WSLL Welcomes New Part Time Staff

Kristin Garvey

Ted Smith

Kristin Garvey and Ted Smith recently joined the WSLL staff as part time library assistants.  Kristin works mornings filing looseleaf updates, and Ted works afternoons reshelving library materials.  They both also process document delivery requests and assist at the Circulation Desk.

Kristin graduated in 2005 from the University of Iowa with a BA in English.  She and her husband recently moved to Madison for his new job as a cardiac nurse at Meriter Hospital.  Kristin plans to attend the UW School of Library & Information Studies in 2008.  Ted graduated in May 2007 with a BA in Anthropology and a Certificate in American Indian Studies.  He took the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) last month and plans to enter law school in the fall of 2008.

Welcome, Kristin & Ted!

In celebration of Professional Legal Management Week, this month's featured titles include:

New Title: Lawyer's Field Guide to Effective Business Development by William J. Flannery, Jr.
American Bar Association, 2007
Call Number KF 316.5 .F58 2007

Flannery, a lawyer and ex-IBM executive, uses his years of experience in training lawyers in client relationship management, business development and effective communication skills to focus on practical ideas and approaches for business growth and relationship improvement.

He contends that law schools do not teach the skills necessary to implement and maintain successful strategies for law firm business development. This field guide lays out a clear sequence of action steps that law firm managers can follow to master the skills of business development and acquire the confidence to use these skills over and over for repeated success.

The chapters are organized chronologically from the initial search for profitable clients all the way through the process of building and maintaining long-term, profitable relationships. Flannery's suggestions will allow law firm managers to:

• Repeat success and avoid unintended consequences
• Focus on client needs
• Obtain measurable results
• Create a new, more positive mind-set about business development
• Adopt a firm-wide approach
• Clearly establish roles for everyone in the firm

New Edition: The Rainmaking Machine: Marketing, Planning, Strategies, and Management for Law Firms, 2007 edition by Phyllis Weiss Haserot.
Thomson-West Publishing, 2007
Call Number KF 316.5 .H371

In this completely revised edition for 2007, Weiss Haserot provides advice on gaining new clients, improving services, and expanding existing business. The Rainmaking Machine is a step-by-step guide for law firm managers in planning, executing, and managing a marketing process that is designed to help build a profitable client base.

Topics include focusing marketing efforts; motivating associates and partners; determining how clients choose a firm; creating new services; hiring and maximizing the efforts of marketing professionals; improving the firm's image through public relations; forming personal selling networks, business ventures, and professional connections; securing and retaining lucrative and satisfying clients; and current and emerging trends. Also included are checklists and guidance for everyday marketing use. New for the 2007 edition is a section titled "Trends to Watch."

This occasional column highlights State Law Library departments and services. We hope it helps you become more familiar with all the ways we work to provide you with excellent service!

Borrow Library Materials By Mail

If you're a Wisconsin judge or attorney and can't get to the library to borrow materials, use our Circulation By Mail service. Anyone licensed to practice law in Wisconsin may use this service, whether your office is located within or outside the state.

How does Circulation By Mail work?
Start by searching our library catalog, located in the upper right corner of our homepage.  If you know exactly what you need, search the author or title and see if the material is available for loan. If you're not sure what you need, try some keyword searches. For help figuring out which resources you need or when you're ready to place a request, contact our Reference Desk. We'll verify that the items are available, place holds on anything that's on loan to someone else, and ask for your firm or office shipping address.

How soon will I receive the materials?
Just like any other document delivery request, we process Circulation By Mail orders as quickly as we can - generally the day we receive them.  Shipments are delivered using UPS Ground Service and are subject to UPS pickup and delivery schedules.  Most items will arrive at your office in two to three business days.  Delivery to far northern Wisconsin or an out of state location may take longer.  If time is critical, you may wish to use FedEx delivery instead.

If you work in the Milwaukee area, another option is to have your materials sent to the Milwaukee Legal Resource Center (MLRC) through our once-a-week interlibrary delivery service. MLRC staff will contact you when your materials are ready to pick up.

How much does it cost?
If you're an attorney, the cost depends on the delivery method you choose:

• UPS ground delivery: $10.00 per item plus return shipping by a method of your choosing.
  
