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Notable Internet Resources 2007

This is the archive of the Notable Internet Resources columns from 2007. Notable Internet Resources is produced by the Langdell Reference Department as a service to the Harvard Law School community. The Notable Internet Resources archive may be browsed by date or by topic.

Notable Internet Resources provides annotated links to resources on a topic of interest to the Harvard Law School community. Once published, no effort is made to ensure the links remain current or accurate. This archive is provided for informational purposes only. Please contact the Langdell reference desk, (617) 495-4516, located just off the reading room on the fourth floor of Langdell Hall with any questions.

Notable Internet Resources Listed by Date:

January 29

May 21

November     

February

June 18

December

March 26

September

April 23

October

Notable Internet Resources Listed by Topic:

Administrative Decisions: Defining Regulations (June 18)
Health Care Law & Policy (January 29)
Public Opinion Polling (April 23)
Social Bookmarking: Gather & Share Your Research (May 21)
Taxes (March 26)

Notable Internet Resources 2007 Archive:

January 29: Health care Law & Policy

Health Care Law & Policy:
Sources for News, Commentary, Research and Statistics

The Commonwealth Fund
http://www.cmwf.org/

The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation that seeks to “promote a high performing health care system”, particularly for “society’s most vulnerable”. In addition to providing grants to assist health care practice and policy, the Fund conducts and supports health care issue research and disseminates news & information under such topics as health insurance, health system performance, health information technology, state health policy, underserved populations, care for the elderly, child health & development and international health policy.

Topic coverage under a Publications tab includes commentary, data briefs, testimony, linked medical and health policy journal articles (Sometimes alternative Harvard ID and PIN access via Harvard Libraries is necessary), newsletters and Fund research reports. A Surveys & Data tab affords free of charge access to research and poll findings by the Fund and other research organizations. Raw data are made available to researchers one year after the release of a report. Under a Charts tab appear several hundred charts and graphs of high interest statistics browsable by health issue subject. A Newsroom tab offers press releases, often recent Fund commentary or announcements of newly completed surveys or research studies.

Health Affairs Blog
http://www.healthaffairs.org/blog/

This nonpartisan blog is sponsored by Health Affairs: The Policy Journal of the Health Sphere. Updated at least weekly, the blog offers editor-vetted posts, both staff-written commentary or reports and invited contributions by leading health policy analysts. The focus of the posts is either a current news development or a major health policy issue or debate. “Responses from a variety of health care stakeholders” and comments from general readers are welcomed. Links to Health Affairs articles and to timely information from other sources are also included at the site. E-mail alerts and RSS feeds are available.

Health Policy Watch
http://healthpolicywatch.org/

A project of the nonprofit Century Foundation, the Health Policy Watch website follows “important trends, new ideas, and noteworthy research in health care policy”. Its express purpose is to promote reform of the U.S. system of health care financing and delivery so as to achieve universal coverage. Publications, News & Opinion, Issues and Press Room modules highlight biotechnology, health care delivery, long-term care, Medicare & Medicaid, prescription drugs and public health & bioterrorism as well as universal coverage.

Not all publications for which Heath Policy Watch searches retrieve citations are freely available at the site in PDF. When not fully available in PDF, some of the Century Foundation’s own publications, however, can be located in print at Harvard through the HOLLIS Catalog. PDF access to articles in the journal Health Affairs when citations are retrieved by searches at the HPW website requires an online subscription-based user name and password. But for holders of a Harvard ID and PIN, Health Affairs is a Harvard Libraries available e-journal.

Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
(http://www.kff.org)

The private, non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) is a major provider of health care and health policy information addressed to policymakers, the media and the general public. Made available via the suite of websites it maintains, news releases, webcasts, testimony, tutorials, charts and data, surveys and polls, and research reports and studies are included among KFF’s many offerings on such topics as Medicare & Medicaid, HIV/AIDS, health care access, health insurance costs, minority health, women’s health policy, state health policy and prescription drugs.

KaiserEDU.org is noteworthy for its coverage of medical malpractice policy and public health preparedness for which information and analysis appear under the topic “health and the law”. The “Daily Reports” feature of Kaisernet.org canvasses the latest public health policy news and events. Another useful site – statehealthfacts.org – offers current statistics in a variety of formats on more than 450 health law and policy relevant topics for the U.S., the 50 states and the District of Columbia. GlobalHealthReporting.org provides information and analysis on health conditions around the world. The search appliance for the KFF websites is provided by Google.

