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Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Web Search--Google Google Acquires Kaltix A few months ago ResourceShelf was one of the first sites to report on Kaltix, a company started by Stanford students to "commercialize personal web search technologies." Today, news that the company has been acquired by another company that came out of Stanford, Google. Today's announcement contained no information about how much Google paid for Kaltix or they plan on using the technology. Larry Page said in a news release, "Kaltix is working on a number of compelling search technologies, and Google is the ideal vehicle for the continued development of these advancements." See Also: Additional Background in this 7/13/03 ResourceShelf Post See Also: An August, 2003 News.Com article About Kaltix
PubMed OLDMEDLINE Citations Now Available on PubMed ResourceShelf ran an item a couple of weeks ago that OLDMEDLINE citations would soon become accessible via PubMed. Word today from NLM that this material is now searchable via PubMed. Over 1.5 million citations are available. The citations were originally printed in hardcopy indexes published from 1953 through 1965.
Higher Education--Open Access Source: News.Com MIT's OpenCourseWare Initiative Officially Launches, Complete Access Materials for 500 Classes From the article, "One year after the launch of its pilot program, MIT on Monday night quietly published everything from class syllabuses to lecture videos for 500 courses through its OpenCourseWare initiative, an ambitious project it hopes will spark a Web-based revolution in the way universities share information...The institute doesn't expect to publish materials for its full complement of classes until 2007, when it expects to have between 1,800 and 2,000 offerings. In addition to a syllabus, lecture notes and course videos, institute faculty have published problem sets, past exams and completed student projects. The readings list available for each course could be extremely useful to the researcher. Early word of the OCW project was posted on ResourceShelf in April, 2001. An advanced search page allows content to be limited to 5 fields (Title, Description, Author/Contributor, Keywords) or by course section (e.g. Syllabus, Lecture Notes, Readings, etc.) See Also: Direct to the MIT OpenCourseWare Initiative See Also: Those of you who would like to stay current with the newest materials being added to the OCW will want to sign-up for their monthly newsletter. See Also: BBC Online Report About OCW (9/1/03)
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Internet2--Middleware Source: OCLC Distinguished Seminar Series Seminar: "The Golden Age of Plywood" A seminar presented on September 19, 2003 by Dr. Ken Klingenstein, Director, of the Internet2 Middleware Initiative. From the abstract, "The emergence of middleware infrastructures in higher education, and tools that allow consistent campus implementations to support inter-institutional collaborations. The talk will reference successes to date and identify interesting issues that the progress has uncovered, such as internationalization, managing privacy, accommodating large scale distributed learning communities, and the automation of intuitive concepts." Abstract ||| Download Audio of Presentation (MP3) -- Database Legislation--United States Intellectual Property Source: U.S. House of Representatives Prepared Testimony: “Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act of 2003” The hearing took place last week in DC. * View the Entire Hearing Online * Statement Of Congressman John D. Dingell, Ranking Member Committee On Energy And Commerce * Witness List * David Carson, General Counsel, Copyright Office of the United States * Thomas Donohue, President and Chief Executive Officer, Chamber of Commerce * Keith Kupferschmid, Vice President, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement Software & Information Industry Association on behalf of the Coalition Against Database Piracy * William Wulf, National Academy of Engineering and Vice Chairman
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Weather--Canada Source: Environment Canada New Fast Facts Database of Canadian Weather Rankings Environment Canada online today with a neat little database that provides weather rankings for major cities in Canada. 72 different categories (windiest city, most rainy days, most dry days, most snow days, etc.) View by city or category. Rankings were derived from 30 years of data. Additional info is available in this news release. -- Traffic--United States--Statistics Source: Texas Transportation Institute Released Today, 2003 Urban Mobility Report All Materials ||| Summary ||| Direct Links to Key Charts/Tables ||| Full-Text of Report See Also: Background Article From AP -- Health Insurance--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New, Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2002 Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text Report -- Health Statistics--Russia Source: NCHS New, Full-Text Report, Vital and Health Statistics: Russian Federation and United States, Selected Years 1985-2000 With An Overview of Russian Mortality in the 1990s -- Environmental Education Source: EPA New Web Site for High School Students: High School Environmental Center From the description, A team of EPA environmental educators created the High School Environmental Center to help students find good environmental information--not just on EPA’s Web site, but on other reliable sites as well. The team used guidelines developed by the North American Association for Environmental Education to ensure that the materials included were truly educational.
Briefly (3 Items) H.W. Wilson Will Add 25 Titles to the Index to Legal Periodicals Full Text -- Biology's new online archive (via The Scientist) -- Opera announces strategic licensing agreement with Adobe Monday, September 29, 2003
California State Library Source: The New York Times "Preserving Ephemera of Recall Campaign" From the article, For the 135 candidates running to replace Gov. Gray Davis, $3,500 and 65 signatures got them a spot on the Oct. 7 recall ballot and a place in California history. With just over a week before the election, their campaign bumper stickers, buttons, Web sites and in one case thong underwear are becoming treasured artifacts. Researchers, archivists and historians holed up in museum offices and library basements across the state — people who normally think in terms of years not days — are scurrying to preserve the stuff of this election. Confronted with both an abbreviated timeline and an astonishing number of candidates, the task of collecting what they call the ephemera of the recall is proving daunting. Gary Kurutz, the curator of special collections at the California State Library, has taken to roaming the streets of Sacramento on his lunch breaks to scavenge for campaign memorabilia from rallies and events. Signs once taped to telephone polls or posters strewn on sidewalks are now enshrined in the library's permanent collection.
Information Industry--xrefer xrefer releases xreferplus Version 2.0 This UK based company offering high quality full-text reference content continues rolling along with version 2.0 of it's subscription based xreferplus product. Included in this new release is "Reference Mapper" that allows the user to visualize the relationships of various search results. A public demo of the "Reference Mapper" is available. The company also announced that they've increased the number of titles available via xreferplus by over 80% in 2003. Recent additions include The Bridgeman Art Library Archive, Webster's New World™ Computer Dictionary, Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary and The Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology. xreferplus is a product sold to many libraries and other information centers. I wish they would release a version that would be available to the individual online researcher.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Patents--United States--Databases Documents in Trademark Disputes Can Now Be Accessed Online Today, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) unveiled TTABVue, a system that allows users to view images of documents relating to trademark disputes on the Internet. TTABVue includes images of most documents filed since January 2003. Some earlier records covering the period June 2001 to January 2003 also are available. -- U.S. Department of Defense--Research Projects Source: DARPA Full-Text, DARPA Fact File: A Compendium of DARPA Programs Short summaries of selected DARPA programs, intended as a ready reference for those interested in DARPA’s research portfolio.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Internet Resources The October Issue of Roddy MacLeod's Internet Resources Newsletter is Now Available Included in this month's issue are some positive comments about a web based news tool called Bloglines. -- Libraries Source: The Oracle USF [University of South Florida] assists foreign university's library From the article, While USF is accustomed to the technology of electronic reserves, a detailed online library catalog, the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia is not quite as lucky. They do not have a digital library. No remote access information. No E-Reserve. No organization. Locating a journal in the Ethiopian university's library is close to impossible. That was until a USF student named Hashim Ahmed approached librarian Todd Chavez with an idea. Ahmed wanted to create a system of organizing and cataloging the library system at Addis Ababa University so the students could have the same advantages as USF, Chavez said. Sunday, September 28, 2003
The Internet Archive The UK Central Government Web Archive Now Online The UK Central Government Web Archive is a selective collection of UK Government websites, archived from August 2003, which has been collected by the Internet Archive on behalf of the National Archives of the United Kingdom.... "A recent study suggested that there are currently approximately 2,500 separate UK Government websites. This project is being undertaken as part of the ongoing development of a web archiving strategy by the National Archives. 51 websites have been carefully chosen as a representative sample of the entire UK Government web domain, and have been selected in accordance with criteria designed to reflect the overall functions of government. A number of departments and agencies were then chosen which are representative of each of these functions. This provides a broad cross-section across UK Central Government. The websites are harvested at varying intervals, to provide the flexibility to respond to changing circumstances. Initially, 10 websites are harvested every week, and the remaining 41 are harvested every six months." See Also: UK Central Government Web Archive FAQ
Libraries and Librarians--United States Source: The New York Times "Subversive Reading" From the article, Ashcroft versus the librarians is something else -- one of those spectacles that manage, like book bannings in suburban schools or the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, to glamorize reading and make it seem to be, as it sometimes and in some places actually is, a high-stakes activity. Suddenly, your unprepossessing branch library -- a low-slung 60's building, perhaps, and not in the greatest repair -- looms as an epic battleground of ideas. I love my local library, with its notice board shingled with leaflets for every possible community activity, its shelving carts teeming with random piles of books I'd never discover on my own, even its faithful cadre of old men with rattling coughs reading back issues of Popular Mechanics. I am not used to thinking of it, however, as a place of vivid political drama. Truth be told, it's a bit of a sad case, recently forced, by budget cuts, to close on Fridays. See Also: "Ashcroft Declassifies Some Patriot Act Records" Saturday, September 27, 2003
Cool! ResourceShelf Gets a Mention in Forbes! It's the seventh item listed in the current "Informer" column and has the headline "Did Zach Have an Intern". Here's the August, 2003 ResourceShelf posting that Forbes writes about.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) United States--History Source: Library of Congress New Digital Collection from American Memory, American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920 From the site, "...comprises 253 published narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, and society from about 1750 to 1920. Also included is the thirty-two-volume set of manuscript sources entitled Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, published between 1904 and 1907 after diligent compilation by the distinguished historian and secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society Reuben Gold Thwaites. " -- Business Schools--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes New, Forbes Releases Best Business Schools List
Professional Reading Shelf Professional Organizations--Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals The October Issue of CILIP's Library + Information Update Are Now Online The following articles are available (full-text) at no charge via the web site: 1) Whatever happened to the library schools "John Feather explores the implications of seismic changes over the last 15 years in higher education. Do we need to re-engineer the relationship between LIS departments and the profession?" 2) "A Fanfare for music" "A new report on music services was published in July, and found much to celebrate. But, despite groundbreaking collaborative projects and pockets of excellence, music still has more than its fair share of difficulties..." 3) "A new kind of worker" A look at info literacy projects in the corporate world. 4) Phil Bradley's Internet Q&A The full-text of Phil's monthly column.
Data Mining--U.S. Government Source: Secrecy News (FAS) U.S. Congress "Terminates" Total Information Awareness Project From the article, "In the culmination of a festering public controversy, Congress this week eliminated all funding for the Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) data-mining program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and shut down the DARPA Information Awareness Office..."
Briefly EBSCO Launches New EBSCOhost Services 1) Personalization Options Available With 'My EBSCOhost' 2) Index Browsing Now Available on EBSCOhost Databases Friday, September 26, 2003
Librarians and Libraries Source: Associated Press AP: "Librarians Do Slightly Better Than Google" What a sad headline that we know to be incorrect. In its June issue D-Lib (and linked from ResourceShelf) ran an article about Google Answers (Google's fee-based answering service) as compared to results received with the assistance of a librarian. Results of that study have made it into the mainstream press. Unfortunately, the story focuses on the fact that according to the study, results from Google Answers were about as good as those from a librarians. My point in posting this story is not to argue about the quality of Google Answers service, of web search, or the quality of what was a small exploratory study. That's another matter. I'm posting it because the headline and story are more examples of how the public continues to be fed material that libraries and librarians offer services and have skills no better than what's available from Google or any other web engine. Yes, this AP story is brief as is the original study, but it continues to weaken the value of our profession as it's perceived by the public. What are we, as a profession, doing to change this?
Libraries and Librarians Starts 10/1/03: National Medical Librarians Month This annual event, now in its seventh year is sponsored by the Medical Library Association. This year's theme is "Surf Smart".
Briefly LexisNexis Makes Company Dossier Database Available to Academic Market In other LN news, the company announced they plan to will build a new computing center in Springfield, Ohio -- President Signs Bill Reauthorizing Museum and Library Services Act
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Aviation--History Source: Library Of Congress Just Released, The Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers at the Library of Congress From the site, The online presentation of The Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers at the Library of Congress, comprising about 10,121 library items or approximately 49,084 digital images, documents the lives of Wilbur and Orville Wright and highlights their pioneering work which led to the world's first powered, controlled and sustained flight. Included in the collection are correspondence, diaries and notebooks, scrapbooks, drawings, printed matter, and other documents, as well as the Wrights' collection of glass-plate photographic negatives. Material can be searched or browsed by series. -- Arms Sales--United States Source: Congressional Research Service New, Full-Text Report, Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1995-2002 -- Poverty--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released (2 Reports), Poverty in the United States: 2002 & Income in the United States: 2002 Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text (Poverty) ||| Direct to Full-Text (Income) See Also: Supplemental Measures of Material Well- Being: Expenditures, Consumption, and Poverty: 1998 and 2001 -- Transportation--United States--Statistics Source: BTS Just Released, Full-Text, Transportation Statistics Annual Report 2001 This report provides the most comprehensive overview of U.S. transportation. -- Science and Engineering--United States--Statistics Source: National Science Foundation New, Full-Text, Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2002
News Search--Google An Interview With Krishna Bhahrat, Developer of Google News Yes, Google News is useful and Krishna is one highly intelligent individual and a very nice guy but other news search tools and aggregators exist. I continue to be more than impressed with results from the Rocket News Desktop application. You can try it free for a month. Also, the Rocket News web site another favorite, continues to improve. On a very regular basis I find material using both of these tools that I don't see via Google or other news engines. Also, another favorite news source, NewsNow just passed the 12,000 source mark. That's more than triple the number of sources included in the Google News crawl. Thursday, September 25, 2003
Resources of the Week This week 5 entries that under the broad heading of science. -- Science--Ready Reference Source: PSI Gate (Physical Sciences Information Gateway) Science Timelines Timelines for Astronomy, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Materials, and Physics. It's also possible to view all timelines combined onto a single web page. Timelines can also be searched by keyword and date. -- Meteorology/Weather Source: World Meteorological Organization World Weather Information Service From the site, This pilot web site presents OFFICIAL weather forecasts and climatological information for selected cities supplied by National Meteorological Services (NMSs) worldwide...By 19 September 2003, 997 cities from 153 WMO Members have their climatological data presented in this web site. 87 Members also supply weather forecasts for 824 cities. Direct links to all member websites are also available. See Also: World Weather Forecasts (via Meteorological Service of Canada) -- Astronomy Heavens-Above You specify your location in latitude/longitude (or select your town from the worldwide database), and you get a customized page that shows you what's overhead -- satellites, planets, constellations, comets, solar flares...even the position of the International Space Station. Link contribution and annotation by SDK. -- Seismology Source: National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) NEIC Earthquake Database Search From the site, This data base provides information on earthquakes from 2100 B.C. to the present. The data base contains earthquakes with known magnitude values between 0.1 and 9.9. See Also: List of Significant World-wide Earthquakes:"Magnitudes of Significant Earthquakes" (via USGS) -- Conservation Source: IUCN Species Survival Commission The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Basic and advanced search interfaces available. Keyword searchable. Searches can be focused by region, country and other criteria. See Also: NatureServe Explorer From the site, "...source for authoritative conservation information on more than 50,000 plants, animals, and ecological communities of the United States and Canada."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Telemarketing--United States--Fact Facts Telephones--United States--Fast Facts Source: U.S. Census New, Facts and Stats About Telemarketing and Telephones in the U.S. -- Clinical Trials--United Kingdom Source: NHS New Database, NHS Trusts Clinical Trials Register Current Controlled Trials Ltd is pleased to announce the launch of the NHS Trusts Clinical Trials Register. The NHS Trusts Clinical Trials Register can be accessed via the metaRegister of Controlled Trials. Users need to register in order to have access to the metaRegister, but registration and access is free. -- Digitization Projects--Canada Newspapers--Canada New, Searchable Online Archive: Canadian Newspapers and the Second World War From an announcement, In partnership with the Department of Canadian Heritage's Canadian Culture Online Program, the Canadian War Museum today announced the launch of a fully searchable online archive containing articles from the Hamilton Spectator's clippings morgue. Featuring more than 144,000 articles, Democracy at War: Canadian Newspapers and the Second World War offers Internet surfers an incomparable look at the Second World War through the eyes of newspaper reports published at the time...The Hamilton Spectator originally donated its Second World War archive to the Government of Canada for research purposes in 1952. In 1998, the Department of National Defence transferred the collection to the Canadian War Museum. Along with articles published by the Hamilton Spectator, the archive contains clippings from other Canadian newspapers such as the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Toronto Telegram, Vancouver Sun, Winnipeg Tribune and Ottawa Citizen. It also contains articles from such publications as the Financial Post, Canadian Business and international newspapers such as the New York Times. Digitized clippings are available as pdf files. -- Labor--United States--Statistics Source: BLS New Online: Create Customized Maps (U.S. Unemployment Rates)
Web Search--Gigablast Source: SearchDay An Interview With Gigablast's Developer and Sole Proprietor, Matt Wells Chris Sherman has published an interview I did with Matt on his SearchDay site. See Also: Gigablast Now Supporting the Use of Geo Sensitive Meta Tags See Also: Even More New Document Formats Become Searchable at Gigablast
Internet Search Source: The Wall Street Journal Amazon Gets into the Shopping Search Biz (Full-Text of Article Available to Non-Subscribers) From the article, Amazon.com Inc. has quietly established a beachhead in Silicon Valley to develop its own Web-search technology, a plan that could pit it more directly against Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. in an emerging battle over who controls the major paths to online merchants...A9 says its software will be aimed specifically at online shoppers, NOT users who want to perform general search requests for things such as sports statistics or news. A9 declined to provide many details on how its technology will work, but said it will present products found on Amazon in an "egalitarian" fashion with products found on other Web sites. It's also worth noting (it's not mentioned in the article) that like Google with Google Catalogs, Amazon has been experimenting with optical character recognition (ocr) search technology via its Amazon Restaurants database. This service utilizes ocr to allow the searcher full-text/keyword search access to hundreds of restaurant menus. Wednesday, September 24, 2003
OCLC Dewey Decimal Classification Their Side of the Story: OCLC Posts Announcement Concerning Law Suit Against NY City Hotel From the announcement, "OCLC is disappointed that legal action had to be taken against The Library Hotel. This is an unusual event for OCLC. However, trademark law imposes affirmative obligations on trademark owners to protect their trademarks, or risk losing all rights in those marks through legal abandonment. We felt that abandoning our rights in the Dewey trademarks was an unacceptable result for the OCLC membership. OCLC attempted to avoid litigation by repeatedly requesting attribution of our ownership of the Dewey marks from The Library Hotel. They have refused to do so. Unfortunately, that refusal left us with no other recourse than to file a legal complaint."
Libraries--Grants Institute of Museum and Library Services Announces $13.7 Million in Grants to Advance Leadership & Innovation From the announcement, The Institute of Museum and Library Services, the primary source of federal funds for the nation's museums and libraries, today announced grants in five categories that advance leadership and innovation. Over $13 million ($13,758,471) is awarded to 49 museum and libraries throughout the nation. The recipients will match the awards with an additional $14,384,885. You can find a complete list of grant recipients organized by state or category (library or museum) on this page. See Also: $1.7 Million to Support Library Service in Native American Communities
Public Libraries--Canada Source: Montreal Gazette "Libraries hit hard by budget cuts" From the article...Municipal libraries across the island are feeling the pinch as Quebec retools its funding rules, and librarians don’t mind letting people know who is responsible...Montreal libraries have seen their purchasing power cut by one-third as a result of a new funding formula adopted in 2002 by the former Parti Québécois government.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Education--Statistics Source: NCES Just Launched, International Education Indicators Website From the site, This site provides indicators compiled from NCES international publications and is organized by the following subject areas: Context of Education; Preprimary and Primary Education; Secondary Education; Higher Education; and, Education and the Labor Force. The indicators include comparisons between the United States and other industrialized nations with large economies - particularly those that are viewed as our major economic competitors, for example, the Group of Eight (G8) countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States. NCES will continually update the indicators as new data becomes available. -- World Cultures--Bibliography Source: U.S. Dept. Of State Full-Text: "Cultural Bibliography" Focusing on cross-cultural resources including books and videotapes. 19 pages. See Also: Bibliography of Protocol Resources -- Tourism--United Kingdom Source: House of Commons Library, United Kingdom New, Full-Text Report, Tourism 39 pages pdf. Numerous statistics. -- Taxes--United Kingdom Source: House of Commons Library Full-Text, The Burden of Taxation 34 page (pdf) research report. -- Real Estate--United Kingdom--Webliography Source Free Pint Full-Text: "Real Estate Sources on the Web" -- Government Web Sites--United States Source: Taubman Center for Public Policy/Brown University New Report: State and Federal E-Government in the United States, 2003 Annual analysis of federal and state government web sites. Summary ||| Full-Text ||| PDF
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Libraries The September Issue of CIDL (Canadian Initiative on Digital Libraries News) is Now Online Includes several articles about metadata usage. Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Web Search--Google Google Launches Geographic Location Search Demo Another entry onto the Google Labs page. This new demo allows you enter your search terms and then enter an address, zip code, or city and state to help focus your results. It was two weeks ago when Overture placed a demo online that looked very similar. Unfortunately, Overture has taken the demo offline. A silly thing to do. This is yet another example of how Google wins. Beta tests and demos offer users not only "things" to try but also something to talk about. Having people try, test, and talk is a very effective way of marketing web search. Other companies should be doing this. -- In May Overture/AllTheWeb launched a calculator/converter option. A few weeks ago Google began offering this service. Yes, Google's calculator is a bit more robust. It also doesn't require a special syntax to use it. In other words you can utilize natural language and the answer is posted directly on the results page. Fine. However, this is not all that unique. Ask Jeeves has been offering "Smart Search" for several months. It places answers on results pages not just links. For example, when you search for the winner of the 1972 Academy Award for Best Actor, note the answer at the top of the results page. Heck, AltaVista has offered a similar service (Shortcuts) with direct links to specialized information services for more than 18 months. -- Nevertheless, it's Google that gets all of the press for being so innovative. Unfortunately many people have forgotten that other tools are still vital, useful, and also doing innovative things. -- Finally, Google states in a news release that the location search feature is one of the first of its kind. One of the first maybe but not a new idea in web search. Northern Light offered a geographic search option over three years ago. Here's what that interface looked like and how the company described it. Lasoo was another product that also offered geo searching. Here's a 2001 article about this product from Search Engine Watch. See Also: Learn About MetaCarta's "Geographic Text Search" Technology
Privacy Source: FindLaw Report from U.S. DOD Contractor: Airline Passenger Data (Re: JetBlue) A great deal of press has been given to JetBlue Airlines giving passenger record information to a DOD contractor. The contractor JetBlue gave the data to is named Torch Systems. Here is a link to a report by the contractor about the use of the airline passenger data. Note: The source for this link was the "Featured Documents" section of the well-known and respected FindLaw site.
Web Search-Yahoo Yahoo "Officially" Introduces Shopping Engine This service has been in beta mode since April. The service was called "Product Search" but has been incorporated into Yahoo Shopping. From the article, The technology to search the Web and pull together product information was largely built on the software Yahoo picked up when it acquired Inktomi, [Rob] Solomon [the general manager of Yahoo Shopping] said. Yahoo will also test software for personalized product recommendation that will let users set attributes of a potential product category -- say, digital cameras -- that are most important to them, with Yahoo's technology then deciding which product is the best fit. From the news release, Yahoo! Product Search is a new search engine that utilizes algorithmic search technology to extract results from multiple sources, including: * Yahoo!'s existing database of more than 17,000 merchants and millions of products currently part of the Yahoo! Shopping platform; a new database of merchants and products that have established direct feeds into * Yahoo! Product Search through Yahoo!'s new Product Submit program; and merchants and products identified through advanced crawling capabilities. See Also: Chris Sherman with a Detailed Look at Yahoo Shopping See Also: Dealtime Relaunches as Shopping.com (via SearchDay, 9/22/03) See Also: New Features Added To Froogle (9/8/03) See Also: Kelkoo is a Shopping Search Tool (Similar Look to Yahoo and Froogle) Aimed at a European Audience
OCLC Dewey Decimal Classification Source: The New York Times Where Did Dewey File Those Law Books? More on OCLC suing The Library Hotel in New York City. Even if OCLC wins the case once again libraries and librarians suffer from negative publicity. A real shame when the exact opposite type of marketing and pub is needed and OCLC, being a large library organization, should be leading the charge. IMHO, OCLC should be working with the hotel to promote the role of libraries and librarians as opposed to suing them. UPDATE (9/24) OCLC Posts Their Side of the Story in News Release See Also: Trademark Registration for DDC in USPTO Database (Registation #0755548) See Also: Full-Text of Complaint (Thanks to beSpacific for the link) See Also: Forest Press/OCLC Sue NY City Hotel Over Use of Dewey Decimal Classification (9/21/03)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Government Documents--United States Source: Documents and Law Libraries, University of Illinois StateList: The Electronic Source for State Publication Lists "This site provides links to state publication checklists and shipping lists that are currently available on the Internet from 32 states." Link contributed by SDK. See Also: State Bibliographies From the Government Documents Special Interest Section, American Association of Law Libraries -- Government--Canada Source: Library of Parliament Full-Text, How Canadians Govern Themselves, 5th Edition -- Population--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Full-Text, Moving, Moving, Moving, Geographical Mobility: 1995 to 2000 Summary ||| Full-Text "About 120 million (46 percent) of the nation's population that was 5 years old and over in 2000 lived in a different home than they did in 1995." -- Foundations--United States--Statistics Source: Foundation Center 1) Highlights from the The PRI (program-related investments) Directory (2003 Edition ) Includes a list of the Top 56 largest PRI providers. -- 2) Highlights, Foundation Staffing -- Business--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Working Mother Released Today, The 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers List-2003 Background articles and additional lists available here (Top 10, Best in Class).
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Publishing Source: Professional/Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers Upcoming Event: How Online Usage Statistics Impact your Organization: The Librarian and Publisher Perspective Those of you in and around New York City might be interested in attending this three hour seminar on October 28, 2003. -- Image Searching Metadata Source: Stanford Database Group Research Report, From Where to What: Metadata Sharing for Digital Photographs with Geographic Coordinates From the abstract, We describe LOCALE, a system that allows cooperating information systems to share labels for photographs. Participating photographs are enhanced with a geographic location stamp -- the latitude and longitude where the photograph was taken.
Briefly (2 Items) Major Donation [$1.7 Million] to Enable UC Santa Barbara Libraries to Produce Discography of Victor Records -- Michigan's TLN (The Library Network) Signs With SIRSI (via ManagingInformation.Com) TLN is a consortium of 64 public libraries. Monday, September 22, 2003
Information Industry--Factiva Information Industry--IBM Source: InfoToday NewsBreak More on WebFountain from Factiva and IBM Last Thursday we featured several items about Factiva's announcement that they will use IBM's WebFountain data mining software in a new products. A very interesting move and one to watch. Today, Barbara Quint offers more detail in her IT NewsBreak. BQ asks if WebFountain might be the next big thing. See Also: More From ResourceShelf (9/18/03)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Campaign Disclosure--United States Source: California Voter Foundation, the Center for Governmental Studies and the UCLA School of Law New, Full-Text Report, Grading State Disclosure From the announcement, The Campaign Disclosure Project evaluated four areas of campaign finance disclosure: state campaign disclosure laws, which set the disclosure requirements about what campaign data must be publicly disclosed; electronic filing programs, which enable states to publish accurate, timely and comprehensive data online; the degree to which the public can access campaign finance information; and the usability of state disclosure web sites. -- Information Technology--Lists & Rankings Source: Information Week New, 2003 Information Week 500 "...of the nation's largest and most innovative companies." Numerous background articles and a company comparison tool. See Also: Direct to Complete List ||| Also Available as a PDF -- Contractors--United States--Lists & Rankings Retail--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Retail Traffic Top Retail Contractors "Retail Traffic's 2003 Top Contractors rankings are based on retail square feet built in the past year, and the total amount of space currently under construction." Link contributed by SDK. See also: Top 50 Retail Property Owners 2003 See Also: Top 50 Retail Property Managers 2003 -- Population--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New, County Population Estimates Highlights ||| Highlights (Race and Ethnicity News Release) ||| Tables -- New, Highlights (Growth of School-Age Population by County) -- Hispanics--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Fact Sheet About Hispanics in the U.S. (Hispanic Heritage Month 2003) -- Health -- Tutorials Source: National Cancer Institute Science Behind the News Detailed educational tutorials covering cancer; estrogen receptors, tamoxifen, and raloxifene; gene testing; the immune system; cancer genome anatomy project (CGAP); nanodevices and cancer; single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and cancer.
Banned Books Source: ALA Banned Books Week 2003 Banned Books Week runs through next Saturday. 1) The Most Frequently Challenged Books for 2002 2) The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2001 3) The Most Frequently Challenged Authors of 2002 See Also: Additional BBW Materials From ALA
Citation Analysis--Lists & Rankings Scholarly Publishing Source: ISI • Top 10 Cited Journals (in all fields), 2002 • Norwegian Science, 1998-2002 • Science in Sweden, 1998-2002 • Chemistry: Most-Cited Institutions, 1993-2003
Professional Reading Shelf Source: FreePint Full-Text article, "Tips on Negotiating Licences for Electronic Products" 10 tips from Paul Pedley. Sunday, September 21, 2003
OCLC Dewey Decimal Classification Source: AP Forest Press/OCLC Sue NY City Hotel Over Use of Dewey Decimal Classification We report, you decide. From the article, The Library Hotel, which overlooks the New York Public Library, is divided according to the classification system, with each floor dedicated to one of Dewey's 10 categories. Room 700.003 includes books on the performing arts, for example, while room 800.001 has a collection of erotic literature. In the lawsuit filed last week, lawyers for the Online Computer Library Center said the organization acquired the rights to the system in 1988 when it bought Forest Press, which published Dewey Decimal updates. The center charges libraries that use the system at least $500 per year. See Also: Forest Press Began Publishing DDC in 1911. In 1988 FP became a division of OCLC. UPDATE (9/24) OCLC Posts Their Side of the Story in News Release
Briefly (2 Items( Canadian Business & Current Affairs (CBCA) Database Moving to ProQuest Interface -- National Library of the Netherlands and BioMed Central agree to open access archive Saturday, September 20, 2003
Web Search--Gigablast Gigablast Now Supporting the Use of Geo Sensitive Meta Tags Matt Wells, Gigablast's sole proprietor, is on a tear lately adding new features. This page explains how these meta tags work. Wells also reports that he's planning on to "significantly" improve the Gigablast update cycle and double the size of the index in the next few months. Great news!!!
Web Search--Google Source: ChillingEffects.Org Sharman Networks (KaZaA) File Another DMCA Complaint Report With Google You can read about the first complaint in this article from News.Com
Dissertations--Lists & Rankings ProQuest Publishes List of the Best-Selling Dissertations of 2002 As many of you know, ProQuest (formerly UMI) is the proprietor of Dissertation Abstracts International, the largest database of this type of content in the world with bibliographic information dating as far back as 1861. ProQuest also sells individual copies of dissertations via their Dissertation Express service. They have about one million titles available. ProQuest Information and Learning Best Selling Dissertations of 2002 1. The uncivil war: Irregular warfare in the Upper South, 1861--1865 (Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia) by Mackey, Robert Russell;, PhD TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY, 2000, 468 pages 2. Using culturally relevant literature and discourse to support literacy learning among 'at-risk' English-language learners by Herrero, Elba Alicia;, PhD STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY, 1999, 162 pages 3. The problem of 'world order' when the world is your village versus your globe by Tanner, George Lewis, PhD UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII, 1996, 345 pages 4. Assessing knowledge management initiative successes as a function of organizational culture by Ribiere, Vincent Michel;, DSc THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, 2001, 158 pages 5. The Coos and Coquille: A Northwest Coast historical anthropology (Oregon) by Tveskov, Mark Axel;, PhD UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, 2000, 537 pages 6. An analysis of the political and economic viability of community health centers: Implications for their future by Reynolds, David A. V.;, DrPH UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, 1999, 147 pages 7. Factors affecting retention of customers who are users of computerized applications on the Internet: The case of online banking by Vatanasombut, Banphot;, PhD THE CLAREMONT GRADUATE UNIVERSITY, 2001, 115 pages The relationships between emotional intelligence, personality, critical thinking ability and organizational leadership performance at upper levels of management by Murensky, Catherine Lynn;, PhD GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY, 2000, 152 pages 8. Sharing knowledge through a knowledge management system: The relative effectiveness of formal control and organizational support by Marks, Peter Vincent, Jr.;, PhD UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, 2001, 146 pages An empirical study of factors affecting successful implementation of knowledge management by Choi, Yong Suk;, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA - LINCOLN, 2000, 140 pages 9. A roadmap for successful e-business by Chuang, Ming-Ling;, PhD FLORIDA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, 2001, 159 pages Transformational leadership: A cross-cultural study of the moderating effects of culture on perceived leader behaviors by Sosa-Fey, Josephine;, DBA NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, 2001, 160 pages 10. Management control and the Balanced Scorecard: An empirical test of causal relations by Malina, Mary Ann;, PhD UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER, 2001, 111 pages
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Trademarks Source: WIPO New, Full-Text Document, "Making a Mark: An Introduction to Trademarks for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises" 19 pages .pdf. -- Privacy--Canada Source: Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's (OPC) Just Released, Full-Text, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's (OPC) 2002-2003 Annual Report Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text -- Firearms--United States--Statistics Source: BJS New Report, Background Checks for Firearm Transfer, 2002 Friday, September 19, 2003
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Real Estate--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes/DataQuick New, The Most Expensive ZIP Codes The list is based on median home prices. Uses data from 2002. This article has additional background. -- Wealth--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes The Forbes 400, 2003 23rd annual. The 400 wealthiest citizens of the U.S. -- Business--Lists & Rankings Source: Business Week The e.biz 25 Profiles of 25 e-biz leaders. Eric Schmidt from Google and Terry Semel from Yahoo are on the list.
Web Search--Google Source: Reuters "Microsoft Throwing Its Weight Behind Web Search" Nothing all that new in the article. It discusses what we've read about numerous times, Microsoft is getting "more" into search. No specific dates as to when their new projects will go live. Key quotes, "The decision to build or buy came down to our ability to innovate. Our ability to innovate is predicated on our ability to own the platform," he added, a clear sign that Microsoft thinks it can only beat Google if it owns the technology...Search engines are doing a good job but not a perfect job," said Koenigsbauer, adding most search results today "don't deliver the results people are looking for." --Kirk Koenigsbauer, strategy manager at Microsoft's MSN Internet portal. The article also mentions that Microsoft will continue its relationship with Overture and Inktomi for the "medium-term". See Also: If you would like to take a look at some of Microsoft's search related patents, this page from ResourceShelf Extra contains a list. Thursday, September 18, 2003
Web Resources of the Week Two entries for you this week! WHOIS Databases Source: The Information Advisor Full-Text Article: "Knock, Knock! Whois There...To Help Researchers" Once again ResourceShelf is delighted to provide access (free) to a full-text article from Bob Berkman's highly respected subscription based, Information Advisor newsletter. This article offers several search strategies and offers info about several WHOIS databases. Bob's pick for the best free WHOIS service (for .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, and .us domains) is what we also recommend, www.whois.sc. The article also lists other services that offer info for other domains. Btw, Bob Berkman is also the author of a forthcoming book from Information Today titled, The Skeptical Business Searcher: The Information Advisor's Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites, and Sources. Bob has informed us that if you decide to subscribe to The Information Advisor (access to the article linked above is completely free) between now and October 30th he will also send you a copy of his new book at no extra charge as soon as it's published. Simply add the word "ResourceShelf" to the comments line on the order form. See Also: Two Full-Text Articles from The Information Adviser That ResourceShelf Has Made Available in the Past 1) "Digging for Data on Subsidiaries" 2) "Searching for Company Data" -- Legal Research Legal Pathfinders New Resource, Law Scout Takes to the Web This "just announced" resource is the work of law librarian and law professor, Paul Richert, at the University of Akron Law School. It uses software from the Internet Scout Project's Portal Toolkit. Law Scout provides access (direct links) to pathfinders from law schools and other institutions. New material is being added on a regular basis. More information and a few caveats can be found in the announcement section at the top of the site. Kudos to Paul on a job well done. This site and the materials it provides access to has the potential to save you a great deal of time when doing legal research. See Also: Direct to Law Scout See Also: Richert's Original List of Pathfinders (by Source) Remains Available
Information Industry--Factiva Information Industry--IBM Factiva Announces It Will License WebFountain Text Mining Software from IBM Big news in the info industry. WebFountain is IBM's text mining software ResourceShelf ran plenty of background on in August. Forbes published the following quote, "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." Again, much more background in the August post. Here are a few key points from the announcement. * Factiva is the first company to license IBM's WebFountain. * Factiva's first application on the WebFountain platform will track corporate reputation, offering an external view of a company's reputation by analyzing information from a comprehensive collection of Factiva sources, Internet pages and newsgroups. The resulting analysis will be presented in a report that clearly shows the information in context, providing a view on relevant business issues, showing new industry trends, and exposing relationships. In other words the product will take both open web content and Factiva's licensed content, analyze it, and deliver it in report form. From the sounds of it this means answers NOT just links to potential answers. * Will be on-demand service offered by Factiva and IBM consultants. * More on Factiva's use of WebFountain next week. See Also: Background About WebFountain in this August Post on ResourceShelf
Reference Tools--Spanish Language Jacso Introduces Another PolySearch Tool: Search Multiple Spanish Language Reference Tools with PolyBuscadores It was about three weeks ago when we had news about Jacso's PolySearch Dictionaries tool that allows the user to simultaneously search up to 20 web-based English language dictionaries. Today, yet another release from Dr. Jacso. Hola to PolyBuscador! Peter tells us that 15 open access (free) and 5 subscription-based ready reference sources are available including the Enciclopedia Universal and the Collins Concise Spanish-English-Spanish dictionary. To access: 1) Go to http://www2.hawaii.edu/~jacso/extra/ 2) Select the PolyBuscadores link at the top of the page 3) Select the Dictionarios and Enciclopedias Link (You'll also see what other modules Peter is working on) 4) Select the Resources You Want to Search, Enter Your Query, Click Search. 5) Make sure to review the help page that includes info about the use of diacritics. See Also: "Jacso Unveils Tool To Search Multiple Dictionaries Simultaneously"
Patriot Act Source: New York Times "Ashcroft Declassifies Some Patriot Act Records" From the article, Under pressure from lawmakers and civil rights groups over the Justice Department's antiterrorism initiatives, Attorney General John Ashcroft reversed course today and agreed to declassify data showing how often federal agents had demanded records from libraries and other institutions...Department officials said that in the next several days they would make public data showing how often agents had examined library records, business documents, computer data and other material in investigations. Section 215 of the antiterrorism act , which gave the department expanded authority to demand such records, has drawn strong objections from many librarians, civil rights advocates and community groups who say it gives the government too much power to spy on private activities of Americans....Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the [ALA's] association's Washington office, said, "I think the Justice Department was taken by surprise by the negative reaction that his attack on librarians had." See Also: "Ashcroft: U.S. to declassify library data" (via AP)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Technology--Lists & Rankings Source: Technology Review (Free Registration Required) Full-Text: The TR 100, 2003 The Top 100 innovators (35 and under) in the fields of computing, biotech and medicine, Internet and nanotech as determined by a panel of judges. -- Workplace--Statistics--United States Source: BLS National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries 2002 Summary ||| Full-Text 15 pages .pdf. Wednesday, September 17, 2003
Enterprise Search FAST Search & Transfer Lands Major Investment Banking Firm as a Client A blurb from the Oslo Stock Exchange web site announces that Goldman Sachs has signed with FAST to use their Data Search software "across multiple applications within the enterprise." See Also: FAST Also Announces New Customer in Health Care Industry
Info Industry--ProQuest All Ready To Go: ProQuest Adds The Los Angeles Times to Its Historical Newspaper Collection Word from Ann Arbor that the digitization of The LA Times from 1881-1922 is complete. When the entire project is finished access through 1984 will be available. From the announcement, The Los Angeles Times archive is being developed as part of the company's ProQuest Historical Newspapers project, which was initiated in 2001 to bring the historically valuable content of newspapers to digital form. Many of the nation's top newspapers are part of the project: Digital backfiles of The New York Times (1851-1999), The Wall Street Journal (1889-1985), The Washington Post (1877-1987) and The Christian Science Monitor (1908-1990) are already available from ProQuest to educational institutions and libraries around the world. The collection offers ready access to the complete run of each newspaper in full-page image format, starting from its very first issue.
Internet Domains Web Searching Source: SearchDay "VeriSign's New Site Finder Redirects Bad Domain Traffic" Danny Sullivan writes, VeriSign is now resolving requests for non-existent .COM and .NET domains to an error page that features a search engine that it operates called Site Finder, a move that's quickly raised controversy. Previously, such bad requests would have resulted in an error that in turn would be handled in different ways by various browsers. See Also: "VeriSign redirects error pages" (via ZD Net) -- (UPDATED 9/20) Verisign Sued Over SiteFinder From the article, "An Internet search company has sued VeriSign Inc. over a widely criticized service that sends Web users to a VeriSign search page after entering a nonexistent Web address (see story). Popular Enterprises LLC in Orlando, operator of the Netster.com search site, is seeking an injunction barring VeriSign from running the Site Finder as well as damages of up to $100 million, it said in a statement yesterday."
Congressional Research Service A Selected List of Recently Updated Congressional Research Service Reports -- * Campaign Financing Updated, 9/4/03 * Global Climate Change Updated, 9/8/03 --- The following reports are available on the web but cannot be linked to. To access: 1) Go to this page from U.S. Cong. Christopher Shays 2) Select the section(s) where reports are listed and scroll to each report. Read online, save and/or print the pdf file. Issue Briefs * Endangered Species: Difficult Choices Updated, 9/12/03 * North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program Updated 8/27/03 Short Reports * Terrorist Nuclear Attacks on Seaports: Threat and Response Updated 8/13/03 Long Reports * Cloning: A Select Chronology, 1997-2003 Updated 8/19/03 * Commemorative Observances: A Chronological List Updated 8/21/03 * E-Commerce Statistics: Explanation and Sources Updated 6/4/03 * Executive and Independent Agency Publications: Where to Get Official Documents Updated 8/1/03 * Federal Aid to Libraries: The Library Services and Technology Act Updated 8/18/03 * Importing Prescription Drugs Updated 8/19/03 * Remedies Available to Victims of Identity Theft 9/12/03
Information Quality--Health Source: Sydney Morning News "Online health sites a worldwide worry" From the article, Getting medical information from the internet could be a health hazard, according to a study by a Melbourne researcher. Holly Cardamone, a Melbourne communications consultant and qualified nurse, found that most websites with health information failed to meet basic standards, some were commercially driven and others could mislead patients. Cardamone checked the top 100 sites returned on the Yahoo! search engine in the categories of breast cancer, diabetes and depression. She found that only a minority conformed to an international standard on how information should be given. See Also: "Internet Marketing of Herbal Products" (via Journal of the American Library Association) Abstract only.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Information Technology--Lists and Rankings Source: CRN Full-Text, Special Report: 25 Innovators CRN's first-ever 25 Innovators list, which features the hands-on technical gurus and product visionaries behind some of this year's most talked-about technologies. Basic bio information is provided for each person. Dave Winer of Userland fame along with Sergey Brin & Larry Page of Google made the list. -- Broadband Access to the Internet-- Statistics Source: ITU Number of global broadband subscribers grows 72% in 2002 The full-text of this report is not available online (copies available for journalists) but the summary might be of value to you. According to this report, the number of worldwide broadband subscribers grew some 72% in 2002. The country with the highest broadband penetration rate is the Republic of Korea, where there are about 21 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants. Hong Kong (China) ranks second (15 per hundred), and Canada ranks third (11 per hundred). -- Web Resources for the Visually Impaired--United Kingdom New Web Directory: Reveal-The Database of Accessible Resources From the site, Reveal is an information resource where you will be able to: * Find books in Braille and moon, audio books and digital talking books, tactile diagrams and more * Find who produces, loans or sells accessible material * Find out about the different accessible formats * Follow links to other sources of information and best practice -- Constitution--United States--Index Source: GPO New, The Constitution of the United States of America as Amended, Unratified Amendments, Analytical Index (House Document 108-95) 85 pages .pdf. Also online, The Constitution of the United States of America, Pocket Edition (House Document 108-96) -- Treaties--United States Source: U.S. Department of State Now Available, Treaties in Force - 2003 Index A List of Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States in Force as of January 1, 2003
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Public Libraries--United States Source: ALA Washington Office Electronic Newsline Museum And Library Services Act On Its Way To The President From the e-letter, On September 16, H.R. 13, reauthorization of the Museum and Library Services Act passed the House in its final version and will be on its way to the President for signature. The legislation reauthorizes the Museum and Library Services Act to the year 2009; increases the base amount of the formula distribution to states in LSTA, sets the authorization level for library programs for FY 2004 at $232 million, and creates an evaluation process. -- Public Libraries--United Kingdom Source: Resource Full-Text Report, Framework for the Future: Libraries, Learning and Information in the Next Decade News Release |||Summary ||| Full-Text ||| Pamphlet -- Book Reviews Source: Slate.Com Book Report The general public is introduced to four tools librarians have been using for many years. Article discusses "the big four of book industry trade journals": Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal and Booklist. Link contributed by SDK. Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Access to Information Source: OMB Watch Administration Gains New Power to Withold 'Sensitive' Information On A Somewhat Related Note: "Ashcroft Mocks Librarians and Others Who Oppose Parts of Counterterrorism Law" (via New York Times)
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Libraries--Fast Facts Source: OCLC New, Full-Text Report, Libraries: How they stack up From a synopsis, Five times more people visit U.S. public libraries each year than attend sporting events. Each day, libraries circulate nearly 4 times as many items as Amazon ships—and about the same number as FedEx ships in a day. Annual purchases by U.S. libraries exceed U.S spending on videos, athletic footware and bars and taverns. Libraries: How they stack up provides a snapshot of the impact of libraries and some comparisons of library activities to other sectors, professions and destinations in the worldwide economy. Some interesting numbers but little about what librarians offer in terms of value to the patron. Also, saying that libraries in the U.S. have more cardholders than Amazon has customers means little, especially for the non-librarian. The real questions are how often do people use these library cards? Do they find what they're looking for? Did they get the help they need? Are they aware of the wide variety of services the library offers? Do they know the library is a place to go for answers? How many cardholders and non-cardholders know that library services reach beyond the four walls of the building? That trained people are available to help them? Why haven't cardholders used their cards lately? -- Digital Libraries The September, 2003 Issue of D-Lib Magazine is Online Articles Include: * "The Intellectual Property Rights Issues Facing Self-archiving" * "Generation of XML Records across Multiple Metadata Standards" * "The Digital Preservation of e-Prints" * "Aggregate Record Management in Three Clicks" * Conference Report: Report on the 7th European Conference on Digital Libraries, ECDL 2003 -- Libraries and Librarians The October Issue of Walt Crawford's Cites & Insights is Now Online Included in Walt's newsletter is another complete chapter from his new book, First Have Something to Say: Writing for the Library Profession. The chapter is titled, "Hiding Behind PowerPoint".
Briefly R.R. Bowker Acquires Simba Info Inc. From PRIMEDIA - Library of Congress Gets New Financial Management System (via GCN) -- Merger of Springer Science+Business Media and Kluwer Academic Publishers to begin spring 2004
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Digital Piracy Source: AT&T Labs Full-Text Report, Analysis of Security Vulnerabilities in the Movie Production and Distribution Process "Many movies are showing up on file sharing networks shortly after, and in some cases prior to, theatrical release. It has been argued that the availability of unauthorized copies directly affects theater attendance and DVD sales, and hence represents a major financial threat to the movie industry. Our research attempts to determine the source of unauthorized copies by studying the availability and characteristics of recent popular movies in file sharing networks." This study finds that most copies of pirated movies that show up on file sharing P2P networks get there via so-called "Hollywood insiders." See Also: Full Text of Study (via researcher Lori Cranor 's website) . -- Antiterrorism -- Glossaries Source: Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center, Security Engineering Division, Antiterrorism Program Antiterrorism and Force Protection: Glossary of Terms Alphabetical listing of terms and their definitions, from "access control" to "weapons of mass destruction tactic." See also: Terrorism/WMD Preparedness Glossary (New Mexico Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Working Group) Monday, September 15, 2003
Information Industry--Lists & Rankings Reed Elsevier Passes Thomson In Outsell's Market Share Rankings The following news brief comes from Outsell, a well-known market research firm specializing in the information industry. The complete report is fee-based. Thanks to D.C. for giving ResourceShelf the opportunity to reprint this brief. -- BURLINGAME, Calif., September 15, 2003 - Information giant Reed Elsevier has passed its rival, Thomson Corp., in Outsell, Inc.'s annual Information Content (IC) Industry market size, share, and forecast study. Reed Elsevier moved from third to second place in the rankings, in part due to the acquisition of Harcourt educational units and several other companies. Outsell analyzes the size and market share of the top 1,000 information content players in its annual comprehensive report, Information Content Industry Market Size, Share, and Forecast, 2000-2007. "The big are getting bigger, faster," said Outsell's Chief Analyst, Leigh Watson Healy. "Reed Elsevier and Thomson are keen rivals and critical content providers to many fields and industries, including financial, legal, scientific, and educational information. Acquisitions and consolidation are behind much of their growth, and we expect the M&A activity to accelerate." The 8.9 percent growth rate for the top 10 companies in Outsell's overall ranking is more than double the IC Industry growth rate of 4.2 percent. AOL tops the market share rankings, while others in the top 10 include Pearson, Gannett, McGraw-Hill, Advance Publications, Asahi Shimbun, VNU, and Wolters Kluwer. The top 10 generated $56 billion in revenue in 2002, or 31 percent of the industry total of $183 billion. "The distribution of winners and losers continues to follow predictable patterns," said Healy. As a segment, the IT Research players such as Gartner Group show the poorest growth, declining 9.4 percent, in the face of lower IT spending. The fastest growing segments were the Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM), dominated by Elsevier, Thomson, and Wolters Kluwer, with 11.6 percent growth, and Education & Training (E&T) with a 12.2 percent growth rate. "One or more of these top information powerhouses touches the life of every literate citizen in the Western world. They are critical components of the worldwide economy and political life, and the IC Industry as a whole is a leading indicator for the general economy, growing for four consecutive quarters with a forecasted 8.5 percent growth rate for 2003. Outsell provides the only complete view of this essential industry," said Healy. See Also: Information Content Industry Market Size, Share, and Forecast, 2000-2007 Table of contents and additional info about the report.
