Statutory Research: If you think searching the ORS is tough, try searching the USC. As an example from April 18th, here’s a question sent to the peerless librarians at Boston College Law Library who host a Reference Question of the Week blog:

Q: “A student was trying to find No Child Left Behind Act § 9526, 20 USC §§. 6301 et seq. (2002). He said he had pulled up the document on Westlaw, but couldn’t find § 9526.”

And here is the law librarian’s answer:

A: ‘While this problem could have been researched on Westlaw, we used print resources, where it is often easier to see relationships between session laws and codes. The Popular Name Table of the 2001 U.S.C.C.A.N. volume gave the citation to “No Child Left Behind” as Pub. L. 107-110, 115 Stat 1425 (2001). The table of contents to “No Child Left Behind” in Section 2 of the Act only goes up to § 1076. One of the things this Act does is amend the “Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965” including a new table of contents for that act. In this new table of contents there was a reference to § 9526 “General prohibitions.” The text of that new section of the “Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965” can be found at 115 Stat. 1982. The 2001 U.S.C.C.A.N. “Table 2 – Classifications” shows that page 1892 is classified as 20 U.S.C. § 7906. The most recent supplement to the official 2000 Code in our library confirms that 20 U.S.C. § 7906 (Supp. III 2003) is the desired section, “General prohibitions”.’