HeinOnline Blog (www.heinonline.org)

Faceted Searching - We Want Your Feedback

2009-12-03T12:11:00.002-05:00

Have you used our new BETA faceted searching option in the Law Journal Library?

If so, we want your feedback! We introduced this new searching enhancement last month as a BETA enhancement. Some of our users began using it right away, while others have just begun using it. No matter the case, we invite you to participate in a short survey about this new enhancement.

Click here to access the short five question survey.

We value your feedback and will use it to further improve this new searching enhancement. You may also submit feedback to us via email at holsupport@wshein.com, or click on the Feedback button in the upper right-hand corner of HeinOnline.

If you have not yet tried HeinOnline's Faceted Searching feature in the Law Journal Library, we encourage you to do so. Click here to learn more about the faceted searching feature.

Did You Miss Our Cyber Monday Promotion?!

2009-12-02T10:58:00.003-05:00

Hein's Cyber Monday Promotion Has Been Extended!

Receive 10% off any HeinOnline library.*

Offer is valid through 11:59 p.m. EST on December 5, 2009!
E-mail marketing@wshein.com or call us at 1.800.828.7571
to take advantage of this limited time offer!
*Discount is not applicable on all libraries due to contractual agreements.
Contact marketing@wshein.com for details.
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Where in the World is Hein

2009-11-30T15:15:00.003-05:00

In his 10 years with the Hein Company, Shannon Hein, Vice President of Sales, has traveled to more than 30 countries! Can you guess where Shannon is in the below picture?

E-mail your guess to marketing@wshein.com by December 28, 2009. If you can guess the correct country he was in, monument he was in front of, or meeting he was attending, you'll be entered to win a "Where in the World is Hein" t-shirt! Be sure to include your name, organization or institution, and your mailing address. We'll announce the winner in a follow-up blog post and in the monthly HeinOnline announcement, so stay tuned!

Good luck guessing!

Where in the World Hein Contest Winner!

2009-11-30T13:59:00.006-05:00

We are excited to announce our very first winner of the Where in the World is Hein contest! Congratulations to Saskia Mehlhorn, Visiting Foreign and International Law Librarian at the University of Houston Law Center!

Steve Roses was standing next to a cardboard cut-out of Larry Bird at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA. For winning the Where in the World is Hein contest, Saskia has won a "Where in the World is Hein" t-shirt!

Stay tuned for December's Where in the World is Hein contest post!

Exploring HeinOnline: Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996

2009-11-28T14:00:00.034-05:00

Coming Soon to the U.S. Federal Legislative History Library

Public Law 104-132, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, was passed into law on April 24, 1996 for the purpose of deterring terrorism, providing justice for victims, providing for an effective death penalty as well as other purposes. Drafted and passed in part due to the Oklahoma City bombings and the World Trade Center Bombings, the AEDPA had a significant impact on the law of habeas corpus in the U.S. as applicable to state and federal prisoners on death row or imprisoned for a term of years. Through the passing of the AEDPA, the following amendments were instituted to the federal habeas corpus law:

The abuse-of-the-writ doctrine was replaced with an absolute bar on second or successive petitions
1 year statute of limitations was created
6 month statute of limitation created in death penalty cases
States were encouraged to appoint counsel for indigent state death row inmates during state habeas or unitary appellate proceedings
Petitioners who had filed a previous federal habeas petition were required to secure authorization from the federal court of appeals

Additional provisions were included in this act that addressed justice for victims; international terrorism prohibitions; terrorist and criminal alien removal and exclusion; nuclear, biological and chemical weapons restrictions; implementation of plastic explosives convention; criminal law modifications to counter terrorism; and assistance to law enforcement.

Exploring HeinOnline: Law Revision Commission of New York, Reports, Recommendations, and Studies

2009-11-28T10:00:00.030-05:00

Coming soon to the New York Legal Research Library

Created in 1934, the Law Revision Commission is the oldest continuous agency in the common-law world devoted to law reform through legislation. The Commission serves to examine the common law and statues of the State and current judicial decisions in order to identify areas needing improvement, and subsequently recommends needed reforms. They also receive and consider proposed changes in the law recommended by the American Law Institute (ALI), the commissioners for the promotion of uniformity of legislation in the United States, and any bar association or other body. They also receive and consider suggested changes from judges, justices, public officials, lawyers and public. Of all of the suggested and proposed changes brought to them, the Commission selects a number of them for further study. The Commission then analyzes the problem and this analysis often leads to new legislation or amendment of existing law.

This title thus includes the reports, recommendations and studies carried out by the Commission. This title will be added to the New York Legal Research Library by the beginning of December.

Exploring HeinOnline: The Indian Journal of Law and Technology

2009-11-27T09:35:00.000-05:00

The Indian Journal of Law and Technology was founded in August 2004 in order to furnish a platform in India for the discussion of domestic and international issues on technology. A deep understanding of these issues is crucial to the development of India’s technology economy, both from the point of view of businesses and from a public policy perspective. Published by the Law and Technology Committee at the National Law School of India, the IJLT contains articles by individuals from the academic and legal professions, the business world, government, and law students. This journal will be added to HeinOnline's Law Journal Library by the beginning of December, 2009.

Exploring HeinOnline: Legislative History of P.L. 109-58 Energy Policy Act of 2005

2009-11-25T14:00:00.002-05:00

Coming Soon to the U.S. Federal Legislative History Library!

This legislative history set is made up of 24 volumes and includes the reports, hearings, and debates that led to the passing of Public Law 109-58, The Energy Policy Act of 2005. This bill was passed by Congress on July 29, 2005 to combat the growing energy problems by changing U.S. energy policies. The general provisions of the bill would: authorize loan guarantees for innovative technologies that avoid greenhouse gases, seek to increase coal as an energy source, authorize subsidies for alternative energy producers, provide tax breaks for those making energy conservation improvements in their homes, provide incentives to companies drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, exempt gas and oil producers from requirements outlined in the Safe Drinking Water Act, extend daylight savings time, prohibit drilling in or underneath the Great Lakes, set federal reliability standards regulating the electrical grid to prevent another blackout like that of 2003, and much more!

Once you see the title in the title index in this library, you can click on the "more information" icon next to the title to link directly to the Sources of Compiled Legislative History Database. Why would you want to link to the database? The database entry for Public Law 109-58 includes links to significant law review articles that discuss the bill, as well as a ScholarCheck link that will allow you to view a list and link to more than 280 law review articles in HeinOnline's Law Journal Library that cite Pub. L. 109-58.

Exploring HeinOnline: The Tel-Aviv University Law Review

2009-11-25T10:35:00.004-05:00

The Tel-Aviv University Law Review is the leading law review published by the Faculty of Law at Tel-Aviv University and one of the most important academic publications in Israel. First published in1971, TAU L. Rev. has been a main platform for legal research and discourse. Published three times a year, this law review includes articles, notes, and book reviews authored by a diverse group of legal scholars, from various disciplines, both theoretical and practical. TAU L. Rev. aspires to publish the most significant and best written legal articles. Committed to a vital, cutting edge discourse of the highest standard, TAU L. Rev. is an important player in the academic field, legal practice, and is often cited by courts. The Tel-Aviv University Law Review will be available in HeinOnline's Law Journal Library by the beginning of December, 2009.

Exploring HeinOnline: Federal Identity Theft Law: Major Enactments of the 108th Congress: A Legislative History . . .

2009-11-25T08:27:00.002-05:00

Coming soon to the U.S. Federal Legislative History Library!

Federal Identity Theft Law: Major Enactments of the 108th Congress: A Legislative History of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act and Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act (10 volumes, 2005)

In 2003, more than 10 million Americans were victimized by identity theft, costing individuals and business almost $50 billion in fraudulent transactions. Such statistics indicated that the provisions of the Identity Theft and Deterrence Act of 1998 were insufficient to deal with the problem. Accordingly, the 108th Congress attempted to further assist victims of identity theft by passing two new laws: the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act) and the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act. The complete 10-volume set, which consists of the 4-volume core set plus 6 supplemental volumes, contains 168 documents and is intended for use by in-depth research libraries. The core set contains 62 documents from the 108th Congress and would be of interest to law firms and general libraries.

This legislative history set will be added to HeinOnline's U.S. Federal Legislative History Library by the beginning of December.

Exploring HeinOnline: American Foreign Policy Current Documents

2009-11-24T16:28:00.005-05:00

Coming Soon to the Foreign Relations of the United States Library!

We are pleased to announce that this set will soon be available in the Foreign Relations of the United States Library. American Foreign Policy Current Documents presents the public foreign policy messages, addresses, statements, interviews, press briefings and conferences, and congressional testimony by the executive branch of the U.S. Government. The 11 volumes of this set cover all major foreign policy subjects and geographical areas. Since the full public record on each major foreign affairs issue would be excessively large, only the most important documents or portions of documents on the major issues are included.

Exploring HeinOnline: Occupational Safety and Health Reveiw Commission Reports (1971-1975)

2009-11-24T16:09:00.004-05:00

Coming Soon to the Federal Agency Documents, Decisions, and Appeals Library

New this month are reports of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) from 1971-1975. The OSHRC is charged with ruling on cases forwarded to it by the Department of Labor when disagreements arise over the results of safety and health inspections performed by the Department of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor, serves to prevent work-related injuries, illnesses, and occupational fatalities by issuing and enforcing rules called standards for workplace safety and health.

Exploring HeinOnline: Decisions of the U.S. Department of Treasury (1899-1966)

2009-11-24T16:02:00.003-05:00

Coming Soon to the Federal Agency Documents, Decisions, and Appeals Library!

The U.S. Department of the Treasury was established in 1789 by an Act of Congress to improve and manage the government revenue and public credit, to prepare and report estimates of public revenue and public expenditures, and manage other services relative to the finances of the United States. Also falling under responsibility of the Department of the Treasury is enforcing Federal finance and tax laws, investigating and prosecuting tax evaders, forgers, smugglers, counterfeiters and the like. HeinOnline's Federal Agency Documents, Decisions, and Appeals Library now includes the judicial opinions that were published by the U.S. Treasury Department from 1899-1966,

HeinOnline or Google Scholar? Why You Should Start Your Research in HeinOnline First

2009-11-24T14:21:00.002-05:00

It’s been over 18 months since we announced that Google Scholar (GS) was indexing HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. In listening to the legal research community and our customers feedback, we have learned that a number of our users begin their research effort in Google Scholar to find articles related to their research topic. While we understand this may be a method preferred by many, we want to take a moment to further explain the indexing that has been completed by Google Scholar. Furthermore, we explore the various reasons why you should start your research efforts in HeinOnline first!

What did Google Scholar Index?

We provided the metadata for and allowed Google Scholar to crawl more than 1 million documents from HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. The HeinOnline Law Journal Library contains more than 1,200 law and law related journals and is comprised of articles, notes, comments, reviews, legislation, cases, decisions, contents, editorials and other miscellaneous documents or sections. Of these one million plus documents they crawled, which are made up of more than 20 million pages, they opted to only include about 50% of the content in the Google Scholar index. The 50% of the documents that they chose to integrate with the Google Scholar index was chosen solely by the programming and/or processes put in place by Google Scholar. This means that there are potentially some well known, highly cited, scholarly articles in HeinOnline that are not searchable or available in Google Scholar!

What did Google Scholar forget?

While it is hard to pinpoint exactly what Google Scholar’s methodology is for adding documents to their index, we do know that they have left out some key documents from HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library.

As HeinOnline users know, when you are in the Law Journal Library, you can search across a variety of document types including articles, notes, comments, reviews, legislation and more! While an "article" is the most commonly used term for describing a written work by a scholar, Law Journals also include notes and comments that are just as well-read and commonly-cited as articles are. Therefore, it’s important to search across all of these section types to get a full breadth of results related to your search terms.

Of the 500,000 or so documents that Google Scholar omitted from their index, there are some highly-cited notes, including the most-cited note. Cited more than 1,300 times is the note entitled "Developments in the Law - Equal Protection" from volume 82 of the Harvard Law Review in 1968-1969. The citation for the article is 82 Harv. L. Rev. 1065 (1968-1969). A search in Google Scholar for the term "Equal Protection" in the title of the article from 1965-1970 returns more than 100 results, none of which represent volume 82 of Harvard Law Review. Doing this same search in HeinOnline also returns over 100 results, but, the first result you see is "Developments in the Law-Equal Protection" which is cited more than 1,300 times. From the search result in HeinOnline, you can click on the Cited By link to view the other 1,300 or so documents that cite that note from volume 82 of Harvard Law Review.

Why Should You Search in HeinOnline First?

By searching Google Scholar’s index first, you are potentially eliminating some key scholarly documents, many of which have been cited several times, from your search results.
As Google Scholar begins adding more and more commercial databases, and partners with more organizations, the same article is apt to appear in several different databases. Thus, while an article may be available in HeinOnline, it will not necessarily display HeinOnline as the source in the first search results list you see. Therefore, in order to see that the article is in HeinOnline, you have to click All [#] Versions, and then find the result for HeinOnline. That means it takes MORE clicks to find your article (run the search, click All [#] Versions, click on the article name), where as in HeinOnline it only takes two (run your search, click on the article name).

There are often data discrepancies in Google Scholar. For example, the 2nd most cited article in HeinOnline is "Path of the Law" from 10 Harv. L. Rev. 457 (1896-1897). In Google Scholar, the result is displaying an author with the name of "W HEN". If you pull this article up in HeinOnline, you will find that there is no author for the article. It would appear as though the "W HEN" is being extracted from the first word of the opening paragraph of the article.

Furthermore, using this article as an example, the text snippet that is displayed in Google Scholar is a selection of text found on the third page of the article. When clicking on the link "Path of the Law" one would expect to see the same snippet of text as was displayed on the results page. However, what you see is the first page of the article. So, one may be easily be confused by the text they see in their result vs. what they see when they click on the result. In contrast, in HeinOnline, a user can use our View Matching Text Pages option to link directly to the pages where their search terms appear. We even highlight the terms on the page for you to eliminate any such confusion.
Article meta-data in HeinOnline is hand keyed, thus representing the true value of the original material. This eliminates any "Ghost Authors", such as that in our previous example from the article "Path of the Law". Peter Jacso from the University of Hawaii at Manoa wrote an article titled "Google Scholar Ghost Authors" which explores the vast world of Google Scholar’s meta-data including the skewed data and creation of Ghost Authors. Click here to read the full article, http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6698580.html.
It’s easy to search for an article by title, or search for key words in a title in HeinOnline. Simply use the Field Search option, type in the article name or key words from the article name and choose title from the drop down, then click search.

With Hein’s ScholarCheck you can view other scholarly documents (articles, notes, comments, etc.) that cite a law review article. Since the HeinOnline database focuses on legal research, you will get other scholarly documents from law and law-related periodicals in your results when you click on a Cited By link. Google Scholar on the other hand, will only show you cited documents that are included in the Google Scholar index. Google Scholar does not focus on one subject area as HeinOnline does, thus the articles that cite an article may or may not be from law or law-related periodicals. Additionally, you may find a variety of books in your results. Therefore, if you are a serious legal researcher looking for scholarly articles from legal periodicals, HeinOnline is right on point.
Google Scholar’s cited by results do not account for all of the scholarly articles that cite an article. For example, the article titled "Government Responsibility for Constitutional Torts" (85 Mich. L. Rev. 225) is cited more than 75 times in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. Google Scholar indicates that this article was only cited 3 times. In HeinOnline, you will see that 85 Mich. L. Rev. 225 was cited by 102 Harv. L. Rev. 933 , an article titled "Where Rights Begin: The Problem of Burdens on the Free Exercise of Religion". This article, 102 Harv. L. Rev. 933, is also in the Google Scholar Index, but Google Scholar does not list it as a source that cited 85 Mich. L. Rev. 225.

Furthermore, in HeinOnline, we link you directly to the pages within 102 Harv. L. Rev. 933 where the article from Michigan Law Review was cited. In Google Scholar, they will link you to the first page, but then you have to read the article to determine where the article was cited.
Google Scholar often creates multiple records for the same article. For example, a search in Google Scholar for intitle: "Path of the Law" from 1895-1899 returns 12 results. Of those 12 results, only one is a valid link to a document, and it happens to be the last result on the list. The other 11 results are citation records that Google Scholar has created multiple times for the same article. Searching for that article in HeinOnline returns 2 results, each of which links you to the article "Path of the Law", but each from a different source. Try this link and take a look at the results you get in Google Scholar, or review the screenshots below to see the difference in the results between HeinOnline and Google Scholar.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=&num=100&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=path+of+the+law&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=&as_ylo=1895&as_yhi=1899&as_allsubj=all&hl=en

In Google Scholar:

In HeinOnline:

While the Google Scholar index may contain a lot of content, it may not be the right index for a legal researcher. Out of the Jungle, a blog focused on the present and future of legal information, legal research and legal education, wrote a post focusing on intellectual research in the life of the law. The post provides insight as to why lawyers or future lawyers should not rely on Google to do the research for them. Click here to read the full post, http://outofthejungle.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-lexis-and-westlaw-should-not-be.html.

As we bring this post to a close, we ask the question:
HeinOnline or Google Scholar; where should you start?
We say HeinOnline.

IN THE NEWS: Lisbon Treaty To Enter Into Force December 1, 2009 - Read Scholarly Articles About the Treaty in HeinOnline

2009-11-20T13:48:00.000-05:00

On November 3, 2009, Czech President Vaclav Klaus ratified the Lisbon Treaty. The Czech Republic was the final Member State to ratify the Treaty, and the instrument of ratification was deposited in Rome on November 13, 2009. As a result of this final ratification and deposit in Rome, the Treaty of Lisbon will enter into force on December 1, 2009.

The Lisbon Treaty was designed to modernise and change the workings of the European Union (EU). The member states had been negotiating and discussing institutional changes for nearly a decade and will finally bring those negotiations to a close. When the EU was founded, it was designed for a smaller EU that had only six Member States and who was not faced with the challenges of recession, cross-border crime, climate change, security of energy supply, and the wealth of other global challenges that the EU faces today. Now made up of 27 Member States, the size of the European Union has grown immensely since it's creation, doubling in size in just the last five years. In order to operate more efficiently and effectively in the 21st century, they found it necessary to reform the workings of the EU in order to provide them with better tools to better serve the interests of their Citizens. Thus, the creation of the Lisbon Treaty.

The key provisions of the treaty include:

Creation of a more democratic, transparent Europe which allows Citizens to have a direct say in policy making for the first time. It also allows the European Parliament to have a larger, more significant role, and promotes great involvement of national parliaments.
Faster and more efficient decision-making
A more stable and streamlined institutional framework, backed by the creation of a new position, President of the European Council
Improving the life of Europeans by acting in several policy areas such as freedom, security and justice, terrorism, crime, energy, public health, civil protection, climate change, and much more.
Achieving economic and monetary union with the euro as the EU's currency
Strengthen coherence in external action and increase the role of Europe on the global stage through the development of a High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

On Thursday, November 19, 2009, the names of those appointed to the top posts were announced. They include Herman Van Rompuy, appointed permanent President of the European Council; Catherine Ashton, appointed High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; and Pierre de Boissieu Secretary-General of the Council Secretariat.

The European Commission has a number of helpful documents and information on their website regarding the Lisbon Treaty, at http://europa.eu/lisbon_treaty/index_en.htm. On this site you will find a downloadable PDF guide called "Your Guide to the Lisbon Treaty". Within this guide there is a time line entitled "The Road to Lisbon" that outlines the various treaties, constitutions and events that led to the Lisbon Treaty.

Read Scholarly Articles About the Lisbon Treaty and the "Road to Lisbon" In HeinOnline

There are a number of scholarly articles from HeinOnline's Law Journal Library that discuss the Lisbon Treaty as well as the treaties and constitutions that led to the Lisbon Treaty. Outlined below are a number of links to explore the scholarly writings about the Treaty and it's preceding events as outlined on the timeline in the European Commission guide.

Click on any link to explore the scholarly writings for that event. NOTE: Each link will generate a search in HeinOnline's Law Journal Library and return a list of results that match the search query.

Lisbon Treaty
     Search Across the Full Text of Scholarly Articles
     Search the Titles of Scholarly Articles

Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (2004)
     Search Across the Full Text of Scholarly Articles:
               Related to "Constitution for Europe"
               Related to "Constitution for Europe" and "European Convention"
               Related to France and Netherlands and their role in the Constitution for Europe
     Search the Titles of Scholarly Articles

Treaty of Nice
     Search Across the Full Text of Scholarly Articles
     Search the Titles of Scholarly Articles

Treaty of Amsterdam
     Search Across the Full Text of Scholarly Articles
     Search the Titles of Scholarly Articles

Treaty of Maastricht
     Search Across the Full Text of Scholarly Articles
     Search the Titles of Scholarly Articles

Single European Act
     Search Across the Full Text of Scholarly Articles
     Search the Titles of Scholarly Articles

Treaties of Rome establishing the European Economic Community and Euratom
      Search Across the Full Text of Scholarly Articles
               Related to the European Economic Community and Euratom
               Related to the European Economic Community and Euratom and the Treaty of Rome
     Search the Titles of Scholarly Articles

Treaty of Paris establishing the European Coal and Steel Community
     Search Across the Full Text of Scholarly Articles
     Search the Titles of Scholarly Articles

WEBINAR: December 2nd - Using & Searching HeinOnline's U.S. Supreme Court Library

2009-11-17T08:54:00.004-05:00

Please join us for our upcoming Webinar focused on using and searching in HeinOnline's U.S. Supreme Court Library. The Webinar is completely free and registration is open to anyone who is interested.