Legal Information Free to Access and Use: A New Repository of Legal Scholarship from 5 Universities Goes Live The just launched NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository comes from New England Law Library Consortium (NELLCO) and The Berkeley Electronic Press. According to an announcement the resource, "provides a free and persistent point of access for working papers, reports, lecture series, workshop presentations, and other scholarship created by faculty at NELLCO member institutions. Five NELLCO members - Yale, Cornell, University of Connecticut, Suffolk, and Fordham - have created publication series within the repository for launch. Over 75 publications have been posted to date (all freely available), in series such as Yale's Occasional Papers and Cornell's International Speaker Series. Based on the results of early adopters, the NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository may expand to include other participants from NELLCO's membership roster of sixty-five law libraries. Every publication series within the NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository has its own unique identity, including a description of the sponsoring research unit, logos, and links back to relevant faculty pages. These series feed into a single, searchable collection. Visitors to the site can easily browse papers by subject, author, and so forth. Because of Open Archives Initiative (OAI) compliance, content is discoverable from a variety of locations and methods, including web search engines. Readers can also sign up to receive custom email notifications of newly posted papers. Citations are delivered directly to their desktop, with links to full text."
WHOIS Database Source: National Journal Commerce under pressure to clean up giant Web database From the article, A little-known global database of Web site owners has grown into a significant worldwide cyber-crime tracking device—and a major source of concern to privacy advocates and foreign governments. Despite its growing importance, the so-called "Whois" data is plagued with inaccuracies, as well as technical, legal, and ethical problems. The Commerce Department is facing increasing pressure to clean it up.
Government--United Kingdom Public Records Office--United Kingdom Source: The Guardian Government emails to be kept on record From the article, Embarrassing emails such as those sent by a Downing Street press officer branding the row with the BBC as a "game of chicken" will be stored at the Public Record Office at Kew from next year. From 2004, the Record Office will request records of all emails from government departments - and no one will escape scrutiny, because government departments will be obliged to archive all emails in the same way they treat memos and other paper communications.
E-Books Source: Reuters E-books 'not dead yet' From the article, Electronic books will be viable, despite Barnes & Noble shutting up its eBooks store last week, say other publishers Don't slam the cover on digital books just yet. Readers hungry for a good page-turner will still turn to bookstores and libraries, but cheaper computers and changing consumer habits suggest that electronic books, or e-books, still have a future. To be sure, that future is years away, particularly after Barnes & Noble, the world's largest bookseller, last week shook the nascent market by shutting its eBooks store. Daniel Blackman of barnesandnoble.com said downloadable books have not lived up to their hype. See Also: "Barnes & Noble Shelves E-Books"
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) U.S. Government Source: GPO The 2003-2004 Edition of the U.S. Government Manual Is Now Online Browse 2003-2004 Edition ||| Search New Edition/Access Older Editions -- Rehabilitation-- Bibliographic Database Source: Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange (CIRRIE), University of Buffalo Database of International Rehabilitation Research The CIRRIE Database currently contains over 21,000 citations of international rehabilitation research published between 1990 and the present." Search by any or all of the following: subject heading (thesaurus available), author, title keywords, research area, geographic area, language. Specify any or all years from 1990 through 2002. See Also: CIRRIE Directory "...includes research centers, government agencies, associations and organizations from around the world that work with disability or rehabilitation." -- Education -- Laws Source: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Education and the Workforce Compilation of Federal Education Laws Includes: Elementary and Secondary Education, Individuals With Disabilities, and Related Programs as Amended Through December 31, 2002; Higher Education Act as Amended Through October 2002; Vocational Education, Workforce Development and Related Programs, Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Related Laws, and Public Libraries and Other Public Property Laws as Amended Through December 31, 2002; Select Education and Related Programs as Amended Through December 31, 2000; Nutrition, Human Services, and Related Laws as Amended Through December 31, 2002.
Professional Reading Shelf Freedom of Information Act Full-Text Report, Freedom of Information Act: Agency Views on Changes Resulting from New Administration Policy Summary ||| Full-Text Sunday, September 14, 2003
Semantic Web Source: Internet.Com Semantic Web: Out of the Theory Realm From the article, The idea of the Semantic Web is to work with the Web as we now know it in order to make connections between metadata (define) -- the data about the data -- in documents that can be related to other documents, which may be in different formats such as a PDF file and an XML spreadsheet. Beyond basic point-to-point object linking, the Semantic Web also allows for recommendations based on people, places and concepts and lets applications automate, integrate and reuse the data. Some call it the movement a vision, while others note that the pieces are all there, but someone has to assemble the puzzle, and agree on standards to make sure all the pieces fit together.
Books--Databases Source: Publishers Weekly Publishers Grudgingly Cooperate With Amazon Database Effort From the article, Publishers are keeping a wary eye on Amazon.com's new initiative: digitizing nonfiction titles to create an online database that can be searched by keywords. The plan, first reported about in the New York Times in July, is seen as a way to draw more traffic to the Amazon site as it competes with search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Most publishers contacted by PW are going along with the project, although many have deep concerns about the effort. "They're a major customer so we want to accommodate them as much as we can," one head of house said, adding that "some parts make sense and some are scary." Another publisher said he agreed to cooperate to a limited degree, noting that "we'll be watching it arm-in-arm with our attorneys." See Also: The NY Times Article Mentioned in the Article Ran of 7/21/03.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Advertising--United States--Statistics Source: Advertising Age Leading National Advertisers Report 2003 "...a directory of in-depth information about the nation's 100 top marketing companies." The complete report is available as a pdf or view charts in html. See Also: Older Reports, Leading National Advertisers (1997-2003) -- Immigration--United States--Statistics Source: Office of Immigration Statistics, Office of Management, Department of Homeland Security Yearbook of Immigration Statistics (former title: Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service) "This publication provides information, in the form of text, tables, and charts, about the various types of foreign nationals who are inspected, naturalized, apprehended, or removed by the DHS. Types of aliens include immigrants, nonimmigrants (temporary visitors), parolees, refugees, and asylees, as well as those naturalized or apprehended." Coverage: 1996 through 2002. Link contributed by SDK. Saturday, September 13, 2003
Web Search--Google Source: ChillingEffects.Org Another DMCA Complaint Sent to Google Chilling Effects has posted a new DMCA complaint (date 9/8) that was sent to Google. Here are links to two more recent ResourceShelf posts with links to other complaints. #1 (4 Complaints) ||| #2 (4 Complaints).
Professional Reading Shelf Law Libraries Source: Law.Com/Legal Times Library Economics 101 From the article, No business can survive without paying attention to costs, especially for those things that have a significant impact on the bottom line. With the large outlays required for staff and resources and the space required to house them, libraries certainly qualify as a major budget item. Even so, until recently, spending the money to maintain a library or information center was considered a necessary albeit expensive part of doing business. Friday, September 12, 2003
Data Integrity Public Records Source: The Virtual Chase Point-'n-Click Background Checks Genie Tyburski writes, "Earlier this week, I sent public records research expert Lynn Peterson a copy of a press release and asked for her comments. The news item announces a new pre-employment screening service that purports to offer reliable background checks for less money and in less time than traditional research services. Sound good? Read the press release, and then read Lynn's comments. You be the judge."
Professional Reading Shelf National Archives--United States The Fall Issue of the NARA's Prologue is Now Online Articles Include: * NARA's New Research Center Features Ease, Speed, Efficiency * A Top-to-Bottom Renovation for the National Archives Building
Memory of the World Register Source: UNESCO Twenty-Three New Collections Proposed for Inscription on Memory of the World Register From the story, The Declaration of the Rights of Man and documents pertaining to slavery in the Caribbean are among the 23 documentary collections from 20 countries selected for inscription on the Memory of the World Register of library and archive material during a three-day meeting of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme in Gdansk, Poland...Twelve new countries are proposed to enter the Register: Barbados, Brazil, Chile, France, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Serbia and Montenegro, Tajikistan, Thailand, and Uruguay. At present, a total of 68 properties from 33 countries are inscribed on the Memory of the World Register, which was established in 1997 to preserve and promote documentary heritage of universal value. A complete list of new entries is included in the announcement. See Also: Guided Visit of Selected Memory of the World Projects
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Small Business--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Nonemployer Statistics: 2001 Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text ||| Nonemployer Businesses and Receipts by States: 2001 (Spreadsheet) Thursday, September 11, 2003
"Resources of the Week" September 11, 2003 A compilation of direct links to a few September 11th archives, exhibits, reports, and articles available on the Internet. -- • "Witness and Response: September 11 Acquisitions at the Library of Congress From the Library of Congress web site, To commemorate the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America, we offer "Witness and Response," an online exhibition of original material related to the day and its aftermath. • The September 11 Digital Archive This archive was added to the permanent collection of the Library of Congress yesterday. • September 11 Web Archive From The Internet Archive. • The Television Archive A library of world perspectives concerning September 11, 2001 • September 11: Bearing Witness to History An online version of the National Museum of American History exhibit. • Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11 From the Newseum • The Center of the World Companion site to the American Experience documentary that aired earlier this week. A history of the WTC. • Why The Towers Fell Companion site to Nova program from PBS. • The Sonic Memorial Project Led by NPR's Lost & Found Sound, The Sonic Memorial Project is a cross-media collaboration of more than 50 independent radio and new media producers, artists, historians, and people from around the world who have contributed personal and archival recordings. To date, we have gathered more than 1,000 contributions, many of which have been woven into feature stories by Lost & Found Sound and broadcast on NPR. • September 11: 2 Years Later From the Washington Post Also available is the special report from last year and links to the Post's coverage from 9/11/2001. • September 11, 2003 From the New York Times Including links to the NYT's Portraits of Grief series. • America's Day of Terror BBC Online coverage from 9/11/2001. • One year later: September 11 and the Internet A 2002 report from Pew Internet & American Life Project. • September 11, 2001 : Attack on America from Avalon Project at Yale Law School Official documents from various governments. • Additional Resources and Materials from the Librarians' Index to the Internet September 11 & Beyond Collection
Government Databases Federated Searching Learn About the GovStat Project at the Univ of North Carolina and Univ of Maryland From the article, Imagine you have been transferred to Phoenix, Arizona. You need to determine the cost of housing and the quality of the schools, and you want to know where your spouse can find a job, whether traffic is likely to be congested, how hot the weather can get - and the answers to myriad other questions. Do you know the correct language for querying the databases that contain the information? Better still, wouldn't it be wonderful if you didn't have to search dozens of Web sites for the answers? See Also: Much More on the Projects Homepage
Professional Reading Shelf National Archives and Records Administration Source: Federal Computer Week "ERA: Pay now or pay more later" From the article, If the Senate's decision to defer funding for the National Archives and Records Administration's Electronic Records Archives program for a year goes through, the agency will have to ask for almost twice as much money in fiscal 2005, officials said. See Also: Electronic Records: Management and Preservation Pose Challenges (via GAO)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Philanthropy Source: The Foundation Center Full-Text Report, September 11: Perspectives from the Field of Philanthropy, Volume Two From the site, To coincide with the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks, we have published September 11: Perspectives from the Field of Philanthropy, Volume Two, a continuation of our record of the assessments of the sector's response to the catastrophe through in-depth interviews with leaders in the field. (Volume One was published last year, to commemorate the first anniversary). -- Childrens Literature Childrens Cooperative Book Center Publications Source: Children's Cooperative Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin - Madison "The following publications were compiled and/or written by CCBC librarians." Part I is a list of publications -- primarily bibliographies -- available on the website. Part II is print publications that can be ordered. Some titles: 40 Books About Sports, 40 Books About Labor, 40 Books About Writers and Writing, 50 Multicultural Books Every Child Should Know. Contributed by SDK. Wednesday, September 10, 2003
EDGAR So Long, Farewell To EDGARIQ EDGARIQ, a free service from California based Inverito, has been taken offline. Although a company spokesperson and a message on the web site did not say the closure is permanent, no word as to when EDGARIQ MIGHT return. As you've probably figured out it's a financial issue that forced the shutdown. Inverito wants to focus its resources on InsiderScoop.Com. "Scoop" is a fee-based service that provides access to insider trading information. What was most valuable about EDGARIQ is that it offered free, searchable, full-text, access to EDGAR filings. Other free EDGAR services only provide access to document header information. Btw, if you found EDGARIQ useful, please let the company know by sending them an email. See Also: The Virtual Chase has a comprehensive list of both fee-based and free EDGAR services. See Also: 10K Wizard, a full-text, fee-based EDGAR service, WILL waive the subscription fee for students and teachers with .edu addresses.
