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Resources and News for Information Professionals
ResourceShelf is Compiled & Edited By Gary Price, MLIS Librarian Director of Online Information Resources, Ask.com Editor and Compiler, The ResourceShelf Editor and Compiler, DocuTicker
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Thursday, March 31, 2005
Resource of the Week by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor Educational Travel--Directory ShawGuides So what are you planning to do on your vacation? Tired of that same old beach/mountains/visiting relatives routine? Completely turned off by the idea of one of those "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium" whirlwind tours? This year, perhaps you should do something different. Learn a foreign language. Perfect your golf game. Attend a writers conference. Study cooking in France or painting in Italy? If you need an idea, try poking around in ShawGuides, a voluminous directory of educational and cultural travel programs. Now this site is not gorgeous by any means, but the content is rich and deep. The database contains information on more than 5,300 different programs, organized into 11 categories: + Cultural Travel + Art & Craft Workshops + Cooking & Wine Schools-Career + Cooking & Wine Schools-Recreational + Golf Schools & Camps + Photography, Film & New Media Schools + Photography, Film & New Media Workshops + Language Vacations + Writers Conferences & Workshops + Tennis Schools & Camps + High Performance Programs Although there is no search box on the home page, at the top level of the directory, you'll find one near the top of each page when you click through to one of the main headings. You can do a simple keyword search or click the search by date link, which actually gives you more options than a simple calendar search. Dropdown menus allow you to choose an area of focus -- e.g., art, sports, world affairs, etc. -- and/or a geographic location, either U.S. states or other countries. On the same page, under the advanced search form, is an option to sign up for e-mail notification when activities matching your search criteria are added to the database. If you look under the keyword search box at the top of the page, you'll see an array of clickable links to months, topics, states and countries -- all different ways of browsing through the database.
Professional Reading Shelf Technology Books--Book Reviews Source: LITA New Issue, TER: Technology Electronic Reviews Reviews include: + REVIEW OF: Phil Bradley. (2004). Advanced Internet Searcher's Handbook. Portland, OR: Neal-Schuman.(ISBN: 1856045234). By Rob Withers. + REVIEW OF: Rickford Grant. (2004). Linux for Non-Geeks: a Hands-on, Project-based, Take-it-slow Guidebook. San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press. (ISBN: 1593270348). By Wilfred Drew. + REVIEW OF: Peter Griffiths. (2004). Managing Your Internet and Intranet Services: The Information Professional's Guide to Strategy, Second Edition. London: Facet Publishing. (ISBN: 1856043401). By Michelle Mach. + REVIEW OF: Alan Schwartz. (2004). SpamAssassin. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.(ISBN: 0596007078). By Ray Olszewski.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Documents in the News Source: WMD.gov Just Released: The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction: Report to the President -- Seismic Activity--Map Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (via ReliefWeb) Global tectonic activity map of the earth (PDF; 853 KB) "Tectonism and vulcanism of the last one million years." Cool. -- Economics--Statistics Source: UN Economic Commission for Europe Statistics For Europe And North America Division's database currently presents a structured set of economic indicators for countries of the UNECE region. The statistics provided by this service are the empirical basis for the Economic Survey of Europe and other analyses carried out by the Secretariat of the Economic Commission for Europe. Emphasis has been placed on making the data ready for international comparison and immediate analytical use, as well as on making them easy to find. Users may be particularly interested in the statistics on CIS and central and eastern European countries, which are difficult to find elsewhere in a single integrated database. Data are updated on a daily basis and the content will progressively be increased to cover more domains." Thanks to Stuart B. for the resource tip.
Search Briefs (via SEW Blog) + FirstGov Requests Info from Search Vendors + More Searchable Video on the Way: Blinkx Signs Deal with Reuters + Google Files Annual Report With SEC Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries Source: SLA, ALA, AALL, ALISE, ARL, MLA U.S. library associations set up Library Disaster Relief Fund to rebuild libraries destroyed by the tsunami -- NARA--Electronic Records Source: Federal Computer Week E-records research in jeopardy "Archivists and historians nationwide are mounting a major campaign to stop the dismantling of the National Archives and Records Administration's grants program, which is responsible for electronic records research. Office of Management and Budget officials slashed all funding for the 70-year-old National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) in President Bush's proposed fiscal 2006 budget. In addition to e-records research, NHPRC funds historical projects." -- Digital Storage Source: NIST How Long Should Digital Storage Media Last? "Knowing that CDs and DVDs will last for a certain number of years is critical to many government agencies, as well as to hospitals, banks and other organizations that store massive amounts of vital data on optical disks. But, how long is long enough?"
Scholarly Publishing--Citation Reports Source: ISI + Most-Cited Countries: The Top Ten, 1994-2004 + Psychiatry: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1999-2003 + Journals Ranked by Impact: Dentistry, Oral Surgery & Medicine + Space Science: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1999-2003
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Commuting--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Americans Spend More Than 100 Hours Commuting to Work Each Year, Census Bureau Reports "Americans spend more than 100 hours commuting to work each year, according to American Community Survey (ACS) data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. This exceeds the two weeks of vacation time (80 hours) frequently taken by workers over the course of a year. For the nation as a whole, the average daily commute to work lasted about 24.3 minutes in 2003." Rankings include: State ||| County ||| Place ||| Extreme Commutes -- Documents in the News Independent Inquiry Committee, United Nations United Nations Oil-For-Food Program, 2nd Interim Report -- Albert Einstein--Audio Source: The British Library New, Available For Purchase: Previously unpublished and rare recordings of Einstein "A rare recording of the celebrated fund-raising dinner at the Savoy Hotel in 1930, at which Bernard Shaw famously described Albert Einstein as a 'maker of universes', is the centrepiece of a new CD published by the British Library today. It also contains what is believed to be the first commercial release of Albert Einstein explaining his Special Theory of Relativity, the formula e=mc 2." Learn More and Listen to Two Clips. -- Military Science--Digital Library Source: Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) CARL Digital Library "These electronic collections are largely composed of digital versions of paper documents from the Combined Arms Research Library collections. The CARL will continue to select and digitize appropriate documents to meet the original goals of preservation and dissemination." Search across all collections or search each indivually. Collections include: + WW II Operational Documents: "During WW II the primary mission of CGSC was to train large numbers of captains and majors to be staff officers in battalions, brigades, divisions, and corps. To that end, the Army provided copies of documents produced by field units to the College. Operations orders, after action reports, intelligence analyses, logistics appraisals, and similar documents are in the CARL documents collection. As time and funds permit the CARL will scan these historical documents and add them to the WW II collection. Primary focus will be on documenting operations at the tactical and operational levels of warfare." + School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) Monographs: "The School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) is one of the parts of the CGSC. Most SAMS students complete the regular CGSC course, then stay for a second academic year. They write either one or two monographs and are awarded a Master of Military Art and Science (MMAS) graduate degree. Most go on to planning jobs in field units. This collection will eventually contain all the publicly releasable monographs produced since the program began in 1986. SAMS monographs typically address historical events, current operational issues, or new organizational concepts and tend to be in the 50-75 page range." + Master of Military Art and Science(MMAS) Theses: "The Master of Military Art and Science (MMAS) program began in 1964. CGSC regular course students may elect to take a set of electives, write a thesis, and earn an accredited Masters. This collection will eventually contain all of the publicly releasable theses. MMAS theses provide in-depth research on historical events, operational issues, and organizations, both existing and proposed and tend to be in the 100-200 page range." + Stability Operations & Support Operations (SOSO): "Today's contemporary operating environment requires the U.S. military to participate in a broad spectrum of missions ranging from conventional full-scale war to peacekeeping operations and disaster relief. SOSO require soldiers in peacekeeping operations to promote and sustain regional and global stability and to assist civil authorities prepare for, or respond to, crises. This collection contains lessons learned, reports, doctrinal materials, and monographs relevant to SOSO, and is not limited to Army or DoD sources."
Web Search Briefs (via SEW Blog) + Ready Reference on the Go: New Mobile Version of Answers.com Now Available + LookSmart Launches Several Vertical Search Engines, Don't Forget What Libraries Offer + Yahoo Unveils Social Networking Service in Limited Release Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf USA PATRIOT Act Source: Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of Representatives U.S. House Judiciary Committee Announces Plans for PATRIOT Act Reauthorization Hearings "'The Committee plans an ambitious hearing and oversight schedule in April and May, kicked off by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testifying before the full Committee on April 6. Eight hearings (roughly 2 oversight hearings per week) at the subcommittee level will continue through April and into May on the 16 sunsetting PATRIOT Act provisions.'" -- Search Engines Source: XEROX PARC The New Sensemakers: The Next Thing Beyond Search Is Sensemaking -- Serials Source: OCLC Systems & Services (via E-LIS) Transforming Thyself: Serials Agents in a Digital World "This article discusses the impact of electronic resources on the suite of services provided by serials agents. The article describes the changing needs of academic libraries in this new environment, and the ways in which serials agents can repurpose themselves to remain a cornerstone of serials management. A white paper by R2 Consulting is referenced for its insights into the expectations and requirements of academic libraries."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents VoIP Source: IEEE Spectrum Seven Myths about Voice over IP "Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is one of the fastest-growing, and most misunderstood, technologies in the world at the moment. Confusion, outdated beliefs, and urban mythology reign over such simple issues as how it works, the quality of the calls, and, of course, how much it costs. VoIP calls are not free now, and they never will be. As things are shaping up, though, they're so cheap that carriers are letting customers make all the calls they want for a single monthly fee, typically US $25 to $35." -- Internet Filtering--Bahrain Source: OpenNet Initiative New Report, Internet Filtering in Bahrain in 2004-2005 -- Aviation--United States--Statistics Source: NTSB (via DocuTicker.com) NTSB Reports Decrease In Aviation Accidents In 2004 -- Health--United States--Children Source: Child.com (Child magazine) The 10 Best and Worst States for Fit Kids ""Most states are failing kids and their parents," says Suzanne Smith, an obesity expert and an adviser for our story. Read on to see if your state is among the best or the worst." Monday, March 28, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries and Librarianship Source: Access New Issue, Access: Asia's Newspaper on Electronic Information Products & Services -- Enterprise Search Source: Information Today Endeca Provides Latitude for Information Retrieval and Analysis -- Web Sites Source: Library and Information Research (via E-LIS) Accessing library web page usability: how benchmarking can help "This article looks at how the "Mystery Shopper" methodology used by a consortium of universities was adapted to assess the usability of the library web pages of all four universities. Using a methodology refined from a previous web usability exercise, the various elements in the process are described. The outcomes of the project are briefly discussed, along with lessons learnt from the process." Direct to Full Text.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Business--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: BusinessWeek The BusinessWeek 50 2005 + Company Profiles + Executive Compensation Table -- Canada--Electronic Government Source: Public Works and Government Services Canada Just Released, Canada Government On-line, Annual Report 2005 -- Education--United States Source: U.S. Census Just Released, College Degree Nearly Doubles Annual Earnings, Census Bureau Reports New information from the U.S. Census Bureau reinforces the value of a college education: workers 18 and over with a bachelor?s degree earn an average of $51,206 a year, while those with a high school diploma earn $27,915. Workers with an advanced degree make an average of $74,602, and those without a high school diploma average $18,734. According to new tables released on the Internet titled Educational Attainment in the United States: 2004, 85 percent of those age 25 or older reported they had completed at least high school and 28 percent had attained at least a bachelor's degree. Other highlights for the population 25 years and over in 2004: + Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska had the highest proportions of people with at least a high school diploma, all around 91 percent. Summary ||| Summary Table ||| Detailed Tables -- Adolf Eichmann--CIA Files Source: National Security Archive Uncovering the Architect of the Holocaust: The CIA Names File on Adolf Eichmann "The CIA was surprised by Israeli agents' capture of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, and a subsequent CIA file review uncovered extensive ties between Eichmann and men who served as CIA assets and allies (like Franz Alfred Six and Otto Von Bolschwing), according to the CIA's three-volume Directorate of Operations file and their Directorate of Intelligence file on Eichmann, posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University." -- Investment Fraud Source: North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) NASAA's 2005 Top 10 Threats to Investors "The following ranking of NASAA's Top 10 threats to investors for 2005 is based on the order of prevalence and seriousness as identified by an annual survey of state securities regulators. Click on a title for details." Sunday, March 27, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf School Libraries--Virtual Reference Source: Knowledge Quest on the Web Virtual Reference @ Your Library Sarah Houghton writes, "I believe school libraries and the students they serve have the most to gain from real-time online reference. The users, in this case students, are generally very comfortable with computers and with chat technology. In fact, many of them would rather chat online with a teacher or librarian than ask for help in person. I have seen students in the public library chatting away on an online reference service, while there is a real-life librarian sitting not twenty feet away at the reference desk. Clearly 'online' is a preferred medium, at least for some students."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents U.S. History--Civil Rights--Archives Broadcast Journalism--Archives Video Archives Source: University of Virginia (via aScribe) The Television News of the Civil Rights Era 1950-1970: A New Digital Archive at The University of Virginia "The Civil Rights Era in Virginia was contentious, pitting black against white, neighbor against neighbor and communities against legislation - a microcosm of the years of social upheaval in communities across America. A new archive at the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia brings to life that period of our National history through filmed local civil rights events and the words and actions of citizen and national activists in Roanoke, Va. The archive, which received support from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and is housed in U.Va.'s Alderman Library, contains film and scripts from two Roanoke TV stations: CBS affiliate WDBJ and NBC affiliate WSLS. The archival footage highlights local coverage of school desegregation, massive resistance, school meetings, civil rights debates, and interviews with key players and concerned citizens in the community, as well as speeches given by Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and the governors of the commonwealth of Virginia." Material can be viewed online, Quick Time required. See Also: Direct to the Television News of the Civil Rights Era Archive -- American Memory Project James Madison--Online Exhibition Source: ABC News U.S. Library to Put Madison Papers Online "...Madison's 'Notes for a Speech in Congress' of June 8, 1789, will be available online, along with about 12,000 other pages from his papers preserved in the Library of Congress. Some are in code, including letters to President Thomas Jefferson, for whom Madison served as secretary of state." More from the Library of Congress. See Also: Direct to The James Madison Papers Saturday, March 26, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Preservation Source: JISC Tackling digital preservation: a discussion with leading experts "We take paper for granted as a storage medium for knowledge. Libraries, where many of us seek out this knowledge, have evolved over many centuries, enabling us to store and retrieve paper mediums - such as books or journals - reasonably quickly and effectively. Along comes modern technology and information can be stored on a hard disk somewhere, accessible, as with paper based objects, for generations to come. It means we can now visit our libraries from almost anywhere at anytime. And the material we can access from these 'virtual' knowledge centres keeps growing, which is fantastic. We can rest assured that our knowledge heritage is preserved for us in these new technologically enabled electronic formats for future generations. Or is it?" -- Information Overload--Research Source: EurekaAlert When it comes to information overload, two heads may not be better than one "In an age of e-mails, databases and online catalogues, two heads may no longer be better than one, according to new ESRC-sponsored research into the effects of information overload. Problems are exacerbated when information is shared between people with different viewpoints, says a team led by Professor Tom Ormerod of Lancaster University, which revealed big variations in recall among married couples."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Information Warfare Military Science--Bibliographies Source: Air University Library Information Warfare "Has the computer revolution altered how future wars will be conducted?" A new bibliography that include Internet resources, books, documents, periodicals. -- Civil Rights Commission--United StatesLegislative Histories Source: U.S. House Judiciary Committee Just Published, Legislative History of the Civil Rights Commission This legislative history includes: Committee Reports; Congressional Record; Court Opinions: and, News Articles. 566 pages; PDF. Thanks to C.L. for the tip. Friday, March 25, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Archiving Source: Digital Preservation Coalition Full Text Report, The large-scale archival storage of digital objects A new report by Jim Linden, Sean Martin, Richard Masters, and Roderic Parker from The British Library. -- National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Source: NARA National Archives Opens New Pacific Region Records Center Facility "The 183,000 square-foot facility can accommodate approximately 850,000 cubic feet of Federal records. It will employ over 30 National Archives staff members and will process a projected 750,000 reference requests per year. The new center will store and service records from over 100 Federal agencies and courts located in the Pacific Region (Arizona, southern California, and Clark County, Nevada). Significant holdings include Federal records created by regional U.S. District/Bankruptcy Courts, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the U.S. Navy."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Maps Source: ManagingInformation.com British Library Puts 800 Historic Maps Online From the article, "In the centuries up to 1600 the contours of the British Isles were gradually revealed as successive generations of conquerors, monks, sailors, kings and nobles endeavoured to map the boundaries and resources of these islands. This fascinating process can now be explored online through digitised versions of over 800 items from the British Library's maps collection, ranging from Saxon times to the reign of James I. The maps can be viewed as part of 'The Unveiling of Britain' at: www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/unveiling/ 'The Unveiling of Britain' allows users to explore items either as large images or using a zoom facility. Each map is accompanied by detailed explanatory notes, establishing the historical context of the map?s creation, with insights into emerging technologies used in its production and the political background to what it might contain or exclude." -- Energy Industry--Glossary Source: OPIS (Oil Price Information Service) OPIS Energy Glossary Browse terms and definitions alphabetically, from Abandonment Rule to Y-Grade. -- File Sharing--United States Source: The Pew Internet & American Life Project Music And Video Downloading Moves Beyond P2P From press release: "About 36 million Americans ? or 27 percent of Internet users ? say they download either music or video files and about half of them have found ways outside of traditional peer-to-peer networks or paid online services to swap their files, according to the most recent survey of the Pew Internet & American Life Project." -- Spam Source: SophosLabs (via DocuTicker) Experts at SophosLabs identify Cialis as the top word spammers most commonly try to disguise Included is a list of the words most commonly obfuscated in spam emails.
Briefly Mobile Information + Cool! Location-Based Maps and Local Info Direct to Your Cell Phone + Gigablast Adds Releated Pages Feature Thursday, March 24, 2005
Resource of the Week by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor OECD--Factbooks Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD Factbook 2005: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics We apprised you of this compendium about a week ago here on ResourceShelf. Now we're going to take a more detailed look at it. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, headquartered in Paris, identifies itself as "a unique forum where the governments of 30 market democracies work together to address the economic, social, environmental and governance challenges of the globalising world economy, as well as to exploit its opportunities." Its 30 members together produce some 60% of the world's goods and services. Basically, it facilitates information sharing among the membership, and it generates its own data, analyses and forecasts. It came into existence as "an economic counterpart to NATO," set up after World War II "to co-ordinate the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe." If you're interested, a detailed overview of the organization is available. The OECD Factbook 2005 is the first edition of a new annual publication that "will draw on the OECD's data bank of statistics to present a unique overview of economic, social and environmental trends in the OECD's 30 member countries." It is structured around "100 indicators" grouped into 11 topic areas: + Population and migration, covering demographic trends and international migration + Economic globalisation, covering international trade and foreign direct investment + Labor market, covering employment and unemployment + Environment, covering air, water and land, and energy use + Public policies, covering government deficits and debt, public expenditures and aid, and taxes + Macroeconomic trends, covering gross domestic product, economic growth, productivity, and commodities (production and supply) + Prices, covering consumer and producer prices, and purchasing power and competitiveness + Science and technology, covering research and development, and information and communications technology + Education, covering expenditures on education and outcomes + Quality of life, covering health, work and leisure, crime, and transportation A special Focus on Energy topic contains a wealth of statistical data on such things as the world energy supply, oil prices, energy production and consumption, and world electricity generation. When you click on one of the many, many specific data links, you get a page offering a general discussion of that topic and links to related graphs, charts and tables, additional commentary and related resources from the OECD. Under each chart and graph, a statlink takes you to a direct download of the relevant data in Excel spreadsheet format. If you prefer, the last link on the righthand side of these pages allows you to download all the information in the main topic heading as a PDF file, such as this one for Quality of Life. These are attractively formatted for printing...or you can just go ahead and order a dead.tree version of the factbook, which costs $63 (in U.S. dollars). OECD says the factbook will be available in French in early April, and it can also be accessed via SourceOECD (PDF), a portal which aggregates online OECD books, periodicals and statistical databases. The OECD Factbook is not searchable itself, but the OECD website is; enter a keyword in the text box at the top righthand side of the page and choose the resource you want to search from the dropdown menu: all publications, books, periodicals, databases, other site content.
Professional Reading Shelf Digitization Projects--Australia Source: Computerworld Australia Race against time to digitize decaying images "If the thought of backing up e-mail evokes feelings of dread, spare a thought for Australia's librarians who are racing against the clock to digitize millions of decaying photographic images before nature has its cruel way. While IT managers may worry about whether their document management solutions are legally up to scratch, photographic curators - charged with the safekeeping of Australia's pictorial history - have to deal with a pervading smell of vinegar as their cellulose assets shrivel and die. NSW chief librarian Dagmar Schmidmaier, who runs the state's largest collection of images and documents at the Mitchell Library (NSW State Library), said the first priority is to make sure all key historical areas are covered and no eras get lost."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Searchable Databases--Fast Facts and Statistics New Searchable Databases Added to Melissa Data Lookup Index You can now search and retrieve Home Sales by ZIP Code and Labor Statistics by ZIP. If you've never seen all (25+) of the useful searchable tools Melissa Data offers (free), they're more than worth a look. Here's an overview that was written in 2003. -- Social Security Medicare Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Just Released, 2005 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Hospital Insurance and Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds "The Trustees Report is a detailed, lengthy document, containing a substantial amount of information on the past and estimated future financial operations of the Hospital Insurance and Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds. We recommend that readers begin with the 'Overview' section of the report. This section is fairly short, is written in 'plain English,' and summarizes all the key information concerning the expected financial outlook for Medicare. Substantial additional material is available in the later sections for those wishing to delve more deeply into the actuarial projections." 2005 Report (PDF; 1.2 MB) Previous years' reports also available from this page. See Also: The 2005 OASDI Trustees Report "The 2005 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds, was issued on March 23, 2005. The report presents the current and projected future financial status of the trust funds."
Briefly + Now Live on the Web, Oxford Digital Reference Shelf from the Oxford University Press Fee-based, "...fully-searchable e-book versions of major multi-volume reference works." Direct to web site. Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Information Policy--United States Open Access Source: Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC) LIVE WEBCAST Tomorrow (3/24/05): 2005 FLICC Forum on Federal Information Policies The forum is titled, "Evolving Information Policy: Open Access and New Constraints." Details and speaker list here. The webcast begins at 9am EST. The session will be archived here. Past FLICC events can also be viewed online. -- Virtual Reference Source: Knowledge Quest on the Web (Journal of the American Association of School Librarians) Answers at Your Fingertips: Live Internet Reference for Teachers, Students, Parents, and Library Media Specialists -- Metadata Dublin Core Source: UKOLN Updated, DC-assist (Dublin Core Assist) "UKOLN's help utility for metadata applications, has been updated to include details and examples for all the metadata terms currently in DCMI maintained namespaces (67 terms). The software includes 130 examples of how to use the terms and these are displayed using the DCMI recommended XHTML syntax." -- Library Associations--Australia Source: Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) New Issue of aliaNews Now Online -- Dissertations--Lists & Rankings Source: ProQuest Top 10 Best-Selling Doctoral Dissertations of 2003 The Top 3 Master's Theses are also listed.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Social Trends--United Kingdom--Statistics Source: National Statistics Just Released, Social Trends in the UK "The United Kingdom population is ageing and within 10 years there will be more people aged 65 and over than children under 16, according to Social Trends published today by the Office for National Statistics. This is the 35th year of Social Trends and the publication looks back over these years of social change in a special review by National Statistician Len Cook and Research Director Jean Martin." Summary ||| Full Text -- Humanities--United States Source: Congressional Research Service Updated, Arts and Humanities: Background and Funding -- Highways--History--United States Transportation--Digitized Collections Source: U.S. Department of Transportation Library Just Released, Online Digital Special Collection, Turner and Fairbank Papers You'll also find links to other digitized collections.
Briefly + H.W. Wilson Will Release Art Museum Image Gallery in July "H.W. Wilson will launch the Art Museum Image Gallery in July 2005 to replace The AMICO Library, which will be discontinued with the dissolution of the AMICO consortium." Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Copyright--United States Source: ALA Washington Office ALA Washington Office Provides Update on Library Community Filing on Orphan Works -- Academic Libraries Source: AP 'Sexy' library worker pursues discrimination case against Harvard "Jury selection is expected to begin today in a discrimination lawsuit brought by a Harvard University assistant librarian. Desiree Goodwin says she has been turned down for 16 promotions during her eleven years working at Harvard." -- Professional Reading Shelf Libraries--Finances Source: Emerald This Week Only: Free Full Text Access to Three Recent Issues of The Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances Articles include: + Simplifying serials sourcing: A case study in decision support for managing electronic journals access (Vol. 18 No. 1) + The Canadian National Site Licensing Project and the logic model (Vol. 18 No. 1) + Thoughts on endowment fundraising for libraries (Vol. 18 No. 1) + Executive compensation in libraries: an oxymoron? (Vol. 17 No. 4) + Measure by measure: assessing the viability of the physical library (Vol. 17 No. 4) + Using the world of blogs for project and financial management (Vol. 17 No. 3) + What you don't know about banking could hurt your library (Vol. 17 No. 3) -- Preservation Source: DCC Call For Papers: Ensuring Long-term Preservation and Adding Value to Scientific and Technical Data
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Automobile Travel--Fuel Costs Source: AAA AAA Fuel Cost Calculator "Calculate the estimated fuel cost of your trip" based on current gasoline prices. Choose your starting point, destination, make/model/year of vehicle from dropdown menus and click "Calculate." Map on page shows current day's average fuel costs in different regions of the country. -- Health Information New Topic Page/Compilation from MEDLINEPlus Source: NLM + Heart Surgery -- Medicinal Plants Source: Science Reference Service, Library of Congress Medicinal Plants "This Tracer Bullet has been compiled to assist researchers in navigating the databases, electronic resources and print materials related to medicinal plants and to locate relevant materials in the Library's collections. Lists of other agencies, institutions, and organizations are provided as starting points for further study. Not intended to be a comprehensive bibliography, this guide is designed--as the name of the series implies--to put the reader 'on target.'" -- Undergraduate Education--Statistics Source: National Center for Education Statistics Trends in Undergraduate Career Education "This Issue Brief examines trends in undergraduate credentials (certificates, associate's degrees, and bachelor's degrees) in career-related areas of study. These trends are examined at both the subbaccalaureate and baccalaureate levels, from 1984-85 to 2000-01. The number of undergraduate credential awards increased over this period, in both academic and career areas, and at both the subbaccalaureate and baccalaureate levels." Full Report (PDF; 79 KB) Supplementary Graphs (PDF; 29 KB) -- Topics in the News Source: Findlaw Terri Schiavo Case: Legal Issues Involving Healthcare Directives, Death, and Dying Various document including legal filings.
Search Briefs + Scirus Adds More than 13 Million Patents to Database + Wikipedia Users Should Check Out WikiWax If you're a Wikipedia user this new dynamic query suggestion tool might be a welcome addition to your research arsenal. + Eliyon.com Becomes ZoomInfo It's still free to use. Potentially useful for researching people but MANY caveats still apply. Information Today has more. + 1871 UK Census Now Available in Full Online for the First Time
Briefly + Factiva Tests RSS (via LibraryStuff) + 1,000 Cambridge University Press Titles Now Included in Questia (via BookTech Magazine) + ProQuest to Distribute ACM Journals Monday, March 21, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Preservation Source: IFLA First, do no harm - A Register of Standards, Codes of Practice, Guidelines Recommendations and Similar Works relating to Preservation and Conservation in Libraries and Archives Compiled by: John McIlwaine -- Digitization Projects--UK Source: ALA British Library to Digitize World's Oldest Bible "Experts from the four institutions that own parts of what scholars consider the oldest extant version of both the Old and New Testaments in one volume launched a project March 11 to create a complete copy of the Codex Sinaiticus online."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Information Technology--United States--Higher Education Source: EDUCAUSE The Pocket Guide to U.S. Higher Education 2005 " The EDUCAUSE Pocket Guide to U.S. Higher Education 2005 provides a series of markers that outline the shape and complexity of higher education. This guide identifies relevant resources and organizations, providing timely and useful information about the college and university market--institutions, students, faculty, college stores, meetings, publications, technology issues, organizational behavior, and more. The guide is compiled annually in partnership with The Campus Computing Project." 69 pages; PDF. -- National Endowment for the Arts--Guide Source: National Endowment for the Arts National Endowment for the Arts 2005 Guide (PDF; 2.67 MB) "This guide presents an overview of all the areas in which the NEA makes a difference: grantmaking and national initiatives, partnerships and research, accessibility and arts learning."
Archives--Media Grassroots Media Source: Ourmedia New Resource, Official Launch: Ourmedia "The Global Home for grassroots media." It's a new resource (free to use). + Host/Publish/Archive your media (videos, audio files, photos, text or software) + Host/Publish your own blog From the FAQ, "Members of the creative community, technologists, educators, librarians and others interested in spreading digital culture are behind Ourmedia. Leading the effort are J.D. Lasica, a writer, editor with the Online Journalism Review, and evangelist for participatory media, and Marc Canter, a well-known technologist and open standards advocate who co-founded the company that became software giant Macromedia. This is purely an open-source, all-volunteer effort." The Internet Archive, Wikipedia, and other organizations are involved. Congrats to J.D. Lasica (he's been supporter of ResourceShelf and DocuTicker since the very beginning) and the Ourmedia team. See Also: Ourmedia's Plans for the Future Note, they're looking for help developing a taxonomy. This is one area (of many) that the info profession can get involved. Sunday, March 20, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf News Publications--Academia Source: Chicago Tribune Academic weekly gets Web-based rival "In the academic world, the Chronicle of Higher Education is the newspaper of record. From stories of embattled administrators to the latest faculty appointments, its 140-plus pages have provided readers with industry news, job listings and similar information each week for nearly 40 years. Last January, three ex-employees challenged the Chronicle's grip on academic news by going online with a free, Web-based rival, insidehighered.com." -- Travel Research Mobile Access to Information Source: Contra Costa Times Popular travel tools get to-go versions
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Patents--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: USPTO USPTO Releases List of Top 10 Universities Receiving Most Patents in 2004 [The] United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced the top 10 U.S. universities receiving the most patents during calendar year 2004. Listed below are the 10 universities receiving the most patents for inventions in 2004, along with their 2003 ranking. The University of California tops the list for the 11th consecutive year." -- Civil Rights--History--Documents Source: Thurgood Marshall Law Library, University of Maryland School of Law Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights "In conjunction with the Thurgood Marshall Law Library's strategic plan to enhance its civil rights collection in support of the School of Law's teaching and research mission, the Library has worked since 2001 to create a complete electronic record of United States Commission on Civil Rights publications held in the Library's collection and available on the USCCR Web site. The publications are made available over the Internet as page image presentations in PDF format. Each item is linked to the appropriate bibliographic record in the Catalog. Publications are also searchable by keyword and accessible by date and title." Saturday, March 19, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Mobile Access to Info Japan Cell-Phone Users Turn to Literature We keep saying mobile access and mobile search are going to be huge. Will downloading books to your mobile phone or mobile device (Blackberry/Treo) be another new service libraries offer? From the article, "Several mobile Web sites offer hundreds of novels -- classics, best sellers and some works written especially for the medium. It takes some getting used to. Only a few lines pop up at a time because the phone screen is about half the size of a business card. But improvements in the quality of liquid-crystal displays and features such as automatic page-flipping, or scrolling, make the endeavor far more enjoyable than you'd imagine." -- Libraries--Awards Source: National Endowment for the Humanities NEH Announces We the People Bookshelf Awards to 500 Libraries; 15 Classic Books on "Freedom" Will Support Community Programs "The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced that it has awarded free copies of 15 classic books from the We the People Bookshelf, with four also offered in Spanish, to 500 school and local libraries throughout the country. The theme of this year's bookshelf is "freedom." As part of the award, libraries will hold programs or events to raise awareness of these classic books and engage young readers." Full list of award winners (PDF; 44 KB) -- Public Libraries Bookstores Source: Library and Information Research Change in store? An investigation into the impact of the book superstore environment on use, perceptions and expectations of the public library as a space, place and experience "The book superstore is promoted not just as a place to buy books but also as a community resource in which to read, learn and socialise: traits that have in combination traditionally been the preserve of the public library. This study investigates the impact of the bookstore environment on public library space. The attitudes and behaviours of library and bookstore users were examined through focus group interviews and a self-completed questionnaire. Clear areas of overlap in the functions of the two sites were found, as was evidence of age and income-related splits in use and perception of bookstores and libraries. Results suggest attention should be paid to the beliefs and behaviours of young people and middle-income earners (the groups most noticeably increasing their use of the bookstore) and to the desired balance of education and recreation in the image and nature of the public library."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents U.S. Department of Defense Source: DOD Three New U.S. Department of Defense Publications + The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (PDF; 1.61 MB) + The National Military Strategy of the United States of America (PDF; 456 KB) + Two Years in Iraq -- The Mission Continues: A New Iraq Emerges (special report) Friday, March 18, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf RSS Source: EI Update RSS: Moving Into the Mainstream "By now, many are using RSS feeds to keep track of weblogs, journal tables-of-contents, press releases, newspaper content, and more. In addition to following dozens of weblogs of interest, I use RSS to keep track of movie reviews from the New York Times, search engine alerts, and library-related weblogs and resources. The application of RSS feeds has moved into the library world, riding the wave of hundreds of library-related weblogs and other services." Column by Randy Reichardt, Cameron Science and Technology Library, University of Alberta. -- Legal Documents--Korea Source: Korea Times (via APMN) Korea: Legal Documents Will Go Online "People will no longer have to visit police stations, prosecutors' offices, courthouses and penitentiaries to get legal documents on criminal cases as an online database will be set up in 2007." -- Scholarly Publishing Source: First Monday Economics of scientific and biomedical journals: Where do scholars stand in the debate of online journal pricing and site license ownership between libraries and publishers? "The emergence of e-journals brought a great change in scholarly communication and in the behavior of scholars. However, the importance of scholars' behavior in the pricing of scientific journals has been largely ignored in the recent debate between libraries and publishers over site license practices and pricing schemes. Stanford's survey results indicate that sharply increasing costs are the main reason for individual subscription cancellation, driving users to rely on library or other institutional subscriptions. Libraries continue to be a vital information provider in the electronic era and their bargaining power in the market and the importance of roles in scholarly communication will be increased by branding and a strong relationship with users."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Country Studies--Taiwan Source: Federal Research Division/Library of Congress Just Released, Country Profile for Taiwan 29 pages; PDF See Also: More Country Profiles from FRD -- Freedom of Information Act Source: EPIC New Newsletter, EPIC FOIA Notes See Also: EPIC's New 2005 FOIA Gallery "...contains highlights and scanned images of some of EPIC's FOIA disclosures from the past year." -- Education--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Education Revenues Top $440 Billion; D.C. Spent the Most Per Student, Utah the Least "Public elementary and secondary education revenues from federal, state and local sources reached $440.3 billion in the United States in 2003, up 4.9 percent from the previous year, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. Again, the District of Columbia spent the most money per student on this level of education ($13,328) of any state or state equivalent. These findings from the 2003 Annual Survey of Local Government Finances - School Systems show that following the District of Columbia in per-student expenditures were New Jersey ($12,202), New York ($12,140), Connecticut ($10,372) and Vermont ($10,322). Utah spent the lowest amount ($4,860) of any state or state equivalent. Next to Utah, the lowest averages per pupil were in Arizona ($5,672), Mississippi ($5,816), Idaho ($6,034) and Nevada ($6,084). The national average was $8,019." Summary ||| Direct to Full Text (Select 2003) -- Weather--United States--Outlooks Source: NOAA/NCDC Just Released, NOAA Issues 2005 Spring Outlook
Briefly + DHS to use MetaCarta (via FCW) See Also: Just What is MetaCarta (Geographical Text Searching)? + Index to Jewish Periodicals now Available on EBSCOhost
Search Briefs (via the SEW Blog) + France, Digitization Projects and Google -- + Engine Manipulation, Verticals, and the Library Thursday, March 17, 2005
Resource of the Week by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor Educational Resources--Hub Source: U.S. Department of Education Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) This week's resources is a "gem" in every sense of the word. "A U.S. Department of Education initiative, The Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) expands educators' capability to access Internet-based lesson plans, instructional units and other educational materials in all forms and formats. GEM's goal is to improve the organization and accessibility of the substantial collections of materials that are already available on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites." As of March 8, 2005, the GEM collection included 42,450 resources, each one "carefully indexed using characteristics that educators find useful such as subject, grade level, pedagogy, and «audience» for the resource." On the home page, you'll find a GEM Spotlight feature, with pointers to relevant materials in the database. For March, it's Women's History, since this is Women's History Month. Previous Spotlight features are available on an archives page. If you want to browse the collection, there are many different options: resource subject, type, level, keywords, mediator (who should use the resource -- e.g., teacher, librarian, administrator, etc.), beneficiary (specific student population -- e.g., disabled, bilingual, etc.), and priceCode (basically "fee status" -- e.g., "Free", "Partially free", "Not free"). You can find detailed information about browsing the collection. The search engine here looks deceptively simple -- a small text box and a dropdown menu at the upper right corner of the home page -- but some very sophisticated technology is powering this thing. Called "faceted searching," it "combines the processes of searching for specific words and phrases somewhat as one does in Yahoo! and Google with browsing descriptions of resources based on what are called facets." A "facet" is a metadata element or property. (Note the availability of a detailed glossary of terms used on the site, part of an extensive help section.) The search engine uses the Seamark Navigation Server from Siderean Software. Each record contains a brief description of the resource; click on the "show full view" box at the lower righthand corner to get additional information, such as subject area, mediator, provider, price code, record creation date, etc. Subject, mediator and price code are live links that you can click to explore other resources with those tags, as is the resource type (e.g., lesson plan, activity, etc.) indentified in the description. You can also explore via the navigation bar that appears on the lefthand side of the results page, which allows you to refine your search by clicking on live links to refine your search by subject, resource type, grade level, keyword, mediator, beneficiary or price code. To initiate a search, type your query into the text box and click "go". The default option is full-text search of all GEM records. If you prefer to search by "facet" instead, choose title, description or keywords from the dropdown menu, and your search will be restricted to that particular record field." Search help is available, as is a guide for first-time users. GEM is actually a "consortium effort" comprised of members who make their resource collections available here and members who use and promote the resources. You can apply for membership in the consortium, but you do not have to be a member or register in any way to search and use what's here. When you browse the member directory, click on the member's name for a brief description and a link to its home page and rights/permissions information.
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries--United Kingdom Source: BBC Libraries 'in scandalous state' "The deterioration in the quality of public library buildings is scandalous, a committee of MPs says."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents OECD--Factbooks Source: OECD Just Released, OECD launches new Factbook of economic, environmental and social indicators "Labour market data, broken down by age, gender, part-time working or self-employment provide just some of the 100 major indicators to be found in this annual digest of economic, environmental and social statistics covering the organisations 30 member nations. The data - available in book form and online is accompanied by explanatory analysis and easy-to-read charts to enable clear cross-country comparisons of long-term trends in the following areas: * Population and migration * Macroeconomic trends * Economic globalisation * Prices * Labour market * Science and technology * Energy * Environment * Education * Public policies * Quality of life Most of the indicators present the latest available, internationally-comparable figures together with historical data going back at least 10 years. The Factbook also provides some projections of future trends in areas such as population ageing, economics and the environment. The online version, freely available at http://new.SourceOECD.org/factbook. Thanks to S.B. for the news tip. -- Personal Computers--Statistics Source: Computer Industry Almanac PCs In-Use Surpassed 820M in 2004; PCs In-Use Will Top 1B in 2005 "The worldwide number of PCs in-use surpassed 820 million in 2004 and is projected to top 1 billion in 2007. PCs in-use growth is slowing as the industrialized world is approaching the top of the S-curve. Strong PC growth will continue in the developing countries for another decade. The U.S. has a large lead with over 220M PCs in-use--over 3X the number in Japan. The U.S. accounts for over 27% of all PCs in-use compared to 4.6% of worldwide population. PC usage is growing rapidly in China, which is expected to surpass Japan in 2007. PC usage is also growing strongly in many populous countries such as Brazil, India and Russia."
Search Briefs + RSS Search Engine Feedster Improves On Already Robust Search Syntax (via SEW Blog) Want a proximity operator? Feedster has one.
Wireless Web News Health Information The Merck Manual and Other Medical Resources Now Available for Mobile Web Users The Merck Manual, Pocket Guide to Diagnostic Tests, Reuters Medical News, and MEDLINE Journal Abstracts are now available for the mobile web. Registration required, free. You can either download the material to your PDA or access with your wireless web browser. -- RSS RSS Headlines Delivered via SMS (Text Messaging) With FeedBeep -- Legal Research Source: Law Office Computing Conduct legal research on your BlackBerry A new article by ResourceShelf friend, Genie Tyburski. Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Conferences Live "Blog" Coverage From the 20th Annual Computers in Libraries Conference ResourceShelf's own Steven "When do you Sleep" Cohen is one of the contributors. You'll also find postings from Nancy Garman, Paula Hane, and Aaron Schmidt. -- Public Libraries--Referenda Source: Library Journal The Good Fight--Library Referenda 2004 "The year brought tougher times at the polls for America's libraries, with approval rates dropping. The 69% approval rate for referenda for public library buildings was at a low level not seen since the difficult year of 2002, when it was only 60%, slipping from the passage rate of 76% in 2003. The last time it dipped into the 60s was 1988. Operating referenda fared slightly better, with a 70% pass rate, similar to those seen in 2003 and 2002, but still significantly lower than the 83% passage rate in 1998. The last time we saw a pass rate in the 70s was in 1995. So what's happening? Are libraries still sure bets with communities at the polls? The answer lies in a complex set of variables, including geography, competition, and timing." -- Digital Libraries The March 2005 Issue of D-Lib Magazine is Now Available Articles include: + The NSF National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program + OCLC Research Publications Repository + Connotea: A Free Online Reference Management Service for Scientists -- Libraries--India Talking Books Source: BBC 'Talking library' records success "It started when her brother-in-law bought her a tape recorder and encouraged her to do something for the blind. Now 46-year-old Madhu Singhal, herself visually impaired, runs an audio library of 16,000 works in the southern Indian city of Bangalore."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Media--Lists & Rankings Source: Media Post The Media 100 A list of 100 hundred "people to know" in the media world. Thanks to J.D. for the news tip. -- Media--United States The State of the American News Media, 2005 Source: Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research institute affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts (via DocuTicker.com) From the press release: "Traditional journalism, with its focus on substantiating facts, now competes with other models of news, such as Blogs. These faster, cheaper and less accurate alternatives have distinct advantages in the marketplace, according to a new report on the state of journalism in America." Executive Summary ||| Full Report -- Telemarketing Fraud Source: National Consumers League Telemarketing Fraud Toolbox "The Toolbox is intended to help government agencies, unions, social service agencies, schools, and nonprofit organizations educate their colleagues, constituents, clients, and members about telemarketing fraud and to promote public awareness about the assistance that they provide in that regard. The Toolbox cannot be used to promote commercial products or services."
Web Search Briefs (via SEW Blog) + New Cool Service from Amazon's A9 OpenSearch provides access to specialized databases directly onto the A9 interface. Also, it looks as if A9 is now in the weblog search business.
Scholarly Publishing--Citation Reports Source: ISI + Science in Singapore, 1999-2003 + Economics: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1999-2003 + Social Work & Social Policy: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1999-2002 + Journals Ranked by Impact: Astronomy & Astrophysics + Journals Ranked by Impact: Applied Linguistics Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Federal Depository Libraries and Others Test Virtual Reference Service Source: GPO From the web site, "Government Information Online (GIO) is a national pilot project sponsored by the Illinois State Library, OCLC, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. GPO is participating in the pilot along with more than 30 federal depository libraries from across the United States. Users of the service can interact online with government information librarians during a weekly chat schedule, or users can submit questions at any time using an email interface. To use the service, visit the project's website at http://govtinfo.org. The pilot is scheduled to run through November 14, 2005." -- Information Visualization Source: Library Journal Visualize This A look at several products including Vivisimo, Groxis, and AquaBrowser.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Bankruptcies--United States--Statistics Source: Administrative Offices of the U.S. Courts New, 2004 Bankruptcy Statistics "Bankruptcy filings in the federal courts dropped nearly 4 percent in calendar year 2004, according to data released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Total bankruptcies filed in the twelve-month period ending December 31, 2004, totaled 1,597,462, down 3.8 percent from the 1,660,245 petitions filed in the 12-month period ending December 31, 2003." -- Films--UK--Statistics Source: UK Film Council Box office and TV ratings boost for British Films in 2004 "Well-loved characters Harry Potter and Bridget Jones and historical epic Troy were the best performing British films at the UK box office in 2004, there was a 45% increase in the takings of the top 20 British films compared to 2003, and attendances increased to more than 170 million over the year with July the most popular movie-going month, according to the latest Statistical Bulletin from the UK Film Council." -- Irish Americans Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts About the Irish American Population Just in time for St. Partick's Day! -- Military Science--Bibliographies Source: Air University Library New/updated bibliographies; Internet resources, books, documents, periodicals + Followership: "Followership is just as important to Air Force officers as leadership and management." + Foreign Arms Sales" Does foreign arms sales support U.S. foreign policy?" + Law of Armed Conflict + Life Skills (Mental Health) + Women in Combat
Web Search Briefs Web Search--Clusty Clusty Now Offering Government Search and Cluster Resource Great idea and something that might be useful to many of you. Gary has posted an overview on the Search Engine Watch Blog. -- Web Search New Items from Greg Notess at Search Engine Showdown Web search guru and librarian, Greg Notess has a few new items on SES that will be of interest. + Greg has a Posted A Preliminary Review of Exalead One feature Greg doesn't mention is the ability to personalize the look of the Exalead home page. + A Look at How Web Engines Handle Long Words + Changes In How Yahoo! Handles Stop Words in a Phrases
Briefly + McGraw-Hill and Xrefer Establish Partnership for Online Reference -- + ProQuest Licenses 66 Key Medical Journals from Hodder Arnold, Mary Ann Liebert and Springer Monday, March 14, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Law Librarians Source: Business First Lousiville Business Paper Publishes Profile of Law Librarian "With nary a "sh-sh!" to his day, library director Michael French goes about the law offices of Woodward, Hobson & Fulton LLP quietly tending to some 10,000 volumes of hardcover books that are in his charge." -- Information Industry--LexisNexis Source: Dayton Business Journal LexisNexis sees spike in '04 revenue, profit " Like its parent company, LexisNexis North America saw some good times last year. The New York-based business, which includes LexisNexis in Miami Township [Ohio], saw its revenue rise 7 percent in 2004, the company said in a recent regulatory filing of preliminary results for 2004. Much of that growth was fueled by acquisitions." -- Digital Archives--United States Source: National Science Foundation's Digital Government Research Program State Governments Grapple with Digital Archiving "They stand like tombstones in every state library - microfilm reels, thick-inked ledgers and volume upon volume of official documents and records. To find anything in these obsolete storage systems, you need to plow through a dead-tree catalogue or, if you're lucky, a microfiche index or online database. Yet as the ever-steepening tidal curve of information technology bears digital record-keeping into the future and grows too slippery for governments to keep up with, some of those old-tech storage solutions are turning out to be easier to access than supposedly modern archive systems." -- FOIA Source: AP AP Review: Gov't Reducing Access to Info "Since 1998, many federal departments have been reducing the amount of information they release to the public -- even as the government fields and answers more requests for information than ever, an Associated Press review has found."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Privacy--Australia Source: Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia New Research Note: Do Australian's have a legal right to privacy? HTML version also available. -- Political Freedom--Middle East--Lists & Rankings Source: Economist Intelligence Unit Just Released, EIU Index of Political Freedom in the Middle East "A strikingly varied "democratic spectrum" has opened in the Middle East between countries with increasingly free political systems and those burdened with repressive regimes, according to a new Index of Political Freedom from the Economist Intelligence Unit." See Also: New EIU Report: The dynamics of democracy in the Middle East No charge for full text report. -- USA PATRIOT Act Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice Inspector General New, Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act, March 2005 -- Diversity in the Workplace--United States Source: FCC New Web Resource: Diversity Resource Directory "[The] Diversity Resource Directory is intended to be a one-stop resource for industry executives, human resources personnel, and/or employees to go to for assistance in recruitment efforts, or in development of a program that will enhance development of a company's human capital." Sunday, March 13, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Academic Libraries--Collections Source: Dallas Morning News Get Down: Read About the Disco Music Collection at the University of North Texas One of the largest collections of disco records in the academic world sits in a cluttered office on the fourth floor of the University of North Texas library, awaiting a time when someone will care... Even Morris Martin, librarian of UNT's music library, is unsure how many records are in the Bert Hile Collection, as it is formally known, though the number is probably well above the university's Web site estimate of 2,500." -- Public Libraries Source: San Jose Mercury News San Jose unveils modern library " Three times as large as the old one and filled with windows that face rolling hills and rustling eucalyptus trees, San Jose's Berryessa Branch Library opens to the public today, and Barnes & Noble had better watch out. " -- Public Libraries Source: San Diego Union-Tribune Publisher contributes $2 million for library "Private contributions to build San Diego's new main library tripled yesterday with a $2 million gift from David C. Copley, chairman and CEO of The Copley Press Inc. and publisher of The San Diego Union-Tribune."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Journalism--United States--Legal Issues Source: CRS Journalists' Privilege to Withhold Information in Judicial and Other Proceedings: State Shield Statutes This report was published on March 8, 2005. Saturday, March 12, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Government Secrecy--United States Source: University of Maryland Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise, National Defense University The Unintended Audience: Balancing Openness and Secrecy (PDF; 364 KB) "Certain public, private, and academic/scientific information exists outside the scope of security classification even though it poses threats to national security and public safety -- for example, medical research on vaccines can unexpectedly yield new, deadly pathogens. It is in this ill-defined area that some forms of controls are most needed, yet most controversial. This paper first reviews the many and varied legislative and executive department and agency policies that have evolved to control this information. With the goal of defining a comprehensive policy to govern truly sensitive information -- yet with a preference for maximizing openness -- the authors argue for a system of Controlled Unclassified Security Information (CUSI), where a mixture of regulation, cooperation, and review, balanced with sector-specific values, optimally unite to manage highly-selective and well-defined sensitive areas."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Science and Technology Abstracts Source: Sarah A.V. Kirby Free Resources Containing Searchable Abstracts in Science, Technology and Engineering (Word document) "Here is our list of free resources that contain searchable abstracts for multiple science/technology/engineering journals, magazines, and governmental publications. The abstracts have to be free, but the articles do not. Site registration is o.k., so long as it is free." Kirby compiled this list by polling members of the ELDNET-L mailing list (Engineering Libraries Division of the American Society for Engineering Education).
