may08c.indd


I n t e r n e t  R e v i e w s  Joni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost 

Economic Policy Institute. Access: http:// 
www.epi.org. 
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a 

nonprofit think tank, produces and collects 
research focusing on economic issues of low­
and middle­income Americans. Students will 
find a sizable collection of data and reports 
on policies related to low­ and middle­income 
workers, including an equitable distribution 
of wealth and economic development. 

EPI, founded in 1986, conducts research 
and analysis on the above issues as well as 
carries out outreach and education. 

The Web site is organized around the 
major research areas of EPI: “Living Stan­
dards and Labor Markets,” “Government 
and the Economy,” “Trade and Globaliza­
tion,” and “Education.” Researchers can also 
browse by a variety of topics under Issue 
Guides. These topics include “Living wage,” 
“Minimum wage,” “Offshoring,” “Retirement 
security,” “Social Security,” “Unemployment,” 
and “Welfare.” 

Under “Publications Archive,” students 
will find reports and data in such categories 
as “Economic Indicators,” “Issue Briefs,” 
“Economic Snapshots,” “Viewpoints,” and 
“Briefing Papers.” The reports and briefi ng 
papers are lengthy documents that include a 
summary of the issues, key points, and charts 
with detailed data, which are written from a 
left­of­center political viewpoint. Issue briefs 
are succinct summaries, highlighted with 
charts and other data. Guides pull together 
all relevant EPI publications on a specifi c 
topic. “Datazone” provides national­level 
data from EPI’s The State of Working America 
2006/2007, as well as state and regional data 
related to earnings, unemployment, unions, 
and income trends, among others. 

Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian for 
public ser vices and collec tion development at 
Willamette University, e-mail: jroberts@willamette. 
edu, and Carol A. Drost is associate university librarian 
for technical services at Willamette University, e-mail: 
cdrost@willamette.edu 

Users can search or browse the Web 
site by topic or format, or browse a list of 
EPI publications by topic or author. Many 
publications are available free on the site, 
while selections of books are offered for 
sale. Additional options include the abil­
ity to e­mail Web pages and sign up for 
an RSS feed. 

For students preparing a persuasive re­
search paper, this site would be useful for 
augmenting other perspectives and voices. 
The information, while from a specifi c view­
point, is easily digestible and provides a good 
overview as well as more in­depth analysis 
of many economic issues.—Britt Fagerheim, 
Utah State University, britt.fagerheim@usu. 
edu 

Internet Archive. Access: http://www. 
archive.org/. 
The Internet Archive (IA) is a “digital 

library of Internet sites and other cultural 
artifacts in digital form” with the goal of 
providing “free access to researchers, histo­
rians, scholars, and the general public.” IA’s 
collections are grouped into fi ve categories: 
“Texts” (an open­access text archive), “Mov­
ing Images,” “Audio,” “Web,” and “Live Music 
Archive.” 

The open­access text archive currently 
consists of more than 368,000 items from a 
number of different collections, including 
materials from the Library of Congress, Project 
Gutenberg, and several dozen major public 
and university libraries. Access to documents 
is available in various formats, including 
scanned PDF files as well as several differ­
ent viewing programs that allow virtual page 
turning of completed books. 

The Moving Images Archive has more 
than 110,000 items, and contains a wealth 
of material, including classic films in the 
public domain such as Nosferatu, television 
programs, documentaries, cartoons, and U.S. 
government films such as the World War II­era 
Why We Fight series. 

286C&RL News March 2008

http:archive.org
http://www
mailto:britt.fagerheim@usu
mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu
http:www.epi.org


Many are available as streaming content, 
and most can be downloaded as MPEGs. 

The Web archive, or the “WayBack Ma­
chine” (remember Rocky & Bullwinkle’s Mr. 
Peabody and his boy Sherman?), is perhaps 
the most impressive feature of this site, ar­
chiving 85 billion Web pages dating back to 
1996. It’s a remarkable effort to document 
the ephemeral nature of the Web, and IA 
does a great job in capturing and recording 
“snapshots” of active Web sites. 

“Live Music Archive” documents record­
ings of more than 47,000 concerts from nearly 
2,800 bands, such as the Grateful Dead (there 
are more than 4,000 Dead shows in the ar­
chive). “Live Music Archive” is part of the 
larger “Audio Archive,” which also includes 
audio books, podcasts, radio programs, ser­
mons, lectures, digitized wax cylinder and 78 
rpm recordings, and news items. 

Given the enormity of this archive, it’s 
not surprising that some features work better 
than others. Metadata and subject indexing 
are inconsistent, making searching the collec­
tions difficult at times. Users can register for 
free and can then join discussion forums and 
submit content. Sometimes this user­gener­
ated content can clutter up search results. 
But given the depth and richness of cultural 
content collected here, it’s well worth these 
minor inconveniences. 

Overall, this is an excellent resource, 
and a valuable and important effort to 
document the Web and digitize and 
make accessible “cultural content” of all 
kinds.—Gene Hyde, Radford University, 
wehyde@radford.edu 

TimeSpaceMap. Access: http://www. 
timespacemap.com/. 
TimeSpaceMap presents historical events 

in a geographic context by combining a 
community­driven encyclopedia (wiki) with 
Google maps. This project describes events 
based on their “when” and “where,” rather 
than a lengthy historical description. The site 
contains no advertising, but mentions that it 
is a for­profit organization and may introduce 
search­based ads in the future. All content 

is freely available based on a Creative Com­
mons License. 

TimeSpaceMap allows searches by loca­
tion, date, and keyword. Users can search 
using these fields, or click the search button 
to browse all available events. Search results 
are displayed in chronological order, with 
a map and marker for each event. Links to 
information about TimeSpaceMap, recently 
added events, and a featured map of an event 
can also be found on the main page. Each 
event displays a date, location, description, 
source, and keywords associated with the 
events. 

Unfortunately, tags are not linked, pre­
venting any sort of browsing, but perhaps 
that functionality will be added as the site 
grows. 

When adding an entry, the editing screen 
consists of a map on the right and a panel on 
the left with eight categories—marker shape, 
summary, when, where, accuracy of the posi­
tion, description, tags, and source. 

Users can use lines and shapes to describe 
an event, such as the path of a ship’s voyage 
or to show the actual space a building once 
occupied. For example, some users have il­
lustrated tactical maneuvers of a battle using 
a combination of shapes, points, and lines, 
and have mapped out the battle based on a 
historical timeline. In a wiki­based system, 
all versions of an event are recorded, are 
open to other users of TimeSpaceMap to be 
refined, and can revert to a previous version if 
needed. These maps can also be conveniently 
embedded into other Web pages, blogs, or 
online systems that use HTML. 

As of March 10, 2008, TimeSpaceMap 
contains 386 events, far from a compre­
hensive historical atlas. However, the 
project has the potential to become a rich 
resource based on the innovative, visual 
presentation of historical events and the 
use of collaborative intelligence. This 
project presents an inviting opportunity for 
librarians, who can both use and contribute 
their own wealth of knowledge to the ef­
fort.—Ken Fujiuchi, Buffalo State College, 
fujiuck@buffalostate.edu 

March 2008  287 C&RL News 

mailto:fujiuck@buffalostate.edu
http:timespacemap.com
http://www
mailto:wehyde@radford.edu