BGI Reference Desk

Westlaw Patron Access

Westlaw Patron Access now available on dedicated terminals in Business and Government Information

This content licensed from West includes full text searching to over 600 law journals and reviews, and sources from their Analytical Library, Minnesota Practice Series, and Minnesota Primary Laws. Access is only available on two workstations in Business and Government Information. Both workstations require authentication and are indicated by special signage (thanks Miguel). For public users, reference staff will need to log them onto one of these workstations.

The Analytical Library includes American Jurisprudence, American Law Reports, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions, Federal Procedure, Handbook of Federal Evidence, Restatement of the Law, West Federal Forms, and Wright & Miller’s Federal Practice and Procedure.

The Minnesota Practice Series has legal sources for business and commercial, civil rules, and methods of practice. These titles include Courtroom Handbook on Evidence, Trial Handbook, Jury Instruction Guides, Evidence, General Rules of Practice Annotated, Civil Rules Annotated, Civil Practice Series, and Criminal Law and Procedure. Several titles cover specific areas of law in Minnesota including construction law, DWI and DUI, elder law, environmental law, estate planning and probate, evidence, real property, and workers compensation.
The Minnesota Primary Laws include Minnesota Cases, Minneosta Statutes Annotated, Minnesota Attorney General Opinions, Minnesota Administrative Codes.

Westlaw Patron Access

Westlaw Patron Access now available on dedicated terminals in Business and Government Information

This content licensed from West includes full text searching to over 600 law journals and reviews, and sources from their Analytical Library, Minnesota Practice Series, and Minnesota Primary Laws. Access is only available on two workstations in Business and Government Information. Both workstations require authentication and are indicated by special signage (thanks Miguel). For public users, reference staff will need to log them onto one of these workstations.

The Analytical Library includes American Jurisprudence, American Law Reports, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions, Federal Procedure, Handbook of Federal Evidence, Restatement of the Law, West Federal Forms, and Wright & Miller’s Federal Practice and Procedure.

The Minnesota Practice Series has legal sources for business and commercial, civil rules, and methods of practice. These titles include Courtroom Handbook on Evidence, Trial Handbook, Jury Instruction Guides, Evidence, General Rules of Practice Annotated, Civil Rules Annotated, Civil Practice Series, and Criminal Law and Procedure. Several titles cover specific areas of law in Minnesota including construction law, DWI and DUI, elder law, environmental law, estate planning and probate, evidence, real property, and workers compensation.
The Minnesota Primary Laws include Minnesota Cases, Minneosta Statutes Annotated, Minnesota Attorney General Opinions, Minnesota Administrative Codes.

Phone cord

The phone is temporarily located near the GovPubs computer. The normal phone cord is broken but it will take some work to remove it completely.

Sara

The phone cord has been replaced and the phone is back to where it belongs.

Daniel

Outside patrons unable to access MNCAT

In case any patrons call our desk about this problem here is the note from Janet Arth's e-mail of 3/4/08.

"Off campus users coming from behind a firewall may not be able to access the public catalogs at all. We are now quite sure this is a port issue and continue to work for a permanent fix. In the meantime, if the users can request that their local IT staff open port 8991 on prime6.oit.umn.edu, we believe this will resolve the problem."

-Daniel

On-campus income tax return preparation is available to students, faculty and staff with income up to $50,000.

If students ask about tax help, please show them the link on the Business Library website on the left side:

Tax Forms and Tax Help

http://courses.lib.umn.edu/page.phtml?page_id=1043

Thanks to Judy for creating this page - Van

Minnesota Reference Books

Check out this Wilson Reference blog entry for a list of Minnesota related reference works found here in Wilson Library.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/staff/iris/archives/001805.html

Netfiles client installed on GPL refdesk computer

I installed the Netfiles client on the GPL refdesk computer. I tried to login using the govref ID, but apparently dept. accounts aren't eligible for Netfiles. I've set it to save my x500 and password instead so that the desktop client will always be available. - Amy

1880 Census requests

I have modified the 1880 Census requests page. It's much shorter and simpler. It also no longer sends an email to an MPC address because no one there is checking.

