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ResourceShelf |
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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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Archives 06/01/1990 - 06/30/1990 03/01/2001 - 03/31/2001 04/01/2001 - 04/30/2001 05/01/2001 - 05/31/2001 06/01/2001 - 06/30/2001 07/01/2001 - 07/31/2001 08/01/2001 - 08/31/2001 09/01/2001 - 09/30/2001 10/01/2001 - 10/31/2001 11/01/2001 - 11/30/2001 12/01/2001 - 12/31/2001 01/01/2002 - 01/31/2002 02/01/2002 - 02/28/2002 03/01/2002 - 03/31/2002 04/01/2002 - 04/30/2002 05/01/2002 - 05/31/2002 06/01/2002 - 06/30/2002 07/01/2002 - 07/31/2002 08/01/2002 - 08/31/2002 09/01/2002 - 09/30/2002 10/01/2002 - 10/31/2002 11/01/2002 - 11/30/2002 12/01/2002 - 12/31/2002 01/01/2003 - 01/31/2003 02/01/2003 - 02/28/2003 03/01/2003 - 03/31/2003 04/01/2003 - 04/30/2003 05/01/2003 - 05/31/2003 06/01/2003 - 06/30/2003 07/01/2003 - 07/31/2003 08/01/2003 - 08/31/2003 09/01/2003 - 09/30/2003 10/01/2003 - 10/31/2003 11/01/2003 - 11/30/2003 12/01/2003 - 12/31/2003 01/01/2004 - 01/31/2004 02/01/2004 - 02/29/2004 03/01/2004 - 03/31/2004 04/01/2004 - 04/30/2004 05/01/2004 - 05/31/2004 06/01/2004 - 06/30/2004 07/01/2004 - 07/31/2004 08/01/2004 - 08/31/2004 09/01/2004 - 09/30/2004 10/01/2004 - 10/31/2004 11/01/2004 - 11/30/2004 12/01/2004 - 12/31/2004 01/01/2005 - 01/31/2005 02/01/2005 - 02/28/2005 03/01/2005 - 03/31/2005 04/01/2005 - 04/30/2005 05/01/2005 - 05/31/2005 06/01/2005 - 06/30/2005 07/01/2005 - 07/31/2005 08/01/2005 - 08/31/2005 09/01/2005 - 09/30/2005 10/01/2005 - 10/31/2005 11/01/2005 - 11/30/2005 12/01/2005 - 12/31/2005 01/01/2006 - 01/31/2006 02/01/2006 - 02/28/2006 03/01/2006 - 03/31/2006 04/01/2006 - 04/30/2006 05/01/2006 - 05/31/2006 06/01/2006 - 06/30/2006 Now Available Additional Web Reference Compilations direct search (Invisible Web Resources) Audio/Video Current Awareness Tools WWW Accessible Congressional Research Service Reports
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Saturday, August 31, 2002
Web Search--Meta Search Tools Vivisimo Makes Changes To Web Search Cluster Vivisimo's web search cluster used to include 6 engines but in the past day or so the folks in Pittsburgh have removed three of the six. Gone from Vivisimo are Yahoo Search, AOL Search, and Netscape Search. All three of these engines feature results from the Google database. Currently, Vivisimo queries AlltheWeb, MSN, and Looksmart, and OpenFind. Vivisimo still remains a very useful tool for those who like the meta search/document clustering concept. Btw, Ixquick is no longer sending queries to AOL and Netscape. See Also: If you visit Vivisimo make sure to note it's dynamically generated result clusters and it's wonderful "page preview" feature. "Preview", allows you to open a live version of the web page that it's embedded into the results list. Look for a link to "preview" on the right of the result title. Vivisimo also offers users to demo its document clustering technology with many specialized databases and directories including Pubmed, the Librarians' Index to the Internet, and FirstGov.
Public Libraries--Budget Cuts Source: The NY Times Budget Cuts Force the NY Public Library System to Reduce Hours Another public library system, another set of budget cuts. ): From the article, "In October, 67 of the central system's 85 branch libraries [including all four research libraries] will gradually shift to a five-day week, as a hiring freeze cuts into available staff. In some cases, local libraries will stick to their reduced summer schedules. The Brooklyn Library, with its 60 branches, is considering similar cutbacks, a spokesperson said, while the Queens system has made other cuts in services..."It is appalling and a sign of twisted priorities." said Mike Wallace, author and director of the Gotham Center for New York City History. "The library is one of our greatest public resources which enhances activity for all sorts of people. This is a knowledge-based society, they tell us, and to be denied one of the great tools is a blow to the city, the society and the culture."
Libraries--Ohio Virtual Reference A Busy Week for Ohio Libraries At the beginning of the week SECINC was introduced. What is it? From a GovTech.Com article, "The SCEIC [Statewide Core Electronic Information Collection] is a collaborative effort involving INFOhio, the state's virtual library and information network for primary and secondary school libraries; the Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK), the network for higher education libraries; and the Ohio Public Library and Information Network (OPLIN) under the leadership of the State Library of Ohio. Later in the week, OhioLINK, introduced a new “Chat With a Librarian” service. From the OhioLINK site, "Chat with a Librarian” is a chat service that connects you, the user, to a reference librarian. Your questions can be answered when you have them - during searching. For example, you are searching an OhioLINK provided database like ERIC, and you wonder, “How do I find the best information about multiculturalism?"
E-Books Source: CNN E-Textbooks Clicking with Colleges From the article, "Allen Renear, associate professor at the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, says during the dot-com frenzy, some exaggerated predictions about what e-books would deliver and when managed to muddy the waters about electronic reading technology. "The fact is that electronic reading is a revolution that is happening," said Renear, who is also chair of a group developing standards for handheld electronic books (the Open eBook Forum's Publication Structure Working Group). Renear believes textbooks are where e-books will come into their own, with audio and video, interactive diagrams and searching capabilities." Friday, August 30, 2002
Doctors--United States--Databases Public Citizens Adds Content to "Questionable Doctors" Database Search to see if doctors from Florida (just added), Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont have been disciplined for various offences including incompetence, negligence, sexual misconduct by state and federal authorities. Learn more from this Government Technology article. Questionable Doctors is free to search for names. A 3-month subscription costs $10.00. You can access and print 10 individual disciplinary reports. See Also: List, Ranking of State Medical Boards' Serious Disciplinary Actions in 2001
News Briefs Web Search--Google Source: Fortune Small Business "All the Right Moves" More on Google, Sergey, Larry, and life at the Googleplex. Quick Note: The article also mentions AlltheWeb and Wisenut. As we've said many times before and are saying again, it's great to see AtW getting more attention. However, the article is incorrect in stating that, "AlltheWeb uses human editors to review and refine searches, as does another upstart, Wisenut.com, which is owned by LookSmart." Both of these engines, like Google, are fully automated prodcuts. Wisenut has been and continues to be a big disappointment. Yes, the engine is still available online but the database is out of date and no additional features or improvements have been made in a very long time. In a recent look around Wisenut I found pages from major sites that haven't been recrawled/updated in over one year.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Virtual Reference Full-Text Report, A Digital Reference Service for a Digital Library: Chat Technology in a Remote Reference Service A report about chat-based virtual reference services at Ryerson University in Canada -- The September/October Issue of Information Highways is Now Online Titles of selected article from the Canadian periodical: *"UpClose: Dr. Nick Bontis" "Meet the man who's changing the way we think about a nation's intellectual capital" *"Fee-based content gains momentum" *"How to negotiate with vendors" *"Monitoring Web pages" by Gwen Harris
Patents--United States Full-Text of NIPRA Lawsuit Available Online On Tuesday (8/27), we posted news that the National Intellectual Property Researchers Association (NIPRA) filed a lawsuit asking for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to stop "phasing out" paper patent and trademark records. The full-text of NIPRA's filing with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia is now available online.
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) September 11th--Educational Resources--Webliography Source: Dickinson College Compilation, Teaching 9-11.Org A comprehensive set of materials including syallabi and lesson plans. See Also: Learn More About the Compilation (via TCOHE) -- Scientists and Engineers--United States--Statistics Source: National Science Foundation Full-Text Report, Characteristics of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers in the United States: 1999 Thursday, August 29, 2002
Web Resources of the Week Resource of the Week #1 Keyword Search Transcripts of All C-SPAN "Booknotes" Programs, Listen to Programs Online C-SPAN, a cable/satellite channel here in the U.S. that airs public affairs and live coverage of the U.S. Congress. Every Sunday, C-SPAN airs Booknotes, a program that features hour-long one-on-one interviews with authors of non-fiction books. The program has been on the air since 1989. The program archives, available on the web at no charge, is a treasure chest of interesting material, most of it completely searchable. Using the search box at the top of the Booknotes homepage or via the wonderful and robust Advanced Interface, you’ll be able to keyword search transcripts of all interviews and then read the transcript or listen to the program online. For example, here's a search for the phrase "Library of Congress" "Library of Congress" limited to the "Reporters and Writers" category. Really interesting and useful material for history buffs, teachers, reporters, and just about everyone else. Btw, the Archives can also be browsed by date. -- Resource #2 Who’s Running for Congress? Who’s Running for Governor? The Leadership Directories (a.k.a. The Yellow Books) are well-known sources for biographical and directory information about government officials in the U.S. If you who don’t have access to the latest directories or don’t have access at your desk, I have some good news to share. Leadership Directories Inc. is providing the full profile for ALL Congressional Candidates and Gubernatorial Candidates (incumbents and challengers, 11/2002 election) available on the web at no charge.
Virtual Reference--Wondir Wondir Nears Alpha Stage We’ve learned from Wondir Foundation co-founder’s Matt Koll and Laura Horn that the Wondir database and question answering service is within a week or two of an Alpha release. What’s Wondir all about? From the site, “The Wondir information service will help people find practical, focused answers to questions, with an emphasis on connecting people who have questions with other people who can provide needed help. These experts, tutors, mentors, enthusiasts, and peers could be volunteering on their own or as part of an organized online help program, such as an AskA service, government or social service, corporation, civic group, professional association, university, school or library. In addition to live resources, Wondir will make extensive use of FAQs, stored Q&As and other searchable web resources. Relevant human resources will be integrated into the results and featured in a targeted way.” Wondir is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization. From day one, the Wondir Foundation has been soliciting the opinions and advice from throughout the information professional community. In fact, librarian, digital reference guru and AskERIC director David Lankes (Syracuse University), info retrieval expert Bruce Croft (University of Massachusetts), and a guy named Gary Price (:, are part of Wondir’s advisory board. Matt and Laura welcome your opinions and comments. They are also continuing to actively recruit volunteers (individuals and organizations) to assist in answering questions and guiding users. Review the web site, learn more about the project, and consider getting involved. More about Wondir as it happens. See Also: If Your're Interested in Doing Some Volunteer Work for Wondir, please contact friends_of_wondir@wondir.org See Also: Learn More About Wondir via this SearchDay Article and since we're on the subject of Virtual Reference...
Virtual Reference Source: The New York Times "Ready With Answers Around the Clock" A NY Times article on 24x7 virtual reference services. The article mentions the Cleveland Public Library's KnowItNow24x7 service, Q and A NJ, from the New Jersey Library Network and AskNow from the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System in California. 24/7 Reference and LSSI are also mentioned in the article. Kevin Starr, California's state librarian is quoted in the article. Two small issues with the article. Number one is the sentence, "Increasingly, librarians, fearing irrelevancy in the age of Google, are chasing their patrons in cyberspace, and around the clock." Yes, it's another in the never-ending string of articles that makes it seem the entire profession is on the decline because of the WWW and one search engine in particular, Google. As noted on this weblog over and over again, Google is a wonderful and important tool, not THE solution. We must market not only the services, databases, books, etc. that we provide but also the many skills we offer the public. Issue two is the sentence, "What's more, public libraries can use their subscriptions, already paid for by the public through taxes, to gain entry to news and information databases whose owners have recently shifted to charging Web access fees." These proprietary databases have always charged fees. For quite a few years libraries have provided access to these products via CD-ROM and online. What's relatively new is that many public libraries are now making these databases remotely accessible to the public.
Web Search--Google "Meet Mr. Anti-Google" From the article, A crusading webmaster says the popular search engine's page-ranking algorithm is "undemocratic." I'll share a few comments later on. For now it's important to note that just about all general web search engines use some form of link analysis/page rank in their algorithm. One search engine that takes it a bit further is Teoma. For those of you web search aficionados out there, Teoma is a real world application of some of the concepts and ideas from the often discussed but never publicly released IBM search engine, Clever. You can learn more about Clever and link analysis in a 1999 Scientific American article. This 2001 Science article is also worthy of your attention. One more point. From the article, "When you type "NameBase" into Google, Brandt's site comes up first, but Brandt is not satisfied with that. "My problem has been to get Google to go deep enough into my site," he says. In other words, Brandt wants Google to index the 100,000 names he has in his database, so that a Google search for "Donald Rumsfeld" will bring up NameBase's page for the secretary of defense." In our book Chris Sherman and I describe this situation as "depth of crawl". Because one, five, or five hundred pages from a site are indexed doesn't mean that the each and every page from the entire site has been crawled and is searchable. Also, because Google has indexed a certain number of pages from a site don't assume that AlltheWeb has indexed more, less, or even the same ones. This is another in the continuing list of reasons why it's important to use more than one engine and in some cases utilize site search and specialized search tools. Btw, a search of Google using the syntax site:namebase.org inurl:*.* shows that Google has indexed about 70 pages from Namebase.
Information Access Source: Stateline.Org "War on Terror Restricts Information Flow" From the article, "A dozen states - Alaska, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia - have adopted new rules to limit access to public records in the name of national security this year. Not all reporters have noticed a change, but many say they face more restrictions and an attitudinal shift from state and federal officials." Comments from several people in the journalism profession are included.
Web Browsers--Netscape Netscape 7.0 is Now Available Netscape, currently with only a 3.4% share of the browser market (according to WebSideStory) has released version 7.0 today. CNET has a review available. Busy times in the browser world with a new version of Mozilla available, the Netscape release, and a totally rebuilt version of Opera due very soon. See Also: Direct to Netscape Download Area See Also: "Andreessen Bids Goodbye to Browser Wars" (via PC World) "The man who created the first Web browser talks about watching Microsoft win online."
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Education--United States--Statistics Source: National Center for Education Statistics Full-Text, Reporter's Back to School Guide to National Education Data -- Criminal Justice--Evidence Source: USDOJ New, Updated Edition, Searching and Seizing Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigations -- Events of September 11th--Fact Sheets Source: U.S. Department of State The Global Coalition Against Terrorism: Media Fact Sheets Wednesday, August 28, 2002
Search Technology Source: Japan Corporate News Network More New Search Technology from Japan A few weeks ago we highlighted an announcement from NTT about new search technology. Today, news of more new technology from Hitachi. From the news release, "The search engine [GETA, Generic Engine for Transposable Association] is capable of searching a massive 10-million document database to immediately search for relevant documents using a single entry...The new search engine employs several advanced technologies: an associational search module that can automatically select 50-200 keywords, and analyze their interrelations and usage frequency; a high-speed search module that compresses search index data used for the associational search; and a clustering search module that assigns search tasks to multiple computers." See Also: Additional Info via a Machine Translation of a ZDNet Japan Story See Also: Additional Info via a Machine Translation of the GETA homepage.
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University Federal Judges--United States New, Fee-Based Database: New Database to Track Official Actions of Individual Federal District Judges This is a new service from the well-known Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. From an announcement, " With the tool -- accessible on TRAC's subscription site, http://tracfed.syr.edu/judges -- users can review the work of most judges who served from FY 1968 to FY 2001. Available information includes their workload, sentences and case disposition times. The service also allows the user to compare the work of one judge with the work of all the judges in that district or the nation as a whole and to generate annual case-by-case lists of matters disposed of by a particular judge. Coverage includes criminal cases and civil matters where the government is a party and that were handled by assistant U.S. attorneys." A personal TRACFED subscription costs $50/month and includes access to material from all 7 TRACFED databases (Criminal Enforcement, Civil Enforecement, Federal Judges, Administrative Enforcement, Federal Employee Information, Federal Fund Data, and the "Community Context" database). Organizational subscriptions are also available. See Also: TRAC also offers statistical reports (no charge) on the following U.S. Government organizations (FBI, INS, DEA, IRS, ATF, and the U.S. Customs Service).
New/Updated Reports from the Congressional Research Service It's time for our monthly review of 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) . Once on either of these pages, select the type of report (Issue Briefs, Short Reports, Long Reports), click, and scroll to the report. I've also included the date that reports were last updated. These reports cannot be directly linked to and cannot be found in general web search engines. Issue Briefs Airport Improvement Program (7/1/02) Immigration Legislation and Issues in the 107th Congress (8/1/02) Insurance Regulation and Competition: Background and Issues (8/27/02) Iraq-U.S. Confrontation (8/2/02) Meat and Poultry Inspection Issues (8/27/02) Saudi Arabia: Current Issues and U.S. Relations (8/21/02) --- Short Reports Immigration and Naturalization Service Reorganization and Related Legislative Proposals (7/24/02) Counterterrorism Research and Development: Funding, Priority-setting, and Coordination (8/9/02) Electronic Congress: Proposals and Issues (7/2/02) National Monument Issues (7/8/02) Privacy Protection for Customer Financial Information (8/9/02) --- Long Reports Current Economic Conditions and Selected Forecasts (8/14/02) Department of Homeland Security: Appropriations Transfer Authority (8/16/02) Homeland Security Department: U.S. Department of Agriculture Issues (7/26/02) Importing Prescription Drugs (8/22/02) Inflation: Causes, Costs, and Current Status (8/19/02) Visa Issuances: Policy, Issues, and Legislation (7/31/02)
Popular Culture—United States Audio Content on the Internet: “Present at the Creation” from National Public Radio Since the beginning of this year, NPR (National Public Radio) has aired a weekly feature on its Morning Edition program. Each report explores an “icon of American culture”. All reports can be heard online (RealAudio). Each report also has a web page with a complete narrative and links to many additional resources. Features have included hamburgers, surfboards, Scrabble, Gumby, and Star Trek. All reports can be found accessed via the “Present at the Creation” Archives.
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Small Business--Canada--Lists & Rankings Source: PROFIT Magazine 1) Canada's Hottest Startups 2002 2) Profit 100 2002 (Canada's Fastest Growing Small Companies) -- Information Technology--Lists & Rankings Source: Red Herring Top Ten Innovators 2002 "...the average number of patents per individual is seven and the average number of startups is three." -- Tourism--Webliography Source: PAIS (Public Affairs International Service) Hot Topic Compilation from PAIS: International Tourism -- Education--United States--Statistics Source: National Center for Education Statistics Full-Text, Reporter's Back to School Guide to National Education Data - Health Insurance--United States--Statistics Source: National Center for Health Statistics Fact Sheet: Trends in Health Insurance Coverage by Race/Ethnicity Among Persons Under 65 Years of Age: United States, 1997-2001
Web Tools--RSS Newsreaders Source: The Guardian "Working the web: Newsreaders" A brief overview of newsreaders and the RSS format.
News Briefs Hoover's Introduces Small Business Finder, Available For Subscribers "...ability to search approximately 2.5 million U.S. companies that have more than five employees." Tuesday, August 27, 2002
Web Search--Vivisimo Source: Tech Watch "Vivisimo—Searching Through Document Clustering" A short but informative article about "document clustering" software and a publicly available search tool that we have mentioned many times on the VAS&ND. If you like using a search tool that presents results from several engines at the same time, this is the one to use. See Also: Direct to Vivisimo (Advanced Interface) See Also: Direct to Vivisimo (Additional Clustering Engine Demos)
Patents--United States Source: Government Computer News "Suit Calls PTO Systems Flawed" From the article, "Charging that the Patent and Trademark Office’s databases are riddled with errors, the National Intellectual Property Researchers Association yesterday filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to stop the phasing out of paper patent and trademark records." See Also: Direct to the National Intellectual Property Researchers Association Site See Also: Additional Details via this NIPRA News Release
Libraries Source: The Ingenta Institute Consortia Site Licensing in a State of Flux From the announcement, Ingenta Institute, the independent research organisation of the scholarly communications industry, today announced preliminary findings from its comprehensive international study into the impact of site licensing and consortia developments on the scholarly communication process. "Early results indicate that consortia site licensing is in a state of flux," says David Brown, Co-ordinator of the Ingenta Institute, "and that its future is dependent upon a number of factors."
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Elections Source: Department of the Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia Full-Text, Issue Brief, "Interpreting Election Results in Western Democracies" This report includes a useful chart, "The Classification of Political Parties". -- Major Legal Cases--United States (Moussaoui and Walker Lindh) E-Mail Notification Service, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia has an e-mail service that will inform you when documents are filed in the Moussaoui and Walker Lindh cases. -- College Students--United States Scholastic Assessment Test Source: The College Board SAT Scores For College Bound Seniors, 2002, Facts and Statistics Summary & Links To Additional Reports ||| Direct to Full-Text Report -- Grandparents--United States--Fast Facts Source: U.S. Census New, Fast Facts, Grandparents Day 2002 Grandparents Day is September 8th. The U.S. Census as prepared this fact sheet with plenty of "stats" about this important group.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) E-Journals Source: Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship 1) "The Use of Electronic-Only Journals in Scientific Research" by Richard D. Llewellyn, Lorraine J. Pellack, and Diana D. Shonrock, Iowa State University 2) "Perceived Successes and Failures of Science & Technology E-Journal Access: A Comparative Study" by Subject & Bibliographic Access to Science Materials Committee, Science & Technology Section, Association of College & Research Libraries -- E-Print Archives EPrintBlog: A New Weblog About E-Print Archives From Guy Aron of RMIT University in Australia. Thanks to Charles W. Bailey, Jr. for the tip.
Public Libraries--Washington Source: AP "Seattle Libraries Begin First of Two One-Week Shutdowns" From the article, "Closing the libraries for two weeks -- the second shutdown is scheduled for the week of Dec. 17 -- will preserve the jobs of about 30 library employees. The closures will save about $850,000 because the system's 640 workers will not be paid for those two weeks. "I am disgusted. The libraries are the only thing in the budget you shouldn't touch. Cut the mayor's salary a little. Keep the libraries open for us," said Samad Chakour, who said he uses the main downtown library almost every day." See Also: Read the Note on the SPL's Web Site Monday, August 26, 2002
Online Industry Source: EContent An EContent Interview: Four Chief Executives and an Analyst Michelle Manafy, Editor of EContent, chats with Charles W. Terry, president & CEO of COMTEX News Network, Andrew "Flip" Filipowski, chairman and CEO of divine, inc, Randall Marcinko, president and COO of Nstein Technologies, Inc, and Daniel Schimmel, president and CEO of OneSource Information Services, Inc.
National Libraries--Australia Source: Agence France Press Australia National Library Mulls Cyberspace Erotica Collection From the article, "The National Library of Australia is considering expanding into cyberspace to add erotic Internet sites to its more traditional collections, according to its latest newsletter. Librarian Edgar Crook said the addition of adult Web sites to the library's National Collection of Electronic Publications would give "a representative picture of Australian erotica on the Internet". See Also: Interested in Reading Edgar Crook's Complete Article? It's Available Here.
Professional Reading Shelf E-Books Source: Ball St. University Full-Text, The Usability of eBook Technology: Practical Issues of an Application of Electronic Textbooks In a Learning Environment See Also: The report is discussed in a COHE article.
Public Libraries Source: NY Times A Tip O' The ResourceShelf Cap To David King of Brookline, MA In today's NYT Letters to the Editor section, Mr. King shares a few comments about last week's Times article on the possible closing of a public library system in Washington. Included in his letter is the following statement, "The Internet may have a magnetic fascination for us, but it is so consumer-oriented it is beginning to look increasingly like work TV. A public library has much more to offer, but the public seems not to be making the distinction." Well said David! This is the same public who think Google is the solution to all of the world's information needs. The best researcher's are aware of a good size tool chest of resources (including the telephone) and search techniques. Then, they make an informed decision as to which one(s) to use to satisfy the information need. No one info resource is perfect.
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Knowledge Economy--Australia Source: Department of the Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia New, Research Report: Australia's Growth Industries in the Age of the Knowledge Economy -- Investment Scams--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) New List, Top 10 Investment Scams (Listed by State Securities Regulators) -- Sustainable Development Source: United Nations Official Web Site, World Summit of Sustainable Development Taking place this week in Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, August 25, 2002
Health Information--ClinicalTrials.Gov Source: NLM Technical Bulletin Expanded Search Capabilities Available for ClinicalTrials.gov Users This article provides a complete overview with examples of the expanded search functionality that ClinicalTrials.Gov that became available in May, 2002. See Also: Direct to ClinicalTrials.Gov See Also: "Searching ClinicalTrials.gov" (from NLM Technical Bulletin, May-June 2000)
Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Two New Full-Text Titles From the National Academies Press - Discouraging Terrorism: Some Implications of 9/11 Prepublication version. - Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science (Second Edition) Saturday, August 24, 2002
Librarian--Profiles Source: The Washington Post Meet Ralph Whittington: Former LC Librarian Who's Now the Curator at NYC's Museum of Sex We had a quote from Whittington in yesterday's postings. Today, The Post has a complete profile of the former curator of the LC Main Reading Room. From the article, For 36 years -- until his retirement in 2000 -- Whittington worked at the Library of Congress. He started out fetching books and ended up as curator of the Main Reading Room. Along the way, he was given the responsibility of overseeing the library's collection of phone books....Whittington started collecting smut just for his own, um, edification. But then, in the early '70s, he had an epiphany: The Library of Congress was collecting nearly every variety of printed matter -- even phone books, for crying out loud! -- but not porn. Apparently, it was up to him to preserve the X-rated aspects of America's glorious heritage. "All I did was use the same techniques that archivists use for other subjects on this subject," he says. "I hope you'll convey to your readers that I'm serious about this..."
Public Libraries Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel "Library Patrons Research at Home" It's WONDERFUL to see an article in the mainstream press promoting the remotely accessible resources that many libraries now offer.
Central Intelligence Agency--Information Technology Source: Wired. News "It Pays to Play With the CIA" Another discussion of In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital arm. From the article, "As an information-based agency, the CIA must be at the cutting edge of information technology in order to maintain its competitive edge and provide its customers with intelligence that is both timely and relevant," In-Q-Tel's first director of business operations, Rick Yannuzzi, said in an early position paper." The lead of the article also notes three web browsers that are mentioning here. We featured news and background about Browse 3D on the VAS&ND back in March. Opera and Netcaptor also deserve your attention. I frequently use both of these products. Netcaptor is great for presentations.
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Pennsylvania--History Source: Pennsylvania State Archives "Pennsylvania State Archives Launches "Doc Heritage" Web Site" (via Government Technology News) Direct to Pennsylvania "Doc Heritage" Web Site Friday, August 23, 2002
E-Journals--Preservation The National Library of the Netherlands Becomes First Official Digital Archive for Elsevier Science Journals From the announcement, "...the library will receive digital copies of all Elsevier journals made available on its web platform, ScienceDirect, which are approximately 1,500 journals covering all areas of science, technology and medicine, and exceeding 7 TB of data...Karen Hunter, Senior Vice President, Strategy at Elsevier and responsible for this digital archiving initiative, explains the relevance of this agreement: “It is essential that we will be able to guarantee both authors and researchers using the journals that the electronic files will be permanently available. Journals have been called ‘the minutes of science’. As we move toward journals being available only in electronic form and being held centrally on publishers’ computers, the public has the right to be assured that, should a publisher go out of business, these files will not be lost." Thanks to NFAIS for the news tip.
Web Search--Teoma Teoma to Launch U.K. Version, Jeeves.Co.Uk to Undergo Major Overhaul (Registration Required) A report in the U.K.'s Marketing notes that Teoma will launch a separate U.K. site in the near future. From the article, "No timescale has been set for the launch of teoma.co.uk as a standalone UK-specific search engine, but it could go live before the end of this year." Currently, www.teoma.co.uk is but taps the "U.S." version. The article also mentions that jeeves.co.uk will give the brand, "the biggest revamp since its launch." From the article, "...communications director Nick Mason-Pearson said the firm would not run a heavyweight launch campaign for fear of cannibalising its existing Ask Jeeves customer base, even though it is aimed at a different kind of user." We've also learned that sometime in the next 4-6 weeks Teoma is planning several enhancements for the search engine. Stay Tuned.
Research Databases--Australia Official Launch: Australian Universities Unveil New Literature Research Tool The AustLit Gateway site has been available for some time but today marks the official launch of the site of this fee-based database. From the site, "AustLit: Australian Literature Gateway provides authoritative information on hundreds of thousands of creative and critical Australian literature works - published in a range of print and electronic sources - and on more than 60 000 Australian authors and literary organisations, from 1780 to the present day." The Gateway is a joint project of eight Australian Universities (the University of Queensland, the University of Western Australia, the University of Canberra, the University of Sydney, Flinders University, Monash University and Deakin University with assistance from the National Library of Australia). A small portion of author records can be viewed by non-subscribers.
Web Browsers--Internet Explorer Source: Computerworld Microsoft Releases "Super Patch" To Correct Six IE Problems "Microsoft Corp. late yesterday issued a cumulative patch for its Internet Explorer Web browser that also fixes six new vulnerabilities, the most serious of which could enable an attacker to take control over a user's system, the company said." See Also: Direct to Patch Download Information
Librarians Museums New Museum to Open in NYC, Librarian Involvement Source: The Washington Post The article provides background about the Museum of Sex soon to open in New York City. Included in the article is the following short passage, "Gluck found his collection in expected places, and a few unexpected. The Kinsey Institute opened its voluminous archives to the museum, and Gluck borrowed from other collections, as well. Then there's Ralph Whittington, a retired Library of Congress archivist widely recognized as possessing perhaps the world's largest collection of pornographic literature and film. His is a scholarly obsession, although he wouldn't deny he peruses the material. "Being a librarian, I know how to keep these materials preserved," he said. "It's not easy being seen as a porn king." Read Also: Ralph Whittington Shares A Few Comments in this 2000 Interview
Professional Reading Shelf Conference Presentations Presentations from the 2002 WiLSWorld Conference The conference took place Wednesday July 31 and Thursday August 1, 2002 in Madison, Wisconsin. Slides are in ppt format. Selected Presentations (several others available): *"eProfiles: Innovative Information Systems and Services" by Gerry McKiernan, Iowa State University Library *"Reference With QuestionPoint" by Jeff Penka, Manager, OCLC Cooperative Reference Services *"Future Directions of Libraries and Librarians" by Susan McGlamery, Coordinator for Reference Services, Metropolitan Cooperative Library Systems, California *"IDEALS: Emerging Innovative Augmented Digital Library Services" by Gerry McKiernan, Science and Technology Librarian and Bibliographer, Iowa State University Library
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Consumer Information--United States New from Pueblo, The Fall Edition of the Free Consumer Information Catalog is Now Available -- Non-Profits--Lists & Rankings Source: The Non-Profit Times The NPT Power & Influence, 2002 Short bios of leaders in non-profit industry. Includes a link to complete report in pdf. -- Encryption--Overview Source: The Atlantic New, "A Web-only Primer on Public-key Encryption" This primer cannot be found in the print edition of the magazine. Thursday, August 22, 2002
Web Resources of the Week Resource #1 Impressive Search Functionality: The Tower Records Searchable Catalog Tower Records is one of the most well-known music retailers in many parts of the world and as you would expect they also have a large online presence. This week I'm mentioning the Tower searchable catalog not as a source to purchase music, I'm sure you already have a favorite or a vendor that you must use. I making note of it because the database's advanced interface, provides access to a potentially useful reference tool for music related queries. Two advanced interfaces exist, one for all types of recordings except classical and the second, a specialized classical interface. Take a look at the numerous search criteria to assist in accessing the correct info. General Interface Search Criteria *Artist *Guest Artist *Album Title *Song (Very Useful if Your Trying to Learn if the Tune is On a Compilation) *Genre (Over 20 Available Including Spoken Word and Audiobooks) *Label *Producer *Format Classical Interface Search Criteria *Composer *Work *Form (Over 20 Available) *Performer *Conductor *Ensemble *Album Title *Label *Catalog #: *Instrument *Format ------- Entries contains a track listing, release date, a list of guest artists (if available) and in some cases brief bio of the performer. Some data is provided by the music info company Muze. AllMusic.Com is another essential music database to have in your collection. -- See Also: While we're on the topic of music, Peter Scott, the developer of many essential tools including Libdex (a directory of over 18,000 library sites and catalogs), a wonderful database of publisher catalogs (over 7000), and a comprehensive collection of library weblogs, is building a NEW database of record label information. Btw, those of you who've been online for several years also know Peter as the developer of HYTELNET. Resource of the Week #2 A Quick Review of Reference Resources from Economist.Com A sizeable portion of the content is available at no charge. 1) Country Briefings Available for about 60 nations. Links to some fee-based content. 2) The Economist Business Database Content provided by Bloomsbury. "Contains a business dictionary covering over 6,000 related terms, practical guides explaining finance, marketing, personnel, and e-commerce, and 144 biographies of important business minds." 3) Backgrounders "...concise summaries of complex issues in politics, finance, business, science and technology." Included in the backgrounders are links to full-text fee-based articles. 4) The Economist Style Guide
Professional Reading Shelf and Listening Station (3 Items) Research Libraries Source: Council on Library and Information Resources Full-Text, Diffuse Libraries: Emergent Roles for the Research Library in the Digital Age From the abstract, "Research libraries are taking on a range of new roles in the digital age as they become more deeply engaged in the creation and dissemination of knowledge. While some of these roles are extensions of traditional library activity, others are largely new. Wendy Lougee, university librarian at the University of Minnesota, explores some of these emerging functions in this report." 32 pages pdf. Direct to Full-Text -- Libraries Source: WAMU-FM, Washington D.C. Listen Online, "Future of Libraries" From a WAMU Radios Public Interest program. Aired 8/20/02. From the blurb, "These days, students come to college armed with laptops, cell phones and PDAs. So where do books fit into the equation? A look at the evolving role of university libraries, whether electronic archives will be there when students need them, and how new technology affects learning." Helen Spalding from ACRL, Pat MacGuire from Trinity College, and Dr. Anthony (Tony) Paustian from the Des Moines Area Community College are guests on the show. Thanks to LISNews.Com for the tip. See Also: Direct to Audio -- Librarianship New Issue, Cites & Insights (Vol. 2 No. 12) The September issue Walt Crawford's publication is now available.
The Internet Archive Pre-Release: Take a Look at a New Version of The Internet Archive Web Site Make sure to take note of the new text, audio, and software collections. Brewster and the IA organization would appreciate any and all comments
Virtual Reference Source: Government Computing News "Library Encourages Patrons to Chat" A brief article about the "Ask a Librarian Live Reference" in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Court Records on the Internet--United States Source: AP "How Much Info Is Too Much Info?" From the article, "States have made significant progress in putting their court records online, allowing the public to examine criminal cases, lawsuits and divorces. However, all are struggling to develop privacy standards that keep pace with the technology, says a report released Wednesday." See Also: Direct Access to the Full-Text of the Report Mentioned in the Article
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) E-Government Source: UN/American Society for Public Administration New, Full-Text Report, Benchmarking E-Government: A Global Perspective--Assessing the U.N. Member States -- E-Government--United States Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers Endowment for The Business of Government Full-Text, The State of Federal Web Sites, The Pursuit of Excellence See Also: Article About Report in Federal Computer Week -- E-Commerce--United Kingdom--Statistics Source: National Statistics Office Full-Text, 2001 E-Commerce Survey Of Business -- Law Firms--California--Lists & Rankings Source: The Recorder The California 40 (Top Grossing Law Firms, 2001) -- Criminal Justice--United States--Statistics Source: BJS Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics, 2000 -- Structural Engineering--World Trade Center Source: NIST NIST World Trade Center Investigation Homepage for the new, "$16 million, 24-month federal building and fire safety investigation to study the structural failure and subsequent progressive collapse of several World Trade Center (WTC)..." Wednesday, August 21, 2002
Specialty Search Engines Elsevier & FAST Upgrade Scirus Search Engine ***"The index now contains over 107 million science specific pages, with new full-text additions like NASA reports, CogPrints pre- and postprints, and preprints from the Chemistry and Mathematics Preprint Servers. Scirus now offers over 17 million proprietary records that cannot be found using generic search engines." ***"Improved the ranking and relevance of the results by implementing “intelligent query rewrites”, which automatically attempts to understand the intention of the user and enables more intelligent searching by rewriting the queries." Intelligent rewrites have been available via FAST's AlltheWeb engine for some time. ***"Scirus now includes a news feed with the latest science headlines provided by the Lexis Nexis Web Publisher News Database." First look, not very useful at the moment. ***"More refined searching will be facilitated by the addition of the new Information Types "Company Homepages" and "Preprints." This will allow the searcher to quickly find science-related company and product information, as well as papers that are available before the peer-review process has been completed." Finally, two points worth remembering. First, although this database runs its own crawl program, material in Scirus is simply not a chunk of "science related material" taken from the AlltheWeb database. Second, Scirus combines open web content with access to full-text articles from professional journals. These articles can be purchase on a pay-per-document basis. More later as we begin spending time "testing" Scirus. See Also: Direct to Scirus
Digital Preservation "Stanford Libraries, Sun Micro Awarded Mellon Foundation and NSF Grants for Digital Archiving Program" From the announcement, "Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have independently awarded two new, two year grants totaling almost $3 million to the LOCKSS ("Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe") Program. The LOCKSS program is a joint undertaking of Sun Microsystems Laboratories and Stanford University Libraries to develop a secure, reliable system which safeguards and preserves access to digital publications. The LOCKSS system is designed to make it feasible and affordable, even for smaller libraries, to preserve access to the e-journals to which they subscribe, and safeguard their community's access to them." See Also: Direct to the LOCKSS site (includes demo of user interface)
Conferences 1) 2nd Annual Conference on the History and Heritage of Scientific and Technical Information Systems Scheduled for Philadelphia (November 16-17, 2002) immediately preceding the ASIST Annual Conference. Abstracts for all of the presentations are available on this site. 2) Call For Papers: Search Engines Meeting 2003 Scheduled for Boston, April 7-8, 2003. Make sure to take a look at some of the very interesting and informative presentations from previous meetings.
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) West Nile Virus--Web Resources Collection of West Nile Virus Information Resources This comprehensive collection of West Nile info sites, compiled using many sources, was put together by Tim Rozgonyi at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Tim is the Assistant Technology Systems Editor at the newspaper. I would like to thank him for allowing me to host this resource on the web. -- College Rankings--Bibliography and Web Resources Source: ERIC Clearinghouse of Higher Education New, "Critical Issue Bibliography: College Rankings" "The following CRIB presents resources on college rankings publications, criticisms of rankings methodology, effects of the rankings on the public, and alternatives to the major rankings guides." -- Money Laundering--Statistics Source: GAO Full-Text Report, Extent of Money Laundering Through Credit Cards Is Unknown Includes background on major credit card associations, info about various money laundering scenarios.
News Briefs (3 Items) Colorado Library Patron Challenges Video of "Madame Bovary" (via Greeley Tribune) -- Economist Intelligence Unit Launches Web-Based Forecasting Service -- AT&T Awarded $7.6 Million FirstGov Web Hosting Contract (Via Gov. Computer News) AT&T also won the search engine contract in March
Web Tools Source: SearchDay Sherman on Shorter URLS Chris takes a look at three sites, all of them are free, that allow you to shorten urls. A great service when trying to share long urls via email and line breaks cause the url to not work. Of course, many other uses exist. I use TinyUrl all the time. Tuesday, August 20, 2002
Public Libraries Source: NY Times "Tax Revolt Takes Aim at a County's Libraries" From the article, "The libraries of Stevens County, bounded by the Canadian border, national forests and two large Indian reservations, are among the most remote in the United States. They are also threatened with extinction...A group of antitax crusaders are trying to shutter them, in an effort that the American Library Association says may be the first aimed at dissolving an entire county library system by referendum." Why do the antitax folks want to close the library? Included in the groups lists of reasons, "...rural libraries are increasingly obsolete, given the Internet, video outlets and discount bookstores." Wow, that's scary. See Also: "Public to Taste Life Without its Libraries" (Paul Andrews's thoughts about next week's temporary closure of the Seattle Public Library (via Seattle Times)
Virtual Reference Sloan's List of Collaborative Live Reference Services Bernie Sloan from the University of Illinois has compiled yet another useful and interesting compilation of some 40 services. If you are aware of other projects, please let him know.
Web Crawling Source: New Zealand Herald "Robots Digging-Out the News of the Day" An article from a New Zealand newspaper discussing how several news sites in N.Z. are being heavily "hit" by bots/crawlers "scrapping" content. At the outset let me say that it's quite possible for a robots/crawler to slow done a web server but most of the reputable engines try to make sure this doesn't happen. Nevertheless, problems can come up. That said, it's my opinion that this article is really about search engine access to content than anything else. -- First, the article describes how Google's crawlers visited the site and took content, "some 700 stories". In this case the article is incorrect and/or uses the wrong term. Scraping is a term used in the RSS world. Google does not scrape. Google CRAWLS the site for content and returns a copy of the pages text to be assembled into an index. You search the content via the search interface. This is not unique to Google, it's HOW ALL GENERAL WEB ENGINES operate. Yes, Google is a bit different as it does capture a replica (up to 101kb) of a page that's accessed via the Google Cache. Second, the article states, "the invasion coincided with the launch of news.google.com..." This is also wrong. Google's "news only" search tool debuted 5 months ago, on March 15th. -- The underlying concepts discussed in the article are not new. Does the site publisher want to have content accessible via the major general search engines? If a publisher of web material decides they don't want their content crawled, many tools and techniques are available to do accomplish this goal. In some respects the article is bringing up the deep linking issue that's getting so much attention these days. As Chris Sherman correctly notes, "If deep linking is illegal, search engines are the worst offenders, because they create deep links to the entire web." Thanks to S.C. for the news tip.
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Science Information Source: NFAIS Full-Text Report, MetaDiversity II: Assessing the Information Requirements of the Biodiversity Community From the publication announcement, "This report is the summary of findings that emerged from the two-day symposium, jointly sponsored by NFAIS and the U.S. Geological Survey, which was held in Charleston, South Carolina, June 25-26, 2001. The international symposium, a follow-up meeting to the original 1998 MetaDiversity meeting, was organized with the purpose of identifying the following: *Places where the biodiversity information users' needs were being met and how those needs were being met *Gaps in biodiversity information needed to support users *Populations of priority users of biodiversity information Thanks to Jill O'Neill for the news tip. -- Declassified Information Source: National Security Archive News Release, Background, Declassification of More than 4,600 Previously Secret U.S. Documents on Human Rights Violations under the 1976-83 Military Dictatorship in Argentina See Also: Direct to a Selection of Key Documents via National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 73 -- Education--Statistics--United States Source: National Center for Education Statistics Full-Text, Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the United States: 2000-01 -- Education--Statistics--United States Source: National Center for Education Statistics Full-Text, Projections of Education Statistics to 2012 -- Information Technology--United States Government Source: National Coordination Office for Information Technology Research and Development Full-Text, FY 2003 Supplement to the President's Budget (Blue Book): Strengthening National, Homeland, and Economic Security -- Alternative Medicine--Webliography Source: College and Research Library News "Complementary and Alternative Medicine" A new webliography by Julia K. Nims of Eastern Michigan Univ.
Privacy Issues--Japan Source: The Economist Japan: "A New National Database Sparks a Backlash" "...a new national database in Japan, is creating outrage among residents, who fear privacy abuses...The network, known in Japan as Juki Net, will assign each citizen an 11-digit identification number, and then link that electronic marker to the person's name, sex, address and date of birth. The system will then allow any ministry, agency or municipality to tap into such data on any Japanese citizen.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Course Management Software Source: EDUCAUSE Review "Course Management Software, Where The Library?" By David Cohen, Dean of Libraries and Academic Information Services at the College of Charleston -- Information Preservation Source: Library Journal "Who's Going To Preserve E-Zine Content?" Marylaine Block's commentary begins, "Whenever I send out my e-zine, ExLibris, to subscribers, I always include the "permanent" URL for that particular issue. But what, exactly, do we who create e-zines mean when we say "permanent"? Just how much of a promise does that word hold? The answer is, not much." Monday, August 19, 2002
Library of Congress Film Archives The Library of Congress Acquires Major Collection of Ephemeral Films The Library of Congress announced today its acquisition of the Prelinger Collection, containing more than 48,000 historical "ephemeral" motion pictures, from its owner, Prelinger Archives of San Francisco. The Prelinger Collection brings together a wide variety of American ephemeral motion pictures -- advertising, educational, industrial, amateur, and documentary films depicting everyday life, culture, and industry in America throughout the 20th century. Although images from the collection have been used in thousands of films, television programs and other productions throughout the last 20 years, the films themselves have not generally been available to researchers and the general public." Also, ...Prelinger Archives will continue to offer access to the collection through two primary channels. Those wishing to access films for research, pleasure or reuse may view and download 1,500 key titles without charge through the Internet Archive, while those in search of stock footage for production may acquire it through Prelinger's authorized representative, Archive Films by Getty Images.
National Archives--United States National Archives (U.S.) Wants Ideas For E-Records Archive Source: Federal Computer Week From the article, "After devoting three years and spending more than $20 million to research and build some of the basic components of an electronic records archive, the federal government is asking private companies to submit any ideas they might have to help turn the idea into reality." See Also: Here's the Full-Text of the NARA Request for Information (via Fedbiz.Gov)
Web Accessible Bibliographic Databases--PubSCIENCE Source: InfoToday NewsBreaks More on the Possible Elimination of PubSCIENCE Last Monday we had a posting about the possible elimination of PubSCIENCE, a web-accessible bibliographic database provided by the U.S. Department of Energy. Today, Online editor, Marydee Ojala, provides more info in this NewsBreak. From the article, "The private sector never saw it that way. Since its inception, PubSCIENCE has been a target. Database producers and some scholarly publishers felt threatened by the free availability of peer-reviewed scientific information. The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is on record as opposing what it sees as unfair competition from the government. In testimony on July 11, 2001 before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs on the E-Government Act of 2001 (S. 803), SIIA said, “The Department of Energy’s PubSCIENCE presents an ongoing example of the inappropriate role of government in providing access to non-government information.” David LeDuc, SIIA’s director of public policy, reacted to the imminent closure of PubSCIENCE with pleasure, adding that his association “looks forward to the resolution of this issue.” He was unclear, however, about the decision process, stating that since there were still several weeks to go in the comment process, it’s too early, he believes, to unequivocally declare PubSCIENCE inoperative." See Also: VASN&ND August 12th Posting
Multimedia Search--Singingfish Source: The Seattle Times Learn About: Singingfish A brief article about this companies multimedia search technology. SingingFish is a wholly owned subsidiary of Thomson Multimedia. See Also: Direct to Singingfish See Also: "MSNBC News Video Now Accessible Via Thomson's Singingfish"
Online Industry--eLibrary Tucows Unloads eLibrary and Encyclopedia.Com To Chicago Company About a years ago, Tucows, a well known portal for shareware, acquired eLibrary (also known as Electric Library) from Infonautics after the companies merged. Late last week Tucows announced that they have sold eLibrary and Encyclopedia.Com to Alacritude, a Chicago based company. From the announcement, "Under the terms of the sale, Alacritude, LLC has acquired all of the assets and has assumed certain liabilities associated with the eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com services. The proceeds of the sale are approximately $1.5 million. From the announcement, "These businesses were not core to our ongoing strategy, thus the sale will allow us to devote all of our resources to our Internet services business where we believe our major opportunities lie," said Graham Morris, chief operating officer, Tucows Inc." and "Acquiring eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com is an important strategic step for Alacritude," said Patrick Spain, chairman and chief executive officer, Alacritude, LLC. "Our primary interest in these properties is to acquire a platform on which to develop and deliver to individuals the next generation of technology-based online research tools."
Push Technology Source: The NY Times Remember the Push Technology Craze? InfoGate Currently Offers "Pushed" Content From News Sources For A Fee From the article, "In June, CNN became the newest Infogate client, offering customers a subscription service that includes CNN material as well as content from 3,000 other sources. The service, CNN Newswatch, which costs $5.95 a month or $59.95 a year, lets subscribers choose only the kind of news and information they want sent to them automatically in a ticker that runs across the top of their screen. Or they can have the desired material sent by e-mail or to a cellphone. USA Today has signed on as an Infogate partner, offering USA Today NewsTracker service for $4.95 a month or $39.95 a year. I registered for a free demo for the InfoGate/CNN product a few weeks ago and not very impressed, especially for $60 a year.
Online Industry--ebrary Ebrary Adds Sheet Music To Collection, Forms Strategic Partnership with SIRSI Three bits of news from Ebrary today. 1) The company has added a collection of 7,000 classical sheet music and educational titles. "Over the next few months, the Byron Hoyt collection will grow to include hundreds of thousands of pages of sheet music for bands, orchestras, instruments and vocalists, spanning a wide range of genres from classical to jazz, country, pop and rock & roll." 2) ebrary Has Formed a Strategic Partnership With SIRSI 3) ebrary Adds Spanish Language Content (Muchas Gracias S.C.)
Search Engines Search Engine, Portal Customer Ratings Available in Today's Wall Street Journal (Registration Required) The numbers are from the American Customer Satisfaction Index are available in today's WSJ. If you don't have WSJ access or need additional details, check this news release. Google did very well in the search engine category.
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Documents in the News Fire Department--9/11 Response Full-Text, Increasing FDNY's Preparedness Note: The "list of supporting exhibits" contains several timelines that might be of special interest. Full-Text, Improving NYPD Emergency Preparedness and Response The McKinsey studies currently in the news. . -- Labor--United States--Fast Facts Source: U.S. Census Fact Sheet, Labor Day 2002 Various facts about the U.S. labor force linked to the original U.S. Census reports.
News Briefs Semio, An Info Categorization and Content Management Company Acquired by Webversa See Also: Article From TechNews.Com Sunday, August 18, 2002
Web Archives Source: AP "Web Site Seeks to Create Virtual Library of Sept. 11 Images, Communications" An article about the September 11th Digital Archive based at George Mason University. The VAS&ND featured an article about the project in March. See Also: Direct to the September 11th Digital Archive See Also: September 11th Archive (via Internet Archive) See Also: Archive of Television Broadcasts from 9/11 (Streaming Video from 20 Broadcast Organizations)
Internet Search--Patents IBM Awarded Search Related Patent Patent # 6,434,548 is titled "Distributed Metadata Searching System and Method" and was awarded to IBM on August 13, 2002. From the abstract, "...invention permits an extension of the searching and retrieval functions of existing Internet web search engines by utilizing computational resources embodied in user computer systems and search browsers. By distributing the searching and scanning functions to the user level, the present invention reduces the computational and communications burden on Internet web search engines and crawlers." See Also: Here are Some Other Recently Awarded Search Related Patents "Method for Effective Indexing of Partially Dynamic Documents" Awarded to AT&T on 8/13 "Visualization of Internet Search Information" Awarded to the Univ. of Illinois on 8/13 "System and Method for Indexing and Querying Audio Archives" Awarded to IBM on 8/13 "System and Method for Focussed Web Crawling" Awarded to IBM on 7/9
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Bankruptcy--United States--Statistics Source: Administrative Office of the United States Courts New, 2001 U.S. Bankruptcy Statistics "Bankruptcy Cases Total over 1.5 Million for the First Time" Saturday, August 17, 2002
News Video News Video Clip Updates via RSS OK, RSS fans here’s some new content for you. The FeedRoom compiles video news clips from many national (APTV, NBC) and local news outlets and then allows you to view and search them (about a 2 week archive) on the web. We wrote about The Feed Room on the VAS&ND back in May. In addition to the FeedRoom’s primary site, they compile video news content for several portals including Excite, iWon, and Netscape. On Friday, the company announced that access to news video from these various services is available via RSS for your news aggregator. The feeds are organized by subject and service. Finally, instead of listing all of the local FeedRoom affiliates, check this clickable map. I don’t believe RSS is available for these complete local feeds. However, you'll find some of this local content in the RSS'd national feeds. Have fun!
Web Search Search Engine, Portal Customer Ratings Appearing in Monday's Wall Street Journal According to this news release, Monday's Wall St. Journal will contain findings from a new report, "...on the level of customer satisfaction with top information-oriented websites like news sites, search engines, and web portals." These ratings are from the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) produced in conjunction with ForeSee Results. The news release goes on to say that, "Scores for a dozen of the most heavily-used sites will be included. The report will also provide information that will allow direct comparison of the performance of these sites with traditional businesses on the basis of customer satisfaction." Update: The Results Are Posted in Monday's (8/19) Section
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Football--Team Valuations--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes NFL Team Valuations -- Human Development Source: United Nations New Edition, Human Development Report, 2002 See Also: You Can Also View the UN Human Development Indicators, 2002 (Includes in the Report) on a Separate Site Friday, August 16, 2002
National Libraries--U.K. The British Library Appoints Director of e-Strategy From the announcement, "The British Library has appointed Richard Boulderstone as its new Director of e-Strategy. He will play a key part in extending access to the UK national library's world-class resources and will be central to moving forward the British Library's vision of a digital future for its collections and services...Prior to this appointment, Richard Boulderstone has held senior positions in a number of international information providers, working both in the UK and US. Between 1984 and 1993 he worked at Knight-Ridder Financial where he was Senior Vice President responsible for Technology. Subsequently he worked at Reed Elsevier plc and Thomson Financial before spending two years as Senior Vice President Engineering at Looksmart Ltd, the world's largest search and web directory business."
Online Industry--LexisNexis LexisNexis Relaunches Entire Roster of Academic Products This morning LN relaunched its product line for the academic market. One of the biggest changes is that LN has removed the Universe name from all of these resources. Academic Universe is now called LexisNexis Academic. Many other navigational and interface changes are also included in the relaunch. You can learn more about them on this preview page.
Online Industry--ProQuest ProQuest Adds Full-Text Content from Many Canadian Newspapers Full-Text content from 17 daily and 53 weekly Southam Newspapers including the The National Post, Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Windsor Star, Regina Leader Post, Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province. These titles will appear in various ProQuest and Micromedia ProQuest products. Content will be accessible seven days after publication.
Professional Reading Shelf Semantic Web Special Issue of Information Research Devoted to Semantic Web Articles Include: "The Semantic Web, universalist ambition and some lessons from librarianship" "The Semantic Web: opportunities and challenges for next-generation Web applications" "The necessity for information space mapping for information retrieval on the semantic web" "Forms of labour in information systems"
Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Documents in the News--September 11th Legal Filing, Full-Text, Lawsuit Brought By Victims of September 11th -- White Collar Crime--United States--Resource Compilation Source: Legal Information Institute White-Collar Crime: An Overview Definitions, links to federal laws and legal case material. -- Labor--United States--Statistics Source: BLS Full-Text Report, A Profile of the Working Poor -- Children--Canada--Directory Source: Government of Canada Services for Children: Guide to Government of Canada Services for Children and their Families Thursday, August 15, 2002
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