Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Records

Does your (American) city keep transcript records of its city council meetings?

quodlibet — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:38:03 -0800

Does your (American) city keep transcript records of its city council meetings? In the beginnings of a dissertation, any help appreciated as I search out cities to study!

I am looking for American cities (of any size, at this point) that have kept records of their city council meetings where the transcript is logged and available (even if by purchase). I need to be able to identify the person speaking with their words. Videos of the council meetings are not quite good enough for my research requirements (but interesting to know as well). Thanks so much!

How does one review case law?

doomtop — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:21:39 -0800

How does one review case law? In a criminal case in state district court, I would imagine review case law would be very helpful. What I mean is, if you could review a case where an acquittal was acquired for similar charges to the case you are currently looking at, that would seem very helpful. I am sure this is something lawyers do all the time, for example when they are showing precedent, etc.

How do lawyers access this information to review case law?

How to obtain medical records of deceased family members?

raztaj — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:09:37 -0800

How (and can I) obtain the medical records of a deceased parent, from hospitals in Massachusetts? I am interested in getting hold of my mother's medical records at two Boston hospitals. Her death is not a recent one, and I have no intention of using her records for any post-mortem investigations or anything, but I would like to know for my own curiosity and interest in family health history.

The problem is, my father is still alive. Would he be the only next of kin according to Massachusetts state law? For various reasons, I would like to obtain my mom's records without him - he is just not relevant.

From what I know, my mother was diagnosed with melanoma at or just after my birth at one hospital. Shortly thereafter, she began treatment at another hospital. Would it be easier for me to get information about her from the first hospital (since she was essentially admitted because of me, and our files must be connected to some degree)? Would there be a difference in getting records from the second hospital? What kind of information would I need? Assuming her records are still on file, can I circumvent my father in this?

Converting vinyl records to digital files using an existing turntable...

You Should See the Other Guy — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:14:35 -0800

I like my vinyl records. I want to make digital files out of them. What are my options ... which don't include a new turntable and, preferably but not absolutely, don't require my computer and stereo to be in the same room? I'm on a Mac.

Question about casino record-keeping

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:06:38 -0800

Question about casino record-keeping. Let's say I need to prove what someone did at a major national casino on a certain day, approximately two years ago. The person used his player's club card on every game he played, and he used the player's club card to get comped on one meal. The more detailed information I can get about his activities, the better. My question is two-part: (1) Can I expect the casino to still have detailed records of what this person did, or would the records have been purged/destroyed by now? (2) What will it take to get the casino to release the records? (You can assume the person will sign a release for me to get the records, but will not go to the casino in person.)

Helping the child of an illegal immigrant get right with the law

Anonymous — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:56:50 -0800

I'm in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, and I'm trying to help my 15 year old Little Sis get her learner's permit and on the road to a drivers license. We need to order her birth certificate from Texas. However, parental permission is needed, and her undocumented mom doesn't want to send in the required copy of a photo ID. My Little Sis is a US citizen by birth, but doesn't have a copy of her certificate, which she needs for the DMV. We're in another state, and have been looking into getting a copy sent up from Texas. The Vital Statistics site says that for an online application the parent's SSN is required, which rules out that option. We can try ordering by Mail(pdf) which doesn't require a SSN, but does need a photocopy of the parent's photo ID. Her mom somehow has an official photo ID issued by our state. However, the mother doesn't want to provide a copy in fear of being deported. The father really isn't in the picture, and the undocumented issue may be the same with him.

So, how likely is it that INS would go after someone based on a birth certificate request? Is there anything I can do to help them out or reassure the mom?

I know, YANAL or YANML. Thanks in advance.

How best to request digital copies of xrays and catscans from my hospital?

prodevel — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:51:06 -0800

I would like to request my hospital send me either via email or dvd any CT Scans and x-rays from the hospital and/or Diagnostics dept. or my Primary Care Physician, in digital form. Best practices? (no pun...) Please let me know if you've done this before and have any experience doing so. Is in-person better than via the internet? Should I make the request of the Diagnostics dept. or my Primary Care Physician? I'm simply curious about best or most used method, since this is my first experience with a hospital in 17 years. The whole hospital process is fairly confusing for me these days.

