Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 10:13:35 -0500 (EST)
From: David P. Dillard <jwne@temple.edu>
Reply-To: NetGold@yahoogroups.com
To: NetGold <NetGold@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [NetGold] CRIMINAL JUSTICE: PRISON AND DETENTIONS : DATABASES: LAW
GOVERNMENT : NEWS: LexisNexis Selling Database to Prisons
LexisNexis Selling Database to Prisons
By JAMES HANNAH
Associated Press Writer
March 16, 2004, 7:55 AM EST
Newsday.com
<http://www.newsday.com/technology/business/wire/sns-ap-
lexisnexis-prisons,0,3728137.story?coll=sns-ap-technology-headlines>
A shorter URL for the above link:
DAYTON, Ohio -- A company whose extensive database of laws and court cases
is used mostly by legal offices, schools and libraries has attracted a new
type of subscriber: prisons.
The service from LexisNexis enables prisons to provide required access to
legal information while banishing law books, which are more expensive,
quickly outdated and easily damaged, according to facilities that use the
database.
LexisNexis, based in this southwest Ohio city, has installed computer
kiosks resistant to damage in four prisons and jails in Hawaii and five in
California. The kiosk consists of a touch-screen computer monitor covered
in shatterproof glass inside a steel box bolted to a wall.
Prisons had to be assured that the kiosks, manufactured by Touch Sonic
Technologies in Santa Rosa, Calif., would not pose a danger of broken
glass that could be used a weapons, said Bill Carter, vice president and
managing director of LexisNexis' western market center in Dallas.
"We've taken a crowbar to it. It doesn't shatter," Carter said.
<snip>
Inmates navigate the database by touching different parts of the monitor
screen, which includes a keypad. The Internet-based public records
database provides access to more than 4.6 billion documents from more than
30,000 news, business and legal information sources.
Flanary said the inmates seem to like the kiosks better than the books
because they simply can type in a topic and retrieve related legal
information.
"You see this wall of books facing you and you don't know where to begin,"
he said.
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The complete article may be read at the URL above.
Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@astro.temple.edu
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetGold/>
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