Training Sessions at the Interior Library

The U.S. Department of the Interior Library offers regular training sessions for U.S. Department of the Interior employees. Because of limited space, each training session is limited to a maximum of six people. Please RSVP by e-mail at library@nbc.gov at least one week before the program if you are interested in attending any of the sessions listed below.

Additional training sessions will be posted as they are scheduled. Please check this page regularly for any changes or updates.

Name and Description of Program	Date and Time
The U.S. Congressional Serial Set -- Digital Edition: Introduction and New Features The U.S. Congressional Serial Set, the bound, sequentially numbered volumes of all the Reports, Documents and Journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, constitutes an incomparably rich collection of primary source material on all aspects of American history. The Serial Set has now been digitized by Readex and is available through the DOI Library's web site. This class will introduce you to this valuable online resource and provide attendees with helpful hints for searching the treasures of this collection. This program will be conducted by a Readex trainer.	Wednesday January 14, 2009 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Westlaw: Introduction and New Features Thomson/West's Westlaw legal and legislative online database provides access to state and federal statutes, case law materials, public records, and other legal resources. The West Key Number System, provided on Westlaw, is the master classification system of U.S. law, claimed to be "the only recognized legal taxonomy". Its 16,000 databases not only contain legal information, but access to hundreds of full-text newspaper and magazine articles as well. In this session, a Westlaw training professional will teach you how to utilize Westlaw for your reference and research needs, introducing you to these databases and highlighting newly added features that make Westlaw an even more user-friendly research tool.	Wednesday January 21, 2009 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

EBSCOHost Online Databases: Introduction and New Features EBSCOHost's online databases provide access to tables of contents, citations, abstracts, and full-text articles for over thousands of scholarly, trade and general-interest journals. The current databases subscribed to by the DOI Library, the Science & Technology Collection, Academic Search Elite, MasterFILE Premier, Legal Collection, and GreenFILE, cover a wide range of subjects of interest to the Department of the Interior, including biology, botany, geology, history, law, and zoology. Each database is updated daily. Attendees to this session will learn how to effectively search these EBSCOHost databases to find needed articles and will learn of newly added, user-friendly features that have enhanced their capabilities.	Tuesday February 10, 2009 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Compiling a Federal Legislative History: A Step-by-Step Example Those interested in learning the process involved in compiling an official federal legislative history will find this program invaluable. A specific Public Law will be the focus of a step-by-step piecing together of a legislative history, using print resources such as the U.S. Statutes at Large, Congressional Record, and U.S. Congressional Serial Set. Online sources of federal legislative history information will also be highlighted. This program will be conducted by DOI Law Librarian Maureen Booth.	Thursday February 19, 2009 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

The Congressional Hearings and Research Digital Collections: Introduction and New Features Learn how to access and use two collections offered by LexisNexis: the Congressional Hearings Digital Collection, covering congressional hearings dating back to 1824; and the Congressional Research Digital Collection, offering digitized copies of Congressional Research Service (and earlier Legislative Reference Service) reports back to 1916, as well as congressional Committee Prints back to 1830. Both of these collections are fully searchable through one online search screen. Attendees will learn search techniques that can be used to locate digitized copies of these materials essential in conducting thorough legislative history research. This program will be conducted by a LexisNexis trainer.	Wednesday March 4, 2009 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Advanced Legal Research on LexisNexis This training program builds on techniques presented in the "LexisNexis: Introduction and New Features" class, emphasizing time efficient and cost effective searching. Attendees will learn how to bypass menu screens using short cuts, narrow searching with segments, focus on specific word(s) within your original search, and refine searches with advanced connectors. This program will be conducted by a LexisNexis trainer.	Wednesday March 18, 2009 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

HeinOnline: Introduction and New Features HeinOnline is the world's largest image-based collection of law and law-related material with more than 75 million pages of material stored digitally. HeinOnline is bringing previously unavailable content to the online research community in a fully-searchable, image-based format. In this Library training session, you will learn how to use HeinOnline to search for materials in their Law Journal Library, Federal Register Library, U.S. Supreme Court Library, Statutes at Large Library, and the Department of the Interior Library, just to name some of the sources available. Each library contains documents dating from the inception of publications contained in the library, dating as far back as the mid-19th century, fully searchable and available in PDF format. This program will be taught by William S. Hein III, grandson of the founder of the company.	Wednesday April 8, 2009 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Useful Federal Resources on the Web While the Internet can be a great resource for federal documents, it is often difficult to know what reliable sites to go in order to find the official materials that you are looking for. Join DOI Reference Librarian Jennifer Klang on this tour of valuable and reliable sources of federal information on the Internet. Web sites from the Library of Congress, the Government Printing Office, the University of Oklahoma, and the U.S. Census Bureau will be among those featured in this course. Designed for both the beginning and advanced searcher, attendees will learn about resources for scientific reports, legislative documents, statistical information, Native American documents, and other useful items.	Wednesday April 22, 2009 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm