Saturday, November 15, 2014

How Americans View Privacy: New Report

This week the Pew Research Center published a fascinating report, "Public Perceptions of Privacy and Security in the Post-Snowden Era."  The Center's Internet Project commissioned a representative online panel of 607 adults to take four surveys over the course of a year.  The findings of this report are based on results from the first survey, conducted in January 2014, and reflect Americans' views of how secure they feel various channels of communication are for sharing private information. According to a recent BBC News article by Jane Wakefield based on comments from report author Mary Madden, a Pew Internet Project senior researcher, "the next survey, due next month, will look specifically at attitudes to how information is stored and secured and the following one will focus on behavioural changes in the post-Snowden world."

Read the report, and engage with the profiles and views of survey participants via this interactive created by the Internet Project.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Friday, November 14, 2014

Google tricks

does so much more than just search the web.  Try a few of these Google tricks 


  • use Google as a timer
  • play zerg rush or Atari Breakout
  • get movie times, translations, conversions to/from metric, currency conversions
  • narrow your web search to a particular site - a really useful research tool, btw

For more, check out 20 Awesome Things Google Can Do from {Life}Buzz

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Thursday, November 13, 2014

This Day In The Law: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Bus Segregation Laws

On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court (352 U.S. 903 [1956]) affirmed a lower court’s ruling in Browder v. Gayle (opens PDF) that Alabama’s racial segregation laws were unconstitutional.

Read a brief summary of the context here.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Research Resources: Guide to Law Online

The Guide to Law Online, prepared by the Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, is an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Thanksgiving Holiday Shuttle Service to JFK for Hofstra Students

Are you making your holiday plans to go home this year?  Hofstra has shuttle service to JFK!

November 26: Student Thanksgiving Shuttle Service to JFK
On Wednesday, November 26, the Department of Public Safety will offer Hofstra students shuttle service to JFK airport on a first-come, first-served, reservation-only basis.  There will be three trips leaving from the Student Center at 7 a.m., noon and 3 p.m. Seating is limited to 20 students per shuttle, as space is needed on the bus to accommodate luggage.

Students who want reserve a seat should send an email to Maryann Sarro at Maryann.Sarro@Hofstra.edu with their 700#,  cell phone number, requested shuttle time, and the airline they are flying.  They should leave enough time to account for traffic and check-in time at the airport. The shuttle will stop at the terminals in the order they are along the route, not according to flight times.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Monday, November 10, 2014

The Supreme Court Mapping Project

The Supreme Court Mapping Project is under the direction of University of Baltimore School of Law Assistant Professor Colin Starger.  The mapper software enables users to create sophisticated interactive maps of Supreme Court doctrine.  The Project is building a library of implicating doctrinal territories in diverse areas including the 1st, 4th, 5th, 8th and 14th Amendments as well as in commerce power, patents, campaign finance, civil pleading, stare decisis, and more.

 The SCOTUS Mapper Library contains the maps created to date and an Intro page for a more in-depth explanation of the maps and how it all works.

And last, is the blog "In Progress" to keep you up-to-date with the project's activities.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Sunday, November 09, 2014

HeinOnline Tax Foundation Archive Publications

HeinOnline's Tax Foundation Archive collection provides the complete archive of the Tax Foundation's publications, which contain information on taxation, fiscal policy, finance and more.  The collection can be browsed by publication title or subject, or use HeinOnline's other capabilities to search for specific topics.To learn more about the collection click here, to access the collection click here.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat