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ResourceShelf is Compiled & Edited By Gary Price, MLIS Gary Price Library & Internet Research Consulting gary@ resourceshelf.com Gary's Bio Shirl Kennedy, MLIS Contributing Editor Dan Giancaterino, MLIS Contributing Editor Steven Cohen, MLS Contributing Editor Looking For More Info? News? Search Help? News Tips?
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Saturday, November 30, 2002
Knowledge Organization Source: Information Today "Opencola Launches Personal Knowledge Manager" From the article, "The company says it is the first personal knowledge manager that allows users to improve knowledge by automating the collection of relevant information from a variety of sources, including news sites, multiple search engines, blogs, and other peers’ publicly shared documents. The desktop application is targeted to individual knowledge workers. In addition, the company plans to introduce Opencola ENTERPRISE next year. Opencola has selected seven search engines that can be searched with a single query: Google, AltaVista, Yahoo!, AllTheWeb, NorthernLight, Teoma, and Dmoz. Users can add their own news sources or blog sites to include in the search and can also choose to search more than 3,000 news sources provided by Moreover. A folder is automatically created for each search." A 30-day free trial is available. See Also: Direct to the Opencola Web Site Friday, November 29, 2002
National Library of Medicine NLM Set to Demo Uses of Internet2 The demos will take place in Chicago but you can read about them here: "National Digital Mammography Archive" "Anatomical and Surgery Simulation Over the Internet" "Advanced Biomedical Tele-Collaboration" "Internet2 Performance for Medical Imaging Applications"
Textarc.Org Source: BBC Learn About: Textarc.org From the article, "Textarc.org is an interactive program that reproduces the text of more than 2,000 books as works of art. The software converts the text into an interactive map that allows viewers to quickly see relationships between words and characters at a glance, even without having read the book." See Also: Direct to the Textarc.org Web Site Thursday, November 28, 2002
Web Resources of the Week 1) Archives and Repositories--Directory Repositories of Primary Sources Compiled at the University of Idaho Library this resource is home to a directory of over 5000 "websites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar." The directory contains resources from around the globe and is browsable by geography. Useful, interesting, and addictive. -- Popular Music--United Kingdom 2) The Official UK Charts Company Web Site and Database For some of you this might be a useful pop culture and music trivia resource. For others (including me), it's a pop culture resource and hours of fun as you search, browse, listen and read about every number one record in the U.K. for the past 50 years, 942 songs as of this week. A Quick Overview * At the Top of the Page You'll Notice a Search Box. You Can Keyword Search (Title, Artist) the Complete List. Results are Returned in a Pop-Up Window. Via the Orange Bar at the Top of the Page: * Select, "Stats and Facts" and Get a List of One Hit Wonders, A List of Number Ones by Country of Origin, and More. * Select, "All the Number Ones" and Click the "Full List" Link. You'll Get a Pop-Up Window With A List (Title, Artist, Date) of Every Number One U.K. Pop Song For the Past 50 Years. * The "List of Number Ones" Also Offers an Opportunity to Select A Song Title, and Get a Pop-Up Box With Artist and Song Info. Finally, Selecting the "Click to Hear the Track" Offers the Opportunity to Listen to a 30 Second Snippet of the Song on your Computer. * For this Site To Work to It's Potential You'll Need to Have Javascript Enabled, Flash, and a Windows Media Player.
Digital Maps Source: USA Today "High-Tech Cartographers Record the Tiniest Details" Learn about the 400 field analysts for NavTech who drive "millions of miles" throughout country adding to "data gleaned from mapping satellites". See Also: "Online mapmakers: Popular, Prolific, Not Perfect" See Also: Yahoo Maps and MSN Maps are a Couple of the Mapping Databases that Use NavTech Data
Health Information on the Web Source: Reuters "EU eyes common quality standards for health e-sites" From the article, "On the Net, questions abound. A recent study by global watchdog group Consumer International found several healthcare sites provided incomplete or inaccurate information. The EU executive will recommend member states adopt the standards in a document to be unveiled on December 2. Earlier this month, Consumers International took healthcare Web sites to task saying at least 50 percent of the sites investigated failed to disclose the credentials of sources that offer advice. Another common criticism is that the sites fail to clearly specify which information is editorial and which is based on sponsors." Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Librarians Source: Los Angeles Times "Librarians Emerging From Book Stacks, Increasing Activism" (free registration required) From the article, "They were supposed to quietly fade away with the advent of the Internet, but libraries -- and librarians -- are enjoying a higher profile than ever before. They've mobilized in Washington, beefing up their lobbying presence and inserting themselves into far more controversial subjects than their usual bread-and-butter issues, such as literacy."
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Segregation--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Full-Text Report, "Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation in the United States: 1980-2000" Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Transportation--Energy--Fast Facts Source: EIA World Oil Transit Chokepoints "...information on major world oil transit centers. Over 35 million barrels per day (bbl/d) pass through the relatively narrow shipping lanes and pipelines discussed below." Tuesday, November 26, 2002
National Agriculture Library "National Agricultural Library launches DigiTop–the Digital Desktop Library for USDA" From an announcement, "The National Agricultural Library announces DigiTop–the Digital Desktop Library for USDA, available at www.nal.usda.gov/digitop/ for a pilot year. "DigiTop gives USDA people access to electronic information about agriculture and a lot of other subjects, 24 hours a day," said National Agricultural Library Director Peter Young. "It offers new and more efficient solutions consistent with E-government goals, showing the good things that can happen when USDA agencies collaborate." The National Agricultural Library has combined funding from USDA agencies to acquire USDA-wide licenses to more than 7,000 electronic journals, newspapers, key databases, statistics, and other important digital information resources and to present them in a 1-year pilot of DigiTop." Thanks to NFAIS for the news tip. See Also: Direct to the DigiTop Digital Library
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents Disasters--United States Source: FEMA New Web Portal, DisasterHelp.Gov From the site, "DisasterHelp.gov is designed to assist victims of disasters in locating the resources they need. The goal of the site is to combine the resources of all the federal agencies in our partnership in one central location." See Also: Learn More About DisasterHelp.Gov in this FCW.Com article.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Libraries--Canada--Statistics Source: National Library of Canada New, Full-Text Report, National Core Library Statistics Program: Statistical Report 1999 Note: Large Download, 166 pages, .pdf. See Also: You Can Find Summary Info in this News Release, "Books More Popular than Donuts: 1999 Library Statistics" From the news release, "At the start of the new century, there are more libraries in Canada than Tim Hortons and McDonald’s restaurants combined – 22 000 compared to 2 049 ‘Tim’s’ and more than 1 200 McDonald’s. And for every three donuts sold by Tim Hortons in 1999, one book or other item was accessed by someone in a library somewhere in the country." -- The October Issue of the Journal of the Medical Library Association is Now Available Online (Full-Text) Articles Include: "In search of evidence: family practitioners' use of the Internet for clinical information" "Distance education or classroom instruction for continuing education: who retains more knowledge?"
Web Search Industry--Ask Jeeves Source: The Guardian Jeeves Launches a Concierge Service in the U.K. From the article, "The venture, which aims to make use of Ask Jeeves' existing links with travel agents, ticket agencies and other businesses, is aimed at busy executives. For £299 [approx $467/USD] a year, customers will have access to a team of telephone advisers, who will provide 24-hour services such as travel and restaurant booking, personal shopping, motoring and DIY." Another attempt to make a few dollars with offline services. See Also: Direct to Ask Jeeves Concierge Monday, November 25, 2002
News Search--Google Hooray, You Can Now Limit Your Google News Search To a Specific Source! For those of you Google News junkies out there, the folks at the Googleplex have turned on advanced limiting option that has previously only been available with the Google web database. You're now able to limit your search to a specific site for stories available via Google News. In other words, the site: syntax now works. For example, to see all stories in Google News from the San Jose Mercury News containing the term Microsoft. Use the following syntax: site: (domain of news site) keyword(s) Example: site:bayarea.com Microsoft To get a rough estimate of how many pages Google News has in its database from a specific news organization, try the following: site:cnn.com inurl:*.* or site:cnn.com intext:*.* -- You can also use this syntax and then sorting by date to create a virtual ticker of stories as Google News crawls and adds them to the database. Example: View all Google News accessible stories from The San Francisco Chronicle, Sorted by Date (Last in, First Out) -- Since Google News went live, you've been able to limit your search to terms in the headline of a story by using the intitle: syntax. Example: Searching only the BBC site for the term Blair in the headline of the story. -- Unfortunately, Google News and most of the other news search providers DO NOT provide a complete list of all sites crawled. AlltheWeb News has offered the ability to limit to a specific site for about one year. Thanks to Krishna and the rest of the Google team for activating this useful feature.
Government Printing Office--United States Source: Library Journal "OMB Requests That Three Agencies Bypass GPO" From the article, "The Office of Management and Budget is requesting that the U.S. Department of Defense, General Services Administration, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration be relieved of the requirement to use the Government Printing Office (GPO) for printing."
