New and Noteworthy
NEW WEB SOURCES
Some amazing new databases have appeared recently, organizing the ever-expanding amount of information available on any given subject. As we move further down the road, away from print media and onto the digital highway, you can count on your local library to keep you aware of what’s out there.
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE
The Encyclopedia of Life (http://www.eol.org/) 
launched on February 28th with the first 30,000 pages of biological information on all currently known species. This Mother Nature of all encyclopedias will live on the Internet and constantly evolve, drawing information from a variety of sources. Referred to as “a biological moon shot” by its godfather, biologist E.O. Wilson of Harvard, it takes advantage of new informatics methods. Its centralized Web portal will speed up the business of figuring out what’s what in the biological world and will allow for new opportunities to study such things as networks and evolutionary patterns. And it’s not just for scientists—a sliding button will let users choose the amount of information they want, making this site useful for students doing a report on the yellow fever mosquito or somebody wanting to identify plants in their local woods.
PUBLIC LIBRARY OF LAW
This new legal database (www.plol.org) 
collects in one place a variety of legal information from many different sources. Sponsored by Fastcase, this easy-to-use site includes cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals, cases from all 50 states back to 1997, federal statutory law and codes from all 50 states, regulations, court rules and constitutions.
BACK TO….LIFE
One of our most difficult tasks here at the library is to make room for the new materials we are always adding. This means constantly evaluating older materials and deciding what to keep. Sometimes, in the course of that evaluation, we decide that material is way too good to keep in storage. So, we’re bringing back, to our reference shelves, our collection of bound Life Magazines from 1937 to 1970.
These primary resources offer a peek into the prevailing concerns, interests and prejudices of the time. Considered the first photographic U.S. news magazine, it nurtured the major photojournalistic talents of Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, W. Eugene Smith and Gordon Parks. It published Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, and contracted with him for a 4,000 word piece on bullfighting. Harry S. Truman, Winston Churchill and Douglas MacArthur all serialized their memoirs in the pages of this magazine. And it’s all here, on the shelves of your library!
