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Resources and News for Information Professionals
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Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Information Technology Source: Journal of Digital Information Full Text Paper, Employee Resistance to Information Technology Change in a Social Service Agency: A Membership Category Approach -- Audio Preservation Source: CLIR The Art and Science of Audio Preservation -- Technology Books--Book Reviews Source: LITA New Issues, TER: Technology Electronic Reviews -- Science Librarianship--Publications Source: ACRL, Science and Technology Section Now online: Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Fall 2004 -- Interlibrary Loan Now Available: Free (One Week Only) Full Text Access to Three Recent Issues of Interlending & Document Supply Articles include: + Unmediated is the message: enhancements to traditional interlibrary loan in a Canadian university (Vol 32, No.3) + Document access in the United States: revisited 1978-2004 (Vol 32, No.3) + An end user writes about accessing documents (Vol 32, No.3) + The future of interlending (Vol 32, No.2) + License to Deny? Publisher restrictions on document delivery from e-licensed journals (Vol 32, No.2) + Interlending and document supply: a review of recent literature (Vol 32, No.2) + Finding that document! Enhancing the discovery and locating of journals (Vol 32, No.1) + View Interlibrary lending and document supply: past, present and future (Vol 32, No.1)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Employers--Science--Surveys Source: Science Magazine Science Magazine's Top Employers Survey "The latest survey sponsored by Science's Office of Publishing and Member Services finds evidence of recovery in the biopharmaceutical sector. But top companies, in the view of the survey's respondents, remain largely unchanged." -- Economic Development Source: ELDIS Compilation: State of the World Reports 2004 From the site, "Want to know what's going on in the world? The big development institutions are very happy to tell you. Here's our selection from this year's crop of the big macro-economic 'State of the World' surveys and analysis." -- Families--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census New Report, "Stay-at-Home" Parents Top 5 Million, Census Bureau Reports Summary Full Text Report ( America?s Families and Living Arrangements: 2003)
Search Briefs + Australia's Ansearch to hatch competitor to Google + Autonomy Enters Desktop Search War + Video Search: Google, Yahoo, and MSN Includes many examples of companies currently offering video/audio search. Monday, November 29, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Information Quality on the Web Diploma Mills--Domain Names Source: Chronicle of Higher Education Don't Judge a College by Its Internet Address "Although '.edu' Internet addresses are supposed to be reserved for colleges with accreditation from agencies approved by the U.S. Department of Education, hundreds of institutions that do not meet that requirement have the coveted Web addresses." -- Research Libraries Source: ARL Chart: Resources per Student in ARL Libraries, 1986-2003 -- RFID Source: KPIX More on the Use of RFID at San Francisco Public Library "A plan to put radio frequency identification (RFID) tags into San Francisco public library books has drawn sharp criticism on grounds ranging from privacy for library patrons to the health and safety of library workers...Other critics of the tags are concerned about the possible health risks to library staff from the radio frequencies emitted by the scanners. 'Library workers,' said Peter Warfield of the San Francisco Library Users Association, 'would be at risk potentially much more than members of the public because they would be operating this equipment all day long.'"
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Computers--United States--Statistics Internet Usage--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Just Released, Detailed Tables: Computer and Internet Use in the United States: September 2001 -- Education--United States--Statistics Source: NCES New Report, Trends in Educational Equity of Girls & Women: 2004 "This statistical report assembles a series of indicators that examine the extent to which males and females have access to the same educational opportunities, avail themselves equally of these opportunities, perform at similar levels throughout schooling, succeed at similar rates, and reap the same benefits from their educational experiences." -- Digital Content Industry Source: EContent Magazine 2004 EContent 100 "Welcome to the fourth annual EContent 100 - our list of companies that matter most in the digital content industry." Sunday, November 28, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Science--Databases Source: The Scientist All About TextPresso "Few research tasks are as time-consuming and tedious as scouring the scientific literature. The searcher might need only one nugget of information, yet it can take hours or days to slog through hundreds of papers before that one fact is found. Now, a new open-source tool called Textpresso (www.textpresso.org) can find a single fact just by typing in a quick search entry."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Medical Eponyms Source: Ole Daniel Enersen Who Named It? "Whonamedit.com is a biographical dictionary of medical eponyms. It is our ambition to present a complete survey of all medical phenomena named for a person, with a biography of that person. Eventually, this will include more than 15,000 eponyms and more than 6,000 persons." Search or browse. -- Commemerative Observances--United States Source: CRS (via FPC) Updated, Commemorative Observances: A Chronological List -- Rental Cars--Ratings Source: J.D. Power and Associates J.D. Power Rental Car Ratings From press release: "The study, now in its ninth year, measures customer satisfaction among business and leisure customers who rented a car at or near an airport. Overall satisfaction is based on performance in six areas. In order of importance, they are: pick-up process, rates/value, return process, rental car, reservation and shuttle bus/van. Enterprise receives high ratings from customers in all factors and leads the industry in the areas of pick-up process and shuttle bus/van. Hertz follows Enterprise in the rankings, receiving the highest ratings in reservations, rental car and return process.... Wait times to pick up rental cars have increased significantly over 2003. The study finds that 43 percent of all rental car customers had to wait an average of 19 minutes for a shuttle bus to pick up their rental car-up from 11 minutes in 2003." Saturday, November 27, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries--United Kingdom Source: Big Lottery Fund National evaluation reveals impact of People's Network "A major new impact study undertaken by the Tavistock Institute and published by Big Lottery Fund shows how public libraries are being transformed and revitalised by the introduction of computers." Full Text Report: The People's Network: Evaluation Summary -- Libraries--United States E-Rate Source: AP Internet Aid to Schools, Libraries Flowing Again "he program that helps link schools and libraries to the Internet has resumed spending after a cash-flow crunch that delayed more than $400 million in projects. The E-Rate program has ended a four-month-long moratorium on new projects, federal officials said Tuesday, but it will take time to clear a backlog of more than 4,000 requests."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Consumer Credit--United States Source: Washington Post Free Access to Consumer Credit Reports Begins Next Week Here's background of what's free and what you'll have to pay for (most extras are still fee-based). Overview Article||| Charts and Tables -- Automobiles--Canada Source: Natural Resources Canada (via DocuTicker.com) Just Released, Automobiles--Canada Just Released, 2005 Fuel Consumption Guide -- Aerial Photographs--Canada--Databases Source: Natural Resources Canada The National Air Photo Library Has a New Look "The National Air Photo Library (NAPL) of Natural Resources Canada archives over six million aerial photographs covering all of Canada, some of which date back to the 1920s." Friday, November 26, 2004
Librarians New "Librarian" Web Domains Here's a new list (we're going to make this a regular feature) with most of the domain names (.com, .org, .net, info) registered in October and November that contain the word "librarian" in them. In many cases, these domains aren't active yet. Domains that are active (at the time of writing) are hyperlinked. If you're interested in learning about who registered the domain, simply run a WHOIS search. Have fun! + famouslibrarians.com + checkoutalibrarian.com + librarianoccupation.com + librarianforums.org + librarianforum.org + askmedlibrarian.com (and .org) ++ (Registered by UCHSC Denison Memorial Library) + librarianjokes.com + librarianforhire.com + movie-librarians.com + novel-librarians.com + librarianknits.com + e-librarians.com + highschoollibrarian.com + galacticlibrarian.com + eclecticlibrarian.com + personalresearchlibrarian.com ++ (Registered by Johns Hopkins University) + systemslibrarian.org (and .info) + travelinlibrarian.info + eliteratelibrarian.com + imagelibrarian.com + justintime-librarian.info + librarianslave.com + thecyberlibrarian.com + yourcyberlibrarian.com + yourlibrarianslave.com + filmlibrarian.com + librarianexchange.com + librariangifts.com + librarianindex.com + librariansex.com + librarianworld.com + nakedlibrarian.com
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Vehicle Safety--Photos--Database Source: AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety AAA Foundation Photolibrary "These images may be published and distributed in any paper, electronic or other media for the sole purpose of promoting traffic safety and injury prevention issues. Users of these images may digitally manipulate or add other graphic elements to enhance the usability of the images for publishing only as such use relates to promoting traffic safety, injury prevention, and/or public health. Users of these images may not sell them, transfer or assign intellectual property rights to the images, and users must credit the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety as the source." Search by keyword or use dropdown menu to view photos by category -- from "Aggressive Driving" to "Work Zone." Submit online permission form for use.
