Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the January 14, 2008 issue of InSITE:

• Debatepedia
• Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders: Crime Broadsides Collected by the Harvard Law School Library
• Human Rights
• Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute
• OpenCongress

Debatepedia
http://wiki.idebate.org/

The International Debate Education Association has teamed with students and alumni from Georgetown University to create Debatepedia, a wiki project that seeks to be the “Wikipedia of debate and deliberation.”  As a wiki, Debatepedia allows users to document published and original arguments, thus empowering individuals in the decision-making process.  Specific debate categories are organized by subject area, geographic region, and hot topic.  Subject areas include Business, Individual Rights, Legal, Religion, and Crime.  Hot topic categories range from Abortion to Welfare.  Under these groupings users will find specific debates.  Within the Legal subject area, debate topics include divorce, hate crimes, prisoners, and school prayer.  Each debate topic may include one or more questions to which users may contribute a pro or con argument.  Many of the debates are still being developed.  While the site can be fun to browse, students may find it beneficial to both read and contribute to the debates. [MM]

Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders: Crime Broadsides Collected by the Harvard Law School Library
http://broadsides.law.harvard.edu/

The Harvard Law School Library has digitized its collection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British crime broadsides, covering the years 1707 to 1891.  Broadsides were a form of street literature printed on one side of the page and were sold to the crowds that gathered for public executions.  Intended for the lower classes, broadsides recounted the crime, the trial of the accused, and included a purported confession.  Broadsides were often styled “Last Dying Speeches” or “Bloody Murders.”  Harvard’s collection of 500-plus broadsides is “one of the largest recorded and the first to be digitized in its entirety.”  The collection may be browsed by title or searched.  Keyword searching is available by title, name, date, site of publication, and subject.  The category search allows users to select one or more items from any of six categories: crimes, year of publication, site of publication, printers, condemned, and victims.  In addition to the Harvard collection, the site links out to other digitized broadside collections. [MM]

Human Rights
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/humanrights/

The Human Rights digital exhibit at the United Kingdom’s National Archives website uses original documents scanned from their collection to illustrate the progression of rights “we today take for granted.”  Covering the eleventh through twentieth centuries, the site is divided into discrete time periods for easy browsing.  Within each, background history for that period is presented, as is a timeline of major events and links to scanned documents relevant to the period.  A glossary provides definitions of less familiar terms, which are also hyperlinked within the exhibit.  For quick access to all the scanned documents, the document index lists in chronological order the exhibit images available.  As most of the documents are illegible to our modern eyes, transcriptions are provided, as are translations where appropriate.  For researchers interested in human rights or legal history, this is a worthwhile website that weaves together primary source material with historical context. [JJ]

Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/index.htm

The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute at Stanford University builds on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project undertaken by Stanford professor Clayborne Carson and for 22 years has served “as the institutional home for a broad range of activities relating to King’s life, the civil rights movement in the United States and the history of struggles worldwide to achieve social justice.” The site is divided into four areas in addition to a Home page with news, mission statement, requests for support, and FAQs.  Major navigation tabs link to the Papers Project, which in conjunction with the King Center is undertaking the task of publishing 14 volumes of King’s papers (Vol. V is now available for purchase); the Liberation Curriculum, to assist high school teachers in teaching about social justice; Public Programs such as conferences, seminars, workshops, dramatic workshops, and King Day celebrations; and About the Institute. The Papers Project has the most coverage on the site, including information about each volume published and a document inventory that is browseable by year and searchable by keyword. The Papers Project lists other publications by King and about King, such as compilations of sermons and speeches, and full text of some articles in HTML (many by Prof. Carson.)  A powerful segment of the site is “The Voice of King” which plays stirring excerpts from King’s sermons, speeches, and autobiography.  Overall, the Institute site contains an enormous amount of information via the King Encyclopedia, an Interactive Chronology, King biography, selected quotes, and daily “news” from the Civil Rights struggle with inspirational quotes from King’s Freedom Journal. Finally, the Institute lists recommended readings and additional links for researchers and offers a fee-based research service as well. The various types of information available make the site a bit confusing to navigate, so the best way to appreciate the wealth of information is by visiting the Site Map which neatly organizes the contents and makes selecting topics simple. [JC]

OpenCongress
http://www.opencongress.org/

OpenCongress is the latest project of the Sunlight Foundation, in partnership with Participatory Politics, designed to bring the full legislative process into the open.  Using bill texts, voting records, and committee reports from Thomas ( http://www.thomas.gov/); campaign contribution information from OpenSecrets.org; news from Google News; and blog posts from Technorati and Google Blog Search; OpenCongress brings together the “big picture” behind each bill on the Hill.  In addition to searching the site, users can browse by bill number, senator or representative name, House or Senate committee, industry, or topical issue, and track or share their interests using RSS feeds and tagging.  Voting trends are analyzed for every politician, stating with whom they most and least frequently vote.  For all categories, results can be ranked by name, most viewed, most blogged, most in the news, etc.  OpenCongress also provides a number of widgets and applications to download, as well as its own blog that reports on Congressional activities.  This is an informative site with a friendly user interface to track legislation and get the “behind the scenes” scoop on Congress. [JJ]

InSITE contributors: J. Callihan, J. Jones, B. Kreisler, M. Morrison, J. Pajerek (editor)

InSITE highlights selected law-related Web sites in two ways: as an annotated publication issued electronically and in print; and, as a keyword-searchable database. The law librarians at Cornell
evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them. This information can be accessed via:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived
   issues on the web:

        Click InSITE at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Via e-mail subscription: send the following request to: lyris@cornell.edu:

        join INSITE-L "your name"

where your name (include the quotation marks) is the name you want to be available to the list's administrator.  You must send this message from the e-mail address where you want to receive the e-list's messages.

4. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.