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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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Monday, May 31, 2004
Search Engines--Google Source: The Scotsman Zero tolerance as Googol plans to take Google to court From the article: "A dispute over a very large number of zeroes is threatening to distract attention from a $2.7 billion stock sale by the internet search engine Google. News of the deal has brought a threat of legal action from the family of Professor Edward Kasner, who invented the word "googol" in the 1930s to describe a very big number. He wrote about the concept in a 1940 book, describing a googol as the number one followed by a hundred zeroes. Kasner's great-niece, Peri Fleisher, now insists that the US-based company has gained financially at the expense of the family. She said: "If we do have a legal right, we're certainly going to exercise that. And now is the time." However, experts in intellectual property said that bringing a successful legal action would be problematic. "It would be an uphill struggle to try to assert any legitimate claim," said David Gourlay, a senior associate at the Dundas and Wilson Technology Group."
Professional Reading Shelf Archives Source: Library and Archives Canada Just Released, Full Text Report, Evaluation of the Canadian Archival Information Network (CAIN)
Search Engines - Ask Jeeves Another Search Shortcut at Jeeves It seems that there is yet another shortcut at Jeeves (part of their Smart Search program) among the many that have been mentioned in the past. If you enter a stock symbol you get the latest prices. See Also: A Complete List of Ask Jeeves Smart Search Options
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Health Information New/Updated Topic Pages/Compilations from MEDLINEplus + Muscular dystrophy, Duchenne and Becker types + Primary pulmonary hypertension -- Intellectual Property Source: Parliamentary Library, Australia New Report, Full Text, Intellectual property rights and the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement -- Government Regulation--United States Source: AEI-Brookings Joint Center Is Regulation Good For You? "Will all federal regulations soon pass a benefit-cost test? If the OMB's 2003 report is any indicator, the answer may be yes--at least for some categories of regulations.... We argue that OMB's numbers are plausible, given the methodology that OMB uses. Whether they are reasonable is less clear." Full Report (PDF; 444 KB) Sunday, May 30, 2004
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Development Source: UCTAD Just Released, Full Text, Least Developed Countries Report 2004 The report includes a 49-page statistical annex. -- Data Mining--United States Source: GAO New Report, Full Text, Data Mining: Federal Efforts Cover a Wide Range of Uses Summary ||| Direct to Full Text -- Hurricanes Source: Colorado State University Tropical Meteorology Project 2004 Atlantic Seasonal Hurricane Forecast "The recent upturn in Atlantic basin hurricane activity which began in 1995 is expected to continue in 2004. We anticipate an above-average number of Atlantic basin tropical cyclones and an above-average probability of U.S. hurricane landfall." Annual forecast by Dr. William Gray. -- Beaches--United States Source: Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman, Florida International University America's Best Beaches 2004 Annual list by "Dr. Beach." Photos of the top ten are available for download.
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries and Librarians Source: Council on Library and Information Resources The May/June Issue of CLIR Notes is Now Online Articles includes: + Library Periodicals Expenses: Comparison of Nonsubscription Costs of Print and Electronic Formats on a Life-Cycle Basis + A New Blueprint for the Library? -- Libraries Source: The Daily Star (Bangladesh) Libraries in Search of a Future "As the non-existence of a viable public library movement shows, Bangladesh faces formidable or -- perhaps more accurately -- overwhelming challenges to providing adequate library services. Consider that, there is no automation, no climate controls, no security procedures to protect against the theft of library materials, no adequate salaries to attract quality recruits to the library profession, no electronic databases and no adequate funding. In short, Bangladesh has one of the world's most underdeveloped library systems." Saturday, May 29, 2004
RSS Rocket News Updates Its RSS Reader with New Features Rocket launched their Java based RSS reader a couple of months ago. Here's our post from 3/9/04. Yesterday, the Canadian company announced a couple of new features. What's New + Rocket RSS Channl Directory - The company has developed a Directory of RSS Channels and has been busy categorizing and organizing thousands of RSS & Atom newsfeeds. Using the Rocket RSS Channels Directory is simple - click on the Channels button on the top toolbar and navigate through the categories to find & add interesting feeds to your account. + Enhanced Channel Search Functionality - You can also Search for RSS feeds using the Rocket RSS Reader. Click on the Search button on the top toolbar and enter your search terms in the text box to find RSS channels (from the 70,000+ sources in the database) that include your search terms in the channel name, channel URL or channel description. + Create RocketNews RSS Channels - Click on the Create button on the top toolbar to build your own RSS Channel with search results from the award-winning RocketNews current news search engine. Btw, the Rocket News database now aggregates (and makes searchable) content from more than 11,000 sources. Google News searches about 4500 sources. Yahoo News about 7000.
Professional Reading Shelf Fugitive Documents? Source: Houston Business Journal Desert Paper Trail Leads to Shell Oil File this one under how NOT to archive your documents.... "A buried 'treasure' could come back to haunt Houston-based Shell Oil. A total of 190 boxes full of documents have been dug up in the New Mexico desert near a pipeline formerly owned by a Shell subsidiary, the Texas-New Mexico Pipeline Co. The documents apparently pertain to operation of the pipeline and to environmental damage caused by an oil spill in the early 1990s." -- Libraries Wi-Fi--Open Access Source: Wi-Fi Planet An Open Source Wi-Fi Roundup "(T)here are a number of freely available tools that will enable you to create and manage a public access hotspot. There are three projects in particular that are under community development and in use today that are deserving of mention: Sesame Wi-Fi, ZoneCD from Public IP and the Less Networks Hotspots Server (popularized by the Austin Wireless City Project in Texas)."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Military Intelligence--United States Source: U.S. Army (via FAS/Secrecy News) Full Text, Just Released (Unclassified), U.S. Army Field Manual on Intelligence Secrecy News (compiled and edited by Steven Aftergood), has obtained a copy of this new document. From his newsletter, "The U.S. Army has issued a new Field Manual on intelligence that sets forth in detail the roles and functions of intelligence in Army and joint military operations. The new Field Manual (FM) 2-0 is 'the Army's keystone document for military intelligence doctrine.' With conceptual rigor, the manual proceeds from "the fundamentals of intelligence operations" to 'intelligence considerations in strategic readiness" and beyond.'" The document is a 3.2MB PDF; 211 pages. -- U.S. Army--Iraq Source: Center for Army Lessons Learned Full Text, Just Released, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom "On Point tells the compelling story of America's Army in OIF, and is of interest to a broad audience. However, it aims at a specific audience -- soldiers and defense professionals. Within the Army, On Point has two specific goals: to educate soldiers on the conduct of combat operations in OIF and to suggest some preliminary implications for the Army's continued transformation." Friday, May 28, 2004
Web Search--Yahoo Even More Yahoo! Search Shortcuts They keep coming! You can find a complete list here and a few comments in our 4/21/04 post. + Area Codes: "To find the area code for a city or see what cities are within an area code, search on the area code or city name and 'area code.'" Example: area code seattle) + Calculator: "Use Yahoo! Search to do basic mathematical calculations. You can add (+), subtract (-), multiply (*) and divide (/)." Example: 4*(12-6/3) + Exchange Rates: "To find the exchange rate for a unit of currency or convert one currency to another, search on "convert" and the currency or currencies you would like to convert." Example: convert yen dollar + Time Zones: "To get the current time or determine the time zone for a location search on 'time' or 'time zone' and the location." Example: time in paris + Weights and Measures: "To convert any number of metric or Imperial/English units in whole or decimal form, search on 'convert' and the units you would like to convert. Use * to indicate degrees." Example: convert miles to km + Zip Codes: "To find the area code for a city or see what cities are within a zip code, search on the city name and 'zip code.'" Example: zip code austin See: Yahoo! Search Shortcuts Cheat Sheet See Also: Help Using the Yahoo Calculator and while we're on the Yahoo! Beat... ResearchBuzz Has Info on Yahoo's Linkdomain: Syntax
Search Engines Source: BBC News Search Business Turns Serious From the article: "Although the web has given the person in the street access to more information than ever before and Google has made it easy to search through that vast pile to find what you want, typically business users need even more. So argues Clare Hart, boss of search firm Factiva which was formed in 1999 from Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing. When you do a search you're not interested in quantity," said Ms Hart, "you want relevant research and quick access to relevant results. I think people get very frustrated by Google results," she said. "The lack of quality results and the fact that they have to register with more and more websites." A great story for the librarians to mention to their patrons who think that Research = Google.
Professional Reading Shelf Books Source: BBC News Books Get Interactive Makeover "New Zealand researchers have developed a way to overlay detailed animations and images on textbooks, children's picture books and any other title that uses illustrations." -- Information Source: internetnews.com Report: 25% of Critical Data is Flawed "Many major companies are making crucial business decisions based on flawed data, according to a new study from Gartner Inc. More than 25 percent of critical data within Fortune 1,000 companies is incomplete and inaccurate, say analysts from Gartner, a major industry research firm based in Stamford, Conn. Although many executives aren't even aware that they're working with flawed data, the ones that do often reach for the wrong technology to fix the situation, reports Ted Friedman, principal analyst for Gartner." -- Information Systems Source: IMS Global Learning Consortium and the Coalition for Networked Information New Report (White Paper), Just Released: Interoperability between Library Information Services and Learning Environments - Bridging the Gaps -- Digitization Projects--Canada Source: Heritage Canada Full Text, Virtual Museum of Canada: The Next Generation A paper by Steve Dietz, Howard Besser, Ann Borda and Kati Gerber (with Pierre Lévy). "This Study Paper was produced in the context of the redevelopment of the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC). The VMC has been a great success since its launch in March 2001. Since then, it has evolved in response to information technologies and the needs of the Network?s members. In order to help us make choices and prepare the ground for further innovation, a group of internal and external experts was mandated to produce a study paper that would stimulate exchanges and debates within the museum and heritage community."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Computer Security Source: CSO and CERT Just Released, 2004 E-CRIME Watch Survey Summary ||| Direct to Full Text -- Health Information--Australia Source: Parliamentary Library, Australia New Report, Healthy measures - key health statistics Thursday, May 27, 2004
Resources of the Week Three selections this week. 1) Employment--United States Source: Wall Street Journal CareerJournal.com: Salary and Hiring Information As far as juicy information goes, salary data is among the juiciest. Who makes what? How do you stack up against your peers? If you relocate to a city in a different part of the country, can you expect to earn what you earn now? What's a good ballpark figure to hold in your head when you've been called back for that second interview? Or maybe you need hard data to prove to your boss that you are, in fact, underpaid. There's a real good chance you'll find just the numbers you need on this page, specifically, from the scroll menu in the blue box at the top of the right column. Let's choose...uh, Librarians. Highlight it and click "GO" at the bottom of the box. In the center column, up pops an article about hiring trends for corporate librarians. Beneath the blue box on the right, you'll see another blue box labeled "Salary Tables." Here's the good stuff, folks. For Librarians, you'll find links to five different salary tables -- Library Department Heads, Librarians by Experience, Top Research Librarians, Librarians at Nonprofits in the Washington, D.C., Metro Area, and the decidedly generic...Librarians. For each table, the source/data is indicated in italics at the bottom. Go ahead...satisfy your curiosity now. Other fishing holes for salary data: + Bureau of Labor Statistics: Weekly Earnings Data (See especially the table Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by detailed occupation and sex.) + GovExec.com: Salary and Benefits (federal employee pay schedules, etc.) + JobStar: Salary Info Index + Occupational Outlook Handbook + Portico's collection of salary guides (resources for "advancement professionals") + Salary Guides and Guidance (The Riley Guide) + Salary.com -- 2) Economics Source: Economic History Association EH.Net "EH.Net operates the Economic History Services fileserver and several electronic discussion lists to provide resources and promote communication among scholars in economic history and related fields." What's here: + Abstracts in Economic History: "AEH is a service designed to assist economic historians in sharing information about their work. Abstracts are welcome for all types of work in the field, including dissertations, working papers, conference presentations, journal articles, and contributions to anthologies." + Ask the Professor: "Professors who have done research in Economic History are volunteering to assist others interested in learning more about the field." Searchable archive of previous questions and answers. + Book Reviews + Course Syllabi + Database Directory: "EH.Net provides an on-line location for researchers in economic history to make their data series available to other professionals and interested scholars. Several data series have been given to EH.Net and are available as downloadable files, while many other titles may be accessed through our Database Registry." + Economic History in the Popular Press: Selected recent articles of interest. + Encyclopedia: "EH.Net Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History is designed to provide students and laymen with high quality reference articles in the field. Articles for the Online Encyclopedia are written by experts, screened by a group of authorities, and carefully edited." + How Much Is That?: "Have you ever wondered what the value of a dollar was in 1895? Or what the GDP was in 1929? Here is a place where you can ask questions of comparative value covering purchasing power, exchange rates, and other variables between the past and today." Includes data for the UK, gold prices, "the relative cost of unskilled labor," some exchange rates. + Membership Directory: "(C)ontains a complete list of the members of the Business History Conference, The Cliometric Society, and the Economic History Association." + Related Websites: "The materials listed here are primarily WWW sites with information of use to economic historians. Because there is presently a great deal more on the Internet in economics than in history, that discipline is more heavily represented, but over time the distribution will even out." -- 3) Naval Studies NOSI: Naval Open Source Intelligence "NOSI is a digital library of world naval operational news curated from open source intelligence. Links to naval operational news stories are posted daily after scanning over 100 international news sources...NOSI is curated by Michael P. D'Alessandro, M.D. Dr. D'Alessandro has been a member of the U.S. Naval Institute since 1981.... Dr. D'Alessandro's research is in the field of digital libraries; he established the Virtual Hospital digital health sciences library as the 250th Web site on the Internet in 1993." See Also: GlobalSecurity.org Another excellent source of open source security, intelligence, and related material.