Electronic Information Data Mining Source: Computerworld "Global Surveillance: The Government's Plan" From the article, "The U.S. Department of Defense has established a research group to develop technology for information gathering and analysis on a huge scale. Its goal is to mine data sources all over the world -- including government and commercial stores of personal information -- to look for terrorists and terrorist threats." See Also: Learn More About the Total Information Awareness Systems Page (via DARPA.Mil) See Also: TIA News Release and Backgrounder (3/21/02) See Also: Comments by John Poindexter, Director of Information Awareness Office (8/2/2002) See Also: Additional Intelligence Resources via (Federation of American Scientists)
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries and Librarians The December Issue of Walt Crawford's Cites and Insights is Now Online
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Iraq Source: House of Commons (U.K.) Library Full-Text Research Paper, Iraq and the UN Security Council Resolution 1441 -- Hate Crimes--United States--Statistics Source: FBI Full-Text Report, Hate Crime Statistics 2001 Sunday, November 24, 2002
Professional Reading Shelf Reference Publishing Source: Library Journal "A Different Sort of Publishing" From the article, "The publishers and their editors will tell you that it takes a singular talent, or at least special training, to take on the meticulous work of bringing out reference books for that special group of consumers. That is what the editors at LJ heard as we spoke with a few intrepid souls in this industry in the hopes of finding out the unique problems behind their favorite upcoming works. As we have been hearing for years, the growth of electronic publishing has put a new spin on nearly every project. Some pressures are similar to those at mainstream publishing houses. Foremost among these is the need for speed." LJ speaks with Sage Reference's Rolf A. Janke, Firefly Books' Michael Worek, McGraw-Hill's Mark Licker, and Greenwood Press's Gary Kuris.
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents Highways--United States--Statistics Source: Federal Highway Administration Now Available, Full-Text Report, Highway Statistics 2001 -- The Internet Source: National Academies Press Full-Text of a Forthcoming Title, The Internet Under Crisis Conditions: Learning from September 11 -- Environmental Health Source: National Library of Medicine New Web Site, Tox Town From a NLM Technical Bulletin Article, "The National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Division of Specialized Information Services (SIS) launched a new Web site, Tox Town...Tox Town is a pilot project that explores how best to provide environmental health information to a general audience. Tox Town looks at an ordinary town and points out environmental hazards that may be in that town. Users can click on a town location, like the school, and see a cutaway view of that building. Toxic chemicals that might be found in the school are listed, along with links to selected Internet resources about school environments.Information on chemical and environmental concerns is assembled from the TOXNET® and MEDLINEplus® resources of the NLM, as well as other authoritative sources. The chemical descriptions ("What is arsenic?") were written for Tox Town using TOXNET and other resources and were reviewed by NLM toxicology staff. " See Also: Direct to ToxTown
Internet Domains Source: Computerworld "New .Info Domain Name Proves Popular" From the article, "Fourteen months after .info top-level domain (TLD) names became available on the Internet, the millionth .info Web site was signed up last week, making it now the sixth largest domain online. About 265,000, or 27%, of the 1 million registered .info sites are now online and available to Web visitors, he said, compared to about 35% of .com names in active use, according to Afilias. The new .info names trail only .com, .net, .org, .de (German country code) and .uk (British country code) domains in the number of registered Web sites, he said. .Info was one of seven new TLDs announced in May 2001 by ICANN to relieve congestion in the TLD space historically dominated by .com." See Also: Browse Through Some .Info Listings via AlltheWeb (Around. 4.2 million entries) See Also: Browse Through Some .Info Listings via Google (Around 1.36 million listings) Saturday, November 23, 2002
Web Search--Daypop Daypop, A Search Engine For Weblog and News Content, Is Back Online Dan Chan has his wonderful resource running at its new home in the Bay Area. Update: As of 11/28 Daypop is Down Again
The Internet Archive The Wayback Machine Source: New Scientist Meet the Founder of The Wayback Machine: A Conversation With Brewster Kahle Kahle discusses many topics in this fact-filled interview. An informative read. See Also: Direct to The Wayback Machine See Also: "Software Aims to Put Your Life on a Disk" (via New Scientist) From the article, "Engineers are working on software to load every photo you take, every letter you write - in fact your every memory and experience - into a surrogate brain that never forgets anything, New Scientist can reveal It is part of a curious venture dubbed the MyLifeBits project, in which engineers at Microsoft's Media Presence lab in San Francisco are aiming to build multimedia databases that chronicle people's life events and make them searchable. "Imagine being able to run a Google-like search on your life," says Gordon Bell, one of the developers." Friday, November 22, 2002
Public Company Research--EDGAR Completely Free to Access, Search: A New Full-Text EDGAR Database Debuts On the Web Say hello to EDGAR IQ, a recently launched database that’s free to access and provides searchable full-text access to the complete document. Many other services that provide free access to EDGAR filings DO NOT provide searchable keyword access to complete document. These services only provide searchable access to document header information. Here are a few quick points about the database and Inverito Inc., the company that provides the service. -- About EDGAR IQ * A company spokesperson labeled the current version as a “beta plus”. Be ready for changes. * Inverito is based in Silicon Valley. The company is owned and managed by four former WiseNut employees. * No plans in the “foreseeable future” to charge for access to the database. * EDGAR IQ is currently updated daily but a real-time feed and with e-mail alerts should be available in the next few months. -- A Bit About Searching EDGAR IQ * The search interface is simple and straightforward. One search box allows you to enter a company name or ticker symbol. If you enter a company name and several possibilities exist you’ll be prompted with a clickable list to help you narrow. Entering a ticker symbol will resolve into the correct company name. You can enter up to 10 ticker symbols, company names per search. Make sure to place a comma between them. * The other search box allows you enter keywords. You can “not” out a term with a minus sign. * The default search is two years but can be changed with a couple of quick clicks. Material in the database begins in 1996. * If you want to find specific keywords within a company filing you can enter a company name in one box and keywords in the other box. * After selecting a document, your search terms will be highlighted inside the document. * A results page provides the ability to sort documents by document type Each result page also provides a hypertext hierarchy as to industry. For example, Boeing falls in the Manufacturing -> Transportation Equipment -> Aircraft And Parts -> Aircraft hierarchy. Clicking on any of these terms allows you to a list of all companies in the category. Categories are built using SIC data. -- I’ll continue investigate and "try out" EDGAR IQ and report back on whatever else I discover. Because the product is still in beta, Inverito Inc./Edgar IQ would welcome your comments.
Digital Libraries The National Library of Medicine Awards 52 Digital Library Grants From the site, "The National Library of Medicine (NLM) announces 52 awards in its new Internet Access to Digital Libraries (IADL) grant program. The purpose of the IADL grants is to help health-related organizations provide consumers, health professionals and health staff with access to digital health information resources and information services of the highest quality. These projects will use computers linked to the Internet to give access to published articles and books, electronic health records, curriculum materials and scientific knowledge bases. The FY 2002 IADL awards, amounting to just over $4 million." See Also: Direct to List of Grant Recipients
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Higher Education--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education Students & Scholars Abroad From the collection, "Data on study abroad by American students and on foreign students and scholars in the United States, including foreign enrollments at American institutions, those students' national origins, and American colleges sending the most students abroad." -- Education--United States--Projections Source: NCES Web Version Now Available, Projections of Education Statistics to 2012 -- Dance--Webliography Source: C&RL News Dance: A Guide to Web Resources Compiled and written by Carol Hansen a librarian in the Stewart Library at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. Thursday, November 21, 2002
Web Resource of the Week Web Resource Compilations A Free Service from the BNA Library, Web Watch BNA (The Bureau of National Affairs) is a well-known and respected publisher of news and analysis tools dealing with legal and regulatory issues in business and government. On Wednesday, Laura Gordon-Murnane, a librarian and BNA's Intranet Webmaster, introduced a new and free service called Web Watch. From the site, "...you will find links to government, industry, and academic resources on selected topics spanning the breadth of BNA coverage. New subjects will be posted weekly, and new resources will also be added to existing topics." From ozone issues to workplace safety, from aviation security to broaband, you'll find an amazing collection of useful and authoritative resources and reports. This "must have" site and is not only a useful directory (worthy of sharing with patrons) but an excellent collection development and alerting tool to locate new content for your web site and bookmark files. Kudos to BNA and Laura for providing this service.
Online Databases Source: The Washington Post "Free Web Research Link Closed Under Pressure From Pay Sites" This article discusses the shutdown of PubScience. From the article, "The decision alarmed researchers in and out of the federal government, who worry that services operated by other federal agencies might be forced to give way to private gatekeepers that would control access to information and research, much of which was created with public money. Government agencies maintain extensive databases and search engines for information on medicine, agriculture, finance and other disciplines." This article goes on to note the Federal Computer Week article (see last Thursday's VAS&ND postings) about the SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association) targeting two other databases. Since I posted the FCW story last week, I've heard through a reliable grapevine Global Legal Information Network is one of the targets. I've also received a conflicting report that Agricola is the other target. Only time will tell. Stay tuned. See Also: SIIA News Release on the PubScience closure.