Reporting Recorded Attendance in MS Access

miraimatt — Sun, 10 May 2009 21:23:26 -0800

I'm an adult education teacher computerizing our attendance recording and reporting using MS Access. The reports need to be laid out in a particular way, and I'm not sure how to make that happen. Can you help me? I'm all set as far as recording the data goes - there's one table for each student's information, and another for a daily attendance record with the number of hours each student attended in a day, some append queries to add a record for each student for each day, and I edit the attendance record as necessary.

The problem I'm running into is with the reports I need to make. These are reports that we need to give to another organization, and therefore they ideally should look like their own forms. These forms are one page per student and have a calendar-style grid/table view for the attendance, with weekly and then monthly totals for the hours of attendance. I've scanned the form to use as a background image on the reports in Access, but I'm running into problems getting things looking the way I want them to.

The main problem I'm running into is that Access wants to list each day's attendance in its own row, and I'm not sure how to make it display the five days of the week in a horizontal fashion and then go down to the next row, so as to be able to make it look normal on a calendar grid. Can anyone give me any pointers on how to do so?

Also, while I'm asking, can anyone give me any pointers on making the weekly and monthly totals? I haven't yet figured that out.

Information that may be helpful: It's Access 2003, and I'm a relatively advanced computer user, but a relative noob to Microsoft Access. If there are any questions about my question, I'll definitely respond with more clarifying information. If you have any helpful tips, thank you!

Help me build a vinyl collection instantly!

furtive — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:02:13 -0800

What's the best way of building a vinyl record collection if you know what you want? I'll be ponying up for some proper stereo equipment shortly, and although I have an excellent collection of music on CD and MP3, I will also include a turn-table in my purchase and as such would like to get a choice selection of my favourite albums on vinyl. Given that I know exactly which albums I want (ranging from Miles Davis to James Brown, Beastie Boys to Fugazi), what's the best route for me to get these albums in one shot, preferably in excellent condition.

P.S. Should I be making sure I get 180g/200g vinyls?

Which albums sequence their best song in the middle of a side?

Joe Beese — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:06:55 -0800

Which albums sequence their best song in the middle of a side? By "best", I mean "its biggest hit" or "the one most people associate with the album". Using Who's Next as an example: "Won't Get Fooled Again" or perhaps "Baba O'Riley" - even though I prefer "Bargain" to both of them.

Likewise: "Dancing in the Dark" was the first single from Born in the U.S.A. - but it's not what people remember the record for now.

A perfect example would be "Jessie's Girl" appearing as track 2 on Working Class Dog.

How to obtain my baptismal certificate?

smurdah — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:46:07 -0800

What's the easiest way to get a copy of my baptismal certificate if I only have a vague idea where I was baptized? This is embarrassing, but in my defense, I don't really remember it all that well. I'm getting married in four months and need to get a recently-issued copy of my baptismal certificate. I was baptized in or near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, around 23 years ago.

None of my living relatives remember in which parish. They don't even know if it was the Diocese of Pittsburgh or the Diocese of Greensburg. Neither diocese seems to have the records at the diocese level (that's what they tell me when I call, anyway -- wouldn't they keep backups?).

I know it's possible to get a conditional baptism ("I baptize you, if and only if you've never been baptized before") but even in that case, I'd still like to get a copy of my original certificate, just to have.

Do I need to just start contacting all the Catholic churches in the area (100+), or is there a better way to handle this search?

Thanks in advance!

Is there an LP Frame wear the LP can slide out easily?

ProfLinusPauling — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:44:50 -0800

I am interested in wall-mounted individual LP frames that also allow me to slip the LP out easily — both for listening and fast LP swapping for re-decorative purposes. Has anyone seen a product like this around?

How can I find out more about vinyl?

bibliophibianj — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:40:04 -0800

After finding out that I'm interested in music, the manager at the charity bookshop I volunteer at has decided to let me price vinyl. Help me do it well and learn more about vinyl along the way! It's easy just to look up records that look interesting in the pricing guide or on the websites he recommended (and that's what I've been doing so far), but I feel like a bit of a fake doing that. Can anyone recommend any good, and preferably interesting, books/websites/resources for learning about vinyl? Its history, production, role in the music industry...anything's fair ground, as long as it's interesting.

