| |
ResourceShelf |
|
Resources and News for Information Professionals
ResourceShelf is Compiled & Edited By Gary Price, MLIS Librarian Director of Online Information Resources, Ask.com Editor and Compiler, The ResourceShelf Editor and Compiler, DocuTicker
Looking For More Info? News? Search Help? News Tips?
New Site Suggestions?
Archives 06/01/1990 - 06/30/1990 03/01/2001 - 03/31/2001 04/01/2001 - 04/30/2001 05/01/2001 - 05/31/2001 06/01/2001 - 06/30/2001 07/01/2001 - 07/31/2001 08/01/2001 - 08/31/2001 09/01/2001 - 09/30/2001 10/01/2001 - 10/31/2001 11/01/2001 - 11/30/2001 12/01/2001 - 12/31/2001 01/01/2002 - 01/31/2002 02/01/2002 - 02/28/2002 03/01/2002 - 03/31/2002 04/01/2002 - 04/30/2002 05/01/2002 - 05/31/2002 06/01/2002 - 06/30/2002 07/01/2002 - 07/31/2002 08/01/2002 - 08/31/2002 09/01/2002 - 09/30/2002 10/01/2002 - 10/31/2002 11/01/2002 - 11/30/2002 12/01/2002 - 12/31/2002 01/01/2003 - 01/31/2003 02/01/2003 - 02/28/2003 03/01/2003 - 03/31/2003 04/01/2003 - 04/30/2003 05/01/2003 - 05/31/2003 06/01/2003 - 06/30/2003 07/01/2003 - 07/31/2003 08/01/2003 - 08/31/2003 09/01/2003 - 09/30/2003 10/01/2003 - 10/31/2003 11/01/2003 - 11/30/2003 12/01/2003 - 12/31/2003 01/01/2004 - 01/31/2004 02/01/2004 - 02/29/2004 03/01/2004 - 03/31/2004 04/01/2004 - 04/30/2004 05/01/2004 - 05/31/2004 06/01/2004 - 06/30/2004 07/01/2004 - 07/31/2004 08/01/2004 - 08/31/2004 09/01/2004 - 09/30/2004 10/01/2004 - 10/31/2004 11/01/2004 - 11/30/2004 12/01/2004 - 12/31/2004 01/01/2005 - 01/31/2005 02/01/2005 - 02/28/2005 03/01/2005 - 03/31/2005 04/01/2005 - 04/30/2005 05/01/2005 - 05/31/2005 06/01/2005 - 06/30/2005 07/01/2005 - 07/31/2005 08/01/2005 - 08/31/2005 09/01/2005 - 09/30/2005 10/01/2005 - 10/31/2005 11/01/2005 - 11/30/2005 12/01/2005 - 12/31/2005 01/01/2006 - 01/31/2006 02/01/2006 - 02/28/2006 03/01/2006 - 03/31/2006 04/01/2006 - 04/30/2006 05/01/2006 - 05/31/2006 06/01/2006 - 06/30/2006 Now Available Additional Web Reference Compilations direct search (Invisible Web Resources) Audio/Video Current Awareness Tools WWW Accessible Congressional Research Service Reports
|
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Technology Information Federated Search Metasearch Source: Heriot-Watt University More Cross-Database Searching: Say Hello to TechExtra!!! More impressive information retrieval tools keep flowing out of the UK. Last month on ResourceShelf we mentioned a new service from the UK's Perx Project. What we posted about was a "pilot service [at] http://www.engineering.ac.uk [that provides] subject resource discovery across a variety of digital repositories of interest to the engineering learning and research communities." Today, yet another new powerful search resource from the UK. Be prepared to spend some time with this one. It's called, TechXtra and focuses on information about technology. A mighty impressive undertaking but it's what we've come to expect from ResourceShelf friend and inspiration, Roddy MacLeod. In some ways its description sounds similar to what we've been reading from MS Academic Live and Google Scholar. From the announcement, "TechXtra facilitates immediate access to the freely available full-text content of hundreds of thousands of eprints, technical reports, theses, articles, news items, job announcements and more. In cases where the full-text is not freely available, TechXtra provides links to vendors for pay-per-view options." What does TechExtra offer: + Cross database searching (aka federated or metasearch) of 25 databases (over 4,000,000 records at the moment). From the news release "Sources include: Australian Research Repositories Online to the World, arXive (eprint archive in computer science, maths and related subjects), CiteSeer (research articles in computer science), Directory of Open Access Journals, ePrints UK (selected open archives in the UK), Copac (union catalogue from the Consortium of University Research Libraries), National Engineering Education Delivery System (digital library of learning resources), NASA Technical Reports (12 different NASA technical report series)... plus 18 other databases. More will be added in the near future." + Job Announcements + Industry News + Discovery Guides Free in-depth reports on topical engineering, mathematical, and technology issues from CSA. + Recent Advances in Manufacturing A database of bibliographic information for manufacturing and related areas, covering items in over 500 niche and mainstream journals and magazines, plus details of books, videos, and conference proceedings TechXtra harvests data from external sources using standard protocols such as Z39.50 and OAI-PMH and comes from the same team that has built and maintains the wonderful EEVL gateway. In a word, wow! Keep up the good work. We will take a closer look at both TechExtra and the engineering pilot project in coming weeks. -- Digital Archives Source: LC Webcast: Portico: A New Electronic Archiving Service "Eileen Fenton of the nonprofit electronic archiving service Portico discussed the social and technical challenges concerning the archiving of electronic journals and other scholarly resources." This webcast was recorded on May 10, 2006. See Also: Learn More About Portico -- CISTI Source: Library and Archives Canada CISTI signs Memorandum of Understanding with Library and Archives Canada to ensure business continuity for Csi "The Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) and Library and Archives Canada (LAC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish a facility that will ensure business continuity for CISTI's Canada's scientific infostructure (Csi) in the event of a partial or complete interruption of on-line services." -- Digital Information Source: National Library of Australia New Paper: Copyright in the Digital Age A paper presented by Paul Hetherington on Wednesday, 17 May 2006, National Library of Australia at the "Copyright in the Digital Age: Challenges and Opportunities for Offering Creative Work in the Digital Environment" seminar.
Web Search--Yahoo Yahoo Launches Revamped Video Search Site Set to go at midnight on Thursday (however the new site is now live) Yahoo has launched a revamped video search site. Until now, Yahoo Video offered (and still does) video content from partners (iFilm for example) as well as video its crawler finds on the open web. Overall, lots of new stuff for Yahoo but not much that we haven't seen elsewhere from other players. What's New/Different + Yahoo will now host and stream your video for free (ala Google Video and YouTube) via Yahoo Studio. Yahoo will host videos (wmv, flv, asf, qt, mov, mpg, or avi) up to 100MB in size. You can add a description/transcript, keywords (you choose) and place the video in up to six categories. + If the video is not hosted by Yahoo, Yahoo Video links you to the site. In other words, the content remains on a non-Yahoo server. If it's video from another Yahoo site (like music or sports) you're taken to that site to view. + Results pages include a static image from the video. + Featured videos are linked on the Yahoo Video Home Page. A daily archive is also available. + Sort "top picks" found on the home page by popularity, categories, or tags (right now the most popular tag is "fun." Not sure how useful that tag will be. :-) + Results pages offer a bit more metadata (duration, source, etc.). The rest of the metadata (directly next to the clip) was of little value when I ran several searches. That's not an issue for Yahoo but for the content producer. + User reviews and tags + Bookmark and share videos with friends (similar to what you can do with Yahoo 360). + Advanced search interface has not changed either in look or services. + Without the Safe Search active, lots of adult material. + Search results pages also contain "channels" which are series of videos from the same source or users that you can subscribe to. + Surprises? No way (at least I couldn't find it) to browse videos by content partners. However, a search for CBS turns up several CBS "channels." I also noticed a couple of IFilm channels. Also, I did not spot any mention of MediaRSS on either the site or the Yahoo Video help pages. + The Yahoo Video team has a blog. You'll find it here on Yahoo 360. + Some results pages also contain Yahoo Shortcuts. For example, here you'll see a shortcut for David Letterman via Yahoo TV. Update: While the web hosting, tagging, and sharing services will be of value to many users, when it comes to pure video search, we're still sticking with SearchforVideo.com. Update 2: Some good news. Yahoo's arrangement with Bloomberg Business News (via TVEyes.com) is still available. You can still keyword search words spoken on BBN and then watch the video clip on Yahoo. To limit your search to Bloomberg content, use the search <site:tveyes.com foo>.
Congressional Research Service Source: CRS via OpenCRS, FAS, NCSE, FPC, US Embassy in Rome A Selection of New/Updated CRS Reports + Broadband over Powerlines: Regulatory and Policy Issues + Digital Television: An Overview + Iraq: U.S. Military Operations + Civilian Patrols Along the Border: Legal and Policy Issues + Terminal Operators and Their Role in U.S. Port and Maritime Security + Border Security and Military Support: Legal Authorizations and Restrictions + Retirement Savings and Household Wealth: A Summary of Recent Data + Wilderness Laws:Permitted and Prohibited Uses + Caspian Oil and Gas: Production and Prospects + Avian Influenza: Multiple Strains Cause Different Effects Worldwide + Space Exploration: Issues Concerning the "Vision for Space Exploration" + Energy: Useful Facts and Numbers + Afghanistan: Elections, Constitution, and Government
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Earthquakes--Indonesia--Maps Source: Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs--ReliefWeb New: Indonesia: Earthquake - Situation map No. 4 See Also: Indonesia: Earthquake OCHA Situation Report No. 4 -- Country Profiles Source: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress New or Updated Reports Updated: Afghanistan 22 pages: PDF. & New: Yemen 23 pages; PDF. -- Internet Access--United Kingdom Source: NSO Internet Access: 63% of adults access the Internet "The most common place to access the Internet was at home (86 per cent), 46 per cent accessed at work, 28 per cent at another person's home, 16 per cent at a place of education, and 10 per cent at a public library." Includes chart. -- Bankruptcies--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Courts Bankruptcy Filings Rose in March 2006 12-Month Period Quarterly Filings Lowest Since Mid-80s "The number of bankruptcy cases filed in federal courts rose 12.8 percent in the 12-month period ending March 31, 2006, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Bankruptcy cases totaled 1,794,795 for that period, compared to 1,590,975 bankruptcy cases filed in the 12-month period ending March 2005." Four spreadsheets with stats are available. -- Legal System--United States--Statistics Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University New, Federal Prosecution Counts "Monthly information for January of 2006 about the federal prosecution counts for white collar crime and three other major crime categories -- immigration, drugs, and weapons -- are now available to all Americans by going to a special new feature on TRAC's public site at http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/.
Briefly Cambridge University Press Offers Free Trials of New Databases 1) Coming Soon: Online Version of the Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition For a free trial, email: hsus@cambridge.org. 2) Literature and Classics Companions and Philosophy, Religion and Culture Companions Collections For a free trial, email: mailto:ccol@cambridge.org. 3) Coming Soon New Database: The Orlando History of Women's Writing in the British Isles, from the Beginnings to the Present. "Material relating to women's writing in the British Isles, including biographical and critical information on over 800 British women writers plus over 20,000 bibliographical listings. Data may be searched by author, place, and date, but also by genre, topic, or theme." For a free trial, email: tbraunstein@cambridge.org If you register for a free trial, you'll receive a complimentary copy of the Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English. Btw, make sure to tell Cambridge that ResourceShelf sent you. :-) -- + Rand McNally Maps Coming to Motorola Cell Phones -- + Who Makes What: Mobile Infrastructure "Welcome to Unstrung's Who Makes What report on wireless infrastructure. As with our Who Makes What: Mobile Devices report, released in March 2006, we present here a comprehensive list of vendors of wireless infrastructure equipment, from 802.11 access points to RFID systems to broadband wireless gear."
Search Briefs MSN Windows Live Mobile Site Adds Web Search; Live Mail Beta Now Accessible; Spaces for Mobile (Beta) Enhances Offerings When MSN relaunched their mobile site last August the main search offering was local search. That has changed. The mobile site (we accessed on a Treo 650) and can be seen here on a non-mobile browser now serves up access to MSN Live Search web results to MSN Mobile users. So, what search options will you currently find? + Web Search (Note that each result can be optimized for mobile browsers via a proxy if the user selects the "mobile" link) + Local Search with driving directions + MSN Spaces Search + Improvements to MSN Spaces" Mobile Beta Windows Live Mobile users can also customize the layout of their page, create personalized stock lists, enter home/work addresess to save time and clicks, add a growing number of alerts (we still find the traffic alert very useful) and more. -- Mobile Searching: Google, Yahoo and Many Others Great to see ResourceShelf fave 4info.net featured in article. Btw, Promptu offers speech recognition search for some mobile devices. In other words, speak your search. Other mobile players include: + Yahoo Mobile + Smarter.com + Synfonic.com + UpSnap.com (live audio too including podcasts!) + MSN Mobile (several services and expanding) As the summer rolls on, look for another ResourceShelf initiative, Gary's mobile bookmark collections. Postscript: Don't forget that cameraphone searching is slowly but surely developing traction.
Multimedia Shelf New lectures, presentations, conferences available via webcast or download. Information Technology Webcast: Information Technology, Enterprise Transformation, and the Future of US Higher Education This webcast consists of a lecture by Professor John King, School of Information, University of Michigan, that was given at Oxford University on May 18, 2006. -- Words Source: All Things Considered, National Public Radio Audio: Crikey! Here Come the Chavs "Robert Siegel talks with Verity Jennings, a recent graduate of Leeds Metropolitan University in Britain. Jennings's thesis analyzed the popularity of the term "chavs" in hundreds of newspaper stories. While the origins of the word are murky, Jennings says "chavs" has come to refer to British young people characterized by gold jewelry and sportswear, often in a negative light. But she says references to "chavs" may also create a new sense of belonging." -- Successes and Challenges in Terrorism Prosecutions: An In-Depth Look at Department of Justice Terrorism Cases after 9/11 Event took place at the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday, May 24, 2006. Direct to video. Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text International Relations--Transcripts United States--History Source: National Security Archive New, Massive Collection of Formerly Secret and Top Secret Transcripts of Henry Kissinger's Meetings with World Leaders Published On-Line "28,000 Pages of Documents Show Kissinger as Negotiator and Policymaker in Real-time, Verbatim Talks with World Leaders." -- Performing Arts--Encyclopedias Source: LOC Just Released, Library of Congress Launches Performing Arts Encyclopedia Online Look for a more detailed look in an upcoming RS post. From the announcement, "A new online Performing Arts Encyclopedia has been developed to serve as a centralized guide for users interested in exploring the performing arts. The encyclopedia focuses on music, motion picture, broadcasting, recorded sound, manuscript, rare book, and other nonbook collections. The resources, which are housed in various divisions of the Library, have been brought together to make them available for easier access and more widespread usage." -- HIV/AIDS--Statistics Source: UNAIDS Just Released, UNAIDS 2006: Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic "According to new data in the UNAIDS 2006 Report on the global AIDS epidemic the AIDS epidemic appears to be slowing down globally, but new infections are continuing to increase in certain regions and countries. The report also shows that important progress has been made in country AIDS responses, including increases in funding and access to treatment, and decreases in HIV prevalence among young people in some countries over the past five years. However AIDS remains an exceptional threat." Summary (PDF) Direct to Full Text
Professional Reading Shelf Proceedings--Databases Meetings--Databases Source: InterDok Now Free! Directory of Published Proceedings (DoPP) Database Subjects Include: + Science / Engineering / Technology + Medical / Life Sciences + Pollution Control / Ecology + Social Sciences / Humanities With author & paper title information. As of today, DoPP contains over 50,000 records. See Also: InterDok's MInd: The Meetings Index Free. "...offers free access to locate future conferences, congresses, meetings and symposia." ResourceShelf first reviewed MInd: The Meetings Index in 2004. -- IM--Search Kozoru Will Release IM Answers Software The Kansas City-area company Kozoru, a company we've been tracking for a couple of years, will release a new service next week (we haven't had a peek yet) that allows the user to ask a question and get a specific answer or set of links back via IM. It sounds very similar to what, for example, AOL has been offering for years and others also provide*. It also sounds a bit like what Ask.com is doing "on the web" with Smart Answers or MSN is doing with Direct Answers. From the article, "The premise behind Kozoru's BYOM (build your own mobile search) technology is that consumers looking for something while in instant messenger want to act on the information: find out the latest weather forecast, settle a bar bet over when Teddy Roosevelt was first elected or read a news story someone on the train just mentioned." We agree, the potential synergy between IM, mobile, and answers is quite strong. Several questions: + Will this service be free? + Will individuals (with no coding experience) be able to create BYOMs? + How long will it take a typical user to create a BYOM? + Who will select sources? For us, that's the key to all of this, source selection. Incorrect choices will likely yield poor results (and incorrect facts) and frustrated users. Will a blog offer the quick answers that an online reference source can provide? Of course, this selection process might be a new role for the info pro and a new marketplace for reference publishers. On a separate note, the author of the News.com article we linked to above mentions both Google's and Yahoo's answer services but makes no mention of the many virtual reference (VR) services libraries have offered long before GA and YA. In fact, the Johnson County Public Library located in Kozoru's backyard offers numerous VR services including 24/7 chat reference. Why chat with a computer via IM when you could interact with a live librarian? Depends on your info need. I think mobile IM is another area VR services needs to consider. I wonder if the Kozoru folks have talked to JCPL about the librarians trying the service in beta mode. If ResourceShelf can help get the two sides together, just holler. UPDATE 1: For more on chatbots AOL offers see this page We've used the Moviefone and Shopping Buddy for many months. Not bad at all. *UPDATE 2: We've learned that MSN Messenger already offers the ability to search and receive direct answers and links via Encarta using IM. Simply send an IM to encarta@conversagent.com and off you go. Not bad. *UPDATE 3: The wonderful Searchforvideo.com offers IM search access to its amazing database. Works with AOL, Yahoo, and MSN. Details here. Update 4: Let's also not forget that SMS (text message) services also offer interactive question answering and services like 4info.net, Smarter.com, Google SMS, and Yahoo SMS. -- Sci-Tech Libraries Source: ISTL New Issue: The spring 2006 issue of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship is now online Articles include: + Innovative Library Liaison Assessment Activities: Supporting the Scientist's Need to Evaluate Publishing Strategies + Assessing Reference: Using the Wisconsin-Ohio Reference Evaluation Program in an Academic Science Library + The Role of Industry Standards: An Overview of the Top Engineering Schools' Libraries + Webliography: Mapping the Brain: Resources for Researchers in Neurosciences + Review: IEEE/IEE Electronic Library + Review: SpringerLink -- Access to Information Librarians Source: AP Conn. librarians bitterly decry gag order in Patriot Act case "Four otherwise mild-mannered librarians from Connecticut spoke out bitterly for the first time Tuesday after being subjected to a months-long gag order when the FBI demanded records about library patrons under the Patriot Act. U.S. District Judge Janet Hall ruled last year that the gag order should be lifted, saying it unfairly prevented the librarians from participating in a debate over how the Patriot Act should be rewritten. But it wasn't until April that prosecutors dropped an appeal of that order. The librarians, at a press conference organized by the American Civil Liberties Union -- which represented them -- did little to hide their displeasure at being told by the government to keep quiet." See Also: Learn More and Hear from the Librarians Involved in this National Public Radio Report Direct to audio.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Terrorism--Maps Source: MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base New TKB Terrorism Trends Map Now Available In PDF And Print At No Cost "The TKB team is proud to announce the release of our official TKB Terrorism Trends 2005 map poster. Complete with in-depth information on terrorism throughout the world, this large, colorful map is a must-have for analysts, law enforcement, researchers, or others interested in terrorism. The poster lists the most active groups, most frequent targets and tactics, and the most lethal attacks for 2005. It also offers comparison graphs for several terrorism hotspots. Users can download a PDF copy from the TKB homepage. For a 24' x 34' hard-copy version, simply email your name and mailing address to TKBsupport@tkb.org and we will ship you a copy at no cost. Supplies are limited." -- Real Estate--United States--Foreclosures--Lists & Rankings Source: RealtyTrac Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Memphis And Denver Top List Of Nations Ten Highest Metropolitan Foreclosure Rates Includes two lists. + Top 10 Metro Foreclosure Rates + Metropolitan foreclosure statistics for the nation's 100 largest MSAs ordered by foreclosure rate -- Commencement--Speeches Source: Humanity.org (The Humanity Initiative) Commencement Speeches "Though these myriad departures and arrivals of everyday existence are seldom met with ceremony, words traditionally reserved for momentous occasions may ring true and inspirational at any hour. That's why we created this unique archive of commencement addresses, selecting an eclectic menu of twenty nine extraordinary speeches from the thousands that we have reviewed since beginning work on this initiative in 1989." -- Animal Noises--Multilingual Source: University of Adelaide School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Derek Abbott's Animal Noise Page "In different languages what do we say to mimic animal sounds? Below is the world's biggest multilingual list. A guiding principle behind this list is to visualise a comic book, in your language, and imagine what would be written in the text balloon coming from the mouth of an animal. For languages that use a different alphabet, I have tried to transliterate the word into the English alphabet for ease of comparison. A forward slash is used to separate alternative words." Professor Abbott is Director of the Centre for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Adelaide School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. -- Oceans--Audio Source: NOAA The Sound of the Sea "...contains a selection of audio files that were recorded underwater, related video and animation products, and several spectograms and other images of ocean sound."
