It would appear that every airline levies a fee for every amenity and service they provide. This Comprehensive Airline Fees Guide lists the major U.S. carriers and what they charge for booking fees, change fees, pillows, premium seats, and so on. This way, you’ll know how much your flight is really going to cost you.
Archive for January, 2013
State of the Internet in 2012
Did you know that in 2012, there were 144 BILLION emails a day of which 61% were considered non-essential; that as of December 2012, there were 634 million websites; and that there were 2.4 billion Internet users in 2012? These and a vast array of other statistics are all available at: Internet 2012 in Numbers. This site can be augmented by: Internet Publishing and Broadcasting and Internet Usage (tables from the 2012 Statistical Abstract of the United States); Measuring the Information Society 2012 (International Telecommunications Union, replete with dozens of graphs, tables, and charts); Internet and Computer Use Studies and Data Files (National Telecommunications & Information Administration); Computer and Internet Use in the United States: 2010 (Census Bureau, latest figures in this series); Pew Internet & American Life Project (statistical and research publications); Global Internet User Survey 2012 (Internet Society); and Internet World Statistics 2012, 2d Quarter (Internet World Statistics, has dozens of additional links).
What and Where is the City of Timbuktu?
As French and allied forces continue to fight the Islamists in Mali, attention has been focused recently on the city of Timbuktu. It has been called “fabled,” “inaccessible,” “mysterious,” “a great trading center and crossroads,” and a “center of learning.” It is all this and more. It is an historical city, one of the most important during the height of its hegemony; trade caravans from around the known world, from the Middle East to Europe, crossed paths here in West Africa. Timbukto’s heritage is so important that it is recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The following links provide a great deal more information: an eyewitness description of Timbuktu from 1526; The narrative of Robert Adams, an American sailor, who was wrecked on the western coast of Africa, in the year 1810, was detained three years in slavery by the Arabs of the Great Desert, and resided several months in the City of Tombuctoo (1817); and An authentic narrative of the loss of the American brig Commerce, wrecked on the western coast of Africa, in the month of August, 1815, with an account of the sufferings of the surviving officers and crew… and containing a description of the famous city Tombuctoo….(1833); and Timbuctoo the mysterious (1896). More contemporary information can be accessed at: What is at Stake in Timbukto? (Timbukto Heritage); On the Edge, Timbuktu (NPR); Timbuktu – City of Legends (BBC); The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu (BBC4-YouTube); The Road to Timbuktu (PBS); Factbox – Timbuktu (Reuters); Timbuktu (Mali) (New York Times); Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries on Timbuktu (Library of Congress); Trekking to Timbuktu – Teacher Version (NEH); Timbukto Library – a treasure house of Malian history (The Guardian); the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project; and Timbuktu: Journey to the Empire of Knowledge (YouTube).
“Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu.” – 15th-century Malian proverb
Text of “Bipartisan Framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform”
The text as released by eight Senators from both sides of the aisle. They have scheduled a news conference at 2:30 today. A good summary is available from Reuters. Some recent reports should be of interest: Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The Rise of a Formidable Machinery (Migration Policy Institute, January 2013); and Overview of Immigration Issues in the 112th Congress (CRS, January 2012) and Permanent Legal Immigration to the United States: Policy Overview (CRS, December 2012).
Key Demographic Data for the 113th Congressional Districts
Secretary of State Clinton Appears Before Congressional Commitees on the Benghazi Attack
Starting at 9am today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will spend a full day before Congressional committees looking into the consular attack at Benghazi. C-SPAN is providing full coverage.
Online Primary Sources for American History: Antislavery Publications
Ths entry will mostly limit itself to newspapers, pamphlets and other ephemera. Nor will we review the long history of the abolitionist movement; we’ll allow this site that also has links to excerpted primary sources to answer for us. What we have tried to do is track down substantial runs of antislavery or abolitionist newspapers; we are not listing single issues or very limited runs. We want to present you, the reader, with a critical mass of information to more fully understand the power of the abolitionist movement and the courage of those who participated in it. By all accounts, the Society of Friends (“Quakers”) were the first group to condemn slavery; they wrote extensively on this issue and many of their works can be found in a fourteen-volume compilation entitled The Friends’ Library: Comprising journals, doctrinal treatises, & other writings….(1837-1850).
The newspapers that follow are listed in chronological order:
Genius of Universal Emancipation was started in Baltimore in 1821 by Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker; 46 issues are here while HathiTrust holds a run from 1830-1833.
Freedom’s Journal, the first black-owned and operated newspaper in the country was published in New York between 1827 and 1829, and contained numerous editorials against slavery.
The Free Enquirer was another New York paper; it was published between 1828 and 1835. Portions of this paper are found in Tracts by Robert Owen (1830).
Published from 1831 to 1865 in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator was among the most important of the abolitionist papers; The Liberator Files contains extensive reproductions.
St Louis Observer was published between 1831 and 1836. It is best remembered because its editor, Rev. Elijah P Lovejoy, was killed by a proslavery mob as he defended his press. Many of his editorials are preserved in the Memoir of the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, who was murdered in defence of the liberty of the press (1838) beginning in chapter six.
The Anti-Slavery Examiner was a New York-based paper published between 1836 and 1845 by the American Anti-Slavery Society, the major abolitionist group in this country. It also published The Anti-Slavery Record from 1835 to 1837, The Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine (1836-37), and its annual report (selected volumes).
The Friend of Man was published by the New York State Antislavery Society from 1836 to 1842. Almost the entire run is available.
The Signal of Liberty, out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, ran from 1841 to 1848. It was associated with the Michigan State Anti-Slavery Society. All issues are available.
New-York (Daily) Tribune, published from 1841 to 1866 by Horace Greeley, also espoused educational reforms as well as antislavery sentiments.
Anti-Slavery Bugle was published by the Ohio American Anti-Slavery Society from 1845 to 1861.
Pamphlet collections of major value include:
Antislavery Collection, 1725-1911. From the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Includes speeches, sermons, and pamphlets.
Boston Public Library Anti-Slavery Collection. Includes documents, letters, and other textual material from 1832 until after the Civil War.
From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1822-1909 and African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907 are important collections from the Library of Congress.
James G. Birney Collection of Anti-slavery Pamphlets has 2000 items of interest.
Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers has a wide selection of local sources.
Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection at Cornell University contains over 10,000 pamphlets and leaflets as well as sermons, anti-slavery society newsletters, broadsides, etc.
And last but not least is the The Black Abolitionist Archive, a database containing over 800 addresses by African Americans as well as over 1000 abolitionist newspaper editorials; here you can find editorials from Frederick Douglass’ The North Star. Audio readings are included as well. A valuable tool.
Guide to Federal Acronyms and Abbreviations
GovSpeak is a comprehensive guide to the bewildering number of acronyms and abbreviations that litter federal governmental websites or publications. Not only does it list the agency, but it also provides a link to that agency’s site. Military abbreviations are found in the DOD Dictionary of Military Terms. And the government is not the only entity to blame – check out what we do in libraries! –Library-Related Acronyms.
Online Primary Sources: Copyright History
Copyright is a difficult concept to fathom for many people; the field is so convoluted, what applies in one instance may not in another, nations differ on copyright law, copyright has different rules/regulations depending on the media involved, etc. While the case against HathiTrust was decided in its favor, the Google Books copyright infringement case has dragged on for years (we will leave this one to James Grimmelmann). For more mundane aspects of copyright – what can you do, what can’t you do – we recommend Stanford’s Copyright & Fair Use site. But what we really want to direct your attention to today is this marvelous repository of Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900). Documents from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States are included with the Netherlands’ contribution to be loaded this year. Browsing is by date, location, author, keyword, and publisher among others; full text searching is also available. What makes this site so valuable is that the documents have been translated into English and commentaries, some quite lengthy, accompany many of the documents. Another valued asset is the “core documents” link, limiting the search to what the editors believe form the underpinning of copyright. For insights into how copyright has developed over time in different places, we can’t think of a better place to go.
Online Primary Sources for American History: The Foreign Relations of the United States
Covering the years from 1861, the Foreign Relations of the United States is the definitive record of this country’s dealing with other nations. Documents are culled from a wide variety of sources to present a clear picture of what occurred. The more than 450 volumes of the series are published mostly in chronological order with certain “special volumes” that revolve around a specific theme, such as Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment or the Energy Crisis, 1974-1980. By using these volumes, one can trace the diplomatic give and take that informed our foreign policy about the Arab-Israeli war, review documents pertinent to the Paris Peace Conference that ended World War 1, or peruse the material presented on the Malta and Yalta conferences that shaped postwar Europe. One of the main problems with this series is the slowness with which the volumes are produced. They are supposed to be published within a thirty-year time frame from the original date; therefore, the volumes coming out should be covering the early 1980s. Alas, that is not the case; the series is mired in the late 1960s to mid 1970s. The travails are highlighted in the 2012 annual report from the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, the body that oversees the FRUS production. The first 375 volumes (1861-1960) are housed at this site hosted by the University of Wisconsin; more recent ones are at the State Department’s Office of the Historian.
President Obama to Outline Gun Control Steps This Morning
Depending on the sources consulted, he will make the annoucement at either 11:45 or 11:55. Be that as it may, C-SPAN will cover this event.
National Security Reports – January 2013 Update
Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative (National Academies Press); Combating Nuclear Smuggling (GAO); Securing U.S. Diplomatic Facilities and Personnel Abroad: Background and Policy Issues (CRS); 2013 Army Weapon Systems Handbook (U.S. Army); Transforming Classification (Public Interest Declassification Board); Iran’s Ballistic Missile and Space Launch Programs (CRS), Syria’s Chemical Weapons: Issues for Congress (CRS); and 4-degrees briefing for the World Bank: The risks of a future without climate policy (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research).
JSTOR Announces Limited Free Reading from 1200 Journals
JSTOR has announced an expansion of its Register and Read program. For the cost of free registration, an individual may view (not print) three articles every two weeks from 1200 titles held by JSTOR. At the above link, you can register as well as peruse the list of 12oo journals available in this program.
What Are the Top Manufacturing Countries?
According to the 2013 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index from Deloitte, based on interviews with 550 CEOs and senior manufacturing leaders, China tops the list and will do so for at least the next five years. The United States placed third and will drop to fifth place in five years as developing economies like Brazil and Singapore surge up the list. Dozens of tables and figures track the various input and output criteria used to create this list. Appendix A offers a detailed look at the top ten countries, performing what can only be called a SWOT analysis on each.
Report on Child Abuse Issued by Scotland Yard and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
Giving Victims a Voice is the culminating report against the late English entertainer Jimmy Savile. This document details the hundreds of instances of child abuse at his hands; his actions spanned decades. We’ll let The New York Times take up this squalid tale. The paper also has considerable biographical information and articles on this person.
Mapping the Flu
Want to klnow the extent and severity of this year’s flu? There are two places you can look: the CDC maintains the United States Flu Activity Map along with FluView Interactive which charts weekly statistics on this disease; and Google’s Flu Trends allows you to see the advance of this disease in many countries as well as the U.S. This latter tool is also experimenting with the display of city-level conditions.
1918-19 Flu Epidemic in America
The 1918 flu epidemic had New Jersey roots – the first person to become ill was a returning soldier at Fort Dix. Replete with thousands of original documents, The American Flu Epidemic of 1918-1919: A Digital Encyclopedia, offers contemporary reports on this major epidemic that cost thousands of lives in this country and millions worldwide. Fifty cities, including Newark, have well-researched essays on the flu and the steps taken to combat it along with individual interactive timelines and selected photos. One can browse by document title, city, organization, person, place, subject, or publication. Full text searching is also allowed. Linked subject headings with each retrieved search further investigations within this impressive site. Other sites of interest include: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 (Stanford); The Great Pandemic: The United States in 1918-1919 (with state summaries, U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services); Influenza 1918 (video, transcript and other features, American Experience, PBS); 1918 Influenza: the Mother of all Pandemics (CDC); The 1918 Influenza Epidemic in New York City: A Review of the Public Health Response (Public Health Reports); Influenza and Pneumonia Mortality in 66 Large Cities in the United States in Years Surrounding the 1918 Pandemic (PLOS ONE); The Origin and Virulence of the 1918 “Spanish” Influenza Virus (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society); 1918 Influenza A (H1N1) Fact Sheet (Federation of American Scientists); 1918 Flu (Nova, PBS); Economic Effects of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic (Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis); and The Persistent Legacy of the 1918 Influenza Virus (New England Journal of Medicine).
United Nations Online Resources
This is but a brief introduction to the plethora of online documentation provided by the United Nations. These links will serve as a jumping-off point for further research. All UN documents are numbered. A guide to the system is available from the Dag Hammarskjold Library. Online access to UN documents is available in two ways: Official Documents of the United Nations presents full-text official documentation from 1993 to the present. It also includes resolutions from the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Trusteeship Council, and the Economic and Social Council from 1946 to the present; and UNBISNET which is the catalog of the Dag Hammarskjold Library in New York and the UN Library in Geneva. It links to many full-text documents. It also allows access to voting records and speeches before the UN (most of Nelson Mandela’s speeches are available online from this portal.) The UN publishes many valuable reference sources; among those freely available online are: Yearbook of the United Nations. The entire run from 1946 is available online; you can search by multiple points. It provides a detailed summary on the UN’s activities. Demographic Yearbook, available online from 1948 to the present. Landmark General Assembly Documents which presents verbatim documents from the first plenary meetings. Population and Vital Statistics Report which contains demographic information on countries, published twice a year and available online since 2006. Statistical Yearbook which has dozens of tables on 200+ countries for the past few years. The UN Chronicle (the magazine of the UN) and UN Pulse, an alerting service from the DH Library with hyperlinked documents. Other links of interest are: UN WebTV (live and archived videos) and the United Nations Handbook (50th ed., 2012-13. Published annually by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.)
Governor Christie’s 2013 State of the State Address
The video of his address is available as are the transcript and selected photos. Commentary/analysis can be found at: NJ Spotlight, The Star-Ledger, The New York Times, NJ 101.5 (with Democratic responses), Asbury Park Press (a word cloud), and The Washington Post.
Ten-Year Survey of Online Learning in Higher Education
Changing Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States from the Babson Survey Research Group offers an overview of the impact of online education and a peek into its future development. This report is based on the responses from over 2800 chief academic officers and used to be known as the Sloan Online Survey. Among the questions posited are: the role of MOOCs; how many students take online courses; how are faculty members’ time and efforts affected by teaching online courses; what are the barriers to accepting online education; and are the outcomes from online learning and in-person learning the same. Graphs and tables acompany each of the discussion questions. For example, p.17 shows that from 2002 – 2011, online learning has increased significantly: in 2002, 1.6 million students or 9.6% of the total enrollment took an online course; in 2011, 6.7 million students or 32% of the total enrollment took online courses. An infographic is also provided listing the salient points of the report. Previous blog entries have dealt with this topic.
Congressman Frank J. Guarini Library Blog 