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Showing posts from August, 2016

Fundamentals of Government Information

Neal-Schuman has recently published the second edition of Fundamentals of Government Information: Mining, Finding, Evaluating, and Using Government Resources ( ZA5055.U6 F67 2016 ) by Cassandra J. Hartnett, Andrea L. Sevetson, and Eric J. Forte. The authors begin with an overview of government information resources, discussing the history of government history, depository libraries before the existence of the web, classification of government documents, and government information in the era of the internet. This title also covers congressional publications, statutes, regulations, case law, and presidential and executive branch documents. There are specialized topics such as statistical, patents, health, environment and energy, and archival information. This source, now available on the law library's new titles shelf , is beneficial for anyone interested in an overview of researching government information.

Pokémon Go in the Law Library

As of the date of this posting, the Pokémon Go augmented reality game app is one of the most successful mobile games in history.  As is the case with most suddenly popular phenomena, there is no shortage of  legal concerns surrounding Pokémon Go; issues touching on  consumer rights , attractive nuisance  and criminal law  have been raised in connection with the game on a fairly regular basis since it was first launched. Legal scholars interested in learning about or researching these topics may find useful general legal research guides on consumer rights from the Library of Congress  or HG ; a brief introduction to the concept of attractive nuisance is offered by FindLaw for those who have not yet encountered it in the study of property or tort law; and the Harvard Law School Library and  NYU Law's LibGuides  are excellent places to begin researching criminal law. As a side note, for any Pokémon Go players who reached this page looking for game information rather than legal

Finding Information on Sales Tax Holidays

This weekend (August 5-7) is a sales tax holiday for purchases of school supplies in Texas. Did you know that there are also sales tax holidays for emergency preparation supplies, water-efficient products, and energy-efficient products, including air conditioners, refrigerators, and dishwashers? You can find the dates of these holidays, as well as information on eligible products, on the website of the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. For sales tax holidays in other states, see this handy list compiled by the Federation of Tax Administrators.