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ResourceShelf is Compiled & Edited By Gary Price, MLIS Gary Price Library & Internet Research Consulting gary@ resourceshelf.com Gary's Bio Shirl Kennedy, MLIS Contributing Editor Dan Giancaterino, MLIS Contributing Editor Steven Cohen, MLS Contributing Editor Looking For More Info? News? Search Help? News Tips?
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Sunday, September 05, 2004
An Invitation Subscribe to the ResourceShelf Reminder Mailing List Delivered via e-mail every Thursday. If you haven't subscribed yet, please take a moment and fill out the form at: http://www.resourceshelf.com/update/ It's free!!! The ResourceShelf Web Site is Updated Daily! You Can Also Use This Link to Unsubscribe from the E-Mail Reminder. ResourceShelf is Sponsored by MuseGlobal Saturday, September 04, 2004
Check Out a New Site From the ResourceShelf Team: Say Hello to Docuticker The sheer volume of content -- studies, research reports, issue briefs and papers of all sorts -- emanating from government agencies, think tanks, research institutions and trade associations is staggering. However, documents like this often contain such things as a key statistic, contact information for an individual in a position to share valuable expertise, or maybe a helpful bibliography of related resources. Who keeps track of all this stuff? Well, on ResourceShelf's DocuTicker, something we're beta testing, we give it a try. We certainly DON'T cover everything; that would be impossible. But we do attempt to identify a broad range of current papers and reports so you have some idea of what's out there. Granted, many of the organizations churning out this stuff have a particular agenda or an axe to grind. You can usually determine that by browsing the website and clicking promising links like "About Us" or "Mission Statement" -- which you probably know. We try to put fresh material on DocuTicker every day, so it's definitely worth a quick daily browse. We also have an RSS feed available! You may, for example, see a document that is particularly useful to you, which would be your signal to browse the organization's website for other items of interest. Many of these organizations are only too happy to put you on their e-mail lists so you'll receive announcements about newly available documents. And we're happy to entertain suggestions as to how we can make DocuTicker more useful to you. E-mail us at: docuticker@myway.com and let us know.
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Reference Source: Digital Reference Education Initiative Just Released, Working Document: "Rubrics for Digital Reference Service Providers" "The rubrics have been developed to aid in the teaching of virtual reference to LIS students, as well as to act as a guide for the hiring, training, and assessment of practicing librarians and reference staff with digital reference responsibilities. Feedback is welcomed. Please send your comments to Ken Lavender at kenlavender@YAHOO.COM.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Media--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Factiva Factiva Media Visibility Index: Most Memorable Phrases at Republican National Convention You'll find a top five list. "The Factiva Media Visibility Index provides a quantitative snapshot of the media's most widely covered people, places, events or topics within a given time frame...The Factiva Media Visibility Index specifically searches the most influential news and business newspapers and magazines in the United States." -- Out of Print Books--Lists & Rankings Source: Bookfinder.com Just Released, Most Searched For Out of Print Books at Bookfinder.com See Also: Older Lists
Briefly + IEEE Computer Society adds references to freely available abstracts in its state-of-the-art digital library Friday, September 03, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Reference Reviews Peter Jacso's Digital Reference Shelf, September 2004 is Now Online It looks as if Reed Elsevier might have a hit with their new Scopus product. This month Dr. Jacso takes a look. He writes, "Scopus is a mighty collection of multidisciplinary abstracting/indexing records, enhanced with cited references and sporting good search and excellent linking capabilities. Scopus has outstanding output features, including results lists displayed in a grid format, prominent display of the citedness score of items on the results lists -- which can be resorted by decreasing citedness order (among others) -- and an automatic and instant bibliometric profile of the results lists." See Also: Jill O'Neill from NFAIS (a trade association) offers an "assessment" of the product. A video presentation is also available. -- Scholarly Publishing--Europe Source: ResearchInformation Research Information Special Report 2004: STM information market still looks healthy "Every year, David Mort and colleagues at IRN Research survey the online STM information market in Europe. Here, he reveals some of the latest findings." -- Libraries--Genealogy Source: Genealogy Today Getting The Most From Libraries From the article: "Libraries have long been invaluable resource centers for genealogists. But they represent only one step in the total research process. While courthouses, archives, and record centers are the first and final sources for evidence, the library should be used to help interpret data and reorient research. Locating a generation geographically and learning its vital statistics aren't enough. Generations must be reconstructed in their own period of history, clothed in the mental and physical garments they wore, and reconstituted as part of their environment. Good genealogy locates births, marriages and deaths, then adds biographical details. For this kind of thorough research, libraries are excellent.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Health--United States--Statistics Source: Center for Disease Control Fact Sheet: First National Summary Report Shows Magnitude of Injuries "Eighteen people die every hour from injuries in America (or 157,000 people in 2001) spanning all age groups, both sexes and all races, according to the first national report for both fatal and nonfatal injuries released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC)." More statistics in this MMWR article. -- National Guard Source: National Guard Bureau State National Guard Web Sites Links to all 50 state National Guard websites. In alphabetical order. -- Domain Names Source: ICANN Just Released, ICANN Publishes Comprehensive Evaluation of the Introduction of the .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name and .pro gTLDs From the press release: "The experiences and lessons learned from the initial introduction of new gTLDs (.aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name and .pro) will provide an invaluable foundation for ICANN's development this year of a new predictable strategy for selecting new TLDs using straightforward, transparent, and objective procedures that preserve the stability of the Internet." Read the Report [PDF]
Focused Search Tools Prototype: Creative Commons RDF-enhanced search We always enjoy learning about new "focused" or "specialized" search tools. John Battelle reports that a prototype version of a focused search tool that only finds material with a Creative Commons license is now online. The engine is powered by Nutch open source search technology. You can limit your search by format (Audio, Image, Interactive, Text, Video). Two other limits are search limits are available: + Eliminate works with licenses that forbid commercial use. + Eliminate works with licenses that forbid derivative works. All indexed pages are cached locally. Like some other Nutch powered search tools you'll also see a link that explains the computation that Nutch used to include the item on the results page. Info Science and search algo geeks will appreciate this feature. Thursday, September 02, 2004
Resources of the Week Two more for you this week. Digital Libraries--Glossaries Source: California Digital Library (CDL) Digital Library Building Blocks: Glossary So, you're reading an article or listening to a speaker. The topic is digital libraries. And your eyes are s-l-o-w-l-y glazing over from all the jargon. You feel like you should know more about this stuff, but where do you even start if you can't talk the talk? The glossary here -- actually an integrated collection of glossaries -- is part of CDL's Digital Library Building Blocks resource collection. It covers terms connected with: + Crawling and Harvesting + Digital Objects + Interface Customization Tools + Library and Technology + Linking Services + Metasearching + Preservation + XML There is also a glossary of terms specific to CDL and the University of California. Not only can you browse the various glossaries via the links above, but you can search them through a single interface on the main page. A dropdown menu allows you to choose to keyword search any field, terms/acronyms, or definitions. You can view all records on a single page,and there's a link that lets you print out the whole works as a nicely formatted document. -- Science Images--Database Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) NOAA Photo Library OK, folks. Browse this one at your own risk. It's truly one of those "Please just slide the pizza under the door, go away and leave me alone" sites. "(T)he NOAA collection includes thousands of weather and space images, hundreds of images of our shores and coastal seas, and thousands of marine species images ranging from the great whales to the most minute plankton." According to NOAA's home page, there are currently about 30,000 pictures here. Browse the individual photo albums or catalogs of images, or search by keyword. Note: Most NOAA photos and slides are in the public domain and CANNOT be copyrighted. Although at present no fee is charged for using the photos, credit MUST be given to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce unless otherwise instructed to give credit to the photographer or other source. Images are available from these collections: + The National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) + National Weather Service Historical Image Collection + The National Undersea Research Program (NURP) + Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now + Flying With NOAA + NOAA in Space + Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth + Small World ("imagery from far away and exotic locations") + NOAA's Ark (animals) + The Coral Kingdom + Sanctuaries (National Marine Sanctuaries) + National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERR) + America's Coastlines + NOAA Restoration Center + Fisheries + National Marine Fisheries Historical Image Collection + Geodesy - Measuring the Earth (under construction) + Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection + Treasures of the Library ("works of art, oddities and more!") + Beginnings & Endings (sunrises, sunsets, moonbeams and moonshine) -- Thanks to ResourceShelf's Shirl Kennedy for the ROTW annotations.
