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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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Friday, February 28, 2003
Public Libraries--Filtering Source: The Oregonian Oregon: "Bill proposes library porn filters" From the article, "Libraries would be required to block inappropriate Internet sites from young patrons under a bill introduced in the Oregon Senate. Sen. Charles Starr, R-Hillsboro, said this week he introduced Senate Bill 656 because constituents expressed concern about children viewing online pornography at public libraries. "We're a lot more familiar with the Internet and what's out there than we were a year ago or five years ago," Starr said. "As this public knowledge and awareness increases, there are more concerns about what we're exposing our children to. Internet filters have been a hot issue for the past year in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Librarians from Multnomah County and Vancouver led two lawsuits challenging the federal Children's Internet Protection Act, or CIPA, which would pull federal money from libraries that don't filter access at all Internet terminals. A federal court in Philadelphia ruled in the librarians' favor last year, and the U.S. government appealed. The Supreme Court plans to hear arguments Wednesday. State governments aren't waiting to hear from the high court. Oregon probably will join other states debating bills that are somewhat similar to the protection act." See Also: Read the Full-Text of Oregon Senate Bill 656
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries Source: Council on Library and Information Resources The March/April Issue of CLIR Issues is Now Online Includes an excerpt from Deanna Marcum's paper, "Realizing the Potential of Digital Libraries"
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Wealth--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes Now Available, The World's Richest People Rankings The 17th annual list is online. Searchable. Lists by region and a "power ranking" that "weighs political connections, business scope, media coverage, philanthropy and net worth". -- Digitization Projects--Canada Now Available: The Digitized Diaries of William Mackenzie King Last May we mentioned that a project was underway to digitize this material. Today, news from Cold North Wind that the project is complete. From the announcement, "The diaries, which King kept on a regular basis from 1893 while as a student at the University of Toronto until shortly before his death in 1950, provide an intimate glimpse into one of Canada's most unique and dominant political figures. The diaries are available on the National Archives website as part of a retrospective on King's life. The diaries are searchable by term or phrase as well as by date and page number. The diaries exist in three different forms—the original handwritten diary; a typed transcript and an abridged typed transcript. In total there are about 50,000 images." See Also: Direct to the The Diary Home Page (via National Archives of Canada) -- Health Information New MEDLINEplus Compilations * Child Mental Health * Cesarean Section Also Available: Directory of "Access to Electronic Health Information" Projects Funded by NLM in 2003 -- Updates from Two Very Useful Content Acquisition Resources are Available * Internet Resources Newsletter (March, 2003) * BUBL Link 5/15 (February, 2003) Thursday, February 27, 2003
Web Resources of the Week 1) Collapsing Results With Web Search Engines A couple of weeks ago, Bill Dedman, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who also compiles PowerReporting.Com reminded me about the presentation of results on just about all general web engines. Nothing new here but it's often forgotten by many searchers, including me. Before we get started I need to thank my friend and colleague, Greg Notess for some additional facts about site collapsing that were incorporated into the article. -- The Issue Do you realize that in many cases you are only seeing two results from any one web site when you do a web search? Why? Result page "clustering" or "collapsing" is done to help reduce visible duplicates but it could also cause you to miss useful material. -- Examples Let's do a Google search for "National Library of Canada" and "British Library". You'll notice that the third and fourth results come from the Library of Congress site (Loc.Gov). The second result from particular site is always intented. However, the Loc.Gov site has many more pages that might be of interest. Because of site collapsing/clustering Google only shows two results from any one web site. YOU MUST click the "see more results" link to view all of the hits from the LC.Gov site that contain your search terms. When you do, you'll find 139 more hits after Google creates and runs a site restricted search. To "turn off" the site collapsing feature with Google add &filter=0 to the end of a Google search URL. If results are less than 800 or so, you can go to the last page of the results and click on "repeat the search with the omitted results included" link. -- Other Engines * AllTheWeb also collapses results (default) but offers you the option to turn this function off. For AllTheWeb click, "Customize Preferences", Advanced Settings, and "Site Collapsing" from the home page. AlltheWeb will include clustered results later on in the results lists, unlike Google. In other words, pages that have been clustered will show up later in the relevance-ranked position, at least sometimes. However, many people only look at the first few, very few, results. * AltaVista and Teoma also collapse results. To turn the collapse function off with AV use the check box on the Advanced Search page. Teoma offers no option but does offer a "see more results from" link below the second hit. * By default, MSN Search shows all results but you can limit to only one result per site (with no link to view all material) by selecting the box on the Advanced Page. Bottom Line: Awareness of this issue and to use the "see more results" link to view all of the content from a specific web sites. ------ DON'T FORGET TO VISIT RESOURCESHELF's CURRENT POSTINGS ------ 2) AltaVista News, Searching Beyond Thirty Days I've mentioned on several occasions that news search from AltaVista continues to develop into a favorite. Have you noticed that the AV News now offers an option to limit by date or date range? Although, I don't recommend limiting by date for general web searching it can be very useful with news since every article has a specific publication date associated with it. One of the date limits at AV is "anytime". Another limit allows you to search by using a range of dates. What does Anytime mean? While many news engines contain only about 2-4 weeks of news AltaVista's archive goes back well beyond 30 days. This doesn't mean it's time start canceling your fee-based services. If older content is available, it's because the various news organizations are keeping the links active. AV checks the urls regularly to see if links are still "hot". In a time of declining budgets, we might as well maximize what free and low cost content is still available. More Specifics Andreas Hartmann from AV tells Resourceshelf, "The archive contains approximately 4 million URLs (of fully indexed articles from a variety of sources) which are older than 30 days. URLs are checked every 2-4 weeks for 404s or other issues." Content comes from several sources including a Moreover feed. Additionally, AV is now crawling selected news sites on their own. Finally, you can use all of AV's advanced syntax with news search. This includes the proximity operators NEAR and Within. Search Engine Showdown has a complete list of the AV syntax
Web Search Source: The Washington Post Cherchez The Search Advantage A couple of comments about Leslie Walker's article. She writes, "Another kind of search revenue also is growing fast. Called "paid inclusion," it allows advertisers to pay to make sure their Web pages are included in the automated programs that crawl the Web's links and index its pages. The Web has grown so big that search engines have difficulty scanning all of it. So most of them -- Google is the main exception -- let companies pay to ensure they are included in what is scanned. Sponsored results, by contrast, do more than ensure a listing, they guarantee greater visibility through higher placement in the results." - O.K. let's review. Paid inclusion has been around for a couple of years. Inktomi got the ball rolling in March of 2001. However, paid inclusion DOES NOT mean that content that is NOT PAID for isn't in the index. Most of the content in AllTheWeb, Teoma, MSN Search, and AltaVista is not paid inclusion. The companies that do pay are guaranteeing that the crawler indexes and reindexes the material quickly. In most cases, organizations pay for paid inclusion per url. In the past few months were seeing more and more rapid recrawling of all material paid inclusion or not by all of the engines. Is it where it needs to be, not at all. But it's getting better. Walker also makes "sponsored results" seem a bit decevious. This is not true. In this case, results are clearly labeled sponsored (the labeling is much better than in the past) and appear either at the top of the result listings or in the right-hand column. These sponsored listings do NOT influence the actual search results. Finally, the size of the web does continue to grow but this is not the only reason why material might not be indexed. Furthermore, even if it WERE in one place, how easy would it be to access ANY of it without the proper tools to get it out of the database and utilize the data. In other words, specialized engines designed around a specific data set will still be useful. The challenge (and it's a big one, is knowing what's available and being able to get to it quickly. Great information professionals have always understood the tools they had to work with. No different here.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) World Trade Center Source: Lower Manhattan Development Council Selected Design for the World Trade Center Site Includes slide presentation, background reports, and more. -- Philanthropy--United States--Statistics Source: Foundation Center New, Highlights: Foundation Giving Trends, 2001 -- Energy--Iraq Source: Energy Information Administration Update, The EIA Has Updated Their Iraq Country Analysis Brief Data,maps, and links about Iraq's energy sector. Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Public Libraries--United States Time for Another Library Budget Crisis Update Here are a few selected articles with recently published stories from around the country. Georgia "Libraries cinching belts during budget crunch" - Hawaii "Lawmakers fret over libraries" - Montana " Libraries across the state are taking a big hit" - New York "Pataki's budget plan a threat to libraries" "Libraries battle proposed funding cuts" New York City "Librarians Fight Cuts" - North Carolina "Budget woes may cause library cuts" - Oregon "Salem Public Library budget is on chopping block" - South Carolina "Budget cuts whittle library selections" -- Texas Reader J.F. writes to ResourceShelf about budget cuts in Texas, "These are very dark times for the academic and public libraries in Texas. Although we haven't heard (and won't for some time) about what the final impact the budget cuts will be on TexShare, the news so far is very bad. Just to give you one example: the already announced cuts in support for higher education in Texas means that the budget for the databases funded by the DCCCD libraries will be cut by 80%. Translated into dollar terms, our database budget has been reduced from $91,000 to $18,000. The clock has been turned back ten years. In the fall of 2003, the DCCCD libraries will offer fewer online databases than it did in 1993."
Public Libraries--United Kingdom Learn About: learndirect From the announcement, "The People's Network, the project to connect all public libraries to the internet, and learndirect, a scheme to provide learning online and information services, have jointly launched an information initiative for public libraries in England. The new facility available on the People's Network website enables all public libraries to introduce their users to learndirect and the many online learning opportunities it provides." See Also: Direct to the learndirect Web Site
State Library--Florida Source: Tallahassee Democrat A New Plan for The State Library of Florida From the article, "A deal announced Tuesday between Gov. Jeb Bush and Nova Southeastern University would give the private college Florida's $10 million State Library circulating collection - along with $5 million to move and maintain it. The announcement was a surprise to many State Library supporters, made just weeks after the state refused to come up with any funds to help Florida State University, a public institution a couple of blocks away, take over the collection. Nova is located in Fort Lauderdale."
Web Search--Google A Couple of Google Briefs Web Search 1) Where in the World is Steve Lawrence? Yesterday, I mentioned that Gary Flake, formerly of NEC Research, was now chief scientist at Overture working to bring their newly acquired search technologies together. We can now confirm a former colleague, co-author, and another big name in information retrieval, Steve Lawrence, is working at another web search company, Google. -- 2) Be Careful If You Use Google as a Verb From the Detroit News, "When your search engine becomes ubiquitous -- and it has a cool name -- this is bound to happen: The American Dialect Society has voted the term "to google" as the most useful word of 2002. Naturally, in this age of lawyers, patents and nearly perpetual copyrights, the folks at Google -- the search engine -- have sent letters and orders directing that 'googling' -- the newly-minted verb -- is off limits." I wonder if Kleenex, Jello, or Xerox will come after me. (-: Actually, it's of sad that Google IS web search and research for many people but it once again reflects the poor marketing in the age of the Internet that traditional research (libraries and information vendors) have done. You can read the full-text of Google's letter here. See Also: Barbara Quint's 2002 Article, ""Google: (v.)..." . This article was published about one year ago. -- 3) Google Awarded Patent Awarded yesterday, "Ranking search results by reranking the results based on local inter-connectivity" The inventor listed on the patent is Krishna Bahrat. Mr. Bahrat is also the primary developer of Google News. Stanford University was assigned the U.S. Patent for PageRank.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Iraq Source: CIA Full-Text Report, Putting Noncombatants at Risk: Saddam's Use of "Human Shields" -- Patents--United States--Statistics Source: USPTO Top 10 Universities Receiving Most Patents in 2002 Thanks to S.C. for the news tip. -- Space Shuttle New Site, Columbia Accident Investigation Board Thanks to S.A. for the tip. -- Parliament--Canada Source: Library of Parliament New Site, Library of Parliament: Background Resources for Educators Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Information Industry--divine divine Files For Bankruptcy Protection Yes, it's true but not a big surprise. This time we can't say the best laid plans go to waste since no one really new what divine's plans were. Here's the press release, the SEC filing from EDGAR, and a bit more from the Chicago Tribune and Crain's Chicago Business. From the article, "GTCR [a Chicago area venture cap firm] principal Phil Canfield said today that his firm, whose founder Bruce Rauner has long-time ties to Divine’s CEO Andrew “Flip” Filipowski, has signed a letter of intent to buy substantially all of Divine’s assets for about $50 million."...The sale would need to be approved by the Bankruptcy Court. "The company was established to ride a wave that had passed,” said Chicago entrepreneur Josh Schneider. “As hard as everybody fought, it was too little too late. It’s like one person steering a paddle boat in a tidal wave.”
Web Search--AllTheWeb Another Week, Another Search Engine: AllTheWeb Acquired By Overture One week after Overture acquired AltaVista, the comany has announced another acquisition, this time AllTheWeb from FAST Search and Transfer. Overture, a pay-for-performance search company, will acquire FAST's Internet business unit for $70 million in cash, as well as performance-based cash incentive payments for up to $30 million over three years. From the announcement, "Under the terms of the agreement, Overture will acquire FAST's Internet business unit assets including FAST Web Search™, AlltheWeb.com™, and FAST PartnerSite™ products, related intellectual property rights, as well as data centers and equipment in Sacramento (USA) and London (UK). In addition, the FAST Internet business unit personnel will transfer to Overture." What Overture will do with the AllTheWeb database is to be determined. In just 14 days, we've seen the two of the best web engines, in terms of "search power" acquired by Overture. You can see a few examples of the power in last week's AV post. FAST will now focus and develop its Data Search product. It accounts for over 75% of FAST's current revenue. -- More details to follow. Only time will tell what this means for all of us. Speculation will once again run rampant but much, if not all of it, will be on what this means for web advertisers. -- Good News: Gary Flake was named by Overture to bring together the technologies of Overture, AltaVista, and AllTheWeb. This is good news for searchers. Why? Dr. Flake previously worked at NEC Research. Some of the most useful specialized web search tools including Research Index and metasearch tools called Inquirus and Inquirus2 were developed (all three remain online but direct links to Inquirus are not allowed) there. A few of Gary Flake's publications: "Using Web Structure for Classifying and Describing Web Pages", 2002 "Improving Category Specific Web Search by Learning Query Modifications", 2001 "Efficient Identification of Web Communities", 2000 "DEADLINER: Building a New Niche Search Engine", 2000 Self-Organization and Identification of Web Communities, 2002 Finally, it's also important to mention that AltaVista has another highly respected web search/info retrieval researcher/scientist/developer on its team, Jan Pedersen. -- A quick review of the web search world from a researcher's perspective: Google (its own database, its own technology), Teoma/Jeeves (its own database, its own technology), Inktomi (now part of Yahoo, operates MSN Search and an "Inktomi installation on Hotbot), AltaVista (now part of Overture, as of last week they told me the company would continue to operate as a separate entity). Search Wars 2003 are here. The more I think about it, all of this consolidation COULD good be a good thing for those of us who use the web as a research tool. Stay tuned and buckle up.
