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Sunday, August 31, 2003
Text Mining Source: UPI "Software can detect text inconsistencies" From the article, Scottish researchers have developed software based on Internet search engines that could help investigators rifle quickly through complex documents involving such controversial issues as nuclear power, genetically modified organisms, airplane disasters, health care policy and weapons of mass destruction. "These documents are often so long and complex that my techniques are intended to help identify or sketch the arguments that they contain, in a way that makes it easy to identify omissions or contradictions," lead researcher Chris Johnson, a computer scientist at the University of Glasgow, told United Press International. See Also: "Graphs test official reports" (via Nature) See Also: The Homepage of Lead Researcher Chris Johnson
Translation Tools UPDATED, The Translation Wizard from FaganFinder (Beta) About 3 weeks ago ResourceShelf featured The Translation Wizard from FaganFinder as a Resource of the Week. Make sure to read the post for a complete overview. Since we posted news of the Wizard, its creator and developer Michael Fagan has added several new features to make it even more useful. Here's a list of 'what's new'. 1) The ability to save your options (using a cookie) 2) A new language identification page 3) A "Translate Wizard" Bookmarket 4) A ''translate this page' Tool For Webmasters 5) Other Changes and Additions Saturday, August 30, 2003
The Library of Congress Source: AP "Library of Congress Is Bursting at Seams" From the article, If the Smithsonian Institution is America's attic, then the Library of Congress is the basement. And like so many other cellars around the country, there's stuff everywhere. Librarians must maneuver around books stacked on the floor because there's no room on shelves. The space problem began 200 years ago and has only worsened as the library accumulated 127 million items, with 10,000 more coming in every working day. Most of the books are in the Madison Building, which is among Washington's biggest but can't come close to meeting the needs of the world's largest library collection... "People think that everything goes on to the Internet these days, but the amount of print material is increasing by 7 percent a year," Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said. The article mentions LC storage facilities in Ft. Meade, MD. and Culpepper, VA. See Also: Learn More About the Ft. Meade Storage Facility See Also: A Report About the Cataloging Arrearage at LC
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents National Football League--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes NFL Team Valuations, 2003 See Also: Related Articles and Charts Friday, August 29, 2003
Reference Tools--Dictionaries Jacso Unveils Tool To Search Multiple Dictionaries Simultaneously Peter Jacso, the legendary reference resource guru, writer, and educator has announced a new addition to his list of PolySearch tools. The new resource, PolySearch General English Dictionaries, allows the user to select up to 20 web-based English language dictionaries (if Peter selects them you know they're of the highest quality), and then simultaneously run simple searches. Browser windows will then open (how many windows is determined by how many dictionaries you select) with results. To access PolySearch Dictionaries: 1) Go to http://www2.hawaii.edu/~jacso/extra/poly-page.html 2) Click the Peter's PolySearch Button 3) Click the General English Language Dictionaries Button 4) Select the Dictionaries You Want to Search, Enter Your Term, Click Search 5) Make Sure to Take a Look at PolySearch Bio (Biographical Databases) and PolySearch Energy.
Professional Reading Shelf Scholarly Communication Source: ACRL Now Online, Principles and Strategies for the Reform of Scholarly Communication The document, which was prepared by the ACRL Scholarly Communications Committee and approved by the ACRL Board at the ALA annual conference in Toronto, is the foundation statement for the ACRL scholarly communications initiative. The document contains a brief definition of the existing system of scholarly communication, an overview of the scholarly communication crisis, and an enumeration of general principles and specific strategies that ACRL supports in working for reform of the system of scholarly communication.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Source: CIA/National Intelligence Officer for Economics and Global Issues New, Full-Text Report, SARS: Down But Still a Threat -- Education--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New Report, School Enrollment: 2000 Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text Thursday, August 28, 2003
Resources of the Week Three items for you this week. 1) Higher Education--United States--Database Source: Council for Higher Education Accreditation CHEA Institutional Database The database lists approximately 6,500 institutions that are accredited by participating or recognized organizations of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) or are recognized by the United States Department of Education (USDE) as of 2000-2001. Each accrediting organization's list of institutions is prefaced by a brief description of the accredited status of the institutions on the list and the year for which the list is accurate. Search by name, state, or accrediting organization. -- Military--Database Air University Library's Index to Military Periodicals "The Air University Library's Index to Military Periodicals is a subject index to significant articles, news items, and editorials from English language military and aeronautical periodicals. The Index contains citations since 1990 and is updated quarterly as the hard copy version of the AULIMP is released." This is not a full-text database, only bibliographic citations. See Also: The Dudley Knox Library at the Naval Postgraduate School offers a very impressive collection of direct links that can save you time finding answers to many military related "ready reference" questions. Make sure to check out other pages in the Knox Library "Resources By Topic" Directory. -- Ready Reference Source: USNO Sunrise/Sunset+ Calculation Database Compute times by filling out a simple form. Worldwide in scope. Two databases to choose from A) Complete Sun and Moon Data for One Day B) Construct Table for Any Year (Past, Present, Future)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Internet Statistics--United States Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Just Released, Internet Use by Region in the United States See Also: Data Files (xls) are Available -- Transportation--United States--Statistics Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics New Edition Now Online, Full-Text, National Transportation Statistics 2002 Material in pdf, html, and xls formats. -- Armed Conflicts Source: Center for International Development and Conflict Management/Univ. of Maryland Full-Text Report, Peace and Conflict 2003: A Global Survey of Armed Conflicts, Self-Determination Movements, and Democracy From the site, Peace and Conflict 2003 is the second edition in the Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research (INSCR) Program's biennial global report series. This full-color, 72-page global report details major trends in armed conflict, self-determination movements, and democracy through the contemporary era, 1946-2002, and provides a "conflict ledger" assessing each country's "peace-building capacity" in 2003. Appendix offers numerous tables with ready reference value. Thanks to the Univ. of Michigan Doc Center for the alert. -- Astronomy Hubble Space Telescope Images of Mars (Taken 8/27/03)
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Professional Development Learn About the Dynix Institute Web Seminar Series Free access to web-based seminars (archived too!) from industry leaders and educators. I was not asked to register or provide any personal info to view an archived program. ManagingInformation.Com with information about a few additional speakers not listed on the homepage. -- Academic Libraries Source: Ubiquity Full-Text Article, "Redefining the Role of the Library" An interview with Chuck Henry. Mr. Henry is Vice President and CIO at Rice University, and also University Librarian, in charge of academic technology, university library and digital library initiatives.
Copyright Scanning Software Source: AP "RIAA discloses methods used to track music downloaders" From the article, The US recording industry yesterday provided its most detailed glimpse to date into some of the detective-style techniques it has employed as part of its secretive campaign to cripple music piracy over the internet...For example, the industry disclosed its use of a library of digital fingerprints, called "hashes", that it said can uniquely identify MP3 music files that had been traded on the Napster service as far back as May 2000. Examining hashes is commonly used by the FBI and other computer investigators in cases of cracking. By comparing the fingerprints of music files on a person's computer against its library, the RIAA believes it can determine in some cases whether someone recorded a song from a legally purchased CD or downloaded it from someone else over the Internet. See Also: Lean About Ranger From the EPIC site, The RIAA will be using scanning software such as Ranger to find the illegally shared files on P2P networks.
Briefly Web Domains...Overview of kids.us Policies & Procedures Available The domain "launches" on September 4, 2003. -- Dialog Enhances "Company Profiles" Product -- Cold North Wind Announces Plans To Digitize 110-Year Archive Of Afro-American Newspapers Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Quote of the Week Another one for your, "what many people think about libraries/librarians" file. From an AP article about the decline of pay phones, "We used to find answers to simple questions by hand, predominantly in the library; now we turn to an Internet search engine. We have become accustomed to reshaping ourselves and quickly embracing the next generation of cultural clapboard." Why isn't the library community drilling it into the heads of journalists, aka information gatekeepers, that libraries and more importantly librarians are useful, relevant, and important in the age of web search?
Computers Business Week via CRM Daily "The Ghost in Your Machine" From the article, The world of smart computers -- machines that would be familiar with your habits and know when you're stressed or fatigued -- could be only a few years away. The computers would note your mental logic for saving information and follow the same logic in saving files. They would accurately infer your intent, remember past experiences (for instance, that you tend to make errors in multiplication), and alert you to mistakes. Chris Forsythe of Sandia National Labs is interviewed by a Business Week reporter about smart computing. A couple of questions deal specifically with info retrieval. Q: How are cognitive machines better than the search engines and functions we currently use? A: The technologies available today are inadequate. There are a lot of days when I can't find a file and I just give up. The search engines today -- such as Google -- offer very generic, word-based searches. They have no understanding of the structure of your life. In contrast, our software develops a model based on what you know about your own work. It structures the knowledge on the computer in the same way you structure it in your brain. Q: What kinds of data would the program need to look at to do that? A: Your archived files. The software you use, how you use it. For instance, in e-mail, it's going to look at how you use the actual software -- do you frequently forward e-mails, do you blind-copy people? It's going to look at who you interact with. Then, it's going to look at the content, the body of the e-mail. [You can tell] a great deal [about] what a person knows in the words that they use. Q: When do you expect the product to be commercialized? A: We could see some capabilities that could go into product development within the next year -- such as the ability for the computer to sift through your e-mail application. But I think most of the capabilities I talked about are going to be commonplace 10 years from now. The technology is already there. But it will take time to put this kind of application into automobiles, for example -- simply because they have to be tested and proven.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Digital Reference--Bibliography Updated, Bernie Sloan's Digital Reference Services Bibliography Over 80 new entries! The bib now has over 600 entries. -- Information Science Source: Emerald THIS WEEK ONLY: Free Full-Text Access to the Journal of Documentation Access is via Emerald's Journal of the Week program. Free full-text access is available for Vol. 53 (1997) -Vol. 59. No. 4 (2003). Restricted access will begin again next Monday.
Web Search--Google Google Responds to a Couple of Recent ResourceShelf Posts and Other Stuff 1) On our recent post about Google size estimates being off, a Google spokesperson tells us what we for the most part already knew, "We looked at your queries and the bottom line is that Google's estimator is an estimate, not an exact number...we're working to making it more accurate." Like I said a few days ago, those of you who use Google page estimates as a way of determining popularity need to be very careful. - 2) On Google's SafeSearch eliminating key U.S. government sites, we learn that Google is 'seeing' what they can do to correct the problem. I think I'll follow-up letting them know that SafeSearch also eliminates useful pages from well-known library directories like the LII and IPL. Very sad because these types of tools are of tremendous value to all researchers. - 3) Earlier today Greg Notess reported about his discovery of Google's "Supplemental Index". ResourceShelf has learned the following about this index from a Google spokesperson: * It's an experimental feature * It augments search results for hard-to-answer queries, by searching a supplemental collection of web pages -- in addition to its main index of 3.3 billion web pages. Results from this index are marked "Supplemental" because they originate from a separate, experimental index that is only used to answer the most obscure and infrequent queries. * I've asked a few follow-up questions to this somewhat cryptic response including: how does Google determine what goes into the supplemental index and what's an obscure query? Stay tuned. * Here are a few searches that show results coming from the supplemental index. Pages are identified as "supplemental" directly next to link for the cached version of the page. * "invade iraq" "student opinion" (Last 3 results) * site:livejournal.com ridiculous ovation
Librarians--Australia Source: The Advertiser (Adelaide, Australia) "Librarians? No, information professionals" A brief article in the mainstream press (always good to see) about the Asia Pacific Special Health and Law Librarians Conference being held in Adelaide. As to the name, librarian, info professional, etc. Call us whatever you want, just call us. Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Web Search--Google Google Ups Total Page Count. Remember AllTheWeb's Announcement Last Week? Last Wednesday ResourceShelf reported that AllTheWeb's was claiming that their database of web pages was the largest publicly available with 3,151,743,117 pages. Well, it only took 6 days and Google raised their total page count to 3,307,998,701 (previously, 3,083,324,652). This same thing happened last year. I guess Database Size Wars, 2003 is underway. (-: I said last week, this is purely a pr/marketing thing and means little to the searcher. Make sure to check our 8/21/03 comments along with a link to Greg Notess's useful breakdown of Google page totals. It will be interesting to see is how much publicity Google gets out of this one in the mainstream press. It's something they do better than just about anyone else in any industry. I saw little to no mention of the Overture/ATW announcement outside of the info industry press...and while we're on the topic of Google's marketing ... --- Web Search--Google Source: USA Today "The search engine that could" Can a week go by without a "isn't Google great" article appearing in a major publication. I think the answer might be no. A couple of comments. * Challenging Google is and will remain as much about the companies public relations ability than anything else. How many companies get this type of publicity week after week? Google doesn't need to advertise, they get it free. Kudos must go to the Google marketing team. However, competent searchers and info pros should be aware of and use other search tools. * Overall, Google "represents 75% of all searches," says Danny Sullivan, editor of the Search Engine Watch online newsletter (searchenginewatch.com). "It's gotten to the point where people think if it's not in Google, it doesn't exist." We've been saying exactly the same thing since ResourceShelf started. What does this say about the marketing libraries and database vendors have done? * Take, for example, Havva Eisenbaum. She Googles people "every day" — friends she went to school with, old boyfriends, new clients, buddies she meets via instant messages. "I don't know what I'd do without it," says Eisenbaum, 25, who works at a Hollywood talent agency and as an SAT tutor. When she books new students, she looks up their parents first. "I want to make sure they're not crazy," she says. "I always find stuff, too." I wonder when the last time Ms. Eisenbaum looked at results from any other engine? They could be even more useful and give her additional material. Maybe using a remotely accessible database from the LA Public Library might be useful. It's just as easy and just as free. However, Ms. Eisenbaum can't use these and other tools, if she doesn't know about them. * I will give a tip of the ResourceShelf cap to the writer of the article for including a few comments about relying on only one source of information. Everett Ward, assistant director of the Salt Lake City library, says the danger in researchers relying so much on Google and online information is that much of it is unsourced and inaccurate. "One of the problems with online searching is trying to understand the credibility and authority of what they're looking at. Google sends you everything. People still come to the library to research, not because they can't find it online, but they're finding too much." In her fifth-grade classroom in Atlanta, Amy Wilson worries that Google "doesn't teach (students) the basic skills they need, because they're getting quicker access in a shorter amount of time. They hardly go to the library or encyclopedia anymore." * Page says he wants people to still frequent libraries, even if it is "a lot easier to go to Google first." What does this mean? Yes, it's easier for most people to go to Google because they know about it. Again, the lack of knowledge about what libraries offer both in their buildings and remotely is not the fault of Google. However, I wonder if Mr. Page is aware of what, for example, anyone with a New York Public Library can access for free from the comfort of their home or office, 24x7x365. This is also the case for all students/faculty associated with just about any university and employees of many companies. Finally, I wonder if Mr. Page is aware of the fact that Google Answers competes with the virtual reference services offered by many libraries?
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Space Shuttle Columbia--Investigation Documents in the News Source: Columbia Accident Investigation Board Full-Text Report, Columbia Accident Investigation Board Vol. 1, August, 2003 Direct to Full-Text (10MB) ||| Download Report by Chapter -- Manufacturing Source: Stanford University Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing How Everyday Things Are Made "If you've ever wondered how things are made - products like candy, cars, airplanes, or bottles...you've come to the right place." Showcases more than 40 different products and manufacturing processes. Requires Macromedia Flash Player. Features more than four hours of manufacturing videos; a high-speed Internet connection is recommended for optimal viewing. Includes a collection of links to online factory tours at a variety of different companies. Ever wonder how they make hot air balloons? -- Canada--History--Audio Digitization Projects--Canada Source: National Library of Canada Virtual Gramophone Adds 870 Complete Recordings Phase 6 of the popular Virtual Gramophone website features of a variety of Canadian recordings from the 1920s and 1930s and an additional 870 complete recordings, in both RealAudio and MP3 formats.
Professional Reading Shelf (5 Items) Electronic Resources Source: CLIR Full-Text Report, Use and Users of Electronic Library Resources: An Overview and Analysis of Recent Research Studies Abstract ||| Direct to Full-Text By Carol Tenopir with the assistance of Brenda Hitchcock and Ashley Pillow. 72 pages. -- University Repositories Source: OCLC University repositories: An extension of the library cooperative A brief article about how OCLC is working to support several university based repository projects. Direct links to homepages for these projects are also provided. -- Digital Libraries Source: OCLC Interview, Herbert Van de Sompel: Developing new protocols to support and connect digital libraries From the interview intro, Herbert Van de Sompel is a digital library research pioneer known for his cutting-edge work in linking technologies and metadata harvesting. -- Digital Libraries Source: NSF Papers from the NSF Post Digital Libraries Futures Workshop The workshop took place in Chatham, MA in June, 2003. Here are the titles of a few of the papers. * "The Digital Library Frontier of Knowledge Generation" by Reagan W. Moore * "Towards Building Digital Library as an Institution of Knowledge" by Hsinchun Chen * "The Future Ain't What It Used To Be" by Jerry Goldman * "Transforming Access to the Spoken Word" by Douglas W. Oard * "Navigating the Distributed World of Community Knowledge" by Bruce R. Schatz * "Personal digital libraries: Creating individual spaces for innovation" by Christine L. Borgman * "Roadblocks" by Herbert Van de Sompel * "End-User Issues Should Have a First Class Status" by Terence R. Smith * "Enabling the Semantic Web for Scientific Research And Collaboration" by Eric Miller * "Creating More Natural Access to Information - New Ways to Interact with Knowledge" by Judith L. Klavans -- Libraries--Internet Filtering ALA President Issues Statement About Best Serving Patrons in Light of CIPA Decision Blake Carver comments on LISNEWS.Com, "Does the ALA need to do More for budgets and worry about Filters Less?" I'll add that ALA needs to do more, much more, in making libraries, librarians, and the services available relevant and needed during a time where so many people think it's all in one place. Doing this will help budgets more than just asking for more money.
Information Industry--LexisNexis FAST Search and Transfer Technology Now Powering LexisNexis TotalSearch From the announcement, LexisNexis and Fast Search & Transfer today announced that LexisNexis has integrated FAST Data Search with its recently launched LexisNexis Total Search. See Also: Last Week ResourceShelf included a post with links to a recent conference presentation about third generation search by FAST CEO, John Lervik. See Also: "LexisNexis Nearing Completion on a New Platform" (7/2003) See Also: FAST Signs Deal with LexisNexis Monday, August 25, 2003
Web Search--Ask Jeeves Jeeves Announces More Smart Search Options SmartSearch allows you to type certain keywords into the search box and instead of just getting links to possible answers, delivers an answer directly to the search results page. About a month ago, ResourceShelf featured a post with a complete list and examples of the Smart Search keywords. Today, the company announced two new SmartSearch options. 1) Weather (Previously in Beta) 2) Direct answers for more than 100 numerical conversions. (e.g. 5 miles in kilometers, speed of light, teaspoons in cup See Also: A Complete List of Smart Search Options from Ask Jeeves
Archives -- BBC Creative Archive Source: BBC News Dyke to open up BBC archive Greg Dyke, BBC's director general, has announced plans to make the corporation's program archives freely available to the public via the Internet. This service will be known as the BBC Creative Archive. No details yet on how far back it will go or when it will be launched. See Also: BBC To Open Its Full Archives Online (via PaidContent.Org)
Digitized Documents Source: The British Library Pages from a Leonardo da Vinci Notebook Can Now Be "Virtually Turned" On the Web From the announcement, "One of the rare notebooks belonging to Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), which show many of his scientific discoveries and designs, has been digitised using the British Library's remarkable new 3D Turning the Pages technology. Internet users can now experience Leonardo's notebook close up from the comfort of their own homes. Twenty-eight pages have been digitised and can now be 'virtually' turned and viewed online on the British Library's website.
Professional Reading Shelf (5 Items) RSS Source: EEVL/RDN Released Today, A Primer on RSS for Publishers and Content Providers From the announcement, EEVL's Primer is aimed at publishers and content providers, with the intention of introducing and explaining the concepts behind RSS and addressing some commonly expressed concerns. It is primarily intended for a non-technical audience who require an overview of RSS to make decisions regarding the possible use of the technology. However, the guidelines also provide recommendations for good practice, case studies on RSS production and links to tools and specifications which provide useful starting points for those tasked with actually producing RSS feeds. The document is also available in Word format. -- Library Consortia Library Consortia Documents Online "...a collection of about 100 Web-accessible primary source documents dealing with the governance and administration of library consortia and cooperatives." Includes bylaws, memoranda of understanding, resource sharing agreements and strategic plans. Thanks to Bernie S., Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for the news tip. -- The British Library Now Available, The British Library 2002-2003 Annual Report -- Digital Libraries Source: Ubiquity Full-Text Article, "Check out the New Library" An interview with Clifford Lynch of the Coalition for Networked Information -- Scholarly Publishing Source: The Scientist "Economics of open access"
Information Industry--EBSCO EBSCOHost Adds Information Science Database From the announcement, Recently released by EBSCO Publishing, the InfoSci-Online database, produced by Idea Group, Inc...InfoSci-Online includes, in PDF format, book chapters, journal articles, case studies and conference proceedings about research, trends, technologies and challenges in the fields of information science, technology and management published by Idea Group, Inc. imprints (Idea Group Publishing, Information Science Publishing, IRM Press and CyberTech Publishing). Updated monthly, the database grows by approximately 1,500 new book chapters, more than 250 journal articles and case studies, and more than 300 conference proceedings papers per year.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Department of Homeland Security--Statistics Source: TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse) New, Full-Text Report, Department of Homeland Security - The First Months Overview ||| Direct to Full-Text -- September 11th--Environment Source: EPA, Office of Inspector General Full-Text Report, EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes, and Areas for Improvement Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text ||| Appendices -- Intelligence Source: CIA Updated, CIA Factbook on Intelligence -- Grandparents--Fast Facts--United States Source: U.S. Census New, Fast Facts About Grandparents in the U.S. Sunday, August 24, 2003
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Election 2004 Source: AScribe Comprehensive Calendar of 2004 Campaign Events Currently a 16 page .pdf. Make sure to check back for updates to the calendar. See Also: ResourceShelf Has Compiled a Page of Direct Links to Calendars from Several Presidential Candidates Saturday, August 23, 2003
World Events--Searchable Database What'sOnWhen.Com I was taking a look at the ResourceShelf archives and was unable to find a complete post about resource called WhatsOnWhen.Com. I did write a brief overview article for SearchDay back in January. Briefly, WhatsOnWhen allows you to search and/or browse information about thousand of "events" from around the world. You can browse by location (featured destinations), or by theme. Themes include adventure, kids and family, and a category called bizarre. A basic search interface is available on the main page along with a link to an advanced interface. WhatsOnWhen also offers business and leisure event guides. I think many of you will find this database not only useful but also fun. Btw, did you know that this coming Wednesday is La Tomatina in Bunyol, Italy?
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Health Information 3 New Topic Pages/Resource Compilations From MEDLINEplus * Benign Tumors * Dentures * Male Breast Cancer -- Bankruptcy--United States--Statistics Source: Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Annual Bankruptcy Statistics A 6 page .pdf report. -- Higher Education--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: U.S. News & World Report America's Best Colleges 2004 Is Now Online Friday, August 22, 2003
Web Search--Vivisimo Enhancements and Upgrades at Vivisimo Word today from the Pittsburgh based "clustering" software company about a few tweaks and enhancements to the very useful "metasearch like" Vivisimo. Saman Haqqi from Vivisimo has shared with ResourceShelf a list of what's new. I'm looking forward to trying these new options out. --- Result Clusters (Located on the Left Side of Results Page) * Show in Clusters * Show in Clusters - This feature lets end users click on a search result and see its context within the hierarchical folders. Showing the context lets users understand how a search result fits within the larger scheme of knowledge relating to the query, and * Easily find similar search results that are placed within the same folders. This enables the user to quickly focus on relevant folders only. -- Viewing Pages (Options located next to each page title) * Full Window - Results now open in full browser window by default. * Frames - This option has many choices now i.e. users can access Google cache, bookmark the page, as well as comfortably browse through the results. -- ResourceShelf has also learned that more announcements from the company are coming very soon. They should include word about updates to Vivisimo’s news, shopping and advanced search pages. On the enterprise side a new release of Vivisimo's clustering software is nearing completion. Thanks to C.A. for the news tip.
Web Search--Yahoo Source: News.Com Yahoo puts Inktomi to the test From the article, Yahoo is expanding tests of search technology from its recent Inktomi acquisition in preparation for a global launch, company representatives said Thursday. Inktomi trials are under way in Australia, Brazil and the United States. Yahoo is only testing Inktomi for its News Search in the United States. The tests make up roughly 2 percent of the search volume in those areas, spokeswoman Diana Lee said. See Also: "Will Yahoo Hold On To AltaVista?"
Specialty Search--Scirus Enter the Scirus Test Zone Scirus, a well-known specialty search (science content) tool from Elsevier and powered by FAST, is offering a demo of what they call an "approximate" search tool. Scirus offers access to science related material from the open web, Elsevier's Science Direct, and other specialized databases. What does "Approximate Search" Do? It allows you to run a search to see if a specific author names, journal titles, or author affiliation are listed in the Scirus database. After you review a list of choices you can then select what's of interest and Scirus will run a focused query on what you've selected. Notes 1) "Approximate Search" is only accessing content from some of the stuctured databases available via Scirus. This means you're not seeing any open web content reflected in the lists of author, journal titles, and affiliations. 2) Remember, "As these tools are at the early stages of development, they may not perform as expected. If you are experiencing problems, please try again later." 3) Professional searchers will see nothing all that new here. "Approximate Search" is simply an interface allowing the searcher to restrict a search to specific indexes from various databases. Presently, most web general web engines (Google, AllTheWeb, etc.) allow you the option to restrict and search using attributes such as title and characters/terms in the url. These attributes are determined by the page author and/or webmaster. The next step (already possible) is allowing technology to determine other attributes and then provide the option to search them. This extra info can also be used to help determine relevancy. Attributes could include author (if it's a news article or scholarly paper), bibliographic information, location, etc. Since metatagging of open web content is a problem (misuse, spam, agreement) perhaps automated attribute detection will help.
Search Results--Filtering Google's SafeSearch Blocks Some Content from the White House The following post is far from shocking. Nevertheless, it's another example of how filters, even from much beloved Google, have problems... ------ The other day, I was having an email chat with Marylaine Block and mentioned a neat web 'gadget' from Harvard Law School that allows you to quickly compare Google results with and without Google's SafeSearch filter activated. This 'gadget' was embedded in a report that Harvard Law released several months ago about SafeSearch. Yesterday, I wanted to see how Google's SafeSearch would handle a couple of basic queries for names of U.S. Presidents. I searched for Bill Clinton and learned that Google’s SafeSearch was blocking the number one and two results. What’s more interesting is that these filtered sites come from Whitehouse.Gov. Hmm. I then ran a search for George W. Bush. SafeSearch blocked the first two results, also from the whitehouse.gov domain. I didn't search for each U.S. President but did give it a go with two additional names. President Zachary Taylor and George Washington also have bio pages from Whitehouse.Gov blocked. Finally, a search for White House with SafeSearch active removes the official White House Homepage (#1 result) and replaces it with a parody site. We've also noticed that SafeSearch blocks the THOMAS site from the Library of Congress and the Student.Gov website. Those of you who give web search presentations might find this resource from Harvard useful to find examples illustrating the weaknesses of a web search filter. See Also: "Empirical Analysis of Google SafeSearch" See Also: The Work of Seth Finkelstein, An Internet Filter Expert Learn About: Marylaine Block's New Book, Net Effects: How Librarians Can Manage the Unintended Consequences of the Internet
Dictionaries Source: USA Today Oxford English Dictionary Adds Internet Terms From the article, In recent years, many newly included words have been drawn from the nexus of technology and human behavior. Thus, the new edition officially blesses "blog" (short for Web log) and "egosurfing" (searching the Internet for references to oneself). But just as human achievement influences language, so does human suffering. Wars in Iraq and Kosovo contributed "human shield" to the online edition of the 20-volume set. The term, mentioned as early as 1893, has become common since Iraqis and Serbs used humans as shields against enemy forces. See Also: "The latest word" (via Sacramento Bee, 8/29/03)
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) National Archives and Records Administration Source: GAO New Report, Records Management: National Archives and Records Administration's Acquisition of Major System Faces Risks See Also: "GAO sees electronic archive problems" (via FCW) -- Digital Government Source: National Science Foundation-Digital Government Program Conference Proceedings from the 2003 dg.o Conference Now Online Numerous papers available. Here is a list of a few that caught my eye. * "Building a Persistent Archive" * "Biodiversity Information Organization using Taxonomy" (BIOT) * "DGRC AskCal: Natural Language Question Answering for Energy Time Series" * "Digital Government and the Internet" by Vin Cerf * "Using Controlled Vocabularies as a Knowledge Base for Natural Resource Managers"
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Migration--United States Source: U.S. Census New, Full-Text Report, Migration of Natives and the Foreign Born: 1995 to 2000 Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Health Insurance--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New, Full-Text Report, Dynamics of Economic Well-Being: Health Insurance 1996-1999 16 pages pdf. Also Released Today, Children With Health Insurance: 2001 Thursday, August 21, 2003
Cool! ResourceShelf Gets A Mention in the NY Times! Very cool! Note: The NYT used our old url (not a problem, it still works). The official address of ResourceShelf is simply www.resourceshelf.com. We're also happy to be sharing the paragraph with Greg, Danny, and Tara. More Mentions...Sreenath Sreenivasan from The Poynter Institute continues to find this site useful. Sreenivasan wrote a full review of ResourceShelf a few months ago.
Resources of the Week (3 Items) 1) Media--Directories Media Post's All Media Directory (U.S) Don't let the simple, fast, painless and free registration turn you off to a potentially valuable resource. The Media Post All Media Directory offers FREE access to a database containing directory information for about "13,000 stations, 8,000 publications, 3,000 sites and networks." Media Post also contains names, numbers, and addresses for thousands of people working in the media industry via the "Media People-Finder" database. The focus of the People-Finder is towards those individuals working in the advertising and sales end of the business. To keyword search all databases (including the People-Finder) use the Knowledge Base search box located at the top of website. You can also begin your search by selecting a media category (radio, television, newspapers, etc.). Then, in most cases, it becomes a simple, point/pull/scroll and click operation. For example, if you need a list of television stations in the Cleveland market, simply click the television link and then scroll to the appropriate market. A list of television stations with telephone numbers, addresses, and urls will appear in a matter of seconds. The magazine category, organized by subject, contains contact and web urls for thousands of publications. This section could prove useful if you�re trying to find business and trade publications. Media Post's All Media Directory can be of use to many types of users. From the person just needing a list of radio stations in a specific market to the media professional needing names and numbers of colleagues around the country. -- 2) Digital Books--Directories Digital Book Index A searchable database (free to use) containing information about more than 72,000 digitized books from over 1800 publishers. More than one third of the titles are available in full-text format at no charge while other titles are fee-based. Registration, also fee, is required to access the database. You will need to give an email address but can make the choice to opt out of any future mailings. The database can be searched by author and title. You can also browse by author, title, subject, and publisher. NetLibrary titles (available at no charge to many of you via your public or academic library) can be browsed using Dewey. Many thanks to D.D. for the tip. See Also: The Online Books Page The OBP was a Resource of the Week in November, 2002. -- Digital Collection of the Week School Books Source: Digital Research Library, University of Pittsburgh 19th Century Textbooks From the site, Examine digital editions of ninety-nine schoolbooks and two surveys of historic schoolbooks by John Nietz, the founder of the Nietz Old Textbook Collection. The online collection contains page images as well as searchable text.
Web Search--Microsoft Source: Reuters Microsoft says investing heavily in Web search From the article, Microsoft Corp. is "investing heavily" in Web search as an important and potentially lucrative market, Christopher Payne, the executive in charge of search, said on Thursday. "On the information side of the house, there's no question that search is the cornerstone of our strategy. We're investing heavily in this space," Payne, a vice president for Microsoft's MSN Internet unit, said at Jupitermedia Corp.'s Search Engine Strategies Conference running this week in San Jose, California...Without giving specifics, Payne said Microsoft's research department is devoting significant resources to the company's search project. "We think there's massive headroom left in this category. There are a lot of searches that can be better," said Payne, who added that search represents great revenue opportunities for Microsoft and its advertisers. If you're interested in reviewing a selection of recently awarded patents awarded to MS in the search space along with a few reports by MS engineers, please visit ResourceShelfPLUS.
Web Search--AllTheWeb Search Engine Size Estimates: AllTheWeb Takes the Top Spot For those of you who like to keep on top of these types of things AllTheWeb is now CLAIMING a larger database than Google. Those of you who have read ResourceShelf know I've been writing about how useful AllTheWeb is for a long time. However, this type of claim by an engine is primarily a pr type of thing. The real question is how useful a search engine is in satisfying your information needs. Also, precisely what comprises that total size number? (Note: See this 3/02 from Search Engine Showdown). In many cases, a smaller but "focused" database can deliver excellent if not better results than a larger one. That said, I'm thrilled to see that ATW continues to develop into a highly useful product. If you've never used ATW, give it a try. I think you'll be impressed. For the advanced searcher, ATW offers several search options not available elsewhere. One More Thing: Web search historians might be interested to note that in June 2002, AlltheWeb claimed the largest index (2,095,568,809 pages). About 6 weeks later (8/8/02), Google returned the volley by increasing the Google total (2,469,940,685 pages). Stay tuned. See Also: Make Sure to See Today's ResourceShelf Post About Page Estimate Issues at Google.
Archives Source: The New York Times "Exclusive! It's Doom for Tabloid Archives!" From the article, It may not be a collection worthy of the Smithsonian, but it is quintessential Americana, the trove of photos, notes and clippings from the spicy, arresting and often downright unbelievable issues of The National Enquirer, Star and other supermarket tabloids. Now those archives, trapped here inside the posh, abandoned former headquarters of the tabloids' publisher, American Media Inc., or A.M.I., are destined for destruction. A.M.I. librarian Kathy Cottay is quoted (photo too!) in the article.
Briefly Always Good to Read, Remotely Accessible Databases (via a Public Library) Get Mention in California Newspaper (via Napa Valley Register) Check to see what your public library offers!