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)
(http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/default.htm)

This federal agency within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the major source of population health status and public health care system information for the United States. NCHS conducts surveys, collects data and publishes periodic and special statistical reports on a wide array of demographic variables that variously serve to monitor health status trends, identify disparities in health care use and availability among the American people and generally inform health law and policy decision-making.

High profile, pre-compiled health related statistics can generally be retrieved via NCHS Web Search and links to major periodic statistical reports appear on the NCHS homepage. For more sophisticated searching and raw data extraction use CDC Wonder or other “Micro-data Access” tools also provided links on the NCHS homepage.

World Health News
http://www.worldhealthnews.harvard.edu/index.html

World Health News is maintained by the Center for Communications at the Harvard School of Public Health. Addressed to “policy makers, and journalists as well as public health researchers, practitioners and advocates”, it provides a weekly index of high profile public health topics that affords access to digests of the latest news stories published in newspapers and magazines from around the world. Links to breaking radio and television public health news stories available at the websites of major news organizations are also included. Among the current list of topics covered are bird flu, child welfare, stem cell research, nutrition & obesity and homelessness. The site also features original reports and commentary and videotaped interviews of experts by the School of Public Health.

Compiled and edited by Terry Swanlund, Reference Librarian, Langdell Reference
swanlund@law.harvard.edu
January 29, 2007

March 26: Taxes 2007

Taxes 2007

Massachusetts Tax Forms
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=dormodulechunk&L=1&L0=Home&sid=Ador&b=terminalcontent&f=dor_forms_formsmenu2&csid=Ador

Tax forms can be found at this site by searching through various categories, or by using the online forms index.

Massachusetts Department of Revenue: Legal Library
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=dorsubtopic&L=4&L0=Home&L1=Businesses&L2=Help+%26+Resources&L3=Legal+Library&sid=Ador

This online library connects users to applicable Massachusetts regulations on the subject of taxation, letter rulings, directives and technical information releases. While letter rulings are binding only on an individual taxpayer with a particular set of facts or circumstances, technical information releases “ inform taxpayers and tax practitioners of DOR's response to changes in federal or state tax laws or to court decisions interpreting those laws.” Letter rulings are provided back to 1981, and technical information releases are archived back to 1970. Many types of legal documents are also provided including from the following areas: Administrative, Child Support, Corporate Excise, Personal Income Tax, Sales/Use.” Users can sign up to receive free email updates from the Department of Revenue on these matters.

Revenue Rulings Archive from the IRS
http://www.irs.gov/retirement/article/0,,id=96691,00.html

The Internal Revenue Services provides revenue rulings issued back to October 2000. Revenue rulings are provided in regards to a particular factual situation.

Alternative Minimum Tax Assistant for Individuals (2006)
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=150703,00.html

Using the Assistant provided at this site, a user can easily learn whether or not they are subject to paying the alternative minimum tax. Users who are subject to this tax can also download the necessary form to file it (Form 6251).

Federation of Tax Administrators
http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/link/forms.html

This website provides an interactive map from which users can click on a state and then be directed to that state’s official web site for income and other tax information as well as forms. Also helpful are state-by-state comparison tables on a variety of subjects relating to income taxes, sales taxes, and excise taxes.

Compiled and edited by Terri Gallego O'Rourke,
Reference Librarian Anglo-American Law & Instructional Services Coordinator , Langdell Reference
tgorourke@law.harvard.edu
March 26, 2007

April 23: Public Opinion Polling

Public Opinion Polling

A poll is a type of public opinion survey performed by interviewing a random sampling of people. Polling data is available through a number of print and electronic sources with much of it moving to subscription databases. The following is a select list of subscription resources available at Harvard and a free, online guide about public polling information.

The Roper Center for Public Opinion (Harvard ID and PIN required)
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/

Includes polling data ranging from the 1930’s to present with an emphasis on U.S. polling information (though polls from approximately seventy foreign countries are also included). iPoll provides question-level access to data from major polling sources such as Gallup, Harris, Roper, and the Wall Street Journal. Data sets are also available to the Harvard community through the Virtual Data Center (VDC), and through LexisNexis Academic (polling information is located under the reference link).

