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Resources and News for Information Professionals
ResourceShelf is Compiled & Edited By Gary Price, MLIS Librarian Director of Online Information Resources, Ask.com Editor and Compiler, The ResourceShelf Editor and Compiler, DocuTicker
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Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Digitization--United Kingdom Source: Managing Information The British Library Launches Large Image Digitization Project From the article, "The British Library have launched their biggest ever digitisation programme for a new website called 'In Place'. The site will go online on May 21st and by 2004 you'll be able to see and hear 100,000 images and sounds from BL's world-renowned collections - without ever coming to London." See Also: The BL Just Opened a Fee-Based Service For Image Content "A new service offers easy access to thousands of unique and unusual images from the illuminated manuscripts, archive photographs, maps and engravings held by the British Library. Images Online (www.bl.uk/imagesonline) enables users to search thousands of items from Library collections and currently contains around 8,000 images, ranging from medieval depictions of witchcraft to Lewis Carroll's original drawings for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
Online Databases "Drowning not Waving? Promoting Online Resources" In a new issue of the xrefer newsletter, Peter Bolger, a Reference and Information Manager in the U.K., offers a few suggestions for promoting online databases and services. Btw, I love what the New York Public Library says on their electronic resources page, "Search the Branch Libraries' e-resources for great information you won't find on Google." How's that for short and to the point. It goes on to list many types of material including full-text magazine and journal articles, biographies, and reliable encyclopedias. Actually, another large challenge reamins, getting potential users to go to library web site and click on the e-resources page.
Public Libraries Domain Names Source: Bloomington Herald Times "Monroe County [Indiana] Library's Name Used in Anti-Abortion Web Address" Here's another one for your "domain names aren't always as easy as typing in the name" folder. From the article, When surfing the Web, don't enter www.monroecountylibrary.com. Not unless you want to access an anti-abortion Web site, featuring a purported photograph depicting an aborted fetus. Anybody can purchase rights to Internet domain addresses, and an organization called abortionismurder.org apparently owns www.monroecountylibrary.com. The Monroe County Public Library's real Web address is www.monroe.lib.in.us. Note: A WHOIS search (not always reliable) shows that it's registered to a company in the Bronx, NY called Pro-Life Domains inc. See Also: We've Learned that WinnipegPublicLibrary.Com also Returns the Same Page as Discussed in the Article (Thanks G.T. ) See Also: The Associated Press Has A Short Article
Internet Filtering--Canada Source: Ottawa Citizen "Trustees defy library chief's order to keep quiet on Net porn issue" From the article, Ottawa Public Library trustees are being told to remain silent on the controversial issue of Internet access on library computers until a final decision is made this week. The order was issued by chief librarian Barbara Clubb in an e-mail sent yesterday to the library's 15 board members -- including six Ottawa city councillors...The directive effectively shuts down public debate on an issue that has divided the board between those who believe in limiting children's access to pornography on library computers and those who oppose the move on the basis of intellectual freedom and access to information.
Web Search--AllTheWeb Source: Search Engine Showdown AllTheWeb as a Simple Calculator Greg points out that you can use ATW as a calculator. He also mentions that this might not be new. Regardless, thanks to GN for publishing the info. Make sure to use the proper syntax. Example: (2 * 100) / 50 +4-3
Professional Reading Shelf New, A Full Issue of The Journal of Digital Information is Online (Vol.4) Articles include: "Towards a Core Ontology for Information Integration" "Macro Approaches to Digital Searching and Secondary Research" "Scholarly Associations and the Economic Viability of Open Access Publishing"
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Information Industry--Associations Source: el.Pub List: Information Industry Trade and Professional Associations A long list with direct links. Global in scope. --- Terrorism Source: U.S. State Department New, Full-Text, Patterns of Global Terrorism (2002) Available in html and pdf. -- Information Sharing Source: GAO New, Full-Text Report, Information Technology: Terrorist Watch Lists Should Be Consolidated to Promote Better Integration and Sharing Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text The 84 page report includes several charts and tables. -- Documents in the News--Middle East Peace Process Source: U.S. State Department Full-Text: A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict -- Wiretaps Source: U.S. Courts Wiretap Report 2002 Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text
ERIC Source: Education Week (Registration Required, Free) Another Article About the Possible Cut in Funding to ERIC From the article, Supporters of the existing structure acknowledge the need for improvement and say they have been working to smooth the system. But the department's plan, they say, does not recognize the contributions of the clearinghouses in expanding customer services and bringing subject-area expertise to those collections. See Also: "Two information centers at IU in jeopardy" (via The Herald Times, Bloomington, IN) See Also: Additional ResourceShelf Coverage Tuesday, April 29, 2003
Multimedia Search--Singingfish Source: EContent More About Singingfish Learn more about this search tool that allows you to find and access streaming audio and video content. Singingfish is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Thomson. See Also: Direct to Singingfish ||| Direct to Singingfish Advanced Search Interface See Also: "Singingfish Grows As Multimedia Search Provider" (via Search Engine Watch) See Also: A ResourceShelf 8/02 Posting About Singingfish
American Library Association ALA and the Annual Conference in Toronto: Still No Decision A new message from ALA is online this afternoon about the Annual Conference in Toronto. It includes the following passage: "The Executive Board has determined that it needs more time to review information and conclude its deliberations. Further discussion has been scheduled for Friday morning. Information on the 2003 Annual Conference will be posted on the ALA home page and disseminated widely as soon as a decision is reached. You can read the full-text of the statement here.
Alternative Literature Source: Seattle Times "ZAPPed: Collecting 'zines' as a document of our times" From the article, Most people are a little overwhelmed when they first come in," says Alissa Nielsen, curator and librarian of the Zine Archives and Publishing Project (ZAPP) at Seattle's Richard Hugo House literary center. She's right...For those unfamiliar with zines, Nielsen points to Factsheet Five, a zine reference and review magazine, which offers the following definition: "a small, handmade, amateur publication done purely out of passion, rarely making a profit or breaking even. Sounds like 'zeen.'..The more than 7,000 zines housed at ZAPP exhibit tremendous variety in format and topic. Some are professionally printed, glossy affairs; others are handwritten and guerrilla-photocopied at work. Some have the look and feel of your average alternative weekly, others arrive scrolled up in a prescription pill bottle.
Specialized Search Tools--Scirus Scirus Introduces Toolbar Something new from Elsevier's science only search tool. It offers access to open web and proprietary "science" related content. See Also: From February 2003: White Paper, "How Scirus Works"
E-Books Libraries--U.K. Source: IT-Director.Com E-books arrive in UK public libraries From the article, "E-books have moved beyond the confines of academic and specialist libraries and have now arrived in public libraries in the UK, though they have already been introduced in the USA, Canadian and Australian public libraries." The article does not cite any specific examples.
Information Industry Briefs (2 Items) netLibrary...Company Introduces Redesigned Book Reader -- ebrary..Institutional Repository Pilot Program Announced
Professional Reading Shelf Dictionaries The Spring 2003 Issue of Oxford English Dictionary News is Online -- Library Associations The American Library Association Annual Report, 2001-2002, is Online
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Mothers--United States Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts, New, Fact and Stat Sheet About U.S. Moms -- Executive Compensation--United States Source: Forbes Now Available, The Forbes 2003 CEO Compensation Report (America's Biggest Companies) is Online The primary list can be sorted using 8 criteria (total compensation, name, age, etc.) The main list is also searchable. -- Economy--United States Economy--India Source: Congressional Research Service Full-Text, New CRS Report: India-U.S. Economic Relations -- Space Shuttle Accident Source: GPO New, Selected Congressional Hearings and Reports from the Challenger Space Shuttle A selection of publications that were assembled for Congress as background materials for the February, 2003 hearings regarding the Columbia accident are now available on the web. Content includes the full-text of Apollo 13 and Space Shuttle Challenger accident hearings. -- Government Services--Canada--Directories New, Full-Text, Services for You (2003 Edition) Includes a list of government toll-free telephone numbers. Monday, April 28, 2003
Reference Resources NYPL Lists "Best of Reference 2003" A direct link to the complete list that includes both electronic and print materials. Of special note: Congrats to Karen Schneider and her team at the Librarians' Index to the Internet for making the list. Well-deserved! Also, a tip o' the cap to the LII's founder Carole Leita for creating such a important resource. Other notable electronic resources making the list include The Scout Report and Statistical Resources on the Web from the Univ of Michigan Documents Center.
Libraries Source: The New York Times "Of Libraries, Superstores and Lattes" From the article, "Given the options - free library or capitalist bookstore - and the latte at Barnes & Noble notwithstanding, the superior choice seems obvious. But maybe not. Barnes & Noble appears to be thriving, while the library hobbles along. Besotted by consumerism, it seems that we don't feel that our objects of desire, even our objects of intellectual desire, are truly valuable unless we pay for them, and dearly...But blaming the customer alone would be unfair. When it comes to marketing, Barnes & Noble is way ahead of public libraries, which our city fathers and mothers have all but written off as services to the poor and downtrodden and researchers, rather than seeing them as temples of knowledge for the masses." -- In 1996, as I was completing my MLIS degree at Wayne St. University, I started to do research on the super bookstore/library situation. Numerous articles had been written on the topic at that time. More articles have been written in the past seven years. Yet, nothing has really changed. What's disappointing? Once again public libraries (and other types as well) have been reduced in importance a few more notches in the mind of the public AND THOSE WHO budget money for libraries (aka politicians). How many notches are left before they become totally irrelevant? Why is this a problem? Many reasons but it boils down to the fact that, as a whole, libraries and librarians have done a poor job in marketing/selling and DEMONSTRATING our strengths, skills, resources, and tools Put another way, libraries, like it or not, have competition. I'm not talking competition not in a monetary (although libraries need to 'compete' for money at budget time) sense but in terms of importance, usefulness, vitality, etc. in the minds of the user and non-user alike. Info professionals understand the differences between a super bookstore and a library. We also realize the differences between a web engine like Google and the library and librarian. But, have we disseminated and 'sold' these concepts in the age of the super bookstore and Google? As of today, probably not.
Public Libraries Source: The Metro West Daily News Franklin Public Library Will Remain Open Last week we ran an item about the possible closing of the Franklin Public Library in Franklin, MA. It was first opened in 1790 after a donation by Benjamin Frankin. Good news, the money to keep the library open is in place. From the article, Library Director Felicia Oti said she is relieved the historical library is going to be available for residents. Oti said she has been swamped with calls from local and nationwide media, a focus she said was premature and unnecessary. The silver lining was the amount of support she received from community members after the news of the closing broke. "I was surprised by all the media attention, but it was heartwarming to see the amount of support we received," Oti said. "People offered to raise money, to donate money...it just felt really nice to know that the community appreciates us."
Quote of the Day "It takes time to crawl the Web -- some sites can't take the load if we spider them more frequently. We want the whole Web. We need a way to only d/l the pages that have changed. robots.txt and proprietary databases frustrate this." -Craig Silverstein, Google's VP of Technology, when asked why Google "only" indexes 3 Billion Pages. (Source: Cory Doctrow's Notes from the Emerging Technology Conference) Thanks to T.C. for the tip. See Also: From Google: Why Some Material is Not in the Database See Also: Greg Notess's Explanation of Google's Page Count and Unindexed Pages Reminder: It's Not 'All' in One Place, Use More Than One Web Engine, Use Specialized Databases
Enterprise Search Source: News.Com "Corporations seek better search results" A look at the enterprise search market.