• FedEx delivery: $10.00 per item, plus FedEx charges billed directly to your FedEx account. You are also responsible for return delivery costs.
  
• Delivery to the MLRC: No charge. You may return the materials there for free delivery back to the State Law Library, or you may ship them by another method at your own expense.
  

Materials you borrow through Circulation By Mail have a 3 week loan period, with an option to renew for one additional week if needed. You may renew materials online with your library card number, or call the WSLL Circulation Desk for assistance.

If you're a judge, we ship materials to your office at no charge; you are responsible for return delivery costs. We'll use UPS Ground Service unless you request a different method. Your loan period is 30 days, and you may renew materials online with your library card number or by contacting the WSLL Circulation Desk.

Using RSS Feeds

There are two ways to read your favorite websites these days:

Old & Slow

• Go visit each of your favorite websites, one by one.
• Check for new content.
  

New & Fast

• Use RSS feeds so new content comes to you - all in one place.

What's RSS and Why is it Useful?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is just another way to get to information online. It basically allows you to receive new content that's been added to your favorite websites, blogs and other web resources – how and when you want. Now that's service!

Like me, you probably regularly visit several websites, blogs, newsgroups, e-newsletters and other online sources to keep up on the latest general news, information related to your profession or hobbies, weather reports, new books, movies, etc. How do you keep up with all the new information that's continually being added to all your favorite sites? Do you visit each site, one by one, and spend time looking around for new things? I used to do that, but now I use RSS, and it brings the new content to me! All I had to do was sign up for an RSS feed reader, and subscribe to the RSS feeds that are available on most of my favorite sites. Now, instead of having to go visit each of my favorite sites, I just log into my reader and browse through all the new information from my favorite resources, all in one place. It saves me a lot of time.

Set Up an RSS Feed Reader

In order to take advantage of RSS, you'll first need to set up an RSS feed reader. A feed reader is the “mailbox” that receives all of your feeds. Latest-edition Internet browsers such as Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 come with feed readers built in and ready to use! Many people use the free feed readers that are available on popular websites such as Bloglines, Google Reader, or My Yahoo! Others might use their favorite email client, or a dedicated RSS feed reader site like Awasu, FeedDemon, or NetNewsWire. For more help finding the right RSS feed reader for you, see the RSS Compendium's extensive list.

When you've decided which reader is best for you, go to that website and follow the instructions to register for an account. Typically it's a matter of entering your email address and setting up a password and a few other preferences for how you want your feeds to display. Once you've subscribed to several different RSS feeds, you can also use the features of your feed reader to organize them into folders or other groupings, much like you might do with email.

Find RSS Feeds

How do you know if a website or blog offers an RSS feed? It will have some type of RSS “subscribe” button or link on it, often at the very top of the webpage. The most common one is an orange box with wavy lines: . There are a variety of other RSS feed buttons - see some examples to the right - but they all have one thing in common: they allow you to subscribe to the RSS feed for that website and have newly added information sent to your RSS feed reader.

Subscribe to RSS Feeds

To subscribe to an RSS feed, simply click on the appropriate button or link and follow the instructions - which will generally be one of the following:

• If a box displays showing various RSS feed reader options, click on the one matching your “brand” of RSS feed reader – that's it, you're finished!
• If a page full of HTML computer code displays (lines and lines of plain text and symbols):
  1. Highlight and Copy the URL (it's in the Address bar at the top of the screen).
  2. Open your RSS feed reader.
  3. Click on Subscribe, or Add, or whatever your reader's button says.
  4. Paste the URL into the appropriate box.
• If neither of the above happens, you can simply copy and paste the URL of the feed into your reader, following steps 1 through 4 above.

Forget Old and Slow - I Want New & Fast!  How Do I Get It?

Start getting new information the faster way by following these steps:

• Register for an RSS feed reader.
• Go to your favorite websites and subscribe to their RSS feeds.
• Log into your RSS feed reader and read away!
• Need more info?  Watch this nifty web video, “RSS in Plain English” created by Common Craft.

During the past few months we've introduced you to the electronic journal databases available to our users.  This month we show you how to use these same databases to easily stay up-to-date on your research.

