From the Law Writing Prof Blog:
Northwest Regional Legal Writing Conference in Portland – August 28-29, 2009
“Lewis & Clark Law School and the University of Oregon School of Law are pleased to announce their joint sponsorship of the 2009 Northwest Regional Legal Writing Conference. Because of that sponsorship, the conference will have no registration fee.
If you get your marriage license in one Oregon county and get married in another, where can you get a certified copy of your marriage license 30 years later?
This is a slightly different question from the one I answered a little while ago: How do I find out if someone in Oregon or Washington is married? But the research is similar – and the following information also applies to Domestic Partnership records.
1) Check the Oregon county where you got your marriage license (the issuing county), not the one where the ceremony was held. Or, preferably (assuming a certain passage of time), contact the Oregon Center for Health Statistics, where you will find the Oregon’s vital records office, the resting place for Oregon birth, marriage, divorce, and death records.
If recent heartbreaking events in Portland, Oregon haven’t sent those of literary or legal mind to the library or online to refresh your memory of the story of Medea (and other filicide tragedies), then you haven’t been paying attention:
1) Libraries will have multiple versions of the original tale.
2) Online ones include these (a tiny sample):
Greek myth (wikipedia)
Euripides Medea (wikipedia)
MIT Classics
Lord Byron translation
Google Books (medea)
Other articles about maternal filicide: here (search NCJRS: filicide) and here – all the more heartbreaking if you know about Broken Hearts Still Beating.
If you haven’t heard about this iPhone Scam Alert, in the newspaper, online, from the Oregon AG’s office, and beyond, then you need to think about ratcheting up your news tracking. This scam is not the worst out there, but if you’re not hearing daily about some food or product recall or scam, then you can’t complaint about the world going to hell in a handbasket. It takes two to be scammed, and to tango. So put on your crap-detectors, slow down, and think before you play or pay.
In other words, let’s have a little more caveating out there. See FBI, Snopes, beware urban legends, and check out Recalls dot gov. But you’re on the front line so Caveat Emptor.
I’ve been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use the very funny line of Tom McCarthy’s from his review of the Clancy Martin book, “How to Sell.” McCarthy’s line in his article, Art of the Deal (from the 5/17/09 NYT Book Review): “To bastardize the Latin, emptors need to sober up and exercise a little caveating over that one….” Yes, McCarthy said it in a completely different context! But the sentiment works amongst us legal types, doesn’t it?
beSpacific reminded me to try out Google Squared, which is very interesting. I foresee it being useful for kids and parents doing homework and maybe even for medical and health related questions – maybe. I’m not so sure about legal research. I entered Oregon Legal Research, but all I got was: “Google Squared couldn’t automatically build a Square about oregon legal research.” Very funny, but not helpful. I’m about as Square as can be!
And then there is Bing. Only time will tell, but so far so good, especially on the Oregon Legal Research front.
It has been said that lawyers are frustrated writers. Well, so are most writers! Visit Oregon Authors, a new website that also has links to Oregon writer and reader groups.
As for law library blogs (and bloggers are writers if nothing else), there are 185 of us already, blogging professionally as law librarians (mostly).
Have you seen the Portland Upside newspaper yet? It’s not just “good” news; it’s interesting, fun, and inspiring news (and it’s online for those who can’t find a print copy). The cover story of the first issue is about a group of unemployed people who are doing productive work to keep themselves in the loop, sane, happy, and strong, physically and mentally. No “too big to fail” taxpayer bailouts for them!
Lots of other stories for those who wonder why The News can’t be more upbeat.
Have a great weekend!
I went to the Amazing World of Claymation exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society and, of course, saw the legal research angle! Wouldn’t any law librarian?
So, you may ask, what does legal research have to do with claymation?
Quite a lot, if you want to make a business (or any money) out of the art and craft of claymation. And without business or money, most of us would never have heard of claymation, which would be very sad.
I attended an L-net (Oregon Library Network) meeting last week and in addition to catching up with other “virtual reference” librarians, I learned about these:
1) The search engine Duck duck go dot com is useful for adults too, and not just because there is no advertising. Try it out with this search: legislative history, but try others as well, including Oregon (and then drill down). Interesting ….
2) Oregon Authors dot org is a good website, especially for writers in Oregon-land!
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle … your body.
Margie Boule’s May 12th, 2009, column in the Oregonian reminded me that donating organs is about as Green as a Green Person can get (though maybe not this Green Person).
When it comes to organ donation, they’re passionate about their lives’ work, by Margie Boule, The Oregonian, May 12, 2009
Oregon Legal Research Blog