Professional Reading Shelf Metasearch Source: NISO Results of NISO Metasearch Survey -- Research Libraries--United Kingdom Source: BL Research Libraries Network appoints top jobs "Dr Michael Jubb has been appointed as Director of the Research Libraries Network (RLN) based at the British Library, with Professor Robert Burgess taking up the role of Chair of the Advisory Board. With £3 million funding from a consortium of funders, the RLN will ensure 'joined up' information services for UK researchers. 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. The RLN will run initially for three years and start operating in February 2005. It will be led by an executive unit - based at the British Library - and take strategic guidance from the advisory board. More key executive unit and advisory board positions will be appointed in the near future." Thursday, November 25, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Mobile Access to Information--Education Source: JISC New Report, Mobile and PDA technologies and their future use in education "In recent years there has been a phenomenal growth in the number and technical sophistication of what can loosely be termed 'mobile devices' such as PDAs, mobile phones and media players. Increasingly these devices are also internet-enabled. This JISC report reviews the current state of the art, explores the potential uses within education and discusses some of the trends in technological development such as wireless networking, device convergence and 'always-on' connectivity." -- Institutional Repositories Source: SPARC Workshop: Institutional Repositories: The Next Stage Work Presentations and posters from the workshop are now available. The event took place last week in Washington D.C. Presentations include: + Scholarly Communication, Open Access, and Cost Saving: Are They Related? Keynote by Charles Phelps, University of Rochester. + Scientific Publications: Free for All? A Summary of Implications for Institutional Repositories + The Copyright Conundrum: How to Populate Your Repository and Stay Legal + DSpace at MIT - The Business Model Revisited + Open Access Policy: The View from Europe ++ Posters include: + Barriers to Adoption of an Institutional Repository: An Academic Library Case Study + Developing a Metadata Profile for Institutional Repositories in Canada
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Out of Print Books--Lists & Rankings BookFinder.com Unveils Top 10 Out-of-Print Books of 2004 See Also: Additional Bookfinder Rankings -- Labour--Australia Source: Dept. of Parliamentary Libraries, Australia Research Brief: Labour market dynamics
Briefly + Searching publications online (via SiliconValley.Com) Michael Bazeley takes a look at ebrary, a company we've mentioned MANY times on ResourceShelf. Btw, ebrary offers a couple useful free or low-cost services directly to consumers. This post from April has a couple of links. See Also: A June 2004 Interview with ebrary CEO, John Warnock The interview was published in Against the Grain. See Also: ebrary Library Center A collection of full text books for librarians. Access is free. Wednesday, November 24, 2004
U.S. Government--Legislative Information--Databases Source: The Library of Congress Preview a Redesigned Version of THOMAS A preview version is now available. From the web site, "The 109th Congress convenes at noon on January 4, 2005. In preparation for that, we have been working to improve the appearance and the usefulness of THOMAS, the Library of Congress' public legislative information system. We expect the updated site to be released on January 4, but in the meantime we invite you to preview the updated THOMAS." Thanks to Bob T. for the news tip.
Web Directories--Librarians' Index to the Internet IM the Librarians' Index to the Internet No doubt about it, the Librarians' Index to the Internet is one of several shining excellent examples of the great work info pros are doing to help organize the web. Earlier today, the LII's Director (and ResourceShelf friend) Karen Schneider, alerted us to a new service that this non-commercial web directory is making available. Have a question about the LII and how it's put together? Want to suggest a resource? Do you need help searching the LII? It's now possible to have an interactive chat with an LII staff member using either AOL Instant Messenger or Yahoo Messenger. To chat with the LII via either instant messenging program, simply send a message to: im4ii Note: The service is in beta as of today, so it might be a bit irregular in terms of accessibility. Of course, if you're pressed for time or don't want to do use IM, you can still email the LII team at: feedback@lii.org. Karen tells us that she constantly receives great input for LII folks.