DocuTicker Best of DocuTicker DocuTicker is ResourceShelf's sister site and is updated daily with a wide variety of new full text reports on many topics from government agencies, think tanks, ngo's and many other organizations. Here's a small, very small, sample of what we've posted during the past week. + What Price Privacy? The unlawful trade in confidential personal information + Information Security Office of Oversight: 2005 Report to the President + Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People's Republic of China
Search Briefs + Ask.com Offers Special Logo For Memorial Day The Ask.com home page was adorned yesterday with a special icon (a ribbon) and link for Memorial Day that read, "Memorial Day: A Day of Rememberance." In case you missed it, here's a screen cap of the Ask page. The link went directly to this Smart Answer loaded with direct links with information about the holiday. At 5pm EDST on Monday, we didn't spot any holiday special logos on Google, MSN, or Yahoo. Btw, Ask.com offers Smart Answers for many holidays. Here are a just a FEW examples: + Labor Day + Boxing Day + Good Friday + Purim
Briefly Congratulations to Metasearch Company MuseGlobal Those of you who have been reading ResourceShelf likely remember that our site was once sponsored by metasearch technology powerhouse, MuseGlobal. Although they're no longer sponsors of ResourceShelf, the entire MuseGlobal team remains a good friend. That's why we were thilled to learn that CSA's MultiSearch product (the one that won the Codie Award) is powered with technology from Muse. Congrats, guys, well deserved! See Also: Test Drive CSA's MultiSearch MultiSearch offers metasearch access to over 1200 databases and other online resources. Monday, May 29, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries--Business Services Source: BusinessWeek The Library: Next Best Thing to an MBA "(A)n increasing number of would-be entrepreneurs are turning to their local public libraries for help in every aspect of launching their businesses. According to a 2006 study conducted by the American Library Assn. (ALA), a Chicago-based trade group, 61% of small-business owners living in the U.S. said libraries were important in helping them get started." See Also: More Positive Press About Business Research Ser vices at the Johnson County (KS) Public Library (via KC Business Journal) See Also: The J.J. Hill Business Library in St. Paul, MN, offers many excellent services to entrepreneurs and small business owners. Most of them are accessible remotely. For example, HillSearch.org offers a robust set of databases at a very low cost plus (most importantly) access to the J.J. Hill librarians. -- Broadband--United States--Study Source: Pew Internet & American Life Home Broadband Adoption 2006 "Adoption of high-speed internet at home grew twice as fast in the year prior to March 2006 than in the same time frame from 2004 to 2005. Middle-income Americans accounted for much of the increase, along with African-Americans and new internet users coming online with broadband at home. At the end of March 2006, 42% of Americans had high-speed at home, up from 30% in March 2005, or a 40% increase. And 48 million Americans -- mostly those with high-speed at home -- have posted content to the internet." Direct to Full Text (PDF) -- eBooks--Public Opinion Source: International Digital Publishing Forum (via KnowThis.com) eBook User Survey 2006 (PDF; 235 KB) "eBook retailers seem to have built shopping experiences that satisfy their customers and that the general experience of reading an eBook is a good one. There seems to be some room for improvement for respondents in areas of pricing and selection of eBooks. In regards to DRM issues (ability to move content between devices and lending), there seems to be less satisfaction, but interestingly many respondents seemed to find it far more important to easily move content between devices than to lend content to friends and family. Last, while questions of multimedia, read aloud and assistive technology questions ranked low in terms of satisfaction, a very large majority marked these areas an unimportant to them. There does not seem to be a lot of consumer demand for multimedia eBooks and audio functions in eBooks. Also, not particularly surprising is the fact that assistive technology is not important to a consumer audience that does not require this technology to read." -- Conference Presentations Source: SOLINET SOLINET Annual Membership Meeting: Will Libraries Matter in 2020? Presentations available (PDFs) include the following: + Advocacy: Working with Public Officials + Library Marketing with Meaning: Keeping Up with the Future + User-Driven Libraries: Understanding the Perceptions of Current and Future Library Patrons + How Libraries Are Applying Blogging, Podcasting, and RSS Technologies -- Libraries--Copyright Source: UCLA Law Review (Tushnet; via LibraryLaw Blog) MyLibrary: Copyright and the Role of Institutions in a Peer-to-Peer World (PDF; 6.5 MB) "Today's technology turns every computer -- every hard drive -- into a type of library. But the institutions traditionally known as libraries have been given special consideration under copyright law, even as commercial endeavors and filesharing programs have begun to emulate some of their functions. This article explores how recent technological and legal trends are affecting public and school-affiliated libraries, which have special concerns that are not necessarily captured by an end-consumer-oriented analysis. Despite the promise that technology will empower individuals, we must recognize the crucial structural role of intermediaries that select and distribute copyrighted works. By exploring how traditional libraries are being affected by developments such as filesharing services, the iTunes Music Store, and Google's massive digitization project, this article examines the implications of legal and technological changes that are mainly not directed at libraries, but are nonetheless vital to their continued existence."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Airports--North America--Lists & Rankings Source: Airports Council International-North America Recently Released, Busiest Airports in North America Summary ||| By Total Passengers ||| By Total Cargo ||| By Total Movements "More than 1.52 billion passengers* traveled through North American airports in 2005, an increase of 4.3 percent, Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) announced today. Both cargo and total operations, however, declined slightly by 0.5 percent and 0.2 percent respectively." See Also: By Total Movements (Global) -- Technology--Products--Ranking Source: PC World The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time "Picking our list wasn't exactly rocket science; it was more like group therapy. PC World staffers and contributors nominated their candidates and then gave each one the sniff test. We sought the worst of the worst--operating systems that operated badly, hardware that never should have left the factory, applications that spied on us and fed our data to shifty marketers, and products that left a legacy of poor performance and bad behavior." Complete list
Briefly Amazon.com & The Internet Movie Database, Plus Power Searching the IMDB Btw, don't forget to read about the IMDB's advanced searching options. Impressive and yet another illustration of what good metadata can do. Sunday, May 28, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Environmental Protection Agency--Libraries Source: Electronic Green Journal Editorial: Protecting Public Access to Environmental Information and Saving the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Libraries "The loss of the information arm of the EPA Libraries will impact not only issues like climate change but also the presence and impacts of chemical in our environment, and other threats to health of our oceans, lands, lakes, and rivers. For now the best thing readers can do is to follow American Library Association's suggestions and contact members of the House of Representatives to address this issue. Go to the website of the House of Representatives at http://www.house.gov/ to locate your representative and voice your concerns over the possible loss of this vital resource. As you read this, libraries are closing or reducing access to their collections, institutional memory is walking out of doors voluntarily and a decades-long reputation of excellence is facing extinction." By Frederick W. Stoss, Associate Librarian: Biological and Environmental Sciences and Mathematics, University at Buffalo, State University of New York. -- Academic Libraries Source: OCLC College Students' Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources "College Students' Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources examines the information-seeking habits and preferences of international college students. This report is a companion piece to the December 2005 OCLC report.... Overall, respondents have positive, if outdated, views of the 'Library.' Younger respondents -- teenagers and young adults -- do not express positive associations as frequently. These findings, and more, are valuable insights for anyone seeking to know more about the library usage and perceptions of college students and young people." Full Report (PDF; 2.19 MB)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Clip Art Source: Dorling Kindersley A Collection of Free Clip Art from Reference Publisher Dorling Kindersley Free clip art imagery in over 50 categories. -- Earthqakes--Lists & Rankings Source: USGS Earthquakes: Top 10 Lists & Maps (U.S. and Global) and Earthquake Databases Over 20 lists and rankings See Also: Significant Earthquake Database (via NOAA) "The Significant Earthquake Database contains information on destructive earthquakes from 2150 B.C. to the present..." See Also: Earthquake Intensity Database Search: 1638-1985 (via NOAA) "The Earthquake Intensity Database is a collection of damage and felt reports for over 23,000 U.S. earthquakes. The digital database contains information regarding epicentral coordinates, magnitudes, focal depths, names and coordinates of reporting cities (or localities), reported intensities, and the distance from city (or locality) to epicenter. Earthquakes listed in the file date from 1638 to 1985." -- Science--Q&A's Source: New York Times Science Q&A An archive of asked and answered science questions organized into 11 categories: Animals + Birds & Fish + Human Body & Mind + Insects & Invertebrates + Manufactured Things + Microscopic Life + Plants + Space & Spaceships + The Earth + The Sea + The Weather + Everything Else -- Iraq--Reconstruction Source: Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) (via DocuTicker.com) Iraq Reconstruction Timeline (PDF; 124 KB) "Significant events and expenditures for IRRF (Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund) and key sectors." Saturday, May 27, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Internet Filters Source: Brennan Center for Justice, NYU School of Law Just Released, Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report (PDF; 4.36 MB) "The more sophisticated and statistically oriented tests of filtering software in the period from 2001-06 differ widely in their purposes and results. Although statistics and percentages in this field of research can be misleading, one conclusion is clear from all of the studies: filters continue to block large amounts of valuable information. Even the expert witnesses for the government in the CIPA case, who attempted to minimize the rates of error, reported substantial overblocking. Internet filters are powerful, often irrational, censorship tools." -- International Federation of Library Associations Source: IFLA A Selection of Papers to be Presented at World Library and Information Congress: 72nd IFLA General Conference #3 + Japanese Government Libraries Network: serving the customers in the new era + Information literacy as an emancipatory process directed to social inclusion in a knowledge society + Challenges in automated classification using library classification schemes -- Internet--Statistics Source: Telegeography's World Broadband Yearbook TeleGeography Update: Global Broadband Subscribers Over 221m Via an email, "The number of worldwide high-speed Internet subscriber lines surpassed 221 million at the end of 2005, according to the latest analysis released in TeleGeography's World Broadband Yearbook. Most broadband subscribers -- about 65 percent -- access the Internet via DSL technology. The global subscriber total increased 37 percent in 2005, from around 162 million a year earlier, and a little over 106 million in 2003. TeleGeography forecasts the total will grow to 286 million by the end of 2006, before climbing to 448 million by 2010. Broadband Subscribers, December 2005 Asia-Pacific 89,573,436 Europe 63,455,527 U.S. & Canada 53,270,000 L. America/Carib. 9,668,888 Middle East 3,863,210 Africa 1,987,200 Global total 221,818,261" See Also: Chart: International Bandwidth Per Capita, 2005
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Consumer Credit--United States--Statistics Source: Experian National Score Index Maps, charts, and tons of stats. Very interesting stuff. Fast facts: + Average Credit Score (2006)--677 + Average Debt (2006) $11,669.00 -- U.S. Senate--History Source: Congressional Research Service Updated Report: Salaries of Members of Congress: A List of Payable Rates and Effective Dates, 1789-2006 Friday, May 26, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf The Partnership for a Nation of Learners Museums Source: PNL PNL Announces 2nd Videoconference "CPB [Corporation for Public Broadcasting] and IMLS [Institute of Museum and Library Services] are pleased to announce a 2nd Partnership for a Nation of Learners Community Collaboration Videoconference, to be held on Monday, June 19, 2006, from 1:00-3:00 PM. This will once again be an opportunity for local museums, libraries, and public broadcasters to get to know another, to concentrate on why and how their organizations should be working together, and to learn how to gain support for local collaborative projects." See Also: Text Transcripts of Past Events -- Institute of Museum and Library Services IMLS Debuts New Web Site IMLS.gov gets a new look. -- Digital Preservation Source: Library of Congress New Informational Web Site: Library of Congress Web Capture "The Library of Congress has just launched a Web site devoted to information about its program to capture and preserve historically important Web sites so that they can be accessed by future generations of users. The Library of Congress and libraries and archives around the world are interested in collecting and preserving content on the Web because an ever-increasing amount of the world's cultural and intellectual output is created in digital formats and does not exist in any physical form. Creating an archives of Web sites supports the goals of the Library's Digital Strategic Plan, announced in March 2003, which focuses on the collection and management of digital content. The Web Capture Program is directly related to the Library's larger digital preservation program, called the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (www.digitalpreservation.gov). The subject areas in which the Library has been collecting Web sites include recent Supreme Court nominations; Hurricane Katrina; and the papal transition following the death of John Paul II. Current collecting projects include the crisis in Darfur, Sudan; the Iraq War; and the upcoming Election 2006. The Library collects Web sites only after it has received formal permission from Web site content owners to do so." See Also: List of Projects See Also: Learn About LC's Minerva Archiving Project See Also: NARA/Internet Archive Collection of U.S. Government Web Material NOW Keyword Searchable "Roughly 75 million web pages and represents about 50,000 '.gov' and '.mil' unrestricted federal web sites active between 10/14/04 and 11/19/04." -- Preservation Source: Ottawa Citizen It's a race against time "Sgt. Tremblay manages a small team of civilian researchers, image technicians, and a string of rotating personnel reassigned to light duty for medical reasons that is trying to scan these photos onto compact discs that are supposed to last 300 years. The scanned pictures will then be sent to Library and Archives Canada for proper storage. But lack of funding and personnel has severely hampered those efforts and the library loses between one and two per cent of its collection -- 10,000 to 20,000 images -- every year because they are not being stored properly. 'It's a race against time,' said Sgt. Tremblay, who estimates it will cost between $1.5 million and $2.5 million over five years to scan and catalogue all of the library's images. That doesn't include the nearly 45,000 reels of old film stored in the building's basement that are in the same peril." -- Public Libraries--Financial Issues Source: Boston.com Cash-strapped town may close its library "Medway residents will decide next month whether to close their public library to help the cash-strapped town cut costs and balance its budget. The library's budget of around $280,000 would be part of a package of around $868,000 in proposed cutbacks that voters will weigh at a June 12 Town Meeting."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text R&D--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: NSF Master Government List of Federally Funded Research and Development Centers -- Veterans--United States--Digitization Projects Source: LOC Coming Monday: Library Of Congress Veterans History Project Will Add Collections from Veterans Who Served in Military Intelligence "'Military Intel: The Inside Story,' a selection of 22 digitized collections of materials submitted by war veterans who served in military intelligence will be highlighted on the Veterans History Project Web site beginning May 25. Military Intel will be added to the 'Experiencing War' stories from the Veterans History Project at www.loc.gov/warstories. This is the 12th set of individual stories -- comprising interviews, letters, photographs and written memoirs -- to be featured on the site. Past themes have included D-Day, prisoners of war, and military medicine." -- Families--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New, Families and Living Arrangements: 2005 "The median age of first marriage was 27.1 years for men and 25.8 years for women last year, up from 23.2 and 20.8 years, respectively, 25 years earlier, according to new information on America's families and households released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. According to Families and Living Arrangements: 2005, the proportion of households consisting of one person living alone increased from 17 percent in 1970 to 26 percent in 2005. In 2005, 10 percent of the nation's households contained five or more people, down from 21 percent in 1970. During the same time period, average household size declined from 3.14 to 2.57 people. -- U.S. Military--Special Operations--Bibliography Source: Air University Library Special Operations 2006 New bibliography includes general information, information about the different Special Operations commands, Special Operations Forces core tasks, history, programs, systems, training, and equipment. -- Adolescents--Cigarettes Source: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (CDC) Use of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Among Students Aged 13--15 Years --- Worldwide, 1999--2005 "This report presents estimates of self-reported cigarette and other tobacco-product use during 1999-2005 in 132 different countries and the Gaza Strip/West Bank. The data are aggregated within each of the six WHO regions. GYTS data indicate that nearly two of every 10 students reported currently using a tobacco product, with no statistically significant difference between the proportion of those reporting cigarette smoking (8.9%) and other tobacco use (11.2%). Use of tobacco by adolescents is a major public health problem in all six WHO regions. Worldwide, more countries need to develop, implement, and evaluate their tobacco-control programs to address the use of all types of tobacco products, especially among girls." Thursday, May 25, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor OK...as far as seasons go, I much prefer baseball season to election season. But nothing good can come from playing ostrich when political leadership is at stake. We have a cool resource to show you this week -- but it has one small flaw you might not notice unless you live in my overpopulated part of west central Florida. Elections 2006--Interactive Map Source: Congressional Quarterly (CQ) CQ 2006 Election Forecast Map Generally speaking, interactive maps are A Good Thing. Usually, they are pretty straightforward -- e.g., no complicated user interface that makes you scratch your head. What you see is pretty much what you get here; when you first click on the link above, you see a map of the United States broken down by congressional district. Each district is color-coded by political leaning: Safe Republican, Republican Favored, Leans Republican, No Clear Favorite, Leans Democrat, Democrat Favored, Safe Democrat. Note the two tabs at the upper right. When you first arrive at the page, you are looking at the "Projected Landscape" of the House of Representatives after the fall elections. If you click on the "Current Landscape" tab, you can view a map of the existing House political situation -- seats held by Republicans, Democrats, Independents and vacant seats. That's the static part of the map. The interactive part happens when you click on a congressional district. Up comes a page describing that district in terms of geography, demographics, election history, workforce make-up and educational attainment. At the top, you see the name of the incumbent, his or her status (e.g., "Running for Re-election"), and CQ's election 2006 forecast (e.g., "Safe" Republican or Democrat, "Leans" Republican or Democrat, "No Clear Favorite"). The data sources are the 2000 U.S. Census -- which is worrisome because of its age at this point, especially in fast-growing parts of the country -- and CQ's Politics in America, a standard reference resource. The most current edition available is CQ's Politics in America 2006: The 109th Congress, which has a date of May 2005. This page also provides you with some news headline links to news stories about politics in that particular state. To the right of the news headlines, you'll see a "Back" link and an X in a box. Clicking on either of these will take you back to the map. At first, I didn't notice this because the type is light gray. Instead, I used the browser's back button to try and get back to the map, but was routed instead to the CQ Politics home page, which looks like a fairly interesting weblog (and has an RSS feed), but it's not where I expected to go. Note that there is a slider to the right of the map which allows you to zoom in or out. Because I live in a geographically small congressional district in the Tampa Bay area, which is quite densely populated, I wanted to enlarge the map to see the district divisions more clearly so I could click on the right one. Alas, when I enlarged the map, my part of Florida slipped behind the House "Balance of Power Scorecard" at the lower right. Fortunately, at the top of the slider, are four arrowheads which allow you to move the map to the left or right, or up or down...but I could only go so far down before the Florida peninsula got truncated. So I had to mess with things a little before I could pinpoint my own congressional district. If you live in a state like Montana, Wyoming, or either of the Dakotas, however, clicking your congressional district is a lot easier because there is only one in each state. Note that it's a lot less complicated when you leave the House view and choose either the Senate or Governors tabs at the upper left, since every state has just two senators and one governor.
Professional Reading Shelf Reference Questions Source: Project Wombat Learn About Project Wombat, The New Stumpers-L The latest on a "classic" reference discussion list. "Project Wombat is an e-mail discussion list for difficult reference questions. Membership is free, and non-members may submit questions for discussion. Project Wombat continues the many fine traditions started by the Stumpers list once offered by Dominican University with some helpful new options." -- Digital Science Source: Association of Research Libraries, Proceedings of the 148th Membership Meeting, 2006 Speech: The International Dimensions of Digital Science and Scholarship A speech by Deanna B. Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services, Library of Congress. See Also: Slides from Marcum's Presentation See Also: Other Presentations from the Meeting -- Library and Information Science--Glossary Source: School of Information Resources & Library Science, the University of Arizona SIRLS: The Information Professional's Glossary See Also: OCLC Glossary -- Interactive Television Source: itvt An Interview with the Creators of CNN's New Interactive Service, "CNN Enhanced" Could libraries be involved in other enhanced tv services?
Cool Tools WINKsite Quickly and easily create mobile tools. Free. Impressive and useful. From the site, "In minutes, you can set-up a free mobile site that's available worldwide on any web-enabled phone, PDA or desktop PC. Each mobile site is outfitted with easy-to-use mobile channels including chat, blog, mobile feed reader, surveys, journal, forum, calendar, guestbook, bookmarks, email and more." See Also: Mobile Versions (Beta) of ResourceShelf and DocuTicker. Powered by WINKsite.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Business Research--United States SEC EDGAR Source: The Virtual Chase Tyburski Says PWC's EdgarScan Database Now Searching Full Text of SEC EDGAR Docs Yes, a full text EDGAR database for free. Many of the free EDGAR services only search info found header and not the full text of documents. Direct to EdgarScan. See Also: The Always Useful SECInfo.com (Free) Allows Full Text Searching of Document Subsets. -- Newspaper Archives Source: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Yet Another New Archive, This Time Over 50,000 Articles About Hurricanes in the U.S. Wow, NewspaperArchive appears to be releasing about one new (and free) archive a week. This time thousands of full text, full image articles about hurricanes. Full text search, save, print. All free. "Newspaper articles about hurricanes tell stories of those affected by some of Mother Nature's most powerful disasters. From the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the deadliest natural disaster in US history, to Hurricane Katrina." See Also: Links to Other NewspaperArchive Free Databases Even more here and here. -- Financial Services--United States--Statistics Source: III Financial Services Fact Book 2006 See Also: Insurance Related Statistics -- Phishing--Statistics Source: Anti-Phishing Working Group New, April Phishing Activity Trends Report PDF. "Phish Reports drop slightly in April...Malware-dropping URLs and new Trojans continues to grow." -- Media--Children Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Study Shows How Kids' Media Use Helps Parents Cope "Electronic media is a central focus of many very young children's lives, used by parents to help manage busy schedules, keep the peace, and facilitate family routines such as eating, relaxing, and falling asleep, according to a new national study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Many parents also express satisfaction with the educational benefits of TV and how it can teach positive behaviors." News Release/Webcast ||| Direct to Full Text
Briefly + Mary Rasenberger Named Director of Program Management for National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program -- + ProQuest Ponders Divestment in Face of Financial Woes -- UK: British Library Introduces New Icons to Help Show Do's and Dont's
Search Briefs + Coming Soon: AOL Plans Broadband Search Service (via News.com) & Link to AOL Video Now Found On Google Video Home Page Federated or meta search from AOL? From the article, "[AOL's CEO Jonathan] Miller did not provide details beyond saying that the new search function would involve multiple sources and load quickly." Of course, AOL's web database is powered or as they say "enhanced" by Google. The AOL/Google deal was renewed last December. Speaking of AOL and Google, have you noticed the direct link (upper right in the gray bar) to AOL's Video Search engine on the Google Video home page? Not at all a surprise. When the AOL/Google deal was announced we learned that part of it would include video. Specifically, the news release read, "collaborating in video search and showcasing AOL's premium video service within Google Video." It looks like this is it or at least the beginning. One wonders if the Google Video and AOL Video databases will one day merge into one and/or will negotiating for video content become a joint effort between both organizations? -- Web Search--MSN MSN Autos Vertcal Now Offering It's Own Search Tool (Beta) Look for the MSN Auto search box, top right on the home page and other "inside" pages. SERPS contain results in 4 categories. Here's a sample search for Toyota Prius. + All Results + Research + Articles + Auto Shows (News from various auto shows like Detroit (NAIAS), Tokyo, Chicago, etc.)
Multimedia Shelf Recent lectures and presentations available for streaming or download. Intelligence Source: Council on Foreign Relations + The Digital Spy: How Technology is Changing the Intelligence Community (audio) Speakers: Bryan Cunningham, Principal,Morgan & Cunningham LLC Jeff Jonas, Distinguished Engineer and Chief Scientist, IBM Entity Analytics Presider: Daniel B. Prieto, Director and Senior Fellow, Homeland Security Center The Reform Institute; former executive at America Online Recorded May 19, 2006. MP3. Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf International Federatation of Library Associations Source: IFLA A Selection of Papers to be Presented at World Library and Information Congress: 72nd IFLA General Conference #2 + Directories of international repositories: research results and recommendations + Web accessibility: a review of research and initiatives + Information literacy as an emancipatory process directed to social inclusion in a knowledge society + Dynamic Transformation of the National Diet Library: From the Researcher's Library to the Library for All + Enabling Library and Information Skills: Foundations for Entering Students + Integrating Information Literacy in a First-Year University Course: A Case Study from Canada See Also: Compilation #1 -- Scholarly Literature Open Computation: Beyond Human-Reader-Centric Views of Scholarly Literatures A new book chapter by Clifford Lynch to appear in Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical and Ecomomic Aspects, Neil Jacobs (Ed.), (Oxford: Chandos Publishing), Spring 2006. "...speculating about the interactions between the emerging technologies of text mining, licensing electronic scholarly journals, and open access." Also available in PDF. -- Medical Literature--Open Access Source: Canadian Health Libraries Association 2006: Pearls of Wisdom (via E-LIS) Open Access for the Medical Librarian "The most important aspects of open access for the medical librarian are presented. Reasons for open access include access to research information, access to taxpayer-funded research, facilitation of evidence-based medicine, equity of access, promotion of author control, and controlling library costs. The two primary approaches to open access, via author self-archiving and open access publishing, are presented. Key open access policy developments are highlighted. Many of the major policy initiatives of the moment are from the research funders. From the researcher funders' point of view, open access means more research impact, more real-world impact when professionals can access the literature, and value is illustrated to the taxpayer, building support for further research funding. The world's largest medical research funders, including the U.S. National Institute of Health and the Wellcome Trust, have public access policies, and many more policies are in development. For example, two weeks ago the Federal Research Public Access Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate. One of the essential elements of open access policy is ensuring that researchers are required, not requested, to deposit works. In Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has a policy in development called Access to Products of Research; public comments are due May 15, 2006. The dramatic growth of open access - over 2,220 journals in DOAJ, over 7.3 million items in an OAIster search - is discussed, as is the idea of new roles for librarians in an open access environment." Presentation; PDF (137 KB) or PowerPoint (80 KB). See also: Bill demands free public access to science reports (Federal Computer Week) -- Scholarly Publishing--Avian Influenza-- Source: Proceedings International Workshop on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics & Seventh COLLNET Meeting (via E-LIS) Cooperation bibliogram of bird flu "The published literature on Bird Flu, now a pandemic animal disease with a possible potential of evolving into a devastating human disease, was analysed primarily with respect of national and international cooperations and networks of authors and countries. The output of research-relevant papers is now around 150 per year and was less than 100 papers per year before 2003. The field is highly cooperative; nearly 90% of the articles have two or more authors. National extramural cooperation is around 50% since 1998, intramural cooperation shows a decreasing tendency and is now about 20%. Between 20% and 30% of the papers have been published in bi- or multinational cooperation. Observed and expected citation rates of international papers are twice as high as the citation rates of national papers. 47 countries are engaged in Bird Flu research, on top USA, followed by PEOPLES R CHINA, UK and JAPAN. These countries are also centers of country networks, but minor centers exist. An Asian local network with strong ties consisting of countries most affected by Bird Flu can be identified.. No strong direct connections exist between Europe and Asia; thus it seems necessary to intensify international cooperation. Author network show interesting cluster structures which must be studied in detail." Full Paper (PDF; 1.27 MB) -- Digital Archiving Source: UKOLN Material on Digital Archiving presentation available "Slides are now available from the presentation entitled 'Digital Archiving' to the East Anglia Online User Group (EAOLUG) given by Maureen Pennock of UKOLN. The event, called 'Digital Archives and Records Management', took place at the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, on 23 May 2006." See Also: Archiving Web Site Resources : a Records Management View Poster presented at the WWW 2006 conference, Edinburgh Scotland. Thanks to PADI for the news tip.
