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Thursday, July 31, 2003
Resources of the Week 1) Video Search Keyword Search Video from PBS, View It Online More and more spoken word material is becoming searchable. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) not only offers television programming throughout the U.S. but also has a website that provides additional resources for each program. Included on the PBS site are several databases of archived video. Every word spoken in these video segments can be searched by keyword. Simply enter your terms, use some of the limiting options, and click search. Once you the material that interests you, click and watch the section of the program where your search terms are spoken or the entire segment. You'll need a RealAudio/Video player. That's it! There is no charge to access and use these tools. These databases were created using voice recognition technology, no human intervention. Next to every entry on a results page you can also read a text transcript of the video segment. - Not only is this material of potential value to many of you but it's also a great demonstration of this type of keyword search technology. PBS uses software from a company called Virage. This company was recently acquired by UK based, Autonomy. Finally, most of the material in each of these databases is only accessible by utilizing these specialized search tools. --- Here's a list of what's available. -- * PBS NewsHour Video Search Search segments of the program beginning in February, 2002. -- * Washington Week Video Archive This archive dates back to July 21, 2000. -- * American Field Guide Keyword search (or browse), "the sights and sounds from a wide variety of environments throughout America. We've collected over 1400 video clips that enable you to experience America's wilderness firsthand..." -- * Scientific American Frontiers Video Archive "Every episode of the series, from 1990 to the present, is available for online viewing."- -- * Nature Video Archives Search by keyword and/or program title. -- * Mathline From the site, This FREE professional development resource helps teachers quickly and easily find standards-based Mathline video clips and lesson plans on different mathematical topics and teaching techniques for grades K-12. -- * Julia Child: Lessons With the Master Chef Keyword search (you can even limit by ingredient) and view online this PBS series. -- -- 2) Canada--History Our Roots: Canada's Local Histories Online From the site, "Our Roots provides universal access to unique materials concerning the cultural and social heritage of our nation. Written by Canadians, for Canadians, these local histories represent this nation’s history from the perspective of those who helped shape it. Now available in digital format (viewable online), these resources are not only accessible from anywhere via the world wide web, but are also preserved for future generations of students, teachers and researchers." Material can be accessed by keyword or browsed by title, author or subject. An advanced search interface allows you to use Boolean connectors and search the full-text of each document. Content is in English and French.
Privacy--Databases Two Pieces of Library and Database Related Legislation Introduced in U.S. Congress 1) Feingold Introduces Library, Bookseller, and Personal Records Privacy Act From the announcement, "...legislation is aimed at protecting the privacy of law-abiding Americans by limiting the ability of the FBI to obtain library, bookstore, medical, and financial records and other sensitive personal information under the USA PATRIOT Act. Feingold's legislation would place reasonable limits on the FBI's access to this information by requiring the FBI to show how the information it is seeking relates to a suspected terrorist or spy before the information can be obtained." --- --- 2) Oregon Senator Introduces Citizens’ Protection in Federal Databases Act of 2003 Bill From the news release, "Currently, there are no comprehensive privacy laws regulating the federal government’s access to, or use of, public and private databases. The Wyden proposal would require the Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Treasury, the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations to provide to Congress a detailed report explaining the use of databases for law enforcement or intelligence purposes." See Also: Full-Text of the Legislation (via EPIC) See Also: From the EPIC website, FBI documents (pdf) obtained by EPIC show that Bureau use of private databases increased by 9600 percent over a ten-year period. The FBI document begins with the words, "In the beginning there was Lexis-Nexis......"
Business Intelligence Source: Strategy + Business Full-Text article, "How to Win the Information Battle — Lessons from a Modern War" From the article, Business leaders can learn a lot from how the military manages the flow of real-time information. The article is also available as a pdf file.
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Librarianship * "Changes for Collection Development & Reference Librarians: Looking into the 21st Century" by Katina Strauch and Tom Gilson, Librarians at the College of Charleston - * "Virtual Reference: guiding readers to resources" by Dr Stephen Bury, Head of European & American Collections at The British Library Note: Both of these articles appear in the July issue of xrefer's reference update. -- Patriot Act Source: AP "Librarians Chafe Under USA Patriot Act" Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Web Search--AltaVista Changes and Other Happenings at AltaVista All sorts of stuff going on at AV. The big question about how Yahoo will utilize the Overture technology (AV and ATW) and programming talent is to be determined. Nevertheless, it's good to see the AV team continuing to improve their product. --- * AV has dropped using a Moreover news feed for their wonderful AV News database. They're now using their own crawler to gather material from about 4000 sources. * The AV News database now contains over 10,000,000 archived urls back to May, 2001. This means that you'll likely find material beyond the 2/4 week limit that you often see with other news search tools. These urls are checked on a regular basis to see that they still link to available material. Make sure to use the pull-down option to access this content. * AV's Prisma, a tool that helps refine your search, is now available with AV News. * AV is now using the ODP (Open Directory Project) as its web directory. Wouldn't it be great if a major engine would also license content from a non-commercial source like the LII, InfoMine, or AcademicInfo where quality of entries really matters? They also provide very useful annotations. * You'll see a few changes on results pages including the elimination of the sponsored ad links that often appear along the right margin of a results page. AltaVista Prisma "refine your search" choices will move to this location. * Look for AltaVista and AllTheWeb to begin using an "integrated back end" (the best of each engines capabilities) and the same underlying database sometime this Fall. However, both AV and ATW will remain online with each site potentially offering different search capabilities. * Look for another AV announcement in the next two weeks.
Online Content Source: News.Com More About KeepMedia Last week I included a story and some comments about this new fee-based consumer service selling full-text content from about 140 periodicals and newspapers. The article linked above is an interview with KeepMedia's co-founder Louis Borders. In the past week many other articles have been written about this new company but I haven't seen one that mentioned that libraries offer remote access for FREE to THOUSANDS of newspapers and magazines. I'm starting to wonder if KeepMedia has any idea of what many libraries offer. Once again an illustration of the services (not just databases) that libraries offer being of the radar of some people. Make sure to read this interview. See Also: The KeepMedia site is now online. A 'media pass' (full-text access to about 140 magazines and newspapers) costs $4.95/month.
Web Search--Google Source: The Globe and Mail "Sees all, knows all: Is it God or Google?" The Globe and Mail's science editor shares his thoughts the NY Times ran an article with a similar headline a few weeks ago. I had a few comments shortly after it ran. You can review them if you like. Perhaps a few folks from the Toronto area should let Mr. Strauss know that it's not all online, often search engines other that Google give high quality results, and other resources (electronic, print, and human) exist that can give you an answermore quickly than Google (don't forget web engine info quality issues). I wonder if he's aware of what's accessible to him via the library at the paper and to readers of the Globe and Mail from the Toronto Public Library and other Canadian libraries?
Professional Reading Shelf (4 Items) Semantic Web Source: TechNewsWorld "The Future of Human Knowledge: The Semantic Web" -- Information Science The July Issue of Ariadne is Now Online Articles include: * Domesday Redux: The rescue of the BBC Domesday Project videodiscs * Mapping the JISC IE service landscape * eBank UK: Building the links between research data, scholarly communication and learning * The RoMEO Project: Protecting metadata in an open access environment -- Library Technology New, ebrary Is Providing (Free) Full-Text Access to an Archive of the Advanced Technology Libraries Newsletter Online archive of material back to 2/2002. Learn more about the arrangement here. -- Conferences Registration for the Access 2003 Conference is Now Open The conference is set to take place in Vancouver, B.C., October 1-4. Tim Bray from Antarti.ca will be the keynote speaker.
Industry Briefs Westlaw Now Offering Access to Thomson's Delphion Patent Database -- Cleveland Public Library Selects SIRSI
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) -- Government Documents--Canada--Database Federal Publication Locator Service The Federal Publication Locator Service provides you access to: * Bibliographic records of Canadian Federal Government Publications in the National Library of Canada Catalogue (a subset of the AMICUS database). * Canadian Library Locations information for titles held in the National Library Catalogue. * Access to electronic Canadian Federal Government Publications. See Also: Direct to Federal Publication Locator Service 'Basic Search' Interface -- Cellular Phones--United States Consumer Resources Source: Consumer Reports/TeleBright.Com Cellular Telephone Comparison Tool From the site, Currently cellular plan comparisons are available here for the top 70 Markets. Coverage may extend beyond the boundaries of a city limit, so if you live in or near one of the cities we encourage you to enter your zip code and do a search. -- Accounting Industry--United States Source: GAO New Full-Text Report, Public Accounting Firms: Mandated Study on Consolidation and Competition This 147 page report contains numerous charts/tables, an analysis of Big 4 Firms’, and an Arthur Andersen case study. -- Postage Stamps--United States Source: National Postal Museum/Smithsonian Institution New Online Exhibit, Art of the Stamp This is a web version of an exhibit that opened at the National Postal Museum here in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. The exhibit, "showcases over 100 original pieces of stamp illustrations featured over the past 50 years." Click on the artwork link to view each stamp and learn its history. Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Professional Reading Shelf Metadata Source: RLG Presentations: "Ready to Wear: Metadata Standards to Suit Your Project" The forum was held in New York City on May 12-13, 2003. The forum included presentations by the following people. All presentations are online. * Tony Gill, ARTstor * Sherman Clarke, New York University * Merrilee Proffitt, RLG * John Perkins, CIMI * Günter Waibel, RLG * Ronald J. Murray, Library of Congress * Steven Abrams, Harvard University * Robin Dale, RLG
Web Search--Microsoft Source: IDG News Service "Microsoft Takes Sides on Search" From the article, Microsoft believes Web search can be done much better than any search engine does it today. "Our research indicates that only 30 percent to 40 percent of the Web is indexed and that people's questions [to search engines] go unanswered half the time," [Lisa Gurry, group product manager for MSN] Gurry said. See Also: ResourceShelfPLUS Compilation of MS Search Related Patents and Publications
Librarians--Profiles Source: Lexington Herald-Leader Meet Mary Molinaro, Director of the William T. Young Library The Young Library is located at the University of Kentucky. From the article, The William T. Young Library has 1.2 million of the 3 million volumes in all of UK's libraries. "One of our jobs is helping students realize they won't find all the information they need if they only do a Google search. We try to help students learn to combine the world of electronic information with the incredibly large and valuable world of books and other print resources."
Public Libraries--United States Source: NY Daily News "Library in crisis has its hand out" A report on the financial crisis at the New York Public Library.
Library Organizations Scholarly Publishing New Web Site, Information Access Alliance From the announcement, The Information Access Alliance, a coalition of six leading library organizations in North America, has published a white paper that examines the impact of mergers among scholarly and legal publishers and calls for a new standard of antitrust review of merger transactions in this industry by antitrust enforcement agencies. See Also: Direct to Information Access Alliance Web Site See Also: Direct to White Paper, Publisher Mergers: A Consumer-Based Approach to Antitrust Analysis
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Intellectual Property--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: IP Law & Business Who Protects IP America, 2003 Three charts are included in the article: 1) Who Protects IP America 2) Top IP Firms/Firms That Prosecuted the Best Patents in 2002 -- Maritime Trade--United States--Statistics Source: BTS New, Full-Text Report, Maritime Trade & Transportation 2002 -- GPO Access--Training Materials Source: GPO Government Printing Office Updates Training Manual Direct to Full-Text Manual (2.13MB) ||| STAT-USA appendix Monday, July 28, 2003
Libraries--United States First Co-Managed City/University Library in Nation Opens Its Doors August 1 The $177.5 million Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library will be both a public library (San Jose Public Library) and San Jose State's University Library. It is the first library in the nation to be funded, managed and operated by a city and a major university. See Also: Take a Virtual Tour of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library
Citation Analysis Source: ISI 1) Library & Information Science: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 1998-2002 2) Journals Ranked by Impact: Business
Natural Language Searching Question Answering Software The National Library of Medicine Invites You To "Ask Cosmo" Cosmo is a new natural language, question answering, "virtual representative" from the NLM. From the announcement, The National Library of Medicine (NLM) receives hundreds of e-mailed questions each day on its customer service line. Because many of them are simple and asked numerous times each day, NLM decided to develop software that would answer these queries and thus free up customer service representatives and reference librarians to answer more complex questions...Cosmo is familiar with hundreds of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Based on software from NativeMinds, Cosmo is online 24x7. See Also: Other Virtual Reps Using NativeMinds Software
Archives Source: Toronto Star "The electronic genie" From the article, There is a story that neatly summarizes the challenges archivists face as they grapple with the digital revolution. In 1986, the British Broadcasting Corporation created the Domesday Book Mark II, an electronic version of the original record of English lands that was written at the instigation of William the Conqueror in 1086. The BBC's version contained 25,000 maps, 50,000 pictures, 60 minutes of video and millions of words. It cost 2.5 million pounds to create. Only 17 years after its creation, the Domesday Book Mark II can't be read. The BBC computers used for the project no longer work and the disks on which it was stored are not readable by other computer systems. But the 917-year-old original is still available to researchers in London's Public Records Office. Welcome to the archivist's digital dilemma. For as much as some local archivists and librarians admit they must embrace the e-revolution, they are not comfortable with it in its present state.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents History Source: Harvard University Law School Library New, Nuremberg Trials Project: A Digital Document Collection From the site, The Library has approximately one million pages of documents relating to the trial of military and political leaders of Nazi Germany before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) and to the twelve trials of other accused war criminals before the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT). These documents, which include trial transcripts, briefs, document books, evidence files, and other papers, have been studied by lawyers, scholars, and other researchers in the areas of history, ethics, genocide, and war crimes, and are of particular interest to officials and students of current international tribunals involving war crimes and crimes against humanity. To preserve the contents of these documents -- which are now too fragile to be handled -- and to provide expanded access to this material, the Library has begun a digital project to create and present images or full-text versions of its Nuremberg documents on the Internet, along with analytical information about each document and general information about the trials. See Also: A List of What Material is Currently Available
Information Industry--LexisNexis Source: Information Today NewsBreaks "LexisNexis Nearing Completion on a New Platform" Marydee Ojala offers more info about two stories we've mentioned in the past couple of weeks. 1) LexisNexis To Adopt Single Technology Platform (7/22) 2) FAST Signs Deal with LexisNexis (7/16)
Librarians Source: International Herald Tribune/NYT "How a librarian saved Basra's treasured books" From the article, "Alia Muhammad Baker's house is full of books. There are books in stacks, books in the cupboards, books bundled into flour sacks like lumpy aid rations. Books fill an old refrigerator. Pull aside a window curtain, and there is no view, just more books...All told, Baker says, the books number about 30,000. And then there are the periodicals. These books are fugitives, and Baker, a 50-year-old librarian in stout shoes, is the engineer of their underground railroad. As British forces stormed Basra in early April, she spirited the volumes out of the city's Central Library, over a two-meter (7-foot) wall, to the backroom of a restaurant and later into trucks to carry them to her home. Even friends and library employees have been enlisted as caretakers for the troves of books she rescued. The books constitute about 70 percent - all there was time to save - of what was the library's collection.