Have You Visited DocuTicker Lately? Docuticker is a daily update from the ResourceShelf team with direct links to new reports from government agencies, ngo's, think tanks, and other groups. Friday, March 11, 2005
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Documents in the News Just Released: DoD Presents Findings of Church Report (PDF; 553 KB) "...executive summary of the results of a Department of Defense review of detention operations and interrogation techniques." Report by Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III, director of the Navy staff. -- Wealth--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes Just Released, The World's Billionaires 2005 -- Avian Flu--Map Source: U.S. Department of State (via ReliefWeb Map Centre) Avian influenza: assessing the pandemic threat (PDF; 1.56 MB) "All data for this map are from the World Health Organization Report 'Avian influenza: assessing the pandemic threat (Pre-publication)' January 2005 downloaded from the WHO website: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/WHO_CDS_2005_29/en/."
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Information Source: NDIIPP National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program Holds Meeting for Partners "The spirit of cooperation that is key to the success of the Library?s efforts to lead a national program to collect and preserve digital materials was clearly evident when the question most asked of the Library during a recent meeting was, 'How can we work together?'" -- Public Libraries Source:Christian Science Monitor Libraries are an essential service, too William Ecenbarger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, shares his views. -- Geospatial Information Source: Directions The Technology Behind the New Geodata.gov and the Non-Technology Challenges Ahead -- School Libraries--United States Source: National Center for Educational Statistics Fifty Years of Supporting Children's Learning: A History of Public School Libraries and Federal Legislation from 1953-2000 "Drawn from more than 50 sources, this report presents descriptive data about public school libraries since 1953. Along with key characteristics of school libraries, the report also presents national and regional standards, and federal legislation affecting school library media centers. Data from sample surveys are presented at the national, regional, and school levels, and by state." Full Report (PDF; 820 KB)
Search Briefs Yahoo Launches Mobile RSS News Feed See Also: Bloglines Interface Optimized For Wireless Browsers Thursday, March 10, 2005
Resource of the Week by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor -- If you've been on the Internet since dinosaurs roamed the earth, like this writer, you probably remember the first digital images you ever saw online. In all likelihood, these were images from the Vatican Museum; the Vatican came online in 1995. (I checked the year via Hobbes' Internet Timeline, which you may also remember from way back when; it's now up to version 8.0 and is still being updated.) We were still using dial-up modems -- s-l-o-w dial-up modems -- and it took those pictures forever to download. But we didn't care, did we? We knew how cool this was. But who could have imagined, ten years later, the breadth and depth of images available online via digitization projects. Arguably, we wouldn't be seeing most of this stuff if libraries hadn't gotten involved -- early and often. This week's resource -- an amazing new digital image repository from the New York Public Library -- is one you'll certainly want to explore. -- Public Libraries--Digital Archives Source: New York Public Library NYPL Digital Gallery "NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 275,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more." It could really be frustrating to try and make your way through all this stuff if the browsing and searching functions weren't so good. You can start with a simple keyword search if you have something specific in mind, or head right for the advanced search page. Plenty of options here, including searching by source title, date, image ID or call number, and keywords in item citation fields. Dropdown menus help you make choices. You can use another set of dropdown menus to confine your search to one or more Centers or Divisions of the Research Libraries -- e.g., the Humanities and Social Sciences Library; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; Science, Industry, and Business Library. When your thumbnail results come back, click on a image to see a larger version, along with extensive information about it. Controls allow you to enlarge the image even more (in a new window), pan and/or zoom, and save your selection -- either to purchase a print or view it later. (32 images maximum can be stored for later viewing.) Your most recent 50 searches in the gallery are also saved for you (along with how many hits were generated by each). Both selections and searches are accessible via links at the upper right of each page. Use the the links in the center at the top of the page to browse the collection by names (a-z; people), subjects (a-z), or by the various NYPL Research Libraries. At the upper left is a dropdown menu that allows you to browse by general subject area -- e.g., Arts & Literature, Industry & Technology, Nature & Science, etc. Be sure to check the lower left side of the home page for the "Curator's Choice," which led me to a delightful collection of turn-of-the-century posters. This charming image is currently my Windows wallpaper at work. You can find extensive information about this collection on an About NYPL Digital Gallery page, including the history of the project and some information about the technology that powers it. A User's Guide explains how to navigate the collection and take advantage of the available tools. You'll also find an FAQ, which informs us that "NYPL provides free and open access to its Digital Gallery and images may be freely downloaded for personal, research and study purposes only." Although most of the material here is in the public domain, NYPL does charge "a usage fee if images are to be used in any nonprofit or commercial publication, broadcast, web site, exhibition, promotional material, etc." For usage permissions, see NYPL's Photographic Services & Permissions.
Professional Reading Shelf Privacy Information Industry--LexisNexis Reed Elsevier's LexisNexis Hacked "Reed Elsevier PLC said LexisNexis, its global legal and business information business, has identified several incidents of potentially fraudulent access to information about U.S. individuals at its recently acquired Seisint unit." See Also: Full Text of LN News Release -- Reference Reviews Peter's Digital Reference Shelf, March 2005 Is Now Online This month Dr. Jacso reviews: Gale Virtual Reference Library 2.0 "The largest digital collection of unabridged encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories, almanacs and other references features a new interface, intuitive searching and á la carte choices of more than 310 volumes of information-rich eBooks (as of mid-February)." & ITI Info Central "This archive of articles, reviews, columns, commentaries, letters to the editors and other materials from widely circulating professional journals offers various options from pay-as-you-go to yearly subscription packages." -- Scholarly Publishing American Chemical Society broadens access to its articles "The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, is broadening access to research articles published in its 33 scholarly journals. The Society is introducing two new experimental policies that define how readers can view free digital versions of ACS articles beginning one year after publication."
Search Briefs + Yahoo! Launches Small Business Resource Center (via Reuters) A new link for the business researcher, full text content. "Available at http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources, the service and content offering includes about 1,000 articles from sources like Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur.com on topics ranging from marketing and legal to finance and human resources." -- + Elsevier Engineering Information and GlobalSpec Announce Alliance
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Fast Facts Source: The World Almanac New, The March 2005 Issue of The World Almanac E-Newsletter is Online Contains a chronology of January events, February holidays, "This Day in History," and much more. See Also: Back issues and subscription info (free) -- Bayesian Logic Source: Computerworld Quick Study Guide to Bayesian Logic And Filters "Bayesian logic is a type of statistical analysis that can quantify an uncertain outcome by determining its probability of occurrence using previously known, related data. Bayesian filters are used in spam-control software because they can adapt over time using new data." -- Internet Access--Wireless Source: MuniWireless.com New, Muniwireless March 2005 Report A report (lots of tables) about municipal wireless projects around the world. From the report, "... new cities [added] to the tables and also made it easier for people to see which cities in the US and abroad have citywide deployments and hotzones, as well as which municipalities have networks dedicated to public safety and municipal applications." Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries Source: ACRL ACRL Sponsors Live Webcast Tomorrow (March 10, 2005) "This free Webcast features a real-time conversation between Clifford A. Lynch, executive director, Coalition for Networked Information, and Michael A. Keller, university librarian, director of academic information resources, publisher of HighWire Press and publisher of the Stanford University Press, at Stanford University. The live Webcast will be held on Thursday, March 10, 2005, at 1 p.m. EST." Registration (free) is required. -- Government Documents--United States Source: GPO GPO Survey Depository Libraries About Essential Titles "The purpose of this survey is to identify items that should be added to the list of Essential Titles for Public Use in Paper Format, either for all Federal depository libraries or for specific types of depository libraries. The objective is to more effectively meet current user needs for tangible Government information products available to them at depository libraries." -- Open Access Publishing Source: Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Association of Research Libraries The Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals (PDF; 884 KB) "The Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals presents over 1,300 selected English-language books, conference papers (including some digital video presentations), debates, editorials, e-prints, journal and magazine articles, news articles, technical reports, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding the open access movement's efforts to provide free access to and unfettered use of scholarly literature. Most sources have been published between 1999 and August 31, 2004; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1999 are also included. Where possible, links are provided to sources that are freely available on the Internet. Approximately 78 percent of the bibliography's references have such links)." Note: Bibliography published as printed book (ISBN 1-59407-670-7) by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). See Also: Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography Another wonderful resource by Charles W. Bailey -- Public Libraries--United States--Statistics Source: National Center for Education Statistics E.D. TAB: Public Libraries in the United States: Fiscal Year 2002 "This report includes national and state summary data on public libraries in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the outlying areas for state fiscal year 2002, with an introduction, findings, and numerous tables. Data are included on circulation, library visits, reference transactions, interlibrary loans, children's program attendance, service outlets, public service hours, electronic measures, staff, income, expenditures, and other information." Full Report (PDF: 1.08 MB)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Weblogs--Pathfinder Source: University of Akron School of Law Library Law Weblogs-Blawgs "The purpose of this pathfinder on Law Blogs (Blawgs) is to provide a starting point for law students and law faculty interested in identifying blogs they wish to monitor or to provide basic information for those interested in starting their own weblog." Thanks to Lynn Lenart for letting us know about the pathfinder. -- RFID Source: FTC New, FTC Releases Radio Frequency Identification Workshop Report "The staff of the Federal Trade Commission