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Resources and News for Information Professionals
ResourceShelf is Compiled & Edited By Gary Price, MLIS Librarian Director of Online Information Resources, Ask.com Editor and Compiler, The ResourceShelf Editor and Compiler, DocuTicker
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Saturday, July 31, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf OCLC OCLC Worldcat now running on Oracle platform From the announcement, "'This is an important step in our strategy to evolve WorldCat beyond bibliography into a globally networked, Web-based information resource that will also provide links to digital objects in other knowledge repositories,' said Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO. The switch from our own system to the licensed software approach enables us to develop new component applications based on open architectural models that provide improved interoperability within OCLC services and also with external services,' said Mr. Jordan. The new WorldCat platform will support additional standards such as the Dublin Core metadata standard, IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and Unicode. WorldCat on the new platform allows for unlimited record sizes, and will enable users to access abstracts, full text, images and sound files as well as bibliographic and location information." -- Government Documents--United States Source: ALA Statement from ALA President-Elect Michael Gorman on the destruction of Department of Justice documents From a statement by ALA President-Elect Michael Gorman, "ALA has submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the withdrawn materials in order to obtain an official response from the Department of Justice regarding this unusual action, and why the Department has requested that documents that have been available to the public for as long as four years be removed from depository library collections. ALA is committed to ensuring that public documents remain available to the public and will do its best to bring about a satisfactory resolution of this matter." We have more about the story in this post from last Saturday. -- Music Libraries--Copyright Source: Music Library Association Copyright for Music Librarians Comprehensive, regularly updated. Contains: + "FAQs - scenarios and guidance about general copyright provisions, reserves, preservation, performance rights, issues for composers and authors, and video in the library" + "Current Issues - information about pending legislation, news, and litigation and its impact on music libraries" + "Guidelines - full text of various guidelines relevant to music and education as adopted by professional organizations; including the Music Library Association's statements on the Copyright Law and Fair Use in Music and Digital Transmission of Electronic Reserves" + "Resources - selection of virtual and tangible copyright resources" + "About Us - who we are, why we provide this service, and a brief history of this website" See also: The Music We Perform: An Overview of Royalties, Rentals and Rights (Major Orchestra Librarians' Association; PDF, 332 KB)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Medicare Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Just Released, Medicare Drug Discount Cards: A Work In Progress "This report examines the early experience with the Medicare-Approved Drug Discount Card Program, prices offered by card sponsors, and potential savings for enrollees. The report presents information about approved discount card programs, including sponsors, enrollment fees, and drugs covered, as well as beneficiary education and outreach efforts by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The pricing analysis shows that discount cards can deliver savings off of full retail drug prices, but also that savings for individual beneficiaries can vary significantly across card programs. In contrast to predictions that market forces would result in lower drugs prices, no notable price changes were observed after the program's initial start up period." See: Report and Executive Summary -- French Revolution--Primary Resources Source: George Mason University Center for History and New Media Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring The French Revolution From the site: "[P]rovides an accessible and lively introduction to the French Revolution as well as an extraordinary archive of some of the most important documentary evidence from the Revolution, including 338 texts, 245 images, and a number of maps and songs." Friday, July 30, 2004
Health Information--Databases Source: NLM Keyboarding Ceases as a Data Creation Method for MEDLINE Citations From the article, "he keyboarding data creation stream for MEDLINE citations ceased June 29, 2004. NLM used keyboarding to create journal article bibliographic data since 1967...NLM developed a cost-effective scanning and optical character recognition (OCR) system as well as a standard for direct electronic submission of citation data from publishers to MEDLINE. Publisher-supplied electronic citation data today accounts for about 75% of all new MEDLINE citations and the proportion continues to grow. The scanning and OCR system has been improved to the point that it can handle the rest of the journals. As a result of these developments, it is no longer cost effective or necessary for NLM to continue the keyboarding operation."
Web Search--Microsoft Source: News.com Microsoft puts multisearch tool on show From the article, "MSN Chief Yusuf Mehdi showed a prototype of the search software to an audience at its annual Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting here. The technology is designed to quickly look through a hard drive, finding all the matches for a word from within documents, e-mails and even e-mail attachments. The version Mehdi presented also returned Web results on the right side of the page.... The demonstration marked the first time Microsoft has showed off the technology, which Mehdi said would be part of a 'service,' although he did not offer further details.... Microsoft had been expected to combine Web search with local PC search, but many had anticipated the move would come with Longhorn, the next version of Windows. Mehdi did not give specific details, but said the local hard drive search service would come before that launch." See Also: MSN search engine chugs along (via Marketwatch.com) From the article, "Right now, "you can't find things on the Intranets or local PCs," Mehdi said as he gave the audience a sneak preview of live code that wasn't yet shipped." I'm sure the enterprise search industry will have plenty to say about this comment. See Also: I've just updated the ResourceShelfEXTRA SELECTED List of Microsoft Search Patents and Technical Reports
Information Networks--United Kingdom Source: BL £3 million national framework for UK research information announced "A new national initiative - the Research Libraries Network (RLN) - announced today, is set to transform the way research information is collected, organised, preserved and accessed across the UK. The RLN will bring together the UK's four higher education funding bodies, the British Library, the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales and the eight members of Research Councils UK to develop the UK's first national framework aimed at addressing the information needs of researchers."
