Government Documents for You

Sullivan, John V. and Robert A. Brady. How Our Laws Are Made. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2007. SUDOC: Y 1.1/7:110-49

This brief guide, published at the request of Congress, provides a basic outline of how laws are made in Congress. Topics include: the role of Congress; the different types of Congressional action or bills; Referring a matter to a Committee; the Committee process; Reporting a Bill; Calendars; Action on a matter; debate; Conference Committee; and Presidential actions.

This document is available online at: http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS103851

The United Nations Office of Legal Affairs has launched the Audiovisual Library of International Law

http://www.un.org/law/avl

The Audiovisual Library aims to provide free, scholarly resources to students and practitioners around the world, particularly in regions where there are few resources for the study of international law.

The website has three main parts:

The Historic Archives present documents, photos, and digital film footage relating to the UN role in the development of international law. This section includes the texts of treaties, some General Assembly declarations, and certain Security Council resolutions. Each legal instrument also has a procedural history and/or related documents (travaux preparatoires).

The Lecture Series contains lectures by leading scholars on topics in international law, and includes a bibliography of related materials. The 100 lectures posted so far are each about an hour long and discuss various aspects of international law. Most are in English, but other official languages of the UN are also represented. Certain scholars contribute introductory texts for the Historic Archives as well as lectures.

The Research Library provides links to other web-based research resources in international law, including other UN sources, national treaty series, and selected scholarly articles provided by HeinOnline (still in pilot/beta).

The Office of Legal Affairs is digitizing the English version of UN documents related to the procedural histories, and more will be added to the site as resources allow.

**Information provided by Ms Susan Kurtas, Reference Team, Dag Hammarskjöld Library,
United Nations**

The Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C. (http://www.llsdc.org) is pleased to announce a considerable expansion of a publication on its Legislative Source Book entitled "Legislative Histories of Selected U.S. Laws on the Internet" (http://www.llsdc.org/Leg-Hist). The expanded site now encompasses almost all commercial as well non-commercial (free) Federal legislative histories available on the Internet. These commercial histories (Lexis, Westlaw, and HeinOnline) are listed alphabetically by the short title of the public law and then in public law number order whether or not that arrangement is on the vendor site. The layout is similar (but with less detail) to the two listings of non-commercial legislative histories presented just before the commercial listings. Each entry also has a direct
link to the history's URL site or to its general vendor site. In addition, following the public law number list for commercial histories, are entries and links to large or special collected histories (such as the new GAO histories on Westlaw or collected tax related histories). Finally, at the bottom of the site are many explanatory notes about legislative histories, source sites, and citations to public law numbers as well as related statute, U.S. Code and C.F.R. cites.

http://www.llsdc.org/Leg-Hist

**Text taken from a posting by Rick McKinney on the GovDoc-L listserv.**

Post on GovDoc-L from: Rick McKinney, Assistant Law Librarian, Federal Reserve Board Law Library

**Description taken from the Thurgood Marshall Law Library website**

The Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress, serves the legislative process by providing Congress with non-partisan and in-depth legislative research and analysis on a variety of topics. CRS produces or updates more than 3,000 studies and other publications each year, none of which are distributed to the public. Because CRS reports are created using public money and are not readily accessible to the research community, the Thurgood Marshall Law Library has created an online collection in the subject areas of Homeland Security/Terrorism and Health Law and Policy.

http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/index.html?AlphaStart=R