Therefore, should you see a request in the govref mailbox:
1. email Ron Goeken (goeke001@umn.edu) at the MPC and he'll bring the reels to our desk.
2. contact the patron; tell him/her that the reels will be at our desk
3. when s/he's done, tell Amy and she'll take them back when she next goes to the MPC.

Web page: http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/guides/1880census.phtml

--Amy

New GPL Homepage

Government Publications is celebrating its centennial of participation in the FDLP with a website makeover. Every link that had been on the previous version should still be directly onscreen or within a mouseover at http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/. Also, we'll be highlighting a different publication of importance from the last 100 years each week. These entries are part of a new blog called "Federal Depository Library Centennial".

Details:

The Indexes and Databases page that used to be in the top menu has been taken away, as has the collections link. Now, you get to each collection guide (which has all the indexes and databases for a given collection) directly from the home page.

The Related column has become a menu item across the top of every page. SourceOECD is now listed there, as is the link to the Tax Forms

Search tools like Google U.S. Government Search and the IGO web search are now part of the "Search Tools" menu, also at the top of every page.

The Statistics column has become a menu item as well.

The U.S. Census has been removed from the top menu, but added to the Statistics menu and is listed in the U.S. list of resources on the home page.

Web Site Changes

http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/bookmark.phtml redirected to http://del.icio.us/bgi
http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/collections.phtml redirected to http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/
http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/floorplan.phtml deleted
http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/indexes.phtml redirected to http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/
http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/survey.phtml deleted
http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/about_id.phtml deleted
http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/staff/guidelist.phtml redirected to http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/
http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/stat/tool_statlocator.phtml deleted; resource listed under Search Tools; page redirected to http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/
http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/stat/tool_offstats.phtmldeleted; resource listed under Search Tools; page redirected to http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/
http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/z-old deleted; saved to L:\
http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/preview; contents moved to /temp; deleted foler
http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu/usability deleted; saved to L:\

Geog 3401 / Annual Climatological Summaries

Geog 3401 will have need of some National Climatic Data Center publications like the Annual Climatological Summaries. I have discovered that none of the PURLs that I found in MNCAT pointing to the NCDC will resolve correctly. DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT use MNCAT for the time being. The right path is available on the Climate Statistics Guide just now added to the home page. You want the links under "Featured" which is at the top of the guide. -- Amy

new links on gpl homepage

Added links to Google U.S. Government Search, Google Patents and Unbisnet to http://govpubs.lib.umn.edu.

Also selectively bolded parts of the names of guides in the list at http://courses.lib.umn.edu/page.phtml?page_id=1776 . Let me know if you want any of the ones not bolded changed.

Also added a little triangle to resources I like best on Laws and Legislation Guide.

Google Patent search

Google has just introduced its patent search (http://www.google.com/patents) and here are some notes from my playing with it just now:

-Google's full-text searching is from 1776-present
-Google does NOT require a user to download software to view images (since they're using their own) like the USPTO
-search results are linked to patent image/text at USPTO
-there's a "related patents" feature
-the advanced search will probably be necessary for most searches since it is full-text; try Gatling Gun with and without a date range of 1800-1900...

At first glance this is far, far superior to the USTPO search even though it doesn't have "patent applications, international patents, or U.S. patents issued over the last few months".

See http://www.google.com/googlepatents/about.html#faq

Page replaced

Page http://courses.lib.umn.edu/page.phtml?page_id=1805 (Minnesota Collection Guide) has been replaced by http://www.lib.umn.edu/site/rqs.phtml?subject_id=270

The new page is actually the longstanding RQS page for Government Information, Minnesota. The indexes and databases category is repeated on the Indexes and Databases page. -- Amy

Seth Werner's marketing class

Seth Werner is going to send all the students in his marketing class
to the BusGov desk, and have us sign off on them having been here
and done some library research. They are undergraduates using only
Google, so the usual suspects on the the BusRef webpage should serve
them well.

Caroline