Clarence Darrow's "Crime and Criminals: Address to the Prisoners in the Chicago Jail"

This is in the public domain and can be found here.

The English people once punished criminals by sending them away. They would load them on a ship and export them to Australia. England was owned by lords and nobles and rich people. They owned the whole earth over there, and the other people had to stay in the streets. They could not get a decent living. They used to take their criminals and send them to Australia — I mean the class of criminals who got caught. When these criminals got over there, and nobody else had come, they had the whole continent to run over, and so they could raise sheep and furnish their own meat, which is easier than stealing it; these criminals then became decent, respectable people because they had a chance to live. They did not commit any crimes. They were just like the English people who sent them there, only better. And in the second generation the descendants of those criminals were as good and respectable a class of people as there were on the face of the earth, and then they began building churches and jails themselves.

As an expat Aussie, this bit naturally caught my eye. I wouldn't say that I agree with the conclusion of his talk but it raises interesting questions that are still relevant today. I can't believe that it's 100 years old.

6:26:17 PM    Comments []  

Article about law library web sites

Kent Milunovich, Designing and Maintaining Law Library Web Sites: Some Practical Considerations, 94 L. Lib. J. 487 (2002)

I know some people don't like links to pdf files, but there's no alternative here - and anyway, the link is for my benefit for when my paper copy gets lost in the clutter.

5:52:13 PM    Comments []  

New colour scheme for the exploded library + joining the blawg ring

I wanted a more startling colour scheme.

The downside about the red is that it obscures the link to the < ? law blogs # >
ring, which I joined today. I would have joined right away, but I wasn't sure how to add the link for the ring. I learn a little bit everyday...

5:06:52 PM    Comments []  

Public Knowledge

11:24:36 AM    Comments []  

Teaching students how to use search engines

Teaching Students How to Search. Teachers relate an experimental exercise on teaching MIS students how to search. Find some interesting observations. [TVC Alert]

The general consensus from students was that although many of them used search engines prior to this lesson, they did not realize that all search engines do not return the same results. Furthermore, they believed that search engines searched the entire Web as it existed at the moment the search was conducted. Once students learned and witnessed the differences among search engines firsthand, they found the concepts of recall and precision useful in their comparison of search engine effectiveness. (My emphasis)

11:21:28 AM    Comments []  

Shrinkwrap, books and the UCITA

Shrinkwrap licenses for books. Sometimes husbands, especially ones who work in the computer field and are going to library school, can be helpful.  Mine just sent me an e-mail concerning this interesting article from InfoWorld on shrinkwrap licenses for books. The books the author discusses appear to be specialty items, but I think I've seen one or two come into our library.  This is another reason to be very wary of UCITA.   [Leah's Law Library Weblog]

Well that certainly woke me up - how dare they! But the link to information about the UCITA is very helpful.

11:05:04 AM    Comments []