Multimedia Search New Resource: CampaignSearch.com We've mentioned many multimedia search tools on ResourceShelf. Today, in a News.com article, word of a new one. Say hello to CampaignSearch.com. This site uses voice recognition technology from StreamSage. From the site, "CampaignSearch.com has gathered campaign-related video and audio files from a number of Web sites: George Bush's and John Kerry's campaign Web sites, C-SPAN, PBS, NPR and more. CampaignSearch.com uses complex spoken-language-analysis software created by StreamSage to automatically identify the sections of audio/video news and speeches that are relevant to a voter's interests." More info about the technology here. Here are some other multimedia search tools that we've featured on ResourceShelf. + Virage demos from PBS, keyword search segments from several PBS programs + Speechbot, keyword search (voice recognition technology) over 17,000 hours of radio programming + NPR Audio Archives Search, keyword search abstracts of program segments back to 1996 + ShadowTV.Com, fee-based, keyword search (real-time) major news networks + The Feedroom Browse or search (abstracts), and view news segments from various television stations.
Professional Reading (and Viewing) Shelf Information Architecture Usability Source: The Library of Congress (Video Lecture) Krug and Rosenfeld on loc.gov: An Interactive Evaluation From the site, "Usability guru Steve Krug and information architecture expert Lou Rosenfeld bring their expertise to bear as they perform a live review of the Library of Congress Web site. The presentation runs 101 minutes. This Luminary Lecture took place on May 4, 2004. See Also: Direct to Video -- Digital Preservation Source: GCN Library starts digital preservation research program From the article, "The Library of Congress is launching a research program to develop digital preservation technologies, announced William LeFurgy, digital project manager for the Library of Congress. The Digital Archiving and Long Term Preservation Research Program will ultimately provide new tools for the Library of Congress? $175 million National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, a congressionally mandated initiative to preserve the rapidly increasing number of culturally significant digital materials. The National Science Foundation will administer the program." -- Government Documents--United States Source: The Memory Hole Government Documents Pulled Out of Public Circulation Russ Kick of the The Memory Hole comments and offers a list.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents National World War II Memorial--United States--Databases Registry Database Available on the National World War II Memorial Web Site The National World War II Memorial will be dedicated in Washington, DC, on Saturday. The web site contains construction facts, images, and design info. It also contains an online database. From the site, ""he Registry combines four distinct databases that can be searched for names of those whose service and sacrifice helped win the Second World War. The Registry includes the names of Americans who are: + Buried in American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) overseas military cemeteries + Memorialized on ABMC Tablets of the Missing + Listed on official War and Navy Department Killed in Service rosters now held by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) + Honored by public enrollment in the Registry of Remembrances." Search by name and State/Territory. An advanced interface is also available. -- United Nations--Directories Official Website Locator for the UN System of Organizations "This site serves as a portal to web sites of the United Nations, its funds and programmes, and specialized agencies. It also includes links to key projects and initiatives and to various joint programmes of the UN System." Browse alphabetically or click the "Thematic Index" link in the navigation bar on the left-hand side to see a dropdown menu that allows you to browse sites by subject area. Fairly straightforward way of navigating the sometimes byzantine collection of UN websites. See also: United Nations System Organization Chart (PDF; 96 KB) -- Playwrights eO'Neill.com "An electronic Eugene O'Neill Archive," which offers: + Audio Archive: "Complete broadcasts of O'Neill's plays in RealAudio format" + Library: "Online texts, including complete plays, Travis Bogard's Contour in Time, an archive of essays by O'Neill scholars, and The Eugene O'Neill Newsletter" + Production Archive: "Artifacts from theatrical, film, television, and radio productions of O'Neill's plays, including programs, cast listings, photographs, reviews, and more" + Reference Catalog: Annotated bibliography "of resources relating to O'Neill and the theatre" Also includes reviews of productions of O'Neill's plays, curriculum materials, a theatre guide (upcoming productions of O'Neill's plays around the world), online discussion forum, links to related resources. Site is keyword searchable.
Web Search--Yahoo! Source: CNET Yahoo Embraces Antispyware From the article: "Yahoo on Thursday is expected to release an upgrade for its downloadable toolbar to help people detect and remove spyware, or malicious files, on their PCs. For now, the Web portal will be testing the technology, which has been supplied by antispyware company PestPatrol. It will offer the toolbar upgrade only to a select number of people at beta.toolbar.yahoo.com, Yahoo spokeswoman Stephanie Iwamasa said. The software can perform a high-level scan of files on a PC to detect viruses or other applications that were installed surreptitiously and are used to spy on computer behavior." See Also - Yahoo Press Release via Business Wire See Also - Yahoo Antispyware Community (NEW)
Web Search--Microsoft Source: AP Microsoft turns its might to growing field of search From the article, "Microsoft Corp. is looking beyond Internet searches, heading into its battle with Google Inc. with technology designed to allow people to scour their e-mails, personal computers and even hefty databases for information...The search system will give consumers 'an end-to-end system for searching across any data type,' Yusuf Mehdi, head of Microsoft's MSN division, told analysts at a Goldman Sachs Internet conference Wednesday in Las Vegas. The technology is designed as a major search improvement for users trying to grapple with an increasing amount of digital information, offering a single hunting system instead of several different search engines, file management systems or other tools." See Also: Another Recent AP Article About MS Search See Also: News.Com Interview with Yusuf Mehdi Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Web Search--Google Useful? Interesting? Fun? Another List of "Recently Registered" Google-Based Domain Names Domain name squatting with names that include the name Google continues to be a popular activity. This is the third compilation and contains more than 250 "recently registered" domain names. Links to the first two lists are included on the page.
