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(Jan/Feb 2008) Walt Crawford's column in the January/February 2008 issue of Online is worth reading (no pun intended!). He takes the Associate Press, librarian bloggers and others to task for misinterpreting, or failing to question, the results of polls on reading habits.
He makes several good points. First, the polls survey respondents about book reading without taking into consideration the reading of other types of materials. Second, news stories about the surveys often fail to examine the historical context. For instance, a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) report in 2004 "claimed that 57% of adults read 'any book at all' in 2002." Recently, an AP/Ipsos poll found that "27% of those responding ... did not read a book in the past year."
As Walt points out, that means 73% did read a book. Yet many of the news reports carried negative headlines focusing on the phrase, one out of four.
Moreover, if the two surveys are comparable - and they may not be - that's an increase in reading. Nonetheless, the recent poll results are more positive than negative. They do not warrant crisis reporting.
(6 Feb) A group of law librarians have launched an interesting experiment. Law.librarians is a community blog that integrates Twitter musings. It's new, so there isn't much content yet. But it looks like it might be a great place to get the scoop on new or interesting resources and technologies.
RELATED: Virtualchase on Twitter
(An experiment to find out if this has any practical application.)
SEE: Lawlibrarians Blog on Twitter
(Read the group on Twitter.)
(6 Feb) Yesterday Google launched a free business applications service. Those who join may upload and share documents, including calendars, spreadsheets and presentations. They may also IM with co-workers and place PC-to-PC phone calls.
It sounds great, right? But what about security? What about privacy?
Currently, participants from common domains automatically have access to all documents from the same domain. Moreover, Google's potential ability to collect and store information about participants is something to consider, especially if you plan to collaborate on sensitive documents. Finally, how secure is any Web service?
SEE: Google Apps
(5 Feb) If you thought old-fashioned instant messaging (No, it isn't an oxymoron.) was difficult to understand, then trying to read messages created with predictive text will be like learning a whole new language. Predictive text is a cell phone-based technology that attempts to simplify text input by guessing what you want to say while you thumb the keypad.
The technology apparently is creating whole new meanings for some words. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, is considering a new meaning for the word, book. It could in time come officially to mean "cool," as in "that's cool!" This is because predictive text supplies the word, book, when the mobile phone user begins to tap the word, cool, on the keypad.
(4 Feb) Tara Calishain's list of potential positive outcomes for a Microsoft-Yahoo merger should add some humor to your day.
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Issues on Friday's review and update annotations already appearing in our various research guides.
Connecticut Criminal/Motor Vehicle Search: The Connecticut judiciary makes available criminal court records from 1 January 2000 in which the final disposition was a conviction. You may search by last name or docket number. You may limit queries by other criteria, including the convicted individual's year of birth. The information provided includes the person's name, year of birth, docket number, court, arresting agency, arrest date, sentencing date, and a description of the crime, conviction and penalties.
The database receives updates every 24 hours. However, as the site warns, the records do not constitute a criminal history. This site does not provide access to juvenile records.
Other parts of the Web site (see the menu on the left) provide access to information about pending criminal cases. You may search by the same criteria as that for convicted criminals. Results provide the defendant's name, year of birth, court, court status, docket number, arrest date, plea, and a description of the charges. (et)
Student Writing and Research Resources: Students in the University Writing Program and the Columbia College of Arts & Science at The George Washington University blog about research and writing resources. It seems they are learning a lot. Topics covered include plagiarism and integrating sources, citation styles, research management tools, and using Web 2.0 sources. The site could use an RSS feed, but the content looks great. (et)
Research News Archive
5 February 2008
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Cite as: TVC Alert Research News, 7 February 2008, Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, http://www.virtualchase.com/tvcalert/transfer.asp?xmlFile=feb08/7feb08.xml
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Created: 7 February 2008
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