Professional Reading Shelf Business Research--Australia Business Research--New Zealand Source: Online Full Text article, Free Australian and New Zealand Business Information Resources: A Report from the Melbourne Business Information Group Very useful!!! Thanks to the MBIR and ONLINE editor Marydee Ojala for making this new article available on the web. "Most readers of ONLINE can't casually drop by a meeting of Melbourne, Australia's Business Information Group to learn about new developments in Web business resources. Our group comprises some 30 research librarians, all of whom are engaged in business research in a variety of corporate and government sectors. We meet on a regular basis for networking purposes, often with guest speakers. Alternatively, we hold roundtable discussions where we share experiences and concerns of our profession. Some time ago we made a commitment to diary a dedicated session where we would pool our knowledge of free Web-based business resources. One of the group, Sinead Williams, had previously published an article on Australian and New Zealand Business Resources in ONLINE's sister publication EContent ("Companies Down Under: Australian and New Zealand Company Information," v. 22, n. 6, December 1999, pp. 3336), and we saw our roundtable discussion as a timely update of this article albeit with a focus on free resources. The following is a record of our meeting. -- The British Library Source: NewMediaZero Public denied online access to British Library's archive "The British Library won't be able to make the Web content that it's collecting for the nation available to the public over the Internet. The Library says copyright laws will stop it providing widespread access and the same fate awaits its archive of printed material, which it's slowly digitising...'We'd like to allow access, but it's unlikely we'd be able to provide it over the Web,' admitted Richard Boulderstone, British Library director of e-strategy. 'I suspect it'll be limited to just inside the Library. At least we can collect it. If you can get to the Library you can look at it.'" -- Electronic Records--Federal Government--United States Source: Government Computer News Federal record standards run up flagpole From the article: "A White House-led interagency group for developing information management standards has released two new draft documents for public review. They concern how agencies may be required to handle electronic information in the future. The Federal Interagency Committee on Government Information, established by the Office of Management and Budget, prepared the documents." + First Draft [doc] + Second Draft [html] -- Open Access Source: The Washington Post Accessibility Battle Flares A lobbying battle over the accessibility of federally funded medical research to the public and other researchers gathered steam over the summer recess and threatened to break out in full force when Congress returns to town. To the Alliance for Taxpayer Access and its founder, the Open Access Working Group, "it's about how science can be exchanged freely," says Debra Lappin, one of the lobbyists working the issue. To the Association of American Publishers and other publishing organizations, the issue is "one of primarily fairness," says Allan R. Adler, AAP's vice president for legal and governmental affairs. So far, the open access folks seem to be winning, even though they promote themselves as David vs. a publishing Goliath. The National Institutes of Health is developing policy guidance that would require that final peer-reviewed manuscripts of NIH published research be placed in PubMed Central, the digital library maintained by the National Library of Medicine, within six months after publication in a scientific journal. Language promoting this direction is included in a report accompanying a House Appropriations Committee bill.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Instant Messaging Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Just Released Report, How Americans Use Instant Messaging From the Press Release: "2004 Pew Internet & American Life surveys reveal that more than four in ten online Americans instant message (IM). That reflects about 53 million American adults who use instant messaging programs. About 11 million of them IM at work and they are becoming fond of its capacity to encourage productivity and interoffice cooperation." Read the Full Report [PDF] -- Computer Viruses--Lists & Rankings Source: Sophos New, Top ten viruses and hoaxes reported to Sophos in August 2004 "New virus numbers hit 33-month high, but old timers dominate reports." -- Halloween--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts About Halloween 2004 A compilation of interesting statistics including: + 805.3 million pounds Total pumpkin production in states that were major producers of pumpkins in 2003. Illinois, with a production of 326 million pounds, led all states. + 1,040 Number of U.S. manufacturing establishments that produced chocolate and cocoa products in 2001. + 2,715 Number of formal wear and costume rental establishments across the nation in 2001. -- Entrepreneurship Source: SBA/The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Just Released, Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century Conference Proceedings The conference took place in March 2004. Part I, ||| Part II ||| Video -- Health--United States--Statistics Source: CDC Just Released, The Women's Health and Mortality Chartbook 'Prepared by the HHS Office on Women?s Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the report ranks each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico in 27 indicators, including major causes of death, health risk factors, preventive care, and health insurance coverage. The chartbook maps each indicator so that state and regional patterns can be discerned." Fact Sheet/Highlights ||| Full Text -- Campaign Finance--Political Action Committees--Statistics Source: FEC Just Released, PAC Activity Increases At 18 Month Point In 2004 Numerous lists and rankings in PDF and XLS formats. + Top 50 PAC's + Top 50 Corporate PAC's + Top 50 Labor PAC's + Top 50 Trade/Member/Health PAC's + Top 50 Cooperative PAC's + Top 50 Corporation Without Stock
Enterprise Search A Couple of News Items from FAST Search & Transfer + FAST Has Purchased Publishing Technology from NextPage + The Company is Launching New "Local Search" Technology for the Enterprise Market Today (via DM News) More details from the news release. Federated search technology meets local search. "FAST AdVisor aggregates information from any structured and unstructured data source, including not only the publisher?s own proprietary content, but also advertiser, third-party and web content."
Digitization Projects--Newspapers U.S. History--Civil War Source: Newspapers and Technology Coming Soon: Knight Ridder project bringing old pages to life From the article, "The Civil War-era archives of The Philadelphia Inquirer will be made publicly available this fall following a showcase digitization project backed by Knight Ridder Digital and Olive Software Inc. The electronic archives will contain The Inquirer's wartime reporting from 1860 to 1865, according to Ken Doctor, vice president for content services at Knight Ridder Digital. The project is the first of a wave of digitization endeavors KRD plans to undertake among Knight Ridder newspapers. When The Inquirer's archive conversion is complete, users will be able to perform keyword searches of more than 12,500 newspaper pages chronicling the United States' bloodiest conflict. Wednesday, September 01, 2004
ERIC Education--Databases The New ERIC Web Site and Search Interface Makes Debut The new site went live this morning with more to come in October (intro of more than 105,000 free full-text, non-journal ERIC resources) and December (new records added to the database). In addition to a new look to the web site, today's release includes the launch of new search interface to the database (1966-2004) along with personalization features via MyERIC.
Professional Reading Shelf Fuzzy Logic Source: Computerworld Quick Study Guide: Fuzzy Logic "Fuzzy logic is an extension of classic Boolean logic designed to work with imprecise or vague data. Where classical reasoning requires yes and no values, fuzzy logic can handle concepts such as 'maybe,' 'nearly' and 'very.'" -- Information Retrieval Source: Information Today On the TREC Trail "Barbara Quint looks into the TREC conference, which brings together reps from the intelligence community to help advance text-retrieval systems." See Also: Direct to the TREC Web Site -- Preservation Source: SOLINET Just Released, Full Text, Preservation and Collections Care Issues during Building Projects and Renovations Proceedings from a SOLINET Preservation Conference SOLINET Annual Membership Meeting, Atlanta, GA May 30, 2003. -- Library Databases Local libraries head for Net More press for fee-based databases accessible through your local public library. Thanks to C.L. for the news tip.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Art--Web Resources Image Databases Source: Searcher Looking for Good Art: Web Resources and Image Databases, Part 1 David Mattison offers up an EXCELLENT annotated compilation of resources to find this type of material. This is a keeper! Kudos David! I'm looking forward to Part 2. See Also: In 2002 David wrote, "Images of History on the Web" for Searcher -- Small Business--United States--Statistics Source: SBA Quarterly Indicators: The Economy and Small Business "Provides recent monthly and quarterly data from a wide variety of sources relevant to small businesses. Economic activity of small firms is examined at the national level for 2004." 1st Quarter 2004 2nd Quarter 2004 -- E-Books Kerry/Edwards "Our Plan for America" in askSam Database From an email, "We've imported the text from 'Our Plan for America,' John Kerry and John Edwards's book detailing their platform. The text is divided into sections so you can easily search, browse, and analyze the contents. This is a free download and can be searched and viewed with either askSam or with a copy of the free askSam Viewer. We'll try to provide equal time for the other side next month." -- Birds--United Kingdom Source: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds A to Z of UK Birds "The A to Z of UK Birds is an introduction to the bird species on the red, amber and green lists of conservation concern, and also some introduced species which are thriving here. We have put together information about each featured species, including help with identification, breeding information and details about their lifestyle and feeding habits."
Information Retrieval Information Visualization Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer Structured Data: Another Search Startup From Stanford Gets Some Cash From the article, "Stanford University's computer science department is an engine for economic growth in Silicon Valley, producing the entrepreneurs who created the technologies behind companies such as Google and Yahoo!... Tableau Software, a Stanford spinout that quietly set up operations in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood last year, is announcing $5 million in a first round of funding today...Started as a government research project on the Stanford campus seven years ago, the team behind Tableau worked down the hall from Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In fact, the two companies share more than a common address, co-founder and CEO Christian Chabot said. 'We are like the sister company of Google in some sense, and I want to say that lightly so it is not misinterpreted,' Chabot said. 'But Google was trying to make unstructured databases easy to use, and Tableau was founded to make structured databases easy to use.'" See Also: Direct to Tableau Software Home Page
Briefly + SpringerLink MetaPress Becomes Largest Primary Host of STM Content In The World + + New Report:Google Search & Cache Filtering Behind China's Great Firewall Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Web Search--Weblogs What's the Buzz? For Your Radar Screen: Blabble.com A new start-up joining the ranks of weblog tools, Blabble is aimed at the corporate market. According to an Internet Retailer article, the service will be fee-based when it officially launches in October. A beta is currently available free online. The article reads like Blabble will be something similar to what IBM is developing with WebFountain. Blabble defines what they're doing as "thought parsing." From the article, "Existing software products aggregate listings from blogs, but require the user seeking a view of overall trends or opinions as represented in blogs to read through all the blog listings to make that determination manually. [Company founder Matt] Rice says Blabble goes a step farther by incorporating natural language processing that parses blog listings returned in a search into parts of speech so as to extract from them words, phrases and constructions that indicate opinion. '50,000 people may write about a topic, but you don't have time to read 50,000 listings,' says Rice. 'And I probably don't care about one individual opinion; it's the aggregate that I care about.' Blabble doesn't crawl the web in response to a search, instead drawing from its own searchable database that aggregates content from what are currently more than 2 million blog authors. To fill and grow its database, it secures lists of blogs and also draws from companies that provide consumers with software and platforms for creating blogs. Blabble gets a direct feed from such companies so every change or addition to a posted blog is captured, which keeps its database current." See Also: Direct to Blabble.com Web Site See Also: Blabble.com Weblog See Also: Several weblog engines including Waypath, Technorati, and Daypop all have pages that rank popular blog topics and postings. and while we're on the subject of weblogs... Something New from Waypath, Topic Streams According to the web site, just out of the Waypath lab. "Topic Streams are topic-specific information feeds that aggregate weblog posts. Each Topic Stream is devoted to a specific topic. (The name kind of gives that away, no?) The Topic Streams are refreshed throughout the day, and pull fresh content from nearly 3 million weblogs."
Desktop Search Source: SearchDay Copernic Launches an Impressive and Free Desktop Search Tool Some person named Gary Price (-: has written an overview article about Copernic's new desktop search tool. If you run Windows and have never used a desktop search app, Copernic's new entry might be a good one to try.
Briefly + Vivisimo Technology Now Dynamically Clustering Results at BoardReader.com BoardReader.com is a specialized search tool that allows you to search discussion/message board material. Last week, Lycos unveiled a tool that also focuses on discussion board content.
Professional Reading Shelf OCLC OCLC Research Launches Searchable Repository "Built using OCLC services, the new repository contains descriptions of OCLC Research projects, activities and programs that were originally published by OCLC or in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. The metadata records may be harvested as an OAI file and are available for searching on the OCLC Research Web site. In addition, the records also are in WorldCat and are searchable in FirstSearch and search engines participating in OCLC's Open WorldCat Program. Links to full text are available wherever permitted by the copyright holder." An advanced search interface is also available. -- Information Retrieval Source: Transform Turn Search Into Find A look at self-service search. A sidebar titled, "Behind the Jargon: Five Approaches to Classification" is also available. Sad to report no mention of info professionals in the article. It's a shame since many of the skills we can provide are completely applicable to assisting an organization implementing this type of technology. Oh well, that's the way it goes. -- Science Journals Source: American Chemical Society CAS Science Spotlight From press release: "Recording how often a journal's contents are cited in scientific literature has long been the conventional way of measuring the importance of specific publications and even of the authors themselves. However, the widespread availability of electronic journals on the Web has enabled CAS to provide a new measurement - a tally of researchers' actual requests (Real-Time Document Requests) for full-text articles transmitted via CAS search services. The latest rankings are now available on the Web, free of charge, through CAS Science Spotlight...." Also available: Most Intriguing Documents (in the opinion of CAS scientists/analysts). -- National Archives--United Kingdom Source: KableNET.com Immigrant records go online From the article, "The National Archives is to put records of some of the UK's most famous immigrants online. Among the records of 55,000 naturalised British citizens is information on T. S. Eliot, Sir Henry Stanley and the founder of Marks and Spencer, Michael Marks." See Also: More in this Aug. 27th Post -- Public Libraries--United States Source: ALA All My CDs! Public Library Association President Clara N. Bohrer responds to national CD settlement, distribution to public libraries From the statement, "While library staff nationwide will work to catalog and circulate the CDs received that meet the needs of their local residents, we call on the music industry to send the educational CDs and best-selling music - not remainders that cannot be displayed in libraries - that our millions of library users want to find in their libraries." -- U.S. Census--Privacy U.S. Census Bureau Announces Policy Regarding Sensitive Data
Metadata Source: Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Public Broadcasting Metadata Directory, based on Dublin Core, to be launched From the announcement, "The inaugural version of the Public Broadcasting Metadata Dictionary (PBcore), a standard way to describe all public broadcasting content based on Dublin Core metadata, is being finalized for the launch of version 1.0 in September 2004. The origins of the Dublin Core are firmly grounded in cross disciplinary discovery -- providing a core metadata set that others would find useful as a basis for interoperabity, and yet be able to extend to meet more elaborate requirements. PBCore is a great example of such real-world deployment by one the most prestigious news community in the United States." See Also: Direct to the Public Broadcasting Metadata Dictionary (PBcore) and while we're talking metadata, some news from the UK... UK Ratifies Commitment to Global Internet Standards "...the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the further and higher education funding bodies have signed a joint agreement with the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) enabling the UK to become formally involved in the standard's continued development. MLA and JISC are the UK's official representatives, presenting the views of all UK public sector institutions at an international level."
Web Search Briefs New, Search Engines 2 We're often asked if a directory of every general type search tool exists. The answer is no. However, Michael Wong has just released an impressive directory of over 12,500 search tools. If you enjoy browsing, exploring, and comparing this might just be the place to begin. Michael writes, "I've just launched Search Engines 2, a new directory that offers over 12,500 links to local, regional, national, and foreign internet search engines, web directories, pay per click search engines and meta search engines." Although this directory is large it just contains a fraction of the total search universe especially when it comes to specialized (verticals), fee-based, and site search tools. In other words, Michael has done a great job but just because it's not in the directory doesn't mean it's not out there.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Employment--United States--Lists and Rankings Source: AARP AARP Honors 35 Best Employers for Workers Over 50 From the article: "What do a dental benefits administrator, an office technologies and services firm, a financial services company and an auto manufacturer have in common? These diverse companies recruit and retain mature workers -- they treat them right -- and rank among the 35 employers from across the U.S. that have been named 2004 "AARP Best Employers for Workers Over 50." + See also (Just Released) - Staying Ahead of the Curve 2004: Employer Best Practices for Mature Workers -- Health--United States--Statistics Prescription Drugs--United States--Statistics Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Updated, State Health Facts Online "The Kaiser Family Foundation's State Health Facts Online now includes the latest available data on prescription drug use and spending for all 50 states and the U.S. The new 2003 data include the number of retail prescriptions filled, retail prescriptions filled per capita, the average price of prescriptions, and total spending on retail prescriptions for each state. The percent change from 2002 to 2003 for these indicators is also included. The 2003 data, based on information provided by Verispan L.L.C, a health information company, are available by age group (seniors, adults, and children) and gender. Updated state data are also now available on smoking, obesity, and death rates for cancer, stroke, diabetes, heart disease, and firearms, based on information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data are broken down by gender and race/ethnicity for each topic. State Health Facts Online is a free resource that provides quick access to these topics and others, totaling nearly 400 indicators covering state-level and U.S. data on health, health care, and health policy." -- Law Firms--Lists & Rankings Source: American Lawyer Just Released, The American Lawyer A-List Ranking 2004 Background Article ||| Direct to List (Free, Registration Required)
Enterprise Search + The FBI Awards Large Contract to Convera for Enterprise Search Technology "Convera Corporation today announced the company has won a multi-million dollar contract to provide the FBI with an agency-wide search and discovery platform." See Also: Read More about Convera's RetrievalWare Monday, August 30, 2004
Web Search Source: NY Times Letter to the Editor in The Times: A Non-Profit Web Engine? Timothy E. Cook of Baton Rouge, LA, suggests a nonprofit general web engine in response to this opinion piece. Aside from the technical and collection development policy (targeting the crawler, keeping the database clean) issues that need to be addressed, an interesting idea. Actually, it's not a new idea. I know of many people (namely librarians) who have had similar ideas for a couple of years. Of course, many wonderful librarian- (and non-profit-) built general web directories exist like the LII, Infomine, AcademicInfo.net, and RDN. In fact, one of RDN's underlying sites, EEVL (Enhanced and Evaluated Virtual Library, engineering, computing and mathematics resources), offers a focused crawler that, "harvests information from web sites within the EEVL Internet Resource catalogue and allows the actual content of these sites to be searched (as a conventional search engine would do, but with greater subject focus)." A great idea and one that could help seed a non-profit general web engine with excellent resources.
