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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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Saturday, January 31, 2004
Web Search--Gigablast Yet Another New Feature at Gigablast, "Giga Bits" Monday, ResourceShelf ran an item about Gigablast adding a direct link for every url in its database to The Wayback Machine. This week ends with another new feature at Gigablast. "Giga Bits" are terms, located in a box at the top of a results page, to assist in refining and focusing your search.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Law--United States--Directory Source: Eaton County (MI) Prosecuting Attorney Prosecuting Attorneys, District Attorneys, Attorneys General & US Attorneys on the Web Geographically organized directory includes 2,360 sites. Covers all U.S. states, federal, Canada, international (includes justice ministries, etc.). Also offers links to relevant professional organizations. -- U.S. Federal Government--Budget Source: Congressional Budget Office 1) Full Text, Paying for Iraq's Reconstruction 2) Full Text, The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2005 to 2014 Friday, January 30, 2004
Theses--Canada Source: Library and Archives Canada Brand New, Theses Canada Portal From the site, "Search the online catalogue for all the Canadian theses and dissertations in our collection and access for free the full-text electronic theses covering the period from 1998 to 2002." The portal has additional information for students and universities. To purchase a thesis that's not available digitally, you need to contact ProQuest. Basic and advanced search interfaces are available.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Open Access Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education The Promise and Peril of 'Open Access' From the article, "If you wander through the stacks of university libraries, follow scientists into their research labs, or log on to vast stretches of scholarly cyberspace, you will find yourself on the battlefield of a war over scientific publishing. The good guys, in the eyes of many scientists and librarians, are the revolutionaries offering an alternative to the publishing status quo. They are creating online journals that charge no subscription fees. These agitators for change want to rescue librarians from the tyranny of prohibitively costly journals -- upwards of $20,000 per year -- and to empower researchers who, because of the expense, often have difficulty keeping up with new developments in their fields." The COHE has two additional articles dealing with access in the 1/30 issue. + "2 Routes to Open Access: Archives and Institutional Subscriptions" + "Publishers Fear Government Intervention" See Also: Transcript of an Online Colloquium with Peter Suber Peter is the editor of FOS News and a leader in the open access movement. He chatted with COHE readers on Thursday afternoon. -- The February 2004 Issue of the Internet Resources Newsletter is Online Always interesting and useful material from Roddy M., Catherine U., and Catherine F., from the Heriot-Watt University Library.
Enterprise Search & Web Search--Vivisimo Source: eWeek eWeek Praises Vivisimo's Clustering Technology If you're read ResourceShelf regularly, you know that Vivisimo's publicly available (and free) clustering/meta engine is a favorite. Today, eWeek gives their clustering technology for the enterprise (and what the public web site is based on) a glowing review. See Also: Vivisimo See Also: Search PubMed with Vivisimo See Also: Search FirstGov with Vivisimo
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Terrorism--Government Documents Source: National Security Archive The September 11th Sourcebooks "National Security Archives online readers on terrorism, intelligence, and the next war." The Taliban File (Vol. 7) was updated today. -- Avian Influenza Source: World Health Organization Resource Compilation: Avian influenza -- Health--United States--Statistics Source: CDC New Report, Health Care in America: Trends in Utilization Summary ||| Full Text -- U.S. States Congress Source: GPO Just Updated, Congressional Directory, 108th Congress The January 2004 Online Revision is now available. -- Financial Education Source: Federal Reserve of Chicago Financial Education Research Repository "A [searchable] collection of research articles, working papers, reports and other studies related to financial education." -- Business Source: Business 2.0 The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business: 2004 Edition "... fourth annual review of the most shameful, dishonest, and just plain stupid moments of the past year."
Industry Briefs (2 Items) Factiva Adds Several New Sources to Database -- New One-Stop Page for IEEE Publications Information Thursday, January 29, 2004
Resources of the Week Two entries this time around. 1) Hoaxes and Scams Purportal.Com Simple, useful, and a real time-saver! This page offers easy access to five searchable archives from well-known sources containing hoax, virus, and urban legend information. Here's a list of what you can search for at the Purportal.Com page: + Snopes Urban Legends Archives + About.com Urban Legends + CIAC Hoax Database + CERT Computer Security Database + Symantec (Real) Virus Encyclopedia -- -- 2) Health Information--Collection Development The Weekly MEDLINEPlus E-Mail Announcement List MEDLINEPlus from the National Library of Medicine is a top choice for authoritative health information. The MEDLINEPlus E-Mail Announcement List (weekly) will notify you of all new MEDLINEPlus resources (we mention some on ResourceShelf) including new "Health Topic" compilations. Each update also contains DIRECT LINKS to all of the underlying resources added to each health topic page during the previous week. This is a "must have" for anyone interested in web-based health material and/or building a local collection of this type of information. To subscribe, simply go to this page and select the MEDLINEPLUS-NEW box. If you would like to see what the updates look like, I've posted a couple of them here.
Web Browsers Source: eWeek Another IE Spoofing Hole Found From the article, "Security researchers are warning of another spoofing vulnerability in Internet Explorer, this time one that allows an attacker to mask the true file extension of malicious downloads. The file-extension spoof means that an attacker could lull a user into opening a malicious file from a Web site by making the file appear as a legitimate extension, such as a PDF or MPEG, researchers said on Wednesday." Update: Microsoft to Change IE Behavior to Block Spoofing Attacks (via eWeek) Update: IE Update Will Block Some URLs (via PC World)
Citation Analysis Scholarly Publishing Source: ISI + Chemistry: High-Impact Institutions, 1993-2003 + Journals Ranked by Impact: Applied Mathematics
Professional Reading Shelf OpenURL Source: NISO OpenURL Standard Released for Review Abstract ||| Full Text ||| Interested Party Comments
Web Search--MSN MSN Search (U.S.) Runs Beta Test Here's a statement from Karen Redetzki, MSN Product Manager: "In order to increase relevancy, MSN Search is testing solutions on MSN Search to a small percentage of consumers in various markets worldwide. Tests serve as no indication as to the direction MSN will eventually take in the future but rather are research to determine the most useful consumer experience on MSN Search. Tests or changes in one country do not necessarily indicate what may or may not be tested or changed in the US or other markets. We determine the needs of customers in individual markets and make the best decision for that market based on both consumer and advertiser wants & needs." Here are a couple of things I noticed: + Sponsored links directly below search box + Popular Topics gone from beta version + Featured sites gone from beta version + Page titles larger point size in beta version + Beta only available with IE browser + After a couple of searches with the beta version, I was asked to complete a survey about my searching habits and the engines I use. Thanks to C.A. for the news tip. Examples 1) Search.msn.com ||| BETA.search.msn.com 2) Search.msn.com ||| BETA.search.msn.com
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) World Economic Forum Webcast Archive: Highlights and Speeches from the 2004 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos Switzerland concluded on Tuesday. -- Advertising Super Bowl Television Commercials Online Commercials from Sunday's game will be available online late Sunday or early Monday. Ads from 2003 and 2002 remain available. -- Transportation--United States--Statistics Source: BTS Bureau of Transportation Statistics Introduces the Transportation Services Index From the site, "The Transportation Services Index (TSI), created by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), measures the movement of freight and passengers. The index, which is seasonally adjusted, combines available data on freight ton miles, as well as passenger miles traveled, that have been weighted to yield a consistent monthly measure. The first release of the TSI will be in March 2004."
Industry Briefs (2 Items) Thomson Will Acquire CCBN (Corporate Communications Broadcast Network) Note: FullDisclosure.Com, CCBN's publicly available site, was a Resource of the Week in October. -- EBSCO's A-to-Z Database Now Includes Access Info For Nearly 1,000 Free Journals Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Libraries--United Kingdom Source: The Guardian Libraries embrace digital age From the article, "What if librarians could move in to find the answers to your problems? In one local authority, they have done the next best thing - they are available live through the library service's website. It's one of several lottery-funded library projects where the People's Network programme has used £100m of lottery money - channelled through the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) - to supply terminals to every UK library service. " The Resource Discovery Network (a ResourceShelf favorite) is mentioned in the article.
Web Search--Google Source: News.Com Whatever Happened To Google's WHOIS Lookup Shortcut? About three week's ago ResourceShelf posted news that Google was offering a shortcut to a WHOIS lookup service. The day after ResourceShelf wrote about it, the shortcut was gone. Today, News.Com's Stefanie Olson explains why. From the article, "The issue cropped up about two weeks ago, when Google quietly launched a service allowing visitors to look up data on domain name owners from public databases--collectively known as Whois--run by registrars worldwide. Although largely unpromoted, the service generated enough traffic to surpass Network Solutions' (NSI's) daily Whois use limits, which aim to stop spammers and other undesirables from harvesting information about its customers...The tussle highlights a growing problem for Google as it seeks to be all things to all people. The company's challenge is to offer visitors helpful new search services without alienating the Internet operators it relies on for advertising or partners that may have different priorities." See Also: If You Need WHOIS Information both CentralOps.net and WHOIS.Sc are excellent resources. and in other Google News... The Company Will Open an R&D Center in Switzerland Thanks to C.A. for the news tip. -- Google faces trademark suit over keyword ad (via News.Com)
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Library Federation British Library Joins Digital Library Federation
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Documents in the News--United Kingdom The Hutton Inquiry Full Text, Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly C.M.G. -- Awards 76th Academy Awards Nomination Announcement Press Kit Kit includes: + Master list of nominees + Biographies and photos of major award nominees + Nominations Fact Sheet + Nominees Sidebars (Interesting facts) -- Computer Security Source: GCN Department of Homeland Security Launches Cyber Alert Program From the article, "The Homeland Security Department this morning took the wraps off a National Cyber Alert System to advise the general public and computer technicians about systems security threats, such as the current MyDoom worm." See Also: U.S. CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) Home Page See Also: Official News Release and Info About Accessing Alerts E-Mail alert links on left side of page. See Also: CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) at Carnegie Mellon See Also: Federal Computer Incident Response Center (FedCirc) Includes a page of statistics. -- Education--Statistics--United States Source: NCES Projections of Education Statistics to 2013 - Now Web Enabled From the site, "Projections of Education Statistics to 2013 is the 32nd report in a series begun in 1964. This report provides revisions of projections shown in Projections of Education Statistics to 2012 and Projections of Education Statistics to 2011. It includes statistics on elementary and secondary schools and degree-granting institutions. Included are projections of enrollment, graduates, teachers, and expenditures to the year 2013." -- Online Exhibits Isaac Asimov Online Exhibit "Isaac Asimov was one of the greatest science fiction writers of the twentieth-century. Many critics, scientists, and educators believe Asimov's greatest talent was for popularizing or, as he called it, "translating" science for the lay reader. This online display features visuals and descriptions of some of the over 600 books, games, audio recordings, videos, and wall charts included in the West Virginia University Libraries? Asimov Collection." (Via DrWeb's Domain) Thanks to SDK for the link.
News Search We Missed One: Topix.Net In a review of several new and upcoming web search tools last week, I failed to include Topix.Net. A beta version of this news resource is now available. The database includes content from 3100 sources organized into over 150,000 topics. Over 30,000 of these topics allow you to browse news by geographical location. Material is also searchable. Topix.Net is the creation of Rich Skrenta, one of the engineers that built the Open Directory software. Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Enterprise Search FAST Search and Transfer Launches Major New Product for Enterprise Market It's called ESP (Enterprise Search Platform) and according to the company offers a "360-degree view" of ALL content (structured and unstructured, any platform, Intranet or Web, 77 languages, 225 formats) across an enterprise. The product also offers dynamic categorization and is built on a "Search Derivative Applications (SDAs)" infrastructure allowing for easy customization. FAST's search technology powers several web-known web sites including FirstGov, Scirus, and CareerBuilder. See Also: FAST CEO Conference Presentation, Digital Libraries: What Should We Expect from Search Engines Slides from an August 2003 presentation by FAST CEO John Lervik. See Also: Fast accelerates enterprise search (via InfoWorld)
Web Search--Google Source: NY Times Audit Results Move Google a Step Closer to Offering John Markoff writes, "Google has cleared one of the last remaining hurdles in its closely watched effort to sell shares to the public, people close to the company said Monday, receiving a clean bill of health in a company-paid audit certifying its compliance with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley law approved by Congress in 2002 in response to the wave of corporate scandals...Google has repeatedly declined to comment publicly about any aspect of its planned offering. If the registration is given the green light at a Google board meeting that could take place as early as this week, the public offering would most likely take place during the last week in April." See Also: Google Considers Diverse IPO Methods (via AP)
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) OCLC Research OCLC Research Announces Experimental xISBN Service From the announcement, "The experimental xISBN service supplies ISBNs associated with individual intellectual works represented in the OCLC WorldCat database. Give it an ISBN, and it returns a list of associated ISBNs. The ISBNs returned from the service can in turn be re-used in a query to a bibliographic database (e.g., via a FRBR Bookmarklet) to improve the chances of a user finding any/all instances of the work in a given database." See Also: OCLC hosts "info" URI registry -- Scholarly Materials Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education The Uncertain Fate of Scholarly Artifacts in a Digital Age From the article, "The raw materials of research -- novels, notes, artwork, letters -- are being produced on computers and saved on floppy disks and hard drives. Many scholars fear that these materials are in danger of ending up in the junk heap, trapped in obsolete computers. Others say the information age could be an age of plenty, an age when scholars reconceive their habits of research to cope with mountains of data, which then yield bold new discoveries. That future, however, will depend on digital-archiving strategies that are just now being planned. They have not yet been tested, or paid for."
Information Extraction Kofax Selected by In-Q-Tel to Advance Information Extraction Technology From the 1/13 announcement, "In-Q-Tel, a private venture group funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has signed a development and investment agreement with Kofax to advance technologies for "document exploitation," the analysis and use of documents to extract actionable information. Kofax, the world's largest information capture vendor, will combine its industry-leading Ascent information capture platform and Mohomine text classification product to support multi-language document exploitation activities conducted by national security and other government organizations, and state and local law enforcement."
Academic Libraries Association for Research Libraries Source: Library Journal Stanford University Leaves ARL From the article, "For many university libraries, getting into the Association of Research Libraries (ARL)-which includes 123 leading research libraries in North America--is a major goal. For Stanford University, however, the opposite appears to be true. ARL Executive Director Duane Webster confirmed that Stanford has left the ARL. "
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) The PATRIOT Act Source: Office of Inspector General, Department of Justice Full Text Report, Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act, January 2004 HTML Version ||| PDF Version -- Travel Source: Consumer Web Watch Full Text Report, Booking and Bidding Sight Unseen: A Consumer's Guide to Opaque Travel Web Sites Opaque travel sites include Hotwire and Priceline. See Also: A summary of the report from Consumer Reports Monday, January 26, 2004
Web Search--Gigablast Gigablast Adds Direct Links To The Wayback Machine If you think we mention the Gigablast on a regular basis, you're right. This general web engine is the work of sole proprietor Matt Wells who is constantly adding new search options while at the same time enlarging the database. Today, we can report that all urls retrieved via Gigablast now contain direct links to The Wayback Machine archive. These links are labeled as "older copies" and will automatically check if archived versions of the url exist. Gigablast also caches a copy of each page it crawls onto its own server. However, unlike The Wayback Machine, Gigablast's cached version is updated each time the page is recrawled. This new option can be a big time saver.
RSS Source: eWeek Yahoo Launches RSS Option for My Yahoo Users From the article, "Using the RSS Headlines beta, My Yahoo users can add RSS feeds either by searching for feeds through the service or by entering the URL of specific feeds, according to a Yahoo FAQ about the beta. User then can customize the appearance of the RSS feed headlines on their My Yahoo pages, such as by limiting the number of headlines that appear for each feed. When users click on a headline, they are taken to the full posting on the external site...Yahoo, in a statement, noted that as a beta, the RSS Headlines service is subject to change and is not generally available. The company did not say when it plans to fully launch RSS Headlines on My Yahoo." Actually, any My Yahoo user can go to http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss and add the RSS (beta) module. See Also: Yahoo RSS Beta FAQ
Information Industry--HighBeam.Com Alacritude Changes Name to HighBeam Research The Chicago-based company, owner of eLibrary, Encyclopedia.Com, and Researchville, has been rebranded and the name changed to HighBeam Research. From the article, "The properties combined already attract 4.5 million unique visitors a month who use the site to search for free, and they also have 40,000 subscribers paying about $20 per month, or $99 per year, to search archived articles and other paid-tier materials. ELibrary has 2,600 publications and access to 28 million documents dating as far back as 20 years." I wonder how many of those 40,000 paid subscribers know what they have access to for free by using their library? Many public, academic, or corporate libraries offer access to patrons without having to visit the library building. The MarketWatch.Com article makes no mention of this fact. By the way, via my public library, I have full access (free) to eLibrary from my home. -- UPDATE: I had the chance to chat with the author of the article this afternoon. She had no idea that some library resources are available to patrons without having to visit their local library building. No surprise. I'm happy to report that in her column on 1/27, she mentions the conversation and gives a plug to these services (last paragraph under the "Popular Trend" header). See Also: Alacritude Turns a HighBeam on Research
Industry Briefs (5 Items) Alan Paschal Leaves Thomson Gale (via Library Journal) -- LexisNexis Announces Campaign 2004 File -- Inxight Continues to Grow in 2003 -- Nstein Chosen by VNUeMedia -- Endeca and IBM's Online Store -- Thomson Delphion Enhances Searching and Analysis of European Patent Data
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries and Librarians The February 2004 Issue of Walt Crawford's Cites and Insights is Now Online
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) E-Mail Scams Source: Consumer Web Watch New report, "The Check's in the Mail" History and background about "419" or "Nigerian" fraud. The article also includes a section titled, "Why Nigeria?" -- Factiva Posts Media Visibility Index for Democratic Presidential Hopefuls (Week Ending 1/25/04) -- Government Secrecy--United States Source: Adrus Center for Public Policy Full Text, Freedom & Secrecy Conference Report Full Text, Freedom & Secrecy Conference Transcript From an Idaho Statesman article, "The report follows the policy discussion that took place last fall at a conference co-sponsored by the Andrus Center, the Frank Church Institute and The Idaho Statesman. The conference — “Freedom and Secrecy: Trading Liberty for Security?” — featured, among others, former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale, former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton of Washington, Washington Post columnist David Broder and John Deutch, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency." Sunday, January 25, 2004
Electronic Records--United States National Archives--United States Source: FCW Electronic Records Funds Approved From the article, "Congress approved an additional $22 million in the fiscal 2004 budget for the National Archives and Records Administration's ambitious Electronic Records Archives program. NARA will get $316.3 million, a $47.5 million increase from last year. The new budget includes $35.9 million for the electronic archives project, in addition to $13.7 million for repairs and renovations and $10 million for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. The commission offers grants, training and research services to help preserve the nation's documentary resources." -- and speaking of electronic government records... (Updated 1/27) Clinton's Gift to Internet Age - Only 2 E-Mails (via Reuters)
Professional Reading Shelf National Archives--United States The Winter 2003 Issue of Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration is Now Online Web-Accessible articles include: + Found at the Presidential Libraries: Dr. Seuss, Air Force One, and the San Diego Chicken + Our Documents at Work in the Nation's Classrooms Includes links to several guidebooks for educators. Saturday, January 24, 2004
Stylometry Source: Science News Bookish Math: Statistical tests are unraveling knotty literary mysteries From the article, "Stylometry is now entering a golden era. In the past 15 years, researchers have developed an arsenal of mathematical tools, from statistical tests to artificial intelligence techniques, for use in determining authorship. They have started applying these tools to texts from a wide range of literary genres and time periods, including the Federalist Papers, Civil War letters, and Shakespeare's plays. 'We can now pretty accurately identify authorship—under the right conditions,' says John Burrows, an emeritus English professor of the University of Newcastle in Australia."
Professional Reading Shelf Privacy Source: ARL New SPEC Kit Released: Library Patron Privacy The complete kit is fee based. However, an executive summary is available at no charge. -- Freedom of Information Source: UNESCO Just Released, Freedom on Information: A Comparative Legal Survey "UNESCO has published a study of freedom of information laws that examines best practices in 10 countries. Written by ARTICLE 19 Law Programme Director Toby Mendel, 'Freedom on Information: A Comparative Legal Survey' analyses laws in Bulgaria, India, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States."
Government Secrecy Source: U.S. News and World Report Letters About U.S. Goverment Secrecy Published in U.S. News The letters are in response to a 12/22 article in the magazine titled, "Keeping Secrets." The first letter comes from Randall Jimerson, Vice President Society of American Archivists.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents United States Congress--Calendars House of Representatives + Clickable Calendar + House Schedule + Continuously Updated "Ticker" of Activities on the House Floor Senate + Tentative 2004 Legislative Schedule + Floor Schedule + Executive Calendar (Updated Each Day When in Session) ||| Description + Senate Calendar of Business (Updated Each Day When in Session) ||| Description Friday, January 23, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Academic Libraries New Weblog: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian Interesting reading from Gutman Library Director (Philadelphia University), Steven Bell. He tells ResourceShelf, "I'm trying not to give any library-oriented news - and I'm not replicating anything from the Chronicle - which so many folks already read - but there is so much more out there that academic librarians are missing." -- Scholarly Publishing Source: University of California Seminar Report, Challenge and Change: Scholarly Communication and the UC Community From the CDLINFO Newsletter, "The Office of Systemwide Library Planning sponsored two regional seminars in late fall 2003 to discuss scholarly communication issues and strategies for change. More than 60 participants hailing from all UC campuses and a wide-ranging set of disciplines (including the sciences and health sciences, humanities, and social sciences) attended. More than 20 key thematic issues were identified, and are posed as questions for UC action..."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Mergers and Acquistions--Statistics Source: Bureau van Dijk Full Text, M&A Synopsis From the document, "...a quarterly review of mergers and acquisitions, private equity and IPOs. The review is written by Ed Mountifield using ZEPHYR, the comprehensive M&A database which is published by Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing (BvD)." Numerous charts and rankings. 17 pages (pdf). Free. You can also find a few statistics on this web page. -- Technology--Lists & Rankings Source: Technology Review 10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change Your World From the article, "Technology Review unveils its annual selection of hot new technologies about to affect our lives in revolutionary ways—and profiles the innovators behind them." The Ten Technologies: Universal Translation Synthetic Biology Nanowires Bayesian Machine Learning T-Rays Distributed Storage RNA Interference Power Grid Control Microfluidic Optical Fibers Personal Genomics -- Goverment Information--United States Source: American Association of Law Librarians Full Text, State-by-State Report on Permanent Public Access to Electronic Government Information From the report, "The purpose of this study, generously funded by a grant from Aspen Legal Publishers, was to assess the level of permanent public access to electronic government information across all state governments. Members of the American Association of Law Libraries in each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico completed a comprehensive survey. The survey results reveal that no state is comprehensively addressing these challenges. Very few states have updated their statutes to explicitly incorporate electronic government information into their public access, Freedom of Information or depository laws." -- Computer Security Source: NIST Just Released, Full Text, Computer Security Incident Handling Guide From a GCN article, "The National Institute of Standards and Technology has published guidelines for responding to security breaches in government computer systems." -- NASA Source: NASA Ames Research Center NASA Computational Sciences Division: Publications Library of technical publications by NASA computational science researchers since 1999. Topics range from space- and aviation-specific (Mars Rovers: Past, Present and Future) to data/information management (Source Update Capture in Information Agents). Some reports are not available online but most are; extensive abstracts often available. Full text in PDF format. Thursday, January 22, 2004
Web Resources of the Week Four items for your ready-reference shelf. 1) Music--GRAMMY Awards--Searchable Database Source: NARAS GRAMMY SEARCH A searchable database of all GRAMMY winners (1956-Present). From the site, "...winners by name of the award recipient, by categories within a genre, by year, by title of work and/or by the artist performing the work. With the exception of the category field, which requires that you first select a genre, you may use as few or as many of the available search fields." Latin GRAMMY winners are in a separate database. The 2004 GRAMMY Awards will be held on February 8th. Here's a list of the nominees. -- 2) Area Code--North America Source: North American Numbering Plan Administration Database of North American Area Codes The North American Numbering Plan Administration manages the area code system. + Search or Browse Data + Printable Area Code Maps + Additional Resources -- 3) Population--Database--United Kingdom Source: National Statistics Neighbourhood Statistics Database + Search by Name or Postal Code + Browse Detailed Statistics by Subject + Browse by Area Name + Select Areas via Interactive Map (England and Wales Only) -- 4) Maps--United States Source: National Atlas of the United States Printable Maps of the United States Most maps can be downloaded as either pdf or gif files. + Reference Maps of the United States (including time zones) + Outline Maps of the United States + Congressional Districts - 108th Congress + Presidential Elections - 1789-2000 + Federal Lands and Indian Reservations
