Security, Spies and MI5

In the digital age, even security and intelligence agencies legendary for secrecy have their own Web sites. The British Security Service, commonly known as MI5--and the subject of a popular BBC television drama broadcast as “MI-5” in the United States--is no exception. At the official Security Service site, visitors can learn more about MI5’s mission, history, and leaders (including current Director General Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller), explore common “Myths and Understandings” about the Security Service, and gain insight into MI5 operations within the context of British law. Visitors can also link to recently declassified materials at the British National Archives that highlight some of MI5’s espionage and counter-intelligence work over the years.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

gethuman

Avoid customer service phone tree purgatory. Go to gethuman.com for a list on how to find a live human when calling customer service.

And to getfeline, send a comment to your favorite Virtual Cat!

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Healthfinder: A Portal For Health Information

Developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Healthfinder is a free portal to a broad range of health information. Users can search with Google or visit the health library to use a searchable index of carefully reviewed health information from over 1,500 government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and universities. Some of the areas covered, among many others, are diseases and conditions and alternative medicine. Special resources include drug databases and a drug interaction checker.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

iLoveLanguages

iLoveLanguages is a website offering links to over 2400 language-related Internet resources. Each link has been hand reviewed for quality. The resources include schools, translation dictionaries, literature, software, and much, much more.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Wikipedia pushes for quality

This past weekend, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society co-sponsored Wikimania 2006, the International Wikimedia Conference at Harvard Law School. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales delivered the keynote address where he stated:

"Although we've always had this goal of Britannica quality or better, we're not there yet," ... "We can no longer feel satisfied and happy when we see these (article) numbers going up.... We should continue to turn our attention away from growth and towards quality."

Mr. Wales began his presentation with a clip of the Colbert Report, where Stephen Colbert does a piece on his love of Wikipedia and "wikiality". It is worth a moment of your time if you have never seen it.

All kidding aside, This three day conference included discussions on everything from validating information to how the Wikipedia fits into broader efforts in open-source, "free culture." Interesting stuff.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Fellow Owls

In honor of the time, soon approaching, when students everywhere--but law students, in particular--shall often be awake past the witching hour, here is a Web page devoted to their avian counterpart, the real "night owl". The Owl Pages contains links to almost everything you would ever want to know about these night-brethren, including articles, a photo gallery, and even a selection of audio files illustrating their varied and distinctive "hoots".


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

GATT documents

The WTO General Council decided in May 2006 to make public all official documents issued under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Many of the documents did not exist in electronic format and have been scanned to create a digital archive. This is a work in progress, but as of the date of the announcement over 50,000 GATT documents are alaready available through this site. This is a tremendous resource for anyone interested or working in international trade.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Legal Blogs

Lyle Denniston (a journalist who has covered the Supreme Court for over 45 years, and presently contributes to SCOTUSblog) has published a piece in the Chapman Law Journal entitled, "Legal Blogs: The Search for Legitimacy." This highly readable, six page article can be found here.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Internet Movie Database

If your summer plans include escaping the hot weather in an air conditioned movie theater (or with a DVD at home), don’t forget to check out the Internet Movie Database (Imdb). This popular entertainment site is a one-stop gold mine of movie facts and news, ratings and reviews, actor biographies, filmographies, opening dates and local theater showings, awards and festivals, film and actor photo galleries, films on DVD, and much more. Imdb is the brainchild of founder and manager Col Needham, a British film enthusiast and engineer who started out in 1990 with only a bulletin board database of movie credits in the early days of the Internet. The success story of Imdb is the subject of a New York Times article by Richard Siklos (May 28, 2006).

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Sources For Summer Reading

Got some titles in mind for Summer reading material, before returning to pore over cases and statutes? Then try BookFinder.com, which describes itself as "the open marketplace for books online, —a one-stop ecommerce search engine where you can search through over 100 million new, used, rare, and out of print books for sale". BookFinder covers popular new and used book services, such as Amazon, ABE, and Alibris, as well as smaller and more obscure sellers.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat