| |
ResourceShelf |
|
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
Looking For More Info? News? Search Help? News Tips?
New Site Suggestions?
Archives 06/01/1990 - 06/30/1990 03/01/2001 - 03/31/2001 04/01/2001 - 04/30/2001 05/01/2001 - 05/31/2001 06/01/2001 - 06/30/2001 07/01/2001 - 07/31/2001 08/01/2001 - 08/31/2001 09/01/2001 - 09/30/2001 10/01/2001 - 10/31/2001 11/01/2001 - 11/30/2001 12/01/2001 - 12/31/2001 01/01/2002 - 01/31/2002 02/01/2002 - 02/28/2002 03/01/2002 - 03/31/2002 04/01/2002 - 04/30/2002 05/01/2002 - 05/31/2002 06/01/2002 - 06/30/2002 07/01/2002 - 07/31/2002 08/01/2002 - 08/31/2002 09/01/2002 - 09/30/2002 10/01/2002 - 10/31/2002 11/01/2002 - 11/30/2002 12/01/2002 - 12/31/2002 01/01/2003 - 01/31/2003 02/01/2003 - 02/28/2003 03/01/2003 - 03/31/2003 04/01/2003 - 04/30/2003 05/01/2003 - 05/31/2003 06/01/2003 - 06/30/2003 07/01/2003 - 07/31/2003 08/01/2003 - 08/31/2003 09/01/2003 - 09/30/2003 10/01/2003 - 10/31/2003 11/01/2003 - 11/30/2003 12/01/2003 - 12/31/2003 01/01/2004 - 01/31/2004 02/01/2004 - 02/29/2004 03/01/2004 - 03/31/2004 04/01/2004 - 04/30/2004 05/01/2004 - 05/31/2004 06/01/2004 - 06/30/2004 07/01/2004 - 07/31/2004 08/01/2004 - 08/31/2004 09/01/2004 - 09/30/2004 10/01/2004 - 10/31/2004 11/01/2004 - 11/30/2004 12/01/2004 - 12/31/2004 01/01/2005 - 01/31/2005 02/01/2005 - 02/28/2005 03/01/2005 - 03/31/2005 04/01/2005 - 04/30/2005 05/01/2005 - 05/31/2005 06/01/2005 - 06/30/2005 07/01/2005 - 07/31/2005 08/01/2005 - 08/31/2005 09/01/2005 - 09/30/2005 10/01/2005 - 10/31/2005 11/01/2005 - 11/30/2005 12/01/2005 - 12/31/2005 01/01/2006 - 01/31/2006 02/01/2006 - 02/28/2006 03/01/2006 - 03/31/2006 04/01/2006 - 04/30/2006 05/01/2006 - 05/31/2006 06/01/2006 - 06/30/2006 Now Available Additional Web Reference Compilations direct search (Invisible Web Resources) Audio/Video Current Awareness Tools WWW Accessible Congressional Research Service Reports
|
Friday, December 31, 2004
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents eBay--Lists & Rankings Electronic Commerce eBay Pulse Interesting and fun!!! Top search terms, trends, hot picks, and cool stuff on eBay. Updated daily. The "Everything Else" category is always interesting. (-: See Also: eBay Popular Product Rankings Thursday, December 30, 2004
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Torture Source: U.S. Dept of Justice/Office of Legal Counsel (via Findlaw) Dept. of Justice Memo Redefining Torture -- Intelligence--Legislation--United States Source: askSam New and Searchable, Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act from askSam "The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 is the most dramatic reform of U.S. intelligence capabilities since the National Security Act of 1947. You'll find the complete text of this legislation in a searchable askSam database that you can easily search, browse, and analyze. This is a free download and can be searched and viewed with either askSam or with a copy of the free askSam Viewer. -- Television--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Harris Interactive Survey: America's Favorite TV Personality
Professional Reading Shelf Health Research--PubMed Controlled Vocabularies--MeSH Source: NLM + New PubMed Spell Checking Feature + What's New for 2005 MeSH ||| Introduction to MeSH -- 2005 -- Public Libraries--Audio Books Source: San Jose Mercury News Library upgrades digital services "The San Jose Public Library is the first in the nation to offer digital audio books in Microsoft Windows Media Audio format." Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Web Search--Google Google Scholar's New Advanced Search Interface The Google Scholar team has released an advanced search interface. You can limit your search by: + Publication (No syntax available) + Date Range (No syntax available) + Words in the Title + Author + View up to 100 results per search Complete documentation and a few caveats here. We haven't had much time to use the new interface but quickly spotted a problem or two (yes, it's a beta) with the date restriction. For example, we limited our searches to only documents published in 2004 and got several non-2004 items. + #1 The first item, a book, was published in 1987. + #2 The first item, a journal article, was published in 1995. + This search is limited to documents published between 2003 and 2004. The first item was published in 2001. To Google's credit, they mention date limiting issues in the documentation. Bottom Line: Be careful!
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Tsunamis Source: DigitalGlobe (via NASA) Satellite Images of Tsunami Devastation From the caption, "DigitalGlobe's Quickbird satellite captured an image of the devastation around Kalutara, Sri Lanka (top) on December 26, 2004 at 10:20 AM, local time--about an hour after the first in the series of waves hit." See also: Asia Tsunami Dec 2004: Satellite imagery regional map of Affected Areas (ReliefWeb) See also: Indian Ocean: Earthquake/Tsunami Impact and Assistance (U.S. Department of State) See also: Asia's Deadly Waves--Interactive Map
Search Briefs Fast Search and Transfer Will Work With Factiva "Fast Search & Transfer ASA today announced that Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company, has signed an agreement to deploy FAST Data Search 360 across multiple applications throughout its organization."
Professional Reading Shelf National Libraries--Europe The December Issues of The European Library Newsletter is Now Online (Word Document) Also online is a PowerPoint presentation: The European Library: More than virtual reference Presented at Online Information 2004 by Jill Cousins. -- RSS An Introduction to RSS ResourceShelf friend and RSS zealot, Jessica Baumgart, has written an award winning tutorial/intro about RSS, web feeds, and syndication. Perfect for your training folder! Jessica also won an award for her comprehensive Feedster search tutorial Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Motion Pictures--Preservation Source: Library of Congress Librarian of Congress Adds 25 Films to National Film Registry Duck and Cover, Eraserhead, and Jailhouse Rock are three of the films on this year's list.
Professional Reading Shelf Research Libraries--Statistics Source: ARL Monograph and Serial Costs in ARL Libraries, 1986-2003: All ARL Libraries ARL Public University Libraries ARL Private University Libraries ARL Canadian University Libraries -- Digital Preservation Source: New Issue: DPC/PADI What's new in digital preservation -- Open Access Source: Biomed Central New Issue: Open Access Now -- Public Libraries--Financial Misconduct Source: Savannah Morning News Feds, state probe alleged financial misconduct in middle Georgia libraries "Federal officials in Savannah are leading a probe of alleged financial abuses at middle Georgia libraries.... The investigation has sent shudders through the ranks of librarians around the state, already widely seen as vulnerable targets in the ongoing scramble to trim budgets." -- Internet Hoaxes Web Hoaxes: Christmas Lights For your, "it's easy to create a hoax" on the Internet file...It turns out that a web site that was supposed to allow vistors to control Christmas lights over the web was a hoax. The story was picked up by the AP, mentioned on Slashdot, The New York Times, and by MANY other news outlets. The site got more that 4 million visitors this month. You can learn more about the hoax in this Wall Street Journal story and from the AP.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Population--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, U.S. Population (Estimate), New Year's Day 2005 "...the U.S. Census Bureau today projected the Jan. 1, 2005, population of the United States will be 295,160,302 -- up 2,835,602 or 1.0 percent from New Year's Day 2004." -- 2004--Lists--Language Source: yourDictionary.com 'Incivility' Bests 'Red States/Blue States,' 'Blogosphere,' and 'Flip Flopping' as Word of the Year for 2004 "YDC released eight different Words of the Year lists featuring the Top Words, Names, Phrases, Numbers, California YouthSpeak, Internet, Sports-related, and Color-related Words, as well as the Top Words in Pop Music and the Most Frequently Spoken Word On The Planet." -- Labor--Statistics Source: International Labour Organization ILO World Employment Report 2004-05: Employment, Productivity And Poverty Reduction Summary ||| Full Text -- Internet Access--United States Source: GovTech and FCC New, FCC Releases Statistics on High-Speed Internet Access Services "The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently released new data on high-speed connections to the Internet in the United States. Twice a year, facilities-based broadband providers must report the number of high-speed connections in service pursuant to the FCC's local competition and broadband data gathering program." Summary Article (via GovTech) ||| Direct to Complete FCC Report "FCC report also includes state-by-state, population density, and household income information, ranked by zip codes." Monday, December 27, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Academia--Information Technology Source: Educause Review The Academic Culture and the IT Culture: Their Effect on Teaching and Scholarship "Librarians have been the real heroes of the digital revolution in higher education. They are the ones who have seen the farthest, done the most, accepted the hardest challenges, and demonstrated most clearly the benefits of digital information. In the process, they have turned their own field upside down and have revolutionized their professional training. It is testimony to their success that we take their achievement -- and their information-management systems -- for granted." -- Web--United States Government Source: GCN OMB creates single policy document for Web requirements "The Office of Management and Budget late last week issued 10 online marching orders that agencies must meet by the end of next year. But of the 10, only one -- the requirement for a search function on every public Web site or main entry point -- is truly new to agencies." See Also: Direct to OMB Memo
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Aging--Children's Booklist Source: Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and George Washington University's Center on Aging, Health & Humanities Books With Positive Portrayals of Aging and Older Characters for Younger Readers, Middle Readers, & Older Readers from PreK to Grade 6 (PDF; 137 KB) From ALA press release: "ALSC, a division of the American Library Association (ALA), compiled the new list, which was then evaluated by more than 200 librarians, specialists and consumers of various ages.... The 91 titles, published as recently as 2002 and as far back as 1976, are geared for children pre-K through Grade 6." -- Internet--United States--Statistics Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project New data on internet use and demographics + There are currently 120 million adult users of the internet. + 51% of the 106 million American adults with home internet connections have broadband connections. Sunday, December 26, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Parliamentary Library--Canada Source: The Globe and Mail Parliamentary library emerges from renovations "The crown jewel of Parliament Hill is slowly emerging from wrappings that have cocooned it for almost three years of renovations."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Spam--Lists & Rankings Tsunamis source: USGS and NOAA + International Tsunami Information Center FAQ + The Basics: Life of a Tsunami + Largest Earthquakes in the World Since 1900 + Most Destructive Earthquakes in the World + Earthquakes in the World with 1,000 or More Deaths + South Asia: Earthquake and Tsunami (via ReliefWeb) + South Asia: Earthquake and Tsunami (via Reuters AlertNet) -- Spam--Lists and Rankings Source: Sophos The "Dirty Dozen" 2004: Sophos reveals the top spamming countries "Researchers at Sophos scanned all spam messages received at its global network of honeypots throughout 2004 month and at the top of the list was the United States, which is responsible for exporting 42.11% of all spam." -- Military Records--Vietnam Source: The Eureka Reporter Vietnam Files Provide Marines Access To Their Records "Thanks to Vietnam veteran David Prendergast, U.S. Marines who served in the Vietnam War can now access their records online. For years, Prendergast, a local attorney, has volunteered his spare time helping Vietnam veterans access their records so that they can establish their disability eligibility." See: The Vietnam Files Saturday, December 25, 2004
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Albert Einstein Science Inside Einstein's Universe "Joining the worldwide celebration of the centennial of Einstein's "miracle year," the NASA-Smithsonian UniverseForum is creating a portfolio of highly visual, dramatic interactive learning resources especially for use by museums, science centers, planetariums and other science education organizations." Thanks to S.F. for the source tip. Friday, December 24, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries--Financial Misconduct Source: Savannah Morning News Feds, state probe alleged financial misconduct in middle Georgia libraries "Federal officials in Savannah are leading a probe of alleged financial abuses at middle Georgia libraries.... The investigation has sent shudders through the ranks of librarians around the state, already widely seen as vulnerable targets in the ongoing scramble to trim budgets. 'Obviously, this is not the kind of publicity we need,' said Steve Schaefer, director of the Uncle Remus Regional Library in Madison County. 'But we need to get to the bottom of it. And if there's been misconduct, we need to get rid of some people.'" -- Academia--Information Technology Source: Educause Review The Academic Culture and the IT Culture: Their Effect on Teaching and Scholarship "Librarians have been the real heroes of the digital revolution in higher education. They are the ones who have seen the farthest, done the most, accepted the hardest challenges, and demonstrated most clearly the benefits of digital information. In the process, they have turned their own field upside down and have revolutionized their professional training. It is testimony to their success that we take their achievement -- and their information-management systems -- for granted."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Medicare--United States Source: Kaiser Family Foundation New, Interactive Online Tool Provides Key Data On Medicare Advantage Plans "Medicare Health Plan Tracker provides basic information about Medicare HMOs and other private plans, including plan participation and beneficiary enrollment, at the national, state and county level." Thursday, December 23, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Preservation--Audio National Libraries--United Kingdom Source: Channel NewsAsia British library preserving voice recordings of famous people on CDs -- National Libraries--Iraq Source: Guardian Unlimited Iraq's library struggles to rise from the ashes "The daylight burning of the library, which the invading US military did not protect, was one of the first costly failures in the post-war chaos of occupation last year. Now it is slowly being restored. But in a country where recent history remains bitterly disputed, resurrecting the library and national archive has turned into a remarkably sensitive and political operation." -- Freedom of Information Act--United Kingdom Source: The Times of London The right to know: a guide to digging out the truth "In theory, the Freedom of Information Act, which comes into force on January 1, gives every British citizen sweeping new powers to obtain information held by any public body. From schools to prisons, police authorities to government departments, railway bodies to local councils, any public body must be prepared to release information on its files."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Dance--Special Collections--Organization Dance Heritage Coalition "The DHC is a national alliance of institutions holding significant collections of materials documenting the history of dance. Its mission is to preserve, make accessible, enhance and augment the materials that document the artistic accomplishments in dance of the past, present, and future. The DHC pursues its mission by encouraging, initiating, and developing collaborative projects among the dance communities, library and archival fields, scholarly institutions, and individuals in four essential areas: access to materials, the continuing documentation of dance employing both traditional methods and developing technologies, preservation of existing documentation, and education within and beyond the field of dance." What's here: + Dance Research Resources: Finding Aids for Archival Collections + Choreographing Your Search ("tutorial for in-depth dance research") + Cataloging guidelines and procedures + Publications ("information on access to dance and dance-related materials, the continued documentation of dance, preservation of existing dance documentation, and education regarding methods, standards, and best practices") + Technical Sources (MARC, XML, EAD) -- Science and Engineering--United States--Statistics Source: NSF Just Released, Science and Engineering State Profiles: 2001-2003 "This report, 2001-03 Science and Engineering State Profiles, provides statistics on finances and personnel for the 50 States, D.C., and Puerto Rico with special emphasis on R&D performance in FY 2002." -- Obituaries Source: AP + Roll Call of Notables Who Died in 2004 + Notables Who Died in 2004 in the Arts
Web Browsers New Beta Release of Opera Browser Available, Browse With Your Voice Many new and improved features. Most notable? From the news release, "The new version of Opera also features voice technology. Opera is the first browser to prepare for a future of Web sites offering interactive, voice-enabled shopping and booking systems. You can also browse the Web using spoken commands, such as "Opera next link," "Opera back," or "Opera speak." The latter command will make Opera read Web page content and e-mail messages to you aloud, adding usability as either a screen reader or advanced dictionary. Fit-to-Window-Width will adapt Web page content to fit the width of your window, which means you can have multiple windows open with no horizontal scrolling. In combination with Opera's Zoom feature, you can dramatically magnify Web pages and still view them without having to scroll sideways -- a compelling accessibility tool for visually impaired users. This technology may also be applied to printing Web pages with Fit-to-Page-Width." Download Changelog More On Voice Browsing
Web Search Briefs Most Popular Search Queries 2004 Google ||| Google (International) ||| Yahoo See Also: Year-End Lists from Other Engines Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Education--Graduation Source: Achieve The Expectations Gap ? A 50-State Review of High School Graduation Requirements "Recent studies have revealed that few of the nation?s high school students are gaining the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in college and work. A new report finds an important explanation for this phenomenon: states do not expect their graduates to take courses that truly reflect the real-world demands of life after high school. In fact, according to the study released today by Achieve, Inc., in every state, students can take the courses necessary to meet graduation requirements yet still leave high school unprepared" + Read the Report [PDF]
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries--United Kingdom--Statistics Source: LISU/Loughborough University Just Released, The LIST "The LIST is an annual sampler of UK library statistics from all sectors. It covers public, academic, special, national and school libraries and is available free online" -- Wireless Standards Source: InfoWorld Wireless Standards Snapshot "Most wireless standards come from the IEEE, whose 802.11 category covers more than a dozen standards for specific wireless areas, but the IETF, Wi-Fi Alliance, and WiMax industry group also develop related standards." Identifies wireless transport, security, management/roaming/QoS standards.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Chronologies--2004 Source: AP 2004 Chronology, January Through July -- Population--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census (via DocuTicker.com) 2004 State Populations Estimates Nevada was the fastest-growing state in 2004. Summary Top Ten Fastest Growing States (PDF) Detailed Tables -- National Basketball Association--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes NBA Team Valuations 2004 -- Games--Museum Source: University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Elliott Avedon Museum and Archive of Games "The Museum, established in 1971, is a public institution dedicated to research and the collection, preservation, and exhibition of games and game-related objects. As of spring 2004, the Website will be in its 11th year and continues to evolve." Images of games in the museum are displayed by category. Click on each image to see how the game is played. Also here: Frequently Asked Questions About Games, Ethnography and Games. You can browse the games included on this site either alphabetically or via an ethnographic and geopolitical index. Very cool.
Web Search Briefs Scirus launches new toolbar and IUCr Content Now Indexed in Scirus -- Search Mandatory On All U.S. Government Web Sites by End of '05 (via SEW Blog) Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Online Information Source: Emerald This Week Only: Free Full Text Access to Three Recent Issues of Online Information Review Articles include: + Date-restricted queries in web search engines (Vol. 28 No. 6) + The unintended effects of hidden assumptions: biases on the internet (Vol. 28 No. 6) + Citation searching (Vol. 28 No. 6) + A social science gateway in a shifting digital world: shaping SOSIG for users' needs of the future (Vol. 28 No. 5) + Citedness scores for filtering information and ranking search results (Vol. 28 No. 5) + Web users' information retrieval methods and skills (Vol. 28 No. 4) + Combining article content and Web usage for literature recommendation in digital libraries (Vol. 28 No. 4) -- Digitization Projects Source: VNUNet Internet Archive to build alternative to Google We posted about this project last week. Btw, The New York Times about the Google project today. -- Digital Preservation Source: New York Times News Service (via San Diego Union-Tribune) PCs, CDs, DVDs full of e-files that need preserving "America's 115 million home computers are brimming over with personal treasures -- millions of photographs, music of every genre, college papers, the great American novel and, of course, mountains of e-mail. Yet no one has figured out how to preserve these electronic materials for the next decade, much less for the ages. Like junk e-mail, the problem of digital archiving, which seems straightforward, confounds even the experts." -- Scholary Publishing Open Access Source: BBC BBC Radio 4 Airs Program About Open Access The 37 minute program aired on Tuesday. An archived version is available on the web. "Scientific publishing is undergoing a revolution, with scientists and policy makers fed up with valuable research being denied to the public domain. Richard Black investigates"
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Congressional Resource Service Source: CRS (via FAS, FPC, and IPMall) New/Updated Congressional Research Service Reports + Terrorism: Background on Chemical, Biological, and Toxin Weapons and Options for Lessening Their Impact + U.S. Arms Sales: Agreements with and Deliveries to Major Clients, 1996-2003 + U.S.-China Counter-Terrorism Cooperation: Issues for U.S. Policy + Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy + Internet Gambling: An Abridged Overview of Federal Criminal Law + Internet Gambling: A Sketch of Legislative Proposals in the 108th Congress + Internet Gambling: Overview of Federal Criminal Law -- Aging--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Source: U.S. Census Census 2000 Special Report, We the People: Aging in the United States -- Franchises--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Entrepreneur Magazine Franchise 500 -- 2005 Rankings -- Just Released--U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Task Force Report on Prescription Drug Importation (PDF; 18.2 MB) Monday, December 20, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries Source: ARL Libraries and Changing Research Practices: A Report of the ARL/CNI Forum on E-Research and Cyberinfrastructure See Also: Slides and Presentations from the Forum -- Information Visualization Source: Information Today Groxis Launches Grokker E.D.U. for the Education Market From Paula Hane's article, "Grokker E.D.U., its 'search-and-research' platform for the education market. The new platform provides an optimized-for-education version of Grokker 2.2, the company?s metasearch application that shows contextually organized results from multiple sources, including the Web, in easy-to-navigate maps. Groxis also announced implementations of the new platform at Stanford University and a number of other universities and school districts."
Briefly + CSA Acquires PAIS From OCLC From the FAQ, " OCLC remains interested in aggregating content via its FirstSearch service and NetLibrary, but has decided to exit the abstracts and indexing "content publishing" business by selling PAIS, the only abstracts and indexing content publishing business owned by OCLC." You can read a statement and review the FAQ here. -- New Release of ScienceDirect Online
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Faculty Status/Salaries--Academia--United States Source: American Association of University Professors Faculty Salary and Faculty Distribution Fact Sheet 2003-04 From press release: "The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has released an update on gender equity in academia. The sad story is that the 2003-04 figures show little improvement in the salary gap over twenty-five years of higher education history. Among full-time faculty, for example, 38 percent are women. But among full professors, only 23 percent are women. Conversely, women are well represented among the lower ranks; women are 58 percent of all instructors, 54 percent of all lecturers, and hold 51 percent of all unranked positions. The report on earnings shows a similarly skewed picture." -- Asian Americans--Statistics Source: U.S. Census We the People: Asians in the United States A new 24 page report. -- Hispanic Americans--Statistics Source: U.S. Census We the People: Hispanics in the United States A new 20 page report. -- Military Studies--Webliography Source: C&RL News U.S. military and defense studies: Online Resources A new compilation prepared by Edward Metz, a librarian at the Combined Arms Research Library in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.
Search Briefs (via SEW Blog) + Complete Searchable Archive of Time Magazine Now Available + Very Cool! Build Your Own Topic Specific Engine With Gigablast Sunday, December 19, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Librarianship Source: CILIP Selected Articles from the December Issue of CILIP's Library + Information update are Now Online + Getting health information into communities + Preserving digital resources in the UK + Phil Bradley's Internet Q & A -- Special Collections--Cookbooks Source: Ann Arbor News We are what we ate, cookbook collection shows "It was published in 1796, a very long time ago in the history of American culinary arts. Just think of it. There were no hot dogs, hamburgers or deli sandwiches to be found. Still, some of the recipes in the first American cookbook, part of a collection assembled by an Ann Arbor couple, wouldn't seem so strange to our tastes today. There were recipes for turkey served with cranberry sauce, for instance.... That book and thousands of other pieces of American culinary history are being donated to the University of Michigan's Clements Library...." -- Theft--Academic Library Source: AP (via Akron Beacon Journal Former library employee pleads guilty to selling ancient texts "A former employee of the Kenyon College library pleaded guilty Friday to selling 50 rare books and other documents from the school's collection for $26,000."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Newspaper Pictorials--World War I Source: Library of Congress Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures "During the World War I era (1914-18), leading newspapers took advantage of a new printing process that dramatically altered their ability to reproduce images. Rotogravure printing, which produced richly detailed, high quality illustrations?even on inexpensive newsprint paper?was used to create vivid new pictorial sections.... The images in this collection track American sentiment about the war in Europe, week by week, before and after the United States became involved." -- Cool Tools and Gadgets Source: Wired Wired Tools 2004 "The coolest geek shopping list ever - 129 of the best screens, cams, phones, games and gadgets of the year." See Also: Dan Giancanterino's Gift Guide Roundup
Web Search Briefs Web Search--MSN Cool! Shortcuts for the MSN Desktop Toolbar Suite (via msnsearch's WebLog) Saturday, December 18, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Open Archive Initiative Source: Free Pint "The Open Archive Initiative (OAI) and Google Scholar" "There has been some disagreement about the merits of Google Scholar. Whatever your position on this, it is certain that the actual workings of Google Scholar are still the subject of speculation. What follows is not an unpicking of Google Scholar's innards but an exercise in trend watching. I think I might have spotted a trend in the act of tipping!" -- Music Preservation Source: Los Angeles Times Keeping Track of the Scores "What sets Feinstein apart from many collectors is his belief that musical rarities, once discovered, should not be hidden away. He says they are cultural artifacts and that every effort must to be made to carefully preserve them in public libraries or archives, so researchers and the public can enjoy them." -- Iraqi Libraries Source: The Harvard Crimson Harvard To Help Stock Iraqi Library Collections "In the new program, Harvard librarians have begun to compile lists of books and reference materials that will augment the collections in the Iraqi libraries. After Iraqi librarians indicate which books from the list they want, HUL will help them obtain the necessary funding to purchase them, according to Jeffrey Horrell, associate librarian of Harvard College for collections."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents IT Salaries--Survey Source: Certification Magazine The Big Payoff: CertMag's 2004 Salary Survey "Based on salary figures from the 2004 Certification Magazine Salary Survey, you might want to consider a career in either Cisco networking, telephony, project management or IT security." -- Literacy--United States Source: RAND Corporation Achieving State and National Literacy Goals, a Long Uphill Road "RAND gathered information from the 50 states and the District of Columbia (DC) on state assessment systems and student performance on reading or English language arts and writing assessments in order to measure adolescent's (grades 4 through 12) performance toward state literacy goals. Also examines the relative performance of students against national standards represented by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP)." Summary (PDF; 0.1 MB) ||| Full Report (PDF; 6.8 MB) Friday, December 17, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Information Source: CNI Project Updates from the Fall 2004 Coalition for Networked Information Task Force Meeting Are Now Online Including: + The Vanderbilt Television News Archive: A Progress Report + An Update from the OAI + Status of Volume Book Scanning + Is Stuff Safe Yet? Publisher Cooperation, Collection Expansion, Technology Development, Community Sustainability + Going 'On-Web' + Archiving the Political Web: Prospects and Challenges -- Health Information Source: NLM Index Medicus Ceases as a Printed Publication -- Libraries Source: Kansas City Business Journal Linda Hall Library unveils $18.5M expansion -- Library Buildings Source: Library Journal Library Buildings 2004 -- Great Libraries in the Making "We are in an age of experimentation. From Cerritos, CA, to Salt Lake City to Seattle, library users are experiencing public libraries the likes of which they have never before seen. While the 1990s may be remembered as the era of the anchor facility, when libraries were called upon to define and support a community's renaissance, this decade's library projects are responding to a new set of expectations and opportunities. A key element, of course, is technology. While older buildings may have accommodated technology, today's new libraries are formed by it."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Health Source: CDC Just Released: Married Adults are the Healthiest, New CDC Report Shows News Release ||| Summary ||| Direct to Full Text -- Climate--United States--Statistics Source: NOAA New, Climate of 2004 in Historical Perspective -- Australia--Images Two New Picture Trails from PictureAustralia + By Road "From the cycle car of 1904 to the sports car of the 1980s, from motor rallies in 1911 to the V8 supercar series in 2000, motor transport has become a major form of recreation and travel for many Australians." + By Rail "From the interior of a railway carriage in 1910 to the first electric railway in Sydney in 1968 - and discover the important role the railway has played in Australian society." -- Enduring Institutions Project Source: Booz Allen Hamilton Booz Allen Hamilton Lists the World's Most Enduring Institutions "Why is it that some institutions endure for decades or even for centuries while others disappear into history? Booz Allen Hamilton has sponsored a novel project identifying ten of the world's most Enduring Institutions over the past century. The list celebrates those institutions that have managed to reinvent themselves time and again -- and remained market leaders -- as the unique circumstances of their founding have given way to changing conditions." -- Dogs--Library Source: American Kennel Club (AKC) The AKC Library "The American Kennel Club maintains one of the world's largest libraries devoted to dogs, the development of purebred dogs and the sport and enjoyment of dogs. Open to the public, the Library presently contains approximately 17,000 volumes including bound periodicals, foreign and domestic stud books, art, literature, sporting, history and juvenile books.... The Library's mission is to serve as a public reference collection and archive on matters relating to purebred dogs and the various roles they play in our lives." Resources include: + Caius (OPAC) + AKC Recognized Breeds + Dog Breeds That Generally Do Well With People With Allergies + AKC Library Links + Support Dogs for the Handicapped + AKC Dog Registration Statistics
Search Briefs + Blinkx Launches Standalone Video Search Site + A Few Articles for Your "Search" Reading List + Yahoo Launches Video Search Prototype and Media RSS Format Thursday, December 16, 2004
Resources of the Week Two resources from the world of labor and labor law this week, both of which are worth a bookmark. 1) Labor Law--International Source: International Labor Organization International Observatory of Labour Law This gateway to international labor law information is one of those specialized resources that few of us would ever use on a day-in, day-out basis, but it's a good one to know about in case you ever need research material in this particular subject area -- not a far-fetched possibility, given the relentless march of globalization. While some of the material on the site is scanty or has not been updated recently, there is excellent research value in the site's series of National Labour Law Profiles. Each of these provides an excellent overview of labor law in a number of ILO-member countries -- Argentina, Czech Republic, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Guyana, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, New Zealand, The Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Russian Federation, Republic of Korea, South Africa, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela. You'll find extensive information about the constitution, the government, the head of state, the legislature, the judiciary, labor regulation, contracts of employment, protective labor legislation, wage protection, workplace equality, sexual harassment, trade union regulation, collective bargaining and agreements, strikes and lockouts, and settlement of labor disputes. Each profile also includes a bibliography. The site also offers a reasonably up-to-date collection of web links to constitutions, labor law and general legal information. -- 2) Labor Unions--Research Guide Source: Martin P. Catherwood Library, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University Labor Unions and the Internet This site essentially functions as a guide for labor unions who want to establish or maximize a web presence. It explains why the Internet is important for labor unions, and provides an extensive annotated webliography covering a wide range of useful, practical topics, from alternative dispute resolution to wages. The focus is on quality rather than quantity; each topic includes just a few key sites, but those are described in some detail. Some of the guide sections will interest researchers outside the realm of labor unions. For example, guides to company information, government sites, and statistical sites. There's also a useful selection of labor union directories. The library offers related guides on Collective Bargaining, Arbitration, and U.S. Labor Unions. -- See Also: Stuart Basefsky's IWS News Service A great resource for labor-related materials. Basefky is a librarian at Cornell.
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Libraries The December 2004 Issue of Digital Libraries Magazine is Now Online Articles include: + The Role of RSS in Science Publishing: Syndication and Annotation on the Web Tony Hammond, Timo Hannay, and Ben Lund, Nature Publishing Group + Resource Harvesting within the OAI-PMH Framework Herbert Van de Sompel, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Research Library; Michael L. Nelson, Old Dominion University; and Carl Lagoze and Simeon Warner, Cornell University + A Repository of Metadata Crosswalks Carol Jean Godby, Jeffrey A. Young, and Eric Childress, OCLC + Metadata Development in China : Research and Practice Jia Liu, Peking University, China -- Scanners Source: Transform Document Scanner Guide 2004 -- Internet Source: Talk of the Nation/National Public Radio Radio Program: Google's Plan Prompts a Question: What's on the Web? Guests: + Michael Keller, head librarian, Stanford University; director of Academic Information Resources + Brewster Kahle, founder, the Internet Archive (a non-profit digital library)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Travel--Weblogs Source: The Washington Post The Washington Post Guide to Travel Blogs -- Holidays--United States--Fast Facts Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts: Holidays 2004 + Christmas Trees, Ornaments and Gifts $521 million The amount of money the nation's Christmas tree farmers received from tree sales in 2003 + $30.6 billion The dollar amount of retail sales by the U.S. toy industry in 2002 + 11,086 The number of electronic shopping and mail-order houses in business in 2001 + Much More on the Fact Sheet -- Toys--Noise Hazard Source: Sight & Hearing Association Noisy Toys "For the seventh year, the Sight & Hearing Association tested 22 toys taken directly off toy store shelves. Five of those toys measured above 100 dB, which is similar to a chainsaw." Includes 2004 Noisy Toys List. (via Al's Morning Meeting)
Citation Analysis Source: ISI + Science in England, 1999-2003 + Public Health & Health-Care Science: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1999-2003
Web Search Briefs Weblogs How About Some Year-End Lists? + Most Popular Search Terms 2004 (AOL) + Most Popular Search Terms 2004 (Lycos) + BlogPulse.com's Most Cited Blogs, News Items, and News Sources of 2004 UPDATE: More Lists! Google ||| Google International ||| Yahoo Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Digitization Projects--Books No, It's Not Google: International Libraries and the Internet Archive collaborate to build Open-Access Text Archives I have a funny feeling that this exciting news from the IA got overlooked yesterday. We have a couple of other items about the Million Book Project in yesterday's Google/Library post. "By working with libraries from 5 countries, and working to expand this number, we are bringing a broad range of materials to every interested individual. This growing commitment to open access through public archives marks a significant commitment to broad, public, and free access. While still early in its evolution, works in dozens of languages are already stored in the Internet Archive's Open-Access Text Archive offering a breadth of materials to everyone. Over one million books have been committed to the Text Archive. Currently over twenty-seven thousand are available and an additional fifty thousand are expected in the first quarter of 2005. Advanced processing of these multilingual books will offer unprecedented access." -- Archives--Standards Source: National Archives (U.K.) The National Archives Standard for record repositories and the Framework of Standards "The new National Archives Standard is the recognised benchmark for all aspects of caring for records and providing access to them. This new Standard also includes guidance on the preservation of digital and electronic records." -- National Libraries--U.K. Online page turner takes top award Congrats to the Turning the Pages (TTP) team. If you've never checked out TTP, you should!!! -- Information Industry The November/December Issue of Research Information is Now Available Feature Articles include: + Adapting to advance "Information professionals can benefit from a dynamic employment market, so long as they're prepared to change with the environment." + Digging for information "John Murphy profiles Professor Keith Van Rijsbergen, head of the information retrieval group at the University of Glasgow"
Google Scholar Creator of Google Scholar Answers a Few Questions Thanks to developer of Google Scholar, Anurag Acharya, for the following answers about the new service. ResourceShelf will check back soon for any updates. Q: What is the cut-off in terms of page size? From what we can see it's about 500kb-800kb? Is this documented anywhere? A: No, this isn't documented and the team tells me these limits are "likely to change." Nothing specific to announce. No date set yet. Q: How often is the GS database updated? A: Periodically. While in beta, we will determine how often to update this index. As you can imagine, the content in Scholar is different than the main index. We're studying it, and don't have a final schedule/refresh rate to announce yet. Q: Does GS have any plans to state what they do and don't consider scholarly? A: The techniques used to decide inclusion in Google Scholar are evolving. As mentioned earlier, we're still in beta and constantly working to evolve the product. Automated extraction of information from a diverse collection of documents and web pages can be tricky. Note, however, that with a decent ranking, the inclusion criteria are less important."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Online Exhibits--Canada Source: Civilization.ca New, Before E-Commerce: A History of Canadian Mail Order Catalogs -- Health Benefits--United States Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Just Released, Current Trends and Future Outlook for Retiree Health Benefits: Findings from the Kaiser/Hewitt 2004 Survey on Retiree Health Benefits -- Computer Hardware--Consumer Ratings Source: PCWorld.com Readers Rate the Manufacturers "Who builds hardware you can count on? How does tech support stack up? We asked 42,000 PC World readers about their PCs, cameras, printers, and more -- and boy, did they give us an earful." Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Web Search--Google Source: SearchDay Google: Let's Digitize Several Million Library Books Holy Cow! Not even a month after Google Scholar was released, more big news from Google today. The company is announcing plans (very little has been done to this point) to work with libraries at Harvard, University of Michigan, Oxford, and Stanford, as well as the New York Public Library to scan and digitize MILLIONS of books in their collections -- in fact, in some cases, the entire collection. These are long-term projects (many years). All of us will be watching. Gary has written an overview article for SearchDay. More in the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. See Also: The Google Print Library FAQ Oh, how could we forget, check out the headline CNN slapped on a Reuters story about the project. )-: -- Btw, let's not forget that other book digitization projects are well underway. In fact, Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive has just posted news about the IA's Million Book Project. He writes: + "The Million Books Project will be posting 10's of thousands of books later this month on the Archive and elsewhere. These were scanned in India by the Indian government." + "This fall we kicked off a volume book scanning "in-library" project at the University of Toronto." + Watch a Movie of the Internet Archive's Scanning Robot at the University of Toronto -- ResourceShelf Contributing Editor, Steven Cohen, shares a comment or two: So, it seems that Google is starting a partnership with a few libraries across the country, which will include the digitation of all of the books in the collections and make them available on Google Print. Wow. According to Search Engine Watch, "At the University of Michigan, the plan is to scan seven million titles over a six year period using a non-destructive scanning technology that Google has developed. The university will also be given a copy of each file to use as they see fit. A "digitize the complete library" arrangement is also the current plan at Stanford and Oxford, and the New York Public Library will also be running a pilot project." This is sure to make waves across the library world. On one hand, making library materials available on Google could result in libraries getting more attention from users. In fact, it could be a great marketing tool for the participating libraries. On the other hand, what makes Google certain that they will reach potential users of the system? As we have found out with Open WorldCat, just because data is part of a database, it doesn't mean people will find it. Considering that Google will not be providing a specific search query system for this service, it will probably be just as tough to find materials from the participating libraries. Making a database bigger doesn't make it better. I've heard the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach before with Google (and I'm not implying that this is one of those instances), but libraries should be pushing their own materials through their websites rather than having to "rely" on Google to do so. That said, I'm taking the wait-and-see approach with this new partnership. It could indeed have a very positive effect on users' attitutes towards libraries, but there could also be negative consequences. -- -- Comments from ResourceShelf Contributing Editor, Dan Giancaterino Here's the bottom line for Jenkins Law Library (where I work), which btw is 200 years old. About 1% of our collection is "out of copyright," i.e., published before 1900 (my arbitrary date.) These titles have accounted for less than one-half of 1% of total uses (checkout, internal use, copying, and ILL) in the last 10 years. Digitizing these titles sounds great, but it really won't help our users very much." -- -- See Also: Some are leery of Google's online data project (via SLC Tribune/AP) See Also: Google's digital books plan not user perfect (via Chicago Tribune/AP)
Professional Reading Shelf Law Librarians Source: Memphis Business Journal Law librarians say technology has them more in demand "Online research hasn't rendered law librarians obsolete. In fact, librarians are actually in greater demand now than ever before and have increased workloads, librarians and lawyers say." -- Virtual Reference--United Kingdom Nationwide Virtual Reference Service Pilot Underway in the United Kingdom From the announcement, "The first phase of the new People's Network Service is launched to library professionals today. The People's Network Online Enquiry Service will deliver a real-time information service to the public by providing 'live' access to library and information professionals across the internet...'We are asking colleagues to help us pilot and test out this Enquiry Service and give us your comments and feedback prior to its public launch in March next year.'" -- Document Delivery Source: E-LIS The impact of e-journal access on DocDel Service activities In Proceedings 9th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries, Santander(Spain).
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Crime--United States--Statistics Source: FBI Just Released, Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report Summary ||| Full Text -- Freedom of Information--United Kingdom Source: National Audit Office New, Freedom of Information Guide -- Energy--Statistics--United States Source: EIA + Early Release of the Annual Energy Outlook 2005 -- Newspapers--RSS Source: The Media Drop Newspapers with RSS: A List From The Media Drop Web Site, "It took a little longer than expected, but I've compiled what I believe to be a solid list of U.S. newspapers that offer RSS feeds. It is sorted alphabetically, and I'm still noting state designations on some of them. The list includes newspapers listed in the Yahoo! directory, including college/university publications when available." Monday, December 13, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Audio Books Source: CNET Flash memory coaxes audiobooks out of the '70s -- Children's Literature Source: AP University's library school offers online gift guide for children's books From University of Illinois' Graduate School of Library Science and Information. "Thousands of children's books are published in the United States each year so finding the perfect book for that favorite niece or nephew won't be easy. It wouldn't hurt to have some professional help. With that in mind, the experts at the Center for Children's Books at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created an online guide to help make choosing the right gift easier. 'The books people buy for kids aren't necessarily the same books kids enjoy,' explained Deborah Stevenson, editor of the 20-page guide, which lists about 250 books split up by age group." -- Government Printing Office Source: GPO Just Released, GPO Unveils Its Strategic Vision for the 21st Century: A Digital Information Factory From the announcement, "'We had to wake up. Last month 50% of all Government documents were born digital and will never be printed by the Government. But the GPO is still required by law to gather and catalog these electronic documents, to distribute them electronically, and to ensure their perpetual availability to the public,' said Bruce James, Public Printer of the United States. 'This task calls for a whole new set of skills and tools; what we call a digital information factory.' Central to GPO's plans is trading its existing building complex for new facilities, sized and equipped for its digital future. 'Rather than burden taxpayers with the enormous costs of building and equipping our operations for the future, we believe that we can use the proceeds from the private redevelopment of our current obsolete plant to completely pay the costs of new facilities and still have money left over to return to the U.S.Treasury,' James said." -- Open Access Source: Online Journalism Review Calls for Open Access Challenge Academic Journals
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Drug Prices--United States Source: Consumers Union New Web Site, Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs Launches Website "Consumers Union has launched a public education campaign and free website--www.CRBestBuyDrugs.org--that will help consumers save money on medicines. The reports compare a variety of prescription drugs on price, effectiveness and safety to help consumers and their doctors identify the most effective and affordable medicines." -- Military Science--Bibliographies Two new bibliographies from Air University Library Internet resources, books, documents, periodicals + Unmanned Aerial Vehicles + Operation Iraqi Freedom--Lessons Learned -- Vehicle Colors--Popularity Source: DuPont Automotive Silver Still Strong, But Livelier Hues Lead Change -- 2004 DuPont Automotive Color Popularity Report Indicates Car Buyers "Yearn For Color" "A color coup has yet to topple silver's crown, but a yearning for new and expressive vehicle exterior colors is clearly gaining force -- a trend that experts say will increase in the coming years. The newly released 2004 DuPont Automotive Color Popularity Report traces the rise of chromatic shades in North America. For example, light metallic brown and blue each have captured double-digit percentages of the overall vehicle market, and yellow looks hot on the right vehicles while red is on the rise again." -- Internet--Spam Source: Business Software Alliance (via docuticker.com) Consumer Attitudes Toward Spam "Internet bargain hunters are likely to become scam victims this holiday season if they respond to unsolicited or 'junk' email offers that seem 'too-good-to-be-true,' say the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB). The two non-profit groups today released the results of a BSA commissioned study conducted by Forrester Data on spam email along with shopping tips for a safe and secure online holiday shopping experience." + Read the Survey of Spam in the U.S. [PDF] + Read the Survey of Span in 6 Countries [PDF] Sunday, December 12, 2004
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents U.S. History--Timelines New Timelines Added to Infoplease.com Collection + Significant U.S. Conflicts + U.S. Voting Rights + Changes in the Presidency + The Supreme Court and Equal Rights + The Supreme Court and Federalism + Congressional Power + Free Speech -- Military History--Writing Guide Source: Marine Corps Historical Center Marine Corps Historical Center Writing Guide (PDF; 732 KB) "The Writing Guide of the Marine Corps History and Museums Division is intended primarily for use by historians and curators, both Marine and civilian, assigned to the Division and those others engaged in the preparation of officially sanctioned histories and exhibits. However, the Writing Guide can also be a useful reference for historians of Marine Corps history." (Revised Edition 2004) -- Ethics--Professions--Public Opinion Source: The Gallup Organization Nurses Top List in Honesty and Ethics Poll "More generally, this year's honesty and ethics poll shows that Americans continue to give their highest ratings to the public service professions, like the military, teachers, and members of the medical profession. Public protectors also rate highly. The lowest rated professions tend to be those connected with sales or big business, lawyers, elected officeholders, and reporters." -- AIDS Epidemic--Maps Source: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) AIDS Epidemic Update: December 2004 North America, Western and Central Europe: Maps Four maps: + Global estimates for adults and children, end 2004 + Adults and children estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS, end 2004 + Estimated number of adults and children newly infected with HIV during 2004 + Estimated adult and child deaths due to HIV/AIDS during 2004
Search Briefs (via SEW Blog) + American Chemical Society Sues Google Over Google Scholar Name Note: If you're interested in reading the nine page complaint that the ACS filed in U.S. District Court, it's available here. Saturday, December 11, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Information Dissemination Source: E-LIS PREPRINT: Participation in the global knowledge commons: challenges and opportunities for research dissemination in developing countries -- Academic Libraries Source: Daily Illini Crowded library receives shelf space Read about the opening off-campus storage facility at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. -- National Archives--United States Source: NARA President Signs National Archives Budget "Congress has passed and the President has approved a budget for the National Archives and Records Administration for Fiscal Year 2005 of $321,291,000, which exceeds the President's request...Included in the total of $321,291,000 are $266,945,000 for operating expenses, $35,914,000 for the Electronic Records Archives, $13,432,000 for repairs and restorations, and $5,000,000 for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, (NHPRC). However, the legislation also includes a .83 percent (eighty-three one hundreds of one percent) across-the-board reduction on all accounts. This means an agency-wide reduction of approximately $2,426,000 from the appropriated amounts."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Computer Viruses--Lists & Rankings Source: Sophos Top Ten Computer Viruses for 2004 -- U.S. History--Timelines New Timelines Added to Infoplease.com Collection + Significant U.S. Conflicts + U.S. Voting Rights + Changes in the Presidency + The Supreme Court and Equal Rights + The Supreme Court and Federalism + Congressional Power + Free Speech
Specialty Search Tools--Vivisimo Search the FY 05 U.S. Federal Budget and and Cluster Results With Vivisimo Journalists, policy wonks, and poli science students might find this new clustering tool useful. Friday, December 10, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Images and Art Resources Source: Searcher Looking for Good Art, Part 3: Glorious National Collections The third part of David Mattison's wonderful series of annotated webliographies. Part 1: Web Resources and Image Databases and Part 2: General & U.S. Tools are also available online. -- National Libraries--South Africa Source: Business Day Work to Begin Shortly on New National Library of South Africa Building "The national library came into existence through the merger in 1999 of the former state library in Pretoria and the former South African Library in Cape Town." -- Library Organizations Source: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions IFLA's Three Pillars: Society, Members and Profession -- Public Libraries Source: Detroit Free Press Author drops suit against Ann Arbor library over ban for swearing
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents United States--Statistics Just Released, The 2004-2005 Statistical Abstract of the United States See Also: Fast Facts from the New Stat Abstract + The number of cell phone subscribers in the United States reached approximately 159 million in 2003, up from 34 million in 1995 + The average cell phone call in 2003 lasted 2.87 minutes, and the average monthly bill was $49.91. + For the year ending Sept. 30, 2002, almost 1.1 million immigrants were admitted to the United States. The three leading countries from which they came were Mexico (219,380), India (71,105) and China (61,282). + In 2002, 39,955 doctoral degrees were conferred. Among those with known citizenship, 74 percent of these degrees were awarded to U.S. citizens; 26 percent went to citizens of another country. -- Children--Statistics Source: UNICEF Just Released, Childhood under Threat -- The State of the World's Children 2005 -- R&D Source: Technology Review R&D 2004 "Technology Review analyzes corporate research trends and numbers. Including: the TR Corporate R&D Scorecard, which tallies the R&D spending of 150 top technology companies, and a ranking of companies according to the TR Innovation Index. Plus: profiles of hot research projects at Philips, Nokia, and Texas Instruments." -- Digital Divide--United Kingdom Source: BT Research reveals stark portrait of digital Britain in 2025 "Millions of Britons will face huge difficulties trying to access a wide range of essential services if the gap between people with access to technology and those without continues without direct action over the next 20 years.A new BT report, which explores the future impact of the digital divide, predicts that whilst the number of digitally excluded people will fall from 27 million to 23 million by 2025, the people excluded risk losing access to fundamental services like medical information and education." + Read the Full Report -- Health Resources Source: NLM A New "Local" Version of MedlinePLUS for Missouri "Missourians have a new way to connect to local health services. NLM's MedlinePlus consumer health web site now includes Go Local links to Missouri's Community Connection (http://communityconnection.org) online services directory. Missouri is the second state, after North Carolina, to complete a Go Local connection with MedlinePlus."