Professional Reading Shelf Library Associations Source: Library Journal SLA Faces Budget Crunch, Global Online University Moves Ahead -- Research Libraries Source: RLG New Issue Available, RLG News -- Audio Preservation Source: CLIR The Art and Science of Audio Preservation
Web Search--Google Source: Peter Jacso Side-by-Side Native Search Engines vs Google Scholar Peter Jacso from the University of Hawaii and Peter's Digital Reference Shelf has let us know (thanks Peter!) of a new PolySearch module that he's developed to test Google Scholar. He writes, "This PolySearch engine shows side by side what results are retrieved by the special Google Scholar search engine versus the native search software from the archives of some publishers which let in the crawlers of Google Scholar as a special privilege for binge crawling." Like Google Scholar, Peter's new PolySearch module is still a beta. His full review will appear in early December on Digital Reference Shelf. His conclusions, so far? He writes, "Google indexed the full text of the digital archives fed to it directly by 29 scholarly publishers, and a number of preprint servers and digital facilitators' sites which host thousands of scholarly journals. Preliminary tests have shown that Google Scholar often retrieves far fewer unique items than the native search engines of the publishers. On the positive side, Google Scholar links to citing references if the document was cited by journals indexed in Google Scholar, and provides the immensely useful citedness score of the documents. When Google Scholar has more "hits" for a query, they often turn out to be duplicates and triplicates (not always displayed adjacently) with a separate hit for the TOC entry, the abstract, the PDF file and (if available) the HTML file. Although their URLs are slightly different, they take you to the same spot in the archive. These are redundant and confusing..." In June, Peter wrote this review of the Cross-Ref/Google project.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Government--Terrorism Source: CIA (via DocuTicker) Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, 1 July Through 31 December 2003 "At the DCI's request, the DCI Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center (WINPAC) drafted this report and coordinated it throughout the Intelligence Community (IC). As directed by Section 721, subsection (c) of the Act, it is unclassified. As such, the report does not present the details of the IC's assessments of weapons of mass destruction and advanced conventional munitions programs that are available in other classified reports and briefings for the Congress." + Read the report [PDF] -- HIV/AIDS Source: World Health Organization Just Released, Report: AIDS Epidemic Update 2004 See Also: Number of women living with HIV increases in each region of the world -- Labour--Australia Source: Dept. of Parliamentary Libraries, Australia Research Brief: Labour market dynamics -- Hate Crimes--United States Source: FBI Just released: Hate Crime Statistics | 2003 "Each year's edition of Hate Crime Statistics presents data regarding incidents, offenses, victims, and offenders in reported crimes that were motivated in whole or in part by a bias against the victim's perceived race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability." (PDF file; very slow download afternoon of 11/24/04)
Creative Commons Search Engines Source: P2P Updated Version (Beta) of Creative Commons Search Engine Now Available We first mentioned the CC search engine (using the Nutch technology) in September. Also, access to the CC Search Engine is now included with the toolbar that ships with Firefox. From the news release, "The beta search engine indexes just under one million web pages, but Creative Commons says it expects to soon index the full five million pages currently carrying Creative Commons licenses." See Also: Direct to the CC Search Engine See Also: CC Search Overview Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Preservation Archives Source: BL 10 million pound programme to save the world's historical and cultural records "Representatives from the international historical, conservation and diplomatic worlds gathered today at the British Library to mark the launch of the Endangered Archives Programme - a £10 million joint initiative between the British Library and the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund to help save the world's endangered archives." -- Libraries--Canada Source: Canadian Library Association CLA Response to Library and Archives Canada Paper In response to Library and Archives Canada Paper entitled Directions for Library and Archives Canada -- Health Libraries--United Kingdom Source: Kable's Government Computing Health service opens e-library "A national library service, to be run by the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT), is to provide the "knowledge" content for new systems such as the electronic patient record, it was announced on 17 November 2004." -- Information Retrieval Metadata Source: FCW EPA builds a better search A keyword search in the Environmental Protection Agency's Web pages used to yield a mishmash of results. Typing, say, "water quality" in the search engine might have returned links to high-level overviews of water quality issues or to documents that merely mentioned water quality. 'The relevancy ranking of our search engine couldn't really say, 'Here's a general thing about water quality that could get you started,' said Richard Huffine, program manager for the EPA's National Library Network. So EPA officials modified the search engine." -- Open Access Source: E-LIS Supporting and Enhancing Scholarship in the Digital Age : The Role of Open Access Institutional Repositories "This paper examines the emerging trend of university-based institutional repositories (IRs) designed to capture the scholarly output of an institution and to maximize the research impact of this output. The relationship of this trend to the open access movement is discussed and challenges and opportunities for using IRs to promote new modes of scholarship are provided."+ Read the paper [PDF]
Briefly + New Online Translation Tool: Welcome to the Babelplex + Paul Allen Invests in Eliyon Search Engine
Web Search--Google Source: The Harvard Crimson More Comments About Google Scholar The Harvard Crimson offers a look at Google Scholar today. A couple of comments: +"Cheryl M. LaGuardia, head of instructional services for Harvard College libraries, said that Scholar has the potential for success, but she sees some limitations. 'I don't think it will replace the resources available in the library,' LaGuardia said. 'It's still got a long way to go, but there's promise.'" ++ As we pointed out last week, we continue to find lots of material in Google Scholar that's not "scholarly." Be careful. +"LaGuardia said current library resources, like JSTOR (a subscription service to which University affiliates are granted access), give users access to a wide range of free articles that users of Google Search have to pay for." ++ LaGuardia is correct; we made a similar comment last week. Btw, I enjoyed seeing this quote from Google Scholar developer, Anurag Acharya, in Barbara Quint's article yesterday: "So many people do not know that they have access through institutional subscriptions." Yep. Once again, a clear example of why both library and database vendor marketing need to improve. People can't use what they don't know about. + We've read (even before the launch of Google Scholar) about fee-based database interfaces being difficult to use as compared to Google. In some cases, this might be accurate. However, databases from fee-based vendors have steadily improved in ease of use during the past few years -- a necessary thing, considering how much more end-user searching is being done these days. We've often wondered if people who diss these tools (for this reason) have used them in the past few years. Are they as easy to use as Google? No, in many cases, they're not. However, with a small (and we mean very small) amount of training, even a casual searcher will find that these potentially more powerful retrieval tools can save plenty of time and generate better results. Yes, a little learning can go a long. In many cases, the challenge is getting an audience. ++ We see a relationship here to the fact that many searchers do not want to use (or even look at) engines other than Google because they believe the interfaces are too complex. The last time we looked at Yahoo's streamlined interface or Teoma, we felt they were just as straightforward as Google. + "Professor of Psychology Marc D. Hauser said he briefly used Scholar and was encouraged by what he saw. 