Risen from the dead

One of the less known but nevertheless important bills has passed the Texas Legislature on the last day of the special session. House Bill 79, which seeks comprehensive judicial reforms, is based on the findings of the State Bar Court Administration Task Force and stresses a more simplistic, flexible and productive court system.

The history of this bill is quite interesting. Having made its (unsuccessful) debut in 2007 and then again in 2009 as Senate Bills, the bill was once again introduced in 2011 as Senate Bill 1717. It failed on the last day of the regular legislative session but lawmakers were able to convince Governor Rick Perry to put the bill on the agenda for the special session. This time it went through and was sent to the Governor for final approval.

Link of the Month: Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL)

It's not often that one has to research homeland security issues, but if that is the case, the homeland security digital library is the place to go. Having just recently opened to the public, it contains the nation’s premier collection of documents related to homeland security policy, strategy, and organizational management collected from a wide variety of sources. The library is divided into eight key sections, ranging from national strategy documents to theses and research reports from the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security, including an exhaustive collection of executive orders and key legislation.
Open access to over 47,000 documents is available for anyone interested and access to more than twice the amount of information will be made available upon request and approval.

Link of the Month: National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

Established by Congress in 1935 as an independent federal agency, the NLRB's primary function is to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law that governs relations between unions, employees and employers in the private sector.
This website offers a wide variety of rules and regulations, guides, and manuals in English as well as in Spanish. In addition its research section allows access to legal-related documents, specifically NLRB Board decisions and memos, the weekly summary of NLRB cases, and Appellate Court briefs and motions filed by the NLRB General Counsel.

Link of the month: National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)

The NCHS is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and considered the Nation's principal health statistics agency. The Center is a public resource for health information with the main purpose to compile statistical information to guide actions and public health policies.
The website allows access to the NCHS factsheets through the so-called “FastStats” site, covering the wide range of information and data made available by the NCHS; “data briefs”, statistical publications that provide information about current public health topics, and the Center’s extensive library of online and print publications.
In addition two links are worth mentioning – one that leads to the data systems and surveys where it is possible to retrieve data that is being collected on an ongoing basis, and another one named “librarians”. The “resources for librarians” is a sub site that conveniently lists numerous resources that are of interest for information professionals, namely tutorials, which guide you through preparing an analytic dataset, and explaining the nuances of the survey design, medical coding classifications, listservs and the Research Data Center.

NCHS Research Data Center (RDC)

This website was developed by the NCHS with the goal to allow researchers access to data that does not appear in the public use files of data collected by the Center. Restricted variables are those that could compromise the confidentiality of survey respondents like geography, genetic data, and detailed race/ethnicity, and access to this data requires the researcher to submit a proposal to the RDC and comply with the process.