today released a report summarizing the issues and drawing some conclusions from its June 2004 workshop, 'Radio Frequency Identification: Applications and Implications for Consumers.'" Summary ||| Direct to Full Text -- Department of State--United States--Organizational Charts Source: DOS New, State Department Organizational Chart HTML ||| PDF -- Telecommunications--Australia Source: Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia Research Brief: Foreign ownership in the telecommunications sector Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Academic Libraries Source: C&RL News The ACRL Scholarly Communications Toolkit now online: A resource for administrators, faculty, and librarians "The toolkit is designed with three pathways: one for academic administrators, one for faculty, and one for librarians. For the most part, the same issues are addressed in the pathways, but the emphasis and amount of information that is included changes for the particular audience. Key issues chosen for inclusion are the effects of inflationary price increases and relatively stable information access budgets; new alternatives for disseminating scholarly information; aggregated or bundled electronic content; author control of intellectual property; and publisher mergers and acquisitions." -- Public Libraries--Florida--Editorial Source: Sarasota Herald Tribune Educator says investing in public libraries yields high dividends "In the past several years, library usage in the state has increased dramatically, while Florida's relative support for public libraries has steadily declined. Under legislative guidelines, the state may match up to 25 cents for each local dollar spent on library services. Right now, however, the state provides only about 7 cents for every local dollar spent on public libraries.... Public libraries are a good investment for Florida's economy. An economic study conducted for the State Library and Archives of Florida last year found that every taxpayer dollar that goes toward funding public libraries generates economic returns of $6.54 -- amounting to a total economic impact of $2.9 billion annually." Guest column by Dr. Derrie Perez (PDF; 232 KB), dean of the University of South Florida Libraries and president of the Florida Library Association.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Social Indicators Source: OECD Society at a Glance: OECD Social Indicators -- 2005 Edition Note: The full text version of this report is fee-based. However, this link offers all of the raw data (free) underlying each indicator. Material is in XLS format. -- Portals--Europe New Web Portal: Your Europe From a Kablenet article, "Your Europe, which has suffered ongoing delays during its development, will act as the central online information point for the EU. Eventually it is hoped to offer cross border transactional services. Originally, the portal was due to become available in 2003 but was delayed after it encountered difficulties in attempting to integrate information and services from national administration systems. It is divided into two sections, one for businesses and one for members of the public. The "citizens" section holds over 1,300 fact sheets and offers guides to users covering a range of topics such as employment, education and taxation. Businesses can access information on registration of companies, public procurement and funding opportunities." -- Arab Americans--Statistics Source: U.S. Census (via ResourceShelf) We the People of Arab Ancestry in the United States "Part of a series of Census 2000 special reports, presenting data on demographic, social and economic characteristics of the Arab population as a whole, as well as of the largest groups within this population at the national level." -- Patents Source: Thomson Scientific The 2005 Patent Focus Report "The 2005 Patent Focus Report reviews significant news and legislation from 2004, and takes a look at what events and initiative may impact the world of patents in 2005. The report was written by Joff Wild, journalist and editor of Intellectual Asset Management magazine." HTML Version ||| PDF Version Monday, March 07, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Metadata--Dublin Core Happy 10th Anniversary to the Dublin Core! From the Dublin Core news page, "This month marks the tenth anniversary of the Dublin Core, after the OCLC/NCSA Metadata Workshop that took place in Dublin, Ohio, 1-3 March 1995. The DCMI Directorate wishes to thank and congratulate all participants of the Dublin Core community at this milestone. Ten years have elapsed since the OCLC/NCSA Metadata Workshop, the first in what has since become a workshop series, then a full conference series. Over that period, the Dublin Core community has largely shaped the framework of metadata on the Web. If you're doing metadata on the Web, chances are you started with Dublin Core. The community we affectionately described in 1995 as 'geeks, freaks, and people with sensible shoes' has grown from the 52 original workshop participants to an international community of researchers and practitioners from more than 50 countries." See Also: DCMI Abstract Model Becomes a Recommendation See Also: Call For Papers: DC-2005 Annual Conference -- Public Libraries Source: Wired The Circulating IPod "Checking out a new iPod now applies to more than shopping trips or web browsing. This week the South Huntington Public Library on Long Island, New York, became one of the first public libraries in the country to loan out iPod shuffles." You can also listen to a brief interview with Ken Weil, director, South Huntington Public Library on Long Island. Thanks to R.B. for the news tip. -- British Library Source: National Public Radio Audio: Library Marks the Evolution of British English A conversation with Jonnie Robinson, "curator of the British Library's Collection of Accents and Dialects. The library recently released over 55 hours of audio on their Web site that document the evolution of British English over the past 50 years." See Also: Direct to BL "Collect Britain" Home Page -- Public Libraries--Filtering Source: ALA Illinois Filtering Bill Defeated Again -- Presidential Libraries Source: AP Despite reports, SMU still awaiting word on Bush library "If George W. Bush has chosen Southern Methodist University to host his presidential library, school officials say he hasn't told them about it."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Business--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: infoUSA Sales Genie Survey Announces Business Growth for Top 100 Metro Areas "The survey includes a report citing the number of businesses and the corresponding business growth/decline for the top 100 MSA's in the U.S." -- Workforce--Australia--Statistics Source: Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia Research Brief: Australia's ageing workforce Also available as a PDF file. -- Spyware Source: Federal Trade Commission Just Released, Spyware Workshop: Monitoring Software On Your Personal Computer: Spyware, Adware, and Other Software: Report of the Federal Trade Commission Staff "The Federal Trade Commission today released a staff report summarizing the issues and drawing some conclusions from its April 2004 workshop, ?Monitoring Software on Your PC: Spyware, Adware, and Other Software." The report, a transcript of the day-long session, a list of participants and their presentations, and comments filed with the Commission can be found at: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/spyware/index.htm See Also: Direct to Full Text of Report -- Auto Safety--United States--Crash Tests Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Small Cars: Overall crashworthiness evaluations, current models From press release: "Most small car designs earned poor ratings in side impact crash tests recently conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Only the Chevrolet Cobalt and Toyota Corolla, both equipped with optional side airbags with head protection, performed well enough to earn the Institute's second highest rating of acceptable. Without the optional airbags, the Cobalt and Corolla are rated poor for side impact protection."
Search Briefs + A Web Research "Dashboard" Named Nextaris The Nextaris service was formally launched today. It's free and very cool! Nextaris is also now providing several new tools including mobile web access to many of their services. Wow! More than worth a look! -- + ProQuest Introduces "Curriculum Match Factor" -- + DialogLink 5 to Help Information Professionals Format, Distribute Intelligence & Analysis Across Enterprises See Also: DialogLink Adds Chemical Structure Searching and Updated Interface (via InfoToday NewsBreaks) Sunday, March 06, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Law Libraries Source: KPUA/AP Attorney suspended for tearing out pages from library documents "The Hawaii Supreme Court has suspended a Honolulu attorney from practicing law for six months as a penalty for tearing out pages from documents at the U-S District Court library." -- Internet--History Source: BBC Getting the net off the ground "The net's co-inventor [Dr. Robert Kahn] tells BBC Click Online how it all began, when, as an assistant professor of electrical engineering at MIT, he took a leave of absence to brush up on his networking theory." Along with the text article, you can view the interview online.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Elections--United States--2004 Internet Usage--United States Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project The Internet and Campaign 2004 "The internet became an essential part of American politics in 2004. Fully 75 million Americans -- 37% of the adult population and 61% of online Americans -- used the internet to get political news and information, discuss candidates and debate issues in emails, or participate directly in the political process by volunteering or giving contributions to candidates." + Read the Report [PDF] -- Tax Scams--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Internal Revenue Service IRS Announces the 2005 Dirty Dozen "The Internal Revenue Service today unveiled its annual listing of notorious tax scams, the 'Dirty Dozen,' reminding taxpayers to be wary of schemes that promise to eliminate taxes or otherwise sound too good to be true. The 'Dirty Dozen' for 2005 includes several new scams that either manipulate laws governing charitable groups, abuse credit counseling services or rely on refuted arguments to claim tax exemptions. The agency also sees the continuing spread of identity theft schemes preying on people through e-mail, the Internet or the phone, sometimes with con artists posing as representatives of the IRS." See Also: Yahoo! Finance 2005 Tax Guide -- Business--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy Firm Size Data: Statistics of U.S. Businesses and Nonemployer Statistics "SUSB's (Statistics of U.S. Business) employer data contain the number of firms, number of establishments, employment, and annual payroll for employment size of firm categories by location and industry. Industries are defined according to Standard Industrial Classification for 1988 to 1998 and the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) for 1998 and beyond. Receipts by employment size of firm are available for 1997. Special tabulations by receipt size of firm are available for the United States for 1997. The employer data consist of static and dynamic data. Unless otherwise noted, the data are static, that is, they are a "snapshot" of firms at a point in time." See Also: Number of U.S. Businesses Decline for Second Year in a Row Saturday, March 05, 2005
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Entertainment Industry--Calendars Source: Variety Showbiz Calendar (Searchable) Search by keyword, date, event type or browse, "this comprehensive list of industry events." -- Business--United States--Statistics Source: infoUSA Number of U.S. Businesses Decline for Second Year in a Row "infoUSA today released results from their annual Sales Genie Survey of U.S. Businesses. The number of businesses continued their second straight year of decline, decreasing to 11.318 million at year-end 2004 from 11.610 million in 2003, down 2.5%. This follows a slight dip from the 2002 annual count of 11.670 million." Business growth/decline by state is provided. -- Tax Returns--United States Source: Tax History Project Presidential Tax Returns "Like all other citizens, U.S. presidents enjoy this protection of their privacy. Since the early 1970s, however, most presidents have chosen to release their returns publicly. In the hope of making this information more widely available, the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts has compiled an archive of presidential tax returns."
