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ResourceShelf |
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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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Archives 06/01/1990 - 06/30/1990 03/01/2001 - 03/31/2001 04/01/2001 - 04/30/2001 05/01/2001 - 05/31/2001 06/01/2001 - 06/30/2001 07/01/2001 - 07/31/2001 08/01/2001 - 08/31/2001 09/01/2001 - 09/30/2001 10/01/2001 - 10/31/2001 11/01/2001 - 11/30/2001 12/01/2001 - 12/31/2001 01/01/2002 - 01/31/2002 02/01/2002 - 02/28/2002 03/01/2002 - 03/31/2002 04/01/2002 - 04/30/2002 05/01/2002 - 05/31/2002 06/01/2002 - 06/30/2002 07/01/2002 - 07/31/2002 08/01/2002 - 08/31/2002 09/01/2002 - 09/30/2002 10/01/2002 - 10/31/2002 11/01/2002 - 11/30/2002 12/01/2002 - 12/31/2002 01/01/2003 - 01/31/2003 02/01/2003 - 02/28/2003 03/01/2003 - 03/31/2003 04/01/2003 - 04/30/2003 05/01/2003 - 05/31/2003 06/01/2003 - 06/30/2003 07/01/2003 - 07/31/2003 08/01/2003 - 08/31/2003 09/01/2003 - 09/30/2003 10/01/2003 - 10/31/2003 11/01/2003 - 11/30/2003 12/01/2003 - 12/31/2003 01/01/2004 - 01/31/2004 02/01/2004 - 02/29/2004 03/01/2004 - 03/31/2004 04/01/2004 - 04/30/2004 05/01/2004 - 05/31/2004 06/01/2004 - 06/30/2004 07/01/2004 - 07/31/2004 08/01/2004 - 08/31/2004 09/01/2004 - 09/30/2004 10/01/2004 - 10/31/2004 11/01/2004 - 11/30/2004 12/01/2004 - 12/31/2004 01/01/2005 - 01/31/2005 02/01/2005 - 02/28/2005 03/01/2005 - 03/31/2005 04/01/2005 - 04/30/2005 05/01/2005 - 05/31/2005 06/01/2005 - 06/30/2005 07/01/2005 - 07/31/2005 08/01/2005 - 08/31/2005 09/01/2005 - 09/30/2005 10/01/2005 - 10/31/2005 11/01/2005 - 11/30/2005 12/01/2005 - 12/31/2005 01/01/2006 - 01/31/2006 02/01/2006 - 02/28/2006 03/01/2006 - 03/31/2006 04/01/2006 - 04/30/2006 05/01/2006 - 05/31/2006 06/01/2006 - 06/30/2006 Now Available Additional Web Reference Compilations direct search (Invisible Web Resources) Audio/Video Current Awareness Tools WWW Accessible Congressional Research Service Reports
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Friday, March 31, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Academic Librarians Source: ACRL ACRL seeks applicants for Institute for Information Literacy Intentional Teacher Program "The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Institute for Information Literacy (IIL) seeks applicants for the newest addition to its Immersion program--The Intentional Teacher: Renewal through Informed Reflection. Acceptance to the program is competitive; participation is limited to 36 individuals per program. The deadline for application is May 5, 2006." -- Law Librarians Librarian Recruitment Source: AALL (via AALL's President Web Site) Law Librarians Listed From the post, "For the first time, law librarians are listed in Occupational Outlook, in the Grab Bag, a career information magazine aimed at high school and college students and counselors. (Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Spring 2006, Vol. 50, Number 1). This is a great new opportunity to spread the message about law librarianship as a career possibility to students at an early stage in their career preparation." See Also: Full Text of Article Also Available in PDF.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Iraq Source: Congressional Research Service (via FAS) Updated: Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq: Effects and Countermeasures -- Cultural Awareness--Bibliography Source: Air University Library Cultural Awareness and the Military Includes Internet resources, books, documents, periodicals. -- Information Technology--Ranking Source: World Economic Forum Global Information Technology Report "Since it was first launched in 2001, the Global Information Technology Report has become a valuable and unique benchmarking tool to determine national ICT strengths and weaknesses, and to evaluate progress. It also highlights the continuing importance of ICT application and development for economic growth. The Report uses the Networked Readiness Index (NRI), covering a total of 115 economies in 2005-2006, to measure the degree of preparation of a nation or community to participate in and benefit from ICT developments." The NRI is composed of three component indexes which assess: the environment for ICT offered by a given country or community; the readiness of the community's key stakeholders - individuals, business and governments; and the usage of ICT among these stakeholders." Full report available for purchase. + Contents (PDF; 1pg; 29k) + Preface (PDF; 2pgs; 46k) + Summary (PDF; 5pgs; 66k) + Full Rankings (PDF; 24 KB) + Map of "Digital Inclusion" -- Military--United States--History Source: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress New, Army JAG Corps Historical Monographs "Official history of the Army JAG Corps and other studies of judge advocates."
Search Briefs AOL Podcasts from AOL's Mountain View Office Note: This is an XML page. Use your RSS aggregator to view it. Search and tech geeks here's a podcast that might be of interest. AOL's Mountain View facility (their HQ is in Dulles, VA, near the airport) is now podasting. Podcast #17 was released this week. Programs so far include an interview with IA guru Peter Morville, presentations from the SDForum Search SIG: The Search for Attention, and a discussion from SXSW about mobile technology and design. This show (#1) offers some background about the podcast. -- + YouTube and Its Future (via News.com) -- + Google Adds Continuous Playback to Google Video (via News.com)
Search Patent Update Microsoft Has Several Search and Ad Patent Applications Published, Also New App from Yahoo Three MS apps were published yesterday, March 30th. + Content evaluation Filed: September 30, 2004 Keeping spam out of search engines + System for partial automation of content review of network advertisements Filed: September 29, 2004 "Upon receiving a proposed network advertisement from an advertiser, a publisher determines whether to automatically approve the proposed advertisement for publishing, automatically reject the proposed advertisement from being published, or manually verify the content of the proposed advertisement prior to publishing based on a distribution channel of the proposed advertisement, a trust rating of the advertiser, a business rule, or expected traffic of a location at which the proposed advertisement is to appear." + System and method for generating an orchestrated advertising campaign Filed: September 28, 2004 From the abstract, "A system and related techniques host and serve selective, orchestrated advertising campaigns and other content to users depending on contributing advertisers' campaign strategies as well as use interests, prior history or experiences. According to embodiments, users may navigate to a Web or other network site which contains or invokes ads or other media or content." Patent App from Yahoo, Published March 16th. + Optimal storage and retrieval of XML data Filed: November 16, 2004 From the abstract, "Processing requirements are reduced, because parsing is not a required step when processing queries. Instead of parsing, the query is processed by unpacking the compressed version of the document identified in the query, node by node until enough information has been decoded to satisfy the query. Processing speed is improved in two ways. First, unpacking as carried out according to the invention is a much faster process than parsing. Second, the entire document need not be unpacked." Thursday, March 30, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor Sometimes, poking around Federal Reserve Bank websites turns up some interesting and useful things. Like this week's resource, "an economics information portal" for librarians and students," via the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Economics--United States--Portal Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Liber8 Here is a website by librarians for librarians. "Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis librarians designed this site with university and government document librarians, students, and the general public in mind. Economic information can, at times, be difficult for the non-economist to find and understand. We hope this site will provide a single point of access to the economic information that the Federal Reserve System, other government agencies, and data providers have to offer. We specifically selected non-technical sources that would be simpler to use and easier to understand." The clean, deceptively simple design of this site belies the wealth of content you can find here. Some items are local; other links will take you to information on external websites. On the home page, you'll see three major geographic sub-headings -- International, National and Regional. Under each heading, you'll see a couple of current reports (PDFs), with a "more" link to get to additional documents. In the middle of the page are links to the latest economic statistics, again under the three geographic headings, with "more" links to additional data. Scroll further down and find a collection of "useful links" -- to international, national and regional information, with "more" links to...more links. There is a true jewel nestled within this website -- the International Economic Statistics (IES) Database: "The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Research Library's IES Database simplifies the search for world-wide economic indicators. Individual indicators (such as GDP and CPI) are linked, and each link has a description of the data. Included in each record is the title, corporate author, publisher, years covered in the data series, type of publication (text, table, chart), frequency with which the data is published, country of origin, a URL, available languages, subject headings, format (.pdf, .xls, etc.), a summary (where available), and any notes needed to clarify the data. The database is title, country, subject and keyword searchable. The links will be checked regularly to maintain accuracy. Indicators are continually being added." The search form allows you to input keywords and/or choose countries, corporate authors and specific subjects using dropdown menus. Other "don't miss" links: + AmosWEB GLOSS*arama: "...a searchable database of 2000 economic terms and concepts." + The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas's Center for Latin American Economics: "...focuses its research efforts on issues of particular concern in Latin America--not only in the core central bank areas of monetary, macroeconomic, foreign exchange, banking, and fiscal issues but also across a spectrum of applied and theoretical concerns." Many publications are available here, and the entire site is available en español. + Inflation Central, from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland: "Track inflation in the United States and across the world and put it all in perspective with our analysis and commentary." + FRASER, the Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research: "On this web site you will find links to scanned images (in Adobe® Acrobat® PDF format) of historical economic statistical publications, releases, and documents." + FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data): "a database of over 3000 U.S. economic time series. With FRED you can download data in Microsoft Excel and text formats and view charts of data series." + A page on the Bank for International Settlements (who knew?) website that provides links to central bank websites in countries from Albania to Zimbabwe. + An integrated multilingual dictionary of trade terms from the Foreign Trade Information System of the Organization of American States. + Fed in Print, from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco: "...a comprehensive index to Federal Reserve economic research." Oh, in case you're wondering how this site got its name: Liber8 is provided by the Research "Lib"rary of the "8"th Federal Reserve District. Bravo!
Professional Reading Shelf Metadata Source: PerX New Publication: The Power of Good Metadata Discussed in 'Marketing' with Metadata -- How Metadata Can Increase Exposure and Visibility of Online Content From a synopsis, "'Marketing' with Metadata - How Metadata Can Increase Exposure and Visibility of Online Content is aimed at content providers of various kinds -- for example, journal publishers, professional societies and database providers and owners -- who may have such data, or metadata, available for the content they produce." See Also: Metadata (via Digital Curation Centre) A chapter from the DCC Curation Manual. Excellent intro to metadata. See Also: Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information (via Getty Research Institute) A full text book on the topic. -- Internet2--Statistics Source: Internet2 New Survey Shows Access and Usage of Internet2 in Schools, Public Libraries, and Elsewhere From the summary: K12 Schools + 35971 out of 98335 or 37% of the K12 Schools in the United States are connected to Internet2 via the SEGP Program. + 4350 out of 35971, or 12%, of K12 Schools connect to the Internet2 backbone network at >= 10 Mbps. + 17% of state education networks report between 50 - 100% of the K12 Schools they connect are multi-cast enabled. + State education networks report, on average, that 44% of the K12 Schools they connnect have H.323, DVTS, MPEG, or other video conferencing codecs available. Public Libraries + 3325 out of 16991 or 20% of the Public Libraries in the United States are connected to Internet2 via the SEGP Program. + 229 out of 3325, or 7%, of Public Libraries connect to the Internet2 backbone network at >= 10 Mbps. Totals "More than 46,000 K-12 schools, community colleges, libraries, and museums in 35 U.S. states are now connected to the Internet2 backbone network." Summary Direct to Full Text of Study See Also: Learn More About Internet2 "Internet2 is a consortium being led by 207 universities working in partnership with industry and government to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet." -- Weblogs Wikis Source: Intelligent Enterprise One Person's Opinion: Wikis, Blogs, and Other Points of Failure A column by Joshua Greenbaum. From the column, "I hate to be the one to throw cold water on the latest cool thing, but wikis and blogs -- and all the other unwashed, untethered, so-called "new information" sources proliferating across the enterprise -- are, all too often, just a lot of bunk masquerading as information...The integrity of all information -- corporate or private -- rests on the ability of users to judge the validity of the source. So heaven help us if no one calls the bloggers and wikites on the carpet when they mislead and misinform; degrading information on the Internet will globalize ignorance to an incredible degree. And the last thing anyone needs these days is more global stupidity. We have enough politicians contributing to that problem already." -- Vocabularies--Medical Source: NLM New Fact Sheets Provide Info About Unified Medical Language System + Unified Medical Language System "The purpose of NLM's Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is to facilitate the development of computer systems that behave as if they "understand" the meaning of the language of biomedicine and health." + UMLS Metathesaurus "The Metathesaurus is a very large, multi-purpose, and multi-lingual vocabulary database that contains information about biomedical and health-related concepts, their various names, and the relationships among them." + UMLS Semantic Network "The Semantic Network consists of (1) a set of broad subject categories, or Semantic Types, that provide a consistent categorization of all concepts represented in the UMLS Metathesaurus and (2) a set of useful and important relationships, or Semantic Relations, that exist between Semantic Types."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Newspaper Archives Digitization Projects United States History Source: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Two New Archives of Historic Material (Free) from NewspaperARCHIVE.com Since January we've been chronicling a steady stream of FREE, full text, full image, searchable/browsable newspaper archives focused on a specific topic from NewspaperARCHIVE.com. The company is part of Heritage Microfilm based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This week the company has released two new archives each containing tens of thousands of newspaper articles from various newspapers. Each article is delivered as a pdf file ready for printing or saving. Kudos to Heritage for offering these databases and underlying content at no charge. Also a great way to see local newspaper coverage. What's New this Week? + FBI Newspaper Archive More than 50,000 full text articles about the FBI, criminals, etc. Love the timeline. -- + September 11th Archive More than 15,000 articles. Advanced interfaces are available for both databases. -- See Also: Links to More Archives from NewspaperARCHIVES.com Including: + MartinLutherKingJrArchive + Pro Baseball Archive + College Basketball Archive + Abraham Lincoln Archive + AsbestosArchive.com (Asbestos and Asbestos Related Lawsuits) + HMS Titanic Archive + Winter Games Archive -- Reference Shelf--Statistics Source: OECD Just Released, OECD Factbook 2006: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics "How does France compare with other EU countries in terms of growth in labour productivity? Where does Japan rank versus the other major developed countries in public spending on health? People and politicians want to know how their countries and regions are performing. The OECD's Factbook is designed to help them." Numbers in charts and graphs available in Excel format. Data, reorganised by country, also available. -- Digital Libraries--Science Resources for Educators Source: Exploratorium, San Francisco New, Exploratorium Digital Library Expect a closer look from ResourceShelf soon. From the site, "The different collections in the library include digital media and digitized museum materials related to interactive exhibits and scientific phenomena, including images, educational activities in PDF and html formats, QuickTime movies, streaming media, and audio files. You may search, select and download digital files for individual, noncommercial educational use."
Briefly + Convera and Factiva enter indexing deal (via IWR) + H.W. Wilson Introduces New Web Technical Support Center
Search Briefs + Ask.Com's New Look Scores Big Points Against Search Rivals (via Wall St. Journal) Walt Mossberg weighs in on what's up at Ask.com! See Also: Gary's New Job and A Look at What Ask.com Offers See Also: Gary's Interview about his New Role at Ask.com (via LJ) -- + Google Files With SEC To Offer More Shares of GOOG 5.3 million shares of Google Class A shares to be precise. That's about $2.1 billion based on tonight's closing price. What for? "This offering will partially meet the anticipated needs of index funds to purchase Google Class A common stock when Google is added to the S&P 500 Index at the close of trading on March 31, 2006. Proceeds from the offering will be used for general corporate purposes, including working capital and capital expenditures, and possible acquisitions of complementary businesses, technologies or other assets...We have no current agreements or commitments with respect to any material acquisitions. Pending such uses, we plan to invest the net proceeds in highly liquid, investment grade securities." -- + Happy Birthday to Yahoo 360 The blogging/social networking/community platform celebrates its first birthday. -- + Microsoft to bring Hotmail onto the desktop (via News.com) Learn more via the Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta Blog -- + MSN Live Search Adds "Search Macros" (via SEW Blog) See Also: Rollyo Quickly and painlessly create your own site specific search engine. Uses Yahoo database. Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Librarianship--Quotations Source: IFLA Quotations about Libraries and Librarians: Subject List An author index is also available. -- Health Information--United States Source: U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science NCLIS Announces Finalists for 2006 Health Information Awards (PDF) "The U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) today announced the ten finalists for the 2006 NCLIS Health Information Awards for Libraries. The awards are designed to encourage library programs that address one or more of the following: dietary choices; exercise; smoking cessation; alcohol and/or drug abuse prevention or cessation; immunizations and health screenings; and improved health literacy, that is, the ability to understand and make use of health information." See Also: NCLIS Announces 2006 Health Awards State Winners -- Inforation Technology Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project Teens and technology (PDF) A presentation given by PI&ALP Director, Lee Rainie, at the Public Library Association Conference last week. "This is a discussion of the eight realities of technology and social experience that are shaping the world of today's teens and twenty-somethings. It looks at the growing role of technology in teens' lives, the way they use their gadgets, their expectations about how to find and use information, and the social consequences of their use of technology."
Scholarly Publishing--Citation Reports Source: ISI + Science in Japan, 2001-05 + The 20 most-cited countries in Chemistry for 1995-August 31, 2005 + Journals Ranked by Impact: Business, Finance + Chemical Engineering: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 2000-04 + Canadian Universities: Highest Impact in Organic Chemistry/Polymer Science, 2000-04
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Information Technology--Forecasts Source: Computer Industry Almanac Smartphones to Outsell PDAs by 5:1 in 2006 "What a difference two years can make. In 2003 worldwide PDA sales surpassed Smartphone sales by over 70%. In 2005 Smartphones outsold PDAs by a factor of 3.4 to 1, which is forecasted to reach 5:1 in 2006. Smartphone sales will continue to grow and will surpass PDA sales by an 11:1 margin in 2011." -- Counties--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: TNS Financial Services TNS Study Names Top Ten Wealthiest U.S. Counties (PDF; 120 KB) "TNS Financial Services today released its list of the top ten wealthiest counties in the United States. The Affluent Market Research Program (AMRP), TNS annual survey of wealthy U.S. households, identifies the ten counties across America with the highest number of millionaire residents." -- Bankruptcies--United States--Statistics Source: US Courts Bankruptcy Filings Surge in Calendar Year 2005 Tables in xls are available. -- National Security--United States--Database Source: White House (via askSam) askSam Makes Searchable/Browsable Version of Recently Released National Security Strategy Available "Search and analyze the full text of The 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States. On March 16, 2006, the White House released President Bush's second term National Security Strategy (NSS), which reflects the president's most solemn obligation: to protect the security of the American people. The NSS explains how the United States government is working to protect the American people, advance American interests, enhance global security, and expand global liberty and prosperity. You can browse this databases online or download it to your PC." See Also: More Searchable/Browsable e-Books Databases from askSam -- Documents in the News Radioactive Materials Source: GAO Two New Reports from the GAO (via DocuTicker.com) + Border Security: Investigators Transported Radioactive Sources Across Our Nation's Borders at Two Locations + Border Security: Investigators Successfully Transported Radioactive Sources Across Our Nation's Borders at Selected Location -- Population--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Two New Reports The Black Alone or in Combination in the U.S.: 2004 and 2003 and The Asian Alone or in Combination in the U.S.: 2004 and 2003 -- National-level tabulations from the Current Population Survey for non-Hispanic Blacks and Asians by age and sex. Internet addresses: + The Black Alone or in Combination Population in the U.S.: 2004 and 2003 + The Asian Alone or in Combination Population in the U.S.: 2004 and 2003
Freebies Web 2.0 Source: PC World Just Released: 101 Fabulous Freebies All sorts of goodies in more than 10 categories. Also new on the web is the SEOmoz Web 2.0 Awards. Over 300 sites, tools and services listed. Kudos to Rand Fishkin for putting it all together.
Briefly + Alacra Store Unveils New Keyword Search One-stop shop search and purchase reports from over 35 business info publishers. Basic company snapshots are free. Advanced search interface also available. -- + New Edition Posted: Scirus News Update + Scirus index surpasses 250 million mark + New: Daily indexing to Repository Search partners + Grouping of results per source -- + CIPO improves searching capability of Canadian patent documents Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf ERIC Education--Databases Source: ERIC New, ERIC Structured Abstract Initiative "ERIC is developing a structured abstract format for ERIC database records. Structured abstracts, pioneered by the scientific community, provide a template for the presentation of common research study elements such as background, purpose, research design, and conclusions. They provide readable, informative, and accurate summaries that enable users to quickly identify and evaluate research literature." Learn more about the SAI here. -- Council for Networked Information Source: CNI Project Briefings: A Preliminary List A look at the many projects that CNI is backing. Most listings have direct links to the actual project. Presentations about these projects will be made next week at the CNI spring 2006 Task Force Meetings. Lots of interesting material here. -- Copyright--United States--Fair Use--Congressional Testimony Source: Library Copyright Alliance The Role of Fair Use in Libraries and Education--Testimony from the Library Copyright Alliance -- Finding vs. Discovering Source: St. Petersburg Times The endangered joy of serendipity "Serendipity is defined as the ability to make fortunate discoveries accidentally.... Think about the library. Do people browse anymore? We have become such a directed people. We can target what we want, thanks to the Internet. Put a couple of key words into a search engine and you find -- with an irritating hit or miss here and there - exactly what you're looking for. It's efficient, but dull. You miss the time-consuming but enriching act of looking through shelves, of pulling down a book because the title or the binding interests you. Inside, the book might be a loser, a waste of the effort and calories it took to remove it from its place and then return. Or it might be a dark chest of wonders, a life-changing first step into another world, something to lead your life down a path you didn't know was there." -- Libraries--Databases Web Search Source: NY Times Searching for Dummies Unfortunately, the libary world has heard much of this before. Yet another look at the poor info retrieval skills. The question is what are we doing to change things? In 2002, this article from the Columbia Journalism Review (by an instructor at Harvard) said the same type of thing. A few comments: + From the article, "Google led in ranking sites by how often they are linked to other highly ranked sites." True but not entirely accurate. Google and all of the leading "general purpose" web engines look at more than just link analysis. Ask any search engine optimizer and they'll tell you that everything from term frequency, proximity, and many more metrics factor in to determine relevancy at Google and at other engines. Chris Sherman's book Google Power reports that Google (and other engines) look at more than 100 metrics/factors in determining relevancy. Linking is just one of them. + This article only talks Google. Why? What about other large general web engines including MSN, Yahoo, Exalead, and Ask? What ever happened to using the right tool at the right time? What services and features does one engine offer that the others don't? Often a library will have more than one reference book or database that covers the same content but offers features that the others don't. Also, even if the content was the exact same at each engine, each has a different formula (secret sauce if you prefer) to determine relevancy. Another reason why looking at results from more than one engine is important. + What about specialty search tools (for example ResearchIndex, SmealSearch (offline today), Topix.net, RedLightGreen, Scirus), The Wayback Machine? + What about the databases students/public have access to remotely for free? + What about the value of non-commercial directories like RDN, LII, IPL, and Infomine? Quality over quantity is the rule with these resources. + What about virtual reference services? + What about reference books? (yes, I said books, please be kind) + What I have learned over the past few years is that one reason many people/students/faculty don't use other tools is that no one has: + TOLD POTENTIAL USERS ABOUT THEM!!! + Shared their value proposition(s) (one of them time savings and another quality of info). + Share how they MIGHT produce more relevant, timely, and authoritative results. Of course, the entire info literacy issue transcends all of this. + We not only have a role as marketers (in the fee-based database world the vendors need to help) but also as trainers. This is why staying current on all tools (and how they work, what they do different) is so important. The right tool/source at the right time. + Easier said then done, absolutely! One good piece of news is that so many wonderful free or very inexpensive (have you see Newsplayer.com?) resources exist. NOTE: For those search "historians" out there, the original use of link analysis on the web was done by Jon Kleinberg and colleagues at IBM for CLEVER, an engine that was never publicly released. Much of what Clever did in terms of algorithm is now part of Teoma technology which powers Ask.com. See Also: Kleinberg's Home Page See Also: Clever Home Page See Also: Hypersearching the Web (Kleinberg Explains Clever vs. Others, 1999) See Also: How Teoma Works (Several Articles at the Bottom of this Post) NOTE 2: While it's 100% true that link analysis owes a lot to citation analysis and the work of Dr. Eugene Garfield, one major difference exists. Link analysis (on the open web) is much easier to game and manipulate. It's a constant challenge (a cat-and-mouse game) for both the search engines and those who want to move their pages to the top of the organic results. Traditional citation analysis is done by monitoring an "approved" list of sources. While self-citation is always an issue it is not nearly the issue that outside influences play on link analysis.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Country Profiles Source: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress Just Updated: United Arab Emirates 25 pages; PDF. -- Sleep Source: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute New Guide: Your Guide to Healthy Sleep 60 pages; PDF. Summary and more resources here. -- Small Business--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts: Small Business Week 2006 SBW begins on April 9th. This new compilation offers a wide range of statistics. Stats include: + $830 billion Receipts for nonemployer businesses (those without paid employees) in 2003, up from $586 billion in 1997. These nonemployers, often "mom and pop" corner stores or home-based businesses, comprised more than 70 percent of all businesses. + 5.3 million Number of business establishments with fewer than 10 employees in 2003. Among these businesses, 3.9 million employed fewer than 5 people. + 1 million Number of nonemployer businesses added to the nation's total between 2002 and 2003. -- Business Research--Guides Source: Science, Technology and Business Division, Library of Congress Both print, electronic, and web-based resources are listed. + United States Money + The Sports Industry + Peter Drucker: A Tribute. Resources by and about Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005) + Financing Your Future: Selected Guides to Personal Financial Planning -- Higher Education--United States--Statistics Source: BLS College Enrollment and Work Activity of 2005 High School Graduates -- Internal Revenue Service--Audits--Statistics Source: TRAC (Syracuse University) Only 30 out of more than 180,000 Millionaires Faced Traditional IRS Audits Last Year "New data from the IRS reports that only 30 of the nation's 180,000 plus millionaires were subject to face-to-face audits in FY 2005. Analysis by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) also shows that when only traditional face-to-face audits are considered, those reporting less than $25,000 in total positive income were six times more likely to be audited than all those reporting $200,000 or more in income. IRS continues to withhold from TRAC statistical data it has made public in the past that might explain the aberration." (via DocuTicker.com) -- Phishing--Statistics Source: Anti-Phishing Working Group New, January Phishing Trends Report Available "No Relief from Phishing Onslaught of '05 Holidays, Password-Stealing Crimeware Hits New Record"
Information Visualization--Multimedia Presentations Source: University of Maryland Live Webcast This Wednesday: The Thrill of Discovery -- Accelerating Information Exploration Registration required: free. Speaker: Ben Shneiderman, Dept of Computer Science, Univ of Maryland Date: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 Time: 11:00 am, Eastern Standard Time 6:00 pm, Europe Daylight Time 8:00 am, Pacific Standard Time "Exceptional tools for information visualization are becoming more widely used to gain competitive advantages, but the best is yet to come. The next generation of interactive tools will enable communities of users to make successful business decisions even more rapidly. Advances to look for include: 1) systematic strategies for discovery that incorporate the increasingly powerful statistical tools and data mining methods, while accommodating missing and uncertain data. 2) increasingly diverse data types such as time series, patient histories, maps, and social networks, so users can handle a wider array of problems. 3) tighter integration into organizational workflows that amplify individual creativity with the catalytic benefits of social creativity." See Also: More Presentations About Info Visualization by Dr. Shneiderman. Wow!
Search Briefs + Wikipedia Blocks School's Editing Privileges Due to Vandalism (Andy Carvin's Blog) -- + Scopus Integrated Directly into Editors' and Reviewers' Workflow -- + Google experiments with map ads (via News.com) Note: This is not a new experiment. It was first reported in January 2006.) -- + Google's market lead widens (via News.com) "Company's U.S. search market share rises at the expense of Yahoo and Microsoft, while Ask.com inches up." Monday, March 27, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Archives Source: The International Council on Archives (ICA) The ICA Section for Archival Education and Training: Training the Trainer Resource Pack Now Online "The Training the Trainer resource pack is intended for anyone who wants some guidance or direction in planning, organising and delivering effective training for both professionals and support staff whatever their working or learning environment. The bulk of the pack addresses the various techniques for delivering training but it also covers the practical administrative tasks that are essential for successful training courses and which underpin the training content." The complete pack can be downloaded (Zip File). -- Privacy--United Kingdom Data Security--United Kingdom Source: ManagingInformation.com Two Thirds Of Businesses Fail On Data Protection And Privacy "A new survey among the UK's leading businesses -- all of the FTSE100 organisations 'reveals that around two thirds of them are failing to handle incoming telephone enquiries related to data protection and privacy,' despite their IT systems. The Marketing Improvement survey, entitled 'How FTSE100 Companies Handle Data Protection and Privacy Enquiries', suggests that while many of these organisations may have addressed the technical challenges presented by the requirements of data protection and freedom of information laws, they have failed the people and processes issues." The study is available here but does require registration. -- Access to Information Ordnance Survey--UK Source: The Guardian Ordnance Survey challenged to open up From the article, "The inventor of the world wide web has called for more open access to Ordnance Survey (OS) mapping data -- and may get his wish later this year. Sir Tim Berners-Lee told an Oxford University audience last week getting "basic, raw data from Ordnance Survey" online would help build the "semantic web," which he defines as a web of data using standard formats so that relevant data can be found and processed by computers. 'There's a moral argument that says, for a well-run country, we should know where we are, where things are, and that data should be available,' he said."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Iraq--Documents Source: NY Times Iraqi documents are put on Web, and search is on "American intelligence agencies and presidential commissions long ago concluded that Saddam Hussein had no unconventional weapons and no substantive ties to al-Qaida before the 2003 invasion. But now, an unusual experiment in public access is giving anyone with a computer a chance to play intelligence analyst and second-guess the government. Under pressure from Congressional Republicans, the director of national intelligence has begun a yearlong process of posting on the Web 48,000 boxes of Arabic-language Iraqi documents captured by American troops." Direct to Documents via Foreign Military Studies Office Joint Reserve Intelligence Center See Also: Recently Posted Documents See Also: Overview via Director of National Intelligence (DNI.gov) -- Health Source: MedlinePLUS New Topical Resource Compilations + Minerals + Arm Injuries and Disorders -- Higher Education--United States--Statistics Source: NSF Time to Degree of U.S. Research Doctorate Recipients "This InfoBrief looks at the relationship between doctorate field and average time-to-degree differences. Broad field of study differences in time to degree are first examined over a 25-year span, then differences across more detailed fields are described in terms of standard Carnegie classifications of doctorate-granting institutions for the 2002?03 academic year, hereafter referred to as 2003."
Search Briefs + InfoSpace Begins Beta of New Local Directory Search Service Quite the busy day in Seattle at the Infospace HQ. First, the new location-based search l deal with Sprint Nextel (see below) and also the launch (beta) of a new local directory service/interface. More here. Fast Facts about InfoSpace Beta ++ Residential and business listings ++ Interface consists of two search boxes ("Who or What" and Where) ++ Search by Neighboorhood Option (Example: Greenwhich Village; Country Club Plaza, MO; Lincoln Park Neighborhood, IL) ++ Search near Landmarks (Example: Independence Mall, PA) ++ More examples here ++ Refine by (Distance/Radius, Name, Business Category) ++ View Results on Map (Uses MSN MapPoint Technology) ++ "What's Nearby" Feature on Each Entry Page ++ Links to Send Entries Direct to Mobile Phone (Other Offer This Feature) and Get Driving Directions ++ Directory data from InfoUSA and Acxiom -- + Sprint to offer local search on phones (via Reuters) This fee-based service ($2.99) combines location-aware services (the phone knows where you are) to help you find theatres, restaurants, etc. It's powered by InfoSpace. "Initially Sprint and InfoSpace do not plan to charge businesses for being listed in the directory but such services are eventually expected to create advertising revenue." The Sprint/InfoSpace deal is non-exclusive. It also doesn't stop someone from using other mobile web directory services. Requires download. I do think the location-based technology coupled with local search is quite powerful. We will test the service asap. More in this news release. See Also: WiFi Location Finder + Local Info = Loki (Free)
Briefly + Standards: NISO Launches RFID Committee -- + See Also: UK: CILIP launches second RFID in Libraries Conference -- + Coming Very Soon: Biography Index: Past and Present -- + New EBSCOhost Features Now Available From RSS feeds to clustering. Sunday, March 26, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Tagging Social Search Social Networking Source: Newsweek Newsweek Cover Story Tackles Social Search, Tagging and Related Issues This time Newsweek tackles social search, tagging, and the rest. Flickr's Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield grace the cover. Services mentioned include the usual suspects and a couple of others: + Flickr + YouTube + MySpace + imeem + Dabble (This company hasn't even launched yet and the authors can't describe what it is; their pr person should get a raise.) + del.icio.us Here are a couple of brief comments (from Gary): + Someone needs to tell the writers of this story that tagging is not a taxonomy. Sorry to be a stickler. Tagging uses user-generated keywords while a taxonomy has structure (often hierarchical) and is often, but not always, well organized. I tried doing something like this about a year ago in response to another Newsweek article. I explained that cataloging, classification, controlled vocabularies tagging, etc., are not the same thing. Some might consider this to be minor stuff. Perhaps. However, large circulation weeklies should strive to be clear in describing a term that is often misunderstood and confused by the public. Why not explain the differences and the pros/cons of each type. -- + Being the tv/pop culture geek that I am I love YouTube. However, this article makes no mention of the potential copyright issues it and similar web video hosting servives could face. As more video content producers begin selling content, will people pay if it's available on YouTube for free? Will someone pay $1.99 for an episode of Lost on iTunes when someone has posted it on YouTube? Btw, this is a topic that Newsweek itself discussed in a recent article. I'll add that searching for material on YouTube can be a big challenge. Why? Tags and poor metadata. Some add lots of tags (hopefully I call something the same thing the person who tagged the item calls it) and complete video descriptions. Others entries contain very, very little. As the database grows larger this will make more false drops and time wasting likely. Librarians also know that the quality of cataloging (aka metadata description) can vary from cataloger to cataloger but there are some conventions that one must or should follow. Note to libraries: OCLC does have a guide to cataloging web resources. I don't think this is a new document but perhaps it's time to update it. Perhaps some of the concepts (not precise rules) could be applied to other services? -- + Yes, tagging can be very powerful and useful for very individual or small focused groups like an eight grade class or a group of friends or co-workers. To be useful to the masses (if/when) it reaches mainstream/widespread is another matter. Is the point of tagging to make information retrieval more precise for a large group of users? Why? Synonyms, pluralization, etc. Also, spam and gaming the system. This is another topic NOT addressed in the article. What would stop someone reviewing the most popular tags and then including these tags in every item they post? I'm sure with several logins and a script this could be achieved quite easily. We all know what happened to the meta-keyword content tag. Aside from spamming, for tagging to save effort and make retrieval more precise, something I've called structured or fielded tagging (location field, author field, date field, etc.) is needed. The Catch-22 is that most people wouldn't do it. Others would say that in some cases on the open web, a document or other item should speak for itself and let technology like dynamic clustering, audio transcription, content-based image retrieval, etc., do the work for the masses. Again -- on a personal or small group level -- it's another matter. The same might also be true when it comes to small specialty or vertical databases. Librarians know that everyone isn't a cataloger. Btw, standardization amongst tags and tagging services is needed. -- + We read about del.icio.us and its acquisition by Yahoo in December. However, we don't learn why Yahoo made the purchase when the've been developing (human resources, $$$) their own tagging/social search technology, MyWeb 2.0. I was also surprised not to see anything about Yahoo's home-built blogging, social networking service, etc., Yahoo 360. -- + Tagging issues. Look at the most popular tags. They are blog blogging blogs. What's the difference between each one? Tech and technology are two more popular tags. Again, what's the difference? You get the idea. For personal use, no worries but to improve access to the database for all? I realize that life moves slowly but we still see (after a couple of years) that most of the popular tags are technology related? Will tagging become more "mainstream" and when we will see non tech topics dominate the most popular tag list? It's much the same at My Web 2.0. Again, everyone isn't a cataloger. In an age when people want more time, tagging can be time consuming. Are topical or discipline-oriented tagging sites the wave of the future like Connotea? Would the vocauarly be easier to control? -- + We read little about why Google has not embraced social stuff (with a few exceptions) to this point. Yes, they purchased dodgeball (a mobile dating/meetup service, though it's hard to find out about it on any official Google web page) and have Orkut, a social networking service that hardly gets any attention these days (at least in the US). What happened? Why isn't Google doing more in this space? Why hasn't Orkut been more successful? You would think that with Google and the Google brand behind Orkut it would be more popular. Why not? No mention in the article. However, we do read a quote that once again will keep people (including the stock market) guessing (something Google is so so good at that also keeps the buzz buzzing) by Eric Schmidt. Google CEO Eric Schmidt says that he doesn't understand why people think his company wants to be the next Microsoft. "Everybody thinks we're building operating systems, PCs, and browsers. They clearly don't get it," he says. So where does Google want to go? "Look at MySpace," he says cryptically. Very interesting. -- -- Internet Online News Source: Pew Internet & American Life Online News: For many home broadband users, the internet is a primary news source "By the end of 2005, 50 million Americans got news online on a typical day, a sizable increase since 2002. Much of that growth has been fueled by the rise in home broadband connections over the last four years. For a group of 'high-powered' online users -- early adopters of home broadband who are the heaviest internet users -- the internet is their primary news source on the average day." Direct to full text report. (via DocuTicker.com)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Science--Solar Eclipse--Webcast Source: Exploratorium Live Web Coverage/Webcast (March 29, 2006) of Total Solar Eclipse "On March 29th, a total solar eclipse will darken parts of the North Atlantic, Africa, and Southern Asia. But you don't have to go any further than the Exploratorium to experience this spectacular event: we're presenting a whole evening of entertainment, including a LIVE webcast from Side, Turkey." -- Biometrics Source: U.S. Department of Defense: Biometrics Management Office Biometrics 101 "This tutorial provides a high-level overview of biometric technologies, and is offered courtesy of the National Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington, DC." Modules include Definition, Why Use Biometrics, Types of Biometrics, Basic Terms, A Little Science, Cultural & Social Issues. See also: Biometrics Glossary
Conferences Podcasting Vlogging Personal Broadcasting Source: The New Media Consortium (NMC) Coming in April: NMC Online Conference on Personal Broadcasting April 26-27, 2006 -- via the Internet (Fee-Based) "The conference features 45-minute live breakout sessions conducted in an interactive online format, each with a "live/interactive" component, a "presentation-on-demand" component, and a vibrant threaded discussion that will expand on and illuminate the topic." Interedested in presenting? You can submit proposals through April 3rd. Saturday, March 25, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Current Awareness Source: BNA Current Awareness Resources: BNA's Web Watch Free. A periodic review of online resources prepared by the BNA Library's Laura Gordon-Murnane (and ResourceShelf and DocuTicker contributor). Here you will find links to government, industry, and academic resources on selected topics spanning the breadth of BNA coverage. New subjects will be posted weekly, and new resources will also be added to existing topics." -- WebJunction E-Learning Advisory Committee named (via OCLC)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Iraq Source: U.S. Joint Forces Command, Center for Operational Analysis Command releases JCOA-produced Iraqi perspectives report "Can history be wrong? Not exactly, but history can be distorted if data is provided by only one side's perspective. U.S. Joint Forces Command has released an unclassified historical report of military operations conducted in Iraq. The twist is that this historical report reflects the Iraqi civilian and military leadership's perspective of events." + Iraqi Perspectives Project: A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam's Senior Leadership (PDF: 7.2 MB) + Media Roundtable on the Iraqi Perspective Project -- Transcript -- Education--United States--Surveys School Libraries--United States--Surveys Source: NCES Just Released, Characteristics of Schools, Districts, Teachers, Principals, and School Libraries in the United States: 2003-04 Schools and Staffing Survey "The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) is the nation's most extensive sample survey of elementary and secondary schools and the teachers and administrators who staff them. This report introduces the data from the fifth administration (2003-04) of SASS. It is intended to give the reader an overview of the SASS data for the school year 2003-04 through tables of estimates for public, private, and BIA-funded schools and their staff." Direct to Full Text (PDF; 1.12 MB) Friday, March 24, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries--United States--Funding Source: IMLS Institute of Museum and Library Services Awards Over $160 Million to State Libraries "Anne-Imelda Radice, Ph.D., Director of the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), announced grants totaling more than $163 million to states for library service. 'This funding helps libraries meet the changing needs of their communities,' said Dr. Radice. A recent national study from the American Library Association (ALA) underscores this assertion -- 92% of Americans surveyed believe libraries will still be needed in the future, even with all of the information available on the Internet." See Also: Direct to IMLS Awarded Grants Database -- Sensitive Information--Australia Access to Information--Australia Source: Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia New Research Brief, Spy versus spy: Government control of sensitive information 16 pages; PDF.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text U.S. Department of State--Databases Foreign Policy--United States Source: NARA National Archives Makes Portions of U.S. State Department's Central Foreign Policy Files (1973-1974) Available Online "For the first time, the National Archives and Records Administration has made available online more than 400,000 State Department telegrams and other records for 1973 and 1974. These digital records from the Department of State's Central Foreign Policy Files are publicly accessible at the National Archives website at www.archives.gov/aad." -- Aging--United States--Surveys Source: AARP/USC New, Images of Aging in America 2004 "The facts and fallacies of growing old are scrutinized in this AARP/University of Southern California study of how much adult Americans know - or think they know - about aging. While the people surveyed are moderately knowledgeable, the study found that many still have misconceptions about aging and older people." Direct to Full Text (198 pages; PDF) -- Pollution--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes America's Most Polluted Cities Also includes list of most polluted cities in China and the world. -- Roads--United States Bridges--United States Source: Federal Highway Administration Recently Released, Status of the Nation's Highways, Bridges, and Transit: 2004 Conditions and Performance
Briefly IceRocket Investor, HDNET President, Theatre Chain Owner (and More) Mark Cuban, Will Be Interviewed on C-SPAN Sunday Night Cuban, who always has something to say, sits down for a one-on-one one-hour interview on Sunday night (8pm/11pm ET). Live stream available here. Archived video and text transcript should be available here. Podcast, too!
Cool Tools + WiFi Location Finder + Local Info = Loki (via Boston Globe) Worth a look and possible download. "A Boston company is giving away software that can turn nearly any laptop computer into a global positioning system, enabling users to find the nearest restaurant, hospital, or gas station at the touch of a button." Direct to software download from Loki. Thanks to A.S. at APB for the news tip. See Also: Microsoft Live Local Also is Testing a Wi-Fi Based Location Finder Thursday, March 23, 2006
Resource of the Week ----------------------------- By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor You probably don't want to know how many reports, weblogs, newsletters, etc., I look at on a daily basis. Sometimes, I can't quite keep up and I end up deleting stuff without reading it. The newsletter that I never, ever delete unread -- because I'm afraid of missing something vital -- is this week's resource. Government Secrecy Source: Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy Secrecy News First, a little background on the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). This venerable non-profit organization is 60 years old. It was founded in 1945 by atomic scientists from the Manhattan Project "...who felt that scientists, engineers and other innovators had an ethical obligation to bring their knowledge and experience to bear on critical national decisions, especially pertaining to the technology they unleashed...." Some 66 Nobel laureates sit on its Board of Sponsors. The Federation undertakes a wide range of research and education projects "in nuclear arms control and global security; conventional arms transfers; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; information technology for human health; and government information policy," and has lately turned its attention to "our country's critical challenges in housing, energy, and education," including a Housing Technology Project. The breadth and depth of the defense information available here is just awesome. Want to learn about "missiles, bombs, and mines used by the US military"? How about foreign weapons systems? Browse through the "selection of official and unofficial resources on intelligence policy, structure, and operations." Keep an eye on the global arms trade. Then there's the FAS Project on Government Secrecy, which "works to challenge unwarranted secrecy and to promote reform of national security information policy and practice." It maintains an extensive library of documents related to government secrecy, from all branches of the government, governmental agencies, and other organizations. Worth your time: Bush Administration Documents on Secrecy Policy. Secrecy News is the "flagship" publication of the FAS Project on Government Secrecy. It tracks what's new in secrecy/security/intelligence policy and provides links to new items on the website, including notoriously hard-to-access Congressional Research Service reports. Published two or three times a week, it is available via e-mail subscription or you can read it via weblog or rss. An archive of past issues is available back to September 2000. Although the archive is not directly searchable, the entire FAS website is. Secrecy News is edited by the tireless Steven Aftergood, friend of ResourceShelf and DocuTicker, and director of the FAS Project on Government Secrecy. Read a recent U.S. News and World Report interview with Aftergood for some insight into the current state of government secrecy in the U.S. -- Two bonus resources for you this week: + Gary talks to Library Journal about his new gig with Ask.com. + Shirl promotes her book (and motorcycle safety) on Tampa Bay's 10, the local CBS affiliate.
Professional Reading Shelf Encyclopedias Source: Ask the Researcher (via MySA.com) Encyclopaedia Britannica strikes back... Julie Domel, a news librarian at the San Antonio Express-News, reports on a letter (and shares some great comments) that was sent to educators about the recent study in Nature regarding EB's's science coverage as compared to Wikipedia. EB says in the letter the research was invalid and goes on to explain their side. The actual letter (PDF) is available here. Great work Julie and thanks for sharing! See Also: Nature mag cooked Wikipedia study (via The Register) See Also: Internet encyclopaedias go head to head (via Nature, 12/05) See Also: Wikipedia Pretty Accurate (via ABC News, 12/05) -- Learning Source: JISC New, Designing Spaces for Effective Learning "The focus is on the way technologies can transform space utilisation, as well as merely being 'fitted into' the design. Taking the approach of a walkthrough in an imaginary educational institution, the guide highlights current thinking about the use of learning technologies in key areas and their impact on these physical spaces. Richly illustrated, it also offers architect's prototype designs and concludes with a checklist of key points to help senior managers embarking on new build and refurbishment projects." 36 pages; PDF. -- Preservation--Audio Source: CLIR, National Recording Preservation Board, Library of Congress New, Capturing Analog Sound for Digital Preservation: Report of a Roundtable Discussion of Best Practices for Transferring Analog Discs and Tapes "This report investigates procedures to reformat sound on analog carriers to digital media or files. It summarizes discussions and recommendations emerging from a meeting of leading audio preservation engineers held January 29?30, 2004, to assess the present state of standards and best practices for capturing sound from analog discs and tapes." Direct to Full Text (43 pages; PDF). -- Library of Congress Source: ARL, ALA, CLIR, and NHA Joint Letter in Support of Library of Congress FY 2007 Budget Request PDF. -- Libraries and Librarians Source: UKOLN A New Issue of Focus on UKOLN is Now Online Read about a variety of events and projects including the Immortal Information Project.
Search Briefs + Yahoo Launches US VoIP Services (via BetaNews.com) Learn more direct from Yahoo. -- + A Deeper Look At Personalized News Search Engines (via SEW Blog) -- + Share Google Reader Feeds (via Google Blogoscoped) -- + LookSmart's Zeal Directory To Close (via SEW Blog) Yet another reason why non-commerical directories like LII, IPL, Infomine, and RDN are so important. -- + ProQuest Launches Central American Archives
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Lookup Databases--United States Source: Melissa Data Street Names Lookup Quickly access a list of streets and address ranges for any U.S. Zip Code. Then, clickand see imagery and maps of the location using Google, MSN, and Yahoo mapping products. The service is free. More lookup databases (free) from Melissa Data. -- Health--United States--Databases Source: NLM TOXMAP Adds New Chemical and Health Data "In response to feedback from users, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) has added new chemical and health-related data to its interactive mapping site, TOXMAP...Now, users can also use TOXMAP to find information about Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund sites and substances. The Superfund program is part of a federal government effort to clean up land in the United States that has been contaminated by hazardous waste and identified by the EPA as a candidate for cleanup because it poses a risk to human health and/or to the environment...TOXMAP has also added mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), as well as age and gender data from the US Census, and income data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis." Direct to Toxmap Database. -- International Business--Costs--Lists & Ranking Source: KPMG Competitive Alternatives: KPMG's guide to international business costs "Competitive Alternatives represents KPMG's guide for comparing business costs in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The 2006 study is the most thorough comparison of international business costs ever undertaken by KPMG, and contains valuable information for any company seeking cost advantage in locating their international business operations. The study is an expansion and update of previous KPMG publications, and measures the combined impact of 27 significant business cost components that are most likely to vary by location. The study covers 17 industry operations in nine industrialized countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States." (via DocuTicker) -- Labor--United States--Statistics Source: BLS Women in the Labor Force in 2005 Updated fact sheet compiling data from several sources. Thanks to Stuart B. (a new ResourceShelf contributing editor) for the news tip. -- Country Profiles Source: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress New Profile, Algeria 22 pages; PDF.
Briefly + Milestones: GlobalSpec's SpecSearch Eclipses 100 Million Searchable Specifications Direct to GlobalSpec. -- + Thomson Scientific Wins Major U.S. Patent And Trademark Office Contract Examiners will continue to have access to Derwent World Patents Index. Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Government Libraries--United States Source: FCW EPA to close library Bad news. "Proposed cuts in the fiscal 2007 budget have prompted Environmental Protection Agency officials to shutter the agency's Midwest Regional Library in anticipation of congressional approval of the budget. According to an internal e-mail released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the EPA is preparing to close the Chicago library to preempt the passage of President Bush's proposed 80 percent funding cut to the EPA library network." See Also: Full Text of Internal Memo (via PEER) -- Digital Libraries Source: The Journal of Academic Librarianship (via E-LIS) Full Text, An Evaluation of Faculty Use of the Digital Library at Ankara University, Turkey (2006) "New consortial buying models have dramatically increased the availability of online resources, particularly journal articles, in the universities and technical institutes of developing countries. The degree of acceptance and pattern of use of such materials is of great interest to library collection development. Ankara University surveyed faculty members regarding their awareness and use of these electronic materials." -- Library Disaster Prevention Source: IWR National Research Reserve lays disaster fears to rest "The concerns of Oxbridge university librarians about the risk of losing information forever to a fire or natural disaster have been allayed after the British Library (BL) and the Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL) confirmed that their proposed National Research Reserve (NRR) would stock more than a single copy of journals." -- Access to Information--United States Source: FCW DOD removes missile defense system report from Web site "The Defense Department has removed from the DOD inspector general's Web site a critical report that states that the network that links radar systems, missile sites, and command centers for the Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) ground-based defense system has serious flaws in the security technologies, policies, and procedures needed to protect the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of information on the network." A copy of the report is still available via Federal Computer Week. -- Information--Standards Source: National Information Standards Organization The March Issue of the NISO Newsline is Online Reports include: + "Versions of Journal Articles Working Group Featured on NISO Website" + "Your Input Needed on Educational Programs" -- ResourceShelf Librarians Source: WTSP Our Own Shirl Kennedy Profiled Super Cool! It's been a busy two days for the ResourceShelf team in the press. On Monday, Gary was interviewed by LJ. Yesterday, Deputy Editor Shirl "Librarian by day, biker by night" is profiled by a Florida TV station! Video too! Congrats, Shirl!