Answer Engines Source: The Economist Answer Engine Research at Microsoft We've mentioned and linked to articles about "answer engines" numerous times on ResourceShelf. Some new stuff today. Here's an article about the "Ask MSR" research at Microsoft from the current issue of The Economist. From the article, "What is the next stage in the evolution of internet search engines? AltaVista demonstrated that indexing the entire world wide web was feasible. Google's success stems from its uncanny ability to sort useful web pages from dross. But the real prize will surely go to whomever can use the web to deliver a straight answer to a straight question. And Eric Brill, a researcher at Microsoft, intends that his firm will be the first to do that...Ask MSR is still a prototype, although Microsoft is trying to improve it and it may be launched commercially under the name AnswerBot." If you would like to read more, take a look at these papers from MS that have been linked on RS during the past year: + Automatic Question Answering: Beyond the Factoid A 2004 paper by Eric Brill and Radu Soricut. This paper is mentioned in the article. -- + "Web Question Answering: Is More Always Better?" A 2002 paper by Microsoft researchers. -- + "An Analysis of the AskMSR Question-Answering System" Another 2002 paper by Microsoft researchers. We should also mention that Ask Jeeves is doing some interesting and USEFUL work in this area with their Smart Search program. For example, a search for academy awards best actress 1962 provides an ANSWER (mined from the IMDB) not only provides links to answers BUT an actual answer (with a link to the source) at the top of the results list. Here's another example. -- See Also: A Recent RS post about Kozoru A Kansas City startup also doing work in this area. See Also: A May 2004 RS Post about LearnitAll Answer engine/knowledge extraction research at the University of Washington. -- See Also: ResourceShelfPLUS has a compilation of selected MS Search Technical Reports and Patents
Semantic Web Ontologies Source: JISC New, Full Text article, The role of ontologies in teaching and learning "Most information on the Web is written in natural language, designed for people to read and not for computers to understand. The Semantic Web proposes to maintain the decentralised and heterogeneous nature of the Web, but to enable the meaning of its resources to be expressed in a machine understandable way. Making the Semantic Web a reality involves adding machine processable meta-information to documents and creating 'ontologies' - structures around which knowledge bases can be built. Ontologies, and the increased functionality they imply, will bring new opportunities to e-learning and e-teaching. They will enable complex and dynamic learning requirements to be met automatically, and will assist learners in comprehending the domain and building their own concept map. In short, they promise to greatly improve understanding between teachers/learners and the Web."
Professional Reading Shelf Librarians LibrariansForBush In the past few weeks the group LibrariansAgainstBush.org has gotten some attention. We've just noticed that earlier this month LibrariansForBush.org was registered to a person in Massachusetts. The site is not live at this time. -- Digital Libraries Source: E-LIS From open access to open libraries: claims and visions for Open Academic Libraries (PDF; 148 KB) "This paper discusses the concept of the "Open Academic Library". The idea refers to a freely available metadata set about academic publications. The paper discusses emergence and sustainability of such libraries." -- Government Printing Office Source: FCW Collection of last resort From the article, "Government Printing Office officials have held preliminary discussions with librarians about creating a backup library to supplement federal depository library collections. GPO officials describe the new concept as a 'collection of last resort.' But officials at libraries that are part of GPO's Federal Depository Library Program have mixed views about the proposed collection. A period of public comment on the proposal began in the spring, and GPO officials have extended it to Sept. 7. GPO officials said they are only exploring the idea of a backup library and are looking for feedback. But they said new policies may be needed to guarantee free, permanent public access to the government's nearly 2.2 million titles. A collection of last resort would preserve those titles, both in tangible and electronic forms, in the event of an accident or a catastrophe." See Also: More in this 4/2004 RS Post -- Open Access Source: Library Journal NIH Open Access Recommendation Spurs Heated Debate -- Libraries and Librarians Source: Council on Library and Information Resources The September/October Edition of CLIR Issues is Now Online Articles includes: + Enabling New Scholarship Scholarly Communication Institute Highlights Collaboration and Technology + Charting a Course Comments from the New President of CLIR, Nancy Davenport -- Wikis Source: EDUCAUSE Review Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not "The needs met by 'wikis'--documents posted online for open editing by all--are simply not being satisfied by present IT strategies and tools."
Librarians New Publication, Your Help Requested! Patronized: a semi-annual publication about the lives and labor of librarians This new a semi-annual publication will focus on, "the lives and labor of librarians." According to a note on their Ibiblio-based web site, they're looking for columnists, editors, and friends. No other details are provided.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Aviation Security--United States Source: Office of the Inspector General, DHS Just Released, Evaluation of the Federal Air Marshal Service, August 2004 -- Bankruptcies--United States--Statistics Just Released, Bankruptcy Statistics "Bankruptcies filed in federal courts declined slightly in the 12-month period ending June 30, 2004, the first time since 2000 that bankruptcies have declined during that period." -- Medical Research--History Source: National Library of Medicine New, Annotated Bibliography, Resources on the History of Psychiatry from the History of Medicine of NLM -- Republican National Convention Coverage from the blogosphere via two excellent weblog/news search tools. + Politics.Feedster.com From the RSS search tool Feedster. + Election Watch From Technorati. Includes several charts and graphs. === === on a related note, something NEW from Yahoo News... Election Blog Roundup From the site, "Our goal is to aggregate a diverse selection of political blogs and let you sample a variety of opinions as election season heats up."
Business Research Current Awareness Source: Information Today NewsBreaks A New Scoop for Business Information Makes Its Debut Paula Hane offers up an overview of Scoop.com a new fee-based resource ($29.95/month) from NetContent. Content from open web and proprietary sources. Paula concludes, "In my admittedly limited testing of the service, the Scoop service seemed more like a beta release. Although it let me choose publication type and publications, it then didn't show me what I had chosen on the search page or in the results. And, the searches were not iterative -- I couldn't search within the results; instead, "refine search" dropped me back to the initial search box. The service could benefit from some user interface work and search refinements. It does offer both basic and advanced search options, including a handy "Search Builder" function that helps users create structured Boolean queries. Tabs offer easy access to specific functions, including company searches, alerts, and publishing. Another tab presents users with a Topic Library with subject categories so they can drill down to more specific topics to create a search or alert." Sunday, August 29, 2004
Weblogs and RSS Weblogs--Education Source: Educause Review Educational Blogging From the article: "The bell rings, and the halls of Institut St-Joseph in Quebec City echo the clatter of the fifth- and sixth-graders. Some take their chairs in the more traditional classroom on the lower floor. Others attend to their projects in the large, open activity room upstairs, pausing perhaps to study one of the chess games hanging on the wall before meeting in groups to plan the current project. A third group steps up a half flight of stairs into the small narrow room at the front of the building, one wall lined with pictures and plasticine models of imagined aliens, the other with a bank of Apple computers. This last group of students, eight or so at a time, fire up their browsers and log into their cyberportfolios, a publication space that Principal Mario Asselin calls a "virtual extension of the classroom." This virtual space is composed of three sets of weblogs, or blogs: a classroom Web space, where announcements are displayed and work of common interest is posted; a public, personal communication zone, where students post the results of their work or reflection; and a private personal space, reserved for students' thoughts and teacher guidance."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Documents in the News Executive Orders and Directives--United States Source: White House Executive Orders and Directives Last Friday, President Bush signed new Executive Orders designed to carry out some of the 9/11 Commission recommendations regarding improving US intelligence operations. They are: + Executive Order National Counterterrorism Center + Executive Order Strengthening the Sharing of Terrorism Information to Protect Americans + Executive Order Establishing the President's Board on Safeguarding Americans' Civil Liberties + Executive Order Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community + Homeland Security Presidential Directive/Hspd-11 -- Comprehensive Terrorist-Related Screening Procedures -- Legal Services--Tutorials Source: AP Free Online Legal Service Launched From the article: "A nonprofit that helps the poor with legal services launched a free Web site Friday to help people navigate the state and federal courts in California. The Web site provides legal referrals in all 58 counties and general information on a variety of legal topics, ranging from domestic abuse to workplace discrimination. It has separate sections for issues specific to seniors, the disabled and American Indians. " + See also: publiclawlibrary.org , sponsored by The Council of California County Law Librarians. -- Internet Use--United States Source: Online Publishers Association Internet Activity Index "The Internet Activity Index (IAI) provides a new way of looking at consumer engagement online, dividing Internet usage into four distinct activities: content, communications, commerce and search. As the Internet has evolved, it has become increasingly clear that each of these areas has a distinctly different business model associated with it, leading to a natural and healthy segmentation of the marketplace. By tracking share of time spent on each activity, the Index provides a benchmark for charting the relative impact of changing market dynamics on these segments as the medium matures." See Also: Press Release
Professional Reading Shelf American Library Association Source: ALA Governing and Strategic Documents ALAhead to 2010 Overview of the planning process and the plan. -- Presidential Libraries--Woodrow Wilson Source: AP (via Newsday.com) Staunton library to become primary resource on Woodrow Wilson "The small western Virginia city of Staunton has always claimed Woodrow Wilson as a native son. Though the 28th president spent less than a year there as an infant, residents nevertheless celebrate his short time in their company with a museum next to Wilson's first home. Now museum officials hope to make Staunton the first place to go for history buffs. In the next few years, they'll build a $28.5 million library expected to house originals or copies of everything Wilson ever wrote." See Also: The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library -- Libraries Source: The Daily Breeze Cell phone use in library: $1,000 fine From the article: "Using a cellular telephone in a city library could cost incessant yakkers plenty -- up to $1,000. City leaders adopted an ordinance, which takes effect Sept. 15, that bans all cell phone use in libraries, including talking, text messaging and ringing tones of any kind." Saturday, August 28, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf The British Library Source: BL Now Available, The British Library 2003-2004 Annual Report From a summary article, "The British Library Annual Report 2003/2004, available online yesterday, shows how the national library underpins research strengths of UK businesses, universities and spin-outs -- generating an estimated £363m of value to the UK economy each year. Other statistical highlights of the 2003/2004 Annual Report include: + 53,483,537 international patents are held in the Library's collection -- the world's largest + 5,000 plus scientific, business and patent items were consulted in the reading rooms every day by inventors, entrepreneurs and other researchers + 2,477,535 printed books, journals, newspapers and patents entered the collections -- 571,901 sent by publishers under UK Legal Deposit legislation + £10 million is spent annually by the Library on acquiring new science, technology, medical and business material + 9,721,574 searches were made of the Library's web catalogue -- six and a half million of which were made by users in 184 countries around the world." -- Filtering Source: Corvallis Gazette-Times Library filters could block out ed sites From the article: "Shakespeare's plays, classic novels like 'Moby Dick' and a Web site about the NFL's Super Bowl are among the resources that may be blocked to children younger than 13 under a proposal to filter Internet searches at Multnomah County libraries. A proposal by library Director Molly Raphael would filter all Internet searches by children ages 12 and younger, unless parents or guardians want them to have unlimited access. Youths ages 13 to 16 could access any Web site."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Digital Imaging The Digital Learning Center "The KODAK Digital Learning Center (DLC) is your digital reference solution. The DLC was developed to educate people about the digital world and to help them succeed with digital imaging. The site was built on the basics of educational instruction and has been utilized by thousands of people to Take Pictures." This site includes a glossary of digital imaging terms as well as chapters on such subjects as images for the web, video conferencing, color and storage issues. Link and annotation via Infomine -- Earth Sciences--Web Resources Source: NOAA Central Library WINDandSEA: The Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences Internet Locator "This locator was built in response to the many reference questions that are posed to the library and is meant to make Internet searching more efficient for the NOAA community, the academic community, other government agencies concerned with oceanic and atmospheric issues, and the general public. Presently WINDandSEA has over 1,000 selected links to science and policy sites organized by topic and alphabetically within topic. All of these sites have been reviewed and annotated by NOAA Central Library and NOAA Regional Libraries staff." -- Native Americans--Images Source: California State University, Long Beach American Historical Images on File: The Native American Experience This site contains "... Photographs, drawings, maps and short descriptions chronicling the experiences of the Native American population dating from the first migrations from Siberia (pre-1600) through recent experiences. This collection of historical photographs is provided with the permission of Facts on File, Inc., and is a comprehensive collection of images of Native American people. The collection is arranged chronologically from the prehistoric period and the Paleo-Indians to 1990 and the appointment of R. Richard West as director of the National Museum of the American Indian. The collection includes information and images which describe the lifeways of various tribes and include historical entries for particular Indian groups. Narrative is provided that provides the historical and cultural background describing the event, person, or subject presented. " Link and annotation via Infomine Friday, August 27, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Weblogs Source: RLG DigiNews Blog Today, Gone Tomorrow? Preservation of Weblogs From the article, "Weblogs seem to be growing in number and stature, but a lot of them seem pretty ephemeral. Are any special efforts being made to preserve their contents?" -- Internet Critical Information Skills Source: News.com Reservoir blogs: Fan fakes Tarantino diary Want to be a famous film director? No problem. Create a site and say you're that person. The web makes it easy. This is nothing all that new but it's a good article for your critical info skills teaching folder. -- e-Books Source: News.com Have e-books turned a page? From the article, "After more than a decade of false starts and empty promises, publishers may finally be starting to understand what consumers want from electronic books. Although revenues remain tiny, industry surveys show encouraging signs of growth in e-book sales over the past year. Publishing executives and analysts say the industry is finally coming to grips with the most significant issues that have stalled e-book adoption to date."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Health Information New Topic Page/Compilation from MEDLINEplus + MedlinePlus: Personal Medical Records Another excellent compilation of sites and resources. -- Hurricanes Source: NOAA/Hurricane Research Division Recently Expanded and Updated: Hurricanes (Frequently Asked Questions) -- Genealogy--United Kingdom--Databases Source: The National Archives Web gets even better for family history "Family history will become even easier to do from home thanks to a new project by The National Archives. Information on over 55,000 people who became naturalised British citizens between 1844 and 1930 is now available free in the Catalogue...The project will be completed in March 2005 when 7000 naturalisations from 1931 to 1935, already available at the public research rooms in Kew, will go online." -- Education--United States--Financial Support Source: National Center for Education Statistics Just Released, Federal Support for Education: Fiscal Years 1980 to 2003 "This report provides a comprehensive picture of total federal financial support for education from fiscal year 1980 through fiscal year 2003. A summary of dollar amounts spent on education programs in the U.S. Department of Education and other government agencies is provided." See: Full Report (PDF; 418 KB) -- Secrecy--U.S. Government Source: OpenGovernment.org Full Text Report, Secrecy Report Card: Quantitative Indicators of Secrecy in the Federal Government "...an initial effort to establish measurable benchmarks for evaluating the level of secrecy in government." Summary/News Release ||| Full Text
Government Contracts--United States--Databases Source: GCN GSA to offer some free access to federal contract data Free? It's free AFTER paying a one time $2500 fee. From the article, "The General Services Administration will provide the public with free access to some federal contract information through the Federal Procurement Data System Next Generation. Access to all of the raw contract data will be provided for a one-time $2,500 fee, GSA official David Drabkin said today. The new FPDS will be available to the public Oct. 1, according to GSA...The new database will provide users with up-to-date contracting information, according to GSA. In the past, the data has been three to nine months old by the time it was published, Drabkin said...Access to some data may be delayed up to 90 days for security reasons, Drabkin said. For example, if the Army bought equipment or supplies that would indicate an upcoming military operation, 'they wouldn't want folks around the world to know what they were doing,' he said." See Also: GSA News Release
Briefly + +SLA and New York Public Library Join Forces to Offer Free Research Service for Journalists at Republican National Convention Thursday, August 26, 2004
Resources of the Week Business Research Trip's Lists Vol. 2 Note: Trip Wyckoff is the proprietor of SpecialIssues.com, a database containing information about salary surveys, industry outlooks, overviews, buyers guides, who's who registers, etc., that can be found in more than 3,200 publications. He is also the current compiler of Price's Lists of Lists, a resource I started about six years ago. It offers direct links to company and industry rankings. The LOL is available for free. From time-to time Trip posts interesting compilations of useful resources to ResourceShelf. His first compilation was posted about four months ago and is available here. Buyers Guides By Trip Wykoff In this article, we take a look at the different types of buyers guides and the resources affiliated with them. Many magazines now have a buyers guide issue or products area on their websites. Buyers guides are advertising revenue-generating devices magazines use to do one or more of the following: 1) generate incremental income from their advertisers; or 2) reward advertisers; and/or 3) create a tool for identifying future advertisers and subscribers. Buyers guides can be very useful for identifying companies, especially large companies that play in many niche industries. They can also help researchers understand players in an industry, understand market share and identify niche players in industries. Let's take General Electric (GE), a large conglomerate, as an example. Below are listed nine different buyers guides; GE has a listing in each. + BioIT World (GE Biosciences) + Business Finance Magazine (GE Finance is listed.) + Door & Window Maker (See GE Plastics profile.) + Food & Drug Packaging (Look for GE Interlogix.) + Food Manufacturing (GE Silicones, GE Water Systems are among the divisions listed.) + Medical Dealer (GE is listed in the Manufacturers Directory; note how small the listing is, probably due to market share) + Plastics News (GE has a large presence, no less than 3 divisions and 2 subsidiaries.) + Security Management (GE Security has a listing; including regional distributors.) -- -- -- Trip's Cool Buyers Guides + DM News (guide to direct mail lists; can sort lists by NAICS code) + Quirk's Marketing Research Review (wonderful site for tips on researching markets)
Professional Reading Shelf Archives Source: The National Archives (UK) New Issue Available, Recordkeeping (Summer 2004) "Recordkeeping is a regular publication from The National Archives aimed at Archivists, Records Managers, and all those who care for archives and records. The magazine is published quarterly and will contain news from The National Archives and examples of best practice and case studies in archives and records management." -- Information Science Source: ASIST The August 2004 Issue of the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology is Now Online Articles include: + Analytic Myopia, Data Disintegration and Homeland Security by Lee Strickland + Emerging Content Requirements for New Products by Howard Williams -- PubMed Source: NLM Updated PubMed Tutorial Available NLM has also made three new "animated" tutorials available using Viewlet technology from Qarbon.com. + Search PubMed for an Author + Searching PubMed by Author and Subject + PubMed Simple Subject Search Example
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Terrorism Intelligence--United States Source: CRS (via FPC) Three New/Updated Congressional Service Reports: + Terrorism in Southeast Asia + Side-by-Side Comparison of Intelligence Community Reforms Proposed by 9/11 Commission, the Bush Administration, Senators Feinstein, Graham and Daschle, and Representatives Harman and Goss; and Current Statute (Memorandum) + Terrorism: Key Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and Recent Major Commissions and Inquiries and Presidential Elections in the United States: A Primer A 53 page CRS report. Last updated in 2000. We are checking to see if a newer version exists. -- Health Insurance--Untited States--Statistics Poverty--Untited States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Released Today, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2003 Summary and Fast Facts ||| Direct to Full Text -- Securities--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Securities Class Action Services/Institutional Shareholder Services The SCAS 50 (2003) "The SCAS 50 lists the top 50 plaintiffs' law firms ranked by the total dollar amount of final securities class action settlements occurring in 2003 in which the law firm served as lead or co-lead counsel." -- Drunk Driving--United States--Statistics Source: NHTSA Just Released, Drunk Driving Deaths 2003 Includes chart. -- Real Estate--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes Most Overpriced Places 2004 Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Enterprise Search Federated Search Source: GCN Advanced search engines link many data sources So many search tools, so little time. Sounds like federated search technology is finding a home at several government agencies.
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Libraries New Interesting Reads from the Journal of Digital Information + MatDL: Integrating Digital Libraries into Scientific Practice "Digital repositories can be catalysts for new knowledge by providing information space and tools to facilitate the work of students, educators, or scientists. The NSF NSDL Materials Digital Library (MatDL) is adapting existing open source "tools", such as an image gallery and a version control system, to meet the needs of users within the materials science community." -- ++ Supporting Community Inquiry with Digital Resources "Today there are a number of fields that address the need to develop better means of employing information and communication technologies (ICTs) to help communities achieve their goals. Digital infrastructure and repositories are widely created to support the activities of educational, workplace, and scientific communities, as well as virtual communities of interest that may center on topics as diverse as entertainment, crisis management, and health. However, the research and development of ICTs faces numerous challenges." -- Digital Preservation Source: National Library of Australia PADI (Preserving Access to Digital Information) and Safekeeping An article by Marian Hanley, PADI Administrator, National Library of Australia, originally published in the High Energy Physics Libraries Webzine, Issue 9, February 2004. -- Encyclopedias Source: The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) Librarian: Don't use Wikipedia as source A school librarian tells a tech columnist to be careful. + See Also: "One great source -- if you can trust it" (2004) Noted tech columnist Hiawatha Bray shares his thoughts. + Not Available "On the Web" Peter Jacso reviewed Wikipedia in the March/April, 2002 of Online To Wikepedia's credit they offer a response here. I hope Peter will write an updated review soon. -- National Archives--Japan Source: Asahi Weekly Editorial: Role of National Archives "The role of a national archive is to preserve important government documents and open them to the public. But the number of those documents offered to the National Archives of Japan has dramatically decreased in recent years. That is because government ministries and agencies have become unwilling to offer the documents under their control for public scrutiny." -- Libraries Source: Newsday Library fits any budget but its own From the editorial: "We don't have any additional data," Larra Clark, the association's spokeswoman, said last week. "But from what I've heard from around the country, many libraries are still reporting increases in circulation. That good news is complicated a bit by all the cuts in library funding." In other words, making an apples-to-apples comparison of the present and recent past is tricky. Even if more people continue to show up at libraries, tightened budgets have yielded reductions at many locales in library personnel and purchases of books, CDs, videos and other materials. Operating hours have been slashed."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Health--Statistics Source: March of Dimes New PeriStats Website Provides Easy Access To More Than 60,000 Graphs, Maps, And Tables On Perinatal Health From the announcement, "...a complete redesign of its popular PeriStats Web site, offering the most current and detailed maternal and infant health statistics available in the United States. Funding was provided by the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health through a 2-year grant collaboration with the New York Academy of Medicine. The new PeriStats Web site offers state-specific perinatal data, including detailed data for the largest cities and counties in the United States, and is available free of charge..." See Also: Direct to PERISTATS Database -- Education--United States--Statistics Source: NCES New Data Available, Education Finance Statistics School District Peer Tool "The NCES Education Finance Statistics Center has updated the Public School District Finance Peer Search with School Year 2000-2001 financial data (the latest available fiscal data from NCES.) The Public School District Finance Peer Search permits you to compare the finances of a school district with its peers. Peer districts are districts which share similarities among such characteristics as total students; student teacher ratio; percent children in poverty; district type; and locale code. Aside from an automatic standard peer search, users can search for school districts by distance from a zip code, or can select school districts they wish to compare a school district to. Advanced users can select groups of school districts by a particular characteristic, such as percent of children in poverty (in School Year 2000-2001)." -- Foundations--United States--Statistics Source: Foundation Center Just Released, 2004 Foundation Staffing and Reporting From an email message, "For the first time ever, the Foundation Center has released online statistics detailing foundation staffing and public reporting in the Grantmaker Stats area of "FC Stats." Staffing data document patterns for professional and support staff and include information on boards of trustees. Public reporting data document foundations' voluntary reporting patterns through the use of publications, annual reports, and Web sites. Information in both areas includes breakdowns by foundation type, region, asset range, and period of establishment. Data for 2004 are based on information from nearly 20,000 of the largest U.S. foundations." -- Iraq--Documents in the News Source: U.S. Army Just Released, The Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib News Release ||| Full Text
Government Documents--United States Source: ALA Congress Asks Ashcroft to Explain Why He Wanted Libraries To Withdraw Docs From the ALA Washington Office, "On August 24, 2004, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Representative John Conyers Jr. (D-MI.), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote Attorney General John D. Ashcroft asking him to explain the rationale for the request that GPO instruct federal depository librarians to withdraw and destroy five documents. The ALA Washington Office has been in communication with the congressional offices since the DOJ request. Senator Leahy and Rep. Conyers Jr. said 'Given the Administration's penchant for secrecy, we fear that this action was yet another attempt to erode the public's right to know.' The Senators' letter can be found online at: http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/dojlibraryltr82404.pdf"
Citation Analysis Source: ISI + Science in Finland, 1999-2003 + Science in Belgium, 1999-2003 + U.S. Universities with High Concentrations in Communication, 1999-2003 + Chemical Engineering: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 1999-2003 + Library & Information Science: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1999-2003 + Computer Science: High-Impact Institutions, 1994-2004
Surveys Share Your Opinions: Two Search Surveys 1) Sid Yadav Would Appreciate Your Opinion on the Future of Search Engines It takes very little time!!! 2) GuideStar UK Would Like Your Views The database (similar to GuideStar.org) is set to launch in April 2005. They would like your views about how you might use the search facility they plan on making available.
Briefly + Gates Foundation Presents Awards to Libraries in Denmark and China + CAS Extends Access to Additional Research from Early 20th Century (via Managinginformation.com) Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Internet2 Source: News.com Internet2: 2004 and beyond From the article, "More than 227 universities, libraries, public schools and research institutions are connected to Internet2. The network connects to more than 57 international high-capacity networks. It provides a test bed for new technologies such as IP version 6." See Also: Direct to the Internet2 Web Site
Professional Reading Shelf Academic Libraries Source: ARL New SPEC Kit from ARL: The Information Commons From the announcement, "Many college students want access in one area to all the different tools needed to write a research paper, assignment, thesis, or complete a class project. In response, libraries have started exploring partnerships with others in the campus community to develop services that combine computer access and research assistance. The result is the "Information Commons." This SPEC Kit looks at how this new service model fits into the existing framework of user assistance offered in academic and research libraries today. Additionally, it explores how the information commons is staffed and what training is needed to help staff members transition into this new service area." Full Text is fee-based but a free executive summary is available. -- Law Librarians Source: Columbus Business First Demand for librarians at law firms on the rise "Like many others, Schottenstein Zox & Dunn shrunk its collection of print material because of the increased availability of electronic legal information through password-protected services such as LexisNexis and Westlaw. But law librarians don't appear to be victims of the downsizing trend, even though it has become much easier for lawyers and paralegals to conduct their own research. 'If anything, my workload has increased a lot,' [Librarian Margaret] Toole said. So much information is now available that having someone who can sift through it and find the relevant information quickly is a definite advantage, she said." -- Online Research Source: Dayton Business Journal Know where to look when searching Web Ohio librarian Rachelle Ramsey reminds readers of this business weekly the people are out there to assist them in accessing online info. She writes, "Research conducted by the Delphi Group revealed that most business professionals spend more than two hours each day searching for information needed for their jobs. Nearly 70 percent of survey respondents agreed that finding information is a difficult process and that they often can't find the information they seek. Local business professionals can cut that time dramatically by using trained professionals -- such as librarians -- to assist them. As information professionals, reference librarians are trained to create effective search strategies to locate needed information in print or online." -- U.S. National Commission of Library and Information Science NCLIS Links Libraries and Emergency Preparedness, Recommends Libraries as a Trusted Information Network From the announcement, "The U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) announced today that its program for promoting libraries as information providers for emergency preparedness is moving forward. 'NCLIS is working with libraries to encourage participation in emergency preparedness at the community level,' said Commission Chair Beth Fitzsimmons, of Ann Arbor, MI. 'Making this connection between libraries and the distribution of emergency preparedness information is part of the work that NCLIS has taken upon itself. The Commissioners have chosen three strategic goals, and this work grows directly out of our efforts to achieve these goals. We are going to appraise and assess America's libraries, we will strengthen the relevance of libraries and information services in the minds of American citizens, and we will promote research and development for improving library and information science. Encouraging the use of libraries as centers for emergency preparedness information fits right in, especially with our efforts to make libraries more relevant in American society.'
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Iraq--Documents in the News Source: Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations Full Text, Just Released, Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations -- Biography--Wales--Databases Source: The National Library of Wales New, Welsh Biography Online From a BBC article, "The Welsh Biography Online site highlights the great and the good who lived and died between the mid 4th century and 1970. The project has been developed by the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, mid Wales...The site's contents are taken from volumes of The Dictionary of Welsh Biography. Alwyn Owen, project leader, said: 'The original idea of transcribing The Dictionary of Welsh Biography into digital form came because of the constant enquiries library staff received from users. Several national librarians have served as editors and many members of staff have undertaken editorial and research work for the publication. It was natural for the National Library to take the relationship a step further and to make the online resource a live database.'" -- Plagiarism Source: Lou Bloomfield, Professor of Physics, University of Virginia The Plagiarism Resource Site "The goal of this web site is to help reduce the impact of plagiarism on education and educational institutions. At present, it distributes free software to detect plagiarism and provides links to other resources." See also: Intellectual Honesty in the Electronic Age (John Iliff and Judy Xiao, College of Staten Island Library, City University of New York) -- Children's Literature--Historical Collections Source: Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (State University System of Florida) Literature for Children "Literature for Children is a collection of the treasures of children's literature published largely in the United States and Great Britain from before 1850 to beyond 1950. At the core of this Collection are books from the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature, housed in the Department of Special Collections and Area Studies at the University of Florida. Books from the Departments of Special Collections at the Florida Atlantic University, Florida State University, and the University of South Florida join volumes from the Baldwin Library to complete the Collection. The foundation for this Collection was a cataloging and preservation microfilming project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The NEH project included a digital color management strategy for the reproduction of illustrations as children saw them." -- Insurance Records--Slavery--United States Source: The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC) Illinois Web site offers glimpse into slavery "The names of dozens of Charlestonians who owned slaves are now posted on an Illinois government Web site, along with the names and skills of the slaves whose lives they once insured. South Carolina historians say the release of the insurance company records could be valuable for genealogical research." -- Spam--Lists and Rankings Source: Sophos Sophos reveals latest "Dirty Dozen" spam producing countries The U.S. tops the list. -- U.S. Congress Source: House Committee on Ways and Means/GPO Now Available, Searchable, Green Book 2004 (Background Material and Data on Programs Within the Jurisdiction of the House Committee on Ways and Means) "The House Ways and Means Committee Green Book provides program descriptions and historical data on a wide variety of social and economic topics, including Social Security, employment, earnings, welfare, child support, health insurance, the elderly, families with children, poverty and taxation. It has become a standard reference work for those interested in the direction of social policy in the United States. It is compiled by the staff of the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives." -- Workplace Safety and Health--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: The Memory Hole and OSHA Companies With Highest Levels Of Employee Injury and Illness From the OSHA web site, "The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has identified and sent letters to almost 13,000 workplaces with the highest occupational injury and illness rates and is urging the employers to take action to remove hazards causing the high rates." See Also: Direct to List (available in several formats) See Also: Excellent Summary by Russ Kick
Health Research--Databases Source: USDA/NLA/NIH IBIDS: International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements Database Online With New Look and New Features From the announcement, "The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC) at the National Agricultural Library are delighted to announce the "launch" of the new, improved, Web-accessible International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements (IBIDS) Database today, Wednesday, August 18, 2004. The IBIDS database is available to the public free of charge through a Web interface ...It currently contains over 730,000 citations on the topic of dietary supplements. Citations are available from 1986 to the present and abstracts are included where permission has been granted from the publisher. So What's New with IBIDS? + A New Look: The Web site has been redesigned to include images and other new features. Available abstracts are visible in the search result sets and records are easy to discern from one another due to the creative use of background color. + Images: Images of botanicals and the chemical structures of amino acids, vitamins, and minerals will appear in conjunction with search set results when an image is available for the term entered or selected. + The Top Five: The five search terms entered most frequently by IBIDS users are tallied and made available at the click of a virtual button from the main page. + Additional Delivery Options: Receive selected records via email in plain text form or formatted for use in the Endnote program. + Query Terms Highlighted in Results: Result sets show the query terms highlighted in red text within the citations and abstracts." See Also: Direct to IBID's Home Page
Briefly + IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellows for 2005 Announced -- + The Organization of American States, ebrary and E-libro Join Forces to Facilitate Online Education and Information Sharing throughout the Americas Monday, August 23, 2004
Web Search FaganFinder Launches a New Resource: URLinfo Another great tool from Michael Fagan via his already VERY useful Fagan Finder search page. Michael pinged us today to inform us about his new URLinfo resource that makes finding info about a specific web page/site from a variety of sources just a click or two away. It's simple. At the top of the URLinfo page enter the url you want to learn more about. Then, simply click on any of the colored tabs to access data about the page/site. Tabs include: + General (WHOIS info and more) + Links (Backlink info from a variety of sources) + Similar (Find related page links from several sources including Google) + Cache (Direct links to a variety of databases caching links) + Search (Just like it sounds) + Blogs/Feeds (Info from Daypop, Syndic8, and other blog/rss tools) + Translate (A massive set of translation sources direct from the Fagan Finder Translation Wizard (another tool we really like). + Track (Track page changes using a variety of sources) + Develop (Validation tools and more!) + Misc (Traffic stats from Alexa and other sources) Also available is a resource that with just a few clicks will create customized bookmarklets to various parts of URLInfo. No coding needed. (-: It looks like Mr. Fagan has done it again and has built another useful tool. Michael also wanted me to let you know that feedback is welcome. You can contact him at: mfagan@gmail.com.