Library Catalogs--United Kingdom Source: ManagingInformation.Com "London libraries online catalogue" From the article, A new service has just been launched which London library users and librarians have been dreaming about for years. 'What's in London's Libraries' has brought together information about all the public libraries in London and it is now available to everyone via the internet. In an initiative which could be adopted by other regions, Londoner's are no longer limited to searching just one library catalogue at a time. The same search can be run against many catalogues all over London and the results are delivered back to the user in seconds. See Also: Direct to the What's in London's Libraries Catalogue
Special Collections NY Public Library for the Performing Arts Obtains Archive of 600,000 Photographs From the announcement, Glittering performing artists from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are represented in a collection of 600,000 photographs by Kenn Duncan that has been acquired by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. An animated shot of Gregory Hines at the height of his fame on Broadway, Anita Morris in her skin-tight costume from the musical Nine, and pictures of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev during the time of their explosive popularity, are among the many iconic images the collection will make available to researchers...It is estimated that by the end of 2006 the archive will be available to researchers at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza. A major retrospective exhibition of Duncan’s photographs is being planned at that time. See Also: Learn More About the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts See Also: Performing Arts in America 1875-1923, a Digital Collection from the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts
E-Books "Barnes & Noble Shelves E-Books" Barnes&Noble.com has discontinued sales of e-books, according to a statement on the company's Web site. Customers using Microsoft's eBook reader have until Dec. 9 to access downloads purchased from the store, while Adobe Reader customers have 90 days to retrieve any outstanding files, according to a notice posted on the site Tuesday. Meanwhile thousands of e-book titles were listed as unavailable.
Specialized Search Tools Source: International Herald Tribune/Boston Globe. "Niche players can charge premium to find what Google can't" The article discusses fee-based services from Eliyon, Convera, Fast-Talk Communications, and Dolphin Search. Several of these companies have been mentioned on ResourceShelf in the past year or so. The article makes no mention of companies like Dialog, ProQuest, or Gale. Also, no mention of specialized database readers might have access to (for free) via their university, corporate or public library. See Also: Btw, if you would like to demo search technology that allows you to keyword search audio, visit this ResourceShelf post. See Also: Another demo, allowing you to keyword search over 17,000 hours of audio, is Speechbot.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) DVDs Source: NIST/CLIR Full-Text Report, Care and Handling CDs and DVDs : a Guide for Librarians and Archivists This description comes from the PADI web site, This NIST special publication no. 500-252 provides care and handling guidelines for those responsible for the long-term preservation of optical discs. The guide examines issues such as cleaning, storage conditions, disc structure and other issues influencing media stability. The guide also includes a glossary. -- Standards IFLA - CDNL Alliance for Bibliographic Standards A new alliance between IFLA and national libraries was established in August 2003 to continue and expand the coordination work formerly done by the IFLA UBCIM and UDT Core Programme Offices.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Congressional Research Service Source: CRS via FPC Two New Full-Text CRS Reports 1) Terrorists and Suicide Attacks 2) Iran's Nuclear Program: Recent Developments -- Business--Corporate Ties--Database Source: Center for Science in the Public Interest Integrity in Science Internet Database "The Center for Science in the Public Interest has launched the Integrity in Science Internet Database to provide information about the corporate ties of scientists, academics, and non-profit organizations in the fields of nutrition, environment, toxicology, and medicine." Search by last name of scientist, research topic, university or company. Thanks to BPS and SDK. See also: Non-Profit Organizations With Ties to Industry -- Criminal Information Source: BJS New Report, Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems, 2001 -- Statistical Methods--Handbook Source: NIST e-Handbook of Statistical Methods Now Available on CD-ROM (FREE) From the announcement, The new CD version allows people who use the guide—engineers, scientists, businesses, researchers and teachers working with statistical techniques—to do so on their own computers without having to access the Web site. The 2002 e-Handbook was developed to expand and update Handbook 91, Experimental Statistics, originally published by NIST in 1963. Engineers, scientists and others worldwide have relied on the printed version of this handbook for decades. The e-Handbook Web version is available at www.nist.gov/stat.handbook. The new CD version is available by sending a request to handbook@nist.gov. Those who ask for a copy must remember to include their geographic address (not just an e-mail address). -- Teacher Certification Requirements--United States Source: University of Kentucky College of Education Certification Requirements for 50 States Choose the state you are interested in from the drop-down menu and click "Go." See also: 50 States' K12 Employment Opportunities
Briefly LexisNexis to Create a Digital U.S. Congressional Serial Set -- Infospace Relaunches, New Interface (via Internet.Com) Thanks to G.T. for the tip. Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Newspaper Archives--Digitization Information Industry--Cold North Wind Complete Digital Archive of The Sporting News Available Online in November The archive will be full-text/keyword searchable via Cold North Winds PaperofRecord.Com web site. Content will date back 117 years to 1886.
Web Search--Google Source: ChillingEffects.Org More DMCA Complaints Sent to Google The ChillingEffects.Org web page has been busy in the past week as more and more DMCA requests that have been sent to Google are posted. Last Saturday, ResourceShelf listed four of them. Today, another four have been added to the list. 1) Science Education Site Complaint to Google 2) Poem Posted in Google Groups 3) Prisoner Advocacy Site Claims that Prison Penpal Service Is Lifting Text 4) Infestation Records Complains to Google About MP3s
PubMed OLDMEDLINE Citations Will Soon Be Added to PubMed From the article, Over 1.5 million OLDMEDLINE citations will be added to PubMed. The citations are to articles from international biomedical journals covering the fields of medicine, preclinical sciences, and allied health sciences. The citations were originally printed in hardcopy indexes published from 1953 through 1965.
Web Directories--Arts RDN Offers "Preview" of New Arts and Creative Industries Hub From the RDN site, "The official launch of Artifact will take place in November 2003 and over the next few months the site will be developed and modified. We want to ensure that the service is fit for purpose and is developed for the community by the community." RDN would like feedback about the site.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Bankruptcies--Research Help Source: Baker Library Librarians/Harvard Business School New, Researching Bankruptcies on the Web -- Employer Benefits--United States Source: Kaiser Family Foundation New, Full-Text Report, 2003 Annual Employer Health Benefits Survey Summary/Report by Chapter ||| Direct to Full-Text Thanks to S.B. for the tip. -- Commuting--United States--Fast Facts Source: BTS Fact Sheet, Average Commuting Time, 2003 -- Energy--United States--Lists & Rankings New, Energy Production/Consumption Chart by State, 2000 -- Aviation History--Digital Collection New, The Frank Coffyn Collection of the Empire State Aerosciences Museum From an AP story, The Frank Coffyn Collection, an interactive exhibit launched online Tuesday by the Empire State Aerosciences Museum of Glenville, N.Y. It's one of several events celebrating the Wright brothers' 100th anniversary of powered flight...The online collection features journal entries and photographs of Coffyn, the Wright brothers and other Wright pilots that were taken in and around 1910. They are part of an album that was anonymously donated to the museum about two years ago. "It's an unusual collection in the sense that it covers a period in history where there is very little information. There were lots of names and information about the Wright pilots during that time, but there are very few pictures available," said Jack Vander Veer, director of the museum's research library...The museum does not plan to display the original pictures, so the only way the collection can be viewed is through the online database. It was researched and written by Paul Glenshaw of Washington-based Cognitive Applications with $70,000 in federal funding from the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission. -- Education--United States--Directories Source: U.S. Department of Education Educational Resource Organizations Directory (EROD) "This directory includes thousands of organizations that provide services on a state, regional, or national level." Criteria for inclusion: * The organization produces, disseminates, and/or provides access to education-related information. * The organization's services and/or products are available to those outside the primary client group of the organization, for free or for fee (1), remotely or on-site. * The organization agrees to respond to requests for information sent remotely (e.g., by e-mail, fax, phone, and/or mail). * The organization agrees to provide services and/or products to all individuals without regard to race, color, creed, disability, gender, or sexual orientation. * The organization agrees to review its EROD entry at least once annually in order to continue to be included in EROD. Simple search is keyword search with basic Boolean operators (and/or/and not). Advanced search allows search by individual fields: location (states/territories), title, description, audience, services provided, type of organization, geographic scope. See also: Type of Organization Lists
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Professional Organizations Source: Competia Full-Text Article, An Interview with Special Libraries Association President Ethel Salonen Thanks to Ian Smith at Competia for making this interview available to ResourceShelf. Competia's online magazine is normally available only to subscribers. -- Scholarly Publishing Source: Scientific American Online "Public Not Welcome" From the article, Research libraries are likely to continue carrying print copies of general-interest journals, such as Science, Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine. And a few powerful institutions--among them the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at San Francisco--have insisted on "walk-up" clauses in their contracts that allow any patron full access to their online journals at workstations within the library. But they are the exception; as a rule, Silverman says, publishers insist that their online journals remain "protected" from the general public. The article goes on to discuss the open access movement. See Also:"Traditional publisher experiments with Open Access" (via Open Access Now) Thanks to P.S. for the news tip. -- Digital Preservation Source: Government Record News "PDF-A: A New Digital Preservation Format" An article by William G. LeFurgy, U.S. Library of Congress. Thanks to P.W. for the alert. Monday, September 08, 2003
Web Search--Google Source: BBC A Great Quote for Your Google File We often write about how the press has gone crazy over Google thinking it is THE source. This quote, concluding an article about Google celebrating its fifth birthday, might be the best illustration yet. It states, "Now Google has stopped simply reflecting the organisation of the web. Instead a high Google rank for a search now defines a page's quality and relevance." Need I say more? See Also: Last Year, Using The Wayback Machine, ResourceShelf Prepared a Look at Some Key Web Pages from Google's First Years.
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Web Resources--Spanish Language The September Issue of Peter's Digital Reference Shelf is Now Online This month Peter Jacso reviews and has very positive comments about the Collins Concise Spanish Dictionary and the Enciclopedia Universal. -- Information Industry--ebrary ebrary Unveils Complimentary Resource for Librarians and Library School Students From the announcement, The Library Center currently features a growing database of more than 30 full-text books [several titles from Greenwood] spanning topics such as digital library development, general collection development, and the history of libraries and librarianship, as well as illustrated guides from the Library of Congress. It also features back issues of Advanced Technology Libraries, a leading industry newsletter that offers a concise monthly review of information technology relevant to libraries, including integrated library systems, the latest electronic products, and online services for public, academic, and special libraries. -- Bibliographic Records--Software Source: OCLC Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records Work-Set Algorithm Software OCLC is making an algorithm available free of charge to organizations interested in converting their bibliographic databases to the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) model, in which individual records are brought together under the concept of a work. The algorithm was developed by research staffers Thom Hickey and Jenny Toves. Thanks to R.B. for sharing the info.