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries and Librarians The August Issue of Walt Crawford's "Cites and Insights" is Now Online Sunday, July 27, 2003
Access to Information--United States Freedom of Information Act Source: GCN "Lamberth finds EPA in contempt for e-document purge" From the article, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth this week held the Environmental Protection Agency in contempt for destroying electronic documents in violation of a court order issued as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request. The contempt charge appeared to have little practical impact, but Lamberth did rule yesterday that the agency must pay legal expenses of the Landmark Legal Foundation of Herndon, Va., the plaintiff in the FOIA and contempt proceedings...The court found that EPA officials had reformatted PC hard drives, erased and reused e-mail backup tapes, and deleted e-mails that potentially could have held information deemed relevant to Landmark’s FOIA request. The legal foundation had sought records about environmental regulations that EPA officials reportedly sought to rush into effect before the Bush administration took office in 2001.
Library Organizations--United States National Commission on Libraries and Information Science Names a New Chairperson From the announcement, President George W. Bush has named historian Joan R. Challinor Chairman of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS). Dr. Challinor succeeds Martha B. Gould, whose term on the Commission expired July 19, 2003. Dr. Challinor, a resident of Washington, DC, was appointed to her current term on the Commission by President Bill Clinton in 2000; she was first appointed to the Commission in 1995.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Education--United States-Statistics Condition of Education - Now Web Enabled With 2003 Numbers The Condition of Education web site is an integrated collection of the indicators and analyses published in The Condition of Education for 2003, 2002, 2001, and 2000. For each indicator there are links to the supporting documents (charts, tables, standard error tables, and supplemental notes). You can also download the indicator and corresponding supporting materials in PDF format. Some indicators may have been updated since they first appeared in print. Saturday, July 26, 2003
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Portals Source: JISC/PORTAL Project New Full-Text Report, "Stakeholder Requirements for Institutional Portals" Overview ||| Direct to Full-Text ||| Other Deliverables See Also: "Institutional Portals: A Review of Outputs" (Literature Review) -- Libraries Conference Presentations and Papers: 2nd European Library Seminar/3rd Gabriel Seminar The conference took place last month is Lisbon, Portugal. Here are the titles of a just a few of the presentations: * Metadata Development in The European Library * Digital Preservation at the KB - From a safe place to permanent access * Digital collection in the National Library of Russia: organization and development * InterParty Project Friday, July 25, 2003
Digitization Projects Source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin Hawaii's Law Library Microform Consortium Digitizes Content From the article, For 27 years the Kaneohe-based nonprofit Law Library Microform Consortium has transferred volumes of law books onto microfiche. Some 91,000 volumes, in fact. In partnership with the University of Hawaii, Wayne State University Law School and the University of Michigan, it is now putting the volumes online. LLMC-Digital's goal of 100 million online pages will make it the biggest digital law library, according to Executive Director Jerry Dupont. It will continue to offer microfiche copies...So far just over two-thirds of American law schools have signed up for the new online library, as have 15 large mainland law firms...The beta-test site is open for free at www.llmc.com but after Sept. 1 the subscriber-only site will replace it..."Librarians like the fact that with the technology we're adapting, the first thing they get is the actual picture of the original book." Most users know exactly what it is they are looking for, although the data will be searchable, Dupont said. Thanks to S.C. for the news tip.
Web Search--Ask Jeeves Source: Forbes Butler Fired! Ask Jeeves to Remove His Image from Advertising Fine, the butler will no longer be seen in Ask.Com advertising. At one time I was very anti-Jeeves. It did have a well deserved bad reputation. However, in the past two years, particularly after Jeeves acquired the Teoma technology, searching with Ask Jeeves and Teoma have seen major improvements. The problem is that many people have failed to take a look. Perhaps removing the Mr. Jeeves drawing from advertising will help. It can't hurt. However, what would really help is for many people to realize that more than one web engine can produce quality results. Here's a sentence that appeared in a Forbes article about Google a few months ago. "Even Google's engineers admit Fast and Teoma deliver results comparable to theirs." -Forbes, May 26, 2003
Scholarly Publishing Open Access Movement Source: LJ/SPARC A Q&A With Peter Suber From the interview with our friend Peter, Longtime Earlham College Professor of Philosophy Peter Suber has become a well-regarded and popular voice in scholarly communication since first launching his Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter. Now, with the FOS Newsletter reborn under the auspices of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) as the SPARC Open Access Newsletter (SOAN), Suber is devoting his full energies to the future of scholarly communication. See Also: Don't Forget to Also Visit Suber's Free Online Scholarship Weblog.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Foundations--United States--Statistics Source: Foundation Center Highlights From The Foundation Center Yearbook This four page pdf includes several charts and graphs. Info about purchasing the full-text document is also provided.
Briefly An Interview with Overture's CEO, Ted Meisel (via Marketwatch.Com) Included in the this q & a interview are Meisel's comments about what MSN might be up to. Registration required (free) to read this interview. Thursday, July 24, 2003
Web Search--Hotbot Changes To the Underlying Engines at Hotbot Hotbot, a tool that allows you to easily search four web engines and then easily move between result sets has made a few changes to its underlying engines. Hotbot is not a meta-engine where result sets are merged together. When the "new" Hotbot launched in December you were able to search the AllTheWeb, Inktomi, Google, and Teoma. Here is a list of what you'll now find. * Inktomi is now labeled as Hotbot * Lycos (Same database as AllTheWeb) * Ask Jeeves replaces Teoma (This is basically a name change since both use the same database). * Google remains * Related Searches are available at the top of each results page. You'll see the same choices with Google, Hotbot, and Lycos. Ask Jeeves offers different choices. * Spell Check is Now Available (Using spell check technology from each engine). See Also: ResourceShelf's Hotbot Overview from December 15, 2002
Resources of the Week - News International Security Country News and Reports From the Overseas Advisory Safety Council On The Overseas Advisory Safety Council (OSAC) web site you learn that the organization "was established in 1985 by the U.S. Department of State to foster the exchange of security related information between the U.S. Government and American private sector operating abroad. Administered by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, OSAC has developed into an enormously successful joint venture for effective security cooperation". The web site is home to numerous resources aimed at those with an interest in international security. Included on the site is a calendar of "significant dates and dates to watch" around the world. - OSAC Public Newsletters are worthy of a special mention. Three newsletters are available and could be of value to people in business, the news industry, and other fields. 1) Daily News "…a daily compilation of global news, to include cyber crime and terrorism. It is automatically generated every morning at 0830 EST and delivered via email…" The Daily News and an archive of past issues is also available on the OSAC web site 2) Executive Alerts "…timely information on various subjects. This deliverable is written by the OSAC Executive staff for the purpose of distributing needed information." 3) Report Updates "…information based on your region of interest. As new Web Reports are added to our site, they are delivered to you via email based on your region of interest." Regions include: South and Central Asia, Europe, The Americas and Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and East Asia and the Pacific. Reports are also available and searchable (back to 1986) on the web site. They can be found (by type) under the “Web Reports” section near the top of the page. Reports categories: * Safety and Security * White Collar Crime * Crime and Safety Reports * Warden Reports "Messages issued from an Embassy to the U.S. Citizen population regarding the local security situation." * Foreign Press Reports * Homeland Security Events * Country Council Reports --- --- Product Searching Amazon Light 2.0 It seems like every time you search the Amazon result pages are full of more 'stuff' including advertising links. Amazon Lite (first mentioned on ResourceShelf about a year ago) helps get you to book, cd's, or other listings easily and quickly and then provides a clean and uncluttered entry page for each item. Since the beginning of this year, Alan Taylor, Amazon Light's creator, has been developing a beta version of Amazon Light 2.0. Btw, Amazon Light's original interface and functionality still work perfectly. - Version 2.0 offers you the chance to search books, music, dvd's, and nine other categories of merchandise. It also offers you a chance to browse by categories (left column). The rest of the main page is made up of a search box (upper left), a 'list' box, (upper right column) where you'll find the items you've selected for possible purchase, a “history box”, listing queries from your current visit and a "recent search" box that offers a "mini-copy" of your search results once you click on an item. Entry pages for books, cd's, dvd's, and other products, are clean and uncluttered. An entry page for a book contains title, author, ISBN, image of the book cover, related items, and a couple of customer reviews (if available). A direct link for that item on the Amazon.Com site is also provided on each entry page. Demo both interfaces and see which one works best for you. Note: Amazon Lite is part of Amazon's affiliate program. See Also: Amazon Light UK and Amazon Light DE are also available. See Also: DVD New and Future Releases Calendar
CIPA Source: ALA FCC CIPA Order This new document analyzes today's order and also provides links to the primary docs. From the ALA site, On July 23, 2003 the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) adopted an order that updates regulations pertaining to the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) for libraries. This order was adopted to reflect the recent Supreme Court decision in American Library Association Inc. v. United States issued on June 23, 2003.
Professional Reading Shelf (4 Items) Librarianship Source: Free Pint Full-Text, Interview with Cindy Hill, President, Special Libraries Association Cindy was interviewed at SLA 2003 by Free Pint's Annabel Colley. -- Information Science Now Available, Full-Text, August/September '03 Issue Bulletin of the of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Articles include: * "Knowledge Compass: Opening Windows, Punching Holes in Stovepipes, Forming Communities, Connecting People to People" * "Metadata Use in the Commercial Banking Industry" * "What Do You Do With It Now That You Have It? The Impact of Web Weather and Climate Information" * "Records and Information Management Perspectives Part 2: Access to Public Information" * "Farmers' Access to Agricultural Information in Nigeria" * "Guarding the Borders or Blocking the Way? IAs to be Banned!" -- Librarianship Now Available Online, Full-Text, July '03 Issue, Journal of the Medical Librarian Association Articles include: * "Developing an academic medical library core journal collection in the (almost) post-print era: the Florida State University College of Medicine Medical Library experience" * "Information-seeking behavior in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM): an online survey of faculty at a health sciences campus" * "Benchmarking information needs and use in the Tennessee public health community" * "The role of the academic medical center library in training public librarians" * Book Review: Attracting, Educating, and Serving Remote Users Through the Web * Book Review: Teaching Technology -- Databases--PsycINFO Now Available, PsycINFO News Summer 2003 Articles include: * "New Gray Literature Database" * "New Material from "Cover to Cover" Journals"
Web Search--AllTheWeb AllTheWeb Indexing Excel Spreadsheets and Powerpoint Slides It appears that AllTheWeb is now providing access to Excel and Powerpoint material. You can limit to these formats by using filetype:excel and filetype:powerpoint. ATW already provides access to Adobe Acrobat , MS Word, and Macromedia Flash material.
Briefly "Georgia Plans an Utterly Virtual Encyclopedia" (via The NY Times) See Also: Learn More via the Georgia Humanities Council
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents Documents in the News Terrorism--United States Source: U.S. Congress/GPO Full-Text (Public Report), Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 -- Legal Resources New, Legal Research in a Nutshell Links "...websites discussed or mentioned in Morris L. Cohen & Kent C. Olson, Legal Research in a Nutshell, 8th ed. This compilation is available at no charge to all web users. Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Web Search--Ask Jeeves Ask Jeeves Releases List of "Smart Answer" Shortcuts In April Ask.Com went live with a new look and a few new features. One of them is called Smart Answers. This service offers you the chance to type in a word or two and get an answer directly on a search results page. For some searches cases a search box and direct link to specialized database is embedded directly into the results list. Since Smart Answers was introduced an official list of the keywords to activate Smart Answers was not available. Today, Ask.Com provided ResourceShelf with a complete list of Smart Answer triggers. In some cases you can save a few keystrokes by removing words like what, of, for, the, etc. -Search Weather (beta) What is the weather in Paris? (Note: Weather "city name" also works.) -Search Pictures Pictures of Mountains (Pictures mountains also works) -Search News News about George W. Bush - -Local search tools -Zip code (beta) 90210 Zip code for Silver Spring -Country maps tool Map of Sri Lanka -Driving directions tool Driving directions - Popular content shortcuts: -Baby names Baby names -Software downloads Download Ad-Aware -Movies Movie times Music downloads Download MP3 -Song lyrics Song lyrics -Oscars History of the Oscars Who won best actor in 1997? -Recipes Recipes for soup - Reference tools -Holidays When is Labor Day? -Capitals What is the capital of South Africa? What is the capital of Vermont? -Translation tool How do I say thank you in Spanish? -Dictionary look-up tool What does serendipity mean? -Science fair Science fair projects -Thesaurus Synonym (term) Value of pi Value of pi -Acronyms and Abbreviations What does NBA stand for?
Web Organization and Searching Source: Research/Penn State The Work of Lee Giles Read about the important and interesting work of Lee Giles at Penn State University. From the article, Lee Giles is not much interested in surfing. Mining and extraction are terms more to his liking. Giles, the David Reese professor of information sciences and technology at Penn State, has devoted his career to finding better ways to get at information, to wring the most out of it, to marshal it efficiently. A few key passages follow. Make sure to read the entire article. - + The Web exists as a distributed sort of information base, Giles says, with typical understatement. Un-regulated, decentralized, the work of tens of millions of disparate authors, and constantly growing at an ever-accelerating rate, the Web is no easy object to take the measure of. Yet characterizing the Web, understanding its parameters and its behavior, was the first thing Giles set about doing. Whats there, how it is connected, how it changes, who uses it, why they use it the more you know about these things, the more efficiently youre able to use it, he says. - + In another study, published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he and his co-authors challenge the widely held notion that the competition for attention on the Web is purely winner-take-all, i.e., that new sites on the Web are more likely to attach themselves to sites that already have many links, insuring that a small number of established sites will always receive a disproportionate share of Web traffic. While this preferential behavior does accurately describe the Web as a whole, Giles and his co-authors write, it varies significantly by the type of site considered. Thus, while a new newspaper or entertainment site might find it difficult competing with similar sites that are already popular, university sites and the pages of individual scientists exhibit a more egalitarian link growth. The behavior is more complicated than had been thought, Giles says. - + But automatic engines have their limitations, too. For one thing, most current crawlers are unable to recognize spam, which in this context means unreliable information. In the unregulated environment of the Web, Giles says, people claiming to be what theyre not is an ongoing problem. - + A more praccompletelytion [to completley personalized search tool], at least in the short term, is what Giles calls the niche search engine, designed specifically to meet the needs of a group of people with similar interests: employees of a company, say, or members of a profession. By limiting its crawling to a specific subject area, the niche engine can burrow deeper, providing more consistently useful information. A prime example is CiteSeer [aka ResearchIndex], a tool that Giles and Steve Lawrence created for the field of computer and information science. . Note: We completely agree with Dr. Giles. Those of you who read ResourceShelf on a regular basis know that we try hard to provide info about useful specialized and 'niche' search tools. ---- ---- See Also: eBizSearch Another niche search tool that Giles has developed. It focuses on materials about electronic business. eBizSearch was a Resource of the Week when it was officially launched in January, 2003. -- See Also: Direct to Lee Giles Home Page Plenty of interesting reading here.
Online Archives Source: USA Today $4.95/Month or Access To Archives of 150 Magazines or Another Reason to Forget the Library An article about KeepMedia.Com, a new company that Louis Borders is starting. This is the same Mr. Borders who began the chain of bookstores. According to the article, "When it launches later this month, consumers will be able to pay $4.95 a month for access to the archives of 150 publications. You can also get online content from the current issue of a magazine if you buy a print subscription to that magazine. KeepMedia and the publishers will split the revenue from the fees and subscriptions." Once again a service that's selling remotely accessible access to material (and much more of it) that public, academic, and other types of libraries are offering patrons for free. Yet it's companies like KeepMedia and eLibrary that get the media coverage. Sad. -- See Also: In a recent press announcement, Patrick Spain, CEO of Alacritude (they own eLibrary) had the following comments about KeepMedia. "The KeepMedia business model is flawed. I know because I bought a company eLibrary with the same business model and we are changing it as quickly as we can. By most accounts, we are a success. We have some 40,000 subscribers who access an archive of 17 million articles from consumer, business and industry publications. If we weren't developing new products, we would be a nice, profitable little company with limited growth prospects. People, including us, who focus their long-term online business on selling a selection of content will fail. What people want is single point of access to all online content, whether free or paid, utilizing compelling tools to turn that content into useful and actionable answers for their personal or business needs." I would like to know how many of eLibrary's 40,000 subscribers are paying for content that they could get for free via a library. --- See Also: PaidContent.Org Has More (this was the first story about the company) - See Also: Those of you who don't know what I'm talking about regarding libraries offering free remotely accessible access (no need to visit the library building) to thousands of publications and other high-quality databases might want to take a look at a few examples of these services. All you need is a library card for a particular library. Contact your library to find out what you have access to. Here are five examples: NY Public Library, Los Angeles Public Library, King County (Washington) Public Library, Fairfax Cty (Virginia) Public Library, Hamilton (Ontario) Public Library. School, academic, and other types of libraries also provide these services. Make sure to ask them about what's available!!!
Scholarly Publishing Source: San Jose Mercury News Another Article About The Public Library of Science From the article, This venture, called the Public Library of Science, aims to revolutionize how research findings are made public, making studies easier to find and less expensive to read. Not some late-night scheme of lab geeks, the library is the brainchild of some of the nation's most reputable scientists, funded by a $9 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Its chairman is Dr. Harold Varmus, former chief of the National Institutes of Health. Thirteen Nobel-winning scientists are among its board members and supporters. Frustrated by the system used by the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Nature, Science and hundreds of other journals, the scientists are building the nation's first peer-reviewed electronic science journals. The journals -- one called PLoS Biology, the other PLoS Medicine -- would be free, easily accessible and efficient, said co-founder Patrick O. Brown, Stanford University School of Medicine professor of biochemistry and a leading researcher in the field of genomics. "Progress is made in science because each new step is built on what was learned before. But much of it is inaccessible,'' Brown said.
Information Industry--Vivisimo Ten Biomed Journals or Publishing Groups Now Utilizing Vivisimo Clustering Technology The Pittsburgh based company says, "ten top biomedical societies and presses have selected Vivísimo's Clustering Engine to provide categorized search results at their journal websites, which are hosted by Stanford University's HighWire Press. You'll find a complete list of the ten journals/groups in the news release. You can use Vivisimo clustering technology to "meta" search several web engines and specialized databases. See Also: Learn More About Vivisimo in this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Article
Digitization Projects Source: The Daily Texan The University of Texas Makes Gutenberg Bible Available on Internet From the article, "The University's [U of Texas] Gutenberg Bible, one of five complete copies in the nation, is now available online, conveniently continuing the Bible's legacy of making print accessible to the masses. "A technological revolution made this book possible, and now another technological revolution [digital scanning] is making this possible," said Steve Wilson, the media coordinator for the Harry Ransom Center." This link will take you directly to the Digital Gutenberg. See Also: Direct to Read More About the Digitization Process See Also: AP Story About the Project
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Labor--Statistics Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics Full-Text, A Chartbook of International Labor Comparisons: United States, Europe, and Asia Background Info ||| Direct to Full-Text Report -- U.S. Senate--History Digitized Material: S-1, A Recently Discovered Ledger From the Senate site, Probably the oldest book of consecutive accounts kept by government officers," noted an 1885 newspaper article, "is a time-worn volume kept in the office of General Anson G. McCook, secretary of the senate." Marked S-1, this financial ledger records nearly a century of salary and mileage payments to senators, from 1790 to 1881. McCook, recognizing the ledger's importance, had it restored and rebound in 1884. Future employees were not so careful. In the early 1960s, S-1 and nearly sixty other financial ledgers were stored in the basement of the Capitol, and then forgotten. Rediscovered in late 2002, this collection is a unique treasure of Senate history. S-1 has been digitized by the Library of Congress and is now available online. Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Public Libraries Source: The Times (N.W. Indiana)/Medill News Service "Libraries plug in to digital age" We always like pointing out mentions of libraries in the mainstream press. This brief article does a good job at highlighting some of the technology that many public libraries in the U.S. offer these days. Key Quote from the article: "It's not about books. It's not about print. It's about having the information available to the public," Frances Roehm, a Skokie (IL) librarian said. Kudos Frances, well said!!!
Citation Analysis Source: Institute for Scientific Information * Top Ten Most-Cited Countries, 1993-2003 * Computer Science & Engineering: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1998-2002
AskERIC Source: EDUPAGE/The Chronicle of Higher Education Group Works to Keep AskERIC Going An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (sub req) is summarized in EDUPAGE. From the summary, "Researchers at Syracuse University are working to preserve the popular research tool AskERIC after the Department of Education decided to stop funding for the tool...ERIC now comprises 16 clearinghouses, though the Department of Education is working to combine them into a single database. Officials at the Department of Education said the new structure will make a service such as AskERIC unnecessary. Many long-time users and operators of AskERIC disagree, however, and are working to secure funding from Syracuse and other sources to maintain AskERIC in its current form.
Information Industry--ProQuest ProQuest Launches New Version of Platform, Hello to PQNext The announcement has a complete list of PQNext's features.
Information Industry--LexisNexis LexisNexis To Adopt Single Technology Platform From the announcement, While immediate benefits of a global platform will be seen in all markets, the U.S., the company’s and the world’s largest information services market, will be the principal beneficiary of the technology. Customers who already use LexisNexis’ most sophisticated flagship products will begin to see even more incremental product benefits - with enhanced functionality and more advanced taxonomy evolving from the global platform. In addition, the platform means an improved system that will allow rapid delivery of these enhancements, as well as new content, from LexisNexis companies and licensees outside the U.S. See Also: FAST Signs Deal With LN
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Science and Engineering--United States--Statistics Source: National Science Foundation Full-Text Report, Science and Engineering State Profiles: 2000-2001 (NSF 03-324) This is a tabular listing of 52 one-page science and engineering (S&E) Profiles (including ones for D.C. and Puerto Rico) that summarize state-specific data on personnel and finances. Also included is a summary of all data variables' totals of all 52 states. -- Documents in the News Space Shuttle Columbia Investigation Source: NASA Just Released, Mission Management Team Transcripts (Overview and Link) Links to the transcripts are found on the NASA FOIA page. Released under Freedom of Information Act -- Patriot Act Source: U.S. DOJ, Inspector General Full-Text Report, Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act -- Vietnam Source: U.S. Department of State Just Released, “Foreign Relations, 1964-1968, volume VII, Vietnam, September 1968-January 1969” The volume is part of the Department’s ongoing program to make available the official documentary record of American foreign policy in the Foreign Relations series. Volume VII completes the coverage of the Johnson administration’s policies on the war; previous documentation on the 1964–August 1968 period was published in volumes I–VI in the 1964–1968 subseries. Summary/Announcement ||| Direct to Full-Text ||| Other Volumes
Briefly Ask Jeeves Names Berkowitz President - Meet Omid Kordestani, Google's Senior VP of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations (via Time) -- Cambridge Scientific and BioOne Announce Affiliation Monday, July 21, 2003
Online Books Source: NY Times "Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books" I wonder what the netLibrary folks have to say about this one? A few comments from ebrary are included at the end of the article. From the article, Executives at Amazon.com are negotiating with several of the largest book publishers about an ambitious and expensive plan to assemble a searchable online archive with the texts of tens of thousands of books of nonfiction, according to several publishing executives involved."...Amazon is calling its program Look Inside the Book II, the publishers said. It would expand on a current program that lets shoppers read a table of contents, a first chapter or a few selected pages provided by the publishers of certain books. But Look Inside the Book II would let online browsers search by terms like "Caravaggio," "sans-culottes," or "Osama bin Laden," and then see a list of books mentioning the term along with the sentence that contains it. Browsers could then choose to see several pages around that citation. But to see those pages Amazon would require users to register, and it plans to limit the amount of any single book a browser can view...But Google searches only Web sites, not the contents of books, and Amazon's proposed archive might offer a more authoritative alternative source of information.
News Search--Google Google Launches Advanced News Search Interface This new advanced page allows you to limit by source (also available with source:), limit by region, limit where search terms are located (headline, url, body, limit by date), and limit by date (at this time June and July, 2003 only). Similar advanced news search features have been available at AltaVista News for some time. Also, AV offers many articles that were published beyond the one month limit at Google. AV's crawler is constantly checking to see if these 'older' urls are still live. If the answer is yes, they are still searchable. Finally, if you're interested in the most current news, I strongly suggest you take a look at NewsNow.
Digital Tracking Copyright Source: S.F. Chronicle Learn About: BayTSP From the article, BayTSP gathers information clients can use to protect their copyrights or trademarks. In effect, Ishikawa wants BayTSP to become a high-tech version of Pinkerton, the legendary detective agency that made its mark protecting presidents like Abraham Lincoln and chasing Wild West outlaws like Jesse James. "We're like an Internet private detective," said Ishikawa, 39, a native San Franciscan. See Also: Learn More via the BayTSP Web Site
Briefly LexisNexis Will Have 'Space' in New Version of Microsoft Office 2003 Products See Also: In March, ResourceShelf had news of similar arrangements from Factiva and eLibrary --- ProQuest Acquires SIRS Publishing
Weblogs Source: InfoWorld Debate flares over Weblog standards From the article, Despite the undisputed popularity and proven utility of RSS, a new standard is emerging in an attempt to lay the foundations for the Weblog's future. Originally dubbed Echo and now rechristened as Atom, the effort is described as a grassroots, vendor-neutral push to address some of the limitations of RSS. Rather than adding to the existing RSS specification, development on these issues has splintered off into a separate effort due to disagreement among community members as to the purpose and direction of RSS. The idea is to build on the foundation of RSS, according to Anil Dash , vice president of business development at Six Apart, a San Francisco-based Weblog vendor. "The reason there is a need for something else [is that] there are new types of data and richer and more complex connections we are trying to do that RSS is not meant to do," Dash said. Critics charge that the multiple versions of RSS, the number of which ranges between two and five depending on whom you talk to, are causing confusion and are hindering interoperability. "To date, people [involved with RSS] have failed to converge on one version and make the confusion go away," Antarctica's Bray said.
Information Dissemination--Canada Source: E-Content Institute "Canadian knowledge dissemination study" From the article, A group of researchers from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, l'Université de Montréal, and the University of Western Ontario are launching a two-year study of knowledge dissemination in Canada...This study will identify critical areas within the Canadian scholarly communication system that must be addressed and propose a comprehensive research strategy for knowledge dissemination in Canada.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Political Organizations--United States--Searchable Database Source: IRS New Searchable Database, Political Organization Disclosures You can search for and view copies of all submitted Forms 8871 and Forms 8872 (both paper and electronic filings). Thanks to TVC for the news tip. -- U.S. Congress--Lists Source: Clerk, U.S. House 1) Two New Lists from the U.S. Congress Fast Facts and List, A History [and List] of Foreign Dignitaries Who Have Addressed the U.S. Congress An 11 page .pdf file - 2) Fast Facts, The State of the Union Address A 4 page .pdf file. -- Population--United States Source: BLS New, Full-Text Report: A Profile of the Working Poor, 2001 Sunday, July 20, 2003
Web Search--Yahoo Source: News.Com Overture to a patent war? On ResourceShelfPLUS I've compiled a list many patents that Yahoo will control if/when the merger with Overture is completed. You'll also find links to Google's three patent applications. See Also: ResourceShelfPLUS also has a compilation of search related patents recently awarded to Microsoft.
Professional Reading Shelf Librarians Conference Presentation: Envision the Future Teaching Role of Law Librarians These are slides from Steve Abram's presentation at last month's AALL Annual Conference. Saturday, July 19, 2003
Internet Filters ALA Cancels Net Filtering Meeting A brief note on the ALA site reads, "The Executive Board of the American Library Association has instructed us to cancel our planned meeting on CIPA and filters for libraries, scheduled for August 14." No other reasons as to why the meeting was canceled are listed. The event was supposed to bring librarians and filter-makers together. Here's how ALA's Judith Krug 'characterized' the now canceled meeting in American Libraries, "...an opportunity to tell filter-makers how to gain “our support” by making their software’s blocking mechanisms “transparent” and adding a disabling feature to allow librarians to toggle blocking software off at the request of filter-averse adult patrons." See Also: "Libraries Cancel Meeting on Porn Filters"(via AP) From the article, ALA's immediate past president, Mitch Freedman, had raised objections to it Thursday in an internal e-mail discussion list. The order to cancel came from the group's 13-member executive board, which Freedman sits on, later in the day. "Simply, having any discussion whatsoever with the filtering companies legitimizes them, thus giving them a legitimacy that ALA has never recognized,'' Freedman wrote to fellow librarians on the ALA Council. See Also: "Library Internet filters pay off" (via The Jackson Citizen Patriot)
Federated Searching Interlibrary Loan Source: St. Petersburg Times Not Often Seen: Library Catalogs Discussed in a Newspaper The article is about the Alleycat system from the Tampa Bay Library Consortium. The writer does a nice job of explaining the system to non-librarian readers, Alleycat actually acts more like a sheepdog, herding together the multitude of programs housing the live catalogs at each library. If you cannot find an item in your home library system, you can search the virtual catalogs of more than 26 public county library systems and five academic libraries. "Each of the library systems are running different (catalog) programs and Alleycat gets them to talk to each other," explained Citrus County assistant library director Eric Head. See Also: Learn More About Alleycat
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Health Information MEDLINEplus Adds 14 'Interactive Health Tutorials' To Collection New tutorials include smallpox, depression, hearing loss, and colon cancer. Over 100 tutorials (in Flash format) are now online. Friday, July 18, 2003
Web Search--Gigablast A Few Tweaks at Gigablast Matt Wells, Gigablast's developer and proprietor, has made a few updates to the engine. 1) "Gigablast now displays a blue bar above returned search results that do not have all of your query terms." Remember, Gigablast uses a default OR. 2) "Search results pages from the cache Gigablast lets you know how long ago it was cached by displaying a small message at the bottom of the search results page." Thanks to G.N. for the news tip.
Controlled Vocabularies Information Industry--Factiva Factiva Introduces New Taxonomy for Health Care Industry Factiva has announced the availability of a pharmaceutical and healthcare taxonomy with over 800 industry-focused terms, to help companies in those sectors organize and interpret information from both internal and external sources that are essential for making better business decisions...The new taxonomy is structured as a series of extensions to the existing Factiva Intelligent Indexing taxonomy, as used within Factiva’s business information services. Factiva’s industry, region, subject, and company codes are already available under license to help organizations easily find relevant internal and external information. See Also: Learn More About the Factiva Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Taxonomy
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Information Architecture Government Information Source: Human Computer Interaction Laboratory, University of Maryland College Park Full-Text Research Paper, "Finding Governmental Statistical Data on the Web: Three Empirical Studies of the FedStats Topics Page" This paper was written by Irina Ceaparu and Ben Shneiderman. -- Scholarly Communication Source: SPARC/ACRL/ARL Conference Presentations: Best Practices in Campus Advocacy These presentations were given at the ALA/CLA Annual Conference. From the site, Communicating information on scholarly communication issues to campus colleagues – librarians, faculty, and administrators – is a major component of the Create Change program supported by SPARC, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communication (ARL OSC). Since Create Change has been in place, a number of campuses have held major events on the scholarly communication crisis, the economics of journal publishing, and the move to digital publishing environments. These events are intended to encourage discussion that would bring about change in the scholarly communication system. The recent SPARC/ACRL Forum at ALA in Toronto featured presentations by librarians and faculty on aspects of these campus advocacy events and discussed factors that contributed to their success.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Television--Searchable Database Source: Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Primetime Emmy Awards Database Search by nominee name, network, category, year. See Also: Official List of 2003 Nominees (Announced Yesterday) -- Distance Education--United States--Statistics Source: NCES New, Full-Text Report, Distance Education at Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions: 2000-2001 -- Children--United States--Statistics Source: Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics New, Full-Text Report: America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2003 Summary ||| Full-Text (HTML) ||| Full-Text (PDF) -- Hospitals--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: U.S. News and World Report Updated, "America's Best Hospitals, 2003" Rankings Are Online -- Housing--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Housing Gains: 2002-2003 The summary includes the following rankings, "States with Largest Gains in Housing Units", "States with Biggest Percentage Increases in Housing Units", and "Counties with Largest Number of Housing Units". -- Crime--United Kingdom--Statistics Source: Home Office Just Published, Full-Text Report, Crime in England and Wales 2002/2003
Librarians Source: The Times (N.W. Indiana) Meet the New Librarian of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judith Gaskell Congrats to Judith Gaskell who begins her new job here in Washington next month. You'll learn all about Ms. Gaskell in the article I've linked to. A bit more info in this story from LJ and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. See Also: Official Announcement Thursday, July 17, 2003
Web Resources of the Week Three items are included in the ROW package this week. -- 1) Metadata Source: NISO New, Full-Text, Metadata Demystified: A Guide for Publishers This publication is just online from NISO and the Sheridan Press. It was written by Amy Brand, Frank Daly, and Barbara Meyers. This online book runs 19 pages (.pdf) -- 2) Licensing--United States--Specialized Database Licensed Occupations Database This database was formerly known as LOIS. It offers "occupational licensing requirements by state, occupation or agency. This tool includes information on licenses that maybe required by law in order for you to practice a particular occupation. Information for all states, agencies, and licenses may not be included." -- 3) Media--Directories Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Compilation Newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. -- International Regional Magazine Association Directory--Travel Destination Magazines This directory and the one listed below might be especially useful in travel collections. These publications often run articles and other material that might be useful for visitors. -- City and Regional Magazine Association Directory Use the pull-down menu on the left side of the page.
Librarians Source: Seattle Times More on the Librarian Action Figure Story This article features comments from several librarians (pro and con) about the action figure. You'll also see what the doll looks like.
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Health Information Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Full-Text Report, Internet Health Resources: Health searches and email have become more commonplace, but there is room for improvement in searches and overall Internet access Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Scholarly Publishing Source: National Science Foundation Full-Text, The Implications of Information Technology for Scientific Journal Publishing: A Literature Review -- Web Crawlers Source: Stanford Database Group Full-Text Report, Effective Page Refresh Policies for Web Crawlers
Briefly Internet Domains...Info Briefing About the New Kids.Us Domain Set for Next Week -- Institute for Scientific Information...New Version of HighlyCited.Com Will Be Released in September HighlyCited.Com is a free searchable database from ISI. --- H.W. Wilson...Humanities Full-Text Database Adds Content
National Archives--United States Today: "The National Archives Opens Additional National Security Council Files Relating to the Nixon Presidency" The National Archives and Records Administration has announced that it will open approximately 180,000 pages of materials from the Nixon Presidential Materials Project on Thursday, July 17, 2003, beginning at 9 A.M. in Conference Room D at the National Archives at College Park..."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Elections--United States--Statistics Source: Federal Election Commission Now Available, Full-Text, Federal Elections 2002: Election Results for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives -- Money Laundering--United States--Statistics Source: NCJRS New Report, Full-Text, Money Laundering Offenders, 1994-2001 From 1994 to 2001 over 18,000 faced money laundering-related charged filed in a U.S. district court. Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Online Information Source: BBC Online "World's poor to get own search engine" From the article, Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are developing a search engine designed for people with a slow net connection. Someone using the software would e-mail a query to a central server in Boston. The program would search the net, choose the most suitable webpages, compress them and e-mail the results a day later. "More and more we are creating an information divide in the world and this can help narrow that divide and have a huge benefit in that sense, " said Professor Saman Amarasinghe of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science in Boston. You can learn much more about this project by visiting the TEK (Time Eqauls Knowledge) homepage.
Online Maps Source: Common-Place All About the David Rumsey Map Collection This overview was written by Mr. Rumsey. From the article, Driven by an intense desire to make the collection available to the public in an intimate setting, in March 2000, I launched www.davidrumsey.com, a Website that allows free viewing of my maps via high-resolution images on the Internet. The Web site now has over eight thousand historical maps available for close examination.
Government Documents--United States GPO Access Reaches Milestone From the announcement, The number of document titles available through GPO Access (www.gpoaccess.gov), the award-winning Web site of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), has grown to more than 250,000, marking a significant milestone in the GPO's ongoing effort to expand public access to Government information through online technology...A noteworthy aspect of GPO Access is its unique commitment to Permanent Public Access. This commitment means that every document on the site will remain accessible in perpetuity, and springs from the GPO's shared responsibility for the permanent availability of Government publications in the Federal Depository Library Program (www.gpoaccess.gov/fdlp. html).
Information Industry--FAST Search and Transfer Information Industry--LexisNexis FAST Signs Deal with LexisNexis From the announcement, "...a three year agreement with FAST to integrate the FAST Data Search enterprise search platform into the roll out of its future products...FAST is receiving revenue from LexisNexis in the form of software license, maintenance, and professional service fees. This is in addition to a 5 year deal between FAST and Elsevier that was announced in January, 2003. FAST technology is used at Scirus and FirstGov.
Professional Reading Shelf (5 Items) Federated Search Source: National Library of New Zealand Full-Text Report, A Comparative Review of Common User Interface Software In 2002 the National Library commissioned a report on common user interface software from the School of Information Management at Victoria University of Wellington. The paper, on common user interface software, has been presented in fulfillment of that course and is now available here. Any views or opinions presented in the report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the National Library. The paper was written by Dr. Daniel Dorner and AnnMarie Curtis of the University of Wellington. The report runs 67 pages (pdf). See Also: Additional Background -- Two Reads from Library Journal Librarians Government Documents "A Day in the Life: Dealing with Digital" Meet Carolyn Kohler a government documents librarian at Iowa St. University. This article was written by our friend Marylaine Block. - Special Librarians "Opportunity in the Air" From Andrew Richard Albanese's article, "In any career, there will always be things you can control, and things you can't. But for special librarians, it is getting a little hard to tell the difference. Work in a venerable corporate library, say at Time Inc. or perhaps the American Bankers Association, or more recently Chevron and Arthur Andersen, and one day you suddenly find yourself unemployed and packing boxes. Decide to get out of the library and bring your services directly into the organization, and you find out your boss thinks someone named Google is already doing your job. Just how is today's special librarian supposed to manage a career? See Also: This article references a study by LexisNexis. You can access the full-text here. -- Scientific and Technical Information Source: Congressional Research Service Sensitive But Unclassified" and Other Federal Security Controls on Scientific and Technical Information: History and Current Controversy A 52 page CRS report. Make sure to check other sources to see if this is the most current version available.
Information Visualization Source: The Economist "Grokking the infoviz" From the article, Now, another kind of software that lets users converse with the data is going mainstream. It consists of programs that help you to visualise large amounts of information. They have made their way into the enterprise software used by large corporations. Interactive charts are showing up on websites. And earlier this year, Groxis, a start-up based in Sausalito, California, released Grokker, an innovative graphical tool that it also sells to consumers for $99. Will “infoviz”, as geeks call the technology, become a killer application, rather as spreadsheets did? As the term implies, information visualisation is all about making data visible—or, more precisely, the patterns that are hidden in the data. Graphic aids such as charts have done this for ages, says Ben Shneiderman of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland (and co-editor of “Readings in Information Visualisation”, the sacred text of the field). What is new, he and his colleagues explain in the book, “is that the evolution of computers is making possible a medium for graphics with dramatically improved rendering, real-time interactivity and cost.” See Also: Check Out the SmartMoney Market Map See Also: A Brief Review of a Few Consumer Oriented InfoViz Tool (via Informatics) See Also: A 5/6 ResourceShelf Mention of Scopeware and The Brain Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Information Retrieval A New Roundup of Search Related Patents and Patent Apps on ResourceShelfPLUS I've posted another collection of recently issued search related patents and recently published patent applications on ResourceShelfPLUS. I've also updated the collection of Microsoft search related patents and I've compiled a quick & dirty list of selected Yahoo search patents. Plenty to read but in NO way are these lists complete.
Libraries--United States Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Awards Over $800,000 in Grants to Libraries From the announcement, The institutions selected for funding today are the School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of North Texas to create innovative continuing education Web-based courseware for public library personnel; a consortium of Midwest community college, colleges, and universities (the Northern Illinois Learning Resources Cooperative) to collaborate with high school librarians and teachers to develop information literacy resources for community college students who are at-risk to fail or drop out of school; the University of Illinois at Chicago Library to host a conference on digital innovations at libraries and museums; and the Western Council of State Libraries to develop a model library education continuum to improve job skills, enhance employment opportunities, and establish credentials across state lines. See Also: List of Winners and Amount of Grant See Also: IMLS Also Awards Over $800K in Grants to Native American Tribes To "improve library services and collections".
Cataloging and Classification--Health Source: National Library of Medicine New, Revised Edition of the National Library of Medicine Classification Goes Live From the announcement, This revision incorporates all new Index headings resulting from MeSH terms added to the 2003 vocabulary and selected for addition to the Index. The new edition contains 133 new MeSH concepts and nearly seven hundred index entries were brought into closer compliance with MeSH...
Digital Library Projects Full-Text Online Books Source: The Toledo Blade More About the International Children’s Digital Library ResourceShelf ran news when the project went online in November. Since it's launch the ICDL has received over 180,000 visitors. See Also: Direct to the International Children's Digital Library
Natural Language Search--Demos The Yahoo Finance Natural Language Demo is No More, Still Available at Lycos For the past few years Yahoo Finance made a demo available using iPhrase natural language processing technology. Well, all things must past. The demo is no more. However, some good news, a similar nlp demo (using iPhrase technology) is remains available via Lycos. Give it a try, it's cool! Thanks to D.G. for the news tip.