Professional Events OpenURL May 13, 2003 is OpenURL Day in New York City From the site, "This one-day meeting is organized by Center for Scholarly Communication at the Palmer School of Library and Information Science of Long Island University and NISO. Its aim is to introduce the library and publishing communities to the path-breaking concepts at the heart of the OpenURL and show you the tools that are facilitating a host of new library services and will undoubtedly lead to new business opportunities."
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Patents--United States--Statistics Source: Technology Review New, The 2002 TR Patent Scorecard The scorecard is an .xls file. Those of you who work with patents should find this a very useful resource.
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries and Librarians The May, 2003 Issue of Walt Crawford's Cites and Insights Newsletter is Now Available Sunday, April 27, 2003
Internet Source: MIT Technology Review "Net Scan Finds Like-Minded Users" From the article, "When you search for information on the Web, chances are you aren't alone, there are like-minded groups of users across the Web searching for the same sorts of things. Researchers from the University of Chicago have shown that is possible to identify these groups by analyzing browsing patterns, even in networks as far-flung as the Web." See Also: An Interview with the VP of R&D at Teoma. He explains how Teoma identifies 'communities' of similar web pages.
Web Search--Daypop A Comparison of Daypop and Google News A new posting on Daypop founder Dan Chan's blog is are a few interesting comments that Simon Waldman posted about how Daypop and Google handle listing (not searching) news stories. The comments come from a post on the Words of Waldman weblog a couple of months ago. "But the contrast between it [Google News] and Daypop couldn't be sharper. Google News homoegenises news. It removes the local and the quirky (the very thing that many media outlets are most proud of) and promotes the uniform and standard. Daypop tends to do exactly the opposite: it elevates the quirky (today's top story: Japanese Scientists develop invisible cloak), the contrary, the geeky, sexy and shocking." See Also: Daypop Top News Stories See Also: Daypop Top News Bursts Saturday, April 26, 2003
Library Portals Source: LITA New Web Portals Interest Group Opens "A website http://litaipig.ucr.edu/ has been created by the LITA Internet Portals Interest Group (LITA IPIG) to reflect its interests on the subject of library related portals of all types. Major sections of the site include: Mission Statement and Philosophy; Discussion; Calendar; Themes and Threads; Minutes; Governance and Procedural Matters; Officers and Members. Please check out our site and feel free to join the dialogue." See: Direct to LITA Internet Portals Interest Group
Libraries Source: Denver Post African-American Research Library Opens Today in Denver From the article, "Daddy Bruce Randolph, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are just some of the faces visitors will see when they walk into Denver's new African-American library on Saturday." See Also: Direct to the African American Research Library Web Site Friday, April 25, 2003
Internet Public Library Source: Detroit News Funding Problems for the Internet Public Library Some not so good news about one of the most well-known and respected library built directories, the Internet Public Library. In an article about funding problems at universities in Michigan you'll learn about serious funding problems that could cause the closure of the IPL. From the article, [The IPL] was funded with $150,000 in grants for the initial five years, but that money has run out, says Maurita Holland, director of academic outreach at the School of Information. The library gets 12 million hits a month and 1,000 e-mail reference questions a month, half of them from school children, she said. Since the grant money ran out, the library has been funded with general fund money, a source they will not be able to continue tapping. Other funding alternatives have fallen through. The library can't tax users or solicit revenue through advertising. "We have to be careful because we're an academic unit," Holland said. "We can't use Nike swooshes on our Web site. We have to be impartial." "We want to remain operational, but if we can't find the funding, our lights will go out." See Also: Direct to the Internet Public Library
Government Printing Office GPO Names Director of the Office of Electronic Information Dissemination Services (EIDS) From the announcement, "Public Printer of the United States Bruce R. James has announced that Richard G. (Ric) Davis, an 11-year veteran of the Government Printing Office (GPO) has been named director of the Office of Electronic Information Dissemination Services (EIDS) at GPO. As the director of EIDS, Davis is responsible for GPO Access."
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Libraries Source: CLIR Full-Text Report, Library Buildings and the Building of a Collaborative Research Collection at the Tri-College Library Consortium Abstract ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Scholarly Publishing Conference Program, Society for Scholarly Publishing 25th Annual Meeting The meeting is scheduled for the end of May in Baltimore.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) African-Americans Source: U.S. Census Full-Text Report, The Black Population in the United States: March 2002 Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Older Americans Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts, New, A New Fact and Stat Sheet About Older Americans -- Oceanography Source: NOAA New Web Site, NOAA's National Ocean Service Thursday, April 24, 2003
The Library of Congress Happy Birthday to The Library of Congress "On April 24, 1800, President John Adams approved the appropriation of $5,000 for the purchase of "such books as may be necessary for the use of congress." See Also: The State of the Library (2003)" (Recent Testimony By the Librarian of Congress Before Congress) See Also: Frequently Asked Questions About The Library of Congress See Also: Jefferson's Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress See Also: A Selection of Images
Web Resources of the Week Three choices this week. 1) National Geographic Society Publications Database This is a bibliographic database. It contains indexing (title, author, subject, date) for major National Geographic Society publications including National Geographic magazine back to 1888. -- 2) Ready for Printing, Country and Region Maps From National Geographic Black and white maps are delivered in either gif or pdf formats. You can select the level of details. The price is right, free! One more thing. NG also provides a page where you're able to download (free) updates to the National Geographic Atlas of the World (seventh edition). ---- and now for something completely different... 3) Using the Internet Movie Database for DVD Information Not only has the IMDB become a respected source for movie and tv info but it's also a great resource for DVD info. Of course you could first search for the movie and then find the link for DVD info. However, a "DVD only" interface is available for searching and browsing. Browse categories include, picture formats, subtitles, disc formats. Keyword searching and limiting (several options) is also available. Each entry contains complete technical info along with listing any additional features that the DVD offers. Of course, you can also use the IMDB's wonderful "Power Search" interface to find DVD's and all other material in the database.
Government Information--Ohio Source: The Plain-Dealer "Bill would limit information on state Web sites" I wonder if this is the start of a new trend? From the article, Looking for a state park to take the kids camping? Need information about an Ohio corporation? Want to know the sales tax rate applied in the state next door? Under a provision added to the House version of the state budget bill, such information would no longer exist on state Web sites - unless a legislative committee gives the go-ahead. Supporters see it as a way to keep government from unfairly competing with private businesses that profit by selling the same information. Opponents view it as the latest effort to curb access to government records." Note: "[The] proposal exempts the Ohio Supreme Court and the legislature. Court administrators said the provision could have prevented them from posting opinions on the court Web pages because the information is also available for a fee through services such as Lexis and WestLaw." Point of Information: Two large database vendors, LexisNexis and CAS, are based in Ohio. See Also: Full-Text of the Legislation - See Also: AALL (American Association of Law Libraries) Has Sent An E-Mail Message About This Legislation I've Posted the Full-Text To ResourceShelfPLUS -- See Also: The Cleveland Plain-Dealer Weighs In With an Editorial The editorial is titled, "Don't take public data private". It asks the question, "What anti-public measure is next? Going after libraries for lending books that currently sell in bookstores?"
Public Libraries Source: Tallahassee Democrat House OKs library filter bill Nancy Cook Laurer writes, "Libraries in Leon and other counties that don't have pornography filters would be required to install them under a bill that passed the House on Wednesday"..."I think we're in the right place. We've taken care of the constitutional issues," [Bill sponsor Bill] Baxley said. "And meanwhile, the technology to do this has only improved. It's gotten better and cheaper."..."The Department of State estimates it will cost $250,000 to install the filters. But Baxley says some vendors will work out deals with individual libraries where the first three years would be free." AND in OTHER NEWS...CANADA... "Library board told to reconsider Internet filtering" Ottawa's City Council doesn't like last week's decision.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Consumer Web Resources--Travel Source: Consumer WebWatch (Consumers Union) Full-Text Report, Booking Hotels Online: An In-Depth Examination of Leading Hotel Web Sites Summary ||| Full-Text Report A pdf version is also available. -- Health Information Source: European Union Full-Text Report, Europeans and the sources of information about health A report based on a recent EU survey. Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Horticulture--Webliography Source: ACRL News Full-Text, Horticulture: Sources for gardeners This webliography appears in the May, 2003 issue of ACRL News. It was written by Kathy Fescemyer, a life sciences librarian at Pennsylvania State University.
Library Catalogs Debut: New Melvyl Catalog from the California Digital Library Now Available From the announcement, "The catalog is based on the union catalog module of the ALEPH500 library automation system developed by Ex Libris and holds over 23 million records from 10 campuses of the UC system." Among the important new features in Melvyl-T: + More flexible search options, including phrase and proximity searching. + Browsing by major indexes including author, title, subject, and call number. + Expanded limiting and sorting of search results. + Display of foreign language materials using their native language characters, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, and Arabic. + Ability to return to previous searches and combine, review, or save them into a personal workspace See Also: Direct to the Melvyl-T Catalog
Web Directories and Search--FirstGov Source: FCN FirstGov to Begin Pilot Project With Local Government Info From the article, "Officials soon will start a pilot test to include local governments in the FirstGov portal."..."Earlier this year, GSA sent a call out to all local governments, working through GSA's Intergovernmental Solutions Office, outlining the possibilities and benefits of becoming part of FirstGov. The pilot will include about 50 local governments that volunteered for the test..." Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Web Search--Yahoo Yahoo, the Exclamation Point, and Shortcuts What am I talking about? I didn't mention this a few weeks ago when I wrote The ResourceShelf overview of the Yahoo relaunch. The exclamation point (!) can help make navigating around Yahoo's complex of resources much faster (and easier). As many of you know, Yahoo numerous specialty sites and services (e.g. mail) are accessible at many different urls. Also, several localized versions of Yahoo exist. Here's a complete list. Let's say you're using Yahoo and you want to move directly to one of these specialty sites. Simply type in the name, add an ! at the end, click search, and you'll be taken directly to the site. No results page to navigate, no extra clicking, nothing. So you want to quickly move from Yahoo.Com to the U.K. Yahoo? Enter Yahoo UK! into any Yahoo search box and away you go. Need to jump to the Yahoo map site. Simply enter maps! into any Yahoo search box. For those of you who have Yahoo E-Mail accounts, try mail!. One caveat. It appears that these using the ! to jump around the Yahoo site will only work at Yahoo.Com. See Also: A List of Yahoo Products and Services You Can Append Any Of These Sites With the !
Web Search--Google Google Makes Another Acquisition: Applied Semantics They acquired the company for its software in delivering advertising based on a web sites "aboutness". Interesting stuff. In their words: "Applied Semantics' products are based on its patented CIRCA technology, which understands, organizes, and extracts knowledge from websites and information repositories in a way that mimics human thought and enables more effective information retrieval. A key application of the CIRCA technology is Applied Semantics' AdSense product that enables web publishers to understand the key themes on web pages to deliver highly relevant and targeted advertisements." Some of you might remember the Oingo search engine. Oingo changed its name to Applied Semantics about two years ago. See Also: Learn More About Applied's AdSense Product See Also: Read an Interview with Jason Liebman, an Applied Semantics VP See Also: "Meaning-based information organization and retrieval" (Applied Semantics Patent, U.S. 6,453,315)
Controlled Vocabularies--MeSH Fast Fact: SARS and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Added As Descriptors in MeSH You can check out the scope notes and learn more about MeSH (Medical subject headings) and the MeSH browser. What is MeSH? "MeSH is the National Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary thesaurus. It consists of sets of terms naming descriptors in a hierarchical structure that permits searching at various levels of specificity." MeSH has over 29,000 descriptors.
Library Crisis Time for another selection of library budget crisis stories. Massachusetts..."Historic library could be shut down" (via Cape Cod Times) " One of the nation's oldest public libraries faces shutting its doors more than two centuries after it opened with a gift of 116 books from Benjamin Franklin." See Also: "Oldest Public Library In Country Faces Closure" (via WCVB) UPDATED 4/29 Good News! The Franklin Library Will Remain Open -- Quebec..."Quebec Library Funding in Doubt" (via School Library Journal) "A new government in Quebec may threaten $90.4 million in school library funds promised by Education Minister Sylvain Simard"..."School libraries here are a disaster," says Regine Horinstein, director of the Professional Librarian Association of Quebec. "Most schools don't have school libraries and they rarely have professional staff. They mostly rely on volunteers and parents." -- Pennsylvania..."Bookworms burning over library funding" (via The Philadelphia Inquirer) "After several years of steadily increasing appropriations, the proposed cuts in [Gov.] Rendell's budget would knock the state's library funding back to the mid-1990s. At that time, Pennsylvania dwelled in the national cellar for funding libraries."..."It's ironic that the librarians are the loudest voice in the entire debate," Glenn Miller, director of the Pennsylvania Library Association." I don't see what's ironic about it. You mean librarians (like any other group) can't be heard and heard at a loud volume? The important and valuable work Mr. Miller is doing shouldn't help reinforce stereotypes. -- Pennsylvania..."Local libraries caught in state financial pinch" (via The Evening Times) -- Texas (Houston)..."City gets budget cut proposals" (via Houston Chronicle) "Barbara Gubbin, the city's library director, said she also may have to close facilities to meet her target budget. She said the department could either close up to eight of the city's 36 branch libraries or would have to scale all branch libraries back by six hours to 40 hours a week, buy fewer books, CDs and videos and eliminate management positions." -- Ohio..."Libraries turn to taxpayers for help" (via The Plain Dealer) "Five library districts, the largest of them Cleveland Public, say they need more money to meet rising costs and growing demands of their information-hungry patrons." -- Ohio..."Hamilton County Library Now Considering Endowment" (via WCPO.Com) "The Tri-state's biggest public library is considering the same concept that colleges use to give them steady funding over time. They are considering creating endowments and foundations to provide funding." --- California..."Facing Tough Times, A Rural Public Library Looks To Online Commerce" (Auction Bytes) "We have a clear choice in this economy - cut back or fight back," says library director Marie Bryan. "We're fighting. We got a grant to cover the costs of setting up Shop for the Library, and now all proceeds we raise will go to support services to the public." See Also: It's Not Just a Rural Issue In California (via LJ)
Quote of the Day Mary Ellen Davis, Executive Director of ACRL, said at the ACRL Annual Conference: "Our communities do not always see us [information professionals] as educated professionals who play an active role in the academic community," she said. "We must be proactive in telling users about this value." (Source: Library Journal). This comment is also on target for all information professionals. However, the challenge is much more difficult than simply telling people what we can do. We need to demonstrate our skills and the resources we have access to and explain how they can be valuable to the end user.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Watergate Full-Text Report, Who Was Deep Throat? The research included in the final report made a bit of news last year while the investigation was underway at the University of Illinois. Today, the final report and the naming of the person who the journalism students and professor believe to be Deep Throat was released. The complete investigation took four years. Plenty of background material. -- Space Program Source: Congressional Research Service Full-Text, Just Updated, U.S. Space Programs: Civilian, Military, and Commercial 18 pages .pdf -- Highways--United States Source: NHTSA 1) New, Full-Text Report: Pedestrian Roadway Fatalities Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text Summary also includes a few rankings of results by state and city. 2) New, Preliminary Estimates Of 2002 Highway Fatalities Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text
Industry News Briefs Bowker...Launch of Web-Based Spanish Books in Print "Locate Spanish language materials published in the U.S., Spain and Mexico that are carried by U.S.-based suppliers." Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Digital Object Identifiers National Libraries "National Libraries Join International DOI Foundation" From the article, "The International DOI Foundation (IDF) announces that an informal consortium of three major national libraries -- The British Library (UK), Die Deutsche Bibliothek (Germany) and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (The Netherlands) -- has joined the International DOI Foundation." Thanks to Noteworthy for the news tip.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Two items from OCLC. Internet2 Internet2 and the Library Community An OCLC Distinguished Seminar by Jane Ryland. From the abstract, "Jane Ryland is a member of the OCLC Board of Trustees and Membership Consultant for the Internet2 consortium. Her presentation will discuss the power and potential of Internet2, focusing on new activities currently underway. Jane will address the aspects of Internet2 of greatest interest to both OCLC and the library community. The Internet2 consortium is comprised of more than 200 universities. Direct to Audio ||| Powerpoint Slides See Also: Learn More About Internet2 -- Digitization Projects New Directory, Digitization & Preservation Online Resource Center Materials includes a copyright guide, digitization pathfinders, an excel spreadsheet with a list of 200 potential sources of funding, and more.
Online Dictionaries More Online Dictionary News Thanks to R.A. for sharing some info about the AllTheWeb and Google dictionary feature. Although both engines offer similar tools results may vary. As many of you know most search terms at Google and now at AllTheWeb are hyperlinked to a dictionary definition (American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed.) via Dictionary.Com. For those of you who haven't used this feature take a look at your search terms at the top of the page, in the blue bar. Here are examples from AllTheWeb and Google. -- R.A. points out that some of the words added to the 4th ed. of the AHD are not hyperlinked via Google. Two examples. The word "shoah" and the word "e-tailer". Compare to AllTheWeb (shoah, e-tailer). A Google spokesperson told us that they're aware of the problem and working to update the database. An issue for search geeks. Sure. But it's also an example of how access to what appears to be the same database could yield different results. -- Finally, the new Yahoo and Ask Jeeves also have dictionary features. Your search should be structured define -- See Also: A Recent Post About Using Online Dictionaries to Listening to Word Pronunciations
Web Search--AllTheWeb It's Official, AllTheWeb is Now Part of Overture The deal closed today. I remain both positive about ATW and optimistic about Overture's acquisition of the engine as a good thing for the web searcher. As of today, ATW is a top-level web search resource. We can only hope that the refinements and improvements continue. In the next few week's I plan on posting an interview with Overture's VP of Technology, Gary Flake. Stay tuned. One more thing. FAST Search and Transfer remains as a major player in the enterprise search world. You'll continue to see coverage of FS&T on ResourceShelf. Today, they launched a new home page. See Also: AllTheWeb Adds New Features (3/16/03) See Also: AllTheWeb Online With New Look and Layout (3/3/03) See Also: The ResourceShelf from 2/25/03 Announcing the Acquisition
Professional Organizations--SCIP (Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals) A Redesigned SCIP Web Site is Now Online If you don't belong to this group but have an interest in CI (competitive intelligence), you might want to learn more about SCIP. A great deal of material on the site is restricted to member access. However, some content is accessible to non-members. For example, you can read sample articles from SCIP's fortnightly newsletter, and read the abstracts of popular articles from Competitive Intelligence magazine. You can also acccess a 14 page overview article, CI statistics, a searchable database of CI services and products, and more.
Enterprise Search Source: Computerworld "Enterprises Widen the Search Net" A look at what a few companies are doing for enterprise search. Several of the major players are mentioned.
Industry News Briefs Dynix...Groxis Info Visualization Tool Being Made Available with Horizon Information Portal (This 10/2002 ResourceShelf Post has more info about Groxis.) -- ProQuest...New Senior Management Appointed Monday, April 21, 2003
ERIC Source: Information Today "ERIC Continues But Without Clearinghouses" Barbara Quint has written an article about the possible elimination/reduction? in funding for ERIC's non-database services. These services include ERIC Clearinghouses and ERIC Digests. From the article, "Specifications for the new contract omit requirements to support most of the customer services conducted by the clearinghouses, including the production of the popular digests, toll-free phone assistance, and the 6-million-hits-a-week AskERIC service. The clearinghouses and their supporters have started a campaign to revise the draft SOW, but the date set for receiving public comments ends on May 9. (Comments go to Jeff Halsted, 202/708-8283, 202/708-9817 fax, Jeff.C.Halsted@ed.gov.)" See Also: ResourceShelf's 4/14/03 Post
Quote of the Day “Finding something on the Web right now is a skill, kind of an art form. I'd like the computer equivalent of reference librarians.” --Eric Bina, An Originial Programmer of Mosaic. (Source: News-Gazette, Champaign, IL, 4/20/03)
First Posted 12:00am 4/20/03 Web Search--Ask Jeeves A New Look, Features at Ask Jeeves + A new, sleeker look to the home page. No more tabs, one search box. + A NEW image database. Note: The Image Database is Provided by Picsearch. + A Seach using the Expression "Pictures Of" + Browse by Subject, no longer available + News database remains, no improvement )-: + Product Search, still available + A direct link to the most popular searches page (JeevesIQ) --- Results Pages + Bolding of Search Terms + Some results have "useful direct links" at the top of the page. For example, a search for "Chicago Cubs" provides direct links to team resources (stats, schedules, etc.). A search for science projects provides several options at the top of the page labeled as "science fair resources". + Some queries still offer the "traditional" Jeeves preformatted questions. For example, a search for airlines asks, "Where can I find an airline's 800 number?" Ask.Com calls this "Clarification Tools". + Smart Answers: For example, type in Zip 02134 and Receive a Direct Link to a Zip Code Database. Driving Directions + Result pages continue to provide "related searches". These terms can be selected an run as a new search. This is unlike Teoma's refine feature that appends terms to the previous search. The "Related Pages" feature uses DirectHit technology. + Spell Check (When Needed) --- Remember The Ask.Com database of web page results uses the same database as Teoma. -- It's nice to see Jeeves continuing to improve. Nevertheless, I still prefer the layout and the very useful and improving "refine" and "resources" sections at Teoma. However, for simple searches and novice searchers, the improvements at Jeeves are more than welcomed. -- See Also: You'll find a few comments from Ask Jeeves execs in the Washington Post. See Also: Official Overview from Jeeves
Web Search--OpenFind "Reconstruction" at OpenFind This engine from Taiwan that received a bit of attention about 8 months ago remains online but searches can no longer be run on it. A message on the home page reads, "Under Reconstruction". We will continue to monitor. Here's Greg Notess's review of what OpenFind offered when it was first released. Sunday, April 20, 2003
Public Libraries Source: USA Today "Public libraries need the public's support" A freelance writer shares her thoughts in this op-ed piece. No arguments here on her conclusions. However, in this day and age librarians, independent of type, and library supporters need to work together and not only tell people that public libraries are important, useful, and necessary but demonstrate WHAT the library and librarian can do for them in terms of resources, opportunities, and education not only at the physical building but also remotely. Perhaps the most important thing we should be identifying and illustrating are the skills and talents that the info professional can offer the patron, student, businessperson, anyone. These days, a billboard or poster saying, "visit your library" doesn't mean a great deal to most people especially those who haven't visited or thought about a library in many years. Can't all information be accessed by entering 2.1 words into ones favorite web engine? The type of and marketing ALL libraries need is "word of mouth". Yes, it's the most difficult type to get but the most rewarding type to achieve. This can only come about by getting "in the faces" (politely of course) of both current patrons and the masses of people who have NO CLUE of what's available to them. We then need to demonstrate our knowledge, skills, abilities, and tools in a way that's meaningful and useful to them.
Professional Reading Shelf Information Retrieval Full-Text Papers: Best Practices and Future Visions for Search UIs: A Workshop These papers were presented about 2 weeks ago at a workshop during the Conference on Human Factors in Computing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Titles: Search Log Analysis as a Usability Engineering Tool Finding the Right Stuff Interface Techniques for Making Searching for Information More Effective Using Categories to Improve Search A Search User Interface in a Digital Library Application Utilizing a users context to improve search results Best Practices and Future Visions for Search User Interfaces Changing the Pace of Search: Supporting "Background" Information Seeking "I'm Feeling Lucky": the Role of Emotions in Seeking Information on the Web Search Histories for User Support In User Interfaces Search Without Keywords Search in the Web Shopping Environment Search Query Spellchecking Reconciling Information-Seeking Behavior with Search User Interfaces for the Web Dynamic taxonomies and guided searches Evidence-Based Practice in Search Interface Design Predicting Where a Web User Wants to Go Thanks to C.L. for letting us know about these interesting papers.
Web Search--Daypop New Search Limits Coming to Daypop Dan Chan informs the world, via his weblog, about some new limits that will soon be available via the Daypop search engine. You'll soon be able to limit your search direct from the search box to: * News & Weblogs * News * Weblogs * RSS News & Weblogs * RSS News * RSS Weblogs Saturday, April 19, 2003
State Libraries Source: Governing "Friends of the Library" A look at the Florida situation in a non-library publication. From the article, "Librarians and budget writers have learned two important lessons during the current period of state fiscal austerity. One is that state library services are increasingly endangered. The other is that these low-profile public institutions have more passionate defenders than almost anyone realized."
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Scholarly Publishing Source: SPARC/European Science Foundation Full-Text, Open Access: Restoring Scientific Communication to Its Rightful Owners, Policy Briefing Emerging from two OAI workshops, co-sponsored by SPARC, held in Geneva, Switzerland October 2002. -- Digital Archives--Denmark Full-Text, Final Report for The Pilot Project “netarkivet.dk From the site, "The present report by the group behind the ”netarkivet.dk” project describes the experience gained from a pilot study, in which existing software was used to harvest and subsequently test out materials relating to the County and District elections of 2001. The pilot study showed that a great deal of material could be harvested in this way, but also that much of the interactive use of the net cannot be caught by ordinary methods. The pilot project also offers an indication of the financing needed if Denmark is to safeguard an important part of its cultural heritage. Estimates are given both for the archiving of this heritage under present conditions, where the work is carried out on the basis of voluntary agreements, and on the assumption that the law on legal deposit of material may be changed, making it legal for institutions receiving statutory deliveries to acquire online materials." Thanks to Library Link for the news tip. Friday, April 18, 2003
Web Search--Microsoft "Search is on for a better search" A discussion of a few of the search related projects underway at Microsoft. From the article, Scientists in the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant’s labs are experimenting with new types of search and user interface technology that will let individuals and businesses tap into the vast amounts of data on the Internet, or inside their own computers, that increasingly will be impractical or impossible to find." See Also: 3 Weeks Ago I Compiled a Selection of Papers About Search From Microsoft Research (Posted on ResourceShelfPLUS) Also Includes Microsoft "Search" Patents See Also: Even More via this 3/2/03 ResourceShelf Post
Taxonomies Gale's Taxonomy Now Available for License or Sale From the announcement, "Gale has partnered with Synapse, the Knowledge Link Corporation, to offer an extensive range of Gale's professional taxonomies for license or sale through Synapse's Taxonomy Warehouse (www.taxonomywarehouse.com)...Gale's 70,000-node subject taxonomy may be licensed or purchased in its entirety or in smaller, more specific domains such as accounting, anatomy, banking, law, computing, electronics and nearly 50 others. Updated continuously, Gale taxonomies are available independently or delivered pre-packaged in the Synaptica thesaurus management software application. Access to the directory is free. Thanks to Noteworthy for the news tip.
Libraries Source: The Moscow Times "New U.S.-Russian Bilingual Library Goes Online" From th article, "[Librarian of Congress James] Billington also signed an agreement Monday with the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Kunstkamera museum to launch a bilingual, online Russian-American library..."The web site will include more than 100,000 maps and documents taken from 12 different libraries and museums in Russian and the United States."
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Internet Usage--United States Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Full-Text Report, The Ever-Shifting Internet Population: A new look at Internet access and the digital divide See Also: Article About the Report from The New York Times -- Handguns--United States Source: BJS Survey of State Procedures Related to Firearm Sales, Midyear 2002 -- Demographics--United States--List & Rankings Source: U.S. Census New, Fastest Growing Counties in the U.S./Largest Counties in the U.S. -- Asian Pacific Americans--Fast Facts Source: U.S. Census New, Fast Fact Report About the Asian Pacific American Population Thursday, April 17, 2003
Web Resource of the Week SearchTools I could spend a sizable chunk of time writing about how wonderful this resource is and only scratch the surface. So, I’ll keep my words to a minimum so you’ll have plenty of time to discover this interesting, useful, and educational resource. This is one resource that many of you will be reading and using on a regular basis -- SearchTools was created and is still maintained by well-known search consultant and information professional Avi Rappoport. This site is one of the most educational resources about search technology that I know of. Access is free. -- Who will find the site useful? Everyone interested in search. I’m often asked where can one learn about search software. This is it! So, you might think that this site will be of interest to only people in the market to purchase search software for their enterprise/intranet/etc. Wrong! SearchTools is very useful and highly educational resource for any person interested in learning how search software works, what’s popular, the future, etc. -- The list and links to search software vendors is amazing. Each entry contains a quick list of features, links to articles about the product, links to installations (if publicly available). -- A Few Favorite Pages and Sections * Glossary of Search Related Terms * Special Reports on a Variety of Search Topics (see list at bottom of page) * A Guide to Selecting the Right Tool * An Informative Page About Indexing and Web Spiders -- Even if you’re not in the market to by search software and hardware SearchTools.Com will provide you with large amounts of valuable knowledge that you can apply in a variety of areas. In many cases, this type of knowledge can also make you a better searcher. This is a site you'll want to share with others. Thanks to Avi for providing such a great site.
American Library Association Jacsó on the New ALA Site: "AW, Look What They’ve Done to Our Links, Ma" Reference guru, writer, and library school professor Dr. Péter Jacsó offers numerous comments and insights about the ALA web site mess in this comprehensive review. He writes, "I presume someone will write a very scholarly article about AW (which may get published as early as 2004), but as a die-hard educator, I would like to show you a little broader and deeper panorama with many illustrative screenshots about the new AW right now as you experience it, and also to tell you what was I thinking about AW and the overall digital attitude of ALA. Maybe, it can be used as a backgrounder for creating those boilerplate petitions for members, to lobby ALA to reconsider AW and its digital strategy."
Libraries Source: The Harvard Crimson "Retired Librarian Mourns Decline of Libraries" From the article, To speak of the decline of libraries today seems odd,” said Kenneth E. Carpenter, former Assistant Director for Research Resources in the Harvard Library. “More information is available more readily than ever before. But ask scholars or librarians, and the response has generally been lament...One of the greatest signs of recent decline in the library, according to Carpenter, is the popularity of “access by ownership,” which has allowed libraries short on funding to justify small or static permanent collections by claiming access to a larger collection through sharing with other libraries. “Libraries are retreating back into a sameness of acquisition, justified by the ideal of “sharing” which sounds like commonality, but limits access,” said Carpenter. See Also: Ken Carpenter's Bio
Web Search Source: Wired "Building a Bigger Search Engine" Interesting idea but for a web-wide engine I agree 100% with Danny Sullivan when he says, "Most worrying, he said, would be the ability to hack the system in order to promote certain sites. "I have more faith in companies that control their own crawl and index, than I do in approaches that ask people to submit their own data." Also, this article states, "One of the reasons Google is popular is because it analyzes links between pages, a strategy that maximizes the relevancy of the results returned to any given search." True, BUT just about every other major engine uses this technique to assist in determining relevancy. Actually, Google and the others use what is commonly referred to as "link analysis" (Google calls it PageRank). Additionally, link analysis is just one of many measures that the web engines use to determine how pages are listed on a results page. Other measures include words in the page title, keyword density, bolding of terms, proximity of terms, etc. As we've mentioned many times this Scientific American article from 1999 does a good job of explaining this topic. One More thing: Google is often credited with "inventing" link analysis. Yes, they were the first major engine to utilize it but Jon Kleinberg and IBM's CLEVER project developed the concept.
Homeland Security--United States Source: FCW "Digital Homeland Library Readied" From the article, "The Naval Postgraduate School plans to launch a digital library by June, offering up research on homeland security issues. The library will be open to students at the school, employees of the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, and likely other federal agencies as well, said Lillian Gassie, head of technical services and systems at the Naval Postgraduate School Dudley Knox Library." The article also includes a lis of "some of the tools that the school used to build the library under a tight budget." * MAIstro from Data Harmony Inc., to create and manage the taxonomy and perform automated indexing; * Sirsi Rooms from Sirsi Corp., to build and organize the portal; and * Scout Portal Toolkit open-source software from the University of Wisconsin, to build a digital library.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Online Dictionaries Fast Fact: Access to Online Audio Pronunciation Services From Online Dictionary Sites LII founder Carole Leita alerted us to the following fact about Dictionary.Com. If you access the direct links to search term definitions from Dictionary.Com (they license content from the American Heritage Dictionary) via AllTheWeb or Google you'll need to have a subscription (fee-based) to use Dictionary.Com's audio pronunciation feature. However, if you use Bartleby's dictionary (American Heritage) or visit Merriam-Webster, the audio pronunciations are free. -- Nutrition--Database USDA Now Offering Nutrition Database For Download to PC's It's also available for PDA's and directly searchable on the web. "The information lists up to 117 nutrients for more than 6,000 food items. Each item can be found in any one of 22 food-group categories. The PC-download capability is available on the USDA web site today. After an initial download and installation, the database can be accessed from the computer's hard drive. The PC application expands the accessibility of the database to more users and includes an option to search the entire database at once, or more narrowly by specified food groups. A portion modifier option is also included. For example, after clicking on carrots, raw, the user can choose from a variety of standard portion sizes. But if the user would prefer to increase or decrease the amounts, portions can be customized to suit individual needs. The search term “not” is also featured, which allows users to screen out unwanted foods by designating, for example, “carrots not raw.” See Also: Direct to Download Page See Also: Search Database on the Web See Also: Additional Info and Background -- Government of Canada--History--Database Source: National Archives of Canada New: Cabinet Conclusions Database "This research tool provides access to the Cabinet Conclusions which summarize the discussions that took place at the meetings of the Federal Cabinet." Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Web Search--AllTheWeb AllTheWeb Adds New Features More new cool and interesting stuff from the ATW folks. 1) AlltheWeb now has a dictionary definitions associated with your search term(s). Content comes from Dictionary.Com. They license material from American Heritage. You'll find a hyperlink for each term next to the page total estimate. -- 2) For those of you who prefer keyboard shortcuts to move around the site. ATW now makes them available. You can learn what they are on this page. -- 3) For those of you who like to see what other people are searching for, ATW now offers you a chance to take a peek at the last 10 queries. You can easily refresh the page to see the latest.
Web Search--Google Source: Montreal Gazette The ResourceShelf is Noted in The Montreal Gazette Thanks to Andy Riga from the paper for including a couple of quotes from this weblog/e-letter.
Public Libraries--Canada Source: The Ottawa Citizen "Library to keep computers free of porn filters" From the article, "The board of the Ottawa Public Library voted last night against heightened anti-pornography filtration on library computers. By a seven-to-four margin, the board voted to maintain the library's current policy of using filters on most of the child-dedicated machines, but to leave the great majority of the library's 280 Internet-access machines filter-free." UPDATED: An Editorial in The Ottawa Citizen about the Decision
The Internet Archive A New Project from The Internet Archive A bit of news from Brewster Kahle and the rest of the IA team in San Francisco. The following is reposted with the permission of the IA. Working with WorldlinkTV, the Internet Archive is archiving and providing non-commercial access to a TV program that is of timely interest. Mosaic selects, translates, and repackages news programs from the Middle East for a western audience. It is fascinating. Tthey don't have al Jazeera, unfortunately. Brewster adds, "I find this interesting because it can show a role for Internet libraries helping people understand the world based on current information (rather than solely older background material). You could always go to the library to get the world's daily newspapers, now our challenge is to do that for the world's tv news reports." See Also: Direct to the Internet Archive Home Page See Also: Direct to The Wayback Machine (Another IA Project)
Professional Reading Shelf The April 2003 Issue of D-LIB is Online Articles include: + "Trends in the Evolution of the Public Web: 1998 - 2002" by Edward T. O'Neill, Brian F. Lavoie, and Rick Bennett, OCLC Office of Research + "State of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, April 2003" by Makx Dekkers, DCMI, and Stuart Weibel, OCLC Office of Research + "How Many People Search the ERIC Database Each Day?" by Lawrence M. Rudner, University of Maryland, College Park -- National Libraries--Canada Full-Text, Report on Plans and Priorities (2003-2004)
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Imperial War Museum--United Kingdom--Databases Imprerial War Museum Launches Collection of Online Databases From the site, "For the first time you can access our catalogues on our website. If you want to browse there are short essays on major historical themes which lead you to selected highlights from all the collections. We hold objects and works of art, a library, plus archives of documents, film, photographs and sound. The online catalogue offers a great deal of information but is not complete." See Also: Additional Background (via Web User) Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Information Industry--ProQuest ProQuest Complete Digitization of Christian Science Monitor Archive An image (in pdf form) of every page from every issue from 1908-1990. Full-text searchable. From the announcement, "More than 800,000 pages of articles comprise the newly digitized archive and ProQuest will add a year of coverage every year...The Monitor is the latest famous masthead to be added to the ProQuest Historical Newspapers program. It joins The New York Times (1851-1999), The Wall Street Journal (1889-1985), and The Washington Post (1877-1987) in the exclusive database for educational institutions and libraries around the world. Other titles in the ProQuest Historical Newspapers collection will soon include The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times." This is a fee-based database.
Libraries White House Launches A Virtual Library Laura Bush says, "But books, information and computers alone do not make libraries great - librarians do. Your job is an important one. Many offices within the White House rely on the research and information that you provide. By collecting, cataloging and sharing this information, you bring the library to life for White House employees...Today, using technology to deliver the services you provide is critical. Libraries continue to lead the way in information gathering and sharing services. The Internet is a valuable research tool that provides access to limitless information. But the Internet's greatness is dependent upon everyone being able to use it effectively. The new EOP [Executive Office of the President] virtual library will enable patrons to access information on the Internet readily and easily. Websites and articles will be organized by subject and will save patrons time searching for information."
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Preservation Source: OCLC Full-Text, The Incentives to Preserve Digital Materials: Roles, Scenarios, and Economic Decision-Making A new paper from Brian Lavoie at OCLC. 51 pages .pdf
Enterprise Search Source: Datamation "Enterprise Search Engine Technology Strikes Gold" From the article, "Enterprise Search Engines perform much the same function as Internet search engines, but targeted to the needs of a particular group of people rather than the broad public. While the exact feature set and methodology varies among different vendors, they perform three main functions: discovery, categorization and search." See Also: Learn Much More About Enterprise Search and Related Issues via SearchTools.Com (a GREAT Site)
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) War in Iraq Source: Congressional Research Service 1) Iraq: U.S. Regime Change Efforts and Post-War Iraq 24 pages .pdf 2) Iraq: Recent Developments in Humanitarian and Reconstruction Assistance -- Exports--United States--Database Source: Export.Gov Export Statistics Express Make sure read the introduction including this page of technical notes with several caveats. -- Small Business--United States Source: SBA Updated, Full-Text, Small Business By the Numbers: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Plenty of fast facts about small business in the U.S.
bInformation Industry--EBSCO Source: LJ "EBSCO Pays $7 Million for Rowecom" From the article, "The purchase of RoweCom, the subscription business of the failed divine, inc., by EBSCO Industries, went through last week for $7.05 million--but it will end up a lesser figure, depending on how many publishers and library customers agree to participate in the deal." See Also: Here's the Official Announcement from EBSCO
Industry Briefs Dialog...Content from Wire Service EFE Added to NewsRoom Database EFE is based in Spain. The content will be a Spanish language feed. Monday, April 14, 2003
ERIC Spread the Word, A Large Chunk ERIC's Funding May Disappear "I've been given permission from the author of the following message to repost it on ResourceShelf. The message was first sent to a school library media specialist listserv. I think it's time for all of us who use some/all of ERIC's services to make sure our comments make it to the right people." -- ++Posted With Permission++ ERIC and AskERIC need your support more now than at any other time. On April 11, the Statement of Work for the next ERIC contract was posted. There is NO mention anywhere of AskERIC, user services, publications, or even the 16 different subject specific clearinghouses. This contract would consolidate ERIC into one facility that would maintain the database only. All comments on this Draft Statement of Work are due to Jeff Halsted via e-mail: Jeff.C.Halsted@ed.gov by May 9, 2003, 4:00 PM EST. PLEASE take time in the next week to send an email with your comments. You may want to browse around the AskERIC site to get an idea of what will be missing, including hosting listservs such as LM_NET [a listserv for library media professionals]. The various subject specific clearinghouses are listed here. The Clearinghouse on Information & Technology
Professional Reading Shelf Source: Emerald This Week Only: FREE Full-Text Access to the Records Management Journal Emerald is providing full-text access beginning with Vol. 8 (1998). Titles of a Few Articles: "Metadata, controlled vocabulary and directories: electronic document management and standards for records management" (Vol. 13.1, 2003) "Future proof: ensuring the long-term accessibility of technology-dependent records" (Vol. 12.3, 2002) "Managing e-mail and e-commerce records" (Vol. 12.3, 2002) "Much ado about metadata" (Vol. 12.1, 2002)
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Arts--United States New, Cultural Policy & the Arts National Data Archive From an announcement, "The Princeton University Library and Princeton University’s Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies today announced the official launch of CPANDA (the Cultural Policy & the Arts National Data Archive), the world’s first fully interactive, Web-accessible digital archive of policy-relevant data on culture and the arts. The CPANDA initiative is designed to help policymakers, journalists, scholars and others gain easy access both to current research findings and to previously hard-to-find data on the arts, including public opinion on the arts, city-specific data and recently released statistics." See Also: Quick Facts About the Arts "...an overview of the information currently available in each of our four research areas: artists, audiences, organizations, and support for the arts. Within each research area, we provide basic statistical data and graphics and a brief analysis addressing frequently asked questions." -- Business--United States--List & Rankings Source: Fortune.Com Now Available: 5th Annual Best Companies for Minorities -- Baseball--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes 2003 Baseball Team Valuations -- Taxes--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts: Tax Time A new fact sheet from the U.S. Census with stats about taxes from the federal and state governments. -- Internal Revenue Service Source: TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse) Now Available: 8th Edition of TRAC's Annual Online Report "Enforcement actions and staff of the Internal Revenue Service. -- Weapons of Mass Destruction Source: CIA Full-Text: Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions 1 January Through 30 June 2002
Info Industry Briefs (4 Items) Elsevier...Science Direct Licensed to Many Canadian Universities --- Gale...A Brief Article About the Company Published in the Detroit News --- Bowker...Books in Print Now Z39.50 Compliant --- EBSCO/H.W. Wilson...More Wilson Databases Coming to EBSCOHost (via ManagingInformation.Com Sunday, April 13, 2003
Web Search--Google Source: The New York Times "In Searching the Web, Google Finds Riches" A good overview of the web search world in the Google age by John Markoff and G. Pascal Zachary. From the article, "Google's newfound power as arbiter of much of the world's digital information, meanwhile, is posing concerns about privacy and fairness, not only from competitors but also from social policy experts and even librarians. Some worry that the company may have become too central in an age when so much vital information is available online." I had the chance of chatting with the NY Times as they were doing background for the article. I told them that Google has done a great deal for web search including helping to improve the other search tools better. I also noted what I mention here on a regular basis, Google is not the solution to all of the world's information problems. The challenge, especially for information professionals, is to be aware of and make use of other resources, both general web engines as well as specialized web resources. It's also essential that we illustrate to patrons, teachers, and anyone who will listen that traditional library resources (and our skills) are still vital. ---- A few weeks ago, in a review of Gurunet, Walt Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal, noted a few of the many limitations that Google (and other web engines) pose. It's one of the few times I can remember the words Google and limitations in the same sentence. Mossberg writes: + "But as brilliant as Google is, this process has several limitations. First of all, in most cases Google doesn't actually provide you an answer, just a list of links to Web pages where information might be found. So getting the exact information you want requires more steps: You have to browse through the links Google offers, pick out one that looks good, then go to it and look for the relevant material." + "Second, you're doing all this in a general, undifferentiated piece of software called a Web browser that isn't designed to help you drill down into information." + "Third, neither the browser nor Google gives you a good sense of the credibility of the sources that turn up, just their popularity." ----- The three limitations Mossberg mentions illustrate that the skills, services, and tools (Books still matter!) an info professional can offer are still important, vital, and useful. At the same time it shows that the "power searching" abilities we have (should have) with resources like Google, AlltheWeb, Teoma, AltaVista, and others give us a chance to not only help the average searcher improve his or her web search skills (the info pro as educator) but also give us a calling card to demonstrate the non-Google resources and skills we can share with them. ----- Google is a tool not a public utility and not a monopoly. If you don't like it don't use it. Actually, even if you do like it check results elsewhere. Additionally, have specialized search databases directly linked to your web pages and bookmark files. Take advantage of the additional search power and usability that these tools offer. If you're libraryphobic and do want to go to the building are you aware of the remotely accessible tools available to you? Do you know that many libraries offer question answering services (like Google Answers) for free? Did you forget that in many cases you could get help via the telephone? ----- The final quote in the NY Times article is very interesting. "Even though Google is shining, it's still hard to say it is a sure bet 10 years out," said Mr. Zander, the former president of Sun. "Google has done a heck of a job dominating a category. Now it has to watch the hype factor." I agree. What Google has done better than just about any other company I can think of is harness the massive power of viral marketing and back it up with excellent public and media relations. --------- One More Article The Times has another article about Google today. This one focuses on the Google phone lookup service. Yes, Google lets you remove your name and number but it seems that people forget that other phone directories exist. Removing your number from Google does nothing in terms of security. If someone wants your number/address they can get it elsewhere. I also think it's funny that the masses are just discovering the phone directory. It's been available for a couple of years. Finally this quote, " it has long been possible to visit a local library to find similar information." Of course, the author doesn't realize or mention that many libraries license phone directories for remote access by patrons. Saturday, April 12, 2003
Web Search--Yahoo The "New" Yahoo Preview is Over: New Features Live Yahoo announced a "new" Yahoo search last Monday. The home page invited you to "preview" the new features. ResourceShelf posted a few points and links about the new Yahoo. Well, it's not "new" anymore. The features are now visible on all result pages. Finally, The "preview" page was wonderful because the page was easy to navigate, clean, and ad-free. Good news! You can still access this page by heading to http://search.yahoo.com. You can also still go DIRECTLY to the Yahoo Directory (what made Yahoo famous) by using the http://dir.yahoo.com url. See Also: Yahoo Product Search Remains in Beta See Also: Are You Aware of the Yahoo News Search Syntax? You can limit by author and dateline. A wildcard is also available. Friday, April 11, 2003
Web Search--FirstGov New: Vivisimo's Clustering When You Search FirstGov Although it's been available for a couple of years, if you knew where to find it on the Vivisimo site, the company has created an easy to find an use interface to take advantage of Vivisimo's clustering technology when running searches for government (Federal and State) material from FirstGov. The intereface also allows you to limit your search to only federal material, state material, or both. You can also limit your search to material from a specific state. It's also worth noting that you also can take advantage of Vivisimo's page "preview" feature. To use it, click the preview link next to each result. Doing this will allow you to open a LIVE version of the page directly embedded into the list of results. Here's the official news release. See Also: Direct to Vivisimo's FirstGov Search Interface
The Internet Archive Source: Newsday The Wayback Machine Discussed in NY Trial In a trial to determine who used a term first, Playboy Inc. stated they use The Wayback Machine to find material. The most ridiculous statement was made by an expert witness for the defense. From the article, "Defense witness Vincent Head derided the Wayback Machine archive, saying it was a "joke site, done by some college kids ... it is not a valid site." Who is Mr. Head? I have know idea but he is no expert. He is 100% wrong. You can read about the history and get more background here. Plus, the founder of Wayback is a legend in online information retrieval Brewster Kahle. It's a service of Alexa Internet and The Internet Archive. Wayback also gets support and assistance from the Library of Congress, Xerox, NSF, and others. Thanks to TVC Alert for the news. See Also: "Despite government efforts, the Web never forgets" (11/27/2001 via Newsday.Com)
Professional Reading Shelf Classification Source: DM Review Full-Text, "Automatic Classification: Moving to the Mainstream" -- Open Access Publishing Source: Journal of Digital Information Full-Text, "Scholarly Associations and the Economic Viability of Open Access Publishing"
Web Browsers A New Release (7.10) of Opera Available for Windows, New Features Included! All of you browser "geeks" might like to know that the folks in Norway have included a few new features in the release. I'm looking forward to trying them out. What's New? * "Notes" Attach them to any web page. Easily share them with others and/or store them for use at another time. * Fast Forward and Rewind Buttons "Let the browser anticipate where you may want to go next" * Slide Show "The FastForward button displays photo files on the Web in a slideshow." * Cookie Manager Btw, Opera also unveiled 7.10 (Beta) for Linux today. Even if you're not a browser geek, give Opera a try. (it's free). A wonderful tool.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Internet Fraud Source: The Internet Fraud Complaint Center IFCC 2002 Internet Fraud Report Summary ||| Full-Text -- Business--United States Source: U.S. Census Full-Text, 2001 County Business Patterns Summary/Fast Facts ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Armed Forces--United States--Statistics Veterans--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts: U.S. Armed Forces and Veterans A new compilation of facts and stats. Thursday, April 10, 2003
Web Resource of the Week Business Research Full-Text Content from The Information Advisor Bob Berkman is a well-known and highly respected information professional. In addition to speaking at many conferences, teaching and consulting, Bob is the author of a new book scheduled for release in the fall, The Skeptical Searcher: The Information Advisor's Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites and Sources (Information Today, 2003). That’s the intro, let’s get to the content. Berkman is also the editor of The Information Advisor, a fee-based print newsletter that’s home to business research news and strategy. I’m happy to report that we’ve made arrangements with Bob to feature excerpts from the IA on The ResourceShelf. The material will be available online (no charge) as Acrobat (pdf) files. We’ll begin the series (postings from time to time) with an article that features tools, tips, and resources (fee and free, print and electronic) for finding subsidiary information. I would like to thank Bob for allowing The ResourceShelf to provide this valuable content. If you have any questions about the article or The Information Advisor you can contact Bob at RBerkman@aol.com. - Direct to the full-text article, "Digging for Data on Subsidiaries".
Information Industry--Nexceprt (Fee-Based Product) Source: Searcher "Another Killer Product" Librarian, editor, writer, and industry pundit Barbara Quint has some very positive things to say about Nexcerpt. You might remember that ResourceShelf mentioned this new fee-based product on 2/5/03. Before you read B.Q.'s comments allow me to add a few of my own. Since early February I've been running a demo of the Nexcerpt service and I'm also impressed. How have I been using the service? Every morning at about 8am I receive an email informing me that Nexcerpt has just finished scanning several thousand open web news sources. I then head to the site and log-in. As it scans these sources, it's looking for hits on ten search queries I've created. These queries were developed ( I can tweak them whenever I want) to assist in finding content for The ResourceShelf and ResourceShelfPLUS. Speaking of tweaking Nexcerpt does a great job in giving you plenty of control as to the sources you want scanned, the design of the results page, and much more. I use many alert services but Nexcerpt consistently delivers content to me that I don't see elsewhere. Of course, Nexcerpt can be much more than an alerting service. It can easily take the content you find and quickly/easily publish the links and your comments/analysis about the material as a newsletter. The newsletter can then be uploaded to a server or sent via email to subscribers. If you have a need and a budget (Nexcerpt costs about $200/month) for this type of service you just might want to take a test drive of this product and determine if it meets your needs. See Also: Direct to the Nexcerpt Site
Reading Shelf Web Search--Google Source: Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School Full-Text Report, Empirical Analysis of Google SafeSearch Something from Google not perfect, say it isn't so. (-: From the abstract, "Google offers interested users a version of its search engine restricted by a service it calls SafeSearch, intended to omit references to sites with "pornography and explicit sexual content." However, testing indicates that SafeSearch blocks at least tens of thousands of web pages without any sexually-explicit content, whether graphical or textual." Background from News.Com. -- Spyware Source: PC Magazine "Spyware—It's lurking on your machine" An introduction and reviews of resources to rid your computer of it. The tool that PC Mag ranks as "top pick" is available at no charge.
Real Time Databases--Aviation New URL: Flight Tracker One of our favorite real-time databases tools to demo in presentations and use for airline/airport information has a new url. Its former home (Trip.Com) has merged with CheapTickets.Com and the old flight tracking site doesn't redirect to the new url. Never used this site. It's very accurate (data direct from FAA) and is the only flight tracking tool I've found that actually maps the planes movement as it travels to its destination. To see this in action, select the graphical version. Most flights to and from the U.S. and Canada are available. Thanks to fellow aviation buff and traveler C.S. for alerting us to the new url. See Also: FlyteComm Another flight tracking tool. This one does a good job with Canadian flights when you don't know the flight number.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Document (3 Items) Business Education New From Global Edge (An Global Business Resource): Academy Section From the site, "The Academy section provides international business focused resources that cater to the needs of teachers, researchers, students, and professionals interested in academic research." Btw, if you've never taken a look at the entire Global Edge site, it's well worth your time. -- Technological Literacy --Curriculum Just Launched: Innovative Curriculum Online Network (ICON) From the site, "The International Technology Education Association (ITEA) and the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC) are creating ICON, The National Digital Library for Technological Literacy, so that K-12 classroom teachers and college and university faculty will be able to locate digital resources concerned with technological literacy content and pedagogy." A bit more from a National Science Digital Library newsletter, "ICON is a collection of carefully selected standards-based resources that enhance the teaching of technology. It is more than an electronic card catalog...ICON takes the user directly to the digital resource. This library can be searched by technology concepts, grade levels, or key words." -- New York State--Mapping Map New York From an e-mail message, "The Lewis Mumford Center at SUNY Albany has a MAP NEW YORK GIS system project which provides current data on key social and economic indicators. This sophisticated series of web pages is useful in identifying population, age, income etc. for key service areas. Material is available for counties, cities/towns, and census tracts." Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Cataloging Seymour Lubetzky, 1898-2003 A brief note on UCLA's Department of Information Studies site (and elsewhere) announces the passing of the cataloging legend. A page with information about a 2001 compilation containing much of Lubetzky's writing puts it this way, "Seymour Lubetzky is the finest mind of the twentieth century devoted to the discipline of cataloging...Born in 1898, Lubetzky devoted a century's worth of time to writing and teaching. He developed a rationalized approach to catalog code design, one that is even more relevant today as current cataloging principles are revisited and revised for a digital environment." A bit more from this 1998 article, "Simply put, Professor Lubetzky views cataloging not as a haphazard compilation of illogical rules (as it once was), but as a set of principles which should enable effective organization, and therefore access to information. His work to simplify, codify and internationalize cataloging is particularly relevant and timely today, when many of us feel overwhelmed by the tsunami of information that is on the World Wide Web, largely unorganized." --- UPDATE: On 4/13 the NY Times Published an Obituary
Librarians Source: Christian Science Monitor "Outlook mixed for nation's librarians" "A wave of librarian retirements, combined with school budget cuts brought on by state fiscal problems, has resulted in a slew of greenhorns and parent volunteers being deployed to fill the void among the stacks of the nation's public school libraries."
Information Law A New Weblog and Newsletter: PaulPedley.Com Paul is based in the U.K. and is a frequent writer and well-known speaker on information law matters. He is also the author of the soon to be published Information Law for Information Professionals. The book is scheduled for an August release.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Document (3 Items) eGovernment--Worldwide Source: Accenture Full-Text, eGovernment Leadership: Engaging the Customer 96 pages .pdf. This report feature background on eGovernment initiatives around the world. A bit of background in this FCW article. -- Bioterrorism Source: GAO Full-Text Report, Bioterrorism: Adequacy of Preparedness Varies Across State and Local Jurisdictions -- Energy--United States Source: EIA Full-Text, Summer 2003 Motor Gasoline Outlook 12 pages .pdf
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Online Collaboration Source: Searcher Full-Text, "Quickiwiki, Swiki, Twiki, Zwiki and the Plone Wars Wiki as a PIM and Collaborative Content Tool" A new article by David Mattison. -- Libraries and Librarians The Spring '03 Edition of Walt Crawford's Cites & Insights -- Scholarly Communication Source: European Science Foundation Policy Briefing, Open Access: Restoring Scientific Communication to Its Rightful Owners Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Professional Reading Shelf Electronic Information--Formats Source: OCLC Full-Text, OCLC Publishes Report, "Five Year Information Format Trends" From the OCLC newsletter, "Prepared by the OCLC Library and Information Center for OCLC Members Council delegates, this new report presents data and forecasts about information format trends that will likely shape the information landscape of the future."
Virtual Reference Source: Billings Gazette A Virtual Reference Service in Montana This article illustrates that just offering a service doesn't automatically mean people will use it. From the article, "Demand for the service has been slow in the first couple of months. "We haven't been swamped so far," [Jan] Jelinek [Rocky Mountain College librarian] said. The last week in March, for example, the service only had 12 questions. Rocky student Jana Reiman is working on getting the word out to students on her campus. Other libraries around the country that had started similar services have found that use grows slowly, said Jane Howell, director of the MSU-Billings library. A public library in Washington state found that the service caught on quickly with patrons who were knowledgeable about computers, but was used less frequently by others. MSU-B librarians have received inquiries through e-mail for a while. Hours that the service is staffed by librarians might increase in the future if demand increases, Howell said."
State Libraries--Florida Source: The Tallahassee Democrat "State Library's collection likely to stay in town" From the article, "It looks like the State Library won't be losing its books to Broward County. In adopting its version of the budget for next year on Friday, the House turned down Gov. Jeb Bush's $2 million proposal for moving the library's circulating collection to Nova Southeastern University. There never was a provision for that in the Senate budget bill, so the issue is apparently off the table when inter-chamber negotiations on the $52 billion spending package begin next week...Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for the Department of State, said Secretary of State Glenda Hood is committed to increasing the library's circulation - no matter where it is located. "We'll market the library to get people to know that it's there," she said. "A lot of people don't know the State Library exists."
Archives--Canada Source: Ottawa Citizen "Library, archives resist move" From the article, Canada's newly merged National Library and National Archives are refusing to give up their prestigious parliamentary address...After months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, they declined the government's offer to move 500 workers to a new office tower next door to the National Archives' $110-million showpiece storage and preservation centre. Officials say the big problem with the offer is timing. The two institutions -- now called the Library and Archives of Canada -- are still in the throes of merging their operations and couldn't be ready to move by the fall occupancy date. Besides, they say, it's impossible to determine how much and what kind of space is needed until the merger is completed.
Public Libraries--United States Now National: New York Times Librarian Awards Award winners were previously chosen from nominees in the NY Metro Area. The awards are now national. From the site, "The awards honor those librarian who consistently demonstrate the highest levels of professionalism, knowledge and public service in the execution of their duties.Winners will be announced in The Times in December and will each receive $2,500." A few more details can be found in LJ.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Document (3 Items) Journalism--United States Pulitzer Prize Winners 2003 I've updated my compilation with direct links to winning Pulitzer Prize material. -- Business--United States Source: Forbes The 25 Fastest Growing Technology Companies -- Disasters--United States Update, DisasterHelp.Gov This portal opened (and mentioned here) in November. This article announces its official launch. Monday, April 07, 2003
American Library Association Problems: ALA's New Web Site As I mentioned late yesterday, the ALA has launched a redesigned web site. One a few words, PROBLEMS and more PROBLEMS! The new urls (very long) are lack of redirects are causing problems for many webmasters. Karen Schneider, a member of the ALA Council, writer, and Director of the Librarians' Index to the Internet, sent a detailed explanation of the problem to ALA's officials today. With Karen's permission, I've posted the entire letter to ResourceShelfPLUS.
Web Search--Yahoo Preview the New Yahoo Search 11 Key Points: 1) The underlying database content hasn't changed. Materials comes from Google (web pages) and Yahoo (directory). Remember, Inktomi is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo so don't be surprised if the underlying web database content moves away from Google. 2) Advanced Interface Looks Similar to Google's. Nice to see several domain limiting options actually enumerated. You will probably also notice that the default database is the web database. The directory (the Yahoo original) is still available but continues to take a reduced role. 3) Interface is clean. Tabs to search 6 different databases (Web, Directory, News, Yellow Pages, Images, Maps). 4) The image database is new. Results are identical to Google's Image Search. 5) Results pages list 20 hits (default) in addition to sponsor matches. Also, a refine search box at the BOTTOM of the page offers a second "box" that will automatically "Not" terms. 6) One result per domain is listed. Be careful with this don't disregard the "more results from this site" link. No option is available in the preferences menu to change this. 7) Some pages have "cached copies", others do not. For example, this search for the term "chicago". Results 1 and 2 don't have cached copies but result 3 does. Results 5 and 7 do not. 8) Spell check is available. 9) Language limits are available on the preference page. 10) Yellow Page search is U.S. only. It would also be nice to have a White Pages search option. 11) ResearchBuzz Also Includes Info on Some Special Yahoo Syntax. See Also: More from SearchDay and News.Com
Web Search--Yahoo Yahoo Launches Beta of a Product Search Engine In addition to the "New" Yahoo search the company has quietly launched a product search tool. It's very similar to Froogle in appearance and searchability but from some "quick and dirty" searches I see completely different results. Yahoo will not reveal where the material is coming from.
Information Industry--EBSCO Source: Crain's Chicago Business Tufts Attempts to Block (at least Temporarily) Sale of RoweCom to EBSCO From the article, "Tufts University is suing to block the sale of Divine Inc. subsidiary RoweCom Inc. to Alabama-based Ebsco Industries Inc. until a Boston Bankruptcy Court resolves the fate of $1.5 million related to its periodical subscriptions for 2003." See Also: Direct Link to Access All RoweCom/Divine Court Filings
Business Research--United Kingdom Source: Managing Information The Availability of U.K. Company Annual Reports From the article, "Perfect Information, a global provider of online original financial documents has announced the results of its research into the availability of annual reports online. Perfect Information has found that 67.8% of its sample of 115 PLCs do not post their company reports to their websites within two weeks of their publishing date, making it difficult for those looking to source a company's latest financial reports."
Health Research Coming Soon: PubMed's E-Mail Search Results Option From the announcement, "PubMed will soon include a new feature that will provide users with an easy way to e-mail search results. An e-mail selection will be added to the Send to pull-down menu. After reviewing your search results you may click on specific citations or simply choose E-mail and then click Send to. You may e-mail up to 500 items."
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Document Labor--United States Source: BJS Now Available, Geographic Profile of Employment and Unemployment, 2001 Sunday, April 06, 2003
Libraries National Library Week Begins Today!!! The American Library Association has also introduced a new look and design for its web site. This Thursday is INTERNATIONAL Special Librarians Day.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Web Resources The April Issue of Roddy MacLeod's Internet Resources Newsletter is Now Online -- Product Reviews Péter's Digital Reference Shelf: Searchasaurus from EBSCO This is a fee-based tool for primary and middle-school students. Jacsó writes, "The impressive content is subjugated to a passé and awkward interface and unintuitive search syntax, both of which hamper access."
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Travel Source: The Washington Post A Review of Hotel Booking Sites Very useful! -- History Searchable Database of Time Magazine Covers Keyword search and browse all Time covers since 1923. The keywords come from meta tags attached to each cover image. An example of how the meta "keyword" tag can be of tremendous value with a specialized database. Thanks to B.B. for the news tip. Saturday, April 05, 2003
Briefly The Streaming Audio/Video Compilation Expands Watch and listen to news from around the globe. This site focuses on English langauge sources. Another compilation provides text transcripts of news conferences and speeches relating to the War in Iraq.
U.S.Government--Databases Government Printing Office Relaunches GPO Access New url: http://www.gpoaccess.gov, new site design. Friday, April 04, 2003
War in Iraq FYI: Al Jazeera English Language Site Back Online The site went live last week but was went offline almost immediately after being hacked. For now, the the English language site is working. Al Jazeera was one of the most popular search terms last week at Google and Lycos. This message was first posted at 7pm EST on Thursday. As of 11am Friday the site remains available.
E-Mail News Alerts A High Quality E-Mail News Alert Service, It's Free! With the elimination of Northern Light’s News Alerts and Hoover’s free e-mail news alert service, finding these useful tools is becoming a chore. Yahoo’s service remains online for registered members (free). An e-mail news alert service that you might not know about comes from Marketwatch.Com. A Brief Introduction * You'll need to register for an account (free). Note: You might want to think about opening up a new email account to handle this material. MyWay.Com offers a free email box (no pop-ups and spam) and is very easy (and fast) to set-up. * A Word of Caution, at the bottom of the sign-up form you'll see "Subscribe to e-Newsletters and Alerts". This is not the service I'm writing about so you might want to remove the ticks/checks for all of these newsletters. * Log-in * Prepare your search strategies and make your selections. Of course, you can return at any time and make changes. * You can create a maximum of 25 alerts. * Seven types of alerts are available including industry news and company news. Here's a full description of alert types. * Also available are Keyword Alerts * Enter your search terms (phrases in quotes, Boolean is available) * Select sources. They include: Reuters FT.com Associated Press New York Times United Press Intl. CNET News.com Motley Fool CBS News theDeal.com Knight Ridder News Releases Wires (PR Newswire, Business Wire, Prime Zone) * Select Delivery Format and How Often You Want Them Sent (Immediately or Once a Day) * You'll be happy to know that you can temporarily suspend alerts when you're away from your email. Simply go to the Edit Alerts page.
Review Shelf Péter's Digital Reference Shelf: A Review of the Concise Version of the Hutchison Encyclopedia Péter Jacsó concludes, "The Hutchinson Encyclopedia has much valuable content, but Tiscali should hire programmers who can make that content accessible." Access to the Hutchison Encyclopedia is free.
National Archives--United States--Databases Source: AP "50 Million Historical Documents Hit Web" Although this site is not "brand new", it is well worth mentioning. The article discusses the Access to Archival Databases (AAD) System. From the article, "Researchers, genealogists and the plain curious can now use the Internet to check more than 50 million historical records at the National Archives, from Civil War battles to family immigration files...The records available on the database system represent a small fraction of the archive's electronic holdings. They were selected because of their analytical and statistical nature — most deal with information that easily can be looked up based on specific names, dates, organizations, cities or states...The database draws from the records of 20 federal agencies. Most of the information was created by the agencies to suit their own program needs, without any thought to its historical significance." It's also worth noting that the content in these databases is not accessible (at least at the present time from general web search engines. See Also: Direct to AAD Web Site See Also: Learn More About AAD
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Business--Lists & Rankings--United States Source: Fortune Updated, The 2003 Fortune 500 is Online -- Climate Source: NOAA New Web Tool, Climate TimeLine Information Tool "Exploring Weather & Climate Change Through the Powers of 10" You can also read more about how the tool was created. Thursday, April 03, 2003
Web Resource of the Week Search Systems: An Essential Directory of Public Record Databases For some of you this week's resource is an old favorite. It's been online for several years and was first know as pacs-info.com. For those of you who don't know about this resource, it is worthy of a visit and bookmark. This searchable directory contains direct links to over 13,000 public record databases from the U.S., Canada and other countries. Most of these databases are free to access. It's also worth pointing out that a great deal of the material in these databases resides on the Invisible, Deep, or Hidden web (pick the term that works for you). In other words, the only way to access the content is to use the interface from the specific database. Here are a few other directories for government data that might be of value to you. See Also: NETROnline (Public Records Online) A collection focusing on tax assessors' and recorders' offices. See Also: State and Local Government on the Net A great hierarchical directory (also searchable) of state and local government web sites. See Also: Federal Agencies Directory (U.S.) From the library at Louisiana St. University.
Web Search--Teoma Source: Computer User Interview of Apostolos Gerasoulis and Steve Berkowitz of Jeeves/Teoma If you've been reading ResourceShelf over the past couple of year's know that we are very positive about Teoma. Gerasoulis is VP of Research and Development at Ask.Com (Teoma's parent). He was also a member of the team at Rutgers who created Teoma (known as DiscoWeb at that time). Berkowitz is the President of Jeeves. . This interview was conducted by James Mathewson of Computer User. Here's Gerasoulis response as he explains how Teoma is different than Google. Mathewson: [Google] sort[s] results on the basis of the popularity of pages on the Web. If one site is hit more often than another, it will rank higher on the search results? Gerasoulis: Here we do things a little differently than Google. Google counts hits without giving them any value. Everyone votes and no vote is weighted differently. We think better authority is defined by experts in the subject matter--these are the people who vote on which sites are the most authoritative, at run time. We call this subject-specific popularity. Once we have the results ranked by subject-specific popularity, we sort them into community clusters. This is the really interesting thing about Teoma 2.0. Every community uses words differently; they have different rules for the way the language is used. And community members even search for things differently using the same words. Let's say you type in "Apple," you might get results for Apple Computer, apple butter, apple picking, etc. These results will be grouped by their community meanings for the word apple. The user can narrow their search by the community they belong to. The complete interview has more on this and other topics and is well worth a read. The real challenge for Teoma, AllTheWeb, AV, and others is not the technology (they all have solid and technology that's improving all of the time) but marketing. In other words, finding a way to demonstrate to the masses (and info pros too!) that they have useful products.