'It's an incredibly useful source because it takes into account a number of sources,' he said." ++ This quote reads like a wake-up call for federated/metasearch technologies WHERE the library and librarians can create a single user interface to a variety of sources (open web, deep web, fee-based, and locally created info). -- -- A couple of additional comments and clarifications about our Google Scholar post from last Thursday. Thanks for your interest. Also, we appreciate ResourceShelf's Steven Cohen for his assistance in getting all of this together. ++ In our post last week we could have been clearer about searching Google Scholar with the author: syntax. Steven writes, "While it is true that one can search the database by abbreviated author name (eg "Cohen S"), at this time there is only one syntax that Google Scholar has available -- the "author" syntax. The folks at Google recommend that you only use the last name of the author when using that syntax (eg. author:cohen), as using it another way will come up with sometimes poor (that is, erratic) results (e.g., author:cohen j)." + About Google Scholar crawling the full text from certain publisher sites -- here's what a Google spokesperson told us today: "...where we have permission to crawl a doc we will do so, but will only show an abstract." + Finally, Steven adds this comment: ++ GS needs to define "scholarly" better. For fun, I put my name into the database and the two links that relate to me were my book and a post to Library Juice made in 2001. Definitely not a scholarly post. More stringent rules should be in place before I would call it a scholarly engine. If anyone can put a PDF version of a paper they wrote in college online and GS picks it up as "scholarly," there is something wrong. Librarians do a much better job at collection development.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Congressional Research Service Reports New and Recently Updated Congressional Service Reports Source: CRS (via FAS, FPC, and NLE) + Al Qaeda: Statements and Evolving Ideology + Guarding America: Security Guards and U.S. Critical Infrastructure Protection + Iraq's Trade with the World: Data and Analysis + Oil and Gas Exploration and Development on Public Lands -- Hate Crimes--United States--Statistics Source: FBI Hate Crime Statistics, 2003 Thanks to S.B. for the news tip. -- Crime--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Morgan Quitno Press New, America's Safest and Most Dangerous Cities The rankings are discussed in an AP story. -- Health--United States--Statistics Source: CDC New Fact Sheet, U.S. Cancer Statistics: 2001 Incidence and Mortality See Also: United States Cancer Statistics: 2001 Incidence and Mortality Report -- Elections--Canada--Statistics Source: Elections Canada Now Available, Official Voting Results For 2004 General Election Now Available On Web -- Privacy Source: Privacy International New Edition, Full-Text, Privacy & Human Rights 2004 Includes country-by-country reports. Monday, November 22, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf PubMed Source: NLM PubMed's Automatic Term Mapping Enhanced "PubMed optimizes searches using a process known as Automatic Term Mapping (ATM). ATM compares terms from the search query with lists of terms: MeSH (including UMLS mappings), journal titles, and author names. If a searcher's query includes an untagged term that maps to a MeSH term, the term will be searched as the MeSH term as well as a Text Word." -- Public Libraries--United Kingdom Source: Department for Culture, Media and Sport New Report, Report to Parliament on Public Library Matters "Public Library Matters is a DCMS report to parliament setting out an overview of the department's policy for public libraries in England and progress towards achieving the 'Framework for Future' strategic vision for libraries." -- Librarians--Careers Source: Library Journal Going Public "Corporate librarians are finding public libraries quite attractive. One convert tells why." Article by Kate Baker, former special librarian who is now a reference librarian at Piscataway Public Library, NJ.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Holocaust--Databases Yad Vashem Launches Online Database Of 3 Million Holocaust Victims' Names + Facts About The Database "Two-thirds of the names in the Database were obtained from the more than two million Pages of Testimony submitted to Yad Vashem over the past 50 years, nearly all of which have now been digitized. Other names have been gleaned from additional computerized lists, including deportation, camp and ghetto records. With a click, users can view and print Pages of Testimony, or a screen containing a victim's personal story, based on information from archival sources available in the Database. Each such 'mini-biography' further links to information about the particular victim, such as the places he/she lived and died, related historical events and more." See Also: Additional Background About the Database -- Older Americans--Health Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Merck Institute of Aging & Health The State of Aging and Health in America 2004 (PDF; 1.33 MB) From press release: "The new report, which also features input from the Gerontological Society of America, says that despite the proven health benefits of physical activity, one-third of older adults are not taking part in any leisure-time physical activities. Additionally, two-thirds of older adults are not eating the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. And nearly one-fifth of older adults are obese, which is defined as at least 30 pounds above recommended weight." -- Civil Rights--United States Source: TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse)/Syracuse University New Report, Civil Rights Enforcement By Bush Administration Lags
Search Briefs + Narrowing the Search (via News.com) Vivisimo's CEO, Raul Valdes-Perez shares his thoughts on clustering vs. personalization. Greg Linden from Findory, news and web with personalized results offers a response to the Valdes-Perez article. + An Exceptionally "EEVL" Search Resource (via SearchDay) Sunday, November 21, 2004
National Archives--United States--Databases Four New Resources Added to Access to Archival Databases Collection + Records of Awards and Decorations of Honor During the Vietnam Conflict, 10/1968 - 12/1972 The AWADS series contains information about 80,701 awards and decorations of honor processed by Headquarters, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) and awarded to U.S. military officers, soldiers, and sailors, and to allied foreign military personnel. The records in this series are a subset of the U.S. awards and decorations received by personnel who served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnamese War. ++ + Files from the Defense Contract Action Data System (DCADS), 7/1/1975 - 9/30/2002 The DCADS records describe the logistics activities of contracts for goods and services between the private sector and the military services and agencies of the Department of Defense. Department of Defense (DD) Forms DD 350 and DD 1057 are the sources of the data. There is a record for each contract with information derived from DD Form 350, the Individual Contracting Action Report. We have recently added DCADS data for FY 2001 and 2002. ++ + Records About Wage Increases, 11/14/1971 - 4/30/1974 The Wage Case History File series contains data extracted from reports of wage increases and requests to increase wages from business establishments subject to wage controls. Each record corresponds to a report or request submitted by an establishment, and shows how the Cost of Living Council (CLC) categorized and responded to the submission. Each record contains the establishment's case number and address, the name of the company to which the establishment belonged, the number of employees affected by the report or request, and information about the wages and benefits paid and requested. ++ + Records of Corporate and Quarterly Financial Information on Thrift Institutions, 1984-1998 This Thrift Financial System series was created from financial reports (OTS Form 1313) filed by Savings and Loan Associations. The record types in AAD are B, C, D, and I1. Record types B, C, and D contain universe (corporate structure) information including business names and addresses. Financial data for 1984 -1988 and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarters of 1989 are now accessible in AAD.
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries--Special Collections Source: The Birmingham News Scrapbooks cover WWII until end "Archival business is picking up at the Birmingham Public Library as World War II-era letters and scrapbooks are donated by families cleaning out attics, basements and closets. In many cases, people whose parents lived through the war years have sought out libraries and museums as repositories for treasured family mementos. It's in hopes that a student researching World War II or someone writing a book will find an interesting quote or a piece of history in the letters." -- Academic Freedom Source: Organization of American Historians OAH Report on Academic Freedom "Five major areas of concern have emerged in reports that have been brought to the committee's attention to date." 1. "...government surveillance of faculty members, students, visiting scholars, and libraries" 2. "...foreign historians, students, and researchers are now subject to interminable review if they apply for entry to the U.S. or for renewal of green cards" 3. "...the last two presidential administrations have made historians' access to government documents increasingly difficult" 4. "...direct efforts by the federal administration and by foundations and web sites that support it to shape the content of teaching and research in directions favorable to its policies" 5. "...many K-12 teachers have been condemned by school boards, organized groups, and individual parents for the content of courses they teach, books they have assigned or recommended to students, and artwork or notices they have permitted students to post"
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Election Laws--Database Source: UCLA School of Law/Pew Charitable Trusts Campaign Disclosure Law Database "The Campaign Disclosure Law Database contains statutes and regulations in 105 categories from 50 states, the District of Columbia and the FEC. Users can choose to view some or all categories in a single state, or to compare individual categories across two or more states. The database is current as of June 30, 2004. The entire database is available for download upon request." Read press release about this database. -- Military Records U.S. Marine Corps--Vietnam Source: The Eureka Reporter Vietnam Files Provide Marines Access To Their Records "Thanks to Vietnam veteran David Prendergast, U.S. Marines who served in the Vietnam War can now access their records online. For years, Prendergast, a local attorney, has volunteered his spare time helping Vietnam veterans access their records so that they can establish their disability eligibility." See: The Vietnam Files -- Disease--Australia House of Commons Library, Australia New Report, Critical, but stable: Australia's capacity to respond to an infectious disease outbreak -- Heating Fuel--United States--Statistics Source: U.S. Census Gas Most Popular Home Heating Fuel, Census Bureau Survey Shows -- Nursing--Professional Organizations--Directory Source: Nursing2004 (journal) Guide to Nursing Organizations Long list, with contact information (including URLs), of professional nursing associations in the United States and Canada. Saturday, November 20, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries--Salinas, CA Source: SFGate.com Beleaguered Salinas plans to close its libraries: Officials slashing $8 million from annual city budget "The life-size statue of author John Steinbeck that stands in front of this city's main library wears an exasperated expression, and no wonder. This agricultural city of 150,000 is so broke that city officials plan to close all three of its libraries in January -- an act that surely would try the patience of its most famous literary son. It would also make Salinas the biggest city west of the Mississippi, and possibly in the United States, with no public library." -- Bibliographic Instruction--Native Americans Source: Sandy Hawes, Cannon Library, St. Leo University Resources for Library Instruction to Native American College Students "Here is an annotated bibliography of resources to help you understand the learning characteristics of Native American students in higher education and to do a better job of developing library instruction for this population." Download as Word document. (65 KB)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Employment--Cities Source: Milken Institute Best Performing Cities: Where America's Jobs Are Created and Sustained From the press release: "The Milken Institute Best Performing Cities index ranks U.S. metropolitan areas based upon their economic performance and their ability to create, as well as keep, the greatest number of jobs in the nation." + Read the report [PDF] + View the Index -- Thanksgiving--Food Costs Source: American Farm Bureau Federation AFBF: Thanksgiving Dinner Remains Affordable "In AFBF's annual informal survey of the price of basic items found on the Thanksgiving Day dinner table, the average cost of this year's feast for 10 is $35.68, a 60-cent price decrease from last year's survey average of $36.28." -- Television--United States--Lists & Rankings Digital Video Recorders Source: TiVo TiVo Season Pass Hot 100 Friday, November 19, 2004
Resource Discovery Network New Specialized Search Tools for Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Even though large web search companies (Google, Yahoo, Jeeves) continue to develop new and innovative search services and gain a majority of the press, it DOES NOT MEAN that other organizations (large and small) aren't also doing great work developing new and useful search services (fee-based and free) and tools. In many cases, these tools are being built by info pros. Yesterday, just hours after the launch of Google Scholar, ResourceShelf learned of several new "specialized" or what some like to call "verticals" that might be of interest. UK-based librarian Roddy MacLeod, head of the "must see and use" EEVL (pronounced "evil") directory of high-quality mathematics, engineering, and computing resources alerted us to some new ejournal search tools. Cool! Oh, almost forgot, EEVL is a member of the Resource Discovery Network, a group of subject directories and gateways. Like we've said many times, RDN is an excellent illustration of the great work that info pros are doing. If you've never taken a look at what RDN offers, you should. Now with the intro out of the way (-:, let's talk about the new services. EEVL is now making availabe FOUR specialized databases that provide access to full-text ejournal material. Here's a rundown: + The Computing database searches the content of 60 freely available full-text ejournals in computing. + The math database searches the content of 28 freely available full-text ejournals in mathematics. + Engineering searches the content of 160 freely available full-text ejournals in engineering. + The last one searches the content of all 250 freely available full text ejournals in engineering, mathematics, and computing. If you would like to review a listing of the publications available, it's also available. Included in the mix are trade journals, house journals, and even some peer-reviewed journals. Finally, we can't mention Roddy MacLeod without pointing out that his work and dedication has been (and continues to be) an inspiration and motivator to the ResourceShelf and DocuTicker team. See Also: On a somewhat related note, don't foget that OAISTER is a wonderful, powerful, and free database containing scholarly material on the open web. Is some/all of this material in Yahoo and Google? The answer is yes. However, the native OAISTER interface offers many powerful search options not available from G and Y.
The Web View a Presentation By Tim Berners-Lee at MIT Just made available today is this archived webcast of the opening keynote at MIT's Emerging Technologies Conference (Sept 2004) by Tim Berners-Lee. At 3:47, Tim Berners-Lee begins. At 38:25, Q&A begins, with Bob Metcalfe, Founder, 3Com Corporation, and General Partner, Polaris Venture Partners, moderating. At 48:03 Metcalfe asks Berners-Lee, "What web browser do you use?"
Web Search--Google More on Google Scholar ResourceShelf is inviting a few "movers and shakers" in the library and online database worlds to share some thoughts about Google Scholar and what it means for our profession/industry. Look for them over the next few weeks. Comments will be announced on ResourceShelf and posted on ResourceShelfPLUS. We've just posted (on RSPLUS) a few comments by librarian and respected online research trainer, Rita Vine. Rita is the founder of Toronto-based, Search Portfolio.
Professional Reading Shelf Libraries Source: ARL New Spec Kit (Exec. Summary Only): SSP285 Library Services in Non-Library Spaces, November 2004 Full report is fee-based. The exec summary (free) runs 14 pages.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Education--Statistics Source: Institute of International Education (via DocuTicker.com) New International Education Statistics + International Students in the U.S. - [Data Tables] + American Students Studying Abroad - [Data Tables] + Country Fact Sheets "Country Fact Sheets contain historical information on the number of students coming to the United States from the respective countries, and U.S. students going to these countries."
