The C.I.A. World Factbook was one on of the first internet locales I ever visited and it remains one of the most indispensible information resources on the web. The first time I remember accessing the factbook was in the very early 1990s before Mosiac (the first real "web" browser) had been released and long before the graphic interface of the world wide web had come into common use. My dad (who was really on the ball with this stuff) showed me how to use a gopher ('member those) to access the factbook via the Louisiana Tech University mainframe. I thought is was pretty darn cool and I had absolutely no idea how quickly the technology we were using would change my life and, really the whole darn world.

In any case, I still think the C.I.A.'s World Factbook is cool and the 2005 edition is newly available here.

Many thanks to the Law Librarian Blog for noting that the new edition was up.

-- MDT

Labels: Louisiana