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries Source: CLIR Conference Proceedings: Emerging Visions for Access in the Twenty-first Century Library From the abstract, "Emerging Visions for Access in the Twenty-first Century Library" is the second in a series of international symposiums that are supported by a grant from Documentation Abstracts, Inc. (DAI)." Papers include: "Reaching across Library Boundaries", by Robert S. Martin "The Personal Library: Integrating the Library in the Networking Society, by Jens Thorhauge "Toward Supported "Communities of Interest" in Digital Environments, by Robin Stanton "The Open Access Movement in Scholarly Communication", by Michael Eisen "Lessons in Deep Resource Sharing from the University of California Libraries" by Daniel Greenstein See Also: Direct to Full-Text Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Digital Libraries--Search Engines Source: FAST Search and Transfer FAST CEO Conference Presentation, Digital Libraries: What Should We Expect from Search Engines Earlier this week ResourceShelf ran an item about FAST "collaborating" with a German academic library to promote and develop search software for the academic information market. The post mentioned that FAST's CEO, Dr. John Lervik was presenting a keynote address titled, "Digital Libraries: What Should We Expect From Search Engines", at the European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries taking place this week in Norway. ResourceShelf has been able to obtain a copy of the slides from the presentation and is making them available on our site. The presentation (44 slides) focuses on defining what search engines do and what the third generation engines offer in terms of architecture and relevance. Thanks to P.G. for assisting us in getting a copy of the presentation.
Web Search--Google Source: Reuters Google IPO? Brin Says "Good Chance" From the article, It's something that we debate periodically at board meetings -- not every board meeting -- every other or every third," [Sergey] Brin said at Jupitermedia Corp.'s Search Engine Strategies Conference this week in San Jose...Brin, who is also president, technology, said Google is profitable and added the company right now is not pressed for the cash that initial public offerings generate. "It might be nice to have some degree of currency to do acquisitions and things like that. On the other hand, there are significant management distractions involved in being a public company, so it's always kind of a toss-up," he said. Among the distractions, Google executives have pointed out, are frequent meetings with Wall Street bankers, analysts and other financial industry players, as well as the requirement that a company publicly disclose financial information. -- And Something Else From the Google Beat Google In Some Cases "Site Search" Page Totals Not Even Close OR Blog Content Dominates Google With so much talk about weblogs and their influence at Google I decided to see what eliminating a few weblog sites tha host weblogs would do to page estimate totals if they were removed from the universe of potential documents. In the process I discovered what I think is a Google inconsistency dealing with estimated page totals. Here are examples illustrating a few of the searches I've been running during the past few days. Results show that eliminating one or more domains from a query might not be functioning properly as it relates to page estimates. Are other page total estimate also inaccurate? Do major weblog domains hold a majority amounts of content in the Google database (very likely not the case). Example 1 Search "weapons of mass destruction" Approx 1.1 million hits Now, eliminate results from the blogspot.com domain (-site:blogspot.com) Approx 650,000 hits. Does this mean that nearly one-half of the web pages containing the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" come from weblogs hosted on Blogspot? I doubt it. -- What happens if you eliminate more weblog domains? Search: "weapons of mass destruction" and eliminate the following domains: -site:userland.com -site:weblogs.com -site:blogspot.com -site:livejournal.com -site:journalspace.com -site:greymatter.com Approx 240,000 hits. This would indicate that an overwhelming majority in Google about WMD comes from weblogs. -- Example 2 Search: search engine optimization Approx 800,000 hits Eliminate blogspot.com pages Approx 415,000 hits Does this mean half of the pages in Google discussing SEO come from Blogspot? I doubt it. Finally, search search engine optimization and eliminate the following domains: -site:userland.com -site:weblogs.com -site:blogspot.com -site:livejournal.com -site:journalspace.com -site:greymatter.com Approx 165,000 hits. Bottom Lines: * Regardless of the cause this illustrates (again!) that using page total estimates might be a less than accurate in determining the "popularity" of someone or something. * I've contacted Google about the problem and will report back. See Also: Search Engine Showdown Maintains A List of Google Inconsistencies
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Libraries Source: Emerald THIS WEEK ONLY: FREE Full-Text Access to Library Management Access is via Emerald's Journal of the Week program. Free full-text access is available for Vol. 15 (1994) -Vol. 24 (2003). Citations are also available (free) for Vol. 10 - Vol. 14. Restricted access will begin again next Monday. See Also: NEXT WEEK Emerald Will Offer Free Access to the Journal of Documentation -- Digital Libraries Source: NSF Full-Text Report, "Reference Models for Digital Libraries: Actors and Roles" -- Librarianship The September Issue of Walt Crawford's Cites and Insights is Now Online
Public Libraries Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press So Sad, Minneapolis Public Library Prepares for Hiatus From the article, "Something like this hasn't happened in recent memory," said Public Library Director Kit Hadley. "But it has happened before — such as during the Great Depression." See Also: Seattle Public Library Will Also Go On Hiatus For One Week
Information Industry--OCLC Two Items from the Folks in Dublin, OH 1) Coming Soon: PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) Retrospective Database "...electronic versions of records previously available only in the 62 annually cumulated print editions of the PAIS Bulletin, 1915-1976. The PAIS Archive will be released on FirstSearch in phases, beginning with years 1957-1976 in Spring 2004, with availability of the full file projected for mid-2004." - 2) E-Books from Overdrive Now Come With Full MARC Records
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Passports--United States New Toll-Free Telephone Number For U.S. Passport Information Before this number became available you had to dial a 900 number to speak to someone at the National Passport Information Center. The new number is 1-877-4USA-PPT (1-877-487-2778). More details in the news release. -- Energy--Iraq Source: EIA Updated, Iraq Country Analysis Brief Info about energy sector in Iraq. -- Parole--United States--Statistics Source: BJS Full-Text Report, Probation and Parole in the United States, 2002 Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Web Search Overture Research Launches Web Site The team at Overture Research have launched a new site with background on research projects, publications/tech reports, links to news articles of interest to members of Overture Research, staff bios, and other odds and ends that search geeks might want to review. ResourceShelf will do its best to alert you to new material as its placed on the site. Here are a few things I'm planning on reading asap. * Background and Links About Overture's Concept Discovery Research and other research projects. * Full-Text, "1 Billion Pages = 1 Million Dollars? Mining the Web to Play "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", Overture Research Technical Report OR-2003-009
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Archives--Journal Articles Source: ARL Bimonthly Report "PubMed Central--Three Years Old and Growing Stronger" An article by Edwin Sequeira, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine. From the article, PubMed Central (PMC) is the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) digital archive of medical and life sciences journal articles. It was conceived in the spring of 1999 when Harold Varmus, then director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of which NLM is a part, proposed that NIH create and manage an open archive of research papers in the life sciences. Many of the early exchanges about the proposal within the publishing community made it sound as if revolution was in the air. The reality, however, is that PubMed Central represents evolution not revolution. PMC is here to stay, but it does not spell disaster for academic societies and other publishers.
The Internet Archive The Internet Bookmobile From the Internet Archive Will Visit a Publishing Conference The Internet Archive (also home to The Wayback Machine) is taking the Internet Bookmobile to the Seybold Conference in San Francisco. From the announcement, [The Internet Bookmobile's] immediate mission [is] allowing event attendees to peruse a database of some 100,000 books and perhaps walk away minutes later with a free, bound volume. Titles currently available include "The Wizard of Oz" and a manual of Buddhist ethics from the 4th century BC. However, beyond the fun and satisfaction of getting an instant, personalized copy of "Alice in Wonderland," the minivan [aka bookmobile] represents a global effort to use 21st century technology to help preserve ink-on-paper media, vulnerable tomes at risk of being lost forever. Ashley Rindsberg, "bookmobilist" for the Internet Archive, which created the vehicle in October 2002, said the San Francisco-based nonprofit is working in concert with the Million Book Project at Carnegie Mellon University. "We've (the bookmobile) handed out some 10,000 books throughout the Bay Area," he said. "The bookmobile fits well with the Internet Archive's motto, Universal Access to All Human Knowledge.' Since the group started in 1996, it has amassed a collection of some 10 billion Web pages of "pretty much anything digital," he said. "As long as it has some cultural or historical value or value in knowledge, we'll collect it." See Also: Learn More About the Internet Bookmobile
United States Supreme Court--Audio Digitization Projects Source: The Washington Post Oyez, A Multimedia Archive of U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments, Wins Praise From Washington Post About two weeks ago the the AP ran a story about Oyez (based at Northwestern University). Oyez is in the process of digitizing oral arguments from the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, The Washington Post ran an editorial about the importance and need for such an archive. From the editorial, "...thanks to the creative and technologically innovative work of scholars at Northwestern University, the public has gained entree to a significant aspect of the Supreme Court's workings. Oral arguments for more than 100 cases and some decisions are now available online in MP3 format, thanks to a multimedia archive called the Oyez Project. The complete historical record since 1955 should be ready by 2007, according to project director Jerry Goldman, a political science professor at Northwestern...The online archive will be a boon to historians, lawyers, students and anyone who wants to learn about the most important court in the land. See Also: Direct to AP Article About Oyez See Also: Direct to Oyez Homepage
Briefly New Web Page, National Library of Medicine Offers Suggestions To Assist Authors in Selecting Medical Keywords - Elsevier and American Chemical Society Agree to Link
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Homeland Security Source: Congressional Research Service (via Federation of American Scientists) Full-Text, Homeland Security: Protecting Airliners from Terrorist Missiles This report was last updated on 3/25/03. Make sure to check for updates. The report (same date) is also available on the House.Gov site (via Rep. Chris Shays). Monday, August 18, 2003
Web Search Source: Wall Street Journal "Google Is Most Popular Search Site, But Others Sometimes Do It Better" Kudos to Wall Street Journal writer Lee Gomes on writing an important article that will be seen by millions of people. The article focuses on what ResourceShelf has been writing about since we started, no search engine is perfect, not even Google. A familiarity with other general web engines is crucial, this is especially true for info pros. This article contains a very brief but accurate history of link analysis (you've seen it on ResourceShelf many times) along with a discussion of what Teoma is all about. One final point not mentioned in the article. In many cases using a specialized search tool, allows the user to search a small universe of material and often gives greater utility to the database content. Look at what a interface developed for the Internet Movie Database. The bottom line? A preexisting knowledge of what key resources offer can save you a great deal of time and effort. In other words, the right tool for the job. No different than "knowing" what's in key reference books and how they're indexed prior to using them. See Also: One again, a link to Prof. John Kleinberg's and Colleagues Excellent Article About Web Search From 1999 The concepts employed at IBM's Clever are very similar to what Teoma is all about. See Also: Learn More About Dr. Kleinberg and IBM's CLEVER.
Library of Congress A Symposium at the Library of Congress: "September 11 as History: Collecting Today for Tomorrow" From the announcement, The Library of Congress will mark its first major digital acquisition of September 11, 2001, materials with the addition to its collections of the September 11 Digital Archive (http://911digitalarchive.org). The September 11 Digital Archive is a joint project of the City University of New York Graduate Center’s American Social History Project and George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media—two institutions that have explored digital history for more than a decade. On Sept. 10 the Library of Congress will formally accept the material, which contains more than 130,000 written accounts, e-mails, audio recordings, video clips, photographs, Web sites and other materials that document the attacks on New York City, Washington, D.C., and western Pennsylvania and their aftermath. These items will provide researchers with a major source of information about the attacks. To mark the acquisition of the September 11 Digital Archive, the Library of Congress will host a daylong symposium, "September 11 as History: Collecting Today for Tomorrow." The event, which will take place beginning at 9 a.m. in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium on Sept. 10, will feature commentary by leading U.S. historians, librarians and archivists, including Ronald Walters, University of Maryland, and Michael Kazin, Georgetown University. -- You can find the symposium program, speaker bios, and registration info at: http://www.loc.gov/911symposium. Btw, I'm trying to find out if the symposium will be webcast. Stay tuned.
Web Search--AltaVista AltaVista Releases Search Toolbar AltaVista is joining the toolbar war today as it releases its entry. Along with the fact that a portion AV's database is now being refreshed every 24-48 hours, it's the only web engine to offer truncation (the asterisk *), the only engine to offer a proximity operator (NEAR, 10 words in either direction***), and AltaVista Prisma (search term suggestion tool) the AV toolbar is worthy of your attention. What Does the Toolbar Offer? * Ability to translate complete web pages or individual phrases into 10 languages * Easy access to AV's Multimedia and News databases * Quick lookups for Zip Codes, exchange rates, area codes, and more * Dictionary and calculator * Pop-Up blocker * Highlight search terms * Last search option Users no longer have to click on the Back Button multiple times to see their last search results. With the Last Search button, users can conveniently jump back to their last search. See Also: Complete List of Toolbar Features and Menu Options *** See Also: In addition to the NEAR proximity operator, Greg Notess documents using "within" as an operator.
Digital Libraries FAST Search Transfer and German University Library and to Develop and Promote FAST Technology to Academic Library Market From the article, Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) and the University of Bielefeld represented by the University Library today announced that they have agreed to collaborate in further promoting the development and implementation of search technology for the benefit of the online academic information landscape...One major project driven by Bielefeld University Library is the development of the "Digital Library North Rhine-Westphalia," which offers integrated access to electronic resources recorded in local and remote online library catalogues, as well as to licensed electronic resources such as electronic journals and databases and to document delivery services. This week, FAST CEO John Lervik is set to give a keynote speech at the European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries (ECDL) in Norway. The speech is titled, "Digital Libraries: What Should We Expect from Search Engines". Look for a copy of it on ResourceShelf later this week.
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries Source: Resource and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) New, Full-Text Report, Better Public Libraries From the news release about a new report out of the UK, Better Public Libraries a new report, published today by Resource and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), highlights how innovation and creativity in the design of public libraries is a way to bring libraries into the 21st Century, making them more popular with the public. Libraries enjoy an overwhelmingly positive public profile: over 96% of us believe that they provide a valuable service to local communities. There were 290 million visits to libraries in 2000/01 and councils spent around Ł770 million on library services. Libraries have been quick to adapt to changing technology, with the introduction of free internet access and staff equipped with computer skills across the public library network. Yet problems remain, and over the last ten years outmoded design and in some cases poor location has seen a decline in the use of some public libraries. Since 1992/3 visits to libraries have fallen by 17% and book loans by almost one-quarter. +++ Direct to News Release ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Literature Resources Source: Library Journal Full-Text, "Mapping the Reference Maze" Dan Wyatt looks at several resources (electronic and print) essential for literature research. From the article, The field of literature is vast and complex, encompassing the entire body of writings (poetry, drama, novels, short stories, essays) of a particular people, language, culture, and time. Owing to this enormous complexity, public and college librarians need to determine carefully the focus and scope of their reference collections. Supporting a specialized comparative literature program requires a wide array of research materials; supporting high school and community college students writing term papers on The Scarlet Letter can limit the need to several accessible resources. This article will concentrate primarily on the vast American and British literature reference, with an emphasis on the novel. Other forms, such as poetry and drama, and individual canonical authors like Shakespeare merit more thorough treatment in separate articles. News Release ||| Direct to Full-Text
Digitization Projects--British Library BL Acquires Unique 19th Century Family Album, Content Will Be Digitized From the announcement, A unique and important album of nineteenth-century Indian watercolours has been acquired by the British Library. The paintings show views of Mughal and pre-Mughal monuments in Delhi, many of which no longer survive...Following conservation work the Metcalfe Album is now on display in the John Ritblat Treasures Gallery at the British Library in London, until 1 October 2003. The album will also be digitised and the images will be freely accessible on the Library's Collect Britain website at ww.bl.uk/collectbritain during 2004. Some information and images are already available on the British Library website www.bl.uk/collections/delhibook.html.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Information Technology--Lists & Rankings Source: CIO New, CIO Releases CIO 100, 2003 List See Also: CIO 100 Overview Article -- Labor--United States Source: U.S. Census Labor Day 2003 Fast facts about U.S. labor. -- Documents in the News Population--United States--Statistics New, Full-Text Report, Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001 At yearend 2001 over 5.6 million U.S. adults had ever served time in State or Federal prison Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001 -- Elections--California Source: StateLine.Org Meta Page of California Recall Election Resources -- Australia--History Source: Department of the Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia New, Australia and Refugees, 1901–2002: An Annotated Chronology Based on Official Sources
Web Search--Nutch Source: News.Com More on the Nutch Open-Source Web Search Project More on the open-source engine that ResourceShelf mentioned last week. Sunday, August 17, 2003
Electronic Documents Source: New Scientist Online document search reveals secrets From the article, From the article, Many documents published online may unintentionally reveal sensitive corporate or personal information, according to a US computer researcher. Simon Byers, at AT&T's research laboratory in the US, was able to unearth hidden information from many thousands of Microsoft Word documents posted online using a few freely available software tools and some basic programming techniques. Sophisticated editing programs will often store information in a document file that the end user will not see. Storing recently deleted text can, for example, make editing a more efficient process. But Byers says it could also expose unaware users to significant risks...For example, in 2002 the Washington Post published a version of a letter sent by the Washington sniper in Adobe PDF format. Names and telephone numbers were visibly blacked out, but still found embedded in the file. However, Byers's new research reveals how widespread such problems could be. Btw, this is an issue for many document formats. It has nothing to do with the document being available on the web. A document you receive via email, on a shared hard drive, could contain the same data. MS Word revision logs and their ability to be viewed by any person having access to the documents have been in the news during the past few months. (UPDATED 8/18) BBC News Published an Article Today, "The hidden dangers of documents" -- See Also: "Tools reveal secret life of documents" (via BBC News) See Also: Report by Dr Glen Rangwala, mentioned in BBC Article, Emphasis on Section C
Web Search--Gigablast Even More New Document Formats Become Searchable from Gigablast It was just the other day (Friday to be precise) that Matt Wells announced he was making PDF content available on Gigablast. Well it seems might has also decided to add even more formats to Gigablast. Now, you can not only access pdf material but, PostScript (.ps), PowerPoint (.ppt), Excel SpreadSheet (.xls) and Microsoft Word (.doc) content is also available. To limit to any of these formats use the syntax, type:. For example, to limit to only Word documents enter type:doc.
Professional Reading Shelf Internet Filtering Source: NTIA New, "Children's Internet Protection Act: Report on the Effectiveness of Internet Protection Measures and Safety Policies" "...evaluating the effectiveness of technology protection measures and safety policies used by educational institutions. The Act requested NTIA to evaluate whether the currently available Internet blocking or filtering technology protection measures and Internet safety policies adequately address the needs of educational institutions." Thanks to Seth F. for the news tip. Saturday, August 16, 2003
Libraries Source: The Herald-Sun (Durham, NC) "Two tons of comic books donated to UNC's Wilson Library" From the article, Comic books are back in a big way, if they were ever gone, at the University of North Carolina's Rare Book Collection in Wilson Library. On July 16, the library received some 26,000 comics weighing more than two tons from local alumnus Dan Breen. The library has built a strong pop culture contingent over time. "But I've been concerned for a number of years that the one literary format we've been missing is comic books," said Charles McNamara, curator of the Rare Book Collection. "For quite a few years I've been hoping someone would come forward with a gift, and when Mr. Breen did I was quite excited."
Digitization Projects Source: Lincoln Journal Star Diaries of Lewis and Clark Will Be Digitized From the article, The expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark took three years to traverse the American continent, from the populated states in the East to the shore of the Pacific Ocean and back. Two centuries later, Gary Dunham expects it will take that long again to put the definitive copy of their journals online. But neither effort could succeed without support. Lewis and Clark had the backing of President Thomas Jefferson. The current project just secured a grant of more than $222,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dunham, editor in chief of the University of Nebraska Press, said the grant was announced Wednesday. The money will make it possible to put the complete text of those journals -- almost 5,000 pages -- online. Dunham said the text will be the same as in the print version of the journals edited by Gary Moulton, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty member and nationally known Lewis and Clark scholar. But the online version will be fully searchable and include links throughout to text, audio and visual material.
e-Books MuseGlobal Powers New German Language e-Books Portal From the announcement, MuseGlobal and Kreutzfeldt Electronic Publishing from Hamburg, Germany have announced "Deutsches eBook-Portal", the first website serving as a point of access to more than 2000 e-books in the German language. Visitors to the portal at www.ebookportal.de can simultaneously search the databases of six large e-book shops. To purchase an e-book, the MuseSearch(tm) software links the buyer to the corresponding page of the shop selling the title. MuseGlobal is a provider of federated search technology and is a sponsor of ResourceShelf. Friday, August 15, 2003
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Topics in the News-Northeast Power Outage Source: North American Electric Reliability Council New, Examples Of Major Bulk Electric System Power Outages A just released two page table. See Also: System Disturbance Reports (Notable Outages 1996-2001) -- Topics in the News-Northeast Power Outage--Glossary Source: North American Electric Reliability Council Glossary of Terms: Interconnected Electric Systems -- Electric Utilities--United States Source: Congressional Research Service Full-Text, Electricity: The Road Toward Restructuring -- Education--United States--Statistics Source: NCES New Edition Online: Digest of Education Statistics, 2002
Web Search--Gigablast Gigablast Now Crawling, Indexing, Providing Access to PDF Material Web search engine Gigablast's developer and creator Matt Wells reports that his engine is now making .pdf content available. You can limit your search to pdf by using the syntax, type:pdf. You're also able to limit to text based documents using type:text. Material in other formats will be added to the database in the future.
Web Search--AltaVista Source: PC World "Will Yahoo Hold On To AltaVista?" Great to see a Yahoo official saying that AV's search power will likely remain available. From the article, "We believe that the AltaVista brand is still very strong, and has come to attract a particular type of user, and it is entirely possible that we may keep the AltaVista site to serve a particular niche of users," Phu Hoang, Yahoo's senior vice president for engineering, told IDG News Service. "I think that there may be opportunity for us to try (on AltaVista) new search features and new capabilities that are a little bit on the edge, that we are not yet ready to show up in the mainstream." Sources tell ResourceShelf that by the end of the year the "best of" AltaVista search technology and the "best of" AllTheWeb search technology will be merged into a single platform. If this happens and the technology works well it will likely be one powerful product for for advanced web searchers. --- Fred Bullock from Overture Search (AltaVista, AllTheWeb) shared a comment with ResourceShelf about the article. He's allowing me to post them. Bullock writes, Phu Hoang's comment about AltaVista (and AllTheWeb) users is correct. They are more experienced and more demanding compared with portal users. They have vastly different expectations about searching, for example they have a low tolerance for graphical based advertising and prefer a highly streamlined user interface. I anticipate that AltaVista's unique search features will be very valuable to Yahoo! including News search, Multimedia search (AltaVista has the best multimedia search product bar none), Babel Fish translation, Prisma assisted search tool and Shortcuts. AllTheWeb's index crawling and building technology will also be valuable to Yahoo! as well as AltaVista's knowledge of managing a search specific destination site.
U.S. Census--Databases Source: U.S. Census Improvements Coming to American FactFinder Database Visit the page to review what layout and other changes are scheduled go live on September 6th. Thursday, August 14, 2003
Resources of the Week Three specialized databases this week. ---- Pharmaceuticals--United States Source: Drugs.Com 1) Drug Image Search From the site, "Use this facility to see what a particular tablet or capsule looks like. Enter drug or brand name or first few letters." Drugs.Com is home to several other specialized databases including a interactions checker and pill identifier. You can see all of the tools on the Advanced Search page. Before searching you'll need to read the disclaimers. Drugs.Com is HON Code certified. Data on the site comes from Micromedex and Multum. --- Pharmaceutical Companies--United States--Directory Source: FDA Drug Firm Annual Registration Status/Drug Registration Query You can use this database to find basic directory information for drug manufacturers registered in the U.S. More about the database here. - ...and now for something completely different... - Hurricanes-Mapping--Database Source: NOAA Historical Hurricane Tracks From the site, The Historical Hurricane Tracks tool is an interactive mapping application that allows you to easily search and display 150 years of Atlantic Basin tropical cyclone data. A "Storms Report" and a "Costal Population" database are also listed on the page. The Storms Report dbase contains info on events from 1958 to 2001.
