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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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Wednesday, July 31, 2002
Libraries Digital Reference Listen Online: Virtual Reference and the Future of Libraries Discussed on Public Radio The "Politics of Culture", a program from KCRW Radio in Santa Monica, California broadcast a program (7/30/02) about virtual reference and the future of the library. The program has been archived and can be heard on the web using RealAudio. Guests on the program include: Steve Coffman from LSSI, Nancy McNeil from the Santa Monica Public Library, and and Susan McGlamery from 24/7. See Also: Listen to the Program Online
Online Industry--ProQuest "ProQuest Completes Digitization of Full Wall Street Journal Backfile" Last week Proquest announced the release of a complete digitized version of The New York Times, this week The Wall Street Journal. The digitized archive includes all material ( including photos, ads, graphics) beginning in 1889 and concluding in 1985. Over 5 million articles. See Also: Associated Press Story on New WSJ Archive
Web Search--AOL Web Search--Google America Online Formally Introduces New AOL Search The "new" AOL Search has been available for some time but today marks the official introduction. AOL Search contains material from the Google database, the Open Directory Project, and AOL itself. Google content does NOT contain the Google cache, related pages options found on Google.Com. It also does not contain pdf or the other formats found at Google.Com. From the help screen, "For some searches, the first one or two listings may come from AOL's own collection of matching sites. These listings are usually distinguished from the others by the inclusion of the "AOL Keyword" designation." These appear only when there is a high degree of confidence by the AOL editors that our content is relevant to your search. Boolean? OR, use the minus (-) sign to remove a term(s), phrases in "quotation marks". See Also: Direct to AOL Search
Government Printing Office Source: The Washington Post "Will Printing Office Be Inked Out?" From the article, "But soon one of the nation's biggest publishing operations may be printing news of its own demise. All 130 federal departments and agencies using the GPO have been ordered by the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to arrange their own printing beginning Sept." Also from the article, "Patrice McDermott, an associate director of the Washington office of government relations for the American Library Association, said that if the GPO were not in charge, fewer government documents would be publicly available. "Ultimately it's about keeping the government accountable and the public knowing where their tax dollars are going."
Web Search--AltaVista Source: The News & Observer "Search Engines Roaring" Back on July 2nd I posted a positive review of the new AltaVista Prisma search tool. Today, Paul Gilster, the author of an Internet search classic (Finding It on the Internet, 1994) shares his comment, also positive, about AV's new offering.
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Parliament--United Kingdom Site Redesign, The United Kingdom Parliament See Also: Learn More About the Redesign (via KableNet) -- Segregation--United States--Statistics Source: CensusScope/Social Science Data Analysis Network. New Interactive Tools, Racial Segregation Statistics for Cities and Metropolitan Areas Create charts, maps, rankings. Data for "1246 individual US cities with population exceeding 25,000 and for all metropolitan areas, based on single and multiple race populations as identified in Census 2000. See Also: Full-Text, New Working Paper, Based on Data From Database (via Fannie Mae Foundation) -- World Trade Source: The World Bank Full-Text, Development, Trade, and the WTO: A Handbook -- Economic Impace of September 11th Source: GAO Full-Text, Review of Estimates for Impact of the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks on New York Tax Revenues Follow-up to March, 2002 report. -- Small Business--United States--Statistics Source: Small Business Survival Committee Full-Text Report, Small Business Survival Index 2002 -- Public Broadcasting--Radio--United States--Salary Survey Source: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Full-Text Report, Salary Report for Radio Licensees "...biennial salary report for the public broadcasting system. We provide this information in an effort to assist stations in making informed decisions for their salary structures. Data for the report was gathered through the Station Activities Survey conducted this January. Within each report the information is presented in the aggregate as well as broken down by budget size and license type." The report for public television is due shortly.
News Briefs IRS Begins Use of Inktomi Search Technology on IRS.Gov Search via search box on main page or use search.irs.gov (provides some limits via check boxes). Other Inktomi limiting options are applicable. Inktomi has also extended its deal to provide enterprise search tools at the IRS. -- "IE Alternatives: Three New Contenders" via (PC World) I'm still a big fan of Opera. Another browser that's not mentioned here and one that I use constantly is Netcaptor. Tuesday, July 30, 2002
Online Industry--Factiva Free Content on the Web Source: ZD Australia "Factiva CEO: News Will Cost in Two Years" From the article, "According to Hart, consumers do not want to pay for online content because they have been trained not to, whereas business users are used to putting their hands in their pockets for particular information."
Legal Research LexisNexis Begins Offering Technology From DolphinSearch From the news release, "LexisNexis Litigation Support by DolphinSearch is the only electronic discovery system that can identify, analyze and organize critical information like humans do - in context. By learning the relationships between words and concepts, DolphinSearch captures more relevant documents in a fraction of the time." What's Dolphin Search? From the company web site, "DolphinSearch is a document-reading robot that embodies the exquisite pattern recognition abilities of a dolphin's brain. It extracts the subtle word patterns that give language its meaning. As a result, DolphinSearch understands what documents are about. It can tell if a document containing the word "swing" is about dancing or hitting a baseball, or exotic sexual practices. DolphinSearch is not fooled by the ambiguity of common words, and this is a MUST when fluidly analyzing unstructured information. Currently, processing unstructured information requires that the user establish predetermined categories. DolphinSearch, in contrast, is as flexible as a human brain, and requires almost no set-up or user intervention at all."
Business Research--United States EDGAR Online Limits Services on FreeEDGAR From the announcement, "Beginning in August, EDGAR Online's value branded Web site, http://www.freeedgar.com, will be changed to cater primarily to new and casual users of SEC filings," said Susan Strausberg, CEO of EDGAR Online. "FreeEDGAR users will be able to access and retrieve SEC filings for any U.S. public company, but usage will be limited." See Also: Direct to FreeEdgar See Also: SECInfo.Com, a Favorite EDGAR Access Resource SECInfo also provides a real-time feed of SEDAR (Canadian) filings.
Online Databases--GuideStar Non-Profit Research GuideStar Launches Data Services From the announcement, "Through GuideStar Data Services, requesters can obtain up-to-date, cost-efficient, and reliable nonprofit data in the formats they specify. Drawn entirely from IRS Forms 990, 990-EZ, and the IRS Business Master File (BMF), this information is ideal for charitable-sector research, nonprofit outreach, and software integration. Data Services customers select from more than 175 fields to define the information they require. The total cost for a data set is determined by the number of records and information fields it contains; discounts are available for nonprofits that participate in GuideStar. Clients can obtain a free count before ordering a data set."
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Indentity Theft Source: GAO Full-Text Report, Identity Theft: Greater Awareness and Use of Existing Data Needed GAO-02-766 -- Business Research--United States "SEC Web Site Provides Link to CEO, CFO Certifications of Financial Statements of 947 Companies" See Also: Direct to "...list of the 947 companies whose top officials are required to file sworn statements attesting to the accuracy of the companies' most recent annual and quarterly financial reports." -- Aviation Industry--United States Source: FAA Aviation Industry Traffic and Financial Statistics (Yellow Book) "Selected data for majors, nationals, large regionals, medium regionals, small certificated and commuters are available." -- Prisons--United States--Statistics Source: BJS Full-Text Report, Prisoners in 2001 Abstract and access to reports. Statistics available in spreadsheet format.
News Briefs Factiva To Add Business News Content From China Factiva will carry the CXN Daily News Service. The service includes coverage of business, financial and economic news on the People's Republic of China. CXN recently signed an agreement with LexisNexis. Monday, July 29, 2002
Libraries--Standards Source: NISO NISO Announces the Release of the 2002 Library Statistics Standard (Z39.7) From the site, "This new standard, available as a web-enabled database, for the first time defines a standard vocabulary to measure the use of electronic resources and other library metrics used in the U.S. and internationally. You are invited to review and comment on the standard." From a listserv posting, "This new edition of Z39.7 is a major departure from prior versions of the standard. Not only has the Committee embraced valuable best practices long recognized by the U.S. library community, we have also incorporated international definitions," said Denise Davis, Chair of Standards Committee AY, Library Statistics...."The trial use period is 12 months, supporting an annual data collection cycle. All persons engaged in data collection activities at the local, state, and national levels are encouraged to provide comments to the committee. Publishers, information aggregators and consortia are encouraged to review and use the E-metrics sections." Comments will be accepted from July 26, 2002 - July 31, 2003. Thanks to B.T. for the news tip. See Also: Information About Submitting Comments on the Standard See Also: Info About Subscribing to NISO Z39.7 Electronic Discussion Group
Web Search--Ask Jeeves Ask Jeeves Launches Toolbar Another toolbar for IE. Several one-click features not seen elsewhere including access to a dictionary, stock, and weather info.
Business Research Source: NY Times "Web Site Lets Visitors Peek at Corporate Carping" Here's something we haven't seen before. People from hundreds of companies internal e-mail memos to Phillip Kaplan, today he begins to make all of them public and searchable. From the NYT article, "The publisher of the Web site whose name is a vulgarism for "failed company" plans to spin off part of that site into a new unit. Drawing from a deep well of material sent by fans of corporate comeuppance, Philip J. Kaplan said he would roll out a new site, InternalMemos.com, this morning...Mr. Kaplan said InternalMemos.com would eventually feature thousands of missives, and will, like his initial Web site, offer subscriptions. For $75 a month, customers receive full access to all information sent to both InternalMemos.com and the failed-company site, which includes memos and e-mail messages not displayed on the sites." The site also contains several memos available to read for free. You can subscribe to only the InternalMemos.Com site for $45/month. The article does not mention how or if Mr. Kaplan authenticates this material. All web info quality judging skills are necessary here. See Also: "Dot-com Deathwatch Puts Memos Online" via News.Com From the article, "...Ira Rothken, an attorney at San Rafael, Calif.-based Rothken Law Firm. "Internal memos can be considered trade secrets, and in some cases if he were to publish those, he could be liable for monetary damages for publishing trade secrets," depending on his involvement in obtaining the papers. Still, he acknowledged that the law around such practices is complex and publishing the documents could be protected under the First Amendment." See Also: Direct to InternalMemos.Com
Professional Reading Shelf Institutional Repositories Source: SPARC Full-Text, The Case for Institutional Repositories: A SPARC Position Paper Also available as a .pdf file. -- Special Libraries Association--Annual Conference Full-Text, Papers Presented at SLA 2002 Here are the titles of a few of the papers: "Competencies for the 21st Century Information Professional: Translating the SLA Competencies into Business Competencies" "E-Training: Meeting the Users on Their Terms" "In a Do-it-Yourself World, Who Needs Librarians?" "Do Librarians Really Do That? Or Providing Custom, Fee-Based Services" "Marketing Library and Information Services: Comparing Experiences at Large Institutions" -- Library Collections Source: National Library of Australia Full-Text, "Architectures for Web Collection Delivery" From the site, "An edited version of a paper dated 29 July 2002 written by Judith Pearce, Director Web Services, National Library of Australia, to inform two important initiatives of the Library: the NLA Web Site Restructure and the ILMS Replacement Project."
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Brands--Global--Lists & Rankings Source: Business Week The Best Global Brands See Also: Direct to the 2002 Global Brand Scoreboard The list is also available as a pdf file. -- Education--Language Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics Online Resource Guide, Less Commonly Taught Languages From ERIC, "...lists publications, institutes and programs, Web sites, and listservs related to the teaching and learning of less commonly taught languages." Sunday, July 28, 2002
Digital Asset Management Cataloging Source: ZDNet "Keeping Track of Digital Assets" A three article package from ZDNet. This first article discusses managing and searching for video at NASA. Article 2) "A Century-Old Problem" The importance of cataloging! From the article, ""Cataloging is a critical issue, but it's been a critical issue for librarians for 100 years," says Charly Bauer, assistant director of library systems for OhioLink." Article 3) "The Integration Challenge" The use of metadata at Comedy Central.
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Topics in the News Medicare--Prescription Drug Coverage Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Full-Text Report, Prescription Drug Coverage for Medicare Beneficiaries: A Side-by-Side Comparison of Selected Proposals From the KFF web site, "This document, prepared by Health Policy Alternatives, Inc., provides a side-by-side comparison of four major federal proposals to provide outpatient prescription drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries, introduced as of July 15, 2002. Modeled on earlier side-by-side comparisons prepared for The Kaiser Family Foundation, this document summarizes the key provisions of leading proposals as part of the Foundation’s continuing effort to track the Medicare prescription drug debate. This side-by-side may be updated to include additional proposals. See Also: Additional Background From the KFF Site Saturday, July 27, 2002
Public Libraries Source: Wired News "U.K. Libraries Jump Into the Net" Wired News with a positive article about the Peoples Network in the U.K. From the article, "...an ambitious U.K. project, the People's Network, which will see all of the United Kingdom's more than 4,000 libraries linked to the Internet to become access-and-learning centers by the end of this year. The project will see 30,000 terminals installed, stuffed with digital delights like e-mail, browsing, office applications, digital imaging and video conferencing. "Libraries have proven to be the natural place to get people online. Over 60 percent of the population has a library card, and borrowing a book from the library is one of the country's five most popular pastimes, five times more popular than going to a professional football game." See Also: Learn More About the People's Network
National Libraries--Canada Source: NLC "Excessive Heat Threatens the National Library’s Newspaper Collection" From the news release, "Dr. Roch Carrier, National Librarian, announces that the excessive heat and humidity levels that the Ottawa area recently experienced resulted in the heat alarms going off last Monday, July 22, in the National Library of Canada’s newspaper collection facility located at 151 Bentley Avenue. Over 18, 000 original copies of Canada’s major newspapers, dating back to the early 1800s, as well as important government publications are stored at the Bentley facility."
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Demographics--United States Source: U.S. Census Full-Text, Census 2000 Profile, U.S. Summary -- Health Information Source: MEDLINEplus New Compilation, Prescription Drug Abuse Friday, July 26, 2002
Online Industry--ProQuest ProQuest Launches New Genealogy Resource For Libraries From the announcement, "The new product combines primary source materials from the UMI Genealogy & Local History Online product and multiple rich resources originating from genealogy publisher Heritage Quest (acquired by ProQuest last summer)." "In the first release of this product (now available), complete census data from 1790, 1800, 1810, and 1870 is fully indexed and viewable in full page image. In addition, 1840 census data is fully browsable by locality (with name indexing to be added shortly). Also available are 16,000 family and local histories; 8,000 additional titles will be added. Remaining census images for census years from 1790 to 1930 are scheduled for loading later this year."
Patent Searching--USPTO USPTO Reports to Congress on the Removal of Paper Copies From Public Search Facilities In January we had a story about the USPTO announcing a plan to remove and destroy paper copies of patents from public patent search facilities. Today, the USPTO has placed a recently delivered report to Congress about the plan. According to the report the USPTO plans to cease support for the collections today (7/26/02) and begin "transfer and disposal" on August 26th.
Small Business--Legal Issues--United States Source: U.S. Newswire BusinessLaw.Gov From the SBA Partners With Cornell's Law Library From the announcement, "The Cornell Law Library recognizes the importance of public access to legal information in the digital age," said [Cornell Law Library's Head Reference Librarian, Jean] Callihan. "We are committed to working with the SBA to provide small businesses with the information they need to succeed." BusinessLaw.gov offers information on federal, state and local business laws, regulatory compliance guides in 17 business topics ranging from advertising to transportation, and access to existing online G2B transactions. It is the first step in the development of a Business Compliance One Stop. In the second phase of development, the SBA intends to add more information and web services including 25 to 30 interactive regulatory compliance guides and a prototype national business registry." See Also: Direct to BusinessLaw.Gov
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries--Remote Storage--Bibliography Source: National Library of Canada New, Bibliography, "Remote Storage of Library Materials : A Selective Bibliography"
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Intellectual Property--United States--Lists & Rankings Legal Industry--United States Source: IP Worldwide "Who Protects IP America" Lists law firms that represent IP interests for major U.S. corporations. -- Employment--Science and Engineering--United States Source: National Science Foundation Full-Text Info Brief, How Large is the U.S. S&E Workforce? (NSF 02-325) -- E-Government Source: Metropolis (World Association of Major Metropolises) Full-Text Report, The Information Society and the City Thursday, July 25, 2002
Resource of the Week Web-Based Tools NoodleBib 3.0 (Beta) When Chris Sherman and I were preparing the bibliography for our book we utilized an easy to learn web-based bibliography formatting tool called NoodleBibs. It worked very well. Today, news that NoodleBibs has just placed a beta of Version 3.0 online. What's more exciting is that the beta is FREE for everyone (no need to subscribe) until the end of August. It's a great way to see if NoodleBib's is right for you. According to Debbi Abilock, NoodleBib's co-founder and librarian, the new version now offers the ability to format bibliographies in APA and MLA styles. Previously, only MLA style was available. Version 3.0 also allows for unlimited source lists and provides a new dynamic menu structure where all options are only a single click away. Once on the NoodleTools site, where you'll log-in to NoodleBibs, take note of the many other services, several of them free, the site offers. See Also: Learn About NoodleBibs Subscriptions, An Individual User Subscription is Only $4/USD per Quarter See Also: Learn More Debbi and the History of NoodleTools
Web Search Privacy Source: The New York Times "Net Users Try to Elude the Google Grasp" From the sound of it several of the people questioned seem to have forgotten that other search engines exist. Even if it is removed from Google, what about Teoma, AllTheWeb, and AltaVista? The article also touches on what's termed "mistaken Google-identity" or in othe words, more examples for your "judging info on the web" folder. Although the article does contain a sidebar with a few tips about "limiting your exposure", it doesn't give any mention (or urls) to methods like meta tags or other, more sophisticated tools, for an individual web page owner and/or webmaster to have material not crawled by search engines.
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Source: Federal Register USPTO To Cease Publishing the Print Version of Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office--Patents From the FR announcement: SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will discontinue the publication of the paper version of the Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office--Patents. Electronic publication via CD-ROM and Internet versions (the eOG:P) will replace the printed copy. DATES: The last publication of the paper version will be September 24, 2002. The electronic publication of the CD-ROM will commence October 1, 2002. ***The USPTO will continue paper publication of the Official Gazette--Trademarks, the Official Gazette Notices and the Consolidated Listing of Official Gazette Notices.***
Deep Linking Source: Wired News "Deep Linking Takes Another Blow" Some very interesting news from Germany. From the article, "Using a search engine to locate stories on newspapers' sites violates European Union law, according to a recent ruling by judges in Munich's Upper Court." "The NewsClub case still needs to wend its way through more legal hearings, but the defendant isn't hopeful that the judges' decision will soon be reversed. And legal experts believe that if the ruling is upheld, it could easily become a firm legal precedent across the European Union, drastically limiting the information that many European search engines are allowed to provide to their users."
Reference--Canadian--Discussion Lists Canadian Reference Discussion List Opens For Business The National Library of Canada is pleased to announce the launch of REFCAN-L, a new electronic forum for discussing issues relating to the provision of reference and information services from a Canadian perspective. REFCAN-L will facilitate and encourage information exchange amongst practitioners and information providers involved and interested in various aspects of reference services in Canada. Participants are encouraged to use the list to: - Disseminate information relevant to reference staff in Canadian libraries - Provide information on activities of interest to the Canadian reference community - Discuss issues of concern regarding reference services, particularly those relating to the virtual environment - Exchange information, experiences (successful and less successful ones), project highlights and other initiatives worthy of being shared To subscribe to REFCAN-L, send an email to: listserv@infoserv.nlc-bnc.ca In the body of the message, type the following command: SUBSCRIBE REFCAN-L Firstname Lastname
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Law Firms--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Corporate Board Member Survey, America's Best Corporate Lawyers Survey, America's Best Corporate Lawyers (by Metro Area) Includes short-list of major clients for each firm. "...second annual exclusive survey asked more than 24,000 board members to identify the law firms they most admire, nationally and in 50 metropolitan areas." -- Legal Industry--Webliography Source: American Bar Association, Market Research Department Statistical Resources About Lawyers and Legal Profession Thanks to C.SR. for the news tip. -- Internet Usage--Canada--Statistics Source: Statistics Canada Household Internet Use Survey (Highlights) -- Women in Business--Canada--Webliography Source: The Canadian Management Network Updated Link Compilation, "Resources for Business Women, by Geographic Area" -- Education--United States--Statistics Source: National Center for Education Statistics New, Interactive Tool, "Build Your Own Table With CCD Public School Data" From the NCES site, "The Common Core of Data (CCD) is the Department of Education's primary database on public elementary and secondary education in the United States. CCD is a comprehensive, annual, national statistical database of all public elementary and secondary schools and school districts. This new tool now allows you to create your own on-line data tables using several years of data."
News Briefs (2 Items) "U. of Texas at Austin Plans Online Gateway to Digitized Resources" (via The Chronicle of Higher Education) - Library Construction is Booming in the U.S. (via Christian Science Monitor) Wednesday, July 24, 2002
Enterprise Search--InQuira Source: News.Com Enterprise Search Advertising Gets Tough: InQuira Tells Customers, "Don't Ask Jeeves" From the article, "InQuira, formed in March from the merger of AnswerFriend and Electric Knowledge, is offering existing corporate customers of Ask Jeeves the full price of InQuira's license or the amount they've already paid Jeeves, whichever is less."
Citation Indexing--Lists & Rankings Source: ISI Management: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1997-2001 Journals Ranked by Impact: Chemical Engineering Science in Italy, 1997-2001 Journals Ranked by Impact: Sport Sciences Chemistry: High-Impact Institutions, 1992-2002 Science in Germany, 1997-2001 See Also: Additional Lists at Sci-Bytes
Web Search--Vivisimo "Vivisimo Signs Strategic German Partnership" From the announcement, "Vivisimo, Inc., a global provider of advanced document clustering (automatic categorization) software, and global linxs, a leading provider and integrator of knowledge retrieval systems in Europe, have announced the signing of a strategic partnership. global linxs will be the first German partner for Vivisimo and will start integrating Vivisimo products in their knowledge management solutions." See Also: Demo Vivisimo's Document Clustering Meta Search Tool (Advanced Interface) See Also: Other Demo Vivisimo Demos
National Archives--United States "Developing a New National Archives Experience" Many of you visit the National Archives Building on Constitution Avenue when your're here in D.C. Since July, 2001 the rotunda has been closed for renovation. In this article, John Carlin, Archivist of the United States, details what to expect when the entire renovation is complete and the National Archives Experience opens on July 4, 2004.
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) E-Serials Full-Text, E-Serials Cataloging to Continuing and Integrating Resources via the Catalog and the Web The full-text to all articles from The Serials Librarian, Vol. 41, (3-4) 2002. Thanks to GM for the news tip. Here is a partial t-o-c: "E is for Everything: The Extra-Ordinary, Evoluntionay [e-]Journal" "E-Serials Cataloging in the 1990's: A Review of the Literature" by Ann Copeland "ISBD(ER) and Its Role in the Management of Electronic Resources" by Sten Hedberg "The Integration of Electronic Resources into Cataloging Instruction in the LIS Curriculum" by Taemin Kim Park "Teaching Seriality: A Major Education Challenge" by Arlene G. Taylor "Web Resources for Cataloging Electronic Serials and Continuing Resources: An Annotated Bibliography" by John Blosser, Tim Hagan, and Yvonne W. Zhang "Internet Resources Cataloging in ARL Libraries: Staffing and Access Issues" by Jeanne M.K. Boydston and Joan M. Leysen "Notes for Remote Access Computer File Serials" by Beatrice L. Caraway "On Pins and Needles: Using Structured Metadata for Collocation and Browsing Capability" by Gregory Wool "NESLI MARC Records: An Experiment in Creating MARC Records for E-Journals" by Ross MacIntyre "Improving Access to E-Journals and Databases at the MIT Libraries: Building a Database-Backed Web Site Called 'Vera'" by Nicole Hennig "The Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek: A Successful Library Service for Electronic Journals in Germany" by Evelinde Hutzler and Gerald Schupfner -- Information Literacy Source: Information Highways "Defining Information Literacy" From the article, "While many think information literacy is about the necessary skills to assist in information access and retrieval, that is only part of the equation." Thanks to TVC Alert for the news tip. -- Multimedia Content Conference Presentations, Multimedia Content & Tools: Towards Information & Knowledge From the Interactive Electronic Publishing Conference held May 30-31 in London, U.K.
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Manufacturing--Software--Lists & Rankings Source: MSI Top 100 Software Vendors (Registration Required) "MSI ranks the leading software vendors involved in the automation of plan, source, make, and deliver business and production processes." -- High Speed Internet Access--United States--Statistics Source: FCC Statistical Summary, High-Speed Internet Deployment in the U.S. -- Local Telephone Access--United States--Statistics Source: FCC Statistical Summary, Local Telephone Competition in the U.S. -- Marriage and Divorce--United States--Statistics Source: National Center for Health Statistics Full-Text Report, Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States Summary/News Release ||| Direct to Full-Text (110 Pages) Tuesday, July 23, 2002
Public Libraries Source: AP Hawaii State Public Library System To Fund Study on the Value of Libraries From the article, "The Hawaii State Public Library System will pay a mainland consultant nearly $100,000 to study the value libraries have for businesses, economic development and tourism, officials said..."Clearly, this is a way of getting the library's image and the services that we provide that a lot of people don't know about to our public and also to our potential funders," said state Librarian Virginia Lowell."
Law Libraries Source: Boston Herald "Library Database Program Withstands State Cuts" From the article, "[Robert] Brink, the executive director of the Social Law Library - the state's premier repository of legal information - was bracing himself for the elimination of $300,000 for his library's database program. That's a cut Brink is thankful wasn't made when Beacon Hill lawmakers finally approved a $22.93 billion state budget last week. Saved was the database project, which allows any member 24-hour, 365-day-a-year access to a wealth of legal information, from thousands of state and federal court decisions to administrative agency regulations, statutes and session laws."
Web Search--FAST (AllTheWeb) FAST’S AllTheWeb Endorses the FTC Search Engine Disclosure Letter From the news release, "AlltheWeb today also posted additional information regarding the presence of Web pages which have been crawled and indexed by FAST which can be found here: www.alltheweb.com/info/aboutresults.html.
U.S. Government Printing Office Source: Library Journal "Senate Subcommittee Criticizes Dismantling GPO Role" From the article, "The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations harshly criticized a proposal by the Bush administration's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that printing and copying contracts now handled exclusively through the Government Printing Office (GPO) be put out for competitive bids."
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Online Industry--PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) New E-Letter, Issue Number One of PAIS Direct Now Available The first issue contains a lengthy list of "new" websites that are "noteworthy" in the area of public policy. -- Standards--United Kingdom Source: Resource Full-Text Report, Mapping of Standards for Museums, Libraries and Archives From the news release, "The definition of a "standard" was deliberately kept as wide as possible, to ensure that the study would be both wide-ranging and comprehensive. It included any 'standard' or guideline, regardless of its status as statutory or voluntary, and any document which advised on the quality assurance of the museum, library or archive service. For this reason certain standards such as library cataloguing conventions are not included."
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) E-Government--Global Source: UNESCO Country Profiles of E-Government Profiles for 15 countries including South Africa. India, New Zealand, and Canada. -- Labor--United States--Statistics Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics New Edition, Full-Text Report, Geographic Profile of Employment and Unemployment, 2000 -- Critical Infrastructure--United States Source: GAO Full-Text Report, Critical Infrastructure Protection: Federal Efforts Require a More Coordinated and Comprehensive Approach to Protecting Information Systems GAO-02-474 -- Advertising Ad Critic Launches (Fee-Based) As a Service of Ad Age AdCritic.com launches as an Ad Age Group Web site today as one of Ad Age Group's online publications. Free for subscribers of Creativity magazine, $69.95/USD for others. See Also: Direct to AdCritic Site -- Health Information--Database Source: Office of the Health and Information Highway, Canada Information and Communications Technologies in Health Online Literature Catalogue Material and linked urls from a variety of resources. -- Health Conferences--Database Source: Office of the Health and Information Highway, Canada Information and Communications Technologies Health Conferences Database Events in Canada and the U.S.A.
Telephone Reference U.S. Government Source: FCIC New U.S. Federal Government 1-800 Number For Citizen Service Information A toll free phone telephone call to 1-800-FED-INFO (that's 1-800-333-4636) provides you with a staff member from the Office of Citizen Services and Communications to answer your questions. From the news release, "It's the number to call to get the facts on everything from starting a small business and traveling abroad, to buying surplus government property and getting federal benefits. You can reach 1-800-FED-INFO (that's 1-800-333-4636) Monday through Friday, 8 a.m to 8 p.m., Eastern Time. Recorded information is available around the clock." Monday, July 22, 2002
Web Search--Google Source: The Christian Science Monitor "Paying for Answers Online" Ben Arnoldy from The Christian Science Monitor talks to Barbara Quint, Diane Kresh of LC, David Lankes from Syracuse Univ, and the editor/compiler of this weblog. (: The article focuses around the new Google Answers service. From the article, "An easier way to get useful information online may be to ask a human, not a computer. That's the idea behind "Ask-A" or virtual reference services. While the concept has been around for a while, one of the Internet's top search engines has embraced the idea with a new for-pay service called Google Answers. But, buyer beware, say information professionals."
Conferences--ASIST (American Society for Information Science and Technology) Source: ASIST The Complete Conference Program for the ASIST Annual Conference is Online Direct to Complete "Additional Conference Information
Online Databases Source: Info Today News Breaks Sage Publications Withdraws Titles from EBSCOhost, ProQuest From the article, "According to Richman, libraries are increasingly substituting full-text database access for print journal subscriptions, thus jeopardizing “the continued viability of Sage’s journal publishing program. Journals cannot sustain themselves without income from subscriptions.” (This is what precipitated the instatement of the lengthy embargo period for Sage titles on EBSCO and ProQuest in the first place.) Evidently, royalties earned from EBSCOhost and ProQuest were “not substantial enough to support the cost of publishing a journal,” and Sage would have been ultimately forced to cease publication of certain titles, thus decreasing the amount of available scholarly research."
E-Books--Statistics Source: Open eBook Forum Open eBook Forum Releases Industry Growth Statistics From the site, "Open eBook Forum members that contributed data include Adobe Systems Inc., AOL Time Warner Book Group, HarperCollins, Microsoft Corporation, OverDrive, Random House, Inc., Simon & Schuster, Palm Digital Media and McGraw-Hill." See Also: Direct to the Open eBook Forum
Weblogs "The Microcontent News Blogging Software Roundup" John Hiler with a comprehensive round-up of all of the major pieces of blogging software. It will be useful to those of you needing help picking the right tool. The article also contains a link to this massive comparison chart of weblog tools from BlogComp. Btw, for those of you who might not have noticed, The VAS&ND uses Blogger software. Thanks to C.S. for the news tip.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Librarians and the Internet The Summer 2002 Issue of Library Journal's NetConnect is Now Online Tons of great stuff. Here's just a small sample. "A Hard Look at Wireless Networks" by Marshall Breeding "The Wireless Student & the Library" by Bill Drew "Creating a Yahoo! with Values" by Karen Schneider (More on the Fiat Lux Consortium we Mentioned Last Week) "Full-Text Reference Down to a Science" by Gail Golderman and Bruce Connolly Several Product Reviews From Jenny Levine -- Digital Preservation Source: CLIR Conference Proceedings, Full-Text, The State of Digital Preservation: An International Perspective From a symposium held in Washington D.C., April 24-25, 2002. Material included in this Publication: Introduction: The Changing Preservation Landscape, Deanna Marcum Overview of Technological Approaches to Digital Preservation and Challenges in Coming Years, Kenneth Thibodeau The Digital Preservation Research Agenda, Margaret Hedstrom Understanding Digital Preservation: A Report from OCLC, Meg Bellinger Update on the National Digital Infrastructure Initiative, Laura Campbell Experience of the National Library of the Netherlands, Titia van der Werf Digital Preservation—A Many-Layered Thing: Experience at the National Library of Australia, Colin Webb Good Archives Make Good Scholars: Reflections on Recent Steps Toward the Archiving of Digital Information, Donald Waters
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) The British Library--Annual Report Full-Text, The British Library, 29th Annual Report and Accounts 2001-02 -- Electronic Dissertations Source: UNESCO The UNESCO Guide for Electronic Theses and Dissertations "The UNESCO Guide to Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs), a resource for graduate students who are writing theses or dissertations, for graduate faculty who want to mentor ETD authors, for graduate deans who want to initiate ETD programmes, and for IT administrators at universities is now online available in English and Spanish." -- Electronic Dissertations--Database Source: UNESCO Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations -- Bankruptcies--United States--Lists and Rankings Source: BankruptcyData.Com The Largest Bankruptcies 1980 - Present (Top 15) -- Nuclear Industry--Global--Timeline Source: EIA Nuclear Timeline (1996-Present) "The timeline provides a chronology of significant events in the U.S. and world nuclear industries from 1996 through present." Sunday, July 21, 2002
Enterprise Search Source: eWeek "Sharpening Search Software" New products due this week from Entropia and divine. Last week saw the introduction of a new version of OneStep from natural language search company iPhrase.
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Presidential Nominations--United States New from THOMAS, "Presidential Nominations" Database and Search Material back to 1987. - United States Congress--Appropriations Status of FY2003 Appropriations Bills An up-to-the-minute "scoreboard" to the current status of these bills as they work through Congress. From THOMAS. Saturday, July 20, 2002
News Search Source: Ottawa Citizen Company Profile: RocketNews.Com A profile about the Canadian company that provides one of the better news search engines of "open web" news content. In fact, the publicly available engine started as a simple product showcase for the company. From the article, "Currently, RocketNews.com has 1.5 million news articles in its database, searches 5,500 sites in multiple languages at any given time and is attracting more than six million hits a month -- "and we get zilch," [co-founder Rick] Van Well laments." "Rocketinfo's prime business is in designing software that defines, collects and analyzes news and information for companies and organizations, which use the material for either competitive or market intelligence." See Also: Direct to RocketNews.Com (Advanced Interface)
Law Librarians Source: Legal Times/Law.Com "The Changing World of Law Librarians" A three article package of stories about the law librarians in 2002.
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Business--Global--Lists & Rankings Source: Fortune The 2002 Edition of the Forbes International 500 is Online "Largest companies based outside the U.S" Friday, July 19, 2002
Information Seeking--College Students Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education "Survey Finds That Students Use the Web but Recognize Its Limitations" Some must read material that's very scary. It's also more fuel for the "we need to do a better job marketing what we offer" fire. From the article, The report, titled "OCLC White Paper on the Information Habits of College Students," says that almost 80 percent of the surveyed students use Internet search engines for "every" assignment or "most" assignments. That's far more than those who glean information from their library Web portals or their class Web sites, each of which comprised about 50 percent of the respondents." The Chronicle article also contains a few on-target comments from Mark Y. Herring, a librarian at Withrop University. Herring says, "Anybody can put anything up, so you have a real danger of students doing a search on the Internet and getting the Unabomber's rantings about technology and using that in a paper as if they are the same as Neil Postman's [scholarly writings]. That's the problem -- students don't see the difference in that." The study also reports that only 20% of the students will go to a librarian for assistance when beginning their research. Herring blames librarians for this problem. He says, "Librarians are much to blame for this. Many of us have met the stereotypically dour librarian who can't get up or can't be bothered." Once again it appears from this study that common stereotypes about librarians still exist. See Also: Direct to the Full-Text of the OCLC White Paper on the Information Habits of College Students
Online Industry--ProQuest Newspaper Archives ProQuest Releases Complete Digital Backfile of The New York Times This file begins in 1871 and runs to 1999. It includes over 25 million articles. From the news release, "Every backfile issue of The New York Times has been digitized from cover to cover, including news stories, editorials, photos, graphics, and advertisements. Searchers can use basic keyword, advanced, guided, and relevancy search techniques to locate information. Or, they can browse through issues page by page, as one would browse a printed edition. Search results lists provide bibliographic information, including date, issue, article headline, page number, and byline (where given). Users may choose to display the full page image of any page in any issue." See Also: In June, Gale released a digitized archive of The Times (London). This archive runs from 1785-1985. See Also: Learn More About ProQuest's Historical Newspaper Program
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Banks--United States--Lists and Rankings Source: U.S. Banker The Top 100 Community Banks in the U.S. -- Defence--United Kingdom--Statistics Source: House of Commons Library New Research Paper, Defence Statistics -- Demographics--Canada Source: Statistics Canada New Report, Profile of the Canadian Population by Age and Sex: Canada Ages Thanks to A.E-J for the tip.
News Briefs Study Underway in Canada to Help Secure Digital Records The project is being led by a member of the University of British Columbia School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies. -- NERAC Launches New Web Site Thursday, July 18, 2002
Web Resource of the Week Invisible Web Database New From The Library of Congress, Free Web Access to the LC Authority Files At the beginning of July the Library of Congress began providing FREE "trial" public access to the LC Authority File via the LC Authorities site. For the cataloging community access to these files can serve many purposes. Four files (Subject, Name, Title, and Name/Title Authority Headings) are available for searching/browsing. A Few Details According to the faq, "authority records cannot be searched by keyword(s). are "left-anchored" -- search words must be entered in order starting with the leftmost word (omitting initial articles and initial punctuation)." Records are available in a labelled display and MARC format. The only caveat, according to the faq, is that authority records may only be saved, printed or emailed one at a time. Reference Use? Although in NO way are these files primary ready-reference tools but they can assist in answering some "fast fact" questions. Here's one example using the Names file. This file contains about 5.3 million entries including data on 3.8 million personal, 900,000 corporate, 120,000 meeting, and 90,000 geographic names. After running a few searches I found that you can learn "real names" and for birthdays for authors, entertainers, and other celebrity types I was also able to access some basic corporate name info. For example, info on company name changes. Most entries include a citation to the source of the information. Sample Name File Searches To Try Select Name Authority Headings and Enter Name *Comedian Albert Brook's name file. You'll learn that his birth name is Albert Einstein *Rock Music legend Pete Townshend's Name File. Learn his full name, birth date, and birth location. *Name file for Metra (the commuter railroad service in Chicago). Learn that Metra is a service name for the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation. *The often used example, because of the many spelling variations, of Muammar Qaddafi's authority record. Final Notes For those of you out there who are not familiar with authority work, here are several definitions from ODLIS to assist. You probably already realize that these concepts have applications outside the traditional library database as more and more organizations build databases where control and uniformity of material in the database is necessary. The LC Authority file is one of many authority files that exist. OCLC, other libraries, and database providers all build and maintain their own files. Btw, the LC Authorities file is Invisible Web data. These records cannot be accessed from general web engines like Google and AltaVista. CORRECTION Anna Della Porta from LC informs me that the above statement about other authority files is incorrect as it relates to OCLC and other services. Anna writes, "In fact, the copy of the LC Authority File (or national authority file) that users view in OCLC or in RLIN is the same "file" that resides at LC. We maintain the master copy of the LC Authority File at LC. Each day we receive authority record contributions from NACO participants via OCLC, RLIN, and the British Library. Those three sites are known as the NACO "nodes" as they maintain copies of the LC Authority File. We then distribute these contributions on a daily basis back to the nodes, along with the records produced by LC catalogers. In this way, the three sites keep their copies of the LC Authority File synchronized with the master copy at LC. Direct to LC Authorities See Also: The LC Authorities FAQ
Web Search Invisible Web Source: ZDNet "Gaga for Google? When Results Don't Count" Daniel Farber, Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet, discusses a point that we regularly discuss on the weblog and in our book, you can't find it all on the web, not even from Google. Other research tools and technques are often required. Have you investigated what your public library offers both at the building and remotely? You should! This might be a worthwhile article to share with users/patrons during training sessions.
Business Information--United Kingdom Online Information--Hemscott Group HemScott Launches Premium Service
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Educational Attainment--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Full-Text Report, The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings From the fact sheet, "Over an adult's working life, high school graduates can expect, on average, to earn $1.2 million; those with a bachelor's degree, $2.1 million; and people with a master's degree, $2.5 million, according to a report released today by the Commerce Department's Census Bureau. People with doctoral ($3.4 million) and professional degrees ($4.4 million) do even better. Fact Sheet ||| Direct to Full-Text (.pdf) -- Intellectual Property--Canada Source: Canadian Intellectual Property Office New Database, Commissioner's Decision Database Now Available
Web Search Source: The Guardian "When Size Does Matter" Chris Sherman (co-author of The Invisible Web) with an article on the role of total search engine size. From the article, "The claim by search engine Fast that it is now bigger than Google has rekindled a fierce online debate: does size matter?"
News Briefs "Ask Jeeves Selects Google Sponsored Links Program" "Under the agreement, Ask Jeeves and Google will share the more than $100 million in estimated revenue to be generated from Google's advertisers on Ask Jeeves' search sites over three years. Google's sponsored links service will complement Ask Jeeves' own suite of advertising products, including its proprietary paid listings product, branded ad units and paid inclusion products." Wednesday, July 17, 2002
AllTheWeb Launches AllTheWeb Alchemist (Beta) You've got to hand it to Fast Search and Transfer, the company that provides AllTheWeb. They continue to grow the database, add new formats (.pdf in the past month or so), and provide one of the best pure news search engines available. Today, an announcement of another new service for the AllTheWeb engine, say hello to AllTheWeb Alchemist! Granted, this might not be for the non-techie types, at least at the moment, but those of you who have some basic knowledge of CSS (cascading style sheets) and XHTML will now be able to build your own customized looks to the AllTheWeb search interface and result pages. For example, if you want to place your library logo, a favorite image, or use specific colors on these pages, it's now possible. Jami Axelrod, Sr. Product Marketing Manager for AllTheWeb told me in a phone conversation that Alchemist is the first tool to allow end users to be able to customize the appearance of search engine query and result screens. In other words, these customized "looks" are "skins" that many software programs (RealAudio, Opera, WinAmp, etc.) offer. Axelrod also mentioned that if this first effort goes well, tools could be provided in later editions that would allow all users (non-techie types) the abilty to create these customized looks. FAST CEO Dr. John Lervik adds, “By using standards like XHTML 1.0 and CSS 1 and 2, AlltheWeb Alchemist provides a glimpse of the future Web where the logical structure of the content is separated from how search results are presented.” See Also: A Few Additional Details via the ATW News Release
Online Industry--Elsevier Science Science Direct Now Offers Pay-Per-View Access For Non-Subscribers Another service to add to your pay-per-view list From the announcement, "Guests users of ScienceDirect -i.e. users not associated with a ScienceDirect account- now can browse all of the ScienceDirect journals, read abstracts and choose to purchase full text articles by credit card and download them in HTML and PDF format. Additionally, guest users of ScienceDirect can set up free table of contents email alerts and create personal journals." See Also: Direct to Science Direct
Instant Messaging--ActiveBuddy Use Instant Messaging to Query Local Databases Since we mentioned the new "techie oriented" earlier, how about one more. We've mentioned ActiveBuddyon the VAS&ND several times and word this week that they've released a new software development kit that allows you to run applications on top of IM programs. I think you'll be able to come up with many applications for this type of thing in the library setting. From the article, "For example, an employee could send an instant message that queries a customer relationship management system to find out which products a customer bought recently, or ask their human resources system how many days vacation they have left for the year, says Gray Norton, senior product manager for ActiveBuddy." Info on licensing the ActiveBuddy Enterprise server is also included. See Also: Additional Info on the New SDK Via News Release See Also: Learn More and Download the BuddyScript SDK See Also: Direct to the ActiveBuddy Home Page
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Documents in the News Homeland Security Source: The White House Full-Text, The National Strategy For Homeland Security: Office of Homeland Security An executive summary is also available. -- U.S. Government--Auctions New Site, FirstGov Adds U.S. Government "Shopping and Auction" Page to Portal "The new "Shopping and Auctions" page consolidates all of the federal governments' sales of property, real estate, cars, souvenirs, books, gifts, and government auctions in one easy to navigate spot." -- United Kingdom--Euro-Zone Source: House of Commons Library, U.K. Full-Text Research Paper, The Euro-Zone: The Early Years & UK Convergence -- Veterinary Medicine Now Available Online, Merck Veterinary Manual From the announcement, "A comprehensive reference on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of animal disease, the online Merck Veterinary Manual is free of charge, accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. First introduced in 1955, the reference book is published by Merck Publishing Group, in cooperation with Merial, the world's leading animal health company. The two companies launched the online version today at the 139th Annual Meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association. "For the first time, this manual is now available as an interactive tool, with electronic search capabilities at the click of a mouse," said Gary Zelko, Publisher, Merck Publishing Group. "Now that it is online, searching for trustworthy veterinary information is easier than ever."
News Briefs Online Industry--Inktomi Knowledge Management--Software Inktomi To Acquire Quiver, Inc, Refocus on Search Business Quiver develops taxonomy building and classification software. In other Inktomi news, the company said that it would refocus on the search business as it eliminates 270 jobs. -- Domains Source: Internet.Com The Latest on .Info Tuesday, July 16, 2002
E-Books Source: Darwin "Librarians at the Gate" From the article, "For the past 100 years, publishers and public libraries have had a cordial, if complicated, relationship. Publishers like libraries because libraries buy books. But then, of course, the libraries allow anyone with a library card to read the books, reducing the likelihood that cardholders will become book buyers. It’s a tradeoff that publishers have been happy with, largely because of the mathematical limitations of library lending."
National Libraries Source: Library Journal "Gateway to Europe's National Libraries Revised" From the article, "After five years, Gabriel (GAteway and BRIdge to Europe's National Libraries)-- the World-Wide-Web service covering 41 European national libraries from the 39 countries that are represented in the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL)--has been revised and updated." See Also: Direct to GABRIEL See Also: Learn More About the GABRIEL Relaunch
The Web as A Research Tool Source: The Washington Post "Point. Click. Think?" A discussion of the problems and issues that result when only open-web resources are used by students doing research. From the article, "Welcome to the world of Net thinking, a form of reasoning that characterizes many students who are growing up with the Internet as their primary, and in some cases, sole source of research. Ask teachers and they'll tell you: Among all the influences that shape young thinking skills, computer technology is the biggest one." Our friend and editor of EXLibris, Marylaine Block, is quoted several times throughout the article. She says, "The Internet makes it ungodly easy now for people who wish to be lazy." It's also great to read that the author included this quote from Marylaine, "The full texts of articles from most academic journals, for example, are not online nor are most current books. Because of copyright laws, a lot of information may never make it to the Net, Block says, which is why she and other librarians worry about lawmakers who slash library budgets or propose eliminating libraries altogether, saying, "Why do we need them? Everything's on the Internet." Kudos Marylaine for getting these thoughts into the mainstream press. Finally, it would have been useful if the author would had included a sentence or two about the availability of fee-based resources made available to the general public by public libraries.
Online Translation Source: Business Week "It's All Greek to These Sites" Business Week's Andy Reinhardt takes a look at several online translation resources and shares several of the many caveats about using these types of tools.
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Private Schools (K-12)--United States Source: National Center for Education Statistics New Database: Private School Search From the site, "This new and powerful school search makes finding information for private schools fast and easy. Available information includes: type of school, affiliation, association membership, students by grade, race/ethnicity, student/teacher ratio." -- Health Information Source: National Library of Medicine Fact Sheet, What's the Difference Between MEDLINE and PubMed? -- Homeland Security--United States Source: OMB Watch Web Resource Compilation, Homeland Security Act Resource Page -- Topics in the News--World Trade Center Redevelopment Plans Source: Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation Direct Link to Info on the 6 Concepts Being Considered Each plan includes description, site plan, scale model, 3D rendering, and skyline elevation, and animation. Monday, July 15, 2002
New/Updated Reports from the Congressional Research Service It's time once again for another a small selection of new and or updated reports from the CRS. To access these full-text reports (.pdf) head to this page from Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) or this page from Rep. Mark Green (R-WI) Issue Briefs AIDS In Africa (6/11/2002) Bosnia: U.S. Military Operations (6/25/2002) China's Economic Conditions (5/29/2002) Fruits and Vegetables: Issues for Congress (7/11/2002) Iraq-U.S. Confrontation (6/24/2002) Military Medical Care Services: Questions and Answers (6/24/2002) Military Pay and Benefits: Key Questions and Answers (7/8/2002) Trade Promotion Authority (Fast-Track Authority for Trade Agreements): Background and Developments in the 107th Congress (6/24/2002) Short Reports Auditing and Its Regulators: Proposals for Reform after Enron (7/11/2002) Debt Limit: The Need to Raise It After Four Years of Surpluses (7/5/2002) Electronic Congress: Proposals and Issues (7/2/2002) Enron Collapse: An Overview of Financial Issues (6/18/2002) September 11 Insurance Litigation (6/11/2002) Terrorism Insurance - The 2002 Marketplace (6/11/2002) Long Reports Auditor Reform Proposals: A Side-by-Side Comparison (7/11/2002) Defense Cleanup and Environmental Programs: Authorization and Appropriations for FY2003 (7/3/2002) Internet Privacy: Overview and Pending Legislation (7/1/2002) Meeting Public Safety Spectrum Needs (7/11/2002) Military Transformation: Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (5/31/2002) Supplemental Appropriations for FY2002: Combating Terrorism and Other Issues (6/26/2002) - In Other CRS News Published Today! Stephen Young, a librarian at Catholic University, has written an introduction to CRS Reports for LLRX.Com. In addition to the historical overview, the article provides several sources, including our compilation, of locations to access reports that are made available to the public.
Web Directories The Importance of Non-Commercial Web Directories I've said it before but it's important to say it again. The value and importance of non-commercial web directories, many compiled by information professionals, are crucial to effective use of the web as a research and reference tool. The value comes from several factors including, the selection and evaluation criteria of entries, enhanced indexing, and the lack of advertising (pop-ups) and other potential advertiser influence. Word today that Yahoo will be throwing more "interactive advertisements" into the mix. Jim Hu writes for ZDNet that Yahoo has signed a deal with four companies that have technologies that, "make it hard to avoid Web advertisements." The article continues by highlighting each of these technologies, "Eyeblaster produces flash-animated pop-up ads; PointRoll technology expands ad banners when a mouse cursor touches it; EyeWonder lets advertisers stream video commercials onto a Web page; and Unicast creates ads that allow users to navigate within them without leaving a Web site." Here are the 5 general knowledge non-commercial directories I regularly suggest: 1) Librarians' Index to the Internet Update! Details on the new LII layout and design that went live in the past few days! Kudos to Karen Schneider and her team. 2) InfoMine 3) Internet Public Library 4) AcademicInfo.Net 5) Resource Discovery Network (Home To Many Subject Specific Directories) Finally, at the end of April we first mentioned an interesting new cooperative called Fiat Lux. It brings together the skills and expertise from several non-commercial, librarian built, Internet directories. We'll keep you posted.
Professional Reading Shelf (4 Items) Copyright--United States Source: Library Journal Library Journal Interviews Lawrence Lessig -- The July/August Issue of D-Lib Magazine is Now Available Online Articles: "A Framework for Evaluating Digital Library Services" "Interdisciplinarity: The Road Ahead for Education in Digital Libraries" "Federated Digital Rights Management: Proposed DRM Solution for Research and Education" "Learning Lessons Holistically in the Glasgow Digital Library" "Digitizing Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps™ for a Full Color, Publicly Accessible Collection" "My Library at Virginia Commonwealth University: Third Year Evaluation" "IEEE Technical Committee on Digital Libraries Web Site Launched" "ARCHway: Access to the UK's Best Archaeology Libraries and Their Journals" "OAIster Search Interface Launched" "Citebase: An OAI Citation-ranked Search Service" -- Web-Based Reference Tools--Reviews Source: GaleGroup.Com The July Edition of Péter's Digital Reference Shelf - July is Online This time around Péter Jacsó reviews HowStuffWorks and the Subway Navigator. -- Web Services Source: Library Journal "What To Know About Web Services" Roy Tennant's latest column for LJ.
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Research and Development--United States--Fact Sheet Source: NSF Fact Sheet, "Half the Nation's R&D Concentrated in Six States" Includes several charts, source data available in .xls format. -- Political Action Committees (PACs)--United States Source: Federal Election Commission Fact Sheet, Semi-Annual Federal PAC Count -- Statistical Methods--Handbook Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology New Edition, Full-Text, E-Handbook of Engineering Statistical Methods ||| Additional Information -- Publishing Industry--United Kingdom Source: Department of Trade and Industry Full-Text Report, Publishing in the Knowledge Economy "A competitive analysis of the U.K. publishing media sector."
Information Industry--NTIS U.S. Government Information Source: Information Today NewsBreaks NTIS Provides Free/Cheap Electronic Delivery of Technical Reports From Barabara Quint's article, "On its Web site, NTIS has begun electronic delivery of all its reports dating to 1997. Reports numbering fewer than 20 pages are free; those over 20 pages are $8.95. The scanned reports appear in Adobe PDF. Some documents are retrieved through links to other federal agency Web sites; however, NTIS promises that the archived copies of all documents will remain available through its site. "One Search. One Source. One Solution." is the banner cry of the Web site upgrade project. See Also: Direct to the NTIS "Electronic Delivery Option" Site Sunday, July 14, 2002
Academic Libraries Librarianship Source: Lexington Herald Leader A Few Comments from Paul Willis, Dean of Libraries at the University of South Carolina Paul Willis was the director of the University of Kentucky libraries for 29 years. He recently left the university to become Dean of Libraries at the University of South Carolina. Mr. Willis is right on with the following quote about the library profession, "It's a service profession," Willis said recently. "If you think you're going to come into the office and read a book all day, you're in trouble." Also from the article, "Part of a librarian's advice to today's students, Willis said, is to not forget about books."UCLA did a study that showed a high percentage of freshmen started their research on the Internet," he said. "My concern is that they stop there."Willis is convinced books and printed materials won't die, and he want |