Search Briefs + Two New Beta Releases from Lycos (via SearchDay) People Search is a rebranding of WhoWhere.com offering telephone and other data sources including direct links (labeled "professional profile") to the Eliyon.com database. Eliyon aggregates data from a variety of open web sources. Be careful, some of these profiles might contain old, outdated info (you mean every web page doesn't contain the most current data? (-;). -- The other beta, Discussion Search, aggregates results from THOUSANDS (Lycos would not provide an exact number) of online discussion boards including Yahoo Groups. I agree with Chris, this is a very good idea and something that is long overdue. Some search result pages also offer direct links to "related organizations" and web pages based on your search terms. For example, this search for "search engines" offers a direct link to the InfoPeople "Best Search Tools" page.
Web Search--Google View a Presentation By Google's CEO Eric Schmidt Eric Schmidt delivered this presentation (it runs about one hour) at UC Berkeley during the EECS Annual Research Symposium in February. You'll need MS Media Player to view. -- -- See Also: Seminar Presentation: Challenges in Running a Commercial Search Engine (3.5 MB; PDF) From the IR perspective, interesting! A presentation by Amit Singhal, Senior Research Scientist at Google. It was the keynote address at IBM's Second Search and Collaboration Seminar 2004 in Haifa.
Professional Reading Shelf Internet Filters--Public Libraries Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Porn filters expose flaws From the article, "When John Mihelcik clicked on GasBuddy.com, a Web site that tracks retail gasoline prices across the country, a message popped up on the Mt. Lebanon Public Library computer: "Access Denied -- the site you have chosen has been categorized as a sex site." ...In the seven weeks they have been mandatory, filters have disrupted hundreds of routine searches in public libraries, according to librarians and patrons. They say the filters have become a counterproductive hassle at best and, at worst, an impediment to the free flow of ideas, information and speech." See Also: Library will be checking in with public on Internet filters (via The Oregonian) "A Multnomah County proposal requires filters for those 12 and younger but not for users 13 to 16 unless parents say otherwise." -- Citation Analysis Source: In-Cites.com The Top 5 Library & Information Science: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1999-2003 -- Scholarly Publishing Source: Houston Chronicle Lawsuit alleges fraud in sale of subscriptions From the article, "A federal judge has frozen the bank accounts of a Houston subscription company in a lawsuit involving multimillion-dollar fraud allegations and the arcane world of the $6 billion-per-year scientific publishing industry. "Some of the biggest companies in the international scientific publishing business are accusing Scholarly Publications Inc. of fraudulently purchasing individual subscriptions at low rates and reselling them at institutional rates that can be as much as 10 times higher. Bringing the lawsuit are the American Chemical Society, a nonprofit publisher; London-based Elsevier Inc.; Sage Publications Inc. of Thousand Oaks, Calif.; and three companies owned by New York-based John Wiley & Sons Inc." Thanks to Sherry A. for the news tip. -- Libraries--Use Source: Newsday Library fits any budget but its own From the editorial: "We don't have any additional data," Larra Clark, the association's spokeswoman, said last week. "But from what I've heard from around the country, many libraries are still reporting increases in circulation. That good news is complicated a bit by all the cuts in library funding." In other words, making an apples-to-apples comparison of the present and recent past is tricky. Even if more people continue to show up at libraries, tightened budgets have yielded reductions at many locales in library personnel and purchases of books, CDs, videos and other materials. Operating hours have been slashed." -- Libraries Source: Christian Science Monitor Something new to check out at the mall: library books. From the article: "Typically, people go to malls to shop and to socialize. They may meet a friend for a quick lunch and then hunt for a new outfit. But at two malls in the greater Seattle area, they can also pick up a copy of the latest bestseller, do a computer search for a new job, and listen to a Spanish- language CD - all for free. The freebies aren't some enormous give-away by the malls, but typical library services in a not-so-typical location."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Industrial Products--Specialized Databases Thomas Publishing Launches (Relaunches?) ThomasNet We're trying to figure out what, if anything, is new today. Thomas issued a similar sounding news release six months ago. From the announcement, "Thomas Industrial Network, Inc., a leading online provider of Internet sourcing and marketing solutions for industrial buyers and sellers, today announced the launch of its new Website, www.ThomasNet.com(TM). ThomasNet.com is a next generation industrial search engine that enables industrial buyers to find the exact products and companies they need quickly and easily, and connects sellers with qualified potential customers." Browse by category or keyword search (excellent search refinement options). Numerous customization options. -- Environment--Europe Source: European Environment Agency Recently Released/Full Text, Impacts of Europe's changing climate "The impacts of climate change on Europe's environment and society are shown in this report. Past trends in the climate, its current state and possible future changes are presented using 22 selected indicators." -- Criminal Justice--United States--Statistics Source: BJS Just Released, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 2002 "The 30th edition of Sourcebook contains over 600 tables from over 100 sources." Print and CD-ROM versions are also available. -- Campaign Finance--United States Source: FEC Election 2004 + Receipts of Presidential Campaigns Through July 31, 2004 [ EXCEL ] [ PDF ] + Disbursements, Cash, and Debts of Presidential Campaigns Through July 31, 2004 [EXCEL ] [ PDF ]
Conferences Source: Searchblog The Web 2.0 Conference Wired magazine co-founder, Industry Standard editor, Searchblog proprietor, and our friend, John Battelle has announced some of the lineup for the Web 2.0 conference this October. The speaker list is nothing short of awesome. It includes Brewster Kahle, Jerry Yang, Lawrence Lessig, and Cory Doctorow. You can find the rest of the speaker list and comments from JB here. Sunday, August 22, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Rights Management Source: CNET News.com Publishing industry tackles digital rights "There's no Napster for books yet, but creators of text and images still have to deal with a lot of the same digital rights management issues perplexing the movie and music industries." -- Open Access Publishing Source: Biomed Central Who, What & Why? "A series of short guides to the players, stakeholders and technical terms relevant to Open Access publishing. 'Who, What & Why?' will help readers to become informed about the world of Open Access." See also: The devil you don't know: The unexpected future of Open Access publishing (First Monday) ++ Source: Yale University Science Libraries Open Access Journals: revenue beyond author charges "This page will attempt to outline the current pricing models that are being tested for supporting Open Access to electronic journals. My definition of open access is: freely available immediate access to published peer reviewed research articles. The untenable journal inflation situation is described on the Journal Cost Update web page. There are a number of elements that influence (or hinder) open access distribution of the scientific research literature: + copyright (intellectual property) restrictions, + for-profit activities, and + the underlying publish-or-perish pressure. The major concern of the community should be maintaining a revenue stream to support the peer review process." See also: Non-Exhaustive List of Resources About Open Access Publishing (Lehigh University) -- Librarians--Canadian--United States Source: Carol Dales, Reference Librarian, California State University, Dominguez Hills Canadian Librarians in America "This page is especially for all of those intrepid Canadian Librarians who have chosen to move temporarily to the United States under the provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Some of us have been unable to find entry level jobs in our provinces, some have chosen to retire in the south and work part-time in the US, and some of us have simply decided that it was much more beneficial - to both our career paths and our bank accounts - to move south. Whatever our reasons, moving to a new country is never as easy as we think it will be. This site is designed to provide information to those considering the move, and to support those of us already down here!" Offers legal information, a list of U.S. libraries that have hired Canadian librarians, job-hunting advice, "tips for the newly arrived".
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Oil--Transportation Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration World Oil Transit Chokepoints "The following presents information on major world oil transit centers. Over 35 million barrels per day (bbl/d) pass through the relatively narrow shipping lanes and pipelines discussed below. These routes are known as chokepoints due to their potential for closure. Disruption of oil flows through any of these export routes could have a significant impact on world oil prices." See also: Straits, Passages and Chokepoints: A Maritime Geostrategy of Petroleum Distribution (PDF; 232 KB) -- Iraq--Pipelines--Security Source: Institute for the Analysis of Global Security Iraq Pipeline Watch Lists "(a)ttacks on Iraqi pipelines, oil installations, and oil personnel," from June 2003 to the present. Offers a map showing pipelines and other information. -- Regulations--United States--Databases Source: GPO Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR) From the site: "The Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR) is a prototype of a currently updated version of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The e-CFR prototype is a demonstration project. It is not an official legal edition of the CFR. The e-CFR prototype is authorized and maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration's (NARA) Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and the Government Printing Office (GPO). The OFR updates the material in the e-CFR on a frequent basis" Read more about the prototype -- Military Law--United States Source: National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force "The National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force assists those working on military law issues as well as military law counselors working directly with GIs. It trains and mentors counselors and beginning military law attorneys in all aspects of military law through training materials and direct communication. It updates changes in military law and policy." Available here: + Military counseling resources + Leaflets (about counseling, G.I. rights, free speech in the military, etc.) + Resources (on such things as obtaining a discharge, conscientious objection, immigration, military families, reservists, sexual harassment, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell") + Military law + Unconventional warfare (terrorism) research links |