Polling the Nations (Harvard ID and PIN required)
http://www.orspub.com/

Provides compilations of question and response level data from over 14,000 surveys conducted by 700 polling organizations from 1986 to the present. Each record provides the organization responsible for the poll, the sample size, and the date the poll was released. Includes public opinion polls from the United States and more than eighty other countries.

Data-PASS (Harvard ID and PIN required)
http://vdc.hmdc.harvard.edu/VDC/

Provides access to opinion polls, voting records, and large-scale surveys. Data sets are available to the Harvard community through the Harvard - MIT Virtual Data Center (VDC).

Guide to public opinion poll Web sites: Polling data from around the world
www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backissues2006/october06/opinionpoll.htm

An extensive guide to free and online public opinion polling sites published by the American Library Association. Includes foreign and domestic polling sources.

Compiled and edited by Elizabeth Lambert,
Reference Librarian Anglo-American Law, Langdell Reference
elambert@law.harvard.edu
April 23, 2007

May 21: Social Bookmarking: Gather & Share Your Research

Social Bookmarking: Gather & Share Your Research

Social bookmarking services allow you to bookmark, store, tag, organize and share articles, web sites and other materials you locate during your research right from within your web browser. Social bookmarking services may be browsed and searched allowing you to discover new references useful to your research. Social bookmarking services work with many of the major information providers such as Amazon.com, HighWire Press, Ingenta, JSTOR, Nature, PLoS, Project MUSE, PubMed, Science, SpringerLink and Wiley InterScience. Many social bookmarking services allow you to export your stored references to Endnote and other citation management services.

CiteULike
http://www.citeulike.org

CiteULike is a citation service geared towards academics that allows you to share, store and organize links to academic papers as you are reading them. When you add a reference, CiteULike automatically extracts its citation information. CiteULike references can be exported to BibTeX and Endnote. (Registration required.)

Connotea
http://www.connotea.org

Connotea is a reference management system allowing you to save, organize and share citations and other references you locate during your research. When you save an article or other reference, Connotea automatically adds-in its citation information and allows you to assign personal tags. Connotea references can be exported to, or imported from, citation managers such as Endnote. (Registration required.)

del.icio.us
http://del.icio.us

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking service allowing you to store, tag and share your bookmarks. (Registration required.)

EdTags
http://edtags.org

EdTags is a social bookmarking tool geared towards educators. EdTags allows you to upload, store, categorize and share your course papers, pre-print materials, browser favorites, del.icio.us bookmark list, and other references. EdTags references can be exported to XML, HTML, your browser, and del.icio.us. (Registration required.)

LibraryThing
http://www.librarything.com

LibraryThing is a social cataloging service allowing you to easily catalog your books and share your library with colleagues. (Registration required. Fee required after first 200 books.)

Zotero
http://www.zotero.org

Zotero is a Firefox 2 extension that allows you to gather, store, organize, and analyze information sources including full text articles, pdfs, citations, web pages, images, and many other objects. Zotero can sense the type of object you are viewing whether on a web page, library catalog or other web-based electronic resource and automatically find and save the item's full citation information. Zotero can export references in three citation styles, American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language Association (MLA) and Chicago Manual of Style, directly into your work product. Zotero expects to add support for Bluebook citation style in the very near future. (Download and installation required.)

Compiled and edited by Michael Jimenez,
Reference Librarian, Langdell Reference
jimenez@law.harvard.edu
May 14, 2007

June 18: Administrative Decisions: Defining Regulations

Administrative Decisions: Defining Regulations

As case law can delineate a statute so too administrative decisions further define a regulation. These decisions exist at both a federal and state level.

One such area is labor law, specifically state administrative labor decisions (N.B. workers’compensation board cases are different and separate decisions). Lexis-Nexis carries the decisions for the following states: California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Washington, and West Virginia. Westlaw carries the decisions for California, Massachusetts, Ohio, Tennessee, Washington, and West Virginia. The following states are available for free on the Internet (states in BOLD are neither on Westlaw nor Lexis-Nexis):

Compiled and edited by Martin Hollick,
Reference Librarian, Langdell Reference
mhollick@law.harvard.edu
June 18, 2007

Notable Internet Resources is produced by the Langdell Reference Department as a service to the Harvard Law School community. See the Notable Internet Resources Archive for past columns. The archive may be browsed by date or by topic.