It's 90°F in Phoenix. In March.

disillusioned — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:42:05 -0800

WeatherFilter: When "record highs" (or lows) are from the early 20th century, does anyone stop to consider that device accuracy and methodologies might have contributed to those records? I mean, I know the basic mechanics of a thermometer have been relatively stable for a long time, but with my lovely town of Phoenix hitting near the record high of 90°F, I'm just a bit curious if 1921 was a bit of an odd year, or if it's more likely there was an aberration in the reading, and how that's taken into consideration?

Were the temperature recorders of yore sworn to a solemn, well-understood duty to ensure that those data points they were collecting would be cast in stone, for future generations to see, examine, and Ask Metafilter about? Or was it a bit more slipshod or haphazard, or might someone have been prone to exaggeration? Where would I find more on the practice of temperature logging from back in the day, to determine just how seriously "they" took it. (They, in quotes, simply because the groups responsible must vary wildly throughout the country.)

Medical records blowing in the wind...

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:42:41 -0800

Unshredded medical records literally hit me in the face. Should I do something about this? I was walking down the street today when I noticed the wind had picked up a serious stack of papers, creating what looked like a paper tornado. Some of the papers blew past me and plastered themselves against the chain link fence I was walking by and I noticed that the papers seemed to be printouts of some sort.

I peeled one off the fence and examined it. It seems to be results from an ultrasound, with the patients name, age, referring MD, calculated age of fetus, and comments like "Uterus Empty" or "Right ovarian corpus lutem cyst".

I was able to collect 7 of these printouts without even trying (they were stuck to the chain link fence). All from different patients from the years 2003-2006. Most of the printouts had blown over the fence into a school yard.

There is no text on the printouts identifying the organization that produced them, but I am sure with the patient name and the referring MDs name it wouldn't be that hard to find out. In addition, some of the printouts have hand written comments that are initialed by someone.

These documents strike me as something that, at the very least, should have been shredded. Is this negligence? Should I stick my nose in this, or just tear up the papers I have and forget the whole business?

This is in New York City.

Recommend a budget phono preamp

The Michael The — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:14:53 -0800

Which budget phono preamp (less than $50) should I buy? I've got a Technics SL1650 that I'll be connecting to a Yamaha RX-V540, neither of which has an integrated phono preamp. I'd like to pay as little as possible for that separate preamp, certainly under $50. I understand that I'll be sacrificing sound quality vs. a higher-low-end $100-$200 model, but frankly I just want to play my records. So, let's have your recommendations for something that's less than $50 but doesn't sound like complete crap.

Help a vynil newbie play records!

radiocontrolled — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:44:49 -0800

Turntable/speaker question: Help a vynil newbie play records! I like listening to 7"s and LPs so I want to buy a turntable.

I have speakers at home that I connect to my laptop via the headphone jack (I think it's the standard 1/8" - the size the most consumer headphones are).

Is it technically possible to get a turntable to connect directly to these speakers - just "plug and play" I suppose?

Does a turntable like this, which has headphone output with 1/8” & 1/4” jacks, allow for what I want to do?

Is there stuff out on the market that fits my needs? I don't have much money to spend.

Your suggestions and comments are most appreciated!
Cheers,
Alison

Web Publishing and Portals in FMP7

diode — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:37:54 -0800

I'm working in Filemaker Pro 7. I've created a basic database for tracking computer system hardware. Most of it is in one main d/b, with some related tables for passwords, user ID's, updates and the like. My problem is that when I publish the main d/b using instant web publishing, the fields from related tables do not show up. The portal is there but there's no fields in them. What am I doing wrong? For example, I've got a main database which is a list of computers, each record with a unique ID #. I created a new table for passwords and each record in it has a unique key #. I relate the computer list ID # to the password table unique key # and am now able to create a portal on the computer list d/b and show records from the password table. That all works swimmingly.
When I then publish the main table using web publishing, I can see all the fields and information in a browser except anything in a portal coming from a related table like the passwords. The portal is there but no records are visible inside of it.
Is there something I'm doing wrong, or is this not possible?