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Airline Industry Source: SITA New Report, Mishandled baggage costing $2.5 billion as air travel passenger numbers soar to two billion says SITA "SITA, the IT provider which tracks baggage information for airlines and passengers in 220 countries and territories, today said the air transport industry is losing in the region of $2.5 billion annually because of misconnects and mishandled baggage. SITA also revealed for the first time that the number of bags lost or stolen is running at about 204,000 per annum on current calculations that 30 million bags are mishandled annually based on passenger numbers of two billion." Direct to Full Text Report (16 pages; PDF). (via DocuTicker.com) -- Education--United States Source: Education Week New Report, Special Report: Executive Agendas "This Education Week special report offers a detailed look at the leadership of governors in shaping their states' education agendas through legislation, regulatory action, public involvement, and proposal or endorsement of ballot measures." Direct to Full Text (PDF) Interactive Data Map -- Business--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Growth of Hispanic-Owned Businesses Triples the National Average "The number of Hispanic-owned businesses grew 31 percent between 1997 and 2002 -- three times the national average for all businesses -- according to a new report, Survey of Business Owners: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2002 [PDF], released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The nearly 1.6 million Hispanic-owned businesses generated nearly $222 billion in revenue, up 19 percent from 1997." Summary/Fast Facts Direct to Full Text (631 pages; PDF) -- Congressional Research Service Source: CRS via Open CRS, FAS, FPC A Selection of New or Recently Updated Reports + Fatah and Hamas: The New Palestinian Factional Reality + Fuel Ethanol: Background and Public Policy Issues + Lobbying and Related Reform Proposals: Consideration of Selected Measures, 109th Congress + Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses + The Middle East Peace Talks + Internet Development and Information Control in the People's Republic of China + Homeland Security: Protecting Airliners from Terrorist Missiles -- Federal Courts--United States--Statistics Source: Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts on behalf of the U.S. Courts. Complaints Against Judges Declined in FY 2005 These tables have stats and more info. 1 2 -- United States Statutes Source: GPO New, Statutes at Large now available on GPO Access "The United States Statutes at Large (Volume 117, 108th Congress) is now available online from the U.S. Government Printing Office, with future volumes to follow as they become available. The Statutes at Large is the permanent collection of all laws and resolutions enacted during each session of Congress. Documents are available as ASCII text and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files."
Briefly + FAST and SirsiDynix partner to enhance search and research solutions for thousands of libraries + ProQuest launches British Periodicals, containing landmark British texts from across four centuries (via ManagingInformation.com)
Briefly + Father of Wiki Speaks on Development (via eWeek) -- + Bill Gates Talks Web 2.0 (via News.com) Bill Gates talks Google (we have a lot to contribute in search), web-based word processors and the Google "office" and much more. Btw, if you haven't tried Zoho Writer (another web-based word processor (free)), you should. Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries Source: Denver Public Library, OverDrive Downloadable Video Comes to Denver Public Library Beginning tomorrow (March 21st) the Denver Public Library will be the first library in the US to offer downloadable video for library card holders. Powered by OverDrive. From the announcement, "Films available include Academy Award nominated IMAX Movie 'The Living Sea' narrated by Meryl Streep featuring songs and music by Sting; Federico Fellini's Academy Award winner '8 ½' starring Marcello Mastroianni; travelogue 'Yellowstone National Park'; self-help titles including 'Meditation for Beginners'; and cult-classics such as the surfing film 'The Endless Summer' are just a few of the titles available. The service launches today on this site. See Also: Learn More About OverDrive Video (PDF) -- Librarians Libraries as a Business Source: ResearchInformation Library science meets business "Everyone knows the price of information, but its value is a bit harder to quantify. One of the reasons that the information industry continues to grow is that Michael Koenig put his considerable mind to this problem. He was one of the first academics to talk about the return on investment in information services rather than just what these services allow you to do. In this respect he can be thought of as the missing link between the academic world of library science and the business world. He has had a career that spanned the world of manufacturing, industry and academia, even starting a 'dot com' company long before anyone even knew what the term meant." -- Libraries--United States Source: NCLIS President Bush Recommends Consolidation of NCLIS into IMLS (PDF) "In response to the Administration's proposal for the consolidation of the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) into the Institute for Museums and Libraries (IMLS) by FY 2008, the Commission had discussions at its recent meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Administration also proposes the merger of the current National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) programs for public and state library surveys into IMLS. The rationale for proposing the merger of the survey programs into IMLS is that consolidating grant making with data collection, along with the NCLIS role in policy advice, will strengthen federal library and information policy efforts and enhance our nation's research capacity on domestic and international library trends. Further, the consolidation of NCLIS and the NCES programs for public and state library surveys into IMLS will create greater efficiency of operations."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Information Literacy Source: SLJ New Information Literacy Publication: Educators' Spotlight Digest From SLJ, "The first issue includes a feature on how kids are using the Web, news about relevant information literacy projects and activities, successful motivational teaching strategies submitted by library media specialists, and resources available through the American Association of School Librarians (AASL). Educators' Spotlight Digest is a collaboration between S.O.S. for Information Literacy, a project of Syracuse University's Center for Digital Literacy, and AASL. It's funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. S.O.S. for Information Literacy is a Web-based multimedia resource for educators." -- Women--United States--History Women--United States--Timelines Source: Ken Middleton, Librarian, Middle Tennessee State University American Women Through Time Very impressive! "This site offers two approaches for the study of specific time periods in American women's history." First, a timeline and second, a collection of research resources. Middleton is also the compiler of the award winning, American Women's History: A Research Guide. -- Science and Engineering--United States--Statistics Source: NSF Updated, Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities 2004 "This site provides data on the participation of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering education and employment. The data are organized by topic and are presented in tables, graphics, and spreadsheets for downloading." -- Cities--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Milken Institute Best Performing Cities 2005: Where America's Jobs Are Created and Sustained "The Milken Institute Best Performing Cities Index ranks 379 U.S. metropolitan areas based on their economic performance and their ability to create, as well as keep, the greatest number of jobs in the nation. The top positions in the 2005 index are dominated by Florida metros, which hold not only the index's top three slots, but five of its top six and 12 of its top 30. Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville is No. 1, followed by last year's top scorer, Cape Coral-Fort Myers in second and Naples-Marco Island in third place." + 2005 Best Performing Cities -- 200 Largest Metros + 2005 Best Performing Cities -- 179 Smallest Metros (via DocuTicker.com)
Library Databases Here We Go Again: "Congoo to offer subscription content for free" (via News.com) So sad. It's not that Congoo.com is a bad idea but it once again shows that most people have NO idea that libraries (public, academic, etc.) offer access to most of the content Congoo offers for free (just get a library card) and without any limits. As the article points out, "users are allowed access between four and 15 articles per month per publisher." Also, there is nothing to download vs. the Congoo toolbar. Access to these library databases is free, 24/7/365 with a library card. No need to visit the library. Many libraries in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and elsewhere offer tons of free databases containing fee-based content. Some even offer full text (new) books and others offer audio books for download. Here's one example via the San Francisco Public Library. This article has more info and examples. Why aren't libraries doing more to promote these services? See Also: Some Archived Articles on the Open Web from Fee-Based Publications Are Available via FindArticles The search interface allows you to limit to only free articles. UPDATE: We contacted the writer of the News.com story and she added in a sentence about library resources and linked to an example.
Search Briefs + Clusty.com Launches Free Site Search for Nonprofits, Schools and Universities Neat!!! -- + Yahoo Launches Local News Beta (via SEW Blog) See Also: Topix.net Offers Local News for Every U.S. Zip Code and Most Canadian Postal Codes. Culled from more than 12,000 sources. -- + MSN Search Link Operators Explored (via SEW Blog) -- + Google Launches Finance Portal (via News.com) I've noticed that some articles say they are current but are not. Opening day jitters perhaps. One example. Note the article titled, "Cisco systems actively eyeing SMEs in RI." It's from 1/1/2006 and contains no text. A few quick notes: 1) Google only includes US and Canadian listed companies, Yahoo and MSN list companies found on markets from around the world. 2) No info for insider trading. Yahoo yes, MSN yes. UPDATE: Google does offer some insider trading info for top management but not all insiders. Mouse over the Management section and find a direct link to insider trading (via Yahoo). Looking for a great insider trading info service (free) check out SecForm4.com. Even export info in Excel. Example. They also offer an excellent watch/alert feature. 3) MSN and Yahoo offer industry pages with background, Google categorizes stocks but does not offer the additional background including industry profiles. 4) MSN offers the very useful "key developments" feature. 5) Both Yahoo and MSN offer stock screeners, Google no. 6) Yahoo offers bond prices 7) Several types of info on Google Finance link to other sites like MSN, Yahoo, and Marketwatch.com (they also power investor information on Ask.com), TheStreet.com. 8) Option info is available from Google; however, they link out to another site, MSN and Yahoo offer their own sections. 9) Yahoo Alerts offers alerts, delivered via IM, email, SMS when stocks reach certain thresholds. 10) I've seen several stories touting the fact that Google Finance has info on private companies. Fyi: Yahoo, Hoover's, and of course the Forbes 500 (Private Companies) and the Inc. 500. Also, many large and small private companies have Wikipedia entries that place prominently as Smart Answers on Ask.com. Bottom Line: If it's Google, it needs watching but Google Finance (although it's a beta) appears to need more heavy lifting. Monday, March 20, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Special Libraries Association Stephen Abram Elected SLA President Congratulations to this ResourceShelf friend, supporter, mentor, role model, and just one great guy on his election to this important and prominent position. Great news! Direct to Stephen's blog. For those of you not familiar with the Special Libraries Association (SLA) you can learn much more here. -- Flood Maps--United States Source: FCW, FEMA GAO: FEMA must update digital flood maps "The Federal Emergency Management Agency must modernize its digital maps of flood zones to improve the performance of its National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the Government Accountability Office said in a new report." Direct to FEMA Map Service Center. -- Academic Libraries Source: LJ U. of Florida Facing Massive Serials Cuts "Faced with flat state funding and high inflation, the University of Florida's Smathers Libraries is beginning a massive serials cancellation project that would trim a hefty $750,000 worth of journals, both electronic and paper, for the 2007 fiscal year." -- ResourceShelf Ask.com Source: Library Journal New, Gary Price Interview on Library Journal Web Site A bit more on his new job.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Comics--Timelines Source: Infoplease New, Comics Timeline: The history of the funnies in America -- Unemployment--United States--Statistics Source: BLS Comparative Unemployment Rates 1) Unemployment rates in the European Union and selected member countries, civilian labor force basis (1), seasonally adjusted, 1995-2006 2) Unemployment rates in nine countries, civilian labor force basis, approximating U.S. concepts, seasonally adjusted, 1995-2006 Thanks to IWS News Service for the tip. -- Traffic--New York City New, Beta, TrafficLand.com Comes to New York City New one-stop access to live traffic cameras around the NYC metro. Registered users (free) can see up to nine cameras simultaneously. TrafficLand has offered a similar service (also free) in the DC metro area (and other parts of VA and MD) for several years including "Air Video" (fee-based) that provides live camera access to a Treo, Blackberry or other web-enabled mobile phones. -- Aviation--United States--Statistics Aviation Safety Source: NTSB NTSB Reports Increase In Aviation Accidents In 2005 "The National Transportation Safety Board today released preliminary statistics for 2005 showing an overall increase in civil aviation accidents for both scheduled airline and general aviation operations." Tables with statistics available here.
Search Briefs + People Search: UK's 192.com People Search Updated With Material from 2006 Electoral Roll -- + Ask.com and its Maps 2.0: A Delicate Balance (via Directions Magazine) -- + Google: Dvorak Interviews Eric Schmidt -- + Online tool reveals Google's censoring of Chinese search results (via Pandia) Direct to CenSEARCHip.
Video Hosting Services GUBA Will Now Host Your Video Content for Free, Will Also Convert it to Different Formats Including iPod and Sony PSP (Free) Direct to GUBA Access and registration, free. They also plan to launch an e-commerce option (producers could charge to view clips) soon. More in this MacWorld article. See Also: PodZinger searches video podcasts Blinkx and Podscope also offer keyword searching of video podcasts. Podscope first began offering keyword search of video podcasts in May 2005. Sunday, March 19, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Books Source: Book Business Creating the Perfect Title "An Anglo-American research team for Lulu.com, a Web site for self-publishers, recently analyzed the titles of every novel that topped the hardback fiction section of The New York Times Best Sellers list from 1955 to 2004, and then compared those titles to the titles of less successful novels by the same authors. The study's goal was to determine the perfect title for a best-selling novel. The computer model, designed by statisticians who analyzed the titles of fiction best-sellers over the past 50 years, found that "Sleeping Murder," the last published novel by Agatha Christie, was "the perfect title" for a best-selling novel." -- Digital Preservation Source: DPC/PADI DPC/PADI What's new in digital preservation A comprehensive look at what's been going on in digital preservation. Compiled by Deb Woodyard-Robinson at the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) and Marian Hanley at the National Library of Australia. -- Access to Information--United States Source: GAO New GAO Report: Managing Sensitive Information: DOE and DOD Could Improve Their Policies and Oversight "In the interest of national security and personal privacy and for other reasons, federal agencies place dissemination restrictions on information that is unclassified yet still sensitive. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Defense (DOD) have both issued policy guidance on how and when to protect sensitive information. DOE marks documents with this information as Official Use Only (OUO) while DOD uses the designation For Official Use Only (FOUO). GAO was asked to (1) identify and assess the policies, procedures, and criteria DOE and DOD employ to manage OUO and FOUO information; and (2) determine the extent to which DOE's and DOD's training and oversight programs assure that information is identified, marked, and protected according to established criteria." Direct to abstract and full text.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Companies--Lists and Rankings--United Kingdom Source: The Sunday Times + The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For 2006 + The Sunday Times 20 Best Big Companies to Work For 2006 + The Sunday Times 100 Best SMEs to Work For (small firms) -- Costal Information--United States--Web Maps Source: NOAA NOAA Introduces New Version Of Nowcoast Web Mapping Portal Displaying Real-Time Coastal Information " NOAA launched an updated version of the popular nowCOAST Web portal. NowCOAST is a Web mapping portal providing coastal communities with real-time observations and NOAA forecast." Direct to nowCoast. -- Foundations--Philanthropy Source: The Foundation Center Highlights of Foundation Giving Trends (PDF; 568 KB) "Among major subject areas, science and health experienced the fastest growth. Health's share of overall giving reached a record 22.3 percent in the latest year, boosted by a $750 million ten-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Only three major subject fields failed to register increases in funding. Nonetheless, across all fields, growth in grant dollars continued to lag behind the dramatic gains realized in the late 1990s."
Search Briefs + Microsoft Acquires Vexcel, an Aerial Photography and Photogrammetry Company. What's Next For Virtual Earth and Live Local? A bit more here.
Search Briefs A9 Now Allows Users to Export Their A9 Bookmarks to Their Browser in Standard Netscape Format Saturday, March 18, 2006
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Employment--United States--Outlooks Source: BLS, Occupational Outlook Quarterly New, The 2004-14 job outlook in brief All files PDF. + Introduction + Table of occupations + Index to the "Brief" + Beyond the "Brief" See Also: Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), 2006-07 Edition -- Telecommunications--United States--Statistics Source: FCC New, 2004 International Telecommunication Traffic From the summary, "The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today released a report entitled 2004 International Telecommunications Data which reports traffic between the United States and other countries for international message telephone, private line, and miscellaneous services on a country-by-country basis." Summary/Key Stats (PDF) ||| Direct to Full Text (261 pages; PDF) (via DocuTicker.com)
REMINDER Make Sure to Visit DocuTicker Today! Docuticker is a daily update from your ResourceShelf team with direct links to new reports from government agencies, ngo's, think tanks, and other groups. Looking for primary docs? This is the place. Friday, March 17, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Institutional Repositories Source: Richard Poynder's Blog Institutional Repositories and Open Access "...the history of the institutional repository, and its relation to the OA movement." -- Public Records--California Source: CalAware New, Public Records Act Compliance Audit Of California State Agencies + Background/Conclusions (PDF) + Grading Summary (PDF) + Essay about the Audit (PDF) + Individual Agency Reports Are Accessible on the CalAware Home Page
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Country Profiles Source: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress Just Updated: Philippines 26 pages; PDF. -- United Nations--Security Council--Database Source: UN Security Council: membership since 1946 Search by year or country. -- Palestinian Election Source: House of Commons Library, UK New Research Paper: The Palestinian Parliamentary Election and the Rise of Hamas 28 pages; PDF. -- Transportation--United States--Statistics Source: BTS Recently Released, Pocket Guide to Transportation 2006 (Online Version) "This report is a quick reference to the changes in the U.S. transportation system since 1970 and how they have affected the nation's economy, safety, energy use, and the environment. The Print Version was released in January 2006." -- Hurricane Katrina--Recovery--New Orleans Source: RAND Corporation (Gulf States Policy Institute) The Repopulation of New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina "The population of New Orleans will likely reach about 272,000 in September 2008 -- amounting to 56 percent of the population of 485,000 before Hurricane Katrina struck in August, according to a study issued today by the RAND Corporation." Summary (PDF; 0.1 MB) Full Document (PDF; 1.0 MB) (via DocuTicker.com)
Search Briefs + Ask.com Gets Ready To Celebrate St. Patrick's with Some New Color on their Home Page :-) -- + Clusty Adds New Search Option A new feature at Clusty allows users to run a new search that combines your search terms with "cluster" terms to help find more results when dynamically generated clusters only contain a few results. Here's an example. + A search for site:mil iraq reports + Note that one cluster labeled "Air Base, Iraq" contains only five results. + At the bottom of the list of results you'll see a new hyperlink labeled, "Search for more results like these." + Clicking this link combines your search terms with the words used to describe the cluster. -- + Link Spam Source: Stanford University New Technical Report: Link Spam Detection Based on Mass Estimation Authors: + Zoltan Gyongyi (Stanford) + Pavel Berkhin (Yahoo) + Hector Garcia-Molina (Stanford) + Jan Pedersen (Yahoo) From the abstract, "Link spamming intends to mislead search engines and trigger an artificially high link-based ranking of specific target web pages. This paper introduces the concept of spam mass, a measure of the impact of link spamming on a page's ranking. We discuss how to estimate spam mass and how the estimates can help identifying pages that benefit significantly from link spamming. In our experiments on the host-level Yahoo! web graph we use spam mass estimates to successfully identify tens of thousands of instances of heavyweight link spamming." 24 pages; PDF. -- + Microsoft Live Local Adds Bird's Eye Imagery for 13 New Areas A list of the area and links to example bird's eye imagery are available here. -- + Google Files Annual Report with SEC Included in the filing is this list of Google subsidiaries. Most of the subsidiaries sound familiar except for Liquid Acquisition Corp 2.
Search Briefs + Google Must Cooperate with Feds (via ZDNet) See Also: Full Text of Preliminary Decision in Gonzalez v. Google (24 pages; PDF) Thursday, March 16, 2006
Resource of the Week ---------------------------- By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor A colleague called me a couple weeks ago and said he had been asked to investigate integrated library systems. Where should he start looking for information? Now, it's been quite awhile since I've explored this topic myself, but I didn't hesitate for a minute to send him to this week's resource. Library Automation--Hub Source: Marshall Breeding, Director for Innovative Technologies and Research, Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University Library Technology Guides I had the privilege of working near the brilliant and prolific Marshall Breeding during my abbreviated tenure at Vanderbilt. Perhaps I did not stay long enough for any of that brilliance to rub off on me, but to be blunt about it, I don't have to know everything Marshall knows because he makes so much of it available online, at this website. Library Technology Guides comprises several different databases, including libwebcats (directory of libraries worldwide), library companies (automation vendors), a news release archive (from automation vendors), and the modestly titled bibliography, which is an industrial strength databases that indexes "books, book chapters, and articles relevant to the discipline." Here's where you can go to find indexing for: + Journal of Library Automation (1968 - 1981) + Information Technology and Libraries (1982 - present) + Library Systems Newsletter (1981 - present) + Library Software Review (1990-1998) + D-Lib Magazine + Computers in Libraries Marshall has written the Systems Librarian column for Computers in Libraries for many years and, on the Library Technology Guides home page, you'll find the full text of all of his columns back to January 2000. He also produces Library Journal's annual Automated Systems Marketplace overview, and you'll find links to these articles back to 2002. If you're wondering which libraries are using the automation system you're considering, Marshall has compiled two helpful directories: + Association of Research Libraries: Current Automation Systems + Urban Libraries Council members: Current Automation Systems. Both of these are organized according to ILS, with live links to the libraries' home pages. If you register here (free), you'll receive notification of major new resources added to the site, as well as a monthly "listing of current news items in Library Automation." An RSS feed is available.
Professional Reading Shelf Challenged Books--United States Source: ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom "It's Perfectly Normal" tops ALA's 2005 list of most challenged books -- Grey Literature Source: TextRelease WHOIS in the field of Grey Literature People who research and write on the topic of grey literature. What is it? "Grey Literature "Information produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in electronic and print formats not controlled by commercial publishing i.e. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body." (Luxembourg, 1997 -- Expanded in New York, 2004)" See Also: Sources For Grey Literature, a ResourceShelf Compilation -- Librarians Librarian Recruitment Source: ALA New Web Site: LibraryCareers.org "The Web site includes basic information on what it takes to become a librarian or library worker and also information on education, financial assistance and possible career paths." Learn more here.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text News--Multimedia Digitization Projects--Film Source: British Universities Film & Video Council New Demo Site: Newsfilm Online Via JISC, The BUFVC's Newsfilm Online team has now launched a demonstrator website which makes some fifty news clips (approximately two hours of material) freely available for downloading to all users. These clips are arranged by theme and decade. More clips will be added to the site in due course. See Also: MANY more Sources for Digitized "Historic" News Clips (2nd Item) Most of these sources are free or very inexpensive. Make sure to check out Newsplayer. -- Population--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released: 100 Fastest Growing Counties in the United States, 2005 Flagler County in Florida, located along the Atlantic Coast between Daytona Beach and Jacksonville, was the fastest-growing county for the second year in a row with a 10.7 percent population increase from July 1, 2004, to July 1, 2005, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Flagler, with 76,410 residents, also led the nation with a 53 percent population increase since Census 2000. According to the estimates, all but one of the top-10 fastest-growing counties between 2004 and 2005 are located in either the South or the West, with Lyon, Nev. (near Carson City), ranking second at 9.6 percent; Kendall, Ill. (in the Chicago area), third at 9.4 percent; Rockwall, Texas (near Dallas), fourth; Washington, Utah (the lone county in the St. George metro area), fifth; Nye, another Nevada county, sixth at 7.4 percent; and Pinal, Ariz. (near Phoenix), seventh at 6.9 percent. Rounding out the top 10 were three counties in Virginia: Loudoun, near Washington, D.C., ranked eighth with a population increase of 6.8 percent; King George, ninth with 6.7 percent; and Caroline (near Richmond) 10th at 6.5 percent. Another Chicago-area county ? Grundy, Ill., just missed the top 10, ranking 11th. Summary, Fast Facts, Tables Direct to Complete List -- -- Journalism--Web Resources Source: C&RL News Journalism: Resources from education to advocacy This guide was compiled by Bob Garber, a reference librarian and the subject specialist for journalism at the University of Maryland. -- Irish Americans--Fast Facts Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts About Irish Americans in Honor of St. Patrick's Day and Irish-American Heritage Month Facts include: + 34.5 million Number of U.S. residents who claim Irish ancestry. + 24% Percentage of Massachusetts residents of Irish ancestry -- about double the national percentage. + 9 Number of places in the United States that share the name of Ireland's capital, Dublin. Since Census 2000, Dublin, Calif., has surpassed Dublin, Ohio [the home of OCLC], as the most populous of these places (36,995 compared with 34,301, respectively, as of July 1, 2004).
Search Briefs + Nutch's Doug Cutting Joins Yahoo Full Time After Serving Four Years Independently (via SEW Blog) -- + Ask.com Names Tao Yang Senior Vice President and Chief Scientist -- + Facelift For Yahoo's Home Page (via InternetNews.com) Note: Yahoo has offered a clutter-free search interface at Search.yahoo.com for a couple of years. -- + Google Desktop 3 Leaves Beta, Gains Quick Search Feature (via SEW Blog)
Online Productivity Web Browsers--Firefox ------------------------ Some of Our Favorite Firefox Add-ons (All Free, More to Come in Upcoming Weeks) + NeedleSearch Create a toolbar entry for just about any search engine in two clicks. Simply type the word NeedleSearch into a search box and you instantly have access to that search tool from the bar. If you don't like NeedleSearch, no worries. Take a look at the following option: ++ Search Engine Ordering (we've just started using it) appears to be a winner at this point. This add-on makes it a snap (we're talking seconds) to add just about ANY search engine to the well-known search bar (in the upper right corner of the Firefox interface). It is also possible to "hack" the urls to create pre-built or "canned" searches that are limited to a specific domain, url, etc. However, that's not all Search Engine Ordering offers. You can also drag and drop to reorder the engines listed in your search bar. SEO also makes it a snap to remove any engine from the search bar. More on this one later but so far we like, a lot. + PDF Download "Allows to choose if you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML), if you want to view it outside Firefox with your default or custom PDF reader, or if you want to download it!" + Tab Mix Plus A real time saver! The session manager is a must. "Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox's tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows."
Multimedia Shelf Information Retrieval Source: ResearchChannel.org Video Presentation: Human-Computer Information Retrieval A lecture by Professor Gary Marchionini from the University of North Carolina at Microsoft Research. The event took place on October 14, 2005. It runs about 75 minutes.
You Might Have Missed + Cool! 3-D Imagery of the Moon Now Available via NASA's World Wind (via SEW Blog) "The newly expanded NASA 'World Wind' computer program can 'transport' Web users to almost anyplace on the moon, when they zoom in from a global view to closer pictures of our natural satellite taken by the Clementine spacecraft in the 1990s. Computer programmers at NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley originally designed the World Wind program to deliver satellite images and data of Earth to the Internet..."
Briefly + Swets Unveils "Gateway to China" programme + Groxis and EBSCO Publishing Partner to Provide Visual Search Technology Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Library and Archives Canada--Federated Search Source: Library and Archives Canada New, National Libraries and Archives Begins Testing Federated Search Tool: Search All Search All allows you to search the resources of Library and Archives Canada (LAC). LAC combines the holdings of the former National Archives of Canada and the former National Library of Canada. These resources include: + LAC's website; + LAC's library catalogue; and + the following archival research tools: +++ General Inventory +++ Government of Canada files +++ Métis Scrip +++ War Diaries of the First World War +++ Prime Ministers' Fonds More info here including an email address to send feedback to LAC. See Also: Australia's largest online library opens for business -- Resource Discovery Network Source: RDN Major Changes Coming to Resource Discovery Network, Service Will Also Get New Name The Resource Discovery Network, one of ResourceShelf's favorite set of non-commercial web directories and lots more, has some major changes, including a new name, coming in the second half of 2006. The service will be called Intute. This post has all of the details. If you've never used the RDN and it's underlying subject gateways, they are MORE than worthy of your attention and use. See Also: Virtual Training Suite from the RDN -- Libraries Source: Council on Library and Information Resources CLIR Issues March/April 2006 Now Available Articles include: + For the Record: Recorded-Sound Studies Nearing Completion + Got Metadata? -- Information Policy Source: Yale Information Society Project Upcoming Conference: The first international conference on Access to Knowledge The conference will take place at the Yale Law School, April 21-23, 2006. From the web site, "The first goal of the Yale A2K Initiative is to come up with a new analytic framework for analysing the possibly distortive effects of public policies relying exclusively on intellectual property rights. Beyond this aim, the A2K initiative seeks to support the adoption and development of alternative ways to foster greater access to knowledge in the digitally connected environment." List of panels. -- Government Printing Office--United States Source: GPO Enhanced version of the CGP/OPAC now available "The Superintendent of Documents is pleased to announce the launch of the enhanced version of the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP). This version of the CGP is the online public access catalog (OPAC) module of the Government Printing Office's (GPO) new integrated library system. With the availability of the new CGP Phase 1 of a larger modernization plan to replace older legacy systems is complete."
Scholarly Publishing--Citation Reports ----------------------------------------- Source: ISI + The Hottest Research of 2004-05 + Australian Universities: Most Prolific in Computer Science, 2000-04 + Science in Taiwan, 2000-04 + Journals Ranked by Impact: Veterinary Sciences + History: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 2000-04 + Hot Paper in Physics + The 20 Most-Cited Countries in Chemistry, 1995-August 31, 2005
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Source: NewspaperARCHIVE.com NewspaperARCHIVE.com Releases Basketball and Baseball Archives, Access Tens of Thousands of Full Text & Full Image "Historical" Articles (Free) Wow, NewspaperARCHIVE.com is on a roll. Last week we mentioned the release of a new and free searchable archive containing more than 15,000 full text and full image articles from hundreds of newspapers about the HMS Titanic. Access to the database and the articles is free. Material can be copied and printed. Today, just as March Madness gets underway, NewspaperArchive.com has released CollegeBasketballArchive.com. This database offers searchable access to more than 50,000 historical full text newspaper pages about the college bball. From the site, "CollegeBasketballArchive.com contains newspaper articles covering all of the great moments in the history of the college game. From the first NCAA Champion, the University of Oregon, to the 2005 champion University of North Carolina, the archive contains exciting accounts of every NCAA tournament. The archive also includes articles on legendary coaches like John Wooden and Jim Valvano as well as great players such as Bill Walton and Michael Jordan." Search (advanced interface, too) or browse key articles via this timeline. If college hoops are not your thing, perhaps baseball is. Just in time for baseball seaon, NewspaperARCHIVE.com also provides ProBaseballArchive.com. This free service lets you search and read, copy, and prin the full text and image of more than 50,000 articles about professional baseball. Other NewspaperARCHIVE.com Free Archives Include: + MartinLutherKingJuniorArchive.com (we posted about this important site in January) + AbrahamLincolnArchive.com + WinterGamesArchive.com (Winter Olympics) + AsbestosArchive.com (Asbestos and Asbestos Related Lawsuits) -- -- Elections--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2004 "eport examines the levels of voting and registration in the November 2004 presidential election, the characteristics of citizens reporting they were registered to vote and actually did vote, and the reasons why others registered did not vote. The report, from the Current Population Survey, provides the first-ever analysis of national- and state-level data that was released last May." 18 pages; PDF. -- Avian Influenza--Maps Source: Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas at Austin Avian Influenza Maps on Other Web Sites Collection of links to general and regional maps from 2004, 2005, 2006. -- Geology--United States Earthquakes Source: USGS New, A Virtual Tour of the Hayward Fault From the announcement, "The U.S. Geological Survey has a new website that offers a virtual tour of the Hayward fault. The virtual tour starts at the northern end of the Hayward fault, where it enters San Pablo Bay, and flies south along the fault to Fremont, showing along the way where the fault crosses freeways, runs through the University of California Berkeley football stadium, and intersects residential neighborhoods throughout the East Bay. The virtual tour provides an unprecedented look at the Hayward fault, which last produced a damaging earthquake in October 1868. At the time, this Hayward fault earthquake was known as the great San Francisco earthquake, but it lost that title on April 18th, 1906, when the San Francisco earthquake struck along the San Andreas Fault."
Search Briefs + AOL video service to debut with Intel, Kraft ads (via Reuters) NOTE: The service is officially debuting today but the In2TV (complete tv shows from the 70's, 80's, and 90's has been online for over a week and we offered an overview of the service last week. UPDATE: In our review last week we mentioned that some programs will be available using AOL's Hi-Q Video service (free). They've been testing this product that delivers higher quality (DVD and TV quality) since November. More about Hi-Q here. Requires download, Windows only, IE only. Update 2: Material from In2TV can also be found by searching AOL Video Search. Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Science and Technology Libraries Source: ISTL The Winter 2006 issue of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship is Now Online This new issue focuses on outreach and marketing. Articles include: + Reaching the Engineering and Science Communities: New Technologies and Approaches at MIT + Creating a BUZZ: Attracting SCI/TECH Students to the Library! + The Beat of a Different Drum: Using the Arts in Outreach to Science/Engineering Students and Faculty Other articles include: + Using Spreadsheets to Map a Library Reclassification, Reorganization, and Merger + Materials Used by Master's Students in Engineering and Implications for Collection Development: A Citation Analysis + Database reviews of Google Scholar, Scopus, and ENGnetBASE. -- Digital Libraries Source: BL/JISC/UKOLN Workshop, British Library Presentation: Digital Libraries and the business process: reflections on a theme A recent presentation by Dr Liz Lyon, Director of UKOLN. PPT slides also available. -- Scholarly Publishing Source: C&RL News The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition: An evolving agenda
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text International Security--Yearbooks Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI Yearbook 2005: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, Pocket-size Summary Edition 36 pages; PDF. -- Nanotechnology--Databases Source: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health New, NIOSH Offers Nanoparticle Information Library to Meet User's Needs for On-line Resource "The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) offers a new, web-based Nanoparticle Information Library (NIL) for public use and comment. The new, interactive database responds to the needs of scientists, business leaders, and others for information on different types of nanoparticles in current use, their physical and chemical characteristics, and their occupational health and safety implications. The Library is available at http://www2a.cdc.gov/niosh-nil/ as a resource for those diverse users -- from students to researchers -- and as a forum in which scientists can share their latest technical information. By providing the database, NIOSH hopes to further the ability of researchers and decisionmakers to address the question of whether work-related exposures to nanomaterials may have unintended health consequences." Resource Overview Direct to Nanoparticle Information Library -- Prisons--United States--Statistics Source: BJS New, Prisoners in 2004 From the report: + The Nation's prison population grew 1.9% in 2004, reaching 1.5 million inmates. Ten States had increases of at least 5%, led by Minnesota (up 11.4%), Idaho (up 11.1%), and Georgia (up 8.3%). + Eleven States experienced prison population decreases, led by Alabama (down 7.3%), Rhode Island (down 2.8%), New York (down 2.2%), + Local jails housed 74,378 State and Federal inmates (5.0% of all prisoners). -- Higher Education--United States--Statistics Source: NSF New, Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering: Fall 2003
Search Briefs + UPDATE: Judge to Order Google to Give Up Some Data + Feds and Google Head to Court Today over Search Records (via News.com) -- + New Classified Engine Takes to the Web (via News.com) Here's a list of a few (just a few) classified ad/local listings databases. Several of them have launched during the past year. This is not a comprehensive list by any stretch of the imagination. + Vast (new today) + Adoos (non-US) + BlockRocker + BlogBuy + Craigslist + Edegio + Google Base + TheGreenSheet + Kijiji (non-US, from eBay) + LiveDeal + Microsoft Live Expo + Oodle (also available via Lycos with different interface) + Recycler.com (owned by Tribune Company) + theadcloud + Yahoo Classifieds (some listings are free) -- + Check out the Topix.net Forum Activity Map Topix.net, the wonderful online news site, launched an interactive "forum map" linked in the "right rail" of their home page. Once it opens, you can see where forum posts (Topix.net forums for each news story in 2005) are coming from. Each circle on the map can be clicked to go directly to posts from that area. U.S. only. -- Ask.com Launches New Betas Sites in France, The Netherlands, and Italy
Briefly + Happy 70th Anniversary to the Federal Register (PDF) "The Federal Register provides public notice of pending and final actions of the Government in the form of rules, Presidential proclamations, executive orders, meeting notices, and other rulemaking. Since this has a direct impact on many people, what appears in the Register is key to the American public. In its first year back in 1936, the Register printed 2,620 pages. Today, nearly that many pages are published each week. Approximately 100 million Register documents are viewed annually over the Internet through GPO Access." See Also: Volume 59 (1994) - 71 (2006) available via GPO Access NOTE: Hein Online (Fee-Based) Offers Digitized Access (Full Image of Each Page) of the FR Back to Vol.1 See Also: GPO Daily E-Mail Containing Federal Register Table of Contents, Free -- + RLG: CAMIO Fine Arts Database Available throughout North Carolina Libraries Camio is the Catalog of Art Museum Images Online. See Also: What's Trove.net? -- + Endeavor Information Systems and TDNet Expand Partnership to Introduce Re-Architected Reference Linking Solution for Libraries Monday, March 13, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Public Records Source: Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS), Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) Public Libraries Briefcase: Finding & Using Public Records "The challenge in finding and using public records is one of accessibility. Regulated by individual state statutes, access to specific categories of records is restricted in some states while in others the same records are open and unrestricted. The categories of public records most frequently impacted by individual state code include criminal histories, vehicle ownership, and workmen's compensation claims -- areas related to personnel background checks. Additionally the overall inconsistencies of what agencies in which states make public records available online can make the search for information frustrating." -- Information Technology Source: Council on Library and Information Resources New Report, Shidhulai Swarnivar Sangstha: Bringing Information Technology to Rural Bangladesh by Boat From the abstract, "The 2005 recipient of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Access to Learning Award overcame the challenge that the ecosystem of Bangladesh poses and found a way to deliver information technology to residents of some of that country's flood-prone areas. With specially designed, indigenous boats, Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha is using cellular technology and solar power to provide Internet access and online training to thousands of rural residents. Shidhulai is the name of a village in the Natore district of Bangladesh, and the term swanirvar sangstha means 'self-reliant organization.' This report is a case study of how Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha approached formidable obstacles and documents the overall success of the project." Direct to Full Text (26 pages; PDF) -- Paris--Libraries Source: New York Times At These Parisian Landmarks, Shhh Is the Word "Libraries seldom turn up on a tourist's itinerary. This makes them ideal havens for anyone eager to escape from one's fellow foreigners. It's worth risking a derisive glance from a Parisian bookworm, who no doubt regards you as an intruding barbarian anyway, to tiptoe through some of the city's most atmospheric public spaces."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Final Four--2006 College Athletics--United States Source: NCAA College Basketball: 2006 Men's and Women's Final Four: Records, Rules, and Handbooks + 2006 Division I Women's Basketball Championship Handbook (66 pages; PDF) + 2006 Division I Men's Basketball Championship Handbook (57 pages; PDF) + 2006 Men's Final Four Records Book (250 pages; PDF) + 2006 Women's Final Four Records Book (147 pages; PDF) + 2006 Men's Basketball Records Book (404 pages; PDF) + 2006 Women's Basketball Records Book (334 pages; PDF) -- See Also: Men's and Women's Illustrated Basketball Rules, 2006 (162 pages; PDF) See Also: Men's and Women's Basketball Rules, 2006 (184 pages; PDF) See Also: List: NCAA Member School Nicknames> See Also: 2006 Men's Final Four Brackets See Also: 2006 Women's Final Four Brackets (Available Monday Night) -- Public Opinion--European Union--Databases Source: European Union Eurobarometer Interactive Search System "This section of the website gives you access to the search tool for our Trends questions database. Trends questions are asked several times a year and they allow us to measure the evolution of European public opinion. This search tool gives you an overview of these trends in the form of graphs. The system allows you to choose a subject, a particular period of time, the country which interests you and then compare these results with any other European Union country. You can also export these results under different formats allowing you to easily create your own documents. Thanks to SB from the IWS for the news tip. -- Homeland Security--United States Biosecurity--United States Source: Purdue University Homeland Security Institute for Animal Health Emergencies National Biosecurity Resource Center News, databases, and more. -- Business Source: Emerald Publishing Group New from Emerald, Emerald Management Xtra for Deans and Directors "Emerald Group Publishing announces the launch of Emerald Management Xtra for Deans and Directors, a suite of online resources designed to support senior managers and administrators in management education. Building on the communities of practice concept of Emerald Management Xtra for librarians, authors, researchers, students, and faculty, this latest addition is focused on leading the future of global business and management education." -- Americans With Disability Act Source: Congressional Research Service (via OpenCRS) New Report, The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): The Definition of Disability Written by Nancy Lee Jones, Legislative Attorney, American Law Division. 14 pages; PDF.
Search Briefs + Google to broker online book sales (via News.com) "The new offering would allow people to sign in and purchase immediate, browser-based access to books, Google said on its site. Purchasers would not, however, be allowed to save a copy of the book to their computer or to otherwise copy pages from the book." Services like ebrary, Books24x7, NetLibrary, Safari, and others offer new books online (searchable) that can also in many cases be printed, shared, annotated, etc. I'm sure that Amazon.com will announce a similar service soon to go along with their Search Inside the Book program. Actually, we know that they're already working on one and don't forget that about a year ago they purchased an on-demand book publisher. It's one thing to be able to read a book online (cool!), but it's something else to be able to use the content (print, share, annotate, etc.) (cooler!!!). It will be interesting to see where Google takes this service in the future and if they develop a micropayment service (like ebrary Discover (see below) where you can read for free and then pay to print or copy specific pages. See Also: Don't Forget About ebrary's Discover Service Full text (searchable access to over 20,000 in-copyright books. Then simply pay to print or copy). Sunday, March 12, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Social Search Tagging Source: Nature Publishing Group New Tools and More from Connotea "Connotea is a free online reference management service. It allows you to save links to all your favourite articles, references, websites and other online resources with one click. Connotea is also a social bookmarking tool, so you can view other people's collections to discover new, interesting content." Several new features in the past few weeks including: + A Tagging Tool for EPrints-powered Institutional Repositories + New Homepage Includes Tag Cloud + Video Introduction to Connotea, tags, bookmarking, automatic bibliographic information import, and more -- Academic Libraries Digitization Projects Source: The Daily Bruin (UCLA) Libraries getting the digital treatment "Gary Strong, the UCLA librarian, said that he envisions the library of the future as a space of collaborative learning. Instead of coming to the library to read books, students will be able to collaborate with peers and faculty while looking at and researching collections of rare material, he said." The California Digital Library is also mentioned. Search the California Digital Library. See Also: Direct to The Online Books Page "Listing over 25,000 free books on the Web." -- See Also: Searching for Digital Books -- A (Non-controversial) Alternative to Google Print -- More Online Books Resources -- -- Personal Information--United States Source: Chicago Tribune Internet blows CIA cover From the article, "When the Tribune searched a commercial online data service, the result was a virtual directory of more than 2,600 CIA employees, 50 internal agency telephone numbers and the locations of some two dozen secret CIA facilities around the United States." While this is bad, the article is clear that the information is NOT on the public web but rather via a fee-based service or what we would call "via the web." Which one? We don't know. Also, although the article states, "anyone ... can qualify for a subscription to one of the online services." Without knowing the precise service, it is very hard to measure the accessibility to the data. That said, many of the most robust services are not available to the general public. Lots of paperwork/documentation needs to get completed and approved before access is granted. Of course, many government databases (direct from local, state, federal authorities) offer access to all sorts of personal info, IF you know where to look. This data stockpile, for the most part, remains on the Invisible or deep web. The issue is not one for the search engines, but rather for government webmasters and legislators. Thanks to P.L. for the news tip.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Freedom Of Information Act Source: News University (A project of The Poynter Institute funded by the Knight Foundation) Freedom of Information--Online Course Free registration required. "Freedom of information is instrumental to journalism and essential for democracy. This course teaches you how to use the Freedom of Information Act, Public Records Laws and Open Meetings Laws to uphold your right to know the government's actions. Learn not only the details of FOI laws in your state, but how to use FOI to write better stories today." -- Planning--United Kingdom--Databases Source: Planning Portal New Database, Search for Planning Applications Throughout the UK From the site, The National Planning Application Register has been developed in partnership with Emap Glenigan. It allows you to search for information on 80 per cent of planning applications and 40 per cent of decisions made in every area of England and Wales. The service is free of charge and can be used to: + Search for planning applications in your area + Read details about applications, including descriptions + Print or download a list of applications for an area See Also: Planning register goes online (via Kable's Government News) Saturday, March 11, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Information Literacy Health Research Source: NLM New, MedlinePlus Adds Tutorial on Evaluating Internet Health Information "Evaluating Internet Health Information is a 16-minute narrated slideshow. The tutorial runs automatically, but you can use the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen to go forward, backward, pause, or start over. Using fictional "good" and "bad" Web sites, the tutorial walks the user though a comparison of the two, pointing out features to look for concerning the information provider, funding source, quality, and privacy. The tutorial uses plain language and narration and is appropriate for users at a broad range of reading levels."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Senior Citizens--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census, National Institute on Aging New Report, 65+ in the United States: 2005 "The face of aging in the United States is changing dramatically - and rapidly, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. Today's older Americans are very different from their predecessors, living longer, having lower rates of disability, achieving higher levels of education and less often living in poverty. And the baby boomers, the first of whom celebrated their 60th birthdays in 2006, promise to redefine further what it means to grow older in America." Summary/Fast Facts Direct to Full Text (PDF; 254 pages)
REMINDER Make Sure to Visit DocuTicker Today! Docuticker is a daily update from your ResourceShelf team with direct links to new reports from government agencies, ngo's, think tanks, and other groups. Looking for primary docs? This is the place. Friday, March 10, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Web Directories Source: LII The LII Wants Your Feedback Karen Schneider and the Librarians' Internet Index have just placed their Annual User Survey online. Please share your thoughts. It only takes a few, very few, minutes. If you've never visted and used this wonderful resource, it's a MUST! Since we shared a few thoughts about the LII earlier this week in this post (2nd item), no need to repeat them today. Btw, not only is the LII a wonderful directory but also a great current awareness resource that we think is a must read, along with ResourceShelf and DocuTicker, of course. :-) -- Personal Information Management Source: E-LIS Annotating the Web: An Exploratory Study of Web Users' Needs for Personal Annotation Tools This paper was writen by Xin Fu, Tom Ciszek, Gary Marchionini, and Paul Solomon, and was published in the Proceedings 68th Annual Meeting (2005) of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST). From the abstract, "This exploratory study investigates the needs Web users have to make annotations for their personal use when they view Web pages. Three forms of annotations observed on printed documents - text selection and emphasis, association building, and document re-segmentation - are examined in the Web environment. The study shows that text selection and association building through notes or symbols remain the dominant forms of annotation on the Web, while structural annotation (re-segmentation) and layout annotation (change of font, color, etc.) are also prevalent. The study also investigates users' preferences for the tools designed to facilitate Web annotation practices. Findings suggest that usability is of utmost importance when developing Web annotation tools, and that under the current technical conditions, users welcome lightweight annotation functions, which are built into standard Web browsers."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Personal Wealth--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes Just Released: The World's Richest People: Forbes Billionaires List 2006 Top 10: 1. William Gates 2. Warren Buffett 3. Carlos Slim Helú 4. Ingvar Kamprad 5. Lakshmi Mittal 6. Paul Allen 7. Bernard Arnault 8. Prince Alwaleed 9. Kenneth Thomson 10. Li Ka-shing Search: MSN: Bill Gates, #1 MSN: Steve Ballmer, #24 Google: Sergey Brin: #26 Google: Larry Page #27 Google: Eric Schmidt #129 Yahoo: David Filo: #240 Yahoo: Jerry Yang: #317 Ask.com: Barry Diller #606 -- U.S. Central Intelligence Agency--Movies Source: The Memory Hole CIA Films at the National Archives "After a certain number of years, the CIA, like many other agencies, turns over its films and other documents to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The lengthy list of CIA films at the Archives has never been publicly released, but researcher Michael Ravnitzky requested and received a copy from NARA. It's posted in two formats at the link above (the plain text version looks better online). Many of the films were created by the CIA, and some - such as news reports and the occasional Hollywood movie -- were not.... You can request a copy of any of the films under the Freedom of Information Act."
Search Briefs + Web-Based Word Processing Site Writely.com Acquired by Google (via News.com) Congratulations and kudos to the Writely.com team. Writely was a ROTW in December. Presently, you can only use the service if you have a login/password. New logins are not available. You can register for an email reminder when new registrations become available. Do similar services exist that are worth a look? Yes, here's one example. ThinkFree Office offers a service (basic service free) that can: + Create Microsoft Office-compatible documents from the web (Word, PPT, XLS) + Open and edit your Office documents anywhere and anytime + Convert your existing documents to PDF format Basic access is free. Registration is quick and easy. ++ More choices? All free and all ready to use today: + ZohoWriter Very similar to Writely.com. Registration is quick and painless. + gOFFICE + Ghost Notebook Thursday, March 09, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor We have eye candy for you this week on ResourceShelf. If you happen to be a researcher with an interest in the textile arts, this is an especially valuable database for you to bookmark. Textiles--Database Source: University College for the Creative Arts at Farnham (UK) The Textiles Collection Comprising about 3,000 artifacts, this database of digital images "ranges from Coptic textiles dating from 800-1000 AD through to British woollen cloths, Kashmir shawls, African strip weaving and Scandinavian furnishing fabrics from 1950 to 1990." You can search the collection via a text box at the top of the home page; typing in batik, for example, and clicking "Go" generates a results page with seven records, each a thumbnail image with a brief description underneath. Click on an image to retrieve the item record, which includes: the creator, date, item type, its function (e.g., scarf), a general description, a subject term, type of material, visual information (e.g., "geometric"), technique (e.g., hand woven), process (e.g., batik), culture (e.g, country, ethnic group, etc.), source (how it was obtained), and rights. A link at the bottom of the record takes you to a full catalog record, which includes a link to a larger image. Many of these are quite spectacular, and rightly so. "Each image has been carefully created to describe the particular qualities of its subject - expressing the fold and drape of a textile; communicating the fibre, structure and finish of woven cloths; and illustrating pattern, repeat and scale in printed fabrics." It's easy to browse the collection; by the object itself -- type (e.g., blanket), country of origin, maker/designer -- or by analysis -- raw materials, cloth structure, process. Clicking the plus signs next to these options reveals a wide range of terms. Clicking on any of them opens a new browser window that displays the relevant records as above. An advanced search form offers dropdown menus that let you use basic boolean operators to search by the different record fields. It also allows you to search a whole bunch of visual art collections from other institutions. Click the little "i" in the circle to the right of a collection's name to get a detailed description (and a source URL). If you register at the site, you can store items of particular interest in your own personal "lightbox."
Professional Reading Shelf Reference Reviews Peter's Digital Reference Shelf: March 2006 is Now Online This month Dr. Peter Jacso from the University of Hawaii offers in-depth reviews of: NCJRS (Criminal Justice Database) "A good example of when an open-access version of a high-quality database providing much more content than its subscription-based implementation, along with offers high-IQ search features." and Taber's Medical Encyclopedia "This free version of Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary is one of the leading sources among the many (partially) open access versions of the most well-known medical dictionaries. Although it does not have the pictures and the tables of the subscription-based online version, its clear definitions make it stand out from its competitors." -- Digital Universe Project Encyclopedia Source: eLearn Exploring the Digital Universe "A new network of Web portals called the Digital Universe aims to answer these questions with technically advanced, advertising-free, expert-vetted content that is fully accessible to all. Intended to one day incorporate thousands of sub-portals and a full encyclopedia, and with developing plans for "open" content to which anyone can contribute, the open-source Digital Universe may get a serious jumpstart from its innovative "venture philanthropy" business model. It's an ambitious undertaking, and one that won't be easy to pull off. But its very presence serves a much-needed reminder that much of the Web's great potential has yet to be fulfilled."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Newspaper Digitizaton RMS Titanic Source: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Brand New, Titanic Newspaper Archive From the same company that offers the MartinLutherKingJrArchive.com that was released in January. Access to both archives is free. What does the Titanic Newspaper Archive contain? More than 15,000 fully digitized and searchable newspaper pages. Pages are delivered as PDF files. Pages can be saved and/or printed. Very cool! -- Traffic--United States--Statistics Source: FHWA Serial: Traffic Volume Trends "Traffic Volume Trends is a monthly report based on hourly traffic count data reported by the States. These data are collected at approximately 4,000 continuous traffic counting locations nationwide and are used to estimate the percent change in traffic for the current month compared with the same month in the previous year." Numbers are also available in .XLS format. See Also: Archive of TVT Back to Jan. 2002 -- Terrorism Source: Council on Foreign Relations New Background Brief, Terrorists and the Internet
Multimedia Lecture Hall Libraries Digital Information Source: MIT World Video: The Future of Digital Commons Presentations from: + Nancy Kranich, Former President, American Library Association and Guest Lecturer + Ann Wolpert, Drector, MIT Libraries + Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University This event took place at MIT on September 22, 2005. See Also: Now Available, A Presentation by Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation
Search Briefs + Answers.com Files Patent Infrigement Lawsuit in Israeli Court + Yahoo, Siemens enter VoIP partnership + Mobile: Sony Ericsson teams with Google
Bibliographic Databases What's a RedLightGreen? Over 120,000,000 searchable bibliographic records. Refine by simply pointing and clicking. RedLightGreen also allows you to associate each record with local library catalogs around the world. Save and share lists of titles. Many more features. RedLightGreen will even prepare your bibliography for you. A free service. Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Information Literacy Source: IFLA (High-Level Colloquium on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning) Recently Released: Final Report, Information Literacy for all "The final report of the High-Level Colloquium on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning, held at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt, 6-9 November 2005, sponsored by the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the National Forum on Information Literacy (NFIL) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), was released on 1st March 2006...The report argues that the existence of information holds little to no value to people who do not even know what information they need, much less whether it exists or not, or how to locate, evaluate and effectively use it." Direct to Full Text of Report (87 pages; PDF). -- Encyclopedias Source: Microsoft A Brief Chat With Gary Alt, editorial director of Microsoft Encarta Reader Emptor: Yes, this Q&A interview is really a glorified press release but we thought it still was worth a link since it's a topic that is of interest to many of you. Plus, we learn a little bit about the person in charge of Encarta content. See Also: MSN Search Offers Free Full Text Access to Encarta Encyclopedia (via SEW Blog) This freebie is still available. See Also: Microsoft Asks for Help Editing Encarta Encyclopedia Alt does not discuss this program (is it going to happen?) that made news about a year ago. -- Wi-Fi Source: Computers in Libraries Two Ways to Set Up Wireless Hotspots: Comparing Apples and Oranges "There are so many ways to configure wireless hotspots; this article explains two very different ones. One is open source with unrestricted access; the other is done with vendor software and full authentication. You can get a taste of both strategies here and see which would satisfy your needs." -- Digitization Projects Source: NCLIS/University of Michigan Upcoming Symposium to be Webcast: Scholarship and Libraries in Transition: A Dialogue about the Impacts of Mass Digitization Projects (PDF) "The U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) and the University of Michigan University Library are sponsoring a national symposium on March 10-11, 2006 to discuss the impact of mass digitization projects on libraries, universities, government, information policy, publishing, and education. Entitled 'Scholarship and Libraries in Transition: A Dialogue about the Impacts of Mass Digitization Projects, this two-day symposium will provide an opportunity for faculty, students, librarians, publishers, information specialists, policy makers, and the broader academic community to discuss the changing information environment." Direct to webcast info and symposium info.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Internet Filtering--Yemen Source: OpenNet Initiative Just Released, Internet Filtering in Yemen in 2004-2005 -- Business--European Union--Statistics Source: Statistical Office of the European Communities New comprehensive statistical panorama of European business 6 pages; PDF. "The new edition of European business - facts and figures, published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, gives a comprehensive picture of the structure, development and characteristics of European business and its different activities: from energy and the extractive industries to communications, information services and media. It presents the latest available statistics from a wide selection of statistical sources describing for each activity production and employment, country specialisation and regional distribution, productivity and profitability, the importance of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), work-force characteristics, external trade etc." -- Energy Industry--United States Source: EIA Performance Profiles of Major Energy Producers 2004 "...the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released Performance Profiles of Major Energy Producers 2004, a legislatively mandated annual report to the U.S. Congress. Performance Profiles 2004 presents a comprehensive financial review and analysis of the domestic and worldwide operations of the major U.S.-based energy-producing companies. Emerging issues in financial performance are also analyzed. The report examines the majors' operations primarily on a consolidated corporate level, by individual lines of business, by major functions within each line-of-business, and by various geographic regions." (via DocuTicker.com) -- Information Technology--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New Report, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Survey: 2004 51 pages; PDF. "A supplement to the Annual Capital Expenditures Survey, the ICT survey was developed to fill a void for data on e-business infrastructure investment by nonfarm businesses. ICT equipment is defined as computers and peripherals; telephones and telephone apparatus, facsimile equipment, and routers, etc.; electromedical and electrotherapeutic apparatus; and computer software." -- VoIP Source: Computerworld Quick Intro to VoIP (Voice of Internet Protocol) Services like Vonage use VoIP to route calls over the Internet. -- Congressional Reseach Service Selection of New/Updated Reports (via FPC and Open CRS) + India's Nuclear Separation Plan: Issues and Views + Data Security: Federal Legislative Approaches + U.S. Armed Forces Abroad: Selected Congressional Roll Call Votes Since 1982 + Federal Student Aid Need Analysis System: Background, Description, and Legislative Action + FEMA's Flood Hazard Map Modernization Initiative + Conducting Foreign Relations Without Authority: The Logan Act + Nursing Homes and the Congress: A Brief History of Developments and Issues
Search Briefs + Microsoft Launches Windows Live Search Beta (via SearchDay) MSN Launches "Live" Search (via News.com) + Direct to MSN "Live Search" Demo The SearchDay article talks about "film strip" view. We've been unable to get this to work. Also, MSN Live Search images don't seem to be working at the present time. More about the "macros" Chris Sherman writes about in SearchDay here. Note to Microsoft: Your "macro" for finding library sites needs work on several levels. We tried earlier today with IE and got an error. Direct to Search.live.com beta. -- + Amazon under fire on books as Google debate rages We often wonder if publishers have any idea about the many other book digitization services out there. Also, if they are afraid of Google or Amazon.com, they could just stop sharing content with them. Don't forget, with the in-copyright material Google plans to digitize from five libraries, searchers will only see snippets surrounding their search terms. Example 1. Example 2. Btw, have you checked out Amazon.com's Search Inside the Book lately? From SearchDay, "Mouse over the title of the book on the cover image, and you see quite a bit of additional information about the book, including a concordance of the 100 most frequently used words in the book, citations to the book, statistics about the book (readability, complexity, etc.). You'll also see a search form that lets you run a keyword search limited to that specific title." -- + Classified Ad Search: Lycos Release New Service Powered by Oodle Btw, Oodle released an API today. -- + Google Agrees To $90 Million Settlement In Class Action Lawsuit Over Click Fraud
Briefly + Convera Partners With Factiva, Language Weaver and MetaCarta "Convera and Factiva plan to develop a universal data box utilizing a platform built on Excalibur and representing the world's largest, deepest index of categorized and authority-ranked Web results. The companies also plan to create an open source consortium to help them target vertical markets such as government and law enforcement organizations and to launch a secure hosted data center to provide secure subscription service access to open source content." Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Archives--Databases Source: RLG ArchiveGrid is Now Live and Ready For Searching During the past several months we've mentioned a few times that RLG's ArchiveGrid database was coming soon. Well, the service is now live. Access to this large database of archive collection info is free through the end of May. We plan a more detailed look at ArchiveGrid in the near future. Fast Facts + Searchable access to one million collection descriptions from thousands of archives contributing records. + Cool! Proximity searching (for example: "george washingon" ~5 "mt vernon"). Wildcard searching also available. + Sort results by relevance, date, title, archive, location + Each entry on a results page includes archive contact info and a direct link to view full record. + Results pages also offer narrowing by location or archive name results by simply clicking (see boxes on left side of page). + More search tips Btw, if you've never seen or used the wonderful and full featured RedLightGreen union catalog from RLG it's a must. It's a ResourceShelf favorite. RedLightGreen offers access to bibliographic info for more than 120 million books. Registered users (free and fast) can associate their account with direct, one click access, to thousands of opacs. RedLightGreen even will format each record in one of five bibliography formats (MLA, APA, etc.). -- Librarians' Internet Index Source: LJ Librarians' Internet Index Faces 50% Budget Cut The library community MUST do whatever is necesssary to make sure that this essential resource continues to not only be available but also grow and flourish. Those of you who have been reading ResourceShelf since day one know that the LII is one of our most favorite resources that not only serves as a wonderful directory of quality and authoritative sites but also as a "must have" current awareness tool. The next time you hear that librarians are no longer of value in the web age, just show them the LII. Long live the LII!!! -- Privacy--United States Source: National Public Radio Audio: An Online Privacy Adventure Legendary news librarian and now director of the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota, Nora Paul, is interviewed about private information available online. -- Encyclopedias Source: Searcher Wikipedia and Britannica: The Kid's All Right (And So's the Old Man) Paula Berinstein shares her thoughts. A good read. -- Open Source The March Issue of Peter Suber's SPARC Open Access Newsletter is Now Available For in-depth coverage of the open source scene just about seven days a week, Suber's Open Access News is the place to visit.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Television Programs Streaming Audio and Video For the TV Geeks Out There: AOL Launches Access to Vintage TV Programming (Beta) If you're a tv geek and like network shows from the 70's and 80's a new service from AOL (free) will be of interest. The much discussed AOL In2TV Beta is now available. You'll need a free AOL login (if you already have an AIM account, you've got one). Again, access to the service and the content is free. + Shows includes: Welcome Back Kotter, Babylon V, Beetlejuice, Lois & Clark, La Femme Nikita, Falcon Crest, Growing Pains (oy!), Kung Fu, Wonder Woman and many, many more. + Access is simple, just find a show click and begin viewing. + Browse by genre or view a complete list. + Would be great if you could search show summaries, stars, etc. Right now, not possible as far as I can tell. + Video quality is very good on my often slow broadband connection. + Alert service available (new shows and features) + AOL is also continuing to beta test their Hi-Q Video download service that offers high quality (viewing quality) material sent directly to your computer while it's idle. This service requires users to download a small app. Windows only. At the moment, lots of movie trailers, music videos, etc. but it looks like some In2TV will be available via this delivery service in the future. -- USGS--RSS Feed Source: U.S. Geological Survey New: RSS feed for USGS science FAQs From Gail Wendt, friend of ResourceShelf at the USGS: "You kindly cited the USGS FAQ database as your Resource of the Week (Jan 12, 2006). We just thought you'd like to know that it is now even better with an RSS feed that automatically notifies subscribers when one or more of the thousands of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are updated or when a new FAQ is created. The RSS feed has been advertised on the USGS home page, the specially designated RSS page, and the main FAQ page where the public can 'browse' through the FAQ database by categories." -- United Nations--Reform Source: UN New Report, Investing in the United Nations, For a Stronger Organization Worldwide From the UN Pulse blog, "The UN reform Web site has been completely renewed to reflect the major reform report released today: Investing in the United Nations, For a Stronger Organization Worldwide (full text). The report recognizes that the UN's operations have become increasingly field-based, and that if the UN is to deliver its services effectively in the future, it needs to adapt to the needs and demands in the field. To do so requires: simpler and more transparent ways and means of performing our work, a motivated and mobile staff managed by one set of rules, a more unified budget, one IT system to integrate UN workflows, and the submission of one improved Annual Report to Member States." Note: The UN Pulse blog is a must for staying current with new resources and reports from the UN. It's compiled by the librarians at the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library in NYC. -- Ready Reference Desk Fast Facts Source: The World Almanac New, The March 2006 Issue of The World Almanac E-Newsletter is Online Contains a chronology of February events and holidays, "This Day in History," and much more. See Also: Back issues and subscription info (free)
Search Briefs + New Database Aggregates Video Available for iPod Download and Viewing This new database (beta), Searchforipod.com, does a nice job of aggregating content that you can download directly to your video iPod with just a single click. Material can also be viewed online. This new site comes from the same people who provide SearchforVideo.com that like the iPod site aggregates video from many sites. Both sites offer keyword search or allow you to browse by genre (news, entertainment, humor, lifestyle, health, viral, etc. Over the past few months, SearchforVideo is a site I'm using more and more. See Also: SearchforVideo.com Now Offers Access to Their Database Via AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. They even offer a "spy" service that allows you to see what others are searching for. -- + Yahoo Opens APIs for Photos, Calendar, MyWeb and Shopping (via SEW Blog) -- + Justice Department vs. Google Court Date Pushed Back for Second Time (via SEW Blog)
Search Patent Update Yahoo Awarded Two Search Advertising Related Patents; More Search IP for Google and Microsoft Published A quick roundup of a few new patents and patent apps. Awarded Patents: Yahoo Targeted advertisements using time-dependent key search Awarded: 2/28/06 Filed: September 10, 2001 From the abstract, "An advertisement generation system presents a time-dependent advertisement to a user based upon to a search term of a search query during a period of time via a communication network The system includes a search engine coupled to a web server for receiving the search query and for presenting a search results page..." -- + Awarded Patent: Yahoo Canonicalization of terms in a keyword-based presentation system Awarded: 2/28/06 Filed: 11/7/03 -- + Published Patent Application: Google? Note: Google is not listed as the official assignee but the inventors listed work at Google. Accelerating user interfaces by predicting user actions "A client assistant, sometimes called a browser helper, runs on a client computer. The client assistant monitors a user's browsing activities and infers one or more next documents that are most likely to be requested by the user. The client assistant attempts to locate a fresh copy of the inferred next document within a client cache. If a fresh copy of the inferred document is not found in the client cache, the client assistant submits a document download request to a document server." -- + Published Patent Application: Microsoft Centralized terminology and glossary development Published: 3/2/06 -- + Published Patent Application: Microsoft Facility for highlighting documents accessed through search or browsing Published 3/2/06 -- + Published Patent Application: Microsoft Automated system for content acquisition using a web portal Published 3/2/06 -- + Published Patent Application: Microsoft System and method for managing information by answering a predetermined number of predefined questions -- + Published Application: Sonic Solutions Method and apparatus for use in video searching -- + Published Patent App: IBM Method of generating a context-inferenced search query and of sorting a result of the query Published: 3/2/06 -- + Published Patent Application Method of searching, reviewing and purchasing music track or song by lyrical content Published 3/2/06
Briefly + LexisNexis Relaunches Nexis Service, New Features and Functions Available Take a tour of the new Nexis. Monday, March 06, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Open Access Source: Informatics India Open J-Gate "Open J-Gate is an electronic gateway to global journal literature in open access domain. Launched in 2006, Open J-Gate is the contribution of Informatics (India) Ltd to promote OAI. Open J-Gate provides seamless access to millions of journal articles available online. Open J-Gate is also a database of journal literature, indexed from 3000+ open access journals, with links to full text at Publisher sites." -- Librarians Source: ACRL News Job of a Lifetime: Documents and diplomacy Danianne Mizzy introduces us to Eudora Loh, UCLA librarian for Latin American and Iberian Studies. From the article, "If you love Latin America and foreign travel, have great networking and people skills, and enjoy a bit of detective work, then being the librarian for Latin American and Iberian studies might be your job of a lifetime. Eudora Loh serves in that capacity within the Young Research Library as part of Collections, Research and Instructional Services at University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA)." -- Resources for Educators Information Research Skills Source: Library and Archives Canada New Resources Added Learning Centre, Toolkits "The guides offered in the "Toolkit" can help improve research skills. They help teachers and students understand how to use primary sources, conduct Internet searches and many other topics." -- Web Archives Awards Source: ARL arXiv Founder Paul Ginsparg Named Recipient of Paul Evan Peters Award
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Women's History Month Source: Gale Gale Offers Free Resources to Celebrate Women's History Month "...a free Web site of biographies, quizzes, activities, timelines and more to complement classroom topics." -- Cell Phones--Usage--Statistics Source: Computer Industry Almanac New, Europe #1 in Per Capita Cell Phone Usage -- Health Statistics--United States Source: National Center for Health Statistics New, Physical and mental health characteristics of U.S. and foreign-born adults, 1998-2003 "The report from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics is based on six years of data from the National Health Interview Survey. The main finding is that immigrants reported significantly better physical and mental health, such as lower rates of obesity and high blood pressure, than their U.S.-born counterparts despite having limited access to health care and little or no health insurance." Direct to Full Text of report (PDF). See Also: New, Health Status, Health Insurance, and Health Services Utilization: 2001 -- Six-Day War--Bibliography Source: Air University Library Six Day War (1967): Air Strategy New bibliography includes Internet resources, books, documents, periodicals. -- Electoral Systems--Australia Source: Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia New Research Brief, Electoral Systems -- Criminal Histories--United States--Statistics Source: BJS New, Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems, 2003 "Describes the status of State criminal history records systems at yearend 2003...Other data presented include the number of records maintained by each State, the percentage of automated records in the system, and the number of States participating in the FBI's Interstate Identification Index."
Search Briefs + Google to Provide ABC News Statistics -- + TVGuide Improves Search Capabilities, Now Powered by Fast Search and Transfer Technololgy Direct to TVGuide Search. -- + Google "Ashley Cole Gay" Results Suggestion Prompts Questions From His Solicitor -- + French Publishers Association May Sue Google (via IWR) -- + Wikipedia Posts 1 Millionth English Language Article -- + Yahoo Says It Is Backing Away From TV-Style Web Shows
Briefly + Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Receives Support from the California Digital Library Direct to SEP. -- Blackwell's Book Services Introduces Tables of Contents Catalog Enrichment Service Sunday, March 05, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Web Resources The March 2006 Issue of the Internet Resources Newsletter is Now Online A new set of resources from from Roddy MacLeod and crew at the Heriot-Watt University Library. -- Special Collections--William S. Burroughs Source: New York Times Public Library Buys a Trove of Burroughs Papers "The New York Public Library...has purchased the Burroughs archive for its Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature. The acquisition will make the Berg Collection, which also includes Kerouac's literary and personal archive, perhaps the premier institution for the study of the Beats.... The Burroughs archive contains 11,000 pages of manuscript and typescript material, including draft versions and notes for virtually all of Burroughs's works through 1972, said Isaac Gewirtz, curator of the Berg Collection. Most of the material in the archive from the 1960's and 70's has never been seen, except by Burroughs and his contemporaries."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Manufacturing--Guides Source: Gale? How Products are Made The content on this site is copyright Thomson/Gale. However, the domain is registered to someone in a Chicago suburb and Google ads are visible on some pages. Hmmm. From a Yahoo Picks description, "We love to tear things apart to see how they work. Trouble is, we often can't get them back together, and there's so much stuff we'll never get our dirty mitts on -- like an EKG machine, a nuclear submarine, or, well, a guillotine. However, today's Pick goes a long way toward satisfying our curiosity by walking us through the assembly of hundreds of objects. Explore all seven extensive, searchable volumes here, covering items as diverse as the humble hot dog and the majestic concrete beam bridge. If you've ever been curious about how things really work, how they the heck they get made, or what exactly artificial blood is, simply point your mouse in the direction of this site." More content (from other Gale publications) here. Saturday, March 04, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Personal Information Management Memex Source: Communications of the ACM, vol. 49, Issue 1 (Jan 2006) and Microsoft Research (MSR) New Full Text Article/Tech Report, MyLifeBits: a personal database for everything A new article about the continuing MyLifeBits research project at MSR. We've linked to several other articles and presentation over the past few years. This article was written by Jim Gemmell, Gordon Bell and Roger Lueder. Our link is to an extended version of the ACM article that was published as Microsoft Research Technical Report MSR-TR-2006-23. From the abstract, MyLifeBits is a system that began in 2001 to explore the use of SQL to store all personal information found in PCs. The system initially focused on capturing and storing scanned and encoded archival material e.g. articles, books, music, photos, and video as well as everything born digital e.g. office documents, email, digital photos. It evolved to have a goal of storing everything that could be captured. The later included web pages, phone calls, meetings, room conversations, keystrokes and mouse clicks for every active screen or document, and all the 1-2 thousand photos that SenseCam captures every day. In 2006 the software platform is used for research including real time data collection, advanced SenseCams, and particular applications e.g. health and wellness. This article expands on the January 2006, CACM publication of the same name. MyLifeBits features, functions, and use experience are given in the main body, followed by an appendix of future research and product needs that the research has identified." See Also: See, Read and Learn More via the MyLifeBits Home Page Note: This is one of the many projects trying to realize the vision of Vannevar Bush's 1945 Memex article. -- National Archives--United States Source: NARA Archivist of the United States Announces New Steps in Response to Withdrawal of Declassified Records from Open Shelves at the National Archives
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Internet Security Source: Websense Security Labs Security Trends Report: Second Half 2005 (PDF; 1.14 MB) From press release: "The new report summarizes findings for the second half of 2005 and presents projections for the upcoming year. In the second half of 2005, Websense Security Labs was successful in identifying and mitigating several new high profile exploits. We were the first to discover the Microsoft Windows Metafile (WMF) vulnerability being exploited in the wild, and we uncovered websites hosting code that attacks a vulnerability within the Sony BMG Music Entertainment copy protection uninstall program." (via DocuTicker.com) -- Newspapers--Weblogs Source: PressThink (Blue Plate Special) The State of Blogging at America's 100 Largest Newspapers "Blue Plate Special combed through the 100 largest sites. The results show who's blogging, who's not, and which newsrooms are doing what. Look up your newspaper, and compare. (And please: help us fact check this chart!)"
News--Multimedia Source: AP AP Launches Video Network, Powered by MSN A new one-stop for AP news video. AP content is also available elsewhere on the web including Yahoo News. Direct to to new AP Video site. Searchable. Note: The new services DOES NOT work with Firefox. AP explains why here. Seems silly that AP would want to shut out users of Firefox and Safari but that appears to be the case (at least as of today). Friday, March 03, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries Source: Informed Librarian Take a Long Hard Look at Your Library A guest column by Leslie Haas, Head of the General Reference Department at the University of Utah. "Like other libraries facing renovations, our librarians are asking hard questions: How do we effectively fold in the new services our patrons are expecting? How do we balance this against our role on campus as the information center? In addition to the building renovation driving organizational and service changes, we are still confronted with a world that continues to evolve, introducing new products and services at a dizzying pace. Patrons expect us to meet their ever changing information and research needs, even when they are not sure what those needs are." -- Childrens's Literature--Databases Source: NetGold The Children's Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD) David Dillard offers an overview of this fee-based database. "The Children's Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD) is an acquisition, research, and reference service that offers more than 1,000,000 MARC records and more than 240,000 reviews of children's books--all full-text searchable from 35 review sources."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text U.S. Government--Web Content--Archives--Databases Source: IA NARA/Internet Archive Collection of U.S. Government Web Material NOW Keyword Searchable Word from the Internet Archive (IA) that a special collection (about 100 million items) of web material that they collected/"harvested"/captured for the National Archives (NARA) IS NOW keyword searchable. The collection is titled, "2004 Presidential Term Web Harvest." Look for the new search box on the right side of the page. This collection first became available to the public in January 2005. From the web site: "The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) conducted a harvest (i.e., capture) of Federal Agency public web sites as they existed prior to January 20, 2005. This harvest was intended to document Federal agencies' presence on the World Wide Web at the time that the Presidential Administration term ended in early 2005." "The 2004 Presidential Term Web Harvest is a National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) project that produced a collection of federal web sites copied, or harvested, from the world wide web between 10/14/04 and 11/19/04. The Heritrix web harvester (http://crawler.archive.org/) and a list of 982 active and unrestricted second level URLs were used to capture all linked federal sites down to the fourth level. Those initial 982 '.gov' and '.mil' URLs were provided by U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) '.GOV' Internet Domain Registry and the Defense Information Systems Agency (DOD/DISA)." Today's posting from the Internet Archive: "This is our [IA] largest public single text searchable collection to date. The index was created using the NUTCH and NUTCHWAX extensions open source software." Kudos to the IA. I wonder if they have any plans to bring back keyword search capabilities to The Wayback Machine (or at least a portion of it). I hope so. A few years ago the IA offered Recall. It allowed users to keyword search a portion of TWM. More here about this gone-but-not-forgotten service here. The search technology was developed by Anna Patterson who now works at Google. Thursday, March 02, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor ---------------------------- Every once in awhile at ResourceShelf, we run across something that is directed specifically at our "core constituency" -- e.g., the library community. So of course we feel obligated to bring it to your attention. Library and Information Science--Database Source: EBSCO Publishing Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) When a big-time database vendor makes something freely available, it's always worth taking a look. LISTA, says EBSCO, "is the oldest continuously produced database covering the field of information science," with coverage dating back to the mid-60s. The database indexes more than 600 periodicals, as well as books, research reports and conference proceedings. Topics covered include "librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more." If you use any of EBSCO's databases, the search interface will be familiar to you. Extensive search help is available. I particlarly like the dropdown menu that allows you to choose document types -- article, bibliography, book, book chapter, book review, case study, conference paper, dissertation, editorial, entertainment review, interview, patent, proceeding, product review, report. Hold down the control key to select more than one document type, or just search using the top default setting on "All." Click the "Indexes" button on the top green navigation bar and you can use a dropdown menu to narrow your search by field -- author, author-supplied keywords, company entity, document type, DUNS number, entry date, geographic terms, ISBN, ISSN, language, NAICS code or description, people, publication name, reviews & products, subject terms, ticker symbol, year of publication. Again, hold down the control key to select more than one. There are 81 citations in here by an author whose name you might recognize.
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries--Australia Source: NLA Australia's largest online library opens for business From the news release, "Libraries Australia, developed by the National Library of Australia, is an e-ticket to a world of information consisting of books, journals, newspapers, theses, pictures, music, manuscripts, maps and much more. Many online resources such as digitised images and full text government publications can also be accessed immediately online...Jan Fullerton AO, National Library Director-General, says that Libraries Australia changes the dynamics of the way people use libraries. 'Libraries have continually been at the forefront of technology to improve the way people find the information they need. The beauty of Libraries Australia is that it uses a very simple search mechanism to find the item the person requires. Once found, the item can be borrowed, copied or purchased. All this can be done from home or work in regional centres or major cities. It puts the individual looking for the information in charge of their search, rather than a librarian. This saves time and is empowering for the information seeker." Federated search on a national level. Direct to Libraries Australia -- Interlibrary Loan--Australia Interlibrary Loan--New Zealand Source: National Library of New Zealand National Library Launches Trans Tasman Interloan Gateway "The launch of Trans Tasman Interlending on 1 March is the result of a long-term collaboration between the national libraries of New Zealand and Australia. Trans Tasman Interlending gives people on both sides of the Tasman access to the resources of nearly 900 libraries in New Zealand and Australia." -- Library Databases--Errors Source: Terry Ballard, Automation Librarian, Quinnipiac University (et. al.) Typographical Errors in Library Databases "This list started as a byproduct of a keyword inspection of the online catalog of Adelphi University in 1991. That study was inspired by a cataloger at Harvard named Jeffrey Beall, who found errors in the Library of Congress catalog, and reported on a list of test words in the journal American Libraries. Early in the process I found that words appearing more than once in the Adelphi catalog were almost always found in other OPACs of similar size or larger." -- Scholarly Publishing Source: ARL The State of the Large Publisher Bundle: Findings from an ARL Member Survey By Karla Hahn, Director, ARL Office of Scholarly Communication.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Women--Islamic Societies Source: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress New Report, Women in Islamic Societies A selected review of social scientific literature. PDF. -- Business--Canada--Database Source: Strategis Updated, Canadian Industry Statistics Database "Canadian Industry Statistics (CIS) has republished the 12,000+ documents in its database. Annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data for 2004 has been updated. The GDP is reviewed at basic prices by industry for the Canadian Economy from 1997 to 2004, and additional analysis is offered in GDP for Goods-producing industries and GDP for Services-producing industries." -- Parliament--Australia Source: Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia New Research Report, The 41st Parliament: middle-aged, well-educated and (mostly) male PDF.
Search Briefs + Do You YouTube? (via Newsweek) You'll find lots of interesting content. But what about copyright issues with some of it? Btw, the headline of the story comparing YouTube to Napster is technically incorrect. Napster was a centralized database but the content was accesed directly from the computer's of users. YouTube hosts the content on their own servers. Direct to YouTube. -- + Science.gov Upgrades Technology for Alerts
Specialty Database Shelf Popular Queries at SMEALSearch (A Scholarly Business Database) SMEALSearch is a database (free) from Dr. Lee Giles (a favorite database developer here at ResourceShelf) and his team at Penn. State that searches the open web for full text scholarly/academic business literature. Citation info is also provided. Giles is also a member of the team that developed CiteSeer. It offers the same type of search (and lots of added info) for computer science, info tech, and related literature. These are MUST see and MUST USE tools if you're researching these topics. SMEALSearch now offers something that we see from the large web engines, a listing of popular search queries. You'll find SMEALSearch Zeitgeist here.
Just In + European Commission steps up efforts to put Europe's memory on the Web via a "European Digital Library" "The Commission today published an overview (PDF) of the results of a major online consultation on the digital libraries initiative which had been launched on 30 September 2005. The 225 replies came from libraries, archives and museums (46%), publishers and right holders (19%) and universities/academics (14%). The replies generally welcome the initiative and see it as an opportunity for making Europe?s cultural heritage more accessible and usable on the Internet. They also show that opinions are divided on copyright issues, in particular between cultural institutions and right holders." Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Information Science Source: ASIST The February/March Issue of the ASIS&T Bulletin is Now Online Articles include: + ASIS&T Conference Review + The Open Source Movement Gains Ground + Re-Inventing the Empire of Secrecy: An Agenda for the First DNI + Should Libraries Acquire Books That Are Widely Held Elsewhere? A Brief Investigation with Implications for Consortial Book Selection -- Newspapers--Conferences Source: IFLA 2006 International Newspaper Conference -- "Newspapers of the World Online: U.S. and International Perspectives" 17-18 May 2006, University of Utah Campus, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA -- Research Tools Museums--United Kingdom Source: National Museum Directors' Conference UK Museums publish update on provenance research for the Holocaust and World War II Period This is a MS Word file. -- Libraries and Librarians Research Libraries--Statistics Preservation--Statistics Source: ARL ARL Publishes Preservation Statistics 2003-04 Highlights only. "Preservation expenditures for the 109 libraries that completed the survey were $97,812,776 in 2003?04, which reflects an inflation-adjusted increase of 18% since the survey?s revision in 1996-97. Total preservation staff dropped 6.4% from 2002-03 to 1,635 FTEs in 2003-04; the fact that seven libraries who reported data in 2002-03 did not report in 2003-04 contributed to this decrease. Level 1 conservation treatment increased slightly from 2002-03 levels, while Levels 2 and 3 dropped; total conservation treatment has decreased 10% since the survey was revised in 1996-97." -- Librarians--Professional Organizations Source: CILIP The March Issue of CILIP's Library + Information Update is Now Online Articles Available Online Include: + Interview with Frank Cottrell Boyce + Internet Q&A with Phil Bradley + Library design as marketing + Working with the media
Scholarly Publishing--Citation Reports Source: ISI/Thomson Scientific + Journals Ranked by Impact: Political Science + Science in Ireland, 2000-04 ||| 10-Year Country Rankings for Ireland + U.K. Universities: Most Prolific in AI, Robotics & Auto Control, 2000-04 + Electrical & Electronic Engineering: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 2000-04 + What's the "Hot" Paper in Biology? + What's the "Hot" Paper in Medicine?
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Avian Influenza--Map Source: World Health Organization (via ReliefWeb Map Centre) Affected countries with confirmed human cases of H5N1 avian influenza since 2003 (PDF; 53 KB) As of 28 February 2006. -- Iraq--Reconstruction Source: Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) New, Lessons Learned Report on Human Capital Management (PDF; 428 KB) "This report on the use of human resources within the U.S. reconstruction program in Iraq reveals a central if unsurprising point: there was insufficient systematic planning for human capital management in Iraq before and during the U.S.-directed stabilization and reconstruction operations. The practical limitations ensuing from this shortfall adversely affected reconstruction in post-war Iraq. Moreover, the somewhat fitful creation of the initial coalition reconstruction organizations, and the unanticipated post-war collapse of virtually all Iraqi governing structures, substantially hindered coalition efforts to develop and rapidly execute an effective reconstruction program." -- Health Insurance--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Health Status, Health Insurance, and Health Services Utilization: 2001 (PDF) "How often do Americans use health care services? If you're looking for an answer, this report may be 'just what the doctor ordered.' It provides data on the frequency of visits to doctors, dentists and hospitals and whether or not people are taking prescription medicine by characteristics such as self-reported health status, age and health insurance coverage status." -- Current Events Enron Trial--United States Source: DOJ New Site, Enron Trial Exhibits and Releases
Search Briefs Social Networking + Free Classified and Event Listings = Windows Live Expo Goes Live In the U.S. (Beta) This service (code named: Freemont) is now available for the U.S. You can set the area you want to search by selecting a metro area and then moving a slider to determine radius from that area (20 miles from Chicago, 150 miles from Atlanta, etc.) From the site, "Expo is a dynamic social listing service that allows members to find and sell items, discover information, and meet other parties in their area ? all for free!" You don't need to be a registered (MS Passport) to search or browse listings but you do need to register to post and use "social" services. Browse by category or calendar, listings are free and can include photos. Instant messaging and mapping (each listing contains a link to MSN Virtual Earth) components. "Social" element lets you only see listings from certain registered users. From the site, "With Expo, you can browse and post listings to those you trust, like your buddies, co-workers, and fellow students, or, to all Expo visitors." I haven't had a chance to enter a listing but Microsoft says it takes less than a minute. Top-level categories include: + Autos + Events + Housing + Jobs + Merchandise + People + Pets + Services A bit more info from the Windows Live Info blog. See Also: Interview with Live Expo Product Manager (December, 2005) -- + UK: Direct Gov gets job search (via Kable's Government News) -- US: Energy launches megasearch effort (via FCW) Learn about "Global Discovery" -- + Searching For Your Inner Google (via eWeek) -- + Update: Google Base will get e-commerce functions (via IDG News Service) -- + Microsoft Exec Says That MSN Search Will Be More Relevant in U.S. Marketplace in Six Months (via Reuters) Yes, MS is doing some cool stuff (see yesterday's post and above) but we've heard similar swipes at Google from Bill Gates and company for quite some time. Btw, I'm not sure if by relevant we're talking relevancy of results or relevant in the minds of searchers. |
