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BankruptcyData.com Expands

Business Wire: November 6, 2000. BankruptcyData.com has added a daily list of business bankruptcy filings from selected bankruptcy courts. The list currently contains over 200 companies that have filed bankruptcy in the last 30 days. Users have access to the date a company filed, where, when, and the attorney contact information. You can read the press release on this at http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001106/ma_bankrup.html. If you want information on older filings, you can either browse the database by the name of the company or do a database search. (You can search by name, company type, business type, or bankruptcy start date.) However, for in-depth information on the older filings, you'll have to pay some moolah. A variety of reports are available for a variety of prices. I found synopses for $5, extended synopses for $10, a creditors report for $15, and a news archive report for $15. Sample reports are available so you can get an idea of content.

Kentucky Prepares to Put Inmate Information Online     
Later this month the Kentucky Department of Corrections will launch KOOL -- the Kentucky Offender Online Lookup. this database will contain information about every inmate in the Kentucky prison system including a photo, information on their crime, and the date of scheduled release or parole hearing. it can be searched by first or last name and prison location. the database will contain information on all 15,623 inmates in Kentucky's 12 state prisons and information about inmates on parole. Eventually, this site will contain information back to 1976. You can get the Courier-Journal story on this new database at http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2000/0011/07/001107priz.html.

FindLaw Streamlines Their Site

FindLaw has redesigned is site, making it hopefully faster and easier to conduct legal research, obtain legal services, and connect to members of the legal community. The site can now be navigated through four channels targeted at FindLaw's four user groups, legal professionals, law students, businesses, and the public. Each channel can search FindLaw's offerings by jurisdiction, legal subject, or primary or secondary materials distinction. Check out the press release at http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001109/ca_findlaw.html.

If you really like this site, don't forget to check out the personalized traffic information you can get. This site needs more city information -- 28 isn't all that much – but there are some cool things here, and it's nicely put together. Worth a look.

Questia to Offer Free Trial of Their Service

Questia is an academic research site that will launch officially early next year. They're planning to have 50,000 volumes digitized and available for browsing, along with crosslinked biographies and footnotes. By 2004, they hope to have 250,000 volumes digitized. There is no list of the volumes being digitized, only a note that it's designed to support undergraduate study in the liberal arts (more information on the collection development at http://www.questia.com/what_coll.html.)

Questia is not offering institutional access to this material. Instead, they are concentrating on individual subscribers. (Isn't THAT a revolutionary thought.) Check them out.

Ask Jeeves Gets Multimedia Search

Ask Jeeves (http://www.ask.com) has hooked up with StreamSearch to allow for multimedia searching at Ask Jeeves. StreamSearch claims a multimedia database of over 2 million streaming and downloadable audio and video files which will be available now at Ask Jeeves. Note that it's "if multimedia-related questions are asked. "The materials are down at the bottom under "other search engines." The question "Where can I get a picture of a giraffe?" brought from StreamSearch, strangely enough, several audio clips. Going from giraffes to the song "Can I Get A Witness" is a bit of a stretch but hey, searching on Ask Jeeves is sometimes surreal anyway. Get the press release on this new alliance at http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001101/ny_ask_jee.html.