Country Information Source: CIA The 2003 Edition of the CIA World Factbook is Now Online From the announcement, "New items in The World Factbook 2003 include seven additional data entries, “Rank Order” pages that contain presorted downloadable data, Frequently Asked Questions—and answers—and an updated Guide to Country Profiles. In the ‘People’ category, Median Age has been added; and in the Economy category, entries are available for oil production, oil consumption, oil exports and imports, proved oil reserves, and natural gas proved reserves. The “Rank Order” pages enable Web site visitors to select and view data from among 34 data fields in the Geography, People, Economy, Communications, Transportation, and Military categories. Most of the information is rank ordered from highest-to-lowest for all countries where data is available. Individual pages can be readily viewed, and instructions are provided for downloading and saving the data into a database or spreadsheet."
Librarians--Stereotypes Source: Network World For Your Librarian Stereotype File Check out a very brief passage from a recent issue of a popular IT magazine, "Users are to network administrators as patrons are to librarians - our job would be much easier if they'd just go away and we could put everything where it belonged and keep it there. Unfortunately, if they did go away so would our jobs." To the author: Sorry but library materials (print, electronic, etc.) are for patrons to use. Librarianship is not (or should not) be about things sitting quietly on shelves just so they can be neat and orderly.
Web Search--Daypop Daypop Now Searching Over 50,000 Blogs Dan Chan, Daypop's developer and sole proprietor, reports that you can now use his engine to search over 50,000 weblogs. He's also added an option to search weblog RSS posts in the pull-down menu. See Also: Speaking of RSS, Peter Scott has updated his comprehensive list of RSS readers. Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Entrepreneurship--Statistics Source: Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation/Babson University Released Today, Full-Text Report, “Global Entrepreneurship Monitor” "...annual study of entrepreneurship conducted by Babson College and funded by the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City." Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text Report -- Educational Resources Smithsonian Education From URLwire, "At Smithsonian Education, you'll find great teaching materials, links to hundreds of web-based resources, and online access to everything the world's largest museum system offers. The website is a collective effort by staff of the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies" -- Education--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New, Full-Text Report, Educational Attainment: 2000 Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Children--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New, Full-Text Report, A Child’s Day: 2000 (Selected Indicators of Child Well-Being) ||| Detailed Tables
Conferences A Couple of Announcements 1) 15th Annual Information Highways Conference & Showcase Announced The conference will take place in Toronto March 22-24, 2004. 2) IS&T Archiving Conference To be held in San Antonio, April 18-21, 2004. From the web site, The Archiving Conference 2004 will include: invited presentations by recognized experts with extensive experience in this field, refereed papers, and a series of tutorials to cover the technical basics of archiving. Special keynote presentations are planned, including ones by Gordon Bell, Microsoft Research on his current MyLifeBits research and Clifford Lynch, Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI). See Also: Learn More About "MyLifeBits" via this PowerPoint Presentation by Gordon Moore
Digital Preservation--Funding Source: Library of Congress Digital Preservation Program Calls for Applications for Funding From the announcement, The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the Library of Congress (NDIIPP) has issued an announcement seeking applications for projects that will advance the nationwide program to collect and preserve digital materials.
Intellectual Freedom Source: IFLA Launch of the IFLA/FAIFE World Report 2003 The IFLA/FAIFE World Report 2003. Intellectual Freedom in the Information Society, Libraries and the Internet will be launched at a press conference this morning. The World Report 2003 has responses from 88 different countries - equivalent to 58% of IFLA member countries - almost double the number of countries represented in the World Report 2001...The World Report 2003 focuses on libraries and the Internet. It discusses the digital divide, filtering and blocking of information, user privacy, financial barriers, intellectual freedom, and codes of ethics. It also considers the adoption and implementation of the IFLA Internet Manifesto and the Glasgow Declaration on Libraries, Information Services and Intellectual Freedom, which express vital principles for a free Internet supported by strong library and information services.
Research Libraries Source: LA Times "Historical library unlocks its attic" A look at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas.
Information Quality Source: SearchDay "Fraud, Scams and Misinformation on the Web" Mary Ellen Bates writes, "Although the web is rife with bogus pages and deceptive "information," it's surprising that even content from typically reliable, authoritative sources can't always be trusted."
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Information The August, 2003 Issue of the DigiCult Newsletter is Now Online
Web Search--Google Source: The Virtual Chase Google and IEEE Make "Arrangement" Can a day go by without a Google story? I'm starting to wonder. Today, Genie Tyburski informs us to a ManagingInformation.Com article about the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) having abstracts from a key bibliographic database crawled by the Google spider. Abstracts are currently available to non-subscribers of the IEEE XPlore only by browsing. Tyburski writes, "The agreement with Google will give non-members simple search access to the database contents. Researchers should begin seeing these results in Google queries during September." Btw, the word "agreement" is not Genie's own. It appears in a quote by the IEEE President. Now a couple of questions (I've asked Google to comment) and thoughts. * Does this arrangement consist of an exchange of money between IEEE and Google? Is this early word of a Google paid inclusion program? * Can any site owner who has material in a database not directly or easily accessible by Google (or any other general web engine) make an arrangement with Google to comprehensively crawl the database? Can anyone make "arrangements" with Google to crawl their site. How does one make an arrangement with Google? * Obviously IEEE is doing this to sell content. Does Google get a piece of articles purchased via these links? -- A Few More Comments for Librarians and Other Information Professionals * If you subscribe to IEEE XPLORE this material is already available to you in a database that's much more powerful than what Google offers in terms of search options. It will give you a great illustration to use in your training of what a specialized interface can offer users. Will the abstracts that Google will from IEEE contain info about the material possibly already being available to the user from a special or academic library? Once again, marketing your services is essential. * What are the chances of a Google search with an average amount of keywords turning up IEEE results in the first few results (what most people look at)? Patrons who don't know what your library offers but who know about Google (-: could be wasting time and spending money when they don't need to. -- Google Responds A spokesperson tells me that he knows of no arrangement with IEEE other than the engineering organization giving Google permission to access the XPLORE database. In other words, no paid inclusion, which according to the spokesperson, is something that Google would never do. Finally, the spokesperson stressed that it's Google's goal to provide access to ALL information, wherever it comes from. A very lofty goal that we've heard before that also brings up many other questions. Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) 2004 U.S. Presidential Election A New Compilation, Direct Links to Calendars and Schedules of 2004 Presidential Candidates -- Elections--California Recall Source: LA Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Candidate Handbook and Resource Guide All of your questions answered. 93 pages .pdf. -- Smoking--Worldwide--Statistics Source: CDC, WHO, and Other Organizations Global Youth Tobacco Survey The site features country reports, fact sheets, and the NEW GYTS Geographic Information System. Some new stats were just released. -- Documents in the News Source: Inspector General/U.S. DOJ Unclassified Executive Summary, A Review of the FBI's Performance in Deterring, Detecting, and Investigating the Espionage Activities of Robert Philip Hanssen
The British Library National Auditing Office (UK) is Studying Remote Services from The British Library The report titled, "The British Library - Providing Services beyond the Reading Rooms", is scheduled for publication in early 2004. From the NAO site, This study looks at the British Library’s effectiveness in providing services to its ‘remote’ users. In doing so it will address three overall questions: * whether the Library’s website is effective in facilitating remote use; * whether the Library has an effective programme for converting material into digital form; * whether the document supply service is meeting the needs of users effectively. The NAO also is inviting the public to comment. Thanks to Managing Information for the news tip.
Web Search--Google Google Launches Calculator/Conversion Option Once again Google is catching-up to AllTheWeb. Google announced today that you can use their search box as a basic calculator/converter. From the Google site, "To use Google's built-in calculator function, simply enter the expression you'd like evaluated in the search box and hit the Enter key or click the Google Search button. The calculator can evaluate mathematical expressions involving basic arithmetic (5+2*2 or 2^20), more complicated math (sine(30 degrees) or e^(i pi)+1), units of measure and conversions (100 miles in kilometers or 160 pounds * 4000 feet in Calories), and physical constants (1 a.u./c or G*mass of earth/radius of earth^2). You can also experiment with other numbering systems, including hexadecimal and binary." AllTheWeb announced their calculator/converter in April and May of this year. Btw, you can also use the Hotbot deskbar as a calculator and converter.
Government Documents--United States Source: U.S. Newswire "The GPO and National Archives Unite In Support of Permanent Online Public Access; Agreement Names GPO a NARA Affiliated Archives" From the announcement, Archivist of the United States John W. Carlin and United States Public Printer Bruce R. James announced today an agreement whereby the Government Printing Office (GPO) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will ensure the documents you see today on GPO Access ( http://www.gpoaccess.gov ), the GPO web site that provides free online public access to more than 250,000 Federal Government titles, will remain available permanently.
Congressional Research Service Source: SearchDay "Gems from the Congressional Research Service" I've written a brief but I hope useful intro to a few places on the open web where you can find CRS material.
Information Industry--Hoover's Business Research "Hoover's Unveils Enhanced Online Service" Since March of this year Hoover's has been a subsidiary of D&B. Free "basic" company profiles remain available. See Also: Much More About Hoover's in this Info Today NewsBreak by Paula Hane. Monday, August 11, 2003
Web Search--Nutch Another New Web Search Project: Nutch Yesterday's ResourceShelf featured a post with an article and a bunch of links about new search technology from IBM called Web Fountain. Make sure to take a look. Today, I was looking at the August, 2003 Business 2.0 and noticed an article about Nutch, an open source engine project with some big name advisers. The article is not available full-text online so I've prepared a brief overview of the Nutch project. The info comes from the Nutch.Org web site. What is Nutch? "Nutch is a nascent effort to implement an open-source web search engine." Why Nutch? "Today's oligopoly could soon be a monopoly, with a single company controlling nearly all web search for its commercial gain. That would not be good for users of the internet." While this is a bit of an overstatement it is nevertheless interesting to see Google's success being viewed as a problem. It's a bit of an overstatement because other quality web engines exist but with all of the attention and press Google receives I think many people consider Google as the only option. If/when another engine (one that we already know about or one that we have yet to hear about) succeeds it will be due to both technology and marketing savvy. As we've said it many times, no one web search tool is perfect, not even Google. Why do some people, including many information professionals, think it is. What does Nutch want to do? Nutch aims to enable anyone to easily and cost-effectively deploy a world-class web search engine. This is a substantial challenge. To succeed, Nutch software must be able to: * fetch several billion pages per month * maintain an index of these pages * search that index up to 1000 times per second * provide very high quality search results * operate at minimal cost Who is Behind Nutch? + Nutch is hosted by the Internet Archive + Some Equipment has been supplied by Overture Research + The Nutch Board of Directors: * Mitch Kapor * Tim O'Reilly * Peter Savich (Overture Research) * Raymie Stata (UCSC) * Doug Cutting See Also: Direct to the Nutch FAQ
Graphics and Photos New Compilation on FirstGov: U.S. Government Graphics and Photos From the site, FirstGov.gov now offers a page of links to photos and graphics from a variety of federal government agencies. Most of these photos and graphics are in the public domain and can be used or reproduced without permission or fee. Check with each website to be sure. You'll find photos of Earth from Space, photos of National Parks, medical and historical photos and illustrations, and much, much more.
