Official Google Blog: Finding the laws that govern us
This is very cool, folks. I'm a huge Google fan, as you can probably tell from my blogger page with it's Google Reader feed, and my constant presence on Gmail.
Now Google is making my professional life easier, too! They've added a widget to Google Scholar that restricts your search to legal materials, meaning that the average person with an internet conection can now find a lot more legal information a lot more easily. I've long thought that Google Scholar was the best way to search Hein Online (their on-site search engine is dreadful) but this is even better.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Hi Folks,
I was messing around in Google Reader, and saw there's a way you can create and share bundles of resources with friends! If you'd like to read the same feeds as me in legal or law library subject areas, check out my bundles (hah-hah) half-way down the left hand column. Or, you can keep trusting me to share the funny and weird headlines in my "Google Reader Shared Items" widget, at the top of the the left hand column.
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Academic Lectures Online:
What did you like best about lectures when you were in college? The mental stimulation? The new information to discuss at parties? Nap time when you sat in back? Some (though not all) of your favorite undergraduate memories can be relived now, thanks to the wealth of academic lectures now available online.
Just-launched Forum-Network is a website created by PBS and NPR bringing you a variety of lectures, searchable by keyword.
An older site, Research Channel, has made over 3,500 lectures available online. They are browseable by subject, program title, series title, or University/Institution. YouTube EDU also has some interesting academic lectures, and iTunes U has a section of academic podcasts. If you need to help your kiddo with his or her homework, there's WatchKnow, a site illustrating different concepts with videos for the K-12 set.
These are great sources to learn about new topics or refresh your memory of old ones. And if you use them for their soporific effect, I promise not to tell.
I was messing around in Google Reader, and saw there's a way you can create and share bundles of resources with friends! If you'd like to read the same feeds as me in legal or law library subject areas, check out my bundles (hah-hah) half-way down the left hand column. Or, you can keep trusting me to share the funny and weird headlines in my "Google Reader Shared Items" widget, at the top of the the left hand column.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Academic Lectures Online:
What did you like best about lectures when you were in college? The mental stimulation? The new information to discuss at parties? Nap time when you sat in back? Some (though not all) of your favorite undergraduate memories can be relived now, thanks to the wealth of academic lectures now available online.
Just-launched Forum-Network is a website created by PBS and NPR bringing you a variety of lectures, searchable by keyword.
An older site, Research Channel, has made over 3,500 lectures available online. They are browseable by subject, program title, series title, or University/Institution. YouTube EDU also has some interesting academic lectures, and iTunes U has a section of academic podcasts. If you need to help your kiddo with his or her homework, there's WatchKnow, a site illustrating different concepts with videos for the K-12 set.
These are great sources to learn about new topics or refresh your memory of old ones. And if you use them for their soporific effect, I promise not to tell.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Hardcovers and Internet Archive Updates
So, Target has lowered it's price on hardcovers, following Wal-Mart and K-Mart's lead. The New York Times points out that this might be a bad thing for bookstores, which can't compete with large chains selling books at a loss. But the reaction of readers throughout the blogosphere? My general impression is "Does this mean they'll stop publishing hardcovers? I hope so!" Does anyone like hard-cover fiction? It doesn't fit in your purse, you can't read it in bed, I rarely buy the kind of book you'd want to have in hardcover on your shelf for years into the future. I read trash when I'm not reading for work. And I read series trash, but don't want to spend $20 for the new Harry Dresden novel, let alone the new Amanda Quick.
At any rate, this got me thinking about bindings on legal books, and the librarians who loathe them. I went to an event at CEB once (a California publisher) where a vendor employee mentioned that public librarians dislike looseleafs because their patrons come in and take out pages to photocopy and then don't replace them, leading to a rash of missing pages. I hate soft-covers because they fall over on the shelf more, and get that horrible page-cramp that makes me crazy. I'm not happy about having to pay a filer to deal with the loose-leaf book updates, either, but I'm reference so I don't have to worry about that too much (and I love our filer herself. She makes my library look beautiful). At any rate, if I were the god of legal publishing (aka Wexis) I'd issue everything possible as a hardcover. There doesn't seem to be a huge price difference between the different formats, possibly because they're price-gouging so badly already?
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In other news, I've started a column on the firm intranet for the library, and may repost my innocuous column that contains no firm news on this blog. That column's office title is "Fun News from the Library" but I think of it as my "Libraries are Awesome" column. Here's the latest:
At any rate, this got me thinking about bindings on legal books, and the librarians who loathe them. I went to an event at CEB once (a California publisher) where a vendor employee mentioned that public librarians dislike looseleafs because their patrons come in and take out pages to photocopy and then don't replace them, leading to a rash of missing pages. I hate soft-covers because they fall over on the shelf more, and get that horrible page-cramp that makes me crazy. I'm not happy about having to pay a filer to deal with the loose-leaf book updates, either, but I'm reference so I don't have to worry about that too much (and I love our filer herself. She makes my library look beautiful). At any rate, if I were the god of legal publishing (aka Wexis) I'd issue everything possible as a hardcover. There doesn't seem to be a huge price difference between the different formats, possibly because they're price-gouging so badly already?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In other news, I've started a column on the firm intranet for the library, and may repost my innocuous column that contains no firm news on this blog. That column's office title is "Fun News from the Library" but I think of it as my "Libraries are Awesome" column. Here's the latest:
Resources from the Internet Archive:
The Internet Archive has been in the news a lot lately. First, it's founder Brewster Kahle was named one of Utne Reader's 50 Visionaries who are Changing our World. The Internet Archive has launched Bookserver, a webserver whose goal is to make not only information on books available to the public, but to make the books themselves available in open-format, so you can read them on any device (unlike the Kindle or other proprietary devices, that only allow you to buy books from one vendor). This article will give you an idea of how impressive Bookserver will be once they shake the bugs out.
If you go to the Internet Archive's home page, you'll see that they're already making a wealth of information available to the public for free, including books, audio, live music recordings, and moving images.
For an example, click this link to the catalog record for "Alice's Adventures Underground: Being a Facsimile of the Original Ms. Book Afterwards Developed into 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'" Once on that page, you can clink on the http or pdf links on the left-hand side of the screen to access the full text of this manuscript from 1886. The Internet Archive has a variety of media available for free download, including many audio files. Check out this episode of Old Time Radio Program, The Danny Kaye Show. They also have a live music collection, including a large collection of live recordings of the Grateful Dead. Their moving image collection is not very extensive, due to very few being in the public domain. It includes mostly content submitted by users. The same is true of their Software collection.
The Internet Archive has been in the news a lot lately. First, it's founder Brewster Kahle was named one of Utne Reader's 50 Visionaries who are Changing our World. The Internet Archive has launched Bookserver, a webserver whose goal is to make not only information on books available to the public, but to make the books themselves available in open-format, so you can read them on any device (unlike the Kindle or other proprietary devices, that only allow you to buy books from one vendor). This article will give you an idea of how impressive Bookserver will be once they shake the bugs out.
If you go to the Internet Archive's home page, you'll see that they're already making a wealth of information available to the public for free, including books, audio, live music recordings, and moving images.
For an example, click this link to the catalog record for "Alice's Adventures Underground: Being a Facsimile of the Original Ms. Book Afterwards Developed into 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'" Once on that page, you can clink on the http or pdf links on the left-hand side of the screen to access the full text of this manuscript from 1886. The Internet Archive has a variety of media available for free download, including many audio files. Check out this episode of Old Time Radio Program, The Danny Kaye Show. They also have a live music collection, including a large collection of live recordings of the Grateful Dead. Their moving image collection is not very extensive, due to very few being in the public domain. It includes mostly content submitted by users. The same is true of their Software collection.
Friday, July 17, 2009
I've added a feed from my google reader account to this blog, which I am super excited about because I love google reader.
I was thinking earlier today about how so many bookstores have gone out of business in the bay area, especially independants, and how I'd love to open a used book store specializing in used sci-fi, fantasy, romance, legal biographies, and books about war in the Embarcadero Malls. I'd have lunchtime buyers from everyone in the local office buildings who reads on BART.
Honestly, if you've had the (arguable) pleasure of talking to me in person lately, I've probably talked about how I think that the local independant bookstores are going out of business because they're ignoring popular fiction, especially romance (which, hello, is 50% of books sold in the USA! talk about shooting yourself in the foot). A store that sells books people actually want to read on the train would probably do great in this area. Sadly, the money and time to open this store? I do not have them. Ditto the business know-how. But if you're reading this, you should!
I was thinking earlier today about how so many bookstores have gone out of business in the bay area, especially independants, and how I'd love to open a used book store specializing in used sci-fi, fantasy, romance, legal biographies, and books about war in the Embarcadero Malls. I'd have lunchtime buyers from everyone in the local office buildings who reads on BART.
Honestly, if you've had the (arguable) pleasure of talking to me in person lately, I've probably talked about how I think that the local independant bookstores are going out of business because they're ignoring popular fiction, especially romance (which, hello, is 50% of books sold in the USA! talk about shooting yourself in the foot). A store that sells books people actually want to read on the train would probably do great in this area. Sadly, the money and time to open this store? I do not have them. Ditto the business know-how. But if you're reading this, you should!
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