Briefly + In-Q-Tel Partners with Convera to Expedite Development of Distributed Indexing Capability Note: In-Q-Tel is a private, independent enterprise funded by the CIA. -- Community of Science launches new version of COS Funding Opportunities Database Thursday, November 18, 2004
Resources of the Week Maps again this week, folks. Loyal ResourceShelf readers know how much we like geographic resources. World Maps and Geographic Information Source: United Nations United Nations Cartographic Section "The Cartographic Section is comprised of a small team of experienced mapping and GIS specialists. It is equipped to undertake a range of cartographic services related to the work of the Secretariat, including the preparation of small-scale illustrative, large-scale stand-alone maps and GIS products. To a lesser extent, the section provides advisory geographic/cartographic services on technical and research issues." What's in it for you? Plenty. On the left side of the page, a dropdown menu allows you to selected from more the 100 country and regional maps in PDF format. Directly below this, you'll find links to a handful of thematic maps. Interesting to compare: + The World in 1945 + The World Today (as of October 2004) On the right side of the page, another dropdown menu allows you to select from a variety of Peacekeeping Maps, showing current missions of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Items of interest on the lower part of the page include: + List of Territories (PDF; 128 KB): "Capital city, country code and country name of each member and non-member State is listed." + The Map Library: Actually part of the UN's Dag Hammarskjöld Library, which "houses over 80,000 maps, some 3,000 atlases, gazetteers, travel guides, cartographic and geographic reference works as well as digital cartographic products." Available online is a nice, growing collection of PDF maps of World Macro Regions and Components The map of Iraq, for example, is current as of January 2004 and provides enough detail that you can see the placenames you hear about in the news. A brief FAQ about this site notes that none of the maps is for sale. "Our principle is to share maps and data as much as we can. You can download, print and use our maps for non-profit purposes, free of charge. We ask that the map numbers be retained for reference purposes and that you give attribution to the source." -- -- Maps--Developing World Source: Canadian Geographic Enterprises and Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) A Developing World The bad news is, you have to download something called Adobe SVG Viewer to access it. The good news is...it's worth it because it is very cool. Actually, there are two interactive world maps here: + The Developing World focuses on "international development produced in collaboration with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). + Canada and the World, offers "interesting factoids on science and culture." The Developing World map allows you to click on a country, select a theme (human development, population, poverty and hunger, HIV/AIDS, education, environment from a dropdown menu) and compare that country with another that you choose from a second dropdown menu. Or you can choose geographic regions from other dropdown menus. A "More About This Country" link takes you to a page offering links to information about Canadian assistance activities in that country. Click on the map to zoom in, or use the controls provided. The Canada and the World map focuses on "Canada's global citizenship." Click on a country or choose a region or country/territory from the dropdown menus and another window opens, allowing you to read about Canada's scientific, technological and cultural contributions in that part of the world, as well as diplomacy and peacekeeping efforts. As you might expect, the maps are available in French as well as English. Print versions have been distributed to schools across Canada. Read all about the project in this press release.
Web Search--Google Big News: "Google Scholar" is Born By Shirl Kennedy and Gary Price The world of online "scholarly" research is changing today as Google introduces Google Scholar. This specialized new interface -- which will NOT be linked from Google's main search page -- will allow users to search a treasure chest of "scholarly material." As you've read here many times, Google is brilliant (that is, ingenious at marketing and trying new things), and this is yet another example of their savvy. This is something that some other large web engine(s) could have done years ago to help separate themselves from other players and also provide a useful service. No one did it. Now, others will likely play catch-up with Google. Basically, users of Google Scholar can, via a single search location, access content from "scholarly" materials found on the OPEN WEB that they've found in the Google crawl of the web. Btw, it might also be time to take another look at what has traditionally thought of as "scholarly" since some of the material in Google Scholar is not "scholarly" using a traditional definition. Some basic facts: + In a nutshell, Google has built an algorithm that makes a calculated guess at *what it thinks* is a scholarly content mined from the OPEN WEB, and then makes it accessible via the Google Scholar interface. + Precisely what makes something "scholarly" enough to be included in Google Scholar, Google will not say. And this is not an insignificant omission. Librarians, especially academic librarians, are *always* being asked to provide "scholarly" material, even if customers aren't quite sure what this means. Their instructor told them they needed articles from "scholarly journals," so this is precisely what they ask for at the library. As librarians, we may try to educate them about how "refereed publications" work, but let's face it. What most of these folks really want is to quickly download an appropriate article and beat feet out of the library. And if they think they can get what they need from Google, the odds are slim that they will bother with library resources at all. College students AND professors might not know that library databases exist, but they sure know Google. The database vendors don't always make it easy for us, either. For example, when searching Gale databases such as InfoTrac OneFile or Expanded Academic ASAP, you see a check box that you can fill in if you want to restrict your search to "refereed publications." How many of our customers know what a "refereed publication" is? Does any instructor ever ask his or her students to find articles from "refereed publications"? What's up with this? More facts: + Material accessible via Google Scholar can also found in the main Google index. + Google Scholar results pages *will not contain advertising* -- at least for now. + Some examples of material from major publishers who you'll find (we know Google has been working with many) -- Google will not provide us with a complete list, but look for content from ACM, IEEE, and yes, Open Worldcat material from OCLC. We also don't know precisely what is and is not available, date ranges, etc. * In many cases Google will be crawling and searching the full text of an article but users will either need to have a subscription to the database or pay for access to an individual article. A bit more from a Google spokesperson: "...where we have permission to crawl a doc we will do so but will only show an abstract." + VERY COOL! For many citations, you'll find a direct link to other articles in the Google Scholar database that cite the article you've selected. Yes, Google Scholar is a citation database too! This reminds me of two specialized databases that focus on specific types of scholarly content accessible on the open web that have been online for many years and remain EXCELLENT tools. 1) CiteSeer (focuses on computer science material, info tech content) 2) SmealSearch (focuses on business material) + Some material, let's say from Open Worldcat, isn't always scholarly in the way many people think of it. For example: ++ Here are many John Grisham books. ++ Although we're honored, we don't consider this blog to be a "scholarly" resource. ++ Academic librarians will be sad to learn that it's impossible to limit to only "peer-reviewed" material. + How big is the Google Scholar database? Google isn't saying. As Google makes this announcement and word spreads about a "scholarly search tool" -- ESPECIALLY in the academic community -- we think the use of specialty databases (the ones university libraries offer and spend $$$ for) will drop. It's worth watching to see if people begin paying for material located via Google Scholar that they can get *free* from a specialty database they may not know is available via their public or academic library. Might this be a golden opportunity for the library community to tell people -- look, we have access to this stuff and MUCH MUCH MORE? We have better ways to search it, and you might not even have to pay for it? Well, yeah...but if what we've seen in the past is any indication, this is not going to happen. Maybe this time it will be different. Bottom line: It's very difficult to compete with the Google marketing machine. In the meantime, we'll be extremely interested in the response to Google Scholar from fee-based database publishers. Some might ask, are specialized database tools still necessary? Info pros know they are but we sure haven't done a good job of explaining why. It will also be interesting to see if *any* of the press/chatter about Google Scholar makes even a small mention of specialized subscription databases, free access to these via libraries, and the fact that what Google is offering is merely the tip of the "scholarly" info iceberg. Is all of this yet another nail in the coffin for library resources and maybe librarians? Too early to tell, of course. Kudos to Google for doing so but the library community could (should?) have done something similar years ago. Why didn't we? When big announcements come from Google and web engines, we often get nervous and...sometimes upset with our profession. Not this time, however. It's just not worth it. This is BIG news and something that should have been around for years. It's going to be interesting what transpires moving forward. Finally, specialized databases are still valuable for many types of seaching, including searching for "scholarly material." Why? A few examples: + Limit to material published by date + Ability to view more than 1000 results. The Google cutoff of 1000 results is still in place with Google Scholar. Ten term query limit also applies. + Google is constantly crawling the web but we don't know how often the Google Scholar database is being refreshed with new content + Searching using a controlled vocabulary/subject searching + Ability to limit by publisher affiliation + You can limit by author with author: but you can only use a last name First names and initials are searchable when using author: but results are often erratic. + Proximity operators + Gobs and gobs of content, Google Scholar still doesn't have it all. Example: While you'llfind John Grisham books, you will NOT find material (both current and archived) from MANY newspapers, trade publications, and general interest periodicals. + I'm sure you can add many more examples of what's NOT there Again, it's one thing for the info pro to understand all of this, it's something else for the typical searcher. Stay tuned, this is going to be interesting. See Also: Google Plans New Service for Scientists and Scholars From the article, "While the great majority of recent scholarly papers and periodicals are indexed on the Web, many have not been easily accessible to the public." This is again an example of not understanding that libraries -- public, private, and, academic - - have offered access to databases with this content for many years and that they can be accessed without having to visit the library building.
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Scientists--Lists & Rankings Source: Scientific American Scientific American 50 November 10, 2004 "Scientific American's list of outstanding technology leaders in the realms of business, research and policymaking." -- Threatened Species Source: International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species From press release: "The world's biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, according to the 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and a companion study of the data, the Global Species Assessment (GSA)." List is searchable. Includes bibliography, photo gallery, excellent collection of links to information about various species. -- Older Americans--United States--Statistics Source: Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics New Report, Older Americans 2004: Key Indicators of Well-Being A pdf version is also available. Report highlights here. Thanks to S.B. for the news tip.
Professional Reading Shelf Public Libraries NYPL gets record $25 million grant "The New York Public Library has received its largest single gift ever--a grant of $25 million--which it will use for the acquisition and preservation of research materials, among other initiatives. In addition, the library announced expanded hours and named a new chairman." -- Biomed Central--Firefox Installing and using the BioMed Central Firefox search plugin "The BioMed Central search plugin for Firefox adds BioMed Central to the list of search engines that are available in the quick search box at the top right of every Firefox browser window. Installing the plugin takes only seconds...." Available for every platform supported by Firefox. -- Out-of-Print Books Source: BookFinder.com Top 10 out of print books of 2004 Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Newspapers--United States Source: AP Major U.S. Newspaper Digitizing Project Announced "The government promises anyone with a computer will have access within a few years to millions of pages from old newspapers, a slice of American history to be viewed now only by visiting local libraries, newspaper offices or the nation's capital. The first of what's expected to be 30 million digitized pages from papers published from 1836 through 1922 will be available in 2006. "Anyone who's interested --- teachers, students, historians, lawyers, politicians, even newspaper reporters -- will be able to go to their computer at home or at work and at a click of a mouse get immediate, unfiltered access to the greatest source of our history," said Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities." Learn more about the National Digital Newspaper Program. Note: It's worth mentioning that ProQuest has already digitized the complete archives of several major newspapers. Cold North Wind, Gale, and NewspaperARCHIVE.com.
Professional Reading Shelf Open Source Software--Libraries--Bibliography Source: Brenda Chawner, School of Information Management, University of Wellington, New Zealand Recently Updated, Open Source Software and Libraries Bibliography -- National Archives--United States Source: FCW National Archives opens high-tech vaults "A new permanent exhibit that turns old documents into interactive computer stations opened today at the National Archives and Records Administration's building in Washington, D.C...The 9,500-square-foot Public Vaults exhibit has more than 1,000 items, including about 25 computer workstations and 47 interactive screens. Visitors can navigate their own paths through behind-the-scenes historical stories using plasma screens, sound recordings, and video stations." -- Open Access Journals--Citation Analysis Source: Thomson Scientific Open Access Journals in the ISI Citation Databases: Analysis of Impact Factors and Citation Patterns (PDF; 1.17 MB) From press release: "The findings indicate that journals published under the Open Access (OSA) model continue to gain impact in the world of scholarly research. Despite ranking lower as a group than those published under traditional models, the growth in the number of OA journals is impressive, and some OA journals rank near the top of their respective fields. Rankings are based on the Journal Impact Factor, as published in the Journal Citation Reports® (JCR®). The Journal Impact Factor is the key performance metric for the ranking and comparison of journals."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Business--Pathfinders Source; British Library Now Available, Two New Researching Business Information Industry Guides + Renewable Energy Industry + Travel & Tourism Industry -- Professional Sports--Economics Source: Rodney Fort, PhD; Economics Department, Washington State University Rodney Fort's Sports Business Data and Bibliography Pages A wealth of statistical information on the business of professional baseball, basketball, football, and ice hockey, including attendance, income and expenses, player salaries, team valuations and sales prices, TV revenue, and much more. "Please note that collecting sports data is an inexact science. It is common for these files to be corrected and/or updated when new information is found." -- Economics--United States--Statistics Source: BEA New Report, Gross Domestic Product By Industry Data Show Information Technology Drove Economic Growth in the Late 1990's Tables are available as XLS files. -- Election 2004--United States Source: House of Commons Library, UK Just Released, 2004 US Presidential and Congressional election results An 82-page report. -- United States Government Source: LexisNexis Fast Facts, Cabinet Resignations Not as Prolific as Past Presidents Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Reference Now Available: Free (One Week Only) Full Text Access to Three Recent Issues of Reference Services Review Articles include: + A university-wide, library-based chat service (Volume 32 Number 3) + Enabling the roving reference librarian: wireless access with tablet PCs (Volume 32 Number 3) + Assessing library instruction in the freshman seminar: a citation analysis study (Volume 32 Number 3) + Researching specific non-profit organizations: a selective bibliography (Volume 32 Number 3) + E-mail and chat reference: assessing patron satisfaction (Volume 32 Number 2) + Making tacit knowledge explicit: the Ready Reference Database as codified knowledge (Volume 32 Number 2) + PDA librarian (Volume 32 Number 1) + Bioterrorism alert: reference and literature support for the CDC Director's Emergency Operations Center (DEOC) and investigative field teams (Volume 32 Number 1) -- Digital Libraries The November, 2004 Issue of Digital Libraries Magazine is Now Online Articles include: + Archiving and Accessing Web Pages: The Goddard Library Web Capture Process + A Web Service Interface for Creating Concept Browsing Interfaces + Assessing the Durability of Formats in a Digital Preservation Environment -- RFID Source: The Guardian Shelf life "Using RFID tags to track library books could increase security and ease laborious stocktakes."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Business--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: Forbes New, America's Largest Private Companies (2004) -- Capital Punishment--United States--Statistics Source: BJS Just Released: Capital Punishment, 2003 -- Automobile Theft--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: National Insurance Crime Bureau New, Top Ten Metropolitan Statistical Areas with the Highest Vehicle Theft Rates Summary Metro Area Rankings -- Higher Education--United States--Database--Statistics Source: NCES Recently Updated, IPEDS (Postsecondary Data) Executive Peer Tool Compare schools. "The IPEDS Executive Peer Tool allows access to 2003-04 data presented in the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC) IPEDS Data Feedback Report for all postsecondary institutions and a comparison group of institutions. In addition to presenting the data, a graphing component permits the creation of graphs for this data." Monday, November 15, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf OCLC Source: OCLC Updated Site and List, Top 1000 Titles in Worldcat "The new OCLC Top 1000 web site lists the works most widely held by libraries, with sublists, a readers' poll, sample cover art, "Find in a Library" links, comparisons to other lists, and a download file." -- Serials Source: Serials Review Serial conversations : an interview with four consultants
