Welcome to the Law Library Letter

Welcome to our new service: the Law Library Letter, a blog from the Wyoming State Law Library. (For those of you supremely uninterested in blogs, we plan to send all information posted on the blog to the WyomingAttorneys-L email list as well.) [Update 2/2/2007: only opinion summaries are sent to the WyomingAttorneys-L email list. -kj]

In addition to summaries of recently-decided Wyoming Supreme Court cases, we will periodically post information focused on the following topics:

• Library Services & Announcements (especially updates about the impending Supreme Court building renovation and move to the Hathaway building)
  
• How-to (Technical & Non-technical)
  
• Educational Events
  
• Online Resources

So, without further ado, here is our first “real” post!

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Here we are again: a New Year. We at the State Law Library join the chorus of well-wishers hoping you all have an exciting, challenging and satisfying 2006.

Our biggest challenge this year will be our move to a temporary location in the Hathaway Building to allow for renovation of the historic Supreme Court Building. June is the current target date for the move. We regret that evening and weekend access to the library will no longer be possible at the Hathaway location. Our web page and the Law Library Letter will keep you informed of our progress. Although we will be packing many of our books and reducing our hours as a result of decisions made by the Supreme Court, we remain your best source for legal materials. We have in-library public access on our research computers to Westlaw, Shepards and HeinOnline (law reviews and journals). Between 8:00 and 5:00, there is always a law librarian available to assist you. You can contact us via email, telephone, or online.

Educational Event
January 24th, Katie Jones our Electronic Services professional and Meg Martin the Public Services librarian, attended a day long presentation in Denver about Blogs (or for those that speak legalese – blawgs) and RSS feeds. Watch for an announcement of a brown bag lunch to introduce Blogs and RSS feeds for attorneys.

How-to: Blogs and RSS—What’s the big deal?
A blog (shortened from weblog or web log) is a web site in which entries are posted and displayed in reverse chronological order. While many blogs have been created as online diaries or journals, there are also now millions of blogs provided in order to bring attention to updated information or to allow groups of people to discuss topics of common interest.

WSLL Blog
We developed the Wyoming State Law Library blog, Law Library Letter, to allow increased access to the Wyoming Supreme Court case summaries that have been traditionally posted to the WyomingAttorneys-L electronic listserv. We will also be posting any announcements regarding our services, resources, relocation to the Hathaway building, etc.

Another benefit of our blog is that you now have an option to subscribe to the RSS feed. While we will continue to post our case summaries to the WyomingAttorneys-L lists, this will provide an additional method to be made aware of the newly decided Wyoming Supreme Court decisions.

So, what is RSS?
RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. But unless you are a major techie, this means nothing. A more useful explanation is that through this technology, you can track a wide variety of online information, from Dilbert, to the very popular Wyoming State Law Library blog, to CNN. And you can do this without wading through relentless email messages or trying to remember to frequently check your favorite web sites. The information comes in as linked headlines accompanied by brief summaries or the first few lines of the information.

Tutorial
RSS feeds are typically indicated on a web site with an orange symbol: . The easiest method to understand how RSS can work for you is to follow these steps. This will take less than 15 minutes—try it!

1. Go to Bloglines, a popular web-based RSS reader (aggregator) and set up your free account. Other RSS aggregator choices include downloading FeedReader or using the feed options in the FireFox, Opera or Safari browsers.
   
2. Now you need an RSS feed to add to Bloglines. You can search through Bloglines for feeds, as well as in these blog search engines: Syndic8, Technorati, Feedster or CompleteRSS. But a shameless plug for our blog is in order, so open a new browser window and go to http://wyolawlibrary.blogspot.com/ and click on the orange RSS image. Copy the web site address (URL) of the orange RSS image (you can also right click on the RSS image and choose “Copy Shortcut” or “Copy Link Location”) and return to your Bloglines account.
   
3. Choose the “My Feeds” tab. Click on “Add” and paste the copied shortcut (http://wyolawlibrary.blogspot.com/atom.xml) into the “Blog or Feed URL” box. Click “Subscribe.”
   
4. You will be offered some preferences for accessing and organizing your Bloglines feeds. Skip those now for later investigation and click “Subscribe” at the bottom of the page.
   
5. Now the name of the RSS feed will be in the left pane of the Bloglines window. Click on the RSS feed name and you will see the headlines displayed in the right pane.