Encyclopedia of Life

beSpacific: Newly Launched Encyclopedia of Life Will Be Online Reference Source for 1.8 million Species: "Press release: 'Many of the world’s leading scientific institutions today announced the launch of the Encyclopedia of Life, an unprecedented global effort to document all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other forms of life on Earth. For the first time in the history of the planet, scientists, students, and citizens will have multi-media access to all known living species, even those that have just been discovered...Over the next 10 years, the Encyclopedia of Life will create Internet pages for all 1.8 million species currently named. It will expedite the classification of the millions of species yet to be discovered and catalogued as well. The pages, housed at http://www.eol.org, will provide written information and, when available, photographs, video, sound, location maps, and other multimedia information on each species. Built on the scientific integrity of thousands of experts around the globe, the Encyclopedia will be a moderated wiki-style environment, freely available to all users everywhere.'"

Wow!

U.S.-born don't learn the language easily

More sobering news -- about the kids who are not lining up in libraries and bookstores: U.S.-born don't learn the language easily, Seattle P-I, March 7, 2007.

Teens buying books at fastest rate in decades

Here's some good news: Teens buying books at fastest rate in decades, Seattle P-I, March 7, 2007.

U.S. students learning less, reports say: Nation & World: The Seattle Times

U.S. students learning less, reports say, Seattle Times, Feb. 23, 2007. Lots of AP credits and better grades, but lower 12th grade reading scores.

Future Law Libraries, Generations of Lawyers

Interesting post by Bruce MacEwen, based on his keynote address at a conference on management of law libraries (firm): The Law Library of the Future?, Adam Smith, Esq.: An inquiry into the economics of law firms...., Feb. 21, 2007.

MacEwen discusses the different generations of lawyers and their approaches to legal information. He sees us in a shift from old model (information is scarce; librarians are needed in order to find it) to new model (information is ubiquitous; librarians are needed to help find the needle in the haystack).

Harvard University Library: Open Collections Program

Harvard University Library has a cool Open Collections Program where it's digitizing books, manuscripts, maps, and photographs in topical areas. So far it's launched Women Working, 1800-1930 and Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930. Valuable resources for students and scholars -- as well as idle browsers!

Books - Forbes.com

The Dec. 1 issue of Forbes has a special report on Books. Looks interesting, but I don't have the time to read it now. Thanks, beSpacific.

ETS Assesses Information Literacy

The Educational Testing Service has developed a test to measure undergraduates' Information and Computer Technology Literacy. Preliminary findings, based on giving the test to 6,300+ students at 63 institutions, are here. The good news: students could sort emails and files into folders; students recognized that .edu and .gov sites were less likely to have biased information than .com sites (well, that all depends, doesn't it? -- but I see the point). The bad news: students were often unable to narrow searches or to eliminate irrelevant results. The ICT Literacy project home page is here.

The Top 100 - in U.S. History

Lists and rankings are great for stirring up discussion. Here's The Atlantic's list of the The Top 100 most influential figures in American history.

James Patterson PageTurner Awards

Author James Patterson last year launched a very cool awards program, giving money to libraries, bookstores, and schools that promote literacy and the joy of reading. Home : James Patterson PageTurner Awards.

PrawfsBlawg: When the Law Review was Young

Doing research on the historical development of a doctrine, a law professor read lots of law review articles from the early 20th century and noticed that they seemed much fresher and more interesting than articles today. Andrew Siegel, PrawfsBlawg: When the Law Review was Young, PrawfsBlawg, Oct. 19, 2006.

Thomas's opinion about Kansas's law...

Should it be Thomas's opinion about Kansas's law? Or Thomas' opinion about Kansas' law? I'm strongly in the former camp, but controversy roils. Gimme an 'S': The High Court's Grammatical Divide, Legal Times, Oct. 17, 2006, Law.com.

Delaware Judges as Scholars

Usha Rodrigues comments on The Publishing Propensity of the Delaware Judiciary:

In the past 16 years, Delaware Chancery Court judges and Supreme Court justices have collectively written around 50 articles on corporate law topics (roughly defined), and 28 on non-corporate topics (shout out to my research assistant, D.K., for compiling these numbers). 35 of the corporate articles have been published since 2000. I haven't run any kind of study, but these preliminary numbers support my intuition that Delaware produces more legal scholarship than the average state.

Myspace is the Press's Space

The editor-at-large of the Seattle Times comments about the press use of social networking sites.

Make no mistake, reporters should and will utilize these sites for news-gathering purposes. People who post profiles, pictures and blogs in public places on the Internet are volunteering information about themselves, much of which never would before have been available to strangers, even those in the press.

Mike Fancher, Social-networking site post ethical concerns, Aug. 20, 2006.

NY Times Investigates Pedophiles on the Web

The New York Times has two long articles about the community of pedophiles on the Web. Editors' Note - New York Times, Aug. 20, 2006; Kurt Eichenwald, Dark Corners: With Child Sex Sites on the Run, Nearly Nude Photos Hit the Web, NYT, Aug. 20, 2006; Kurt Eichenwald, Dark Corners: On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach, NYT, Aug. 21, 2006. Interesting, and creepy.

AOL Search Histories Made Public

AOL published on the Web millions of search queries. The users' anonymity was protected by numbers -- sort of. The article looks at one woman whose identity was determined based on her searches and discusses the privacy issues. Michael Barbaro and Tom Zeller Jr., A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749, New York Times, Aug. 9, 2006.

NYPL Goes with LC in Reference

The New York Times editorialized about the New York Public Library's move to using LC classification in its reference collection: Where the Books Are, NY Times, Aug. 22, 2006.

This change may seem like a trivial matter to you who Google everything. But the Reading Room at the New York Public Library is one of those places so common in this city where the clientele is both passionate and knowledgeable. Sooner or later, everyone who loves a library broods about how the books are arranged. Thomas Jefferson did. He sent 18 or 20 wagonloads of his books to the nascent Library of Congress. He wrote a long letter about the problems of classification and prepared a detailed catalog of his books on a system of his own devising. He loved books and loved arranging them. But that letter is easily his driest piece of writing.

And here's the news story: Sewell Chan, With a New Classification System, the New York Public Library Makes a Change for the Clearer, NY Times, Aug. 17, 2006.

Advice for law students

A big collection of links, from Paul Caron: TaxProf Blog: Advice for the Incoming Law School Class of 2009.

And from John Mayer: Advice for New Law Students: Web Roundup, CALI's Pre-Law Blog.

Court says FBI should use Google

The FBI didn't want to release documents under FOIA because it wasn't sure whether named parties were alive. The DC Circuit said: geez, try Google. Robert Ambrogi, Court: Government's Got to Google, Law.com, Legal Blog Watch, Aug. 22, 2006.

A Day in the Life of a Law Librarian

Some comments on what law firm librarians do. The first task in Todd's day is summer associate orientation. Todd Bennett, A Day in the Life of a Law Librarian, Recorder, Aug. 4, 2006.