Professional Reading Shelf Personalization Source: Cyrus Shahabi and Yi-Shin Chen, Department of Computer Science, USC Web Information Personalization: Challenges and Approaches (2003) "As the number of web pages increases dramatically, the problem of the information overload becomes more severe when browsing and searching the WWW. To alleviate this problem, personalization becomes a popular remedy to customize the Web environment towards a user's preference. To date, recommendation systems and personalized web search systems are the most successful examples of Web personalization. By fo- cusing on these two types of systems, this paper reviews the challenges and the corresponding approaches proposed in the past ten years." -- Libraries and Librarians A New Issue (#40) of Ariadne is Now Available Articles include: + Rights Management and Digital Library Requirements by Karen Coyle + An Introduction to the Search/Retrieve URL Service (SRU) + Weblogs: Do they belong in libraries? + Towards Library Groupware with Personalised Link Routing -- Citation Linking Source: Information Today Linking on Steroids "Péter Jacsó highlights some of the best and worst linking practices he's encountered." -- E-mail--Retention and Storage Source: Transform Magazine What You Should Know About E-Mail Archiving "E-mail retention needs often conflict -- even among departments in the same company. Records management expert Julie Gable suggests seven steps to effective archiving." -- eBooks--Issues and Commentary Source: Gizmodo Feature Creep: 500 Books In Your Gadget Bag "We'll need a great eBook reader with trendy clout and not just livable, but convenient, DRM to really break open the market. But, no, Virginia, you won't have to give up your pretty printed books. Books are important. Books are as entrenched in contemporary first-world culture as anything I know. Books are really part of us, even those of you who don't read so much." -- Librarians Source: The Daily Nonpareil Muscatine librarian starts her bicycle ride across Iowa today "The plight of libraries across the state of Iowa is serious. That is the message from Betty Collins, a Muscatine children's librarian who is setting out today from the Council Bluffs Public Library on her folding Dahon bike across the state to bring awareness to blighted Iowa libraries."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Legal Industry--United states--Lists and Rankings Source: The American Lawyer Just Released, Am Law 200 (Registration Required, Free) The first 100 positions on the list, the Am Law 100, was released last month. -- Hospitals--Safety--Lists and Rankings Source: HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals From the Press Release: "An average of 195,000 people in the U.S. died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, according to a new study of 37 million patient records that was released today by HealthGrades, the healthcare quality company." + Read the study -- Manufacturing--Lists & Rankings Source: Industry Week IndustryWeek's U.S. 500 Manufacturing Companies + Search the database + View the list sorted alphabetically + An article about the rankings - Iraq--Contracting Documents in the News Source: Coalition Provisional Authority Office of the Inspector General Just Released, Coalition Provisional Authority's Contracting Processes Leading Up To and Including Contract Award See Also: Audit: U.S. Didn't Track Iraq Spending(AP) -- Nanotechnology Source: Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties From press release: "The report was commissioned by the UK Government last year to consider current and future developments in nanotechnology. It identifies a range of potential benefits to be gained from nanoscience and nanotechnologies including new materials, more powerful computers and revolutionary medical techniques. The report recommends steps to realise these while minimising possible future uncertainties and risks." Individual sections downloadable in PDF. Thursday, July 29, 2004
Resources of the Week Two for you this week. 1) Aviation--Organizations Source: United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization "ICAO was created in 1944 to promote the safe and orderly development of civil aviation in the world. A specialized agency of the United Nations, it sets international standards and regulations necessary for the safety, security, efficiency and regularity of air transport and serves as the medium for cooperation in all fields of civil aviation among its 188 Contracting States." There is a staggering amount of content here: + Aviation Training Directory "The current edition features over 4600 course offerings of more than 420 training institutions from over seventy ICAO Contracting States. The directory is a good starting point for locating civil aviation-related training courses for various aviation professions." Can be seached by country, course category, keyword or name of a training institution. Results include contact information, including e-mail address and URL if provided, plus the titles of courses. + Aircraft Engine Exhaust Emissions DataBank "This Databank contains information on exhaust emissions of only those aircraft engines that have entered production. The information was obtained from engine manufacturers and was collected in the course of the work carried out by the ICAO Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP)." Download individual data sheets or the complete databank (.xls format). + Aircraft Type Designators Database Search by manufacturer, model, description (e.g., helicopter, land plane, sea plane...), number and type of engines, type designator, wake turbulence category (heavy/medium/light, based on weight). + Alphabet--Radiotelephony Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc. + ICAO Library OPAC "(A) database of books, journals, articles, UN and ICAO documents, as well as other publications, available in the ICAO Library." + ICAO Depository Libraries (list, with contact information) + Suggested Literature on Aviation Medicine (bibliography) + Case Studies of States' Liberalization Experiences (database) "Studies may cover such topics as the liberalization of bilateral air services agreements, regional and plurilateral liberalization arrangements, national liberalization policies, privatization of national airlines, sustainability and assurance of services in a liberalized market, policies on airline alliances and mergers, and policies to ensure fair competition." + States' Policies, Positions and Practices on Air Carrier Ownership and Control (database) "The database contains information on each State's current policy or practice with regard to: how it deals with designation of its own air carriers; how it deals with the designation of foreign air carriers; and what position it has on future airline designations." + Code of Conduct on the Regulation and Operation of Computer Reservation Systems (CRS) + Directory of links "This directory aims to provide a wide range of links to sites of interest to the civil aviation community." Includes: governments and government-related organizations, international organizations. + ICAO Journal (full-text) "The objective of the Journal is to provide a concise account of the activities of the International Civil Aviation Organization and to feature additional information of interest to Contracting States and the international aeronautical world." + DAGMAR: ICAO's Database of Aeronautical Agreements and Arrangements Choose one or more airlines/signatories from dropdown menu. Dates optional. Or browse recent agreements (registered within the last year). + Handbook on the International Airways Volcano Watch (PDF; 2.01 MB) "Operational procedures for the dissemination of information on volcanic eruptions and associated volcanic ash clouds in areas which could affect routes used by international flights, and necessary pre-eruption arrangements." Also includes up-to-date information about active volcanoes, list of related websites. Download separate global contact list (PDF; 308 KB) + ICAO Treaty Collection "List and status of international air law multilateral treaties," which can be browsed alphabetically or by date of signing. -- -- -- 2) Cultural Events--United States--Search Engines Source: JAR Networks EventJar Do a simple keyword search for artist, band, cast member, dancer, event title, musician, organization, venue; or use the extended search form to narrow your query down by type of event, venue, organization, geographic location. Each event in the database -- is linked to related websites -- e.g., for venues, sponsoring organizations, etc. The site's main page offers a Yahoo!-like drill-down directory of events, venues, organizations, performers and artists. Users may submit sites to be considered for targeting by the crawler and inclusion in the database. According to the company, "EventJAR uses robots [a focused crawlers] that actively search the web in order to maintain a complete, constantly updated [some sites are checked daily] stream of information." Among other things, it monitors more than 1,000 galleries and 630 museums for art exhibits. More than 4,000 cultural and entertainment venues are included in the database, and entries for each include NOAA weather reports and Mapquest road map links. This new resource is just out of beta and still has plenty of room to grow. One to watch. We're also interested to see if EventJar will begin to work with other search resources to have some local listings or a search box placed on these sites. For example, we can see a definite synergy between this database and Topix.
Professional Reading Shelf National Libraries--United Kingdom Source: Kable's Government Computing British Library makes online progress From the article, "The British Library is making good progress with its electronic services, although needs to become more 'customer friendly' in some key areas, according to the latest assessment by official auditors. The library, which holds over 150m items, has undergone enormous organisational change in order to offer its online services, but it needs to 'remain vigilant' to ensure that the benefits from its digital programme can be sustained, the National Audit Office says in its report." See Also: Full Text of National Audit Office Report -- Librarians Source: The Exponent (Purdue University) Meet the Special Collections Librarians at Purdue University From the article, "Oftentimes (people) don't even know we exist and we have so much about the history of Purdue," said Sammie Morris, assistant professor of library science and archivist. Morris, along with Katherine Markee, special collections librarian, works to both preserve the materials of the archives and help researchers find the facts that connect Purdue to history." -- National Library of Medicine Source: NLM Technical Bulletin Webcast and Presentations from the NLM Online Users' Meeting Now Online "The meeting brought users up-to-date on some of the Library's online systems as well as future plans."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Election 2004 Speech Transcripts: 2004 Democratic National Convention -- Teachers--Salaries--United States Source: American Federation of Teachers AFT Releases Annual State-by-State Teacher Salary Survey + Individual State Releases + Average Teacher Salary - State Rankings + Average Beginning Teacher Salaries -- Energy--Australia Source: Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Recently Released, Securing Australia's Energy Future Numerous statistics included. Available in both pdf and HTML formats. -- NATO Source: House of Commons Library, United Kingdom New Research Paper, NATO: The Istanbul Summit -- Election 2004--California Source: California Online Voter Guide. Just Released, California Online Voter Guide Debuts 11th Edition, November 2004 General Election. -- Fundraising Source: GW Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet Recently Released, Full Text, The Political Consultant's Online Fundraising Primer "...a handbook for political candidates and nonprofit organizations. The handbook advises campaign and organization fundraisers on how to use the Internet to effectively raise money online." -- Voting--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2002 Highlights ||| Full Text ||| Tables -- Chief Executive Officers--United States--Salary Surveys Source: The Corporate Library Highlights Only, Just Released: CEO Pay Survey 2003 -- Spam--United States Source: FTC FTC Unveils A New Email Address to Report Spam Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Privacy--United States Total Information Awareness Source: Government Executive New Article, "Lightning Rod" (John Poindexter and Total Information Awareness) From the article, "John Poindexter wants to help government predict the future. But how does he escape his past?... Poindexter bristles when people call him a lightning rod. He prefers 'controversial,' a word he ascribes to himself, his ideas and his deeds. But like a lightning rod, Poindexter takes a hit to protect those around him. In July 1987, he swore to the congressional committee investigating Iran-Contra that President Reagan never knew about the money he sent to the contras. Had Reagan known, lawmakers might have impeached him - and Poindexter says he recognized that. "The buck stops here with me," Poindexter famously told committee members during the nationally televised hearings. Years later, when his presence imperiled his pet project, TIA, Poindexter took the fall and resigned, though by doing so he didn't save all of the system. To some, Poindexter remains a pariah, but some technology executives and former federal officials call him a visionary."
Professional Reading Shelf Librarians--Interviews Source: phoenixnewtimes.com Check Her Out: Career Librarian Toni Garvey's Big Win Was Long Overdue "Seattle may have the Space Needle, and Paris may have the Eiffel Tower, but Phoenix is home to 2004's Librarian of the Year. Toni Garvey hasn't let her title go to her head, despite the fact that she was chosen earlier this year from among all librarians across the country. Although there was no swimsuit competition, the contest was fierce -- even if the prize was nothing more glamorous than the recognition of Garvey's peers and her mug on the cover of Library Journal magazine. Which is enough for the director of the Phoenix Library Department, who swears that, Internet be damned, libraries will always rule." -- Training Cooperative virtual libraries: training via internet of librarians and editors This paper will be presented at the upcoming World Library and Information Congress: 70th IFLA General Conference and Council. -- National Libraries--Malaysia Source: The Star National Library to conduct survey on reading habits
Web Search--Google--Outage Horrors! Google AWOL! Source: Guardian Unlimited A World Without Google "On Monday, Google went down - and we suddenly realised just how empty life would be without it ..." ++ Source: St. Petersburg Times Tampa Columnist Ernest Hooper "My head almost exploded Monday morning. I could not get the Google site to run searches, and it was driving my crazy. At one point, my hands started shaking. Just the thought of not having my Google brings back a slight tremble. Sorry, other search engines just won't do." ++ Source: Business2blog Searching for Google "The collective intelligence of everyone under 35 just dropped by about a third... A denial-of-service attack? A nefarious plot orchestrated by librarians? How would I know, Google is offline!" ++ Source: ZDNet Loss of Google Sends Users Scrambling "Jonathan Bruce was in San Francisco trying to search for articles on the Democratic National Convention and Google's plans for a stock offering when he got the error message as well. Bruce, like many, was forced to seek other ways of finding the information." ++ You've heard it here on ResourceShelf before so we are loathe to repeat ourselves at length, however... Reliance on a single Internet search tool (yes, even Google) may leave you high and dry at worst...or at the very least, short-change you by failing to give you the best information or most complete information. (Do you reach for the same exact title every time you use your ready reference collection? Uh...didn't think so.) Use other tools (general and specialized databases) regularly to familiarize yourself with their features. Check out which subscription databases might be freely available to you via your local public, school, academic, or special library. You might actually find something that is more useful than Google. And you will be less likely to go into a swoon the next time you see a dreaded "service error 27" message instead of the 423,654 search results you expected when you queried Google. --The ResourceShelf Editors (Note to information professionals: At least Google had a legitimate reason for being unavailable. We have no such excuse. It's been said here before -- numerous times. We need to do a better job of not only educating our customers but, even more critically, of reaching out to the "silent majority" which remains largely clueless about the products and services offered by today's libraries, and the skills of the professionals who work there. Google can teach the library world plenty about how to become indispensible. See Also: Search Engine Overlap, Not as Great as You Think (via SearchDay) See Also: Oh No! Librarians Using Google Page Totals to Determine Popularity (via Library Stuff)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Terrorism Source: Council on Foreign Relations Recently Updated, Full Text, Update on the Global Campaign Against Terrorist Financing -- Terrorism/Warfare--Bibliographies Source: Air University Library Two new bibliographies + Asymmetric Warfare + Suicide Terrorism -- Recently Updated Congressional Research Service Reports Source: CRS via NCSE, FAS, and FPC + Campaign Finance: Constitutional and Legal Issues of Soft Money + Campaign Financing + Executive Branch Power to Postpone Elections + Nuclear Energy + Mining on Federal Lands + Mercury in the Environment: Sources and Health Risks + Kyoto Climate Change: The Kyoto Protocol + Potential Military Use of Airships and Aerostats -- Crime--Canada--Statistics Source: Statistics Canada Crime statistics, 2003 Comprehensive overview of a new report released today. -- Environmental Protection Agency Source: EPA New, EPA Media Gallery "A source page to view and download EPA news photos, video news stories, and audio news releases." -- Energy--United States Source: EIA Energy Information Admin Modifies Library/Archives Web Page "Instead of the "stovepipe" model previously used, in which reports were mainly grouped along an organizational scheme, the new model tags reports according to the energy topic(s) to which they belong. This makes it easier to display all reports with substantial information on a particular energy topic when a customer clicks on that topic." -- Military--United States--Honors Source: Congressional Medal of Honor Society Medal of Honor Recipients "The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States." Here you can find: + Full list of recipients + Living recipients + Most recent recipients + Recently departed recipients + Double recipients See also: Medal of Honor Citations (U.S. Army Center of Military History) -- Internet Security Source: Verisign Internet Security Intelligence Briefing From the site: "The VeriSign Internet Security Intelligence Briefing provides a fact-based analysis of current trends in Internet usage, security and fraud." + Read the latest briefing [PDF]
Briefly + New Library Blog: WisBlawg (from the University of Wisconsin Law Library) + Science.gov Adds GPO Access Federal Regulations Database to System + Two New IEEE Journals to Debut in 2005
Web Search--Ask Jeeves Ask Jeeves Adds Another Search Shortcut I just noticed this Smart Search shortcut. If you include the word "map" in your query (U.S. and Canada locations only) you'll find a map (with the location marked) along with driving directions and weather conditions in the Smart Search box at the top of the results list. I've also noticed that most Smart Search boxes now contain an email link. See Also: More About Smart Search See Also: Yahoo Shortcuts Google Shortcuts Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Web Search Source: Marketwatch.com A New, Colorful, And Free Web Search Business Timeline This timeline (a pdf file) follows all of the major players. It begins in 1995 with AltaVista.
News Search--News The Associated Press Looking to Enhance Its Web Site Search Capabilities From the article, "The Associated Press announced Monday that is taking steps on behalf of its member newspapers and broadcasters to explore the development of a tool that would more thoroughly search online news content, past and present. The goal is to offer a search engine with more participating news organizations and more content than is currently available today, said Tom Curley, AP's president and CEO. He added that the search solutions are expected this year... The news cooperative's board hopes the new enhanced search tool and technical standards also will provide the AP's member news organizations with greater protection from unlicensed use of their material online." See Also: News Release
News Search MSNBC Launches Demo Version of U.S. Newsbot It was just the other day that we reported that MS had launched several new regional versions of its Newsbot search demo. Newsbot was first introduced last fall. Btw, MSN Search just launched a Spanish language Newsbot aimed at the U.S. market. It was not mentioned in today's announcement. This post from October has an overview of the service. This story from November includes a few more comments. The layout and search functionality of the MSNBC version is just like the other 17 versions already online. Content is gathered from more than 4800 sources via Moreover. We have additional details about Newsbot in this 11/03 post. More about this new offering news release along wih a just published News.com story. Note: If you review the News.com story you'll read about Google News and Newsbot. However, MANY OTHER excellent news search and browsing tools exist. The reporter should have mentioned at least a few others. Here's what I would have mentioned. + Topix.net More than 7000 sources. Thousand of "pre-built" categories. RSS feeds for all of them. Excellent! + Yahoo News More than 7000 sources. Excellent advanced search interface. + Findory and Blogory Both resources from personalization expert Greg Linden in Seattle. Findory handles news while Blogory handles the blogosphere. An "adaptive" RSS feed is also available. + NewsNow An excellent tool to browse news by category. Nearly 18,000 sources are being crawled. + Rocket News Over 11,000 sources. Customized RSS feeds for any search query. Many publications not aggregated elsewhere. See Also: Findory's Greg Linden Has Posted His Reactions to the MSNBC Newsbot beta See Also: Newsbot Overview via SearchDay
Scholarly Publishing Source: BMJ Paying for bmj.com From the article,"Almost 10 years after it began, the BMJ 's experiment of allowing free access to everything on its website will come to an end. The BMJ Publishing Group board has decided that, from January 2005, visitors to bmj.com should pay for access. The resulting revenue should not only defray the website's current costs but also allow us to fund further developments. Exactly which content will be behind access controls, for how long, and for whom has yet to be decided. We can, however, assure BMA members (including student members) and users from the World Bank's list of 120 low and lower middle income countries that access will remain free to them. The model we are currently finalising for bmj.com is likely to make all content free for a week or two after publication. Most of it will then be behind access controls for a year or more. Content that we intend keeping free throughout this period includes abstracts of articles, rapid responses, and the Editor's Choice column. All of BMJ Careers (Career Focus, recruitment and of course advertisements, and career services) will remain free." See Also: Comment from BioMed Central
Web Search--Google Useful? Interesting? Fun? Another List of "Recently Registered" Google-Based Domain Names This is becoming a monthly feature. I'm glad that many of you find the lists useful and maybe even fun. This month also includes a list of about 20 domains registered by Google Inc. Now, here are a few favorites (not registered by Google Inc.): + googlectomy.com + subvertinggoogle.com + mygoogleblog.com + censoredbygoogle.com (this site is live) + googleburiedme.com + google-hacks.com + fuckingoogleit.com + churchofgoogle.com + googleture.com + evilgoogle.com (interesting logo) + spamminggoogle.com
Controlled Vocabularies--United Kingdom Federated Search Learn About seamlessUK "SeamlessUK is developing a one-stop citizen's gateway which integrates local and national information on health, education, employment, rights, benefits, government etc. It is funded under the NOF (New Opportunities Fund) Digitisation Programme in the UK. The project is led by Essex County Council and involves a further 8 local authorities and 14 key national information providers working together to develop a national citizens' gateway and 9 locally branded portals, one in each local authority area. It is hoped that the system will be taken up across the UK." We've learned today that three taxonomies (Government Category List, Local Government Category List and seamlessUK) have agreed to merge. From an announcement, "The e-Government Metadata Standard sets out the way in which organisations should apply metadata to describe their information resources. One element relates to the subject of the resource and until now organisations have been able to use any of the three term lists as source files for subject terms, which has led to confusion and difficulties in finding information. Now however the list owners have agreed to work together to create a single unified list of categories and keywords that the public sector can use to describe their information resources. This standardisation should result in information resources being described more consistently across organisations, which should in turn make it easier for organisations to share information and for user searches to be more effective. The work, which is funded by the new Local e-Government Standards Body, will be carried out by an independent taxonomy expert Stella Dextre Clarke and is expected to be completed by the Spring. Until then, the ODPM have stressed that organisations should continue to use any of the lists. Involvement of existing users of the three lists will be a key part of the process and more details of the consultation process will be issued shortly." See Also: Learn More Via Several Presentations from the seamlessUK Conference and this collection of presentations.
Professional Reading Shelf Censorship Source: Houston Chronicle Critics take aim at 120 library books for young readers From the article, "A new group has formed to address the selection and placement of books at the Montgomery County Memorial Library System, and it is targeting 120 works aimed at children and young adults. Called Library Patrons of Texas Inc., the group wants an age-appropriate policy at the system and targeting books with sexual and gay themes, as well as those with what the group says is offensive language. Among those are Silly Duck by Harvey Fierstein, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Deal With It! by Esther Drill and Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez." -- Source: European Southern Observatory Libraries--Astronomy Directory of Astronomy Librarians and Libraries "Following is an alphabetical list of astronomy librarians and a few astrolibrary-related addresses. Use the FIND function below to look up a particular name, institute, or location." -- Libraries--Parliamentary Source: German Bundestag World Directory of Parliamentary Libraries From the introduction: "The Directory of Parliamentary Libraries, in the form in which you will now find it on the Internet, was originally published by the International Federation of Library Associations, or rather by the Section on Library and Research Services for Parliament.... The World Directory of Parliamentary Libraries registers parliaments and their libraries in alphabetical order. You will also find the data for a country using the clickable world map." -- Public Libraries--Spanish Language Resources Source: Bruce Jensen, MA, MLIS PLUS: Public Libraries Using Spanish "Many public libraries find it difficult to fully serve their multicultural communities because of the time and expertise needed for translation and outreach work. PLUS seeks to lend a hand by gathering useful resources that can help you make your library a more welcoming place for Spanish speakers. Card applications, brochures, programming suggestions, signage, press releases and news articles--many in Spanish with a side-by-side English translation--are collected here and are yours to use as you wish."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Recidivism--United States--Statistics Source: USSC + The predictive power of criminal history guidelines + Recidivism rates among federal offenders with little or no criminal history See Also: 2002 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics ++ Hospitals--Lists and Rankings Source: Hospitals and Health Networks The 100 Most Wired Hospitals + List in Alphabetical Order + The Most Wireless ++ Copyright--United States Source: Copyright Clearance Center A Practical Guide to Copyright Compliance for Business Professionals From press release: "The Guide to Copyright Compliance was developed specifically for business professionals who frequently use copyright-protected materials in their day-to-day activities, and provides helpful information about the legal issues related to photocopying, e-mailing and Web-posting text materials. The online resource was designed as an interactive reference tool to make it easy for employees to find the information and resources they need to reduce their company's risk of copyright infringement." Free registration required to access resource. -- Art--United Kingdom Holocaust Source: National Museum Directors' Conference Spoliation of works of art during the Holocaust and World War II period From the site, "...to assist with the worldwide search for works of art that may have been wrongly taken during the Holocaust and World War II. It includes reports on the research being undertaken by the UK's national museums and 23 leading local authority and university museums, and a searchable database of works of art with uncertain provenance. In publishing this information, we aim to advertise as widely as possible the details of specific works of art, the whereabouts and ownership of which cannot with confidence by specified for the years 1933-1945." More about a recent update to the site via a ManagingInformation.com article.
Briefly + ProQuest and MyFamily.com Introduce New "Ancestry" Product for Genealogy Research in Libraries Monday, July 26, 2004
Web Search--Technorati Technorati's Politics Site Is Now Live "... new way to monitor politics in weblogs during and after the Democratic National Convention." Feedster also has a special section devoted to convention weblogs. Actually, the entire Technorati site has a new look today and the beta tag has been removed. See Also: BlogPulse also offers some resources.
Information Retrieval On ResourceShelfPLUS: A New Compilation of Recently Awarded Search-Related Patents & Patent Apps (July 2004) The June compilation of selected search-related patents and patent apps is now available on ResourceShelfPLUS. Highlights: + Google Awarded patent (and has patent app published) "Techniques for finding related hyperlinked documents using link-based analysis" + A Google Patent Application Published "Method for searching media" + Microsoft and IBM awarded several new search patents + AltaVista (now Yahoo) get a patent
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Health Care--United States Source: US DOJ and FTC New, Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition Summary ||| Direct to Full Text -- Parole--United States Source: BJS Probation and Parole in the United States, 2003 -- Iraq Source: Parliamentary Library, Australia New, Research Brief, The implications of a US military drawdown in Korea -- Cell Phones--Driving--Research Source: Brookings Institution The Impact of Driver Cell Phone Use on Accidents "This paper differs from previous research in two significant ways: first, we use a larger sample of individual-level data; and second, we test for selection effects, such as whether drivers who use cell phones are inherently less safe drivers, even when not on the phone." See: Full text working paper (PDF; 604 KB) See: Appendix B (supplementary materials and greater detail on the data and estimations; PDF, 1.18 MB) -- Industrial Design Awards Source: Industrial Designers Society of America 2004 Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) Winners The 130 winners of the 2004 Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) are listed in the categories listed below: Business & Industrial Products, Computer Equipment, Consumer Products, Design Explorations, Design Strategy, Digital Media & Interfaces, Environments, Furniture, Medical & Scientific Equipment, Packaging & Graphics, Student Designs, Transportation." Lotsa cool stuff to look through here.
Professional Reading Shelf Academic Libraries--North Carolina Source: The Herald-Sun University of North Carolina names new top librarian "A Utah librarian has been picked to head UNC's campus library system. Sarah C. Michalak, currently the director of the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, will begin work in Chapel Hill Sept. 20. She succeeds Joe Hewitt, who recently stepped down after a 29-year career at Carolina." -- Libraries Source: The Herald (South Carolina) Libraries struggle to keep up with demand for instant information From the article, "It's a common situation in public libraries locally and across the state. In the age of accessing information at the click of a button, most people want results five minutes ago. That means hardcover reference books -- Encyclopedias, atlases and medical journals -- often don't budge from the shelves, even though they are a treasure trove of facts...Other information-seekers could also avoid research roadblocks if they just remembered to use one of the most accessible resources in the library -- the librarian." -- Academic Libraries--California Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel UC Santa Cruz Library Gets Large Planned Gift -- National Libraries--Kazakhstan Digitization Projects IBM and Kazkommertzbank to Sponsor Kazak Rare Books Digitization -- Criminal Records--Maine Source: Portland Press Herald Paper trail entangles justice From the article: "Only 10 percent of Maine's criminal records are entered into the state's two-year-old computer database. The rest - roughly 405,000 records - are still on paper. Because 90 percent of the state's criminal records are still on paper, it can take clerks weeks to cull data from paper files and transpose it to the electronic database that prosecutors access."
