Justia has launched free daily opinion summaries from the United States Supreme Court, all Federal Appellate Courts and all state supreme courts. “In addition to the daily offerings by jurisdiction, subscribers can sign up for summaries categorized by practice area that are delivered weekly. Practice areas and topics include Constitutional Law, Intellectual Property, Employment Law, Criminal Law, Immigration Law, and many more — over 60 total categories. Each summary includes a link to the full text of the court’s opinion allowing users to immediately click through and read the case. All summaries are written by licensed attorneys.”

The U.S. Geological Survey has announced a massive release of historical topographical maps. “For more than 130 years, the USGS topographic mapping program has accurately portrayed the complex geography of our Nation. The historical topographic map collection contains all editions and all scales of USGS topographic quadrangles. Files are high resolution (600 DPI) scanned images of all maps from the USGS legacy collection.” This is over 200,000 maps spanning 1884-2006.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has launched the Production Art Database. This sounds like a lot of fun. “The database contains records for more than 5,300 items…including motion picture costume and production design drawings, animation art, storyboards and paintings. Nearly half of the records include images, making this an invaluable online resource for researchers interested in motion picture design.” The database contains information from items as early as 1923 and as recent as 2010. The URL for the story from which I’m quoting is http://www.shootonline.com/go/index.php?name=Release&op=view&id=rs-web2-463444-1309292420-2 ; the direct URL for the database is http://collections.oscars.org/prodart/.

The University of Arizona has released The Jack Sheaffer Photograph Digital Collection, a collection of over 10,000 photographs that covers southern Arizona from 1955-1975.
“Sheaffer photographed tragic accidents, civil rights and anti-war marches, politicians, athletic events, celebrity visits and local beauty pageants, and the collection is continually growing.” Announcement: http://uanews.org/node/40497.