Information Industry--United States--Legislation Database Bill Passes Congressional Committee The legislation discussed in the article is often referred to as the "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act." From the article, "A congressional panel on Wednesday approved a proposal to curb database copying, ignoring the objections of technology companies that launched a last-minute lobbying campaign to kill the proposal. By a 16-7 vote, the House Judiciary committee approved an intellectual property bill that had been opposed by Amazon.com, AT&T, Comcast, Google, Yahoo and some Internet service provider associations. The proposal, backed by big database companies such as Reed Elsevier and Thomson, would extend to databases the same kind of protection that copyrighted works such as music, literature and movies currently enjoy. Its supporters say that such protection is necessary to stop rivals from extracting information from proprietary databases like Reed Elsevier's LexisNexis service instead of going through the far more expensive process of compiling it themselves. Wednesday's vote follows a 10-3 vote last October in a subcommittee...Now the measure likely will go to the House floor in preparation for a possible vote." See Also: Full Text of House Judiciary Announcement See Also: Database-protection bill advances in Congress (via Reuters) From the article, "The controversial measure must also clear the Energy and Commerce Committee before it can come up for a vote on the House floor, where its fate is uncertain. No similar bill has yet been introduced in the Senate...Lawmakers drafted a more narrowly focused version last year, and the committee narrowed it further to exempt universities and Internet providers from liability. 'What we have here is a watered-down, compromise version,' said North Carolina Republican Rep. Howard Coble, a bill sponsor." -- See Also: Opposition to the Discussion Draft, "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act" (9/03) A letter signed by AALL, ALA, ARL, and SLA. See Also: Much More Background in Two ResourceShelf Posts from October, 2003 #1 ||| #2
Web Search Three Articles in The New York Times Three articles about search issues. 1) For a Fee, Wind Up Atop the Search Heap Bob Tedeschi writes about people buying their own name as a keyword ad. -- 2) Now Where Was I? New Ways to Revisit Web Sites Lisa Guernsey writes about new ways to keep track of your favorite web sites. A project mentioned in the article from the University of Washington was first noted on ResourceShelf last month. A link to the work of Microsoft's Susan Dumais, also mentioned in the article, was posted here in November. By the way, my favorite tool for saving web content continues to be SurfSaver. Not only can it save a page (in many cases better than a bookmark) but it also indexes and allows you to search the full text of the material. Scopeware is another tool I use. It allows you to quickly search numerous file types across your entire hard drive. -- 3) Engineering Google Results to Make a Political Point Tom McNichol writes about Google Bombing. The company maintains it's just a fad. In the section of the article discussing engines other than Google, the author fails to mention that Teoma's method for determining relevancy might make it less susceptible to bombing initiatives. Teoma's algorithm is also used by Ask Jeeves. See Also: More comments in this 1/6 post . See Also: Learn More About What Teoma's Algorithm in an Article About IBM's Clever (via Scientific American) Check out this "classic" article about web searching. Several of the ideas developed for IBM's Clever are being utilized by Teoma.
Library Briefs (2 Items) LoC [Library of Congress] Helps Rebuild Baghdad's Library (via The Hill) See Also: Full Text, Library of Congress Mission To Baghdad: Report on National Library and the House of Manuscripts -- Check it out: Libraries inside malls (via Seattle Post Intelligencer) A report from King County, Washington.
Professional Reading Shelf Scholarly Publishing Source: C&RL News Full Text, Electronic journal publication: A new library contribution to scholarly communication two years on From the article, "The University of Arizona (UA) Library is now in its third calendar year of publishing the Journal of Insect Science (JIS). It remains among the very few libraries currently producing a scholarly journal."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Consumer Issues--Lists & Rankings Source: FTC FTC Releases Top 10 Consumer Complaint Categories in 2003 Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Unstructured Data--Taxonomies Source: FCW Taxonomy Use Grows From the article, "Federal agencies are increasingly likely to use and understand taxonomies, the system of data classification that goes hand in hand with Extensible Markup Language (XML) in organizing data, according to industry experts." See Also: Agency taxonomies are a tall order, experts say (via GCN)
Search Engine Roundup In the past week several sites have mentioned new search tools. Join me in checking them out. Expect more about each resource in upcoming weeks. + Dipsie Coming in 2004, Beta available in the near future. + Eurekster Overview (via Search Engine Watch) ||| Direct to Eurekster (Beta) Social network searching, personalized results. + Meceoo Overview (via Pandia) ||| Direct to Meceoo (Beta) Metasearch, "...allows searchers to define their own 'exclusion list'. Hence they may ask the metasearch engine to exclude sites that includes specific terms in their domain name." + Metrobot (via Search Day) ||| Direct to Metrobot Local search. Graphic result pages (virtually browse a street).
Cool! Price's List of Lists Mentioned in Harvard Business School Newsletter Special thanks and plenty of credit to Special Issues for doing a wonderful job of keeping the LOL current and useful.
Citation Analysis Scholarly Publishing Source: ISI + Management: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1998-2002 + Science in Scotland, 1998-2002 + Journals Ranked by Impact: Criminology & Penology
Data Mining Privacy Source: CIO You Are What You Watch Targeted advertising (ads tied to your search terms) is a popular topic these days. So is data mining. For these reasons I thought this article might be of interest to some of you. From the article, "Americans are rushing to purchase digital personal video recorders (the best-known brand is TiVo) so they can zap those pesky TV commercials right out of their lives. The sales of TiVos alone have soared 73 percent (over the same period last year) in the last three months, and the television industry has good reason to fear that TiVo spells the demise of an advertising gravy train that made commercial programming profitable for so many decades. Fortunately (or unfortunately as the case may be), a technological solution is already on the horizon. And with it come several privacy issues that attend much of the latest personal technology. I’m talking here about the development of new data mining software that can profile TV viewers and deliver targeted advertising to viewers via their beloved TiVos." See Also: Full-Text (fee-based) article, Using data mining to profile TV viewers This article is mentioned in the CIO story. See Also: MSA-Jovio A company doing work in profiling technology.
Industry Briefs InfoUSA Introduces Subscription Plan Offering Unlimited Access to Credit Reports $50 per month/per person.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Digitization Projects--Lithuania Parchments Digitization Project at Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Completed From the announcement, "Nearly ten percent of the more than 1,400 parchments preserved at the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius are now online and available thanks to a UNESCO project that was recently completed. The digital images of 121 parchments containing information of outstanding historical value cover the period from 1187 to 1500." See Also: Direct to the Parchments Digital Images Archive -- National Libraries--Malaysia Digitization Projects The National Library of Malaysia Launches the International Islamic Digital Library A bit of background in an Access article. The library is home to both bibliographic and full text material. -- Entrepreneurship--Canada Source: Ernst and Young Full Text, Survey of Canadian Entrepreneurs -- Weather--United States Source: NOAA Recently Released, Climate of 2003: 2003 in Historical Perspective -- Health Information Source: MEDLINEplus New Compilation, MEDLINEplus: Rural Health Concerns -- Election 2004 New Hampshire Primary Streaming Audio: New Hampshire Public Radio Coverage of Tuesday's primary election. The Exchange (airs at 9am EST) has featured interviews with several of the candidates. They are archived here. Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Web Search--Google You Might Be Missing Material: Backwards Link Searching (Link:) With Google If you who use Google to find what pages are linking to a specific web page (often referred to as a backward link or a reverse link), you might find the following news of interest. Google might NOT be showing you all of the pages that link to a specific url. I've seen several reports about this issue on search engine optimization sites. Today, I confirmed this as fact with a Google spokesperson. The search engine optimization sites mention that pages only with a certain PageRank are visible. I asked Google to explain the specific criteria used to determine which pages are visible with a link: search. Unfortunately, the spokesperson told me that the company would not publicly release this information. )-: I know it's not a good idea to assume. Nevertheless, most of the seo sites I've seen mention that lower-ranked sites (using Google's ranking methodology) are not visible with a link: search. The problem is that these sites might have useful data, especially when determining what pages link to a particular site. Example: + link:www.fincen.gov Using ATW, http://www.cftc.gov/cftc/cftcaml.htm is found to link to www.fincen.gov. It was confirmed by viewing the page. A Google search reveals that it has been crawled. However, this page is not revealed when running a link: search with Google. -- The easiest way to minimize any problems this issue could cause is to use more than one web engine. Of course, this is something we've been saying for a long time. At this point, my favorite engine for this type of searching is AllTheWeb. I use it either as my primary backward link engine or I'll run an ATW search at the same time I use Google. AllTheWeb also has another advantage. ATW allows you to refine your reverse link searches. Here's an example: + link:www.aiip.org + link:www.aiip.org With AllTheWeb you can utilize additional syntax in your query string. For example, what .edu pages link to www.aiip.org? The use of additional syntax with a Google backward link search is not available.
Librarians' Index to the Internet The Librarians' Index to the Internet Makes RSS Feed Available For Its "What's New This Week" Compilation The "What's New This Week" compilation is a one-stop list of all of the new entries added during the preceding week to the LII. The wonderfully written annotations are also included. You can also read "What's New" on the web or via e-mail. Essential reading no matter what format you choose! The page/feed/site is updated on Thursday. See Also: Direct link for LII RSS Feed See Also: LII RSS Tutorial See Also: More New This Week From the LII
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Education--Classification Schemes Source: NCES Just Released, The Classification of Secondary School Courses (CSSC) From the site, "The Classification of Secondary School Courses (CSSC) provides a general inventory of courses taught nationwide at the secondary school level (grades 9 through 12). The basic unit of instruction in the CSSC is the individual COURSE. Vocational, academic, and general courses are offered for credit and included in this listing." -- State of the Union Addresss--United States Source: Clerk's Office, United States House of Representatives State of the Union Fact Sheet -- Banking Industry--United States Source: FBI Just Released, Financial Institution Fraud And Failure Report (Fiscal Year 2003) 52 pages (pdf). -- Investment Industry--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, 2002 Service Annual Survey: Securities and Commodity Contracts Intermediation and Brokerage Services Summary ||| Direct to Full Text -- Space Exploration--United States Source: National Academy of Science Full Text Reports from the National Academy of Science About Space Exploration and Space Policy 1) Issues and Opportunities Regarding the U.S. Space Program: A Summary Report of a Workshop on National Space Policy (2004) 2) New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy (2003) 3) Safe Passage: Astronaut Care for Exploration Missions (2001) 4) The Human Exploration of Space (1997) 5) Safe on Mars: Precursor Measurements Necessary to Support Human Operations on the Martian Surface (2002) -- Books--Online Exhibits Source: Lilly Library, Indiana University 4000 Years of Miniature Books "Miniature books, most of which are less than three inches tall and some of which are smaller than a penny, have delighted readers for centuries.... More than 900 of the library's 16,000 miniatures were on display in the Library's Main Gallery from June 18 to September 15, 2001. This online exhibition pictures a selection of the miniatures displayed in the exhibition and reproduces the narrative text of the exhibition labels."
