“Millions of federal court records are being destroyed to save money” The federal courts are destroying millions of judicial case records that have been stored in the Federal Records Centers of the National Archives for decades, all in an effort to save money. The plan is to destroy all records on cases that did not [...]
"Search needs a shake-up" According to University of Washington Computer Scientist
Filed by on August 3, 2011
“Search needs a shake-up” is the the title of a commentary in the latest issue of Nature by Dr. Oren Etzioni. If you don’t know Etizioni by name you do know his work. His accomplishments are many and include: Co-Developer of MetaCrawler (an early web metasearch tool) Farecast (now offering fare predictions on Bing Travel) [...]
New Interactive Map: "World Debt Comparison: The Global Debt Clock"
Filed by on August 3, 2011
Direct to “World Debt Comparison: The Global Debt Clock” (via The Economist) Data Available (2004-2012): Public Debt Per Person Total Public Debt Total Annual Debt Change Public Debt as a % of GDP Data (Back to 2000) Provided by the Economist Intelligence Unit Side-by-Side country comparisons also available. Hat Tip/Thanks: Visual Loop [...]
Audio: Public Libraries: "Whither the Library" (Toronto Public Library)
Filed by on August 3, 2011
From the CBC: The City of Toronto is facing down a serious budget shortfall. And as city council looks for places to cut, councilor Doug Ford, the brother of Mayor Rob Ford, started counting library branches. Today we look at the debate over balancing the books by closing libraries. Read Transcript/Listen to the CBC’s Current [...]
UK Government Pledges Copyright Reform, Reactions From the Library and Publishing Communities
Filed by on August 3, 2011
From Ars Technica: The British government today pledged (PDF) to enact significant changes to copyright law, including orphan works reforms and the introduction of new copyright exceptions. And the tone of the comments was surprising: the government agrees that “copyright currently over-regulates to the detriment of the UK.” CD (and perhaps DVD) ripping for personal [...]
National Endowment for the Humanities Announces $40 Million in Grants, Libraries are Among the Recipients
Filed by on August 3, 2011
This is a follow-up to a post from last week about funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities for start-up projects and institutes. Today, a list of ALL of 249 projects (in several categories) receiving funding from NEH during this funding cycle. A number of libraries are listed as well as many digitization projects [...]
OCLC Announces Members of Search Committe to Find New CEO, Library Community Will Also Be Asked For Input
Filed by on August 3, 2011
From OCLC (aka Straight Out of Dublin): The OCLC Board of Trustees will engage OCLC members in the process to select a successor to Jay Jordan, who plans to retire as OCLC President and CEO at the end of June 2012. Larry Alford, Chair, OCLC Board of Trustees, and Chief Librarian, University of Toronto Libraries, [...]
Digitization Project: Get Access To the Earliest Medieval Map of Britain: Digital Gough Map Launched
Filed by on August 3, 2011
From the Bodleian Library at Oxford University: A fifteen-month research project of the earliest surviving geographically recognizable map of Great Britain, known as the Gough Map, provides some revealing insights into one of the most enigmatic cartographic pieces from the Bodleian collections. The findings are recorded on a newly-launched website www.goughmap.org. The fifteen-month AHRC-funded [Arts and [...]
Reference Desk: Now Available: World Data Population Sheet (2011)
Filed by on August 3, 2011
The 2011 update was recently published by the World Population Bureau. Direct to 2011 Data Sheet (15 Pages; PDF) From a Summary: Global population will reach 7 billion later in 2011, just 12 years after reaching 6 billion in 1999. Today’s world population is double the population in 1967. But while the overall growth rate [...]