Library Associations IFLA Annual Conference Gets a New Name "The biggest annual international gathering of librarians, the IFLA [International Federation of Library Associations] Conference, is to be known in future as the "World Library and Information Congress". IFLA’s Governing Board decided on the new title last year. It was due to come into effect with the 2004 event to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. However, it has now been decided to adopt it this year- for the meeting due to take place in Berlin, Germany, 1-9 August 2003. The new title is designed to ensure that the event has a greater impact outside the profession and in the city in which it takes place." Monday, February 24, 2003
Online Searching NOTE: After You Read the Background Article, Visit This New Page from Daypop, Where You Can See Word Bursts From Weblogs. -- "Word scans indicate new ways of searching the Web" When Dr. John Kleinberg of Cornell Univesity talks/writes about searching, it's more than worth listening. In a recent presentation to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Kleinberg discussed research on how "burstiness" might be a new tool for incorporation into relevancy measures. From the announcement, "[Kleinberg] devised a search algorithm that looks for "burstiness," measuring not just the number of times words appear, but the rate of increase in those numbers over time. Programs based on his algorithm can scan text that varies with time and flag the most "bursty" words. "The method is motivated by probability models used to analyze the behavior of communication networks, where burstiness occurs in the traffic due to congestion and hot spots," he explains...For searching the Web, Kleinberg suggests, such a technique could help zero in on what a searcher wants by recognizing the time context of such material as news stories. For instance, he says, a person searching for the word "sniper" today is likely to be looking for information about the recent attacks around the nation's capital -- but the same search nearly four decades ago might have come from someone interested in the Kennedy assassination." Dr. Kleinberg was a researcher on IBM's often discussed but never publicly released Clever project. Many of the underlying concepts from Clever are being utlilized by Teoma. See Also: "Word 'Bursts' Could Help Refine Web Searches" (via Scientific American 2.19.03) See Also: "Hypersearching the Web" (via Scientific American 6.1999) Co-authored by Kleinberg, this is one of the better papers on web search aimed at a non-technical audience I've read. Again, many of the concepts discussed re: Clever are being used at Teoma. See Also: "Clever New Way to Search?" (via Wired 11.27.98)
Databases--Australia Source: The Age The data drought" "Water is not the only resource that is drying up. In the midst of the drought, public access to information is also at risk as funding for some of Australia's most precious databases slows to a trickle."
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Education--Demographics--United States Source: NCES Census 2000 Data Now Mapped to School District Boundaries "Census 2000 school district demographics are now available by school district boundaries. View demographic data about children and their living environment, by school district, from Census 2000 data from PL1-SF1 and SF3 data sets."
Web Search--Google Source: The NY Times More on the Google Purchase of Blogger A week after everyone else makes a comment or two, The NY Times gets in on the act. Like I said last week, Google (like any other weblog) can have near instant access to just about any weblog (if the owner of the blog want's to make it available) via a site like weblogs.com. Anytime a weblog publisher hits the publish button (like I do with ResourceShelf), it sends an update "ping" to weblogs.com. So, Google or any other engine can use weblogs.com as a tool to tell their crawlers when to recrawl and reindex a site. The NY Times article mentions that other weblog software is out there. Google would be making a mistake if they choose to only reindex Blogger content on an constant basis. Finally, the article makes no mention of Daypop, a search engine that's been indexing blog content for a couple of years. See Also: My Comments Re: Why Blogger & Google From 2.16.02 Sunday, February 23, 2003
State Libraries--Florida Source: Florida Today Florida: "Bush, librarians reach tentative deal" "The State Library, which might face dismantling to save money, could get a reprieve. Gov. Jeb Bush's administration planned to do away with it to save about $5.4 million a year by transferring much of the library possibly to a university. After protests from librarians and historians, the administration is now working on an agreement that would keep the archives, the library's historic collection and the state museum in state government hands." But former State Librarian Barratt Wilkins warned that this might only be a temporary agreement. He told about 65 professional librarians and historians at the Cocoa Civic Center on Wednesday that if the governor dismantles the State Library, it would affect every library in the state because federal and state funding flows through the state library.
Information Industry--H.W. Wilson "Libraries Get Free Open-URL Linking with the New WilsonWeb" From the announcement, "Easy-to-use and free with a subscription to the new WilsonWeb database service, WilsonLink provides extensive linking features with other online database vendors. Powered by Ex Libris’s SFX technology, WilsonLink allows researchers to click from citations on WilsonWeb databases to the full text of articles and related material from a multitude of sources, where the library subscribes to both WilsonWeb and the linked resource." Saturday, February 22, 2003
Public Libaries Source: The Seattle Times "Investing in libraries connects us to the future" In a guest column Bill Gates writes, "I am excited about what's happening in my hometown and in libraries across the country. But I worry about whether our society will support public libraries so they can sustain this critical community service. In my view, investing in public libraries is an investment in the nation's future. Library professionals recognized early on that they could help bridge the divide between those who have access to computers and those who do not. However, they could not do it without additional resources and the support of others, particularly in low-income communities." Some important comments from an influential person. However, not only do public libraries need to have the technology but they also need to have trained professionals with the skills to use it along with "traditional" library tools. Don't misunderstand me, having a place for ALL people to go and access the web and other services is essential BUT libraries must be more than places where the public goes to search Google or any other web only engine. Traditional collections are still a must. Simultaneously, libraries should learn to MAXIMIZE the usage of the quality free content that's available. In othe words, the time to take web collection development seriously is now. See Also: "It's the battle between Google and the library -- and Google just might be winning." (via LISNEWS.Com)
Information Retrieval Source: News.Com U.S military taps data-sleuthing tools From the article, "The U.S. government's drive to search computer networks and databases for clues about terrorist threats has boosted the business prospects of a software start-up spun out of Xerox Parc. Inxight Software, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., has inked numerous contracts with the Department of Defense and its contractors as well as with Lawrence Livermore National Lab over the past year, said David Spenhoff, vice president of marketing at Inxight." Btw, Inxight Software is one of many companies doing this type of work. If you're interested in taking a look at one of Inxight's products stop by a set of demos for Inxight Star Trees, an information visualization tool. Useful too! You can browse Recipes.Com and the history of Space Flight from NASA Also, any individual, educational instituion, or non-commercial organzation can download software to create their own simple Star Trees.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Business--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Fortune Now Available, America's Most Admired Companies, 2003 Also available, a list of the Top 10 companies from 1983-2002. -- Space Shuttle Source: NASA STS-107 Investigation Reference Page Friday, February 21, 2003
Libraries Source: The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) "Use library databases for reliable information" We always like to post mainstream press articles that promote the use of libraries. From the article, "The Internet is much more than Google, Yahoo or any other search engine/directory. The Internet also allows you to access information from databases that are closed off from search engines.Many libraries, both public and university, offer many of their databases to their patrons or students via the Internet. With a library card or student ID number and a password, you can get into many of the databases that you once had to go to the library to research. These databases include reputable reference sources and would be a much better alternative to the questionable results that you might get from a search engine."
Web Search--Google Source: BBC "Is Google too powerful?" We're starting to see a steady stream of negative press re:Google. Yesterday, I posted a an article along with a few others over the past month. Google isn't too powerful. The problem (I think it's a marketing issue) is that it seems the masses and some info professionals (not good) have forgotten or more likely don't realize that other quality web search engines exist. In fact, the best searchers will utilize more than one engine for many types of searches.
Academic Libraries--United States--Privacy The Arbiter (Boise State University) "Patriot Act prompts library to draft privacy policy" From the article, "Boise State librarian Timothy A. Brown said Albertsons Library is still drafting a policy on how to comply with potential requests for student information." Thanks to G.T. for the news tip.
Professional Reading Shelf Web Resources Source: RLG DigiNews "Risk Management for Web Resources: A Case Study on Southeast Asian Web Sites" From the article, "In recent years libraries and other cultural institutions have become increasingly concerned about the tendency for Web sites to lose content over time, especially those that are managed informally and without strong institutional backing. Cornell's Project Prism has been exploring ways to detect risks to Web resources as the first step toward developing a toolset for managing risks without necessarily requiring libraries to capture and archive the Web resources themselves. Thus, over the past year we have been monitoring Web sites and documenting changes in their status that may indicate short- and long-term risks to content." Thursday, February 20, 2003
Web Resources of the Week 1) Middle East--Maps Source: National Imagery and Mapping Agency Just Released, Unclassified Maps of Baghdad, Iraq, and the Middle East NIMA, a part of the U.S. military, is providing these "special reference graphics" available on the web (you'll need to download a free viewer and download the files). Beginning next week printed versions (fee) will be available via the USGS. See Also: Direct to the Download Page -- 2) Geography--Databases The Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) Useful, educational for all. Even fun, if you're a geography geek. From the site, "The TGN is a structured vocabulary containing more than one million names and other information about places. The TGN includes all continents and nations of the modern political world, as well as historical places. It includes physical features and administrative entities, such as cities and nations. The emphasis in TGN is on places that are important for art and architecture." Note: This database will be valuable to many of you not only those of you who are researching art and architecture topics. This database can be value in many types of reference situations. I could go on about this database for a long time but the best way to learn about it is to use it. A review of the documentation and examples is also very useful. A few facts about the database: * Search by Name, Place Type, or Nation * The Hierarchy of Names is Also Browsable * Example Search: A One Word Simple Search For the Word Alice Alice ++136 Results Ranging from the Alice Arm (an Inhabited Place in British Columbia) to Alice Island (a Sand Bar in Alaska) to Alice Springs (an Inhabited Place) in Australia. +++ The Full Entry For Alice Springs Includes Coordinates, Historical Notes (e.g. settled in 1860 under the name Stuart) and it's Place in the Hierarchy (World, Oceania, Australia, Northern Territory...) ++++Each Entry Contains Specific Source Information
Web Search--Google Source: San Mateo County Times "Google falling victim to success" From the article, "In a quick, unscientific survey, several entrepreneurs in the Bay Area responded "Google" when asked which search engines they used. "I just got used to it," was the usual explanation. Analysts think newer products and some vulnerability in Google's organization might make room for other entrants." The article focuses on Teoma, a search tools we've liked for a long time.
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Libraries Source: Resource (U.K.) Full-Text, Collaborating Between Libraries and Education: Supporting the Learner -- Collection Management Source: Resource (U.K.) Full-Text, Overview of Collections Information and Advice in the Museums, Archives and Library Domains Museums ||| Archives ||| Libraries -- USA Patriot Act Source: ALA Compilation, USA Patriot Act Resolutions of State Library Associations Wednesday, February 19, 2003
Updated 2.20.02 A quick update. Yesterday, Carole Leita (reference guru and founder of the LII) and I spent a portion of the day at AltaVista HQ. The visit was planned several weeks ago and after the news of Overture acquiring the company we were both expecting to here that the visit was cancelled. It wasn’t. Once we arrived at the company we were expecting to be welcomed have an “expedited tour” and meet a few sad/confused/upset employees along the way. Wrong again. In fact, quite the opposite was true. In fact, several AV execs sat Carole and I down for three hours, on what was a very busy day, and wanted our opinions and ideas about how to work more closely with the library world. With the caveat that things change quickly in the web search business, I don’t think we should count AV out as a very powereful web search engine (more below) out yet. ----- ---- Web Search--AltaVista Source: News.Com Overture Buys AltaVista Further consolidation in the web search world. It wasn't that long ago (in years, a very long time in web years) when AltaVista was THE engine. Then, a failed push to do it all by becoming a portal and a loss of focus on what AV did well, search web pages. AV's buyer Overture is a provider of pay-per-click results to many sites and search engines. What this means for the AltaVista.Com site is to be determined. Let's hope they continue to improve their database of crawled web pages. We've seen some major improvements in recent months. In the last few weeks I've also noticed a big improvement to AltaVista News and their image database. In terms of raw search power, the features that power searcher's love, AltaVista's technology remains the most powerful of all general web search engines. Examples? 1) Allows Truncation of Terms (Google No, AllTheWeb No) 2) Proximity Operator (Near and Within, Not Available With Google) 3) Nesting of Strategies (AllTheWeb Also Offers, Google Does Not Offer) 4) Ranking of Search Terms (Allows You to Tweak Relevancy Ranking, AlltheWeb Now Offers, Google Does Not Offer) From the News.Com article, "Overture plans to license the technology to its customers, which include Yahoo, MSN and AOL Europe. Overture also will use AltaVista.com to test new search services and marketing products for its advertisers. "We, as many observers know, have been looking at whether and how to add algorithmic search to our arsenal over the last year," said Ted Meisel, Overture president and CEO. "Algorithmic search is a highly engineered product...this was the right time and right product." "It was time to bring the technology in-house so we could provide a complete solution to partners," he said. See Also: Analysis from Search Day See Also: More from The New York Times See Also: Official Overture/AV News Release See Also: Compare Functionality of Engine Using Search Engine Showdown's Feature Chart
Libraries--Florida Source: Orlando Sentinel "Breakup of State Library May Be Near" From the article, "Despite mounting public opposition, including more than 7,000 petition signatures protesting a proposed breakup of the 150-year-old State Library, a deal is quietly being negotiated that could move much of the library's massive collection from the state capital to a private university in South Florida. Judith Ring, head of the State Library, has e-mailed her staff that she is "almost certain" a big chunk of the library's collections will be moving. And the president of Nova Southeastern University said Monday he is in the final review of an arrangement with state officials, who he said are moving with "some urgency."
Information Industry--divine Source: The Register divine, Bankruptcy? Maybe? So say's The Register after divine sends out this press release. No big shocker.
Enterprise Search--FAST Search and Transfer FAST Search Technology Now Being Utilized on Dell.Com Site The implementation is now online after the initial announcement last June. As many of you know FAST's search technology powers the AllTheWeb site. In fact, the ATW is powered by Dell servers.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Emergency Preparedness--United States Source: Department of Homeland Security New Web Site, Ready.Gov Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Serials and Newspapers--United Kingdom--Online Catalogs Source: Endinburgh Evening News Union Catalog of Serial and Newspaper Holdings in British Research Institutions Established From the article, "The first internet catalogue of all journals and newspapers held in British research institutions is being established by Edinburgh University. A four-year project is under way to provide an easier way for academics to find information held in libraries all over the UK...By bringing together databases from more than 200 libraries, the catalogue - to be called SUNCAT - will establish the largest resource of its kind in the UK." See Also: Learn More About SUNCAT
Libraries--Canada Get Sm@rt Library Portal Set for Ottawa Area Libraries From the announcement, "The Sm@rt Library Portal will provide teachers, students, researchers and other users with fast and seamless access to the rich resources of Ottawa's diverse library systems from one easy-to-use Web site. The portal is one of 13 projects under the SmartCapital initiative, which is managed by the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation...This online service will allow the public to search the collections of all of Ottawa's public libraries and the National Library of Canada, as well as the libraries of the University of Ottawa, Carleton University and the National Research Council."
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Intellectual Property--Lists and Rankings Source: WIPO Lists, International Patent Applications, 2002 You'll find lists of the Top 10 Countries and Top 10 Companies -- Philanthropy--Lists & Rankings Source: The Chronicle of Philanthropy List: America's Biggest Donors -- Women--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts: Women's History Month A selection of facts about women in the U.S. March is Women's History Month here in the U.S. A bit of what you'll find: * $29,215-The median annual earnings of women age 15 and older who worked full time, year-round. * 84, The percentage of women age 25 and over with at least a high school diploma, slightly higher than the percentage for men * 61, Percentage of women, age 18 and over and citizens, who cast a ballot in the last presidential election. * 145.0 million, The number of females as of July 1, 2001. That exceeds the number of males, who numbered 139.8 million. -- Government--Canada Source: Full-Text, Budget 2003 Monday, February 17, 2003
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Reference Special Issue Devoted to Virtual Reference: February Issue of D-Lib Now Online Articles include: * "Digital Reference: An Overview" by Joanne Silverstein, Syracuse University * "Current State of Digital Reference in Primary and Secondary Education" by R. David Lankes, Syracuse University * "The Technological Challenges of Digital Reference: An Overview" by Jeffrey Penka, OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. * "Question Negotiation and the Technological Environment" by Joseph Janes, University of Washington and Joanne Silverstein, Syracuse University * "Evaluation of Chat Reference Service Quality: Pilot Study" by Marilyn Domas White, Eileen Abels, and Neal Kaske, University of Maryland * "Visual Resource Reference: Collaboration Between Digital Museums and Digital Libraries" by Abby A. Goodrum, Syracuse University * A Positive Review of Anne Grodzins Lipow's The Virtual Reference Librarian's Handbook is Also Included
Information Retrieval Time for a Look at a Few "Just Issued" Info Retrieval Related Patents and "Just Filed" Patent Apps - 1) Web-based information retrieval Issued on 2/11/03 to Atomica, 6,519,631. Note: Try Atomica's Slingshot app. Free. Very useful. Some of you may remember when this product was called GuruNet. - 2) Search user interface with enhanced accessibility and ease-of-use features based on visual metaphors Issued on 2/04/03 to Philips Electronics, Patent 6,505,194 - 3) Inverse inference engine for high performance web search Issued on 1/21/03 to Mathsoft, Patent 6,510,406 - 4) System and method for dynamically associating keywords with domain-specific search engine queries Issued on 1/07/03 to IBM, Patent 6,516,312 - 5) Method and system to answer a natural-language question Issued on 12/24/02, Patent 6,498,921 - 6) User interface providing automatic organization and filtering of search criteria Issued on to 12/24/02 to Phillips Electronics, Patent 6,499,029 -- Patent Application Selective retrieval metasearch engine Filed on 11/7/02. Inventors: Eric Glover and Steve Lawrence. Note: Take a look at info about Inquirus, a metasearch engine developed by the inventors. - Patent Application Method and system for retrieving information using natural language queries Filed on 10/17/02.
Integrated Library Sytems Source: Computerworld Australia An Update on Koha, an Open Source Integrated Library System From the article, "Koha -- the world's first open source library system -- is free. It was originally developed by New Zealand firm Katipo Communications (www.katipo.co.nz) in 1999. Koha (pronounced "kaw ha", a Maori word meaning gift or donation) was subsequently released under the GNU General Public License and is today maintained by a team of volunteer developers from around the world." See Also: Direct to the Koha Web Site
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents Transportation--Canada Source: The National Library of Canada Online Collection, Canada By Train "The National Library of Canada (NLC) preserves a unique collection of railway advertising dating from the 1880s to the 1950s. A large portion of the collection was compiled and donated to the NLC by Andrew Merrilees. The Merrilees material on this website is supplemented by selected material from the Library's general holdings. Also included are published audio and visual items from the NLC and the National Archives of Canada." The site also includes a lengthy bibliography and webliography. Sunday, February 16, 2003
Web Search--Hotbot New: Hotbot Adds "Advanced" Teoma Features When the "New" Hotbot debuted in December many of Teoma's advanced features and limits were not available. That's changed! For those of you who haven't tried the new Hotbot, it allows you to simultaneously search AlltheWeb, Google, Inktomi, and Teoma. Unlike metasearch tools, Hotbot does not merge results together. Take a look at the December 15, 2002 ResourceShelf for an overview. So What's New With Teoma via Hotbot? You can learn more and see examples here.! It's great to see Hotbot adding new features. Kudos!
Web Search--Google Google Makes an Acquisition: Blogger Blogger, the wonderful software that I use to publish ResourceShelf (hundreds of thousand also use it to publish on the web) was purchased on Thursday by Google. Blogger's parent company, Pyra, was developed in its founder's kitchen. As Dan Gillmor correctly observes, "Google is known best for its search capabilities, but the Pyra buyout isn't the company's first foray into creating or buying Internet content." What this means for Blogger users as well as Google is tbd. Ev Williams, the creator of Blogger, adds a few, very few, details on his blog. He writes, "This has been in the works for almost four months. Much of it, in excruciating uncertainly. But now I can talk about it! That doesn't mean I know much. For example, about the question: What happens now?" Thanks to C.S. for the news tip. -- Updated 2.18.03 A Few Comments About Google/Blogger/Bloogle? I've said on ResourceShelf and during presentations that the most important thing about weblogs is the software. Anyone with a keyboard and a server (actually you don't even need a server since Blogger also runs Blogspot) can publish on the web. The learning curve is almost non-existent. With Blogger, you're be up and running in a matter of minutes. No HTML coding, no software to load, is needed. Just type, press the publish button, and you're done. Want to see for yourself? Head to Blogger and try publishing a blog...It's free!...Acquiring Blogger and the team who developed/manage it to Google's Intranet/Enterprise/Search Services is a primary reason behind the acquisition. It's another service they can market and offer clients. It's something no other search company is offering. Pardon the overused term but it has plenty of synergy. Now you cannot only use Google to search your company's content you can also use it to quickly publish the content itself both inside and outside the company. Remember, when Google does something everyone notices...As far as allowing the public to use Blogger? Why not. They have the infrastructure plus more good publicity and name recognition for them. The question is do they need anymore?...I've seen speculation that it will allow to add more content to Google News. If this was the main reason behind the acquistion of Blogger, it makes little sense. Google's could add weblogs to their news database or their main database at any time. They didn't need to buy the company. The crawling and recrawling is not the issue. They already crawl many blogs on a daily basis, including this one. Heck, they could have purchased Daypop (Dan Chan deserves a few $$$). It makes even less sense since so many weblogs are published using other blogging software like Radio Userland and Movable Type. Bottom line: Google Wants the Software! Btw, Dan Chan the creator and sole proprietor of Daypop also offers a weblogging tool, we:blog. It's free. -- Here's the Full-Text of the Google's Announcement About the Purchase of Blogger: "Google recently acquired Pyra Labs, developers of Blogger -- a self-service weblog publishing tool used by more than one million people. We're thrilled about the many synergies and future opportunities between our two companies. Blogs are a global self-publishing phenomenon that connect Internet users with dynamic, diverse points of view while also enabling comment and participation. In the coming weeks, we will report additional details. Blogger users can expect to see no immediate changes to the service."
E-Mail Source: Fortune "The Perils of E-Mail" From the article, "It was supposed to make life easier. Now e-mail has become a prosecutor's No. 1 weapon and the surest way for companies to get sued. How e-mail became e-vidence mail--and why the solution is often worse than the problem...Sure, 2002 was the Year of Corporate Scandal. But really it wouldn't be fair to give all the credit to grasping, conniving executives and malevolent, sneaky bookkeepers. No, as those corporate honchos offer their plea bargains, they'll all be able to name an accomplice: e-mail." Saturday, February 15, 2003
The Library of Congress Library of Congress Announces Approval of Plan to Preserve America's Digital Heritage As we mentioned on Monday, an announcement was set for today at LC. From the announcement, "Today the Librarian of Congress announced that the Library of Congress has received approval from the U.S. Congress for its "Plan for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP)," which will enable the Library to launch the initial phase of building a national infrastructure for the collection and long-term preservation of digital content...Congressional approval of the "Plan for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program" means the Library can move forward with developing the details of the plan and Congress will release funds for the next phase of NDIIPP. The NDIIPP legislation asks the Library to raise up to $75 million in private funds and in-kind contributions, which Congress will match dollar- for-dollar. See Also: Full-Text, Preserving Our Digital Heritage: Plan for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (Part 1, Executive Summary) 74 pages .pdf See Also: Full-Text, Preserving Our Digital Heritage: Plan for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (Part 2) "Offers important background and supplementary materials. These diverse Appendices illustrate the planning process and provide a rationale for the Plan's recommendations." Note: This is a 16.9MB pdf file. See Also: One Year Ago LC Brought Together Experts to Discuss the NDDIIP See Also: Much More Via the NDIIPP Home Page - See Also: "Library of Congress Aims to Preserve Intellectual Materials Existing in Digital Formats" (via The Chronicle of Higher Education) See Also: "Plan Approved To Save U.S. Digital History" (via The Washington Post) See Also: "A Cash Infusion for Digital Archives (via The NY Times 2.13.03)
Public Libraries--United Kingdom Source: The Guardian A London Area Public Library Becomes an "Idea Store" From the article, "The first thing you see, close to where the old Victorian public library used to stand, is a cafe. It sells latte, five varieties of gateaux, and prominently advertises business lunches. The next thing you see - in the run-down east London district of Bow - is a "Surfing Space" for internet terminals, "Sight & Sound" stalls for DVDs, videos and CDs, and a sign pointing to the creche. Invisible round a corner, tucked away at the side and back, are learning laboratories and well-stocked shelves with books on them."..."The project - described as retail-inspired - is based on the conviction that "in our increasingly retail-focused and lifestyle-conscious world" commerce is now the ruling influence on the lives of younger people. This group, it is felt, is far more likely to borrow books or use educational services if the ambience reminds them of a superstore or, as with the colours and signs at Bow, the departure lounge at Gatwick airport."
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Computer Security Source: The White House New, Full-Text, The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace (Final Report) New, Full-Text, National Strategy for Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets Friday, February 14, 2003
Scholarly Publishing Source: Open Society Institute/SPARC/Lund University Libraries Directory of Open Access Journals Established at Lund University From the announcement, "The Information Program of the Open Society Institute, along with SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and Lund University Libraries, Sweden, today announced the establishment of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ, http://www.doaj.org). The project will create a directory of open access journals and will be completed in late spring 2003..."The DOAJ will be implemented in two phases. During the first half, the Directory itself will be established. The second phase involves developing a comprehensive search system for article-level content. Phase two will begin in late spring 2003." See Also: From the site, "Why build a Directory of Open Access Journals?" See Also: Directory of Open Access Journals Home Page
Academic Libraries Source: The Daily Kent Stater "Library Adjust to Students' Changing Needs" An article from the student paper at Kent St. University. Here are a couple of quotes: 1) When there is a need for information, many students, such as Kristin Pratt, will simply say "'Google' it."...I go into the library maybe about twice a year," Pratt, a junior criminal justice major, said. To complete her research assignments for class, she stays in her room and uses the Internet search engine Google (www.google.com) and the University Library's Web site at www.library.kent.edu. 2) Caroline Radcliff, head of reference services, has been with the Kent State library for 13 years, and has seen the changes the Internet has brought. "More students came into the building [ten years ago]," she said, "but we have a strong and extensive Web presence. Students can connect and use the Web resources [from their personal computers]." 3) Some students, such as senior art education major Amanda Carey, still find materials in the library more useful than those found online. For her major, Carey said she must find "contemporary" materials not commonly found over the Internet, mostly from the periodical floor. She finds the available resources at Kent State's library to be superior to others. "Kent has the best library," Carey said. "I went one time to a library in Akron, and they said they send students to Kent to do research."