Professional Reading (and Listening) Shelf Data Mining Source: The Kojo Nnamdi Show/WAMU Radio Program Discusses Data Mining (RealAudio) From the description, "Data mining searches large databases for unexpected patterns of data - and it's used by everyone from Amazon to political campaigns to government and law resources. But some say the technology crosses the lines of public versus private information." Guests: + Usama Fayyad, Founder and president, DMX Group, a business and technology consulting group + Lee Strickland, Visiting Professor and Director, Center for Information Policy, University of Maryland, College Park + Nick Gillespie, Editor-in-Chief, Reason magazine + Angelique Waller, artist, author "Data Mining the Amazon" The program was broadcast on WAMU, a public radio station in Washington, DC, and runs about one hour. -- Scholarly Communication Source: C&RL News New Article, Information Access Alliance: Challenging anticompetitive behavior in academic publishing This intro to the IAA was written by Mary M. Case, Director of the Office of Scholarly Communication at the Association of Research Libraries.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Women--United States Source: Harvard University Library Open Collections Program Women Working, 1870-1930 "The Open Collections Program has chosen the subject Women Working from 1870 to 1930 as its first topic to demonstrate the feasibility of bringing together books, manuscripts, and images from across the Harvard Libraries and Museums and integrating them into a digital collection using the Web as a primary access tool." + Browse by topic. + Browse by dates and events + Search full text. -- U.S. Military Source: U.S. DoD Office of Force Transformation New, Full-Text Report, National Military Strategy of the United States of America 2004 (PDF; 460 KB) From Richard B. Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "The 'National Military Strategy' conveys my message to the Joint Force on the strategic direction the Armed Forces of the United States should follow to support the National Security and Defense Strategies in this time of war. This document describes the ways and means to protect the United States, prevent conflict and surprise attack and prevail against adversaries who threaten our homeland, deployed forces, allies and friends." Focuses on three priorities: Winning the war on terrorism, enhancing joint warfighting and transforming the armed forces for the future. -- United States Census + Census of Population and Housing (1790-2000) See Also: Selected Editions of the Statistical Abstract (1878-2001) See Also: Mini Historical Statistics Files available in pdf or xls formats. -- Environment--United States--Database Source: EPA Updated, UV Index Search by zip code or city name. -- United States--History Presidents--United States Source: National Archives and Records Administration (U.S.) Released Today, National Archives Releases New Materials Related to the Nixon Presidency From the overview, "The National Archives and Records Administration will release approximately 20,000 pages of transcripts of Dr. Henry Kissinger's telephone conversations during his tenure as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (1969-74) and Secretary of State (1973-74) during the Nixon Administration. These telephone calls, which took place at various locations, were recorded between January 21, 1969-August 8, 1974. The National Archives will also release approximately 7,000 pages of materials from the "White House Central Files: Subject Files," including Pardon Files from 1973; and 1,600 pages of "White House Central Files: Name Files," including a small amount of material relating to John Kerry and Roger Ailes. See Also: Addional Info in this AP Report
Briefly + Solcara and LexisNexis Launch News Monitoring Tool (via ManagingInformation.com) & LexisNexis Expands Presence in China -- -- + Vivisimo Continues Rolling Along with Six New Biopharma Clients The company launched their ClusterMed product at the end of March. -- + 9/11 Panel Chooses Publisher for Report (via NY Times) "[W.W] Norton has announced plans to publish 500,000 copies of the report and sell them for $10 each, which competitors acknowledge is a relatively low retail price for a book expected to be hundreds of pages long. The federal government's printing agency, the Government Printing Office, is expected to sell its own version within several days of the report's release."
Search Engines--Legal Issues Source: Findlaw Why You Can't Sue Google From the column by Julie Hilden: "As Google prepares for its Initial Public Offering, it's worth reflecting on a special advantage the law gives to it, and to other, similar search sites: Such sites are, in effect, immune from much of the liability risk a traditional publisher of news and other factual information faces. For publishers of books, magazines, newspapers and the like, publishing, or even re-publishing, a false statement can trigger defamation liability. But, for reasons I will explain, the same is not true for search sites like Google. Search sites can provide access to information that may be false, without worrying about the risk of a defamation suit. (No wonder, then, that Google's stock may turn out to be valuable; some of the value it will have doubtless comes from this special legal bonus.)" Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Source: ACM Queue From IR to Search and Beyond This article was written by Ramana Rao, CTO at Inxight Software. He writes, "searching has come a long way since the 60s, but have we only just begun?" See Also: More Search Articles from ACM Queue -- Enterprise Search Source: Intelligent Enterprise/Intelligent Portals Consumer and Enterprise Search: Not an Exact Match
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Privacy--United States Source: The Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee Full Text Report, Recently Released, Safeguarding Privacy in the Fight Against Terrorism From a FCW article, "The 140-page document resulted from Congress canceling the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's controversial Terrorism Information Awareness program in 2003. TAPAC officials concluded that TIA represented "a flawed effort to achieve worthwhile ends." The report runs 140 pages. -- Congressional Research Service Source: FPC/CRS Two Recently Released CRS Reports + Greece: Threat of Terrorism and Security of the Olympics + Terrorist Identification, Screening, and Tracking Under Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6 -- Housing--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New, Housing Data Between the Censuses: The American Housing Survey -- Taxes--Australia Source: Parliamentary Library, Australia New Full Text Report, Less tax or more social spending: twenty years of opinion polling -- e-Government--United States Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Use of E-government Increases 50% from 2002 to 2003, but Citizens Want Multiple Channels Available to Contact Government "New research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that 97 million adult Americans, or 77% of Internet users, took advantage of e-gov in 2003, whether that meant going to government Web sites or emailing government officials. This represented a growth of 50% from 2002. At the same time, citizens who contact government said they are more likely to turn to traditional means either the telephone or in-person visits rather than the Web or email to deal with government." Download full report, by sections or just a summary of the findings.
Web Search Update Web Search--Yahoo Source: San Jose Mercury News + Plaxo,Yahoo make deal on search From the article, "Today Plaxo integrates Yahoo's search engine directly into the Outlook e-mail program. Under the deal with Yahoo, Plaxo will get paid for channeling people to Yahoo's search engine. The search box will be placed beside a Plaxo icon that sits atop Outlook. Plaxo will eventually make Web searching possible from individual e-mails, according to Masonis. Ultimately, he wants Plaxo to search individual words within the e-mails. You would click on the word and Plaxo would do a Web search through Yahoo." Thanks to Searchblog for the tip. J.B. also comments on the deal. See Also: Direct to Plaxo -- Web Search Source: SearchDay Search Engine User Attitudes D.S. and C.S. with a thorough overview of some recently released numbers from iProspect. Here are a few points that caught my eye. + "What do people do when they can't find the information they're looking for? 26 percent said they'd give up on a search and try again if they didn't find a match in the first two pages of results, more than any other choice. This was followed by 23 percent who said they'd review only the first few matches on the first page, then 19 percent who said they'd review only the entire first page of results. 15 percent said they'd give up after reviewing three pages. The remainder said they'd look at more than three pages." + "Nearly half of those surveyed -- 49 percent -- said they use one or more search toolbars. This is based on the fact that respondents were asked to answer which toolbar they had installed: Google, Yahoo, MSN or None Of The Above. Yahoo was ranked top among those choices, at 22 percent, followed by Google at 20 percent and MSN at 17 percent." + "In other findings, both men (65%) and women (57%) preferred natural results over paid listings, though the 43% of women who said they favored the paid listings suggest that the preference for organic results is not as strong in women as men." -- Web Search Source: News.com Study questions Google's long-term dominance A couple of comments: + The study points out that, "Google's results vary little from those found on other search sites." However, SearchDay recently noted that, " A new comparison tool shows that the major search engines have surprisingly little overlap, even for popular search terms. Search engine guru Greg Notess has long studied search engine overlap -- the number of pages found by more than one search engine. Greg's findings have consistently shown that there is very little overlap in the web page databases of the major search engines, meaning you'll likely get very different results depending on the engine." The article also says, "Google users searching for the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 25 and 34, found the information they were looking for 55 percent of the time. The company's rivals fell close behind with between 52 percent and 54 percent success rates, Vividence observed." So I guess the question is, what did the study participants consider a good result? Were those surveyed satisfied with whatever they found? Did time constraints come into play? What were the search