Web Search--Kaltix More About Kaltix News.Com has an article about the new "search personalization firm". ResourceShelf first posted the news about this new company almost a month ago.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Terrorism--Databases Source: National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism Terrorism Related Databases From MIPT and Rand (Background) 1) Terrorism Incidents & Significant Dates Database 2) RAND-MIPT Terrorism Incident Database 3) RAND Terrorism Chronology 1968-1997 Database See Also: Background on the Database Project Thanks to P.W. who spotted a post on the Government and Technology weblog. -- Computer Crime Source: Department of the Parliamentary Library, House of Commons, Australia New, Research Note: Computer Crime and Compromised Commerce -- Law Enforcement--United States--Statistics Source: BJS Just Released, Federal Law Enforcement Officers, 2002 This new BJS release provides national data on Federal officers with authority to make arrests and carry firearms as of June 2002, based on a census of Federal agencies. Sunday, August 10, 2003
Web Search--IBM Source: Forbes What Does IBM's "Web Fountain" Have To Do With Web Search? (Beginning at Pargraph #8) Here is something we will be keeping an eye on. In an article about research at IBM we learn the following, "One of the ways IBM has done that is a program called "first of a kind." This happens when researchers meet with a customer to develop a custom product. Sometimes, if the custom product is successful, IBM will replicate the product and sell it to other customers. This is the case with something called Web Fountain, which [Paul] Horn, [IBM's senior vice president of research] Horn refers to as "Google on steroids." The company has high hopes for Web Fountain, which was originally developed for a record company. The technology reads and understands text, and uses natural language to make correlations between words. Unlike traditional search, Web Fountain searches everything on the Web, including chat rooms, when set to that parameter. In the case of the record company, Horn says Web Fountain was a two-week leading indicator of sales. "The buzz in the chat rooms for an upcoming CD indicated what was going to be a hot seller." Alfred Spector, vice president of services and software for IBM Research, says the company will begin selling pieces of this technology later this year. It can be applied not only to basic search but tacked onto call center and e-mail applications. Thanks to M.W. for the news tip. UPDATED 8/11: eWeek's Darryl Taft With Another Article About Web Fountain See Also: An IBM Overview of Web Fountain WebFountain Info From IBM Almaden Research Center See Also: A May, 2003 Fortune article about Web Fountain See Also: Made to Order: IBM makes sense of unstructured data (via IBM Think Research) See Also: "WebFountain: IBM Buzzes the Web for Intelligent Applications" (via EContent) Make Sure to Take A Look at Monday's Post About Another New Web Search Project Called Nutch See Also: ResourceShelfPLUS with a Look at Recent Search Patents Note: Link Analysis, what Google calls PageRank first developed for the web by IBM's Clever Project. Page and Brin used some of these ideas to develop PageRank. Many Clever Project link analysis ideas are now being used by Teoma. Make sure to read this 1999 article about web search by the Clever Project team.
Libraries Source: DW "The Battle for the Books" From the article, "In an age of digital euphoria, will good old-fashioned books become relics of the past? And what will the library of the future look like? Librarians are debating these questions and more at a conference [IFLA] in Berlin." Saturday, August 09, 2003
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Health Information Source: Centers for Disease Control New Edition Available, Health Information for International Travel 2003-2004 (The Yellow Book) From the site, "The Yellow Book is published every two years by CDC as a reference for those who advise international travelers of health risks. The Yellow Book is written primarily for health care providers, although others might find it useful." You can browse the table-of-contents or build a customized report. Friday, August 08, 2003
Information Industry--Reed Elsevier Source: The Independent (UK) "Reed Elsevier, the unsung star of the internet revolution" From the article, The company's ScienceDirect service, which has put the content of its leading journals online, is the powerhouse of the internet strategy. ScienceDirect now has 4.5 million articles on its system, whereas, Reed says, the nearest competitor has just 400,000 articles. Paul Richard, an analyst at Numis, said: "It's a pretty compelling business model. By putting the material on the internet, Reed saves on production and distribution costs. And, for the end-consumer, it's more useful this way." In the legal field, some 60 per cent of revenues are online, and usage of Reed's services here are expected to grow by a fifth this year. In science, an estimated 75 per cent of revenues come from the internet.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Wi-Fi--Database WiFi411 A directory containing info about nearly 9,000 Wi-Fi hotspots located around the world. Search by country, state, city, network. -- Schools, Students, Teachers--United States--Fast Facts Source: U.S. Census New, Fast Facts, "Back to School" A selection of stats about schools, students, and teachers in the U.S. Thursday, August 07, 2003
Resource of the Week The Translation Wizard from FaganFinder (Beta) Many of you already know about the very useful web search tool Michael Fagan has created called FaganFinder. It can make "open web searching" more productive. The "Web Page Information Viewer" on FaganFinder is a tool I use on a regular basis. This week's ROTW is Fagan's just revamped and expanded Translation Wizard now available in beta. I've asked Michael to share a brief intro to the Translation Wizard. Before we get to them a caveat (I'm sure you've heard it before) that online/mechanical translation is far from perfect. Nevertheless, if you need to get the basic idea of what a page is about, need a paragraph or just a couple of words translated, web-based online translation can be useful. Just remember, it's far from perfect. With that out of the way, Fagan's Translation Wizard can make online translation easier and allow you to easily compare translation from different tools. Now, let's get to a few points direct from Translation Wizard developer Michael Fagan about using this resource. * The Translation Wizard includes over two dozen online translators. Many of them are Machine Translators (i.e. full sentence translation). * Enter a word, full sentences, or a URL, select a 'from' language', and 'to' language and press 'translate'. It's that easy to use. * Some translation capability for over 45 languages (and several dialects) from Afrikaans to Yiddish * Change the results to "list all translation matches" to choose multiple translators, select dialects, and see other useful information. * Change the results to "list matches if there are several" so that you can choose which translator to use if there is more than one. * Translation of web pages can handle multiple file formats. SWF (Flash) and PDF are currently supported. * Use the "international keyboard" to type letters with diacritics, or to write using the Cryillic, Greek, Arabic, or Hebrew scripts. Right-to-left languages are supported too. * When translating web pages or full sentences with language pairs that have only dictionaries and not machine translators, each word becomes a link to the translation in a different frame. (Best explained by example: try English to Swahili). * Use the handy <switch> to change from "Russian to German" to "German to Russian" * Each language has an useful information page with links and a search box. Try http://www.faganfinder.com/translate/language.php?show=french you can substitute any language name or ISO code at the end) -- You Might Have Missed Weather Events--United States--Specialized Database Source: National Climatic Data Center Storms Events Database The Storm Events Database contains data from the following sources: * All Weather Events from 1993 - 1995, as entered into Storm Data. (Except 6/93 - 7/93, which is missing) (NO Latitude/Longitude) * All Weather Events from 1996 - Current, as entered into Storm Data. (Including Latitude/Longitude) * Plus additional data from the Storm Prediction Center; Including Tornadoes 1950-1992 Thunderstorm Winds 1955-1992 Hail 1955-1999 Interested in Canadian Climate Data? Make Sure to Check Last Saturday's Post about a new database with some data back to 1840.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Bioethics--Subject Gateways BioethicsWeb: A New Subject Gateway for Bioethics Info and Resources This new gateway is part of the UK based Biome site. Biome, is a "guide to quality Internet resources in the health and life sciences" and is part of the Resource Discovery Network. -- International Relations * Source: Congressional Research Service * Recently Updated CRS Reports (Selected List) * Full-Text, Intelligence Issues for Congress * Full-Text, Iraq: U.S. Military Operations * Full-Text, Iraq: Summary of U.S. Casualties * Full-Text, Saudi Arabia: Current Issues and U.S. Relations * Full-Text, Terrorism and National Security: Issues and Trends -- Health Resources Source: MEDLINEplus Two New Topic Compilations 1) Dietary Supplements 2) Homeless Health Concerns -- -- Consumer Resources New, The Fall 2003 Edition of Consumer Information Catalog is Now Online
Briefly Joint-Use (Public/Academic) Library Scheduled to Open in Florida Note: It was just a last week when ResourceShelf contained an item about the new joint-use library in San Jose, CA. Wednesday, August 06, 2003
News Search--NewsNow More News About News Search: NewsNow Passes 11,000 Source Mark ResourceShelf has been tracking NewsNow for many months. This magnificent web-based news resource offers limited search capabilities but makes browsing by topic asy and fast. In the past day NewsNow announced that they now crawl over 11,000 sources from around the world. That's almost triple the amount of sources that Google News and AV News scour. All NewsNow pages auto-refresh with new content every five minutes.
News Search--Google New Stuff from Google: "News Alerts" News Alerts (BETA) is a new service from Google Labs where the company "experiments" with new services and technology. As I've said many times you've got to hand it to Google for always expanding their services and maintaining a constant presence in the media. When the history of Google is written I think the most interesting chapters will be on how they market themselves. Google's News Alert service is far from revolutionary. Actually, they're playing catch-up. E-Mail news alerts have been available for many years from Yahoo, Marketwatch.Com, The New York Times, and MANY other news organizations. Google's News Alert service is easy to use. Simply enter your keywords and an email address. Advanced syntax allows you to limit to the source (source:), words in the title or headline (intitle:) and OR terms together. You can choose to have alerts delivered immediately or once a day. You'll then be sent a verification email. Click the link and you're up and running. A bit more info is available on the News Alert FAQ including how to cancel an alert. See Also: The RocketInfo Desktop ($30/US) provides searchable access to over 10,000 sources. Google News contains about 4,000 sources. See Also: For a Complete News Alert and Publishing System, Take a look at Nexcerpt (fee-based) ---- ---- And on another Google Note...A new play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland revolves Gary Stock's Googlewhacking craze. You can read a Financial Times review of Googlewhack Adventure at the bottom of this page from the Financial Times. One more thing. Google News has limited content from the Financial Times. I was able to learn about this review and access the full-text using Marketwatch.Com's free alert service.
By The Way In addition to updating ResourceShelf, I'm also the guest editor/writer at SearchDay this week while my friend and co-author Chris Sherman takes a few days off. Please stop by. Monday--8/4--"Searching for Corporate Milestones" Tuesday--8/5--"Behind the Scenes at the Daypop Search Engine, Part Two" Wednesday--8/6--"A Search Haven For Engineers"
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Conferences World Library and Information Congress: IFLA 2003 Annual Conference Taking Place This Week in Berlin Many of the papers being presented are at the conference are already available online. You can virtually browse the exhibits by using the list on this page. -- Librarianship Special Libraries Association Source: Free Pint An Interview With Steve Abram Steve Abram is a Vice President of ProQuest, Chairman of SLA's Branding Taskforce, a great speaker, and a good friend of ResourceShelf. This is another in Annabel Colley's series of interviews with library industry leaders. Interviews with SLA President, Cindy Hill, and Factiva CEO and President, Clare Hart, are also available. -- Internet Resources The August Edition of Roddy MacLeod's Internet Resources Newsletter is Now Online
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Population--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census 1) New, Full-Text Report, Domestic Migration Across Regions, Divisions, and States: 1995 to 2000 2) New, Full-Text Report, State-to-State Migration Flows: 1995 to 2000 3) New, Full-Text Report, Migration and Geographic Mobility in Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan America: 1995 to 2000 4) New, Full-Text Report, Internal Migration of the Older Population: 1995 to 2000 Summary AND Direct Links to Full-Text of All Reports -- Youth Services--Canada New Web Site, Government of Canada Launches New Site With Info About Youth Programs From the site, "...YouthPath - the exclusive source for information about programs and services available for youth at the community level and beyond." -- Documents in the News Traffic Safety Source: American Automobile Association Full-Text Report, Distractions in Everyday Driving News Release ||| Fact Sheet ||| Direct to Full-Text
Citation Analysis Source: ISI 1) U.S. Universities with High Concentrations in Political Science & Public Administration, 1998-2002 2) Science in Belgium, 1998-2002
Briefly U.S. Senate Passes LTSA Legislation, Awaiting Vote in House (via ALA) -- New Search Functionality at Project Muse Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Scholarly Publishing Open Access Source: Washington Post "A Fight for Free Access To Medical Research" The Post takes a look at the Public Library of Science and the open access movement. From the article, Why is it, a growing number of people are asking, that anyone can download medical nonsense from the Web for free, but citizens must pay to see the results of carefully conducted biomedical research that was financed by their taxes? The Public Library of Science aims to change that. The organization, founded by a Nobel Prize-winning biologist and two colleagues, is plotting the overthrow of the system by which scientific results are made known to the world -- a $9 billion publishing juggernaut with subscription charges that range into thousands of dollars per year. See Also: Direct to the Public Library of Science Web Site
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Digital Libraries Source: Ubiquity (An ACM Publication) Full-Text Article, "Welcome to the New Library" An interview with CNI Director, Clifford Lynch -- Conference Papers Papers from the 2003 ACRL Annual Conference Plenty of interesting reading! Here are just a FEW of the titles. Please make sure to review all of them. * "An "All" Electronic Journal Collection in a University Library: Two Years Later " * "Attributes for the Next Generation of Library Directors" * "The Catalog of the Future: Integrating Electronic Resources" * "A Comparison of the Functions and Processes Associated with Identifying, Selecting, Acquiring, and Organizing Paper Books and Electronic Books" * "Effect of the Web on Undergraduate Citation Behavior: Guiding Student Scholarship in a Networked Age" * "Faculty Views of the Transition from Print to Electronic Formats" * "The Library as Place in the Lives of African Americans" * "Online Privacy vs. Enhanced Virtual Reference: What Do Patrons Really Want?" * "Portals, Super Discover Tools, and the New Academic Platform: Ensuring a Collective Research Library Presence on the Web" * "Social Sciences Literature and Electronic Information"
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Insurance Industry Source: Insurance Information Institute Now Available Online, International Insurance Factbook Over 75 "Country Profiles" are available along with rankings and other info. See Also: The III also provides access to the Financial Services Factbook
Libraries--Budget Issues A Review of a Few Recent Stories UCLA... "UCLA Makes Journal Cuts As Shortfall Meets Inflation" University of North Carolina... "Budget cuts starting to show at library" (via Charlotte Observer) Washington..."Sno-Isle libraries to close for week" (via Daily Herald, Everett, WA) Tennessee...State Librarian Threatens to Remove Books (via Library Journal) Michigan......"Fewer Newer Library Books a Possibility" (via Bay City Times) Minneapolis..."Minneapolis to close libraries for nine days" (via AP) Pennsylvania..."Brownfield Library's future concerns many" (via Connellsville Daily Courier) -- AND ON A HAPPIER NOTE: Do you remember the story from a few months ago about the Oakland Public Library asking people to purchase a new book or two for their collection? This story reports that they've received over 500 new titles.
Weblogs Source: Open Junction "Blogs for Libraries" Greg Schwartz offers a list of several "library" blogs (including ResourceShelf) along with comments about using blogs as a personal and library wide publishing system. See Also: LIS Blogsource A new blog about library blogs from Greg Schwartz and Steven Cohen. Monday, August 04, 2003
Web Search--Google Google Launches New Advanced Search Operator Google is online with a new feature that allows your search to include synonyms. To activate this feature simply place a tilde (~) character before the desired term(s). For example, to also include synonyms for the word "directory" in your search, place a ~ before the word. You're also able to combine a synonym query with other terms. For example, if your looking for help with a web browser you might want to find synonyms for the word help and also use the term browser. In some cases a "synonym" might include plurals and other variations of the word. For example, a search for ~library might include libraries and librarians in the results. However, the ~ is not a truncation or wildcard symbol. Like most things involving Google these days the company is tight lipped to divulge any additional details. Marissa Mayer, a Product Manager at Google, tells us that the technology and thesaurus were developed by the company. She said it's similar to what Google has been testing with Google Sets. The tilde opeator ONLY works with the English language web database. It does not work with Google News or Google Groups. One final example, a search (including synonyms) using the words wonderful and party. The result set identifies terms including great, parties, birthday as synonyms. It's going to take some time for all of us to see how useful and accurate this new feature is.
Libraries 1) National Library of Norway Moves Books Prior to Beginning Rennovation (via Aftenposten) -- 2) Downtown Orlando Library Gets $1.5 Interior Makeover (via Orlando Business Journal)
Digital Repositories Source: New York Times "In DSpace, Ideas Are Forever" From the article, "he libraries at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are earnestly bookish (2.6 million volumes and 17,000 journals) but increasingly digital (275 databases and 3,800 electronic journals). And just as e-mail dealt a blow to snail mail, digital archives are retooling scholarly exchange. A number of universities, from the California Institute of Technology to M.I.T., are creating ''institutional repositories'' designed to harness their own intellectual output. M.I.T.'s archive, perhaps the most ambitious, is called DSpace (www.dspace.org)." View Online: Scholarly Communication in a Digital World: A Thought Provoking Symposium To Celebrate the World-Wide Launch of DSpace Several presentations from November, 2002. Available in both Real and Microsoft formats. Presentations by: * Ann Wolpert, Director, MIT Libraries * Hal Abelson, Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, MIT School of Engineering * James Boyle, Professor, Duke University School of Law * Clifford Lynch, Director, Coalition for Networked Information
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Online Databases--Patents Free Access to Ovid's "Database of the Month": IMS Patent Focus From the site, "Using the extensive experience of patent searchers to provide an international service, Patent Focus takes the effort out of pharmaceutical patent evaluation. With over 62,000 patent records included, Patent Focus shows the product patent position for over 1200 drugs on the market and in active R&D. The extensive worldwide coverage enables clients to assess the commercial opportunities of a drug at every stage of its lifecycle." -- Labor--United States--Statistics Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wages, 2001 -- Employment--United States--Database Redesign, U.S. Government Overhauls Federal Jobs Site/Database Learn More About the redesign. -- North Korea Source: House of Commons Library, Australia Full-Text Research Note, A North Korean Nuclear Test?
Professional Reading Shelf Scholarly Publishing Source: ARL Bimonthly Report "The Crisis in Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities" By John M. Unsworth, Associate Professor, Department of English, and Director, Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia.
Web Search--Overture TheStreet.Com Chats With Overture CEO, Ted Meisel From the article, "On the subject of integrating Overture with Yahoo!, Meisel says the biggest challenge will be melding operations in the area of algorithmic search -- that is, search results determined by automated processes rather than the bid-for-placement scheme at the heart of Overture's core business. Yahoo! purchased algorithmic search-engine operator Inktomi earlier this year, while Overture acquired algorithmic search technology from FAST and AltaVista."
Web Search The Right Ads Matched With Appropriate Web Content From the article, "When serving ads for content sites, both Overture and Google employ technology that infers the topic of a page by scanning for words and phrases, searching through a database of tens of thousands of advertisers, then delivering a relevant text ad. In some cases that is not difficult. For instance, on Weather.com's golf forecast page for Norfolk, Va., Google's service — which it calls AdSense — can deliver ads for marketers who had bid to have their ads appear above Google search results whenever users type "Norfolk Virginia golf courses" or some similar phrase...The technology is not yet foolproof. The online edition of The New York Post, which is owned by the News Corporation, ran an article last month about a murder in which the victim's body parts were packed in a suitcase, and Google served up an ad for a luggage dealer." A few weeks ago I mentioned that I've noticed many "out of context" ads with Google ads being served on Amazon.Com pages. They're labeled as "Customers interested in this title may also be interested in". For example, the Amazon page for Tom Wolfe's, Bonfire of the Vanities page contains an ad with info about furniture vanities. This page for a book about celebrity lifestyle includes an ad for carpeting. Sunday, August 03, 2003
Television--Archives Happy 35th Birthday to the Vanderbilt TV News Archive From the birthday announcement, The primary collection contains the evening news programs of ABC, CBS and NBC dating back to Aug. 5, 1968. In addition, the archive has copies of some of CNN's news programs daily from January 1989 to the present. The collection includes comprehensive coverage of ABC's Nightline since September 1988 and selected programs dating back to its inception during the Iran hostage crisis. The archive's first specials were the 1968 Republican and Democratic national conventions. More recent special programs taped by the archive include the extensive news coverage of the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the war in Iraq. See Also: "Vanderbilt Improves Television News Archive" (via Information Today) Paula Hane offers an overview of the TVNA searchable database that went live last October. See Also: Direct to the Vanderbilt TV News Archive See Also: A ResourceShelf posting With Several Other Sources for Archived Television Footage Saturday, August 02, 2003
Weather and Climate--Canada--Database Source: Environment Canada Canada Places Massive Weather Observations Database Online The archive is formally named the National Climate Data and Information Archive. From the announcement, "Environment Canada maintains a collection of over 200 million observations from over 7,000 sites some dating as far back as 1840...The archive consists of a database of hourly weather observations, including temperature, precipitation, air pressure, wind speed, and cloud types, as well as notes on the occurrence of thunderstorms, hail, fog and other types of weather." See Also: Additional Background About the Just Released Database Friday, August 01, 2003
Home Safety--Database Source: National Library of Medicine National Library of Medicine Releases Household Products Database From the announcement, "The National Institutes of Health today unveiled a consumer's guide that provides easy-to-understand information on the potential health effects of more than 2,000 ingredients contained in more than 4,000 common household products...The National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Household Products Database (http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov) provides information in consumer friendly language on many of these substances and their potential health effects. For more technical information users can launch a search for a product or ingredient in TOXNET from the Product Page in the database.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Copyright Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project New Report, Music Downloading, File-sharing and Copyright: A Pew Internet Project Data Memo -- In the News--UK--Investigation into the Death of Dr. David Kelly New, Official Web Site: The Hutton Inquiry From the site, "Investigation Into The Circumstances Surrounding The Death Of Dr David Kelly" -- Legal Industry--United States--Lists and Rankings Source: The American Lawyer Am Law 200 (101-200) Numbers 1-100 and background can be accessed here -- Labor Statistics--United States Source: Monthly Labor Review/BLS July Issue Of MLR Contains Two Full-Text Articles About Changes to the Current Employment Statistics Survey 1) "Recent changes in the national Current Employment Statistics survey" 2) "Recent changes in the State and Metropolitan Area CES survey"
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Dictionaries--Reviews Peter Jacso Reviews the Online Version of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary 11th ed. The August review on Peter's Digital Reference Shelf has been posted. The reference resource guru and library school professor writes, "Excellent value for the price, although it is not always "right on the money." It integrates the dictionary with other Merriam-Webster ready-reference sources — the thesaurus, the Collegiate Encyclopedia and the Spanish-English/English Spanish dictionary — very well and at a very good value." -- Information Access The August Issue of First Monday is Now Online Articles Include: * "Open content and value creation" * "The Augmented Social Network: Building identity and trust into the next-generation Internet" -- Library Organizations Council on Library and Information Resources Names Interim President From the announcement, "The Board of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is pleased to announce the appointment of Richard A. Detweiler as its interim president, effective August 1. Mr. Detweiler served as president and professor of psychology at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, from 1992 through June 2003. Earlier this year he was named a distinguished fellow by CLIR to develop new approaches to enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of liberal education. He has also been involved in other CLIR projects, including serving as co-dean, with Deanna Marcum, of the Frye Leadership Institute since its inception in 2000." x |