Library Funding--United States Source: ALA Washington Office Museum and Library Services Act Passes Full House Committee, Bill Has 102 Sponsors This is the full-text of a just received ALA e-mail. "On February 13, the full Education and the Workforce Committee voted to favorably report out H.R. 13, The Museum and Library Services Act of 2003. Many members of the full committee were present and the vote was unanimous in favor of the bill. Thanks to library supporters, particularly those in California, that contacted members to sign on to support the bill. This bill will go to the floor with 102 sponsors, a significant number that should aid in its speedy passage. The Senate bill, S. 238 now has 24 sponsors."
Professional Reading Shelf Library Technology Selected Articles from The December, 2002 Issue of Information Technology and Libraries is Now Available Online Articles include: "Analysis of Web-based Information Architecture in a University Library: Navigating for Known Items" "E2M: Automatic Generation of MARC-Formatted Metadata by Crawling E-Publications" "A Resource Description Device Used for More Efficient Library Services" -- Internet Filtering--United States Source: ALA Full-Text, ALA Brief Re: CIPA Filed 2.10.03...64 pages..."The American Library Association (ALA) yesterday filed its response to the U.S. Solicitor’s General brief on the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). The Solicitor’s General has appealed the ALA’s unanimous decision from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to the U.S. Supreme Court, where arguments will be heard Wednesday, March 5." See Also: Summary/ALA News Release
Public Records Information Industry--KnowX KnowX Launches Executive Affiliations Search Tool KnowX, pay-per-view vendor, of public record information now has a database to information on corporate executives. Material comes from business directories and Secretary of State offices. KnowX is owned by ChoicePoint.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Topics in the News--Iraq Statements to the U.N Security Council (2/14/03) 1) Full-Text, Statement by Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, Dr. Hans Blix 2) Full-Text, IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei 3) Full-Text, Statement by Dominique de Villepin [France] 4) Full-Text, Statement by Colin Powell [U.S.] 4) Full-Text, Statement by Jack Straw [U.K.] -- See Also: Summaries of ALL Statements Made to U.N. Security Council (via U.N.) -- Terrorism--United States Source: The White House via CIA.Gov Full-Text, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism -- Newspapers--Australia--Directory Source: National Library of Australia Australian Newspapers Online From an announcement, "... a new and easy-to-use portal to Australian newspapers which includes metropolitan dailies, regional and suburban online newspapers, as well as those with only promotional sites...Australian Newspapers Online provides a variety of search options. Newspapers can be selected alphabetically by name, by town of publication, by state of publication or by clicking on a map of Australia for state newspapers. Value added features include a number of relevant links to meet users’ additional requirements for newspaper related material. Links include Ask Us, the various means of contacting reference staff; the National Library’s Newspaper catalogue; Worldwide Online Newspaper links; Media links; OzLife – Biography Index; our Document Delivery Service and a dialogue search box for Australian Journals Online. Newspapers from the Australian Periodical Publications 1840–1845 Cooperative Digitisation Project -- Transportation--United States--Statistics Source: BTS Now Available, Pocket Guide to Transportation 2003 Thursday, February 13, 2003
Resource of the Week E-Mail News Alerts News Alerts from Jane's Information Group Jane's is one of the most respected names for information about defense, military, intelligence and related topics. Although a large portion of content from Jane's is fee-based the company does offer a couple of free e-mail news alert services that contain links to either full-text stories or highlights from just published articles. Registering for Jane's News Briefs (weekly) and Jane's Defence Weekly Alerts (about 3 times a week) is simple. First, head to the registration page and complete the form. Then select the news briefs you want from the list, (Defense, Air Forces, Land Forces, Sea Forces, Transport, and Security). You can also select the "alerts" service. To unsubscribe simply return to the "My Alerts" page and remove the check mark from the reports you're no longer interested in receiving.
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Scholarly Publishing Source: CRS via FAS Full-Text, Balancing Scientific Publication and National Security Concerns: Issues for Congress A recently published Congressional Research Service report. -- Legal Documents Source: National Law Journal "Court Documents: Will They Age Well?" From the article, "Given the appeal of replacing paper with pixels, legal professionals are looking for a way to alleviate concerns about antiquated technology and multiple jurisdictions with multiple platforms. The solution? Advisory committees are considering different formats for use in creating a solution to the law student's Night of the Living Floppies -- a national standard for electronically archived documents." -- Hypertext A New Issue of JoDI (Journal of Digital Information) is Now Online This issue is devoted to hypertext criticism. You can navigate via this page or using the links listed on the editorial page. From an announcement, "Rather than present a traditional collection of long papers, we decided to attempt to rethink what an issue of an academic journal might be. We invited submissions consisting of one or more brief nodes which we would then link together to create a hypertextual journal issue: an interconnected discussion of a topic rather than disconnected articles. We also invited contributions from both scholars and artists, to assist in bridging the gap that can appear between these groups. This diversity characterises the collection of essays presented here.
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Chemistry--Databases Source: Charleston Adviser New, Free Access to Knovel Chemistry Databases for Colleges and Universities From the announcement, From the announcement, "knovel’s chemistry subject area now has 66 interactive cross-searchable books and databases with 285,000 data records, and is growing at a rate of over 3,500 new data records per month. Listed below are the new references available online at www.knovel.com. Institutions can register for free access to the four free "ChemEssentials" titles by going to www.knovel.com/freechem." Also available, a Cal State University review of the databases. Knovel was also awarded Best New Product of 2002 by the Charleston Advisor. Thanks to S.B. for the news tip. -- Literacy UNESCO Official Web Site, Today is the Launch of the United Nations World Literacy Decade A page containing literacy statistics is included. -- Criminal Enforcement--United States Source: Transactional Records Clearinghouse New Report, "Criminal Enforcement Against Terrorists and Spies in the Year After the 9/11 Attacks" Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Business Information--Specialized Search Tools Relaunch: CorpTech Web Site CorpTech, once a favorite site to find technology company profiles has unveiled a new CorpTech.Com web site. The database, which hasn't been available for direct access for a couple of years, contains profiles of over 50,000 U.S. "hi-tech related" companies. Areas include biotech, computer, defense, medical, and transportation. The site offers a variety of free, pay-per-view, and subscription content. CorpTech was acquired by OneSource Information in 1999. Quick Overview * Registering for a "Free Guest Membership" offers you several options. * Quick Search (no charge) allows you to search by company name or ticker symbol. * Capsule Profiles (no charge) contain address, telephone number, ceo name, very basic sales data, and corporate family data (very useful). * "Standard Profiles" (more data than capsule including more executive names) can be viewed online by "Guest Members" for free and purchased for $5.00. The content is delivered as a .pdf file. * "Extended Profiles" can be purchased online for $7.50. They are also available to subscribers. * Guest Membership also allows you to "Power Search" using about 20 criteria. Note: Only 5 results will be viewable online. More search options are available for subscribers. * Three subscription plans are available including one aimed at the public and university libraries. Mailing list services are also available. See Also: News Release from CorpTech/OneSource
Congressional Research Service "Senators Want CRS Info Online" Source: Federal Computer Week From the article, "Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) today announced their plan to reintroduce legislation to make Congressional Research Service documents available to the public online." It continues, The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) echoed the desire to make CRS products public in a report released this week. The report found that CRS blocks public access with an elaborate firewall, which redirects inquiries to the Library of Congress' public Thomas site (thomas.loc.gov)." Those of you who read ResourceShelf on a regular basis know that SOME CRS material IS available on the web. By no means is this every CRS publication but a great collection is available on the U.S. House Web Site. The problem is that you cannot directly link to the pages and the reports are NOT indexed by the major search engines. These reports ARE accessible by heading to Representative Christoper Shays or Rep. Mark Green's web site Both of these pages have a direct link to the House.Gov server. Here are a few additional sites where you can access selected CRS content on the web. Understand that in some cases reports available from these sources have been updated since they were placed on these web sites. 1) Reports About Foreign Affairs and Related Issues (via the U.S. State Department Foreign Press Center) 2) Reports About Science and Environmental Issues (via National Library of the Enviroment) 3) Reports About Intelligence, Special Weapons, Military & National Security, and Civil Space (via FAS) See Also: Full-Text of Legislation (via Congressional Record) See Also: The Full-Text of the POGO Report The report DOES NOT MENTION the CRS Access Points via Rep.Chris Shays or Rep. Mark Green's Web Sites.
