The Admiralty and Maritime Law Guide, part of the WWW Virtual Library, is written and published by Todd Kenyon, an admiralty practitioner. This all-encompassing site is a useful bookmark for any user interested in the study and practice of maritime and admiralty law. Within the guide, users will find more than 1500 “annotated links to admiralty law resources on the Internet and a growing database of admiralty case digests, opinions and international maritime conventions.” The site emphasizes U.S. law available on the Internet. Links are organized into one of seventeen sections. The sections cover U.S. primary law sources; international and foreign law sources; maritime industry sites; government, law firm, and organization sites; as well as educational institutions, journals, and reference materials. Many sections are divided into sub-categories for easy use. Numerous admiralty judicial opinions and conventions are maintained on the site in either PDF or HTML format. A site map and a search function help users navigate this extensive guide.

Spanning 1871 to 1970, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler, is an historically significant seven volume compilation of U.S. treaties, laws and executive orders pertaining to Native American Indian tribes. This seminal work was first published in 1903-04 by the U.S. Government Printing Office, and has been extensively indexed and annotated by its editors throughout the years. Since 1996, the Oklahoma State University Library has received several grants to digitize this collection, and the last installation went online in June 2003. All seven volumes are available now as both page images (JPEGs from the original TIFFs) and text (HTML). Each volume contains its own table of contents and an index, and researchers may also search the entire collection through a basic keyword or advanced field-restricted search form. This impressive site is easy to search and browse but visitors may wish that the quick-loading JPEGs were easier to read.

The Legal Reader (formerly “Weird of the News”) is a liberal-leaning legal blog created by a solo blogger named John. Focusing on general legal news and commentary, this blog is more breezy and casual than some (and the language can get quite salty). Posts are daily, and usually consist of excerpts from other blogs and news, with little commentary. Readers are welcome to comment on posts, but so far many entries are going un-remarked. The Legal Reader is searchable and archived back to November, 2002. This blog is syndicated, and would be a welcome addition to your news aggregator.

The activist site National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) seeks to educate media professionals, attorneys, academics, students, and the general public on FOI issues and the public’s right to know. The NFOIC’s website promotes the planting of start-up FOI organizations in individual states, and assists its members through joint fundraising, project planning, and the interchange of ideas and information. Site visitors may access the organization’s newsletters, join the listserv (and read its archive dating back to 1994), and learn more about the coalition through its press releases, member directory, and conference materials. Researchers will not want to miss the site’s Resources section, which provides information-at-a-glance for each U.S. state, including open meeting laws, open record laws, administrative contacts, and other FOI-related information. The Resources page also contains a page for Federal U.S. and Canadian FOI information.

Developed in 2000 by the Court Technology Lab of the National Center for State Courts, the Public Access to Court Records site is an information clearinghouse dedicated to exploring the topic of public access to court records. As courts improve and expand their court information systems and put more information on the Internet, the public policy debate over privacy concerns is growing. This site contains white papers, hyperlinks, articles, and other writings from both legal and technological perspectives which address this issue. Visitors may also browse information on public access to state and federal government records on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis. Researchers will appreciate the oft-updated original content, especially the legal white papers and memorandum, but will notice the lack of a search function. Most of the material is in PDF.