SWALL BULLETINTABLE OF CONTENTSFROM THE BENCH
HEADNOTES
EXPERT TESTIMONY
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Spring 2003, Vol. 33 No. 3 |
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New Web Site at the Legislative Reference Library of Texas Reference Librarian, Legislative Reference Library The Legislative Reference Library of Texas recently launched a new Web site: http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/. The new site offers content in four major areas: Legislative Information, Research Tools, What's New, and Citizen Resources.
"Legislative Information" includes the following features:
_ Expanded legislative intent information can assist researchers in compiling legislative history and intent. Enhancements include descriptions of various types of bill analyses and where to locate them, information on nonsubstantive revisions, and helpful phone numbers of legislative offices. The steps involved in legislative intent research can be viewed individually or as one list. _ Bill-chapter/chapter-bill cross-reference tables provide users with the ability to perform specific bill-chapter number searches. _ Vetoed bills are available from 1874 through 2001 in PDF files. The collection, compiled from the General and Special Laws of Texas, includes veto proclamations of governors, entries in the House Journals and Senate Journals, as well as Governors' Letters, and Governors' Press Memos. _ Index to Sections Affected back to the 74th Legislature (1995), showing how legislation would or did affect Texas statutes, codes, and session laws. _ Amendments to the Texas Constitution, from the 16th Legislature (1879) through the 77th Legislature (2001), are searchable by legislative session or article, with constitutional amendment election outcome and vote totals. _ Biographical information about members and leaders of the legislature is available. Also included are biographies of Governors, Lieutenant Governors of Texas, and Speakers of the House. Coverage of this collection extends from 1846 through the present. The Web site also includes rosters of members of the Legislature (currently available back to 1937) with name, district number, term of service, political party, and home city and county. Additionally, the Web site has legislative profiles back to the 74th Legislature (1995) with bill statistics, links to session summaries, and membership statistics. Member rosters and session overview pages are also accessible under Legislative Information via the "Session-years" list. Under "Research Tools" members of the public may access: _ Legislative interim committee information, including committee charges and a list of members. This information includes all committees from 1977 through the present. Committee reports are available since 1981. Reports may be searched by session, subject, committee name, or keyword, and charges may be searched by subject or keyword. A "browse committee list" feature is also available for browsing all committees for a particular session. _ Texas, state and municipal, and federal government links and descriptions. "Citizen Resources" assists the public in contacting legislators and becoming involved in the legislative process. Information in this section includes:
"What's New" provides lists of new books received in the library, bill statistics and a bibliography of recently received books, reports, and other documents available for circulation to the Texas legislative community. In addition, the right-hand side of the LRL Web site links to committee hearings scheduled for that day and links to other Texas government sites. It also provides information about the Legislative Reference Library of Texas and its staff. Please note that some features of the web site are only available in the library/Capitol Complex. Our hope is that the new site will be helpful to our colleagues and we welcome your feedback and suggestions; please email them to webmaster@lrl.state.tx.us. |
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