The Goodson Blogson

CNN reported yesterday that former Google employees have launched a competing search engine, Cuil (http://www.cuil.com/) . Creators declare Cuil (pronounced "cool") to be "the world's biggest search engine", possibly indexing up to three times as many web pages as Google (although exact figures for Google's scope have not been publicly available since 2005). Cuil displays your search results in a 2- or 3-column layout, with brief summaries below each item. An "explore by category" box and navigation tabs help to narrow your results (ever "Google" someone with a generic name, or someone who shares their name with a celebrity?). The next time you have to search the web, experiment by comparing your results in both Google and Cuil. To assess your results in other major search engines, the site Thumbshots.com will provide side-by-side comparisons of the top hits for a search term in selected search engines, but it unfortunately does not yet...

As the bar exam draws closer, the tension becomes palpable in the Law Library. Although Bar/BRI study materials and commercial outlines are, undoubtedly, more than enough reading material for the bar exam, the Library does have some additional titles which may provide insight on the experience, and perhaps even a bit of serenity: Darrow-Kleinhaus, S. The Bar Exam in a Nutshell (2003). [On Reserve] Friedland, S. The Essential Rules for Bar Exam Success (2008). KF303 .F75 2008 Walton, K. Strategies & Tactics for the MBE: Multistate Bar Exam (2003). [On Reserve] Above all else, remember this: You know more than you think you do. Good luck to all of our bar exam-takers in these last few weeks before the big day(s).

We've previously reported on SearchTRLN , the mega-catalog of the Triangle Research Libraries Network (Duke, NC Central, NC State, and UNC-Chapel Hill) which allows you to see at a glance which area library owns an item and even to submit interlibrary loan requests directly from the search screen. As we mentioned in March, phase two of this project included the development of a customized local version of the SearchTRLN interface for the Duke community. The new catalog launches today, and will soon be the default view from the Duke University Libraries homepage (but not yet the Law Library homepage-- more on that in a moment). The new catalog interface includes many features and functions: single-click search refinement (limit your results by library, format, and more) book cover image displays (where available) the ability to save searches as persistent bookmarks the ability to save/view searches as dynamically updated RSS feeds However, as an unintended consequence of the Law S...

As previously noted in this blog, dining options on the Duke campus are a bit more limited over the summer (see Duke Dining summer 2008 schedule at http://dining.duke.edu/pdfs/wwte.summerhours.2008.pdf ). Fortunately, our summer starters and Bar/Bri attendees are not doomed to starve! If you missed the Independent Weekly ’s May publication of “ The Dish ” (its twice-annual pullout section devoted to Triangle-area restaurants), you can still access all the reviews at http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Dining . In fact, the online dining guide offers more functionality than the print guide, since users can sort restaurant listings by type of cuisine, location, or keyword. In addition, the Duke Law Epicurean Society maintains the blog Carpe Durham ( http://carpedurham.wordpress.com ), in which law students review local restaurants and even provide photos. The mostly-anonymous reviewers (identified only by initials) have continued their work into the summer. Although the scop...

In November 2007, Westlaw announced an exciting new database for legal researchers. The US GAO Federal Legislative Histories Collection ( FED-LH ) provides comprehensive legislative histories in PDF for most federal Public Laws enacted between 1915-1995 (although not all years are yet available). These histories compile the full text of "laws, bills, committee reports, Congressional Record documents, transcripts of hearings, and other documents" related to a particular Public Law. Although the Law Library has access to a variety of federal legislative history materials online , researchers usually must visit several different sources to access all of the various documents related to a particular law. The GAO histories on Westlaw seemed to make such effort redundant. So what could possibly be the problem? In March 2008, the blogosphere raised concerns about the exclusive terms of the contract with Westlaw's parent company, Thomson West (now Thomson Reuters). The histor...

In observance of Independence Day, the Law Library will be closed on Friday, July 4. Regular summer service hours will resume on Monday, July 7. Over the holiday weekend, current members of the Law School community will retain 24-hour building access with a valid DukeCard.