We are a big community with a lot to talk about. Given the range of our communication needs, e-mail is a key communications medium of hourly importance to most of us. Already, daily, as the UGA legal community, we exchange thousands of e-mail messages.

Computer Services now offers a new web-based resource to facilitate e-mail communications within the School of Law community. At you will find a number of listservs. Here, served up on this "silver platter" of a web page, you will find all the information need to enjoy the marvelous practicality of sending messages to groups of your colleagues. Mailroom web-page use is available only on campus computers but the listserv addresses may be used in whatever context you utilize your e-mail account.

The illustration below [see http://www.lawsch.uga.edu/mailroom ] shows basic organization of the mailroom. Note that listings of individuals at the right also serve as a School of Law e-mail directory. The best way to register mailroom corrections or edits is to send an e-mail to Kevin Myers at mmyers@arches.uga.edu.

A listserv is an e-mail channel connecting a group of people. Messages you send to a listserv go out to all persons on the list. If and when you reply to a listserv message, you choose whether to direct your message only to the sender, or, again, out to all persons on the list.

Everyone in the School of Law is a subscriber to a mailroom listserv. Check to see to which listserv you subscribe. First, look for the appropriate listserv category for yourself. Second, click on the listserv name and find your name and address at the right. If you have not yet received a mailroom message, chances are you will soon.

Law students can post messages to a listserv of classmates: first-year students use lawstu01@uga.cc.uga.edu; second-year students use lawstu00@uga.cc.uga.edu; third-year students use lawstu99@uga.cc.uga.edu; and, LLM students use lawllm@uga.cc.uga.edu. Students may also post to all law students by sending to lawstu@uga.cc.uga.edu.

We remind you that basic netiquette, the etiquette of civil e-mail discourse, applies to all listserv communications. No one among School of Law subscribers can send messages anonymously.

We are well aware that we are all students of computer technology nowadays. We think it's fun, but whether you do or not, we are here to assist you in learning more about it. We also encourage you to develop technology learning relationships with your colleagues. What we know as a group is extremely impressive. Still, we welcome your questions at the Law help desk. E-mail to lawhelp@uga.cc.uga.edu or call 542-0895.

Have you lost a copy card? Many honest souls have been turning in a good number of cards left in copiers, found on the floor, etc. Please check at the Circulation Office to see if an honest soul has turned in your card. Only cards with the owner's name printed thereon will be returned. Also, please remember to write your name on your copy cards so that you can claim them should they be turned in at the Circulation Office.

For those who are wondering what e-mail address to give friends while in law school, I suggest using an Arches account if you don't have some other address that will be more "permanent." Using an Arches address will let you give friends, relatives, and potential employers an address that will be good through graduation.

If you use an ISP to access the Internet from home, you can set Arches to forward your mail to the address your ISP gives you. For example, I can set atstarr@uga.edu to forward to atstarr@negia.net. This way, if you do switch ISPs for some reason, you can tell Arches to forward your mail elsewhere, rather than having to tell your correspondents to use another address. One word of caution: if you forward mail from Arches to elsewhere, a copy will not be stored on your Arches account. To set forwarding, use a "telnet" program to connect to arches.uga.edu, login to your account, and choose option 4 from the main menu, then option 4 from the next menu. Also, it is likely that you can tell the e-mail program you use with your ISP to use your Arches address as your return address, so that correspondents won't be confused as to which address to use.

Or, while logged into your ISP from home, you can use an e-mail program that is "IMAP" compliant to access your mail directly from your Arches account, without having it forwarded. Don't worry about what IMAP means. Just use Eudora Pro, Netscape, Simeon, Outlook Express or other IMAP-compatible mail programs and for incoming mail tell it to look for imap.arches.uga.edu -- for outgoing mail continue to use whatever your ISP tells you to use normally, but as above you will probably want to set your return address to your Arches address. Thus, even though I am dialed into negia.net, I can read my Arches mail directly from Arches, and send mail via negia.net with a return address of atstarr@uga.edu.

(Those who have used Arches in the past may wonder why I am referring to atstarr@uga.edu instead of atstarr@arches.uga.edu -- the "arches" is no longer necessary in the e-mail address, although e-mail sent to either address will arrive at my Arches account.)

How do you spell RELIEF? Well, if you are a member of the Law Library computing staff, you now spell RELIEF...Kevin Myers and JoEllen Childers.