Rape records from early US history

billtron — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:26:06 -0800

Where can I find antebellum white-on-black rape statistics? How would you go about finding such things, given that slaves were considered property and, consequently, rape was charged, if ever, as trespassing on the owner's private property. Do archives exist in which criminal justice records from before 1865 would provide evidence that such crimes took place?

How do you spell D-N-S?

fijiwriter — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:54:32 -0800

How do you explain DNS, A records, MX records, etc. to your staff and clients? What's the best way to get non-technical people to understand this? In my line of work, we have new co-workers who know just a little bit of what DNS is. Usually, it's their understanding of how a person finds a website or gets email to someone. And that's pretty much it.

So, I'm considering a primer of what DNS is, what it does, why it's important, what role A/MX/www records play, and the like.

What have you seen online, preferably with graphics, that you've used to explain to people what's going on in such a foreign concept? Or, how have you explained this subject?

Yes, I know there are Internet for Idiots-type books out there and Wikipedia entries, but that is a Step 3, and we're just on Step 1.

How do I even start to fill out these short-term health care applications?

Skwirl — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:37:42 -0800

How do I fill out an application for short-term health care if I barely even remember which doctors/clinics I've been seen at, let alone why? So, now that I'm all unemployed and without healthcare, it seems like a good idea to sign up for a short term or catastrophic plan. Michael Moore's Sicko has me all freaked out that if I don't disclose every last hangnail, the insurance won't even matter in a pinch because they'll go all Private Investigator on me and drop me for some minor misrememberence.

So, I probably need to collect all of these disparate records into one place. Google Health seems to be ready to serve this function, but it seems like a Bad (!) Idea (!) to put that kind of stuff up on the web behind a wimpy password when it has no good reason to be there. Is there another service where they'll go from a list of clinics you've been at, then have you sign some release forms and send you the stuff without doing your own legwork? Is this what health care brokers do? Are health care brokers a good idea or a rip off?

Thirty-three and a third books.

OmieWise — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:08:16 -0800

Which are the best books in Continuum's Thirty-Three and a Third series? I just read Daydream Nation and ended up frustrated and and a bit disappointed. I've been wanting to read into this series for a while, and finally picked up the Daydream Nation book. Daydream Nation is a favorite album of mine, although I don't feel as if it's a particularly personal album for me, but the book did not satisfy me. The book isn't horrible, but it wasn't great, and I expected it to be. The author wrote quite a bit about how "scary" and "mind-blowing" the record is, something that isn't at all true for me. He also admitted things best kept to oneself when writing a semi-critical exegesis like this. (He had, for instance, apparently never considered that "Hey Joni" might have some relationship to Joni Mitchell.)

I do like personal music writing, and I like behind the scenes stories of album creation, and I also like the kind of rank speculation that Greil Marcus engages in (although his pomposity can get a bit grating). I can certainly imagine reading the volumes written by people I'm already interested in (Joe Pernice, John Darnielle). Since the books aren't available at my local library I would appreciate suggestions for which people have enjoyed the most.

Where can I spread the word about my project to musicians who might be interested?

racecar — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:53:20 -0800

How can I reach independent musicians? My friends and I have built a great service for artists who promote their music online. The people who use it rave about it. But we'd like to grow to serve a lot more people in a more eclectic range of music. Right now, we're running AdWords, messaging similar artists on MySpace, and organically spreading the word through musicians and fans that already love our service.

I know musicians are busy people, but I'd like to somehow show more people what we've built. The service gets cooler for everyone as there are network effects involved.

homemade vinyl LP record cleaner?

kuujjuarapik — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:36:23 -0800

Does anyone have a recipe for homemade vinyl LP record cleaner? I just got an USB turntable and I have been converting my records to digital. I have one or two 45s that are a little dirty and I would like to clean them, but I don't really want to spend the time or money ordering professional record cleaner online. I am not an archivist, and not necessarily an audiophile, but I don't want to experiment on cleaning fluids and destroy the records.

I have considered 90% Isopropyl and a soft cloth. I thought briefly about Windex. Even thought about Grey Goose straight from the freezer. Anyone got a dirty record made clean success story?

Record player recommendations?

photomusic86 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:53:41 -0800

I'm looking for a good record player. Are the USB ones any good, or should I find something old school? Any online place to find new artists putting out records would be much appreciated as well