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Resources and News for Information Professionals
ResourceShelf is Compiled & Edited By Gary Price, MLIS Librarian Director of Online Information Resources, Ask.com Editor and Compiler, The ResourceShelf Editor and Compiler, DocuTicker
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Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Information Retrieval On ResourceShelfPLUS: A New Compilation of Recently Awarded Search-Related Patents & Patent Apps The March compilation of selected search-related patents and patent apps is now available on ResourceShelfPLUS. New patents to Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM, and many others. You'll also notice two patent applications from Google. Did I Just Mention Google? Hello GMail (via News.com) Google has announced that they'll start testing a free email service called GMail. It will offer 1GB of storage space per user. The service (going live today) will only be available for 1000 "invited" users. No date was mentioned as to when Google will make the service available to the general public. More from Markoff (NY Times) and Sullivan (SEW). From the NY Times article, "At Google, one official said, the company has engaged in an intense debate over how extensively to exploit the content of e-mail." One of the patent applications listed in the roundup deals with serving ads in email. Here's the GMail privacy policy. See Also: SearchBlog Comments on the Google Annoucement Battelle with some interesting comments. The press release also might lead one to have these notions. See Also: Google developing ad service for e-mail (via Reuters, 1/19/04)
Health Research Vivisimo Officially Launches ClusterMed We've mentioned ClusterMed on several occasions prior to its official launch today. Very cool! ClusterMed allows you to dynamically cluster results from PubMed using Vivisimo's technology. What's also useful is the ability to create different clusters based on different fields. You can create clusters based on terms in the: + Title, Subject Heading, Abstract + Title and Abstract Only + Subject Heading Only + Author + Author's Affiliation + Publication Date Unregistered users can cluster up to 100 results. You can also register for a demo (two weeks) and cluster up to 500 results. See Also: DYK That Vivisimo Also Offers Tools to Cluster Results from FirstGov and eBay? See Also: Official Announcement
Web Search--Dipsie Source: Chicago Sun-Times More About Dipsie An article from the Chicago Sun-Times mentions that Dipsie will launch on May 10th as a public beta. The article also names Gary Slack, the managing director of a Chicago-based marketing firm, as a member of the Dipsie Board of Directors. I asked a company spokesperson for the names of other board members and was told that this info was still not being released. Like I said a few months ago when we ran an interview with Dipsie CEO Jason Wiener, we've seen Dipsie mentioned in many publications but until we can demo the software and see more than a few logos on their web site, we just have to keep wondering what the company is or is not up to. In a nutshell, actions speak louder than words. Let's see what happens in May. Thanks to Bobbie B. for the news tip. See Also: ResourceShelf Interview with Jason Wiener (2/18/04)
Social-Networking Software Source: Technology Review "Reality Mining" the Organization From the article, "Data mining is a start, but it misses the critical pieces of information that are transmitted by word of mouth. Social networking systems can foster collaboration." See Also: Internetworking Another article from Technology Review that discusses social-networking software.
Information Retrieval Source: News.Com Sketch and Search From the article, "Researchers at Purdue University have developed a search engine that retrieves results based on an image or a sketch. Draw a picture of a wing nut, and the engine will search a database and retrieve all the images that match the drawing..Its earliest appearance outside the research lab is expected to be in industrial databases, rather than in commercial search tools. But in 10 to 15 years, image searches will likely be taking place on the Internet, according to Karthik Ramani, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue, and director of the university's Research and Education Center for Information Systems in Engineering." Btw, LTU, a company mentioned in the article, offers an interesting demo. Details in this 11/12/02 ResourceShelf post. Even more about this technology in this 2003 Search Engine Meeting presentation.
Information Visualization Newsmap: Mapping Google News If you like visualization tools, you're going to like this one. From the site, "A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap's objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe." Searchblog reminds us that SmartMoney's Map of the Market offers the same type of service with financial data. This tool has been available for several years. Thanks to BoingBoing, Bill D., and Searchblog for the tip.
Industry Briefs + Merriam-Webster CEO moving on (via The Republican) A profile of Gordon T. Macomber who becomes the new CEO at Thomson Gale on Monday. + New Fee-Based Database for Federal Grant Info (via Washington Business Journal) The new database is called GrantsWeb and is produced by Eagle Eye.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Military Law--United States Source: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress New Resource Compilation: Military Legal Resources -- Election 2004 Factiva Posts Media Visibility Index (Week Ending 3/28/04) "The Factiva Media Visibility Index will track the number of weekly media mentions garnered by each of the candidates competing in the 2004 Presidential election." -- Travel--United States Source: BTS BTS Announces New Air Travel Price Index Official Announcement/Tables ||| Home Page -- Online Music Source: Harvard Business School CD Sales Not Reduced by File Sharing, Say Researchers at Harvard Business School and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill "A new study by two researchers at Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, finds that sharing digital music files has no effect on CD sales. This is the first study that directly compares actual downloads of music files and store sales of CDs." Some findings from the study: + "File Sharing Cannot Explain the Decline in Sales of Music during This Period" + "More Popular CDs Benefit from File Sharing" + "File Sharers Download a Small Selection of Songs" + "Songs from Top Current Albums Are Most Often Downloaded" + "Marketing Strongly Influences What People Download and What They Buy" + "U.S. Has Largest Number of File Sharers" + "Germany Is the Most Important Foreign Supplier of Music Files" See Also: Direct Link to Full Text of Study (PDF; 360 KB) -- Special Collections Source: Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University Pastimes and Paradigms: Games We Play "The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections investigates the evolution of games since 1800.... The exhibition includes a wide variety of antique and contemporary games, as well as rare books on rules, strategies, and recreation. Featured items include early nineteenth-century geographical board games; a Civil War game; suffrage games that garnered support in the battle for women's votes; a vintage Monopoly game...; gambling punchboards; and a selection of games inspired by television programming." Thanks to SDK for the link. Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Legal Information--United States Source: AP (via MSNBC) Database Tools Help Lawyers Track Clients "Lawyers in many states can now track down the names and addresses of prospective clients — within hours of their legal entanglements — with the help of electronic records and information vendors."
News Search Topix.net Increases Number of Sources Crawled, More than 6000 Available Topix continues to impress! After officially launching three weeks ago, the company has announced they're now crawling more than 6000 sources, up from 3300 sources. Almost a 100% increase. Topix.net CEO Rich Skrenta was nice enough to provide us with a breakdown of sources by category: 24% Daily newspapers 19% AM & FM news radio stations 15% Weekly newspapers 15% B2B and consumer magazines 12% TV stations 9% College newspapers 5% Government websites 1% Weblogs It's good to see that Topix is including business press/trade publications and college newspapers in their crawl! Their "pre-built" pages on thousands of business topics are very useful. I've been using Topix.net quite heavily in the past few weeks and regularly turn-up USEFUL articles I don't find elsewhere. Skrenta also let us know that the Topix crawler is now able to navigate javascript and pages utilizing frames. You should also notice that the name of the news source is now being provided. Until today just the domain name was visible. You can learn much more about Topix.net in this overview article from earlier this month and a new article from J.B.'s Searchblog.
Web Search--Google Source: News.com "Google hit with 'geo-location' lawsuit" From the article, "A Georgia company is suing Google over technology that the search giant uses to target advertising at Web surfers based on their location. Digital Envoy filed the lawsuit Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, charging that Google violated a licensing agreement when it began offering ads on third-party Web sites, the lawyer representing Digital Envoy confirmed Tuesday."
Editors Note: ResourceShelf welcomes a new contributor. Along with Shirl Kennedy and yours truly, Dan Giancaterino, a librarian based in Philadelphia, has agreed to share his thoughts (and some useful sites) with us from time to time. Making a Case for the Open Web by Dan Giancaterino A frequent topic on ResourceShelf is the importance of educating people about the high-quality electronic information sources from content aggregators and producers that are often available via libraries. However, in the areas of business and law, the "open web" can sometimes offer information, features and pricing options not found on LexisNexis or Westlaw. Here are a few examples: + D&B - Both LexisNexis and Westlaw have additional charges for D&B searches. Zapdata, D&B's database of 13 million U.S. companies, lets you do a simple company lookup for free (includes headquarters/branch designator, address, industry, and alternative names). More information is available for $5. + Delaware Corporate Records - Also available from both Lexis and Westlaw for an additional fee. With Lexis, however, you need to contact your rep to have the database activated for your account. (I've run into that problem in two different jobs.) The DE Department of State database is free and is more than adequate for a simple company lookup. Status information is an additional $10; filing history and tax information is $20. Both, however, are cheaper than LexisNexis or Westlaw. + Federal Register - The GPO's site allows you to bookmark or have delivered via email the table of contents of the current day's issue. To check daily for notices on a topic, click on the bookmark, then use Edit-Find on Page to search for the term. If there's a relevant notice, right-click on the link to it and select Copy Shortcut. Then open an email and paste the URL into it. Elapsed time: about a minute. In many cases, this procedure is simpler than setting up, testing, and managing an ECLIPSE or WestClip alert. + Non-profit organizations - GuideStar's database of 850,000 non-profits includes (if available) copies of the organization's IRS Form 990, sometimes going back several years. Not available on either LexisNexis or Westlaw.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Source: International Federation of Library Associations Full Text, Ross Shimmon, Selected Writings 1999-2004 Shimmon is retiring as IFLA's Secretary General. "This booklet contains ten selected papers Ross composed during his years at IFLA (1999 - 2004). They cover a broad variety of subjects, giving a special insight into the issues that inspired him during his tenure of this IFLA office." -- Knowledge Source: ManagingInformation.com The Knowledge Proposition From the site, "The Knowledge Proposition is a concise document that will help both senior executives understand the potential value of knowledge within their organisation and prove to be of interest to other knowledge and information professionals. It was developed by 20 of the world's leading knowledge practitioners through discussion and debate at the sixth tfpl CKO Summit." See Also: Direct Link to the Document
Primary Sources Source: Miller Center, University of Virginia Learn About: The Presidential Recordings Program From the site, "The Presidential Recordings Program is a unique and ambitious effort to transcribe, edit, annotate, and publish the secret White House recordings of Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. This primary source material allows the listener 'into the Oval Office,' affording an unprecedented opportunity to experience first hand how these presidents made key decisions and exercised leadership as they led the United States in peace and in war. From 1940 to 1973, these presidents recorded hundreds of their most significant meetings and telephone calls. The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson tapes together comprise well over 1,000 hours of recorded meetings and telephone calls. The Nixon tapes alone consist of 3,800 hours." A few audio clips are available on the web site.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) U.S. Government Source: GAO Full Text, Continuity of Operations: Improved Planning Needed to Ensure Delivery of Essential Government Services -- Critical Infrastructure--United States Source: GAO Full Text, Critical Infrastructure Protection: Challenges and Efforts to Secure Systems Monday, March 29, 2004
Web Search--Google New From Google Here's a review. 1) Tweaks to the Google Home Page and Other New Services Some users have been seeing this "new look" for several weeks. If you want to compare, here's what the "old" home page looked like. You'll notice that tabs to various Google databases are now links. Google's shopping database, Froogle, is now linked on the home page but the link to the Google Directory has been removed from the home page. The directory remains available here. This might be a good opportunity for some of you to become familiar with a few of the impressive non-commercial web directories available online. They include Infomine, Librarians Index to the Internet, AcademicInfo.net, and the Resource Discovery Network. Results pages also look slightly different. For example, your search terms are now located on the right side of the page, where they are hyperlinked to Dictionary.com. It would have been useful if Google would have taken a few cues from Yahoo. First, by numbering each result on results page. Second, by allowing the user to customize which tabs are visible. Btw, Froogle also sports a new look. Finally, thumbnail images (if available) are now placed next to Google News results. Want more? Google also introduced numrange searches. You can decide how well this works. Thanks to S.C. for his help with this post. 2) The other news comes from Google Labs Two new beta services. + Google Web Alerts Web Alerts will let you know when "there is new information on the web matching the search you specify." Results can be deilvered daily or weekly via e-mail. The FAQ tells us that Google Web Alerts looks for new results in the "top 10 news results (news.google.com) as well as the top 20 web results." This means if a new page comes on the web and is ranked at number 30, it will not be sent to you as an alert. What happens if the page never makes it into the Top 20 results? You'll never be alerted to it. Even if it does, it might take a long time to make it into the Top 20. Be careful. Btw, this is not a new idea. A service called Google Alert has been offering a similar tool for a couple of years. + Google "Personalized" Web Search From the FAQ, "Google Personalized web search delivers custom search results that are based on a profile you create describing your interests. For example, people with an interest in the outdoors will see different relevant sites for a search on 'bass' than people who are interested in music." After your results are delivered, you can resort them using a slider. Yahoo Shopping has offered a personalization service, Yahoo SmartSort, for several product categories. It's been available since October and also uses sliders to tweak results. See Also: In September, Google Acquired Kaltix This company offered search personalization technology. See Also: Complete Google News Release
Web Search--Google Source: The Wall Street Journal The Grownup at Google A Q&A interview with Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt. Google folks are sure doing a lot of press these days. Is the IPO getting closer?
Engineering Resources Source: Information Today NewsBreaks GlobalSpec Introduces "The Engineering Web" Last week we ran an item about the launch of GlobalSpec's new specialized search tool. Today, ITI's Paula Hane provides a closer look. From the article, "In announcing the enhancements, Jeffrey M. Killeen, GlobalSpec chairman and CEO said: 'We have built the specialized search engine and content repository for engineers and technical buyers—everything of relevance, expertly classified and indexed in one place. In fact, we believe we have built the definitive search platform for the engineering community.' John Schneiter, president and co-founder of GlobalSpec, said: 'Extensive research of our online community, as well as our own engineering experiences, told us that engineers and technical professionals are frustrated with general search engines and having to wade through pages of irrelevant results. We have built what they asked us for—and what we frankly wished we had ourselves as practicing engineering professionals—The Engineering Search Engine.'"
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Internet Beginning Today: Free (One Week Only) Full Text Access to Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy Free access is made available via Emerald's Journal of the Week program. Vol.4 No.1 (1994) - Vol.14 No. 1 (2004) will be accessible. Here is a list of a few articles from recent issues that might be of interest. + "Assisting the searcher: utilizing software agents for Web search systems" (Vol. 14 No.1) + "Information seeking on the Web by women in IT professions" (Vol. 13 No.4) + "A structural and content-based analysis for Web filtering" (Vol.13 No. 1) + "Methodologies for crawler based Web surveys" (Vol. 12 No. 2) -- Government Secrecy--United States Source: The Washington Post Nuclear Security Decisions Are Shrouded in Secrecy -- Library and Info Science Education Source: American Library Education Recently Released, Online Directory of ALA-Accredited Master's Library and Information Studies Programs From the announcement, "The directory exists on the ALA Web site in a database format, and allows users to easily search for programs that offer distance education, school library media programs, and degrees other than the ALA accredited degree. Program information may be searched by state or province, and programs are able to make changes to their listings, thus improving the currency of the directory between annual updates. Its online format also allows users to download a PDF version of the entire directory."
Enterprise Search Briefs (2 Items) + Fed Gov Selects Verity Technology for Regional Information Exchange System (JRIES) "JRIES utilizes the advanced search features of Verity K2E to locate, evaluate and analyze intelligence information stored within the system’s content repositories from all 50 states, five territories, the District of Columbia and 50 major urban areas." + Spain's Main Electric Operator Chooses FAST
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Economic Information--United States Source: U.S. Census Just Released, First 2002 Economic Census Report Summary ||| Direct to Tables -- Language George Mason University Speech Accent Archive "The speech accent archive is established to uniformly exhibit a large set of speech accents from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English all read the same English paragraph and are carefully recorded. The archive is constructed as a teaching tool and as a research tool. It is meant to be used by linguists as well as other people who simply wish to listen to and compare the accents of different english speakers. It allows users to compare the demographic and linguistic backgrounds of the speakers in order to determine which variables are key predictors of each accent. The speech accent archive demonstrates that accents are systematic rather than merely mistaken speech." 306 speech samples currently archived. -- Spyware Source: University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering Measurement and Analysis of Spyware in a University Environment "We first discuss background material on spyware, including the various types of spyware programs, their methods of transmission, and their run-time behavior. By examining four widespread programs (Gator, Cydoor, SaveNow, and eZula), we present a detailed analysis of their behavior, from which we derive signatures that can be used to detect their presence on remote computers through passive network monitoring. Using these signatures, we quantify the spread of these programs among hosts within the University of Washington by analyzing a week-long trace of network activity." See Also: Full study (PDF; 187 KB) See Also: Full study (HTML) Sunday, March 28, 2004
Search Technology Education--Resources for Educators A Faceted Approach to Searching: A New Demo Using Materials for Teachers First, the content. "The Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) project is a consortium effort to provide educators with quick and easy access to the substantial, but uncataloged, collections of educational materials found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites." Now with the description of GEM out of the way, let's move to the technology. This "new and enhanced" version of GEM has been online for about six weeks. It's powered with search technology from Siderean, a company based in LA that takes a "faceted approach" to searching. Those of you who took a cataloging class in library school can skip the next part. What are facets? "Faceted searching combines searching for specific words and phrases with browsing descriptions of resources - based on what are called facets." The famous or infamous Dewey Decimal Classification is a faceted system. I've always thought that this approach (easy to understand/learn) would be very useful for certain types of collections. Learn more in this brochure and white paper from the company. More on Siderean Semark in the future. Happy testing! See Also: Other Demos Using Siderean Technology The recipe demo contains thousands of entries. Useful!
Public Libraries--Databases Source: The Seattle Times Countless Levels of Data on Libraries' Web Sites From the article, "Google, the No. 1 search engine, can't offer all the information we might want from the Internet. In fact, we can't get to some extremely useful information that's on the Net simply by asking Google. I'm talking about those information-rich databases that are generally expensive and require membership for access. Public libraries, for example, subscribe to several of these databases and make them freely available to patrons." Those of you who are affiliated with a university or community college also have access to these types of tools. Note: Many other public libraries in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere offer similar services. Check your library's web site or just give them a call and ask. Most colleges and universities also offer remotely accessible databases for their students and faculty.
Professional Reading Shelf Online Searching Source: The Globe and Mail George Boole: The Isaac Newton of Logic "It was 150 years ago that George Boole published his literary classic The Laws of Thought, wherein he devised a mathematical language for dealing with mental machinations of logic. It was a symbolic language of thought -- an algebra of logic (algebra is the branch of mathematics that uses letters and other general symbols to represent numbers and quantities in formulas and equations)."
Government Documents--United States Government Printing Office--United States Source: GCN GPO signs on to using PKI From the article, "The Government Printing Office by mid-summer will authenticate government documents using a public-key infrastructure and digital signatures. Judy Russell, the GPO's superintendent of documents and managing director of information dissemination, yesterday said the office will apply the technology to all documents agencies submit to www.gpoaccess.gov. 'We want to mark content as it comes in and to take the final product and digitally sign it so others can determine it is authentic,' Russell said at the Federal Library and Information Center Committee Conference in Washington."
The Internet Archive The Internet Archive's Live Music Archive Reaches A Milestone The Internet Archive might be best known as the home of The Wayback Machine. However, it's also home to many other collections. Last week the IA's Live Music Archive (it's been online for about 18 months) announced that it currently contains more than 10,000 live recordings. Here are some stats courtesey of Brewster Kahle. + More than 10,000 shows + 150,000 tracks, from almost 500 bands + Almost 1,000 people have uploaded recordings + A few more stats here See Also: In Other IA News, Brewster Kahle Files Lawsuit (Kahle v. Ashcroft) "Plaintiffs in this case — the Internet Archive and its Chairman, Brewster Kahle, and the Prelinger Film Archive (formally, Prelinger Associates, Inc.) and its President, Richard Prelinger — are filing suit seeking a declaratory judgment that the current system of unconditional copyright is unconstitutional." Saturday, March 27, 2004
Web Search--Microsoft Microsoft To Offer Weblog Search Engine More from MS today. + More press for their news search service. Kudos to the reporter for mentioning that Newsbot has been online (for 10 countries and regions) since October at this url. Also, why is MS touting a 4000 source crawl? Rocket News, Yahoo News, and NewsNow offer thousands more. I would also bet that Topix will soon offer more sources. + From the article, "Microsoft is claiming a first with MSN Blogbot, a service that will let users search Web logs, or "blogs," personal-journal type Web pages that have become increasingly popular. MSN Blogbot will aggregate content from hundreds of thousands of Web logs and index that content based on which Web logs are most popular and credible, Redetzki said. The service should go into beta soon, and Microsoft plans to introduce MSN Blogbot worldwide..." Perhaps I should take the kudos I just gave to the reporter back. Microsoft might be claiming this is a first but the reporter should know and have mentioned that it's NOT. Search tools like Feedster, Daypop, and Technorati, and Waypath have been available for several years and do an impressive job. A few comments from Scott Rafer, CEO of Feedster, in this post from the Seattle Times MS Weblog. + For your long range (very long range) radar. From the article, "Microsoft said it is working on a natural language search engine, dubbed MSN Answerbot. This service will take questions from users and find answers on the Internet, rivaling a similar service from Ask Jeeves. No release date for MSN Answerbot has been set, but [Karen] Redetzki, [a product manager for MSN] says it is about three years away." See Also: Want to See A Massive List of Weblog and RSS Search Tools? Check this Page from FaganFinder See Also: "Web Question Answering: Is More Always Better?" A 2002 paper by Microsoft researchers. See Also: "An Analysis of the AskMSR Question-Answering System" Another 2002 paper by Microsoft researchers.
Web Search--Eurekster Source: Pandia & Search Engine Guide A Conversation with Grant Ryan from Eurekster Available via Pandia or Search Engine Guide SEL's Any Beal asks Eurekster's CEO, Grant Ryan, a few questions. From the interview, "Eurekster makes use of its own SearchMemory technology which remembers the sites a user finds useful and presents them higher in the results the next time they search. Then, Eurekster lets a user and their friends share their searches and sites, so when they do a “hotel” search, for example, they'll see the hotel sites their friends also found useful, moved up in the results and marked with an icon." See Also: A Recent Post About Social-Networking Software
Internet Source: New Scientist Spim: The New Spam From the article, "The volume of so-called 'spim' is set triple in 2004, according to a new report from the Radicati Group, a technology market research firm in Palo Alto, California. The company projects that 1.2 billion spims will be sent, 70 per cent of which are porn-related. This is a mere trickle compared to the 35 billion spams expected, but the researchers warn that spim is growing at about three times the rate of spam, as spammers adapt their toolkit to exploit a rapidly rising number of new instant messaging (IM) users.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Geospatial Information Source: RAND Corporation New Report, Publicly Available Federal Geospatial Information of Little Unique Use to Terrorists, RAND Study Finds "Less than 1 percent of publicly available federal Web sites and databases contain geospatial information not readily available elsewhere that could help terrorists and other hostile forces mount attacks in the United States, according to a RAND Corporation study...." See Also: Mapping the Risks: Assessing the Homeland Security Implications of Publicly Available Geospatial Information (Summary) See Also: Full Text of Report (PDF; 1.7 MB) Thanks to ResourceShelf's SDK for the links.
Professional Reading Shelf The Top Ten Things a new Sci/Tech Librarian Should Know: Developing Core Competencies Source: Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship A report from Sci/Tech Library Management Discussion Group ALA Annual Meeting in Toronto. Panel discussion incorporated supervisory viewpoint as well as new librarian viewpoint. Tips on how to get hired and what to do once you are hired. Friday, March 26, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Information Architecture Now Available: Presentations/Handouts from the Fifth Annual ASIS&T Information Architecture Summit The summit took place at the end of February in Austin, Texas. Presentations Include: + Taxonomies, Controlled Vocabularies, and Ontologies Panel + Fun with Faceted Browsing + When Ninety-one Years of Content goes Digital + Information Search Experience: Emotions in Information Seeking -- Scholarly Publishing Open Access Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education "Scientific Societies' Publishing Arms Unite Against Open-Access Movement" From the article, "'It feels good to say everything should be free,' says Martin Frank, executive director of the American Physiological Society and one of the organizers of the new coalition, in an interview. 'But we'd rather get there using a business model different than the one used by PLoS and the open-access advocates. It's our contention that there's nothing wrong with that, that it makes the literature available to the community of individuals who need it, in a timely manner.'" See Also: Washington DC Principles for Science Home Page
Search Tools Source: Technology Research News Search Tool Aids Browsing "Many research teams are working on the problem of how to make finding information on the Web faster and easier. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have devised a scheme that gives existing search engines some extra help. The software, dubbed ScentTrails, shows a user how strongly the links generated by a Web search correlate with the topics she is searching for. The software grades the links a search engine returns by increasing the font size of links that have more connections to relevant pages." See Also: complete paper as published in the ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction: ScentTrails: Integrating Browsing and Searching on the Web (PDF; 428 KB)
Web Search--AllTheWeb Source: Search Engine Showdown AllTheWeb Now Powered by Yahoo Database Greg N. reports that the ATW site remains online but is now using the Yahoo database of web pages. This move was expected. The article also mentions that while some of ATW's advanced search options remain available, others have been removed. ATW's "Query Rewrite" option is also no longer available. Notess also mentions that ATW will only index the first 500kb of an html web page or pdf document. Google stops indexing web pages at the 101kb mark. In other Search Engine Showdown news, the wonderful Search Engine Features chart as well as several search engine reviews have been updated. Hooray!
News Alerts Source: The Virtual Chase RSS Search Engine Feedster Adds E-Mail Alert Service Free e-mail-based keyword alerts from an RSS search tool. The TVC post also shares a caveat. Many sites only syndicate the headline or a snippet in their RSS feed. So, if your alert terms appear, let's say in paragraph two and the site is only syndicating a headline, an alert will not be generated. Nevertheless. I still think the service will be of value especially for competitive intelligence and marketing types who want a simple way (and free) method for keeping track of product or company mentions in the blogosphere. Kudos are in order for Scott J., Scott R., and Francois, for continuing to add new features and services to Feedster.
Local Search Mapquest Beta Tests Local Search Tool Mapquest is also giving local search a try. The company (part of AOL) is beta testing a business search tool called MQ Search. A company spokesperson told me that that beta has been available for a few weeks but provided no info about future plans for the service. + Directory information is provided by InfoUsa. + Search interface located on MapQuest home page or this url. + Search by category or business name + Each entry is linked to a map + Sort results alphabetically or by distance (25 or 50 miles) + Ads on results pages provided by Google + Like other Mapquest products, maps can be downloaded to a pda + AOL Yellow Pages is Also Linked from Mapquest site
Shopping and Directory Search Tools Two More Acquisitions in the Search Arena 1) Infospace Acquires Switchboard Infospace pays $160 Million. -- 2) Yahoo Acquires European Shopping Engine Kelkoo Yahoo pays $575 Million.
Copyright Source: UNESCO New Resource, National Copyright and Related Rights Legislation of UNESCO Members From the announcement, "Full texts of national copyright and related rights legislation of UNESCO Member States can now be accessed on the website of UNESCO's Culture Sector. The collection currently comprises about 100 laws and is constantly being updated and completed." See Also: Direct to Collection of National Copyright Laws
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Campaign Finance Source: FEC Just Released, Major Parties' Fundraising Summarized Several spreadsheets are included. -- Aviation Industry--United States Source: FAA Just Released, Full Text, FAA Aerospace Forecasts Fiscal Years 2004 - 2015 Fact Sheet ||| Full Text -- R&D--United States Source: NSF Just Updated, Master Government List of 36 Federally Funded Research and Development Centers Fiscal Year 2004 -- Sports Business--United States Revenues From Sport Venues "We're Revenues From Sports Venues and our business is providing that information to you." While most of the information here is fee-based, the site offers free, current data on naming rights sales and prices, and the average high and low prices for luxury suites and club seats. There's also a comprehensive listing of "major and minor sports venues, organized by state, city, venue and teams that play in the venues." (PDF; 64 KB) Thursday, March 25, 2004
Resources of the Week Two items this week. --- 1) The Web Library: Building a World Class Personal Library with Free Web Resources This impressive compilation is the web companion to Nick Tomaiuolo's new book. It's "must review" material. Although more than a few of the 350+ sites listed might already be favorites (you'll spot many that have been featured on ResourceShelf), you're VERY likely to discover many new gems. Of course, the book might also be of interest since it includes numerous interviews and other useful material not found on the web site. Btw, Tomaiuolo continues to add new material to the web site on a weekly basis. The layout of the web site is simple and easy to use. Various subject-based compilations are listed (corresponding to different chapters in the book). After just a few minutes of browsing, I was able to identify several resources that were new to me. Including: + FreeFullText.Com "Direct links to over 7000 scholarly periodicals which allow some or all of their online content to be viewed by ANYONE with Internet access for free (though some may require free registration)." + The Visual Dictionary of Fashion "Covers the 18th through 20th century in womenswear, menswear, and childrenswear. Search or browse. Geographic search is available." + University of Michigan Instrument Encyclopedia "Not an exhaustive site, the content of the encyclopedia is developed by graduate students. Browse or search for a musical tradition or a specific instrument." Nick Tomaiuolo is an associate librarian in the reference department at Central Connecticut State University. The cover of his book (edited by Barbara Quint) includes positive comments from Tara Calishain, Lisa Guernsey, and Peter Jacso. --- --- 2) Digital Collections University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections "This site showcases some of the online multimedia collections built under auspices of the University of Washington Libraries' Digital Initiatives Program," and there is a wealth of material here -- mostly photographs, but also including newspapers, reports, pamphlets, posters, and maps. Although many of the collections have a local focus -- Washington State and the Pacific Northwest -- there a number of collections worth bookmarking by anyone located anywhere. The Cities & Buildings Database, for example, includes "7,500 recent images of architecture and city views from around the world." The Fashion Plates Collection contains more than 400 19th and 20th century fashion magazine illustrations of women's and men's clothing. The Freshwater and Marine Image Bank offers more than "10,000 historic images relating to freshwater and marine subjects including dams, fisheries, fish species, vessels and maps." Collections are grouped into nine main subject areas: Pacific Northwest, Seattle, Alaska & the Yukon, Art & Architecture, Expeditions & Adventures, International, Labor & Industry, Natural World, Politics. They're all searchable -- by keyword, across all collections, or via an advanced search form that allows you to pick and choose collections to search, and to search by subject, title, creator, date, etc.
Web Search Information Retrieval For the Search and IR Geeks Out There: Papers from the Upcoming WWW2004 Conference Those of you with an interest in what's going on in web search and IR research might find a compilation I've put together to be of value. It offers direct links to several search and search-related papers to be given at the upcoming WWW2004 (Thirteenth International World Wide Web Conference). The compilation is posted on ResourceShelfPLUS.
Engineering Resources Just Launched, A New Resource for Engineers GlobalSpec, a company that provides access to over 10,000 product catalogs (they call it a product discovery system) launched, "The Engineering Web" today as a new tool on their web site. We first mentioned this new service about two weeks ago. "The Engineering Web" is a "focused crawler" the deals with engineering and technical information. According to the site, they've crawled about 10,000 sources and provide direct access to several IW resources including the U.S., European, and WIPO patent databases. More later and look for a write-up from ITI on Monday. To access "The Engineering Web" look for the the links on the left-side of the Global Spec home page or via the pull-down menu attached to the main search box. See Also: EEVL A massive engineering directory and search tool developed by librarians in the UK. It's part of the RDN. Here's an overview article about EEVL that was published in SearchDay.
Web Search--Microsoft Source: News.com Microsoft's Ballmer, "Search Was Our Worst Mistake" From the article, "'People say that Microsoft does it all, but this is the case where we didn't do it all,'" Ballmer told an audience of marketing and media executives here at the software giant's fifth annual advertising conference. Then, like an eager football coach pumping up the team for the second half, Ballmer reasserted that Microsoft is still in the game and plans to win...Ballmer did not comment on the European ruling, but did sound an upbeat note for Microsoft's growing impetus in search development. He said the company has hired many top search software developers and plans to be the absolute best in search over time. He also downplayed the mystical reputation of Google's search tool. 'There's no magic here, it takes good hard work…and hard-core software' to deliver relevant results, he said...Ballmer would not plot an exact timeline for the launch of a new Microsoft search engine, but he said that first-generation technology from its development team would likely appear in the next 12 months."
Web Search Source: NY Post In Google Many Trust (Too Much) Just because you don't find something when running a Google search doesn't mean the info isn't out there. Here's an example. From the article, "Had anyone bothered to Google Shamoon "Sam" Rafiq a month ago, they would not have found much information about the man. A now-removed profile from the Amsterdam American Business Club's Web site listed Rafiq as a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Other than that, you could assume that Rafiq is a soccer fan - messages attributed to him are posted on a soccer fan Web site. Rafiq never was a partner at Kleiner Perkins, however, and today he sits in jail charged with wire fraud for selling non-existent shares of Google. Rafiq's alleged exploits, which the feds say netted him almost $3 million, were detailed in yesterday's Post (you can find the story online). He is accused of conning corporate executives and Wall Street types - an investment banker and stock broker. That people would salivate over Google's IPO - despite the fact the company has not yet even filed for one - is not surprising... But all that Googles is not gold. Just ask Shamoon Rafiq's alleged victims. Had anyone bothered to look somewhere other than Google for information on Rafiq, they would have found information that made them think twice about trusting the man. Searches for Rafiq on LookSmart, Yahoo! and AllTheWeb.com turn up a 2001 press release in which the mysterious man was named an executive at now-defunct Ripcord Systems. You can find the same press release through Factiva and Lexis-Nexis as well." Thanks to Seth F. for the link. See Also: Read More in this 3/18 SF Chronicle Article
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) National Archives--United Kingdom Source: The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council Just Released Report, Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future: The Report of the Archives Task Force From a Resource news release, "The report, Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future, comes at a time when unprecedented numbers of people at home and overseas are beginning to use the UK's archives for genealogy or to explore the history of their community. It highlights the importance and remarkable diversity of British archives and points to ways in which access to these resources can be developed." -- Information Seeking Behavior Health Information Source: Journal of Medical Internet Research Online Pediatric Information Seeking Among Mothers of Young Children: Results From a Qualitative Study Using Focus Groups "Women appear to be high information seekers during pregnancy and the first few years following delivery, and this period represents an important window of time for providing online health information. Participants suggested that online information sources and motives for providing online information should be clear in order to increase perceptions of trust. Participants expressed preference for online clinical health information that is presented by clinical professionals, and online parenting advice that is presented from other parents."
Access to Information--United States Web Site Preview, OpenTheGoverment.org From the site, "What OpenTheGovernment.org will do? We'll highlight alerts, reports and analyses from dozens of groups. This coalition includes librarians, journalists, good government and environmental groups, and labor. We are advocates defending the First Amendment, promoting free expression, strengthening national security and fighting censorship." The public launch of the web site will take place later this spring. Several library organizations have signed the OpenTheGovernment.org "statement of values." See Also: A Bit More From OMB Watch "OpenTheGovernment.org is a new, unprecedented coalition of over 30 organizations created to fight increased secrecy and promote open government."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) WMD Source: Congressional Research Service New, Full Text, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Trade Between North Korea and Pakistan 23 pages; PDF. -- Internet Source: United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force Home Page, Global Forum on Internet Governance The forum begins today. -- Internet Usage--United States Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Just Released Report, Older Americans and the Internet Summary ||| Direct to Full Text From the summary, "The percent of seniors who go online has jumped by 47% between 2000 and 2004. In a February 2004 survey, 22% of Americans age 65 or older reported having access to the Internet, up from 15% in 2000. That translates to about 8 million Americans age 65 or older who use the Internet. By contrast, 58% of Americans age 50-64, 75% of 30-49 year-olds, and 77% of 18-29 year-olds currently go online." -- Education Technology--Schools Source: Bureau of Educational Technology, Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida Educational Technology Clearinghouse "For your convenience, we've grouped the pages into three sections: + Subjects: Here you will find links to the best of the Web, sorted by subject and grade level. + Resources: Valuable links for teachers, administrators, grant-seekers, and other members of the educational community. + Reference Desk: Quick links to the most useful reference sources on the Web." Includes database containing more than 3,500 pieces of clipart licensed for free educational use. License says: "A maximum of fifty (50) clipart items may be used in any non-commercial, educational project (report, presentation, display, website, etc.) without special permission. The use of more than fifty clipart items in a single project requires written permission from the Florida Center for Instructional Technology (FCIT) at USF. -- Counties--United States Source: NETRonline New, NETR County Locator "You can search for counties by supplying either a City/Town OR a Zip Code..." Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Social-Networking Software Source: Technology Review Internetworking A look at several social-networking software companies. From the article, "The premise behind this new social-networking technology is simple: you may know a lot of people from work, college, church, or your neighborhood, but you probably don’t know exactly who their friends are—and forget about their friends’ friends. But join an online social network and invite a few acquaintances, and the software will begin to reveal previously hidden second- or third-degree connections that can lead to an interview, business meeting, or tee time with that elusive potential client or employer." Companies mentioned: + Tribe.net + Visible Path + Spoke Software + Broadband Mechanics + Ryze
News Search Source: San Jose Mercury News All the news that's fit for searching A short article on what MS is up to in the news search arena. From the article, "...NewsJunkie, could help Microsoft develop a search function in Windows to compete with Google. It's also planned as part of MSN's upcoming news page, called Newsbot. Using principles of artificial intelligence and information retrieval, NewsJunkie keeps track of what a reader has already seen. It reorganizes news stories to rank those with the most new information at the top and push those with repetitive information to the bottom, or filter them out entirely. NewsJunkie can help improve news alerts beyond key words to offer only new information, the researchers said. [Susan] Dumais is working on a similar project to make search happen behind the scenes to recognize what you're working on, search your hard drive and automatically present related files." Thanks to Andy B. for the news tip. NOTE: The article does not mention that a public beta of Newsbot has been online since November. You can learn a bit more in this ResourceShelf post. See Also: Findory is a "Just Launched" Adaptive News Search Resource
Web Search--Google Google's Craig Silverstein Chats from ZDNet UK Silverstein is Google's Director of Technology. Here are a few passages from the article. + "Silverstein said he believes that within a few years Google could have a voice interface for everything from driving directions to help you finding the aisle for a particular food in your local supermarket." + "Silverstein said speech-based searching presented a real problem but not because of the recognition technology. Instead he said the problem lies in the way results are returned. 'The problem is, how do you get the answers back? Do you have someone reading them off to you like one of those voicemail mazes where it takes so long to speak to someone? A big list works visually, but doesn't work very well in audio,' he said." + "Silverstein said he was unconcerned about the phenomenon known as Google Bombing." + "Silverstein said that Google is also interested in adding new kinds of content that were not previously available in any electronic form. 'I think we probe much if not most of the static Web, which consists of pages that are not dynamically generated. From the dynamically generated stuff it is hard to say. We cover a lot of it, but probably not close to everything,' he said." See Also: Silverstein Introduces the Idea of Search Pets (via Searchblog.com)
Citation Analysis Scholarly Publishing Source: ISI + Journals Ranked by Impact: International Relations + Science in Brazil, 1998-2002 + Economics: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1998-2002
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Energy Geochemistry Source: USGS Just Released, One-of-a-Kind Database of World’s Petroleum Resources Now Available Summary ||| Direct to Database -- Political Action Committees Source: Federal Election Commission PAC Statistics 2003 Includes several tables and rankings. Including: + Top 50 PACs by Receipts January 1, 2003 - December 31, 2003 + Top 50 PACs by Cash on Hand as of December 31, 2003 -- Population--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Moving Rates Lowest in 50+ Years, Census Bureau Reports Summary ||| Direct to Full Text Report -- Documents in the News September 11th Source: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States + Staff Statement No. 5: Diplomacy + Staff Statement No. 6: The Military + Staff Statement No. 7: Intelligence Policy See Also: Transcripts and Other Documents from Hearings Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Information Retrieval--Visualization Source: Technology Review Sketchy Information The articles asks if "graphical search interfaces make a picture worth a thousand links?" From the article, "'The biggest challenge with visualization is data overload,' says Greg Coyle, general manager of Ancubis, a Cambridge, UK-based developer of search visualization tools. 'When the data sets get large, it’s a challenge to usefully visually represent that and not scare the hell out of the user.' Effective presentation requires understanding how to categorize it and relate one piece of information to another. So developers need descriptive information about the underlying data that people want to search." Products Discussed: + Gnod.net (More About Gnod.net soon.) It's a "self-adapting community system." + Endeca ||| Demo + Anacubis ||| Demo
Professional Reading Shelf (5 Items) Reference Services Source: OCLC Webcast: Next Generation Reference Services "Five experts discuss next-generation reference services at the OCLC -- Awards LITA Names Several Award Winners + 2004 LITA/Library Hi Tech Award: Eric Lease Morgan from the University Libraries of Notre Dame + LITA/Brett Butler Entrepreneurship Award: Susan McGlamery from 24/7 + Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library and Information Technology: Carl Lagoze, Cornell University + Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award: Jerome Yavarkovsky, Boston College -- Open Access + New Open Society Institute Grants Program Will Promote Open Access Publishing + (Mis)Leading Open Access Myths (via BioMedCentral) "BioMed Central responds to criticisms of the Open Access publishing model." -- Wireless Libraries Source: Government Computer News Library of Congress Sets Wireless Course "With little or no wireless connectivity in the three main LOC buildings, the library IT team has awarded a $2.9 million contract to EMS Technologies Inc. of Atlanta for a system to support wireless voice and data access via cell phones, personal digital assistants and notebook PCs." -- Government Libraries--United States Source: Federal Computer Week NIST Honored for Library Tech "The Library of Congress' Federal Library and Information Center Committee will give awards on March 25 to federal libraries and librarians for outstanding work and technological innovations in 2003. The National Institute of Standards and Technology Research Library will be recognized as federal library of the year among libraries with 11 or more staff members or contract employees, the Library of Congress committee officials said. The Library Services Department at the Naval Medical Center, in Portsmouth, Va., will be commended as federal library of the year among libraries with 10 or fewer staff members."
Web Browsers An Upcoming Version of Opera will Include IBM's ViaVoice Technology No need to type your search, just say it. From the announcement, "Opera Software announced the upcoming release of a multimodal desktop browser that incorporates IBM's Embedded ViaVoice speech technology. By leveraging IBM's voice libraries in this version of Opera, users can navigate, request information and even fill in Web forms using speech and other forms of input in the same interaction. 'Voice is the most natural and effective way we communicate. In the years to come it will greatly facilitate how we interact with technology,' says Christen Krogh, VP Engineering, Opera Software ASA. 'By making this technology available today for the wider Web audience, the serious work of voice-enabling the Web can commence.'...Opera will make the IBM integrated voice browser available in English for Windows with initial targets being enterprise customers and developers"
Enterprise Search (2 Items) + Yet Another Deal for FAST Reuters has announced that they will utilize FAST technology to monitor the web for copyright infringements. Reuters also uses FAST to power their news alert service. + ProQuest Licenses Its Taxonomy to Convera
Web Search--Google Source: MarketWatch.com More on Google's Possible SEC Filings, IPO From the article, "Google.com has been coy about going public even as Wall Street's collective mouth waters, but the Internet giant may soon have to reveal its closely guarded financial performance through another type of public filing, according to securities lawyers tracking the company. If Google has $10 million of total assets and more than 500 stockholders, it will have to file a Form 10 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, under section 12(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934...Such a filing will make public Google's earnings and revenue information. It would also trigger the need for other public filings such as proxy statements and annual reports...If Google reached the threshold of 500 stockholders by the end of 2003 and if that is the end of its fiscal year, it would have to file a Form 10 by April 30, said Matthew Gilman, a partner at Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels in Boston."
Web Search--Dogpile Dogpile Releases Toolbar That Features Scrolling RSS Feed Ticker Two days and two toolbars. Yesterday, a new toolbar with RSS and hard drive search capabilities from Hotbot. Today, Dogpile releases an upgrade to its toolbar. Dogpile Search Toolbar 2.2.0 offers an RSS reader and the chance to view your feeds (headlines only) as they scroll across the toolbar. See Also: Reuters Publishes Article About RSS Thanks to S.C. for the news tip.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Iraq War Source: Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), Committee on Goverment Reform (U.S. House) Searchable Database, Iraq on the Record From the site, "The Iraq on the Record database contains statements from the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on the Iraq war: President George Bush; Vice President Richard Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Secretary of State Colin Powell; and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice." Methodology info is also provided. -- Philanthropy--United States--Statistics Source: Foundation Center Just Released, Foundation Center Statistics on Grants Awarded in 2002 Includes Top 50 U.S. Foundations by Giving rankings for each state and the District of Columbia. -- Budget--Canada Source: Department of Canada Just Released, Canada Budget 2004 -- Election 2004 Factiva Posts Media Visibility Index for Democratic Presidential Hopefuls (Week Ending 3/21/04)
Public Records--United States--Databases Source: FCW NTIS Makes Web-Based Version of Social Security Master Death Index Available (Fee-Based) From the article, "The official Social Security Administration Death Master File, a database of all deaths reported to the SSA, is now available over the Internet for a fee. Today the National Technical Information Service, which offers online access to Social Security data, announced that government and commercial organizations can buy annual subscriptions, starting at $995. Organizations that buy an interactive subscription can make an unlimited number of queries in the database, NTIS officials said. Previously, organizations that relied on their own copies of the Death Master File had to buy weekly or monthly updates to prevent the database from becoming inaccurate." See Also: Learn More/Subscription Info See Also: Free Access to the SSDI is Also Available This version (via Rootsweb) was last updated in January and contains 72 million records. The new NTIS product states that it provides access to 65 million records. Monday, March 22, 2004
Search Tools Source: InfoToday NewsBreaks New from Hotbot: Index and Search Your Computer, RSS Feeds, and the Web With New Desktop From an overview article that I've co-authored with Barbara Quint, "Lycos has launched a free toolbar search product [IE, Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP] from HotBot, their search service, which the company says is 'the first product to integrate traditional desktop search with Web search within the browser.' The same search tool can now reach the Internet, e-mail folders for Outlook or Outlook Express, and user documents stored on a hard drive. The free application does not even require registration. It also incorporates a blocker for pop-up ads and an RSS News Reader syndication. Searching reaches six file types: MS Office, PDF, RTF, and text. Indexes created to track e-mail and user files remain stored locally to protect user privacy." Key Features: + Web Search + Hard Drive Search + Search Your RSS Feeds (RSS Reader Also Included) + Keyword Search Your Browser History File + Ability to Add Most Search Sites to the Toolbar + Other Common Toolbar Features (pop-up blocker, highlighted search terms, etc.) Also, from the article, "Is it perfect? Hardly. The Lycos toolbar has several issues of concern. Luckily, the company plans to address many of those issues in an updated release of the toolbar scheduled for the end of this quarter or early summer. Nonetheless, Lycos should be given kudos for being the first major search company in many years to offer hard drive search capability with a free toolbar. It's something that many searchers have been asking for since AltaVista offered a local search toolbar called AltaVista Discovery several years ago...Bottom line? Lycos HotBot DeskTop is worth attention since the price is right (free) and many searchers need as much help as possible finding content on their computers." NOTE: Several years ago AltaVista offered AltaVista Discovery. This publicly available (and free) tool offered desktop search. It's no longer available. See Also: Learn More via the HotBot Desktop Download Page See Also: Hotbot's Deskbar (Released Last Year) Remains Available See Also: And Speaking of RSS...The Washington Post is now making several feeds available. Thanks to Steven C. for the news tip.
Web Search--Google Source: Searchblog How Does Google See Itself: Search Technology Company or Media Company? John Battelle writes from PC Forum where Google's CEO Eric Schmidt spoke today, "Eric views Google as a media company, or at least that's the take I came away with. That is new, last time we spoke, Google was a technology company driven by media revenues..." See Also: Google to find place for Orkut network in search
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Federated Searching Source: TechNewsWorld Federated Searching: A Viable Alternative to Web Surfing NOTE: This article also appears in the current issue of MultiMedia & Internet@Schools -- Digital Preservation Source: Canadian Heritage Information Network New, Full Text, Digital Preservation: Best Practice for Museums
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) Population Source: U.S. Census Just Released, U.S. Census Publishes World Population Estimates Summary ||| Full Text Report ||| Download Report by Chapter See Also: Global Population at a Glance: 2002 and Beyond -- Peacekeeping Source: United Nations New Web Resource, Peacekeeping Best Practices "Publications; extensive database of reports, papers and speeches related to peacekeeping; events calendar; directory of organizations active in the area of peace and security; etc." -- Weapons--Country Profiles Source: Nuclear Threat Initiative NTI Country Overviews "These country profiles and overviews provide insight into why countries pursue nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and missile programs, how they develop their programs, and why they may choose to stop developing such weapons. The researchers at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies have been studying these countries for more than a decade. They have drawn from their knowledge and extensive databases to provide in-depth profiles and short overviews of each country's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and missile development programs, policies and activities." Ted Turner and Senator Sam Nunn founded NTI in January 2001. It is "supported by a pledge from Mr. Turner and other private contributions." See also: NTI Research Library -- Education--United States--Statistics Source: NCES Updated Data, 2001-02 Private School Data Now Accessible Through Data Base Applications "The data for these search applications comes from the 30,377 schools that responded to the 2001-2002 Private School Universe Survey (PSS) conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics." -- Aviation--United States--Statistics Source: NTSB Just Released, Preliminary Aviation Accident Statistics 2003 Summary ||| Additional Stats
Research Tools New Versions of GuruNet Available, Now Accessible Without the Need to Download Software Wonderful news from Gurunet. Until today you needed to download and install a small application to access GuruNet's impressive list of 150 reference sources. That's all changed. The company has launched a web-based version of their product (fee-based). However, GuruNet's client apps remain available. A two week free trial is available. GuruNet charges $29.95/year to access the service. What does GuruNet Offer? + GuruNet on the Web + GuruNet IE Tool Bar + GuruNet 5.0 for Windows ++ NOTE: The company has announced that a Mac version will be available in Q2. + GuruNet Kids See Also: In his review of GuruNet (3/2003) Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal did an excellent job in explaining how the product works and how it provides potential answers, not just links. See Also: An Interview With GuruNet's CEO, Bob Rosenschein (via eMarketer)
Briefly Factiva Launches iWorker Search Technology From the let's make it easier to use department..."Factiva iWorker Search Technology is a patent-pending system and method that seamlessly matches simple, keyword searches to the filtering capability embedded within Factiva's proprietary taxonomy. The taxonomy consists of company, region, industry, language, and subject codes that are universally applied to Factiva's entire content set to help ensure more precise and accurate results. In addition, the search experience is personalized as users set their preference for a specific region and industry, which influences the relevance of their results." -- Learn About iXmatch (via The Business Journal) Sunday, March 21, 2004
Web Search--Google Sunday Fun! Can Google's Local Search Help Find Bin Laden? A little Sunday fun at Google's expense. I'm sure they can handle it. (-: It seems that Google's new Local Search (yes, it's a Beta and these examples illustrate that it really does need a bit of work) show that Osama Bin Laden might be masquerading as a doctor in various cities. For example, in: + State College, PA + Chicago, IL + Kentfield, CA NOTE: I've tried searching using many other locations and Bin Laden always is a doctor. Btw, Google's Local Search can also help identify other organizations: + Sons of Bitches in Washington DC + Poorly Run Companies, Mountain View, CA + Bank Robbers 10036 + Death Chambers in Los Angeles + On Friday, Jeremy Z., mentioned that Google Local can find Serial Killers near Sunnyvale, CA. See Also, Google Rolls Out Local Search Product (U.S. Only)
Web Search--Google Source: Newsweek Oh Look, Another Google Article Here's something novel (not), Google is a cover story. This time, it's from Newsweek. Nothing really new. Here are a few passages. + "...Yahoo is now making its bid to be a Google buster. Last month it unveiled a rebuilt engine, which spits out results comparable to the other guy's. The long-term strategy is to tap the treasure house of information that lives elsewhere on the busy Yahoo portal. So your search might draw from Yahoo's traffic reports, shopping services, maps, financial data and hot Britney gossip. 'Search results are not enough,' says Weiner. 'We're going to add another layer.'" + "The winners will be the ones who innovate best, because the major breakthroughs in the field are yet to come. 'Search is not a solved problem,' says Udi Manber, CEO of A9, a new search company formed by Amazon.com that will focus on e-commerce. Ten years from now, what we're doing now will look pretty primitive." + "...a Washington, D.C., start-up called Streamsage has created breakthrough technology that searches audio and video broadcasts by analyzing speech." NOTE: The writer fails to mention that HP has offerered a publicly available demo project called Speechbot that offers speech analysis search using 17,000 hours of radio programming. See Also: On the Google IPO (via Newsweek) See Also: Little Engines That Can (via Newsweek) Mentions of: + Groxis + Eurekster + Nutch + Dipsie + Mooter and look, even More Google Press... This time from AP + Loyal Users Cheer Google's Integrity "In an interview, Page said Google shared values that most journalists hold: providing 'really good, trustworthy, objective, unbiased information.'" Comment: What about the Google Bombing issue? + "Google Seeks Consensus on Privacy Issues" Why do reporter's always make it seem that Google is totally unique technology?
The National Registry of Historic Sound The Library of Congress Source: AP Preserving Historic Sound, Round 2 From the article, "An 1888 recitation of the Lord's Prayer, the original cast recording of "Oklahoma!" and the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album will be enshrined together in the nation's registry of historic sound. They are among the second group of 50 recordings chosen to be digitally preserved by the Library of Congress in an annual program similar to the library's more-established registry of films." See Also: The Complete List of Entries and More Info via the Official Announcement from LC See Also: National Recording Preservation Board Home Page
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Ephemera Ephemera for Engineers and Scientists Source: Today's Engineer (IEEE) "Many technical articles now include references to Internet addresses, as opposed to hard-copy resources. Authors and readers alike complain that many of these URL-identified references seem to vaporize with time." -- Scholarly Information Source: JISC An interview with Director of Scholarly Information Strategies, Australian National University
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Freedom of Information Act--United States Source: U.S. Department of Justice Principal FOIA Contacts at Federal Agencies "For inter-agency contact purposes, the following list contains the principal FOIA contacts at all federal agencies dealing regularly with FOIA matters. In some instances (e.g., the Department of Defense), all major agency components are listed individually under the agencies. In other instances (e.g., the Food and Drug Administration), major agency components are listed separately. In still other instances (e.g., the Department of Labor), no components are listed, as it is the agency's preference that all FOIA contacts be made through its main FOIA office." -- Software Licensing Software Licensing 101 Source: InfoWorld "Hate reading software licenses? Not knowing the language might have something to do with it. Here’s a quick glossary." See Also: InfoWorld Special Report: Reading Between the Lines of Licensing Agreements -- Health Information New Topic Page/Compilation from MEDLINEplus + MedlinePlus: Over-the-Counter Medicines -- Space--Directory Space Agencies and Organizations Source: AstroWeb (Centre de Donnees astronomiques de Strasbourg) Alphabetical list of direct links to 50+ space-related institutions around the world. -- An extra special thanks to Shirl Kennedy for all of her assistance today. Saturday, March 20, 2004
News Search--Yahoo Yahoo's New and Improved News Search is Now Out of Beta On January 15th ResourceShelf was one of the first sites to report that Yahoo had launched a beta test of an improved news search engine. Today, news that the beta is over and the new version is live at news.yahoo.com. All of the functionality that we highlighted in January remains available along with a just released "related searches" feature. Thanks to J.B. for letting us know.
Web Search--Microsoft Microsoft Search News Reuters has published a story stating that Microsoft will release a "new search engine" in July. This is a bit misleading. Other sources, including Searchblog and News.com, have reported that the changes are related to how ads are placed and labeled on search results pages. The database will still be provided by Inktomi (now part of Yahoo). In other words, July will NOT see the release of a new Microsoft-powered database. From the News.com article, "On July 1, MSN plans to overhaul the way its search result pages appear. The top three listings, instead of four, will be highlighted with a box, marking them as "sponsored" results. These will be sold by MSN sales staff. MSN will also replace Overture-sponsored listings from underneath with one editorial staff-recommended site. Following that will appear natural or algorithmic search listings, provided by Yahoo-owned Inktomi."
Web Search--Hotbot Hotbot Removes Access to the Lycos Database Since it relaunched in late 2002, Hotbot provided easy access to four unique web databases. Today, Hotbot removed access to the Lycos database. This move is not unexpected. The Lycos database has been powered by AlltheWeb. It has been reported that Yahoo, the current owner of the AtW domain and web search technology, will stop crawling/building a unique AtW database. Hotbot is now providing access to three web databases: + Inktomi (a Yahoo company) + Ask Jeeves See Also: So What's Going to Happen to the AlltheWeb Web Site and Technology? Friday, March 19, 2004
Education--Databases Source: U.S. Dept. of Education Department of Education Awards $34.6 Million Contract to Develop and Operate ERIC From the announcement, "The U.S. Department of Education has awarded a five-year, $34.6 million contract to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) of Rockville, Md., along with its subcontractors, to develop and operate a new database system for the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC). The ERIC database will use the latest search and retrieval methods to cull education literature and give high-quality access to educators, researchers, and the general public...With the new ERIC, individuals will be able to go to one Web site to search a comprehensive database of journal articles and document abstracts and descriptions and, for the first time, directly access full text. The database will include as much free full text as possible, and links will be provided to commercial sources so that individuals can purchase journal articles and other full text immediately." Here's a bit more from the announcement Development of the new ERIC database model will begin in this month under the following plan: * A steering committee of technical experts will recommend operational guidelines for the database. * Groups of content experts will recommend guidelines for identifying journal and non-journal materials for the database. * Public forums will be organized to solicit ideas for making the database highly useful to educators, researchers, and the general public. * Electronic systems for acquiring materials and authorizations for dissemination, managing content, and providing an efficient, searchable database will be implemented.
Legal Resources Source: American Association of Law Librarians Law Library Of Congress To Upgrade the Global Legal Information Network From the announcement, "The Law Library of Congress has awarded a five-year contract to develop and implement major enhancements to the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN)...GLIN is a voluntary federation of governments that contribute official legal documents to its Internet database...The contract was awarded to Advanced Technology Systems (ATS) of McLean, VA, which will work with the Law Library to design an enhanced system using appropriate technology to expand GLIN digital resources, including the capability to input documents such as court decisions and legislative records, improve the user interface with contemporary graphics and “user friendly” features, and expand GLIN’s multilingual features." See Also: Direct to the Global Legal Information Network
Web Search--Google Source: Reuters AOL has right to buy nearly 2 million Google shares From the article, "Internet service provider American Online has the right to buy about 1.9 million preferred shares of Google for around $22 million, under a 2002 deal with the world's No. 1 Web search engine, AOL parent Time Warner said in a recent filing." The full text of the AOL filing is available here. You can go directly to the section about Google here.
Information Retrieval Source: BBC EU aims to improve net searching From the article, "A European-funded project aims to revolutionise the way internet search engines work...It is hoped that eventually the project will develop search engines that can emulate the human ability to assess the context of information presented and sort out irrelevancies before delivering the results. Project SEKT (Semantic Knowledge Technologies) is made up of 12 partners from the world of commerce and academia. It includes BT's research wing BT Exact and the universities of Sheffield, Innsbruck and Barcelona." Thanks to Andy B. and Christophe A. for the link.
Information Access Source: KMWorld The High Cost of Not Finding Information "There are all kinds of information disasters. Some are caused by wrong information. Some are caused by outdated information.... Missing or incomplete information plagues many projects..... Finally, there is the increasing problem of too much information." Some interesting statistics here: + "(R)oughly 50% of most Web searches are abandoned." + "Knowledge workers spend from 15% to 35% of their time searching for information." + "Searchers are successful in finding what they seek 50% of the time or less...." + "40% of corporate users reported that they can not find the information they need to do their jobs on their intranets." + "Not locating and retrieving information has an opportunity cost of more than $15 million annually."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Cyber Security Source: National Cyber Security Partnership Just Released, Small Business Cyber Security Guidebook See Also: New Web Site, National Cyber Security Partnership -- Population Estimates--United States Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Census Bureau Projects Tripling of Hispanic and Asian Populations in 50 Years Includes summary tables in xls format. Thursday, March 18, 2004
Resources of the Week Technical Reports Source: University of Maryland Libraries The Virtual Technical Reports Center Wow! A massive browsable directory compiled by Technical Reports Librarian Gloria Lyles Chawla. The Virtual Technical Reports Center, "contains links to technical reports, preprints, reprints, dissertations, theses, and research reports of all kinds. Some metasites are listed by subject categories, as well as by institution." All of the institutions listed make either the full text or "searchable extended abstracts" of the reports available on the web. The page is updated monthly and suggestions are welcome. -- Finance--Directories FinanceWise FinanceWise bills itself as "the only finance-specific search engine." It's been around awhile; it was mentioned in the Internet Resources Newsletter way back in April 1998. Two things you should know about FinanceWise right up front: it indexes only websites that are finance-specific, and the contents it indexes are "evaluated by finance professionals before sites are allowed into FinanceWise's search index." Real live human being subject specialists are weighting the content here -- based on quality and the authority of the organization presenting that content -- so that the juiciest things ostensibly will bubble to the top of your results list. Although anyone can submit a site for potential inclusion here, it will be reviewed by editorial gatekeepers and accepted or rejected based on their evaluation. FinanceWise claims to have more than 3.5 million documents in its database of 4,000 indexed sites. These can be searched in three different ways -- by keyword, by sector ("broken down into eight sections with over 80 sub-categories"), and "smart search," which "allows you to find company sites by name, country, type or region," mostly via dropdown menus. Number one quibble: In the site's FAQ there is a question about the currency of the information in the database. The answer says, "You can check the date we last updated the site in the search results." This information did not appear in the results lists of several sample searches performed here. Number two quibble: You have to register (free) to have access to all areas of the site. Other features offered here: a section where you can search for finance-related jobs; an online bookstore where you can search by title, author, or publisher; a searchable database of finance-related conferences, workshops, and other events; a collection of Special Reports, which "collect together links, news, data, glossaries, books, and selected articles." FinanceWise offers a detailed Site Guide for new users. Annotation written by ResourceShelf's Shirl Kennedy. See Also: The Scannery
Resource Discovery Network--Directories News from the Resource Discovery Network News from a few of the subject gateways that make up the RDN, an important and very useful UK-based resource. + Artifact This subject-based portal containing arts and creative industries resources has added a new feature called Limelight. "Every week, Limelight will showcase individual artists, subjects of topical and/or temporal relevance, new and noteworthy web sites, or forthcoming events, exhibitions and festivals. Each feature will provide information, links to related sites within the Artifact database and suggestions for possible Artifact searches." + Coming Next Month to GeSource (Geography and the Environment Resources) A total revision of the World Guide will be released in the next month. According to GeSource, the revised World Guide will have an "entirely new look and feel and will contain a wide range of reference material on every country in the World, including images, maps, data, facts and figures." A visit to the World Guide shows that it's already a valuable tool. + PSIgate (Physical Sciences) Newsletter soon to be launched "PSIgate will be launching an electronic newsletter very shortly. The aim of this is to summarise new developments on the website, feature some of the new sites, and most popular sites listed, provide usage figures and give examples of how PSIgate can help the various communities of users. The Newsletter will appear every two months and subscription is free." + Don't Forget: The Virtual Training Suite From the site, "The RDN Virtual Training Suite - a set of free online tutorials designed to help students, lecturers, and researchers improve their Internet information literacy and IT skills."
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Libraries Webcast: Today (3/18), Libraries in the Digital World The Scoundrels, the Threats...and the Opportunities The presentation features Miriam Nisbet, Legislative Counsel of the American Library Association. The program begins at 2:30 EST. An archived copy of the video presentation will be available after the event. -- Libraries--United Kingdom Source: Resource Libraries Go Wireless From the announcement, "Ten public libraries across England will soon be able to provide wireless access to the internet. The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) is working in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and The Countryside Agency on a £60,000 pilot project to help rural communities take further advantage of broadband internet services." -- Digitization Projects Source: RLG DigiNews Digitizing the World’s Largest Collection of Natural Sounds
Web Search More Search Shortcuts: This Time from Yahoo Shortcuts continue to proliferate. This time around Yahoo has added the chance to get scores for your favorite NCAA (basketball and football), NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB teams at the top of a results page. Simply type in the team name and "scores" into the search box. Up to 2 days of sports scores per team will be displayed. Examples: San Francisco Giants scores Boston Bruins scores Chicago Bulls scores
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items) The British Library--Digitization Projects New Gutenberg Bible Website Opens up the West's Earliest Printed Book From the announcement, "website allowing scholars, historians and anyone interested in the history and significance of printing to explore in detail the British Library's rare copies of the Gutenberg Bible - the oldest surviving printed book produced in the Western World - is launched today at www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/homepage.html. On the site you will find digital images of the entire text of the Library's two copies of Johann Gutenberg's Bible, the first book to be printed using the technique of printing which Gutenberg invented in the 1450s." -- Health Information New Topic Page/Compilations from MEDLINEplus + MedlinePlus: International Health -- Television--United States Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts: A Sampling of Statistics About Television and the Television Industry -- Government Procurement--United States--Databases Upgrades/Enhancements at FedBizOpps.gov A couple of new search options. -- PubMed New URL: PubMed For Handhelds/Wireless Devices Has a New URL The new url is http://pubmedhh.nlm.nih.gov. You can learn more about the service here. Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Web Search--Google Source: SearchDay Google Rolls Out Local Search Product (U.S. Only) Enter the product or service you're looking for and a Zip Code or city name. For example: Auto Dealers 60091 or Hotels 20901. "Local" results are returned at the top of the results list. Click again and get a map and directory info. Both of these demo searches returned non-relevant results (yes, I know it's a beta). The auto dealers 60091 search returns a gas station in the first spot and two auto repair shops in the second and third positions. The hotels 20901 search returns a dentist in the third position. This service has been available via this Google Labs page for several months. Last week, Yahoo released a local search product called SmartView. See Also: News.com Story See Also: Official Announcement See Also: A Few Other Sample Searches Note: Several of the examples that I listed earlier today have been fixed. Kudos Google! Here are a few more examples of issues that might need a look. + Supermarkets Silver Spring MD-Closest store is 30 miles away. + Doctors Kentfield, CA-No MD's listed only chiropractors. + Real Estate Agents, Silver Spring MD-2 of the first three results are for radio stations. + A useful service rom Yahoo's SmartView maps ATM locations. Not available at Google. + Searches for Drug Stores Boulder CO and Pharmacies Boulder CO return different results even though these terms are often used synonymously. Similar Examples: ++ Attorney or Lawyer ++ Supermarket or Grocery Store ++ Television Repair or TV Repair + Movie Theaters Chicago, IL-The first three theaters listed do not show movies + Radio Stations San Francisco-Does not trigger local search + Post Offices Louisville CO-No U.S. Post office listed. Closest listing is a mailing center 26 miles away + Rental Cars Larkspur CA-No local search available + Gas Stations Louisville CO-No local search available + Cell Phones 20901--Two of the first three listed are stores 17 and 31 miles away. + Thai Restaurants in Evanston IL-Evanston restaurants not listed as results 1-3. They are listed beginning at #9. Bottom Line: Search Wars 2004 continues to heat up. Don't forget that while Google and Yahoo battle it out, smaller databases, specialized, and focused search tools are also worthy of your attention. See Also: Local News and Info Search: Topix.Net Officially Launches
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Special Libraries The USGS Library -- A National Resource Source: U.S. Geological Survey The USGS and its library are celebrating their 125th birthday this year. Read all about it here. -- Information Science Source: ASIST The April/May 2004 Issue of the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology is Now Online + Community Telecentres in Brazil The Porto Alegre Experience: Toward Digital and Social Inclusion + Statistical Approaches to Automatic Text Summarization -- Digital Information Controlled Vocabularies Three New Articles from The Journal of Digital Information + Reengineering Thesauri for New Applications: The AGROVOC Example + Vocabulary Mapping for Terminology Services + Towards a Semantic Web for Culture
Information Industry--LexisNexis Source: AP (via FindLaw) LexisNexis Selling Database to Prisons "LexisNexis...has installed computer kiosks resistant to damage in four prisons and jails in Hawaii and five in California. The kiosk consists of a touch-screen computer monitor covered in shatterproof glass inside a steel box bolted to a wall.... Prisons had to be assured that the kiosks...would not pose a danger of broken glass that could be used a weapons, said Bill Carter, vice president and managing director of LexisNexis' western market center.... 'We've taken a crowbar to it. It doesn't shatter,' Carter said."
The Library of Congress National Library of Brazil The Library of Congress and National Library of Brazil Announce New Web Resource From the announcement, "Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and President of the National Library of Brazil Foundation Pedro Correa do Lago have launched a collaborative Web site that explores the historical similarities and contrasts, ethnic diversity and interactions between Brazil and the United States. 'The United States and Brazil: Expanding Frontiers, Comparing Cultures' includes some 9,800 images from the rare book, manuscript, map, print and photographic collections of the Library of Congress and the National Library of Brazil. The site represents the first phase of a continuing project by the National Library of Brazil and the Library of Congress..." See Also: Global Gateway from the Library of Congress
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (7 Items) Journalism Source: Project for Excellence in Journalism The State of the News Media 2004 "A comprehensive examination of eight major sectors of American Journalism" -- newspapers, online, network TV, cable TV, local TV, magazines, radio, ethnic/alternative. "For each area, we have produced original research and aggregated existing data into a comprehensive look at many of the pressing issues facing the news media." Eight Major Trends Charts and Tables (interactive) An impressive compilation of statistics. Very useful!!! -- Environment--United States Source: Energy Information Administration Just Released, Analysis of Oil and Gas Production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge "This study analyzed the impact on future oil imports and expenditures of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to petroleum development. High, low, and mean ANWR oil resource case projections were compared to the Annual Energy Outlook 2004 reference case. The study also examined whether potential synergies exist in opening ANWR to petroleum development and the construction of an Alaska gas pipeline from the North Slope to the lower 48 States." -- Courts--United States--Statistics Source: Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Just Released, Judicial Business of the Federal Courts in FY 2003 Summary ||| Full Text -- Information Technology Two New Reports 1) Full Text, E-Mail Blocking and Filtering Report (PDF; 152 KB - free registration required) See Also: Study: Spam Filters Often Lose E-Mail (via AP) "Return Path, a company that monitors e-mail performance for online marketers, found that nearly 19 percent of e-mail sent by its customers never reached the inboxes of intended recipients." 2) New GAO Report, Information Security: Technologies to Secure Federal Systems -- Election 2004--United States Internet Usage--Elections Source: Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI) Full Text Report, Political Influentials Online in the 2004 Presidential Campaign Summary (via Congress Online Project) ||| Direct to Full Text -- Population Source: United Nations Gender Statistics Program Snapshot of Arab Women - Recent Indicators (PDF; 164 KB) Provides statistics on: Women in Population, Women and Health, Women and Literacy/Illiteracy/Youth Literacy, Girls in Primary Education/Secondary Education, Women in Tertiary Education, Women and Economic Activity/Economic Sectors, Women and Unemployment, Women and Economy, Women and Politics. Offers a list of related "future strategies." -- Budget--United Kingdom Source: HM Treasury Budget 2004 The 2004 Budget Report, 'Prudence for a purpose: A Britain of strength and stability', was published on 17 March 2004. Tuesday, March 16, 2004
State Libraries--United States Source: IMLS Institute of Museum and Library Services Awards over $157 Million to State Libraries From the announcement, "Dr. Robert Martin, Director of the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), announced grants totaling $157,628,000 to state library agencies in the fifty States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories...The grants are awarded under the Library Services and Technology Act and are made to each State according to a population-based formula; the State's library agency administers the funds. States provide at least $1.00 for every $2.00 of federal support."
Government Records--United States National Archives and Records Administration Source: FCW NARA seeks comments on rule changes From the article, "Officials at the National Archives and Records Administration announced today that they are seeking comments from other federal agencies and from the public on proposed revisions to the agency's rules for managing federal records." See Also: What is Government Information
Geographic Searching Information Visualization Source: Directions Magazine MetaCarta, Inc. - Geographical Text Searching From the article, "...Geographic Text Search (GTS), has the ability to confine searches by geography and retrieve information that it detects using the keywords, and then displays this information geographically on a map interface." ResourceShelf has been following this company since January 2003 (2 articles). Thanks to John B./Searchblog and Shore.Com for the news tip.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items) Internet Security Source: Symantec Just Released, Symantec Internet Security Threat Report Volume 5 The full text is available at no charge but you'll need to register. You can find a summary in this GCN article. -- Health Policy--United States--Statistics Source: The Foundation Center Just Released, Update on Foundation Health Policy Grantmaking Summary ||| Full Text (12 pages) -- Small Business--United States--Statistics Source: Small Business Administration Recently Released, Survey of Small Businesses' Telecommunications Use and Spending (PDF; 671 KB) "New data in A Survey of Small Businesses’ Telecommunications Use and Spending, written by TeleNomic Research and funded by the Office of Advocacy, shows that small business spends on average $543 per month on telecommunications services. It also clearly shows that differences in size and industry drive telecommunications spending." -- Water--United States--Statistics Source: USGS New Statistics: Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2000 Summary ||| Direct to Report -- Children--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Census 2000 Special Reports, Children and the Households They Live In: 2000 -- Election 2004 Factiva Posts Media Visibility Index for Democratic Presidential Hopefuls (Week Ending 3/14/04)
Industry Briefs (4 Items) Controlled Vocabularies: SmartTerms, Exclusive Taxonomy, Now Featured in Dialog Services (News Release) See Also: Dialog Technology Changes Foreshadow Improvements (via ITI NewsBreaks) -- xrefer Adds CIA World Factbook to xreferplus, Includes Interactive and Downloadable Tables -- IEEE Completes Independent Audit of IEEE Xplore Usage Statistics Measurement and Reporting System -- FAST Search and Transfer Technology Powering Thomas.Net See Also: What's Thomas.Net?
Professional Reading Shelf Source: SPARC Library and Advocacy Organizations Praise Call for Free Access to Science From the announcement, "An alliance of leading library associations and public-interest advocacy organizations has issued a statement praising the Washington, D.C. Principles for Free Access to Science, announced today by a coalition of 49 not-for-profit scientific, technical, and medical publishers." The announcement also contains, "Washington, D.C. Principles for Free Access to Science." Monday, March 15, 2004
Research Source: San Jose Mercury News From the Be Careful What You Find Online Department From the article, "City officials [Aliso Viejo, Calif] were so concerned about the potentially dangerous properties of dihydrogen monoxide that they considered banning foam cups after they learned the chemical was used in their production. Then they learned that dihydrogen monoxide - H2O for short - is the scientific term for water. 'It's embarrassing,' said City Manager David J. Norman. 'We had a paralegal who did bad research.' The paralegal apparently fell victim to one of the many official-looking Web sites that have been put up by pranksters to describe dihydrogen monoxide as 'an odorless, tasteless chemical' that can be deadly if accidentally inhaled. Thanks to Matt M. for the news tip.
Online Databases--Engineering Source: Albany Business Journal GlobalSpec this: building an engineer's search engine From the article, "Jeff Killeen wants to turn GlobalSpec from a proper noun into a verb. Like FedEx and Xerox, which became more than company names, the CEO of GlobalSpec Inc. hopes one day to hear people say, 'Go GlobalSpec this.' The North Greenbush company has built GlobalSpec, a product Killen believes will do that. The new product builds on GlobalSpec's SpecSearch, which is a search engine for engineers. It lists 60 million product specifications and 10,000 supplier catalogs. GlobalSpec Inc. plans to release it March 25. Killeen and president and co-founder John Schneiter call it 'the place' for the applied engineering community."
Info Industry Update (2 Items) Elsevier Source: Information Today NewsBreaks Elsevier Announces Scopus Service From Paula Hane's article, "After two years of planning, development, and initial testing by a select group of about 20 university libraries, Elsevier has finally made an official announcement of the first fully functioning version of Scopus, its highly anticipated, full-text linking, abstracting and indexing database. The company is now providing access to another 30 academic libraries for final testing and user trials, will add more libraries over the next 6 months, and expects to have the commercial release available by Q4 2004. Scopus is designed to be an all science, comprehensive access point for a library, with coverage of 13,000 titles from over 4,000 STM publishers, plus coverage of over 100 open access journals by the summer." -- Dialog Source: Information Today NewsBreaks Dialog Technology Changes Foreshadow Improvements From the article, "Dialog’s recent announcement of a new platform and enhanced interfaces to both Dialog Profound and Dialog NewsRoom provides insight into some changes users can expect from Dialog in 2004/2005, according to Roy M. Martin, Jr., Dialog CEO and president. Beyond mere look-and-feel modifications, the new Dialog platform incorporates a more intuitive user interface intended to work across product lines, a new indexing system utilizing NewsEdge, Thomson, and Dialog technologies, and a Web-based invoicing system designed for client billing or internal usage tracking." See Also: Official News Release
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Digital Libraries The March 2004 Issue of D-Lib is Now Online Articles Include: + Using the Internet for Searching + The Rights Issues of Digital Preservation + A Developing Search Service: Heterogeneous Resources Integration and Retrieval System -- Scholarly Publishing Open Access A New Issue of Open Access Now is Available + The many-copy problem and the many-copy solution by Peter Suber + Cornell launches an Open Access university press + Who, What & Why? "A regular short guide to the players and technical terms relevant to Open Access publishing. 'Who, What & Why?' helps readers to become informed about the world of Open Access."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Transportation--United States--Statistics Source: BTS Just Released, Pocket Guide to Transportation 2004 -- Commuting--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New Full Text Report: Journey to Work: 2000 "The typical U.S. commuter in 2000 left home between 6:30 a.m. and 8:29 a.m. and drove alone for 26 minutes to get to work, the U.S. Census Bureau said today in a report based on Census 2000 results. Overall, people were leaving home earlier and spending more time in traffic in 2000 than in previous censuses." Summary ||| Direct to Full Text -- Climate Source: National Climatic Data Center Historical Publications Now Online (Fee-Based Material) "NCDC has now placed thousands of previously inaccessible publications online. The Serial Publications web system now includes the Climatological Data, Storm Data, Monthly Climatic Data for the World, and Hourly Precipitation Data publications; for the full period of record for each publication. Publications from as far back as the late 1800’s can now be easily retrieved and viewed or printed by any user."
Online Research Source: PC World Beyond Google Plenty of useful resources! Many of them will be old favorites for those of you who read ResourceShelf on a regular basis. The article includes links to several compilations I've put together. It also highlights the work of Genie, Chris, and Tara. Sunday, March 14, 2004
Web Search--Yahoo Source: Taipei Times An Interview With Yahoo Co-Founder, Jerry Yang Question: Can you talk about your competition with Google, which is now the world's most-used search engine? Jerry Yang: I think so far, there is no search engine, regardless of it being Yahoo, Google, MSN or AOL, which is capable of providing a perfect search solution. Currently, 50 percent of search results fail to match the search parameters. Technology is the key to closing that gap. Thus, we have been constantly investing in and improving our search technology. The buy-out of Overture Services Inc last year is an example of our efforts, as it helped us to enhance search technology and expand the pay-for-performance search business. Besides, as Microsoft also uses our technology, it means that nearly 50 percent of all searches in the world use Yahoo technology. This coverage gives us the advantage of learning more about consumer behavior and what they want to find, which is a foundation for us to improve ourselves on. Thanks to John B. for the link.
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Digital Libraries Source: OCLC Now Available: Derek Law's Lecture on the Social Role of Digital Libraries (PowerPoint Slides) The lecture took place at OCLC HQ last week. Additonal links (background, presentation abstract) here. -- Digital Libraries Source: National Science Foundation Final Report: NSF Post Digital Library Futures Workshop ||| Report Summary (via OCLC) "This invitational workshop on 'post digital library futures,' or 'ubiquitous knowledge environments,' as some of us are beginning to think of them, is the beginning of the dialogue." The workshop was held on June 15-17, 2003, in Chatham, Mass. Additional materials (including many presentations) from the workshop are available here. The title of the final report is, "Knowledge Lost In Information."
Briefly + Man held in Google stock fraud: FBI arrests Dutch native in sale of fake IPO shares (via the SF Chronicle)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Health Information New Topic Pages/Compilations from MEDLINEplus + MedlinePlus: Coping with Disasters + MedlinePlus: Child Sexual Abuse + MedlinePlus: Additional Compilations Saturday, March 13, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Dictionaries The March 2004 Issue of the Oxford English Dictionary is Online + "'Where in the multiverse…?': researching the vocabulary of science fiction for the OED." -- Librarianship The Winter 2004 of Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship is Now Online Articles include: + University of Maryland AgNIC Gateway -- Partnering to Provide Agricultural Biotechnology Information + Libraries Stuck in the Middle: Reactive vs. Proactive Responses to the Science Journal Crisis + Not Just Full-Text Articles: Comparing the Search Function Among Chemistry Electronic Journals' Web Sites
Library News Roundup + Kansas: Libraries look at possible filtered future (via The Garden City Telegram) From the article, "The Children's Internet Protection Act passed in the Kansas House Thursday morning. After debate in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee and on the House floor, House Bill 2420 was approved by a 71-52 vote. It next goes to the Senate." ---- ---- + New York: Voices raised for libraries in funding fight (via the Albany Times Union) From the article, "Reference books that tell of 'someday' landing on the moon, closets doubling as shelving units, no computers, curtailed hours and no trained librarian to help students are problems New York's urban school libraries have faced for years." ---- ---- + Tennessee: School libraries not stacking up (via The Tennessean) From the article, "A Tennessean survey of public school libraries in Middle Tennessee shows the average library has 19 books for every student, with the average book about 16 years old. But librarians have their backs to the stacks. They say they're doing the best they can with limited or nonexistent funds and little state leadership." ---- ---- + Arizona: Libraries fall behind curve in Arizona (via Arizona Republic)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Topics in the News Same-Sex Marriage--Bibliography Source: Rutgers Law Library - Newark Same-Sex Marriage: A Selective Bibliography of the Legal Literature Compiled by Paul Axel-Lute. -- Spam Source: Technology Review Visualizing Spam Filters A useful animation that illustrates several of the methods used to filter spam. A larger version of the animation is available here.
Information Industry--Encyclopaedia Britannica Britannica Debuts Massive Online Collection of Primary Documents From the announcement, "University students and faculty doing research now have a massive trove of primary documents on almost every subject imaginable, with Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Original Sources, a new online service for colleges and universities from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc." The new resource contains more than 350,000 documents, including 5,500 full-length books. Friday, March 12, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Access to Information--United States Ten Organizations File Supreme Court Brief Supporting Public's Right to Know From the announcement, "The U. S. Supreme Court should 'reject the government's claim that it may conduct the public's business in secret' according to a 'friends of the court' (amici curiae) brief submitted today by four leading library associations, a national archival association, and five public interest organizations in support of the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, Inc., in the case of Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States, et. al., v. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia...The amici are the American Association of Law Libraries, the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Center for American Progress, Common Cause, the National Security Archive, People for the American Way, the Society of American Archivists, and the Special Libraries Association." -- Library Instruction Source: ACRL Evaluating Library Instruction (SPEC 279) Table of Contents and executive summary only.
Web Search Enterprise Search Source: Red Herring Searching for the next Google (registration required to read the full text, free) Most of the companies mentioned will not be new to those of you who monitor this site on a regular basis. + Eurekster + InfoSpace + Looksmart + Vivisimo + Groxis + Dejima + iPhrase ||| Demo iPhrase technology at Lycos Finance/Quote.com Thanks to John B. for the tip.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Terrorism Source: Congressional Research Service New Report, Full Text, Terrorism in South Asia -- Transportation--United States--Statistics Source: BTS Just Released, State Transportation Profile (STP) - Summary 2003 "This report presents highlights of major federal databases and other national sources related to the United State's transportation system...This document supplements a previously published series of individual state profiles." -- Traffic--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: American Highway Users Alliance Worst Highway Bottlenecks in the United States Lists for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. You can also rank the bottlenecks. Much more (including lists for other cities) in this recently released report. Thursday, March 11, 2004
Resources of the Week Information Dissemination Two Full Text Articles This week ResourceShelf begins an occasional feature where we'll either link to or post full text articles by members of The Association of Independent Information Professionals. I've asked the AIIP's President-Elect, Mary Ellen Bates, to provide ResourceShelf with a brief introduction. "The Association of Independent Information Professionals (www.aiip.org) is an international association of over 700 info-entrepreneurs, many of whom are among the leading names in the information profession. In addition to the research, analysis and consulting work, AIIP members often write and give presentations about the information industry and profession." You can learn more about AIIP via their web site. The site includes a searchable membership directory. Here are the first two articles. + "Delivering Competitive Intelligence Visually" by Angela Kangiser Note: This article was originally published in SCIP's Competitive Intelligence Magazine. From the article, "The breadth of intelligence information available, client requirements, and the continued development of new technologies now require that we disseminate much of our CI information visually." + "8 As of Information" by Dennis Gaulin From the article, "The gathering, delivery and application of quality information is essential to sound decision-making. The process is complex, and requires expert knowledge and professional competence through a number of steps to ensure quality results. The process can appear deceptively simple and is often undervalued. Gaulin's 8 A's of information is designed to provide researchers and consumers of information with a simple model that clearly identifies which steps in the research process are the domain of the professional researcher and which apply to the information user." --- --- Economics--Directories EconData.Net Place this one in your "must have" file (if it's not already there)! From the site, "1,000 links to socioeconomic data sources, arranged by subject and provider, pointers to the Web's premiere data collections, and our own list of the ten best sites for finding regional economic data." EconData.Net's monthly e-mail update (free) lists new reports and economic resources.
Web Search--Northern Light David Seuss, Northern Light CEO, Speaks at Computers in Libraries Conference Seuss's presentation this morning was titled, "Ten Years into the Web: The Search Problem is Nowhere Near Solved." His PowerPoint slides are already available online. Seuss bought the company back (after selling it to divine) at a bankruptcy auction in May of 2003. NL is now operating in the enterprise search and business research markets.
Legal--United States--Databases Consumer Issues Source: Houston Chronicle Already Gone: DoctorsKnow.Us is No More Four days ago, ResourceShelf linked to an article about DoctorsKnow.Us, "a new Web site aims to help physicians track people who have filed medical malpractice lawsuits." Today, the Houston Chronicle reports that the database is no longer online. From the article, "'It was unethical. It was an immoral Web site that was arbitrarily blacklisting innocent patients, many in Texas,' said Dan Lambe, director of Texas Watch, a statewide consumer research and advocacy organization."
Digital Projects--Canada Source: Canada's Digital Collections Canada's Digital Collections: Highlights, 2003-2004 During the past 12 months, the CDC website has been enriched by some 100 new, large-scale multimedia websites on a wide range of subjects. Numerous young Canadians applied new technologies to both content creation and its presentation for the World Wide Web. Have a look at some of the collections which utilized innovative information communication tools and technology applications. The choices, which you will sample, were selected by a Canadian youth who assessed these websites on the basis of their design and presentation, their navigability, content, and project delivery."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Research Surveys Full Text Report, Conducting Research Surveys via E-mail and the Web From the summary, "This report provides practical information on design and implementation for researchers who are thinking about using the Internet in their survey activities or who are planning to conduct an Internet survey." Thanks to LibraryNet for the tip. -- Higher Education--United States--Lists and Rankings Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Graduate Degree Rankings From the announcement, "States with some of the highest concentrations of graduate and professional degree holders tend to be located along the East Coast, according to a new analysis of American Community Survey (ACS) data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau." Three tables are available (state, place, county) are available in XLS format. -- Population--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Census Bureau Estimates Number of Adults, Older People and School-Age Children in States Release also includes links to detailed tables.
Professional Reading Shelf (4 Items) Digital Libraries Proceedings, Thinking Beyond Digital Libraries - Designing the Information Strategy for the Next Decade From the 7th International Bielefeld Conference. Presentations include: + Search Engine Technology for Advanced Services + Technology for Integrated Information Access and Discovery + Search Engine Industry Trends - Impact for Digital Libraries + Search Engine Technology for Digital Libraries and Information Portals - The State-of-the-Art and the Future + Using Search Engine Technology for Academic Online Content - The "Math-Demonstrator" or "From Theory to Practice" + Global Networking of Information in the Scientific World - OCLC's Strategy for the Future Thanks to Peter S. for the tip. -- Internet Filtering Source: Library Journal Utah Passes State CIPA Bill From the article, "Utah has become the first state to pass a state filtering bill modeled on the federal Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). While HB 341 initially said that no state funds "shall" be provided to a library that does not filter, it was amended to say that state funds "may" not be provided to such a library. However, the State Library Division was unable to say if that meant libraries might be exempt." -- Librarians Source: The Massachusetts Daily Collegian Librarians gather to address career choices From the article, " Librarians from New England gathered yesterday to discuss the changing atmosphere of technology and ethnic diversity in American and career choices in librarianship... The goal of the session was to inform students that there may be more to a career in librarianship than stereotypes would suggest. 'Librarianship is a field where you can go where you want to go and be what you want to be,' said Mike Havener, Ph.D, who is the director and professor of the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Rhode Island." -- Open Access Scholarly Publishing Source: The Scientist UK hears open access evidence From the article, "The first stage of the UK's investigation into scientific publishing wrapped up this week with small publishers and open access advocates saying that the way science is funded, published and archived will need to be changed, if open access publishing is to be adopted...The UK's investigation was announced last year after an initial approach by the British Library, which is working to create a digital archive of electronic science publications and was concerned about sustainable funding for their project. During an evidence session held Monday, everyone present concurred that the British Library's initiative should be given support." See Also: Open Access Discussed on BBC Radio 4 (RealAudio) Dr. Harold E. Varmus, founder and Chair of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) and Bob Campbell, President of Blackwells Publishing are featured. -- See Also: Uncorrected Transcript of Hearing Uncorrected transcript of Oral Evidence presented by Dr Julia King, Chief Executive, Institute of Physics (IoP), Mrs Sally Morris, Chief Executive, Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) and Mr Martin Richardson, Managing Director, Journals Division, Oxford University Press; Dr Nigel Goddard, Chief Executive Officer, Axiope Limited, Mr Vitek Tracz, Chairman, Current Science Group (BioMed Central) and Dr Harold E Varmus, President and Chief Executive Officer, Public Library of Science.
Social Networking Source: Information Week The Network That Really Matters Social-networking software (Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn, etc.) is getting a great deal of attention these days. This article looks at this type of software from the perspective of how works or might work in the business world. Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Digital Preservation Source: FCW Library of Congress plots digital preservation path From the article, "The Library of Congress will take the first steps this year in carrying out what Laura Campbell, associate librarian, said today is a national strategy for preserving digital materials...'After selecting an architecture, the library will work with technical experts from NASA and other labs to develop a working prototype,' Campbell said. To assist in harvesting digital materials for preservation, the library has worked with 22 international experts to develop technical specifications for an open-source Web crawler. 'It's actually a very beautiful product,' Campbell said."
Coalition for Networked Information The Internet Archive Source: CNI Internet Pioneer Brewster Kahle to receive Paul Evan Peters Award Congrats Brewster!!! From the announcement, "The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and EDUCAUSE are pleased to announce that Brewster Kahle, founder and chairman of the board of the Internet Archive, has been named the recipient of the 2004 Paul Evan Peters Award. The award—named for CNI's founding director—honors Kahle’s rare combination of strategic vision, technical innovation, and humanitarian outlook. It also recognizes his lasting achievements in the creation and use of information resources and services to advance scholarship and intellectual productivity. Nancy Eaton, Dean of University Libraries at Pennsylvania State University and chair of the nominating committee for the award, praised Kahle for his 'positive and lasting impact on scholarly communication.'"
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Virtual Reference QuestionPoint part of pilot project to provide virtual reference, online information to visually impaired From the article, "Visually impaired persons in select libraries around the United States are participating in a six-month pilot project to test an online information and virtual reference service designed specifically for their needs. The service will be offered through InfoEyes, a virtual reference and information community for the visually impaired." -- Public Libraries Source: Public Library Association Handouts from the 2004 Public Library Association Conference The conference took place about two weeks ago in Seattle. The handouts are posted beneath the program titles. -- Scholarly Publishing UC's eScholarship Repository Adds Peer-Reviewed Publications "To address the economic unsustainability of high pricing for scholarly journals, the University of California is providing alternatives to the traditional scholarly communication model through the eScholarship program at the California Digital Library. Now, UC faculty in all departments, research units and centers can use the eScholarship Repository to provide free, open access to peer-reviewed journals online at http://repositories.cdlib.org/escholarship/."
Web Search--Google Source: Business Week Google's Ads -- and Minuses From Alex Salkever's article, "The search engine's policy of not taking ads that slam a third party could end up hurting its reputation, not to mention muffling free speech." Thanks to Andy B. for the news tip. See Also: Yahoo Accepts "Banned" Google Ads (2/26) See Also: Environmental Group's Paid Ads Removed by Google (2/13)
Web Search Source: Reuters China's Web Search Engines Set to Take on Google From the article, "China's homegrown Internet search firms said on Wednesday they were upgrading technology in a bid to take on Google just weeks after the search giant's foray into a market seen worth some $100 million in 2004. The three main domestic players are Baidu.com, styled after Google, Yahoo Inc. subsidiary 3721.com and Zhongsou.com, which powers search services at three Nasdaq-listed Internet firms...'My job in China is to kick Google's ass,' said Zhou Hongyi, the bespectacled founder and chief executive of 3721 Network Software Co. Ltd., that was bought by Yahoo for $120 million in cash last November...The company's Chinese-language 'search index,' a database of searchable Web sites, was already at 150 million, he added."
Info Industry Search Briefs (3 Items) Convera makes taxonomy just for feds -- Endeca Boosts Classification, Taxonomy Capabilities -- United Press International and LexisNexis Expand Relationship
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Microsoft Source: The Charlie Rose Show Streaming Audio, Charlie Rose Interviews Bill Gates "Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft Corp., talks with Charlie Rose in Cambridge, Massachusetts, about his company's disinterest in acquiring Walt Disney Co., the most promising areas of software research and the outlook for software subscriptions as a new revenue source." The program runs about one hour. You'll need RealPlayer. See Also: Charlie Rose Show Archive -- In the News Spam Source: FindLaw.com Full Text, Anti-Spam Lawsuits Filed By ISPs -- In the News Astronomy Hubble's Deepest View Ever of the Universe Unveils Earliest Galaxies Official news release and set of images. -- Advertising--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Yellow Pages Integrated Media Association Top 300 Yellow Pages Headings, 2002 Also available in alphabetical order. Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Web Search--Yahoo Source: News.com Yahoo Introduces SmartView From the article, "The SmartView service lets surfers use the Yahoo Maps section of the company's Web site to view information on local points of interest, such as restaurants, hotels, parks, automatic teller machines and post offices. Along with highlighted maps, Yahoo gives details about locations, including addresses and phone numbers, pricing, Web sites, and driving directions." Here's an example. I've searched for a specific address in Chicago and then added icons for area hotels to the map. Placing your cursor over one of the icons provides the name of the hotel. Click again and you'll see info about the hotel. In October, Yahoo introduced SmartSort on its shopping site. See Also: Official Announcement and More Examples
News Searching--Rocket News RocketNews Launches Redesigned Home Page, Makes Free RSS Aggregator Available A new cleaner-looking home page. To run a search of the entire five-day archive, run a simple search and then use the pull-down option next to the search box or use this url. Unfortunately, the company has decided that the enhanced searching options they were planning to offer on RocketNews.com will only be available with their low-cost Rocketinfo Desktop product. Nevertheless, RocketNews.com remains a valuable news search tool offering content from over 10,000 sources. in other news from Rocket.... Rocket has released a free, web-based RSS aggregator/reader. Since it is web based there is nothing to download. One useful feature is the ability to create RSS feeds from any RocketNews search. New results will be delivered directly to your aggregator/reader. See Also: News Release
Information Retrieval Source: Searchblog WebFountain, the Long Version John Battelle shares the story about his visit to IBM where he met with the WebFountain team. Btw, Factiva has licensed the technology. See Also: Much More in these ResourceShelf Postings from January and August
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Gray Literature--Webliography Source: C&RL News Gray literature: Resources for locating unpublished research The author of this resource is Brian S. Mathews, a reference and instruction librarian at George Washington University-Virginia Campus Library. Prior to going out on my own, I worked for five years at the GW-VC Library. Kudos Brian! -- Electronic Information Source: OCLC Why students and faculty members use electronic information sources to do research and solve problems Researchers at Ohio State University and OCLC are conducting a new study to find out how and why students and faculty members use electronic information sources to do research and solve problems. See Also: Direct to the OSU/OCLC Project Home Page See Also: More in this 1/2004 Post -- Open Access Scholarly Publishing Source: The Guardian Open access publishers close ranks From the article, "Two of the leading open-access publishers of scientific journals yesterday mounted a spirited defence of their embryonic industry in the face of criticism from traditional publishers such as Reed Elsevier that it is uneconomic and risks debasing scientific research. Harold Varmus, president of the US-based Public Library of Science, told a committee of MPs last night: "We want ... every poor student to be able to satisfy his learned curiosity just as a rich person does.'" and in related news... Peter Suber has put together a compilation of the prepared testimony from the March 1st UK government inquiry into journal prices and accessibility.
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Source: Technology Review Visualizing RFID Technology Review has published an animation that explains how RFID works. RFID in libraries has been getting plenty attention in the past few months. The technology was also named on just published list of library "trends."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Health--United States--Statistics Workplace--United States--Statistics Just Released, Full Text, Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, 2002 30 pages; PDF. -- Campaign Finance--United States--Statistics Source: Federal Election Commission Recently Released, Congressional Campaign Fundraising Rises Sharply In 2003 Numerous lists (available as pdf or xls files) including: + 2003 Top 50 House Campaigns by Receipts + 2003 Top 50 House Campaigns by Contributions from PACs and Other Committees + 2003 Top 50 Senate Campaigns by Contributions from Individuals + 2003 Top 50 Senate Campaigns by Cash on Hand -- Business--United States--Statistics Source: Equal Opportunity Employment Commission Glass Ceilings: The Status of Women as Officials and Managers in the Private Sector HTML Version ||| PDF Version -- Labor--United States--Statistics Source: Equal Opportunity Employment Commission Just Updated, Enforcement Statistics and Litigation, 2003 Summary ||| Direct to Full Text Thanks to S.B. for the news tip.
Events The Preliminary Program for the WWW Conference 2004 is Now Available The conference will take place in New York, May 17-22, 2004. Numerous search-related presentations. I will start gathering and linking to web-accessible papers in the next month. Monday, March 08, 2004
News Search--Topix.Net No More Beta: Topix.Net Officially Launches A web-based news aggregator that we've mentioned on ResourceShelf several times, Topix.Net moves out of Beta today. It's absolutely worthy of your attention. You can keyword search the Topix database (over 4000 sources, a great deal of content that's difficult to quickly access elsewhere) but the real power comes via easy-to-use "pre-built" pages that aggregate news and other information onto over 150,000 topical pages (company names, industry names, etc.). This total also includes a local news and info page for every Zip Code. Rich Skrenta, CEO of Topix.Net was kind enough to answer a few questions via e-mail. Q. Where did the idea for Topix.Net come from? What made you decide that this service was needed in the current marketplace? What does Topix.Net offer that's not available from other companies? In 1998 we did a project called NewHoo, which was acquired by Netscape/AOL, and is now called the Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org). It used a massive group of volunteers to build the web's largest human-edited directory. The ODP now has 60,000 volunteer editors, and the data powers Google Directory. Our team left Netscape/AOL in 2002, and rather than using human labor again, we wanted to explore emerging AI techniques for classifying and extracting structured data from the web. The goal for Topix.net is to make a web page about everything -- every person, place, and thing in the world -- constantly machine-summarized from the Internet. Since the web can be a messy place, surfing a well-constructed encyclopedia based on live content from the web would be a win for users. Rather than starting with a full web crawl, which has 4 billion+ pages, we started with news, which has 4,000 sources, and is very dynamic and high quality content. We don't cover everything in the world yet, but we do have every place in the US, every sports team, music artist, movie personality, health condition, public company, business vertical, and many other topics. Q. Can you share some background about how Topix.Net builds a page? Are pages built automatically or is there some human intervention? Is the technology your own? How long did it take to get it up and running? We developed separate software modules to crawl, cluster and categorize articles. The heart of our system is a proprietary AI categorizer that uses a massive Knowledge Base (KB) to determine the geographic location and subject categorization for each story. The final step is the Robo-Editor, which picks the best stories for display. For example, our 2004 Presidential Election page may have seen 1,000 articles for the past hour. The Robo-Editor's job is to pick the 10 best articles to show the user to give them a good overview of the news. Our system is fully automated, there is no human involvement at any stage. We developed the technology in-house over the past two years. The AI was particularly tricky to get right, since an accuracy rate in excess of 99% was necessary to make the system useful. Q. Do you have any plans to market your crawling and categorization technology as a source of revenue or providing your services to create Topix.Net pages for companies and other organizations? We have a commercial feed business for companies that want to enhance their own website offerings with deeply categorized news content. Topix.net offers an extremely rich newsfeed -- in addition to the standard URL, title, and summary, we have the latitude/longitude of the news source, the lat/longs for the subjects of the story, the prominence of the news source, the subject categorizations, and more. We can also "geo-spin" any subject category, to produce a locally focused version. These features give us a lot of flexibility to customize feeds for clients. We're also excited about using our categorization technology to apply to other areas beyond news, such as local web search. Q. Are you crawling and aggregating web content other than news sources? Do you include press release material? In addition to newspapers, Topix.net is crawling radio and TV station websites, college papers, and some high school papers and weblogs. We're also crawling government websites with "newsy" public information, such as police department crime alerts, health department reports, OSHA violation announcements, coast guard notices, and news releases from other city, county and state level government entities. We are crawling and including press releases too. Our focus is on hyperlocal deep coverage of the US. We love police blotters and little papers with extremely local coverage. If your local PTA has online meeting minutes, that's the kind of source we want to add. Q. Does Topix.Net offer any type of RSS/syndication options? We have an RSS feed for each of our 150,000 categories. This includes an RSS feed for every ZIP code in the US. Topix.net is the largest publisher of non-weblog RSS on the net. Each of our pages also has an "Add to My Yahoo" button, which drops Topix.net headlines onto your My Yahoo desktop. We worked with the My Yahoo team to pre-load 35,000 of our newsfeeds into their new RSS reader module. In addition to the RSS feeds, we also have free javascript headline syndication. Website owners can easily add a Topix headline box from any of our categories to their site by including a bit of HTML. Q. What are Topix.Net's current sources of revenue? Website advertising and commercial newsfeed sales. Q. What do you have in the pipeline to further enhance Topix? In other words, what will Topix.Net offer in a year that's not available today? What about local pages for areas outside of the U.S.? Expanding beyond the US to full worldwide coverage is something we'd like to do. We're also looking at adding personalization features to the site, and using our categorization technology to apply to content beyond just news.
Libraries Beginning Today (3/8): Free (One Week Only) Full Text Access to Library Review Free access is made available via Emerald's Journal of the Week program. Vol.43 No.1 (1994) - Vol. 53 No. 1 (2004) will be accessible.
Professional Reading Shelf Librarians Source: The Harvard Crimson Harvard To Aid Libraries In Iraq From the article, "In an effort to restore order to Iraq’s war-torn libraries, Harvard will participate in an initiative to train Iraqi librarians to modernize their holdings and their cataloguing methods, according to an announcement Thursday. With a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Harvard University Library (HUL) will partner with the Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science in an attempt to reverse the effects of a decade of war and economic sanctions, as well as looting that accompanied the recent regime change."
Government Information--United States Source: GCN What is government information? From the article, "The Electronic Records Policy Working Group wants help in defining government information, the barriers to effective management of online information and guidance tools for federal agencies. Led by the National Archives and Records Administration, the group has asked agencies, vendors and other interested parties to comment on the three areas by April 5. The request for comments appears in today’s Federal Register." See Also: Direct to Federal Register Announcement
Information Industry--United States--Legal Issues Source: ALA Washington Office Newsline Alternative Database Protection Legislation Introduced From the newsletter, "On March 2, following on the heels of the House Judiciary Committee's favorable referral of H.R. 3261, the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act, the House Energy and Commerce Committee reported the Judiciary bill with "an unfavorable recommendation." Rep. Stearns (R-FL) and 18 co-sponsors then introduced a more narrow alternative version of database protection legislation, H.R. 3872:", the Consumer Access to Information Act of 2004."
Industry Briefs (3 Items) H.W. Wilson Continues Its March Back to the Future (via Information Today NewsBreaks) -- ebrary Announces International Distributors -- Derwent World Patents Index First View Launched
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Military and Defense--Directories Source: Cranfield University DEVISE "DEVISE is a special collection of quality military and defence sources focussing directly on the information needs of the armed forces. It forms a tailored subset of the main aerospace and defence resources database." Browse by subject heading or keyword search. -- Space Source: FAA Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) Quarterly Launch Reports "This report contains information on worldwide commercial, civil, and military orbital space launch events. Projected launches have been identified from open sources, including industry references, company manifests, periodicals, and government sources." Quarterly reports available from 1996 through Q1 2004. PDF. -- Election 2004 Factiva Posts Media Visibility Index for Democratic Presidential Hopefuls (Week Ending 3/7/04) Sunday, March 07, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf (4 Items) Events Virtual Reference Dates for Virtual Reference Desk Conference 2004 Announced "The Virtual Reference Desk is pleased to announce that its 6th annual reference conference will be held on November 8-9, 2004, in Cincinnati, Ohio. " See Also: Proceedings of VRD Conference 2003 -- Events--Australia Call For Papers: ALIA Information Online 2005 12th Conference and Exhibition -- Digital Libraries Derek Law to speak at OCLC About the Social Role of Digital Libraries The presentation will take place in Dublin on Thursday. We'll post the audio file and slides as soon as they become availalbe. You can read an abstract of Law's presentation here. See Also: Derek Law's Bio and Links to Previous Presentations See Also: eIFL: Electronic Information for Libraries Derek Law is President of the eIFL Advistory Board. -- Academic Libraries Source: The Times (NW Indiana) Not your father's library A look at the Christopher Center for Library and Information Resources at Valparaiso University. It's set to open in August. From the article, "'We've worked very hard to merge books and technology in every way,' [University Librarian Richard] AmRhein said. Technology also will help the university store and retrieve its lesser-used materials in a two-story automated system. Up to 300,000 volumes can be stored in a series of bins that are located by computer and retrieved by a robotic arm. The Christopher Center is just one of five college libraries to use the system."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Drug Information--United States--Databases FDA Makes New Drug Information Database Available From an announcement on HealthFinder.gov, "The site, called Drugs@FDA, is a searchable database that offers information about approved prescription drugs, some over-the-counter drugs, and discontinued drugs. It's the first Web resource that provides a comprehensive overview of a drug product's approval history, the agency says."
Legal--United States--Databases Consumer Issues Source: San Jose Mercury News Learn About: DoctorsKnow.Us From the article, "A new Web site aims to help physicians track people who have filed medical malpractice lawsuits -- and consumer groups fear doctors could use the site to 'blacklist' patients." See Also: Direct to DoctorsKnow.Us Home Page It's a fee-based service. See Also: QuestionableDoctors.Org Fee-based. Doctors disciplined by state and federal governments.
Reference Tools Source: AP As research moves online, pity the poor encyclopedia From the article, "'The students don't want to touch this stuff anymore,' librarian Sandra Kajiwara said at San Jose's Dr. Martin Luther King Library, waving to the reference shelves near her station. 'This could stay here forever and no one would notice...Half of them want to jump on the computer and are not even sure what they want to look up,' said Sue Krumbein, a middle-school librarian in Menlo Park. Krumbein's rule: Students must first complete book-based research to narrow their questions before surfing the Web. Librarians, the fastest human search engines in the pre-Internet era, believe encyclopedias provide great topical overviews, well-suited for elementary- and middle-school reports. There's also an ongoing debate about the reliability of data found on the Internet; kids need to be taught how to evaluate it.'" Saturday, March 06, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Scholarly Publishing Open Access Source: JISC JISC and Publishers Work Together to Open up Access to Journals From the announcement, "As the costs of traditional forms of journals publishing become more and more prohibitive, so open access models of publishing are becoming an increasingly important development in education and research. With the price of journals currently under the scrutiny of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, the issue is currently receiving attention at Government level. In support of these developments, it was announced today by JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee, a committee of the further and higher education funding bodies) that a new 150,000 pounds programme will allow four key publishers to move towards or continue open access delivery for some of their journals." -- Events Source: Catholic University School of Library and Information Science 26th Institute on Federal Library Resources "This year's program is the 26th in a series of institutes helping information professionals and graduate students know and understand federal libraries, resources, and career opportunities. It builds on the success of the 1974-1999 institutes founded and directed by Kurt Cylke, Director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped in cooperation with the Federal Library and Information Center Committee. Catholic University's School of Library and Information Science is pleased to announce the restoration of this valuable Institute to be held in Washington, D.C., May 10 - 15, 2004."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items) Law--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: VerdictSearch / The National Law Journal Top 100 Largest Jury Verdicts of 2003 See Also: Additional Background in this Article -- Multimedia--Glossary Source: Univ. of California, Santa Cruz Multimedia Glossary "The terms 'multimedia,' 'new media,' and 'digital multimedia' are just a few of the terms used to describe a relatively new and broad subject area that combines traditional image-production techniques (like film and video) with an understanding of digital images, the computers and software used to produce them, and the networks through which they can be shared. This glossary draws from each of these areas in hopes of providing a birds-eye view of this emerging discipline." Thanks to Infomine's "What's New Alert" for the tip. Friday, March 05, 2004
News Search Findory: A New "Adaptive" News Resource Just learned about this new resource from Findory, a company based in Seattle. I haven't decided just how useful it is for my needs but I still think it's worth a click because personalization is a popular topic these days. If you register (no personal info needed), this news database will learn your interests based on the content of news articles you select. Then, articles based on this info will be placed on personalized subject (Top Stories, Sports, Technology, etc.) pages. You can also search the database without having to register. Learn more on the "About Findory" page. MSN Newsbot also offers personalized results.
Web Search Source: eWeek Google Grumbles It's great to read that others are beginning to realize the potential of what Teoma offers. ResourceShelf has had positive things to say about this search tool since the product was first launched. Thanks to C.A. for the news tip.
Professional Reading Shelf Scholary Publishing Source: SciDev.Net UK science publishers give open-access warning "Some of Britain's leading scientific publishers have warned a parliamentary inquiry that open-access publishing could undermine the integrity of the world's top journals. They say that open-access models - in which journals give free access to their content but charge authors to publish research - could reduce editorial standards. This is because many scientists would not be able to afford the high costs required to cover editorial processing and production costs in top journals. As a result, journals would be forced to publish lower-quality papers, or favour more wealthy authors. The comments were made this week at a hearing of the science and technology select committee of the House of Commons into scientific publications, which was set up last year to investigate the cost and availability of journals." Thanks to Peter S. for the tip. See Also: Uncorrected Transcript of Hearing Oral Evidence presented by Mr Robert Campbell, President, Blackwell Publishing; Dr Richard Charkin, Nature Publishing Group, Macmillan Limited; Dr John Jarvis, Senior Vice President, Europe, Managing Director, Wiley Europe Limited; Mr Crispin Davis, Chief Executive Officer, Reed Elsevier; and Mr Arie Jongejan, Chief Executive Officer, Science and Technology, Elsevier.
Weblogs Source: Wired News Warning: Blogs Can Be Infectious I try my best to offer proper attribution to the original source of material posted on ResourceShelf. From the article, "Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs, the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution. These findings are important to sociologists who are interested in learning how ideas grow from isolated topics into full-blown epidemics that "infect" large populations. Such an understanding is also important to marketers, who hope to be able to pitch products and ideas directly to the most influential people in a given group." More info from the authors of the paper here and here. Intelliseek's BlogPulse is also mentioned in the article.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items) Government--United Kingdom UK Government Launches New Web Directory: DirectGov A browsable and searchable directory offering direct links to "the widest range of government information and services." A bit more info in this announcement. -- Business--Canada--Search Engines Government--Canada--Search Engines Source: Industry Canada Strategis Improves Search Engine From an email announcement, "Several modifications were recently made to the Strategis Search, and the improved product is now available on the Web site. These changes will make it easier for clients to perform searches, and will improve the content of the results, as well as the speed at which they are produced. The most visible change is that the Strategis Search now uses tabs to categorize results. The search results for non-HTML documents (such as Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Word) will now link directly to that document format, as well as to a converted HTML version." -- Commuting--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: U.S. Census Cities With Longest Commute to Work Times in the United States
National Archives and Records Administration New/Updated Content Added to Access to Archival Databases (AAD) System Three new or updated databases. You can access them (along with many others) here. --- + Natural Landmarks System (NLS), 1/12/1982 - ca 5/30/2002 The Natural Landmarks System (NLS) contains data on 3,918 ecological and geological sites designated as National Natural Landmarks or sites that have been identified as having the potential to be natural monuments. --- + Ownership Reporting System (ORS), 7/11/1978 - 3/12/2001 The Ownership Reporting System (ORS) data files contain records of "insider trading" and security transactions and holdings in securities by people with beneficial ownership of securities, primarily officers, directors and principal stockholders of a corporation. The recent addition of the 138th ORS file includes records of transactions that the Securities and Exchange Commission received between January 11, 1998 and March 12, 2001. --- + Proposed Sale of Securities (PSS), 1/4/1972 - 9/29/2000 The records in the Proposed Sale of Securities (PSS) system contain data submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pursuant to Rule 144 of the Securities Act of 1933. We have recently added two PSS files to AAD. They have records of filings of Form 144 received by the SEC between 5/11/1994 and 9/30/1999, and between 1/3/1999 and 9/29/2000, respectively.
Library Briefs S.F. library officials grilled on plan to put trackers in books (via AP/Sacramento Bee) Thursday, March 04, 2004
Resources of the Week Two entries this week. 1) Cultural Resources--Databases Source: National Park Service/National Center for Cultural Resources Links to the Past Here is a site that goes both broad and deep into U.S. history and culture. Topics covered here include: archeology, architecture and engineering, cultural groups and landscapes, historic buildings and structures, laws/regulations/standards, mapping, maritime history, military history, museums and collections, registered historic places and landmarks, and travel. The sheer volume of content is staggering. Take the Archeology section, for example: "The National Park Service preserves over 60,000 archeological sites, as well as huge archeological collections from scientific investigations of those sites. Learn about our publications, technical guidance, and many other efforts to preserve and protect our nonrenewable resources." Among other things, you can search The National Archeological Database, "an expanded bibliographic inventory of approximately 240,000 reports on archeological planning and investigation" -- identified as "gray literature." There is also a MAPS (Multiple Attribute Presentation System) module, consisting of GIS maps that "show national distributions of cultural and environmental resources across the United States." The Law, Regulations and Standards section offers "links to the full text of the laws, regulations, standards and guidelines, and executive orders related to cultural resources management." You can find the full text of a book (PDF), Federal Historic Preservation Laws, online here. Other things you can do here or from here: + Search for a National Historic Landmark. + Search for "places listed in or determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places." + Search the National Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) databases for tribal contact information, artifacts and remains that have been identified and Federal Register "notices of intent to repatriate" tribal objects. + Search the Network to Freedom database of "all the sites, facilities, and programs that have each, in their own way, met the basic criteria of showing an association to the Underground Railroad...." + Locate historic preservation officers for every state. + Find out about Grants, Tax Credits and Other Assistance. All databases accessible from this site are described and linked here. Also available here are a variety of online books and exhibits such as: + Historic Places Commemorating the Chief Executives of the United States + What Dreams We Have (the Wright Brothers) + National Park Service Historic Handbook Series ("on-line editions of out-of-print historical handbooks that were produced to interpret park resources to the public beginning in 1949") + Lighthouse Heritage (with an FAQ that tells you, among other things, if it's possible for you to purchase a lighthouse) Worth a bookmark in and of itself is a Directory of National Park Service Historians, with contact information and areas of "professional specialty." And there is a special collection of resources directed toward professional historians. Thanks to ResourceShelf's Shirl Kennedy for this write-up. ---- ---- Broadcast Archives Streaming Media Source: BBC Online Archive of BBC Radio Interviews Incredible content; listen online to segments (variable lengths) from BBC Radio interviews. Browse by subject or use an A-Z list. Here's just a small (very small) sampling of what you will find. + A 1976 interview with Ansel Adams + A 1963 interview with William S. Burroughs + A 1961 interview with Aaron Copland + A 1984 interview with the Dalai Lama + A 1962 interview with Salvador Dali + A 1937 interview with George Bernard Shaw + A 1981 interview with Andy Warhol See Also: BBC launches online clips archive (via BBC News) More archived content coming soon! Thanks to T.C. for the news tip.
Reference Reviews Peter's Digital Reference Shelf, March 2004 Is Now Online This month Dr. Jacso looks at: + e.encyclopedia "Novel synergy between a print encyclopedia and a high-quality online mini-directory from the best representatives of both worlds. It is a perfect example of how to have kids refer to a book because Google, through its entries in the special directory, refers them to specific pages of the brilliant print encyclopedia and makes them understand that what is online is not all that's golden." + Fact Monster "Splashing wacky colors, typography and icons on pages from adult reference sources does not a kids' reference site make. It is like sending Al Gore to talk funny to kids about the government."
Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items) Digital Information The March Issue of First Monday is Now Online Articles include: + Do you "google"? Understanding search engine use beyond the hype + Finders, keepers? The present and future perfect in support of personal information management -- Libraries and Librarians Source: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram In the search game: Google 1, Librarians 0 More discouraging coverage. This article is an edited version of The Washington Post article that ran on February 15th with a different (and very sad) headline. )-:
Internet--United States--Statistics Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project New Data Memo, Use of the Internet in places other than home or work "Nearly a quarter of online Americans use the Internet at places besides home or work."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Fast Facts Source: The World Almanac New, The March Issue of The World Almanac E-Newsletter is Online Contains a chronology of February events, holidays, "This Day in History," and much more. See Also: Back issues and subscription info (free) -- Voting--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Profile of Voting-Age Population See Also: Archived Reports and Tables -- United States Supreme Court Source: LC The Papers of Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun Opened for Research at The Library of Congress You'll find background info, a searchable finding aid, and few digitized highlights from the collection. -- Higher Education--United States--Databases Source: NCES Now Available, Postsecondary Institution Graduation Rates Now Available in IPEDS COOL From the announcement, "IPEDS COOL (College Opportunities On-Line) is your direct link to information on nearly 7,000 colleges and universities in the United States. Now available for the first time are the graduation rates for postsecondary institutions based on all first-time full-time degree or certificate-seeking undergraduate students that began in the stated cohort year." Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Information Technology Source: Federal Computer Week Xerox announces categorization software From the article, "Research scientists at Xerox Research Centre Europe say they have perfected a new method for automatically categorizing electronic messages and documents for future retrieval. The method uses unnamed software that performs what the scientists call 'deep linguistic analysis'...Eric Gaussier, a research scientist at the center, said the new software represents an advance over existing categorization software, which is offered in some products and in the public domain. The software recognizes, for example, that words can have several meanings, depending on their context. It also recognizes that different words can mean the same thing, he said." Much more info in this news release from Xerox.
Professional Reading Shelf (3 Items) Databases--United States--Legal Issues Source: News.Com Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act Update: "Weaker database bill gets House committee vote" The latest about the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act. Declan McCullagh writes, "An unusual political brouhaha is developing in the U.S. House of Representatives, where two committees are jousting over how much legal protection databases deserve. On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce committee voted for a limited version of a database bill, delivering the political slap in the face to the House Judiciary committee, which approved a much stronger version of the legislation in January." -- Open Access Source: C&RL News The Public Library of Science: Open access from the ground up From the article, "Despite the recent spike in press coverage, conference symposia, and electronic list discussions dedicated to the subject, open-access publishing is not a new concept or a nascent revolution. Both the idea and the practice of providing free access to scholarly literature in widely available, searchable archives have a long, rich history." -- Academic Libraries--Iraq Source: IFLA First Activity of the Cultural Emergency Response for Baghdad University Library concluded
Internet Domains KidsNet Selected by NeuStar to Manage Kids.us Content This is the type of work librarians and library organizations should be doing. Oh well. )-: From the news release, "Kidsnet, Inc., an Internet security company known for its Internet parental control products, announced today that it has been selected as the content manager for the kids.us domain space. Kidsnet was selected by NeuStar, Inc., the administrator for the .US country-code top-level domain. The partnership will monitor content registered under the kids.us domain...Kidsnet's trained and certified Web content review specialists have reviewed over 193,000,000 URLs/Web pages making Kidsnet's database of safe Web sites the largest in the world."