Before telling you about our latest additions in the Computing Services Department, we (both the Law School and the Law Library personnel) would like to express our thanks to Carol Watson and Keith Baitsell for the fine job they have done. During the past few months, tremendous changes and improvements have been made in the Law community technology department. Labs have been moved, new equipment has been installed in four classrooms and a large percentage of the staff and faculty computers have been replaced and/or upgraded. (A lot of work over and above the normal day to day computing problems). Carol and Keith are to be commended for their hard work and their accommodating and pleasant attitudes.

Kevin Myers joined the Computing Services Department on August 31, 1998. His experience includes UGA College of Education, Office of Instructional Technology, and Computer Renaissance. He has extensive hardware and software troubleshooting experience. Kevin has formal training in teaching, business, psychology and various technical skills. He is multi-talented. He is a great asset to the Computer Services Department.

While a student at UGA, Kevin enjoyed playing trumpet in the Redcoat Bank and served as the rehearsal assistant for three years. He played "hooker" on the UGA Rugby team. His favorite sport, however, is basketball. Maybe in the future, he will have a team at Georgia to support. Kevin also studied music at UGA and is a skilled musician.

Kevin's family moved to Athens in 1980 and he graduated from Cedar Shoals High School. He received his B.S. Ed. in Technological Studies at UGA..

JoEllen Myers joined us on September 17, 1998. She holds a Masters of Education in Adult Education from UGA, Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Iowa, and her B.A. in Political Science from Indiana University.

Her previous experience includes work with a law firm in Boston; the National Women's Health Network in Washington, D.C., and Peter Hart Research, a pollster in Washington D.C. While a graduate consultant at UGA, JoEllen worked with a team creating the web site for the College of Education. She has extensive knowledge of Pagemaker, Excel, Wordperfect, Powerpoint, Photoshop, and other more complex data base programs.

JoEllen participated in the UGA study abroad program. She spent the summer of 1996 as a computer consultant at Oxford University, England.

Originally from Indiana, JoEllen has made Athens her new home. She has two dogs, "Mackinac" (mixed spitz and chow) and "Farley" (a bearded collie). JoEllen lives so close to campus, she manages to walk to work each day. (That "blur" speeding past her on a skateboard is our illustrious computer guru, Keith Baitsell).

Just for fun, JoEllen enjoys her part time occupation of out-of-print book dealer. She reads history for fun and does research for family histories.

Welcome to both JoEllen and Kevin.

The Law Library has subscriptions to many online resources that are useful in researching foreign and international legal issues. This month, we profile two that provide access to international trade materials

World Trade Online

The World Trade Online database, available at http://www.insidetrade.com, includes the current and previous 5 years of Inside U.S. Trade, a weekly newsletter covering international trade. World Trade Online also provides the text of statements, reports, speeches and interviews from the World Trade Organization and trade officials worldwide. The database also includes the full text of selected trade documents. If you wish to use World Trade Online, please ask a Reference Librarian to log you into the database.

InterAm

InterAm is a legal database of Latin American legislation and secondary materials maintained by the National Law Center for InterAmerican Free Trade, a private non-profit research and educational center based in Tucson, Arizona. Our subscription, which provides for educational use only, allows our patrons to access more than 5000 laws, regulations, decrees and other texts from several Latin American countries. Most are in Spanish, but an increasing number of the documents on this database have been translated into English. A recent survey of Mexican laws on InterAm revealed English translations of statutes covering topics ranging from Agriculture to Intellectual Property to Transportation.

InterAm can be accessed from the Center's Web site at http://www.natlaw.com. If prompted for a password, please ask a Reference Librarian to log you into the database.

In next month's Amicus Briefs, we'll meet the able crew of student assistants who staff the Help Desk in the large computer lab in the Annex. In the meantime, remember that the Help Desk staffers are available to assist you with your law school computing needs. They can also be reached by telephone at 542-0895 and via e-mail at lawhelp@uga.cc.uga.edu.

This newsletter is a publication of the University of Georgia Law Library. Look for it on the Web at http://www.lawsch.uga.edu/newsletter/index.html.

Please send all contributions and comments to:

• Anne Burnett
• UGA Law Library
• Herty Drive, Athens GA 30602
• aburnett@arches.uga.edu