Web Briefs (via SEW Blog) + Google Labs Launches Search Term Suggestion Tool New local versions of Google News too! Thursday, December 09, 2004
Resources of the Week Two entries this week. --- --- by Steven Cohen, Contributing Editor Toxic Chemicals--United States--Maps Source: NLM Toxmap This past week, the National Library of Medicine (US) announced the availability of a new interactive web site titled TOXMAP. According to the press release, TOXMAP, "shows--on maps--the amount and location of certain toxic chemicals released into the environment in the United States...[and]...focuses on the geographic distribution of chemical releases, their relative amounts, and their trends over time....TOXMAP also links to NLM's extensive collection of toxicology and environmental health references, as well as to a rich resource of data on hazardous chemical substances in its TOXNET databases (http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/). There are also fact sheets and summaries about the various chemicals, written by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry." We took the site for a trial run and was very impressed with its various features. There is a Quick Search feature which allows for the user to search for a chemical name, city, state, and zip-code. The results bring back a map of the queried destination, with the toxic chemicals noted by blue squares. The maps allow for zooming in and out of a specialized location. One of the interesting features is a "Toxline" search for the area of interest. For example, after I queried my zipcode, I was allowed to search Toxline special and Toxline Core on Pubmed (Not a static URL), which brought back results from PubMed with my geographic specifications already placed in the query bar. Take a look at the search query for the Toxline special search. Other interesting add ons involve the ability to add U.S. Census data to the map or Reference Data, which includes, "information such as cities, roads, federal land, urban areas, and roads". -- -- by Dan Giancaterino, Contributing Editor Holiday Buying Guides My Favorite Holiday Buying Guides My job title is "Internet Librarian". It's a given that I have to stay current with the Web, but I'm always surprised at how many times I'm asked about RAM or PDAs or flash drives. One way to keep up with tech developments is to read the holiday buying guides. Here are a few of my favorites. -- + New York Times - A no-brainer for this list. Even if you aren't interested in tech, you owe it to yourself to read the Times' Circuits page every Thursday. Well-written reviews, including links to product Web sites and reviews. If you walk around your library, you'll see your patrons and students already using these products. -- + CNET - This site gives you so many points of access: by type of person (mom, dad, zany uncle, etc.), by category, or by the Ultimate Picks for Enthusiasts. Each review features a product image, bulleted list of "Why you want it" points, links to reviews and prices, and -- my favorite -- a link to a "10 Mistakes to Avoid" page for the gadget's category. -- + Washingtonpost.com - Two annoyances -- site registration is required and product images aren't integrated into the text -- almost kept this site off the list. But the product reviews, especially of the top 5 computers, contain a wealth of practical information. Good for the non-techie librarian who's tasked with buying and maintaining the library's PCs, printers, and other hardware. -- + Wired Magazine - This list, on the other hand, tends to be a bit "bleeding edge" -- would you spend $500 on the Oakley MP3 sunglasses? However, the Video, Audio, Cameras, and Phones sections clue you in to products you may actually want to purchase in a year or so, when the prices come down. The 30 Under $30 list is great, too. (I want that Mobile Edge Key Chain Wi-Fi Sniffer for 25 bucks.) -- + Scientific American.com - Not totally tech, but that's okay. (This is actually a good list for school librarians. Where else could you find the Wooly Mammoth Hair in Lucite or the Einstein Gumby?) On page 5 you'll see the Swiss Army Knife with 128MB USB flash drive for under a hundred bucks. Just the perfect thing for the Systems Librarian on your list. -- Dan Giancaterino is an Internet Librarian at the Jenkins Law Library in Philadelphia, PA.
Professional Reading Shelf Academic Libraries--Johns Hopkins Source: Johns Hopkins Gazette Thinking Out Loud: A Billion Dollar IPO for Johns Hopkins This is nice to read. From the article, "I hope by now you realize that any talk of taking our library public is simply to emphasize the point missing in all this Google mania: Massive information overload is placing librarians in an ever more important role as human search engines. They are trained and gifted at ferreting out and vetting the key resource material when you need it. Today's technology is spectacular -- but it can't always trump a skilled human." Johns Hopkins President William R. Brody asks, "Have you hugged your librarian today?" -- -- Public Libraries--Ebooks Source: New York Times Libraries Reach Out, Online eBooks, virtual reference, and library blogs are all mentioned in this article. "In the first eight days of operation in early November, and with little fanfare, the library's cardholders - from New York City and New York state and, increasingly, from elsewhere - checked out more than 1,000 digital books and put another 400 on waiting lists (the library has a limited number of licenses for each book)." See Also: Into the Stacks, Tablets in Hand Yes, two New York Times articles about libraries in one day! This one takes a look at "roaming reference" at a library in Michigan. -- Dictionaries The December 2004 Issue of the Oxford English Dictionary Newsletter is Online Articles include: + Meet Beverly Hunt, Archivist at the OED -- Handwritten Documents--Search Tool Source: University of Massachusetts Amherst News Researchers create tool to automatically search handwritten historical documents "Historians and researchers searching through handwritten documents, such as the 140,000 pages that make up George Washington's personal papers in the Library of Congress, now have a new powerful tool to aid their work - a first-of-its kind manuscript retrieval system developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The search tool has been developed by the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval in the computer science department at UMass Amherst." See: Handwriting Retrieval Demonstrations -- Archives Cornell University Library receives grant to support its Eastern Wine and Grape Archive
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Year-End Lists Source: National Geographic News National Geographic's Quirkiest News of 2004 Here come the year-end lists!!! -- Higher Education--Web Resources Source: C&RL News Alternative assessment in higher education: Web sites for a learner-centered approach This compilation was put together by Bonnie Chauncey, a librarian at the Ronald Williams Library at Northeastern Illinois University. Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries--United States Blogging at ALA Midwinter - Be a Part of it The PLA Blog needs writers and photogs for the ALA Midwinter Conference. -- Government Printing Office--United States Source: GPO GPO Releases 2004 Annual Report, Reports Turnaround "The Government Printing Office, which produces and distributes most of the printed and electronic documents for Congress, the courts, and the Federal Government, reported today a nearly complete turnaround in its fortunes. The GPO, which receives about 15% of its annual revenue in Congressional appropriations, earns the rest from providing services to other Government entities. After losing more than $100 million over the last five years, GPO reported an operating surplus of $11.2 million in its fiscal year ending September 30, 2004." The report is available here (PDF) or in a Zinio interactive version here. -- Libraries--Canada Source CBC Jewish library reopens after fire bombing "The official inauguration of United Talmud Torah school's new library coincides with the first night of Hanukkah. The firebombed library of Canada's oldest Jewish school reopens Tuesday. On April 5, the firebomb destroyed many of the old books in the library." -- Internet Librarian Presentation links from Internet Librarian 2004 conference (Monterey, CA; November 15-17)
Citation Analysis Source: ISI + The Year 2004: Top 20 Country Rankings in All Fields + Science in Denmark, 1999-2003 + Science in India, 1999-2003 + Philosophy: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 1999-2003 + U.S. Universities with High Concentrations in Management, 1999-2003
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Health Information New Topic Page/Compilation from MEDLINEPlus Source: NLM + Bullying -- Socioeconomic Indicators--United States Source: NWAF Northwest Area Foundation's Indicators The following annotation appears in the always useful EconData.Net monthly newsletter. "For each of the counties in the Foundation's eight state region--Minnesota, Iowa, the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington--the website includes 34 indicators in eight general categories: population, income and poverty, employment, family and kids, education, housing, health, crime and safety. The site also includes a subset of this data for selected communities, Native American Reservations and individual tribes. The site includes text summaries that highlight major trends in each indicator. You'll also find information displayed with graphs and maps. Users who want to analyze the indicators further can download data in Excel spreadsheets." See Also: EconData.net Directory Was a Resource of the Week in 2003 -- Internet Publishing Broadcasting Source: U.S. Census Just Released, 2002 Economic Census, Information, Industry Series, Internet Publishing and Broadcasting: 2002 Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Online Research Source: AP Online research can be easy, but beware of hoaxes "When students do research online these days, many educators worry, those are often about the only steps they take. If they can avoid a trip to the library at all, many students gladly will." I wonder how many students and educators realize that some (not all) resources are available without having to take a trip to the library? I wonder how many of them know about virtual reference services or that they can often work with a librarian over the phone? Do these people understand the difference betweeen what you might find from Google or Yahoo vs. what's in a ProQuest, Gale, or specialty web database? From the article, "In a study on research habits, Wellesley College researchers Panagiotis Metaxas and Leah Graham found that fewer than 2 percent of students in one Wellesley computer science class bothered to use non-Internet sources to answer all six test questions. And many students failed to check out multiple sources. For instance, 63 percent of students asked to list Microsoft Corp.'s top innovations only visited the company's Web site in search of the answer." If you're looking for a WONDERFUL compilation of tools and articles about evaluating information quality, head to this section of Ballard Spahr's Virtual Chase site. -- Digital Images Source: Kings College - London Reproduction charging models & rights policy for digital images in American art museums "This study explores the cost and policy models adapted by US arts museums in arriving at pricing structures for delivering imaging and rights services. It examines the new market realities and opportunities cultural institutions face due to the transition to digital collections. One hundred US art museums were surveyed and in-depth interviews were carried out with 20 museums." + Read the Report [PDF] -- Public Libraries Source: Chicago Tribune Chicago Public Library Increases Wi-Fi Access "Library patrons now have wireless Internet access in 76 of the city's 79 library locations. Chicago Public Library officials today said Chicago has the first major urban library system to roll out a wireless network on this scale. Eventually all of the city's libraries will allow patrons free access." -- Librarians--Public Schools--San Diego Source: San Diego Union Tribune Librarians becoming scarcer in S.D. schools "Because of budget cuts, schools have either eliminated their librarians, cut their hours, or opted to keep their libraries open with clerical technicians or volunteers. Schools that have full-time librarians are a rarity." (via DrWeb) -- Academic Libraries--Special Collections Source: The BG News (Bowling Green State University) Donations add to library record collection "Many years ago employees of the Sound Archives had to fly to Maine and rent a U-Haul to bring back more than just a truckload of music. People following behind honked their horns in fear of the truck's wheels flying off from the weight of the donation. It is donations like this one that has kept the University libraries on their fingertips cataloguing some of the finer arts and materials for students."
Web Search Briefs + Accoona: New Web and Business Engine G.P. has some comments in the SearchDay article: Accoona Launches, But Isn't Ready for Prime Time
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents United States Government Source: GPO Just Released, 2004 Plum Book "Alternately prepared after each Presidential election by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Government Reform, the Plum Book provides comprehensive information on thousands of Federal civil service leadership and support positions in the legislative and executive branches of the Federal Government that may be subject to noncompetitive appointment, nationwide...The Plum Book also provides information on SES appointments. Additionally, appendices provide information on the positions listed and the Federal salary schedules under which they are paid." -- Genealogy Source: National Archives 1881 and 1891 Census records for England and Wales go online "MyFamily.com and The National Archives have come together to launch a new co-branded online service. For the first time, fully searchable indexes and scans of original documents from the 1881 and 1891 censuses for England and Wales are available at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/census/. And over the next two years all historic censuses from 1841 to 1891 will be made available online in the same way providing a wealth of information about everyone living in the country, including their ages, occupations and places of birth." -- Federal Programs--Databases Source: American Council on Education Improving Lives: State and Federal Programs for Low-Income Adults "This online searchable database contains more than 400 state and federal programs that help individuals participate in postsecondary education. Visitors can search this database by program type or jurisdiction (federal or individual state) and find the following information for each program: + program name and type, + purpose, eligibility criteria/restrictions, + amount of aid provided and number of individuals assisted, + contact information. -- South Pole Source: National Science Foundation Byrd Commemoration: A Special Report From press release: "Richard Evelyn Byrd's historic flight to the South Pole 75 years ago this month laid the groundwork for today's United States Antarctic Program, the nation's massive research enterprise on the southernmost continent. In honor of Byrd's accomplishment, the National Science Foundation (NSF) today launched a commemorative Web site that chronicles how aircraft make scientific research in the polar regions possible and describes some of the cutting-edge discoveries made because of the logistics support aircraft provide." -- Wisconsin--History--Digitization Projects Source: AP Wisconsin historical society puts documents online "The Wisconsin Historical Society's collections could be just a click away. The society is putting some of its documents -- from original letters to museum artifacts -- online. The Web site, Turning Points in Wisconsin History (www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/), is at its early stage, with 200 original letters, photographs, rare books, diaries and newspaper articles ready for viewing, according to the society's Web site." -- Internet--Economics Source: The Brookings Institution (via DocuTicker) The Economics of the Internet Backbone "This paper discusses the economics of the Internet backbone. The author discusses competition on the Internet backbone as well as relevant competition policy issues." Full paper (PDF; 324 KB)
Briefly Highwire: Free eJournal Archive Passes the 3/4 Million Mark -- Mediafinder Online Database Of Publications Now Available Via Site License For Libraries
Enterprise Search--Convera Source: The Washington Post Agencies Find What They're Looking For A look at enterprise search company, Convera. They provide retrieval technology to the CIA, FBI, and other government agencies. The article also mentions that the company plans to enter the commercial web search marketplace next year. Thanks to C.L. for the link. Monday, December 06, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries Now Available: Free (One Week Only) Full Text Access to Three Recent Issues of Program: electronic library & information systems Articles include: + Understanding OpenURL standard and electronic resources: effective use of available resources (Vol. 38, No. 4) + Provision of digital preservation metadata: a role for ONIX? (Vol. 38, No. 4) + View Digital library research in the US: an overview with a knowledge management perspective (Vol. 38, No. 3) + Archiving the Web: European experiences (Vol. 38, No. 3) + Copyright, academic research and libraries: balancing the rights of stakeholders in the digital age (Vol. 38, No. 3) + The library systems market: a digest of current literature (Vol. 38, No. 2) + Snakes and ladders: towards a post-maturity evaluation index of integrated library system ownership (Vol. 38, No. 1) -- E-Prints Source: E-LIS Archiving scientific literature: an experience with e-prints archive software. In Parthan, S. and Jeevan, V.K.J. and Majumdar, K., Eds. Proceedings Information Management in e-Libraries (IMeL), pp. 321-334, Kharagpur (India). -- Access to Information--United States Source: FCW NGA wants flight, sea data offline "Officials at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) will seek public comment through June on their proposal to remove from public access all of the agency's aeronautic and navigational data and publications. NGA officials want to take this action starting next October, according to a Dec. 2 agency statement. 'The agency is considering this action principally because increased numbers of foreign source providers are claiming intellectual property rights or are forewarning NGA that they intend to copyright their source,' the statement reads." -- Libraries and Librarians The December 2004 Issue of First Monday is Now Available Articles include: + Libraries and national security: An historical review + Libraries and university presses can collaborate to improve scholarly communication or "Why can't we all just get along?" + Pulling sense out of today's informational chaos: LiveJournal as a site of knowledge creation and sharing
Web Search--Google Peter Jacso's Review of Google Scholar is Now Online A very comprehensive review. Must read. We're happy to see that Jacso touches on a couple of the issues ResourceShelf mentioned here and here. It will be interesting to see what changes the next 4-6 months will bring to GS. Yes, of course, we will be watching.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Internet--Music Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Artists, Musicians and the Internet "The first large-scale surveys of the internet's impact on artists and musicians reveal that they are embracing the Web as a tool to improve how they make, market, and sell their creative works. They eagerly welcome new opportunities that are provided by digital technology and the internet." + Read the Report [PDF] -- United Kingdom Source: National Statistics Office Recently Released, UK 2005: The Official Yearbook; a varied year in the life of the UK -- Data Mining Source: Congressional Research Service (via FAS) Data Mining: An Overview
Briefly EBSCO Partners with NISC, Producer of Sexual Diversity Studies GLBT Life Greatly Enhanced through Database Partnership Sunday, December 05, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf eBooks Source: New York Times An Idea Whose Time Has Come Back "Industry predictions five years ago that e-books would quickly replace paper never came to pass. I figured the digital book had failed because everyone shared my distaste for the first generation of clunky, book-sized devices designed for viewing them. And in fact Gemstar, the principal manufacturer of the electronic readers, stopped selling them last year. But it turns out the e-book market has been changing course and, though still tiny, has been growing at double-digit rates." -- Corporate Librarians--Fraud Source: Boston Herald Librarian accused of conning Bain "Giving new meaning to the term 'corporate research,' 31-year-old Jodie Walsh is said to have tricked Bain executives into shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars over six years for phony research reports." -- Libraries--United States Source: IMLS Seven Appointed to the National Museum and Library Services Board
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Music--Lists & Rankings Source: ASCAP Top 25 Most-Performed Holiday Songs "As the year 2004 draws to a close and seasonal music fills the air, ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), the world's largest performing rights organization, today announced an update of its Top 25 most-performed holiday songs based on the Society's most recent performance data." -- Bankruptcies--United States--Statistics Source: Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Just Released, FY 2004 Bankruptcy Filings Topped 1.61 Million "Bankruptcy cases filed in federal courts in fiscal year 2004 totaled more than 1.61 million--down 2.6 percent from fiscal year 2003, when a record 1.66 million were filed. It is the second highest total for any fiscal year." -- Entry-Level Employment Source: Employment Policies Institute Gateway Jobs "Gatewayjobs.com, a website focusing on the crisis in entry-level employment, provides regularly updated statistics detailing the employment market for entry-level employees and vital information about a host of government assistance programs designed to promote employment and economic success." Saturday, December 04, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries and Librarians Source: C&RL News New Article: Libraries and librarians in the 21st century: Fostering a learning society A new commentary by Robert S. Martin, director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. He writes, "If we can posit that librarians, archivists, and museum professionals are not separate and distinct professions, but rather different facets of a single unified profession, we will find that our ability to serve the needs of our communities is strengthened. If we re-envision ourselves as public servants, charged with the responsibility for collecting and organizing the materials that document our rich and diverse cultural heritage and enhancing access to those materials for our citizens, we will find that we can reshape our practices, learn from each other, and better attend to our users." -- The British Library Source: BL New Training Tools for Public Librarians "A new online learning package showcasing the British Library's services for public librarians across the UK is now live. The package - supported by the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) - has been designed as a virtual 'tour' showing public librarians what the British Library has to offer public library users. A full roll-out of the package to English library authorities by the SCL will take place over the coming months. The tour is at http://www.bl.uk/training_package/introduction.htm. -- Libraries--United Kingdom Source: MLA Outstanding library and archive collections to be Designated under national Scheme "The Designation Scheme, which since 1997 has identified the outstanding collections held in England's non-national museums, opens to applications from England's libraries and archives. The new, extended Scheme, run by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), will identify library and archive collections in non-national institutions which are deemed of national or international importance."
Briefly LexisNexis Launches "AlaCarte" Service "Consumers can log on and conduct a simple or advanced search free-of charge (users pay only for documents retrieved) through an easy-to-use interface." More than 20,000 sources. Direct to LN "AlaCarte" UPDATE: Paula Hane has an overview of the new service in this ITI NewsBreak.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Computer Security Source: Sophos Top Ten viruses and hoaxes reported to Sophos in November 2004 -- United States Congress--Directories Source: GPO (via DocuTicker) Just Released, New Member Pictorial Directory: 109th Congress Friday, December 03, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Online Information Industry--History Source: Searcher Online Before The Internet, Part 8: Early Pioneers Tell Their Stories: BRS -- An Interview with Jan Egeland "This article features 'Web-only Content' -- the complete interview with Jan Egeland (including an update on her recent entrepreneurial activities), as well as perspectives from Debbie Hull, BRS' 25th employee, and Ann J. Van Camp, a participant in various BCN and BRS user groups." Note: Links to the earlier parts of this series are available from this page. -- Library Instruction--Chemistry--Online Conference Source: SLA Chemistry Division Chemical Information Instruction "This web conference is a joint production of the SLA Chemistry Division and the ACS Division of Chemical Information (CINF), and will consist of five posters originally presented through the auspices of the ACS CINF Division at the ACS National Meeting in Philadelphia, August, 2004. NOTE: Registration for the conference will open Monday morning, December 6, 2004. A link to Registration will be available on this page at that time." Conference dates: December 6-12, 2004. -- Libraries--Canada Source: CLA Pre-Budget Submission to the House of Commons Finance Committee by the Canadian Library Association "In last March's Budget, the Government made learning one of its top five priorities. It stated clearly that 'learning is the cornerstone of Canada's economic and social foundations'. It went on to explain that, with regard to the economic foundation, investments in learning are key to a qualified workforce and to advances in knowledge; and with regard to the social foundation, they are key for ensuring equality of opportunity and fostering active participation in a democratic society."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Reports E-Commerce--United States--Statistics Just Released Report, 2002 Economic Census, Retail Trade, Industry Series, Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses: 2002 -- Health--United States--Statistics Source: CDC (via DocuTicker.com) Just Released, Health, United States, 2004 "The Nation's medicine cabinets are more crowded than ever, with almost half of all people taking at least one prescription medicine and one in six taking three or more medications, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) annual check-up on Americans' health." + Read the Report -- Floods--Worldwide--Map Source: Dartmouth Flood Observatory (via ReliefWeb) Major Floods in 2004 "Major floods reported by news services and satellite data observation." -- Emergency and Risk Management--Research Facilities Source: Texas A&M University Disaster, Hazard, Risk, and Emergency Management Research Centers Links to both domestic and international facilities, and to institutions dealing with specific topics: Business Risk, Drought, Earthquakes, Emergency Management, Environmental Hazards, Explosion and Radiation, Fire, Flood, Hazardous Materials, Health Risks and Epidemiology, Hurricane and Tsunami, Natural Hazards, Technological Hazards, Volcano, Water, Wind Engineering. -- U.S. Embassies--Visual Arts Source: U.S. Department of State ART in Embassies Program "Established by the United States Department of State in 1964, the ART in Embassies Program is a global museum that exhibits original works of art by U.S. citizens in the public rooms of approximately 180 American diplomatic residences worldwide." Dropdown menu allows you to choose a geographic location and view images of the objects on display there, along with links to brief descriptions. Cool. -- e-Government--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Center for Digital Government Just Released, Top 10 Digital Cities Named for 2004 "The Center for Digital Government has released the results of its 2004 Digital Cities Survey, naming Virginia Beach, Va.; Des Moines, Iowa; Denton, Texas (tie); Ogden, Utah (tie); and Redmond, Wash., as first-place winners in their respective population categories."