Internet Domains Source: AP More Schools Become Eligible for .EDU Domain Names From the article, "Beauty, theological and distance-learning schools will be among the educational institutions that will soon share online real estate with the likes of Princeton and Harvard. The Commerce Department approved the expansion of the ".edu" domain name on Tuesday to allow usage by schools such as the Connecticut Institute of Hair Design and the American Film Institute." See Also: Official Announcement from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Legislative Information--Canada New, Library of Parliament Introduces LEGISINFO From the site, "...an electronic research tool for finding information about bills currently before Parliament. Users of the Parliamentary Internet can now: track a bill through both the Senate and the House of Commons; review recorded votes; and read speeches, Legislative Summaries and related departmental information, all from one location. In addition, LEGISINFO provides links to related websites and reports, a reading list for most government bills, and links to political party press releases." Learn more via the LEGISINFO FAQ. -- International Relations Source: The Aspen Institute Full-Text, The Rise of Netpolitik: How the Internet Is Changing International Politics and Diplomacy The Rise of Netpolitik is the eleventh report of the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology. You can find a list of participants on page 61 of the 72 page report. -- Business and Finance Source: The Corporate Library Chart, CEO/Chairman Splits in the S&P 500 See Also: The Corporate Library Directors Database -- Business and Finance Source: GAO Full-Text Report, Potential Terrorist Attacks: Additional Action Needed to Better Prepare Critical Financial Market Participants Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text -- U.S. Congress--Directories Source: GPO Now Available, Congressional Pictorial Directory for the 108th Congress
Professional Reading Shelf Presentations from the 11th Information Online Conference The conference took place in Sydney last month. A great list of presenters and presentations. Here's just a few a small sample of what you'll find:. "E-Journals – What Are You Really Getting?" by Dr. Carol Tenopir "The Challenges of Global Research in a Non Global Information Environment" by Mary Ellen Bates "Resource Discovery in the Knowledge Era" by Kathleen Lazzari "Demonstrating the Value of Libraries and Online Information Professionals" by Amelia Kassel "What Makes Libraries Relevant in the 21st Century?" by Roxanne Missingham "Education and the Informational Professional" by Sue Myburgh "The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can't See" by Chris Sherman
Web Search--AltaVista AltaVista Announcements About Multimedia and News Search A couple of quick announcements from AltaVista today. 1) AV's Larger Multimedia Index According to the announcement, AV now has over 240 million unique media files, including images, video clips, MP3 and other audio files. After some quick searches for images I do see an improvement. -- 2) News Search Enhancements We first reported on these about a month ago. You can now limit to a specific date range. Use the date pull-down box and select date range. You'll then be presented with two clickable calendars, where you can select dates. These are the type of calendar boxes often found on travel sites. Btw, if you want to directly enter the date range that also works. However, be careful, the date structure is dd/mm/yr. A new option is also available to limit your news search to only retrieve articles that contain images. I've noticed considerable improvement over the past couple of months in the quality of AV's News Search. Remember, you can utilize all of AV's advanced syntax including a proximity operator (NEAR) and truncation symbol (the * ) with the news database. Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Web Search--MSN Search Source: News.Com A New Beta from MSN Search From Stefanie Olson's article, "The Microsoft-owned division launched a test site for MSN Search on Tuesday that omits banner advertisements and a large navigation column for the MSN network, freeing up more room on the page to display query results. The new site also says that it can display results 65 percent faster than before." On the advanced search page you're now able to restrict/limit your search to content in one or all of the following formats (HTML, Powerpoint, Acrobat, Word, and Excel). For example, a search for "United Airlines" limited to only Powerpoint slides and Excel spreadsheets. MSN Search uses the Inktomi web database. See Also: Direct to the MSN Search Beta
Professional Reading Shelf Library Systems Source: NISO Full-Text, RFP Writer's Guide to Standards for Library Systems From the NISO site, "...a comprehensive overview of the technical standards that today's integrated library systems and services are built on. This Guide will help you correctly reference standards and evaluate compliance." 70 pages .pdf
Information Industry--Hoover's Source: Internet.Com "D&B Will Not Increase Bid For Hoover's" From the article, "Corporate data provider D&B said it would not improve its existing $7 per-share offer to acquire fellow business database company Hoover's (Quote, Company Info), leaving open the possibility that a rival investor group's $8 bid could prevail." See Also: "D&B Announces It Will Not Raise Its Offer for Hoover's" (via DNB.Com) See Also: Hoover's Announces Receipt Of Letter Regarding Possible Acquisition Of Shares (via Hoover's.Com
Health Information--MEDLINEplus Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary Now Available on MEDLINEplus From the announcement, "The Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary contains definitions for 60,000 words and phrases used by health- care professionals. Designed to be easy to read, it offers the right spellings of medical terms, a pronunciation guide, and biographies of individuals who have given their names to the language of medicine." See Also: Direct to the Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary on MEDLINEplus
Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Online Today, Full-Text, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2002 See Also: Highlights from the Abstract -- Labor--Canada--Statistics Source: Statistics Canada Full-Text, The Changing Profile of Canada's Labour Force Full-Text, Where Canadians Work and How They Get There -- Labor--United States Source: Monthly Labor Review Full-Text, Three Article's from the January '03 Issue "State labor legislation enacted in 2002" "Changes in workers’ compensation laws, 2002" " |