terms? How many search terms were used? Those of us who use specialized info databases (free and fee-based) -- along with things called books (no kidding) -- realize that the web/web engines are just one of many research tools. However, I think the general public has little or no idea about "other" existing resources that could not only be helpful, but also SAVE them aggravation and effort. We also know that with a little effort, general web search tools like Google and Yahoo can become much more powerful and precise. This will become even more noticeable as these resources grow in size. I guess the most interesting news is that more and more users are realizing that general web search tools (other than Google) are useful. + "The company found that Google clearly remains consumers' favorite, largely because of the search engine's less-cluttered interface." I can't figure out why Yahoo doesn't spend some effort promoting the search.yahoo.com interface? Heck, you can even customize the tabs! I also think Teoma.com is far from cluttered, and it also gives refinement options not available at Google. Again, creating and purchasing an info resource is one thing, but getting people to use it is something else. Google does it very well (better than just about anyone); others, including traditional vendors and libraries, need to do better. + "Watkins said part of the reason why Google lags behind its competitors is the company's stringent practice of keeping ads well marked, while the other sites sometimes mix solicitations in with regular search results." Google deserves mega kudos for their work in labeling web results and making everyone else follow. That said, everyone else is better, and it's hard to find examples of where the other engines mentioned in the article don't clearly mark ads vs. organic results. + I'll conclude with two comments that I think are relevant. The first from our friend Tara Calishain, who said in a 8/03 AP article, "Google has a lot of smart people who have built a great search engine, but there are a lot of other smart people out there looking for ways to make search engines even better." The other comment is found in a 5/03 Forbes article, "Even Google's engineers admit FAST and Teoma deliver results comparable to theirs." Monday, May 24, 2004
Science--Specialized Search Tools Source: Info Today NewsBreaks More on Science.gov 2.0 On May 11th we mentioned that Science.gov 2.0 had just launched. Today, Paula Hane offers an excellent overview of the enhanced service and new technology. One weakness Paula doesn't mention in her column that I've found while testing Science.gov 2.0 is that direct links to citations found via this metasearch tool are not available. This could cause problems in trying to return to a citation or including it in a bibliography. An example, I ran a quick search for the phrase "global warming" and, as expected, got many results. When I clicked on an entry, I was unable to find a direct url to that specific entry. However, if I went directly to one of the underlying databases I was able to find a unique url.
Web Search Source: Wired And More Link Bombs I agree with Danny S. and have started to call these types of things "link bombs." The writer seems to have a problem understanding the differences between "bombs" and keyword advertising. He also doesn't mention that AltaVista, Lycos, and Yahoo all use the same underlying database. Oh well. I do find it worth noting that once again Jeeves and Teoma seem more resistant to link bombing and manipulation than other web engines.
Professional Reading Shelf Librarians Source: American Libraries Librarians Are Not Search Engines In his latest column (a must read), Dr. Joseph Janes writes, "Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the obvious comparisons between that [web search engines] and what a librarian does. To be sure, both are ways to get answers to questions; so in a sense both librarians and search engines are 'answerers.' It does seem an odd parallel, though; we never got ourselves compared (much less compared ourselves) to databases, catalogs, reference books, or the like. I think I know where this notion comes from: Some librarians, not without justification, might see search engines as competition. It's not at all difficult to look at the rise of free and easy Internet searching and the simultaneous and sometimes precipitous drop in reference statistics and put two and two together. And that may well be a big part of what's going on. So why not portray ourselves as the preferred alternative, in the same ballpark? Because it's dangerous, that's why. Sure, you can get an answer out of Vivisimo or Teoma, and you can also get an answer out of one of your local public library's telephone reference service. The answer from Vivísimo might even be faster. (It might even be right.) But it'll also be mindless. And unconcerned with quality, evaluation, instruction, or meeting your specific needs. There's also a good chance it'd be a good answer to a question you weren't really asking." I would add to Dr. Janes' comments that we also see the idea of the open web as the world's largest library mentioned in many articles. I can understand where this comes from (large amounts of info in one "virtual" location), but it's a real stretch. A library is a controlled, well-maintained, selective and organized collection of resources. We all know that the open web is not close to this idea. This doesn't mean that some of the massive amounts of material found via web engines is not valuable -- it ABSOLUTELY IS -- but this alone doesn't make a general web engine a library. That said, I think the general web engines (Yahoo, Google, Ask, etc.) could work more with the library community to solicit our thoughts on how to make their products more valuable tools for all users (including many librarians).
Web Browsers Source: News.com Start-up Looks to Add Pluck to Browsers From the article, "Start-up Pluck on Monday launched its first product, a set of tools designed to help people add capabilities to Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browsing software. Pluck's self-titled package of browser add-ons promises to affix a range of extensions to IE, including expanded Web searching capabilities, live content folder sharing and a so-called rich site summary (RSS) reader. The product also includes an online community aspect, as it lets people exchange information saved in documents or folders." See Also: Pluck Press Release See Also: Netcaptor, another browser that's been described as "IE on steroids."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Television--Database Source: Yahoo (Info supplied by Tribune Media Services/Zap2it.com) TV Show Database A browsable database containing basic directory info (premiere date, description, stars, brief history) for hundreds of television programs new and old. Browsing by category is not a good idea since these categories contain only a few of the many entries available if you browse by title. See Also: The Encyclopedia of Television (Full-Text) From the site,"...includes more than 1,000 original essays from more than 250 contributors and examines specific programs and people, historic moments and trends, major policy disputes and such topics as violence, tabloid television and the quiz show scandal. It also includes histories of major television networks as well as broadcasting systems around the world and is complemented by resource materials, photos and bibliographical information. The book is not searchable but does contain hyperlinked cross-references. -- Webliographies Source: Science, Technology, and Business Division, The Library of Congress New Research Guides + Wedding Industry Research - Selected Internet Resources + 17-Year Periodical Cicadas (2004) - Selected Internet Resources + Ricin (Toxic Substance) -- R&D--United States--Statistics Source: NSF New Info Brief, Largest Single-Year Decline in U.S. Industrial R&D Expenditures Reported for 2002 This InfoBrief will focus on statistics from the 2002 Survey of Industrial Research and Development. It announces the availability of survey results on the World Wide Web (WWW) and the publication of the forthcoming annual detailed statistical tables (DST) and methodology reports; presents statistics on levels and sources of industrial R&D support, sales, and employment for manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industries; highlights the funding of R&D from companies' own resources and from the Federal government; and details R&D spending per R&D scientist and engineer by R&D-performing companies. -- Maps Source: U.S. Military Academy Department of History Department Maps "In 1938, the predecessors of what is today The Department of History at the United States Military Academy began developing a series of campaign atlases to aid in teaching cadets a course entitled, 'History of the Military Art.' Since then, the Department has produced six atlases and nearly one thousand maps, encompassing not only America's wars but global conflicts as well. In keeping abreast with today's technology, the Department of History is providing these maps on the World Wide Web. The maps were created by the United States Military Academy's Department of History and are the digital versions from the atlases printed by the United States Defense Printing Agency." Direct to Atlases -- Taxes--United States Source: U.S. Census Bureau New, State Government Tax Collections Up 2.4 Percent; Biggest Increase in Tobacco Taxes "According to data from the 2003 Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections, general sales taxes were up 2.8 percent to $185 billion and taxes on individual income declined overall by 1.5 percent to $182 billion. These taxes made up more than two-thirds of all state tax collections. Among other major taxes, levies on tobacco products increased the most (29 percent), followed by severance taxes (24 percent) and documentary and stock transfer taxes (23 percent)." See Also: 2003 Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections -- Traffic Information--United Kingdom Relaunched, Highways Agency Web Site From Kablenet.com, "The site was launched on 24 May 2004. It has been designed to be easier to navigate than its predecessor, and incorporates four new services to help drivers plan their journeys. Visitors to the site can get real time traffic information from the National Traffic Control Centre. The site provides regional maps that include icons at points where there are roadworks and accidents, and a click of the mouse will provide details and forecasts of any delays. They will also be able to get traffic flow forecasts, information on future roadworks from an online database, and a stream of updated information on the road network."