Information Industry--Elsevier Source: Dow Jones Elsevier CEO Says that 05 Will Be A Better Year Than 04 "[Elsevier CEO Crispin David] added that the basic trend in all the company's markets, except for science, are showing signs of improvement." Also: "Reed said the trading conditions for the scientific research information market remain challenging with minimal increases in academic library budgets. Weak software sales and the delay of a new product have pushed some of the expected revenue growth into next year, it said...The company said however it is performing ahead of the market with strong subscriptions renewals and new online sales." See Also: More About Various Elsevier Divisions in: Reed Elsevier Reiterates 04 Outlook" Thursday, December 02, 2004
Resources of the Week What do we like even better than maps. Maps and statistical resources. Here are two sites for you to explore this week: Geographic and Statistical Data Source: University of Virginia Libraries Geostat This site is actually the locus for all the statistical and geographic data available through the University of Virginia's library system. Thus, you will find resources that are available only to the University of Virginia community. However, much of what you'll see here can be accessed and browsed by anyone. On the main page is a simple keyword search box; you can also click the Browse/Search link in the top navigation bar to go to a page offering a search box as well as links to browse either statistics and social science data or digital maps and geospatial data. The Browse Geostat Resources link under the search box on the main page will get you here as well. Below the search box and the link on the main page is a dropdown menu offering "quick links" to such popular items as the Census Bureau's American FactFinder, County and City Data Books, and the U.S. Department of Commerce's TradeStats Express. Under the dropdown menu is a box containing links to "hot topics," such as business and industry data, and crime data. To the left of this box is a "Spotlight" box that highlights a different data collection or site every time you load the page. You'll notice that everything here is nicely annotated. You can choose to browse statistics and social science data by subject, geographic level, format or source. As you roll your mouse pointer over the choices available, descriptive information pops up in the box to the right. Very cool and very well done. This is a data junkie's paradise. There are links to statistical resources you may never have found on your own (which is why the keyword search is so valuable). Just a few of the gems: + American Religion Data Archive (Penn State University) + Data on the Net (U.C. San Diego) + Health and Medical Care Archive (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) + Kaiser Network Health Poll Search + National Jewish Population Survey (United Jewish Communities) + NCAA Sports Statistics + A Vision of Britain Through Time (Great Britain Historical GIS Project) You can browse digital maps and geospatial data by subject, format, or geographic coverage. You can also browse The Virginia Gazetteer ("digital maps, aerial photography and other geographic information for over 51,000 Virginia features"). Among the other links worth checking out: + Defense Meteorological Satellite Program ("offers satellite views of ice formations, tropical storms, and city lights, as well as global wildfire detection") + Geographic Resources for New York City ("good list of geographic data resources...include links to scanned maps, on-line web mapping sites and other related sites") + National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse ("a collection of over 250 spatial data servers, that have digital geographic data primarily for use in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), image processing systems, and other modelling software") + NOAA Central Library U.S. Daily Weather Maps Project ("historical daily weather maps from 1871 thru 2001") -- Health and Epidemiological Data Source: World Health Organization WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS) Here is your hub for "health and health-related epidemiological and statistical information available from the World Health Organization." You can jump to the different WHO program sites where the data is housed, or search across the entire collection. A seach box is conveniently located at the top center of the page. First on the list of briefly annotated links here: Core Health Indicators for each of the U.N.'s 192 member countries, from the latest World Health Report. This includes such things as mortality, population growth, etc. Access by country, data type, year or specific indicator. Other links will take you to: + Statistics by country or region + Statistics by topic, disease or condition + A collection of pointers to other sources of health-related statistical data
Professional Reading Shelf Online Databases--UK Source: The Guardian Why librarians are so tight-lipped A view from the UK about how public libraries license databases but can't promote them. Sad. Very sad. -- Access to Information--United States Source: Association of Research Libraries ARL Joins Others in Supporting Public Access to Government Information "Public interest organizations, including library, archives and journalists' groups, today filed an amici curiae brief with the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. The amici support public access to information about the makeup of the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), convened by Vice President Cheney in 2001. The amici joining in this brief believe the case is vital to preserving public access to government information under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) and share the conviction that broad access to government records protects values essential to representative democracy and promotes public participation in public policy." -- Librarians Source: Houston Chronicle Houston Chronicle Praises Librarians in Editorial From the editorial, "Librarians know everything or at least how to find out, and they are happy to share their knowledge."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Reports Language--English--Lists & Rankings Dictionaries Source: Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster has released their "words of the year" list. -- Privacy--Canada Source: Privacy Commissioner of Canada Recently Released, Privacy Commissioner of Canada Annual Report To Parliament 2004 -- Phishing--Statistics Source: Anti-Phishing Working Group Recently Released, Phishing Activity Trends Report - October 2004 Thanks to GT at TVC Alert for the news tip. -- Education--United States--Statistics Source: NCES Just Released, Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2004 -- Farm Subsidies--United States--Database Source: Environmental Working Group Farm Subsidy Database "As we near the end of the costliest decade in the 70-year history of government farm subsidies, a new update to the Environmental Working Group's farm subsidy database finds that taxpayers have spent more than $131 billion on federal farm programs over the past nine years. The total includes $16.4 billion spent during 2003, the fourth highest amount over the nine years and a 27 percent increase over 2002." Contains data for the period 1995-2003. Search by state or view U.S. Summary information. Find information like top subsidy programs in each state; searchable by city, zip code, individual's name or business name. -- Small Business--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Number of Small Businesses Continues to Grow; Nevada and Georgia Lead the Way
Database Trials Social Work--Databases During the Month of December Ovid is Offering Free Access to Social Work Abstracts Plus "The database provides exceptional coverage of more than 450 journals in all areas of the profession, including theory and practice, areas of service, social issues, and social problems." See Also: Direct to Database Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Photographs--Digitized Collections Source: Library of Congress Collections Recently Added to the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog + Tissandier Collection " 1773-1909, bulk 1780-1880. Pictures documenting the early history of aeronautics, with an emphasis on balloon flight.": -- + Prokudin-Gorskii Collection "about 1,900 glass plate negatives by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii using three-part color separation technique, with about 100 modern digital color renderings and approximately 2,400 prints mounted in fourteen albums. 1909-1915. Photographic survey of the Russian Empire, showing people, religious architecture, historic sites, industry and agriculture, public works construction, water and railway transportation routes, villages and cities." -- Telecommunications Source: U.S. Census New Report, Revenues for Cellular and Other Wireless Telecommunications Top $100 Billion -- Abortions--United States--Statistics Source: CDC New Report, Abortion Surveillance --- United States, 2001 "For each year since 1969, CDC has compiled abortion data by state or area of occurrence."
Professional Reading Shelf Freedom of Information--United Kingdom Source: House of Commons Library, UK New Research Paper, Freedom of Information implementation 35 pages; PDF. -- Online Information Source: Information Today Blog Live From London: Coverage of Online Information 2004 The ITI team is blogging the conference. Gary is at the conference and has been busy with several speaking responsibilities. -- Natural Language Searching Source: Free Pint Advanced Search Techniques using Natural Language Processing "However, despite the innovations of Google and others, it is clear that a document is much more than simply a collection of terms: words can be combined into phrases with specific meanings dependent on their order (e.g. a "blind venetian" is not the same as a "venetian blind"); and phrases may then combine to form structural or discourse dependencies, or make co-references to each other, and so on. But as long as the fundamental unit of representation remains the "bag of words", then much of this conceptual content will be lost. Inevitably, the experience for the search engine user is that they are often presented with a list of irrelevant documents, and they must then endure the chore of inspecting each one until they find the one that addresses their information need. Whilst this may be (just) tolerable for the casual web user, it can often prove unacceptable for corporate clients or professional information researchers, particularly those in the legal or financial sectors, where the cost of erroneous or out-of-date information is especially high." -- Library of Congress Source: AP U.S., Iran to Share Library Materials " In a statement Tuesday, [Librarian of Congress James] Billington said: "The agreement we signed will help fill a 25-year gap in the library's collection of materials published in Persian and other languages of Iran -- a move that will benefit not only the Congress but also scholars of the Middle East."
Business Research Coming Soon: For Your Radar Screen A new web-based business research engine, Accoona.com, is set to launch on Monday. You'll find more info (Accoona will offer info about thousands of businesses worldwide using and open web crawl and proprietary resources) along with a countdown clock here. Accoona is owned by the China Daily Information Company in partnership with the China Communications Corp. From a news release, "Accoona, in addition to web spiders that populate and update its database, has access to hundreds of millions of records from worldwide sources, delivering the richest and most robust database for search results. With a database of over 20 million US companies and over 30 million companies worldwide, the user will be able to search for businesses utilizing a large array of criteria: such as Name, Physical Address, Telephone, Fax, Business Description, industry category, company's URL and geographic location." |
