WSLL @ Your Service March 2012

What's New – Connie Von Der Heide
This Just In… – Pete Boll
Tech Tip in Brief – Heidi Yelk
Start Here – Amy Crowder
WSLL Recommends: Waters and Water Rights
Odds 'n' Endings – Julie Tessmer

What's New – Connie Von Der Heide

Staff News

Devin Rogers, WSLL library assistant and a student in the master's degree program at UW-Madison School of Library & Information Studies, is now a published author as well. Her article, "Web-based Mapping Tools For Your Reference Utility Belt" recently appeared in ola.access, the Ontario Library Association's online newsletter. Congratulations, Devin!

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This Just In… – Pete Boll

New Edition! How-To-Win Appeal Manual: Winning Appellate Advocacy in a Nutshell, 3rd edition, by Ralph Adam Fine.
Juris Publishing, Inc., 2012.
WSLL Call Number: KF 9059 .F56 2012

In this step-by-step manual, Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Ralph Adam Fine gives a jurist's perspective on effective appellate strategies and practice. Judge Fine has revised each existing chapter and added a new one called "Oral Argument in the Real World." Especially helpful are his element-by-element analyses of the parts of an appellate brief, and his advice on how to employ each of them in an effective appellate strategy.

New Title! Buy-Sell Agreements, by Eric A. Manterfield.
American Law Institute-American Bar Association (ALI-ABA), 2012.
WSLL Call Number: KF 1366 .M38 2012

Buy-sell agreements are essential for owners of any business, enabling them to provide for a smooth transition in the event of death, disability, employment termination, retirement, divorce, or attempts to sell an ownership interest to an outside party. In the case of family owned businesses, a buy-sell agreement can help owners consider future management, provide a means for the founder to sell control to one or more children, and provide a forum for resolution of family business disputes.

Topics include:

Types of buy-sell agreements
Transfer restrictions
Fixing the transfer tax value of the ownership interest
Key issues for agreements among equity owners
Setting the purchase price
Funding the buy-sell agreement

Also included are samples of an LLC Operating Agreement and Articles of Organization, a Certificate of Interest, and an Installment Promissory Note.

See our latest New Titles list for a list of new books and other resources.

For assistance in accessing these or other resources, please contact our Reference Desk.

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Tech Tip in Brief – Heidi Yelk

Google's New Privacy Policy: What Does It Mean For You?

For the past several weeks Google has been alerting users to its new privacy policy. While a majority of us has consistently expressed concern and support for privacy, acting upon those concerns is apparently another matter. Many people are aware of Google's announcement, but according to some observers they "don't seem upset." Perhaps one reason is that privacy policies are tedious and hard to decipher. And, it's not as if one can simply refrain from using Google. Not only is it the most used search engine, but it also owns other popular sites and services such as You Tube, Gmail, Google Docs, etc.

One important aspect of the new Google privacy policy is that the information being tracked and collected across most Google services will be pooled to form a more precise profile of you, the user. For example, when you log in to watch videos on YouTube, your preferences and interests are collected and pooled with information gleaned from your use of other Google services, such as Search and Gmail. One way Google uses that information is to customize the ads it delivers while you browse. Google Books, Google Wallet, and Google Chrome are not included and will retain separate privacy policies.

The key element behind all of this is that you're logged into a Google account. For years Google has encouraged users to create free accounts, and nowadays moving from one Google service to another under the same login is both simple and seamless. In addition, millions of Android smart phone owners have Google accounts – which means they may be sharing the content on their phone with Google.

What can you do about what's being collected? Users can access the Google "Dashboard" service to view and control some of the information Google has collected. Also, Digital Trends blogger Andrew Couts recently posted a step-by-step column, "How to Delete Your Google Web History." Another option is to delete your Google account. According to the Washington Post, 65% of Google account holders who responded to a recent online poll intend to do that.

The dust-up over Google's new policy has illuminated the privacy issue on several fronts: Attorneys General from 36 states signed a letter to Google questioning its new policy; Google has been forced to defend itself to leaders of Congress; and there's renewed interest in Do Not Track legislation.

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Start Here – Amy Crowder

A Selective List of Tax Law Sources

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Just as Mr. Franklin was adept at both words and such things as flying kites, the multi-talented librarians at the State Law Library suggest these tax law sources, in both print and electronic formats, to aid your research. Items preceded by a "W" address Wisconsin tax law in particular.

