Citing a court indictment using APA

Does anyone know how to cite a court indictment (not a case) using APA? I'm helping a student via chat. The indictment was found online. I will recommend The Bluebook (Ref KF 245
B58) and the Cornell site (Basic Legal Citation). I was not able to find how to cite an indictment in either of these sources. Perhaps indictments are included under court documents or another term? Thanks.

Delivery of blog posts

I'm trying to clean up the systems I set up to transmit copies of blog posts via email. If you are no longer receiving a copy of the each blog post as an email message, please let me know by phone or email. If you'd like to learn how to set up a feed reader, such as Bloglines or Google Reader, that can aggregate the feed from our reference blog as well as any others you'd like to subscribe to, let me know and I can set it up for you.

Teaching About the Wikipedia

I found a fast paced, funny, and fact packed tutorial about using the Wikipedia for research on YouTube. It was produced by John Gibson and Vibiana Bowman, librarians at the Paul Robeson Library at Rutgers, Camden where I worked a long time ago. Although written for a student audience, I think it might be better pitched to faculty or librarians who want to show their students how the Wikipedia addresses the issues of accuracy, authority, objectivity and currency. The unique thing about the text is that it is entirely based on quotes from Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s founder, and official Wikipedia policy statements.

The version on YouTube is a little fuzzy but you can find the original at the Robeson Library website where it comes with a quiz and a transcript of the text.

International Business Directory

The International Business Directory developed by the Mayor’s Office, the Weissman Center for International Business at Baruch, and the Commission for the United Nations, Consular Corps and Protocol, Division for International Business has just been released. The directory, also called the Guide to Global Businesses in New York City, is updated every two years and this is the first edition that is web-based.

You can search by search by company name or description or you can choose to browse by country, industry sector, or category. Because the directory includes trade missions, consulates, cultural organizations and chambers of commerce, if you want your results list to focus on companies, use the category “Foreign Companies in NYC”.

Oxford and Gale Reference Sources

Although the access impediments differ many Gale Virtual Reference and Oxford Reference resources are not available or not working when searching via CUNY+. Until the problems are resolved the method or path to gain consistent access to these sources is via the "Databases"--again not CUNY+.

I brought this to Michael Waldman's attention and he is working on the resolution of the problems.

LexisNexis vs. Westlaw

Stanford Law School just published a report that may be of interest to us as users of both LexisNexis and Westlaw. The authors surveyed law librarians as to the benefits of each and what alternatives could be found in case one was cancelled. In general the preference seemed to be for Westlaw over LexisNexis. The full report is here "Law Librarians and LexisNexis vs. Westlaw: Survey Results".

Moving Titles from the Index Tables

Mike and I have been slowly moving the titles on the index tables to the reference stacks or, in the case of titles that are no longer being published, to the stacks. If you are looking for one of your favorite titles and you don't see it on the tables, please check CUNY+. We expect to have this project finished sometime in December.

The New Tablebase Interface

If you haven't yet had a chance to look at the new Tablebase interface, you should know that from the results list you will click directly into the entry with the table and bibliographic information. Although it is not stated anywhere,if you download or e-mail the table to yourself it will come with the full text of the article.

Overview of the new chat interface

QuestionPoint has posted on its blog a post detailing what the new chat interface will look like.

Company and Industry Ratios

Students taking BPL5100 are asking about ratios for both individual companies and industries. There is a subject guide on Ratio Analysis and Rasun has just updated all the links so you can point students there.

If students need industry ratios the two best sources are the RMA Annual Statement Studies and Dun and Bradstreet's Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios (both in the reference collection). Students will need to know the industry NAICS codes to use RMA and the SIC code for D&B.

Factiva and Mergent Online are good sources for company ratios. EDGAR Online I-Metrix probably has the most complete list as they provide ratios computed on an annual, quarterly, and trailing 12 month basis. Their data goes back ten years and can be exported to excel. To find the data, choose a company first, then click on "Ratios" under "Financials" in the left column.

Student reports problem with accessing Compass homework site for math class

I have reported to systems that a student reported problems with accessing the Compass homework site on the library's computers today. She said she had done it before.

Compass is a pre-algebra math class in which all homework is done on line. The message received on the computer was that a newer version of Adobe Flash needed to be installed and that required administrative rights. When I called systems help, it was suggested that perhaps she would be successful in the 6th floor lab. So I directed her there. I learned from the help desk that one computer could not be upgraded; that all would need to be done. I don't know if the student was successful on the 6th floor as my desk shift ended.

Tablebase has a new interface

A vast improvement it seems at first glance.

Demos and tutorials can be found here.

iSkills Canceled Today (11/19/08)

The iSkills test scheduled for today from 3-5pm in Rm 130 is CANCELED.

Global Corporate Tax Rates

I have had a couple of reference requests (including one from a professor) for corporate tax rates by country. OECD data is good, but limited to member countries. KPMG produces an annual survey of corporate tax rates for 106 countries: Corporate and Indirect Tax Rate Survey The data is collected through local KPMG branches, is well-regarded, and the latest annual report presents 10 years of data. The report is in pdf format, so data would need to be re-keyed for analysis, but it is perhaps the most complete available. Older reports can be found at the KPMG Archives Site for those needing data further back in time; these generally only include two years of data. Deloitte has produced a similar survey for over 200 countries, but the latest compilation is from 2006 and provides rates only as of that year: 2006 Corporate Tax Rates for 212 Countries

CIAO features global economic crisis

The Columbia International Affairs Online database features the global economic crisis this month.

Also of possible interest to students might be the book, "Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money: The Challenge of Piracy," also added to the database. The NYT had an article this morning about the recent occurrence of largest ship ever hijacked--a full oil tanker.

"The Reckoning"

The New York Times has pulled together articles on the financial crisis in an ongoing series they call "The Reckoning." It includes audio, video and an interactive graphic of the events of September 17th and 18th.

the Enron Loophole

One of the reference questions we discussed in yesterday's reference practicum was the Enron loophole. Students were looking for congressional testimony about it. Searching in news databases is easy enough using the common terminology of "Enron loophole," but in legislative databases especially Thomas, it's better to start with the bill number or the name of the act, in this case, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. This act allowed unregulated trading of financial derivatives including credit default swaps. It included special language that exempted Enron's electronic energy trading operation, Enron Online, from regulation, hence, "the Enron loophole."

For a good background report on this issue, read the Congressional Research Service report of July 2008.

This article from the New York Times on "Gramm and the 'Enron Loophole'" discusses the role of former Senator Phil Gramm in the passage of the bill and points to additional sources including the Enron Explorer, a website that puts Enron e-mail in a searchable format.

Ebrary and printing

Some good news: Ebrary now lets us print 20 pages at a time, up from the 5 previously allowed. This was one of the most voiced complaints so I am glad they've increased the limit.

Question about availability of divorce records

A email reference question today from a student working on an Anthro paper requested assistance in finding actual divorce proceedings cases from the 1960s to "modern times." The student had tried Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw Campus without success. In case this comes up again, I thought I would share what I learned.

I learned that these databases do not provide these proceedings for a number of reasons..in general they are decided in Family Court or Domestic Relations Courts, and the decisions are not available in the databases. Although I didn't check all 50 states and the District of Columbia, I learned that New York State Consolidated Laws on Domestic Relations states that divorce/dissolution of marriage rulings/decisions are to be kept private and only the court and the parties have access to the information. And, such records are to be private for 100 years. I am sure that there are many policy reasons for these decisions..the financial information and relationship/behavior of the parties, and minor children whose lives could be impacted.

However, sometimes one of the parties appeals the decision to a higher court, and these rulings are available. I tried in Westlaw Campus, "dissolution of marriage," and "child support", and limited my cases to state court in New York. There were 15 cases in the last 3 year.

There are many law review journal articles that are written on this topic but the student didn't specify what s/he was trying to locate.

Update on CUNY+ Problems

A notice was just posted to the CULIBS listserv announcing that the library systems office will begin the job of restoring the missing item information at 2:00 P.M. today. The job will run for three to four hours and during this time the Web OPAC will be unavailable.