Get the Latest Information on Your Research Topic

Our Journals and Legal Databases webpage lists several databases from the EBSCOHost company: Academic Search Elite, MasterFile Premier, Business Source Elite, Regional Business News and Newspaper Source.  Each one contains thousands of articles on hundreds of topics, and new material is added continually.  Wouldn't it be great if you could be notified anytime a new article on your research topic has been added?  Now you can – using RSS feeds that are based on your own search strategies!  (For more about how to use RSS feeds, please read this month's Tech Tip in Brief.) 

How does this work?  Let's say you're researching the topic of tort reform.  Go to our Journals and Databases webpage and select one of above-mentioned EBSCOHost databases – for example, Business Source Elite – and do a search on the words tort reform.  When the results list displays, above it you'll see an RSS feed link:  .  Copy or click on that link and follow the directions to subscribe to it using your RSS feed reader.  Now, anytime a new journal or newspaper article matching your search is added to the Business Source Elite database, an entry will appear in your RSS feed reader.  By following these simple steps you can create unlimited RSS feeds based on your search strategies, in any of the EBSCHOhost databases, and keep up with the latest information in your research or practice area.

You can also subscribe to a feed for an entire journal.  For example, to receive a notification every time a new issue of ABA Journal is added, go into the Academic Search Elite database and click on “Publications” in the green bar at the top of the screen.  When the list of titles displays, look for ABA Journal.  Next to it you'll see a  RSS Feed button.  Click on the button and follow the instructions to subscribe using your RSS feed reader.

Keeping Current on Local and National News

ProQuest Newsstand offers email alerts to help you stay current with Wisconsin, national and international news.  Do a search in the database and then set up an email alert, .  As new documents matching your search are added to the database, ProQuest will send a message to your email account.  You can choose to receive alerts daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly, and you can also set an ending date. 

You can also choose to receive alerts for a specific publication – for example, the LaCrosse Tribune.  First, select the  tab to view a list of titles. Choose the one(s) you want and then set up an email alert to notify you when new documents are available for that publication.

Keep Up-to-Date Using LegalTrac

In LegalTrac you can set up either RSS Feeds or email alerts to keep current.  As with the EBSCOHost databases, your LegalTrac search results screen will include a button.  The alerts you'll receive provide both links to new full-text law review articles available right in the database, and citations for articles that you can obtain by contacting the Wisconsin State Law Library.

As with the other databases, LegalTrac also allows you to set up an RSS feed or email alert for a specific journal.  So if you want to receive citations to articles in each new issue of Marquette Law Review, do a “publication” search and select the corresponding link to .

Learn More about RSS

To learn more about using RSS Feeds and selecting a feed reader, please read this month's Tech Tip Column.

October is National Book Month, and the time when the National Book Foundation presents its National Book Awards.   Some previous law-related nominations include:  

• Non Fiction
• 1958 Mark deWolfe Howe - Justice Holmes: The Shaping Years, 1841-1870
• 1961 Harlan B. Phillips - Felix Frankfurter Reminisces
• 1966 Irving Brant - The Bill of Rights
• 1974 Lawrence M. Friedman - A History of American Law
• 1982 Charles Rembar - The Law of the Land: The Evolution of Our Legal System

• Fiction
• 1959 Robert Travers - Anatomy of a Murder
• 1961 Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
• 1980 Norman Mailer - The Executioner's Song

Books take center stage in Wisconsin this month, too. The 6th annual Wisconsin Book Festival takes place Oct. 10-14 at various venues in and around downtown Madison. Milwaukee and other cities are also sponsoring related events. For complete information, visit the Wisconsin Book Festival website.

We give a nod to our colleagues working in medical libraries who are celebrating National Medical Librarians Month.

October 1 marks the beginning of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2007-2008 term. For more information see the Supreme Court of the United States website as well as On the Docket, which covers U.S. Supreme Court cases and activities and is produced by Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Note: If you've read the Tech Tip in Brief column above, you'll be interested to know that On the Docket offers an RSS feed subscription!

Finally, a reminder that starting this year, Daylight Saving Time doesn't end until the first Sunday in November! For more information, see this U.S. Navy article.