For assistance with finding these materials or with identifying good sources of information for other practice areas and law related topics, please contact our reference staff.

Books

Federal Estate and Gift Tax Reporter
KF6571.A8 F43
Loose-leaf; published by CCH (updated weekly)

Federal Income Taxation of Individuals in a Nutshell
KF6369.3 .M3 2004
John K. McNulty
Published by West (2004)
New 8th edition arriving shortly

Federal Income Taxation of Partners and Partnerships in a Nutshell
KF6452.Z9 B887 2005
Karen C. Burke
Published by West (2005)

Merten's Law of Federal Income Taxation
KF6369 .M4
Loose-leaf; Published by West (updated monthly)

Law of Tax-Exempt Organizations
KF6449 .H6 2011
Bruce R. Hopkins
Published by Wiley (2011, supplemented annually)
(WSLL also has previous editions back to 1987.)

Partnership Taxation
KF6452 .W555
Loose-leaf; Published by WG&L (updated quarterly)

Stand Up to the IRS
KF6324.Z9 D345 2009
Frederick Daily
Published by Nolo (2009)
New 11th edition arriving shortly

Standard Federal Tax Reporter
KF6285 .S75
Loose-leaf; published by CCH (updated weekly)

State Tax Handbook
KF6750.Z95 C6
Published by CCH (annual)

Tax Court Reporter
KF6285 .T35
Loose-leaf; published by CCH (updated weekly)

Tax Management Portfolios Series
U.S. Income KF6289.A1 T35
Foreign Income KF6289.A1 T34
Estates, Gifts & Trusts KF6289.A1 T353
Published by BNA (updated monthly)

U.S. Master Tax Guide
KF6285 .S75 O U5
Published by CCH (updated annually)

U.S. Tax Court Reports
KF6324 .A51
Published by the U.S. GPO

Wisconsin Tax Reporter
KFW2870.A6 W5
Loose-leaf; Published by CCH (updated monthly)

On the Internet

Visit the Wisconsin State Law Library's Tax Law legal topic page for a continually updated and growing list of web-based resources.

For access to previously published "Start Here" columns covering other areas of the law, please visit our Start Here web page. This guide is also available as a PDF document.

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WSLL Recommends: Waters and Water Rights

This monthly column highlights a legal research tool, in print and/or electronic format, that is not freely available on the internet. We hope it will increase your knowledge of sources with which you might already be familiar and help to expand your legal research toolkit.

Waters and Water Rights is a comprehensive analysis of water-related laws contained in a five volume set. Authored by a team of practicing attorneys and legal scholars, chapter topics include:

riparian rights
reasonable use and correlative rights of groundwater
infrastructure for water distribution and storage by public water districts and private organizations
public right to water
constitutional foundations of federal water
reserved water rights and Indian reserved water rights
ownership of water, state water rights, and the acquisition of water for federal uses
impact of the Endangered Species Act on private water rights
climate change
interstate water allocation and the interstate export of water
international waters
environmental issues including water quality, groundwater protection, water pollution, drainage, flooding and wetlands preservation

Volume 4 offers an overview of each state's water laws compiled by an expert in the water law of that particular state. The state surveys include references to other state-specific sources of information. Also contained in the volume are surveys covering five river basins.

Volume 5 includes an extensive glossary, table of case law, and a table of state and federal laws with references to sections and footnotes within the set.

Waters and Water Rights is updated annually. The library also owns the 1st , 2nd and 3rd editions originally edited by Robert Emmett Clark.

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Odds 'n' Endings – Julie Tessmer

Another Reason to Love Chocolate

Did you know that the microwave ovens many of us use to heat up our lunches came about because of a chocolate bar? While touring one of his labs at the Raytheon Company in the mid-1940's, electronics genius Percy Spencer stopped momentarily in front of a magnetron, the power tube that drives a radar set. Feeling a strange sensation, he discovered that the chocolate candy bar he'd put in his pocket had begun to melt. Realizing the potential cooking power of the magnetron led Spencer to develop the first microwave oven - which weighed 750 pounds and stood over five feet tall.

March Notables

11 - Daylight Saving Time begins at 2:00 a.m. local time. "Spring forward" – set your clocks ahead one hour.

17 - Saint Patrick's Day. Famous Irish-American jurists include: