Author archives

A Pathfinder to Law Related Blogs

From Lynn Lenart at the University of Akron School of Law, her Law Library Pathfinder to Law Blogs – Blawgs. Thank you for including beSpacific. “The purpose of this pathfinder…is to provide a starting point for law students and law faculty interested in identifying blogs they wish to monitor or to provide basic information for …

Subjects: Blogs, Legal Research, Libraries

9/11 Public Discourse Project

“The ten members of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (known as the 9-11 Commission) have initiated a nationwide public education campaign for the purpose of making America safer and more secure. In so doing, the commissioners will give people throughout America the opportunity to participate in a debate that has …

Subjects: Freedom of Information

Stateline.org Launches New, Improved Website

The Pew Charitable Trusts funds Stateline.org, and this terrific resource that “provides timely, trustworthy information on state policy innovations and trends,” has a new design, an updated technology platform, and additional features. The site now offers RSS feeds: three news feeds, 12 issue oriented feeds on topics including health care and technology, and updates from …

Subjects: Legal Research

MSN’s News Aggregator Offers Deduping

Program Manager Todd Colby posted to msnsearch’s WebLog last month on MSN Newsbot’s addition of a ‘similar coverage’ feature [SearchEngineGuide]: “As you may know, many news sites publish wire service stories, like those from The Associated Press. Since the same story is republished on multiple sites the reader does not gain by having these presented …

Subjects: Search Engines

Spyware Workshop Report Available From FTC

“The Federal Trade Commission today released a staff report summarizing the issues and drawing some conclusions from its April 2004 workshop, “Monitoring Software on Your PC: Spyware, Adware, and Other Software.” The report, a transcript of the day-long session, a list of participants and their presentations, and comments filed with the Commission, is available here.” …

Subjects: Cybercrime, E-Government, Privacy

Wizardry Behind Google’s System Stability

In the category of learning from the pros, this ZDNet article decribes the combination of hardware, software and expertise leveraged by Google to ensure optimal system performance. Scaled down to smaller enterprisewide operations, this information provides food for thought. Related news: “Google today announced the formal launch of Google Desktop Search, a free downloadable application …

Subjects: Search Engines

Impact of Growing Open Source Access to Topical E-Journals

The following article, in PDF, begins on page 1 and continues on page 13: Information Free-for-all? by Trudy Bell, from IEEE’s The Institute Quarterly, March 2005. [Peggy Garvin] Related beSpacific postings on open source journals and public access to scientific sources. See also, Open Access or Differential Pricing for Journals: The Road Best Traveled?

Subjects: Internet, Legal Research, Libraries

Pew Survey Tracks Growing Importance of Internet in American Political Process

From the Pew Internet and American Life press release: “The internet became an essential part of American politics in 2004. Fully 75 million Americans – 37% of the adult population and 61% of online Americans – used the internet to get political news and information, discuss candidates and debate issues in emails, or participate directly …

Subjects: E-Mail, Internet