Friday, April 04, 2008

Fact about Place

As attorneys, you must apply the law to the facts. At times, you first must uncover those facts. Legal issues frequently arise in a particular place and you frequently need facts about those places. One good resource for facts about places is Dataplace.org .

Dataplace.org provides access to data at geographic scales ranging from the neighborhood to the nation. The site currently contains data from the 1990 and 2000 Censuses (demographic, economic, housing, and social characteristics), Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (home mortgage applications and loans), Section 8 Expiring Use database (neighborhood- and property-level data on federally assisted housing at risk of loss), and Consolidated Plan special tabulations (data on housing needs by household income level).

Dataplace.org also provides mapping tools and area profiles .



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unrelated comment about Hofstra Law in general.

Since I am in the precarious position of being near Lincoln Center tomorrow with nothing to do for about 4 hours, I thought it would be nice to study at the Fordham Law Library. I called them, and they explained to me that I needed the Hofstra Library to fax a "Letter of Information" to Fordham so I could gain access. They assured me that this letter is merely a form letter, that faxing one is a common occurrence, and that it should take just a minute

Accordingly, I called the Hofstra Library, and just as I predicted, they couldn't help me. The woman who apparently issues these letters was gone (well before 5:00 p.m. on a weekday no less) and that I could not be helped by ANYONE else.

I am not one to complain, but I have been faced with analagous situations at Hofstra one too many times. It is unfortunate that people at Hofstra won't go the extra mile (i.e. filling out a form letter with information that I had readily available and pressing some fax buttons for about 20 seconds) for one of their loyal students.

Am I misunderstood? Should I not be a little upset?

The school is supposed to operate for the benefit of the students, not for the staff, faculty or anyone else. I thought that 3 years and well over $100,000 should get me a little more.

I am certainly glad that I will be graduating soon.

Ernster the Virtual Library Cat said...

I just spoke with the librarian who had helped you. She misunderstood your request and reaction. She thought you were not too concerned about gaining access to Fordham, so could wait until our staff member who usually takes care of these letters returned on Monday (and is out sick today). Since I do not have your name, I have left a blank access letter with the Reference librarian - who will be in Saturday morning at 10am. Call her at 516 463-5908, give her your name and we will fax the letter to Fordham.

I apologize for the confusion. We do try our best, but misunderstandings do happen and we will do whatever we can to correct the situation.