From the OpenCongress site:

OpenCongress is a free, open-source, non-profit, and non-partisan web resource with a mission to help make Congress more transparent and to encourage civic engagement. OpenCongress is a joint project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation.

OpenCongress brings together, for the first time in one place, all the best data on what’s really happening in Congress:

• Official Congressional information from Thomas, made available by GovTrack.us: bills, votes, committee reports, and more.
• News articles about bills and Members of Congress from Google News.
• Blog posts about bills and Members of Congress from Google Blog Search and Technorati.
• Campaign contribution information for every Member of Congress from the website of the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org.

Beginning Monday, April 16, all Library study areas and computer labs on the 7th and 14th floors of 40 Worth St. will remain open for extended Study Hall hours that run from regular closing time until 2:00 a.m.  These same areas will also open one hour early, at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

During the extended hours there are no librarians on duty, but the Study Hall areas are patrolled by security guards.  Study Hall is for NYLS students only; please make sure to have your NYLS ID ready to show the guard.  The extended hours will continue for the duration of the exams period.

The Library space on the 4th floor of 40 Worth St. will not be open extended hours, but rather will function on the regular semester schedule.  Thus, the Library’s book collections, Circulation, and the Reserve Room will close at 11 p.m. on weekdays, and 10 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.  All circulation transactions, including borrowing and return of books; and charge-out and charge-in of Reserve materials must be complete by regular closing time.

The following classes are offered:

Westlaw(R) Prepare To Practice Training is a great opportunity to learn cost-effective and efficient legal research techniques in time for summer jobs as well as for full-time positions. These classes are an excellent way to get prepared for your summer job, clerkship or internship, or to get a refresher on Westlaw pricing before you go to work at a legal employer.

Advanced Westlaw Certification Training: This training is a three-part program that gives you advanced skills in case law searching, statute searching and secondary searching. Each part is 30-45 minutes long and is concluded with a short quiz, which generates your certificate and certification. Once certified, your name will be maintained at West and you can put "Westlaw Certified" on your resume.

All classes are posted on www.lawschool.westlaw.com under the Westlaw Training Calendar.

The Library of Congress has launched a historic newspaper project, Chronicling America.

This site allows you to search and read newspaper pages from 1900-1910 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

Faculty and students can now have free access to TimesSelect from the New York Times.  All you need is a .edu email address.  You can sign up here.  Thanks to Jessica Campbell for the tip.

Want to develop practical skills and approaches to master your summer employment?  Attend the March 30, 2007 Bridge the Gap program at the New York City Bar, sponsored by the Law Library Association of Greater New York.  Click here for a PDF version of the program announcement and registration form.

This full-day program will enhance your research skills in a number of specific practice areas (including intellectual property, employment and labor, tax, corporate transactions and securities, criminal law, commercial litigation, statutes and regulations, banking and financial institutions, and legislative history).  The program concludes with a panel discussion about life as a summer associate.  Panel members include Justice Stephen G. Crane, Associate Justice of the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, Steven E. Obus, a litigation partner at Proskauer Rose LLP, and Nicole Silvestri, an associate at Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto.

Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute has updated their online Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) to include those changes that took place as of December 1, 2006:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/index.html

Via Spencer L. Simons, Director of the Law Library and Assistant Professor of Law University of Houston Law Center: "The Quinn Law Library at the University of Houston Law Center is proud to announce the inauguration of the extraordinary new website, the Anglo-American Legal Tradition (AALT). The AALT is the result of over fifteen years of negotiation with the National Archives of the United Kingdom by Robert C. Palmer, Cullen Professor of History and Law at the University of Houston. The license with the National Archives permits the free, non-commercial, public display and use of the images captured by Professor Palmer’s ongoing project to acquire images of the main categories of court records over almost four centuries (c.1272 – 1650); at this point, some 450,000 images have been acquired. Access to these documents was previously possible only through use of the original documents at the National Archives itself…In order to facilitate use of these ancient documents Professor Palmer has supplied guides to paleography and overviews of English legal history, as well as links to other websites of interest to legal historians. The AALT will continue to add images from the National Archives, as well as collections of historical documents from other court systems in the Anglo-American legal world." (source: beSpacific.com)

The United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Thurgood Marshall Law Library, University of Maryland School of Law, in partnership with the United States Government Printing Office, have teamed to provide online access to the historical records and publications of the Commission on Civil Rights.

Check out these two new sources for free online access to UK legal materials: The UK Statute Law Database and the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII).  The UK Statute Law Database is the official revised edition of the primary legislation of the United Kingdom made available online.  BAILII provides access to a comprehensive set of British and Irish primary legal materials.  As of September 2006, BAILII included 74 databases covering 7 jurisdictions.