Briefly + Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Adds Bibliography Creation Tool + PAIS International Now Available On EBSCOhost + 192.com Makes 2004 UK Electoral Roll Available on the Web (Fee-Based) + nStein Will Provide Master Taxonomy/Categorization for Time Inc. Editorial Archive + FAST Search and Transfer Technology Being Used at NBC's Olympics Web Site Sunday, July 25, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Preservation--United Kingdom Source: The Independent Treasures of the Digital Age at Risk of Being Lost Forever "Books, scientific journals and films which are published only on the internet could be lost unless a system to store the digital material in permanent form is put in place, said Lynne Brindley the chief executive of the British Library." -- Electronic Records--Management Source: Federal Computer Week Where Does the Recordkeeping Buck Stop? "According to the report from the Electronic Records Policy Working Group, most experts already acknowledge that electronic records are poorly managed. To fix that, the report recommends user-training programs as a way of encouraging better records practices. Some electronic-records experts, however, have criticized the findings." See report: Barriers to the Effective Management of Government Information on the Internet and Other Electronic Records (PDF; 492 KB) -- Data Protection Source: Computerworld Protecting the Data Jewels "While savvy companies are using business intelligence and CRM systems to identify their most profitable customers, there's a genuine danger of that information falling into the wrong hands. Broader access to those applications and the trend toward employees switching jobs more frequently have made protecting customer lists an even greater priority. Fortunately, there are managerial, legal and technological steps you can take to help prevent, or at least discourage, departing employees from walking out the door with this vital information."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Population--Statistics and Demographics Source: Richard Jensen, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Illinois-Chicago World Population: A Guide to the WWW Extensive collection of annotated links organized by category: + Demographic Perspectives and General Resources + Overview of World Population: Countries, Regions + Sociological Data Sets, Techniques + Case Studies: Australia, Canada & USA + Case Studies: other + Fertility, Age Groups, Marriage, Women + Mortality, Morbidity, Health + Migration, Ethnicity, Minorities, Urbanization, Education; Class + Policy Perspectives + Other Recommendations; Teaching Tools See also: The Internet Guide to Demography and Population Studies -- Religion--United States Source: Department of Sociology, Pennsylvania State University American Religion Data Archive "The American Religion Data Archive (ARDA) is a project funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc., and acts to preserve quantitative data on American religion, to improve access to this data, to increase the use of the data, and to allow comparisons across data files. The ARDA collection includes data on churches and church membership, religious professionals, and religious groups (individuals, congregations and denominations)." -- Drugs--United States--Database Source: FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research National Drug Code Directory "The directory consists of prescription and selected over-the-counter, insulin, domestic, and foreign drug products that are in commercial distribution in the United States. The products have been listed in accordance with the Drug Listing Act and applicable Code of Federal Regulations for submitting drug product information to the FDA." Search by proprietary name, active ingredient, National Drug Code number or manufacturer's name. Each entry includes: trade/proprietary name, National Drug Code (identifies label/vendor, product, trade package size), dosage form, active ingredient, strength and unit, package size and type. -- Terrorism/Warfare--Bibliographies Source: Air University Libary Two new bibliographies + Asymmetric Warfare + Suicide Terrorism Saturday, July 24, 2004
Government Documents--United States Source: ALA Washington Office Newsletter Justice Department asks depository libraries to destroy forfeiture documents From the newsletter, "The Department of Justice has asked the Superintendent of Documents to instruct depository libraries to destroy all copies of the materials listed below. DOJ claims that these are "training materials and other materials that the DOJ staff did not feel were appropriate for external use." GPO/SuDocs is doing what it is required to do and did do a specific check with DOJ on this request - so that is not the issue. It is the case, however, that -- as one attorney put it -- these are the types of materials that law offices have on hand "to help people get their stuff back" from the government. Moreover, if law offices and law libraries have them, they are hardly internal use only."
Web Search--Google More Legal Issues For Google First, we learn about trademark problems for Google's shopping site, Froogle. From the article, Google Inc.'s right to use the name "Froogle" for its online shopping service came into question Friday when an arbitration panel rejected the company's challenge of a Web site named Froogles.com. The search-engine company's loss has no immediate impact on its use of the name Froogle. But it means that the Froogles.com name will remain with Richard Wolfe, a disabled Holtsville, N.Y., carpenter who started the Web shopping site in March 2001, before Google introduced Froogle in December 2002." --- --- --- Second, we read about Brian Reid, the former Director of Operations at Google, filing a law suit. From the AP article, "...a lawsuit filed earlier this week by a recently fired Google manager offers a less flattering picture, contending the company has cultivated a culture that discriminates against older workers and fostered serious morale problems. The civil complaint, filed Tuesday in Santa Clara Superior court, alleges Mountain View-based Google fired Brian Reid, 54, as its director of operations in February 2004 because he didn't fit in a culture emphasizing youth and energy. '...The firing cost Reid his annual salary of $200,000 and 119,000 Google stock options with an exercise price of 30 cents per share. Based on estimates of Google's market value, Reid's stock options probably would have been worth about $10 million after the company's IPO. The suit seeks to recover lost compensation and punitive damages. ...Reid's lawsuit alleges that Google's office are far from Utopian. The complaint says Google recruited Reid, a technology industry veteran, from his last job as a professor at Carnegie Mellon University West "to correct some very serious problems...with its work force," citing management and morale problems among women in particular. The suit didn't describe the nature of the trouble, but said that Reid cleaned things up. Reid never received a negative job review before his firing, the suit said."
Web Search--MSN Backlinks and the MSN Search Tech Preview 1) Backlink searching does work with the MSN Search Technology Preview. You'll need to use http:// in the query. For example: link:http://www.gurunet.com. 2) More desktop search. A link to download (free) the email/desktop search software from Lookout that MS purchased last week has appeared on the MS Sandbox. This is unsupported "experimental" software. Thanks SEW Forums for the tip. Friday, July 23, 2004
Web Search--Vivisimo Search and Cluster the 9/11 Commission Final Report with Vivisimo Keyword search the entire 500+ page document and then review the first 200 matching paragraphs in browsable folders. Another useful resource from Vivisimo.