Briefly Ohio Libraries Launch e-Book Service -- Kathleen de la Peña McCook Named Inaugural Recipient of Achievement in Library Diversity Research Award Sunday, May 23, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Weblogs Source: BBC News Gates Backs Blogs for Businesses "In a speech to an audience of chief executives, Mr Gates said the regularly updated journals, or blogs, could be a good way for firms to tell customers, staff and partners what they are doing." Here's the actual quote from Bill Gates: "Another new phenomenon that connects into this is one that started outside of the business space, more in the corporate or technical enthusiast space, a thing called blogging. And a standard around that that notifies you that something has changed called RSS." The full text of his speech along with his PowerPoint slides are also available online. -- Web Design Source: Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox Guidelines for Visualizing Links "Textual links should be colored and underlined to achieve the best perceived affordance of clickability, though there are a few exceptions to these guidelines." -- Digital Libraries Source: OCLC Distinguished Seminar Series: Jim Gray on Digital Libraries "Jim Gray's presentation provides an overview of his work with the World-Wide Telescope effort from the perspective of a digital library, focusing on metadata, schema, curation, and preservation issues." Slides are in PPT format. Audio is in MP3 format. The seminar took place on May 17, 2004 in Dublin, Ohio. See Also: Materials from Other DSS Presentations
Library Briefs + North Carolina...NC Live Databases Receive Press Attention (via Kinston Free Press) -- + Texas... School libraries dig in to keep providing resources (via Midland Reporter-Telegram) -- + Illinois...Library stands by controversial book (via UPI)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Iraq Source: Export-Import Bank of the United States Useful Links for Exporting to Iraq Collection of links organized by headings: United States Government, United States Government Commercial Information, Information on Iraqi Businesses and Organizations, Contracting Opportunities, International Organizations. -- History of Medicine--Gateways Source: The Wellcome Trust (UK) MedHist "MedHist is a gateway to evaluated, quality Internet resources relating to the history of medicine and allied sciences, covering all aspects of the history of health and development of medical knowledge." Saturday, May 22, 2004
Metadata Source: NISO Workshop Presentations: Metadata Practices on the Cutting Edge Workshop The NISO workshop took place in DC yesterday. Here's a list of the presentations. All presentations are in PowerPoint format. + Metadata Practice and Direction: a Community Perspective, Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC + RSS: Really Simple Syndication - A Publisher's Perspective by Howard Ratner, Nature Publishing Group + New Developments Relating to Linking Metadata, Chuck Koscher, CrossRef + Metadata Standards for Managing and Discovering Image Collections, Oya Rieger, Cornell University Libraries + Addressing Metadata in the MPEG-21 and PDF-A ISO Standards, William G. LeFurgy, Library of Congress + Using MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema) for Rich Descriptive Data, Rebecca Guenther, Library of Congress + The Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS), Morgan Cundiff, Library of Congress + ONIX for Serials and the NISO/EDItEUR Joint Working Party for the Exchange of Serials Subscription Information Nathan Robertson, Johns Hopkins University Libraries + Metadata Interaction, Integration, and Interoperability, William Moen, University of North Texas + DSpace SIMILE: using semantic web technology for metadata support, MacKenzie Smith, MIT Libraries + Beyond Parsing: Metadata Quality Management, Bruce Rosenblum, Inera, Inc.
Professional Reading Shelf Citation Indexing Information Industry--Elsevier Source: Access Scopus to challenge Web of Science? From the article, "Elsevier is developing a bibliographic database called Scopus, which several industry observers believe will compete with ISI's Web of Science for library dollars. At the heart of Scopus is the world's largest abstracts database of over 12,900 journal titles from 4,000 publishers providing access to over 25 million abstracts going back to 1966 and 5 years of reference back years, building up to 10 years by 2005."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Military--Multimedia Resources Military Clip-Art & Multimedia Source: Dudley Knox Library, Naval Postgraduate School Briefly annotated collection of links to graphics and audio/video resources for all branches of the military. See Also: The Air War College Also Offers an Excellent Collection of Links -- The following two items were culled from the Infomine What's New Newsletter -- Ornithology Source: Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology All About Birds Everything you wanted to know about birds and birding, including where to go, how to identify different species, choosing and using binoculars/spotting scopes, attracting birds to your yard, studying birds and conservation. -- Politics Source: Georgetown University Political Database of the Americas "The Political Database of the Americas is a non-governmental Internet-based project that provides reference materials, primary documents, comparative studies and statistical data for countries in the Western Hemisphere." Available in English, Spanish, French and Portugese.
Update Alibris Ends Plans for IPO Five weeks ago we mentioned that online used book marketplace Alibris had filed to go public. Well, things change. The company has withdrawn the IPO. Nevertheless, the S-1 filing offers some interesting info about the used book industry. Thanks to Tara C. for the news tip. Friday, May 21, 2004
Web Search Source: Microsoft Watch Search Titans Talk Futures "Microsoft is known to be prepping new search technologies that are expected to allow users to search seamlessly across their local machines, corporate networks and the Internet. The new MSN Search part of the equation is expected to debut later this year or early next. A first version of the WinFS file-system subsystem will be integrated into Longhorn when it ships in 2006+. And A9 recently unveiled a beta version of a new search site that builds on top of Google." Report on World Wide Web Conference on presentations by Rick Rashid, senior VP in charge of Microsoft Research, and Udi Manber, CEO of Amazon.com's A9 subsidiary. See Also: ResourceShelfPLUS Has a Compilation Containing Links to Many of the Papers Presented at This Week's World Wide Web Conference See Also: Udi Manber the head of a9 spoke at the University of Washington in November. You can watch an archived version of his lecture here. It's titled, "The World's Information at Everyone's Fingertips."
Web Search--Ask Jeeves A New Smart Search Feature from Jeeves: Movie Info In April we ran an item about Ask Jeeves launching Famous People Search. I just noticed that a new Smart Search feature is available and, like the others, can potentially save the searcher time and effort. If you search for a new movie you'll find a box at the top of the page containing movie plot info and DIRECT links to the trailer, the official site, reviews (via RottenTomatoes.com), showtime info and more. Hopefully, they'll continue to add more film info and include entries for older films. No special syntax is required to trigger this feature. I also noticed that you will find info for some films released in the past year. You can find more Ask.com SmartSearch shortcuts here.
Web Search--Vivisimo Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review More Press for Vivisimo From the article, "At the same time Google's founding duo began their journey to fame and fortune as researchers at Stanford University, a group of Carnegie Mellon University computer scientists initiated their own project in the summer of 1998 to tackle the problem of information overload. 'The only way to address the problem is to let users see a lot more of what's out there, but with less effort,' said Raul Valdes-Perez, 47, who led the CMU effort [now CEO of Vivisimo]." I've mentioned several times that Vivisimo calls this idea "selective ignorance." It's explained in this paper.
Web Search--Google Source: The Wall Street Journal A Contest to Manipulate Google Results (registration required) From the article, "An online ad company and a search-themed Web site are sponsoring a contest that shows how easy search results can be manipulated. The winners: sites that rank highest in Google searches on June 7 and July 7 for the "invented" term (actually a play on Dark Blue Sea Ltd., an Australian company that is a contest sponsor)." The apparent ease that some people have manipulating Google (and other web engines) is not good news for the company, web search and most importantly the typical searcher who enters 2.5 terms and clicks the search button." Library Stuff's Steven Cohen was kind enought to share a couple of comments with ResourceShelf. He writes, "While this article shows the public an important lesson on the ability to manipulate results in Google, it also displays what librarians have been teaching our patrons for years. That what is found on the first ten hits can lead the searcher to results that may not be the best for the particular issue at hand. In fact, we also preach the use of numerous other resources to gain quality results (LII, etc). Google does not equal quality research, as this article implicitly demonstrates." See Also: Andy Beal points out that the report is incorrect in stating that "cheating" is not allowed.
Information Architecture Information Access Peter Morville Launches Findability.org Guru, President of Semantic Studios, and co-author of what for many people is the bible of web info architecture has a new site. It's loaded with reading, links, and discussion. Findability.org is, "dedicated to findability and the design of findable objects." I'll be spending plenty of time here.
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries Source: The New Yorker High Tech Bibliophilia Paul Goldenberger, The New Yorker's architecture critic, calls Seattle's new Central Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas, "the most important new library to be built in a generation, and the most exhilarating." See Also: Libraries dust off stuffy image -- Libraries Inclusion of Library Ets Haim in Memory of the World Register Celebrated in Amsterdam "The Library Ets Haim, a unique collection of Judaica held in the Portuguese Synagogue complex in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, became officially part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, when the Memory of the World Certificate was handed over by UNESCO's Elisabeth Longworth to the President of the Board of Governors of the Library during a ceremony yesterday evening in Amsterdam." -- Institutional Repositories ARCHIMEDE : A Canadian software solution for institutional repositories From the announcement, "Laval University Library recently launched the third component of its institutional repository. Called « Archimede (http://archimede.bibl.ulaval.ca), this component covers e-prints, pre-prints, post-prints and other research publications from faculty members and research communities."
Federal Government--United States--Databases Source: FCW FedBizOpps Up for Bids From the article, "The General Services Administration has issued a solicitation for a new contractor to take over FedBizOpps, a Web site that gives contractors and agencies access to information about federal contracting opportunities." The article includes highlights from the RFP.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Business--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, 2002 Economic Census: Advance Nonemployer Statistics Summary ||| Direct to Full Text -- Population--United States Source: U.S. Census New, Fact Sheet: Facts About the Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander Population in the United States -- Health--Statistics--United States Source: CDC Fact Sheet: Facts about Prevalence of Arthritis--U.S., 2004 -- Labor--Statistics Source: BLS Just Released, International Comparisons of Hourly Compensation Costs for Production Workers in Manufacturing, revised data for 2002 -- Legal Resources--United States Source: National Center for State Courts CourTopics "Over 100 NCSC topic folders contain overviews, research reports, information about programs and services, frequently asked questions, best practices, and publications." Topics covered include everything from Acquiring Technology to Workload and Resource Assessment. Most (but not all) topics an overview, FAQ and resource guide (PDFs); some include additional related NCSC documents. The resource guides are basically extensive bibilographies. Some of the topics are likely to be of interest to consumers, such as Adoption, Custody and Support, Impaired Driving, Mental Health, Traffic Offenses. Also available at this site: Court Statistics Project + Examining the Work of State Courts + State Court Caseload Statistics + Caseload Highlights
Briefly + Major Site Redesign Released: PubMed Central + New URL, Updated Site: The Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions + Information Today, Inc. Acquires Faulkner Information Services Thursday, May 20, 2004
Resource of the Week Web Tools All About Seruku This week we have another example of innovative and useful work coming from a small company in the search and info retrieval space. Say hello to Seruku. Seruku is toolbar-based application that helps you find and access ANY and ALL web pages that have appeared in your browser. Its simplicity, along with its ability to save the user plenty of time and aggravation, makes it a resource that will appeal to the masses. As we "work the web", most of us are constantly looking at and reading hundreds of pages in our browsers. Trying to go back and fine previously viewed material, however, can be time consuming and, in some cases, pretty much impossible. Why? Reviewing your browser's history file isn't always easy since it contains only urls and page titles. And the ephemeral nature of material on the web can pose many problems. Pages you looked at on Monday can be gone for good the following Friday -- if not sooner. Seruku Toolbar 1.1 ($24.95/Windows only/45 day free trial) solves many of these problems. As you visit web pages, it automatically makes a copy (called a snapshot) of every html web page you?ve viewed in your browser, stores it locally, indexes the content and then, when needed, allows you to keyword search the full text of this material. Very cool and very useful. After downloading (3.5MB) and installing the program, you'll be up and running in a matter of minutes. The Seruku site offers plenty of background about how the product operates. In a nutshell, it's really two separate programs: a toolbar and an indexing/database program that is completely separate from the Internet Explorer cache. Those with privacy concerns will be relieved to know that these have been addressed by Seruku. The company mentions many times that all of the material you save is kept on YOUR computer. No information about what you've saved and when you saved it is transmitted over the web. Using Seruku is very easy. All html pages that appear in your browser are automatically saved -- or recorded -- into the database. Of course, you can click to toggle the recording function on and off. Searching your local datastore (where the material is stored on your computer) is straightforward. Enter your search terms and go. Seruku utilizes an implied AND between terms. You can also limit your search by date. For example, you can search only those pages you?ve seen within the last three days, week, month, or between two specific dates. A search results page includes links to live versions of each page along with links you can click on to view copies of the recorded pages. The toolbar also offers a button that will run your query in Yahoo, Google and other web engines. William Grosso, the owner and lead developer of Seruku told me that most users will use about 3-5 gigabytes of hard drive space a year. Of course, Seruku makes managing the datastore easy. For example, you can remove a specific page, a group of unused pages, and backup the datastore. At this point Seruku is only available for Internet Explorer but a version for Mozilla is in development. Grosso also let me know that future releases will offer an option to