Libraries--United States-- Funding Institute of Museum and Library Services Awards Over $150 Million to State Libraries From the announcement, "Dr. Robert S. Martin, Director of the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, announced grants totaling $150,435,000 to state library agencies in the fifty States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories...Libraries will continue to use these federal funds to invest in technology. Information available via the Internet has increased. So, too, have visits to the library. Public libraries remain the number one point of online access for people without Internet connections at home, school, or work-95% of them provide free public access to the Internet."
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Health Information New, MEDLINEplus Compilation With Financial Assistance Resources for Health Care -- International Relations Source: U.S. State Department New, Glossary of Terms and Acronyms 19 pages .pdf. A web version is also available. -- War In Iraq Two Congressional Research Service Reports 1) Full-Text, Iraq: U.S. Military Operations 16 pages .pdf - 2) Full-Text, Iraq: Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Capable Missiles and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) 5 pages .pdf
News Briefs * Happy 30th Birthday to LexisNexis! * Two U.K. Organizations Form National Archives (via Managing Information) Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Web Search--MSN Source: News.Com Is Microsoft Moving Into the Search Biz? "[A] report, written by SoundView Technology Group analyst Jordan Rohan, said that after an extensive investigation, the research team was able to "confirm definitively" that Microsoft is increasing its focus on search. The report asserts that Microsoft plans to triple its search staffing to 200 employees and that CEO Steve Ballmer discussed search plans at a "town hall" meeting last week. It also said that an internal memo confirmed the new focus." Currently MSN Search obtains its database from Inktomi (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Yahoo) and paid advertising from Overture. From the searcher perspective, MSN Search recently added access and limiting options for Powerpoint, Word, Acrobat, Excel content. -- +++On ResourceShelfPLUS I've Posted A Selection of Microsoft Research technical papers about web search related issues. I've also identified a few recently issued Microsoft awarded search related patents +++ -- UPDATED 8pm...Microsoft Makes the Following Statement to Reuters, "We do view Google more and more as a competitor. We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience. That's something that we're actively looking at doing," Bob Visse, director of marketing for Microsoft's MSN Internet services division, said. Visse said the company was making some significant investments in developing a better search engine. But the company has not offered specific plans." -- See Also: The ResourceShelf 3/2003 Post About New Options at MSN Search
Electronic Discussions A New Electronic Discussion Group for ProQuest Users The list is an "independent, online "users group" for users and subscribers to ProQuest's online databases." According to the person starting the list, "[it's] for users to share information on effective use of the databases, discussion of recent product changes, problems, etc."
News Resources NewsNow Adds Another 1000 News Sources, Passes 8000 Mark On March 6th I mentioned that NewsNow had crossed the 7000 source mark. Wow, an impressive number of news resources to be checking every five minutes for new content. Well, some three weeks later the total number of sources has increased over 1200 sources to over 8240. The pull-down menus in the left column bring you to subject focused pages. If you keep any NewsNow window(s) open in your browser, the page(s) will refresh with "just published" content every five minutes. Headlines are kept for 30 days. Make sure to check out the live feed page. A virtual ticker of news from open web resources.
Virtual Reference Source: The Age Meet Two Google Researchers From Australia Again, no mention of virtual reference services being made available (remotely) via libraries around the globe or the fact that independent information professionals and consultants also serve an important role. Speaking of Australia, AskNow! is a virtual reference service that launched in .AU land at the beginning of this year. AskNow! is a service made available by the Council of Australian State Libraries – the state and territory libraries of Australia and the National Library of Australia. See Also: A 1/13/2003 ResourceShelf posting About AskNow!
Information Privacy--United States Source: Federal Computer Week Information Privacy Bill Introduced in U.S. Senate From the article, "To stem the growing tide of identity theft and fraud, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced a bill March 31 that would establish a comprehensive national system for privacy protection. The Privacy Act of 2003, as S. 745 is called, would create a federal standard regulating the use of sensitive information such as financial and health data, driver's license records and Social Security numbers. It would supersede a "jumbled patchwork" of state privacy laws, she said in introducing the bill." See Also: Direct to S. 745
The National Library of Wales Cataloging Source: BBC "Library considers governors move" From the article, The main body that runs the National Library of Wales could be abolished as part of changes in the way the institution is run. The body is also aiming to reduce a fifty-year backlog in cataloguing books and material in its National Screen and Sound Archive.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Searching for People Jacso Releases Another PolySearch Module: Search 15 Specialized Biographical Databases at One Time A few weeks ago we introduced a new tool from Dr. Peter Jacso that allows you to simultaneously query several Energy related databases. Good News!!! Peter has released another "module" that I think will be of interest to many of you since. It offers the chance to query up to 15 SPECIALIZED web databases focusing on a popular information need, biographical information. PolySearch Biography offers "direct search" access to the following resources: A&E Biography Academy of American Poets Art & Culture ArtistDirect (Music) Biographical Dictionary Congressional Dir. (last name only) Information Please Suite Internet Movie Database IOC Olympic Athletes Nobel Laureates Pulitzer Winners/Nominees Science World White House Who2 Women Hall of Fame Talk about a time saver! Kudos once again to Peter for a simple but effective tool. Thanks to C.L. for the news tip. See Also: ResourceShelf's 3/6/2003 Entry About Dr. Péter Jacsó ---- Topics in the News--Supreme Court Now Available, Audio from Yesterday's Supreme Court Arguments re: Affirmitive Action It's rare that audio recordings are made available immediately after USSC hearings. You'll need RealAudio. Gratz v. Bollinger Grutter v. Bollinger Background via NY Times ---- Topics in the News--SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) 1) World Health Organization SARS Page, Daily Updates 2) The WHO SARS FAQ 3) Direct Links to SARS Resources from Many Public Health Organizations (Including the CDC and Health Canada) 4) Also Worth Monitoring MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC)
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries Resource Sharing An Interview with Sarah Parker, Missouri State Librarian Parker talks about the Show-Me The World program that uses OCLC's WorldCat database to provide materials to library users around the State. This interview is part of an OCLC article about the project. NOTE: Don't Reside in Missouri? There is Still a Good Chance You Still Have Access to A Variety of Remotely Accessible Databases, Tools, and Services from Your Public Library. Here's an overview article that I wrote for Search Day in January, 2003.
Enterprise Search Source: News.Com Is Jeeves About to Rid Itself of Its Enterprise Product? Forrester Research says yes. Jeeves says no. We're also waiting to see what Overture does with the AltaVista enterprise product.
For Your Internet Hoax File Source: Hong Kong Standard Information Authority: Internet Hoax Causes Panic In and Around Hong Kong From the article, "The panic started around lunchtime yesterday after an item under the banner of the Ming Pao [a Chinese language newspaper] site announced Hong Kong had been declared an ``infected area'', border checkpoints had been closed and people had been ordered to stay home. Telephone networks quickly became clogged with the rapidly spreading rumour as long queues formed at markets, supermarkets and banks as residents rushed to withdraw cash and stock up. Ming Pao found that the teenager had cloned its site and put a copy on the Net containing the rumour." More from Reuters. Tuesday, April 01, 2003
Information Research Shelf (2 Items) 1) Full-Text Papers from Twelfth International World Wide Web Conference I've compiled from various web sources direct links to several of the papers that will be presented on the Web Search/Data Mining track at next months conference. They are posted on the ResourceShelfPLUS site. -- 2) Full-Text, Building a Web Thesaurus from Web Link Structure A new paper from Microsoft Research. From the abstract, "Thesaurus has been widely used in many applications, including information retrieval, natural language processing, question answering, etc. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to automatically constructing a domain-specific thesaurus from the Web using link structure information. It can be considered a live thesaurus for various concepts and knowledge on the Web, an important component toward the Semantic Web. First, a set of high quality and representative websites of a specific domain is selected. After filtering navigational links, a link analysis technique is applied to each website to obtain its content structure. Finally, the thesaurus is constructed by merging the content structures of the selected websites. Furthermore, experiments on automatic query expansion based on the thesaurus show 20% improvement in search precision compared to the baseline."
Public Libraries--Internet Filters Source: Boston Globe "Web filters at libraries are overdue" A Boston Globe columnist says that filtering at public libraries is needed. From the article, "The ALA and ACLU oppose the law on more or less classic First Amendment grounds, arguing that libraries' Internet terminals are ''public forums'' where the government may not restrict speech. They feel strongly that filters or ''blocking'' technologies end up weeding out legitimate sites -- e.g., the Flesh Public Library in Piqua, Ohio -- along with the illegal child pornography and the garden-variety smut clogging up the Internet."
Internet--War in Iraq Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Full-Text, Released Today, "The Internet and the Iraq war" Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (7 Items) U.S. History--Chinese Americans Source: The Library of Congress New American Memory Collection, The Chinese in California, 1850-1925 "...illustrates nineteenth and early twentieth century Chinese immigration to California from 1850 to 1925 through about 8,000 images and pages of primary source materials. Included are photographs, original art, cartoons and other illustrations; letters, excerpts from diaries, business records, and legal documents; as well as pamphlets, broadsides, speeches, sheet music, and other printed matter." -- Transportation--United States--Statistics Source: BTS Just Released, National Transportation Statistics 2002 -- September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks New Web Site, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States -- Medicine--Lists & Rankings Source: Institute for Scientific Information "The 20 Most-Cited Countries in Clinical Medicine, 1992-2002" -- Housing--Canada Source: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation New Publication, Canadian Housing Observer From the site, "Illustrated with extensive charts, the Observer combines a broad range of housing information and statistics into one publication...To be published on an annual basis, the Canadian Housing Observer is at the core of an initiative to make housing data and analysis more accessible to decision makers, policy analysts, researchers, the media and the general public." -- Missiles Source: House of Commons Library, United Kingdom Full-Text Report, Ballistic Missiles Defence 70 pages .pdf -- Business--United States Source: CELCEE (Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Clearinghouse on Entrepreneurship Education) New, Fast Facts: Types of Business Organizations This new ERIC Digest explains the "six major legal forms" of business organizations in the U.S. See Also: Search and Browse Over 2600 ERIC Digests
Professional Reading Shelf (4 Items) Digital Libraries Source: Syllabus Full-Text, "Where Did All the Books Go?" By Steven Epstein -- Virtual Reference Source: Computers in Libraries "We've Jumped on the Live reference Band Wagon and We Love the Ride!" By Glenda Schaake & Eleanor Sathan -- Scholarship Source: CLIR Full-Text, New-Model Scholarship: How Will It Survive Also available as pdf file. From the CLIR site, "In 2002, with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, CLIR hosted a meeting of scholars, librarians, archivists, technologists, publishers, and funders to discuss the preservation of digital scholarly resources. The goal of the workshop was to identify the needs of various stakeholders—Web site creators; distributors and publishers of digital materials; representatives of archives, libraries, and repositories that want to collect these sites and make them available; end users; and anyone in the chain of scholarly communication who might want to discover and use these works for their own purposes—and to agree on common approaches to meeting those needs." -- Access to Information Source: Emerald Library Link Full-Text, "The Problem is Access, The Solution is Infrastructure" By M.E. Gorman. The article also provides full-text access to "Friend, F.J. (2002) "Improving Access: Is There Any Hope?" from Interlending and Document Supply. Thanks to FOS News for the tip. -- Publishing Source: Educause Review Full-Text, "Librarians and Publishers as Collaborators and Competitors" |