Scholarly Publishing--Citation Reports Source: ISI + The Most-Cited Institutions in Computer Science, 1995-2005 + Australian Universities: Most Prolific in Agricultural Sciences, 2001-05 + Science in Germany, 2001-05 ||| 10-Year Country Rankings for: Germany + Journals Ranked by Impact: Education & Educational Research + U.S. Universities with Highest Concentrations in Mathematics, 2001-05 + The 10 most-cited countries in Immunology, 1995-December 31, 2005, sorted by 3 separate measures
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Elections--Worldwide Source: Parliamentary Library, Australia Guide to Elections Around the World 2006 "This electronic brief provides links to web-based information and full-text articles relevant to selected countries having national elections in 2006." -- Computers--Statistics Source: Computer Industry Almanac New, PCs In-Use Surpassed 900M in 2005. USA Accounts for over 25% of PCs In-Use Includes list of Top 15 Countries In PCs In-Use. -- Outsourcing--Companies--Lists & Ranking Source: International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) The Global Outsourcing 100 "The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) is pleased to announce the following companies have been selected to the first-ever listing of the world's top outsourcing service providers -- The Global Outsourcing 100." Methodology -- Aging--Web Resources Source: AARP Policy & Research Global Aging Program "AARP was one of the first organizations to recognize aging as a truly worldwide phenomenon that requires global cooperation. We wish to facilitate international understanding and dialogue around the global aging agenda. AARP will work with governments and opinion leaders by participating in international, social and economic policy debates to formulate global responses addressing the challenges associated with world aging." In addition to news, reports and other publications, includes: + International Conference Calendar + International and Regional Organizations and Networks Concerned With Aging + Periodicals for Seniors From Around the World + Organizations for Seniors Around the World + Aging Everywhere: Intereactive map offering "resources on the 50+ population worldwide." + AgeSource Worldwide: Database that "provides links to over 300 major or unique libraries, clearinghouses, databases, directories, bibliographies, and Web metasites around the world that focus on aging or closely allied subjects. Some 30 countries are represented in AgeSource Worldwide." -- Information Technology--Lists & Rankings Source: Business 2.0 100 Fastest-Growing Technology Companies, 2006 Sort by state available. Top 10 are: 1. Celgene 2. Red Hat 3. Apple Computer 4. SanDisk 5. ValueClick 6. Palomar Medical Technologies 7. aQuantive 8. LifeCell 9. Gilead Sciences 10. Clinical Data -- Parks--United StatesLists & Rankings Source: Center for City Park Excellence Fast Facts: Parks + The 100 Largest City Parks + City Park Acreage as a Percentage of the Area of the City + Total Spending on Parks and Recreation Per Resident in the Major Cities + The Oldest City Parks in the U.S.
Briefly + UBM and Convera to Co-develop Search Engine for Healthcare Professionals -- + Website for Wales "The website, www.library.wales.org, brings together a range of free online services with a Welsh flavour. It includes useful links, live information feeds (RSS), the reference library KnowUK and news database NewsUK, along with established services such as Ask Cymru and Wales on the Web."
Search Briefs Online Maps & Aerial Imagery Ask.com Maps and Aerial Imagery of Europe Barry's post on Tuesday about MSN Live Local rolling out more imagery of Europe (cool stuff!) reminded us to mention that Ask.com Maps provides aerial imagery and street maps for some parts of Europe. It's still a work in progress (street names, locations for searching) but the Ask.com Maps imagery looks very impressive. We also have imagery for a small portion of Australia. This map (PDF) offers a look at what resolution you'll find for imagery for various parts of Europe. Some examples: + Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, France + Houses of Parliament, London + The Canals of Amsterdam Btw, in many, but not all cases, Ask Maps "dynamic locations" feature will work for European locations. The same is true for driving and walking directions. Remember, "right-clicking" on a specific point on a map allows you to quickly and easily add that location to your location list. -- -- Web Search--MSN Live Local Microsoft Live Local Adds Traffic Info, Traffic Info Has Been Accessible via MSN Autos for Some Time 1) Map Live Traffic for Major Cities Over 30 cities available. Click the traffic link at the top of the page to find the cities available. MS has offered real-time traffic info on maps on their MSN Auto site for a long time. The only difference from what we can see, the maps themselves. Actually, traffic info is available for many more cities via MSN Autos than MSN Live Local. Btw, the MSN Auto site also offers real-time traffic info delivered via SMS, MSN Messenger, or email for very localized areas. Yahoo Maps also offers real-time traffic maps. Traffic data is provided by Traffic.com. Btw, Traffic.com offers a great set of services (free) including traffic alerts via RSS and custom alerts delivered by voice (via your phone). 2) Save favorite Maps to Windows Live Favorites 3) Collections, "Keep lists of important Windows Live Local locations, order them any way you want, and share them with your friends." 4) You'll also notice that the Live Local search boxes have moved from side-by-side placement to vertical placement. 5) Bird's Eye Imagery of Some UK Locations 6) Driving Directions for Europe 7) More info here. -- -- Web Search--Google Google Wants to Talk, Again Just a few weeks after the Google shareholder meeting, Google Press Day, and Google Analyst Day, Google brass have announced yet another get together. This time around, a web conference/webcast (May 31, 2006 at 11am PDST) to tell investors and analysts more about what's happening at the company. From an email, "As our CEO Eric Schmidt mentioned during our last earnings call (listen here), we would like to offer more opportunities for the investment community to interact with our senior management," said Kim Jabal, Director of Investor Relations, Google. "We hope that this call will be valuable to investors and provide further insights into our business." Interesting, a company that was first quiet about talking about the future, now wants to talk a lot. Reuters goes on to point out, "The stock is down roughly 10 percent so far this year on concerns about mounting competition in the Internet industry and Wall Street's frustration with Google's refusal to provide guidance on its financial outlook." Interesting to note that today's announcement comes about a day after Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave an exclusive interview to CNBC. Highlights and video from the interview are posted here on ResourceShelf. Btw, no word about who will be able to ask questions. Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Digitization Source: HP Research Quality Assurance in High Volume Document Digitization: A Survey "Quality assurance (QA) plays a critical role in high volume document digitization projects by making sure that the specified quality standard is reached under cost and time constraints. This paper takes a systematic view on this issue by summarizing and abstracting related existing work: quality bottlenecks and technical solutions throughout the whole processing pipeline, including cataloging, capture, image analysis and recognition, and error cascading; various strategies to conduct cost-effective QA, such as combination of auto-QA and manual QA, batch QA, special QA user interface, and open source QA." See Also: A Content Integrity Service For Long-Term Digital Archives -- National Science Digital Library Source: EDUCAUSE Building a National Science Digital Library An archived version of this lecture and Q&A with Dean B. Krafft is now available. It was presented live on May 8, 2006. Access is free. From the overview: "Since 2000, the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Core Integration team has been creating the infrastructure for a digital library of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics resources. That library now contains more than a million resources from approximately 100 collections. In this talk, Dean Krafft will give a short historical overview of the NSDL and describe the current NSDL community and participants. He will then review the technical underpinnings of NSDL 1.0, a library built on metadata harvesting, and describe some of the challenges encountered. For the past year, the project has been working on NSDL 2.0, a new version of the library built on the Fedora repository architecture. For the last part of the talk, Krafft will describe this new library architecture and explain how it supports creating context for science resources, how it enhances the selection and use of library materials, and what these capabilities mean for the users of the NSDL." -- Council on Library and Information Resources Source: CLIR CLIR Issues Articles include: + Symposium Kicks Off Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration (CLIR's Fiftieth Anniversary Sponsors' Symposium) + Libraries: Diffuse and In the Flow + CLIR Appoints Committee to Advise on Place as Library -- PubMed Source: NLM Search Help: NIH Grant Numbers in PubMed Citations See Also: PubMed Tutorial Updated See Also: Wellcome Trust Grant Number Added to MEDLINE/PubMed Citations See Also: New MedlinePLUS Magazine -- Brazil--Webliographies Source: C&RL News New, Brazilian studies: Online resources for researchers Compiled by Edward A. Riedinger. "[Riedinger] heads the Latin American Studies Library and is professor for Brazilian Studies at Ohio State University. He is also editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Brazilian History and Culture (Routledge, 2009) and will be a visiting researcher in the Centre for Brazilian Studies at Oxford University in the autumn."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Driving Laws--United States--Databases Source: AAA The Digest of Motor Laws >-- Hurricanes--United States--Predictions Source: NOAA Just Released: 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Outlook "NOAA's 2006 Atlantic hurricane season outlook indicates an 80% chance of an above-normal hurricane season, a 15% chance of a near-normal season, and only a 5% chance of a below-normal season. This outlook is produced by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center (CPC), National Hurricane Center (NHC), and Hurricane Research Division (HRD). See NOAA's definitions of above-, near-, and below-normal seasons." See Also: Fast Facts: 2006 Hurricane Season Begin (via U.S. Census) A myriad of fast facts and stats about the upcoming season. -- Federal Court--United States Source: U.S. Courts New Locator: U.S. Federal Court Lookup Database "Contacting the nearest federal court, or the federal court you need, is easier than it used to be. You now can search for the right court, or court office, by city, zip code, area code, and more." Thanks to Genie Tyburski at The Virtual Chase for the news tip. -- Government--Latin America--Archives Source: LANIC (University of Texas) Latin American Government Documents Archive From the site, "The Latin American Government Documents Archive (LAGDA) seeks to preserve and facilitate access to a wide range of ministerial and presidential documents from 18 Latin American and Caribbean countries. The Archive contains copies of the Web sites of approximately 300 government ministries and presidencies. Capture of sites began on multiple dates in 2005 and 2006, and will continue with regularly scheduled captures." Powered by the Internet Archive's Archive-It service. See Also: Political Database of the America's (via Georgetown University)
Search Briefs Web Search--Google Source: WSJ/CNBC Video: Google CEO Eric Schmidt Interviewed on CNBC, Part One ++ Video: Part Two (Google and Microsoft) While Schmidt is in London for a Google "Zeitgeist" Conference, Maria Baritromo talks with with the CEO about advertising, and "whether Google is becoming the next Microsoft." Q: Is there a plan "b" on where growth comes from now? Eric Schmidt: I don't know if there is a plan "b" beyond what you said [targeted advertising]. "It seems to me that Google as a business is in the targeted advertising business." NOTE: About a week ago Schmidt said that Google is the only player emphasizing search. A week early and again last week Ask.com CEO, Jim Lanzone told CNBC that Ask.com is also focusing on and emphasizing search. Q: Is your goal to become a portal? Eric Schmidt: It depends on what you mean by a portal. Many people use the word but mean different things. We prefer to think we want to get you to the information as quickly as possible. A lot of information is personal and a lot of that information is searchable. So, when we talk about search we talk about it in a very broad context. We mean not only the world's information but your personal information. Q: So it sounds like that is pretty much a portal. Eric Schmidt: It's the way portals used to be. Before portals became specialized content. The original portal in the early 1990's, was simply a window to go through to get to that information. Indeed, Google will be that and will be a good one. Other Comments + "We don't compete with content companies because we don't produce content ourselves." + On the CNET issue from last year. Schmidt: "There is a difference between information being available and publicizing that information. The fact that personal information is around doesn't mean it should be publicized." Schmidt adds they're working well with CNET now. Note: The Google/CNET story was years ago (in Internet time) but it still seems odd (especially after these comments) that a legitimate news organization (CNET) runs into problems by using public information in a profile of a public figure. If the public only new what was easily accessible about them in specialty databases. Google and Microsoft Q: Is Google underestimating Microsoft Eric Schmidt: We're focused on our overall mission...Competition is very healthy. What people miss however is that this is a much much bigger space that the IT industry for example. Multiple choices, multiple choices may be successful. So, we believe that our strategy will be succesful and it may also be true that our competitors strategies will also be succcessful, at least for a while. I don't think it's a zero-sum game. On MS taking search market share. Schmidt: They need to ship the products first. On Asia Long-term, Asia is biggest opportunity. On Click Fraud Schmidt: It's not a material issue. It's a fight. We have it [click fraud] under control. See Also: Schmidt Talks with Charlie Rose (4/2006) -- Enterprise Search Source: ACM Queue Search Considered Integral Two people from the IT department at Morgan Stanley weigh-in on enterprise search. Lots of material on faceted classification (breaking down an entry into components), metadata, folksonomies (not very positive about them in the workplace, the same with user ratings), alerts, and more. Overall a good overview. Those of you who have read our blog for a long time know that we're big fans of what faceted classification can offer. Two comments. 1) Sorry to see that information professionals (people with many years or metadata training (aka cataloging experience, were not mentioned). 2) If you want to demo a faceted search solution, try TheGateway.org or Indiana's Smart Desktop. Both are databases of educational resources with technology powered by Siderean. Elegant, useful, easy, small, if any learning curve and faceted classification shows what the power of well constructed metadata can do. Btw, here's another example of faceted classification/search in a news setting. Finally, for the non-librarians out there who love to mention Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). You might be interested to know that DDC is a faceted classification scheme. See Also: Have You Checked Out the Dewey Browser Project from OCLC Research? Cool! -- Web Search--Technorati Source: Technorati The Associated Press and Blog Search Engine Technorati Announce Agreement From the announcement, "to provide up-to-the-minute links helping readers navigate between AP news coverage and recent blogs about stories on AP's Hosted Custom News service for Web sites. When readers visit an AP member Web site that uses AP Hosted Custom News, they will see a module featuring the "Top Five Most Blogged About" AP articles. This module is dynamically powered by Technorati and within it, the reader will see links to a Technorati page that guides them to recent blog posts about that specific AP article. Additionally, when readers click on an AP article, Technorati will deliver "Who's Blogging About That Article," a listing of blog names with the date and time recent posts were made. The new functionality will be available to the more than 440 AP member Web sites in the United States that take AP's Hosted Custom News."
Briefly + TiVo Adds "Guru" Recommendations "Gurus from Entertainment Weekly, Star, Sports Illustrated, Automobile, Billboard, CNET and others will offer TiVo subscribers program recommendations based on popular television categories including sports, films, music, comedies, drama and more. As an added benefit, TiVo subscribers will be able to automatically record Guru Guide recommendations via the company's online scheduling feature." -- + Treasury picks Convera for search -- + UK: Web Of Libraries Around M25 (via ManangingInformation.com) "...he M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries, established to bring together the resources of university and other libraries within the M25 geographical area. The new Website can be accessed at: http://www.m25lib.ac.uk.
Multimedia Shelf New webcasts, archived presentations, and more covering a variety of topics. New Webcast, Commencenment Address (Video): U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts Delivers the Commencement Address at Georgetown University Law Center. This speech was delivered on May 21, 2006. -- Politics Journalism Source: National Archives and Records Administration Video Lindy Boggs And Cokie Roberts: Two Generations of an American Political Family Boggs and Roberts were interviewed on May 10, 2006 as part of NARA's American Conversations series. "Former Congresswoman Lindy Boggs and her daughter, noted journalist Cokie Roberts, joined Archivist Allen Weinstein for a conversation about their mother/daughter relationship in an influential political family. Mrs. Boggs served nine terms in the House of Representatives?the first woman elected to the House from that state. She was the first woman to chair a national political convention and the first woman to serve as Ambassador to the Vatican. Mrs. Boggs is the author of Washington Through a Purple Veil. Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News covering Congress, politics, and public policy. She has won countless journalistic awards and has been inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame. Her books include We Are Our Mothers' Daughters and Founding Mothers." -- CIA Bush Administration Source: Princeton University "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration" A presentation by James Risen, Pulitzer-Prize Winning Reporter, The New York Times at Princeton on May 2, 2006. RealVideo: 300K ||| Windows Media 300K. Monday, May 22, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Online Books eBooks Amazon.com Amazon.com's Search Inside the Book Gets a New Look with New AmazonOnlineReader and Your Media Library The way you view material from Amazon.com's Search Inside the Book (SITB) has gotten a new look and several new features with the debut of the AmazonOnlineReader. At the same time Amazon's "Your Media Library" hit the web. SITB debuted a couple of months before Google Print/Book Search and continues to provide limited full text and full image content (as determined by the publisher). There is still no interface or option that will limit your search to only SITB ready content. To find SITB content, simply run an Amazon book search and look for books marked with the "Search Inside" logo. You can also search for books using Amazon's A9. A book found via SITB offers several ways to view the content and allows us to see Amazon's. Here's a quick review. 1) First a search for the children's classic, "Where the Wild Things Are." 2) Let's look at the first entry by clicking either the title or the book cover. 3) Here's the Amazon.com page we're all used to. Pricing info, related titles of possible interest, reviews, etc. Placing your cursor over the book cover provides links to citations, a search box and more. 4) Click the book cover. Now, the AmazonOnlineReader opens. Pages contain no advertising. More about the reader here. 5) From the reader, you can: + Search for words or phrases in the book (you can also search the entire Amazon.com database or A9. + View single pages or continuous pages by scrolling + Zoom in or Zoom out (very useful) + Overall, we're impressed so far. One thing that would help is more explanation directly on the page (mouseovers) vs. having to go to a help page. 6) A lot of what we're seeing here is part of the new Amazon.com upgrade program where you can read purchased books online, print pages, add notes, bookmark pages, etc. This in many ways is similar to what you can already do with books accessible (for free) via NetLibrary and ebrary. 7) This FAQ page has more info about how to buy an upgrade (if available), upgrading past purchases and also clearly states that you can only "upgrade" to online access IF YOU purchase a physical copy of the book. Btw, upgrades are only available in the U.S. at the present time. Let's be clear, the free services and content SITB has offered continue at no charge. The Amazon.com upgrade program was first reported in November. 8) Btw, you'll also still find (good news) the interesting statistics and tools that Amazon.com has offered for a year or so including text stats, concordance, Statistically Improbable Phrases, and Capitalized Phrases. 9) The Amazon.com Media Library aka "Your Media Library" (formerly Amazon.com Locker) is now live. This is where all of your media purchases from Amazon (books, music, videos) AS WELL AS digital media purchases (content for online viewing, reading, listening) are placed OR WILL BE PLACED (think of the possibilities) for easy access and review. Yes, you can even add tags to your purchases. You'll also find links to product manuals that can be downloaded. See Also: Learn More About the Amazon.com Reader. See Also: A Few More Examples of Search Inside the Book and AmazonOnlineReader + Title/Info Page: The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century Via AmazonOnlineReader + Title/Info Page: Marley & Me : Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog Via AmazonOnlineReader + Title/Info Page: How to Win Friends & Influence People Via AmazonOnlineReader -- -- Medical Librarians Librarians Source: AP Internet searches: Librarians do it better Although this article focuses on the work of librarians with cancer patients (some very very important work) we think many of us have known for a long time (ever?) that in many situations librarians can add value for all searchers. From the article, "Librarians have access to resources sometimes unavailable to the public such as subscription-based databases. But the biggest advantage, [Ruti] Volk, a professional librarian and manager of the Patient Education Resource Center (PERC) at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center] said, is expertise in searching. 'I do this every day, I should do it better than other people,' she said." Right-on Ruti! However this does not mean for other types of searching end users can't also do a good job IF (a big if) they know what is and is not available, have some basic info literacy skills, and a basic understanding about using the right tool at the right time. Of course, a bit of training (not teaching) on how to take full advantage of what most commercial web engines offer can also help. Not only do info pros have the ability to get people to the "best" info but we can also save them time. Everyone wants more time. However, like we've said before, the public can't use (human or electronic) what they don't know about. This is why marketing is so important. -- Academic Publishing Source: Inside Higher Ed The Quest for Crossover Books "For many scholars -- especially in the humanities and social sciences -- their secret or not-so-secret is to be the next 'crossover' author: the Ph.D. whose book becomes a best seller, and not just in campus bookstores. The next Freakonomics, perhaps. University presses are equally anxious to publish such books, which end up paying the bills so that presses can publish the many books that don't sell much at all. If you want to know what the presses are betting on for the next crossovers, there may be no better place to go than BookExpo America, an annual conclave at which publishers try to woo the people who buy books for bookstores, create some buzz among the reporters who cover publishing, and anyone with any connection to Oprah." -- Health Research Library Outreach Source: NLM Information Rx Tool Kit Redesign "Following the success of the pilot sites in Georgia, Iowa, and Virginia (see Information Rx project summary), NLM worked with the Virginia pilot sites to develop the Information Rx Tool Kit to assist librarians in promoting Information Rx to physicians, patients and their families, as well as to public libraries and community organizations. The tool kit contains tested promotional materials and suggestions for a variety of activities. The Information Rx Tool Kit Web site has recently undergone a facelift and reorganization to make it easier to use. The Web site, renamed the Health Sciences Information Rx Tool Kit, was launched in May 2006 and is a step-by-step online guide designed to assist health sciences librarians with project-related outreach activities they may wish to initiate."
ResourceShelf Real-Time #3 Our series of real-time sites, tools, and feeds continues. + Vaisala Real-Time Lightning Track (U.S.) Based on real-time measurements from the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network. Additional functionality available for a fee. + XM Song Tracker In our first compilation, we linked to a database that showed what music or other programming was currently playing on Sirius Satellite Radio (also searchable). This time, the same type of service for XM Satellite Radio. This database is also searchable. + Flight Delay Information -- Air Traffic Control System Command Center View by region, airport, or search by airport name. A text-only version is available. A database of past advisories is also online. A wireless version of real-time flight delay info from the FAA is also available at this URL. See Also: ResourceShelf Real-Time #2 See Also: ResourceShelf Real-Time #1
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Venture Capital--Europe Source: PWC Preliminary European Investment & Fundraising Activity 2005 Summary & Data See Also: 2005 Global Report on Private Equity -- Business--United States--Statistics Economics--United States--Statistics Source: BLS 100 Years of U.S. Consumer Spending: Data for the Nation, New York City, and Boston "This report, 100 Years of U.S. Consumer Spending: Data for the Nation, New York City, and Boston, BLS Report 991, offers a new approach to the use of Consumer Expenditure Survey data--http://www.bls.gov/cex/home.htm. Also, available as a PDF. -- Business--United States--Lists and Rankings Source: Black Enterprise (via DocuTicker.com) BE 100s: 2005 Report "Today's business environment moves at lightning speed. For the chief executives of the nation's largest black-owned businesses, keeping pace is priority No. 1. They must continually re-evaluate corporate capabilities and tinker with their company's infrastructure to gain maximum advantage. Many must contend with emerging competitors, but the most daunting challenge for these CEOs, whether they operate an industrial/service company or a financial services firm, is dealing with large majority corporations treading on their turf." + Industrial/Service 100 + Auto Dealer 100 + Advertising Agencies + Insurance Companies + Banks + Investment Banks + Asset Managers + Private Equity Firms -- Ready Reference--Lists & Rankings Source: Infoplease.com Fast Fact Shelf + Music (Various Lists and Rankings) Updated compilatiopn including: Top 10 Most Played Songs, 2005; Most Played Music Videos, 2005; Top 10 Digital Songs, 2005; and more. + The 100 Largest City Parks (U.S.) + Offbeat National Parks -- Business--Houston--Lists and Rankings SoSource: Houston Business Journal Houston Small Business 100 Each entry contains a brief profile about each company. #1 ||| #2 to #9 ||| 10 ||| 11-19 ||| 20 ||| 21-29 ||| 30 ||| 31-39 ||| 40 ||| 41-49 ||| 50 ||| 51-59 ||| 60 ||| 61-69 ||| 70 ||| 71-79 ||| 80 ||| 81-89 ||| 90 ||| 91-100
Search Briefs Multimedia Search Source: Searchforvideo.com Searchforvideo.com Adds New Content From Discovery Networks The always useful (and improving) Searchforvideo.com, the search site that aggregates video content from a large number of sources (we find lots of content here before we find it anywhere else, if ever) has added new video clips from Discovery Networks. Of course the clips can be searched (using metadata associated with each entry) but it's now also possible to browse clips by program and/or network. Great idea! See Also: Real-Time Access to Video Clips as They Enter the Searchforvideo Database See Also: Search Searchforvideo by IM
New Library RSS Feed New RSS Feed from NLM's Division of Specialized Information Services New feed of the SIS news page. The SIS feed address is: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/rss/sisnewsfeed.rss
Briefly + Elsevier's ScienceDirect Announces Redesign The redesigned ScienceDirect will roll-out over the next two years.
DocuTicker Best of DocuTicker DocuTicker is ResourceShelf's sister site and is updated daily with a wide variety of new full text reports on many topics from government agencies, think tanks, ngo's and many other organizations. Here's a small, very small, sample of what we've posted during the past week. + Bureau of Justice Statistics Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005 + Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Program: Delivering Sustainable Public Health Protection for America: 2005 Annual Report + Estimating Potential Impact of an Influenza Pandemic Using 1968- and 1918-Type Scenarios + Cumulative Number of Confirmed Human Cases of Avian Influenza A/(H5N1) Reported to WHO + Consumer Expenditures in 2004 + Canada: Over 380,000 Households in Five Major Centres Intend to Buy a Home in 2006 + Hybrid Vehicle Registrations More Than Double In 2005 + Libel in the Blogosphere: Some Preliminary Thoughts + Calories In, Calories Out: Food and Exercise in Public Elementary Schools, 2005 Sunday, May 21, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Weblogs Source: Dr. Gilad Mishne, University of Amsterdam New Position Paper, Information Access Challenges in the Blogspace Published in IIIA-2006 -- International Workshop on Intelligent Information Access, 2006. See Also: Other Writing by Gilad Mishne on Weblogs, Search and Access + New Research Paper (DRAFT): Large Scale Study Looks at Comments Posted on Weblogs (8 pages; PDF) -- The following items were co-authored with Maarten de Rijke. + AutoTag: A Collaborative Approach to Automated Tag Assignment for Weblog Posts and + Deriving Wishlists from Blogs: Show us your Blog, and We'll Tell you What Books to Buy -- + New Academic Paper Offers a Review of Weblog Searching
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Agriculture--United States National Agriculture Library Digitization Projects Source: NAL National Agriculture Library Digital Repository (NALDR) From the announcement, "While documents will continually be added to NALDR, currently available in the repository are: * The Rural Development Publication Digitizing Project, providing access to publications produced since the 1800s and chosen as being the most relevant titles on rural development. These include the entire series of Rural Development Research Reports, Rural Development Perspectives, Agricultural Economic Reports, and Agriculture Information Bulletins, as well as selected Economic Research Staff Reports and the first 300 volumes of Agriculture Handbooks. * The Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture series. Published from 1894 to 1992, the yearbooks contain statistical information, summaries of research developments, and comprehensive surveys of particular subjects important to agriculture, providing an important annual "snapshot" of U.S. agriculture. The yearbooks for 1894 to 1914 are currently available in the NALDR. The remaining volumes will be added in 2006." -- Military Law--Bibliography Source: Air University Library Law of Armed Conflict in Air and Space Operations New bibliography contains Internet resources, books, documents, periodicals.
Search Briefs + Ask.com's Seven Day Forecast Smart Answer Here's a quick look at some of the weather and climate info you can access via various Ask.com Smart Answers. + A Seven Day Forecast Just enter "forecast, city name or Zip Code" or "seven day forecast, city name or Zip Code. Here are two examples. 1 2. + Current Conditions Enter weather (city name, Zip Code). Some of this info is also available for several major cities in Canada and other major cities around the globe. Btw, the current weather and many more local links are available by entering a city name. + Detailed Weather Conditions Enter city name or Zip Code and the words "detailed weather." + Climate Enter city name or Zip Code and the word climate. You can then select a month. UPDATE 1: Need boating info? Try boating conditions (city) or surf conditions (city). UPDATE 2: On a somewhat related note, Ask.com also offers real-time info about earthquakes. Enter earthquakes Saturday, May 20, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf eBooks Coming this Summer: Free Access to Thousands of eBooks via The World eBook Fair As Project Gutenberg celebrates its 35th anniversary this summer (yes, e-books are hardly a new idea and congrats to Gutenberg founder, Michael Hart) The World eBook Fair will work to promote eBooks around the globe. From the World eBook Fair site, "July 4th to August 4, 2006, marks a month-long celebration of the 35th anniversary of the first step taken towards today's eBooks. 35 years ago the United States Declaration of Independence was a first example of hundreds of thousands of eBooks downloadable on the Internet today in a variety of languages totalling over 100. The World eBook Fair welcomes you to absolutely free access to a variety of eBooks unparalleled by any other source. 1/3 million eBooks await you, all free of charge [as PDF files] for the month of July...This event is brought to you by the oldest and largest free eBook source on the Internet, Project Gutenberg, with the assistance of The World eBook Library, the providers of the largest collection, and a number of other eBook efforts around the world. The World eBook Library normally charges $8.95 per year for their online collection, and allows unlimited permanent downloading. During The World eBook Fair all these books are available free of charge through a gateway at http://www.gutenberg.org See Also: Learn More/Subscribe to The World eBook Library
Business--Guides Source: U.S. Foreign and Commercial Service and U.S. Department of State Every year the U.S. Foreign and Commercial Service and the U.S. Department of State publish Country Commercial Guides (CCG) about doing business in a specific nation (from a U.S. perspective, of course). These reports contain info on the basic business situation in that country, investment climate, import issues, business travel and much more. All of the following CCG's were placed on the web in the past two months. ResourceShelf will post updates and more 2006 Country Commercial Guides going forward. All of these documents are free as PDF files. The guides frequently run 25 or more pages. For example, the CCG for France is 170 pages. To locate reports for other countries, archived reports, etc., that are not listed here or to access a specific chapter from one of these reports use this database and select "Country Commercial Guides" in the report type pull-down box. Here's the list of some recently Country Commercial Guides: Austria Canada Costa Rica Denmark France El Salvador Ethiopia Honduras India Laos Macedonia Malawi Maldives Nigeria Panama Rwanda Senegal Serbia and Montenegro Slovakia Sri Lanka Switzerland Togo Tunisia
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text VoIP/Internet Telephony Source: Science Reference Services/Library of Congress New Science Tracer Bullet Tackles VoIP/Internet Telephony Includes intro, bibliography, articles, web resources. See Also: List of All Science Tracer Bullets -- Fantasy Sports--Directory Source: Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) FSTA Members "The following companies are corporate associates of FSTA. Each company's representative(s) is indicated. There are currently 260 companies that are members of the FSTA." Web links where available. -- Immigration--United States Source: Dept. of Homeland Security, Inspector General Detention And Removal Of Illegal Aliens: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "This report assesses DHS's Immigration and Customs Enforcement program for detaining and removing illegal aliens apprehended in the United States and at ports of entry. It is based on interviews with employees and officials of relevant agencies and institutions, direct observations, and a review of applicable documents."
Briefly + Digitization: Readex Announces Completion of Digital American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I -- + Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice, New Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Sworn-In Friday, May 19, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf User Interfaces Source: Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, University of Maryland Exploratory Search Interfaces: Categorization, Clustering, and Beyond From the introduction, "Although the Semantic Web is making new richer and more flexible kinds of Web-based querying possible, a burning question remains 'Are current search technologies enough to meet all user demands?' The answer of course is yes and no. Search engines, bibliographic databases, and digital libraries provide adequate support for users whose information needs are well defined. However, they do not work well in situations where users lack the knowledge or contextual awareness to formulate queries or navigate complex information spaces [2]." -- Libraries--Australia Resources for Library and Information Week Library and Information Week begins on May 22nd. Overview FAQ (PDF) Resources for Library and Info Week -- Reference Books Source: Book Publishing ref*er*ence pub*lish*ing "...reference publishers face significant challenges reflected in a significant drop in new titles released in 2005 as they strive to adapt to new trends in the market." -- Professional Literature--Nursing Source: Journal of the Medical Library Association (Volume 94(2 Suppl)) Symposium: Mapping the Literature of Nursing + Mapping the general literature of American nursing + Mapping the literature of emergency nursing + Mapping the literature of rehabilitation nursing + May More See Also: Journal of the Medical Library Association (Volume 94) -- Cataloging Source: ALA ALA urges more deliberation, library involvement in Library of Congress's cataloging changes See Also: Report from Library Journal
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Law--Global Source: Law Library of Congress New Publication: Global Legal Monitor, Vol 1. No. 1 "This online publication will be updated frequently, drawing upon information selected from the Global Legal Information Network, official national legal publications, and reliable press sources. Occasionally, a special section may be added to include lectures, conferences, symposia, and exhibits on timely legal topics sponsored by the Law Library of Congress." 50 pages; PDF. -- Phone Records--Government Access Source: Congressional Research Service (via Federation of American Scientists and Docuticker) Government Access to Phone Calling Activity and Related Records: Legal Authorities (PDF; 87.5 KB) "Recent media disclosures regarding an alleged National Security Agency (NSA) program designed to collect and analyze information on telephone calling patterns within the United States have raised interest in the means by which the Government may collect such information. The factual information available in the public domain with respect to any such alleged program is limited and in some instances inconsistent, and the application, if at all, of any possibly relevant statutory provisions to any such program is likely to be a very fact-specific inquiry. It is possible that any information provided to the NSA from the telephone service providers was provided in response to a request for information not founded on a statutory basis. If this were the case, such a request would not necessarily be limited by the statutory structures discussed below, but in some instances, depending upon the facts involved, might expose the telephone companies to some civil remedies or criminal sanctions. In addition, a request, not founded upon a statutory scheme, would appear to lack a means of compelling production of the information requested. This would seem to be consistent with the statement in the USA Today article that one of the companies refused to comply with NSA's request for calling detail records, while at least one other company appears to have complied. This report will summarize statutory authorities regarding access by the government, for either foreign intelligence or law enforcement purposes, to information related to telephone calling patterns or practices. Where pertinent, we will also discuss statutory prohibitions against accessing or disclosing such information, along with relevant exceptions to those prohibitions. -- E-Commerce--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Retail 1Q, 2006 E-commerce Report "The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced today that the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the first quarter of 2006, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, was $25.2 billion, an increase of 7.0 percent (±3.5%) from the fourth quarter of 2005." -- Business--United States--Surveys CEOs--United States--Surveys Source: Booz Allen Hamilton Global CEO Turnover Set New Record in 2005 "Global CEO departures reached record levels for the second year in a row, and may be peaking, according to the fifth annual survey of CEO turnover at the world's 2,500 largest publicly traded corporations released today by Booz Allen Hamilton. The study also found that performance-related turnover set a new record in North America, and merger-driven successions were at their highest level globally of any year other than 2000." See Also: CEO Succession 2005: The Crest of the Wave (via Strategy + Business) Article also available in PDF. -- Mutimedia Shelf Interesting speeches, lectures, and more. Source: National Clearinghouse for Science, Technology and the Law Complete History of Murder and Science in One Hour, presented by Dr. Michael Baden Audio Only Video
Search Briefs Yahoo Yahoo Renames Link from "Translation Tools" to Babel Fish on Yahoo UK "Low Impact" Search Page Look for the link to the right of the search box. The Yahoo Canada page reads "translation." The low-impact Yahoo.com, Yahoo Asia, and Yahoo Australia pages have no direct links to the Babel Fish translation tool at the present time. See Also: Yahoo Brings Babel Fish Translation Service into Suite of Services -- Ask.com--UK Ask.com UK Sponsors England's Cricket Team See Also: Check out the Ask.com UK Cricket Page
Briefly New WorldCat Selection service will help libraries streamline workflows for selection, ordering of new materials -- Thomson, Tribune Company Sign Agreement to Add Full Coverage of Two Top Ten Daily U.S. Newspapers to Westlaw, Thomson Business Intelligence
Enterprise Search Web Search Examples of Exalead Enterprise Installations We often write good things about the useful (and always getting better) Exalead web search engine. What many people don't know is that Exalead also offers a desktop search client (free) and enterprise search software. If you want to see (and use) two examples of Exalead as an enterprise search tool, take a look at: + The Wellcome Trust's Sanger Institute + Ensembl See Also: Web Search: Exalead's Proximity Operator Offers More Precision + All About Exalead (by Mary Ellen Bates) + Exalead Part Deux: An Intro to "Smart Bookmarks" and Home Page Personalization Thursday, May 18, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor Security -- Internet and otherwise -- is and has been a hot-button topic for quite awhile now. Most people are interested on a personal level. Working in a military library, I have many customers who are interested on a professional level. But as you probably already know, this is a real "information overload" topic. This week, I'd like to introduce you to one of my favorite resources for keeping up with security issues. Security--Newsletter Source: Schneier.com (Bruce Schneier) Crypto-Gram Newsletter "Crypto-Gram is a free monthly e-mail newsletter from security expert Bruce Schneier, with over 100,000 readers. In its seven years of regular publication, Crypto-Gram has become one of the most widely read forums for free-wheeling discussions, pointed critiques, and serious debate about security. As head curmudgeon at the table, Schneier explains, debunks, and draws lessons from security stories that make the news." I like this newsletter because a) it only shows up monthly so you are not inundated with e-mail; and b) I see things here that I never see anyplace else. Schneier is well-known as both a security technologist and a prolific writer on security issues. His website offers many links to his op-eds and essays, as well as a large archive of full-text computer security papers and articles. Although the Schneier on Security weblog covers substantially the same ground as Crypto-Gram (and there is an RSS feed), I prefer the monthly e-mail newsletter because I read it almost like a magazine. A simple form makes it easy to subscribe or unsubscribe. Schneier is currently running a Movie Plot Threat Contest, in which participants "are invited to submit the most unlikely, yet still plausible, terrorist attack scenarios they can come up with. Your goal: cause terror. Make the American people notice. Inflict lasting damage on the U.S. economy. Change the political landscape, or the culture. The more grandiose the goal, the better." There's a contest status report in the current issue of Cryto-Gram which, like all issues, contains a number of provocative commentaries and links to articles and websites of interest: + Everyone Wants to 'Own' Your PC + Commentary on identity theft disclosure laws + A unique security threat posed by Nintendo's new Wii game machine, which "can communicate with the Internet even when the power is turned off." + A link to a news story about a man in western Pennsylvania who "filed change-of-address forms with the post office to divert other people's mail to himself. 170 times." + Information about how a Mafia boss secures his data + A news release on the "unique fingerprints" of digital cameras. + A fascinating story about an arson squad blowing up a Los Angeles Times news rack, "mistaking a promotion for Tom Cruise's new movie for a bomb." Each issue of Crypto-Gram includes a Crypto-Gram Reprints section, highlighting back issues of the newsletter which focused on a wide range of security-related topics, such as whether terrorism should be reported in the news, The Futility of Digital Copy Protection, Safe Personal Computing, and What Military History Can Teach Network Security.
Professional Reading Shelf Virtual Reference Source: Marketwatch.com Yahoo embraces man over machine We will keep our commentary brief. OK, it's more of a venting. It's sad that so much effort and money has been put into virtual reference that's "powered" by lots of wonderful information professionals from around the globe (literally). However, stories like this one (and so many others) seem to only focus on what the major search players offer. Not a single mention of virtual reference. Where does the quality, currency, accuracy of the answer come into play? Does it matter anymore? Sure, Yahoo Answers, Google Answers, might be fine for some queries but do people even realize what other options they have? Do they know that the article someone tells them about is available for free via a remotely accessible dataabase? We wonder if the writer of this article knows what's available in terms of library-based virtual reference. We've asked. If we hear back, we will update this post. Btw, it's not only virtual reference but also the many Q&A services (and valuable knowledgebases) maintained by subject experts. -- Academic Libraries--Weblogs Bowker--Weblogs Source: Bowker Bowker Launches "All-Star" Blog on New Resources for College Libraries Web Site From the announcement, "...debut of a new online message board that will allow some of the world's most highly regarded library professionals to post updates regarding their progress on individual subject areas being developed for the new Resources for College Libraries database." -- National Archives--UK Source: Kable's Government Computing Federated Search Functionality Comes to National Archives "Named National Archives Global Search, it went live on 17 May 2006 and makes it possible to access 11 catalogues and databases on the website through one search." -- Patents--Canada--Databases Census--Canada--Databases Genealogy--Canada Source: Library and Archives Canada Two New Databases from Library and Archives Canada Canadian Patents, 1869-1894 "This database covering the years between 1869 and 1894 enables viewing of over 14,000 full patents with digitised images, registered in Canada by Canadian citizens or residents. Please keep in mind that only patents issued to Canadian citizens and residents are available in this collection. Canadian patents issued to non-Canadians and non-residents are not included." & Census of 1851 (Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia) "This tool allows researchers to search by geographic location only. As this is not a nominally indexed database, it is not searchable by family name. The digital images within this database are copies of the original microfilm records held by Library and Archives Canada." -- Scholarly Publishing Source: The Publishing Research Consortium Journals and Scientific Productivity: A Case Study in Immunology and Microbiology "Journals and Scientific Productivity: A case study in immunology and microbiology provides an up-to-date snapshot of the attitudes, perceptions, and behaviour of a select group of biomedical scientists to the journals system and what they perceive to be the key things that could be done to help them become more productive in research terms." See Also: News Release, Direct to Full Text
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Illegal Immigration--Bibliography Source: Air University Library Illegal Immigration and U.S. Border Security New bibliography includes Internet resources, books, documents, periodicals. -- Maps--India Source: ML Infomap Interactive Maps for Six Cities in India Access to these maps is free. Cities include: + Mumbai + Delhi + Gurgaon + Kolkata + Chennai + Bangalore + Hyderabad + Chandigarh -- Environmental Indicators Source: The World Bank 2006 Little Green Data Book (PDF; 1.03 MB) From press release (PDF; 60 KB): "Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to rise with a mix of old and new polluters, according to the Little Green Data Book 2006, launched today on the occasion of the Fourteenth Session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-14). According to this annual publication of the World Bank, CO2 emissions worldwide have now topped 24 billion metric tons (the most recent comprehensive data are for 2002), an increase of 15 percent compared to the 1992 levels." (via DocuTicker) -- Campaign Finance Source: FEC New, Party Financial Activity Summarized "The two major parties have reported raising $555.2 million in federally allowable 'hard money' at the national, state, and local levels in the first fifteen months of the 2006 election cycle. This total is 5% higher than the total raised through a comparable period in 2004, and 1% less than was reported from all sources (including both hard and soft money) through March of 2002, the last campaign with no Presidential race on the ballot." Numerous lists (XLS or PDF) are included: + National Party Contributions from Individuals by Size + Senatorial Campaign Committee Contributions from Individuals by Size + Campaign Committee Transfers to Party Congressional Committees + Many more -- Women and Science--Europe--Statistics Source: European Commission New Report, She Figures: Statistics and Indicators 116 pages; PDF. -- Business--United States--Surveys CEOs--United States--Surveys Source: Booz Allen Hamilton Global CEO Turnover Set New Record in 2005 "Global CEO departures reached record levels for the second year in a row, and may be peaking, according to the fifth annual survey of CEO turnover at the world's 2,500 largest publicly traded corporations released today by Booz Allen Hamilton. The study also found that performance-related turnover set a new record in North America, and merger-driven successions were at their highest level globally of any year other than 2000." See Also: CEO Succession 2005: The Crest of the Wave (via Strategy + Business) Article also available in PDF.
Something New Newsbeats from Reuters Labs Interesting, that's for sure. Creative? Maybe. Different, yes. The future? Who knows. Take news headlines as read by an announcer and overlay chill-out/electronica music on top of the spoken audio track. For example, today's Newsbeat offers an actuality or two from Bush's speech last night with a music. I also heard a report about fighting in Iraq with music playing below it. Might not work for me in these types of situations but I'm just one person. From the site, "Reuters Newsbeats blend music and news in a new media form." Listen online or download to your MP3 player. Learn more about the production process here. -- Maps--Video Source: Directions Magazine What Is and Who Are Immersive Media Cool! "The data feeds from all 11 cameras are stitched together into a geo-referenced 360 degree data stream, allowing you to measure, add to a map, etc...GeoImmersive video places you, the viewer, in the middle of the environment and within context so you do not miss a thing. The omni-directional nature of the video allows the user to look at the same feature, location, or object from all angles -- front, back, side, and top. See Also: Direct to Immersive Media Web Site See Also: Online Demo See Also: ResourceShelf First Posted About this Company About a Month Ago
Multimedia Shelf Presentations and Conversations at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco All of these presentation are delivered in RealAudio. + Microsoft's Steve Ballmer Recorded May 11 2006 + Madeleine Albright: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs Recorded May 8 2006 + Newsweek Columnist, Jonathan Alter Recorded May 16 2006
Information Industry--Awards Source: Software & Information Industry Association SIAA Announces Winners of 2006 Codie Awards Here's a sampling of winners: Best Business Intelligence or Knowledge Management Solution + LexisNexis - LexisNexis Total Search v. 3.1 Best Communication or Collaboration Solution + Zimbra - Zimbra Collaboration Suite Best Enterprise Search Engine + WebSideStory - WebSideStory Search Best Mobile Solution + iAnywhere - AvantGo Best Web Services Solution Amazon Web Services - Amazon.com - The Amazon Mechanical Turk Best Content Aggregation Service + Elsevier Engineering Information - Engineering Village 2 Best Medical and Health Information Product + A.D.A.M - A.D.A.M. Quicksheets Best Online Directory and Business Leads Service Best Online Government Information Service + Onvia - Onvia Business Builder Best Online Newsletter + National Geographic Digital Media - Inside National Geographic Best Online News Service + PR Newswire - PR Newswire for Journalists Best Online Professional Financial Information Service EDGAR Online - I-Metrix Professional Best Online Reference Service HighBeam Research, Inc. - HighBeam Research Best Solution Integrating Content into an Application + CSA - MultiSearch Best Education Reference or Search Service + Answers Corporation (GuruNet) - Answers.com Additional background (PDF).
Search Briefs + Yahoo: Our ads are better (via News.com) For more, listen to Yahoo's Analyst Day webcast. -- + More Notes on Google Notebook Note: One option not listed is Butterfly. Worth a look. -- + Flickr Goes Out Of Beta; Adds Features; Improves Design & More (via SEW Blog) -- + Japan: KDDI and Google buddy up to install Google Search on EZ Web (via PriMetrica)
Briefly + Canada's Nstein Technologies Will Be Used on BBC Site Deal will also involve Siemens. -- + Oxford University Press Launches The Oxford African American Studies Center "Over 7,500 articles from Oxford's reference program -- with images, maps, charts & tables, and much more!" Each month "featured" free content (essays, photos, etc.) will be available here. -- + Exploration Project: Talis Library Platform powers new Library Portal for Wales -- + Dagum Joins Business.Com As Vp, Chief Scientist, Strategy Officer Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Amazon.com Web Services Source: ACM Queue A Conversation with the CTO of Amazon.com, Werner Vogels -- RFID Source: JISC New Techwatch Report, RFID: Frequency, standards, adoption, and innovation From the abstract, "At the very simplest level, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies allow the transmission of a unique serial number wirelessly, using radio waves. Attaching an RFID tag to a physical object allows the object to be 'seen' and monitored by existing computer networks and back-office administration systems...This TechWatch report provides a brief discussion of these issues as well as a detailed examination of RFID technology, including some of the current uses within research, administration and teaching and learning. The report also includes an overview of the significance of RFID as an enabling technology towards achieving the 'seamless' and 'calm' vision of ubiquitous computing, the role of the Internet of Things, and plots a future trajectory for RFID development within the wider context of wireless, networked environments." Direct to full text (PDF). -- National Archives and Records Administration Source: NARA National Archives Sponsors Mandatory Declassification Review Workshop June 30th, 2006. "A free workshop sponsored by the National Archives Information Security Oversight Office that is aimed at informing the researcher public and the media of their rights in obtaining the maximum information by requesting a declassification review of classified national security documents." -- British Library Source: BL Appointment of new Chair of the British Library
Congressional Research Service Source: CRS via OpenCRS, FAS, US Embassy, Rome, FPC A Selection of New/Updated CRS Reports + Russia + High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) and High Power microwave (HPM) Devices: Threat Assessments + Direct Assaults Against Presidents, Presidents-Elect, and Candidates + The European Union in 2006 and Beyond + The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria: Progress Report and Issues for Congress + Iraq Oil: Reserves, Production, and Potential Revenues + U.S. and International Responses to the Global Spread of Avian Flu: Issues for Congress + Health Savings Accounts: Some Current Policy Issues + Federal Habeas Corpus: A Brief Legal Overview
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents History--Currency Converter Source: The National Archives New Database: So, what's it worth? "In 1680, employing a craftsman for 13 days would cost you the equivalent of just one hour with a modern plumber. In 1270, for the same amount, you could add five extra days of craftsman work, 14 lbs of wool and a bale of wheat. These are just some of the many interesting facts you can look up on The National Archives´ new currency conversion program at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/" -- Baby Names--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Social Security Administration Most Popular Baby Names of 2005 in the United States See Also: The Baby Name Voyager This Java app takes SSA data and allows you to visually identify and see baby name trends. Very cool. Thanks to Michael L. for the site tip. See Also: Most Popular Baby Names 2005, UK -- Intelligence--United States Source: CIA 30 New Documents Added to CIA Online Freedom of Information Act Collection Documents are full image and can be printed. See Also: New Additions to the POW/MIA Collection 122 new items. "The new documents include intelligence reports, broadcast translations, and finished intelligence from the Vietnam era. The POW/MIA collection now contains over 800 documents on the subject of prisoners-of-war and missing-in-action." -- Labor--Statistics Source: Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JILPT) International Comparison of Labour Statistics 2006 Thanks to Stuart Basefsky for the news tip. -- Business--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Revenues for Asian-Owned Firms Surpass $326 Billion "The number of Asian-owned businesses grew 24 percent between 1997 and 2002, approximately twice the national average for all businesses. The 1.1 million businesses generated more than $326 billion in revenues, up 8 percent from 1997. This is according to a new report, Survey of Business Owners: Asian-Owned Firms: 2002 [PDF], released by the U.S. Census Bureau." Summary ||| Direct to Full Text (PDF) -- Security--Wireless Source: OnGuardOnline Wireless Security A new section of the OnGuardOnline.gov web site. -- Intellectual Property--United States--Lists and Rankings Source: IPO Top 300 Organizations Granted U.S. Patents in 2005 12 pages; PDF. Browse by ranking or alphabetically.
Multimedia: Search Executive Beat Video: Ask.com's CEO, Jim Lanzone, Interviewed on CNBC Yesterday, Ask.com's new CEO, Jim Lanzone, chatted with CNBC about competing in the search space. Topics included: + Getting noticed and growing share + On spending, advertising + Smart Answers + "Search is not a zero sum game." + "Dedication to core search." -- -- Enterprise Search--Microsoft Source: News.com Gates to demonstrate new social search software Note: A webcast of the presentation is available here. According to News.com highlights will include: + "The next release of Microsoft's SharePoint server software will have a feature called Knowledge Network that automatically builds profiles of employees and their areas of expertise." + "The software can see if the information seeker and expert have any worker friends in common who might be able to make an introduction." + "Gates is also expected to preview a Windows Live Search program that will allow workers to search their desktop, across a corporate network, and the Web from within a single program. That software, still in early development, is scheduled to show up in beta and be released in final form in the second half of this year." See Also: Summary of Event (Press Release), Transcript of Speech by Bill Gates
Search Briefs MSNBC Search Now Powered by MSN Search Technology The technology has been in place since last month but in this post, Kelly Amsbry, Product Manager at Microsoft, explains how it works. Result pages contain both recent results and all results in one scroll. Each entry also contains a time stamp. Boolean and (nesting) available. No keyword ad links on result pages (at least at the moment). From the blog post, "Each query uses a set of pre-defined operators to set the correct domain and allows us to filter the results a bit to return specific types of pages. Adding a few extra SearchTags to all of our pages allows us to do things such as return only stories and filter out category pages from the results. Also adding the path to a photo as a SearchTag enables us to add thumbnails to the results on the fly. If you have never heard of SearchTags you should definitely check out this post." -- + Ask Binoculars Improving Search Results? (via SEW Blog)
Briefly + Enterprise Search Gets Lost (via BusinessWeek) While we're on the topic of enterprise search, Fast Search and Transfer continues to line-up big name users. First, Euro local search player, Pagesjaunes.Fr and automobile classified site and database, AutoTrader.com. -- + ACRL announces 2007 Best Practices in Marketing Academic and Research Libraries @ your library award The awards will be presented at the 13th ACRL National Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, March 29 - April 1, 2007. -- + LexisNexis Group Names Walsh President and CEO of U.S. Legal Markets
Search Patent Roundup Here's a look at some recently published patent applications. Remember, they are only apps and can mean many different things. Title: Active abstracts Assignee: NA (Yahoo?) Filed: June 28, 2005 Abstract: "Techniques are provided for generating search results that include, instead of or in addition to the traditional abstract links, other links to content that the user of a search engine may consider helpful. These other links are referred to herein as "non-traditional abstract links". In general, the search engine generates non-traditional abstract links that attempt to anticipate the "next move" by the search engine user. By selecting a non-traditional abstract link from the abstract of a matching resource, the user is able to navigate from the search result listing directly to locations other than the top of a matching resource." Title: Application programming interface for text mining and search Assignee: Microsoft Filed: July 1, 2005 From the abstract, "Systems and methods are described that allow programmatic access to search engine results and query logs in a structured form. The search results can be retrieved from the search engine in an intermediary form that contains the information that is in the HTML pages provided to web browsers (potentially with additional information)." Note: Eric Brill and Robert J. Ragno are listed as the inventors. Title: System and methods for providing automatic classification of media entities according to melodic movement properties Assignee: Microsoft Filed: December 21, 2005 Automatic classification using melody. From the abstract, "...automatically classifying and characterizing melodic movement properties of media entities. Such a system and methods may be useful for the indexing of a database or other storage collection of media entities, such as media entities that are audio files, or have portions that are audio files." Title: Search ranking system Assignee: NA Filed: November 7, 2005 Abstract: A computer based media, method and system for prioritizing search results for an individual, a group, a team, a division, an organization or some combination thereof. Title: Categorization of summarized information Assignee: NA Filed: December 1, 2005 Abstract: "A system for categorizing transactions includes a collection function gathering information concerning transactions, including at least date, description and amount of the transactions, for a particular person or enterprise, and a processing function categorizing individual ones of the collected transactions according to at least part of the transaction description." Title: Method and system to combine keyword and natural language search results Assignee: NA Filed: October 27, 2004 Abstract: A search query is received from a single input field of a user interface. A keyword search is performed based on the search query to generate keyword search results. A natural language search is performed of a frequently-asked question (FAQ) database based on the search query to generate FAQ search results. The keyword search results and the FAQ search results are combined in a display page. Title: Method for organizing a plurality of documents and apparatus for displaying a plurality of documents Assignee: IBM Filed: November 7, 2005 See Also: Ask.com's New Patent for Binoculars Technology (via SEW) Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Archives--United States Source: NARA Speech Transcript: "NARA: A Look to the Future" Remarks by Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference, April 21, 2006. -- Library Organizations Open Access Source: IFLA Papers from the 2006 World Library and Information Congress/IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) Annual Conference which is scheduled to take place in Seoul, Korea, in August are beginning to appear on the conference web site. ResourceShelf will provide you with direct links to them on a regular basis. We'll begin with this set of papers that look at open access from a session titled: Promoting the Implementation of Open Access. All papers are PDF files. + Open Access Scholarly Databases - a bird's eye view of the landscape by Peter Jacso. Btw, congrats to ResourceShelf friend (and Open Access News editor, Peter Suber) on the citation. + "dCollection": The National Network of University-Based Repository in Korea by Hyekyong Hwang and Heeyoon Choi (Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, Daejeon, Korea) + The Open Access movement in the Korean R&D environment by Hyekyong Hwang and Heeyoon Choi (Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, Daejeon, Korea) + Open Access and institutional repositories - a developing country perspective: a case study of India by S.B. Ghosh And Anup Kumar Das (Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India) + Open Access--Philosophy, Policy and Practice: a Comparative Study by Xuemao Wang and Chang Su (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (MD), USA) and Wei Liu (Shanghai Library, Shanghai, China) + Comparing three Chinese reprint systems by Yi Liu and Yi Gao (Science and Technology Library of Guangdong, Guangzhou, China) -- Literature--Lists & Ranking Source: New York Times Book Review What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years? "Early this year, the Book Review's editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors, and other literary sages, asking them to please identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years." [Read A. O. Scott's essay. See a list of the judges.]"
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Air Travel--Databases Air Ninja: Compare Different Air Fares; Check Where Discount Airlines Fly Easily check and compare prices from Kayak.com, Travelocity, Expedia, Hotwire, and Priceline. What's also very useful is the database (also browse by airline and city) of routes flown by discount airlines. Often, these airlines are not included in some of the large air fare databases. This discount airline directory database is international in scope. -- Health Research Source: MedlinePlus MedlinePlus Adds 14 Interactive Body Maps New on MedlinePlus are interactive body maps that can help the user track down proper MedlinePlus "Health Topic" resource compilation. For example, click "Ear, Nose, and Throat" a body map will appear, click "ear" and a list of the compilations that deal with ear issues becomes visible. -- Spam Computer Viruses Phishing Source: Message Labs New, Q1 2006 Computer Threat Review 13 pages; PDF. "This report provides the latest threat trends for April 2006 to keep you informed in the ongoing fight against viruses, spam and other unwelcome content. This is also the first MessageLabs Intelligence report of 2006 to take a retrospective look at the events which have helped shape the security landscape over the past few months." Numerous charts and tables. -- Internet--Security Source: WebSense 2006 Web@Work Survey From press release: "According to the Web@Work survey, directionally, more organizations were hit by a hacking tool or a keylogger in 2006, as almost one in five (17 percent) of organizations have had employees launch a hacking tool or a keylogger within their network. This number has increased from 2005 in which 12 percent were impacted. A keylogger can be defined as one of the most dangerous types of spyware, which has the ability to record keystrokes and screen shots and can be replayed later to reconstruct a user session. These applications can be utilized by hackers to steal passwords and confidential information, which can then be used to provide full access to corporate systems and files." Full Report (PDF; 135 KB) (via DocuTicker)
Briefly + ProQuest Publishes the First Digital Archive of American Historical Annual Reports More than 160 years of annual reports now searchable. -- + Elsevier Expands Web Strategy Group Company names new vice-president of Web Search Strategy & Business Development.
Cool Tools Maps--Prototypes--Microsoft Source: MSR Microsoft Research Unveils MapCruncher [for Virtual Earth] Prototype "MapCruncher enables a user to take existing road maps and aerial imagery and overlay particular, specialized maps to create unique mash-ups tailored to the user's specific interests. It's quick, it's easy, and -- judging from the enthusiasm displayed by this pair of map aficionados -- it's fun. 'MapCruncher' empowers anybody in the world to take whatever data is important to them,' explains Elson, the project lead, 'and share it with everybody else in a format that makes all of these types of data interoperable.'" Direct to MapCruncher site for download (Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP only) and more info. The RS team is getting ready to spend some time with this one." Looks like good weekend fun!
Web Search--Google Scholar Google Scholar and Viewing Citations Beyond 1000 Late last week we took a quick poke at Microsoft Academic Live (beta) (nothing major but the problems we pointed out continue). This time we will take a little poke at Google Scholar (beta). First, yes, we know, Google Scholar is a beta. :-) As you also know one of Google Scholar's most inviting and useful features is the ability to see citations to a specific paper or book. However, we want to point out that, like regular Google web results (and those for other web engines), you can only view up to 1,000 citations, total. Of course, people are not going to browse one thousand web results. However, we think it's fair to say (especially if Google wants to play with services like Web of Knowledge and Scopus) that allowing a researcher to review ALL of the citations listed and potentially download them for offline use and analysis, is important. So, say you want to review all of the 2341 citations to the Brin and Page classic, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, you can't. When you arrive at the 1000 citation, your ability to go forward ends. How can a user verify all of the cites beyond 1000 and more importantly get access to that info? Also, while Google just released (kudos) the ability to export entries (into one of five reference management tools) you have to export one entry at a time. How about being able to export all or selected entries /citations with a single click? In the process of putting this post together we found another issue or two. Title confusion and different citation counts depending on the source even though the publication/paper is the same. Again, look at this entry for The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. First, you'll see the entry we were just talking about with the 2341 entries. Then, a second entry with the same title. However, the second entry is not the paper. It's a slide presentation from a computer science class at the University of Ottawa. Nowhere is it listed (short of clicking the link) in the entry. However, if you look at some of the cites themselves, they are referencing the Brin and Page paper. Also confusing (in our opinion) is this search. Results 4,5, and 8 are all to the Brin and Page paper, each with different citation counts. Shouldn't all of these entries be brought together? No? Ok. Then please provide some documentation explaining how this works.
Search Briefs + Yahoo Gives New Look to Home Page Note: Not available for all browsers and we have only been able to see (as of posting) using IE. We can't seem to find a a "sneak preview:" link on Firefox. What's new? Watch the video featuring Jerry Yang and David Filo. Btw, Yahoo's clutter-free, ad-free, and customizable interfaces still exist. Perfect for the info pro. Go to search.yahoo.com. -- + eBay To Test TV Ad System; Not Google (via SEW Blog) + Snap.com's New User Interface & Adds New Features -- + Answers.com Releases 1-Click Answers 2.0
Multimedia Shelf ResourceShelf continues to provide regular updates of new audio/video programming available on the web. Here are links to the updates we've posted to this point. 1 ||| 2 ||| 3 ||| 4 ||| 5 ||| 6 -- Intellectual Property Source: Princeton University-Microsoft Intellectual Property Conference Live Webcasts: "Creativity & I.P. Law: How Intellectual Property Law Fosters or Hinders Creative Work" May 18-20, 2006. Selected events will be webcast live. Please see the conference web site for complete details -- Schools Source: Princeton University Webcast: "School Shootings: Why Terrible Things Happen in 'Perfect' Places" A lecture by Katherine Newman, Princeton University Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs. It took place on April 10, 2006 as part of the President's Lecture Series. Real ||| Microsoft Media -- Poetry Source: MIT Webcast: A Conversation with Robert Pinsky Professor of English, Boston University; Former U.S. Poet Laureate. Pinsky spoke at MIT on February 23, 2006. Monday, May 15, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Content Management--Open Source Software Source: Hipertext.net(3) (via E-LIS) Open Source Tools for Content Management By Jesús Tramullas. An impressive round-up of a number of open-source cms products. Discussed: * Zope * Typo3 * Midgard Project * OpenCMS * Apache Lenya * PHP Nuke * Drupal * Mambo * Claroline * Moodle * Fedora * DSpace * Greenstone * Cofax * Open Journal System * EPrints * eGroupware * phpCollab * Wiki * WordPress -- Information Access Bytes for All: The Website and Electronic Newsletter Information about projects to bring information access to the people of South Asia. Many thanks (as always) to David Dillard for the news tip. -- Archives--Disaster Planning Source: The International Council on Archives (ICA) New Study, Guidelines on Disaster Prevention and Control in Archives "The purpose of these Guidelines is to assist archives and archivists in need of guidance to implement a disaster management policy and strategy." -- Digitization Source: New York Times Magazine Scan This Book! "In several dozen nondescript office buildings around the world, thousands of hourly workers bend over table-top scanners and haul dusty books into high-tech scanning booths. They are assembling the universal library page by page." -- Digital Libraries Source: D-LIB Magazine The May 2006 Issue of D-Lib Magazine is Now Online Articles include: + Why OpenURL? + Using Annotations to Add Value to a Digital Library for Education + Project Update: Digital Library Federation (DLF) Aquifer Project
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents R&D--United States--Statistics Source: NSF Just Released, Federal Funds for R&D: FY 2003-05 "The annual report, Federal Funds for Research and Development: FY 2003-05, Detailed Statistical Tables consists of 131 tables derived from the Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development, for Fiscal Years 2003-05, and from earlier surveys in this series. These data provide data users with the most timely data possible and are not readily available from any other sources. These statistical data tables will only be available via the World Wide Web." -- Colleges and Universities--United States Source: National Center for Education Statistics College Opportunities Online Locator From press release: "NCES announces the release of a new version of the College Opportunities Online Locator (COOL) website, a consumer information tool for students, parents, high school counselors, and others interested in postsecondary education in the United States. The site allows users to see and compare profiles of nearly 7,000 colleges and universities throughout the nation. Users can search by location, program or major, and a variety of institutional characteristics to identify postsecondary institutions that fit their preferences. In addition, up to four institutions can be compared side-by-side on areas including: - Estimated student expenses; - Financial aid availability; - Admissions information; - Enrollment details; - Retention and graduation rates; and, - Awards and degrees. Links to institution websites as well as to additional information about campus security, federal student loan default rates, and accreditation are also provided." -- Country Profiles Source: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress + New Profile, Morocco + Updated Profile, Haiti -- Campaign Finance--United States--Statistics Source: FEC Congressional Fundraising Continues To Grow "Congressional campaigns raised a total of $ 657.2 million in the period from January 1, 2005 through March 31, 2006, an increase of 13% from the comparable period in 2003-2004, according to a compilation by the Federal Election Commission." XLS charts include: + Activity of 2006 Congressional Campaigns Through March 31, 2006 + Top 50 Senate Campaigns by Receipts + Top 50 Senate Campaigns by Contributions from PACs and Other Committees + Top 50 House Campaigns by Contributions from Individuals + Top 50 House Campaigns by Contributions and Loans from the Candidate + Many more
Briefly + Blogs: Audio: The Economist Interviews Technorati CEO, David Sifry A chat about blogs as tools to identify leading indicators. Interview lasts about 18 minutes. + The Economist Intelligence Unit re-launches 'Industry Briefings + SwetsWise 4.2 with RSS -- feeding you the latest information
Search Briefs Web Browsers--Search Firefox 2 Browser Will Offer Web Search Suggestions (and More) It looks like the Firefox 2 browser builds currently being tested will offer a bunch of new built-in tools for searchers. Including: + Search suggestions now appear in the search box auto-complete for Google and Yahoo. Note: What about for other engines? Of course, several engines (and specific sites) offer dynamic search suggestions in one form or another. We mentioned and linked to several of them (including a DocuTicker test of LookAhead) in this post. + New search plugin manager for removing and re-ordering search engines Note: Search Engine Ordering (a Firefox add-on we blogged about here) currently provides these services. PLUS, Search Engine Ordering also allows you to add just about any web engine to the Firefox search box without any coding skills and in just a couple of clicks. + New search service that supports Sherlock and OpenSearch engines + Automatic restoration of your browsing session if there is a crash Note: Several add-ons already offer this feature. It's very useful. We like TabMixPlus.
Briefly + Canadian Patents Database Upgraded -- + Century21.com, ColdwellBanker.com, ColdwellBankerCommercial.com, ERA.com and SothebysRealty.com will All Use Microsoft's Virtual Earth Mapping Services See Also: Microsoft Signs Strategic Partnership with National Geospatial Agency Sunday, May 14, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf National Libraries--New Zealand Source: National Library of New Zealand Funds for Major Expansion of National Library of New Zealand Approved "The National Library has been allocated funding in the 2006 budget to evaluate options for a major expansion of their building, the National Library Minister Judith Tizard has announced." -- Classification Schemes Source: GPO A Practical Guide to the Superintendent of Documents Classification System Also available in HTML by chapter. "The Superintendent of Documents classification system was developed in the library of the Government Printing Office between 1895 and 1903. It was first described in October 1903 by William Leander Post, then in charge of the library, in the preface to List of Publications of the Agriculture Department 1862-1902, Department List No.1, issued by the Superintendent of Documents in 1904." -- Subject Gateways Source: Information Research 11(2) (via E-LIS) Constructing Web subject gateways using Dublin Core, RDF, and Topic Maps by Jesús Tramullas and Piedad Garrido (2006). Abstract: "Specialised subject gateways have become an essential tool for locating and accessing digital information resources, with the added value of organisation and previous evaluation catering for the needs of the varying communities using these. Within the framework of a research project on the subject, a software tool has been developed that enables subject gateways to be developed and managed. General guidelines for the work were established which set out the main principles for the technical aspects of the application, on one hand, and on aspects of the treatment and management of information, on the other. All this has been integrated into a prototype model for developing software tools. The needs analysis established the conditions to be fulfilled by the application. A detailed study of the available options for the treatment of information on metadata proved that the best option was to use the Dublin Core, and that the metadata set should be included, in turn, in RDF tags, or in tags based on XML."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Newspaper Archives Source: NewspaperArchive.com Two New Newspaper Archives (Tens of Thousands of Articles) Now Available The team at NewspaperArchive.com continue to impress with two new and totally free archives. They are free to search (full text and full image) and the content itself is also free. Pages can be printed and saved. The two new archives are: + Immigrationarchive.com 50,000 articles from hundreds of papers. Also browse via this timeline. + Globalwarmingarchive.com Search or browse. See Also: More Links to All of the Other Archives in This Series in These 1||| 2 Posts -- UPDATE 5/17/05: New, Ronald Reagan Newspaper Archive More than 45,000 full text articles (searchable, free to access and copy) about the life and times of President Reagan. A browsable timeline is also available. -- Iraq--Leadership Source: USIP Who are Iraq's new leaders? What do they want? 20 pages; PDF.
Web Search--Google--History Sergey's Search for a Low Air Fare Things change. From August 1994, when Sergey Brin looks for help finding a low cost air fare, to November 2005 when news breaks that he is now the co-owner of a 767 jumbo jet.
Web Search Special Logos and Links for Mother's Day + The Ask.com home page (screen cap) sends greetings to mom and offers a direct link to an Ask.com Smart Answer loaded with direct links to info about the history of Mother's Day, recipes, and much more. Ask.com offers Smart Answers for many holidays. Examples: 1 ||| 2 ||| 3 -- + Google offers some "virtual" flowers for mom (screen cap) and a link to the search: Mother's Day. See Also: Fast Facts and Stats about Mothers in the United States (via U.S. Census) Saturday, May 13, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Weblogs--Analysis Source: Computational approaches for analysis of weblogs, AAAI Spring Symposium 2006 A corpus-based approach to finding happiness A paper by Rada Mihalcea (University of North Texas) & Hugo Liu (MIT). 6 pages; PDF. Really interesting research that concludes with a recipe for happiness. :-) From the abstract, "In this paper, we employ 'linguistic ethnography' to seek out where happiness lies in our everyday lives by considering a corpus of blogposts from the LiveJournal community annotated with happy and sad moods. By analyzing this corpus, we derive lists of happy and sad words and phrases annotated by their 'happiness factor.'...The paper concludes with an audacious attempt to articulate a corpus-inspired 'recipe for happiness.'" -- Open Access Medical Journals Medical journal backfiles launch "Complete back issues covering nearly 200 years of historically significant biomedical journals are being made freely available online as a result of a landmark project launched today at the Wellcome Trust headquarters in London. On completion, the Medical Journals Backfiles Digitisation Project will deliver over three million pages of medical journals to PubMed Central, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) full-text, life sciences repository." See Also: Medical journals backfiles digitisation project
ResourceShelf Real-Time #2 Our continuing series of real-time sites, tools, and feeds continues. + Yes.com Near real-time access to music played on most commercial radio stations in the U.S. Search for stations and then review the list. 24hr archive. Example. + New York City Traffic Cams and Video Streams Select your borough and go. A mobile version of this site is also available here. + Currently on the House Floor A "virtual ticker" of what's being debated/voted on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Seven day archive available. See Also: ResourceShelf Real-Time #1
Multimedia Shelf Source: MSR Webcast of Lecture: Communication Technology: Interruption and Overload A lecture by Laura Dabbish, a doctoral candidate in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. She writes, "My work seeks to understand the way people attend to communications in work situations to inform the design of tools that increase productivity, and reduce feelings of stress and overload. In this talk, I will describe a field study examining influences on the decision to attend and respond to email communication. I will also discuss a laboratory study examining the productivity and social implications of awareness displays designed to maintain benefits of connectivity and reduce disruption." This presentation took place on March 31, 2006.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Maps--Historical Sources: Various Sources of Historical Maps 1) National Geographic Map Machine 2) David Rumsey Collection 3) Maptech.com A collection of historic USGS topographic maps. See Also: More Historical Maps and Map Sites via Perry-Castañeda Library -- Demographics--United States Source: U.S. Census Nation's Population One-Third Minority Tables (XLS) include: + Race and Hispanic or Latino Origin of the Population for the United States: 2004 and 2005 + Components of Population Change by Race and Hispanic or Latino Origin for the United States: July 1, 2004 to July 1, 2005
DocuTicker Best of DocuTicker DocuTicker is ResourceShelf's sister site and is updated daily with a wide variety of new full text reports on many topics from government agencies, think tanks, ngo's and many other organizations. Here's a small, very small, sample of what we've posted during the past week. + Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed + Top 100 R&D Spenders (Global), 2004 + Business & Economics Research Advisor: The Oil & Gas Industry + The World Competitiveness Scoreboard 2006 + Intelligence and Security Committee Report into the London Terrorist Attacks on 7 July 2005 + Top 10 Markets to Watch for Commercial Real Estate Investors + Katrina Index: Tracking Variables of Post-Katrina Reconstruction + State of the World's Mothers 2006: Saving the Lives of Mothers and Newborns
Search Briefs Two Ask.com Smart Answers for Business Searchers 1) Market Capitalization Info 2) Outstanding Shares Data 3) Price Earnings Ratio Btw, these Smart Answers will also work with a ticker symbol instead of a company name. -- + IceRocket Offering MySpace Search Each MySpace result on IceRocket also contains a "Quick View" link which embeds (if clicked) a LIVE version of the page in the results list. Similar to what Clusty.com offers with its preview option. The Quick View link is also available on IceRocket's "Web Search." Each web result also now contains a direct link for that URL direct to The Wayback Machine. Gigablast, Clusty, and Yahoo also offer links to Wayback. Friday, May 12, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Digitization Projects Source: National Commission on Libraries and Information Science Just Released, NCLIS Issues Report: "Scholarship and Libraries in Transition: A Dialogue about the Impacts of Mass Digitization Projects." 24 pages; PDF. The report comes from a symposium that took place in March 2006 at the University of Michigan. Summary and key points issues addressed here. See Also: View an Archived Webcast of the Symposium -- Microsoft Academic Live A Quick Poke at Microsoft and MS Academic Live Of course, we all make typos. Some of us make lots of them (Gary for example), many more than we should. Luckily (thank goodness), because of the ResourceShelf team including the work of Dale Copps, many get noticed and corrected asap. Of course, we're just a small group with limited resources. Microsoft is just a bit :-) larger and with many more resources and MANY more people visiting their sites. That's why we're surprised to see that one month after the launch of MS Academic Live a typo (albeit a small one) on the Academic Live home page is still there. We figured that within a couple of days it would be quickly and easily fixed. No big deal at all. We're talking a one-letter typo. It's hard to imagine that others in Redmond and at other MSFT offices haven't noticed the typo and made sure it got fixed in a timely manner. We wonder where the problem exists in the Academic Live team to repair such a small problem. The typo is "releance," when it should be "relevance." You'll find it in a section of the Academic Live home page where results and sorts are explained (Results) at number 6. Let's be clear, our point here is not the typos themselves, but how long they've taken to correct. Just in case someone at MS notices the problem today or reads ResourceShelf, here's a screen cap and/or the cached page. Update: A ResourceShelf reader points to another typo, "ourdeep." It's found in the FAQ section with the heading, "Why don't you have content from all fields?" -- RFID--Data Security Source: Wired The RFID Hacking Underground "David Molnar is a soft-spoken computer science graduate student who studies commercial uses for RFIDs at UC Berkeley. I meet him in a quiet branch of the Oakland Public Library, which, like many modern libraries, tracks most of its inventory with RFID tags glued inside the covers of its books. These tags, made by Libramation, contain several writable memory 'pages' that store the books' barcodes and loan status.... Brushing a thatch of dark hair out of his eyes, Molnar explains that about a year ago he discovered he could destroy the data on the books' passive-emitting RFID tags by wandering the aisles with an off-the-shelf RFID reader-writer and his laptop. 'I would never actually do something like that, of course,' Molnar reassures me in a furtive whisper, as a nonbookish security guard watches us."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Reports Disabilities--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Americans with Disabilities: 2002 "About 18 percent of Americans in 2002 said they had a disability, and 12 percent had a severe disability, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Among people with disabilities, more than half of those 21 to 64 years old had a job, more than 4 in 10 of those ages 15 to 64 used a computer at home and a quarter of those age 25 to 64 had a college degree." + Four million children ages 6 to 14, or 11 percent, had a disability. The chances of having a disability rise with age: 72 percent of people age 80 and older had disabilities. + Approximately 11 million people ages 6 and older, or 4 percent, needed personal assistance with an everyday activity. + Among the population age 15 and older, 2.7 million used a wheelchair and 9.1 million an ambulatory aid such as a cane, crutches, or a walker. + About 7.9 million people age 15 and older had difficulty seeing the words and letters in ordinary newspaper print, including 1.8 million who were unable to see. + There were 7.8 million people age 15 and older who had difficulty hearing a normal conversation, including 1 million unable to hear. + About 14.3 million people age 15 and older had limitations in cognitive functioning or a mental or emotional illness that interfered with their daily activities, such as Alzheimer's disease, depression, or mental retardation. This group comprised 6 percent of the population. Highlights Direct to Full Text (PDF) -- Public Health--European Union Source: EU EU Debuts Public Health Portal -- Money--History Source: Library of Congress, Business Reference Services New, The History of Money "This guide describes selected general sources on the history of money, including online and print resources, and also provides links to relevant subject searches in the Library of Congress online catalog. The guide is not limited to any particular currency or country. For information on United States money, please see United States Money: a Guide to Information Sources." -- Jewelry--Theft--Database Source: Jewelers' Security Alliance Stolen Jewelry Website "The Stolen Jewelry Website of the Jewelers' Security Alliance provides a central clearinghouse for the jewelry industry, law enforcement, insurance personnel and the general public to share information on jewelry that has been stolen or recovered in the United States . The listings include watches, gems, and jewelry. Searches and listing are free. This database, which is the only publicly available, comprehensive website to list stolen jewelry, went live in January 2006, and will become increasingly valuable as the number of users increases and the number of items posted grows." -- Employers--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Universum Communications (Via BusinessWeek) Most Desirable Companies to Work For (Poll of Undergrad Students) "In the annual poll of undergrads by Philadelphia-based Universum Communications, Disney headed a list of the most desirable companies to work for. Other top places to work include Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Computer (AAPL) and, believe it or not, the FBI."
Briefly + Chinese Version of Wikipedia Is Launched (via AP) -- + Microsoft Signs Strategic Partnership with National Geospatial Agency "The NGA will use the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform to provide geospatial support for humanitarian, peacekeeping and national-security efforts."
Search Briefs Earlier this week we began beta testing LookAhead technology on DocuTicker. This new feature offers direct links to actual posts (as opposed to just search results) as you enter letters into the search book. Much more about our new beta, LookAhead technology (including an overview Gary wrote about LookAhead last September) here. Today, Yahoo introduces LiveSearch, a new beta that's slightly similar in concept to LookAhead but a bit more more closely related to Google's Suggest beta. It's available on Yahoo's AllTheWeb site. Wow, there's a search name we haven't heard in a long time. The LiveSearch motto is, "Search Smarter, Find Faster." Using LiveSearch is straightforward. As you enter letters into the search box, search term suggestions dynamically appear in a drop-down window below the search box and the search for the top result runs "live" on the ATW/Yahoo database. Although Yahoo doesn't tell you precisely why a suggestion appears, they are likely to come from a review of query logs and click patterns. For example, as you enter the letters R-E-S, a suggestion for "Resume" tops the list. In the search results window, results for the search resume appear. Below the resume suggestion, alternate suggestions like: + Resume Templates + Resume Sample + Resume Samples + Sample Resume + Sample Resume appear. As you continue entering letters new results appear and new suggestions provided. Suggestions are hyperlinked and when clicked run the search live. A search refinement box allows you to limit your query to specific document types and domains. AllTheWeb Livesearch database does not offer cached copies of pages that are available on Yahoo.com. So, in respect to providing web results, LiveSuggest is similar to Google Suggest. Unlike LookAhead (more demos here), you're NOT being taken to a specific web page (vs. only web results), blog post, etc. In many search verticals being taken to a specific page/entry can be very powerful and a big time saver for the searcher versus simply being taken to results or possible results. However, Google Suggest or Google Suggest on News does not run queries in real time as you type. LiveSearch will also suggest words/phrases where the letters don't begin the word. For example, one suggestion we received for our "RES" search was "American Idol REsults." Google Suggest suggestions appear in alphabetical order. + Resumes + Resumes + Resume Writing + Resume Examples + Etc. Today's launch of a dynamic query suggestion tool from Yahoo continues a trend we've been seeing for well over a year. Other dynamic query tools include: + Surfwax News Accumulator In this case, suggestions come from a controlled vocabulary. + WikiWax Suggestions come from Wikipedia subject headings and point directly to Wikipedia entries + AOL Pinpoint Shopping Suggestions from a controlled vocabulary of products and services Clusty's dynamically generated clusters can offer related concepts and ideas dynamically generated in its clusters. Ask.com also offers conceptually related categorized search term suggestions to narrow/expand your query on most search results pages. In some cases, related names are also pulled out of the results and listed. More about Ask.com's "Zoom" feature here and here. Btw, Zoom is also available on Ask Images. Thursday, May 11, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor As someone who drags around an iBook and computes from a number of awkward places, I am all too aware that bad ergonomics get dicier as you get older. Most of us spend w-a-y too much time in front of the computer screen. Sometimes it can't be helped. Sometimes...well, maybe we should try a little harder to Have A Life. Our eyes are overworked, our shoulders are hunched, our tunnels are carpaled... Maybe we need to pay more attention to ergonomics, which leads me to this week's resource. Ergonomics--Hub Source: Cornell Human Factors and Ergonomics Research Group (CHFERG) CUErgo: Cornell University Ergonomics Web "CUErgo presents information from research studies and class work by students and faculty in the Cornell Human Factors and Ergonomics Research Group (CHFERG), directed by Professor Alan Hedge, in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University. CHFERG focuses on ways to enhance usability by improving the ergonomic design of hardware, software, and workplaces, to enhance people's comfort, performance, and health in an approach we call Ergotecture." Most of the practical information available here, which you'll find in the center column of the page, focuses on computer use -- for adults, for kids, and for seniors. Do check out the Library ergonomics link, which takes you to some interesting student projects involving signage and the ergonomic issues associated with library automation. You'll also find information about ergonomics in hotels, nursing homes, and hospitals. Don't neglect the "news" section in the lefthand column. + Read about the problems caused by hot laptops (not for the faint of heart). + Read a report by Professor Hedge on the Ergonomics Considerations of LCD versus CRT Displays (PDF; 54 KB). + Is there really a link between computer use and carpal tunnel syndrome? + Have some ErgoFun by solving several entertaining puzzles. Students, researchers, and professionals in the field of ergonomics will find plenty of resources, including job and internship postings, a collection of research studies, and various tools, checklists, survey forms, and software. And there's a categorized list of links to other ergonomics-related sites, including Ergoblog and Living in the Mirror, an eclectic site for lefthanded people. Bonus resources: + Usernomics (an ergonomics consulting firm) has a nicely annotated list of links. + The Naval Safety Center offers DoD and government-oriented ergonomics information. + The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Lighting Research Center has an excellent set of manuals on Lighting for Older Adults. There are downloadable PDF versions for older adults; home designers, architects, and builders; and health care professionals.
Professional Reading Shelf Research Guides National Archives and Records Administration Source: NARA Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States -- Health Information Health Libraries Source: NLM NCLIS Announces Grand Prize Winner: Best Library Program in the Country Addressing Health and Wellness Issues Congrats to the Charleston and Georgetown (South Carolina) Diabetes Coalition's Library Partnership. -- Information Standards Source: National Information Standards Organization NISO Newsline May 2006 Now Online Articles include: + NISO Issues 2005 Annual Report ++ Direct to NISO 2005 Annual Report (PDF) + Webinars Offered on SUSHI: Register Now + Articles from Various Sources including ++ "The Birth of the Universal Library" via LJ on the Open Content Alliance ++ "The New Cataloger" via LJ by Roy Tennant -- Social Networking--United States Source: News.com Congress targets social network sites "Now MySpace and other social networking sites like LiveJournal.com and Facebook are facing a new threat: A proposed federal law that would effectively require schools and libraries to render those Web sites inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the category's most ardent users." See Also: Full Text and Other Info of Legislation (H.R.5319)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Venture Capital--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: PWC MoneyTree Report Now Avaiable: Detailed Company and VC Listings for Q1 2006 Registration required, free. More info via PWC MoneyTree home page. -- Information Technology--Companies--Lists & Rankings Source: Red Herring Top 100 European Companies "The 100 companies selected by Red Herring in this year's judging reflect the rich vein of innovation and entrepreneurial activity in Europe and the Middle East. They range from a Finnish company trying to harness the power of tides to a Belgian biotech company that uses llama blood to create therapeutic proteins. The geographic range is impressive, too. The largest number of companies on the list is based in the United Kingdom (28), with France and Israel tying for second place with 17 each. Yet, this year we also have winners from Dubai, Romania, and the Czech Republic." -- Business--Lists & Rankings e-Books Source: Forbes Forbes Lists and Rankings Ready for Your Portable Device Cool. Many of the Forbes lists (Forbes 2000, Billionaires, Executive Pay) ready for easy download (free, too!) as e-books to your PDA. You'll need eReader software, also free. -- Jobs--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Money Top 50: Most entry-level jobs for grads -- Nutrition Source: Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion/HHS Just Released, A Healthier You: Based on the Dietary Guidelines for americans Available in HTML or as PDF files. -- Prisons--United States Source: Society of Professional Journalists Open Prisons "Restrictive prison policies continue to be an issue -- and a problem -- for journalists. SPJ is working to keep prisons accessible and has developed this online resource of state access policies relating to the media. Select a state and click to find to following information: * State policies governing media access * Rules governing reporting tools * Visitation list rules * Execution witness policies * Required forms * State correctional contacts * SPJ Project Sunshine Chair contact information" Some state information not included. "Contacts and information current for 2006."
Multimedia Shelf Source: Oxford University Lecture: Why the Internet is the way it is (and why it will be very different in ten years) This lecture by Dr David Clark, Senior Research Scientist, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science was presented at Oxford on April 28, 2006. "Dr David Clark speaks about the basic design principles of the Internet, and how it might change in the future." This webcast is audio only.
Briefly New Services from The Wall Street Journal Online Keep Coming Subscribers can now access: + Index to people mentioned in the day's print version of the newspaper + Index to companies mentioned in the day's print version of the newspaper + Right-click search Highlight any word or phrase, right-click, and a search box appears + Mobile News and Ticker Alerts Delivered via SMS Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries--United States--Statistics Source: NCES Updated: New Fiscal Year 2004 data from the Public Libraries Survey (PLS) "Just updated! New Fiscal Year 2004 data from the Public Libraries Survey (PLS) have just been added to the Compare Public Libraries and the State Education Data Profiles web tools. These data have been reviewed and edited at the state and national levels, and verified as correct by each state's data coordinator. Please visit Compare Public Libraries and State Education Data Profiles to access and view the new Fiscal Year 2004 Public Library data." -- Publishing Industry--Statistics Source: Bowker U.S. Book Production Plummets 18% in 2005; Smaller Publishers Show the Largest Drop in New Titles "Bowker, the world's leading provider of bibliographic information, today released statistics on U.S. book publishing compiled from its Books In Print database. Based on preliminary figures from U.S. publishers, Bowker is projecting that U.S. title output in 2005 decreased by more than 18,000 to 172,000 new titles and editions. This is the first decline in U.S. title output since 1999, and only the 10th downturn recorded in the last 50 years. It follows the record increase of more than 19,000 new books in 2004. Great Britain, long the world's per capita leader in the publication of new books in any language, now replaces the United States as the publisher of most new books in English. 206,000 new books were published in the U.K. in 2005, representing an increase of some 45,000 (28%) over 2004." -- Conferences Source: E-Content Institute Presentations from the 2006 Information Highways Conference Now Online -- Genealogy--United States--Databases World War II Records--Databases Source: Prologue The World War II Army Enlistment Records File and Access to Archival Databases "World War II Army Enlistment Records provide a rich source of information for genealogists and other researchers at the National Archives and Records Adminstration interested in Army enlistees in World War II. Since their release through NARA's Access to Archival Databases (AAD) resource in May 2004, they have quickly become the most popular series of electronic records accessible through that resource." -- Digital Repositories--United Kingdom Source: JISC -- Maps Source: Directions Magazine Maps of Science "This article by Richard Klavans describes mapping the relationships between scientific publications based on specific topics. The relationships within and between each of the collections of scientific literature are fairly easy to see in the initial graphic."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Travel--United States Amtrak Source: Amtrak New from Amtrak: Interactive Route Atlas "The Route Atlas is an interactive map that allows travelers to explore all the places Amtrak goes. Travelers can search by station or route; or by plotting custom routes to see the various options Amtrak offers between any two stations." You'll need Macromedia Flash to use the atlas. -- Information Technology Entrepreneurship Source: IEEE-USA New, IEEE-USA Offers Resources to Assist Tech-Based Entrepreneurs "The new IEEE-USA Entrepreneurs Village is an online portal designed to provide high-tech entrepreneurs with tools and resources conducive to innovation and company growth. It links high-tech entrepreneurs with their peers, and prospective entrepreneurs with mentors." Direct to IEEE-USA Entrepreneurs Village. -- Vehicle Theft--United States Source: National Insurance Crime Bureau Hot Spots 2005 From press release: "The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) reported today that for calendar year 2005, the West, and particularly California, is indeed heaven for the nation's auto thieves. All of the nation's top ten areas with the highest vehicle theft rates are in the West with six of them in California." Methodology -- Maternal and Infant Mortality--Statistics Source: Save the Children Just Released, State of the World's Mothers 2006: Saving the Lives of Mothers and Newborns (PDF; 1.7 MB) From press release: "Save the Children, a U.S. - based independent global humanitarian organization, released today its annual Mothers' Index that ranks the best -- and worst -- places to be a mother and a child. The Index, highlighted in the organization's State of the World's Mothers 2006 report, ranks the status of mothers and children in 125 countries based on 10 indicators pertaining to health and education. Save the Children's State of the World's Mothers 2006 report takes a closer look at the inextricable link between the health and survival of mothers and babies, narrowing in on simple, affordable solutions that can help save 3 million of the 4 million newborns who die every year. Scandinavian countries sweep the top rankings of the best places to be a mother, while countries in sub-Saharan Africa dominate the bottom tier. The United States ties for 10th place with the United Kingdom."
Scholarly Publishing--Citation Reports Source: ISI + Library & Information Science: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 2001-05 + The Most-Cited Institutions in Computer Science, 1995-2005 + Science in France, 2001-05 + Art & Architecture: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 2001-05 + The "Hot" Paper in Physics + The "Hot" Paper in Chemistry
DocuTicker Begins Beta Test of LookAhead Dynamic Query Suggestion Technology from SurfWax As many of you know (at least we hope you know) DocuTicker is ResourceShelf's sister site where we post even more full text reports and documents from government agencies, ngo's, think tanks, and other groups. Beginning today, we've added a new feature called LookAhead that allows you to find results "as you type" from the DocuTicker archives. At the moment, using DocuTicker LookAhead gives you access to about three weeks of data with more archived posts coming soon. Keep in mind that it's a beta and at this Unlike other services that simply tell you the number of hits as you type, clicking a dynamically generated LookAhead link will take you to a specific posting from the DocuTicker archives. We still have some kinks to work out -- if you find any, please let us know -- but if all goes as planned, we'll formally announce the feature in a week or two. For more on LookAhead technology, its many features and dynamic query suggestions in general, take a look at this SEW article that Gary wrote last September. We think it's easy to see how this technology could be useful in many search situations, including OPACS and traditional info databases. How It Works: 1) Find the LookAhead Search Box on the right side of the Docuticker Home Page. 2) Begin entering the first letters of a keyword for what you're hoping to find. Made a typo? Just backspace. Want to add more keywords? Just start typing them. 3) As you type, titles of posts from the last two weeks of DocuTicker will appear. 4) Click on any suggested entry that looks good and you'll be taken directly to that post. Note that since you're searching the actual DocuTicker archive as you type, there is no need to click a search button. Postscript: LookAhead is also used to power the Wikipedia search tool, WikiWax, that we posted about the other day on Resourceshelf. See Also: LookAhead Search of RSS Feeds (Titles Only)
Web Search--Google Source: News.com Press Day at Google Wednesday was press day at Google and CEO Eric Schmidt talked to the press while at the same time the company introduced several new tools. From the News.com story: "It's obvious things are going to be more competitive in the future," he said during the company's annual press day. "This competition is healthy for end users." But "none of the other competitors is emphasizing" search."* *Quick note from Gary Although the News.com article makes no mention of Ask, Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone, has pointed out many times including in this interview from about a week ago that, "we're not being distracted by anything beyond core search." In other Google news, they launched several new services today. + Google Co-op (Beta) "As a first step, Google has worked with partners to annotate web pages related to health and city guides and to offer dozens of subscribed links to specialized content such as restaurant and movie information. Going forward, Google hopes the online community will begin building out new topic areas to help improve the way people find and discover information online." We will see. More from Danny Sullivan here. Social search, tagging and Google. It appears to be here. Of course, many companies like Yahoo (for one) have been doing similar things for a long time. A Few Minutes with Google Co-op or Google Base for Web Pages Like we've always done at ResourceShelf we spent a few minutes "testing/playing with" the new Google Co-op tool. In many ways, it reminds me of Google Base. We can talk about the quality of the structure and fields that Google Base provides at another time. Taking it a step further, the Google Co-op documentation reads, "help other users find information more easily by creating "subscribed links" for your services and labeling webpages around the topics you know best." So, Google Co-op is Google Base like for web content. Developers will see even more "Google Base like" pages on this page of examples . Of course, this reminds us of other social tools like PreFound, Filangy, JetPack and many others. It also reminds us a lot of Rollyo, where with no coding necessary you can create a site or domain specific limited search in a matter of seconds of up to 25 domains. Then, you can share your limited search with the public, friends, etc. The difference here is that no fielded tags (labels) are available. From what we've seen thus far from Google Co-op and even Google Base, it's not that big of a deal. We've heard from several school librarians how useful Rollyo has been for them. If you've never visted Rollyo.com, it's worth a look. Now, if the Rollyo team could get the one major issue solved (limiting to specific subdirectories) it would be ideal. Useful and easy to use. For now, Google has some pre-built Co-op categories listed on the Google co-op page. Yes, we realize and Google is completely on the record about this project being in "its early stages." Btw, from what we've come across, building your own topic compilation requires some coding skills. I also wonder if Google will create some type of unified thesaurus to help searchers. For example, will the search limit "specifications" mean the same thing across different Co-op collections or will the user always have to check its meaning. Lots of different vocabularies (I call it pop, you call it soda, they call it a fizzy drink) makes things more of a challenge for the searcher to find what they want quickly. Users can also "subscribe" to results from specific sources that appear in a OneBox at the top of the results page. Here are two screen caps to show how subscription material is presented. 1 2. Contributing to Google Co-op requires a Google ID and then submitting annotations and labels. You can work offline and submit up to 1000 URLS and labels at a time using an XML or TSV formats. Of course, issues with other open tagging (labelling is Google's term) are still an issue here. Spam might not be as much of problem with Co-op as elsewhere since authors explicitly can control what pages they include. Will people (the masses, NOT the tech geek type) actually take the time to build, subscribe, and maintain (very important) these tools? We're not so sure. Btw, it's one thing to build, it's another thing to maintain. Right now, Google is developing 6 topics. Clicking each label on a category page gives a definition (a gloss) of what each label means. That's useful. Categories are: + Destination Guides + Health + Autos + Computer & Video games + Photo & Video equipment + Stereo & Home theater Here are a few results I found this afternoon. A Search of Google co-op Health Search: Ptosis (droopy eyelids) Now, let's limit to support groups. I was unable to find any info in the first 10 results about support groups. Limited to Symptoms The fourth result was for Wandering Spleen. Search: Legionnaires Disease Limited to Patient Handouts The third result was a subscription only article, from a medical journal. The abstract which was free made it appear that the article has little to do with legionnaires disease. The ninth result was to a speech and the document was unavailable. Now, a search of the Destination Guides co-op. Search: Orange County Limited to Suggested Itineraries Am I looking for Orange County, California (most of the results) or Orange County, VA or Orange County, FL. The third result is for the Virginia county that's home to Monticello. Google should offer some form of disambiguation tool that will help the typical searcher. Search: Chicago Limited to Amateur articles In the top 10 results articles from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, two professional newspapers. Also, a result from Om Malik's blog that mentions Chicago but has no real info about the city. Finally, result 10 is for WGN Radio, a professional radio station. Search Chicago: Limited to Maps Results are fine. Nice job. Search Chicago: Limited to Sightseeing Not bad but a regular Google search for Chicago sightseeing returns nearly equal quality results at this point. Google Autos Co-op Search: Toyota Again, a tool to help the searcher with model and year would be helpful. Search: Toyota Prius Limited to Product Manuals Found chat rooms, the Toyota Prius home page, articles from Motor Trend and the Washington Post but not too much involving product manuals. Search Toyota Prius Limited to Negative Reviews The first review from About.com is extremely positive (5 out of 5 stars). The second review from Automotive.com is also positive, as is the third review. Now, if I want to go back and label any/some/all of these pages I need to go to the Google Co-Op entry page, enter the url and label. I was unable (is it just me?) to find a way to label a page directly while reviewing the results list. Since this is the first day of the service, we can cut Google some slack. However, like we said when Google Base launched, it's going to take several months to see if this service: + Takes off. Is it too much work for people to label and annotate (I'm not talking geeks here)? Is it easy to use? + Do the labels add value for the typical searcher? Do they save them time? + What about spam working its way into specific groups? Will the owners of popular subscriptions/topic pages be offered $$$ by webmasters to have certain pages (their pagess) included in a topical collection? As the 80's band Asia said, "only time will tell." More Google Products/Updates + Google Desktop 4 Beta + Google Trends from Google Labs Access and graph search queries. Comment from ResourceShelf: Google does not supply the methodology for the new tool. Knowing this would make it more vaulable (it's already cool) especially when they say on a results page, "several approximations are used when computing your results." Services like BlogPulse, IceRocket, and others have been visualizing blogosphere buzz (what people are linking to for a long time). Of course, Alexa.com has offered traffic info for several years along with tools to visualize the data. Finally, tools like Yahoo Keyword Selector Tool and Google's own, Google AdWords Keyword Tool continue to offer looks at popular search terms. In fact, Yahoo's tool will show the estimated number of times a query has been searched for a specific month. + Coming Next Week: Google Notebook from Google Labs Save page clips, make notes, etc. Again, companies like eSnips (Mary Ellen Bates likes this one), ButterFly (cool!), Filangy, Zoho Writer, Furl.net, and many others.
Briefly + Opera Web Browser Coming to Nintendo Once again, Opera scores a big deal this time as the browser for the Nintendo Wii game console coming soon. If you've never used the incredibly powerful and robust Opera browser on your desktop or mobile/smartphone, it's more than worthy of your attention. -- + WSJ Online gets live news update feature Learn more here and here (new beta coming). -- + Inxight Announces Product Integration with LexisNexis -- + Emerald Announces New Portal for Engineers FREE ACCESS to all content until September. What does it offer? Content drawn from its 15 engineering and materials science journals and material from Emerald's technology and management titles. Content is split into four major disciplines: advanced automation; computational mathematics; electronics manufacture and packaging; and materials science." Tuesday, May 09, 2006
ResourceShelf Real-Time #1 For the past few months we've been collecting links to resources (web pages and client apps) that offer real-time or near real-time information. In some cases, these resources include maps and pages that automatically refresh themselves with new info after a set period of time. Our hope is to create a database of these tools in the near future. The collection continues to grow. In the meantime, we'll begin posting direct links to these real-time data sources two or three times a week in a new section titled: ResourceShelf Real-Time. As the weeks go by, you'll find everything from forest fire info in the U.S. to train travel times in the UK. From the altitude of a commercial airliner travelling from Chicago to San Francisco to a cool trafficam or two. Of course, your suggestions are always appreciated. Please send them to us at mailto:resourceshelf@myway.com. So, without further ado, here's ResourceShelf Real-Time #1: +++ FlightAware One of a number of tools to track planes (both commercial and private) as they travel across Canadian and U.S. airspace. It's also possible (although sometimes unreliable) to track international flights either coming or going from the U.S or Canada. Many similar services exist (expect coverage of them soon). We like FlightAware because: + Track by tail number, airline/flight #, or airport + See all flights coming/going from a specific airport + If you register (free and easy) pages will autorefresh + Archive of past flight info + Near real-time location info (example) +++ Amtrak Real-Time Train Status +++ What's Playing on Sirius Satellite Radio Right Now + Page auto-refreshes as new songs/shows hit the air + Also searchable +++ City of Seattle Real-Time 911 Dispatch + Also searchable back to 2003.
Professional Reading Shelf Library of Congress--Preservation Source: Federal Computer Week Nels Olson's new lab is in the library "'All the people who've bought the [Beatles'] "White Album" as many times as I have know that [CDs] break down,' Olson said. A CD's lifespan is as short as 14 years. 'Anybody who's had a collection of CDs for that long, like me, has started to see their CDs fail.'" Meet Nels Olson, who gave up a career in biotechnology to join the Library of Congress last month as chief of preservation research and testing." -- Social Networking Source: Knowledge@Wharton MySpace, Facebook, and Other Social Networking Sites: Hot Today, Gone Tomorrow? "Popular social network sites, including MySpace and Facebook, are changing the human fabric of the Internet and have the potential to pay off big for investors, but -- given their youthful user base -- they are unusually vulnerable to the next new fad. As quickly as users flock to one trendy Internet site, they can just as quickly move on to another with no advance warning, according to Wharton faculty and Internet analysts, who offer some ideas on how these new sites can both increase user loyalty and generate revenues." -- Digital Resource--Social Science Digital Resources--Humanities Source: Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley Final Report: Use and Users of Digital Resources: A Focus on Undergraduate Education in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Electronic Commerce--Canada--Statistics Source: Industry Canada Highlights from the 2005 Survey of Electronic Commerce and Technology (SECT) See Also: Related Numbers via Statistics Canada -- Workforce--Europe--Statistics Source: Eurostat Aging work force -- how old are Europe's human resources in science and technology? 8 pages; PDF. -- Enviroment--United States Streams--United States Source: EPA (via DocuTicker) New Report, New tool to restore the nation's at-risk streams "What's the state of the union's streams? EPA set out to answer that question in a just-completed, multiyear study of wadeable streams across the country. The study, Wadeable Streams Assessment (WSA), is the first consistent evaluation of the streams that feed rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. Alaska and Hawaii were not included in the report but have pilot projects underway. 'Wadeable streams' are those which are shallow enough to be adequately sampled without a boat. They are essential natural resources that have been under-sampled in the past." Direct to Full Text. -- Science--United States--Statistics Engineering--United States--Statistics Source: NSF Just Released, Science and Engineering State Profiles: 2003-04 "This report, Science and Engineering State Profiles: 2003-04, provides statistics on finances and personnel for the 50 States, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico with special emphasis on R&D performance in 2003."
Search Briefs Google Book Search and Full Book View Not exactly new (a few months old) but since ResourceShelf's Dan Giancanterino pointed it out, it's worthy of a post. On the Google Book Search and on results page you'll now see two options. First, limit your results to "All Books." This is the default. This option allows you to see both books with "limited previews (as determined by the copyright holder), similar to what Amazon offers via its "Search Inside the Book Program." The other option, labeled "Full View Books," allows you to limit your search to public domain materials (in many cases digitized via Google's Library program). Via the Google Book Search help page, "You may also see the Sample Pages View if the publisher or author has given us permission or the Full Book View if the book is out of copyright." When we tested Tuesday, the limit did not appear to be working properly or Google's documentation is unclear. We found several new books (copyright 2005-2006) listed in the Full Book View mode where you could review the entire book online even though the info said sample pages only. Btw, book listings also say if they offer a limited preview, full view, or snippet view. Of course, publishers can determine how little or how much of a book is viewable online and can change this easily. It's likely that some publishers have told Google to allow people to view the entire book online. Remember, this could change by the publisher logging in and changing the amount viewable. So, are we just coming across some unclear documentation on both the help pages and pages where it clearly states you're only seeing "sample" pages or some type of glitch? Here are some sample searches: + Los Angeles Dodgers All books Full View Note: Not sure how well this is working since the three books we're finding with "full view" offer only a limited amount (what Google calls "sample pages") of copyright content. + "Warren Buffet" All Books Full Book View + Search Engines All Books Full Book View + Winston Churchill All Books Full Book View Here, you'll find many books that clearly state that the Full Book View does offer access to books that you can read full text online. Printing from GBS? We're frequently asked about printing or copying pages from Google Book Search. Although the right click option is disabled with GBS, the free Firefox add-on CustomizeGoogle, lets you restore the right-click context menu. Printing, saving pages, etc., are all possible. The award-winning CustomizeGoogle offers numerous features from letting the user remove all paid listings, add-in other engines (a great way for Googleaholics to check what Ask.com offers), block cookies, and much more. This feature went live in December and was noted on SEW Blog. We're a bit surprised that Google has not done anything to stop the Google Print feature. See Also: Google Book Search and Search Inside the Book are hardly the only sources for full text books online. Here are examples of other resources to know about: + ebrary Discover Free full text access to over 20,000 titles. + NetLibrary Tens of thousands of ebook titles available via your local library + Project Gutenberg + The Online Books Page Update: A Google spokesperson contacted ResourceShelf late Tuesday and told us they're looking into these issues. Update 2 What we thought was true, is. IF a publisher has agreed to allow Google to show the full text of a book (even material that is under copyright), it will appear in full view results. It also seems that Google has corrected the documentation issues we pointed out. I guess Googler's read ResourceShelf. Update 3: We're going to try to find out if Amazon's Search Inside the Book also offers full text of books if they're given the pemission of the publisher. We're also going to ask Google (I doubt we get an answer on this one) how many books (from the five libraries) have they digitized for the Google Library Project and how many of those are available in Google Print. Google Library Project will be 18 months old this month.
Briefly + Ovid: Now Offering Access to Three-Dimensional Interactive Human Anatomy Animation via Ovid Web Gateway New partnership with Primal Pictures. -- + Largest Book Club Ever Announced Partnership between IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) and NEA (National Endowment for the Arts). It's called "The Big Read." "The Big Read will be administered by Arts Midwest, a regional arts agency based in Minneapolis, MN. The partners invite cities and communities nationwide to participate in 2007. The Big Read will award grants generally ranging from $10,000 to $20,000 to more than 100 communities to conduct programs that encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment." More info here.
Multimedia Shelf Media--United States Source: Tufts University Webcast: The Edward R. Murrow Symposium: Ted Koppel, Moderator The symposium's title is, "What Would Murrow See Now? The U.S. Press and the World." It took place on April 3, 2006 at Tufts University in Medford, MA. It's a panel discussion that includes: + Neal Shapiro, Former President, NBC News + Louise Lief, Deputy Director, International Reporting Project + Keith Richburg, Foreign Editor, The Washington Post + Crocker Snow, Director, Murrow Center, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy -- Business--China Consumerism--China Source: Stanford Graduate School of Business Webcast: View from the Top: Chinese Consumers Likely to Set Product Standards in Future, Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin Says Presentation to the Stanford Graduate School of Business on April 21st. Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone, the company better known as Verizon in the United States, says the sheer size of China means its consumers will replace Americans as the customers who set product standards in the future." Lecture lasts about 1 hr. Text summary here. Monday, May 08, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf RLG OCLC Source: InfoToday RLG to Merge with OCLC Paula Hane provides a detailed look at what we first posted about last week. See Also: ResourceShelf's 5/4/2006 Post -- Access to Information Internal Revenue Service--FOIA Source: IRS New, IRS FOIA Public Liaisons and the FOIA Requestor Service Center See Also: IRS FOIA Web Page -- National Network of Libraries of Medicine Source: National Library of Medicine National Network of Libraries of Medicine Regional Medical Library Contracts Awarded "The National Library of Medicine announces new five-year contracts to eight institutions to serve as Regional Medical Libraries in the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. The Network consists of the eight competitively selected regional medical libraries, and over 5,700 health sciences and public libraries." -- Scholarly Publishing Source: Inside Higher Ed The Tyranny of Citations "The misuse of citation analysis distorts the original reasons for creating bibliometric systems. Inappropriately stretching bibliometrics is grossly unfair to those being evaluated and ranked. The 'have-nots' in the world scientific system are put at a major disadvantage. Creative research in universities around the world is downplayed because of the control of the narrow paradigms of the citation analysis system. This system overemphasizes work written in English. The hard sciences are given too much attention, and the system is particularly hard on the humanities. Scholarship that might be published in 'nonacademic' outlets, including books and popular journals, is ignored. Evaluators and rankers need to go back to the drawing boards to think about a reliable system that can accurately measure the scientific and scholarly work of individuals and institutions. The unwieldy and inappropriate use of citation analysis and bibliometrics for evaluation and ranking does not serve higher education well -- and it entrenches existing inequalities."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Imagery--Satellite Source: SpaceImaging /GeoEye Ancient Observatories Gallery Space Imaging (now part of GeoEye) have put together this easy to use compilation of ancient ruins and other locations observed from space. Images can be downloaded and saved for offline usage. Locations include: + Chichen Itza, Mexico + Machu Pizu, Peru + Stonehenge, UK + Easter Island, Chile + Casa Rinconada, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, U.S. + Several others -- U.S. Military--Cultural Awareness--Bibliography Source: Air University Library Cultural Awareness and the Military New bibliography includes Internet resources, books, documents and periodicals. -- Business--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes CEO Compensation, 2006 Pay of CEO's at America's Top 500 companies. Sort lists by overall ranking, company name, CEO age, and other criteria. Several background articles. -- Health Care--United States--Statistics Source: Kaiser Family Foundation First Health Cost Snapshots Examine Overall Spending and Out-of-Pocket Costs Two new online publications examine the growing share of the nation's economy consumed by health care spending and efforts to restrain that growth, as well as the current levels of out-of-pocket spending for health care across different populations. The analyses are part of Snapshots: Health Care Costs, a new series written by Kaiser staff that provides insight into the political and policy debates about the cost of health care in the United States." + Comparing Projected Growth in Health Care Expenditures and the Economy + Distribution of Out-of-Pocket Spending for Health Care Services -- Economics Source: Statistics Canada New, Understanding Productivity: A Primer 15 pages; PDF. "This paper provides a concise overview of the concept of productivity by explaining its relevance and usefulness."
Search Briefs + Tech Memorandum Gets New Name: Techmeme (via SEW Blog) + Australians Need Maps -- Zoom Australia Delivers Note: Ask.com also offers aerial imagery of some Australian locations. Sunday, May 07, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Electronic Resources Source: Managing Electronic Resources: Contemporary Problems and Emerging Issues, chapter 5, pp. 56-66, ALA. (via E-LIS) House of Horrors: Exorcising Electronic Resources A new article by Norm Medeiros. From the abstract, "Providing access to, managing administrative elements of, and exercising authority over licensed electronic resources are challenges of increasing proportion for libraries of all types and sizes. This paper reviews the evolution of end-user access to e-resources. Management of administrative metadata is detailed. The paper concludes with a lament about the near-total lack of control libraries possess regarding their licensed electronic resources, and the arsenal libraries will need to counteract this damaging situation."
DocuTicker Best of DocuTicker DocuTicker is ResourceShelf's sister site and is updated daily with a wide variety of new full text reports on many topics from government agencies, think tanks, ngo's and many other organizations. Here's a small, very small, sample of what we've posted during the past week. + Harvard Business School Working Papers: Winning Legally: The Value of Legal Astuteness + Industrial Funding of Academic R&D Continues to Decline in FY 2004 + Broadband Deployment Is Extensive throughout the United States, but It Is Difficult to Assess the Extent of Deployment Gaps in Rural Areas (via GAO) + Evaluating the Viability of 100 Per Cent Container Inspection at America's Ports + Mental Health in the United States: Parental Report of Diagnosed Autism in Children Aged 4--17 Years --- United States, 2003--2004 + BBC/Reuters/Media Center Poll: Trust in the Media + United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Annual Report, 2006 + Federal Agencies Release Fifth Annual Report to Congress on Scholarship Fraud + Children, Adolescents, and the Internet + American Lung Association State of the Air 2006
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Imagery--Aerial Imagery--Satellite Source: USGS Primer: Aerial Photographs and Satellite Images USGS imagery and photos are used in some part with many of the online mapping services like Windows Live Local, TerraFly, TerraServer, and NASA's WorldWind to name only a few places where it's found. It's also possible (and easy) to download and directly access USGS imagery. -- Business--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes Just Released, Best Places For Business And Careers, 2006 "[Forbes] annual ranking of the business climate in 200 large U.S. metros and 179 smaller places." Several background articles and sorts available. Direct to list (sorted by rank, metros). Direct to list (sorted by rank, small metros).
Briefly + Have You Tried WikiWax? Dynamically search and find material in the Wikipedia! More info here. Saturday, May 06, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Personal Information Management (PIM)--Workshops Source: University of Washington Call for Papers: Personal Information Management: Now That We're Talking, What Are We Learning? The workshop will take place in Seattle on August 10-11, 2006. "Good research relating to Personal Information Management (PIM) is being done in several disciplines including database management, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence and, certainly, information retrieval. This two-day workshop will continue momentum towards building a community of researchers doing PIM-related research." See Also: Keeping Found Things Found (via Univ. of Washington) -- Information Retrieval Source: SIGIR New, SIGIR Forum June 2006 Articles include: + What's the value of TREC -- is there a gap to jump or a chasm to bridge? + The Eurovision St Andrews Collection of Photographs + The CIKM 2005 Workshop on Information Retrieval in Peer-to-Peer Networks + GIR'05 2005 ACM Workshop on Geographical Information Retrieval + The Wikipedia XML Corpus
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Maps--United States--Printable Maps Source: NationalAtlas.gov Printable Maps with Counties and selected Cities and Towns Now Available
Search Briefs The New Ask.com TV Commercial by Gary Price Some of you have sent notes offering kudos (I deserve zero of them but will pass them along) for a new television spot Ask.com is running with Teoma Technologies founder and now Ask.com executive vice president, search technology, Apostolos Gerasoulis. You can view the commercial online (a media player than can view .mov files is required). Btw, as most of you know, we maintain ResourceShelf independent of my position at Ask and as you see we still post about all of the major engines, specialty search tools, and much more. I met Apostolos several months ago and have been following his work for much longer. He is extremely personable and loves to talk about search (perfect for a guy like me) and making it better. We will need to get him to come to a few librarian gatherings. In the ad he talks, unscripted, about the Ask technology and how librarians (when was the last time you heard the word "librarian" mentioned in a commercial to represent quality, authority, and expertise in accessing info) find it useful. The commercial was filmed in the stacks at a Rutgers University library. Apostolos and his team started developing the Teoma technology at Rutgers. Teoma, the tech company did not start at Rutgers, of course. The idea behind Teoma, the technology did. In 2001, Ask acquired Teoma. These days, the Teoma ranking technology algorithm and many of Teoma's features that librarians have loved for the past few years are fully incorporated into Ask.com. The algorithm now named ExpertRank* was integrated into Ask.com a couple of years ago and provided the same organic search results at one time on Teoma.com, then on both Teoma and Ask, and now on Ask.com. Of course, no search engine comes close to what a well-trained professional librarian can offer. Search engines are just tools. A good toolbelt or tool drawer is home to many search resources, databases (both free and fee) and yes, even books. However, at least in my view (and honestly a large page of what made me decide to join the Ask team), is that Ask.com has a library/librarian mindset that's been there since 2001 and will continue to grow, expand, and most importantly, improve. Apostolos points to several features in the TV commercial (like Smart Answers, Zoom related search, Binoculars) and I go into detail about these and other services in this RS post. I've said several times in different venues that one of my roles at Ask is to work with the library community to make Ask.com a search tool that everyone loves and can count on, including librarians. Yes, we are well aware of the fact that we can always do better and all of us at Ask (not only yours truly) are more than willing to listen to ideas, comments, criticisms, and suggestions on how to improve our products from the library community. Please keep your ideas coming not only about how we can make Ask.com better but also our Ask for Kids service. Feel free to write me at gary.price@ask.com. If I don't have an answer I will do my very best to make sure it gets to the right person in an expedited manner. * To Learn More About Expert Rank (the alogrithm that powers Ask.com) take a look at a few of these articles/interviews: + "In conversation with..." (2005) Noted web search expert Mike Grehan chats with two Ask.com execs, Jim Lanzone (now CEO of Ask.com) & Apostolos Gerasoulis. + Teoma Technology (2002) Chris Sherman takes a look at what makes Teoma technology different. + A Longer Look by Mike Grehan into the Teoma Algorithm (16 pages; PDF) Teoma section begins on page 14. + Many of the ranking concepts that underly Teoma's algorithm come from IBM's Clever project. Clever was never publicly released. This paper explains some of the differences and is also one of my all-time favorite non-technical papers about web search. + For the Techies: DiscoWeb: Applying Link Analysis to Web Search (1999) This is the first published paper on what would become Teoma. Btw, DiscoWeb stands for Discovery Web (not a dancing search engine).
Briefly + Blackwell Launches 3000 Years of Digitized Journal Backfiles "All issues back to Volume 1, Issue 1 will be digitized for at least 500 journals over the next two-and-a-half years, comprising approximately 6.5 million pages by the time the program is complete." See Also: More Info and Title List -- ProQuest: 19th Century House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Now Complete "More than four million pages digitized in less than a year." Friday, May 05, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf e-Journals--Preservation Source: Charleston Advisor E-Journal Archives and Preservation: An Executive Overview "Since the scholarly journal market has largely made the transition from print to online, most libraries receive the majority of their titles in electronic format. The concern regarding ongoing and permanent access to ejournals has prompted many different organizations to develop projects to address the concern. However, no single solution or effort appears, at the present, to address the concerns of the library community." -- e-Journals--Preservation Source: ARL, CNI, SPARC ARL: A Bimonthly Report on Research Library Issues and Action from ARL, CNI, and SPARC + The State of the Large Publisher Bundle: Findings from an ARL Member Survey + Surveying the E-Journal Preservation Landscape
Briefly Mobile Access to Information: SMS Shortcode Directories + Shortcode.info (Global Scope, User Contributions) + US Common Short Code WHOIS Directory + OTAir Short Code Directory (U.S.) -- + Coming from Microsoft: Sense Web (via All Points Blog)
Search Briefs + Microsoft Gets Ready to Launch QnA Service (Beta) It appears that Microsoft is preparing to launch their Q&A service very soon. Unlike Google Answers (a fee-based service, in some cases) but similar to Yahoo Answers, if Windows Live QnA is like other Windows Live services it will be free. Register to get on the beta list here. Here's how MS describes the service: "Windows Live QnA Beta lets you ask any question and get the 411 from people who have the answers you're looking for. Everybody's an expert on something--including you--so tap into that collective brain power and contribute your own." Direct to the Windows Live QnA Blog. While these services often get the attention of the masses (even for a brief period of time), librarian powered virtual reference services (OCLC's QuestionPoint or one of countless other services)* can often go unnoticed and underutilized. Sad. * To the many non-librarians out there. Libraries of all types offer live chat with a trained librarian. Every library offers something different and you will need a library card in many cases. These and other libraries also offer email reference help and telephone assistance. Need a directory of libraries? Check here. For example, the Marin County California Public Library offers a number of Q&A services (free) including the 24x7x365 AskNow service. Finally, The Library of Congress offers both email and virtual chat reference for free. More about LC's Ask a Librarian services here.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Religious Freedom Source: United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Just Released, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Annual Report, 2006 -- Gas Price Source: Federal Trade Commission Enhanced Site, Oil and Gas Industy Initiatives "... newly developed tips for consumers on what they can do to conserve and save gas, as well as a gas column dedicated to summarizing for consumers current market conditions that may be impacting prices and the FTC's role in petroleum industry enforcement. A special feature of the new page is a 'bumper-to-bumper' interactive guide to saving money at the pump. The FTC today also is releasing a related consumer alert with tips on saving gas." -- Pandemic Influenza--United States Source: Whitehouse.gov National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza "The National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza presents our approach to address the threat of pandemic influenza, whether it results from the strain currently in birds in Asia or another influenza virus. It outlines how we intend to prepare, detect, and respond to a pandemic. It also outlines the important roles to be played not only by the federal government, but also by state and local governments, private industry, our international partners, and most importantly individual citizens, including you and your families." Full Document (PDF; 477 KB) (via DocuTicker.com) -- Iraq--Press Source: Council on Foreign Relations Background Brief: Iraq's Press: A Status Report -- Technology--Conferences--Calendars Source: TechnologyGuru.com TechnologyGuru.com Conference Calendar -- Business Programs--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: BusinessWeek List: The Best Undergraduate Business Programs (PDF) Background, methodology, and more here.
Multimedia Shelf Disciplinary Differences in e-Research: e-Social Science research A 2005 lecture at Oxford by UCLA's Christine Borgman. Thursday, May 04, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor We value niche resources that are narrow and deep -- sites that focus on one thing and cover it thoroughly. This week's resource qualifies. Golf--Database Source: United States Golf Association (USGA) Seagle Electronic Golf Library (SEGL) "The United States Golf Association (USGA) has served as the national governing body of golf for the U.S., its territories, and Mexico since its formation in 1894. It's a non-profit organization run by golfers for the benefit of golfers." There are often quite wonderful things lurking within association websites. USGA says it has "the world's largest and most complete golf library"; it contains "books on all aspects of the game, including history, rules, instruction, equipment, biography, records, travel, club histories, literature, and reference. The periodical collection encompasses more than 800 bound volumes, as well as some 10,000 unbound issues representing more than 100 titles dating back to the 1800s." The library's OPAC is online and searchable. Search by keyword, title, author, subject, publication date, and type of publication. One caveat: "Please note that the subject headings do not correspond to the Library of Congress subject headings. Rather the Library's classification system was created to reflect the uniqueness of the collection and the historiography of golf. Please use the subject headings as a guide as you navigate the catalog." Extensive help is just a click away. But what is really unique here is the SEGL database, which contains searchable PDFs of materials "that are no longer available to researchers due to preservation concerns." Included are such things as the defunct American Golfer and Golf Illustrated collections" which, a press release notes, "are still largely popular with researchers, and both suffer wear and tear from contact." SEGL is keyword searchable; check boxes allow the researcher to restrict his or her search to archival papers, books, periodicals, or any combination of the three. SEGL is named for Janet Seagle, USGA's first museum curator and librarian, who worked there 27 years before she passed away in 2003. Those who followed in her footsteps refer to the database as "Virtual Janet." Other interesting things at the USGA site: + A list of the USGA International Book Award winners. + Extensive information on turf management. + Detailed information about the rules of golf, handicaps, clubs and balls, etiquette, and amateur status. + USGA Wallpaper; golf lovers can decorate their computer desktops with classic images of the sport. Cool.
Library Organizations RLG and OCLC to Join Forces Some breaking news. Just announced RLG and OCLC will become one. Here's the official news release. RLG has also posted an in-depth Q&A style document here. Fast Fact: Merger will be effective (if approved) July 1, 2006. From RLG, "Presuming that two-thirds of voting RLG member institutions approve the change, implementation and integration of the combination will take place between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007." Quote: "It is time that RLG and OCLC take united action if we are to realize our long-held and long-shared mutual goal of providing information to people when and where they need it. New challenges demand new thinking, so after deliberation and careful thought, both RLG and OCLC came to the conclusion that the best way to serve our members' interests was to combine forces." -- James Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University, and Chair of the RLG Board of Directors. Fast Fact: RLG's program initiatives would be continued as RLG-Programs, a new division of OCLC Programs and Research that would provide programs to support architecture, standards development, and best practices, to name a few. Quote: James Michalko, who currently leads RLG, would serve as Vice President of RLG-Programs Development, working under the leadership of Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President of Research and OCLC Chief Strategist. As of today, no word on what will become of RLG's wonderful RedLightGreen* service (merged with OpenWorldCat? not only the records but the services it offers), their recently released ArchiveGrid database. Staff issues? According to this document, RLG's office in Mountain View will maintained and the NYC office closed. More staffing issues will be made, "in the weeks leading up to the proposed transition." More Facts via the RLG "Proposal" Guide: "There are two key components to the proposed combination: The integration of RLG's online products and services with OCLC's service line, and the creation of a new RLG unit within OCLC Programs and Research." Re: Products "The proposed integration of RLG's online products and services with OCLC's service line will take place over a transition period beginning July 2006. Details of these integrations are not yet available, but we will communicate them to users of services in the next few months and well in advance of any product or service changes." Re: Proposed Creation of a new RLG unit within OCLC "Working closely with OCLC Research, the RLG-Programs unit will be a leading venue for applied research, community building, and prototyping of systems and services that support research and learning." Q. What will happen to RLG programs and initiatives already under way? "The SHARES partnership will continue to be an essential characteristic of the new RLG-Programs unit. In the coming months, we will work out specific details on how the RLG and OCLC software environments and participants will interact. As we do, we will communicate these details to our partners. In addition, we will continue programmatic initiatives that are already under way without interruption (e.g., digital preservation, metadata, digital asset management, archival description). The evolution of these programs and future programs will be guided by RLG-Programs' affiliated organizations ("partners") and the Program Council." Update: An RLG spokesperson told RS that the future of RedLightGreen is one of several RLG programs where details still need to be worked out. Stay Tuned!
Professional Reading Shelf Reference Reviews Source: Gale.com The May 2006 Edition of Peter's Digital Reference Shelf Is Now Online We had plenty to say a few week's ago when MS Academic Live launched. This time, legendary reviewer Dr. Peter Jacso shares his thoughts in his monthly column. He writes, "The beta version of Microsoft's free indexing/abstracting service is an effort that is too little, too late from an industry leader. While Windows Live Academic makes it easy to find the bibliographic records for some scholarly papers on a topic in computer science, electric engineering and physics, it is nothing new and not evolutionary, let alone revolutionary." Jacso concludes, "Windows Live Academic is a deeply disappointing product, even for a beta release." -- Access to Research--United States Federally Funded Research--United States Scholarly Publishing Source: SPARC Senators Cornyn (R-TX) and Lieberman (D-CT) Introduce Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 "The bill requires federal agencies that fund over $100 million in annual external research to make electronic manuscripts of peer-reviewed journal articles stemming from their research publicly available via the Internet." See Also: Tax Payer Alliance Support See Also: ACRL Support See Also: SPARC FAQ See Also: Track the Legislation via THOMAS See Also: Read the Introduction of the Legislation in the Senate (via the Congressional Record) Do an edit/find for S. 2695. -- Libraries--Canada Canadian Librarian Association CLA Responds to New Proposed Government Budget (PDF) From the release, "As expected, there is little in it for the Canadian library and information community." -- Libraries--Iraq Source: Chronicle of Higher Education Professors, Publishers, and the Pentagon Help Build a Virtual Library for Iraqi Scientists Jeff Young writes, "The Iraqi Virtual Science Library, as the collection is called, gives scientists at seven participating universities in the country access to millions of articles from some 17,000 journals. The 14 publishers involved agreed to drastically reduce their regular licensing fees to help make the project possible, with some giving discounts of 95 to 97 percent, said Susan L. Cumberledge, who helped lead the project." See Also: A Bit More from This National Academies of Science Announcement See Also: Direct to Iraqi Virtual Science Library -- Information Literacy Source: EDUCAUSE Quarterly Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century See Also: Connected To Nowhere (via Information Week) "Internet use can isolate kids instead of linking them to the world." -- Newspapers Source: Technology Review The Times Emulates Print on the Web Of course, many other options to view the full text of newspapers (in their original form, online or printed on demand) exist. For example, NewspaperDirect.com offers same day full text and full image access to over 320 newspapers from 57 countries. PressDisplay is their online viewing service that we've been blogging about for several years. Very Cool!
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Holocaust Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica New Resource: New, EB Holocaust Resource Site From the announcement, "A central part of the site is a body of articles by the noted Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum, former director of the United States Holocaust Research Institute at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. In addition to an overview of the Holocaust and its history, Berenbaum contributes more than 25 related articles, some of which probe unresolved issues, such as why the Allies didn't bomb the extermination camps. He also addresses the 'artistic response' to the tragedy, examining how artists in every medium have sought to give voice to the horror, pain and loss of the Holocaust...The site includes a number of multimedia elements, such as photographs and film clips, some of them disturbing; and several sets of discussion questions for use in high-school classrooms." From what we've been able to review, access to almost all of this content is available at no charge. See Also: NewspaperArchive.com Has Released A New Collection Containing More than 50,000 Full Text/Full Image Newspaper Pages (Searchable) About the Holocaust Free to Access and Use. -- Business--History Source: Baker Library, Harvard Business School Financial Bubbles "Financial Bubbles, capsule one in the Historical Returns series, explores some of the extraordinary similarities between the South Sea Bubble of 1720 and the recent technology bubble." Includes reading list, multimedia, images, and related resources. See Also: More About the Historical Returns Series from Baker Library -- Information Technology--Security--Lists & Rankings Source: Sophos Top ten malware threats and hoaxes reported to Sophos in April 2006 -- Terrorism Source: United Nations Just Released, Report of the Secretary-General: Uniting Against Terrorism - Recommendations for a global counter-terrorism strategy Direct to Full Text of Report. (via DocuTicker.com) -- Venture Capital Source: Ernst & Young New, Transition, the fourth annual Ernst & Young Venture Capital Insight Report A look at global VC in 2005. 84 pages; PDF. From the highlights: + Venture capital investments worldwide reached the level of US$31.3 billion. The United States, Canada, Europe, and Israel represent 93% of capital invested, while China and India account for the remainder. + Venture capital firms in the United States have raised US$41 billion in new funds in the last two years. European firms closed on 3.7 billion/Euros in 2005, more than double the previous year's figure. + Venture-backed company exits grew in value and number in 2005, setting the stage for continued investment in 2006.
Briefly Mobile Access to Information: Directions Magazine Offers a Profile of Telmap "Telmap provides mobile navigation on cell phones, PDAs and Blackberry devices that have GPS built-in or are Bluetooth-enabled and can use an external Bluetooth GPS device."
Search Briefs + British study of search practices (via Pandia) -- + Microsoft-Google Browser War Doubles Down (via eWeek) -- + Microsoft plays mobile search 'wild card' -- + Yahoo sued over alleged pay-per-click fraud (via News.com) Note: We've posted the full text of the complaint filed in this lawsuit here. 19 pages; PDF. Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Health Research--United States--Statistics Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Finding Answers Online in Sickness and in Health "Recent research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that, as more Americans come online, more rely on the internet for important health information...Fully 58% of those who found the internet to be crucial or important during a loved one's recent health crisis say the single most important source of information was something they found online. Direct to Research Brief. -- Health Research--Databases Source: NLM New Version of the NLM Gateway Includes Two New Resources "On May 1, 2006, NLM released a new version of the Gateway that includes access to two additional NLM resources. Users are now able to search the Household Products Database and the Bookshelf, a growing collection of full text biomedical books." Direct to NLM Gateway. -- Podcasting Source: USC Libraries USC Libraries Begins Offering Podcasting Production Class "The USC Libraries support a pilot project that helps students and faculty acquire production skills in a growing technology." -- GPO GPO's Spring 2006 Book Sale
Congressional Research Service Source: CRS via OpenCRS, FAS, NCSE, FPC A Selection of New/Updated CRS Reports + The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11 + Oil Industry Profit Review 2005 + Immigration Statistics on the Web + Arab League Boycott of Israel + Oil Shale: History, Incentives, and Policy
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Censorship--Lists & Ranking Source: Committee to Protect Journalists 10 Most Censored Countries "North Koreans live in the most censored country in the world, a new analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists has found. The world's deepest information void, communist North Korea has no independent journalists, and all radio and television receivers sold in the country are locked to government-specified frequencies. Burma, Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea, and Libya round out the top five nations on CPJ?s list of the '10 Most Censored Countries.'" -- Energy--United States--Chronology Source: EIA Annual Oil Market Chronology, 2005 See Also: A Primer on Gasoline Prices See Also: Fuel FAQ (via FuelEconomy.gov) -- Medicine--Timelines Source: Infoplease.com Medical Advances Timeline -- Curling--Canada Source: Library and Archives Canada New, Bonspiel! The History of Curling in Canada -- Intellectual Property Source: WIPO New, IP Audit -- A "How to" Guide -- Labor Markets--International Source: MLR New, A visual essay: international labor market comparisons "International comparisons of labor market and competitiveness indicators, as well as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), provide a snapshot in time of the world economy. The first 3 sections of this visual essay include charts covering 12 selected countries in North America, Europe, and Asia, although not all countries appear on all of the charts because of data constraints." Summary ||| Direct to Full Text (PDF)
Search Briefs + WSJ: Microsoft Considers Acquiring a Stake in Yahoo For now, just talk and speculation. Why might this deal go down? Advertising! More from SEW Blog here. -- + Pandia Introduces Lexxe, A New Natural Language Engine -- + New Yahoo Design; Again? (via SEW Blog) -- + More On Amazon Dumping Google & Missing Paid Listings (via SEW Blog)
Briefly ProQuest Gains Rights to Distribute The Globe and Mail & SirsiDynix partners with Serials Solutions
Search Patent Update New Patents and Patent Apps from Microsoft, IBM, Yahoo & Others Here's a select list of recently awarded patents or patents applications. Awarded Patent Title: Dynamically updated quick searches and strategies Assignee: Microsoft First Filed: August 22, 2002 "In response to characters entered within a Find dialog box, a minifind window is dynamically updated to provide corresponding search strategies and quick matches from content search data that are being searched. The search strategies and quick matches that are listed are dynamically updated as the user inputs additional characters in the Find dialog box. At any time, the user can initiate a full text search to populate a search results pane, based upon the characters input, by selecting a Go control or pressing the Enter key. Alternatively, the user can select one of the quick matches or search strategies, to populate the search results pane with corresponding items obtained from the content search data, which are most likely to relate to the information desired by the user. This approach is applicable to finding information in almost any data accessed locally, or over a network." Published Patent Applications Method for re-ranking documents retrieved from a document database Assignee: Harris Corporation Filed: October 27, 2004 "A computer-implemented method for processing documents in a document database includes generating an initial ranking of retrieved documents using an information retrieval system and based upon a user search query, and processing vocabulary words based upon occurrences thereof in at least some of the retrieved documents. Respective relevancies of the vocabulary words based on the occurrences thereof and the user search query are generated. A re-ranking of the retrieved documents is generated based on the relevancies of the vocabulary words." Automatic query suggestions Assginee: Microsoft Filed: September 24, 2004 "An improved technique of querying a data store by widening the query using a series of queries that follow relations between items. Initial auxiliary queries are used to find metadata property values (rather than the actual items) that are then used in the subsequent queries. The initial queries employ one or more property values to find a related item. In response thereto, an action menu is presented for the item that facilitates widening the search for all other items with the same selected property value. The user can be presented with several choices depending on which property is used for query widening." Browsing web content using predictive navigation links Assignee: Microsoft Filed: October 15, 2004 "A predictive travel log system using one or more ranking schemes to predict the location that a user would seek to navigate to through back and forward navigation in a web browser is provided. The navigation functionality can be exposed through traditional back and forward buttons with drop down travel log menus found in a browser user interface." Semantic thumbnails Assignee: Microsoft Filed: October 18, 2004 "A method is provided for displaying a page formed of discrete elements, such as a Web page, on different computing devices. The method converts the page into a semantic thumbnail, which preserves the overall appearance of the page and displays readable text segments that enable a user to identify main areas of the page. The semantic thumbnail is adaptable to different screen sizes and target font sizes. The method enlarges unreadable text segments in a miniature version of the page. The method also trims the enlarged text segments to fit the width of the semantic thumbnail by summarizing or cropping text in the enlarged text segments." Method for providing a clip for viewing at a remote device Assignee: Yahoo Filed: September 28, 2004 Indexing systems and methods Assignee: Copernic Filed: August 19, 2005 Document categorisation system Assignee: NA Filed: September 21, 2001 Method And System To Identify A Previously Visited Universal Resource Locator (URL) In Results From A Search Assignee: IBM Filed: October 15, 2004 Prediction of query difficulty for a generic search engine Assignee: IBM Filed: October 19, 2004 Method and apparatus for intranet searching Assignee: Microsoft Filed: October 15, 2004 System and method for automatic generation of search results based on local intention Assignee: Microsoft Filed: September 30, 2004 UPDATE: A Few More New Apps Link-based spam detection Assignee: Yahoo Filed: August 4, 2005 "A computer implemented method of ranking search hits in a search result set. The computer-implemented method includes receiving a query from a user and generating a list of hits related to the query, where each of the hits has a relevance to the query, where the hits have one or more boosting linked documents pointing to the hits, and where the boosting linked documents affect the relevance of the hits to the query. The method associates a metric to each of at least a subset of the hits, the metric being representative of the number of boosting linked documents that point to each of at least a subset of the hits and which artificially inflate the relevance of the hits. The method then compares the metric, which is representative of the size of a spam farm pointing to the hit, with a threshold value, processes the list of hits to form a modified list based in part on the comparison, and transmits the modified list to the user." Web page ranking with hierarchical considerations Assignee: Microsoft Filed: October 29, 2004 Systems and methods for estimating click-through-rates of content items on a rendered page Assignee: Microsoft Filed: November 30, 2004 NOTE: This application is a continuation of commonly assigned application: "Systems and Methods for Determining Bid Value for Content Items to be Placed on a Rendered Page" (filed November 29, 2004) Tracking domain name related reputation Asignee: GoDaddy October 29, 2004 & Publishing domain name related reputation in whois records Asignee: GoDaddy October 29, 2004 "The invention describes a method for publishing domain name related reputation data in WHOIS records. Reputation data may be published in the WHOIS records of the domain name. Reputation data may include values, ratings, or scores, as well as links or references to the locations where such values, ratings, or scores may be found (e.g. URL link). The reputation data may be tracked on the domain name itself, URLs, domain name purchaser or registrant, or email addresses associated with the domain name. The reputation data may include various categories, such as email practices, website content, privacy policies and practices, fraudulent activities, domain name related complaints, overall reputation, etc. The requester may decide whether to allow email messages or visit URLs based on the domain name related reputation." Arranging records in a search result to be provided in response to a data inquiry of a database Assignee: BellSouth Filed: September 2, 2005 "Systems and methods for arranging records in search results to be provided in response to a data inquiry of a database. After search results including records are received, a determination is made with respect to the order of the records in the search results. This determination may be based on various factors such as the destination of the search results, the preferred status of certain records over other records, a marketing determination with respect to the records, a frequency determination with respect to the number of times that a record or records may have already been provided in response to data inquiries, a weighting factor determination or a combination of one or more of these factors. In response to the determination of the order of the records in the search results, the records then are arranged into ordered records based on the determination. This order may be an alphabetical order, a preferred order based on the preferred status of certain records over other records, a least frequent first order, a highest weighting factor first order, or a combination of these orders. The search results with the records arranged into ordered records are then provided in response to the data inquiry." Note: The application goes on to compare organization or results to baseball. Geographical web browser, methods, apparatus and systems Assignee: NA Filed: November 1, 2005 (Continuation of Apps Filed as Far Back as 1998) Fascinating! Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Podcasting--United States--Legal Issues Source: Creative Commons New, Podcasting Legal Guide: Rules For The Revolution "Like EFF's [blogging] guide, the Podcasting Legal Guide provides a useful summary, in plain English, of the complex body of laws that govern the use of copyrighted content." -- Public Libraries--New Zealand Source: National Library of New Zealand Just Released: Public Libraries of New Zealand: A Strategic Framework 2006 to 2016 -- Information Retrieval Source: Information Retrieval Specialist Group, British Computer Society The Spring Issue of the BCS Informer is Now Online (PDF) + Conference Review: ECIR 2006 + Book Review: Web Content Retrieval + Product Update: Trexy.com See Also: Learn More About the BCS IRSG -- Web Resources The May 2006 Issue of the Internet Resources Newsletter is Now Online A collection of new resources from Roddy, Catherine, and Marion at the Heriot-Watt University Library. -- Education Resources Source: Searcher Beyond ERIC: The Early Years (Part 3) by Barbie E. Keiser. -- Librarianship--Books--Lists & Rankings Source: ACRL The Top 10 ACRL Best Sellers This list is updated regularly.
Multimedia Shelf Two Recent Presentations Available on the Web + What is Happening to the American Media? A speech by Dan Rather at the Commonwealth Club, April 25, 2006. Audio only. Rather also spoke (video available) at UC Berkeley the same day. The title of this talk was "Is the Media Failing in America?" -- + TV's New Economics These presentations were sponsored by MIT's Communication's Forum and took place on March 8, 2006. Speakers: ++ David F. Poltrack: Executive Vice President, Research and Planning, CBS Television. ++ Jorge Reina Schement: Distinguished Professor of Communications; Professor of Information Sciences and Technologies and Co-Director of the Institute for Information Policy, College of Communications, The Pennsylvania State University.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Immigration Enforcement--United States Source: CRS (via FPC) Immigration Enforcement Within the United States 82 pages; PDF. -- Digitized Images Digitization Projects Source: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division Archive of One of America's Earliest News Picture Agencies Now Online "The Library of Congress's Prints & Photographs Division is pleased to announce that all the negatives in the George Grantham Bain news photograph collection (nearly 40,000 glass negatives in all) have now been digitized and are available for searching in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. The collection, which represents the archive of one of America's earliest news picture agencies, features an array of personalities, news events, sports coverage, and sites, particularly in New York City, for the period 1900-1931. More information about the collection available here. See Also: Direct to LOC Prints & Photographs Online Catalog See Also: What's New in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog -- Wiretaps--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Courts Just Released, 2005 Wiretap Report "The number of orders authorizing or approving the interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications by federal and state courts increased 4 percent in 2005, for a total of 1,773 applications. Of the total applications, 625 were submitted to federal judges, down 14 percent from 2004, and 1,148 applications were submitted to state judges, an increase of 17 percent over 2004." Summary Direct to Full Text Historical Chart (PDF) -- Ready Reference Fast Facts Source: The World Almanac New, The May 2006 Issue of The World Almanac E-Newsletter is Online Contains a chronology of January events and holidays, "This Day in History," and much more. See Also: Back issues and subscription info (free) -- Workplace--Canada--Lists & Rankings Source: Canadian Business Best Places to Work in Canada, 2006
Briefly + Happy 10th Anniversary to the New York Public Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) View the SIBL Anniversary Timeline. See Also: Direct to SIBL Web Site Direct to SIBL Business Research Guides
Search Briefs + Ask.com's New CEO, Jim Lanzone, Interviewed (via News.com) -- + Search for Web-Based Video via IM Although the search interface is very basic and advanced search is not available, we've become big fans of SearchforVideo.com because it does a great job aggregating video clips from thousands of sources (both mainstream and user contributed) and also providing (equally important) relevant results. Recently, SearchforVideo.com added a new feature that allows the user to search for video clips via three instant messaging clients (AOL Instant Messanger, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger). What other "goodies" does SFV offer? + A ticker of links and titles of videos as they enter the database. Cool! + A ticker that shows what people are viewing. What about video available to download to your iPod? Absolutely. One click downloads to iPod ready video (you can also view online) via Searchforipod. Monday, May 01, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries--Web Services Source: Glenn Peterson EngagedPatrons.org "We provide website services connecting public libraries and their patrons. We handle the programming; you reap the benefits of being able to offer your users a more engaging and interactive web presence." Offers events listing and online registration, weblogs, feedback form, RSS feeds, custom Web-enabled databases. Services are free to qualifying public libraries -- e.g., "U.S. public libraries receiving less than $1 million per year in total income (as reported to the National Center for Education Statistics." Peterson, a former reference librarian with more than 25 years of experience, has been creating websites for the Hennepin County Library for 10+ years. (EngagedPatrons.org is not affiliated with the Hennepin County Library.) -- Library Management and Organization Source: INFORMED LIBRARIAN Guest Forum: Values: A Human and Organizational Resource Part II This forum was written by Audrey Fenner from the Congressional Research Service and John Fenner. "In Part II of their article they explain how managers can identify, develop, support, and exploit staff values. This is definitely worth reading." -- American Library Association Annual Conference Source: ALA Abstracts for 25th Annual ALA Poster Sessions Now Online
Note Taking--Tools Source: Solution Watch Fifty Ways to Take Notes Web 2.0 types will love this compilation. Very useful. "I am constantly writing notes. Whether it be for my blog, work, meeting, new ideas, or just basic notes, I am always jotting something down. So I started thinking about all the services I've used for taking notes and thought it would be a good idea to share them with you and while I'm at it, to make a list of any others that I find. Now, when it comes to note taking, I personally look for quick and simple. If I have something on my mind, I don't want to go through some advanced system and climb a mountain just to save a note for myself. There won't be all the note taking tools out there on my list, but ones that I feel get the job done well."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Terrorism--Databases Source: MIPT New, Terrorism Knowledge Base Quick Reference Guide and More The TKB was a ResourceShelf ROTW last September. Jacso also reviewed the dbase a week later. Since then, several new features and additions including: + "Quick Reference Guide" to the Terrorism Knowledge Base (PDF) + New Data Source: U.S. State Department Travel Warnings and Public Announcements + New Data Source: "State Department Terrorist Designation Lists" with direct links to TKB information on terrorist groups and entities officially designated by the U.S. government. + New Content: "Over the past two months, our research team has added nearly 600 terrorism incident reports, 40 terrorist group profiles, and more than 100 terrorist leader and member profiles." + Direct access from the TKB to the The International Security and Counterterrorism Reference Center (ISCTRC). ISCTRC is an EBSCO database that is accessible (registration required, free) and permitted for personal, non-commercial use. The same is the case with Thomson's Terrorism Reference Library and Encyclopedia of Terrorism. -- Employment--United States--Statistics Source: BLS Employment Characteristics of Families Summary, 2005 -- Mexican Americans--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts: Statistics About Mexican Americans A new compilation to celebrate Cinco de Mayo on Friday. -- Law Firms--United States--Ranking Source: American Lawyer The Am Law 100 "The American Lawyer's newest Am Law 100 findings highlight this provocative fact: At the United States' top-grossing firms, additional lawyers are slowing the rate of revenue growth. Law firms are managing to improve profitability by cutting costs, boosting efficiency and making equity partnership more exclusive -- but revenue per lawyer isn't keeping pace with head count increases. Growing, it turns out, is easy. Growing profitably is what's hard."
Search Briefs + Microsoft Launches Windows Live Shopping Beta (via Search Engine Watch) -- + Yahoo Launches New "Tech" Info Portal User contibuted reviews, expert contributions, licensed reviews from the "Dummies" series of How-to books, Consumer Reports, PC World and PC Magazine. Browse product categories (alphabetical or popularity using a tag cloud), create a personalized page (branded by HP). Shopping element (of course) with price comparison feature. For example, this page for a Motorola SLVR phone. product category pages allow you to narrow and focus by various criteria. For example: this page for MP3 players allows you to narrow by: + Brand + Product Line + Memory + Compatibility + Format We would have appreciated if the product selection section would have also included an option to utilize what Yahoo has offered since 2004 with Yahoo SmartSort. Also, look for original video content. Contextual ads on most pages along with links to other Yahoo services. For now, primary focus is U.S. market. Finally, users who like a clean "sleek" home page will likely have "issues" with the first page of Yahoo Tech. More from News.com and Reuters. Yahoo once offered original tech content via Yahoo Tech Tuesday which now redirects to a Yahoo News Technology resource. -- + Amazon's A9 Replaces Google with MSN Live Web Search Database Google was the default database since A9 launched in the summer of 2004. Justin Osmer tells Todd Bishop at the Seattle P-I, "It's primarily, for us, an exposure mechanism -- an opportunity to get people using our technology, familiar with our technology, and get that brand awareness out there." Btw, in January MSN Search began providing web results (limited to government, military and related sites) to the Vivisimo powered, FirstGovSearch.gov.
Briefly + US-CERT Current Activity "The US-CERT [Computer Response Emergency Team] Current Activity web page is a regularly updated summary of the most frequent, high-impact types of security incidents currently being reported to the US-CERT." Updates are also available via RSS. |
