This Day In The Law: Justice Department Brings Antitrust Action Against AT&T

On November 20, 1974, the Department of Justice filed its final antitrust suit against AT&T, signaling the end of the “Bell system”. United States v. AT&T was ultimately settled out of court, under an agreement that the corporation would split and thereby end its monopoly on telephone service throughout the United States.

Source: Jurist

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Mobile Law Dictionaries A-Z

Now it is easy to have all the legal language you need at your fingertips with mobile law dictionaries! But, as the app world grows and more choices are available out there, it can be difficult to know which is the best for you.

Thanks to lawtechnologynews.com, you can get some guidance in choosing the best mobile law dictionary for you here. Available for Android, Apple and other platforms, legal definitions are now just a button away.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Google Trends

Google Trends visualizes the popularity of search terms across time.  The front page will inform you what searches are trending at the time of your visit.  It is a Google search function so you can look for the trend over time of your interest.  Once you have done the initial search, a number of menu options appear.  You can make comparisons across time or regions.

To learn more, check out the Google Trends Help Center.

Hat Tip to Online Searcher

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

How Americans View Privacy: New Report

This week the Pew Research Center published a fascinating report, "Public Perceptions of Privacy and Security in the Post-Snowden Era."  The Center's Internet Project commissioned a representative online panel of 607 adults to take four surveys over the course of a year.  The findings of this report are based on results from the first survey, conducted in January 2014, and reflect Americans' views of how secure they feel various channels of communication are for sharing private information. According to a recent BBC News article by Jane Wakefield based on comments from report author Mary Madden, a Pew Internet Project senior researcher, "the next survey, due next month, will look specifically at attitudes to how information is stored and secured and the following one will focus on behavioural changes in the post-Snowden world."

Read the report, and engage with the profiles and views of survey participants via this interactive created by the Internet Project.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Google tricks

does so much more than just search the web.  Try a few of these Google tricks 

• use Google as a timer
• play zerg rush or Atari Breakout
• get movie times, translations, conversions to/from metric, currency conversions
• narrow your web search to a particular site - a really useful research tool, btw

For more, check out 20 Awesome Things Google Can Do from {Life}Buzz

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

This Day In The Law: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Bus Segregation Laws

On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court (352 U.S. 903 [1956]) affirmed a lower court’s ruling in Browder v. Gayle (opens PDF) that Alabama’s racial segregation laws were unconstitutional.

Read a brief summary of the context here.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Research Resources: Guide to Law Online

The Guide to Law Online, prepared by the Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, is an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Thanksgiving Holiday Shuttle Service to JFK for Hofstra Students

Are you making your holiday plans to go home this year?  Hofstra has shuttle service to JFK!

November 26: Student Thanksgiving Shuttle Service to JFK

On Wednesday, November 26, the Department of Public Safety will offer Hofstra students shuttle service to JFK airport on a first-come, first-served, reservation-only basis.  There will be three trips leaving from the Student Center at 7 a.m., noon and 3 p.m. Seating is limited to 20 students per shuttle, as space is needed on the bus to accommodate luggage.

Students who want reserve a seat should send an email to Maryann Sarro at Maryann.Sarro@Hofstra.edu with their 700#,  cell phone number, requested shuttle time, and the airline they are flying.  They should leave enough time to account for traffic and check-in time at the airport. The shuttle will stop at the terminals in the order they are along the route, not according to flight times.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

The Supreme Court Mapping Project

The Supreme Court Mapping Project is under the direction of University of Baltimore School of Law Assistant Professor Colin Starger.  The mapper software enables users to create sophisticated interactive maps of Supreme Court doctrine.  The Project is building a library of implicating doctrinal territories in diverse areas including the 1st, 4th, 5th, 8th and 14th Amendments as well as in commerce power, patents, campaign finance, civil pleading, stare decisis, and more.

 The SCOTUS Mapper Library contains the maps created to date and an Intro page for a more in-depth explanation of the maps and how it all works.

And last, is the blog "In Progress" to keep you up-to-date with the project's activities.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

HeinOnline Tax Foundation Archive Publications

HeinOnline's Tax Foundation Archive collection provides the complete archive of the Tax Foundation's publications, which contain information on taxation, fiscal policy, finance and more.  The collection can be browsed by publication title or subject, or use HeinOnline's other capabilities to search for specific topics.To learn more about the collection click here, to access the collection click here.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat