Tax free weekend coming

The sales tax holiday in Texas is August 9-11, 2013. For further information on what is and is not covered, go to http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/taxpubs/taxholiday/d/.

General rule of thumb: school supplies and clothes priced under $100.

Legal Apps - Part 5, Texas

App	Description
	The Texas Constitution and Statutes Codes Rules app includes offline access, unlimited bookmarks, and search highlighting. Available for free at iTunes.
	The Texas Court Rules and Statutes app allows users to search, bookmark, and email Texas court rules and statutes. Available for free at iTunes.
	The Push Legal Mobile Law Library app offers a collection of selected legal apps on Texas Statutes and Federal Rules. Available at iTunes and Google Play for a $25 monthly subscription.
	The Texas Rules of Civil Procedure app provides offline access to Texas law, fast browsing, and bookmarks. Available for $9.99 at iTunes.
	The State Bar of Texas Computer and Technology Section app is exclusively for section members. Contains Texas and Federal codes, rules, and statutes. Available for free at iTunes.
	The Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association app allows members to research criminal statutes and case law. Available for free at iTunes and Google Play.

Texas Statutes Online

Weblaws.org added Texas Statutes online and can retrieve, scan and publish any changes on a  daily basis.

Texas Stumbles on eFiling Portal — Rolls Back to Old System

Texas Stumbles on eFiling Portal — Rolls Back to Old System
3 Geeks and a Law Blog

It seems that the new Texas.gov e-filing system upgrade didn't go as planned...

Texas legislature in fiction

A post from our friends in the LRL library.

The Texas Legislature in Fiction
July 30, 2012
posted by TexasLRL in Interesting documents
While Texas and its people are a popular subject for fiction, rarely does the Texas Legislature take a starring role. The novels below, arranged alphabetically by author, represent a wide variety of genres and time periods, but are connected by their focus on Texas lawmakers, either as characters or as a major part of the setting. Some of these titles are available in the Legislative Reference Library's collection; the rest can be found in libraries throughout the state. (cont)

Texas Legislative Summaries now available

The House Research Organization (HRO), the Senate Research Center (SRC), and the Texas Legislative Council (TLC) have now published overviews of the session's accomplishments. Read more at the LRL's post titled 82nd Session Legislative Summaries.

Four years for college?

Texas Law seeks to keep college students on a four-year track
Stateline.org.

Law designed to keep college students on track - but how will this affect those who change majors?

Hat tip to Legislative Reference Library Blog.

Texas Session Laws - 82nd Regular Session

Brief post from the Legislative Reference Library of Texas blog regarding finding session laws and signed bill copies from the recent regular session of the Legislature.

School Finance in Texas

The Legislative Reference Library of Texas compiled some links about state finance in Texas.

Oops! Texas exposes individuals' information

Here's a blurb from txsafeguard.org -

Incident Background

The Comptroller’s office recently identified the exposure of three data files that contained individuals’ personal information. There is no information at this time that the personal information has been misused in any way.

The data files were provided to the Comptroller’s office by the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) and the Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS). They included information such as names, dates of birth, addresses, Social Security numbers and some driver’s license numbers. (cont)

Additional information:

Press release: http://txsafeguard.org/110411-security.php
Ars Technica article discussing the incident: http://tinyurl.com/3w6kxvm

Reminder - the LRL has a new blog

A message from the Legislative Reference Library of Texas:

Hello ALL,

The LRL now has a blog, What's New, where we will post timely updates on legislative topics, new policy reports of interest, current events or hot topics, new or updated electronic resources at the LRL, legislative process and procedure, and interesting facts or useful sources that we uncover in our research. Recent posts include New interim reports, New laws taking effect January 1, 2011, Membership statistics for the 82nd Legislature, and Use Twitter to stay current on the Texas Legislature, and we have a regular Week in Review feature with new policy articles and reports.

We invite you to visit the blog often for updates, and add us to your RSS feed. We are also on Twitter: http://twitter.com/TexasLRL .

Best regards,

Melanie Harshman
Administrative Librarian
Legislative Reference Library

A note from Melanie Harshman of the Legislative Reference Library

A note from Melanie Harshman of the Legislative Reference Library:

Just wanted to let you all know, the Legislative Reference Library recently launched a redesigned website: http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/

New search and navigation options include:

• More informative menu categories
• Drop down menus to show the major sections in each category
• Menus on the left side of each second-level page which contain links to other pages within each category
• The ability to search Legislative Archive System and the Library catalog from the home page

 We've also added some new content. New features include:

• A revised and improved guide to researching legislative history and intent http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/legis/legIntent/legIntent.cfm
• Expanded information about Lieutenant Governors http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/legeLeaders/ltgovernors/ltgovbrowse.cfm
• Session snapshot pages which provide easy access to information about each legislative session http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/sessions/sessionYears.cfm
• More options for searching for legislative committees http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/committees/index.cfm
• A timeline of significant Texas water legislation http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/legis/waterTimeLine.cfm
• Easier access to online collections, including historical House and Senate Journals, House and Senate Rules, and Session Laws http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/collections/index.cfm
• Answers to frequently asked questions http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/genInfo/FAQ.cfm
• State agency hotlines and citizen assistance information http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/genInfo/stateAgencies.cfm

We also have a new collection of scanned session laws from Hein Online covering 1824 – 2007. We can provide individual session laws on request.

We also have a blog now - so check us out! Here is the site announcement on the blog: http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/whatsNew/client/index.cfm/2010/11/29/Welcome-to-our-new-site

A different kind of library conference

I'm sitting outside the exhibit hall for the Texas Library Association Region 1 Fall Media conference, after having listened to the keynote speaker and a panel of authors. Why, you ask? Because I am on vacation, and my friend Clare B. Dunkle was the keynote speaker. And how does this relate to law libraries?

Clare spoke on how librarians and teachers influenced her in all grades, and ultimately influenced her career choices as first a cataloger, then as a young adult author. No matter what type of librarian we are, we need to remember that our primary duty is to help our patrons find the information they seek, and to let them know it is okay to ask for help. The resources may be different, the patrons may be different, but the goal is the same; to help match the resources with the information seeker.

New Texas Media Makes Debate Tonight

"Sometime after midnight tonight, the Texas Tribune, a new nonprofit, nonpartisan public media organization headquartered in Austin, will launch its coverage of Texas politics and policymaking with stories, blogs, tweets and Facebook postings."--From the Texas Lawyer

For more information see http://texaslawyer.typepad.com/texas_lawyer_blog/2009/11/firms-donations-help-nonprofit-media-outlet-go-live-tonight.html

It's already in my RSS reader! Also available for your mobile via iTunes.

Annual Sales Tax Holiday Includes School Supplies

From the Dallas Business Journal...

"For the first time in 10 years, Texas’ annual August sales tax holiday will include school supplies."

Date: Aug. 21-23, 20009
Covered: Pens, crayons, calculators, notebooks, rulers, scissors, lunch boxes, etc.
http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2009/06/22/daily30.html?ana=from_rss

Legislative Archive System

Email sent from Melanie Harshman regarding the new Legislative Archive System.

The Legislative Reference Library is pleased to announce the Legislative Archive System containing scanned bill files from the 57th Legislature (1961) - 77th Legislature (2001) is now available the public.

From the LRL homepage, www.lrl.state.tx.us, click on "Legislative Archive System" on the left. It works best with Internet Explorer.

You can also perform Advanced Searches, which allows searching bill captions across all sessions, and searching authors, subjects and actions across certain sessions. A detailed list of what options are available for each session is here: http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/research/billsearch/LASstatus.cfm

We also have a new "Bill Search" option on our website. This allows you to search by bill or chapter number, then link directly to the Legislative Archive System bill file, as well as other documents such as interim reports that may have followed implementation of the legislation.

We would be most appreciate of any problems, feedback or suggestions you may have using the system.

Best regards,
Melanie

Melanie Harshman
Administrative Librarian
Legislative Reference Library

Tracking Vote Reports on Twitter

Twitter Vote Report is an all-volunteer network of software developers, designers, and other collaborators who have teamed up to help track voting problems on Election Day.
Using Twitter Vote Report, voters will be able to share their experiences and resources with one another (e.g. “#wait:120? meaning that the wait time is 120 minutes). These messages will then be aggregated and mapped so that we can “see” voting problems around the country in real-time.

From Today's CyberJournalist
For more info: http://www.cyberjournalist.net/twitter-vote-report/

For Fun....Free orders of Chick-n-Strips in Texas

From the Dallas Business Journal

Chick-fil-A Inc., which has more than 55 North Texas stores, will hand out free three-piece orders of Chick-n-Strips to customers wearing their favorite football team’s attire or logo on Labor Day, Sept. 1.

Read the full story at http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2008/08/25/daily48.html?ana=from_rss

Mmmm...will they still give me mine if I wear my KC Chiefs' shirt??

Corporate move

Just seen on AP:

AT&T to move headquarters to Dallas

DALLAS (AP) — AT&T Inc., the nation's largest telecommunications company, said Friday it is moving its corporate headquarters to Dallas from San Antonio for easier access to customers and operations around the world. (cont)

Texas legislative timeline

I just found this while looking at the Legislative Reference Library website - a timeline of Texas legislative history. It gives a chart and narrative timeline of the different publications of the statutes and the recodification project. It's worth a look, and a tool for those summer associates who need to understand just how these funny black statutes work.