News Search MSN Newsbot Launches More Regional "Betas" The personalized news search beta is online today with several new regional versions. New Today: + Belgium + Germany + Ireland + Switzerland (French) + Switzerland (German) + US (Spanish) + Indonesia + Philippines See Also: 17 Regional Versions of MSN Newsbot Are Now Online
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Politics--United States Source: Feedster Feedster Offers Compilation of Official DNC Bloggers You can browse or limit your search to these "official" DNC bloggers. Another engine that focuses on the blogosphere, Technorati, has a relationship with CNN and will launch a politics site this weekend. -- Legal Resources--Australia--Databases Source: The Federal Court of Australia Just Released, The Native Title Infobase From an email, "The NTIB covers all aspects of Australian native title and also includes selected material from other jurisdictions including New Zealand, United States, Canada, Africa, Asia and other countries with indigenous populations involved in disputes over access to their traditional lands." Thanks to N.G. for the news tip. -- Japan--Research Tools Source: Stanford University J Guide: Stanford Guide to Japan Information Resources "The J Guide: Stanford Guide to Japan Information Resources is a topically arranged directory of online information resources in and about Japan, with focus on resources about Japan in the English language. The J Guide is an ongoing project of the US-Asia Technology Management Center (USATMC), School of Engineering, Stanford University." -- Schools--Grades Source: School Information Partnership SchoolResults.org update From the Press Release: "Parents in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Kansas, and Rhode Island can now check-in on their child's school performance and test scores with the click of a mouse. Free, easily accessible data is now available online that compares all of a state's public schools to each other so that parents, policy makers and community leaders can determine which schools are measuring up and which schools need help. By the end of 2004, data from all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico will be available on the web site. + RS first brought you news about this resource in February -- Philosophy--Academic Programs--Rankings Source: Blackwell Publishing; edited by Brian Leiter (Director of the Law & Philosophy Program, University of Texas-Austin) The Philosophical Gourmet: A Ranking of Graduate Programs in Philosophy in the English-Speaking World "The rankings are primarily measures of faculty quality and reputation. Faculty quality and reputation correlates quite well with job placement, but students are well-advised to make inquiries with individual departments for complete information on this score." Direct to overall rankings Methodology -- Iraq Source: House of Commons Library New, Full Text Report, Iraq: political and security issues at the handover -- Prisons--United States--Statistics Source: BJS Profile of Jail Inmates, 2002 -- Housing--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Housing Growth "Nevada led all states with a 13 percent increase in the number of homes over the 39-month period. It was followed by Arizona, Colorado and Georgia (all about 9 percent) and Utah (8 percent)." Tables in pdf and xls formats are available. -- Search Technology--FDA Source: Federal Computer Week FDA Expands Search Capabilities "CDER is the division within the FDA that ensures the safety of new drugs, including marketed prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Agency officials have been using Convera Corp.'s RetrievalWare for a decade or more. Recently, they introduced a Web-based version and expanded the searchable data sources for the agency's 2,500 scientific employees. Now reviewers can search as many as 200 file types and formats--Microsoft Corp. Word, image, PDF, HTML, Extensible Markup Language and others--that are stored in relational databases, document management systems, and repositories. The Convera technology also can be used to search video and audio files and documents in a variety of foreign languages...." -- Business--Surveys Source: McKinsey Quarterly The McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives (Reg req, free) "The second McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives, with responses from almost 5,500 executives in 113 countries, finds business leaders still upbeat about the global economy, although their enthusiasm has waned a bit in the past four months. Executives in China and India are the most optimistic, while the confidence of those in other developing markets fell the furthest. Pricing is still under pressure, but companies around the world indicate that they will boost IT spending and hire new employees in the coming months." Several charts. Thanks to Stuart B. at the ILR for the news tip.
Professional Reading Shelf National Archives and Records Administration Source: AP National Archives Maintains Tight Security From the article, "Pens are forbidden, pencils provided. Each scribbled piece of paper is checked, then stamped. Cell phones and jackets go into lockers. Prying eyes make sure nothing precious walks off. Researchers digging into the nation's history at the National Archives are watched every step of the way. Despite precautions like those, former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger somehow came away with material he wasn't supposed to have." -- Librarians Source: InfoShop.org (via Alternative Press Review) New, Interview with Jenna Freedman on anarchist and zine librarians From the article, "Radical and anarchist librarians recently met in Orlando, Florida as part of the annual meeting of the American Library Association. We interviewed several radical and anarchist librarians. Jenna Freedman is the Coordinator of Reference at Barnard College in New York City. She is active in the Social Responsibilities Round Table and many other ALA groups and activities. Infoshop News editor Chuck Munson interviewed Jenna Freedman near the end of the conference." -- Preservation Source: Innovations Report Library at Illinois working to preserve 125 years of agricultural history From the story, "Page by page, America's rich agricultural history is being ravaged, not by boll weevils, not by locusts, not by critters of any kind, but by time. However, librarians at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are engaged in a fierce battle to save hundreds of aged publications--the core history and literature on Illinois agriculture, as they see it. Their weapon? Microfilm - miles of it. More than a century of endangered materials have accumulated and are in dire need of reclamation...With the selection process now nearly completed, the U. of I. Library soon will begin the next phase, the microfilming, thanks to a second NEH grant, which it received in June. Within weeks graduate students from Illinois' library school will begin rounding up the targeted materials and preparing them for microfilming, which will be carried out by OCLC Digital Collection and Preservation Services in Bethlehem, Pa." -- Public Libraries Source: AP Library Association seeks role in review of state Web sites From the article, "South Dakota librarians want a role in Governor Rounds' review of state government Web pages. He called for the study after he had the state library remove links for teenagers on its Internet site." See Also: More in this 7/15 Post -- Libraries Source: IMLS IMLS Launches Second Technology and Digitization Survey From the announcement, "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) launched its second survey on the Status of Technology and Digitization in the Nation's Museums and Libraries this month. The first survey, published in May 2002, established baseline data that was helpful in clarifying how libraries and museums use technology and digitization, and in defining their future needs. The report is available online at: www.imls.gov/reports/techreports/intro02.htm" The goal of the second survey is to update the baseline data and capture related information on new developments and trends." -- Preservation Source: The Huntsville Times Library volunteers bring old county records online From the article: "For the past three years, volunteers have been beavering away in the Madison County Records Center. Their mission? To clean, repair, and inventory thousands of documents dating back to 1810, then index them and put them online."
