TMLL Library News

MARYLAND COUNTY CODES ONLINE!

Maryland is divided into 23 counties and one independent city (Baltimore City).  Each jurisdiction has its own statutory compilation.  Need to find a county code section immediately?  Go to the Maryland Law Specialty Research Guide.  All available online codes can be found there. To locate this research guide, go to the Thurgood Marshall Law Library web page: http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall . The links you want are located in the middle of the page – under “Research Guides” select “Specialized” and then choose Maryland Law.  From the Maryland page, scroll down to "Other Maryland Sites." The 21counties with electronic codes are listed in alphabetical order.  The links are current as of April, 2009.  Allegany County and Somerset County do not have electronic versions of their codes.  These publications are available in paper format in the Maryland Stacks on Level 2 – the general call number is KFM 1799.

Baltimore City materials are located a little further down the research guide page under “Baltimore Sites.”  Use the Baltimore Code link listed to access the Consolidated Index link.  This Consolidated Index contains finding information for the Code of Public Local Laws, the Charter and the Baltimore City Code.  All links are current through the end of March, 2009. 

Have a question?  Ask a librarian for assistance.

 

U.S. Gov't announces public beta version of FDsys

The U.S. Government Printing Office has announced the availability of a public beta version of FDsys (Federal Digital System) for government information currently available through GPO Access. 

FDsys will provide a streamlined search interface, allowing you to search all information at once if desired, and the ability to narrow your search results by date, agency, named person, etc. 

The beta version contains congressional documents (bills, reports, hearings, and debates), Public Laws, the Federal Register, and presidential documents from the mid-1990s to the present.  All remaining information is expected to be migrated from GPO Access by mid-2009. In the meantime, if the information you need is not yet on FDsys, you can continue to find it on GPO Access.

U.S. Code Now in HeinOnline

The HeinOnline database recently announced the addition of current and earlier versions of the United States Code to its database of PDF materials.  You can now find the 2006 current version (only Titles 1-25 are available so far), plus every earlier version, including all the supplements, going back to the Code's inception in 1926. 

Those of you who are Bluebook experts know that you're required to cite all federal statutes to the U.S. Code if possible, and that an exact date is needed, including whether the law is wholly or partially contained in a supplement.  While it can still be difficult to find the statute you need (federal laws are notoriously complicated), having all of the volumes available online makes this checking at least a little bit easier.

You might now be wondering if HeinOnline is behind the times in only providing half of the 2006 Code - and the answer is "no." Unfortunately, publication of the Code by the U.S. Government generally runs at least 2 years behind, so the 2006 Code (current through early January 2007) just started to appear a few months ago.  We hope to have the rest of it (Titles 26 - the dreaded tax code! - through Title 50) within the next few months.

Looking at HeinOnline for the U.S.Code will also give you the chance to see all the other great resources available there - from law reviews to the Federal Register and C.F.R. to U.S. Supreme Court decisions to the Congressional Record to the English Reports.  All are there from their first volumes and in PDF format.

An easy way to get to HeinOnline from the Library's homepage is under Databases.  Choose "Browse by Title" and then choose titles beginning with "H."