Product Search--Google New Features Added To Froogle Google's product search engine (beta) now allows you to: * Sort by Price * View Results in List Form or on a Grid * Navigation Options Located in Box on Left Side of Results Page See Also: Yahoo Also Has A Product Search Database in Beta See Also: More From Pandia Including Info About UK Product Search Engine, Kelkoo
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Art--Database New, The Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal Project Source: American Association of Museums "The Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal provides a searchable registry of objects in U.S. museum collections that were created before 1946 and changed hands in Continental Europe during the Nazi era (1933-1945)." Currently includes 5761 objects from 66 participating museums. Search by artist/maker, nationality of artist/maker, place/culture of object; advanced options allow search by object type, title of object, description, keywords. See: Web Site to Help Find Art Stolen by Nazis (AP Technology via Yahoo! News) -- Political Parties--Canada--Database Source: Elections Canada Political Parties' Fiscal Period Returns Database Enhanced From the announcement, "The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, announced today that the political parties' fiscal period returns for 1993 to 1997 are now available as a searchable database at www.elections.ca. Until now, the searchable database of political parties' fiscal period returns covered the period from 1998 to 2002." See Also: Direct to Database Sunday, September 07, 2003
Media Visibility--Political Candidates Factiva Offers (Free) "Media Visibility Index" for High-Profile California Candidates This is a new index that might be of interest to the many members of the media who read ResourceShelf. Access to the index is available by sending contact info to the person listed in the news release or via Business Newswire. Here are a few details: * "...a new media visibility metric, the Factiva Index. The index provides a quantitative snapshot of the media's most widely covered people, places, events or companies within a given time frame." - * The Factiva Index launches with weekly updates tracking the print media visibility of 10 candidates in the California recall election. Each week, the Factiva Index will provide a ranking and a brief explanation of the election's high-profile candidates - including Cruz Bustamante, Gary Coleman, Mary "Mary Carey" Cook, Gray Davis, Larry Flynt, Leo Gallagher, Arianna Huffington, Tom McClintock, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Peter Ueberroth - based on individual and collective mentions in the national and local print media. The first update covers the individual candidates' national and local print media mentions during all of August. -- * Future Factiva Index topics will include a monthly snapshot of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, with the first installment on October 21, 2003. Additional details and contact info available here. See Also: Image of 9/3 Media Visibility Index (via Business Wire)
Librarians Source: AP Once Again the Librarian "Action Figure" Makes the News Newspaper coverage about a librarian action figure first appeared in the Seattle Times in July. Today, the action figure is getting a bit of international coverage from the AP. From the article, "The doll, a bespectacled librarian wearing a blue outfit and sensible shoes, will soon join Seattle kitsch retailer Archie McPhee and Co.'s lineup of action figures, including Sigmund Freud, Nico the coffee barista, and the McPhee action figure that started it all, Jesus Christ. While many laud the idea of a librarian action figure, it turns out the figure's universal sign for "Shhh!" doesn't have universal appeal. "It's a very negative stereotype," said Jessica Baumgart, an information resources specialist for Harvard University's Office of News and Public Affairs. She said librarians have been struggling to get away from that image." The remainder of the article offers several other opinions pro/con about the figure. -- It was intended as satire. Fine. I get it. But will non-librarians see it as satire? It's a good thing that our actions in dealing with users project a much different and more accurate image. That's what counts. Is some attention better than none? Maybe. However, the action figure and all of the press attention it receives doesn't really help convince the thousands who haven't visited a library or worked with a librarian that the stereotype they might have doesn't exist. In other words, will these people "get it"? Will they see it as a spoof or just another reason to stay away from a library/librarian. -- It will be interesting to monitor the papers that run this AP story to see if they devote space to stories about librarians and library services that shatter the image this toy is satirizing. If this is an end result than the action figure will be a good thing for the information community and provide everyone with a much needed smile. See Also: "Not all see librarian's finger to lips as tongue-in-cheek" (Seattle Times, 7/17/03) See Also: Listen to a 9/1/03 NPR Interview with Nancy Pearl About the Action Figure
Copyright--United States Source: Reuters "Databases--the next copyright battle?" From the article, Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are circulating a proposed bill that would prevent wholesale copying of school guides, news archives and other databases that do not enjoy copyright protection...The bill has not yet been introduced, but the Judiciary Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a joint hearing on the bill in the coming weeks, a Commerce Committee spokesman said. Saturday, September 06, 2003
Web Search More DMCA Complaints Filed With Google Earlier this week reports about Sharman Networks asking Google to remove urls from their databases made the news. In the past few days the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse posted four more DMCA complaints that were sent to Google. 1) Scientology Complains to Google #9 2) Catering Company Alleges Infringement 3) Jewelers Complain of Copyright Infringement 4) Westchester Life Magazine Complains of Copyright Infringement
Web Search--Overture Overture Research Unveils Targeted Geographic Search Demo This early demo focuses on how search companies will be able to target advertising but I think it's very easy to think of how this technology (keyword search plus limiting by location) could be used by various types of web searchers. Northern Light offered an option to focus your search by location. Here's what that interface looked like. See: Overture Research Demo
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Weather--Glossaries Source: National Weather Service Forecast Office, Norman, OK A Comprehensive Glossary of Weather Terms for Storm Spotters "This glossary contains weather-related terms that may be either heard or used by severe local storm spotters or spotter groups. Its purposes are 1) to achieve some level of standardization in the definitions of the terms that are used, and 2) provide a reference from which the meanings of any terms, especially the lesser-used ones, can be found." Includes a brief bibliography and some illustrative figures. See also: Glossary of National Hurricane Center/Tropical Prediction Center Terms See Also: National Hurricane Center/Tropical Prediction Center and Emergency Management Acronyms Friday, September 05, 2003
Motion Pictures--Databases Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution Centralized Online Catalog of Film, Television, and Digital Video Announced and "UW helping build online media archive" (via Seattle P-I) From the AJC article, Internet users will be able to call up a worldwide trove of moving images, thanks to a project involving the Library of Congress, Georgia Tech and two other universities, and IBM Corp., the computer giant announced Wednesday. When fully operational about a year from now, the Library of Congress' Web site will pull together archives of moving images from around the world -- celestial scenes from the Hubble Space Telescope, clips from "Gone With the Wind," or maybe a volcanic eruption...MIC will be the library's first centralized online catalog of film, television and digital video images from libraries, national archives, museums and broadcasting companies, and ultimately will be the repository of such images in the world...Georgia Tech and two other schools -- the University of Washington and Rutgers University -- are designing a search directory and catalog database so that researchers, scientists, students, educators and the general public can access the images. - Lean More About the Project via the Rutgers University Libraries
Enterprise Search Vivisimo Unveils Version 4.0 of its Enterprise Search Technology Several of these new options were recently added to Vivisimo's publicly available search tool. Here's the ResourceShelf post with the details.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Virtual Reference Services Source: WGAL-TV Short But Sweet: Virtual Reference Service from a Public Library Makes the News Note to Non-Librarian Readers: Very likely your public, school, or corporate library offers the type of service mentioned in this article. -- Online Information Source: AP "Study: Boomers Still Prefer Printed Pages"
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Privacy Source: EPIC Full-Text Report, 2003 Privacy and Human Rights Report From the site, This extensive survey examines the state of civil liberties and privacy rights around the world. Key topics include new technologies of surveillance, such as Total Information Awareness in the U.S., the use of biometric identification, and the public response to governments' increasing violations of individual privacy. See Also: Press Release -- Canada--Maps New, Historic Maps from the National Archives of Canada/ArchivaNet Since its inception in 1872, the National Archives of Canada has acquired, preserved and commemorated the cartographic heritage of Canada. Today, these holdings include some of the earliest known visual representations of Canada and constitute the largest cartographic description of our country. Researchers have access to these records through a variety of finding aids including the widely consulted "old card catalogue." The database presented here provides access to this catalogue. Many entries contain digitized versions of these maps, plans, and charts. -- Information Technology Source: Computerworld Computerworld Quick Studies "These concise tutorials explain what you need to know about key IT technologies, terms, concepts and buzzwords." Arranged alphabetically, these tutorials cover a wide range of material -- from stuff you've heard of (Blogs, Fighting Spam, Digital Rights Management, Dynamic HTML) to lots and lots stuff that is probably unfamiliar to you. Contributed by S.K. -- Children's Internet Protection Act Source: ALA New, The Children's Internet Protection Act, Useful Sources Prepared by Nancy Kranich, Chair, American Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee -- Small Business--United States--Statistics Source: Small Business Administration Updated: Small Business State Profiles, 2003 Are Now Available Older "archived" profiles are also available on this page. Thursday, September 04, 2003
Resources of the Week 2 items for you this week! --- The Internet Archive A New Demo: Keyword Search The Wayback Machine with Recall Hooray!!! The ability to keyword search The Wayback Machine has been something many of us have wanted since this wonderful tool went live. Well good things come to those who wait. Today, a new beta that offers keyword searching of a portion of the Wayback database (about 11 billion pages) was made available by the Internet Archive. Recall is being developed by the IA's Anna Patterson. -- Results pages offer several features including a graph of "returned pages by date" and the ability to narrow and focus year search using various categories and topics. You can also limit your search by the date the page was captured by the Wayback Machine spider. Since this is a very early beta release, please report bugs and other issues to the developer. See Also: Direct to the Recall Interface See Also: Learn More About Searching Recall Search Info about the various charts found on results pages. See Also: Download a Slide Presentation About Recall by Developer Anna Patterson -- More Facts About the New Keyword Search Tool 'Recall' from The Wayback Machine I plan on doing a more in depth interview with Anna Patterson, the developer of 'Recall' very soon. In the mean time, here are a few "fast facts" about her and the new 'Recall' database * 'Recall' Developer Anna Peterson studied computer science at Stanford with a special focus in data mining. * The database has been in the works for 18 months. All of Anna's work has been as a volunteer. * Currently, the 'Recall' Database is Searching About 11 Billion Pages. The Complete Wayback Machine Contains About 30 Billion Pages. * The 11 billion pages are a representative sample of the entire database (1996-Present) * Implied "And" Between Search Terms. OR and NOT are Not Supported * Automatic Phrase Recognition. For example, searching Bill Clinton will automatically search "Bill Clinton". If you want to search individual terms from the outset, simply place quotation marks around each term. * The Entire Database is Served From a Single Machine. Anna was allotted only 2 terabytes of space to build the database * The narrowing, categories, and topic options (right side of a results page) were built using several data mining techniques. *Look for more personalization options in the future. See Also: Learn More in this Powerpoint Presentation -- UPDATE 9/8: InfoToday NewsBreak With More Details -- Telephone Directories Aggregate Results from Multiple U.S. Phone Directories and So Much More With Argali White & Yellow Argali is a web application (you'll need to download, 5.9MB, Windows only) that allows you to search and aggregate results from several web-based phone directories. I've been using Argali for a couple of weeks and have found it to be a real time saver. That's not all, Argali offers many other directory searches. Even better is that this application is free to download and use. Its developer, Boris Katz, has assured me that NO spyware is associated with Argali. We all know that searching web-based phone directories can be a real challenge. They're all updated at different times, some have data others don't have, etc. In some cases one directory will not provide a middle name or initial but another directory will not. The bottom line is that in many cases you'll need to use more than one directory to find what you're looking for and that's if it's accessible in the first place. Argali White and Yellow allows you to search once and have organized results from multiple databases appear in a single location. -- * Argali White & Yellow offers both White and Yellow Page Searching * A White Page Search aggregates results from directories at Info Space, Info USA, QWestdex, Switchboard, WhitePages.Com, and Yahoo. * Reverse Search by Telephone Number or Address * Search the Business Directory by Subject or Business Name * Aggregate Results from Several Toll-Free Directories * Quickly Find the Location of a Specific Telephone Exchange * Search Zip Codes By Location * Built-in Intelligence Helps with Name and Location Searching (eg. MacMaster will also Search Mac Master) (eg. A Search for Rosslyn, Virginia Also Locates Material in Arlington, VA. (Rosslyn is a section or Arlington) * Post Processing Offers You the Opportunity to Sort Results Using Various Criteria (zip code, last name, street name, etc.) - This is just the beginning. The best way to learn about what Argali offers is to give it a test drive and see if it works for you. By the way, Mr. Katz has several features in the works including the addition of non-U.S. directories and a version ready to run on a network. Finally, the name. An Argali is a large mountain sheep. Katz chose it because the word has the same meaning and spelling in several languages. See Also: Direct to the Argali White & Yellow Demo and Additional Info
Info Retrieval--Patents Another Selection of Recent Search Related Patents I've prepared another list of selected search and IR patents that have been recently awarded by the USPTO. On Tuesday, the folks at Google were awarded a patent titled, "Detecting query-specific duplicate documents." The complete list is posted on ResourceShelfPLUS.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Geography--Gateways Launching Today, A New Subject Gateway Focusing on Geography: GEsource GEsource is a free online service providing access to a searchable catalogue of high quality Internet-based resources in geography and the environment. It has been developed primarily for staff, students and researchers in further and higher education, but will also be used by schools and members of the public. Disciplines covered include: the environment, general geography, human geography, physical geography and techniques and approaches. Users can browse by subject or search by keyword to find the resources they need for learning or teaching. The database (search/browse) currently contains over 3700 entries and is updated daily. The new directory is part of the U.K. based Resource Discovery Network. See Also: Numerous Other High Quality "Subject Based" Gateways from the Resource Discovery Network -- Identity Theft--United States Source: Federal Trade Commission Just Released, Identity Theft Survey Report This FTC survey, released on 9/3/03, reports that "27.3 million Americans have been victims of identity theft in the last five years, including 9.9 million people in the last year alone." According to the survey, businesses and financial institutions lost roughly $48 billion last year to identity theft, and consumers were out of pocket nearly $5 billion in expenses. Survey results are derived from 4,057 telephone interviews with U.S. adults done by an independent firm. See Also: Summary/News Release
Professional Reading Shelf Electronic Resources Updated: Marian Dworaczek's, "Subject Index to Literature on Electronic Sources of Information" The page-specific "Subject Index to Literature on Electronic Sources of Information" and the accompanying "Electronic Sources of Information: A Bibliography" (listing all indexed items) deal with all aspects of electronic publishing and include print and non-print materials, periodical articles, monographs and individual chapters in collected works. This edition includes 1,556 indexed titles.
