DuFour Law Library Blog

The Law Library staff recently released a new research guide on Information Privacy Law.  The guide includes descriptions of good starting points for research, resources for current awareness, books available in the Law Library's collection, links to legislation and case law, and also links to a variety of database resources.  It is hoped that the guide will be of help to students in the Information Privacy Law track of the Law and Technology Institute.

Subject Compilations of State Laws

This resource indexes articles, books, court opinions, websites, and other publications that compare state laws on a wide variety of subjects. In addition to citations, entries may contain annotations and, where available, direct links to articles and publications in HeinOnline. This database can be browsed by subject, or searched by: keyword, subject, journal or article title, case, or court.

National Survey of State Laws

A compilation of state laws on the most asked-about and controversial legal topics in the U.S, such as abortion, gun control, and capital punishment. The results are presented in chart format, with brief explanatory text and citations to the applicable statutes. The HeinOnline collection includes digital copies of all seven editions of the survey, starting in 1993. The 5th through 7th editions are presented in database format, so that side-by-side comparisons can be made for the same laws as they existed in 2005, 2008 and 2015.

Security Warnings

Clicking on a library database sometimes results in a security warning, such as "your connection is not private," or "your connection is not secure." Please disregard these warnings. It is perfectly safe to connect to all of the library's databases. In Chrome, click "advanced" and then click the "proceed" link. In Firefox, click "advanced" and then click "add exception."

Why Do These Warnings Display?

The warnings you see are due to SSL errors. SSL is standard technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. To create an SSL connection, a web server requires an SSL certificate. Unfortunately, the library's SSL certificate is not communicating properly with the library's server. The library's SSL connection is secure and the certificate is current and correctly configured. The library is exploring several options to correct this issue, but there is no quick fix.