Month: May 2009

The emerging phenomenon of books published first in digital format; read more at: Library Journal, 5/15/2009

50 State Surveys (SURVEYS) provides topical surveys with references to the applicable state laws. If you want to know whether the statutes listed in the document are still good law, you can click on the link Update statutes with KeyCite to check on each statutes’ current KeyCite status.

The UN Office of Legal Affairs has launched a website that provides access to the official records of 12 UN diplomatic conferences that were held to to negotiate and adopt treaties. The user is provided access by individual document, and the entire collection of proceedings is searchable in full-text format. The website covers the following UN conferences:
Law of the Sea, 1958
Conference on Elimination or Reduction of Future Statelessness, 1959-1961
Law of the Sea (Second Conference), 1960
Conference on Diplomatic Intercourse and Immunities, 1961
Conference on Consular Relations, 1963
Conference on the Law of Treaties, 1968-1969
Law of the Sea (Third Conference), 1973-1982
Conference on the Representation of States in their Relations with International Organizations, 1975
Conference on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties, 1977-1978
Conference on Succession of States in Respect of State Property, Archives and Debts, 1983
Inference on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations, 1986
Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, 1998

WolframAlpha, a powerful new service that can answer a broad range of queries, has become one of the most anticipated Web products of the year.WolframAlpha is different. For starters, it does not gather data from the Web. Instead, its “knowledge base” is made up of reams and reams of data — ranging from the kinds of facts you would find in a World Almanac, to highly specialized data from physics and other sciences — that some 100 employees at Wolfram Research have gathered, verified and organized over several years.
Try it at WolframAlpha or read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/technology/internet/11search.html

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the large-screen Kindle e-reader at Pace University yesterday ( primary market is university textbooks ). Called the Kindle DX, the list price is $489 or the price of a low-end utility laptop that does much more. Peter Glaskowsky’s early analysis can be read on CNET.

Twitter (www.twitter.com) is a fast-growing, free messaging service for people, and it’s one that libraries (and librarians) can make good use of–without spending much time or effort. To read more go to Twitter for libraries

Robin Wilson, Protection for All in Same-Sex Marriage, LA Times, May 3, 2009.