Priorities for NASA Space Technology

A new report from the National Academies, NASA Space Technology Roadmaps and Priorities: Restoring NASA's Technological Edge and Paving the Way for a New Era in Space, recommends that NASA's technology development efforts should focus on 16 high priority technologies during the next five years. The priorities "align with three main facets of NASA's overall mission: extending and sustaining human activities beyond low Earth orbit; exploring the evolution of the solar system and the potential for life elsewhere; and expanding our understanding of Earth and the universe."  See more information in the Feb. 1, 2012 news release.

"Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense" has been released by the White House and the Pentagon to identify strategic interests and defense priorities in order to cut military spending in a "responsible and balanced manner." For more information, see the press release.

President Nixon's Grand Jury Tapes Released

According to a National Archive's press release, on November 10, 2011 the first batch of grand jury records from the Presidency of Richard M. Nixon was released from the National Archives and from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. The National Archives site is starting with transcripts of President Nixon's grand jury testimony of June 23-24, 1975, and associated material. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum is making available textual materials and sound recordings of segments of five transcripts of White House taped conversations from 1971 and 1973 and approximately 3,000 pages of formerly classified national security materials including transcripts of  Henry Kissinger's telephone conversations.

Digital Goods and Copyright

In copyright law the first sale doctrine gives someone who purchases a copyrighted work the right to sell or dispose of it without getting permission from the copyright holder.  However, according to law professor Annemarie Bridy, regarding digital products " it will increasingly be the case that consumers do not own the information goods they buy (or, rather, think they've bought)." In The Digital Death of Copyright's First Sale Doctrine she reveals that on October 3 the Supreme Court refused to review Vernor v Autodesk, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision about whether the first sale doctrine applied to transactions involving software and other digital information goods. She concludes:

Under the court's decision in Vernor, all a copyright owner has to do to effectively repeal the statutory first sale doctrine is draft a EULA that (1) specifies that the user is granted a license; (2) significantly restricts the user's ability to transfer the software; and (3) imposes notable use restrictions.

See her article linked above for the full discussion.

Income Distribution Reports

If the Occupy Wall Street movement has you wondering about income distribution in the United States, check out the following sources suggested by Charles E. Malone, Coordinator of Government and Legal Information at Western Illinois University:

• Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007; (63 page report from the Congressional Budget Office) available at http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo14429
• The Concentration of Household Wealth (Congressional Research Service 2006 report from Open CRS at http://opencrs.com/document/RL33433/2006-05-23/download/1005/ )

Other government agencies also feature wealth-related reports for specific populations:

• Income Security: Older Adults and the 2007-2009 Recession (55 page report from the General Accounting Office at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d1276.pdf )
• Polarization, immigration, education: What's behind the dramatic decline in youth employment?(584 KB PDF from the Federal Reserve Board at http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2011/201141/201141abs.html )

For those having access to Fondren's databases, ProQuest has prepared a LibGuide entitled Distribution of Wealth - A Selected Bibliography. Fondren has a subscription to Statistical Insight and Congressional (committee prints, hearings and reports). Notice Tips for Searching under To Find Related Reports.

Federal Reserve Board Finance and Economic Discussions Series

The Federal Reserve Board Finance and Economic Discussions Series includes staff working papers on a variety of economic and financial topics of interest to the American public.  For example, Raven Molloy and Hui Shan 's "The Post-Foreclosure Experience of U.S. Households"  looks at  1999 to 2010 data from the credit reports of a large group of individuals.  They concluded, "Although foreclosure considerably raises the probability of moving, the majority of post-foreclosure migrants do not end up in substantially less desirable neighborhoods or more crowded living conditions."

See the links for that report and the complete lists of reports at http://www.federalreserve.gov/Pubs/FEDS/2011/ .

Remembering 9/11

For a sampling of events, reports, and multi-media information about 9/11, please see the Remembering 9/11 LibGuide .