Briefly Factiva Offers New Subscription Option Aimed at Individual Researchers Thanks to GT for the news tip. Wednesday, September 03, 2003
Visual Search Anacubis Releases Amazon/Google Visual Search Tool Last March, Anacubis, introduced a demo that allows you to visually search Google. Here's an overview from SearchDay about Anacubis/Google. It remains available. - TODAY, Anacubis launches another demo, Amazon/Google Visual Search. It offers you the opportunity to visually search the Amazon catalog (Books, CD's, DVD's, Video) and then "visualize" related information from both the Amazon and Google databases. Searching is as easy as entering your terms and clicking search. Once you find an entry of interest, simply right click. You're then given the options add additional data (related artists, what other people purchased, etc.) to the visualization. -- Anacubis comes from i2, a well-known information visualization software company working with many intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The demo requires IE, Windows, and Java. You can save and results but you'll need to download (free) the Anacubis View Manager. See Also: TouchGraph Provides (free) Visual Browsing of Amazon and Google. They also offer interfaces for PubMed and ResearchIndex. Which visual browsing tool works best for you? -- See Also: Full-Text of Anacubis News Release See Also: In March, 2002 i2 Announced an Alliance With LexisNexis
Information Industry--OCLC OCLC, LC, and Die Deutsche Bibliothek Sign Agreement to Develop International Authority File From the announcement, OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., Die Deutsche Bibliothek (the German national library) and the Library of Congress signed a memorandum of understanding to develop the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), an effort to include authoritative names from national libraries into one common global service.
Public Libraries--United States--Statistics Source: National Center for Education Statistics Updated Data, Public Library Fiscal 2001 Data Now Available In Library Locator The information in this locator comes from the NCES Public Libraries Survey for Fiscal Year 2001. The types of information you can retrieve about a public library include: identifying information, organizational characteristics, paid FTE staff, operating income and expenditures, size of library collection, library services offered, and electronic measures. This data can also be accessed in the NCES Students' Classroom Find Your Library.
Web Search--Google Source: SearchDay More on Google's Estimate Numbers ResourceShelf ran a couple of postings last week ||| (#2) about Google's new page total and their supplemental results. Today, Danny Sullivan offers a few thoughts. As always, Danny is right on target. Sullivan writes, "...not all of those 3.3 billion documents have actually been indexed. There are some documents that Google has never actually indexed. It may list these in search results based on links it has seen to the documents. The links give Google some very rough idea of what a page may be about." In about 5 minutes and checking just a few major sites I was able to find several million (Google estimates) unindexed urls in just 13 domains. I've posted the results on ResourceShelfPLUS. The exact numbers are not all that important. What is mportant is that you know these pages go into Google's total. --- See Also: Last year, Greg Notess wrote an excellent article breaking down Google's numbers at that time. - Bottom Line: Bigger Doesn't Always MEAN Better. If you increase index size your relevancy algorithm better be up to the task and as we all know determining relevancy with an average amount of query terms (2.1) is a real challenge and far from perfect. VERY OFTEN A Smaller, Focused Database, Can Deliver VERY Precise and RELEVANT RESULTS. The challenge for the info pro is having some knowledge of what's available before it's needed and being able to go directly to it. Put another way, one source or database can't be all things to all people.
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Information Quality Source: Online "Information Quality, Liability, and Corrections" From the article, "All of us have suffered the consequences of poor-quality information. For most of us, most of the time, the impact has minor significance and is of short duration. Perhaps we missed a bus or flight connection as a result of using an out-of-date timetable, or we lost an insurance claim because we failed to note the change in exemptions to the policy when we last renewed. As frustrating or painful as these examples may be, they are rarely fatal. However, in a small percentage of cases, poor quality information has direct, devastating consequences." -- Library Services Source: Library Journal "Taking Back Readers' Advisory" From the article, "What should I read next?" asks a patron eagerly. "What should I tell her?" groans the librarian inwardly. In the best of times, readers' advisory can be a slippery thing; recommending the next good mystery to devour requires a lot more imagination than your standard reference question, which may be why more libraries boast signs saying "Information Desk" than "Ask Me What To Read." Now, with budgets stretched thin and librarians busily helping users navigate the Internet, there is less time than ever to share the joy of reading with patrons, who must fall back on the "Readers Also Bought…" feature of Amazon and its kind. With the new technology, however, librarians might find the solution: remote-access readers' advisory. -- Internet Resources The September Issue of Roddy MacLeod's Internet Resources Newsletter is Now Available Always plenty of useful tools and sites in Roddy's monthly roundup.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Language--Canada--Database Source: National Library of Canada New, Naskapi Lexicon Database From the site: The Naskapi Lexicon database provides users with access to a trilingual dictionary, with translations of terms into Naskapi, English and French. A unique feature of this project, developed in partnership with the Naskapi Development Corporation (NDC), is the use of UNICODE for the display and input of Aboriginal syllabics. -- Webliography Source: Searcher Full-Text article, Criminology Web Sites An Annotated "Webliography" This webliography was prepared by Kenneth Fink, Information Services Librarian, Pepperdine University. -- Cancer--United States--Statistics Source: National Cancer Institute Just Released, Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer According to this report from the National Cancer Institute, death rates from cancer are on the decline, and the number of new cases is plateauing. Press Release Questions and Answers Fact Sheet Supplemental Data -- Population--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Released Today, Foreign Born Population in the U.S. Chart: State Ranking — Percent of Population that is Foreign Born Chart: County Ranking — Percent of Population that is Foreign Born Chart: Place Ranking — Percent of Population that is Foreign Born -- Population--Statistics--Canada Source: Statistics Canada Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada: Process, progress and prospects Summary ||| Full-Text -- Health--Statistics--Canada Source: Statistics Canada Full-Text Report, Mental Health and Well-being in Canada Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text Tuesday, September 02, 2003
Web Search--Gigablast Gigablast Adds Boolean Search Capability Gigablast, a web database run by sole proprietor, Matt Wells, continues to offer new services. Today, Matt announced that Gigablast now offers nested Boolean search functionality (AND, OR, AND NOT, OR NOT). A couple of weeks ago Wells announced that Gigablast is now offering access to pdf, ppt, doc, and xls files. Finally, the Gigablast index just crossed the 200 million page mark. Kudos Matt, keep up the good work. Note: Gigablast also offers cached versions of web pages.
Professional Reading Shelf (4 Items) Bibliographic Records Source: Library + Information Update/CILIP Full-Text, "Bibliographic records in the computer age" From the intro, "Opacs and Webpacs are not the last word in resource discovery, argue Alan Danskin and Ann Chapman. The underlying structure of bibliographic data has to be addressed." -- Government Documents--United States Source: ARL Bi Monthly Report "Rethinking the Federal Depository Library Program" by Prudence S. Adler -- IFLA Source: Information Today 69th World Information Congress Was All About Access Dick Kaser reports about the recent conference. -- Information Age The September, 2003 Issue of First Monday is Now Online Articles include: * "Writing photo captions for the Web" * "The current status and potential development of online news consumption: A structural approach" * "Curtailing online education in the name of homeland security: The USA PATRIOT Act, SEVIS, and international students in the United States" * "The many paradoxes of broadband"
Conferences 47th Annual Military Librarians Conference The 47th Annual Military Librarians Conference (The State We’re In … Preserving the Past … Protecting the Present …Securing the Future) is scheduled for December 9-12, 2003, at the Wyndham City Center in Washington, D.C. The National Defense University Library is the conference sponsor. You can register online or call 1-800-526-7495.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Legal Industry--Lists & Rankings Source: The American Lawyer 2003 American Lawyer "A-List" Rankings From the site, Who are the nation's true first-tier law firms? The American Lawyer tallied revenue, pro bono scores, associate satisfaction, and diversity to determine which firms uphold the highest standards of the profession. Background, Methodology, Additional Links ||| Direct to Complete 2003 List -- Corporate Disclosure Source: PR Newswire DisclosureResource.Com Lists of links, best practices, etc. Provided by PR Newswire. -- News--Middle East Update, Al Jazeera Relaunches English Language Web Site Additional details in this AP story.
Database Trials This Month Only: Ovid is Offering a Free "Test Drive" to IMS R & D Focus The trial is the September, 2003 offering in Ovid's Resource of the Month Program. Description: Essential, up-to-date intelligence on drugs in R&D development worldwide. R&D focus, from IMS Health, offers essential up-to-date intelligence on drugs in development worldwide. It carefully tracks the development, efficacy, and status of pharmaceuticals from early clinical testing through to launch. R&D Focus reports on company and therapy area developments, latest phase changes, licensing status and opportunities, development history, and analysis of the potential for acquisitions and investment deals. R&D Focus offers scientific and commercial summaries, as well as the abstracts of significant scientific papers. More than 17,500 drugs covered, including 6,444 in active development.
Web Tools NoodleBib Gets An Update, Free Offer for Educators NoodleBib is an inexpensive web tool ($8/year/for personal use) that allows users to quickly and painlessly format bibliographies (MLA and APA formats) online and then plug them into a document. Librarian Debbi Abilock, NoodleBib co-developer, has let ResourceShelf now about a few new things happening with the new NoodleBib 4.0 release. Here are a few of them. * Option to save bibliographies on the NoodleBib server for three months, making changes easier. * New button next to each citation allows you to report errors or ask questions about specific citations that you have created direct to NoodleBib. * New "Check for Errors" option (Check your entries for common errors (missing data, words that should be abbreviated, capitalization errors, and more). * Filtering of the citation types by publication medium (print, online, electronic, other) for ease of locating the citation type you are looking for. Free Trial: Debbie has also let us know that educators and schools can use the username:september and password:free to access the service for free during the month of September. See Also: Other Useful Tools via NoodleTools
Web Search--Google Source: Fortune Google's Brin and Page Make Fortune's 40 Richest Under 40 List According to Fortune, Sergey and Larry have an estimated net worth of $900 million. Yahoo's co-founders Filo and Yang are ranked directly above the Google boys with an estimated net worth at $1.28 billion (Yang) and $1.45 billion (Filo). Additional rankings and the full-text of background articles are only available to Fortune subscribers. -- and in other Google News... Source: News.Com "Google pulls links to Kazaa imitator" "In response to a legal threat that invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Google has removed from its index eight sites that distribute a hacked version of file-swapping service Kazaa." This does not mean that the software is inaccessible on the web. Far from it. See Also: Full-Text of Complaint Note: A quick check shows that some urls that Google has removed from their database still are accessible via other web databases. Will Sharman send DMCA requests to other companies like Yahoo and Microsoft? For example: * www.Kazaalite.tk in AltaVista * www.kazaagold.com in AllTheWeb * doa2.host.sk in MSN Search (Inktomi Dbase) * Another source of Kazaa Lite is a "New Addition" in the Yahoo Directory and remains indexed in Google. Monday, September 01, 2003
Computer Virus--Intelligence Global Email Security Threats: Charts, Graphs and Databases from MessageLabs MessageLabs is a major player in "email security" services. They also offer (free) several publicly available charts and maps that allow you to track email threats (viruses, spam) as they move around the globe. 1) Real-Time Virus Outbreak Map 2) Threats Analysis Page Tab between charts for spam, viruses and porn. 3) Virus Threat List Table 4) VirusEye Searchable Database See Also: McAfee Virus Map and Other Tools See Also: Symantec "Latest Virus Threats" List
Archives It's Archive Awareness Month in the United Kingdom and Ireland Over 450 events are scheduled at locations throughout the UK and Ireland. Here's a complete calendar.
Information Industry--Swets Blackwell Swets Blackwell Will Change Its Name From the announcement, Swets Blackwell announced today that it plans to change its company name to ‘Swets Information Services’ in December 2003.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Internet Source: The Pew Internet & American Life Project New Survey, Full-Text:, The Internet and Emergency Preparedness: A joint survey with Federal Computer Week magazine x |