add any web engine to the toolbar similar to what's currently available from NeedleSearch or the Copernic Toolbar. Improving the format and content of snippets on result pages is also a priority. I'm glad to see that the development team realizes that work is needed in these areas. Improvements will make Seruku and even more valuable tool. Other personal search products like SurfSaver or the web-based service Furl can also be useful tools for the web researcher. These products allow you to add keywords, descriptions and other info to each page after you decide to save it. You can also organize the saved material into folders. The problem is that you must first decide to save the page. The beauty of Seruku is that all of the saving takes place automatically. It's always on and recording (unless you decide to toggle it off) what's in your browser. It's all there. If additional access points are needed or having access to saved pages from various computers is required, SurfSaver and Furl can help. It all depends on your needs. Btw, another personal search tool, Scopeware, ceased operations on May 15th. In his legendary 1945 essay, "As We May Think," Vannevar Bush writes: Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, "memex" will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory. Seruku is not exactly the memex device that Bush describes; it can only save html content. But it is certainly a useful step forward in realizing Bush's vision in today's web world. Kudos to Grosso for not only developing this product (it's been needed for a long time), but also for making it so easy to use. See Also: Direct to the Seruku FAQ
Professional Reading Shelf RFID Source: Public Library Association New, Full Text, RFID Technology for Libraries "Tech Notes are short, Web-based papers introducing specific technologies for public librarians." Other Tech Notes and tech overviews published or revised in the last month: + Weblogs (Written by Steven Cohen) + Filtering Technology and CIPA Compliance + E-Books -- Scholarly Publishing Source: SPARC New, Open Access: Unlocking the Value of Scientific Research A paper presented by SPARC Director Rick Johnson at a conference on digital resources sponsored by the University of Oklahoma Libraries reviews some of the market forces that are pushing towards a tipping point in scholarly communication. -- Digital Archiving Source: ERPANET/CODATA New, Final Report: Seminar on the Selection, Appraisal and Retention of Digital Scientific Data From an announcement, "Rapid advances in technology are impacting the way scientists work, allowing greater amounts of digital data to be produced in the majority of scientific disciplines. These technological advances are also changing the way scientists interact, creating opportunities for collaborations across disciplines, institutions, and countries. The ever-increasing data that are generated through these advances require active curation to ensure their longevity. The international EPRANET/CODATA seminar examined the current state of practice of the selection, appraisal and retention among diverse scientific communities and discussed how archival concepts can best be applied to the management and long-term preservation of digital data. The seminar, held from 15th-17th of December 2003 at the Biblioteca Nacional in Lisbon, brought together more than sixty-five researchers, data managers, information specialists, archivists, and librarians from thirteen countries to discuss the issues involved in making critical decisions regarding the long-term preservation of the scientific record."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Iraq--Media Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting Iraqi Press Monitor "IWPR's Iraqi Press Monitor is a daily survey of the main stories in Iraq's newspapers. It features the top 7 stories of the day, along with a political cartoon. Stories are selected and summarised by Ali Mohammed Jawad and Ali Kadhim Marzook in Baghdad. The selections are edited by Eric Watkins. Monday through to Thursday, the service focuses on key news stories, while on Friday it reviews the leading opinion pieces." -- Congressional Research Service Source: CRS (via Franklin Pierce Law Center) Franklin Pierce Law Center Updates CRS Page With Numerous New/Recently Updated IP-Related CRS Reports + Internet Taxation + H.R. 1417: The Copyright Royalty and Distribution Reform Act of 2004 + Computer Security: A Summary of Selected Federal Laws, Executive Orders, and Presidential Directives + Protecting Noncreative Databases: Bills Before the 108th Congress + Internet Privacy: Overview and Pending Legislation + Internet Commerce and State Sales and Use Taxes + Obscenity, Chil Pornography, and Indecency: Recent Developments and Pending Issues -- Armed Forces--United States The Pentagon Launches Streaming Video News Site This site is powered by FeedRoom technology. The "company line" direct from the Pentagon. From the site, The Pentagon Channel broadcasts military news and information for the 2.6 million members of the U.S. Armed Forces through programming including: * Department of Defense news briefings * Military news * Interviews with top Defense officials * Short stories about the work of our military You can also find the video at http://pentagonchannel.feedroom.com. According to the web site, The Pentagon Channel is also distributed via satellite. See Also: More About FeedRoom in this 2002 Posting -- Baby Names--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: SSA Recently Released, Most Popular Baby Names 2003 You can more info (geographic breakdowns, names by decade, historical lists) here. See Also: Most Popular Baby Names in the United Kingdom 2003 Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents Iraq--Environment Source: United Nations Environmental Programme Recently Released: Desk Study on the Environment in Iraq (PDF; 2.11 MB) "The approach of this Desk Study is environmental and technical. The intent is not to attach blame for various environmental problems. Rather, it is to provide an overview of chronic and war-related environmental issues, and to identify the steps needed to safeguard the environment. Top priorities include environmental issues that have a direct link with easing the humanitarian situation, especially the restoration of water, power, sanitation networks and ensuring food security." -- Conventions--Glossary Source: Convention Industry Council Convention Industry Glossary "Do you know podium from lectern? Lavaliere microphone from handheld? Search this glossary of almost 3,800 terms, acronyms, and abbreviations and save yourself time, money, and trouble." -- Lobbyists--United States Source: Meriam Library, California State University, Chico Political Advocacy Groups: A Directory of United States Lobbyists "To research the ideology of an editorialist or understand why a group was consulted, refer to their homepage through the alphabetic list found here. To find a source for a story or a perspective on an issue, browse the subject arrangement to choose an appropriate group." Maintained by Kathi Carlisle Fountain, Reference/Political Science & Social Work Librarian. -- State Courts--United States Source: National Center for State Courts Public Access to Court Records "This site is an information clearinghouse on the topic of public access to court records and the current debate on privacy concerns that arise as courts improve and expand their court information systems and put more information on the Internet." -- Election 2004 Factiva Media Visibility Index (SM) Tracks the Hot-Button Issues for 2004 Presidential Election During the Week Ending May 9, 2004 -- Butterflies Butterflies of North America Source: USGS "The Butterflies of North America Web site is a 'work in progress,' consisting primarily of the following information: + Distribution maps showing the counties in which occurrence of a particular species has been verified + Photos of the adult and caterpillar (when available) + Species accounts containing information on size, identifying characteristics, life history, flight, caterpillar hosts, adult food, habitat, species range, conservation status, and management needs + Species checklists for each county in the U. S. and state in northern Mexico" -- Plants Source: Cornell University Animal Science Department Poisonous Plants Information Database "This is a growing reference that includes plant images, pictures of affected animals and presentations concerning the botany, chemistry, toxicology, diagnosis and prevention of poisoning of animals by plants and other natural flora (fungi, etc.)." Search by scientific name, common name, primary poisons, species most often effected. Browse alphabetical lists of common names or botanical names. Includes FAQ about poisonous plants, information on toxic and medicinal agents in plants, identification of species of animals most commonly affected, links to related sites. An extra special thanks to |