Desktop Search More Desktop Search Apps to Check Out Just learned about these. More later. 1) SERGlobal Brain Personal Concept search. Free trial. The company SER plays in the KM space also offers an enterprise version of the technology. It can also be downloaded from Download.com. 2) Archivarius 3000
Briefly Eliyon Gets $7 Million in Venture Cap Funding "Over 21 million executives, managers and professionals in 1,408,870 companies"...This database is built autonomously by crawling open web sources. A couple of demos are now available. -- SEC Announces Initiative to Assess Benefits of Tagged Data in Commission Filings Thursday, July 22, 2004
Resources of the Week Two items for you this week: History--Journals Source: American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, University of Illinois Press, National Academy Press The History Cooperative OK...so everything here is not free. The Journal of American History, the American Historical Review, the William and Mary Quarterly, and the Western Historical Quarterly are "gated" -- e.g., for access, you must have organizational membership, a subscribing institutional affiliation and/or a paid individual subscription. (You can, however, view tables of contents.) But you will definitely find plenty of quality content that is freely available to everyone, including these journals: + Law and History Review ("America's leading legal history journal, encompassing American, English, European, and ancient legal history....") + The History Teacher ("...the most widely recognized journal in the United States devoted to the teaching of history in the secondary and higher education classroom...") + Common-Place ("Common-place is not a traditional scholarly journal. It differs in content: we range across interests and disciplines, from art history to archaeology, from politics to parlor manners. It differs in tone: we aim to reach a broad audience of the educated public....") + Labour/Le Travail ("...a bilingual semi-annual review dedicated to the broad, interdisciplinary study of Canadian labour history...") + Journal of World History ("Devoted to historical analysis from a global point of view....") + History of Education Quarterly ("Topics span the history of education, both formal and nonformal, including the history of childhood, youth, and the family.") + Environmental History ("Insights from history, geography, anthropology, the natural sciences, and many other disciplines are included.") + Oregon Historical Quarterly ("...one of the largest state historical society journals in the United States...a recognized and respected source for the history of the Pacific Northwest region...") + Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era ("...traditional national-level politics, social categories of race, class, ethnicity and gender, cities and regions, comparative transnational contexts, economic and business history, international relations, and every field of scholarly inquiry within its time period...") + Indiana Magazine of History ("...documents and investigates the changing culture of Indiana and the Midwest...") All journals are searchable. A dropdown menu allows you to search all of them simultaneously or choose a title to search individually. Another dropdown menu lets you search by article type -- e.g., articles, reviews, letters to the editor, etc. Additional resources available here include: + "Booker T. Washington Papers Online is a free and fully searchable web tool designed to provide researchers with access to thousands of pages comprising the 14-volume printed work, originally published by the University of Illinois Press." + Historian's Web Links -- electronic journals, journal consortia, history department web pages, online teaching and research resources, links to archives around the world + Historical Map Collections -- Genetics--Law and Policy--Databases Source: National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) NHGRI Policy and Legislation Database According to a press release from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this new database "contains links to full-text copies of federal and state laws/statutes; federal legislative materials; and federal administrative and executive materials, including regulations, institutional policies and executive orders. Abstracts are also provided that summarize the government materials in lay language." Topical coverage includes privacy of genetic information/confidentiality; informed consent; insurance and employment discrimination; genetic testing and counseling; and commercialization and patenting. You can search this database by using dropdown menus to specify content type (e.g., statutes, laws, administrative materials, etc.), topic, and/or source (agency or U.S. state). Use shift/control keys to select multiple criteria. A keyword search option is available, but it searches only document titles. Boolean AND is assumed. Alternately, you can search geographically, via an interactive U.S. map, which will display all materials in the database that are specific to a particular state or territory. Notes the NIH press release: "This fall, NHGRI plans to add more categories of content to the database, primarily in the areas of foreign statutes and laws, foreign policy, treaty and international agreements, and policy material from international organizations."
Professional Reading Shelf Digitization Source: ARL ARL Endorses Digitization as an Acceptable Preservation Reformatting Option From the announcement, "ARL has endorsed digitization as an accepted preservation reformatting option for a range of materials. It encourages its members and others already engaged in digital reformatting and those interested in initiating these activities to make organizational and economic commitments to adhere to accepted standards and best practices in digital reformatting and to establish institutional policies to maintain digital products for the long term." -- Libraries--Robotics Source: BBC Robots Get Bookish in Libraries From the article: "Professor Pobil thinks libraries are the best place to start introducing robots into public spaces, or at least to start showing that the technology is possible and works. 'A library is a semi-structured environment,' Professor Pobil told BBC News Online. 'You can meet other humans, but it is not like an airport or somewhere like that. So we think it is a good environment in which service robots are out there, working in a human environment, but it is still a controlled one.'" -- Internet Source: New Scientist Trillions More Internet Addresses May Emerge "There are 13 root domain name servers that hold the master records for all such address mappings. But the range of numbers used under the current system, Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), is slowly running out and about two thirds of the 4.3 billion numbers allocated have been used up so far. So a new set of rules, called IPv6, has been designed to take its place. IPv6 will increase the number of numerical addresses massively, increasing capacity to 340 billion, billion, billion, billion numbers." -- Internet Libraries--Censorship Source: Salt Lake Tribune Library User Cutting 'Bad' Words From Popular Book Series "Davis County library officials are facing a mystery that only Jessica Fletcher could solve. It seems a library patron has been busy crossing out the 'hells' and 'damns' in books based on the the popular 'Murder, She Wrote' TV series and changing them to 'hecks' and 'darns.'" -- Scientific Publishing--Open Access Source: The Scientist Open access to US govt work urged From the article, "A US House of Representatives committee has recommended that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provide free access to all research it funds and asked the NIH to submit a plan by December 1, 2004, for how to implement the new policy in fiscal year 2005... 'This is the policy that many of us have been advocating for some time,' Peter Suber, from Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., told The Scientist. 'It's an extraordinarily important step.' The response from publishers, however, was less positive." -- Hypertext A New Issue of (Vol.5 No. 1) The Journal of Digital Information is Now Online This "special issue" is titled, "Future Visions of Common-Use Hypertext." -- Public Libraries Source: AP Providence library lays off 21 workers "The Providence Public Library laid off 21 employees and will close the Central Library for a week while the staff adjusts to the changes. The library cut seven librarians on Friday-almost half of the staff at the Central Library-and 14 members of the support staff, The Providence Journal reported."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Democratic National Convention Source: DNC Selected Lists and Compilations + List of Past Conventions (1832-2000) + List of Keynote Speakers (1900-2000) + Most Notable Convention Speeches of the past + 2004 Platform Report (PDF) + Review of Past Conventions -- Politics--United States Source: Feedster Feedster Offers Searchable Compilation of Official DNC Bloggers You can browse the latest postings or limit your search to these "official" DNC bloggers. -- Health Information New Compilation from MEDLINEplus + MedlinePlus: Poison Ivy, Oak and Sumac -- Congressional Research Service Source: CRS via Franklin Pierce School of Law New/Updated CRS Reports + Spectrum Policy: Public Safety and Wireless Communications Interference + Obscenity and Indecency: Constitutional Principles and Federal Statutes + Copyright Law: Digital Rights Management Legislation + Wireless Technology and Spectrum Demand: Third Generation (3G) and Beyond + Internet: Status Report on Legislative Attempts to Protect Children from Unsuitable Material on the Web -- Labor--United States Source: U.S. Census Two New Reports + Local Employment Dynamics, A Profile Of Older Workers In Illinois + Local Employment Dynamics, A Profile Of Older Workers In West Virginia -- Nuclear Energy--United States Source: DOE/EIA New, Compendium of State Nuclear Profiles "The first seven of a series of profiles of States having at least one commercial nuclear power plant are available. These summaries include both data and items of topical interest for a general audience. Topics covered range from the return to service of a reactor dormant since 1985 in Alabama, to the only whale named after a nuclear power plant (in Georgia). Data features include the following: nuclear capacity and generatio |