Enterprise Information Briefs (4 Items) New, Fee-Based Service Offers SEC EDGAR Filings via an RSS Feed In addition to the information in the news release, you can view a sample feed and learn more here. -- EasyAsk Lands Contract With Warner Home Video -- Endeca Continues to Grow Its Customer Base Note: Endeca's technology powers the BookBrowser on the Barnes & Noble site. -- Virage to Participate in Video Analysis and Content Extraction Research Program Sponsored by the Advanced Research and Development Activity Learn more about the project here. Monday, January 19, 2004
Web Search--Yahoo Overture's Research Lab is Renamed, Hello to Yahoo Research! In August, ResourceShelf reported that Overture's Research Lab under the direction of Dr. Gary Flake had launched a web site. Today, the research lab was renamed Yahoo Research. Dr. Flake is still in charge. The YRL web site is full of interesting reading for those of you interested in the topic along with descriptions of major projects. Expect a ResourceShelf interview with Gary Flake in the next few weeks. See Also: Direct to the Yahoo Research Labs Home Page Content also available at: http://research.overture.com See Also: A Brief Interview with Gary Flake (via NewsFactor) and in other Yahoo News... Tweaks at Yahoo News Alerts The Virtual Chase on a few tweaks to Yahoo's alert service. Note: At the moment, Yahoo News Alerts are not available for all 7000 sources that Yahoo News Search provides access to. See Also: Early Beta Test: Changes and Tweaks at Yahoo News Search
Professional Reading Shelf (5 Items) Open Access A New Issue of "Open Access Now" Is Available -- Open Access Presentations from the SPARC/ACRL Forum The forum took place at the 2004 ALA Midwinter Meeting. Presentations available (PowerPoint slides): + Who Pays for Open Access by Helen Doyle, Public Library of Science + Publishing by the Academic Library by Henry Hagedorn + Using the Library Budget to Drive Change by Joseph Branin and while we're on the topic of scholarly publishing... Full Text, "Reed Elsevier Feels Resistance To Web Pricing" (via The Wall Street Journal) From the article, "Reed's ScienceDirect has been much-admired among big, old-line publishers for its innovative use of the Internet. But some university librarians are starting to rebel against Reed's dominance by dropping subscriptions to its journals; some academic researchers are supporting alternative online publishers of academic research. The disgruntled faction is the thin edge of a wedge that in coming years could widen cracks in Reed's vaunted online strategy." - See Also: Elsevier and NESLi2 conclude major new agreement to provide online science journals From the announcement, "The UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and Elsevier, part of the Reed Elsevier Group, today announced the conclusion of a new agreement as part of NESLi2, the national electronic journals initiative for the higher education and research communities in the United Kingdom." -- Information Industry Selected Feature Articles from Research Information + Out with print, in with the PC The world's biggest pharmaceutical company will not have a single, traditional library by the end of this year. Peter Rees examines the challenges in creating an international, company-wide "virtual library" + Science makes money for Europe's information companies David Mort, Director of IRN Research, provides a snapshot of recent trends amongst leading STM information companies in Europe. + Extended expectations need extended services The way scientific information was disseminated in print may hold lessons for the electronic age. Tom Wilkie examines the potential.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Factiva Posts Media Visibility Index for Democratic Presidential Hopefuls (Week Ending 1/18/04) -- Olympics--Web Resources Source: International Olympic Committee Direct Links: Official Web Sites of the Nine Cities in the Running for 2012 Olympics -- U.S. Department of Energy Source: US DOE Inspector General Full Text Report, Safeguards Over Sensitive Technology 25 pages (pdf).
Industry Briefs (2 Items) LexisNexis...LN Licenses Sageworks "ProfitCents Public" Technology, Converts the Financial Statement Numbers of Publicly Traded Firms into Plain Language Reports Learn more about Sageworks and view a sample ProfitCents Public report. -- xrefer...Now Available at British Library Sunday, January 18, 2004
Digital Archives--United Kingdom World War II--Images Source: AP Available Monday (1/19/04): Digital Archive of World War II Aerial Reconnaissance Photos From the article, "A huge British archive of World War II aerial reconnaissance photos, including pictures of the D-Day landings in Normandy, is to go on the Internet on Monday. Under the digitalization project announced Saturday, some 5 million Royal Air Force photos of Western Europe will be available to the public on the Web site www.evidenceincamera.co.uk, archivists said." -- UPDATE: War photos site hamstrung by demand From the article, "A Web site that claims to contain more than 5 million detailed aerial photos of major events during World War II was crippled by demand on its first day. " -- See Also: BBC Aerial Reconnaissance in World War Two Gallery The images in this gallery come from Aerial Reconnaissance Archives. The accompanying text was written by Allan Williams, head of the ARA.
Data Mining Privacy--United States Source: USA Today Report: Airline Gave Passenger Data to Government From the article, "For the second time in four months, information-privacy groups have discovered that a large airline provided passenger records to the government without telling its customers. JetBlue Airways in September said it violated its privacy policy by giving data on 1.1 million customers to a Defense Department contractor in an anti-terrorism project. Torch Concepts, of Huntsville, Alabama, a data-mining company, used the names, addresses and flight information Jet Blue provided to produce a study intended to help the government assess potential extremist threats." See Also: Confidential Passenger Data Used for Air Security Project (via Washington Post) See Also: Additional Documents (via EPIC) See Also: Report from U.S. DOD Contractor (Torch Concepts): "Homeland Security Airline Passenger Risk Assessment" See Also: Data Mining and Aviation Security (NASA) See Also: American Released Passenger Data (via Wired News) See Also: Delta confirms it gave passenger data to government (via Cincinnati Enquirer) Saturday, January 17, 2004
Web Search--Google Source: Reuters Report: Google Getting Into the E-Mail Ad Business Remember when their focus was strictly search? From the article, "Google Inc., which dominates the market for Web search, is developing a service that could dramatically extend the reach of its lucrative keyword-based advertising by linking such ads to e-mail, people familiar with the matter said on Friday... The Mountain View, California, company, which has recently made several e-mail related acquisitions, is working on a way to serve advertising to an e-mail at the moment it is opened, people close to the company said... In an e-mail response to questions from Reuters, spokesman David Krane said, 'Google has a number of projects in the works to test monetization in various scenarios.'... Google has for years said it would not turn its site into a full-service Internet portal like Yahoo or MSN. However, since it opened in 1998, Google has added portal-style discussion groups and is testing a comparison shopping site called Froogle, as well as a news site." - See Also: Google's Focus (via News.Com) Do you remember the following statement from Google spokesperson David Krane made in a August, 2001 News.Com article? Krane says, "But we've firmly established ourselves as the No. 1 search service on the Internet, and this can be attributed to our laser-like focus on a search-only business model." I think the laser has been refocused. See Also: Still No Word If Google We Be Sued Over It's Use of Linux (via FT.Com)
Open Access Publishing Several Library Organizations Send Letter Asking For NIH to support of Open Access Publishing ALA, SPARC, ARL, AAHL, ACRL, and MLA ask Elias Zerhouni, the Director of the National Institute of Health, to support open access publishing. From the letter, "It is our belief that a growing knowledge economy depends as much, if not more, on the knowledge distribution power of the system as on its knowledge production power. Hence, it is essential to provide cost-effective access to and dissemination of scientific information in support of research and its economic and social applications. But the subscription-based journal model currently prevalent no longer maximizes access to research material. Nor is it economically sustainable."