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Legal Industry--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: National Law Journal Just Released, National Law Journal 250 (2004) Free registration required to view complete list. -- Air Travel Source: Consumers Union New Report, A Cross-Border Examination of 20 Travel Web Sites Selling International Airline Tickets in the United States and Six Western European Countries "When booking airfare from the U.S. to London, would Expedia and Travelocity's U.S.-based sites offer similar rates as their UK-based sister sites? This was just one of many issues -- including "fare-jumping" -- Consumer Reports WebWatch examined when collaborating with six other nations to test international travel Web sites." -- College Students--Degree Completion Source: National Center for Educational Statistics College Persistence on the Rise? Changes in 5-Year Degree Completion and Postsecondary Persistence Rates Between 1994 and 2000 "The study compares the degree completion and persistence rates between two cohorts?students who first enrolled in postsecondary education in academic year 1989-90 and their counterparts who first enrolled in 1995-96. The analysis focuses on the rates at which students in each cohort completed a degree within 5 years or were still enrolled at the end of 5 years. The study also examines changes in the students' demographic profile and other population characteristics." Full report (PDF; 438 KB)
Open Worldcat OCLC OCLC Launches Co-Branded Toolbar with Yahoo A new toolbar (an OCLC version of the Yahoo toolbar) is online that allows you to search Open Worldcat records via Yahoo. It needs work. A couple of quick comments. + Basically, the co-branded toolbar simply adds a pulldown menu option to run a site:worldcatlibraries.org {foo} search to Yahoo's toolbar. + If OCLC is trying to reach the masses with Open Worldcat, why isn't the library option available on the main toolbar, the one that's distributed via the Yahoo site? The library community would be very appreciative of the marketing assistance. + According to Barbara Quint's Info Today NewsBreak, the toolbar only works with IE. I know many members of the library community who are passionate users of Firefox, they'll be out of luck. It's also an MS XP/2000/98 ONLY product. A Mac version is NOT available. + If a library is going to take the time to market the Yahoo Toolbar, why not promote the use of the library's own OPAC and databases (many that contain content not available in Yahoo, Google, or any other web engine). Toolbars from ILS vendors and federated search companies are available and can search a library OPAC, fee-based databases, and open web engines. If you're interested in finding direct link(s) to the library catalogs (aka OPACS) you have access to from your local public or university library, Libdex maintains an excellent directory with direct links. Lib-Web-Cats is another excellent directory of library catalogs. Update: ResourceShelf reader Corey M. lets us know via email that you can use either the NeedleSearch, Copernic Toolbar, or the Google Deskbar (both using Google, but it could be modified to work w/Yahoo) to build a query that limits a keyword search to only Open Worldcat records. Only a small amount of url tweaking is needed. I've posted the tweak for NeedleSearch on ResourceShelfPLUS. NeedleSearch works with Firefox and Mozilla, Copernic Toolbar works with IE, and the Google Deskbar is browser independent (98/ME/2000/XP). Btw, earlier this year I wrote about NeedleSearch in SearchDay. It allows you to EASILY and QUICKLY map the search functionality of most web accessible databases to the toolbar. Very cool! Free, too!!! Libraries might want to create a collection of specialized databases with the NeedleSearch and/or Copernic toolbars and then distribute it to patrons. + People can't spell things wrong when searching Open Worldcat? (-: I noticed when running a site:worldcatlibraries.org search, Yahoo's spellcheck is not available. For example, you'll see a spelling suggestion given for this incorrect spelling of Seattle. However, the search: worldcatlibraies.org seatttle doesn't activate the spellcheck. + Like we mentioned about a week ago, limiting your search to only Worldcatlibraries.org still has problems. Run the search: site:worldcatlibraries.org history california trains ++ Results #5 is titled: Law, society, and the state : essays in modern legal history ++ Results #7 is titled: Mind games : American culture and the birth of psychotherapy I don't see what these book have to do with trains and California. + A search for Central Intelligence Agency returns approximently 4 times as many results as the search CIA. Shouldn't a keyword search return approximently the same number of results? This is what you'll see with RLG's RedLightGreen database of library books records from many libraries. RLG is another excellent and free database with library records. Several other "value added" features (like bibliography formatting) are also available from RedLightGreen. Another project worthy of your attention. + The dedupe function at Yahoo continues to cause problems UNLESS you use the new toolbar (hooray). Example: run the search, site:worldcatlibraries.org homeland security +Only one result is visible. The searcher needs to click again to turn off the dedupe option. + We reported a few weeks ago that OCLC plans to make all 52 million records available to Yahoo and Google. Two million items are now available. As the database grows in size, the typical searcher will find hundreds, if not thousands of records, when conducting any Open Worldcat search. What can Yahoo and Google do to help improve relevancy for Worldcatlibraries.org when the typical searcher only users two or three search terms? Sunday, November 14, 2004
Professional Reading Shelf Grateful Dead--Archivist Source: Marin Independent Journal The life of the Dead's official tape archivist "David Lemieux HAS every Deadhead's dream job. The 34-year-old San Anselmo resident listens to Grateful Dead music all day, and gets paid for it. Lemieux is the archivist and curator of the Grateful Dead's priceless 'vault,' a trove that contains the long, strange musical legacy of one of the most important bands in American rock." -- Public Libraries -- Technology Training and Information Literacy Source: Pacific Bell/UCLA Initiative for 21st Century Literacies 21st Century Literacies: Training of Public Library Trainers (PDF; 518 KB) "Public libraries, more than any other setting, assist a vast and varied constituency. Although historically public librarians have not viewed themselves as educators, the current environment is demanding of them a role-shift from information mediators to true educators who must provide training and instruction if they are to meet user needs in the 21st century. As such, in March 2002 the Pacific Bell/UCLA Initiative developed a training manual and delivered workshops emphasizing 21st century literacies content as well as training principles for adult and young learners, including parents and children, teens, staff, Spanish speakers, and older adults, in a variety of contexts." (via DrWeb)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents Canada--Wars--Archives Source: University of Manitoba: Archives and Special Collections The Canadian Wartime Experience: The Documentary Legacy of Canada at War "The differing roles played by Canadians during times of conflict, at home and abroad, are featured in this website. The website provides access to a portion of wartime-related textual records and photographs that have been selected from larger collections within the holdings of the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections and digitized for research purposes." -- Military--Ethics--Bibliography Source: Air University Library |