Professional Reading Shelf Collection Analysis--OCLC Source: OCLC WorldCat Collection Analysis "A library needs precise data that reveals the strengths of its collection as well as its needs. Available in early 2005, WorldCat Collection Analysis enables libraries and library groups of any size to generate reports on-the-fly through the FirstSearch reference service." Interface Preview Register to receive updates on the WorldCat Collection Analysis service. Friday, March 04, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Conferences Source: Digital Curation Centre Just Announced, 1st International Digital Curation Conference -- Library Schools--Online Searching--Study and Teaching Source: Journal of the Medical Library Association Understanding the foundation: the state of generalist search education in library schools as related to the needs of expert searchers in medical libraries "The educational focus in these searching components was on understanding the generalist searching resources and typical users and on performing a reflective search through application of search strategies, controlled vocabulary, and logic appropriate to the search tool. There is a growing emphasis on Web-based search tools and a movement away from traditional set-based searching and toward free-text search strategies. While a core set of authors is used in these courses, no core set of readings is used." See also: Teaching Student Searchers (Carol Tenopir, Library Journal) -- Information Standards Source: National Information Standards Organization Just Released, NISO 2004 Annual Report
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Country Studies--Pakistan Source: Federal Research Division/Library of Congress New, Country Profile for Pakistan 27 pages; PDF See Also: More Country Profiles from FRD -- Journalism--Ethics--Manual Source: The New York Times Ethical Journalism: A Handbook of Values and Practices for the News and Editorial Departments (PDF; 1.1 MB) "The Times believes beyond question that its staff shares the values these guidelines are intended to protect. In the past The Times has resolved differences of view over applying these values amiably through discussion, almost without exception. The paper has every reason to believe that pattern will continue. Nevertheless, The Times views any deliberate violation of these guidelines as a serious offense that may lead to disciplinary action, potentially including dismissal, subject to the terms of any applicable collective bargaining agreement." -- Travel Research Source: Consumers Union New Report, Major Travel Sites Face Credibility Crunch: An Examination of Booking First-Class Tickets Online Summary ||| Full Text -- Hospitals--Ratings Source: Solucient's Center for Healthcare Improvement 100 Top Hospitals®: National Benchmarks for Success -- 2004 From introduction: "This is the 12th edition of Solucient's 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success. The primary goal of this program is to objectively identify hospitals that are the highest performers in the nation, and to make public the bar that has been set for hospital performance each year." Methodology Thursday, March 03, 2005
Resources of the Week by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor For some reason, this week we are thinking about think tanks. 1) Social Issues--Research Social Issues Research Centre "The Social Issues Research Centre is an independent, non-profit organisation founded to conduct research on social and lifestyle issues, monitor and assess global sociocultural trends and provide new insights on human behaviour and social relations." Which means think tank, and this one is located in the UK, where its research "is guided by an Advisory Board consisting of eminent scientists and consultants in a variety of disciplines." If you're a regular visitor to DocuTicker, our sister site, you know that we peruse the offerings of many think tanks. Most of the stuff we find is...well, if you're not an economist or a policy wonk of some kind, it probably makes good bedtime reading for insomniacs. The Social Issues Research Centre is different. The articles, analyses and reports posted here are highly readable and downright interesting, and they are often packed with useful statistics gathered from a wide range of sources. You'll find things here that you'll never see anywhere else. To wit -- SIRC's Timeline of Dietary Advice: "The Timeline is very much a work in progress, highlighting the swings of dietary fashion which even in the last few decades have seen familiar foods such as eggs, red meat and fibre both championed and vilified. Over the next few months we will be filling in the gaps of the Timeline and charting more clearly the fall and rise of single food items, including those that are claimed to cause cancer, then protect against cancer, and then be totally unrelated to cancer, or blood cholesterol, or obesity, or heart disease, or migraines, or whatever." When you go to the actual timeline page, you'll see a series of years, from "prehistoric" to 2003. The more recent years especially are rich in content, presenting references to dietary health stories that appeared each month. Very cool. + See the Publications page for a eclectic variety of items, including Passport to the Pub: A guide to British pub etiquette and The Smell Report, ("the psychology and anthropology of scent"). We introverts and shy types can surely benefit from the SIRC Guide to Flirting, which is a serious, in-depth manual that incorporates findings from the social sciences. + Browse the Articles page for a variety of writings on everything from genetically modified goods to shopping malls, written largely by academicians and social critics. + A Media Watch page provides links and commentary on "Health, Nutrition and Science Reporting Around the World". You can subscribe to free bulletins and news updates. The site is searchable; a dropdown menu lets you choose Find ANY Word, Find ALL Words, Find EXACT Phrase. --- --- Think tanks come in all flavors. NO matter what the issue, some organized group is studying it and churning out papers. No matter what political ideology, some entity is out there beating the drum for it. Keeping in mind all the various axes being ground here, these institutions are often a decent source of research material -- backgrounders, policy briefs, surveys, etc. Somewhere out there is the think tank of your dreams. Check these listings: + Hillwatch.com: Think Tanks ("A directory of Canadian and International Think Tanks") + KSG Directory of Think Tanks (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University) + NIRA's World Directory of Think Tanks (National Institute for Research Advancement in Japan. Hard copies of the directory are issued every three years. The 2002 edition is online here.) + Political Resources: Think Tanks (Project VoteSmart) + Political Resources: Think Tanks (University of Michigan Documents Center) + Worldpress.org: Think Tanks and N.G.O.s
Professional Reading Shelf Metadata Source: E-LIS Collection-level descriptions: metadata of the future? From Library Review 52(6): pp. 247-250, 2003 -- Librarians Source: Unversity Daily (Texas Tech University) Librarian Myra Brown keeping it real instead of keeping it quiet "This is one librarian who will not shush you. Coworkers said Myra Michele Brown, the digital media librarian for the Texas Tech University Library, may not fit her profession's stereotype. 'Myra's not the usual librarian," said Julia Chiao, cataloguer at the library. "She isn't very quiet. Sometimes she's really loud.'" -- Semantic Web--Conference Announcement Semantic Web Applications for National Security (SWANS) "The purpose of the meeting is to raise awareness and enhance the ability of Military and Government technology decision-makers to capitalize on the emergence of the Semantic Web." Tim Berners-Lee is one of the keynote speakers.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Images--Online Databases Digitization Projects--Images Source: AP NYC Library Putting Images Online "The New York Public Library is putting hundreds of thousands of its images online, allowing free personal downloads of material including maps, Civil War photos and illuminated medieval manuscripts." The database currently contains more than 275,000 images. Many more details in this news release. The NYPL Digital Gallery is accessible here. -- Philanthropy--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: The Chronicle of Philanthropy Top 10 Donors 2004 The article includes a variety of statistics.
Web Search Briefs Yahoo! Releases Movie Recommendation Service Beta The post also contains info about two other services. Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries--United Kingdom Source: MLA Just Released Report, Competencies and Capabilities: New Paradigms for Workforce Development in the 21st Library "A major new study undertaken by the Tavistock Institute and published today assesses the impact of this 20 million pounds training programme, which has been funded as part of the People's Network, the national project to link all 4200 public libraries to the internet." Summary ||| Direct to Full Text -- Weblogs--Bibliographies BlogBib "An Annotated Bibliography on Weblogs and Blogging, with a Focus on Library/Librarian Blogs." It was compiled and annotated by Susan Herzog, Information Literacy Librarian at Eastern Connecticut State University. -- eBooks Source: Washington Times New chapter in online books A report about the International Children's Digital Library at the University of Maryland.
Professional Reading Shelf Criminal Justice System--United States Source: U.S. DoJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics Criminal Justice System Flowchart "This flowchart of the events in the criminal justice system updates the original chart prepared by the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice in 1967. Accompanied by a clarifying text description, the chart summarizes the most common events in the criminal and juvenile justice systems including entry into the criminal justice system, prosecution and pretrial services, adjudication, sentencing and sanctions, and corrections. Electronic files of both full color and black and white versions of the chart are available for downloading." Both color and black & white versions in PDF and EPS format. Or you can order a wall poster. This is very cool. -- Education--United States--Statistics Source: NCES New Data Tool -- State Education Data Profiles "Search for statewide information in elementary/secondary education, postsecondary education and selected demographics for all states in the U.S. Besides being able to get state data you will also get data on U.S. averages and the ability to graph the results."
Web Search Briefs Happy Birthday Yahoo! 10 years ago today Yahoo was incorporated. Here are a few links to remember the "early" days. Also, here's a copy of the Yahoo! home page on 3/2/1995. See Also: Yahoo's 10th Birthday "Netrospective" Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries Source: CLIR Full Text Report, Library as Place: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space See Also: UK: Public library building site cements funding (via Museums, Libraries and Archives Council) -- Open Access--United Kingdom Source: The Guardian Keystroke strategy for open access "The movement to increase free online access to scientific research will receive a boost today as academics, publishers and librarians thrash out a new plan for open access...But at a two-day meeting in Southampton yesterday and today, delegates from across the world of scientific publishing will be presented with a new plan for open access. Stevan Harnad, professor of cognitive science at the University of Southampton, will present a proposal that could revolutionise how academics and the public view research." See Also: Peter Suber's Open Access News -- U.S. Census--Privacy Source: U.S. Census Census Names First Chief Privacy Officer The U.S. Census has also just released their Data Protection and Online Privacy Policy web site.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Computer Security Source: Sophos Top ten viruses and hoaxes reported to Sophos in February 2005 -- H-1B Visas--Salary Database Source: Computerworld H-1B Salary Interactive Tool "Based on data provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, Computerworld has created a unique interactive tool that lets you compare the claimed prevailing wages in several job categories with the wages paid to new H-1B visa applicants and H-1B visa holders seeking a change in status. The data, based on a sample size of 290,000 applications or status change requests, covers three years and was processed for Computerworld by Eastland Data Systems. The wage information, which is submitted by individual companies to the government, covers the federal fiscal years 2001, 2002 and 2003. That means the salary information covers the period from Oct. 1, 2000, to Sept. 30, 2003." -- Public Schools--United States--Internet Usage Source: NCES New Report on Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-2003 "This report presents 10 years of data from 1994 to 2003 on Internet access in U.S. public schools by school characteristics. It provides trend analysis on the percent of public schools and instructional rooms with Internet access and on the ratio of students to instructional computers with Internet access. The report contains data on the types of Internet connections, support of computer hardware/software and websites, technologies and procedures used to prevent student access to inappropriate material on the Internet, and the availability of hand-held and laptop computers to students or teachers." -- Life Expectancy--United States Source: CDC New Statistics: Life Expectancy Hits Record High "Life expectancy for Americans has reached an all-time high, according to the latest U.S. mortality statistics released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report, "Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2003," prepared by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), shows life expectancy at 77.6 years in 2003, up from 77.3 in 2002." |