News Search--Yahoo Selected Washington Post Content Accessible via Yahoo News For those of you who track content availability, Yahoo News has just added Washington Post content to their news service. It looks like each day 4 or 5 articles are posted in three categories (Top Stories ||| Politics ||| Technology) See Also: Last Week Yahoo News Began A Feed from News Aggregator Moreover See Also: Yahoo News Also Offers A Couple of Search Limits Not Available on Other Web Services * Limit By Dateline * Use an * as a Truncation Symbol * Limit with Author's Name * Limit Your Search To Words in the Story Title (Also Available via pull-down)
Professional Reading Shelf (6 Items) -- OPACS (Online Public Access Catalogs) Source: LITA Optimal Design Considerations for OPACS Presentations from session at the 2003 ALA/CLA Annual Conference. From the site, Speakers examined the advantages and disadvantages of current OPAC interfaces, and general principles and practices based on their research. They evaluated moving from character-based to web-based OPAC as well as updating existing web-based OPAC. They will also looked at the impact of web search engines and online bookstores on user search behavior and expectations. Alternative OPAC interfaces representing academic, public, and school libraries were demonstrated. -- Digital Libraries The July/August Issue of D-Lib Magazine is Now Available -- Academic Libraries Source: ARL Graph, Expenditure Trends in ARL Libraries 1986-2002 -- Digitization--Europe Source: Minerva Full-Text Report, Coordinating digitisation in Europe Includes country reports. "... on the coordination of national digitisation policy for cultural heritage." Summary (via Resource, U.K.) ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Librarianship The August Issue of CILIP's Library + Information Update is Now Available Full-Text not available online. Selected content only. -- Scholarly Publishing Open Access Source: BioMed Net New Web Site, Open Access Now -- E-Rate Source: EdLiNC Full-Text Report, E-Rate, A Vision of Opportunity and Innovation Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Small Business--United States Source: SBA New Research Report, Small Business in the Business Cycle Summary ||| Full-Text -- Health--United States--Statistics Source: National Center for Health Statistics 1) New, Data Brief: Healthy weight, overweight, and obesity among U.S. adults 2) New, Data Brief: Cholesterol Status Among Adults in the United States -- Disabilities--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Fact Sheet, Anniversary of Americans with Disabilities Act Stats about the disabled population culled from numerous U.S. Census publications. Monday, July 14, 2003
Web Search Yahoo To Buy Overture Rumours about this possible sale have been circulating for some time. Yahoo is paying $1.63 billion. Most of the analysis of today's Yahoo purchase will focus on what this means from the advertising point of view since this is the primary reason for Yahoo making the deal. However, I want to focus on what this means from a search/research angle. 1) Yahoo Purchases Parts of Inktomi (12/23/02) 2) Overture Purchases AltaVista (2/19/02) 3) Overture Purchases the AllTheWeb Portion of FAST (2/25/02) Talk About Consolidation! In about seven months three companies that offered unique web databases and search capabilities are now in the control of a single company, Yahoo. Questions and Answers Many questions and few answers at this point. * Google's day's of powering the Yahoo database are numbered. * MSN Search? We know they're gearing up but when will it go live? Will Yahoo results (Inktomi) power MSN Search? * What will become of such top web search/IR minds like Gary Flake and Jan Pedersen? * I've said on many occasions that AllTheWeb and AltaVista offer the "power" searcher numerous search options and tools that NO other web engine offers. Will ATW and AV be kept as unique products? If not, will the technology be available elsewhere? -- What all of this means for the searcher is tbd over the next few months. It once again illustrates the importance of non-commercial resources like the LII and RDN. It also points out the need for the researcher to know about and have specialized tools ready to go. See Also: Official News Release Announcing Purchase See Also: Listen to the Confernce Call Updated 11:15am From Reuters: In an interview with Reuters, Terry Semel, Yahoo's chief executive, said, "It's early for us to make those kinds of decisions," particularly about whether to shut down AltaVista, the Internet portal Overture recently acquired. Ted Meisel, Overture's chief executive, said that while there were likely to be efficiencies and cost savings from the deal, including possibly in the area of headcount, "it's too early for us to say precisely." General Web Databases: Keyword Search Engine Scorecard What unique database providers are left? Who owns what? -- Ask.Com/Teoma Search software and database. Ask Jeeves utilizes Teoma database. -- Gigablast Search software and database. -- Search software and database. -- Looksmart Grub crawling software, WiseNut search technology. -- Lycos Search software. Just announced agreement to use Looksmart database. -- MSN Search TBD. Currently using Inktomi/Yahoo software and database. -- Yahoo Will be in control of AltaVista and AllTheWeb search and crawling software Currently, using Google as a database provider.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Literacy--United States--Statistics Source: Univ. of Wisconsin-Whitewater America's Most Literate Cities From the announcement, A comprehensive new study pieces together a literacy profile of America's 64 largest cities, drawing from U.S. Census data, newspaper circulation rates, library resources, publishers and other public documents. The study, authored by University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Chancellor and education Professor Jack Miller, draws on statistics from five categories and 13 different measures of literacy to provide a ranking for all cities with a population of 250,000 or more. -- Digitization Projects--Canada Source: National Library of Canada New, Canadian Mail Order Catalogues See 22 fully digitized catalogues from the 1880s to the 1970s. -- Foundations--United States--Statistics Source: The Foundation Center FC Releases New Statistics The Foundation Center has just released the latest aggregate financial information on the nearly 62,000 active independent, corporate, community, and grantmaking operating foundations in the U.S. in the Grantmaker Stats area of "FC Stats." This information includes data by foundation region, state, selected metropolitan area, and foundation type. Also included are lists of the largest foundations by giving and assets in each state.
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Digital Libraries Source: EDUCAUSE Review Full-Text, "Deep Sharing: A Case for the Federated Digital Library" This article was written by David Seaman, Director of the Digital Library Federation. -- Preservation Presentations from the Microfilming and Digitisation for Preservation Workshop Now Available The workshop took place in The Hague, April 14-15. -- E-Prints--United Kingdom Source: UKOLN Full-Text, Prospects for institutional e-print repositories in the United Kingdom"
Briefly Proquest...Johns Hopkins University Press Journals Now Available -- Autonomy...Multimedia Search Company Virage Acuquired by Autonomy -- Dialog...Company Increases Amount of Direct e-Journal Linking Sunday, July 13, 2003
How Often is The Wayback Machine Database Updated? This is a faq that a post on an Internet Archive discussion board that Igor Ranitovic from the IA helps answer. 1) A Wayback Machine database update is scheduled for the next few weeks. The new index will include data as recent as April, 2003. 2) After the next update the IA team is constructing a system (hopefully available in 3-6 months) that, "will always (ideally) keep our index up to date. "
Enterprise Search Verity Set to Launch New Version of Ultraseek Search Engine From the article, Verity Inc. [this week] will introduce its first full-blown version of the Ultraseek corporate search-engine technology it acquired eight months ago from Inktomi Corp. The focus is on an improved user experience and more detailed reporting. Verity Ultraseek 5.1 represents Verity's first foray into selling more basic corporate search tools after years of selling complex information-retrieval, classification, and categorization technologies to large companies. The vendor acquired the technology from Inktomi specifically because it sensed it was missing out on smaller sales to companies that either couldn't afford Verity's K2 intellectual-capital management suite or weren't looking for K2's level of complexity. UPDATED 7/15...Ultraseek 5.1 Released
In Case You Haven't Noticed... "Weapons of Mass Destruction" Page Is #1 Result at MSN Search/Inktomi, AltaVista, and Gigablast This satirical page has been getting tons of press and attention lately after it became the number one result at Google. The number one result for any search at Google is also directly accessible by typing "weapons of mass destruction" and hitting the "I'm feeling Lucky" button. The WMD page is ALSO the number one result on Inktomi powered sites including MSN Search, Intkomi via Hotbot, and PositionTech's Pure Search. Saturday, July 12, 2003
Web Searching The Next Big Thing? Personalized Web Search Company Formed by Members of Stanford's PageRank Project The new company is called Kaltix (pronounced call-ticks) and was started by members of Stanford's PageRank Project. According to the group's page, Kaltix was formed to, "commercialize personalized web search technologies." The Kaltix homepage contains the words, "you decide" and "coming soon". Members of PageRank Project have written several papers that we've mentioned on ResourceShelf during the past year. PageRank's patent is held by Stanford University and credit's Google's co-founder, Larry Page, as the inventor. Btw, their domain, kaltix.com was registered less than a month ago and is assigned to a person in Mountain View, California. This city is also home to a well-know search engine company whose name begins with the letter G and ends with the letters o-o-g-l-e. ResourceShelf is working to learn more about the company. Updated 7/13: I had an e-mail exchange with a Kaltix spokesperson today and was told they are NOT commenting about either the company (what they are up to) or their technology. ResourceShelf has been promised that we will be in the loop when they decide to make information available to the public. Thanks to inFLUX and Intelligence-Center for a bit of help on this post. See Also: A Brief Explanation of the PageRank Project's Goals -- See Also: An Analytical Comparison of Approaches to Personalizing PageRank First ResourceShelf Mention, 6/22 -- See Also: Full-Text Article, Topic-Sensitive PageRank: A Context-Sensitive Ranking Algorithm for Web Search First ResourceShelf Mention, 5/20 --- See Also: A May, 2003 ResourceShelf Posting -- ....and while we're on the topic of PageRank, the Mercury News reports that the Googleplex is Moving to a New Location Friday, July 11, 2003
Search Engines Source: First Monday "Search engine personalization: An exploratory study" By Yashmeet Khopkar, Amanda Spink, C. Lee Giles, Prital Shah, and Sandip Debnath Abstract: Web search engines are beginning to offer personalization capabilities to users. Personalization is the ability of the Web site to match retrieved information content to a user's profile. This content can be set explicitly by the user or derived implicitly by the Web site using such user profile information as zip code, birth date, etc. In this paper we report findings from a study qualitatively and quantitatively assessing the current state of personalization on 60 search engine Web sites and the personalization features available. We examined: (1) how many search engines Web sites currently offer personalization features; and, (2) the type of features that can be personalized. Findings show that: (1) eight (13 percent) of the 60 search engines, including Yahoo, AOL, Lycos, Excite and Netscape, enabled some level of personalization; and, (2) personalization features are largely related to e-mail, business and financial information, searching of a reference tool, such as yellow pages, entertainment listings, sports, and news headlines. The breadth and depth of personalization features varied across search engines, with a mean number of two personalization features per site. "My Yahoo" had the most extensive personalization feature capability. Our findings show that despite the high level of interest in Web personalization, most search engine Web sites currently offer no or limited personalization features.
Law Libraries Source: National Law Journal "Revolution or Evolution for Law Libraries?" From the article, "More seasoned practitioners are loath to give up traditional libraries; firms would do well to listen to them."
Librarians Source: ABC Australia Time to Reinforce Library Stereotype "Toy company launches librarian action figure" Does the following story make you laugh or make you cry? From the article, "The company's owner Mark Pahlow says the librarian doll comes holding a new release novel and can tell people to be quiet. "It has what we call in the trade the kung-fu 'shoosh' arm," he said. "You push a button on the back and the arm goes up to the chin with a raised finger as though she was saying 'shoosh'."
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Librarianship Internet Filtering A Special Issue of Crawford's Cites and Insights is Online This special issue of Walt Crawford's newsletter is titled, Coping With CIPA: A Censorware Special. -- Internet Source: Online Journalism Review What's a Moblog? Will librarians have a role in collecting, organizing, and preserving Moblog material?
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) United Nations Just Released, Full-Text, United Nations Human Development Report -- Population--United States--Hispanics Population--United States--Lists & Rankings New Statistics, Hispanic Population in the U.S. Updated List, Fastest Growing Cities in the U.S. -- Energy--Intelligence Source: EIA Just Updated, World Energy "Areas to Watch" The countries/regions listed in this report are: a) important from an oil and gas perspective; and b) currently (or potentially in the short- to medium-term) confronting significant economic, political, or other issues that could affect domestic or world oil and gas markets. Click on the name listed below for a brief discussion/analysis of the main concerns regarding that particular country/region's energy industry.
National Libraries--Norway Enterprise Search FAST's Enterprise Search To Power the National Library of Norway's Information Archives From the announcement, The National Library of Norway has selected FAST Data Search™ to power its many digital information archives, including: The Digital Radio Archive (DRA), Culture Net Norway (Kulturnett Norge), The Digital Newspaper Library, Cultural Heritage Ekofisk, The Nordic Web Archive (NWA), Paradigma, and The National Library’s own public Web site.
Information Industry--EBSCO EBSCO Acquires Two Databases from Information Today From the announcement, EBSCO has acquired two popular databases, Information Science & Technology Abstracts and Internet & Personal Computing Abstracts. This development marks another addition to the growing list of database acquisitions finalized by EBSCO in recent months. Earlier this week we had an item about EBSCO acquiring the Mass Media Index from Penn. St. University. Thursday, July 10, 2003
Resource of the Week Health Information—E-Mail Alerts Keeping Current with iHealth Beat iHealth Beat is a free e-mail alert tool from the California Healthcare Foundation. Every weekday the service provides a digest of news stories from over 300 sources (newspapers, journals, and trade publications) with links to the source articles about the use of the Internet (and related technology) in healthcare. It's focus is global. From the site, The Advisory Board Company is a national health care research service and publisher. It independently publishes iHealthBeat for the California HealthCare Foundation and is responsible for the editorial content of the publication. The iHealth Beat web site provides access to an archive of the last 5 reports or browse articles by category. You’ll need to register (fast and free) to gain access to this service. See Also: SmartBrief A SmartBrief is a focused news digest for various industries. They are distributed (via e-mail) during the work week. Areas include air transport, education, restaurants, telecom, and retail. Note: You'll want to be aware of the fact that these reports are sponsored by trade groups. This is not a reason to exclude these resources just a fact to be aware of. Material in the reports comes from well-known news organizations and publications. See Also: ResourceShelf's 7/7 Post (in the Resources section) About the NIPC Daily Open Source Protection Report. Another daily digest of news events. --- --- You Might Have Missed Venture Capital--United States--List & Rankings Source: Entrepreneur Top 100 Venture Capital Firms (2003) -- Religion--Searchable Databases Source: American Theological Library Association CDRI: Digital resources for the study of religion From the site, The Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative of the American Theological Library Association and Association of Theological Schools is a repository of digital resources contributed by member libraries...Phase One of the Initiative has focused on visual materials, including digital images of woodcuts, photographs, slides, papyri, coins, maps, and manuscripts...Resources from CDRI Phase Two will be added in 2004.
Information Industry--Factiva Source: FreePint An Interview with Factiva's CEO During the 2003 SLA Annual Conference FreePint's Annabel Colley had the opportunity to chat with Factiva's President and CEO, Clare Hart.
Web Search--Google Source: News.Com Issues with the Google Cache Stefanie Olson's article points out potential copyright issues with the Google Cache feature. Olson fails to point out that other smaller web engines offer cached copies. These include: Gigablast Daypop IncyWincy Yuntis The article also makes no mention of the fact that Google does not cache image files, only caches the first 101k of an html web page, 120k of a pdf. Finally, Google only offers the cache feature with main Google database. The Google News database doesn't offer this feature. A Note for Non-Librarians...The article opens with the example of searching the primary Google database for a New York Time's article. Don't forget that through your local public library (or the library from your school or company) you can get FREE REMOTE access to databases with archived content from the New York Times and thousands of other publications.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Economic Crime--Global Source: PriceWaterhouseCoopers New, Full-Text Report, Global Economic Crime Survey 2003 The page also provides access to reports organized by region and country. A couple of reports from 2001 are also available. From the introduction, Based on over 3600 interviews in 50 countries, the PricewaterhouseCoopers global economic crime survey 2003 (in association with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering) is one of the most comprehensive assessments of the effect of economic crime on business ever undertaken. Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Web Search--Daypop Weblogs Part Two of the ResourceShelf Conversation With Daypop's Founder and Proprietor Dan Chan Several week's ago I posted the first part of an interview with Daypop's founder and sole proprietor Dan Chan. Here is part two. ---- ---- Q. Dan, how does Daypop define a weblog? How does you add material to the crawl? Are there weblogs you will not add? A. My definition of a weblog hasn't changed too much since Daypop started crawling. In the early days, it was easy to spot a blog. It was reverse-chronological posts of interesting links or journal entries or both. It was generally hosted by Blogger, Pitas, or Diaryland. These days there are tons of blog hosting services and there are a lot more collaborative blogs. The format has expanded to include categories and feature articles and photo albums, but the central concept is still the same. For the first year, I surfed blogs. This happened in batches. When I had a free weekend, I would hop from blog to blog and check out what was out there. I found that there was an amazing number of very good, very well written blogs that didn't get any attention. I'd add all of the blogs I found to Daypop's blog list. I also take site submissions and every once in a while I would work through them, reviewing each one before adding them to the index. This kind of strategy was just not scalable. Recently, I added about 19000 blogs to the index from data gathered from weblogs.com's update file. I did this without reviewing the blogs. There have been a couple isolated cases of spamming but it hasn't been too bad. Daypop accepts all weblogs. I faced the question of blog censorship very early on. A Daypop user had pointed out a site in the index that was rascist and Anti-Semitic. I decided to leave the site in the index. I think I've explained it best here: "We all act as our own editors and filters to the information we're presented with. Daypop gives you news and views. I feel it's up to you to do the rest. I don't think it would be right for me to take away that role of editor from you." Q. Is the Daypop database refreshed daily? Are certain sites recrawled more than others? A. Blogs are crawled at most every 12 hours. If a blog is one that is infrequently updated, Daypop adjusts to that blog's approximate update schedule and crawls it less frequently. The big International news sites like CNN and NY Times are crawled every 15 minutes. Other important news sites get crawled every hour or several hours. The remaining news sites are crawled every 24 hours. Q. How long does Daypop keep material in its database? In other words, could I use Daypop to search for a weblog's postings back in 2000? Do you see a need for a weblog archive search tool? Daypop is a current events search engines so it only searches back one week. My goal was to eventually provide a way to search archived weblog pages back to 2001, when Daypop started. Unfortunately, most of the raw page data was lost in one of my server hard drive mishaps. Q. Will you give us some background into the rankings available on Daypop? Do you have plans to create others? I separate what I call Daypop's Trend Analysis into four categories. There's Link Analysis, Word Analysis, Wishlist Analysis, and Authority Analysis. Link Analysis started with the creation of the Top 40 page shortly after Daypop launched. The Top 40 page ranks links much like the way a football team is ranked. A team's standing is determined by its number of wins, with its most recent wins counting more. The Top 40 gives more weight to links that have recently been created. This means only fresh, newly discovered links make it to the Top 40. The Top News and Top Posts pages are just filtered versions of the Top 40 that only give you news articles and weblog posts, respectively. http://www.daypop.com/top/ http://www.daypop.com/news/ http://www.daypop.com/posts/ Word Analysis is measures word occurrences and changes over time to determine the "burstiness" of certain words. Words that have experienced a burst in usage in blogs in the last few days are listed in the Word Bursts page. News Bursts measures bursts in usage on front pages of news sites. Link analysis alone doesn't catch all the memes that are going around. Sometimes there are no authoritative links to anchor the meme. That's the purpose of Word Analysis -- to catch these memes. http://www.daypop.com/burst/ http://www.daypop.com/newsburst/ Wishlist Analysis measures how popular certain books, videos and music is on bloggers' wishlists. It does this using similar algorithms to the Top 40. http://www.daypop.com/wishlist/ Authority Analysis gives a global ranking of blogs, ranked by Citations and also by Daypop Score. Daypop Score takes into account blog importance and weights citations using this. High Daypop Scoring weblogs confer more weight or importance to weblogs that they link to. http://www.daypop.com/blogrank/ There are plans to roll out some new services. One of them is in beta right now and it pertains directly to the next question about personalization. Q. Do you think web search "personalization" will be the next big thing? If not, what will be? Contextual Weighting (see below) can be seen as a form of Search Personalization. In this case, the context of the word is determined by your interests. The search engine would know that you are a wildlife fanatic and most likely mean Jaguar, the feline, and not Jaguar, the car. How do you determine "interest"? One good way is to use a person's blog, if it exists. The blog is a goldmine of information about a person's interests. Analyzed for word content, you could potentially categorize someone as say, a Mac fanatic who lives in Los Angeles. Then, using the outgoing links from a blog and the citations to the blog, you could determine a more generalized "neighborhood" of interests. Multi-term searches probably give enough usable contextual information in the absence of "interest" data. You could also use a blog as the starting point for determining Daypop Scores, giving that blog's links the most weight. That way, every page in the index has a "personalized" Daypop Score for every blog in the index. Combining all these strategies would lead to more relevant search results. There's a feature that's in beta right now that's related to this concept of Personalization. It's something to look out for in the next month. Q. Although Daypop crawls thousands of blogs, do you think the current popularity of blogs as a fad? Have you ever studies how often certain types of blogs are updated. I think blogs are here to stay. It's a great format and it's very good at disseminating information. As far as its current rise in popularity, I think blogging will plateau out at some point soon. There are only so many people out there with the personality to 1) write publically, 2) keep at it. Case in point, I used to blog (outside of the Daypop Weblog) but stopped writing to my blog a while ago. Q. If Google called you today and wanted you to tell them a few things they could do to improve the engine, what would you tell them? I've noticed that PageRank seems to far outweigh Relevance when it comes to searches that I'm personally interested in. There are plenty of times when I feel like nearness of terms should outweigh the PageRank. These usually occur in the context of the type of searches that I do which are highly targeted technical questions. Many times an "important" page is ranked highly with really no relevance to my search. The ability to specify phrases in quotes is too restrictive when all I really want is nearness of terms. Overall, I know it's a balancing act, that black art of relevance weighting, and most probably Google has it tuned to respond to 99% of the searches that are being done out there. One workaround is to make PageRank's contribution to the final score inversely proportional to the number of search terms entered by a user. The idea is that a large multi-term search is more likely more highly "targeted" than a simple search for say Britney Spears. At least this would potentially solve my specific problem (while most likely causing other problems). There's also the concept of Contextual Weighting of the search results. That relevancy can be improved if a search term can be categorized in some fashion to determine the context of the word. Are you searching for Jaguar, the car, or Jaguar, the feline? Doing this automatically with the limited contextual information of a common two term search might just be enough. Or to go further, Search Personalization techniques could be used. Of course, there's also freshness of the index. The ideal search engine would allow near real-time search of the web. This would involve incremental updates to the index on the order of minutes or seconds instead of days (or months as it used to be) and very intelligent crawling schedules in addition to more spiders. Q. Would you tell us about the Daypop relevancy algorithm? Aside from link analysis what other factors influence the order of results? I think the most important factor in determining relevancy in Daypop is nearness of search terms -- the closer your search terms appear on a page, the more relevant it is to your search. This is a fundamental difference in the way Daypop operates compared to some other search engines. Many search engines only "know" whether or not a page contains a certain word and perhaps how many times that word appears on that page. Daypop goes a step further and stores off for each page, all instances of all words on that page along with position and contextual information. The position information is used to determine that "search" and "engine" often appear next to each other. The contextual information is an approximation to how important those word instances are in the context of the page, by measuring font size or emphasis. Q. Dan, before we conclude could you offer us ten Daypop search tips? 1. Daypop Weblog Most "undocumented secrets" are documented here. 2. Citations You can find citations to any page in Daypop's index by searching for link:page_url Here's an example for pages linking to the Top 40. For any search result that is a weblog, there is a Citations link that leads directly to a list of citations for that blog. So looking at the page above, you'll see a list of blogs that mention the Daypop Top 40. Clicking on any of their Citations links will bring up the blogs that mention them along with Citations links. In this way, you can "hop" from blog to blog checking out the link structure of the blogosphere. Searching for Citations is a good way of determining the popularity of a page. 3. My Blogstats A relatively new feature that generates a list of similar and related blogs, as well as citing blogs for any blog in the index. Similar, in this case, is defined as similar in word content, while related means one degree of separation. This is a good way to find other blogs that may be of interest to you. You don't need to plug in your own personal URL. You could check up on blogs that are similar to blogs that you enjoy to try and discover something new. 4. Searching RSS You can search RSS feeds using Daypop. Not many people know this, but using the pull-down menu you can search News Headline feeds. Also, a little known feature is Daypop's ability to search Weblog Posts by setting t=p in the URL. This option has yet to be put into the pull-down menu. Here is an example. 5. More Headlines When searching RSS, there's a More Headlines link below each result. This link leads to a search for all headlines from that RSS feed. This is great for discovering new, interesting feeds from your searches. 6. Custom News Feeds Daypop outputs RSS 0.91 on almost everything. Even search results. So you can create your own custom news feeds for your news aggregator. 7. Little Icons There are little icons next to each search result. A red [N] for a News Article and an orange [W] for Weblogs. A blue [H] for News Headlines, gathered from RSS feeds of online news sites, and a greenish [P] for Weblog Posts, indexed from weblog RSS feeds. These icons make it easy to categorize the results. 8. Advanced Search You can restrict your search to a specific period of time using Advanced Search. You can also search pages in different languages and from different countries. Not many search engines (none that I know of) have the ability to limit to countries. 9. The little blue box On every search page, there's a little blue box that offers search modifiers that are extremely useful. The box allows you to narrow your search to headlines or news or weblogs. You can also sort by relevance or date. By default, Daypop sorts by relevance but sometimes you just want the newest articles. You can also search just the page titles which helps narrow your search to pages that specifically deal with your search terms. And also, you can narrow by language to one language easily with the pull-down menu. These features go a long way towards filtering your search results and helping you find what you're looking for. 10. Narrow your search You can be specific with Daypop when searching for current events. Since Daypop is a full-text search engine and not just a search that indexes article titles, being specific gets you results. --- See Also: Part One of the Interview With Dan Chan
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) United Kingdom--Searchable Databases Source: National Statistics Office New Database Launched in the UK With Neighbourhood Data From a Western Mail article, ...service which will give home-buyers, academics and local authorities access to online information about individual neighbourhoods was launched yesterday. At a click of a button users will receive data - everything from house prices to unemployment levels - about a selected area anywhere in England and Wales. The Office for National Statistics has compiled the information for 8,850 electoral wards and 175,434 small local areas after the Ł200m April 2001 survey of the population. -- Elections--United Kingdom Source: Source: House of Commons Library, United Kingdom Full-Text Report, UK Election Statistics: 1945-2003 This 65 page report contains numerous statistics and charts. -- Documents in the News September 11th Terrorist Attacks Source: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Full-Text, First Interim Report
Web Search--Microsoft Source: ZD Net Australia Microsoft unleashes Theory Division in Google attack From the article, Microsoft is actively working on new search algorithms it will use to power its own search engine to take it into competition with Google, according to the head of the company’s Theory Group. Speaking in Sydney at the 5th International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Professor Jennifer Tour Chayes said Microsoft is patenting new search algorithms with a view to replacing the Inktomi technology currently powering MSN’s search with Microsoft’s own. “Since Yahoo acquired Inktomi Bill [Gates] has decided we need our own capacity,” she said, adding that the company is already patenting new algorithms it believes have the potential to power a new search engine. Again, this is no surprise. ResourceShelfPLUS has two compilations each with several Microsoft search related patents and technical papers on issues involving search and IR. Compilation #2.
Professional Reading Shelf Scholarly Publishing Source: Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers Executive Summary-Scholarly Publishing Practice: The ALPSP Report on Academic Journal Publishers' Policies and Practices in Online Publishing This is a 6 page summary. Info about purchasing complete report.
Briefly Looksmart Content Coming to Lycos Looksmart results will be in place on the Lycos site in the 3rd quarter. Today, search results on Lycos come from AllTheWeb/Overture. Tuesday, July 08, 2003
Enterprise Search Video: Interview With FAST Search and Transfer CEO John Lervik You can view a CNBC Europe interview with Lervik. The program aired on 7/4/03
Search Engines--Legal Issues Linking Revised Ruling: "Web Linking Need Not Cause Copyright Liability" A federal appeals court today changed course in a closely watched case on the legality of linking on the World Wide Web, issuing a revised ruling siding with search engine Ditto.com against photographer Leslie Kelly. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) had filed a brief urging the court to permit Web linking to copyrighted images. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' original ruling, issued in February 2002, caused a stir by saying that linking to a copyrighted photo on a website without permission violates the copyright owner's "public display" rights. Make sure to read the full announcement. Plenty of details. Thanks to J.D. for the news tip. See Also: The Full-Text of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Decision See Also: Web Site of Les Kelly, Plaintiff in the Law Suit See Also: "Court backs thumbnail image linking" (via News.Com)
Information Industry--EBSCO Penn St. University Sells Mass Media Article Index to EBSCO From the announcement, For twenty years Jack Edward Pontius (1940–2000) was the University Libraries' liaison to Penn State's College of Communications, formerly the School of Journalism. His premature death, April 5, 2000, left behind deep friendships with colleagues and students he had helped over the years. He also left a legacy with national significance—the Mass Media Article Index, a Web-based index to journals in mass media, originally created for Penn State students and faculty, and now used worldwide. It indexes more than 40,000 articles on mass media, published from 1984 to April 2003, in more than 60 research journals, as well as major journalism reviews, recent encyclopedias and handbooks in the area of communications studies...The Libraries recently sold the index to EBSCO...The Libraries' decision to transfer the index ensures the best possible and ongoing customer services...Monies from the sale of the index will form a foundation for the creation of "The Jack Pontius Collection Endowment in Communication" to honor Pontius' many contributions to the Libraries. Note: At least for the time being the public can still use the Mass Media Index (at no charge) as a bibliograpic resource. No charge. .
Citation Analysis--Lists & Rankings Health-Care Science & Services: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1998-2002 U.S. Universities with High Concentrations in Economics, 1998-2002
Reference Publishing Information Industry--Thomas Technology Source: Philadelphia Business Journal Learn About: Thomas Technology Systems From the article, The Horsham-based company's specialty is extracting information from databases to help publish books, CD-ROMs and Web-based catalogs...The books with which Thomas Technology works are often tomes that the average person doesn't want to read -- and may not be able to lift...The most recent book on which Thomas worked is the 35th edition of "Elsevier's Official ABMS Directory of Board Certified Medical Specialists." (ABMS stands for American Board of Medical Specialists.) This 12,000-page heavyweight, which also is available on CD-ROM, is basically a list of 500,000 doctors, their specialties and the boards by which they've been certified...Thomas Technology was founded about 30 years ago as International Computaprint Corp., which specialized in database publishing and electronic typesetting. A few years later, it was bought by British publisher Reed International plc. "They were pretty much a silent partner, but we were completely owned by Reed," [VP of Sales and Marketing Lynda] Brooks said. In 1992, Reed merged with Netherlands-based publisher Elsevier NV to become Reed Elsevier plc, the giant British science, medical, education, legal and business publisher that is Elsevier's parent. Three years ago, Reed changed its focus to the one it has presently. As a result, it sold what is now Thomas Technology to the company's current owner, New York-based Thomas Publishing Co...Thomas Technology also has, courtesy of a one-time subsidiary in Germantown, Md., some specialized tools for CD-ROMs that allow viewers to conduct very sophisticated searches. Those tools are why K.G. Saur turned to Thomas for the CD-ROM edition of the "Thesaurus Linguae Latinae." "We do a variety of products for K.G. Saur," Brooks said. "They publish a series of bibliographies for different national libraries and other collections of literature and we help them produce those CD-ROMs."
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Electronic Records National Archives and Records Administration Source: GAO Full-Text Testimony, Electronic Records: Management and Preservation Pose Challenges This GAO testimony discusses NARA's work in the area of electronic records preservation. It was delivered today at a congressional hearing by Linda D. Koontz, director, information management at the GAO. See Also: NARA prepares an archive RFP for winter release (via GCN) -- CIPA Source: American Library Association New, CIPA Legal FAQs According to the ALA site, additional FAQ's will be posted "as soon as reliable information is available".
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Labor--United States--Statistics Source: BLS New Report, National Compensation Survey: Occupational Wages in the United States, July, 2002 This 16 page report provides average salary data for hundreds of occupations in the U.S. You can create detailed statistical tables using the tools on this page. -- War in Iraq Documents in the News Source: Foreign Affairs Committee, House of Parliament Full-Text, The Decision to Go to War in Iraq Vol. 1 See Also: Additional Uncorrected Materials from Foregin Affairs Committee -- Media Industry--United Kingdom--Lists & Rankings Source: The Guardian 2003 Rankings, Media Guardian 100 A list of the top 100 "movers and shakers" in UK media industries. Monday, July 07, 2003
News Search Source: Netimperative Yahoo News Adds Moreover Content Moreover culls news from several thousand sites. From the announcement, Moreover Technologies has inked a deal with Yahoo! to integrate its public metabase into the directory company's News Search Product to expand and enhance Yahoo!'s existing news search results. The companies said that the deal would provide Yahoo! Search users with up-to-the-minute news content from more than 3,500 sources that is continually updated and customised to their specific search. This new content at Yahoo is in addition to the many news feeds Yahoo already gets from various news organizations. Each regional version of Yahoo News has different content. A Moreover feed is also used by AltaVista at AltaVista News. Note: Moreover content at Yahoo is labeled under the "Web News Story Matches" heading. Thanks to T.C. for the update. Also, the Moreover content is not visible at regional Yahoo sites including Yahoo News U.K., Yahoo News India, and Yahoo News Australia. See Also: Moreover's News Release
Enterprise Search Source: ZD Net Australia "CSIRO blasts enterprise search engines" From the article, Most enterprises use inefficient search engines on their Web site, resulting in customers becoming frustrated while trying to search for particular goods and services, according to the CSIRO...One of the main reasons why people are happy with Google searches than with the search engines on the Web a few years ago is because of Google's ability to home in on the homepage of an organisation," CSIRO information retrieval expert Dr David Hawking told ZDNet Australia . For example, typing "Microsoft" into Google will result in the Microsoft Corporation's home page coming up in the number one rank...As most Internet users are probably aware, the search engine used on a company's site often does not return the most appropriate page. Hawking said this was because the engines were restricted to searching text within a Web page. Earlier Web search engines had similar problems, which Google improved by ranking pages based on incoming links, anchor texts and URL structures, among other things..."We've used similar technology and worked out which ones are effective within a typical organisation," said Hawking. He emphasised the importance of an effective search engine to businesses..."There is plenty of research to show that return on investment from Web sites is highly dependent on how efficiently that site can be searched for information and services - missed hits mean lost customers," said Hawking. "It is crucial to an organisation's business to have the right page appear in the top five, preferably at number one, when a customer is searching for information." See Also: Learn More About CSIRO's Panoptic Enterprise Search Engine
Professional Reading Shelf (4 Items) Open Access Publishing Scholarly Publishing Peter Suber's Free Online Scholarship Newsletter is Back Online The newsletter is now sponsored by SPARC and is called "SPARC Open Access Newsletter". You can read the latest issue here. -- Scholarly Publishing Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune Publicly funded research papers could circulate for free, under Sabo bill From the article, A nationwide campaign to give consumers free direct access to scientific research is getting TV exposure through commercials during "The Simpsons," as well as a hearing in Congress from Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn. He has introduced legislation that would forbid the copyrighting of federally funded scientific research. "It is wrong when a breast cancer patient cannot access federally funded research data paid for by her hard-earned taxes," said Sabo, whose wife fought breast cancer. Sabo is not the only Minnesotan involved in the movement. Minnesota ad man Bill Hillsman, of North Woods Advertising, produced a TV commercial for Public Library of Science, a California nonprofit group that is at the center of the campaign. Supported by more than 30,000 scientists in 180 countries, it plans to launch a free online biology journal in October. See Also: Miriam Drake's Info Today NewsBreak See Also: Access the Full-Text of the Bill -- Digitization Source: National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage Full-Text Conference Report, The Price of Digitization: New Cost Models for Cultural and Educational Institutions -- Public Libraries--United Kingdom Source: Resource Full-Text, The People's Network Change Management Toolkit Overview ||| Direct to Full-Text
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Digitization Projects Searchable Databases Source: British Library New, Digital Catalogue of Illustrated Manuscripts From the announcement, "Unprecedented access to one of the world's richest collections of medieval and renaissance illuminated manuscripts is being created by the British Library by the launch of a digital catalogue. When completed it will be the biggest resource of its type, allowing unlimited viewing of breathtakingly vibrant images and accompanying descriptions of all of the Library's western manuscript art for that period (c.500-1600). It will be the biggest new art gallery in the world, a virtual one, with free access via the web. Expected to take between five and 10 years to complete, the project will see all of the Library's 9,500 western illuminated manuscripts represe -- Media--United States--Searchable Database Source: American Press Institute New, Convergence Tracker Search Page Partnerships, collaborations or shared resources among U.S. daily newspapers, online and broadcast media. -- United States Constitution New Web Site, National Constitution Center The NCC opened its doors in Philadephia on July 4th. The web site includes lesson plans and an "interactive constitution". -- United States--Security Source: National Infrastructure Protection Center/Dept. of Homeland Security NIPC Daily Open Source Protection Report These daily reports digest material on topics including energy sector, banking and finance sector, transportation sector, food sector, public health sector, and IT sector. These reports are available at no charge. Thanks to P.W. for the news tip. -- College Students--United States Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project Full-Text Report: Gaming technology and entertainment among college students Key Findings ||| Direct to Full-Text
Briefly Virtual Reference...Some Dutch Public Libraries Using QuestionPoint -- Overture...Extends/Expands Deal With MSN's International Search Sites -- British Library...BL Sells Material from the Sound Archive's Wildlife Collection for Mobile Phone Ringtones ||| Additional Info (via BBC) Sunday, July 06, 2003
Web Search--Google Sergey Brin and Larry Page on TV: A Conversation at a Recent Conference During the D: All Thing Digital Conference (held in late May) Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page sat down with Walt Mossberg of the WSJ to talk about the company. The "D" Conference was an "executive conference" organized by The Wall Street Journal. Yesterday, CNBC aired a small portion of this conference session on television. Here are a some notes and quotes from the broadcast. -- All questions asked by Walt Mossberg. Q. “Why would people buy ads on Google if they can’t be disguised as search results which everyone else offers them a chance to do”? Brin: “Ads are useful part of the product.” Brin: Important that they be distinguished and clearly maked as advertising. Often times they are great results. Brin: Sometimes it’s something I’m specifically searching for to buy like a green laser pointer. Brin: “I think you run into problems when the distinction is not clear”. Brin: Ads are a good revenue stream for us and other companies that use ads AdWords product. Ads worked so well that we are now running them on non-search sites. Brin: Explains how AdWords operates. Brin: “Those [ad] links will be relevant to whatever you’re searching” Brin: “It’s not a perfect product yet.” Example of news story of boy drowning in washing machine and links to by washing machines showing up. Brin: “We’re getting the kinks out” Editors Note: I've noticed many of the problems Brin talks about with Google ads on Amazon.Com. These are the links labeled "Customers interested in this title may also be interested in". Here's a page from Amazon for a book about people who were killed on September 11th. The book's entry in the Amazon database features a Google ad for cheap airline tickets. Here are two other examples. First, included on a page for a book about Air Force One an ad for athletic shoes. Second, listed on a page for a book about adolescent drugs use, an ad for a sod merchant. You'll find the same ad for sod on this page for Walt Whitman's, Leaves of Grass and another example. This one from the 7/8/03 Washington Post Google Ads, A Democratic Presidential Hopeful, and the Drudge Report (2nd Item) Ads for Democratic hopeful John Kerry have appearing on the Drudge Report. From the article, Yesterday Kerry spokesman Chris Lehane told us that ad was mistakenly placed on Drudgereport.com by Google, which has a contract with the Kerry campaign to direct ads to various Web sites based on their editorial content and audience. Drudge has published a great many items about Kerry, but none has been particularly flattering. The ads had has been remocvd and the Kerry campaign will now approve where ads are placed. --- --- Q. “How do you guys make any money?” Page: We have a large number of advertisers, over 100,000.” Page: “We make a lot of money on advertising. The maket is estimated at a couple of billion dollars”… “we have a good chunk of that.” Page: “We do provide search services to companies like Yahoo.” Mossberg: “Not for long it sounds like.” Page smiles and shrugs his shoulders. Brin: “You’ll have to ask Terry [Semel].” Page: “We also have a search enterprise box.” -- Q: “Is advertising your biggest source of revenue?” Page: “It’s a very large source of revenue.” Brin: Advertising is the largest but we include in that are entire network.” -- Q. Don’t the companies that advertise what to show pictures of their products and all that?” Page mentions that prior to the text ads they had many offers to run banners. Page: “It was a big temptation to take the money.” Page: Noticed the click-thru rates on banners were low. Page: “We had this big leap of faith and we said we’re going to sell text ads. The business people looked at us like we were crazy founders. Which we were of course. And it turned out that it was a really good bet. It wasn’t very obvious at the time. We were very lucky.” --- Q. Is their a way you’re going to make Google better? Page: ‘You [Mossberg] think Google is good, I still think it’s terrible. There is a huge number of questions that you can ask Google, you know, like before that before it might have been difficult to buy a steel building which are very very easy to do now and are almost trivial. It’s a wonderful thing. There’s still a huge number of things that we can’t answer. You might have a more complicated question. Like why did the GNP of Uganda decline relative to the weather last year? You type that into Google, the keywords for that, and you might get a reasonable answer. But there is probably something there that explains that, which we may or may not find. Doing a good job doing search is basically artificial intelligence, we want it to be smart." ------ ------ Comments from ResourceShelf after watching the program. 1) Walt Mossberg needs to realize that most if not all of the major engines do label advertising on search result pages. However, as this new study from Consumer WebWatch points out, users are still having many problems understanding how engines work. - 2) I think that at least for the time being the using specialized databases, fee-based services, and yes, even books is still necessary. Page's example of accessing an analysis of the GNP of Uganda illustrates that using Google is also limited by the content on the "open web". What do I mean? You can have powerful search technology but if the content/potential answer is not in the database the technology makes no difference. The answer to Larry's example question might be on the open web (you'll then need to analyze for credibility and currency) but it also might exist in a publication not available on the open web for free. For example, the answer might be found in an EIU publication that costs money (yes, some info still costs $) to access (or available at your corporate or academic library). It also might be in a database not accessible to Googlebot or heck, an answer might even be found in a book. I don't see the British Library, The Library of Congress, and other national libraries being fully digitized any time soon. Another service database aggregators like Dialog, ProQuest, and Gale can offer is the ability to package and search disparate fee-based databases simultaneously. An example aimed at business researchers is Gale's Business and Company Resource Center. Btw, some of you in the U.S. and Canada have access to this database via your public library. In many cases you can access "via the web" without having to go to the library building. It's free! How much time are people wasting searching Google and other open web engines for material that doesn't exist in its database or could be accessed in less time using a specialized database (fee or free) or book ?
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Freedom of Information Act--United States Source: National Security Archive Freedom of Information Act 37th Birthday Report This report contains statistics and links to other FOIA tools. From the site, "...the Archive posted one-page summaries of 35 major federal agencies that include correct, up-to-date listings of the FOIA contacts, as well as information on FOIA appeals and other useful information for accessing records from the agencies."
Professional Reading Shelf Reference Resources--Reviews The July, 2003 edition of Peter's Digital Reference Shelf is Now Available This month Peter Jacso reviews the Britannica Concise Encyclopaedia and Rotten Tomatoes. Jacso' comments THAT sites offer versions of Britannica Concise. However, each one is different. This is why a knowledge of key resources prior to using them is essential for the information professional. He writes, "Among the concise encyclopedias, Encarta Concise and Britannica Concise Encyclopedia (BCE) are my favorites. This statement is not specific enough, however, as there are currently three version of BCE available, and they are significantly different. Their appealing common feature is that all three are free." Saturday, July 05, 2003
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Business--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes Just Released, The Global 2000 (World's Biggest Companies) This is the first year Forbes has compiled this list. You can view the list by rank, name, country, sales, profits, assets, and market value. The list can also be searched.
Professional Reading Shelf Internet Resources The July Edition of IRN (Internet Resources Newsetter) Is Now Online Friday, July 04, 2003
E-Books Available Tomorrow: Microsoft Offers Access to A Collection of eBooks (Free) If you want to explore/demo Microsoft's e-book technology (yes, I said Microsoft), the company is offering free access to a collection to about 60 titles that can be read with the Microsoft Reader (PC only). For full details check out the Free eBooks page. Here are a few specifics. * 60 Titles Will Be Available (3 titles per week for 20 weeks) * These books represent a wide cross-section of authors and books from a variety of publishers, such as "A Short History of Nearly Everything," by Bill Bryson; "The Joy Luck Club," by Amy Tan; "Fear Itself," by Walter Mosley; and "Beach Music," by Pat Conroy. Caveats: * The list of titles will not be online until July 4th. It seems they jump the gun with the press release. * If you don't have MS Reader you'll need to download and have a MS Passport Account (free).
Web Search--U.S. Government Source: AP MIT Aims to Provide Gov't. Search Engine A new project from the MIT Media Lab. From the article, On Friday, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (news - web sites)'s Media Lab plans to debut a Web site called "Government Information Awareness," a project that aspires to be far more than just another, dime-a-dozen assemblage of government documents and resources. Instead, GIA hopes to create an enormous but self-sustaining community where, as occurs with popular Web sites eBay and Google, the users do the work of keeping it running and credible. Its creators at Media Lab — a research center whose eclectic projects bridge technology, the arts and media — view the project not just as a way to pool the collective wisdom of government watchdogs but also as a tool to counter new government technologies that are consolidating information about citizens. See Also: Direct to the Government Information Awareness Web Site
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Canada--Atlas New, The Atlas of Canada Map Archives -- U.S. History Source: American Memory Project New Online Collection, The Stars and Stripes: The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 Thursday, July 03, 2003
Resource of the Week Engineering—Directories Mathematics—Directories Computing--Directories EEVL: The Internet Guide to Engineering, Mathematics, and Computing The Resource Discovery Network (based in the U.K.) is one of the subject-specific resources that make up the U.K.’s Resource Discovery Network. The RDN has been mentioned on ResourceShelf numerous times as an excellent non-commercial directory where quality of content is more important that quantity. The RDN consists of several subject specific “gateways” (social sciences, arts and humanities, business, etc.) and is home to many useful training tools. -- EEVL (pronounced “EVIL” and formerly known as the Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library) is one of the underlying gateways/ subject portals that make up the RDN and is this week’s Resource of the Week. Under the leadership of Internet Library Hall of Famer, Roddy McLeod at Heriott-Watt University, this well designed, up-to-date, and highly useful directory/database just cataloged its 10,000 record. Congrats and kudos to Roddy and the EEVL team! -- What will you find at EEVL? I could write for several pages about what is available and barely scratch the surface. The best way to see what’s here is to visit and look around on your own. Here are a few (very few) highlights. -- * Keyword search the entire database, limit your search to a specific subject area (engineering, math, computing), search only “key sites” (what EEVL considers the top 20% of Sites) or browse by subject area. * An impressive “Advanced Interface” offering additional limits (subjects, location, resource types) * Searching under the “Web Sites” tab offers an option to search the full-text of sites included in the directory. This is an example of a focused or targeted crawler. You can search all sites in the directory or by subject (engineering, math, computer science). * Each "Full" contains a description, keywords (to enhance retrieval), and is classified * Records can be output in XML * Links to news resources in the engineering, mathematics, and computing world * A full-text search engine providing access to over 150 engineering e-journals * Resources to help you find new materials * Full-Text tutorials geared at different groups of searchers * A What’s New page, perfect for developing your own collection -- -- You Might Have Missed Funding for the Arts--United States--Searchable Database Source: New York Foundation for the Arts NYFA Source From the site, NYFA Source [a freely accessible database] is the most extensive national database of awards, services, and publications for artists of all disciplines. Artists, arts organizations, and the general public can access information on over 3,400 arts organizations, 2,800 award programs, 3,100 service programs, and 900 publications for individual artists nationwide, with more programs added every day. And...An Updated Webliography...Funding for Arts This Foundation Center resource was published last month.
Multimedia Searching Source: Nature "New web tool to improve multimedia surfing" This software is under development at CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) in Australia. From the article, A new web tool makes online video and audio as interactive as text, say its creators. The software could enhance surfing, and help individuals and organizations manage large quantities of footage...The new software, called Annodex, allows any section within a file to be given a descriptive tag - 'love scene', 'fight' or 'interview', for example. Tags form a stream of information that runs alongside the file, changing to keep track of it. See Also: Listen to a Radio Interview with Project Director Silvia Pfeiffer (RealAudio via ABC, interview begins at the 22 minute mark in the program) See Also: "Cut to the Chase" (via Sydney Morning Herald) See Also: "CSIRO breaks rich web search barrier" (via Australian IT) See Also: Learn More About Annodex (Direct from CSIRO)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Earth Sciences--Searchable Databases Free Access: New Database of "Earth Science" Images Goes Live The Earth Science World ImageBank from the American Geological Institute has gone live. From the site, The Earth Science World ImageBank is a resource made available to the geoscience community and general public for the purposes of enhancing Earth education, and serving the community of science that the American Geological Institute supports. This digital archive was released to the public in June 2003, after nearly a year of work acquiring, scanning, and indexing images. The database contains over 1000 images with new content added daily. Browse the collection or search by keyword, category, continent, and/or country. See Also: Learn About Commercial and Non-Commerical Use of the Images See Also: "AGI Launches Earth Science World ImageBank" (via Space Daily) -- Business Research--U.K. Source: British Library New, Asian Business, Arts and Media in Britain Access to four resource compilation: Asian Business Asian Business Support Asian Arts and Culture Asian Broadcast Media Asian Print Media See Also: Additional British Library Factsheets Thanks to ManagingInformation.Com for the news tip. -- United States Supreme Court Source: Legal Information Institute New, Highlights of the Supreme Court’s 2002-2003 Term A new compilation from the Legal Information Institute at Cornell. -- Topics in the News Media--United States Source: FCC Full-Text Document, Released Yesterday: Report and Order Setting Limits on Media Concentration Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Controlled Vocabularies--Medical Source: FCW U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Announce Plans for Standardized Medical Vocabulary Perhaps we should subtitle this post, "the role of controlled vocabularies in the non-library world". From the article, In a step toward establishing an electronic health information system, the Department of Health and Human Services has signed an agreement to license and distribute a standardized medical vocabulary, Secretary Tommy Thompson announced today. The department also has commissioned the National Academies of Science's Institute of Medicine to design a standardized model of an electronic health record and created a council to oversee the progress of a nation health information system. I really can't understand why grocery stores are more technologically advanced than hospitals," Thompson said at the National Health Information Infrastructure 2003 conference in Washington, D.C. "We have to develop a system that's on the cutting edge." HHS officials this week signed an agreement with the College of American Pathologists to license the college's medical terminology known as the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine. The National Library of Medicine, a component of the HHS' National Institutes of Health, has issued a five-year, $32.4 million contract to the college and will distribute the vocabulary to public health officials for free. The agreement will allow health care providers, hospitals, insurance companies and research facilities to use the same terminology and incorporate that into an electronic system. The vocabulary includes more than 340,000 medical terms. More from the College of American Pathologists...This terminology has been developed in collaboration with the United Kingdom’s National Health Service and was based on content contributed by both organizations. SNOMED CT is considered to be the most comprehensive multilingual clinical reference terminology available in the world. The agreement provides free-of-charge access to SNOMED CT core content and all version updates, starting in January 2004. Access will be through the NLM’s Unified Medical Language Systems(UMLS®) Metathesaurus®, a knowledge source containing biomedical concepts and terms from many controlled vocabularies and classifications. See Also: Additional Details in news releases from HHS/NLM and CAP See Also: Learn More About the SNOMED CT Vocabulary See Also: FAQs: Inclusion of SNOMED CT in the UMLS
Newspapers--Archives Source: Searcher "Tribunes and Tribulation The Top 100 Newspaper Archives (or Lack Thereof)" In this new article Larry Krumenaker takes a look at numerous services that provide web-based newspaper archives. A note to non-librarians: Don't forget that some of the databases (along with similar resources)mentioned in the article are available to you via your local public college library for (for personal use only). Those of you in the corporate world, who have access to a library, should check to see if they already have subscriptions to these and other resources. Finally, both LexisNexis and Dialog offer access to a limited number of database using a pay-per-use model. Enter a credit card number and away you go. LN also offers pay-per-day or pay-per-week options.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Environment--United States--Databases Now Available, Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) (2002) From the site, Just one day after the Environmental Protection Agency's public release of the 2001 Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) the information is online and available for searching at the Right-to-Know Network (RTK NET), an online database service operated by OMB Watch. The TRI is a cornerstone environmental database that has become the prime example of informing the public about environmental hazards within communities. The 2001 TRI is the first year that information on releases of lead will be reported and possibly the last year that full waste data from mining companies will be reported. Learn more in this article. See Also: The EPA Also Provides Access via the TRI Explorer -- Geospatial Data--United States--Gateway New Resource, U.S. Government Launches GeoData.Gov "geodata.gov is a web-based portal for one-stop access to maps, data and other geospatial services that will simplify the ability of all levels of government and citizens to find geospatial data and learn more about geospatial projects underway. See Also: Glenn Letham offers background about the project and web site in this GeoComm.Com article See Also: Learn More From this News Release See Also: Additional Background in this Government Technology Article -- History--United Kingdom Source: National Archives New Online Exhibit, Black Presence: Asian and Black history in Britain 1500-1850 From the National Archives site, Traces the history of Black and Asian people in Britain from Roman and medieval times to the Victorian era, illustrated by documents, images and maps from The National Archives and other sources. -- Children's Books--Canada Source: National Library of Canada New Online Exhibit, Beyond the Letters: A Retrospective of Canadian Alphabet Books -- Winter Olympics--Canada Topics in the News Resources for 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver * Official Web Site of the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation * A Full-Text Copy of the Vancouver Bid Book * City of Vancouver Olympics Page * Province of British Columbia Olympics Web Site * Links to B.C. Reports and Publications * Portions from the IOC Evaluation Commission Report
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Heritage Source: Council on Library and Information Resources New Report, A Survey of Digital Cultural Heritage Initiatives and Their Sustainability Concerns Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Citation Analysis Source: Institute for Scientific Information New, The Top 10 Most-Cited Researchers Rankings for 22 fields. From the site, "...the top 10 most-cited researchers are listed, according to papers published and cited during specific bimonthly updates of Essential Science Indicators data. (That is, 10 years plus each successive two-month addition of publication and citation figures, through the most recently available update.) The rankings, based on overall citations, may change slightly from one bimonthly update to the next, as new papers and new citations are added to each researcher's total."
Digitization Projects--United States Patent Office Electronic Patent Application Records Replace Paper Files at USPTO From the announcement, The Agency expects to scan over three million pages per week, making this one of the largest scanning operations in the world. An initial 100 terabytes of data storage is necessary to support IFW and manage all the documents related to the electronic processing of patent applications. In comparison, approximately 400 million copies of the latest Harry Potter novel would occupy the same amount of space."
Online Maps Source: FCW "USGS holds homeland treasure" From the article, Marty Eckes, senior policy adviser for USGS, told a gathering of federal officials that the agency's collection has become essential for homeland security in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. USGS has the only maps showing the entire infrastructure of the United States. While most intelligence-gathering efforts have looked abroad, Eckes said the collection known as the National Map provides much of the information government officials and first responders would need to help fight terrorism. Eckes said the collection included vast amounts of information about transportation, structures, water systems and boundaries. It also has detailed maps of 133 urban areas that show power lines and institutions such as hospitals. See Also: Direct to USGS National Map See Also: Direct to the National Map Viewer
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Legal Industry--United States--Lists and Rankings Source: The American Lawyer Am Law 100 (2003) Largest U.S. based law firms (by revenue). Note: This is a web-based version of the material. Additional content in the print version of the publication. Ranking ||| Background And Additional Charts (bottom of page) ||| Research Methods -- Documents in the News Space Shuttle Columbia--Investigation Full-Text Document, Personal exchange between Mission Control and Columbia Crew The release (under FOIA) of this document has been covered in the news today. Steve Stich of Mission Control informally notified Astronauts Rick Husband and Willie McCool of the debris strike during ascent. See Also: Additional NASA Space Shuttle Columbia Records Released Under FOIA
Database Trials This Month Only: Ovid is Offering a Free "Test Drive" to IMS New Product Focus The trial is the July, 2003 offering in Ovid's Resource of the Month Program. Description: New Product Focus monitors the launches of new, branded and generic pharmaceuticals worldwide. Thousands of products can be identified by manufacturer, date and country of launch, composition, indication, dosage, packaging and price at first launch. With coverage back to 1982 users can obtain the most comprehensive historical picture of product launch and competitor activity available.
Briefly Clustering Software Carrot2 Those of you with an interest in results clustering and software development skills (or know someone who fits this description) might want to check out Carrot2. It's recently released open source software. From the site, Carrot2 is a research framework for experimenting with automated querying of various data sources (such as search engines), processing search results and their visualization...Carrot2 was primarily built with search results clustering in mind, but it can be easily configured to do other, interesting things.
Professional Reading Shelf (5 Items) OCLC Presentations and Reports from the OCLC May, 2003 Members Council Meeting You can also a webcast of the presentations. Presentation Slides: * President’s Report Kristin Senecal, President, Members Council * The Local Library Environment in the Context of the State Jay Starratt, Dean of Library and Information Services, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville * Library Access Cooperative: Business Plan Chip Nilges, OCLC Director, WorldCat Services Ericka McDonald, OCLC Manager, Library Access Services * OCLC President’s Report Jay Jordan, President and CEO * Chair's Report Bill Crowe, Chair, OCLC Board of Trustees -- Scholarly Information Source: The Scientist Full-Text, "Open-access publishing finds official favor" From the article, UK government backing for open-access publishing while proponents move to promote it more widely. -- Scholarly Information Source: Online "Open Access and the Case for Public Good: The Scientists' Perspective" From Michelle Romero's article, Who should have control over access to scientific knowledge? Who will determine the shape of the future?" In his keynote speech to the International Symposium on Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science, held March 10-11, 2003, in Paris, France, David Dickson from Science and Development Network was referring to the impact of science communication on public policy. But his questions summed up the entire 2-day symposium, which focused on the flow of scientific information between its creators and users and the threats posed to it by legal, commercial, and technical pressures. "Focused," however, may not be quite the right word. -- Information Architecture Source: Online Personas: Setting the Stage for Building Usable Information Sites -- Archives and Repositories--United Kingdom Source: Historical Manuscripts Commission Full-Text, Accessions to Repositories 2002 In its annual 'Accessions to Repositories' survey the Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC) collects information from over two hundred record repositories throughout the British Isles about manuscript accessions received in the previous twelve months. x |
