It seems like ages ago that I submitted a couple of my Law Dawg Blawg posts for inclusion in this eBook. BlawgWorld 2007 with TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide is now available for download at http://www.technolawyer.com/r.asp?L11470&M1. I hope you enjoy it.
By the way, in case you are wondering why I haven't posted here in so long, I have moved to Arizona to take a position at the Ross-Blakley Law Library, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, at Arizona State University.
Meg Kribble, a reference librarian at Nova Southeastern University Law Library, has launched the All-Purpose BiblioBlawg. Meg has been a law librarian for about a year and has many interesting ideas. Listen to her give a tour of Second Life for Jim Milles on Check This Out! episode 59 and see her photos on Flickr.
In addition to law, librarianship, and legal research topics, future topics may include felines by the names of Rufus and Emma, second-sock syndrome, politics, Battlestar Galactica, Mac enthusiasm, video links, other amusing or enlightening topics. I can't wait. See Meg's introductory post for more information and subscribe to the All-Purpose Biblioblawg.
Congratulations, Meg!
The folks at Justia have released the first beta version of BlawgSearch.com, a search tool for legal blogs. The database of more than 1,000 editorially selected legal blogs is updated throughout the day with new posts. You can sort your search results by relevance or posting date, and you can subscribe to RSS feeds of your searches.
There is also a blawg directory, with subject and locality categories, and a blawg-rankings system. Thousands more legal blogs, as well as additional features and functionality, will be added.
If you are looking for podcasts and other multimedia files, try Blawgs.fm. Now available in its first alpha version, Blawgs.fm searches all of the posts that are included in BlawgSearch.com, but just returns those posts that have audio or video files attached to them. There is also a directory of legal podcasts and vidcasts, categorized by subject and locality, and ranking of the podcasts.
See the Justia Legal Marketing Blog for more information, including forms for suggesting a legal blog, podcast, or vidcast.
Friday, an upgraded and redesigned Blawg was unveiled. It has been moved to a faster, more stable platform and can now be found at Blawg.com. Blawg's calculations for determining "Most Popular Legal Blogs" have been refined, and each category in the directory is now automatically sorted by popularity.
Blawg's front page also has an option to Search the Blawgosphere, a Featured Feed, a Featured Podcast, and a list of Recently Added Blogs, to which you can subscribe. To learn about features and functions that are still in the pipeline, visit the Blawg blog or subscribe to its feed.
Wednesday, Robert Ambrogi's LawSites had news that Justia would be introducing BlawgSearch, a search engine for legal blogs. BlawgSearch currently indexes about 1,000 blawgs, with an emphasis on academic and technology blawgs according to Ambrogi.
The BlawgSearch directory is arranged by category and jurisdiction, each of which has its own feed to which you can subscribe. The front page also lists the Most Popular Blawgs and Recent Blawg Posts, highlights a Featured Blawger, and displays clouds of recent search terms and blawg post tags.
See also Finding Blawgs on Any Legal Topic.
Why did you start the Law Dawg Blawg? We started this blog July 1, 2004, primarily as a way to share research tips, library announcements, news, and links to interesting articles, websites, and blogs with members of the SIU Law School community, and also with other members of the legal and library communities.
What happened to the research tips? Although we have not recently met our goal of posting a weekly research tip, we will be posting more frequent research tips when our legal research classes resume in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can link to our previous tips from Archive of Research Tips.
What's the deal with the dog pictures? The biggest – and most popular – change to Law Dawg Blawg over the past year has been the addition of the SIU Law Dog of the Week. Each week we post a dog picture submitted by an SIU School of Law student, professor, staff member, or alumnus. To see photos of all previous Law Dogs of the week, visit our Gallery of SIU Law Dogs.
Why did you name it Law Dawg Blawg? A blog is a frequently-updated website, usually arranged with new items at the top. Blawg is a term sometimes used to describe a law-related blog. Dawg comes from the fact that the mascot of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale is the Saluki, a breed of dog. And Law, because our intended readers are the law school and legal communities.
What is a saluki? Salukis were the royal dog of Egypt and are believed to be the oldest known distinct breed of dog. Southern Illinois has long been referred to as “Little Egypt.”
Little Egypt? According to Baker Brownell in The Other Illinois, “Although the legend probably was invented after the fact, it is persistent. There was a drought in the northern counties (of Illinois) in the early 1800's . . . the wheat fields dried up, the streams died in their beds. But in southern Illinois rain fell and there were good crops, and from the north came people seeking corn and wheat as to Egypt of old. Thus, the name ‘Egypt.’” See also Tales and Songs of Southern Illinois by Charles Neely.
For more information on the Saluki breed, see what the American Kennel Club has to say; for a more extensive discussion of SIUC's mascot, see What the Hell is a Saluki?
How can I subscribe to Law Dawg Blawg? We have a Feedburner feed for those wishing to subscribe using a blog aggregator or news reader, such as NewsGator, MyYahoo! or Bloglines. You can also subscribe via email using the subscription form in the sidebar to the right, below the Site/RSS Feeds options. To receive one email for each day that we post something new – sent out in the early morning hours of the next day – enter your email address in the box and click on the "Subscribe Me!" button below it.
For more information about subscription options, click on Subscribing to RSS Feeds in this paragraph or toward the top of the sidebar.
Can I add a comment to an entry on Law Dawg Blawg? To avoid the problem of comment spam, we have made this a moderated blawg. Comments do not appear until one of us has had time to review and release them, but all non-spam comments will eventually be released.
You can e-mail us at llibweb@siu.edu. For more information about our law library, visit the Southern Illinois University School of Law Library site.
