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Legal Reference Question #1 (see April 11th posting for details): Does the prohibition against helping patrons select/complete forms include IRS forms? The short answer is: YES, YES, YES!! The longer answer: Please do not EVER select or help a patron select a tax form, local, state, federal or foreign. You do not know what tax form they need so how could you select one – right? Even if you are a tax attorney, an enrolled agent, or a CPA, the patron is not your client, you do not know anything about their household or finances, and you have no professional relationship to them giving you the right to make their financial decisions.

For Library Reference Staff Only (not really, but you’re forewarned): We’re going to do something a little different here for a couple of weeks (or more depending on how busy we all are). During our OLA presentation in April to a group of public reference library staff on how to answer legal reference questions, several excellent questions were asked and we ran out of time for answering them. So we (the county law librarians) are going to try and answer them here. It’s an unusual use of a blog, but very low tech, easy, and accessible to program participants. So here goes. The next posting will be the first question.

Oregon Uniform Trust Code: The “Oregon Issue” (why can’t there be more of these with 3 (THREE!) law schools in our small state – heaven knows we could use more legislative history and analyses of Oregon laws) – anyway … The “Oregon Issue” of the Willamette Law Review is a “Special Issue” on the Oregon Uniform Trust Code and Comments. It’s out now in libraries, Volume 42, No. 2, Spring 2006.

Chocolate bar recall, Coke, and fire: If you’re wondering what to do with those Dagoba Chocolate bars that have been recalled, other than taking them back to the point of purchase, here’s a great idea: how to make fire with chocolate and a Coke can. Isn’t hiking and camping season upon us? Take the kids out and teach them a new trick. Law librarians are full of all sorts of nifty ideas, aren’t we, eh. And eat more chocolate.

A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs: Learn about what a taxonomy is and legal blogs all in one swell foop, here. (Thanks to Howard Bashman’s incomparable How Appealing blog for the lead and the link.)

More Podcasting for Lawyers: Another excellent article from LLRX on podcasting, here. Here is an excerpt: “Where do you get your legal news and updates from? Law journals? Your state bar association? Online searches and watchlists? LexisNexis or WestLaw? The problem with those resources is that they require reading. You have to sit down and read text on paper or a screen. Enter the podcast …,” from Frederick Faulkner IV, “I’ll take my legal news to go, please … and intro to podcasting,” LLRX, March 16th, 2006.

Podcasting – huh?: If you still don’t “get” podcasting (and there is no shame in that), here’s an article that not only describes it in simple terms but also talks about some of the techie tools you could use to listen to or create a podcast. It’s written for law librarians and lawyers alike (thanks to the incomparable LLRX folks), and I think it is one of the best introductions to podcasting I’ve seen. The future is now – listen up!

Small business and IT Security: The Better Business Bureau has developed a guide to security and privacy specifically for small businesses. You can find it here (thanks to beSpacific for the lead and the link!).

Initiative, Referendum and Referral: Every wonder how this all works here in Oregon? Who doesn’t. One place to begin is with the State Elections Division. Another place is material put out by the League of Women Voters.