Students applying to Michigan State University now have the option to send a personal statement to the university’s admissions office without ever typing a single word.

According to Michigan State’s student newspaper, The State News, the university now lets prospective students finish their applications by creating personal videos instead of written statements. Applicants can upload their videos to public Web sites like YouTube and then send the clips to CollegeSupplement, a site that forwards videos to university admissions offices.  They say that the video application will level the playing field for international students and students who can’t afford to visit the campus in person.  —David DeBolt, The Wired Campus.

I haven't been posting lately due to a lot of things, but mostly I have been in charge of a local professional association workshop that was held last Friday, and interviewing lots of candidates for LRC director.  This is an important position to fill, as it has now been refashioned into a deanship that is also in charge of directing and advocating for advances in law school technology.  We have gotten lots of interest and a wide array of candidates from across the nation.  Wish us luck in finding the best person to lead us into the new frontier of legal information technology, education, and library administration.

The reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (H.R. 4137) is 1,158 pages long and took five years (and 14 short-term extensions) for Congress to hammer out before President Bush signed it into law on August 14, 2008.  Buried in the enormous volumes of authorizing language and regulations is a small section that originated in the ashes of the Witch Creek fire that ravaged northern San Diego County in 2007.  It is informally known as “the USD amendment.”

The article by Thomas Cleary is available on the USD web site.

Heidi Dalibor of Wisconsin was arrested for not returning two overdue library books from her public library.

All told, the sad chapter in her life cost Dalibor $201: $30 for the overdue books, and $171 for the fines.

Incidentally, the two paperbacks Dalibor took out — “Angels and Demons,” a mystery novel by Dan Brown, and “White Oleander,” a 1999 novel by Janet Finch — can be bought new from Amazon.com for a total of $21.18 — or $4.41 used.

Check out the story here.