During this webinar we will include a discussion of the following:

Overview of content
What is the "Legal Information Institute Indexing?"
how to browse/search the Legal Information Institute Index
How to pull up a document if you have a citation
How to search for a case by case name
How to locate a slip opinion by case name or number
How to search within a specific case or a slip opinion

Registration Dates/Times:

Click on the time below that you wish to attend, fill out the registration form, and click "register now". Upon registering, you will receive an email confirmation that contains the link you will need to use to access the Webinar on the day and time of the session.

Wednesday, December 2 at 10:00 a.m. - Click here to register
Wednesday, December 2 at 2:00 p.m. - Click here to register

To view a list of our past webinars and to access video recordings, visit our Webinars Archive on the HeinOnline wiki at http://heinonline.org/wiki/index.php/HeinOnline:Webinars.

Where in the World is Hein?

2009-11-02T12:23:00.018-05:00

In HeinOnline's October 2009 Newsletter we introduced the "Where in the World is Hein" contest. In each "Where in the World" blog post, you will find a picture of one of our sales representatives in front of a building, landmark, with a librarian, or other people or things. If you can correctly identify the location, you will be entered for a chance to win a "Where in the World is Hein" t-shirt!

Steve Roses, our Director of Sales, has been traveling quite a bit since he joined the Hein Company in an effort to introduce himself in his new role. Can you guess where Steve is in this picture?

E-mail your guess to marketing@wshein.com by November 30, 2009 and if your answer is correct you'll be entered for a chance to win a "Where in the World is Hein" t-shirt! Be sure to include your name, organization or institution, and your mailing address. We'll announce the winner in a follow-up blog post and in the monthly announcement.

Good luck guessing!

Searching HeinOnline - 4 Key Techniques You Need to Know and How It Is Different Than Other Legal Databases

2009-10-23T14:30:00.003-04:00

You are likely used to the searching methodology used in other legal databases, as you learned it while taking classes in law school. Then, you were introduced to HeinOnline, a powerful legal research tool with more than 50 million pages of legal content. Your initial reaction may have been, "50 million pages; that is a lot of content to browse through!" Yes, indeed it is. However, with the right searching techniques, it is easy to find what you are looking for in HeinOnline.

While the search syntax used in HeinOnline is different than what you may be used to, with a little practice and the understanding of a few key techniques, you'll be searching in no time. Howard W. Hunter Law Library from BYU Law School wrote an excellent blog post outlining the 4 key techniques you need to know to conduct the most powerful search queries in HeinOnline. These 4 key techniques include understanding Boolean operators in HeinOnline, using a root expander to find alternate endings, proximity searches, and boosting terms. Check out the post on Hunter's Query: The HWHLL Blog

As they note in their blog, "Boosting a term allows you to influence the relevancy ranking of your results list. (By the way, you can't have your results ranked by relevance when using a terms and connectors search in Westlaw or Lexis.)"

Take a moment to check out their blog post and familiarize yourself with these key searching techniques. They can really make a difference in your searching abilities in HeinOnline.

Are You Providing Access to HeinOnline For Hundreds of Users? Let Your Users Know by Branding Your HeinOnline Account.

2009-10-09T11:18:00.013-04:00

On any given day you may have hundreds of users access your organization's subscription to HeinOnline. Unfortunately, many of those users may not understand that this valuable resource is being made available to them with support and funding from your organization. We realize how important it is for you to communicate this fact to your users, and we have developed a way to do it easily.

What you are seeing below is an example of the new account branding opportunities HeinOnline has recently made available as a free option to all HeinOnline subscribers. This is an example of what a user would see on the Welcome screen in HeinOnline.

(numbers appear in image for demonstration purposes only)

Here is a breakdown of what options are available for Heinonline branding:

Name - Here, the name of the organization, library, school, or firm that is providing the HeinOnline subscription is listed. This may also be hot linked to a website of your choosing.
Organization logo - This is hot linked to the same website as the name of the organization.
Optional Link - This can be used for pointing users to online catalogs, or any other link your users may frequently visit.
Optional Link - Same as the optional link above, but twice as nice.

When user are in the HeinOnline libraries, a small branding message with the name of the organization is added to the top of page. Clicking this message takes the user to a page very similar to the example above.

If you would live to take advantage of these new branding opportunities in HeinOnline, please send a request for information to holsupport(at)wshein.com, or click the feedback button at the top of your HeinOnline page. We must receive approval from the account's administrator before we put the branding material in place. If you do not know who your account administrator is, please specify this in the email. Lastly, We would like to thank the RAND Corporation for working with us to develop these options, and for allowing us to use their branding information for this post.

Sources of Compiled Legislative History Added to Title Information Links

2009-10-02T09:24:00.015-04:00

HeinOnline has made another one of it's useful resources more accessible and easier to use. The database derived from Nancy Johnson's Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories: A Bibliography of Government Documents, Periodical Articles, and Books, and accessible from the U.S. Federal Legislative History Library is a terrific source available in HeinOnline for finding materials related to major U.S. federal laws. Most major U.S. federal laws are included in this database. Each piece of legislation available in the database includes the public law number, Statutes at Large citation, and any relevant books, articles, and Legislative Histories in its entry. Any of the content listed that is available in HeinOnline has been hot-linked for easy access.

To make this content easier to access for our users, we have recently added the relevant database entry to the information links for each of the Legislative History titles in the U.S. Federal Legislative History Library, and the Taxation & Economic Reform in America Library. Now, all you have to do to access this content is click the small 'i' icon located to the left of the listing of titles in these two libraries.

All of the information you would normally see when viewing the database has been included in the link, plus one added feature. We have integrated Hein's ScholarCheck into the information provided on this page. With this link users can easily see the most current list of articles in HeinOnline that have cited that particular public law.
It is our hope that bringing all of these sources together with just a few clicks of the mouse will streamline research projects and reduce time spent navigating to different online sources.

'NOT' Operator Added to HeinOnline's Field Search

2009-09-25T13:18:00.006-04:00

For those HeinOnline users who prefer to search using the Field Search, we've added a small but powerful option to this search page. The 'NOT' operator is now a selectable option in addition to the AND/OR operators you are used to using. The 'NOT' operator is used in a search the same way that you would use the AND/OR operators. Simply select the NOT option from the drop box. The NOT operator is different because it functions as an exclusionary tool. This can be quite useful in weeding out search results that are very similar to the topic you are looking for, but are actually irrelevant to your search and just diluting the results that you really want. A simple example of how this works is explained in the short video below.

Again, this is just a simple example of how the NOT operator can function. When used correctly, the NOT operator can be a highly effective tool in narrowing your research to the relevant results you need. The NOT operator has always been available for users searching with the Advanced Search. If you'd like to learn more about searching in HeinOnline, we recommend taking a look at some of the training guides in the HeinOnline Wiki.

WEBINAR: Wednesday, 9/23 - Still Time To Register! Taxation and Economic Reform in America

2009-09-21T20:53:00.000-04:00

There is still time to register for Wednesday's webinar! HeinOnline's Taxation and Economic Reform in America historical archive of legislative histories was released about a month ago. This webinar will introduce you to the library and cover the following:

General overview of the content
Browsing all titles, or browsing only the taxation or only the economic reform titles
Searching all titles, or searching only the taxation or only the economic reform titles - includes examples of full text searching and how to search across the title or description of a document
Internal Revenue Acts of 1909-1950 (Carlton Fox Collection) - Using the custom browsing tool to browse by volume, act, House/Senate reports, House/Senate documents, bill number, or public law number
Internal Revenue Acts of 1909-1950 (Carlton Fox Collection) - How to search by public law number, document type, House bill number, description, or full text using the custom search option
Internal Revenue Acts of 1909-1950 (Carlton Fox Collection) - Hein's ScholarCheck integration
How to view the cumulative contents for a specific act

The webinar is being hosted at 10:00 a.m. EDT and 2:00 p.m. EDT (United States & Canada). Also, as we do with all of our webinars, if you can't make it, we will record the session and post the link on our Webinars page on the Wiki after which you can watch it anytime.

Click here to register for the 10:00 a.m. EDT session.

Click here to register for the 2:00 p.m. EDT session.

HeinOnline's Federal Register Coverage is Now Updated Daily

2009-09-18T09:27:00.004-04:00

The Federal Register in HeinOnline just keeps getting better. Regular users of HeinOnline's Federal Register Library already know that with coverage starting in 1936, HeinOnline has the most comprehensive coverage of the Federal Register available online. Now, HeinOnline's coverage is updated daily with the most current Federal Register content available!

HeinOnline has had Federal Register coverage back to 1936 for several years now, but restrictions in our production process limited how quickly we could get new Federal Register days online. Recently, those production restrictions were eliminated, and starting at the end of July HeinOnline began updating the Federal Register on a daily basis. This means that you are now able to access yesterday’s Federal Register today! This current content is completely browseable, full-text searchable, and image-based, just like all other content in HeinOnline.

All Federal Register content is also accessible via the Citation Navigator. This tool allows users to quickly jump to a page by entering the Federal Register volume and page number they would like to access. Below is a short video showing how this tool is used:

We continue to strive toward making our user’s HeinOnline experience a pleasant and productive one. With expanded coverage of the Federal Register, online educational materials, and enhanced searchability, we believe that we are on the right track. For more posts regarding the Federal Register in HeinOnline, please see the Federal Register section of this blog.

Do you have any suggestions, or questions you would like to share with us? Click the Feedback link located at the top of your HeinOnline page, let us know what’s on your mind.

HeinOnline in the News: Maclean's Uses HeinOnline in Third Annual Law School Rankings Process

2009-09-17T12:40:00.000-04:00

Maclean's, a Canadian weekly news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events, recently released its third annual ranking of Canadian Law Schools. Fifty percent of the overall ranking is determined by faculty quality and the other fifty percent is determined by graduate quality. There are a number of measures taken into account when determining graduate quality, all focusing on the success that each law school has had in producing graduates who go out and land competitive jobs. These measures include elite firm hiring, national reach, Supreme Court clerkships, and faculty hiring.

The other fifity percent of the ranking is determined by faculty quality, which is measured primarily by how many times the law school's professors are cited in legal periodicals. This is where HeinOnline fits in! Maclean's used the HeinOnline Law Journal collection to determine how many times each faculty member was cited in legal periodicals and then related that to the overall size of the school's faculty. For more details about Maclean's Canadian Law Schools ranking, check out the full article at Macleans.ca.

HeinOnline's ScholarCheck features make it easy to determine how many times a legal scholar has been cited. Simply generate a search for the author to get a list of articles written by the author, then from the search results you will see a "Cited by ##" link listed within each article that has been cited by other articles. The number displayed illustrates how many times that that specific article was cited by other articles in HeinOnline's Law Journal collection. A researcher can choose to sort the results by the number of times articles have been cited, thus bringing the most influential articles to the top of their results list!

These are just a few of the features that make up Hein's ScholarCheck tool. For a full recap and demonstration of the full power of Hein's ScholarCheck, please visit our ScholarCheck page on the Heinonline wiki.

HeinOnline contains nearly 1,300 law and law-related periodicals, and has a readership of more than 1,500 subscribing institutions across 180 countries around the world. Is your Canadian Law Journal in HeinOnline? Contact us at marketing@wshein.com to find out how you can add your law journal to HeinOnline to take advantage of it's widespread audience and powerful ScholarCheck tool.

HeinOnline Content Now Includes Hot-linked URLs

2009-09-08T11:40:00.005-04:00

For a few years now, HeinOnline has had the "citations on this page" feature available. This tool has allowed HeinOnline users to click a citation on the page they are currently viewing, and link directly to that cited material in HeinOnline.
We have now expanded this feature to include URLs to cited content housed outside of the HeinOnline database. The new hot-linked URLs work in the same manner as the citations have. Clicking a blue highlighted URL will open a new tab in your web browser and load the website. If you would like to turn off the hotlinks, simply click the "Citations on this Page" link located above the page image.

The URLs HeinOnline uses are derived from uncorrected OCR. Additionally, URLs may change over time, thus resulting in broken links. Please be aware that HeinOnline is not responsible for content located outside the HeinOnline database. Each website is the property and responsibility of the website's owner.