|
FAST FACTS
C&RL News, July/August 2005
Vol. 66, No. 7
by Gary Pattillo
Small town papers
A new Web site provides Internet access to a searchable image archive of printed newspapers from small towns across the United States. There are currently 43 titles representing 16 states plus Antigua. The pages of the newspapers are presented as fully searchable and indexed PDF files. The company creates digital images of the newspaper archives at no cost to publishers. The site currently contains about 150,000 pages of newspaper archives dating back to 1889.
www.smalltownpapers.com/. June 3, 2005
Spam zombies
The Federal Trade Commission, in conjunction with 35 government agencies from 20 countries, launched “Operation Spam Zombies”—an effort to educate Internet service providers about hijacked, or “zombie,” computers on their networks. “Spammers and hackers use zombies to send unsolicited commercial E-mail, distribute malware, store illegal files, and conduct denial-of-service attacks without the owners’ knowledge or consent.” Experts estimate that 50 to 90 percent of spam originates from compromised PCs.
Thomas Claburn. “FTC Launches International Campaign Against Zombies,” InformationWeek, May 24, 2005 www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163700686. June 3, 2005
First Amendment education
A new study indicates that many high school students do not fully understand their First Amendment rights. Among students who have taken courses dealing with the media or the First Amendment, 87 percent believe people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions. Among students who have not taken such courses, that number fell to 68 percent. More than one-third think the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Survey Finds First Amendment Is Being Left Behind in U.S. High Schools, January 31, 2005. www.knightfdn.org/default.asp?story=news_at_knight/releases/2005/2005_01_31_firstamend.html
Amazon’s reference tools
Amazon.com’s “search inside the book” function now provides some new reference tools. When you mouse over the cover image of selected books, you can see additional information about the books, including a concordance of
the 100 most frequently used words in the books, citations to and from the books, and text statistics, such as readability and complexity.
Gary Price, Going Under Cover with Book Search Tools, Search Engine Watch, May 4, 2005. searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3502416
Book publishing
U.S. publishing output in 2004 increased by 14 percent to 195,000 new titles and editions. Adult fiction accounted for the largest increase in growth, rising 43 percent to 25,184 new titles. Adult fiction represents 14 percent of all titles published in the Unites States. University presses increased their title output 12 percent to 14,484 new titles and editions. There were 11,458 new publishers registered with the U.S. ISBN Agency in 2004, an increase of 5.3 percent over 2003.
U.S. Book Production Reaches New High of 195,000 Titles in 2004. Bowker, May 24, 2005. www.bowker.com/press/bowker/2005_0524_bowker.htm June 6, 2005
Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@refstaff.lib.unc.edu
|
