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Resources and News for Information Professionals
ResourceShelf is Compiled & Edited By Gary Price, MLIS Librarian Director of Online Information Resources, Ask.com Editor and Compiler, The ResourceShelf Editor and Compiler, DocuTicker
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Monday, June 12, 2006
An Invitation Subscribe to the ResourceShelf Newsletter Mailing List Delivered via e-mail every Thursday. 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! Don't Forget to Visit ResourceShelf's Sister Site: DocuTicker.com It's a daily update of new reports from government agencies, ngo's, think tanks, and other groups. Use This Link to Unsubscribe from the E-Mail Reminder.
MESSAGE FROM THE ResourceShelf and DocuTicker Team! Hooray! This week we're moving (yes, finally) from one publishing platform (Blogger, the publishing system we've used for the past five years) to a new one, WordPress. If access is slow or the site is not being updated in a timely manner this week, we apologize. The good news is that once everything is in place, both ResourceShelf and DocuTicker will be even more capable to meet your information needs. Look for several new features in the coming weeks and months. A big thank you to Will, Robin, and Penny from FreePint for all of their help.
National Libraries: Milestones: National Library of New Zealand's Digitized Collection of Newspapers Passes 1 Million Page Mark "The National Library's online newspaper collection, Papers Past, has achieved a major milestone, with the millionth digitised page added in May 2006. Papers Past was launched in 2001 with more than 300,000 pages from New Zealand newspapers held in the Alexander Turnbull Library collection. Each year approximately 150,000 new pages have been added, and the million page mark was hit this year." Direct to Papers Past Database
Professional Reading: Live Weblog Coverage of the SLA Annual Conference 2006 from Information Today The conference is underway in Charm City, Baltimore. Gary will be giving a presentation tomorrow with Genie Tyburski from The Virtual Chase. Here's the Baltimore Convention Center (home of the conference) from the air.
Library Software: New Open-Source ILS Makes Beta Debut: Evergreen ILS Beta The Evergreen software development team has released Evergreen ILS (integrated library system) (beta). From an email note, "Evergreen is an open-source ILS being developed by the Georgia Public Library Service for PINES, a consortium of over 250 public libraries. The Evergreen ILS is scheduled to go into production in PINES this fall. Learn more and download from the open-ils blog. See Also: Demo the Evergreen OPAC Module See Also: Direct to the Evergreen ILS Wiki
Patents: Patents: From a Personal Media Channel to Video Browsing to Phishing Detection: A Busy Few Days for Patents & Patent Applications @ Microsoft A busy week or so for Microsoft in the patent and published patent application game. Here are a selected few. We've also included an interesting published app from Yahoo. Patent Awarded Event driven system and method for retrieving and displaying information Assignee: Microsoft Filed: April 25, 2000 "A system and method are provided for dynamically creating a communications channel at a local computer in response to selecting an element, such as a word or phrase, that is being displayed on an HTML page. A container also is created on the page in response to the element being selected. Data indicative of the selected element and containing environment is submitted to an Active Server Page at a server computer for retrieving information related to the selected element. The retrieved information is sent to the communications channel at the local computer and then displayed in the container on the original page." Published Patent Applications + Personal media channel Assignee: Microsoft Filed: December 2, 2004 "Exemplary systems, engines, and methods allow a multimedia service subscriber to upload personal media content to a multimedia service. The personal media content is then distributed to selected recipients over a personal media channel that is offered only to the selected recipients." + System and method for video browsing using a cluster index Assignee: Microsoft Filed: December 8, 2004 "A "Video Browser" provides an intuitive user interface for indexing, and interactive visual browsing, of particular elements within a video recording. In general, the Video Browser operates by first generating a set of one or more mosaic images from the video recording. In one embodiment, these mosaics are further clustered using an adjustable similarity threshold. User selection of a particular video mosaic then initiates a playback of corresponding video frames. However, in contrast to conventional mosaicing schemes which simply play back the set of frames used to construct the mosaic, the Video Browser provides a playback of only those individual frames within which a particular point selected within the image mosaic was observed. Consequently, user selection of a point in one of the image mosaics serves to provide a targeted playback of only those frames of interest, rather than playing back the entire image sequence used to generate the mosaic." + Phishing detection, prevention, and notification Assignee: Microsoft Filed: May 13, 2005 "hishing detection, prevention, and notification is described. In an embodiment, a messaging application facilitates communication via a messaging user interface, and receives a communication, such as an email message, from a domain. A phishing detection module detects a phishing attack in the communication by determining that the domain is similar to a known phishing domain, or by detecting suspicious network properties of the domain. In another embodiment, a Web browsing application receives content, such as data for a Web page, from a network-based resource, such as a Web site or domain." + Automatic generation of taxonomies for categorizing queries and search query processing using taxonomies Assignee: Yahoo Filed: December 6, 2004 "Systems and methods for processing search requests are provided, including automatic generation of taxonomies and query processing using those taxonomies." Note: X-referenced with five other applications.
Shopping Search: Trovetopia, a Shopping Engine Beta from Yahoo? (and Two New More Yahoo Trademarks) A quick review of the USPTPO trademark database reveals two interesting and recently registered trademarks from Yahoo. + On May 3, 2006 Yahoo registered Trovetopia. What's a Trovetopia? We checked several sites including SEW Blog and Brian Smith's always wonderful ComparisonShopping.com but were unable to come up with anything about what appears to be another (it's live) Yahoo shopping service. Of course, we could be out of the loop on this one. If so, sorry for the wasted bits. Trovetopia. We have an idea that the site has been live for a couple of months. The Trovetopia site is clearly marked and reads, "powered by Yahoo Shopping." The sparse UI site includes a dynamic list of "hot" searches this text, "find millions of products from thousands of stores, updated every day! the right price every time..." It also includes a search box and the option to narrow by 11 product categories. Here's a comparison search for Treo 700p on Trovetopia and Yahoo Shopping. Trovetopia is bare bones, Yahoo Shopping offers many more options. + A few days's later Yahoo registered "THE N9NE" and "The Nine." Guess? Perhaps some new original programming for the Yahoo Tech site. Postscript: A note from Brian Smith tells us he hadn't heard of Trovetopia. Brian is the (insert sports superstar name here) of shopping search and a great guy. When you can tell Brian about a shopping site he doesn't know about, wow!
Real Time Data #5: TrafficLand Continues to Expand, Aggregating Traffic Cams Around the Nation by Gary Price For the past couple of years I've been a regular user (both on the web and on my Treo Smartphone) of TrafficLand.com in the Washington DC metro area. The service aggregates real time traffic cameras from a variety of sources (often police, transport agencies, etc.). Very useful since what's being reported in a text or radio traffic report can be old versus being able to see what's happening live. Although these traffic cams are available from disparate sources, TrafficLand does an impressive job of bringing them all together and also allowing you to view multiple cameras at the same time. TrafficLand is available in the DC metro and recently a New York City beta was launched. Now, several new beta locations are available. More than worth a look. Here's a list of TrafficLand cities (so far): Full Service Cities: Beta Cities:
See Also: ResourceShelf Real Time Compilations 1 ||| 2 ||| 3 ||| 4 See Also: Amtrak Real Time Train Tracking Now Available for Mobile Users
Professional Reading: Inconsistent Information Policies Jeopardize Research, Panel Says "The quality and credibility of government research are being jeopardized by inconsistent policies for communicating scientific findings to the public, says an independent group of scientists that advises Congress and the White House." Source: New York Times
Professional Reading: Computers in Libraries 2006 Presentation Links "This page features links to World Wide Web sites, PowerPoint slideshows, and other electronic resources used in support of presentations at Computers in Libraries 2006. Links are provided solely at the discretion of presenters. Additional links will be provided as they become available." Source: Information Today
Lists and Rankings: Tiger Woods Becomes Nation's Favorite Sports Star as Michael Jordan Drops to Number Two for First Time in 13 Years "This top-10 contains an interesting mix of sports stars, with four basketball players, two race car drivers, two baseball players, one golfer and one football player. This is in contrast to last year, when there were five football players -- four of whom (Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Donovan McNabb and Ben Rothlisberger) have dropped out of the top-10 this year." Source: Harris Interactive Sunday, June 11, 2006
The Very Best of ResourceShelf's DocuTicker DocuTicker is ResourceShelf's sister site and is updated daily with a wide variety of new full text reports on many topics from government agencies, think tanks, ngo's and many other organizations. Here's a small, very small, sample of what we've posted during the past week. + Key Facts on Corporate Foundations + Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance --- United States, 2005 + The Changing Demographic Profile of the United States + Initial list of invalid prep schools released + The State of IPTV 2006: The Advent of Personalized Programming + Over 75 Percent of Population Now Covered By Phase II Wireless Enhanced 9-1-1
Professional Reading: Preservation, Access and Intellectual Property Rights Challenges for Libraries in the Digital Environment "Digitisation of collections provides great opportunities for widening access to collections and especially to unique, rare and fragile material. It also enables preservation by creating a surrogate and thus reducing handling of originals. However, the legal status of such activity is unclear. This paper points the way towards a common set of rights or principles to equip libraries with the tools they require to operate effectively and legally in digital environments." Full Paper (PDF; 74 KB) Source: Institute for Public Policy Research (UK)
Reports: Performance of Physical Structures in Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita: A Reconnaissance Report "Stricter adherence to existing building standards, model building codes and good building practices, and a greater recognition of the risks posed by storm surge, could minimize the kind of structural damage experienced in the Gulf Coast states hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year, the Commerce Department?s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced." Summary and Full Text Files Source: NIST (via DocuTicker)
Professional Reading: Evidence based librarianship and open access A new article by Heather Morrison. Published in Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 1(2). "Evidence based practice, whether in librarianship or any other profession, depends on access to the evidence, and access to opportunities to share one's own evidence. Open access (OA) is the perfect complement to evidence based librarianship. OA provides the optimum access to the evidence for librarians everwhere, and the optimum means of dissemination. This article compares examines access to the LIS literature in the print and electronic media, and the impact of open access."
Reports: Survey Examines Views and Experiences of African-American Men "The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University have released a new, comprehensive survey looking at how African-American men view their lives in the United States and their outlook for the future. The survey gauges the views and experiences of African-American men on marriage and family, education, careers and health, among other issues, and includes comparisons to the views and experiences of African-American women and white men and women." Sources: Washington Post Kaiser Family Foundation Harvard University
Multimedia: Webcast: Privacy Under Pressure James Rule, Professor of Sociology, State University of New York, Stony Brook discusses privacy at Oxford University. From the abstract, "It doesn't take a specialist to notice that any normal life in today's world generates a steady stream of recorded information on one's self. We are all constantly emanating data, from occasions ranging from credit card transactions to airline screenings to supermarket visits. We can also hardly miss the fact that such data, once created, take on a life of their own, as they are stored, transmitted, massaged, sold, and used as bases for determining how we will be treated...My remarks will review the social processes underlying these developments and point to questions that, I hope, hold interest beyond our specialties. Is it reasonable to seek meaningful limits on institutions accumulation and use of data on ourselves? And if so, what principle or strategy could one put forward to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable uses of personal data?" Saturday, June 10, 2006
Presidential Libraries: Plans to Digitize Entire Contents of John F. Kennedy Library Announced "Twenty-nine years after participating in the formal groundbreaking of the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on Columbia Point, Senator Edward M. Kennedy today announced a major and unprecedented effort by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to build a new library -- a digital one consisting of the entire collection of papers, documents, photographs and audio recordings of President John F. Kennedy, eventually making them accessible to citizens throughout the world via the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum's web site -- www.jfklibrary.org.....The Kennedy Presidential Library?s research facilities are among the busiest of presidential libraries. Its archives currently include more than 8.4 million pages of the personal, congressional and presidential papers of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and more than 40 million pages of over 300 other individuals who were associated with the Kennedy Administration or mid-20th Century American history. In addition, the archives hold more than 400,000 still photographs; 11,000 hours of audio recordings; 8.5 million feet of motion picture film; and 1,200 hours of video recordings. The project to digitize the collection is expected to take more than 10 years and will begin with the official papers of President Kennedy. The projects' objectives are five-fold: * The long-term preservation of administration records, photographs, documents, video and audio; * Provide online accessibility to a worldwide audience; * Enhance one's ability to search the collection using metadata; * Protecting historical assets through remote replication (keeping a copy in another location in case of disaster); and * Minimizing wear and tear on irreplaceable physical assets" + See Also: JFK Library Reference Desk (Speech Transcripts, Bios, Some Recordings, More) + See Also: Audiovisual Holdings of the JFK Library + See Also: JFK Library White House Diary Exhibit + See Also: JFK Timeline
Professional Reading: California Voters Reject Library Construction Measure "Proposition 81 Campaign Manager Phil Giarrizzo said in the June 8 San Jose Mercury News that a weak economy, the focus on the governor?s race, and multimillion-dollar bond measures on flood protection and transportation coming up in November led to its defeat. 'While libraries rank high, when you?re debating costs and need for flood control, highways, and other kinds of vital services, it's a question of how much can people absorb in additional cost,' he added." Source: American Libraries
Specialty Databases: UPDATED, Medicare Health and Prescription Drug Plan Tracker "The Tracker allows users to examine current data as well as historical trends in Medicare Advantage plans, and also compare one state or county to others. It also enables users to look up quick facts about the 1,429 stand-alone prescription drug plans offering Medicare benefits in 2006, including the number of participating plans, range of monthly premiums, share of plans with no deductible, and share of plans with a coverage gap." Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
Specialty Databases: Several Searchable Databases with Prescription Drug Data + Lexi-Comp Drug Database + Drug Interaction Check (via Drug Digest) + Side Effect Comparisons Database (via Drug Digest) "...find side effect information on this drug. You can also find out how the side effects for a given drug compare with side effects for other drugs in its class." + Drug Comparisons (via Drug Digest) "Find out how the drug you are taking compares with similar drugs." + Pill Images Database (via Drug Digest) "... more than 6,000 pictures to help you verify your medication. To view a drug's picture, enter the drug name below." Sources: Drug Digest/Express Scripts/Healthfinder.gov Library
Databases: eBay and Kaboodle Launch New Site for Collectors: MyCollectibles Those who visit your library or info center looking for info on collectibles (whatever they might be) will most likely want to take a look at a new site, a partnership between auction jauggernaut eBay and collectible site/social network, Kaboodle. The MyCollectibles site can be found either at http://mycollectibles.kaboodle.com or via eBay at http://www.ebay.com/mycollectibles. Items listed can also be for sale. Key features: + Browsing for members with similar interests + Ability to vote on pages/collections: + Import items purchased on eBay + Here's one member's U.S. stamp collection Only issue so far is that tags and categories, even with the database being small, can lead to lots of false drops. + The tag "Washington" turns up stamps of the first president as well as historic football schedules for the University of Washington. + Will use of the tag "reissue" find and apply synonyms for the term? What exactly does reissue mean. Might it mean one thing for record collectors but something else for furniture collectors? + A search for "amps" (amplfiers) turns up several results. The distinction via items and pages (pull-down next to search box) might be confusing for some users. There is one amp page but several amp items. A search for amplifiers does not turn up the amp page or items. + Filters also need work. A search for "cards" offers well, hear, time, and legal as refinements. Not very helpful. + At this early stage, MyCollectibles would be an interesting place to try "controlled" or "fielded" tagging if (and it's a big one) people would do it. I'm not so sure. However, if tags are to help find related material (especially as a database grows larger) without some form of structure it might cause wasted time, the opposite of what it's supposed to do especially for novice users. Friday, June 09, 2006
Resources: Maps: Mapsolute Releases New AJAX API for Map24 & Company Also Relaunches Map24 Consumer Site One online map service that doesn't get as much credit as it should is Map24. It's a service that offers lots of cool features and useful services. Two annoucements from Mapsolute that will go live Monday but are already online. First, the release of an AJAX API and the launch of a developers network. This page has more info about the new API and network. Second, Mapsolute is relaunching (live right now) the Msp24.com service with lots of new features. We've mentioned Map24 for several years and find it to be an excellent resource for maps and driving directions. Their animated 3D feature is very cool. Perfect for demos. Map24 is also well established in the European market with sites and maps for the U.S., Canada, many European nations, Brazil, the Mid East, and Australia. New features include: + Single line entry search facility that can conduct searches even if words are misspelled or partial addresses given. + Specific Points of Interest (POI) such as tourist attractions or hotels can be found by simply typing in the name. I tried searching for the Space Needle and got a map, address, and phone number. Also, links to get directions. + Map24 now includes building outlines in city centers, known as City Maps. + Numerous personalization options (requires registration) + Animated 3D feature remains available + One thing that we couldn't find was an easy way to send links to maps and directions to a friend or colleague. It is possible with their Link2Map24 and MailMap24 but it would be better if it could be done quickly without the need to register.
Professional Reading: Scholarly Publishing: Nature Publishing Group Announces Open Peer Review Trial Two upcoming events from Nature. 1) A web debate on peer review Some archives stories from Nature are already online. 2) Limited trial of open peer review launching on Monday, June 6, 2006 From the announcement, " The trial will allow open comments on those submitted manuscripts selected for peer review. This trial, voluntary for authors, will run alongside the usual, confidential peer review process, and will close as this is completed for each submission. From 5 June, authors may opt for their submitted manuscript to be posted publicly for comment. Anyone in the field may post comments, provided they are prepared to identify themselves. The trial will allow Nature's editors to assess the value of including these open comments in their decision-making.
Professional Reading: It's Official: RLG Membership Votes and Approves Combining Forces with OCLC "We intend to combine the practices of RLG and OCLC in a very powerful way-by putting together the traditions of RLG and OCLC we'll create robust new venue for research institutions and new capacity that will provide unique and beneficial outcomes to the whole community," said James Michalko, former RLG President and now Vice President, RLG-Programs Development."
Professional Reading: Digital Preservation as an Albatross "This conference paper is about the concept of value in digital preservation and how up to this time it has not been considered enough when developing business cases for digital preservaiton projects. The authors maintain that value should be considered as a counterpoint to costs." Paper presented at the Archiving 2006; May 23-26 2006, Ottawa Source: University of Glasgow DSpace (via PADI)
Professional Reading: dLIST: Information Sciences Digital Archive Announces New Editors dLIST, an Information Sciences Digital Archive based at the Univesity of Arizona has announced a new and impressive team of editors for their digital library. The complete list of editors (and contact info) can be accessed here. Each editor will be responsible for a specific subject(s). + Editor-in-Chief Anita Coleman, University of Arizona, Tucson, Founding Editor + Charles W. Bailey, Jr., University of Houston, Houston, Subject Editor, Scholarly Communication + Marija Dalbello, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, Subject Editor, Digital Humanities, Digital Libraries + Fernando Elichirigoity, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Subject Editor, Science-Technology Studies + Kristin Eschenfelder, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Subject Editor, Social Informatics + Cheryl Malone, University of Arizona, Tucson, Subject Editor, Archival Science, Records Management, and Founding Editor + Paul Marty, Florida State University, Subject Editor, Museum Informatics + Michael May, Carnegie-Stout Public Library, Classics (Books) Editor + Soo Young Rieh, University of Michigan, Subject Editor, Information Behaviors From the news release, "Some dLIST features are: DL-Harvest, an open access aggregator, which brings together materials from 14 global and open access archives in the Information Sciences for meta-searching and access to the full-text. Detailed Usage Statistics,usage statistics of each item in dLIST. RSS feeds and subscription alerts for items deposited in dLIST areavailable both by individual subjects (example: Academic Libraries) as well as the entire archive and anybody can be alerted automatically and quickly about new dLIST works. Also, dLIST Classics is a new project that will be making fundamental andleading Library and Information Science texts openly accessible in dLIST.
Professional Events: Registration for the 29th Annual International ACM SIGIR is Now Avalable "Conference on Research & Development on Information Retrieval, Seattle 2006" will take place in the Emerald City August 6-11, 2006. The complete conference program is listed here and includes a keynote by a very important person in the history of web search, Jon Kleinberg. Some of Kleinberg's papers are linked here in the "Web Analysis and Search: Hubs and Authorities" section. His 1999 paper (co-authored with other members of IBM's Clever team), "Hypersearching the Web" is a favorite.
Professional Reading: Digitization: U.C. system signs on to Microsoft book-scan project (via News.com) "The University of California and the University of Toronto libraries have agreed to lend their collections of out-of-copyright material held in trust. In concert with the Open Content Alliance, Microsoft will scan and index the materials for use in its Windows Live Book Search, according to a Microsoft statement issued Friday." Much of this, in terms of partners, has been know for some time. Today's news appears to be an expansion of the UC and Toronto digitization projects. Here's the official news release. Quick Review: + Last October, the University of California Announced Its Involvement with the OCA and Scanning Books. Focus on American Literature. + Microsoft Became Part of the Open Content Alliance Last October At that time Microsoft said it was committing to digitize 150k books. + Microsoft will release Microsoft Live Books in the Future. They have just announced a program for publishers to submit material directly to them. Similar to what Amazon.com and Google Book Search offer publishers. + The University of Toronto (and other Canadian Libraries) Have Been Scanning Materials (for the Internet Archive and the OCA) for some time. See this page from the Internet Archive. Other IA text digitization collections here. + Cool! You can view a video of the University of Toronto book scanning robot in action. + In November 2005 the WSJ profiled a person who scans books at the University of Toronto + Yahoo and RLG are also members of the OCA. See Also: Other Digital Book Projects Like ebrary and NetLibrary See Also: The Online Books Page The source for out-of-copyright books. Look at how material is added daily.
Professional Reading: UNESCO Requests Comments about a World Day for Audiovisual Heritage "UNESCO has now launched a public consultation on the objectives, practicalities, costs and expected results of a 'World Day for Audiovisual Heritage' to be celebrated annually on 27 October to build global awareness of the various issues at stake in preserving the audiovisual heritage." Source: UNESCO See Also: UNESCO Also Needs a Slogan for World Information Society Day
Specialty Search: Farecast is a Descendant of Hamlet The other day we mentioned John Battelle's intro to Farecast, a new (early, closed) beta that claims to help users decide the right time to purchase an airplane ticket. When we posted that item we were reminded of Hamlet, a 2003 research project, from Dr. Oren Etizioni at the University of Washington. Today, thanks to some sleuthing and eagle-eye reading by ResourceShelf's Dan Giancaterino, we learn that Farecast is based on Etizioni's Hamlet research. From the Farecast site, "Farecast.com evolved from a University of Washington research project, led by computer science professor and internet search expert Oren Etzioni, into the online travel site you see today. We've spent several years developing state-of-the-art data-mining and predictive technologies with the objective of accurately predicting airfare pricing." Back in 2003/2004 lots was written and reported about Hamlet. Here are links to a few of those items: + Algorithms Key to Cheap Air Fare Comments from Etizioni on Hamlet's development and travel industry professionals who were skeptical of this kind of technology. + Dr. Etizioni's Research Paper: To Buy or Not to Buy: Mining Airline Fare Data to Minimize Ticket Purchase Price (Direct to Paper: PDF; 10 pages) + An 2003 NBC News Segment About Hamlet and Dr. Etzioni (WMV File) + How to Rumble the Airlines (via BusinessWeek 4/21/2003) + More on Hamlet: Airfare fluctuations launch startup that predicts prices (via Seattle Post-Intelligencer (October 8, 2004) Postscript: Why was it called Hamlet? "To Buy or Not to Buy" was their motto. :-) UPDATE: ResourceShelf's Dan Giancaterino has been using Farecast for the past couple of days and will be monitoring the service moving forward. Some of his early thoughts are posted on ResourceShelfPLUS.
Web Search: Google Labs Quietly Launches Browser Sync Add-On for Firefox New from Google a tool that syncs browser tabs, bookmarks, cookies, saved passwords, restore open tabs and windows and more across computers. Google addresses privacy issues in this section of the FAQ. A full review and comments via LifeHacker. Here are a few "related" Firefox add-ons that the ResourceShelf team uses: + Tab Mix Plus ||| Users Guide TMP also includes browser restoration, a feature that can save your butt (and lots of time) after a crash. + Foxmarks (used by our newest contributor, Carey Lening) as well as Session Saver Bookmark synching and browser restoration. + Sync2it + Sync bookmarks across computer, remote accessibility on the web, social networking options including tagging. + Available in seven languages + Search bookmarks, add notes, email + Auto check for dead links and dupes + Live Mobile Version, AvantGo access to!
Web Search: A A Quick Guide to Weather "Smart Answers" Available Ask.com Ask.com's "Smart Answer" guy, Scott Grieder, takes a look at the many weather related Smart Answers Ask.com presently offers. From current conditions to climate info. From ski conditions to seven day forecasts and more. Source: Ask.com Blog
Reports: More Gulf of Tonkin Documents Declassified & Available Online "On 30 November 2005, the National Security Agency (NSA) released the first installment of previously classified information regarding the Vietnam era, specifically the Gulf of Tonkin incident...On 30 May 2006, NSA released the second and final installment of Gulf of Tonkin materials. This final release includes additional articles, chronologies of events, oral history interviews, and other related memoranda."b Source: National Security Agency
Reports: More Gulf of Tonkin Documents Declassified & Available Online "On 30 November 2005, the National Security Agency (NSA) released the first installment of previously classified information regarding the Vietnam era, specifically the Gulf of Tonkin incident...On 30 May 2006, NSA released the second and final installment of Gulf of Tonkin materials. This final release includes additional articles, chronologies of events, oral history interviews, and other related memoranda."b Source: National Security Agency
Resources: 4INFO Offers World Cup Text Alerts; A Shortcut from Yahoo and a Smart Answer from Ask; Plus Loads of World Cup Fast Facts If your a soccer fan (or do you call it football?) in the U.S. and are primed for the World Cup, 4info.net is offering scores, standings, and more for free. 4info.net is also providing fee-based SMS alerts for all teams. This service is for Sprint and Cingular customers only. Register for both the free alerts and the fee-based service here. NOTE: FIFA is Also Offering Their Own Mobile Alert Service and Mobile Portals for the U.S., U.K., France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. They also offer Matchcast (real-time info for mobile). See Also: Fast Facts (all files PDF): World Cup Records, World Cup Origin, Stadiums, and much more. More Fast Facts in the Following Categories: + Statistics + Awards + FIFA History + Project + Women's Football See Also: More Stats via Infoplease.com See Also: Yahoo Has World Cup "Shortcut" on Web Results Pages; Ask.com Offers a World Cup Smart Answer + See Also: Opera Has a World Cup Version of Opera Mini (their Mobile Browser) Available for Free
Resources: Webcasts: N.R. Narayana Murthy, CEO of India's Infosys Technologies Limited Speaks at Stanford "N.R. Narayana Murthy, CEO of India's Infosys Technologies Limited, and named one of the Economist's top 15 most-admired global leaders named one of the Economist?s top 15 most-admired global leaders spoke at Stanford Business School in April. The video webcast is now online." Direct to Video (Real Media, 44 minutes). Thursday, June 08, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor If you're a librarian...or maybe even if you're not, you may be familiar with S.R. Ranganathan, who is often called "the father of library science." His "Five Laws of Library Science" are familiar to most of us who work in this field: 1. Books are for use. 2. Every reader his or her book. 3. Every book its reader. 4. Save the time of the reader. 5. The Library is a growing organism. Even if you think "outside the book" about online research today, Ranganathan's Laws still apply -- especially number 4, which could also mean "Save the time of the searcher." If you're a little unclear on the concept, this week's resource, which takes advantage of federated searching, is an excellent proof-of-concept. Toxicology and Environmental Health--Metasearch Federated Search Source: National Library of Medicine ToxSeek So, what is federated searching? Says EDUCAUSE: "Federated Search is a search system that allows you to search for documents from multiple (partner) collections, instead of having to search each one separately. You benefit by performing one search and getting integrated results at once. These search engines can search not only library catalog but also commercial abstracting and indexing databases, web search engines, and a variety of other databases, while often merging and de-duplicating (a.k.a. de-duping) results." ToxSeek allows federated searching of "diverse biomedical and environmental health resources...on topics related to toxicology and environmental health." This includes a wide range of databases from: + The National Library of Medicine's TOXNET + Other NLM databases such as Medline Plus, ClinicalTrials.gov, and PubMed Central + Resources from the National institutes of Health + Databases from other U.S. government agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Energy, the Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration + Databases from international agencies such as the World Health Organization and the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) + Resources from miscellaneous agencies , such as the American Chemical Society, the Air and Waste Management Association, and the National Safety Council ToxSeek's gloriously simple home page lists all the options; you can select as many or as few as you want via checkboxes. Some of these resources may be completely new to you; fortunately, the name of each one is a live link to the individual resource's home page, so you can actually easily click and become familiar with what you are searching. But, as they say on the late night infomercials, "That's not all!" ToxSeek presents its results as "clusters," that help you "more easily identify particular concepts." The clusters are based on "what is retrieved in the original query, and can be useful in uncovering a specific concept or focus for more in-depth searching." Our especially devoted ResourceShelf readers may be note that this is the third science-and-techonology federated search tool we've mentioned here lately. You may also want to take a look at Heriot-Watt University's TechXtra, "which can help you find articles, books, the best websites, the latest industry news, job announcements, technical reports, technical data, full text eprints, the latest research, teaching and learning resources and more, in engineering, mathematics and computing"; and PerX, "a pilot subject-based cross-repository search tool for resource discovery in engineering." Postscript: Two of the Databases ToxSeek Searches, Have Been Optimized for for Mobile Users + ToxNet + PubMed Other NLM Mobile Tools include: + NCBI Bookshelf "Downloadable versions of books from the NCBI Bookshelf for any mobile device." + Wiser "Software for Palm Powered or Pocket PC devices to assist first responders in hazardous material incidents."
Professional Reading: Reviews: Jacso Looks at Booklist Online and Revisits Scopus From the review: On Booklist: "It took a long time for ALA to get this useful review archive good software capabilities. They finally got it right, with some minor exceptions. It is not free to the public nor at a discount to ALA members. The reasonably priced subscription to the print edition of Booklist does not come with any online access privileges, either. Considering the many high-quality toll-based and open access options that offer multiple reviews from different sources for hundreds of thousands of books in one fell swoop (including many Booklist reviews), Booklist Online will be a very hard sell both for individuals and libraries." and On Scopus: "The enhanced software features, especially the swift and generous output functions, keep the rivalry with Web of Science/Web of Knowledge systems alive. But unresolved problems of source coverage undermine the most prominent claim of Scopus about its broad source base."
Professional Reading: The June/July 2006 Issue of the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Focuses on Vocabularies One of our favorite topics: Articles include: + Toward Terminology Services: Experiences with a Pilot Web Service Thesaurus Browser + Web Services for Controlled Vocabularies + Versioning Concept Schemes for Persistent Retrieval + Growing Vocabularies for Plant Identification and Scientific Learning + Toward Human-Computer Information Retrieval Source: American Society of Information Science & Technology
Information Industry: British Library Document Supply Center Announces 2006/2007 Pricing Also available is news about a new EPRINTS service Document Delivery Services
Academic Libraries:UK: JISC deal opens archive "The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has signed a deal with Oxford Journals to make a wide range of information available to UK higher education libraries." Source: Kable's Government Computing See Also: News Release
Specialty Search: The 100 Most Searched For Companies on Hoovers.com We all love lists and rankings! A little more "search intelligence" for your files. The Hoover's 100 appears to be a new monthly ranking. Of course, Hoover's also supplies data to many other sites. Source: Hoover's Resources: New York Public Library Adds Free Online Films for Card Holders NYPL joins the Denver Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library in offering this service for card holders. Direct to NYPL Audio and Video site. Like the other video services, the NYPL site is powered by OverDrive. Note: Remember, many libraries already offer downloadable books and audio books for free.
Multimedia: New, Listen Online: DC Court of Appeals Oral Arguments Now Available Online That's right, live webcasts!!! "The public may now listen to arguments held before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals without having to attend in person, thanks to new technology instated June 7 that provides real-time audio coverage via web streaming." Unfortunately, no archive presently exists. However, a user could easily record the arguments themselves using one of many tools like TotalRecorder. You could even record at a specific time using the Total Recorder timer. Source: DCBar.org. Thanks to Carey L. for the tip.
Documents in the News: US has woven clandestine 'spider's web' of detentions and transfers, with collusion of Council of Europe member states, says Parliamentary Assembly Committee "The United States has progressively woven a clandestine 'spider?s web' of disappearances, secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers ? spun with the collaboration or tolerance of Council of Europe member states, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) said today. You'll find a video press conference, images, recommendation, and two memorandums. Source: Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly See Also: US blasts Council of Europe report on secret CIA flights (via AFP)
Documents: Health: New Easy-to-Read Booklets on Alzheimer's Disease, Memory Loss Offered by National Institute on Aging + Title: Understanding Memory Loss + Title: Understanding Alzheimer's Disease
Research Guides: Economic Indicators [Australia] on the Internet This e-brief was just updated by Guy Woods, Information/E-links Statistics Group Source: Parliamentary Library, Australia Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Professional Reading: Personalization and Accessibility: Integration of Library and Web Approaches' This paper and poster were presented at the 15th International World Wide Web Conference a couple of weeks ago. From the abstract: "This paper describes personalization metadata standards that can be used to enable individuals to access and use resources based on a user's particular requirements. The paper describes two approaches which are being developed in the library and Web worlds and highlights some of the potential challenges which will need to be addressed in order to maximise interoperability. The paper concludes by arguing the need for greater dialogue across these two communities." The materials were written by: + Ann Chapman, UKOLN + Brian Kelly, UKOLN + Liddy Nevile, La Trobe University + Andy Heath, Sheffield Hallam University Source: UKOLN
Professional Reading: Application Insight: The Revolution Will Not Be Podcast Source: Intelligent Enterprise
Citation Briefs: Science in Australia, 2001-05; Journals Ranked by Impact: Economics and More + Scotland Ten most-cited papers and corresponding graph ranked by citations for the last 10 years in ALL FIELDS where all authors of the paper were from Scotland. + Science in Australia, 2001-05 + U.S. Universities with Highest Concentrations in Literary Studies, 2001-05 + Canadian Universities: Highest Impact in Oncology, 2001-05 + Journals Ranked by Impact: Economics + What's the Hot Paper in Chemistry + What's the Hot Paper in Physics?
Guides: A Guide to Web 2.0 Resources and Tools In the past we've posted about both the amazing list of Web 2.0 apps (definitions vary) from the Web 2.0 Awards (thanks Rand) and from Andreas Dittes (wow). Today, a link to Chris Smith's nicely organized list. Chris also has a smaller list of 2.0 apps being used in education. Btw, don't forget the Fourio Web 2.0 innovations map. Interesting apps? Useful tools? For sure. From a business standpoint it would be an interesting research report for an MBA student (or someone else) to track these companies over time and see how they're doing (acquired, out of business, merged, etc.).
Specialty Search: Lists & Rankings: What Search Terms are People Using When They Search the CIA's Electronic Reading (FOIA) Collection? The CIA offers two lists, both updated monthly, from their FOIA Electronic Reading Room. The first lists the 25 most popular search phrases and the other ranks the 25 most popular documents. Current Top 10 Search Phrases soviet analysis: 1647 ufo: 1066 iran: 690 cuba: 652 south africa: 457 assassination: 400 brazil: 367 iraq: 366 area 51: 364 soviet+analysis: 358
Specialty Databases: Census Data: IPUMS-International Adds More Data "IPUMS-International project would like to announce a major new data release. On June 1 we added 19 new samples from Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, South Africa, and Venezuela to the data series. IPUMS-International now contains 47 samples from 13 countries, with 143 million person records. We are on schedule to add approximately 100 more samples in the next 4 years." IPUMS stands for Integrated Public Use Microdata Series and comes from the University of Minnesota. See Also: IPUMS-USA
Specialty Search Tools: Travel: An Intro to Farecast Mr. Battelle introduces Farecast, a new service, still in private beta (you can register) that promises to help consumers decide the best time to purchase a plane ticket. Something we all know is almost impossible is finding THE lowest fare. Sounds very interesting and useful if it works. If it also sounds like something you've heard before (in terms of the concept), you are correct. Back in 2003, Oren Etzioni, at the University of Washington was building a tool called "Hamlet." Not sure if this technology or concepts power Farecast. I don't think Hamlet ever made it to the end user. This Wired article has more on and Etzioni's 2003 effort along with comments from travel professionals, who at that time, seemed skeptical. Stay tuned! See Also: An 2003 NBC News Segment About Hamlet and Dr. Etzioni (WMV File) See Also: Dr. Etizioni's Research Paper: To Buy or Not to Buy: Mining Airline Fare Data to Minimize Ticket Purchase Price (Direct to Paper: PDF; 10 pages) See Also: How to Rumble the Airlines (via BusinessWeek 4/21/2003) See Also: More on Hamlet: Airfare fluctuations launch startup that predicts prices (via Seattle Post-Intelligencer (October 8, 2004) Postscript: Why was it called Hamlet? "To Buy or Not to Buy" was their motto. :-)
Specialty Search:Legal: New Consumer Oriented Legal Search Database in the Works Greg Sterling has the details on the SEW Blog about Avvo.
Web Search: Yahoo Rolls Out My Web 2.0 in India The team in Sunnyvale continues to roll-out their personal web save/tagging/sharing service around the world. This time around, it's India. Also, the entire Web 2.0 service has just released a bunch of new features. Details here. Sources: Times of India, Searchblog, and MyWeb Blog.
Professional Reading Shelf: Public Libraries: Data based at the library: Electronic databases are telling at the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library We're always happy to read when library resources, services, and librarians get some media attention. Last week we had two more examples including one in BusinessWeek. Source: Business First of Buffalo See Also: The best deal in town -- free business information (via Greater Triad Business Journal)
Statistics: Costs of Incarceration and Supervised Release, United States "In fiscal year 2005, it cost up to $23,431.92 to keep a federal inmate incarcerated and $3,450 for a federal offender to be released under the supervision of a probation officer." Source: U.S. Courts
Reports: New, Projections of Net Migration to the United States "This paper, requested by the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, is one of several reports by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that present facts and research on immigration to help inform the agency?s projections of the economy and the federal budget. The paper examines projections of net migration. In keeping with CBO?s mandate to provide objective, nonpartisan analysis, the paper makes no recommendations." 18 pages; PDF. Source: Congressional Budget Office
Reports: Trafficking in Persons Report 2006 "The Department of State is required by law to submit a Report each year to the U.S. Congress on foreign governments? efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons. This Report is the sixth annual TIP Report. It is intended to raise global awareness, to highlight the growing efforts of the international community to combat human trafficking, and to encourage foreign governments to take effective actions to counter all forms of trafficking in persons. The Report has increasingly focused the efforts of a growing community of nations on sharing information and partnering in new and important ways. A country that fails to make significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons, per U.S. law, receives a "Tier 3" assessment in this Report. Such an assessment could trigger the withholding of non-humanitarian, non-trade-related assistance from the United States to that country." Source: U.S. State Department
Tools: Need 3GB of E-Mail Storage for Free? Walla.com, a major Israeli portal, offers 3GB of storage. Registration takes just a few seconds. Note: After we registered and logged-in we noticed 5GB of storage in our account. More info here. Not the most robust set of features but it seems to work well. Some filters would be a welcome addition. Tuesday, June 06, 2006
National Archives and Records Administration CIA Declassifies Operational Materials As a Result of New Disclosure Policy under Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act "The interagency group (IWG) responsible for locating, declassifying, and releasing U.S. records related to Nazi and Japanese war crimes and criminals will hold a briefing to discuss the recent release of CIA operational records." See Also: The Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group See Also: Additional CIA Name and Subject Files released by IWG See Also: CIA papers: U.S. failed to pursue Nazi (via CNN), Video Report Also Available See Also: U.S. Congress Extends Effort to Open Secret WWII War Crimes Records Two More Years to Declassify and Open CIA Documents Source: NARA and CNN
Information Industry: New and Forthcoming Titles from OCLC's NetLibrary ebook Service Hundreds of new ebooks from NetLibrary. + Browse New Titles + Forthcoming Titles Note: Many libraries offer free remote access to NetLibrary.
The Stored Communication Act: New Considerations for Webmasters "CIOs, webmasters and managers responsible for establishing and administering policies for websites, intranets and extranets should take note of a recent federal decision regarding the Stored Communications Act. The details of your online use policies could mean the difference between protection or exclusion from this federal law." Source: Modern Practice (FindLaw) Stored Communication Act--Webmasters
Specialty Search SEC Web Site Adds Beta: Full Text Search Two Years of EDGAR Filings New on the SEC EDGAR web site (via SEC.gov) is the option to full text search two years (only) of EDGAR filings. Most free EDGAR sites only search headers and other portions of the filing. This recent post (about another free full text EDGAR service) explains more courtesy of Virtual Chase Alert. Also new from SEC.gov is access to Effectiveness Notices. Source: SEC
Web Search: New French and UK Lawsuits Against Google Digitization Efforts Danny at SEW offers a roundup of new lawsuits from France's La Martiniere and another group of UK publishers. What you might think of the Google plan is one thing, but we often wonder if some of these groups understand how it all works. We also think that it points out that Google's plans (the one to digitize library books as well as offer access to new books) is as much about selling books (that's what a Google exec implied) as it is about anything else. Don't forget this quote from Google's David Drummond from last November. Mr. [Allan] Adler [a vice president for legal and governmental affairs at the Association of American Publishers] said Google's contention that its search program might somehow increase sales of books was speculation at best. "When people make inquiries using Google's search engine and they come up with references to books, they are just as likely to come to this fine institution to look up those references as they are to buy them," he said, referring to the Public Library. To which Google's Mr. Drummond [Google's general counsel] replied, "Horrors." Postscript: In-copyright books shared with Google Book Search direct from publishers do not offer links to library holdings. Some library program books do offer info about local library holdings but others don't.
Web Search: ITConversations Chats with Ask.com's Apostolos Gerasoulis, Vice President for Search Technologies, Ask.com Apostolos (aka "AG"), the person you've also seen in the Ask.com tv spots, chats with Dr. Moira Gunn about Ask.com technology. Dr. Gerasoulis is also the creator of Teoma technology that powers Ask.com. The program runs 26 minutes. See Also: An interview with Ask.com CEO, Jim Lanzone (via CNBC) See Also: Reading List + "In conversation with..." Jim Lanzone & Apostolos Gerasoulis of Ask Jeeves/Teoma (2005) Noted web search expert Mike Grehan chats with two Ask.com execs, Jim Lanzone & Apostolos Gerasoulis. + Teoma Technology (2002) Chris Sherman takes a look at what makes Teoma technology different. + A Longer Look by Mike Grehan into the Teoma Algorithm (16 pages; PDF) Teoma section begins on page 14. + For the Techies #1 (1999) Many of the concepts that underly Teoma come from IBM's Clever team. This search product was never publicly released. This paper explains, and is one of my all-time favorite papers about, web search. + For the Techies #2: DiscoWeb: Applying Link Analysis to Web Search (1999) This is the first published paper on what would become Teoma. One of its co-authors, Apostolos Gerasoulis, is now the Vice President of Research and Development at Ask.com. Btw, DiscoWeb stands for Discovery Web (not a dancing search engine).
Web Search: Kozoru Opens Public Beta Testing Of Byoms via Search Engine Watch Blog See Also: Kozoru Will Release IM Answers Software In this post we talk not only about Kozoru but numerous other choices for IM answer tools and the fact that many SMS (text message tools) offer a chat "like" experience. The other issue that comes to mind today is how many non-geeks (at least for now) will take the time to build these tools? We will see. Will they do better than OpenSearch from A9? I also wonder about selection choices. We're not sure how asking a question to a blog like Huffington Post would be of value. We tried a few "factual searches" using byoms (remember, this is a beta) + Who won the Academy Award for Best Actor, 1972 (Database: IMDB) Wrong answer, we received the best cinematographer award winner + When do the Baltimore Orioles play at home in September (Database: Ticketmaster) No answer + Plays in Chicago (Database: Ticketmaster) No answer + Prime Minster of Canada (Database: Wikipedia) We received the first few sentence and a link to the entry but as far as a name, no name was provided. + When was Hank Aaron born (Database: Wikipedia) Winner. Hammerin' Hank's bday was provided. + Founders of Yahoo No mention of Mr. Yang or Mr. Filo. Overall, promising idea but like we said last week, it will require a learning curve, intense marketing, and improved technology to play with what others are already offering and developing. + Finally, byom's via Wikipedia could also benefit from a spell check. This would be extremely useful in an IM enviro. + Choking (Database WebMD) Potentially useful result but the content can only be read if you have a web browser. In other words, the byom result is primarily a web link to WebMD.
Web Search: Presentations from the Workshop: The Future of Web Search This event brought together researchers from around the globe. It was held in Barcelona -- May 19-20, 2006. Many presentations. Here are a few that caught my eye at first glance. Visit this page to find links to all of the presentations. All presentations are PDF files. + Keynote: From query based Information Retrieval to context driven Information Supply by Andrei Broder, Yahoo + Keynote: Efficient Top-k Queries for XML Information Retrieval by Gerhard Weikum, Max Planck Institute, Germany + Using Rank Propagation and Probabilistic Counting for Link-based Spam Detection + Estimating Corpus Size via Queries + "Tuning": Error Optimisation in Ad-Hoc Retrieval + Mobile Search on Ubiquitous Collaborative Annotations of Space + Image Search "Live" + Boosting Performance of Web Search Engines Using Query Logs Many more presentations listed here.
Mobile Resources: Amtrak Train Tracking and Reservations Go Mobile Access to Amtrak's real time tracking service along with the ability to make reservations on a Blackberry or Treo are now live. Simply point your mobile browser to http://www.amtrak.com. Screen caps here. As we noted a few weeks ago, you can also track Amtrak trains in real time using the interface listed here.
Lists and Rankings: Airlines "Blacklisted" from the European Union "In 2006, the European Union banned 92 airlines, the vast majority of them from Africa. Declared unsafe according to international standards, they are not permitted to land at European airports. Most of the airlines are African, and include all 50 airlines from the Democratic Republic of Congo." Source: The Official Journal of the European Union (via InfoPlease.com)
Lists and Rankings: Most Expensive Cities for Gasoline in the U.S. Pain at the Pump: Which Cities Hurt the Most "We're all feeing the pain at the pump, but some cities are getting hit worse than others since they depend more on the automobile for transportation. So how does your home town stack up? The city experts at Sperling's BestPlaces not only looked at the cost of a gallon of regular-grade gasoline in 80 major U.S. cities, but also analyzed the number of miles driven by daily commuters, plus the effect of rush-hour congestion. What they found was that Atlanta commuters can spend over $5,700 annually on gas, for a family which includes two daily drivers, earning it the title of the most expensive city for driving." Direct to complete list of 80 metro areas, ranked from most to least expensive See also: Best Places for Teleworking Cities--United States--Gas Prices Source: Sperling's BestPlaces
The Very Best of ResourceShelf's DocuTicker DocuTicker is ResourceShelf's sister site and is updated daily with a wide variety of new full text reports on many topics from government agencies, think tanks, ngo's and many other organizations. Here's a small, very small, sample of what we've posted during the past week. + Jefferson Rebuffed - The United States and the Future of Internet Governance (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard) + Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities in Construction, 2004 + Characteristics of Drivers Stopped by Police, 2002 + Internet Scams and Hoaxes: Some Information for Your Everyday User + Full Text of Complaint: Net2Phone Sues Skype Over Patent Infringement + The Relative Effectiveness of 10 Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment Programs in the United States + Report to the President: Death of Slobodan Milosevic + Online Fraud Report + Birmingham, AL; Louisville, KY; and Austin, TX Lead Local Markets for Frequent Fast Food Restaurant Patronage + Report to Congress: Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq
Resources: Same-Sex Marriage Debate Resources A collection of HTML and PDF documents (many legal documents included) Source: FindLaw
Resources: Media Ownership Regulation in Australia (Updated) "This e-brief provides background on the issue, together with links to relevant sites and documents. For a comprehensive, well-presented, study released in April 2006 and covering the same ground as this e-brief, see Content, Consolidation and Clout: How will regional Australia be affected by media ownership changes? The Executive Summary and key findings are available online here." Source: Parliamentary Library of Australia Media--Australia
Articles: Unclassified Articles from CIA's Classified Studies Articles include: Book Review: The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy Book Review: Geographic Handbook of the CIA (Geograficheskiy Spravochnik TsRU) Article: The Intelligence Officer's Bookshelf Volume 50, Number 1, 2006 Source: CIA Intelligence CIA Unclassified Material
Web-Based Tools: Google Set to Launch Web-Based Spreadsheet Program Will be a new Google Labs experiment. A service we blogged about several months ago, Zoho Sheet (part of the Zoho set of products) also offers a collaborative spreadsheet service (free). More cool Zoho services (most free) here. Zoho Writer is a fave. See Also: Zoho Writer; Zoho Creator (Create your own apps), Zoho Planner, Zoho Chat, and Zoho Virtual Office. Monday, June 05, 2006
Professional Reading: Talis Announces Library 2.0 Mashup Competition As they say, GO FOR IT and have some fun. Judges include Jenny Levine, Andrew Pace, Chris Pirillo, Jon Udell, ResourceShelf's Gary Price, and others. The deadline for entries is 18 August 2006. Additional details here. We also hope that while Library 2.0 (as a whole, not this competition) also considers something else that's equally if not more important than the technology itself. A) Knowledge and an understanding that librarians are still important (for example, as educators) in today's self-service world. 2) People can only use what they know about. Often, tech-geeks only build things for other tech-geeks. Fun? You bet. But without the understanding that the world of the library and librarian extend beyond the four walls of the building, they often go unused.
Professional Reading: The June Issue of the Internet Resources Newsletter is Now Online News and several heaping helpings of high quality web resources from Roddy MacLeod and crew from the Heriot-Watt University Library in the UK.
Microsoft Announces Winners of Microsoft Live Labs "Accelerating Search in Academic Research Awards" Congrats to the 12 winners who will receive query logs and some grant $$$. Topics that will be researched include: + Discovering and Using Meta-Terms + Deepening Search: From the Surface to the Deep Web + Incorporating Trust into Web Authority + The Truth is Out There: Aggregating Answers from Multiple Web Sources You can read brief intros about each of the 12 research projects here. Source: MSN Search's WebLog and this News Release See Also: While We're On The Topic of Microsoft Live Search Nothing major, but the typos that we first reported one month after the launch of Academic Live search still remain on the site's home page some seven weeks after launch. Kind of amazing that it would take this long for someone in Redmond to add one letter to the home page.
Information Industry: New Collections from ebrary; ProQuest, and New Newspaper Printing Options + ebrary: "two new subscription e-book databases for the corporate marketplace: Leadership and Management (770 titles) and Sales and Marketing (680 titles)." + ProQuest Introduces Newspaper Printing Service for Libraries See Also: ND Press See Also: Newspapers Explore New On-Screen Replica Possiblities (via Editor & Publisher) Source: InfoToday NewsBreaks
Professional Reading/Listening: Thom Hickey discusses OCLC Research, projects, technology, and licensing with Educause's Matt Pasiewicz "In a 23-minute interview, OCLC's chief scientist covers such topics as OCLC's Open Source Software offerings and licenses, FRBR and other projects, grid computing and Ajax." Direct to audio (MP3) Sources: OCLC Research, EDUCAUSE
Web Search: Endeca's Guided Navigation Awarded Patent and More Published Patent Applications It has been a couple of weeks since our last report. Here's a look at one awarded patent and a bunch of just published patent applications. Awarded Patent Patent Awarded to Endeca Hierarchical data-driven navigation system and method for information retrieval Filed: May 18, 2000 From the abstract, "A data-driven, hierarchical information navigation system and method enable search of sets of documents or other materials by certain common attributes that characterize the materials. The invention includes several aspects of a data-driven, hierarchical navigation system that employs this navigation mode. The navigation system of the present invention includes features of an interface, a knowledge base and a taxonomy definition process and a classification process for generating the knowledge base, a graph-based navigable data structure and method for generating the data structure, World Wide Web-based applications of the system, and methods of implementing the system." News Release Note: Want To Demo Endeca Technology in a Library Environment? The library catalog at North Carolina State University is powered by Endeca. Read More. Published Patent Applications Vocabulary-independent search of spontaneous speech Assignee: Microsoft Filed: November 29, 2004 Abstract: "A method of identifying a location of a query string in an audio signal is provided. Under the method, a segment of the audio signal is selected. A score for a query string in the segment of the audio signal is determined by determining the product of probabilities of overlapping sequences of tokens. The score is then used to decide if the segment of the audio signal is likely to contain the query string." Utilizing information redundancy to improve text searches Assignee: Microsoft Filed: January 20, 2006 From the abstract: "Architecture for improving text searches using information redundancy. A search component is coupled with an analysis component to rerank documents returned in a search according to a redundancy values. Each returned document is used to develop a corresponding word probability distribution that is further used to rerank the returned documents according to the associated redundancy values. In another aspect thereof, the query component is coupled with a projection component to project answer redundancy from one document search to another. This includes obtaining the benefit of considerable answer redundancy from a second data source by projecting the success of the search of the second data source against a first data source. Method of controlling an Internet browser interface and a controllable browser interface Assignee: Yahoo Filed: February 2, 2006 Internet search environment number system Assignee: NA From the abstract, "The present invention discloses an Internet search environment number ("ISEN") system that provides researchers with a tool to locate and search relevant, evaluated online databases. The ISEN system is a portal that comprehensively catalogs the Internet's databases thereby making information located on the Internet readily accessible from both visible and invisible database resources" Filed: November 28, 2005 Title: System and method for property-based focus navigation in a user interface Assignee: Microsoft Filed: November 19, 2004 Lexicon-based new idea detector Assignee: NA Filed: October 12, 2005 Lexicon-based new idea detector Assignee: NA Filed: October 12, 2005 Method for search result clustering Assignee: NA Filed: November 1, 2005 Search query processing to identify related search terms and to correct misspellings of search terms Assignee: NA Filed: January 6, 2006 Method and system for internet publishing and advertising forums Assignee: NA Filed: November 27, 2004 Method and system for ranking messages of discussion threads Assignee: Microsoft Filed: May 16, 2005 From the abstract, "The ranking system defines an equation for attributes of a message and an author. The equations define the attribute values and are based on relationships between the attribute and the attributes associated with the same type of object, and different types of objects." Method for gathering and summarizing internet information Assignee: U.S. Government Funded Research, Office of Naval Research Filed: November 3, 2005 System and methods for data analysis and trend prediction Assignee: NEC Research Filed: March 22, 2005 Methods and apparatus for assessing web page decay Assignee: IBM Filed: November 22, 2004 Note: Dr. Andrei Broder listed as an inventor now works at Yahoo Research. From the abstract, "Systems and methods are herein disclosed for assessing the staleness of a web page. In particular, in one method of the present invention, the staleness of a web page is assessed by examining internal date references within the web page. In another method of the present invention, the staleness of a web page is assessed by examining the meta-data associated with the web page. In a further method of the present invention, the staleness of a hyperlinked web page is determined by examining the link status of the hyperlinks. If the web page has a relatively large number of dead links, it is assessed as being a stale web page. In a still further method of the present invention, the link status of web pages in the neighborhood of the web page being assessed is likewise examined."
Lists & Rankings: Contributions To Colleges And Universities [U.S.]: Up By 4.9 Percent To $25.6 Billion The nation's top ten fundraising universities and dollars received are: + Stanford University ($603.59 million) + University of Wisconsin-Madison ($595.22 million) + Harvard University ($589.86 million) + University of Pennsylvania ($394.25 million) + Cornell University ($353.93 million) + Columbia University ($341.14 million) + University of Southern California ($331.75 million) + Johns Hopkins University ($323.10 million) + Indiana University ($301.06 million) + University of California, San Francisco ($292.93 million) Source: Council for Aid to Education See Also: Top 50 College and University Endowments, 2004
Lists & Rankings: 50 Smart Places to Live "You told us you wanted good value in home prices and a reasonable cost of living -- not surprising, considering that choosing a place to live is one of the biggest financial decisions you'll ever make -- combined with a great quality of life. To find such cities, we joined forces with Bert Sperling, co-author of Cities Ranked & Rated (Wiley, $25) and host of BestPlaces.net, to compile a database with an eye to these elements. Among other things, we looked for places where you could buy an attractive house for $300,000 to $400,000 or less. Access to quality health care was also a must, as was a strong economy. Next, we traveled to the cities that bubbled to the top of the list, to speak with residents and savor the flavor of their neighborhoods." Direct to list of Top 50 Smart Locations Source: Kiplinger's Personal Finance Cities--United States--Ranking
Reports: Just Released, The Condition of Education 2006 (United States) "The Condition of Education 2006 summarizes important developments and trends in education using the latest available data. The report presents 50 indicators on the status and condition of education and a special analysis on international assessments. The indicators represent a consensus of professional judgment on the most significant national measures of the condition and progress of education for which accurate data are available." Source: National Center for Education Statistics
New, Reports: Changing Patterns in the World of Work 85 pages; PDF. From the intro, "This Report aims to help us all put our own experiences and knowledge about work in the global perspective of today. It describes a time of opportunity and uncertainty in which some of the barriers that have prevented women and men from fully realizing their capabilities are coming down, but in which good jobs that provide the foundation of security to build better lives are increasingly difficult to find." Source: ILO via IWS News Service
Guides: Introduction to Networking Resources Various resources including articles, glossary, webcasts, tech advice, and more. See Also: Several Guides to Wireless Networking Source: SearchNetworking.com Sunday, June 04, 2006
Professional Reading: Law Libraries: The June Issue of AALL's Spectrum is Now Online Articles Include: + Practicing Law Librarianship: Podcasting, Vodcasting, and Law Libraries + Perspective: The Ethics of Electronic Record Sharing Source: American Association of Law Libraries
Resources: Ready Reference: The June Issue of The World Almanac Newsletter is Available A must for the reference desk or fact "geek." Newsletter contains a chronology of June events and holidays, "This Day in History (June)," and much more. See Also: Back issues and subscription info (free) Terms: Fast Facts, Chronologies
Resources: Database: Esquire Magazine's Drink Database Browse by drink name or search by: + Spririt + Mixer + Glass Type + Scenario Source: Esquire Magazine (via Yahoo Picks)
Resources: Imagery: Curator's Choices Selections from the NY Public Library Digital Image Gallery The award-winning NY Public Library Digital image collection celebrated its first birthday in March. Each month the database curator selects a series of Images as "Curator's Choice." Here's a set of direct links to a few "Curator's Choice" compilations from the past year. Wow! + Illustrated Classics of Engineering from the William Barclay Parsons Collection and Others (over 1000 images) + On Stage and Screen: Photograph File of the Billy Rose Theatre Collection "...several thousand photographs of actors and actresses, in character and as themselves, from the 19th century to recent years. These images from the Billy Rose Theatre Collection of the NYPL Library for the Performing Arts include - in addition to theatre and Hollywood publicity stills, circus photographs, and vaudeville productions -- many rare photographs from the early years of cinema." + Asia and the Pacific Rim in Early Prints and Photographs "This featured collection contains over 1,000 prints and photographs (mostly albumen, hand-colored albumen and gelatin silver prints) of East, Southeast and South Asia from the 18th century to the early 20th century, drawn from portfolios, photographic albums, photographically illustrated books and archival collections." + Walt Whitman Manuscripts "Over 1,000 items, including manuscripts, printed works, and portraits of Walt Whitman (1819-1892), the leading American poet of the 19th century." + American Popular Song Sheet Covers, 1890-1900 "This collection guide features thousands of examples of the covers of popular American sheet music from 1890-1900." See Also: ResourceShelf Resource of the Week Entry (3/2005) See Also: PictureAustralia the massive imagery database from Australia (another WOW! site) offers subject-based collections called Picture Trails. Terms: Databases, Images, Digitized Collection
Industry News: Nature Magazine archive reaches 1950, and keeps going back... "Nature Publishing Group announces the online publication of the Nature archive back to January 1950. In addition, digitization back to the first issue of Nature has begun. The archive is expected to reach November 1869 by late 2007." Direct to Nature Archive. Source: NPG
Report: Long Distance Transportation Patterns: Mode Choice From the intro, "Americans total 1.3 trillion person-miles of long distance travel a year on about 2.6 billion long-distance trips. Long-distance trips are journeys of more than 50 miles from home to the furthest destination. More than half of long-distance trips are taken for pleasure, while fewer than one out of five long-distance trips is for business. While most long-distance trips are made by persona 5b4 l vehicle, the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), conducted in 2001 and 2002, explored the choices that travelers make for their long-distance travel." Also available as PDF with stats in XLS format. Source: BTS
Multimedia Shelf: Webcast Lectures by Madeline Albright and Supreme Court Jutice Stephen Breyer at Princeton Two just released lectures (video webcasts) from Princeton University: + James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions: Stephen Breyer, United States Supreme Court Justice: "Active Liberty: A Conversation with United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Professor Robert P. George." -- + Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs: Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State Terms: U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. State Department, Webcasts, International Affairs Saturday, June 03, 2006
Events: eBooks Coming this Summer: Free Access to Thousands of eBooks via The World eBook Fair As Project Gutenberg celebrates its 35th anniversary this summer (yes, e-books are hardly a new idea and congrats to Gutenberg founder Michael Hart) The World eBook Fair will work to promote eBooks around the globe. From the World eBook Fair site, "July 4th to August 4, 2006, marks a month-long celebration of the 35th anniversary of the first step taken towards today's eBooks. 35 years ago the United States Declaration of Independence was a first example of hundreds of thousands of eBooks downloadable on the Internet today in a variety of languages totalling over 100. The World eBook Fair welcomes you to absolutely free access to a variety of eBooks unparalleled by any other source. 1/3 million eBooks await you, all free of charge [as PDF files] for the month of July...This event is brought to you by the oldest and largest free eBook source on the Internet, Project Gutenberg, with the assistance of The World eBook Library, the providers of the largest collection, and a number of other eBook efforts around the world. The World eBook Library normally charges $8.95 per year for their online collection, and allows unlimited permanent downloading. During The World eBook Fair all these books are available free of charge through a gateway at http://www.gutenberg.org See Also: Learn More/Subscribe to The World eBook Library
Resources: Real-Time Database Collection, Part 4 Another helping of databases, cameras, and tools that update in real or near-real time. + Real Time Access to the Calfornia Highway Patrol Incident Database + Keynote Internet Health Report Opt-in email alert service also available. + NextBus Real time access to bus and other public transit info. Tells you when the next bus (or train is approaching). Wireless access also available. NextBus database is available for selected public transit systems in 15 states. More next week. See Also: Links to Collections 1 ||| 2 ||| 3
Web Search:Travel: SideStep Adds Travel Guides Beta, Names SVP of Engineering The battle of features in travel search continues with SideStep launching Travel Guides Beta. Most of the content is licensed from Frommer's with additional information courtesy of hotel partners. This launch by SideStep comes just about a month after the company announced its activities search." Source: SearchEngineWatch Blog
Chemical Genetics--Database Source: Broad Institute, Harvard and MIT ChemBank "ChemBank is a public, web-based informatics environment created by the Broad Institute's Chemical Biology Program and funded in large part by the National Cancer Institute's Initiative for Chemical Genetics (ICG). This knowledge environment includes freely available data derived from small molecules and small-molecule screens, and resources for studying the data so that biological and medical insights can be gained. ChemBank is intended to guide chemists synthesizing novel compounds or libraries, to assist biologists searching for small molecules that perturb specific biological pathways, and to catalyze the process by which drug hunters discover new and effective medicines."
Resources: New from Weather.com; Searching for Weather Data Info via IM A couple of months ago we mentioned the new WeatherBug Labs offering a cool plug-in with weather data (free) for Firefox. Not to be forgotten are these weather info tools from Weather.com. + Local Weather RSS Feeds + Mozilla Add-On (1-ClickWeather) + Weather.com (Weather Channel) Podcasts About podcasts available. UPDATE: Earlier this week we posted about upcoming and already available tools offering various search servcices via IM. One we failed to mention was WeatherBug's IM Weather Search. It's currently available for AIM and Skype. Details here.
Resources:Webliographies: Astronomy Source: Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A./VirtualPrivateLibrary.com Astronomy Resources (PDF; 795 KB) "This June 2006 column Astronomy Resources is a comprehensive list of astronomical resources and sites on the Internet including astronomy resources, astrophysics resources, bioastronomy resources, radio astronomy resources, and roboscopes."
Web Search: More Good Press for Ask.com First, Mr. Bill Gates has good things to say about Ask at the D Conference last week. Source: ZDNet.com Next, Ask.com: Google's up-and-coming rival From the article, "Jim Lanzone, Ask.com's hyper-enthusiastic CEO, has a simple explanation: "What really differentiates us is our focus on search. Other companies are partnering with content companies and launching wi-fi networks. But we're not building a rocket ship. We're building a better car. It's not what people will want in five years. It's what they want now." Source: CNN/Money Postscript to the Library Community from Gary: Although ResourceShelf remains INDEPENDENT of my role at Ask as Director of Online Information Resources (note we still cover all engines big and small), I am here to demo and discuss Ask.com services with others in the library and online info world. We would love to hear from you. Email about Ask.com should go to this address gary.price@ask.com. While I can't promise a detailed reply to each email, I'll do my best to get it to the right person in an expedited manner. Friday, June 02, 2006
Resource: Digitized Newspapers Database: NewspaperArchive.com Blasts Off With SpaceProgramArchive.com Hardly a week passes any more without the good folks in Cedar Rapids, IA, offering up another massive archive of digitized newspapers about a specific topic. Full text search, full image, save/copy/print from hundreds of newspapers. All free. This week, NewspaperArchive.com offers up an archive with over 50,000 articles about the space program. Search, browse the timeline (cool), or read a hyperlinked narrative. An advanced search interface is also available. See Also: Links to Other ResourceShelf Posts About NewspaperArchive.com Databases (Free)
Web Search: Kudos and Congrats to Philipp Lenssen on His New Book about Google Congrats to ResourceShelf friend and the editor of one of the VERY best blogs covering Google and other web search issues, Philipp Lenssen, on the publication of his new book, 55 Ways to Have Fun With Google. Those of you who read ResourceShelf regularly know that he's not only a Google guru but also the creator of the wonderful GamesfortheBrain site. Kudos, P.L., well done! We just ordered a copy.
Web Search:Business Research: A Quick Look at Google's Lobbying Efforts in the U.S. Congress 2003-2005 When a person or company hires a lobbying firm (or registers to lobby on their own behalf), that firm and its lobbyists have to file documentation and disclose their clientele and just who they spoke with. This information is available from the U.S. Senate's Office of Public Records. Reports must be filed twice a year. The records (for any company lobbying Congress (full image)) are available via this database (free). This page has more about what is and is not disclosed, the registation process, and more. These records can provide glimpses into issues involving the U.S Congress that the company is or was interested in at a given time. Let's begin with Google. More reviews for other companies are forthcoming. Google is listed twice in the database, once as Google and the other as Google Inc. The links below go to year-end reports from several lobbying firms. This page also includes links to registrations, mid-year reports, and amendments. In 2005, lobbying for "Google Inc." was done by: PodestaMattoon (Year-End Report) We learn that: + Google spent approx. $40,000 with this firm. + Specific lobbying issues: Internet Access, Privacy, Compensation Issues, and issues relating to China Other Lobbying Firms 2005, Capital Tax Partners + Approx. $20,000 spent with this firm + Specific lobbying issues: Tax 2005, Public Policy Partners + Approx. $100,000 spent with this firm + Specific lobbying issues: Spyware, Privacy, On-Line Pharmacies, Net Neutrality, Data Breech/Security, Copyright, Patent Reform, Trademark Dilution 2004, Public Policy Partners + Approx. $100,000 spent with this firm + Specific lobbying issues: Spyware, Internet Taxation, Privacy, On-Line Pharmacies, Off-Shoring Data, Net Neutrality, Anti-Counterfeiting, Database Piracy, Copyright, Patent Reform, Global Internet Freedom Act, 2003, Public Policy Partners + Approx. $60,000 spent with this firm + Specific lobbying issues: Spam, Privacy, Internet Gambling, Intenet Taxation, FTC Reauthorization, Digital Rights Management, Database Protection, Stock Option Expensing, FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) Reauthorization, State Dept. Reauthorization. In addition to hiring these lobbying firms, Google officially opened a DC office in 2005. It's discussed in this Google Blog post. Btw, these reports also include the government departments or agencies that were lobbied on behalf of Google. Coming Soon: Quick looks at Congressional lobbying by Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others.
Digital Maps and Imagery: 360 Degree Location Views anb Virtual Walks from SuperTour At first SuperTour might look like just another site offering hotel reservations. However, it's not. Along with the chance to book your room, this database offers 360 virtual views of the location and nearby surroundings. Adena at AllPoints links to this interview who says, "SuperTour combines the 500-foot map view with a human level walking experience." SuperTour uses proprietary technology called Panamorph. From the interview, "SuperTour's proprietary technology is called Panamorph and it allows users to rapidly create and edit photorealistic 3D scenes from 2D images in a fraction of the time and effort normally required to create 3D graphics." At the moment, "tours" are available for: + Las Vegas, NV (Preview) + Miami Beach, FL + The Bahamas + San Juan, Puerto Rico + Pisa, Italy + With more on the way (NYC, LA, SF, Seattle, Boston, Waikiki Beach) See Also: Forget Static Street-Level Imagery (via RS, 4/2006) Thanks to AllPoints for the news tip.
Professional Reading: Schneider on What's Wrong With OPACS (aka Why They Suck) An online discussion on LawLibTech by Karen Schneider about what's wrong with online public access catalogs. As many of you know, Karen is Director of the essential Librarians' Internet Index. We haven't had a chance to read Karen's postings yet (we will for sure) but one way the library community as a whole blew it (in the early days of the web) was by not adding more direct links to OPACS. In other words, not only linking to the web site of a serial that was available but also directly adding notes to those entries and separate entries as well and directly linking to specific features. For example, a link to Forbes (the physical item) would also contain direct links to lists and rankings that Forbes produces. I still think adding items to an OPAC from the LII (for example) might not be a bad idea at all. Thanks to TVC Alert for the news tip.
Professional Reading: New Articles from June 2006 Issue of Searcher Now Online The June issues of Info Today's Searcher magazine (edited by Barbara Quint) is now available. Online you'll find: + Is the Price of Cheap Chicken Bird Flu? (via Searcher) Resources to monitor and learn about the avian flu. + A Failure to Communicate: Politics, Scams, and Information Flow During Hurricane Katrina (via Searcher) "As Paul Piper and Miguel Ramos note, Katrina was two devastating disasters in one. On top of the hurricane itself was the horrendous lack of response and communication after the fact. Piper and Ramos examine what happened, and more often didn't, in Katrina's wake from an online perspective, addressing issues such as housing and missing persons as well as the fraudulence that seemed to permeate from all angles." + Searcher's Voice BQ has a few thoughts. NOTE: Not available on the web is an extended interview with the founder and editor of this publication. We will see what we can do about gaining online access.
Documents:Federal Communications Commission: What Do People Complain to the FCC About? Recently released, Quarterly Report on Informal Consumer Inquiries and Complaints. 18 pages; PDF. From the intro, "Wireless complaints decreased from 4,956 in the 4th quarter to 4,616 in the 1st quarter. There were decreases in each of the Wireless categories. Wireline complaint receipts increased from 21,726 to 23,358. The number of Radio and Television Broadcasting complaints significantly increased from 44,287 in the 4th quarter to 275,257 in the 1st quarter. The biggest increase occurred in the Obscenity/ Indecency/Profanity category, from 44,109 to 275,131. Cable and Satellite Services complaints increased from 225 in the 4th quarter to 290 in 1st quarter. There were increases in each of the categories, except Cable Modem Service Issues.
Documents in the News: Full Text of Complaint in Net2Phone Lawsuit Against Skype/eBay (via DocuTicker) Patent infringement case. More new full text reports and documents on DocuTicker.
Documents:HIV/AIDS:Statistics: AIDS at 25: Media Campaigns, New Trend Data and Other Resources "To mark the 25th year of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the Kaiser Family Foundation is releasing two new documents that provide historical perspective on the epidemic in the United States: a new report on the history and development of national HIV/AIDS-focused media campaigns and a chart pack of key trends in the U.S. epidemic. A resource page with HIV-related materials, including the Foundation's up-to-date interactive timeline of the epidemic, has also been created." Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
Digital Maps: NBC News Looks at Digital Mapping and Driving Directions (Video) NBC News reporter, Tom Costello, spends some time with Navteq employees who drive around looking for new roads and updating older data. Navteq and TeleAtlas are the two main suppliers of this type of data. See Also: The report mentions Google Maps and Yahoo Maps but also take a look at Ask.com Maps. Two features might be of special interest (along with some impressive aerial imagery). 1) Dynamic relocation. Just drag the location "pin" to another point on the map and the location recalculates. 2) Walking directions along with driving directions. See Also: Other General Purpose Map Sites Worthy of Your Attention: + Maps24 + Mappy + Multimap + Maporama
Resources: Legal: 60 Sites in 60 Minutes 2006 Complete Listing "Year after year, one of the most popular sessions at ABA TECHSHOW® is 60 Sites in 60 Minutes. This session is a fast-paced and often irreverent look at web sites that may be of interest to lawyers. Many of these sites are incredible legal or law-practice related resources while others range from interesting to just plain wacky. Here is the complete archive of the various 60 Sites in 60 Minutes presentations for 2006." Source: American Bar Association (TechShow)
Resources:Fast Facts: Hurricane Season in the United States A new FF report loaded with stats. The official hurricane season began yesterday in the US. Stats include: + 34.6 million Estimated July 1, 2005, population of the area most threatened by Atlantic hurricanes -- the coastal portion of the states stretching from North Carolina to Texas. At that time, 12 percent of the nation's population resided in these areas. (Source: Special tabulation) + 487% Percentage growth of Florida's coastal population between 1950 and 2000 + 38,000 Population of Galveston, Texas, at the time of the city's devastating hurricane of 1900. At that time, Galveston, Dallas, and Houston had similar populations. + Many More Source: U.S Census
Lists & Rankings: Edmunds 2006 Used Car Best Bets From press release: "Edmunds.com editors emphasized reliability, safety and availability as the most important criteria when developing this list. Based on these considerations, as well as the fact that vehicles incur the most rapid depreciation in their first few years, a low-mileage two- or three-year-old car or truck tends to be the best choice." Source: Edmunds.com
Public Libraries: Library of love: Couple to be married inside meeting room "Laura Kirchoff wasn't planning on planning a wedding this summer. She and her fiancé David Liedtke knew they'd get married (they've been planning to for the past five years, longer if you know their history) and hoped to do it in the only place that made sense, the place where they first met nearly a decade ago -- the library." Source: The Racine Report (WI)
Full Text Books: Two New Full Text Books From National Academy Press Source: NAP Both of these titles can be searched and read (full text) online at no charge. + The Quantum Zoo: A Tourist's Guide to the Neverending Universe Direct to Research Dashboard for this title. -- + The Secret Life of Numbers: 50 Easy Pieces on How Mathematicians Work and Think Make sure to visit the Research Dashboard for this book and all others. What is it, "Use [a] book's key terms to search within this book, across our collection, or across the Web." Thursday, June 01, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor Our loyal ResourceShelf readers know that we are big fans of digitization projects. Well, one that crossed our radar screen recently happens to be of personal interest to me, and it's my pleasure to share it with you this week. Sheet Music--Collection Source: UCLA, Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University Sheet Music Consortium We have, within our extended family, a lyricist whose name graced many a colorful sheet music cover in the early 20th century. My cousin, who is the niece of this man, has a large framed collection of this sheet music hanging on the walls of her house. While exploring this website, it was amazing to see some of these same pieces of sheet music in digital format here, thanks to the Sheet Music Consortium -- "a group of libraries working toward the goal of building an open collection of digitized sheet music using the Open Archives Initiative:Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI:PMH)." You can do a simple keyword search, or browse the collections using dropdown menus to choose criteria. An advanced search form offers more options. When I used the dropdown menu to search on my cousin's uncle's name, I was able to retrieve 97 entries for James Kendis. Each brief entry contains the title of the music, the composer(s) and lyricist(s), the publisher, date of publication, and the collection in which it is found. Click on the "more info" link, and you get an expanded entry that also provides subject terms. If you've created an account here (free), you can add a notation of your own in the box provided and save the entry to your "virtual collection." Not every item in the database has been digitized. A checkbox allows you to search only for digitized materials. An "access online" link towards the end of the entry takes you directly to the entry and/or image, at the hosting library. You can explore an image by zooming in and out; different collections have different ways of doing this. Every image I looked at was very sharp (although some of the links to the images were not working). If you've ever seen old sheet music like this, you know how charming the covers can be. It is only fitting and proper that the sheet music for My Little Kangaroo is housed at the National Library of Australia. My cousin, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, has this geographically appropriate one on her wall. If you click on the "Sheet Music on the Web" link at the bottom of the gray navigation frame on the left side of the home page, you'll find three very interesting links (in order): + About Sheet Music ("Musical taste is, like art and fashion, subject to extreme changes and subtle nuances. On this basis then, sheet music is best described as single sheets printed on one or both sides, folios (one sheet folded in half to form four pages), folios with a loose half-sheet inserted to yield six pages, double-folios (an inner folio inserted within the fold of an outer folio to make eight pages) and double-folios with a loose half-sheet inserted within the fold of an inner folio to produce ten pages.") + Other Sheet Music Sites and Projects + Sheet Music Links If you click on the "Sheet Music on the Web" link on the left side of the main home page frame (below "About the Consortium"), you'll be taken to a large page of annotated links to Sheet Music Collections from the Music Library Association.
Ask.com Launches Blog & Feed Search Service by Gary Price Since beginning my job at Ask.com I've been working with several teams to help test (and make a suggestion every now and then) the new Ask.com Blog & Feed Search Today, this new service becomes publicly available on Bloglines.com or http://www.bloglines.com/search or on Ask.com at Ask.com. You'll also find a direct link to it on the Ask.com customizable "search tools" list located on the right side of the Ask.com home page. Both sites will use the same index and ranking algorithms but each offers different search options and features and improvements will be made (make sure to send your feedback to the Ask.com team or directly to me at askblogandfeedsearch@myway.com and I'll forward) but I'm quite excited with how things have progressed and what's being released today. Overall, the past few several weeks of testing and tweaking have shown me (at least) a massive improvement in what you're seeing today. However, even after launch, I will not stop testing and suggesting. I invite you to do the same. I'm also happy to see that the powers that be at Ask.com chose to name the product Ask.com Blog & Feed Search. Why? Because it describes just what's available. One of the biggest and more dynamic challenges these days (and in days to come) is trying to decide what is a "news" feed vs. what is a "blog" feed. What is the difference: regardless we have a Post tab and a Feed tab. These days there is lots of overlap. Some feeds are subject to the views of the reader where they fall. The bottom line is that this new product offers a massive amount of feeds from both the blogosphere and traditional info sources and the tools to help you get to specifically what you're looking for easily and quickly. One thing that comes into play here is that every feed (both news and weblog) in the database has been subscribed to by a Bloglines user.) In fact, you can limit your search to feeds with "many subscribers" or "at least two subscribers." A lot of the mindset that was used to build Ask.com Blog & Feed Search goes back to Jim Lanzone's set of blog posts from last summer where he talks about "feeds that matter." In other words, if someone takes the time to subscribe to a feed it is more likely (but not a guarantee) of someone finding the feed useful. Jim's first post from July 19, 2005, is here. More stats and comments here. Of course, these numbers have changed but I think this mindset is interesting and something that will hopefully offer you better results. Apostolos Gerasoulis, the person in the Ask.com tv commercials and executive vice president of search technology at Ask.com puts it this way in a news release, "This 'collective human intelligence' provides a natural defense against spam, as people typically do not subscribe to low-quality content." OK, now let's take a very quick look at some of what Ask.com Blog & Feed Search offers via the Bloglines interface. I'm focusing on the Bloglines interface because we know MANY ResourceShelf and DocuTicker readers use Bloglines all of the time. However, I hope you also spend some time looking at the Ask.com interface. While you're visiting, take a few minutes to check out some of the other things we're up to. I highlighted many of them in this post. For example, if you haven't tried Ask.com Maps yet, give them a try. Lots of features (including dynamic location recalculation and both walking and driving directions. We're also constantly increasing the number of Smart Answers we offer. Here are a few that might be of value to the business searcher. Remember, my role at Ask as Director of Online Information Resources is to listen to you (specifically, the library and education communities) and work to make Ask.com services more useful to these groups. + First, note the pull-down next to the search box. You can search all blogs or better said "feeds," search for feeds (a directory of sorts), search the blogs you subscribe to (via Bloglines), search the web with Ask.com, or subscribe to a feed. You can also enter a URL and find who is citing that post. Btw, a quick note for advanced searchers, Ask.com Blog & Feed Search crawls RSS and ATOM feeds. If the feed itself is not full text, you will not be searching the full text. In those cases you're likely to be searching the title and/or title and a brief snippet. Most feed/blog engines work in this manner. One thing I would like to see is for some of the most popular blogs that don't syndicate the full text, for Ask to go out and crawl the full text and update the database in a rapid manner. I would also like to see if Zoom related search (narrow, expand, find related names) might be useful in the feed search world. + Second, let's run a search. Here's one for "David Letterman". Now, a review of the results page. + Results. Click the "+" sign to see more text. Handy! + Each feed title is hyperlinked. Click it and go directly to the source + Below each results several very helpful (IMHO) links ++ More Info: Click to quickly check the number of cites and Bloglines subscribers to the feed ++ Email Post: One click and send to a friend, colleague, etc. ++ Clip post: One click to add to your Bloglines clip blog or Digg, ++ Del.icio.us, and Newsvine Preview feed: Very cool. See the last 4 or 5 posts on the blog. The Ask.com interface will offer Ask's binoculars feature where you can mouse over the binocs icon and preview the feed. ++ No ads or paid links ++ A List Updated Hourly of the Most Popular Searches + Third, look to the upper right side of the page. You'll notice that offers three ways to sort results. Relevance, Time (when the item was posted, that's the default), and Popularity (feed subscribers). Just click a link and re-sort your results. Easy. + Fourth, directly below the popularity link notice the "filters" link. Here you can tell Bloglines search precisely what you want to search. ++ Feeds with many subscribers ++ Feeds with at least two subscribers ++ No filter You can also select if you do or do not want news feeds (again, what is a news feed vs. a blog feed is far from a perfect science). Want more? The Ask.com Blog & Feed Engine has got it. + You'll also find related news stories (based on your search). + In some cases, posts by the person you're searching. In this case, I think posts by David Letterman involve content from the Letterman show or video recorded from the show available on Google Video. + Subscribe to your search and get new results delivered via RSS. The Ask.com interface has MANY of the same tools and features. Including: ++ Post to: One click to add to your Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsvine and others. ++ Subscribe to feed: One click. ++ Spelling suggestions (even blog and feed searchers can make typos). Btw, spelling suggestions are also available for Bloglines users. NOTE: As mentioned a moment ago, the default sort using Bloglines is by date. The Ask.com interface uses relevance as the default sort. Of course, it's easy (just a click) to change the sort. Finally, an advanced search interface is available using either the Ask.com (via an Ajax-powered drop-down menu) interface or the Bloglines interface. Here you'll find more options including the ability to limit to specific date, time/date ranges (posts in the last hour for example), limiting to words in the url, terms in the title, and more. Also, the Ask.com interface supports limiting to content in 7 languages (Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish). Bloglines offers the option to limit to content in 20 languages. Of course, we can talk about what Ask.com Blog & Feed Search offers until we're blue in the face. Give both interfaces a whirl and see which one works best for you. Think about how they compares to what else is out there in terms of freshness, relevance of results, number of search options, ease of use, and advanced features. Yes, I'm thrilled to have been a small part in the early stages of building this product. I plan on participating more in the future. Now, it's your turn to join in. Update 1: The mobile version of Bloglines (a tool I've been writing about for years) is now search capable. Also, Ask.com Blog & Feed Search is also launching today on Ask.com Deutschland, Ask.com Espana, Ask.com France, Ask.com Italia, Ask.com Nederlands, and Ask.com UK. Update 2: One thing I've been impressed by is the amount of time it takes for a post to become searchable. This post was available for searching (and finding) within minutes of the time I first pressed the publish button. See Also: Chris Sherman Offers His Review at SearchDay See Also: Ask.com Blog & Feed Search Intro (via Ask.com Blog)
Professional Reading Shelf Archives Source: ICA Radioactive Waste Information: Meeting our Obligations to Future Generations with Regard to the Safety of Waste Disposal Facilities (ICA Study 18) 47 pages; PDF. "This study is the result of a project run by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 2002 to investigate the issues surrounding the preservation and transfer to future generations of information important to the safety of radioactive waste disposal facilities. The study highlights the critical role played by contextual information and suggests means by which it may be better utilized. The principal authors, Gavan McCarthy and Ian Upshall, brought substantive experience from both the archival profession and the radioactive waste industry so it was deemed appropriate that the work be also published by the International Council on Archives (ICA)." -- Digital Science British Library Source: ARL International Dimensions of Digital Science and Scholarship: Aspirations of the British Library A keynote address by Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library at the Association of Research Libraries 148th Membership Meeting, May 2006. See Also: Address by LC's Deanna Marcum -- Digital Preservation Source: LC The June Issue of Digital Preservation News is Now Online Includes link to interview with the MetaArchive team at Emory University in Atlanta. "MetaArchive Project is a collaborative venture of Emory University, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Florida State University, Auburn University, University of Louisville, and the Library of Congress. The project is part of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) supported by the Library of Congress."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Internet Filtering--Maps Censorship Source: OpenNet Initiative Internet Filtering Map (Global) Cool. Search or browse. Two maps available: + Filtering Technology + Global Filtering Map -- Electronic Commerce--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Recently Released, 2004 E-commerce Multi-sector Report "The official source of e-commerce for key sectors of the economy." Complete Report ||| Tables ||| Forms -- Information Technology Source: Red Herring New, Red Herring 100 (North America), 2006 See Also: Red Herring 100 (Europe) -- Sport Utility Vehicles--United States--Rollover Ratings Source: NHTSA Just Released, New 2006 Rollover Rankings Show Improvement -- Higher Education--United States--Statistics Source: NCES Just Released, Student Financing of Graduate and First-Professional Education: 2003-04 "This report uses the 2003-04 NPSAS data to describe the characteristics of graduate and first-professional students and how they finance their education, with a section focusing on students who attend exclusively part time. The report also includes a compendium of tables providing detailed data on student and enrollment characteristics, types of financial aid, sources of financial aid, and employment while enrolled."
Search Briefs + The Latest From MSN Live Local Most of what's here has been mentioned on ResourceShelf in the past (along with a few more goodies). Still a good review. -- + Get Ready for Gmail in Hebrew and Arabic (thanks to G.R. and P.L. for the news tip)
Briefly + Coming From Overdrive This Summer: Digipalooza 2006 in Cleveland, Celebrating Digital Media in the Library Check out the schedule here. Great idea, btw. + Now Available: H.W. Wilson's Biography Index: Past and Present Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Technology Information Federated Search Metasearch Source: Heriot-Watt University More Cross-Database Searching: Say Hello to TechExtra!!! More impressive information retrieval tools keep flowing out of the UK. Last month on ResourceShelf we mentioned a new service from the UK's Perx Project. What we posted about was a "pilot service [at] http://www.engineering.ac.uk [that provides] subject resource discovery across a variety of digital repositories of interest to the engineering learning and research communities." Today, yet another new powerful search resource from the UK. Be prepared to spend some time with this one. It's called, TechXtra and focuses on information about technology. A mighty impressive undertaking but it's what we've come to expect from ResourceShelf friend and inspiration, Roddy MacLeod. In some ways its description sounds similar to what we've been reading from MS Academic Live and Google Scholar. From the announcement, "TechXtra facilitates immediate access to the freely available full-text content of hundreds of thousands of eprints, technical reports, theses, articles, news items, job announcements and more. In cases where the full-text is not freely available, TechXtra provides links to vendors for pay-per-view options." What does TechExtra offer: + Cross database searching (aka federated or metasearch) of 25 databases (over 4,000,000 records at the moment). From the news release "Sources include: Australian Research Repositories Online to the World, arXive (eprint archive in computer science, maths and related subjects), CiteSeer (research articles in computer science), Directory of Open Access Journals, ePrints UK (selected open archives in the UK), Copac (union catalogue from the Consortium of University Research Libraries), National Engineering Education Delivery System (digital library of learning resources), NASA Technical Reports (12 different NASA technical report series)... plus 18 other databases. More will be added in the near future." + Job Announcements + Industry News + Discovery Guides Free in-depth reports on topical engineering, mathematical, and technology issues from CSA. + Recent Advances in Manufacturing A database of bibliographic information for manufacturing and related areas, covering items in over 500 niche and mainstream journals and magazines, plus details of books, videos, and conference proceedings TechXtra harvests data from external sources using standard protocols such as Z39.50 and OAI-PMH and comes from the same team that has built and maintains the wonderful EEVL gateway. In a word, wow! Keep up the good work. We will take a closer look at both TechExtra and the engineering pilot project in coming weeks. -- Digital Archives Source: LC Webcast: Portico: A New Electronic Archiving Service "Eileen Fenton of the nonprofit electronic archiving service Portico discussed the social and technical challenges concerning the archiving of electronic journals and other scholarly resources." This webcast was recorded on May 10, 2006. See Also: Learn More About Portico -- CISTI Source: Library and Archives Canada CISTI signs Memorandum of Understanding with Library and Archives Canada to ensure business continuity for Csi "The Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) and Library and Archives Canada (LAC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish a facility that will ensure business continuity for CISTI's Canada's scientific infostructure (Csi) in the event of a partial or complete interruption of on-line services." -- Digital Information Source: National Library of Australia New Paper: Copyright in the Digital Age A paper presented by Paul Hetherington on Wednesday, 17 May 2006, National Library of Australia at the "Copyright in the Digital Age: Challenges and Opportunities for Offering Creative Work in the Digital Environment" seminar.
Web Search--Yahoo Yahoo Launches Revamped Video Search Site Set to go at midnight on Thursday (however the new site is now live) Yahoo has launched a revamped video search site. Until now, Yahoo Video offered (and still does) video content from partners (iFilm for example) as well as video its crawler finds on the open web. Overall, lots of new stuff for Yahoo but not much that we haven't seen elsewhere from other players. What's New/Different + Yahoo will now host and stream your video for free (ala Google Video and YouTube) via Yahoo Studio. Yahoo will host videos (wmv, flv, asf, qt, mov, mpg, or avi) up to 100MB in size. You can add a description/transcript, keywords (you choose) and place the video in up to six categories. + If the video is not hosted by Yahoo, Yahoo Video links you to the site. In other words, the content remains on a non-Yahoo server. If it's video from another Yahoo site (like music or sports) you're taken to that site to view. + Results pages include a static image from the video. + Featured videos are linked on the Yahoo Video Home Page. A daily archive is also available. + Sort "top picks" found on the home page by popularity, categories, or tags (right now the most popular tag is "fun." Not sure how useful that tag will be. :-) + Results pages offer a bit more metadata (duration, source, etc.). The rest of the metadata (directly next to the clip) was of little value when I ran several searches. That's not an issue for Yahoo but for the content producer. + User reviews and tags + Bookmark and share videos with friends (similar to what you can do with Yahoo 360). + Advanced search interface has not changed either in look or services. + Without the Safe Search active, lots of adult material. + Search results pages also contain "channels" which are series of videos from the same source or users that you can subscribe to. + Surprises? No way (at least I couldn't find it) to browse videos by content partners. However, a search for CBS turns up several CBS "channels." I also noticed a couple of IFilm channels. Also, I did not spot any mention of MediaRSS on either the site or the Yahoo Video help pages. + The Yahoo Video team has a blog. You'll find it here on Yahoo 360. + Some results pages also contain Yahoo Shortcuts. For example, here you'll see a shortcut for David Letterman via Yahoo TV. Update: While the web hosting, tagging, and sharing services will be of value to many users, when it comes to pure video search, we're still sticking with SearchforVideo.com. Update 2: Some good news. Yahoo's arrangement with Bloomberg Business News (via TVEyes.com) is still available. You can still keyword search words spoken on BBN and then watch the video clip on Yahoo. To limit your search to Bloomberg content, use the search <site:tveyes.com foo>.
Congressional Research Service Source: CRS via OpenCRS, FAS, NCSE, FPC, US Embassy in Rome A Selection of New/Updated CRS Reports + Broadband over Powerlines: Regulatory and Policy Issues + Digital Television: An Overview + Iraq: U.S. Military Operations + Civilian Patrols Along the Border: Legal and Policy Issues + Terminal Operators and Their Role in U.S. Port and Maritime Security + Border Security and Military Support: Legal Authorizations and Restrictions + Retirement Savings and Household Wealth: A Summary of Recent Data + Wilderness Laws:Permitted and Prohibited Uses + Caspian Oil and Gas: Production and Prospects + Avian Influenza: Multiple Strains Cause Different Effects Worldwide + Space Exploration: Issues Concerning the "Vision for Space Exploration" + Energy: Useful Facts and Numbers + Afghanistan: Elections, Constitution, and Government
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Earthquakes--Indonesia--Maps Source: Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs--ReliefWeb New: Indonesia: Earthquake - Situation map No. 4 See Also: Indonesia: Earthquake OCHA Situation Report No. 4 -- Country Profiles Source: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress New or Updated Reports Updated: Afghanistan 22 pages: PDF. & New: Yemen 23 pages; PDF. -- Internet Access--United Kingdom Source: NSO Internet Access: 63% of adults access the Internet "The most common place to access the Internet was at home (86 per cent), 46 per cent accessed at work, 28 per cent at another person's home, 16 per cent at a place of education, and 10 per cent at a public library." Includes chart. -- Bankruptcies--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Courts Bankruptcy Filings Rose in March 2006 12-Month Period Quarterly Filings Lowest Since Mid-80s "The number of bankruptcy cases filed in federal courts rose 12.8 percent in the 12-month period ending March 31, 2006, according to statistics released today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Bankruptcy cases totaled 1,794,795 for that period, compared to 1,590,975 bankruptcy cases filed in the 12-month period ending March 2005." Four spreadsheets with stats are available. -- Legal System--United States--Statistics Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University New, Federal Prosecution Counts "Monthly information for January of 2006 about the federal prosecution counts for white collar crime and three other major crime categories -- immigration, drugs, and weapons -- are now available to all Americans by going to a special new feature on TRAC's public site at http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/.
Briefly Cambridge University Press Offers Free Trials of New Databases 1) Coming Soon: Online Version of the Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition For a free trial, email: hsus@cambridge.org. 2) Literature and Classics Companions and Philosophy, Religion and Culture Companions Collections For a free trial, email: mailto:ccol@cambridge.org. 3) Coming Soon New Database: The Orlando History of Women's Writing in the British Isles, from the Beginnings to the Present. "Material relating to women's writing in the British Isles, including biographical and critical information on over 800 British women writers plus over 20,000 bibliographical listings. Data may be searched by author, place, and date, but also by genre, topic, or theme." For a free trial, email: tbraunstein@cambridge.org If you register for a free trial, you'll receive a complimentary copy of the Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English. Btw, make sure to tell Cambridge that ResourceShelf sent you. :-) -- + Rand McNally Maps Coming to Motorola Cell Phones -- + Who Makes What: Mobile Infrastructure "Welcome to Unstrung's Who Makes What report on wireless infrastructure. As with our Who Makes What: Mobile Devices report, released in March 2006, we present here a comprehensive list of vendors of wireless infrastructure equipment, from 802.11 access points to RFID systems to broadband wireless gear."
Search Briefs MSN Windows Live Mobile Site Adds Web Search; Live Mail Beta Now Accessible; Spaces for Mobile (Beta) Enhances Offerings When MSN relaunched their mobile site last August the main search offering was local search. That has changed. The mobile site (we accessed on a Treo 650) and can be seen here on a non-mobile browser now serves up access to MSN Live Search web results to MSN Mobile users. So, what search options will you currently find? + Web Search (Note that each result can be optimized for mobile browsers via a proxy if the user selects the "mobile" link) + Local Search with driving directions + MSN Spaces Search + Improvements to MSN Spaces" Mobile Beta Windows Live Mobile users can also customize the layout of their page, create personalized stock lists, enter home/work addresess to save time and clicks, add a growing number of alerts (we still find the traffic alert very useful) and more. -- Mobile Searching: Google, Yahoo and Many Others Great to see ResourceShelf fave 4info.net featured in article. Btw, Promptu offers speech recognition search for some mobile devices. In other words, speak your search. Other mobile players include: + Yahoo Mobile + Smarter.com + Synfonic.com + UpSnap.com (live audio too including podcasts!) + MSN Mobile (several services and expanding) As the summer rolls on, look for another ResourceShelf initiative, Gary's mobile bookmark collections. Postscript: Don't forget that cameraphone searching is slowly but surely developing traction.
Multimedia Shelf New lectures, presentations, conferences available via webcast or download. Information Technology Webcast: Information Technology, Enterprise Transformation, and the Future of US Higher Education This webcast consists of a lecture by Professor John King, School of Information, University of Michigan, that was given at Oxford University on May 18, 2006. -- Words Source: All Things Considered, National Public Radio Audio: Crikey! Here Come the Chavs "Robert Siegel talks with Verity Jennings, a recent graduate of Leeds Metropolitan University in Britain. Jennings's thesis analyzed the popularity of the term "chavs" in hundreds of newspaper stories. While the origins of the word are murky, Jennings says "chavs" has come to refer to British young people characterized by gold jewelry and sportswear, often in a negative light. But she says references to "chavs" may also create a new sense of belonging." -- Successes and Challenges in Terrorism Prosecutions: An In-Depth Look at Department of Justice Terrorism Cases after 9/11 Event took place at the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday, May 24, 2006. Direct to video. Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text International Relations--Transcripts United States--History Source: National Security Archive New, Massive Collection of Formerly Secret and Top Secret Transcripts of Henry Kissinger's Meetings with World Leaders Published On-Line "28,000 Pages of Documents Show Kissinger as Negotiator and Policymaker in Real-time, Verbatim Talks with World Leaders." -- Performing Arts--Encyclopedias Source: LOC Just Released, Library of Congress Launches Performing Arts Encyclopedia Online Look for a more detailed look in an upcoming RS post. From the announcement, "A new online Performing Arts Encyclopedia has been developed to serve as a centralized guide for users interested in exploring the performing arts. The encyclopedia focuses on music, motion picture, broadcasting, recorded sound, manuscript, rare book, and other nonbook collections. The resources, which are housed in various divisions of the Library, have been brought together to make them available for easier access and more widespread usage." -- HIV/AIDS--Statistics Source: UNAIDS Just Released, UNAIDS 2006: Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic "According to new data in the UNAIDS 2006 Report on the global AIDS epidemic the AIDS epidemic appears to be slowing down globally, but new infections are continuing to increase in certain regions and countries. The report also shows that important progress has been made in country AIDS responses, including increases in funding and access to treatment, and decreases in HIV prevalence among young people in some countries over the past five years. However AIDS remains an exceptional threat." Summary (PDF) Direct to Full Text
Professional Reading Shelf Proceedings--Databases Meetings--Databases Source: InterDok Now Free! Directory of Published Proceedings (DoPP) Database Subjects Include: + Science / Engineering / Technology + Medical / Life Sciences + Pollution Control / Ecology + Social Sciences / Humanities With author & paper title information. As of today, DoPP contains over 50,000 records. See Also: InterDok's MInd: The Meetings Index Free. "...offers free access to locate future conferences, congresses, meetings and symposia." ResourceShelf first reviewed MInd: The Meetings Index in 2004. -- IM--Search Kozoru Will Release IM Answers Software The Kansas City-area company Kozoru, a company we've been tracking for a couple of years, will release a new service next week (we haven't had a peek yet) that allows the user to ask a question and get a specific answer or set of links back via IM. It sounds very similar to what, for example, AOL has been offering for years and others also provide*. It also sounds a bit like what Ask.com is doing "on the web" with Smart Answers or MSN is doing with Direct Answers. From the article, "The premise behind Kozoru's BYOM (build your own mobile search) technology is that consumers looking for something while in instant messenger want to act on the information: find out the latest weather forecast, settle a bar bet over when Teddy Roosevelt was first elected or read a news story someone on the train just mentioned." We agree, the potential synergy between IM, mobile, and answers is quite strong. Several questions: + Will this service be free? + Will individuals (with no coding experience) be able to create BYOMs? + How long will it take a typical user to create a BYOM? + Who will select sources? For us, that's the key to all of this, source selection. Incorrect choices will likely yield poor results (and incorrect facts) and frustrated users. Will a blog offer the quick answers that an online reference source can provide? Of course, this selection process might be a new role for the info pro and a new marketplace for reference publishers. On a separate note, the author of the News.com article we linked to above mentions both Google's and Yahoo's answer services but makes no mention of the many virtual reference (VR) services libraries have offered long before GA and YA. In fact, the Johnson County Public Library located in Kozoru's backyard offers numerous VR services including 24/7 chat reference. Why chat with a computer via IM when you could interact with a live librarian? Depends on your info need. I think mobile IM is another area VR services needs to consider. I wonder if the Kozoru folks have talked to JCPL about the librarians trying the service in beta mode. If ResourceShelf can help get the two sides together, just holler. UPDATE 1: For more on chatbots AOL offers see this page We've used the Moviefone and Shopping Buddy for many months. Not bad at all. *UPDATE 2: We've learned that MSN Messenger already offers the ability to search and receive direct answers and links via Encarta using IM. Simply send an IM to encarta@conversagent.com and off you go. Not bad. *UPDATE 3: The wonderful Searchforvideo.com offers IM search access to its amazing database. Works with AOL, Yahoo, and MSN. Details here. Update 4: Let's also not forget that SMS (text message) services also offer interactive question answering and services like 4info.net, Smarter.com, Google SMS, and Yahoo SMS. -- Sci-Tech Libraries Source: ISTL New Issue: The spring 2006 issue of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship is now online Articles include: + Innovative Library Liaison Assessment Activities: Supporting the Scientist's Need to Evaluate Publishing Strategies + Assessing Reference: Using the Wisconsin-Ohio Reference Evaluation Program in an Academic Science Library + The Role of Industry Standards: An Overview of the Top Engineering Schools' Libraries + Webliography: Mapping the Brain: Resources for Researchers in Neurosciences + Review: IEEE/IEE Electronic Library + Review: SpringerLink -- Access to Information Librarians Source: AP Conn. librarians bitterly decry gag order in Patriot Act case "Four otherwise mild-mannered librarians from Connecticut spoke out bitterly for the first time Tuesday after being subjected to a months-long gag order when the FBI demanded records about library patrons under the Patriot Act. U.S. District Judge Janet Hall ruled last year that the gag order should be lifted, saying it unfairly prevented the librarians from participating in a debate over how the Patriot Act should be rewritten. But it wasn't until April that prosecutors dropped an appeal of that order. The librarians, at a press conference organized by the American Civil Liberties Union -- which represented them -- did little to hide their displeasure at being told by the government to keep quiet." See Also: Learn More and Hear from the Librarians Involved in this National Public Radio Report Direct to audio.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Terrorism--Maps Source: MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base New TKB Terrorism Trends Map Now Available In PDF And Print At No Cost "The TKB team is proud to announce the release of our official TKB Terrorism Trends 2005 map poster. Complete with in-depth information on terrorism throughout the world, this large, colorful map is a must-have for analysts, law enforcement, researchers, or others interested in terrorism. The poster lists the most active groups, most frequent targets and tactics, and the most lethal attacks for 2005. It also offers comparison graphs for several terrorism hotspots. Users can download a PDF copy from the TKB homepage. For a 24' x 34' hard-copy version, simply email your name and mailing address to TKBsupport@tkb.org and we will ship you a copy at no cost. Supplies are limited." -- Real Estate--United States--Foreclosures--Lists & Rankings Source: RealtyTrac Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Memphis And Denver Top List Of Nations Ten Highest Metropolitan Foreclosure Rates Includes two lists. + Top 10 Metro Foreclosure Rates + Metropolitan foreclosure statistics for the nation's 100 largest MSAs ordered by foreclosure rate -- Commencement--Speeches Source: Humanity.org (The Humanity Initiative) Commencement Speeches "Though these myriad departures and arrivals of everyday existence are seldom met with ceremony, words traditionally reserved for momentous occasions may ring true and inspirational at any hour. That's why we created this unique archive of commencement addresses, selecting an eclectic menu of twenty nine extraordinary speeches from the thousands that we have reviewed since beginning work on this initiative in 1989." -- Animal Noises--Multilingual Source: University of Adelaide School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Derek Abbott's Animal Noise Page "In different languages what do we say to mimic animal sounds? Below is the world's biggest multilingual list. A guiding principle behind this list is to visualise a comic book, in your language, and imagine what would be written in the text balloon coming from the mouth of an animal. For languages that use a different alphabet, I have tried to transliterate the word into the English alphabet for ease of comparison. A forward slash is used to separate alternative words." Professor Abbott is Director of the Centre for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Adelaide School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. -- Oceans--Audio Source: NOAA The Sound of the Sea "...contains a selection of audio files that were recorded underwater, related video and animation products, and several spectograms and other images of ocean sound."
DocuTicker Best of DocuTicker DocuTicker is ResourceShelf's sister site and is updated daily with a wide variety of new full text reports on many topics from government agencies, think tanks, ngo's and many other organizations. Here's a small, very small, sample of what we've posted during the past week. + What Price Privacy? The unlawful trade in confidential personal information + Information Security Office of Oversight: 2005 Report to the President + Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People's Republic of China
Search Briefs + Ask.com Offers Special Logo For Memorial Day The Ask.com home page was adorned yesterday with a special icon (a ribbon) and link for Memorial Day that read, "Memorial Day: A Day of Rememberance." In case you missed it, here's a screen cap of the Ask page. The link went directly to this Smart Answer loaded with direct links with information about the holiday. At 5pm EDST on Monday, we didn't spot any holiday special logos on Google, MSN, or Yahoo. Btw, Ask.com offers Smart Answers for many holidays. Here are a just a FEW examples: + Labor Day + Boxing Day + Good Friday + Purim
Briefly Congratulations to Metasearch Company MuseGlobal Those of you who have been reading ResourceShelf likely remember that our site was once sponsored by metasearch technology powerhouse, MuseGlobal. Although they're no longer sponsors of ResourceShelf, the entire MuseGlobal team remains a good friend. That's why we were thilled to learn that CSA's MultiSearch product (the one that won the Codie Award) is powered with technology from Muse. Congrats, guys, well deserved! See Also: Test Drive CSA's MultiSearch MultiSearch offers metasearch access to over 1200 databases and other online resources. Monday, May 29, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries--Business Services Source: BusinessWeek The Library: Next Best Thing to an MBA "(A)n increasing number of would-be entrepreneurs are turning to their local public libraries for help in every aspect of launching their businesses. According to a 2006 study conducted by the American Library Assn. (ALA), a Chicago-based trade group, 61% of small-business owners living in the U.S. said libraries were important in helping them get started." See Also: More Positive Press About Business Research Ser vices at the Johnson County (KS) Public Library (via KC Business Journal) See Also: The J.J. Hill Business Library in St. Paul, MN, offers many excellent services to entrepreneurs and small business owners. Most of them are accessible remotely. For example, HillSearch.org offers a robust set of databases at a very low cost plus (most importantly) access to the J.J. Hill librarians. -- Broadband--United States--Study Source: Pew Internet & American Life Home Broadband Adoption 2006 "Adoption of high-speed internet at home grew twice as fast in the year prior to March 2006 than in the same time frame from 2004 to 2005. Middle-income Americans accounted for much of the increase, along with African-Americans and new internet users coming online with broadband at home. At the end of March 2006, 42% of Americans had high-speed at home, up from 30% in March 2005, or a 40% increase. And 48 million Americans -- mostly those with high-speed at home -- have posted content to the internet." Direct to Full Text (PDF) -- eBooks--Public Opinion Source: International Digital Publishing Forum (via KnowThis.com) eBook User Survey 2006 (PDF; 235 KB) "eBook retailers seem to have built shopping experiences that satisfy their customers and that the general experience of reading an eBook is a good one. There seems to be some room for improvement for respondents in areas of pricing and selection of eBooks. In regards to DRM issues (ability to move content between devices and lending), there seems to be less satisfaction, but interestingly many respondents seemed to find it far more important to easily move content between devices than to lend content to friends and family. Last, while questions of multimedia, read aloud and assistive technology questions ranked low in terms of satisfaction, a very large majority marked these areas an unimportant to them. There does not seem to be a lot of consumer demand for multimedia eBooks and audio functions in eBooks. Also, not particularly surprising is the fact that assistive technology is not important to a consumer audience that does not require this technology to read." -- Conference Presentations Source: SOLINET SOLINET Annual Membership Meeting: Will Libraries Matter in 2020? Presentations available (PDFs) include the following: + Advocacy: Working with Public Officials + Library Marketing with Meaning: Keeping Up with the Future + User-Driven Libraries: Understanding the Perceptions of Current and Future Library Patrons + How Libraries Are Applying Blogging, Podcasting, and RSS Technologies -- Libraries--Copyright Source: UCLA Law Review (Tushnet; via LibraryLaw Blog) MyLibrary: Copyright and the Role of Institutions in a Peer-to-Peer World (PDF; 6.5 MB) "Today's technology turns every computer -- every hard drive -- into a type of library. But the institutions traditionally known as libraries have been given special consideration under copyright law, even as commercial endeavors and filesharing programs have begun to emulate some of their functions. This article explores how recent technological and legal trends are affecting public and school-affiliated libraries, which have special concerns that are not necessarily captured by an end-consumer-oriented analysis. Despite the promise that technology will empower individuals, we must recognize the crucial structural role of intermediaries that select and distribute copyrighted works. By exploring how traditional libraries are being affected by developments such as filesharing services, the iTunes Music Store, and Google's massive digitization project, this article examines the implications of legal and technological changes that are mainly not directed at libraries, but are nonetheless vital to their continued existence."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Airports--North America--Lists & Rankings Source: Airports Council International-North America Recently Released, Busiest Airports in North America Summary ||| By Total Passengers ||| By Total Cargo ||| By Total Movements "More than 1.52 billion passengers* traveled through North American airports in 2005, an increase of 4.3 percent, Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) announced today. Both cargo and total operations, however, declined slightly by 0.5 percent and 0.2 percent respectively." See Also: By Total Movements (Global) -- Technology--Products--Ranking Source: PC World The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time "Picking our list wasn't exactly rocket science; it was more like group therapy. PC World staffers and contributors nominated their candidates and then gave each one the sniff test. We sought the worst of the worst--operating systems that operated badly, hardware that never should have left the factory, applications that spied on us and fed our data to shifty marketers, and products that left a legacy of poor performance and bad behavior." Complete list
Briefly Amazon.com & The Internet Movie Database, Plus Power Searching the IMDB Btw, don't forget to read about the IMDB's advanced searching options. Impressive and yet another illustration of what good metadata can do. Sunday, May 28, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Environmental Protection Agency--Libraries Source: Electronic Green Journal Editorial: Protecting Public Access to Environmental Information and Saving the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Libraries "The loss of the information arm of the EPA Libraries will impact not only issues like climate change but also the presence and impacts of chemical in our environment, and other threats to health of our oceans, lands, lakes, and rivers. For now the best thing readers can do is to follow American Library Association's suggestions and contact members of the House of Representatives to address this issue. Go to the website of the House of Representatives at http://www.house.gov/ to locate your representative and voice your concerns over the possible loss of this vital resource. As you read this, libraries are closing or reducing access to their collections, institutional memory is walking out of doors voluntarily and a decades-long reputation of excellence is facing extinction." By Frederick W. Stoss, Associate Librarian: Biological and Environmental Sciences and Mathematics, University at Buffalo, State University of New York. -- Academic Libraries Source: OCLC College Students' Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources "College Students' Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources examines the information-seeking habits and preferences of international college students. This report is a companion piece to the December 2005 OCLC report.... Overall, respondents have positive, if outdated, views of the 'Library.' Younger respondents -- teenagers and young adults -- do not express positive associations as frequently. These findings, and more, are valuable insights for anyone seeking to know more about the library usage and perceptions of college students and young people." Full Report (PDF; 2.19 MB)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Clip Art Source: Dorling Kindersley A Collection of Free Clip Art from Reference Publisher Dorling Kindersley Free clip art imagery in over 50 categories. -- Earthqakes--Lists & Rankings Source: USGS Earthquakes: Top 10 Lists & Maps (U.S. and Global) and Earthquake Databases Over 20 lists and rankings See Also: Significant Earthquake Database (via NOAA) "The Significant Earthquake Database contains information on destructive earthquakes from 2150 B.C. to the present..." See Also: Earthquake Intensity Database Search: 1638-1985 (via NOAA) "The Earthquake Intensity Database is a collection of damage and felt reports for over 23,000 U.S. earthquakes. The digital database contains information regarding epicentral coordinates, magnitudes, focal depths, names and coordinates of reporting cities (or localities), reported intensities, and the distance from city (or locality) to epicenter. Earthquakes listed in the file date from 1638 to 1985." -- Science--Q&A's Source: New York Times Science Q&A An archive of asked and answered science questions organized into 11 categories: Animals + Birds & Fish + Human Body & Mind + Insects & Invertebrates + Manufactured Things + Microscopic Life + Plants + Space & Spaceships + The Earth + The Sea + The Weather + Everything Else -- Iraq--Reconstruction Source: Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) (via DocuTicker.com) Iraq Reconstruction Timeline (PDF; 124 KB) "Significant events and expenditures for IRRF (Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund) and key sectors." Saturday, May 27, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Internet Filters Source: Brennan Center for Justice, NYU School of Law Just Released, Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report (PDF; 4.36 MB) "The more sophisticated and statistically oriented tests of filtering software in the period from 2001-06 differ widely in their purposes and results. Although statistics and percentages in this field of research can be misleading, one conclusion is clear from all of the studies: filters continue to block large amounts of valuable information. Even the expert witnesses for the government in the CIPA case, who attempted to minimize the rates of error, reported substantial overblocking. Internet filters are powerful, often irrational, censorship tools." -- International Federation of Library Associations Source: IFLA A Selection of Papers to be Presented at World Library and Information Congress: 72nd IFLA General Conference #3 + Japanese Government Libraries Network: serving the customers in the new era + Information literacy as an emancipatory process directed to social inclusion in a knowledge society + Challenges in automated classification using library classification schemes -- Internet--Statistics Source: Telegeography's World Broadband Yearbook TeleGeography Update: Global Broadband Subscribers Over 221m Via an email, "The number of worldwide high-speed Internet subscriber lines surpassed 221 million at the end of 2005, according to the latest analysis released in TeleGeography's World Broadband Yearbook. Most broadband subscribers -- about 65 percent -- access the Internet via DSL technology. The global subscriber total increased 37 percent in 2005, from around 162 million a year earlier, and a little over 106 million in 2003. TeleGeography forecasts the total will grow to 286 million by the end of 2006, before climbing to 448 million by 2010. Broadband Subscribers, December 2005 Asia-Pacific 89,573,436 Europe 63,455,527 U.S. & Canada 53,270,000 L. America/Carib. 9,668,888 Middle East 3,863,210 Africa 1,987,200 Global total 221,818,261" See Also: Chart: International Bandwidth Per Capita, 2005
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Consumer Credit--United States--Statistics Source: Experian National Score Index Maps, charts, and tons of stats. Very interesting stuff. Fast facts: + Average Credit Score (2006)--677 + Average Debt (2006) $11,669.00 -- U.S. Senate--History Source: Congressional Research Service Updated Report: Salaries of Members of Congress: A List of Payable Rates and Effective Dates, 1789-2006 Friday, May 26, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf The Partnership for a Nation of Learners Museums Source: PNL PNL Announces 2nd Videoconference "CPB [Corporation for Public Broadcasting] and IMLS [Institute of Museum and Library Services] are pleased to announce a 2nd Partnership for a Nation of Learners Community Collaboration Videoconference, to be held on Monday, June 19, 2006, from 1:00-3:00 PM. This will once again be an opportunity for local museums, libraries, and public broadcasters to get to know another, to concentrate on why and how their organizations should be working together, and to learn how to gain support for local collaborative projects." See Also: Text Transcripts of Past Events -- Institute of Museum and Library Services IMLS Debuts New Web Site IMLS.gov gets a new look. -- Digital Preservation Source: Library of Congress New Informational Web Site: Library of Congress Web Capture "The Library of Congress has just launched a Web site devoted to information about its program to capture and preserve historically important Web sites so that they can be accessed by future generations of users. The Library of Congress and libraries and archives around the world are interested in collecting and preserving content on the Web because an ever-increasing amount of the world's cultural and intellectual output is created in digital formats and does not exist in any physical form. Creating an archives of Web sites supports the goals of the Library's Digital Strategic Plan, announced in March 2003, which focuses on the collection and management of digital content. The Web Capture Program is directly related to the Library's larger digital preservation program, called the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (www.digitalpreservation.gov). The subject areas in which the Library has been collecting Web sites include recent Supreme Court nominations; Hurricane Katrina; and the papal transition following the death of John Paul II. Current collecting projects include the crisis in Darfur, Sudan; the Iraq War; and the upcoming Election 2006. The Library collects Web sites only after it has received formal permission from Web site content owners to do so." See Also: List of Projects See Also: Learn About LC's Minerva Archiving Project See Also: NARA/Internet Archive Collection of U.S. Government Web Material NOW Keyword Searchable "Roughly 75 million web pages and represents about 50,000 '.gov' and '.mil' unrestricted federal web sites active between 10/14/04 and 11/19/04." -- Preservation Source: Ottawa Citizen It's a race against time "Sgt. Tremblay manages a small team of civilian researchers, image technicians, and a string of rotating personnel reassigned to light duty for medical reasons that is trying to scan these photos onto compact discs that are supposed to last 300 years. The scanned pictures will then be sent to Library and Archives Canada for proper storage. But lack of funding and personnel has severely hampered those efforts and the library loses between one and two per cent of its collection -- 10,000 to 20,000 images -- every year because they are not being stored properly. 'It's a race against time,' said Sgt. Tremblay, who estimates it will cost between $1.5 million and $2.5 million over five years to scan and catalogue all of the library's images. That doesn't include the nearly 45,000 reels of old film stored in the building's basement that are in the same peril." -- Public Libraries--Financial Issues Source: Boston.com Cash-strapped town may close its library "Medway residents will decide next month whether to close their public library to help the cash-strapped town cut costs and balance its budget. The library's budget of around $280,000 would be part of a package of around $868,000 in proposed cutbacks that voters will weigh at a June 12 Town Meeting."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text R&D--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: NSF Master Government List of Federally Funded Research and Development Centers -- Veterans--United States--Digitization Projects Source: LOC Coming Monday: Library Of Congress Veterans History Project Will Add Collections from Veterans Who Served in Military Intelligence "'Military Intel: The Inside Story,' a selection of 22 digitized collections of materials submitted by war veterans who served in military intelligence will be highlighted on the Veterans History Project Web site beginning May 25. Military Intel will be added to the 'Experiencing War' stories from the Veterans History Project at www.loc.gov/warstories. This is the 12th set of individual stories -- comprising interviews, letters, photographs and written memoirs -- to be featured on the site. Past themes have included D-Day, prisoners of war, and military medicine." -- Families--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New, Families and Living Arrangements: 2005 "The median age of first marriage was 27.1 years for men and 25.8 years for women last year, up from 23.2 and 20.8 years, respectively, 25 years earlier, according to new information on America's families and households released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. According to Families and Living Arrangements: 2005, the proportion of households consisting of one person living alone increased from 17 percent in 1970 to 26 percent in 2005. In 2005, 10 percent of the nation's households contained five or more people, down from 21 percent in 1970. During the same time period, average household size declined from 3.14 to 2.57 people. -- U.S. Military--Special Operations--Bibliography Source: Air University Library Special Operations 2006 New bibliography includes general information, information about the different Special Operations commands, Special Operations Forces core tasks, history, programs, systems, training, and equipment. -- Adolescents--Cigarettes Source: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (CDC) Use of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Among Students Aged 13--15 Years --- Worldwide, 1999--2005 "This report presents estimates of self-reported cigarette and other tobacco-product use during 1999-2005 in 132 different countries and the Gaza Strip/West Bank. The data are aggregated within each of the six WHO regions. GYTS data indicate that nearly two of every 10 students reported currently using a tobacco product, with no statistically significant difference between the proportion of those reporting cigarette smoking (8.9%) and other tobacco use (11.2%). Use of tobacco by adolescents is a major public health problem in all six WHO regions. Worldwide, more countries need to develop, implement, and evaluate their tobacco-control programs to address the use of all types of tobacco products, especially among girls." Thursday, May 25, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor OK...as far as seasons go, I much prefer baseball season to election season. But nothing good can come from playing ostrich when political leadership is at stake. We have a cool resource to show you this week -- but it has one small flaw you might not notice unless you live in my overpopulated part of west central Florida. Elections 2006--Interactive Map Source: Congressional Quarterly (CQ) CQ 2006 Election Forecast Map Generally speaking, interactive maps are A Good Thing. Usually, they are pretty straightforward -- e.g., no complicated user interface that makes you scratch your head. What you see is pretty much what you get here; when you first click on the link above, you see a map of the United States broken down by congressional district. Each district is color-coded by political leaning: Safe Republican, Republican Favored, Leans Republican, No Clear Favorite, Leans Democrat, Democrat Favored, Safe Democrat. Note the two tabs at the upper right. When you first arrive at the page, you are looking at the "Projected Landscape" of the House of Representatives after the fall elections. If you click on the "Current Landscape" tab, you can view a map of the existing House political situation -- seats held by Republicans, Democrats, Independents and vacant seats. That's the static part of the map. The interactive part happens when you click on a congressional district. Up comes a page describing that district in terms of geography, demographics, election history, workforce make-up and educational attainment. At the top, you see the name of the incumbent, his or her status (e.g., "Running for Re-election"), and CQ's election 2006 forecast (e.g., "Safe" Republican or Democrat, "Leans" Republican or Democrat, "No Clear Favorite"). The data sources are the 2000 U.S. Census -- which is worrisome because of its age at this point, especially in fast-growing parts of the country -- and CQ's Politics in America, a standard reference resource. The most current edition available is CQ's Politics in America 2006: The 109th Congress, which has a date of May 2005. This page also provides you with some news headline links to news stories about politics in that particular state. To the right of the news headlines, you'll see a "Back" link and an X in a box. Clicking on either of these will take you back to the map. At first, I didn't notice this because the type is light gray. Instead, I used the browser's back button to try and get back to the map, but was routed instead to the CQ Politics home page, which looks like a fairly interesting weblog (and has an RSS feed), but it's not where I expected to go. Note that there is a slider to the right of the map which allows you to zoom in or out. Because I live in a geographically small congressional district in the Tampa Bay area, which is quite densely populated, I wanted to enlarge the map to see the district divisions more clearly so I could click on the right one. Alas, when I enlarged the map, my part of Florida slipped behind the House "Balance of Power Scorecard" at the lower right. Fortunately, at the top of the slider, are four arrowheads which allow you to move the map to the left or right, or up or down...but I could only go so far down before the Florida peninsula got truncated. So I had to mess with things a little before I could pinpoint my own congressional district. If you live in a state like Montana, Wyoming, or either of the Dakotas, however, clicking your congressional district is a lot easier because there is only one in each state. Note that it's a lot less complicated when you leave the House view and choose either the Senate or Governors tabs at the upper left, since every state has just two senators and one governor.
Professional Reading Shelf Reference Questions Source: Project Wombat Learn About Project Wombat, The New Stumpers-L The latest on a "classic" reference discussion list. "Project Wombat is an e-mail discussion list for difficult reference questions. Membership is free, and non-members may submit questions for discussion. Project Wombat continues the many fine traditions started by the Stumpers list once offered by Dominican University with some helpful new options." -- Digital Science Source: Association of Research Libraries, Proceedings of the 148th Membership Meeting, 2006 Speech: The International Dimensions of Digital Science and Scholarship A speech by Deanna B. Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services, Library of Congress. See Also: Slides from Marcum's Presentation See Also: Other Presentations from the Meeting -- Library and Information Science--Glossary Source: School of Information Resources & Library Science, the University of Arizona SIRLS: The Information Professional's Glossary See Also: OCLC Glossary -- Interactive Television Source: itvt An Interview with the Creators of CNN's New Interactive Service, "CNN Enhanced" Could libraries be involved in other enhanced tv services?
Cool Tools WINKsite Quickly and easily create mobile tools. Free. Impressive and useful. From the site, "In minutes, you can set-up a free mobile site that's available worldwide on any web-enabled phone, PDA or desktop PC. Each mobile site is outfitted with easy-to-use mobile channels including chat, blog, mobile feed reader, surveys, journal, forum, calendar, guestbook, bookmarks, email and more." See Also: Mobile Versions (Beta) of ResourceShelf and DocuTicker. Powered by WINKsite.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Business Research--United States SEC EDGAR Source: The Virtual Chase Tyburski Says PWC's EdgarScan Database Now Searching Full Text of SEC EDGAR Docs Yes, a full text EDGAR database for free. Many of the free EDGAR services only search info found header and not the full text of documents. Direct to EdgarScan. See Also: The Always Useful SECInfo.com (Free) Allows Full Text Searching of Document Subsets. -- Newspaper Archives Source: NewspaperARCHIVE.com Yet Another New Archive, This Time Over 50,000 Articles About Hurricanes in the U.S. Wow, NewspaperArchive appears to be releasing about one new (and free) archive a week. This time thousands of full text, full image articles about hurricanes. Full text search, save, print. All free. "Newspaper articles about hurricanes tell stories of those affected by some of Mother Nature's most powerful disasters. From the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the deadliest natural disaster in US history, to Hurricane Katrina." See Also: Links to Other NewspaperArchive Free Databases Even more here and here. -- Financial Services--United States--Statistics Source: III Financial Services Fact Book 2006 See Also: Insurance Related Statistics -- Phishing--Statistics Source: Anti-Phishing Working Group New, April Phishing Activity Trends Report PDF. "Phish Reports drop slightly in April...Malware-dropping URLs and new Trojans continues to grow." -- Media--Children Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Study Shows How Kids' Media Use Helps Parents Cope "Electronic media is a central focus of many very young children's lives, used by parents to help manage busy schedules, keep the peace, and facilitate family routines such as eating, relaxing, and falling asleep, according to a new national study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Many parents also express satisfaction with the educational benefits of TV and how it can teach positive behaviors." News Release/Webcast ||| Direct to Full Text
Briefly + Mary Rasenberger Named Director of Program Management for National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program -- + ProQuest Ponders Divestment in Face of Financial Woes -- UK: British Library Introduces New Icons to Help Show Do's and Dont's
Search Briefs + Coming Soon: AOL Plans Broadband Search Service (via News.com) & Link to AOL Video Now Found On Google Video Home Page Federated or meta search from AOL? From the article, "[AOL's CEO Jonathan] Miller did not provide details beyond saying that the new search function would involve multiple sources and load quickly." Of course, AOL's web database is powered or as they say "enhanced" by Google. The AOL/Google deal was renewed last December. Speaking of AOL and Google, have you noticed the direct link (upper right in the gray bar) to AOL's Video Search engine on the Google Video home page? Not at all a surprise. When the AOL/Google deal was announced we learned that part of it would include video. Specifically, the news release read, "collaborating in video search and showcasing AOL's premium video service within Google Video." It looks like this is it or at least the beginning. One wonders if the Google Video and AOL Video databases will one day merge into one and/or will negotiating for video content become a joint effort between both organizations? -- Web Search--MSN MSN Autos Vertcal Now Offering It's Own Search Tool (Beta) Look for the MSN Auto search box, top right on the home page and other "inside" pages. SERPS contain results in 4 categories. Here's a sample search for Toyota Prius. + All Results + Research + Articles + Auto Shows (News from various auto shows like Detroit (NAIAS), Tokyo, Chicago, etc.)
Multimedia Shelf Recent lectures and presentations available for streaming or download. Intelligence Source: Council on Foreign Relations + The Digital Spy: How Technology is Changing the Intelligence Community (audio) Speakers: Bryan Cunningham, Principal,Morgan & Cunningham LLC Jeff Jonas, Distinguished Engineer and Chief Scientist, IBM Entity Analytics Presider: Daniel B. Prieto, Director and Senior Fellow, Homeland Security Center The Reform Institute; former executive at America Online Recorded May 19, 2006. MP3. Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf International Federatation of Library Associations Source: IFLA A Selection of Papers to be Presented at World Library and Information Congress: 72nd IFLA General Conference #2 + Directories of international repositories: research results and recommendations + Web accessibility: a review of research and initiatives + Information literacy as an emancipatory process directed to social inclusion in a knowledge society + Dynamic Transformation of the National Diet Library: From the Researcher's Library to the Library for All + Enabling Library and Information Skills: Foundations for Entering Students + Integrating Information Literacy in a First-Year University Course: A Case Study from Canada See Also: Compilation #1 -- Scholarly Literature Open Computation: Beyond Human-Reader-Centric Views of Scholarly Literatures A new book chapter by Clifford Lynch to appear in Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical and Ecomomic Aspects, Neil Jacobs (Ed.), (Oxford: Chandos Publishing), Spring 2006. "...speculating about the interactions between the emerging technologies of text mining, licensing electronic scholarly journals, and open access." Also available in PDF. -- Medical Literature--Open Access Source: Canadian Health Libraries Association 2006: Pearls of Wisdom (via E-LIS) Open Access for the Medical Librarian "The most important aspects of open access for the medical librarian are presented. Reasons for open access include access to research information, access to taxpayer-funded research, facilitation of evidence-based medicine, equity of access, promotion of author control, and controlling library costs. The two primary approaches to open access, via author self-archiving and open access publishing, are presented. Key open access policy developments are highlighted. Many of the major policy initiatives of the moment are from the research funders. From the researcher funders' point of view, open access means more research impact, more real-world impact when professionals can access the literature, and value is illustrated to the taxpayer, building support for further research funding. The world's largest medical research funders, including the U.S. National Institute of Health and the Wellcome Trust, have public access policies, and many more policies are in development. For example, two weeks ago the Federal Research Public Access Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate. One of the essential elements of open access policy is ensuring that researchers are required, not requested, to deposit works. In Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has a policy in development called Access to Products of Research; public comments are due May 15, 2006. The dramatic growth of open access - over 2,220 journals in DOAJ, over 7.3 million items in an OAIster search - is discussed, as is the idea of new roles for librarians in an open access environment." Presentation; PDF (137 KB) or PowerPoint (80 KB). See also: Bill demands free public access to science reports (Federal Computer Week) -- Scholarly Publishing--Avian Influenza-- Source: Proceedings International Workshop on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics & Seventh COLLNET Meeting (via E-LIS) Cooperation bibliogram of bird flu "The published literature on Bird Flu, now a pandemic animal disease with a possible potential of evolving into a devastating human disease, was analysed primarily with respect of national and international cooperations and networks of authors and countries. The output of research-relevant papers is now around 150 per year and was less than 100 papers per year before 2003. The field is highly cooperative; nearly 90% of the articles have two or more authors. National extramural cooperation is around 50% since 1998, intramural cooperation shows a decreasing tendency and is now about 20%. Between 20% and 30% of the papers have been published in bi- or multinational cooperation. Observed and expected citation rates of international papers are twice as high as the citation rates of national papers. 47 countries are engaged in Bird Flu research, on top USA, followed by PEOPLES R CHINA, UK and JAPAN. These countries are also centers of country networks, but minor centers exist. An Asian local network with strong ties consisting of countries most affected by Bird Flu can be identified.. No strong direct connections exist between Europe and Asia; thus it seems necessary to intensify international cooperation. Author network show interesting cluster structures which must be studied in detail." Full Paper (PDF; 1.27 MB) -- Digital Archiving Source: UKOLN Material on Digital Archiving presentation available "Slides are now available from the presentation entitled 'Digital Archiving' to the East Anglia Online User Group (EAOLUG) given by Maureen Pennock of UKOLN. The event, called 'Digital Archives and Records Management', took place at the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, on 23 May 2006." See Also: Archiving Web Site Resources : a Records Management View Poster presented at the WWW 2006 conference, Edinburgh Scotland. Thanks to PADI for the news tip.
Scholarly Publishing--Citation Reports Source: ISI + The Most-Cited Institutions in Computer Science, 1995-2005 + Australian Universities: Most Prolific in Agricultural Sciences, 2001-05 + Science in Germany, 2001-05 ||| 10-Year Country Rankings for: Germany + Journals Ranked by Impact: Education & Educational Research + U.S. Universities with Highest Concentrations in Mathematics, 2001-05 + The 10 most-cited countries in Immunology, 1995-December 31, 2005, sorted by 3 separate measures
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Elections--Worldwide Source: Parliamentary Library, Australia Guide to Elections Around the World 2006 "This electronic brief provides links to web-based information and full-text articles relevant to selected countries having national elections in 2006." -- Computers--Statistics Source: Computer Industry Almanac New, PCs In-Use Surpassed 900M in 2005. USA Accounts for over 25% of PCs In-Use Includes list of Top 15 Countries In PCs In-Use. -- Outsourcing--Companies--Lists & Ranking Source: International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) The Global Outsourcing 100 "The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) is pleased to announce the following companies have been selected to the first-ever listing of the world's top outsourcing service providers -- The Global Outsourcing 100." Methodology -- Aging--Web Resources Source: AARP Policy & Research Global Aging Program "AARP was one of the first organizations to recognize aging as a truly worldwide phenomenon that requires global cooperation. We wish to facilitate international understanding and dialogue around the global aging agenda. AARP will work with governments and opinion leaders by participating in international, social and economic policy debates to formulate global responses addressing the challenges associated with world aging." In addition to news, reports and other publications, includes: + International Conference Calendar + International and Regional Organizations and Networks Concerned With Aging + Periodicals for Seniors From Around the World + Organizations for Seniors Around the World + Aging Everywhere: Intereactive map offering "resources on the 50+ population worldwide." + AgeSource Worldwide: Database that "provides links to over 300 major or unique libraries, clearinghouses, databases, directories, bibliographies, and Web metasites around the world that focus on aging or closely allied subjects. Some 30 countries are represented in AgeSource Worldwide." -- Information Technology--Lists & Rankings Source: Business 2.0 100 Fastest-Growing Technology Companies, 2006 Sort by state available. Top 10 are: 1. Celgene 2. Red Hat 3. Apple Computer 4. SanDisk 5. ValueClick 6. Palomar Medical Technologies 7. aQuantive 8. LifeCell 9. Gilead Sciences 10. Clinical Data -- Parks--United StatesLists & Rankings Source: Center for City Park Excellence Fast Facts: Parks + The 100 Largest City Parks + City Park Acreage as a Percentage of the Area of the City + Total Spending on Parks and Recreation Per Resident in the Major Cities + The Oldest City Parks in the U.S.
Briefly + UBM and Convera to Co-develop Search Engine for Healthcare Professionals -- + Website for Wales "The website, www.library.wales.org, brings together a range of free online services with a Welsh flavour. It includes useful links, live information feeds (RSS), the reference library KnowUK and news database NewsUK, along with established services such as Ask Cymru and Wales on the Web."
Search Briefs Online Maps & Aerial Imagery Ask.com Maps and Aerial Imagery of Europe Barry's post on Tuesday about MSN Live Local rolling out more imagery of Europe (cool stuff!) reminded us to mention that Ask.com Maps provides aerial imagery and street maps for some parts of Europe. It's still a work in progress (street names, locations for searching) but the Ask.com Maps imagery looks very impressive. We also have imagery for a small portion of Australia. This map (PDF) offers a look at what resolution you'll find for imagery for various parts of Europe. Some examples: + Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, France + Houses of Parliament, London + The Canals of Amsterdam Btw, in many, but not all cases, Ask Maps "dynamic locations" feature will work for European locations. The same is true for driving and walking directions. Remember, "right-clicking" on a specific point on a map allows you to quickly and easily add that location to your location list. -- -- Web Search--MSN Live Local Microsoft Live Local Adds Traffic Info, Traffic Info Has Been Accessible via MSN Autos for Some Time 1) Map Live Traffic for Major Cities Over 30 cities available. Click the traffic link at the top of the page to find the cities available. MS has offered real-time traffic info on maps on their MSN Auto site for a long time. The only difference from what we can see, the maps themselves. Actually, traffic info is available for many more cities via MSN Autos than MSN Live Local. Btw, the MSN Auto site also offers real-time traffic info delivered via SMS, MSN Messenger, or email for very localized areas. Yahoo Maps also offers real-time traffic maps. Traffic data is provided by Traffic.com. Btw, Traffic.com offers a great set of services (free) including traffic alerts via RSS and custom alerts delivered by voice (via your phone). 2) Save favorite Maps to Windows Live Favorites 3) Collections, "Keep lists of important Windows Live Local locations, order them any way you want, and share them with your friends." 4) You'll also notice that the Live Local search boxes have moved from side-by-side placement to vertical placement. 5) Bird's Eye Imagery of Some UK Locations 6) Driving Directions for Europe 7) More info here. -- -- Web Search--Google Google Wants to Talk, Again Just a few weeks after the Google shareholder meeting, Google Press Day, and Google Analyst Day, Google brass have announced yet another get together. This time around, a web conference/webcast (May 31, 2006 at 11am PDST) to tell investors and analysts more about what's happening at the company. From an email, "As our CEO Eric Schmidt mentioned during our last earnings call (listen here), we would like to offer more opportunities for the investment community to interact with our senior management," said Kim Jabal, Director of Investor Relations, Google. "We hope that this call will be valuable to investors and provide further insights into our business." Interesting, a company that was first quiet about talking about the future, now wants to talk a lot. Reuters goes on to point out, "The stock is down roughly 10 percent so far this year on concerns about mounting competition in the Internet industry and Wall Street's frustration with Google's refusal to provide guidance on its financial outlook." Interesting to note that today's announcement comes about a day after Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave an exclusive interview to CNBC. Highlights and video from the interview are posted here on ResourceShelf. Btw, no word about who will be able to ask questions. Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Digitization Source: HP Research Quality Assurance in High Volume Document Digitization: A Survey "Quality assurance (QA) plays a critical role in high volume document digitization projects by making sure that the specified quality standard is reached under cost and time constraints. This paper takes a systematic view on this issue by summarizing and abstracting related existing work: quality bottlenecks and technical solutions throughout the whole processing pipeline, including cataloging, capture, image analysis and recognition, and error cascading; various strategies to conduct cost-effective QA, such as combination of auto-QA and manual QA, batch QA, special QA user interface, and open source QA." See Also: A Content Integrity Service For Long-Term Digital Archives -- National Science Digital Library Source: EDUCAUSE Building a National Science Digital Library An archived version of this lecture and Q&A with Dean B. Krafft is now available. It was presented live on May 8, 2006. Access is free. From the overview: "Since 2000, the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Core Integration team has been creating the infrastructure for a digital library of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics resources. That library now contains more than a million resources from approximately 100 collections. In this talk, Dean Krafft will give a short historical overview of the NSDL and describe the current NSDL community and participants. He will then review the technical underpinnings of NSDL 1.0, a library built on metadata harvesting, and describe some of the challenges encountered. For the past year, the project has been working on NSDL 2.0, a new version of the library built on the Fedora repository architecture. For the last part of the talk, Krafft will describe this new library architecture and explain how it supports creating context for science resources, how it enhances the selection and use of library materials, and what these capabilities mean for the users of the NSDL." -- Council on Library and Information Resources Source: CLIR CLIR Issues Articles include: + Symposium Kicks Off Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration (CLIR's Fiftieth Anniversary Sponsors' Symposium) + Libraries: Diffuse and In the Flow + CLIR Appoints Committee to Advise on Place as Library -- PubMed Source: NLM Search Help: NIH Grant Numbers in PubMed Citations See Also: PubMed Tutorial Updated See Also: Wellcome Trust Grant Number Added to MEDLINE/PubMed Citations See Also: New MedlinePLUS Magazine -- Brazil--Webliographies Source: C&RL News New, Brazilian studies: Online resources for researchers Compiled by Edward A. Riedinger. "[Riedinger] heads the Latin American Studies Library and is professor for Brazilian Studies at Ohio State University. He is also editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Brazilian History and Culture (Routledge, 2009) and will be a visiting researcher in the Centre for Brazilian Studies at Oxford University in the autumn."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Driving Laws--United States--Databases Source: AAA The Digest of Motor Laws >-- Hurricanes--United States--Predictions Source: NOAA Just Released: 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Outlook "NOAA's 2006 Atlantic hurricane season outlook indicates an 80% chance of an above-normal hurricane season, a 15% chance of a near-normal season, and only a 5% chance of a below-normal season. This outlook is produced by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center (CPC), National Hurricane Center (NHC), and Hurricane Research Division (HRD). See NOAA's definitions of above-, near-, and below-normal seasons." See Also: Fast Facts: 2006 Hurricane Season Begin (via U.S. Census) A myriad of fast facts and stats about the upcoming season. -- Federal Court--United States Source: U.S. Courts New Locator: U.S. Federal Court Lookup Database "Contacting the nearest federal court, or the federal court you need, is easier than it used to be. You now can search for the right court, or court office, by city, zip code, area code, and more." Thanks to Genie Tyburski at The Virtual Chase for the news tip. -- Government--Latin America--Archives Source: LANIC (University of Texas) Latin American Government Documents Archive From the site, "The Latin American Government Documents Archive (LAGDA) seeks to preserve and facilitate access to a wide range of ministerial and presidential documents from 18 Latin American and Caribbean countries. The Archive contains copies of the Web sites of approximately 300 government ministries and presidencies. Capture of sites began on multiple dates in 2005 and 2006, and will continue with regularly scheduled captures." Powered by the Internet Archive's Archive-It service. See Also: Political Database of the America's (via Georgetown University)
Search Briefs Web Search--Google Source: WSJ/CNBC Video: Google CEO Eric Schmidt Interviewed on CNBC, Part One ++ Video: Part Two (Google and Microsoft) While Schmidt is in London for a Google "Zeitgeist" Conference, Maria Baritromo talks with with the CEO about advertising, and "whether Google is becoming the next Microsoft." Q: Is there a plan "b" on where growth comes from now? Eric Schmidt: I don't know if there is a plan "b" beyond what you said [targeted advertising]. "It seems to me that Google as a business is in the targeted advertising business." NOTE: About a week ago Schmidt said that Google is the only player emphasizing search. A week early and again last week Ask.com CEO, Jim Lanzone told CNBC that Ask.com is also focusing on and emphasizing search. Q: Is your goal to become a portal? Eric Schmidt: It depends on what you mean by a portal. Many people use the word but mean different things. We prefer to think we want to get you to the information as quickly as possible. A lot of information is personal and a lot of that information is searchable. So, when we talk about search we talk about it in a very broad context. We mean not only the world's information but your personal information. Q: So it sounds like that is pretty much a portal. Eric Schmidt: It's the way portals used to be. Before portals became specialized content. The original portal in the early 1990's, was simply a window to go through to get to that information. Indeed, Google will be that and will be a good one. Other Comments + "We don't compete with content companies because we don't produce content ourselves." + On the CNET issue from last year. Schmidt: "There is a difference between information being available and publicizing that information. The fact that personal information is around doesn't mean it should be publicized." Schmidt adds they're working well with CNET now. Note: The Google/CNET story was years ago (in Internet time) but it still seems odd (especially after these comments) that a legitimate news organization (CNET) runs into problems by using public information in a profile of a public figure. If the public only new what was easily accessible about them in specialty databases. Google and Microsoft Q: Is Google underestimating Microsoft Eric Schmidt: We're focused on our overall mission...Competition is very healthy. What people miss however is that this is a much much bigger space that the IT industry for example. Multiple choices, multiple choices may be successful. So, we believe that our strategy will be succesful and it may also be true that our competitors strategies will also be succcessful, at least for a while. I don't think it's a zero-sum game. On MS taking search market share. Schmidt: They need to ship the products first. On Asia Long-term, Asia is biggest opportunity. On Click Fraud Schmidt: It's not a material issue. It's a fight. We have it [click fraud] under control. See Also: Schmidt Talks with Charlie Rose (4/2006) -- Enterprise Search Source: ACM Queue Search Considered Integral Two people from the IT department at Morgan Stanley weigh-in on enterprise search. Lots of material on faceted classification (breaking down an entry into components), metadata, folksonomies (not very positive about them in the workplace, the same with user ratings), alerts, and more. Overall a good overview. Those of you who have read our blog for a long time know that we're big fans of what faceted classification can offer. Two comments. 1) Sorry to see that information professionals (people with many years or metadata training (aka cataloging experience, were not mentioned). 2) If you want to demo a faceted search solution, try TheGateway.org or Indiana's Smart Desktop. Both are databases of educational resources with technology powered by Siderean. Elegant, useful, easy, small, if any learning curve and faceted classification shows what the power of well constructed metadata can do. Btw, here's another example of faceted classification/search in a news setting. Finally, for the non-librarians out there who love to mention Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). You might be interested to know that DDC is a faceted classification scheme. See Also: Have You Checked Out the Dewey Browser Project from OCLC Research? Cool! -- Web Search--Technorati Source: Technorati The Associated Press and Blog Search Engine Technorati Announce Agreement From the announcement, "to provide up-to-the-minute links helping readers navigate between AP news coverage and recent blogs about stories on AP's Hosted Custom News service for Web sites. When readers visit an AP member Web site that uses AP Hosted Custom News, they will see a module featuring the "Top Five Most Blogged About" AP articles. This module is dynamically powered by Technorati and within it, the reader will see links to a Technorati page that guides them to recent blog posts about that specific AP article. Additionally, when readers click on an AP article, Technorati will deliver "Who's Blogging About That Article," a listing of blog names with the date and time recent posts were made. The new functionality will be available to the more than 440 AP member Web sites in the United States that take AP's Hosted Custom News."
Briefly + TiVo Adds "Guru" Recommendations "Gurus from Entertainment Weekly, Star, Sports Illustrated, Automobile, Billboard, CNET and others will offer TiVo subscribers program recommendations based on popular television categories including sports, films, music, comedies, drama and more. As an added benefit, TiVo subscribers will be able to automatically record Guru Guide recommendations via the company's online scheduling feature." -- + Treasury picks Convera for search -- + UK: Web Of Libraries Around M25 (via ManangingInformation.com) "...he M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries, established to bring together the resources of university and other libraries within the M25 geographical area. The new Website can be accessed at: http://www.m25lib.ac.uk.
Multimedia Shelf New webcasts, archived presentations, and more covering a variety of topics. New Webcast, Commencenment Address (Video): U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts Delivers the Commencement Address at Georgetown University Law Center. This speech was delivered on May 21, 2006. -- Politics Journalism Source: National Archives and Records Administration Video Lindy Boggs And Cokie Roberts: Two Generations of an American Political Family Boggs and Roberts were interviewed on May 10, 2006 as part of NARA's American Conversations series. "Former Congresswoman Lindy Boggs and her daughter, noted journalist Cokie Roberts, joined Archivist Allen Weinstein for a conversation about their mother/daughter relationship in an influential political family. Mrs. Boggs served nine terms in the House of Representatives?the first woman elected to the House from that state. She was the first woman to chair a national political convention and the first woman to serve as Ambassador to the Vatican. Mrs. Boggs is the author of Washington Through a Purple Veil. Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News covering Congress, politics, and public policy. She has won countless journalistic awards and has been inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame. Her books include We Are Our Mothers' Daughters and Founding Mothers." -- CIA Bush Administration Source: Princeton University "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration" A presentation by James Risen, Pulitzer-Prize Winning Reporter, The New York Times at Princeton on May 2, 2006. RealVideo: 300K ||| Windows Media 300K. Monday, May 22, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Online Books eBooks Amazon.com Amazon.com's Search Inside the Book Gets a New Look with New AmazonOnlineReader and Your Media Library The way you view material from Amazon.com's Search Inside the Book (SITB) has gotten a new look and several new features with the debut of the AmazonOnlineReader. At the same time Amazon's "Your Media Library" hit the web. SITB debuted a couple of months before Google Print/Book Search and continues to provide limited full text and full image content (as determined by the publisher). There is still no interface or option that will limit your search to only SITB ready content. To find SITB content, simply run an Amazon book search and look for books marked with the "Search Inside" logo. You can also search for books using Amazon's A9. A book found via SITB offers several ways to view the content and allows us to see Amazon's. Here's a quick review. 1) First a search for the children's classic, "Where the Wild Things Are." 2) Let's look at the first entry by clicking either the title or the book cover. 3) Here's the Amazon.com page we're all used to. Pricing info, related titles of possible interest, reviews, etc. Placing your cursor over the book cover provides links to citations, a search box and more. 4) Click the book cover. Now, the AmazonOnlineReader opens. Pages contain no advertising. More about the reader here. 5) From the reader, you can: + Search for words or phrases in the book (you can also search the entire Amazon.com database or A9. + View single pages or continuous pages by scrolling + Zoom in or Zoom out (very useful) + Overall, we're impressed so far. One thing that would help is more explanation directly on the page (mouseovers) vs. having to go to a help page. 6) A lot of what we're seeing here is part of the new Amazon.com upgrade program where you can read purchased books online, print pages, add notes, bookmark pages, etc. This in many ways is similar to what you can already do with books accessible (for free) via NetLibrary and ebrary. 7) This FAQ page has more info about how to buy an upgrade (if available), upgrading past purchases and also clearly states that you can only "upgrade" to online access IF YOU purchase a physical copy of the book. Btw, upgrades are only available in the U.S. at the present time. Let's be clear, the free services and content SITB has offered continue at no charge. The Amazon.com upgrade program was first reported in November. 8) Btw, you'll also still find (good news) the interesting statistics and tools that Amazon.com has offered for a year or so including text stats, concordance, Statistically Improbable Phrases, and Capitalized Phrases. 9) The Amazon.com Media Library aka "Your Media Library" (formerly Amazon.com Locker) is now live. This is where all of your media purchases from Amazon (books, music, videos) AS WELL AS digital media purchases (content for online viewing, reading, listening) are placed OR WILL BE PLACED (think of the possibilities) for easy access and review. Yes, you can even add tags to your purchases. You'll also find links to product manuals that can be downloaded. See Also: Learn More About the Amazon.com Reader. See Also: A Few More Examples of Search Inside the Book and AmazonOnlineReader + Title/Info Page: The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century Via AmazonOnlineReader + Title/Info Page: Marley & Me : Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog Via AmazonOnlineReader + Title/Info Page: How to Win Friends & Influence People Via AmazonOnlineReader -- -- Medical Librarians Librarians Source: AP Internet searches: Librarians do it better Although this article focuses on the work of librarians with cancer patients (some very very important work) we think many of us have known for a long time (ever?) that in many situations librarians can add value for all searchers. From the article, "Librarians have access to resources sometimes unavailable to the public such as subscription-based databases. But the biggest advantage, [Ruti] Volk, a professional librarian and manager of the Patient Education Resource Center (PERC) at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center] said, is expertise in searching. 'I do this every day, I should do it better than other people,' she said." Right-on Ruti! However this does not mean for other types of searching end users can't also do a good job IF (a big if) they know what is and is not available, have some basic info literacy skills, and a basic understanding about using the right tool at the right time. Of course, a bit of training (not teaching) on how to take full advantage of what most commercial web engines offer can also help. Not only do info pros have the ability to get people to the "best" info but we can also save them time. Everyone wants more time. However, like we've said before, the public can't use (human or electronic) what they don't know about. This is why marketing is so important. -- Academic Publishing Source: Inside Higher Ed The Quest for Crossover Books "For many scholars -- especially in the humanities and social sciences -- their secret or not-so-secret is to be the next 'crossover' author: the Ph.D. whose book becomes a best seller, and not just in campus bookstores. The next Freakonomics, perhaps. University presses are equally anxious to publish such books, which end up paying the bills so that presses can publish the many books that don't sell much at all. If you want to know what the presses are betting on for the next crossovers, there may be no better place to go than BookExpo America, an annual conclave at which publishers try to woo the people who buy books for bookstores, create some buzz among the reporters who cover publishing, and anyone with any connection to Oprah." -- Health Research Library Outreach Source: NLM Information Rx Tool Kit Redesign "Following the success of the pilot sites in Georgia, Iowa, and Virginia (see Information Rx project summary), NLM worked with the Virginia pilot sites to develop the Information Rx Tool Kit to assist librarians in promoting Information Rx to physicians, patients and their families, as well as to public libraries and community organizations. The tool kit contains tested promotional materials and suggestions for a variety of activities. The Information Rx Tool Kit Web site has recently undergone a facelift and reorganization to make it easier to use. The Web site, renamed the Health Sciences Information Rx Tool Kit, was launched in May 2006 and is a step-by-step online guide designed to assist health sciences librarians with project-related outreach activities they may wish to initiate."
ResourceShelf Real-Time #3 Our series of real-time sites, tools, and feeds continues. + Vaisala Real-Time Lightning Track (U.S.) Based on real-time measurements from the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network. Additional functionality available for a fee. + XM Song Tracker In our first compilation, we linked to a database that showed what music or other programming was currently playing on Sirius Satellite Radio (also searchable). This time, the same type of service for XM Satellite Radio. This database is also searchable. + Flight Delay Information -- Air Traffic Control System Command Center View by region, airport, or search by airport name. A text-only version is available. A database of past advisories is also online. A wireless version of real-time flight delay info from the FAA is also available at this URL. See Also: ResourceShelf Real-Time #2 See Also: ResourceShelf Real-Time #1
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Venture Capital--Europe Source: PWC Preliminary European Investment & Fundraising Activity 2005 Summary & Data See Also: 2005 Global Report on Private Equity -- Business--United States--Statistics Economics--United States--Statistics Source: BLS 100 Years of U.S. Consumer Spending: Data for the Nation, New York City, and Boston "This report, 100 Years of U.S. Consumer Spending: Data for the Nation, New York City, and Boston, BLS Report 991, offers a new approach to the use of Consumer Expenditure Survey data--http://www.bls.gov/cex/home.htm. Also, available as a PDF. -- Business--United States--Lists and Rankings Source: Black Enterprise (via DocuTicker.com) BE 100s: 2005 Report "Today's business environment moves at lightning speed. For the chief executives of the nation's largest black-owned businesses, keeping pace is priority No. 1. They must continually re-evaluate corporate capabilities and tinker with their company's infrastructure to gain maximum advantage. Many must contend with emerging competitors, but the most daunting challenge for these CEOs, whether they operate an industrial/service company or a financial services firm, is dealing with large majority corporations treading on their turf." + Industrial/Service 100 + Auto Dealer 100 + Advertising Agencies + Insurance Companies + Banks + Investment Banks + Asset Managers + Private Equity Firms -- Ready Reference--Lists & Rankings Source: Infoplease.com Fast Fact Shelf + Music (Various Lists and Rankings) Updated compilatiopn including: Top 10 Most Played Songs, 2005; Most Played Music Videos, 2005; Top 10 Digital Songs, 2005; and more. + The 100 Largest City Parks (U.S.) + Offbeat National Parks -- Business--Houston--Lists and Rankings SoSource: Houston Business Journal Houston Small Business 100 Each entry contains a brief profile about each company. #1 ||| #2 to #9 ||| 10 ||| 11-19 ||| 20 ||| 21-29 ||| 30 ||| 31-39 ||| 40 ||| 41-49 ||| 50 ||| 51-59 ||| 60 ||| 61-69 ||| 70 ||| 71-79 ||| 80 ||| 81-89 ||| 90 ||| 91-100
Search Briefs Multimedia Search Source: Searchforvideo.com Searchforvideo.com Adds New Content From Discovery Networks The always useful (and improving) Searchforvideo.com, the search site that aggregates video content from a large number of sources (we find lots of content here before we find it anywhere else, if ever) has added new video clips from Discovery Networks. Of course the clips can be searched (using metadata associated with each entry) but it's now also possible to browse clips by program and/or network. Great idea! See Also: Real-Time Access to Video Clips as They Enter the Searchforvideo Database See Also: Search Searchforvideo by IM
New Library RSS Feed New RSS Feed from NLM's Division of Specialized Information Services New feed of the SIS news page. The SIS feed address is: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/rss/sisnewsfeed.rss
Briefly + Elsevier's ScienceDirect Announces Redesign The redesigned ScienceDirect will roll-out over the next two years.
DocuTicker Best of DocuTicker DocuTicker is ResourceShelf's sister site and is updated daily with a wide variety of new full text reports on many topics from government agencies, think tanks, ngo's and many other organizations. Here's a small, very small, sample of what we've posted during the past week. + Bureau of Justice Statistics Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005 + Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Program: Delivering Sustainable Public Health Protection for America: 2005 Annual Report + Estimating Potential Impact of an Influenza Pandemic Using 1968- and 1918-Type Scenarios + Cumulative Number of Confirmed Human Cases of Avian Influenza A/(H5N1) Reported to WHO + Consumer Expenditures in 2004 + Canada: Over 380,000 Households in Five Major Centres Intend to Buy a Home in 2006 + Hybrid Vehicle Registrations More Than Double In 2005 + Libel in the Blogosphere: Some Preliminary Thoughts + Calories In, Calories Out: Food and Exercise in Public Elementary Schools, 2005 |