Public Libraries Source: The New York Times "Media Baron Fails to Honor Library Pledge" From the article, Conrad M. Black, the embattled media baron, has one more overdue bill: he has not made good on a $100,000 pledge to the New York Public Library. Lord Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel Black, were co-chairmen of the Literary Lions benefit dinner on Nov. 3. At that time, he agreed to give the library $100,000, but he has not made the contribution. nstead, Lord Black asked his company, Hollinger International, to make the payment for him. The company refused, according to a person briefed on the situation."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Think Tanks Online Books Source: Rand Corporation Rand Bestsellers Provides links and access to the full of text (PDFs) of RAND's bestselling publications for the previous month. Publications may also be purchased in hard copy.
Presidential Libraries Source: Los Angeles Daily News (via azcentral.com) Nixon Library likely to get big influx of material "With the stroke of President Bush's pen, possibly as early as this month, archivists will begin the long and arduous task of preparing every last bit of Nixon materials - a cache that could fill 13 swimming pools - for shipment to the private Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, Calif."
Archives--Music Source: Lawrence Journal World KU's jazz archive struggles to survive Learn about the Richard Wright Jazz Archive (over 20,000 recordings) at the University of Kansas. From the article, "Barring a last-minute donation from a jazz-loving Rockefeller, KU's Archive of Recorded Sound -- which also includes the James Seaver Opera Archive -- will be hibernating for a while. The $54,000 donated by KU alumni Paul and Maurine Adams in 1998 to keep the archive running is all but gone, having been spent on shelving, rice-paper lined polysleeves, listening equipment and archivists' salaries. Without money to pay a full-time staff member, the archive will be available only by appointment. All efforts to build an online database of its contents will be put on hold, leaving 95 percent of the collection's holdings uncatalogued..." See Also: Home Page of Richard Wright Jazz Archive Friday, January 16, 2004
Web Search Ay-Up: Another Source For Cached Web Pages Ay-Up is a crawler based web engine and web directory (ODP content) that I just learned about. I'm still giving it a look but one useful feature that I noticed the first time I searched was that Ay-Up caches web pages on the their server. Since crawlers from different engines visit pages at different times, it's often useful to have several sources for cached material. Here's a list of several other web engines that cache web pages. Ay-Up is a Canadian organization developing, "geo sync search and search personalization technology." The company defines geo search as, "using zip/post code, state and keywords." Tabs for geographic and news search are listed on the Ay-Up home page but haven't been activated. More about Ay-Up soon. See Also: A 3/2003 List of Sources for Cached Content See Also: The Web Page Information Viewer from FaganFinder Offers Quick Access to Several Sources of Cached Content See Also: Ay-Up's Help Page
Business Information FreeERISA Launches Premium Service (Fee-Based) From the announcement, "Fund Finder gives financial professionals an opportunity to locate those plans with assets invested in various mutual funds. As an example, one can locate retirement plans invested in Putnam's Stable Value Fund. Users can then sort the data by state or ZIP code to narrow their searches to their own geographical area. Information is based on Schedule D of the most recent publicly available form 5500's from the Department of Labor." A subscription to the Fund Finder database costs about $30 for 6 months or $49 for 12 months. Several other resources are planned for the premium service. FreeERISA's many free resources remain available. In fact, their EIN database has been exapanded from 1.3 to over 4.4 million entries. See Also: Direct to FreeErisa Home Page
Legal Information--United States Pilot Project Makes Federal Court Transcripts Available Online From the announcement, "Seven federal district courts are participating in a pilot program to make transcripts of courtroom proceedings available online. Those participating are the district courts for the Southern District of Alabama, District of Columbia, District of Kansas, District of Maine, Eastern District of Missouri, District of Nebraska, and the Eastern District of New York. In the District of Columbia, the district court currently has an exemption from the prohibition on remote public access to criminal case file information, and will be able to make transcripts of courtroom proceedings in criminal cases available electronically as part of the experiment."
Open Access Publishing Source: PLoS Biology (via SciDevNet) PLoS Science Launches Institutional Membership Program From the announcement, The Public Library of Science (PLoS), which was set up last year to pioneer the publication of 'open access' journals, has launched an institutional membership scheme to help scientists from underfunded disciplines and those in developing countries to publish their research in its journal PLoS Biology...Universities and other organisations that sign up to will now be able to purchase an institutional membership allowing their researchers to publish their research in the journal at reduced cost." See Also: Direct to the PLoS Instituional Membership Home Page --- and in other scholarly publishing news... Triangle Research Libraries Network Will Not Renew Contract With Elsevier (via The Daily Tar Heel) From the article, "The TRLN comprises Duke University, N.C. State University, and N.C. Central University in addition to UNC-CH. The contract provided all schools access to the online journals. However, Joe Hewitt, associate provost for libraries, said UNC-CH will continue to subscribe to Elsevier journals on an individual basis, even though they will cost more when not bought in bulk. 'We are trying to cancel enough (journals) so that our payments to Elsevier will be about the same as they were last year.' Hewitt said UNC-CH spends about $1.5 million per year to purchase journals from Elsevier." Thanks to P.S. for the news tip. See Also: Full Text of TRLN Memo And Announcement
Internet Access Source: International Federation of Library Associations and Institution Librarians' deep concern over Cuba's move to restrict Internet Access From the announcement, "Today, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and its Committee of Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (IFLA/FAIFE) expressed their deep concern about the continuing violations of the basic human right to freedom of access to information and freedom of expression in Cuba...With the new Internet bill (Resolution 180/2003) that came into effect on 10 January the Cuban government will gain further control over Internet use. Before the bill was passed the government already had taken measures to block various Internet sites and restrict general access to the Web."
Digitization Projects History--United States Source: American Memory Project/The Library of Congress Released Today, Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories From the site, "...the opportunity to listen to former slaves describe their lives. These interviews, conducted between 1932 and 1975, capture the recollections of twenty-three identifiable people born between 1823 and the early 1860s and known to have been former slaves. Several of the people interviewed were centenarians, the oldest being 130 at the time of the interview. The almost seven hours of recordings were made in nine Southern states and provide an important glimpse of what life was like for slaves and freedmen." |
