulatory materials and specialty databases such as IRS Revenue Rulings, Board of Immigration Appeals,
The King County Bar Association and the King County Bar Foundation are sponsoring a free debt education workshop from 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm on Monday, Dec. 13 at the Douglas Truth branch of the Seattle Public Library. Topics for discussion will include assessing your debt situation, dealing with debt collectors, how to respond to a debt collection law suit and filing for bankruptcy. You need to R.S.V.P. to the KCBA at (206) 267-7095.
KCLL has also written a debt collection law suit research guide that identifies the major resources we recommend you review for research in this topic.
King County District Court is now making court records filed after January 1, 2005 available online through their DCoR Online service. The Court charges 25 cents per page to view or print records via the web or you can go into one of the court’s locations to view them for free. To use the service via the web, you will need to set up an account with a valid email address. For more information, see the District Court’s DCoR FAQ document.
The Elections and Voting section of the Secretary of State’s web site has a convenient feature called My Vote which enables you to view the upcoming ballot personalized for your races, candidate statements and ballot measures. My Vote is easy to use; simply enter your full name and birth date and the web site will present a screen that includes personalized information for:
- Your current voter registration data
- The current voter’s pamphlet with only the sections applicable to your ballot
- Your voting history from 2005 forward
- Contact information for the elected officials in your federal and state voting districts
You can also change your voter registration information from My Vote, provided you have the necessary data to verify your identity.