Citation Analysis Scholarly Publishing Source: ISI + The Most-Cited Institutions in Geosciences, 1993-2003 + Rankings for the United States of America among the 152 top-performing countries in all fields and all countries + Science in Taiwan, 1998-2002
Search Tools New From Fagan Finder: Search By File Format (Beta) Michael Fagan has released a new tool (a very early beta) developed for his Fagan Finder search toolkit. It allows you to quickly search various non-html file types from all of the major open web databases. If a file format cannot be searched using a specific engine, the search engine's name is "grayed out". Michael welcomes comments and suggestions. See Also: Two of my favorite parts of Fagan Finder are the Translation Wizard and Web Page Information Viewer.
Web Search Source: News.Com Ask Jeeves Ends Paid Inclusion Program Many of the articles about yesterday's announcement from Yahoo made it appear that paid inclusion is something new. It's not. As today's News.com article correctly points out, it's a rebranding of programs that have been available with Inktomi, AllTheWeb, and AltaVista. The first paid-inclusion program was introduced in March of 2001. P-I allows site owners (often commercial sites with large amounts of content) to submit urls to participating engines (for a fee). This guarantees not only inclusion but also frequent recrawl. It DOES NOT and WILL NOT (according to Yahoo) influence search results. Yesterday's ResourceShelf posting about Yahoo's announcement focused on the Invisible Web angle rather than the paid-inclusion story. What Yahoo plans to do is work with noncommercial sites providing quality content (often found in focused databases) and make sure this info is crawled and updated regularly. In other words, they'll give some noncommercial sites access to paid-inclusion types of services WITHOUT charging them. - At this point, just 1% of the content in the Yahoo database is part of a paid-inclusion program. The company remains steadfast in its claim that paid inclusion does not influence placement on a search results page. - Today's News Ask.com is ending their paid-inclusion program because it does influence results. The News.com headline is a bit inaccurate -- especially when you read the end of the article. It says, "[Ask.com] will still allow site operators to pay to submit their sites to its index, but that payment would not guarantee inclusion in the database." Confusing? You bet! Perhaps some of the reason to end the program today comes as a pr play. Btw, the Jeeves database also powers Teoma.com. Expect a ResourceShelf interview with Paul Gardi, Vice President of Search at Jeeves/Teoma, very soon. -- [Update] Those of you interested in this story might want to take a look at a list of reasons behind Ask.com's decision. They're posted on ResourceShelfPLUS.
Business--Russia--Directories Source: Interfax New, Interfax Announces Formation of Russia's Biggest Companies Database From the announcement, "The International Interfax Information Services Group has announced the formation of Russia's biggest database of companies, which for the first time brings together official information on all legal entities operating in the Russian Federation...SPARK now contains information on over 2 million legal entities, which means it presents an exhaustive, and at the same time thoroughly profound picture of Russian business...Company profiles include registration data, corporate history, financial statements, production indicators, information about management, securities, and so on." Thanks to David Dillard for the news tip.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Outsourcing--Web Resources Source: South Asian Journalists Association New Compilation: Outsourcing of Jobs, a.k.a. Off-shoring "A constantly updated list of sources and resources to help journalists covering outsourcing." This compilation is the work of journalist Sreenath Sreenivasan. -- Reports In the News Source: International Narcotics Control Board Just Released, Report Of The International Narcotics Control Board For 2003 Country and regional reports included. One of the press releases about the report might also be of interest. It focuses on the cyber trafficking of controlled drugs. -- Economics--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Bureau New, Local Economic Dynamics (LED) "The LED Program at the Census Bureau, together with its state partners , provides new information - the Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI).... Just as national economic indicators measure the performance of the overall economy, the QWI measure the performance of the local economy - where jobs are, for what kind of workers, how much workers can expect to make and employers expect to pay them." Access the data for the first 17 states here. -- Business--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Inc. Top 25 Cities For Doing Business in America
Information Industry Briefs (2 Items) New Look/Functionality to Dialog Profound and Dialog NewsRoom -- xrefer Adds New Content, Previews New Titles Coming Soon Several new full-text reference titles added to the service since January. - Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, 30th edition - The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: - Philip's Encyclopedia and World Atlas - The Koran - The CIA World Fact Book And coming soon: - The Harvard Dictionary of Music - The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music - Wiley Concise Encyclopedia of Psychology - Bender's Dictionary of Nutrition and Food Technology - Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Web Search--Yahoo Source: News.Com Yahoo Announces Invisible Web/Deep Web Initiative A bit of news from Yahoo this morning. From the article, "The Web portal, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., said that it will introduce a 'content aggregation program' (CAP) designed to index the billions of documents contained in public databases but that are commonly inaccessible to search engines, or what's called the invisible or deep Web. To this end, it has aligned with the Library of Congress, UCLA, National Public Radio, the University of Michigan and Project Gutenberg, among others, to begin seeding its index with fresh, searchable material for Web surfers' queries. 'We aim to extend the way we discover content for free,' said Tim Cadogan, Yahoo's vice president of search. 'One of the challenges is that the interaction between content providers and search engines is lacking. So we said, let's reach out to the public domains... Yahoo will receive feeds of more than 17,000 pieces of related audio content from NPR, the nationally syndicated news radio program. It will also receive fresh feeds from NPR so that it can index new content within one to two days." Additional info about other sources are listed in the news release. -- First Reactions The addition of new content into general web search engines is not a bad idea if the searcher has the tools to find it. Google has arrangements with OCLC (via their Open Worldcat program) and IEEE in the past six months. However, I still think information professionals should remember that in some cases going directly to a specialized web database will not only give you access to the content more quickly but might offer you many search options and ways to sort the results not accessible from a free text search tool like Google or Yahoo. Many people who search the web use only a few nonspecific search terms and look only at the first five to ten results. In other words, if it doesn't appear on one of the first results page, even if it's in the database, does it really offer value to the searcher? Another question for the more sophisticated searcher might be, how long does it take to find the material from a general web database, when knowledge of a "specialized database" or book might get you the material/answer more quickly? This announcement and those that will likely follow highlight (at the least) the potential value of dynamic clustering from companies like Vivisimo. This type of technology could help the searcher easily and quickly access material not found in the first few results. This version of Vivisimo searches PubMed and allows you to sort results by six different criteria. Vivisimo calls it "selective ignorance." --- Finally, in the past two years the use of "search shortcuts" have started to show their potential value. The idea was first introduced by AltaVista (two years ago) and in the past year by Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, and Google. Shortcuts have been developed to place a potential answer directly on a results page or quickly guide the searcher to a specialized database. Ask.com will also help direct the searcher to another Ask.com database. In other words, no need to use a tab. For example, pictures of airplanes, will automatically search and present results from the image database. See Also: Official Yahoo Announcement See Also: Yahoo to expand offerings (via San Jose Mercury News) See Also: Make Sure to Review the Chris Sherman's SearchDay Story. Special attention to the "Potential Disclosure Issues" section regarding the commercial aspect of Yahoo's announcement. -- More Just off the phone with a Yahoo spokesperson. A couple more notes. * The arrangements that Yahoo has made with the organizations providing content are nonexclusive. * Yahoo plans to develop ways to "best feature" this IW of data. Precisely what this means is tbd. * I've learned that Yahoo is grabbing National Science Digital Library metadata via an OAI (Open Archives Initiative) server. * Let's look at one resource Yahoo has announced a relationship with, The Oyez Project at Northwestern University (an incredible resource). Is this material blocked by a robots.txt file? No. Can it be crawled by other engines? Yes. Is there a technical reason why this material might be invisible to a web crawler? No. So what's news here? * The news is that Yahoo now has a relationship with Oyez (and others) to make sure all of the content from the site is crawled and updated in a timely manner. In our book, The Invisible Web, we discuss many potential reasons why material might be invisible. In Oyez's case, one potential issue is "depth of crawl." In some cases, a web spider/crawler will crawl some of the data from a web site but not all of it. With this arrangement, Yahoo and Oyez will work together and have the Oyez team feed the content to Yahoo as opposed to Yahoo's crawler (Slurp) having to discover and crawl it. Think of it as a feed of data by the content provider directly to Yahoo. This can also help maximize the use of metadata and assist with getting the content into the database in an expidited manner. -- Another organization that Yahoo has arrangement with is National Public Radio. Here's what a record looks like. It's a direct link to an NPR segment about Jimi Hendrix featuring a conversation with his sister. Note that I used NPR in the query. Where is the record found in other queries? Here are a few sample searches: -- Search terms: Jimi Hendrix NPR entry not in first 100 results -- Search terms: Jimi Hendrix radio show NPR entry not in first 100 results -- Search terms: Jimi Hendrix Tavis Smiley (the segment appeared on the Tavis Smiley show) NPR entry not in first 100 results -- Search terms: Jimi Hendrix National Public Radio NPR entry not in first 100 results -- Search terms: "Jimi Hendrix" "National Public Radio" NPR entry not in first 100 results -- Search terms: Jimi Hendrix Sister Interview NPR NPR entry not in first 100 results Btw, National Public Radio offers a "specialized database" to search its archive. It offers the ability to limit by program and date. Material becomes searchable as it's added to the web site. -- So, what does this mean for the searcher? + Many people will be CLOSELY watching Yahoo for paid-inclusion result boosting. Let's give it some time and see what develops. Remember -- only 1% of the Yahoo database is part of the paid-inclusion program. The other 99% comes from Yahoo's web crawl. + Here is another reason (any reason is a good one) to take some time and learn how to use web engines in an advanced manner. This can help boost precision and return the most relevant results.
Web Search Source: Pandia and SearchDay The Future for AllTheWeb and AltaVista Pandia reported today that AllTheWeb and AltaVista will stop offering three unique databases. Three? Yes, since Yahoo purchased Overture's assets (AltaVista and AllTheWeb) last year, each site had continued to offer a unique database. Last week, Yahoo unveiled its new crawler-built database. Diana Lee from Yahoo has confirmed that in the near future, all three engines will share a common database. They have been sharing a common news database for several months. AltaVista and AllTheWeb use the same Image Database, while Yahoo's Image Search remains, at least for the time being, powered by Google. I would expect this to change soon. Good News SearchDay reports each site will continue to offer its own unique advanced search functionality. This is good news for "power searchers," since both of these search technologies offer many useful options. From the article, "Over time, [Tim] Cadogan [vice president of search for Yahoo] says that Yahoo may attempt to differentiate the two engines. 'We're going to optimize the properties for each audience,' he said. 'We may experiment a little bit more on those sites.'" See Also: AllTheWeb's URL Investigator and AltaVista's Proximity Operator (NEAR) and Truncation are Two Examples of Advanced Features
Web Search On ResourceShelfPLUS: A New Compilation of Recently Awarded Search-Related Patents & Patent Apps A selection of patents and apps awarded or published this month. New patents to NEC and Alexa Internet. Yahoo had a patent app published.
Professional Reading Shelf (4 Items) Web Resources The March 2004 Issue of the Internet Resources Newsletter is Online Always interesting and useful material from the gang at the Heriot-Watt University Library. -- Libraries and Librarians The March 2004 Issue of Walt Crawford's "Cites & Insights" is Now Online More "must read" material from Mr. Crawford. -- Digital Images--Metadata Source: RLG Full Text, Automated Exposure: Capturing Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images See Also: More Info on this Web Page -- Scholarly Publishing Source: The Scientist Publishers steamed by US ban From the article, "A Treasury Department ruling that a well-known scientific society can't publish articles in its journals from authors in trade-embargoed countries if their manuscripts require any copy or style editing has other scientific associations and American publishers up in arms. The prohibition applies to authors in Iran, Cuba, Sudan, and Libya, but not to submissions from Iraq, North Korea, Zimbabwe, the Balkans, or Liberia, where embargoes are more limited."
Online Research Source: Financial Express Greg Notess Goes To India A series of recent presentations in New Delhi, India, by our friend, colleague, and a person who is always teaching all of use something useful, Greg Notess, had received coverage in the press. Cool! For those of you who don't know Greg, he is the proprietor of a site that's frequently linked on ResourceShelf, Search Engine Showdown.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Instant Messaging A Grown-Up's Guide to Instant Messaging Source: PCWorld.com "As with most Internet tools, the trick to productive instant messaging is knowing how to use it and when not to use it. Here is an overview of available IM services and software, along with some commonsense advice on how to safeguard your privacy and security while you're using them." -- Federal Government--Canada International Travel New Content, New Design, Consular Affairs Web Site "Information and assistance for Canadians abroad." -- Foundations--United States--Statistics Source: Foundation Center Two New Research Briefs from the Foundation Center + Foundation Giving Trends ||| Summary + Key Facts on Family Foundations -- Irish-Americans Source: U.S. Census Fast Facts: Irish-American Heritage Month (March) & St. Patrick's Day Facts and statistics about the Irish-American population.
Health Management--Database Trials Source: OVID Free Access This Month Only, HMIC (via OVID) From the site, "This Health Management and Policy database, from The Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC), is an invaluable source of information for health care administrators and managers. This unique product is updated bi-monthly and contains essential information from three key institutions: the United Kingdom Department of Health, Library & Information Services, the King's Fund Library & Information Service, and the Nuffield Institute for Health." See Also: Learn More About the Database Monday, March 01, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf (4 Items) Digital Archiving Source: Digital Preservation Coalition and the PADI (Preserving Access to Digital Information) Gateway New Issue, DPC/PADI What's new in digital preservation "This is a summary of selected recent activity in the field of digital preservation compiled from the Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI) Gateway and the digital-preservation and padiforum-l mailing lists. Additional or related items of interest may also be included." -- Weblogs Source: T.H.E. Journal Content Delivery in the Blogosphere "In this article, we will describe the pedagogy behind blogs. We will address the reasons why blogs should be used as one of many teaching and learning tools, as well as describe the potential benefits of blogs for educators." -- Content Aggregators Source: Online Making Money as an Aggregator A new article by George Plosker. From the article, "When confronted with the history of online, what surprises people the most is its longevity-the online news and magazine aggregator business has been around for approximately 30 years. Dialog celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2002; LexisNexis in 2003. Incredibly, between 1971 and 1974, in addition to Dialog and LexisNexis (then just Lexis; Nexis launched in early 1980), OCLC, SDC ORBIT, MEDLINE, The New York Times Information Bank, and Dow Jones News/Retrieval all began commercial service... Today's aggregators find themselves in a very difficult environment. To some extent, they are stuck in the middle between publishers that want as much revenue as possible and a public who doesn't want to pay for content. The most recent challenge to growth is the "Google is good enough" phenomenon. What can the aggregator do to begin to take back market share?" -- Patent Searching Source: Searcher Making the Case for Patent Searchers? From the article, "If you, at the request of a client, glean and filter information from a variety of sources, you are called a searcher. If you search in science and engineering, you are called a technical searcher. This article describes the work of technical searchers."
Enterprise Search Briefs (2 Items) + General Electric Selects FAST Search Transfer's ESP Technology "...an agreement to deploy the FAST Enterprise Search Platform (FAST ESP) across its corporate Web site and Intranet, with a framework for future deployment across all GE business units." -- + New Version of Verity's Enterprise Search Software Released (Version 5.5)
Web Search--Personalization Source: San Jose Mercury News "New Web tools aim to customize searches" Michael Bazeley looks at several personalization technologies including: + Outride "A spin-off from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Outride created a tool bar that sits to the side of a browser window. The 'sidebar' holds a user's bookmarks, search history (up to 1,000 mouse clicks) and other information. It uses that information to build profiles that change as the user navigates the Internet. Tests showed that Outride users could find what they were looking for twice as quickly. Google bought Outride two years ago and has not said what it plans to do with the technology." + Eurekster + Relevant Media Not Mentioned: Yahoo's Smart Sort
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items) Intellectual Property Reports in the News Source: Committee for Economic Development Promoting Innovation and Economic Growth: The Special Problem of Digital Intellectual Property This report is discussed in a New York Times story today. Announcement ||| Summary ||| Direct to Full Text -- Women--United States Source: U.S. Census Women's History Month Various resources for Women's History Month that begins today. -- Health--Australia Source: New Report, Avian Influenza-is Australia a Sitting Duck? -- Election 2004 Factiva Posts Media Visibility Index for Democratic Presidential Hopefuls (Week Ending 2/29/04)
Internet Usage--United States Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project New Full Text Report, Content Creation Online From the report, "More than 53 million American adults have used the Internet to publish their thoughts, respond to others, post pictures, share files and otherwise contribute to the explosion of content available online. A new survey and report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project find that 44% of U.S. Internet users have contributed material to the online commons." Summary ||| Direct to Full Text -- See Also: Study: Very few bloggers on Net (via AP) This story is based on material from the Pew Report |
