Monthly archives: March, 2014

EPIC – After Weakening Privacy Law, Education Department Proposes “Best Practices” for Student Data

“The Education Department has issued recommendations for schools that transfer student records to online educational service providers. Following the Department’s changes to a federal student privacy law, private companies and government agencies have access to student records without obtaining student consent. In the recommendations, the agency explained that the current regulations do not require written agreements for schools to disclose student information to private companies. The …

Subjects: Education, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy

NCAR and AAMD Study: Gender Gap Among Salaries of Art Museum Directors

“The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and the National Center for Arts Research (NCAR) at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, today released findings from a research study designed to understand the gender gap in art museum directorships and to explore potential factors to help AAMD member institutions advance towards greater gender equality. Through a combination of quantitative analysis …

Subjects: Economy, Education

International Women’s Day 2014

“International Women’s Day has been observed since in the early 1900’s, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies…Annually on 8 March, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate achievements. A global web of rich …

Subjects: Civil Liberties

Virtual LegalTech show

Via Wilhelmina Randtke: “For anyone who is interested, there is a virtual tech show version next week by the hosts of Legal Tech NY back in Feb. The URL for the virtual tech show is here http://www.virtuallegaltechshow.com/r5/home.asp. It’s set up in INXPO, which is OK for interaction, if you are in a session with chat enabled, and better than most online …

Subjects: Legal Research

Librarian recommends Useful Sources for Ukraine Crisis Information

“Two U.S. military sources I particularly recommend for your users is the Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office and the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute Helpful European sources include the Polish Govt. funded Centre for Eastern Studies, the European Union’s Institute for Security Studies; and the British Ministry of Defence’s Defence Academy” [Bert Chapman, Purdue University Libraries]

Subjects: Defense, Government Documents

New Government Report Warns of ‘Cascading System Failures’ Caused By Climate Change

Kate Sheppard: “From roads and bridges to power plants and gas pipelines, American infrastructure is vulnerable to the effects of climate change, according to a pair of government reports released Thursday. The reports are technical documents supporting the National Climate Assessment, a major review compiled by 13 government agencies that the U.S. Global Change Research Program is expected …

Subjects: Climate Change, Energy, Government Documents

McKinsey – Views from the front lines of the data-analytics revolution

“This past October 2013, eight executives from companies that are leaders in data analytics got together to share perspectives on their biggest challenges. All were the most senior executives with data-analytics responsibility in their companies, which included AIG, American Express, Samsung Mobile, Siemens Healthcare, TD Bank, and Wal-Mart Stores. Their backgrounds varied, with chief information …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management

Army Drawdown and Restructuring: Background and Issues for Congress

CRS – Army Drawdown and Restructuring: Background and Issues for Congress. Andrew Feickert, Specialist in Military Ground Forces. February 28, 2014. “The Administration’s proposal to reduce the size of the Army as well as restructure units and headquarters has national security implications that Congress will need to consider as part of its oversight and authorizations and appropriations role. In terms of …

Subjects: Congress, Defense, Government Documents

Russian Political, Economic, and Security Issues and U.S. Interests

CRS – Russian Political, Economic, and Security Issues and U.S. Interests. Jim Nichol, Coordinator, Specialist in Russian and Eurasian Affairs. March 5, 2014. “Russia made uneven progress in democratization during the 1990s, but this limited progress was reversed after Vladimir Putin rose to power in 1999-2000, according to many observers. During this period, the State Duma (lower legislative chamber) became dominated by …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Defense, Energy, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet

PIABA Warning: FINRA Withholds Critical “Red Flag” Information in Broker Background Check Disclosures to Investors

‘Investors who rely on the BrokerCheck disclosure system maintained by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to check out the background of their current or potential stockbrokers are not getting access to crucial information about financial professionals even though such information is available from many state securities agencies operating under robust public record laws, according to a new analysis …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

Getty Images Makes 35 Million Photos Free to Use Online

Via Open Culture – “Fighting a losing battle against infringers, Getty Images surprised consumers and competitors yesterday when it announced that it would make 35 million images free for publishers to use, with a few strings attached. Publishers, broadly defined, are now allowed to add certain Getty images to their sites, on the condition that …

Subjects: Copyright, Intellectual Property, Internet, Libraries, Marketing

Loss of cultural world heritage and currently inhabited places to sea-level rise

“The world population is concentrated near the coasts, as are a large number of Cultural World Heritage sites, defined by the UNESCO. Using spatially explicit sea-level estimates for the next 2000 years and high-resolution topography data, we compute which current cultural heritage sites will be affected by sea-level rise at different levels of sustained future warming. …

Subjects: Climate Change, Government Documents

Thank you!