World History Source: The Guardian Digital Archive of British Newsreels Goes Online From the article, "...archive of 3,500 hours of news bulletins starting in the era of silent cinema in 1902, when Pathe News opened in Britain, and ending in 1970...Some 15,000 hits were counted on the site by lunchtime yesterday and 3,500 people downloaded film clips. Clips are free at present [for personal use] but web pages already have forms which would allow prices to be charged. A spokesman for Pathe News, which is owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust Group, said subscriptions would be introduced in several years' time, "but they will not be prohibitively expensive". He added: "The site will be immensely useful to historians and to others. There are enough footballers on it to keep a fan going for months." A long-running complaint against Pathe News was that it followed the views of governments too closely in framing news for its mass audiences. A tendency towards propaganda is reflected in the archive." See Also: Direct to the British Pathe Web Site See Also: NewsPlayer "Re-live the events of the past hundred years, witness them at first hand as they happened. Newsplayer brings you video footage of music, fashion, art, lifestyle, sport, crime, royalty, weather, showbiz, wildlife, transport, science and war. All live and uncut historic events." This U.K. based subscription site costs about £25/$40 per year. See Also: FrostTV A database (fee-based, £25/$40 per year) of hundred of interviews (searchable/viewable online) of interviews conducted by David Frost.
Topics in the News Iraq Inspections: Selected Resources I've prepared a short webliography of resources relating to the U.N. and IAEA inspections in Iraq. From the International Atomic Energy Agency 1) IAEA and Iraq Page 2) General Schedule 3) Press Releases and Statements 4) Chronology 5) Additional Background and Reference Resources -- From UNOVIC (United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission) 1) UNOVIC Home Page 2) Bio of Hans Blix -- From the UN Cartographic Office 1) Map of Iraq -- Congressional Research Service Reports Iraq: The Turkish Factor Iraq: Former and Recent Military Confrontations With the United States Iraq: Weapons Threat, Compliance, Sanctions, and U.S. Policy -- House of Commons (U.K.) Library Research Papers Iraq and the UN Security Council Resolution 1441 Iraq: the debate on policy options -- Other Resources GlobalSecurity.Org Includes Satellite Images of Various Locations in Iraq ||| Direct Link to Iraq Section Weapons of Mass Destruction (via Federation of American Scientists) UNSCOM Web Site Wednesday, November 20, 2002
Web Search--Inktomi Inktomi Introduces New Web Search Features New features of greatest interest to the searcher from the Web Search 9 release include: 1) Inktomi Claims they Are Refreshing Their Complete Database Every 10-14 Days 3) Smarter Summaries "Document summaries returned in search results are culled from algorithmic and editorial sources and selected based on user context and intent. Users receive abstracts that are more useful in understanding search results than simple computer-generated page summaries." 3) Improved Relevance This can only be determined after we have time to try out these new features. What Else is New A) PDF and other Microsoft Office Formats Accessible (.doc, .ppt, .xls) B) Claiming Database Size is Over 3 Billions Pages B) Inktomi Now Provides Single Database to its Partners. Previously, many chunks of the database were available. However, because different partners offer different features and tweak the relevancy algorithm you will still see different result sets. C) A Primary Focus of Inktomi Going Forward Will Be Developing Tools To Better Understand User Intent. As an info pro knows this is a major challenge and why "traditional" reference interview skills are still crucial. Where Can I Check Out These New Features? As most of you know Inktomi doesn't offer its own interface but sells search services to many sites including MSN Search and Hotbot. The new features and content will roll out over the next few weeks. See Also: Inktomi Press Release See Also: Learn More About Inktomi, It's Partners, History, and More via Search Engine Showdown
Professional Reading Shelf Librarianship "Reference Work in Our Web World — Integrating Internet and Traditional Sources" A few comments by George Plosker, Vice President for Content Support, at Gale. Before we go any further I would like to thank him for including the ResourceShelf and a few of my others resources in this article. Plosker writes, "Let's be blunt: information professionals, particularly reference librarians, have had a tentative relationship with the Internet and the World Wide Web. Initially viewed with distrust and perhaps even scorn, librarians have slowly recognized the added value that the Web brings to their ability to answer a broader range of patron questions. Now, finally, there is the widespread acceptance that either alone or in combination with more traditional resources, the Web expands the capabilities of reference professionals." He ends the column with, "The bottom line: today's reference professional needs to think broadly and creatively to meet user needs in a Web-conscious world." No arguments here. In fact, George's bottom line is VERY similar to the mindset I have when finding, annotating, and creating content for this site. An equal challenge is marketing, advertising, call it what you want, the resources, tools, and skills the information professional can provide.
Information Quality Source: AP Whales in Lake Michigan? Another Story for Your "Well it Was on the Web" File After a news source for teachers runs a story that whales live in Lake Michigan, a reader questions this so called fact. The news source first stands by the story but later learn that the web page they were using as a source was a joke. Not only does it illustrate bad journalism but it also shows how easy it is to dupe someone with a web site and bad information. The reporter should take Journalism 101 over again.
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Philanthropy--United States--Databases Source: Foundation Center New Database, 9/11 Funding Database From the site, "The Center will continuously update it as new information becomes available. This interactive database provides users with a versatile tool for locating the latest information on a wide range of institutional donors, grant recipients, and grants made following September 11. According to Center staff, users can search the database to find out how much a specific corporation or foundation gave and to which organizations. The database also makes it possible to look at donors and recipients in various geographic areas, as well as the organizations receiving funds in human services, arts and culture, immigrant rights, foreign policy research, and other service areas. In the future the Center will add information about distributions from relief funds in order to increase understanding of the long-term impact of 9/11 contributions." See Also: Full-Text Report, Giving in the Aftermath of 9/11: An Update on the Foundation and Corporate Response Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Information Technology--Lists & Rankings Source: InfoWorld 2002 InfoWorld 100 "Companies that have made the best use of technology to enhance their business." Tuesday, November 19, 2002
Information Industry--Dialog Dialog Set to Launch a "Very Searchable" Version of the WHOIS Database It's taken many years but finally a major online vendor, Dialog, is set to launch a version of the WHOIS domain name registration database (file 225) available. Cool! For a long time I have thought that WHOIS would be a very useful marketing (who owns what), competitive intelligence (what names were recently added/deleted), and business research tool if you could perform a variety of searches and get more than 25 results. According to Dialog the new database will have up to 78 indexable fields and contain historic WHOIS data. I hope to have more to say after I spend some time "trying out" the new product. An upcoming "must read article" will be Mary Ellen Bates review of the new resource in an upcoming issue of Online. See Also: Genie Tyburski's article, "Find Domain Names Owned By Companies or Individuals" The article offers several search tips including info on record availability as well as links two to services currently offering a WHOIS database.
Digital Libraries Full-Text Books Online Source: NPR Learn About: The International Children’s Digital Library From the story, The library, a joint project of the University of Maryland and the Internet Archive, is billed as the world's largest digital library for children. Every page of Alice in Wonderland and 200 other books have been scanned into the International Children's Digital Library's collection...Eventually, 10,000 texts from 100 cultures are planned." You can listen to the complete report from All Things Considered online. You'll need to have Real Audio. Additional details via an IMLS news release. Even more from The Library of Congress. See Also: Direct to the International Children's Digital Library
Online Industry--Verity Online Industry--Inktomi Source: Information Today Analysis of the Verity/Inktomi Deal Avi Rappaport, the well known and highly respected search analyst and proprietor of one of the search world's most informative sites, SearchTools.Com, takes a look at last weeks announcement
Web Search Issues in Web Searching: Diacritics Bottom Line? Each engines handles them in a different manner. Examples and tips from Search Engine Showdown's, Greg Notess.
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Legal Industry--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: National Law Journal National Law Journal 250 (Largest Law Firms in the U.S.), 2002 See Also: Direct to NLJ 250 Chart -- Science--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Scientific American The Scientific American 50 Award From the site, "Through their many accomplishments in 2001-2002, they have demonstrated clear, progressive views of what our technological future could be, as well as the leadership, knowledge and expertise essential to realizing those visions." Companies and people on the list familiar to the information profession include Lawrence Lessig and In-Q-Tel, Inc. -- Schools--Crime and Safety--United States--Statistics Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Bureau of Justice Statistics Full-Text Report, Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2002 Summary/Access to Spreadsheets ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Stem Cell Research Source: Department of the Parliamentary Library, Australian Parliament Full-Text Research Report, An Introduction to Stem Cell Research Monday, November 18, 2002
Web Search--AlltheWeb Tweaks at AlltheWeb A couple of useful "tweaks" at AtW. 1) Dynamic Snippets and Descriptions Now Part of AtW Result Pages AtW search result pages now include both a dynamically generated snippet (aka keywords in context) along with a "description" generated from the meta description tag IF it's been used by the page author. Example A: Search for Airports, Runways, and "Control Towers", Limited to .Gov Sites Below the snippet (search terms bolded) you'll see a description generated from the meta tag. Example B: Search for "Library of Congress" 2) AlltheWeb News You can now sort/view results by date as well as relevance. I've also noticed improved results and a reduced amount of duplication.
Web Search Habits Source: NUA.IE People Just Look at the First Few Results and Other Search Engine Statistics A few numbers from a recent study. Principle of least effort, instant gratification, whatever you want to call it is very evident here. The numbers say many things but perhaps illustrate that a well trained info pro will have plenty to share with the patron/user on how to improve his/her search habits. For many "advanced searching" is placing phrases inside of quotation marks. Actually, suggesting to place a phrase or name in quotes is a very quick and easily understood tip an info pro can share with a searcher. 1) "According to a recent study from iProspect, three-quarters of Internet users use search engines. However, 16 percent of Internet users only look at the first few search results, while 32 percent will read through to the bottom of the first page." 2) "The study also indicates that 52.1 percent of Internet users choose the same search engine or directory when searching for information, while 35 percent alternate among a number of favorite search properties." 3) "Just 13 percent of users said that they use different search engines for different types of searches." 4) "Only 7.5 percent of Internet users said they refined their search with additional keywords in cases where they were unable to achieve satisfactory results."
Site Search Tools A New Opinion Paper from IDC about Site Search Tools This study discusses search functionality and search habits dealing with site specific search engines. Key Findings: * Each search "session" is composed of 1.56 searches. * The average duration of each search session is 1:50 minutes, ranging from 48 seconds to 4.4 minutes depending on the type of site. (Small sites have short search duration, and portals have longer search sessions.) * Only 1 in 20 visitors will scroll to the second results page to find data. * On average, 58.8% of searches are successful (with ranges from 30% to 90%). * A total of 22% of searches produce no results. * More than half the visitors, or 52%, perform a search using one word; 12% utilize three or more words. * There is no significant difference in user behavior on North American and European Web sites.
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Philanthropy--Web Resources Source: Philanthropy News Digest PND Updates It's Collection of Philanthropy-Related Web Resources -- Internet Usage--Parents Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project Full-Text Report, Parents Online You can also read a summary here. See Also: Baby Boomers and the Internet -- Online Exhibits--Canada New Exhibit From the National Archives of Canada, Expo 67: A Virtual Experience Sunday, November 17, 2002
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Libraries The November Issue of D-Lib Magazine is Now Online Titles of a Few Selected Articles: "The NSF National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program: New Projects in Fiscal Year 2002" "Software for Building a Full-Featured Discipline-Based Web Portal: The Scout Portal Toolkit" "Report on the 2nd Workshop on the Open Archives Initiative, Gaining Independence with e-Print Archives and OAI" "International Children's Digital Library to Host 10,000 Books"
Data Management Source: Federal Computer Week "FBI Data Management a Tough Case" From the article, "In response to the records fiasco, the FBI hired [William] Hooton, an electronic records expert with experience at the Internal Revenue Service, the National Archives and Records Administration, and private industry, and created a new 1,000-person Records Management Division. Today, the division runs "10 production lines of scanners" and aims to convert 750,000 paper documents a day into digital records, Hooton said in a Nov. 14 address to the Association for Information and Image Management. Once scanned, the electronic documents are stored in a database where they can be searched, mined and made available to FBI field offices. But converting such huge amounts of data to a more manageable electronic form is only a start toward solving the FBI's records problems, Hooton said." "Meanwhile, the FBI must tackle some other thorny records issues, such as "what constitutes an e-mail record?" Hooton said. "No one has the answer now." Similarly elusive is the answer to what constitutes a Web page record. And the Records Management Division needs help deciding whether it can destroy paper records once electronic copies have been made, he said." Saturday, November 16, 2002
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Business--Lists & Rankings--United States Source: Forbes New List, Largest Private Companies (United States), 2002 -- Health Information--MEDLINEplus Two New MEDLINEplus Resource Compilations 1) Exercise for Children 2) Radiation Therapy Friday, November 15, 2002
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Cataloging and Classification Source: Library Journal "MARC Exit Strategies" Roy Tennant writes, "In last month's column (LJ 10/15/02, p. 26ff), I outlined why it is time for us to rethink our most basic bibliographic standards: MARC elements, MARC syntax, and AACR2 (the rules for populating them). This month I'll be looking at various ways in which we can build on our strengths without allowing the past to limit our future." -- Information Architecture Source: Free Pint "Free Pint talks to Jakob Nielsen" From the article, "Getting access to Web-based information can be a time-consuming and frustrating experience even for the comparatively expert members of the Free Pint community. If you have impaired sight or other disabilities it can be a nightmare. Jakob Nielsen, a principal of Nielsen Norman Group, has made it his mission to enhance the usability of the Web. Lecturing, writing and teaching on the subject have made him probably the best known Web usability expert around." A Special Note: I Would Like to Congratulate Will Hann and the Rest of the Free Pint Team on their Fifth Anniversary. Thanks for Providing Such a Valuable Resource. Thank You Very Much for Hosting the VAS&ND. More News: Free Pint and the VAS&ND Received a Positive Mention in the Yesterday's Edition of The Guardian.
Information Retrieval Source: Ventura Country Star Learn More About: Dolphin Search From the article, "The patented technology uses artificial intelligence to search for context and meaning, much like a human, said CEO Andrew Kraftsow. "We have taught computers to read language with much greater understanding than they did before," Kraftsow said. For example, if searching for the term "strike," as in labor strike, DolphinSearch will find every document that includes information about a strike. And it will find related documents even though they don't contain the word strike, such as a document that mentions "a walkout." Just as important is what the technology doesn't do. Because DolphinSearch understands the context of the above example, it would not return documents talking about an oil strike or a baseball game, said Joe Swimmer, market planner for LexisNexis, a well-known provider of legal, news, public records and business information that has partnered with DolphinSearch." See Also: Direct to the Dolphin Search Web Site
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Supercomputers--Lists & Rankings New List Available, Top 500 Supercomputers -- Business--United States Source: Small Business Administration Full-Text Report, A Profile of Owners and Investors of Privately Held Businesses in the United States, 1989-1998 -- Economics--United States--Statistics Source: Bureau of Economic Affairs New, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by Industry for 2001 Chart also available as .xls file. Thursday, November 14, 2002
Web Resource of the Week Online Books--Full-Text The Online Books Page While browsing around the VAS&ND I realized that The Online Books Page has never been listed as a Resource of the Week. Although the site has been mentioned on this site several times, it's more than deserving of this extra title. In fact, Resource of the Week does not do it justice. It's a web compilation classic and one that every web researcher should know about and make use of. As of today, the OBP is home to a directory of over 17,000 free, full-text books and documents from a wide variety of sources. The compilation was created and is still developed by John Mark Ockerbloom, a digital library planner at the University of Pennsylvania. Here are a few (just a few) highlights of what the site offers. However, it's only after spending some time and "learning" the OBP, you will realize what this resource offers in terms of access and content. Highlights 1) Entries can be searched by author and title. 2) Entries can be browsed by author, title, or subject (Library of Congress Classification). 3) The OBP also offers a list of many archives of online serials. 4) The OBP grows daily with new entries. Here's a list of the latest entries. A sort of a virtual new books shelf. Not only is this list exciting but it also makes a great collection development tool. 5) A large list of many archival projects both general and specialized. Foreign language sites are also listed. 6) Several "special collections" are also available including one with banned book material.
Information Industry Source: Federal Computer Week PubScience is Gone, Are More Government Funded Info Resources on the Chopping Block? From the article, "Having persuaded the Energy Department to pull the plug on PubScience, a Web site that offered free access to scientific and technical articles, commercial publishers are taking aim at government-funded information services offering free legal and agricultural data. Two in particular rile SIIA members: "One is law-related, the other has to do with agriculture," LeDuc said. He declined to identify them further. One site the SIIA is unlikely to challenge is PubMed, the National Library of Medicine site that provides free access to millions of medical articles and research papers. PubMed was established much earlier and has a strong foothold, LeDuc said. "We have no intention of going after PubMed." Any guesses? Perhaps Agricola and the Global Law Information Network?
Web Search--Teoma New From Teoma/Jeeves, Spell Check A busy 10 days or so for the Teoma folks. First, many new limiting options along with a larger database and now a spell check feature. You'll see a note at the top of the page if a potential spelling error exists plus a link to rerun the search with a corrected spelling. This new feature is also available on Ask Jeeves. See Also: Incorrect spelling of San Francisco See Also: Incorrect spelling of the terms indistinguishable handwriting
Enterprise Search Source: News.Com Study: "Shoddy Search Prevents Worker Success" An article about a new study from the Neilsen/Norman Group. From the article, "As companies look to cut costs amid a prolonged economic downturn, many are turning to technology to automate services previously handled by employees. Automation isn't always the solution, however; the time required to properly understand tools can become a drain on efficiency, too...According to the study, titled "Designing Usable Intranets," the group estimates that a poorly designed intranet can cost an average company with 10,000 employees $15 million per year in lost productivity." The point about "understanding tools" is true for all search resources. Knowing what a search tool is capable of and then being able to utilize its "power" is essential skill for an info pro. Then, being able to train staff on how to easily maximize a search tools power is a very important skill for many of us to have. Yes, Google, Teoma, and AlltheWeb are easy to use but with a little training these resources become even more impressive. Just reminding people to place phrases inside "quotation marks" can be a good place to start. It's "power" is easily illustrated when a user begins seeing more precise result sets. See Also: More About the Study. Full-Text is fee-based.
Knowledge Management--Legal Industry Source: Law.Com Meet the Knowledge Manager: Chris Boyd Boyd is employed at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, California. From the article, "To many, the job description of a knowledge manager is as amorphous as the title itself. Part librarian and part traffic cop, a knowledge manager's main task is to corral the vast number of informational tidbits generated daily at a firm the size of Wilson Sonsini -- everything from provisions tucked into hundreds of venture capital contracts to the myriad details found in obscure transactional agreements drafted by armies of associates -- and place it all within easy and orderly reach of the firm's lawyers and other staffers."
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Social Security--Webliography Source: Library Journal "Social Security" Compiled and written by our friend Richard Drezen of The Washington Post. -- Holidays--Thanksgiving--United States Source: U.S. Census Fact File: Thanksgiving Day, 2002 Plenty o' statistics culled from U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Agriculture and reports from other government organizations. They include: *270 million turkeys raised in the United States in 2002 *13.6 pounds of turkey consumed by the typical American in 2000 1.4 billion pounds, the weight of sweet potatoes produces in the U.S. in 2001 Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Enterprise Search--Inktomi Inktomi Sells Enterprise Business To Verity, Will Now Focus Only on Web Search The enterprise portion of Inktomi goes to Verity for $25 million in cash. The company provides web search services for several sites including MSN Search and Hotbot. At one time Inktomi provided web search services for other sites including Yahoo and iWon. These sites now provide results from Google. See Also: More from Stefanie Olson at News.Com
National Archives (United States) "NARA Readies Software to Make Archives More Accessible" More invisible material to be revealed. From the article, "The National Archives and Records Administration early next year plans on unveiling software that would allow researchers to find specific records in archival databases. NARA technology employees and contract workers from Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego, are testing the software, called Access to Archived Databases, said Kenneth Thibodeau, director of NARA’s electronic records archives program.
Internet Filtering Source: IDG.Net "US Supreme Court to decide library Net filtering case" "The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether requiring public libraries to put Internet filtering software on computers in an effort to shield children from pornography violates free speech." See Also: "Libraries, court argue access to cyberporn" via Orlando Sentinel Includes a look at a few types of filtering options in place at several libraries in Florida See Also: Docket for No. 02-361
Web Browsers--Opera Beta, A Completely Rewritten Version of Opera is Now Available (7.0b1) A new rendering engine along with many new features.
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) U.S. Government--Information Sources Source: Congressional Research Service Full-Text Report, Executive and Independent Agency Publications: Where to Get Official Documents -- Stem Cell Research Source: Department of Parliamentary Libraries, Parliament of Australia Full-Text Issue Brief, Key Ethical Issues in Embryonic Stem Cell Research See Also: Stem Cell Research (via Congressional Research Service, U.S.) -- Chemical Facilities--United States Source: National Institute of Justice Full-Text, New Report, A Method to Assess the Vulnerability of U.S. Chemical Facilities Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Image Searching Demo: LTU Technologies Image Seeker Demo the search technology on a database of 65,000 royalty-free images from Cobion. From the announcement, "...after an initial text-based search using a keyword, users can select the "Find Similar Images" function to find other, similar images, with the results sorted by visual similarity." Similarity is "based on both the visual characteristics of an image and the associated keywords." See Also: Learn More About Image Seeker Technology UPDATED 6/2003: More About LTU Technology in this Search Engine Meeting Presentation
Information Industry--OneSource Information Organization OneSource Begins To Offer Its "Global Business Taxonomy" for Use in an Enterprise Environment From the announcement, "Over the past 10 years, OneSource content experts have developed the Global Business Taxonomy, which has been used to build the OneSource(R) enhanced content warehouse that today aggregates over 2,500 information sources from 30 providers. Now, the GBT is being made available to corporations for use in their own internal content optimization and integration projects as well as for linking to the OneSource warehouse of external content."
National Archives (United States) "NARA Seeks User Input" From the article, "The National Archives and Records Administration plans to involve users in developing the solution for storing electronic records, officials said Nov. 8. The challenge is coming up with a format for an electronic record, such as a word processing document, that can be maintained once the original technology is no longer available."
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Library Computer and Network Security New Resource from Infopeople: Library Computer and Network Security Infopeople, a library and computer training organization based in California, has unveiled a new section of their site (available to all) focusing on library computer and network security. Topics include library security principles, user security, workstation security, and network security. An annotated bibliography is also included. -- Hunger--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture Full-Text, Household Food Security in the United States, 2001 From the abstract, "The prevalence of food insecurity rose from 10.1 percent in 1999 to 10.7 percent in 2001, and the prevalence of food insecurity with hunger rose from 3.0 percent to 3.3 percent during the same period." Monday, November 11, 2002
Web Search--AltaVista New Look, Services from AltaVista I've known and mentioned in many of my presentations that a "new and improved" AltaVista was on the way for the past several months (the official announcement comes Tuesday but the new site is already online) and I'm looking forward to seeing if that along with a new color scheme, logo, and site design that the underlying database of web pages will see an improvement in terms of recrawl/refresh, alternative formats, and quality of search results. Will this "return to search" focus cause AV to regain its one time popularity? Only time and useful results will tell. I'm also waiting to see how the company responds to Danny Sullivan's story about AV possibly giving higher result page rankings to companies who pay to participate in their "trusted feed" program. Note: I used several examples that Danny mentions in his article and along with several other queries and I've noticed that the trusted feed content (as described in the article) is not showing up in the top 10 results. Here's A Short Summary of What's New/Change and Hopefully Improved: 1) If you take a look at the AltaVista What's New Tour you'll read, "AltaVista refreshes 50% of the results daily. Results include PDF files as well as Web pages, images, audio and video files." This sounds impressive but is a bit inaccurate. I've learned that this number refers to the most popular pages. In other words, half of the most popular pages (as determined by AV log analysis) will be recrawled/refreshed daily. AV is not refreshing their entire database every 24 hours. 2) PDF Content is Now Included in the Database. No "precise" syntax to limit to only PDF files is available but filetype:pdfappears to be working. Also: url:pdf will work. 3) Less Cluttered Home Page, Tabs to Specialty Catalogs (News, Images, Directory, Audio/Video) Remain 4) Option to Limit to Only English, Spanish Material from Search Box (Radio Buttons). Clicking on the Link Opens a Box With Additional Language Limiting Options 5) Option to Limit to Only U.S. Results from Search Box (Radio Buttons). Other AltaVista sites like the U.K., Canada, and Australia has a Region/Country Search Limit on their Home Page. Each homepage (top right) also has a link to move to other AltaVista sites. 6) The "Search" Button Has Been Renamed "Find" 7) A Link Next To the "Find" Button Labeled "More Precision" Adds Several Boxes to the Interface that Will Assist in Helping to Limit or Expand the Search Query. This query building tool is now available on all AV sites. 8) Other than Using the New Color Scheme, the Advanced Interface, remains the same. Remember, if you use This Interface to place term(s) in the "sort by"box. 9) The Ability to Limit Using Near as a Proximity Operator (10 Words in Either Direction) Remains 10) AltaVista's Prisma Feature (A Search Term Selection Tool) is Now Available in Five Languages Including Spanish, French, Italian, and German, and English. 11) Perhaps the AV News Interface has undergone the most changes. The database, powered by a Moreover feed now offers several limits including date, source (not all sources available), location, and subject area. Granted, the "official launch" isn't until Tuesday but from some preliminary searching the news database, results are still poor. Btw, a German language news interface with German language content is now available. 12) Shortcut Answers. Type a Zip Code and get a location. Type an Area Code, get a location. International Exchange are also available. 13) No more pop-up ads throughout the site. -- See Also: "AltaVista Searches for a New Image" via News.Com See Also: Search Engine Showdown
Libraries--United States Source: Library Journal Hartford Courant Retracts Story That FBI Bugged Hartford Public Library A column in the November 3, 2002 edition of Hartford Courant about the FBI installing Internet monitoring software at the Hartford Public Library has been retracted by the newspaper. From an article on the LJ web site, "On November 7, however, The Courant published a retraction. Michael Wolf, the state's most senior FBI agent, said in a statement that the FBI used a search warrant to seize evidence from a specific library computer that had been used to "hack" into a business computer system in California "for criminal purposes." No software was installed on any computer in the library. [Bill] Olds [the Hartford Courant columnist who wrote the story] acknowledged that his sources acknowledged they were wrong." See Also: Direct to The Courant's Retraction (Published November 7, 2002)
Libraries--Marketing--Awards Source: International Federation of Library Associations Applications Now Available, IFLA 3M International Marketing Award 2003 Objectives of the Award Reward the best library marketing project worldwide each year Encourage marketing in libraries Give libraries the opportunity to share marketing experiences Eligibility Any library worldwide that promotes library services is eligible to receive the award. Sunday, November 10, 2002
Professional Reading Shelf Information Organization Cataloging and Classification Facet Analytical Theory: Managing Knowledge Structures for Humanities Research underway at the University College London. From the site, "Facet analytical theory (FAT) is a novel method of indexing which deals with individual simple terms. It builds up a map of subjects "bottom-up" by clustering terms in a systematic way, rather than as a linear sequence. This research project will investigate the potential role of FAT in the development of the knowledge structure of multi-dimensional networks of subject terms for use with digital collections." See Also: Faceted Metadata Search and Browse (via SearchTools.Com) A new research report by Avi Rappoport.
The Library of Congress--Storage LC Set To Open New "High Density" Storage Facility at Fort Meade The new facility will be dedicated a week from Monday. This is the first major new building (Storage Module 1 or SM1) LC has built in over 20 years. A fact sheet includes the following: *SM1 will house only paper-based material-books and bound periodicals. *Shelving will be industrial shelving, approximately 30 feet high, and 36 inches deep. Thus boxes that are 18 inches deep can be double shelved on a 36 inch deep shelf. *Using this configuration, the Library anticipates that approximately 1.4 million items will eventually be accommodated in SM1. *Because of severe crowding of collections on Capitol Hill, an accelerated program to transfer items to the facility will be undertaken. The Library anticipates that 2,500 items daily will be transferred during a period lasting approximately 30 months. *Collections that will be transferred to SM1 are those less frequently used. These include: portions of agriculture, medicine, and literature collections as well as portions of the collections in the custody of the Law Library, and the Asian, and African & Middle Eastern Divisions will be transferred.
Libraries in the News Source: The Arizona Republic "Got a Question? Ask the Librarian" From the article, Library reference desks have long been the best and last hope for desperate people, and despite the easier access to information on the Internet, calls to librarians have not diminished. Reference librarian Joe Schallan adds, "People still see us as a way to guide them to information, wherever it is, and there's a growing realization that not everything is on the Internet and, more important, that it may not be trustworthy." Saturday, November 09, 2002
National Libraries--Canada Full-Text Report, National Library of Canada Activities and Projects: Semi-Annual Update
News Libraries--Canada Source: The Toronto Star "From Library Clippings to Clickings..." Note: If the link does not work properly try: http://tinyurl.com/2ilf Read all about the library at The Toronto Star. From the article, The staff of 13 usually field up to 50 questions from reporters daily, but the past few weeks have been even more hectic as they have been digging through 110 years of history for material for The Star's 110th anniversary sections...The birth of the library goes back to 1909, when an assistant to an editor started a daily questions-and-answers column. He had a collection of reference books but soon started clipping items from various newspapers and filing them away.
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Newspapers--Canada The Ultimate Online Guide to Canadian Newspapers -- Canada--Parliament Source: Library of Parliament Enhanced Search Options, Members of the House of Commons, 1867 to 1957 "You can now search within a legislature by political affiliation, by province or territory, or by gender." -- Canada--Parliament--Fast Facts Source: Library of Parliament New List, Members of the House of Commons, 1867 to 1957, Elected by Acclamation Friday, November 08, 2002
Web Search--Google Source: Librarian.Net "How I Tried to Resign from Google Answers but Found I Was Already Fired" Jessamyn West of Librarian.Net on how she was fired from Google Answers after she wrote an article about the service for Searcher magazine. It's quite a story. A message Jessamyn received from the company informed her that, "many librarians like the fact that Google Answers helps people get the information they are looking for and, in fact, use Answers as a resource themselves." I would love to learn more about the qualifications and skills that would lead a librarian to farm out research questions to Google. What Jessamyn's story does for me is illustrate (once again) the need for improvement our profession MUST make to alert the public that the answers they are paying to receive from Google Answers are available from their local public, academic, school, or special library. In fact, they will likely get a more complete and authoritative answer that contains material Google doesn't offer. If that's not enough, and for many it won't be, how about the fact that in many cases they will get the answer and quality supporting materials without having to pay for it? Perhaps those of you are disappointed with how Google handled the situation will also remember, if for only a moment, that other search tools, both general web engines and specialty search tools exist and you might be surprised what you find. The just released Search Engine Watch "Torture Test" proves that good results can be found with other engines. In other words, why are so many people so reliant on just one product? Most libraries have many books and databases to answer the questions. In some cases a library will have multiple titles with similar information but resource "a" might have an extra feature or strength resource "b" doesn't offer. Collection building is a major component of librarianship. Why can't we build and learn a collection of open web resources like we've always built and learned collections of traditional tools?
Scholarly Publishing Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education "Scholarly Publishers Aim to Woo Librarians Away From Self-Published Research" Scott Carlson writes, "A group of scholarly publishers will begin a public-relations campaign this month that is intended to improve publishers' image among librarians and academics...Supporters of the campaign also say that it will be an attempt to mend relations with librarians and academics. "The long-term goal is to re-establish that we are allies with the academic world," says Lynn Rienner, the founder of the social-sciences publishing company Lynn Rienner Publishers, who has helped shape the campaign...Beyond smoothing ruffled feathers, the publishers seek to reach academics and librarians who advocate distributing research results on the Internet."
Information Industry--Factiva Source: Intranet Strategist "The Search Continues: The Story Behind Factiva" From the article, In terms of what makes a corporate portal successful, [Clare] Hart [Factiva CEO] keeps it simple: “Information in the portal has to be relevant and current, and the navigation must be simple. Just perfect the art of finding information – don’t make me search, don’t make me work for it.” Thanks to NFAIS for the story tip.
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Business Research Two New Resources from Marketwatch.Com 1) Earnings Calendar Tool "To conveniently search scheduled earnings releases by a specific company or date, use our new Earnings Calendar. Listed next to the earning date is the estimated earnings number, along with the actual EPS once it is announced, as well as the previous years' actual numbers for your reference." 2) "Corporate Scandal Sheet" "Tracks the status of investigations, lawsuits and criminal proceedings against the companies and individuals at the center of the storm." -- Documents in the News--Iraq Source: United Nations Full-Text, UN Iraq Resolution 1441 (2002) 8 pages .pdf Thursday, November 07, 2002
Web Resources of the Week Library and Information Science Education Technology Two Great Bibliographic Databases (Free) of Professional Literature The folks at EBSCO provide free access to these useful databases containing bibliographic information for recently published professional literature. Registration is not required. If you know that a publication is available in the database (I wasn't able to find a complete list) info you can limit your search to a specific title, leave the "Find" box empty, and then browse the results. The latest entries will be at the top of the list. Most entries also contain short abstracts. 1) Library Reference Center "This database is comprised of cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts from over 30 important library trade magazines and journals, including School Library Journal, and American Libraries" 2) Teacher Reference Center (Select the Library Reference Center Link to Access the Database) "Provides indexing and abstracts for over 280 of the most popular teacher and administrator trade journals to assist professional educators."
Online Databases--PubSCIENCE So Long, Farewell to PubSCIENCE PubScience, a specialized web database of science related content is no more. A message on the web site states, "PubSCIENCE has been discontinued. Scientific and technical information is available at www.osti.gov. Specific links are available for journal literature at www.osti.gov/journal_sources.html." Although talk of a possible closing of the resource has been since August, the shutdown comes without any advanced warning. PubSCIENCE was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science and Technical Information. See Also: 9/4/2002, "Deadline For Comments Regarding Elimination of PubSCIENCE Approaches" See Also: 8/19/2002, "PubSCIENCE Joins the Endangered Species List" (via Information Today NewsBreaks) See Also: 8/12/2002, Original VAS&ND Posting, "The U.S. Department of Energy Proposes the Elimination of PubSCIENCE" See Also: Peter Jacso's September, 2002 Review of PubSCIENCE The review includes several favorable comments about the DOE's Energy Citations database which is still online. DOE Database Still Available: DOE's Energy Citations Information Bridge PrePrint Network EnergyFiles See Also: Scirus A specialized web database from Elsevier containing both free and fee-based content. The database uses FAST Search and Transfer technology. It operates from a separate crawl and is not a chunk or portion of the AlltheWeb database. -- Update (11/12/02): "PubSCIENCE Shut Down, Despite Comments" via Library Journal From the article, "In total, 230 comments supported PubSCIENCE versus seven from publishers asking it be taken down. Further angering supporters, the DOE also declined to solicit comments in the Federal Register, despite a plea from the American Library Association to do so, leading to librarians to believe that the decision to close the service was pre-determined, based on the SIIA lobbying effort and not on its usefulness to the public."
Web Search--Google Google Ups Total Page Count The publicly available page count total on the Google.Com home page has been increased from 2,469,940,685 web pages to 3,083,324,652 web pages. Impressive, but remember that total pages doesn't mean a great deal other than giving Google (for the time being) bragging rights. Also, as Greg Notess points out, many pages in Google's total page count have not been completely crawled. In many cases using a smaller, more focused database can help improve the quality of your results. In other words, bigger doesn't always mean better. -- See Also: More From Google "More than 40 percent of these 3 billion web pages are authored in non-English languages. Even with the recent growth in the index, Google still delivers a list of relevant results in less than half-a-second. And, Google offers users access to more than 330 million images and nearly 800 million Usenet newsgroup postings--bringing the total for the entire Google index to more than 4 billion web documents." Google fast facts, "More than 50 percent of Google's traffic comes from overseas..." Thanks to Nate Tyler from Google for the info. See Also: Search Engine Showdown
Libraries Source: The New York Times Bill Gates and Libraries Timothy Egan writes, "Inside the Seattle headquarters of the foundation, a giant map shows the progress of the campaign to give computers to libraries in every state. The campaign started with the poorest regions, mainly in the South and Great Plains, though distressed urban areas are included, too. But if superimposed over a map of population decline, it would show that many of these areas are not holding onto people, no matter how wired they become." See Also: Learn More about Gates Foundation and Its Work With Libraries
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Education Technology Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology New, ERIC Digest, "How People Learn (and What Technology Might Have to Do with It)" (PDF Version) -- Transportation--United States--Statistics Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics New Databases, Government Transportation Financial Statistics "This query system provides interactive access to transportation revenues and expenditures for federal, state and local governments. Federal government data are available for FY 1977-2001, and grants to state and local governments for FY 1977-2000. State and local government data are provided for FY 1977-1999. Also included are federal budget authority and obligations for FY 1985-2000. All data are reported in current and chained 1996 dollars, except for federal budget authority and obligations, which are available in current dollars only. The data provided in this query system are also published in the Government Transportation Financial Statistics 2001" -- E-Government--Canada Source: Government of Canada New, Full-Text, Annual Report on Canada's Progress on GOL (Government On-Line)
Information Industry--LexisNexis LN Adds Business and Investment Content from Multex The Multex content will be available at www.nexis.com. Material includes broker and independent research.
News Briefs Takover Rumors Surround Reuters According to the article Thomson is interested in the company.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Itemss) Digital Archives "The Stanford Archival Repository Project: Preserving our Digital Past" "The Stanford Archival Repository Project aims to build a robust archiving system that can protect digital objects from failures over very long time spans. Objects are replicated among cooperating digital archives, so that if any archive fails its objects survive. We have designed an architecture for digital archives, and developed techniques for efficiently replicating objects to remote sites. We have also built simulation software that allows an archivist to design the most effective archiving system possible despite limited resources." -- Ontologies Source: XML.Com "Ontology Building: A Survey of Editing Tools" Wednesday, November 06, 2002
Information Industry--ProQuest Digitization Projects--Newspapers Historical Backfiles of Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times To Be Digitized From the announcement, "ProQuest will digitize the complete historical backfiles of Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times from their first published editions in 1847 and 1881, respectively, and make both article and full page images available to users. This historical content will be available to the library market exclusively from ProQuest."
Full-Text Books Information Industry--Bowker Information Industry--ebrary Bowker/ebrary To Offer New Product From the announcement, " R.R. Bowker will begin selling a customized Bowker-ebrarian® research database to librarians, library patrons, students and faculty as the result of a recently signed licensing agreement with ebrary, a leading provider of information distribution and retrieval services.The new B owker-ebrarian research database—accessible from booksinprint.com® and globalbooksinprint.com®—will provide simultaneous, multi-user access to a searchable collection of full text from more than 13,000 books and other authoritative content derived from 130 of the world’s leading publishers."
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Encyclopedias--Reviews Source: School Library Journal "Digital Encyclopedias" SLJ rates 10 products. Includes a very useful comparison chart. -- U.S. Government Printing Office Full-Text, The 2001 GPO Annual Report is Now Online
The Internet Archive--The Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine Officially Launches Document Comparison Tool About two months ago, the VAS&ND ran a post about a beta of a page comparison tool available on The Wayback Machine. Yesterday, Docucomp, the developer of the software, announced that the Internet Archive has officially licensed the software. From the announcement, "With the new DocuComp capability, Wayback Machine visitors can instantly identify the differences between any two historical web page versions in the website archive of more than 10 billion pages." Here's a quick example. 1) Go to the Advanced Wayback Interface 2) Select the Comparison Box 3) Make Sure the "List All Pages That Match Search Criteria" is Selected in the URL Matching Section 4) Enter a Web Page URL in the Search Box (Example: A search and comparison of the AOL Privacy Policy) 5) Check the Two Pages You Want to Compare (I've Selected 4/29/99 & 1/25/02), Click The "Compare Two Dates" Button 6) Your Results Appear in A Matter of Seconds! Removed Text will be in Red, New Content in Green.
Data Sharing--Homeland Security Source: Government Computer News "Homeland Security Staff Studies Data Analysis Tools" From the article, The Homeland Security Office is evaluating applications to let agencies analyze links and relationships among information sets without breaching privacy laws or sparking interagency turf battles..."We can create a map of what exists and where it exists using this technology," [Steve] Cooper [Homeland Security Office CIO] said. "The data might represent locations or people or facilities. We don’t need to know what the content of the data is, but by analyzing what is interrelated to what, we can see patterns and see if it needs an additional look by intelligence analysts." Tuesday, November 05, 2002
Professional Resource Shelf (2 Items) Academic Libraries Source: C&RL News "Top Issues Facing Academic Libraries: A report of the Focus on the Future Task Force" -- Academic Libraries Source: Library Journal "Arizona's New Model" John Berry writes, "The newest model for the academic and research library of the future is up and running at the University of Arizona in Tucson. It combines the compelling vision and theories of Dean Carla Stoffle, one of America's most innovative research library leaders, with the practices and dreams of Arizona's uniquely strong, highly autonomous library staff."
Online Databases--Newspapers Digitization Projects--Newspapers Source: School Library Journal "Extra! Extra!" Walter Minkel writes, "If you've ever searched for newspaper articles that are more than 20 years old, you've probably wrestled with a microfilm or microfiche reader. These cumbersome devices were often indispensable for reading accounts of the 1960s civil rights marches, the skirmishes of World War II, or the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. But thanks to ProQuest Information and Learning (www.proquest.com/proquest/features/feature-04), those user-unfriendly days are gone...The digitizing process was a huge undertaking: it took about 18 months and involved a staggering amount of data. The text and images in the New York Times from Sept. 18, 1851, through 1999 add up to 4 terabytes of data—more than 3 million pages and 25 million articles including supplements and ads, says Jim Ulsh, general manager of the library resources division of bigchalk, ProQuest's parent company. To make matters more difficult, back in 1938, when ProQuest (then called University Microfilms) began photographing the Times, many of its back issues were more than 80 years old and deteriorating. To make these old images more legible, ProQuest has used advanced optical character-recognition software, a more sophisticated version of the technology that comes with many scanners."
Web Search--AltaVista Source: Search Engine Report Is Paid Inclusion Content Getting a Boost in Ranking With AltaVista? A very interesting read. Danny writes, "Last month, I wrote about how an AltaVista sales representative had pitched the company's "Trusted Feed" paid inclusion program as a way to get guaranteed top rankings. AltaVista quickly denied that this was the case, repeatedly emphasizing that content in the program is not given any ranking boost over content that AltaVista's crawler-technology finds and lists for free. Despite this, it turns out that Trusted Feed content may indeed get a bump into the top results, in the right circumstances." After reading the SER article I tried a few sample searches and saw the same type of results that Sullivan writes about in the article. One option for more advanced searchers is to make use of AV's extensive limiting options. Additionally, AV is the only engine (advanced interface) that allows you to boost relevancy with any term(s) you choose. It's also the only engine that offers a proximity search with the term "near" (10 words in either direction). Nevertheless, what Danny writes about is important and interesting because most people don't use any advanced options. They simply enter one or two terms in the search box. Monday, November 04, 2002
Internet Filtering Source: American Lawyer Media "Internet Filtering at Libraries Lands at High Court" From the article, "The latest in a series of cases testing congressional efforts to restrict Internet access in the name of protecting children is likely to land on the U.S. Supreme Court's agenda soon. United States v. American Library Association, No. 02-361, is set for discussion by the Court at its private conference on Friday. The Court will also meet in conference on Nov. 15 to decide whether or not to grant pending petitions. See Also: Docket for No. 02-361
Digital Repositories DSpace: Durable Digital Depository From MIT Launches Today From the site, "[DSpace is] a newly developed digital repository created to capture, distribute and preserve the intellectual output of MIT. As a joint project of MIT Libraries and the Hewlett-Packard Company, DSpace provides stable long-term storage needed to house the digital products of MIT faculty and researchers." To mark the DSpace launch a symposium titled "Scholarly Communication in the Digital World", is also scheduled. According to an announcement, "the discussion will consider the significance of digital repository systems from the perspectives of faculty, libraries, academic institutions, and publishers. Speakers will address policy issues as well as the current legal and regulatory landscape for publishing and distribution of scholarly materials." The speaker list includes Clifford Lynch and James Boyle. Once the symposium concludes, you'll be able to watch it online via this website. See Also: HP, MIT Delve Deep With Digital Library (via News.Com)
Citation Analysis--Lists & Rankings Source: Institute for Scientific Information Various Lists and Rankings (Abridged) from ISI Journals Ranked by Impact: Information & Library Science Journals Ranked by Impact: Education & Educational Research History: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 1997-2001 Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1997-2001 Civil Engineering: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1997-2001 Science in India, 1997-2001 Science in the United Kingdom, 1997-2001
Information Industry--Ingenta Electronic Publshing Catchword Becomes Ingenta Select From an e-mail message we've learned that later this week Catchword will be renamed Ingenta Select. From the message, "We will be renaming the CatchWord site Ingenta Select, and offer "select" integrated service to the more than 5,000 electronic-only journals previously offered separately via Ingenta and CatchWord. Please note that it will not offer access to the additional 20,000 journals available by fax and/or Ariel delivery on ingenta.com. The most significant visual changes will be on the former Catchword home page, which has been redesigned to provide information on the name change, the integration, and some further information on Ingenta (for those previously only familiar with CatchWord)." Additionally: 1) Ingenta Select will be OpenURL-enabled 2) Institutional deposit accounts through Ingenta Select
Science, Technical, Medical Publishing Source: Information Today NewsBreaks Kluwer Academic Publishers Sold to Venture Capitalists From the article, "Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer has announced the sale of Kluwer Academic Publishers (KAP) to London-based private equity funds Candover and Cinven for approximately $591 million...The news was widely anticipated following an announcement earlier this year that Wolters Kluwer was refocusing, and would sell off non-core businesses. Commenting on the sale, Rob Pieterse, CEO of Wolters Kluwer, said, “Wolters Kluwer has realized an important strategic step in tuning its portfolio and intends to use the funds to expand further in its core activities: Legal, Tax & Business, Health, and Education.”
Professional Reading Shelf Online Databases Source: Library Journal "Oldies but Goodies" Dr. Carol Tenopir writes, Common wisdom says that currency is what is valued in online databases. With the exception of genealogists and historians, it is assumed that readers don't want old materials. From the publisher's side, it just isn't cost effective to convert older bibliographic or full-text articles to digital form. For those who want older material, print—at least until recently—was thought to be the medium of choice. This common wisdom is being proved not so wise, as readers are accessing both new and older information when it is available online, and publishers are rushing to digitize long runs of magazine and journal articles and the indexing tools that point to them."
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Legal Industry--Lists & Rankings Source: The American Lawyer The Global 100 (Top Grossing Law Firms, Worldwide), 2002 See Also: Overview Article -- Legal Industry--Washington D.C. Metro--Lists & Rankings Source: Legal Times The Legal Times 100 (D.C. Metro Area's Largest Law Offices) -- Population--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Full-Text Population Brief, The Older Foreign Population in the United States, 2000 -- Doctorate Degrees--Science and Engineering--United States--Statistics Source: National Science Foundation Full-Text Report, Science and Engineering Doctorate Awards: 2001 Sunday, November 03, 2002
Web Search Source: Search Day "The Search Engine 'Perfect Page' Test" Sherman and Sullivan unveil the results of a test to find the "ideal" search results page for "obvious" search terms. The authors write, "we think it gives you a rough idea of how the search engines measure up relevancy-wise. Perhaps the authors conclusion is of greatest interest to the researcher who uses web as a resource, particularly those who rely on only a single general web search tool. Sherman and Sullivan write, "For those of you who have settled on a "favorite" search engine, these results illustrate that other search engines are viable choices. None of the engines consistently returned the target pages as the #1 result."
Health Databases--Medline MEDLINE/PubMed News 1) Medline Indexing Statistics "NLM indexers reached a new milestone by indexing 502,056 articles for MEDLINE® in fiscal year 2002 (compared to 463,014 in fiscal year 2001 and 442,168 in fiscal year 2000). They are anticipating a workload of about 600,000 for 2003." - 2) End of Year Activities: MEDLINE The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is now involved in MEDLINE year-end processing activities. These include changing the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®) on existing MEDLINE citations to agree with the 2003 version of MeSH, and other global changes such as changes to journal title abbreviations or Supplementary Concept Substance Names. Check the next issue of the NLM Technical Bulletin for an article about 2003 MeSH changes. During end-of-year activities, NLM's schedule for adding indexed citations to MEDLINE and PubMed is temporarily interrupted. Once the end-of-year activities are complete (tentatively targeted for December 2002), the normal MEDLINE/PubMed update schedule will resume, and PubMed will use 2003 vocabulary in the MeSH translation tables and MeSH Browser as well as in the citation data." Other activities are listed in the article. - 3) E-Mail Updates for the MEDLINE/PubMed Searcher Stay on top of additions, changes and more via one or more of these free e-mail updates. Those of you who are building local collections of web-based health information will find the MEDLINEPlus updates a valuable collection development tool.
Professional Reading Shelf Information Industry--Emerald Source: Information Today "Reinventing MCB University Press" From the article, "Last year U.K.-based journal publisher MCB University Press changed its name to Emerald—an attempt, some claim, to shed its bad reputation. Certainly the company's record is not unblemished, but has it now reinvented itself? And how does its future look?" Saturday, November 02, 2002
Information Industry--Marquis "Marquis Who's Who Makes Available Complete Database of More than 1 Million Leaders and Achievers on the Web" From the announcement, "In a historical development for the publishing industry, Marquis Who's Who(R), the leading biographical publisher in America, today launched a comprehensive Web-based product that will offer access to its database of more than 1 million biographies. Marquis Who's Who ON THE WEB, available now at www.marquiswhoswho.com, includes "movers and shakers" from both the U.S. and abroad. The database is refreshed with daily content updates and features a simple, intuitive search interface that makes it possible for users to conduct high-speed searches 24 hours a day.
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Medicare--Fast Facts Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Medicare and Prescription Drugs, October 2002 "This updated fact sheet profiles current sources of prescription drug coverage among the Medicare population, describes the characteristics of beneficiaries who lack drug coverage and the implications of being without such coverage, and provides current data on prescription drug use and spending. " - Medicare At A Glance, October 2002 "This updated fact sheet provides a basic overview of the Medicare program including how it is financed, who is eligible, and what benefits are covered under Medicare. In addition, it describes sources of supplemental health insurance to fill in Medicare's gaps, recent trends in the Medicare+Choice program, and current and future forecasts for Medicare spending." Friday, November 01, 2002
Web Search--Teoma Teoma Introduces Some Syntax, Database Enlarged The size of the Teoma database has been increased to about 350 million pages with more enlargements on the way. We'll have to see how the new Teoma dbase does in the next one of Greg's tests. In addition to the larger database, several advanced searching options are now available. Here's a review. 1) Ability to Limit By Language Here's the Syntax: lang:fr = French lang:es = Spanish lang:it = Italian lang:no = Norwegian lang:da = Danish lang:pt = Portuguese lang:de = German lang:nl = Dutch - 2) More Syntax Site: Intext: Inurl: Intitle: - 3) Dynamic Descriptions Are Now Available In other words, your search terms in context. - 4) Coming Soon: Spell Check (Will Also Be Available at Ask.Com) Advanced User Interface It's great to see them making some advanced functionality available. Let's hope all of this good stuff keeps coming in addition to Teoma keeping the database current. It looks like the current database was crawled about 6 weeks ago. 5) (Updated 11/6) Kudos Teoma! After several days of searching I'm noticing much better result sets.
Librarians Source: Cincinnati Business Journal Special Librarians Get Recognized in Business Journal From the article, "Rather than relying solely on technology to find and select important information, many organizations are hiring special librarians, also known as information professionals or specialists...One of the most successful professional networks is that of librarians. Special librarians cooperate with librarians across the world in the exchange of information and resources, while keeping in mind the confidentiality of its clients."
Digitization Projects Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution/LA Times "H-P puts Vatican Treasures on the Net" From the article, Hewlett-Packard Co. has a divine new client. Considering the slowdown in corporate spending, it's a blessing. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based technology giant and the Holy See said Tuesday that they had placed selected treasures from the Vatican's Apostolic Library on the Internet...Biblical scholar Anthony Tambasco, a professor of theology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., was eager to explore the site, given that the church highly restricts access to the library, even for scholars. His initial impression was that the site was difficult to navigate and its offerings were frustratingly limited. For instance, only one page from the rare "B" version of the "Codex Vaticanus" Bible is available online. And although much of the site is in English and other languages, large portions of it -- including an enticing section called "Vatican Secret Archives" -- are only in Italian. "This is not of much use to scholars," he said. "It's more like a museum exhibit." HP spokeswoman Alison Connor said the site would eventually become more comprehensive. "This is just for the rollout," she said. "They are just scratching the surface. See Also: Direct to Vatican Library Web Site (Click the "The Treasures of the Library" link to View Exhibit)
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents Cuban Missile Crisis--Declassified Documents Source: National Security Archive New Briefing Book, The Submarines of October From the announcement, "Newly declassified documents show risk of nuclear incidents during Cuban Missile Crisis submarine chase." x |
