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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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Sunday, April 30, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Digital Information Libraries Source: Ariadne The April 2006 Issue of Ariadne is Now Available Articles include: + Search Engines: Where We Were, Are Now, and Will Ever Be by Phil Bradley + Preserving Electronic Scholarly Journals: Portico + Retrospective on the RDN Note: What's the RDN? A resource we love. + Metasearch: Building a Shared, Metadata-driven Knowledge Base System + Folksonomies: The Fall and Rise of Plain-text Tagging + Serving Services in Web 2.0 -- Art History--Imagery--Databases Illinois Library Consortium Debuts Digitized Image Archive "CARLI [Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois] has purchased the Saskia digital image archive from Scholars Resource. The collection contains 30,000 digital images of paintings, sculpture, and architecture, including images from many important collections: the Prado, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Uffizi, and the Louvre, as well as archaeological sites in Greece, Italy, Turkey, and Egypt. The images are displayed in both high resolution and thumbnail format. Additionally, the descriptive data about the images includes references to the occurrences of these images in 19 major art history texts..." Thanks to Bernie S. for the news tip. See Also: Learn More about the Saskia Digital Image Archive
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Organized Crime--Database Source: Nathanson Centre for the Study of Organized Crime and Corruption, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University Organized Crime and Corruption Bibliographic Database "Searches on this database can be performed in the title, author, or keyword fields. In addition, you may conduct an everywhere search that looks for a match in any of the title, author, keyword, or abstract fields.... We have compiled an extensive catalogue of keywords that are unique to organized crime. Using these keywords will help to refine your search and produce more accurate results." Extensive help is available. See also: Organized Crime in North America and the World: A Bibliography -- Spam--Lists & Rankings Source: Sophos The Top 12 Spam Relaying Countries
Multimedia Shelf Internet Regulation--United States Source: Oxford Internet Institute Lecture (Webcast): Recent Developments in FCC Internet Regulation This presentation was given about 10 days ago at Oxford Unversity. "Susan Crawford summarizes recent changes by the FCC on 'common carrier' rules, and assesses the current U.S. debate about the provision of a 'prioritized Internet'." Professor Crawford is a faculty member at Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University. Saturday, April 29, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh--Economic Impact Source: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Economic Development Economic Impact Study: Regional Benefits of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh "With more than 2 million visitors annually, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is the area's most visited regional asset. Yet, despite its 110-year history, the library has never quantified its contributions to the region. In 2005, the library partnered with Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Economic Development to explore the many ways that Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh impacts the economic vitality of the region. The report examines both the library's value to the economy in terms of return on investment as well as its contributions to people and their communities." Highlights (PDF; 81 KB) Full Report (PDF; 1.7 MB) -- E-Textbooks Source: The New York Times The Bottom Line on E-Textbooks "In one of the largest pushes to date, electronic versions of assigned textbooks are being made widely available for the first time, right next to their print counterparts at campus bookstores (before, you mostly found them through online specialty stores or directly through publishers, if at all). MBS Direct, which sells some 700 college textbooks in digital form, started the program at 10 campuses last fall and 31 this spring. Interest has been modest -- about 5 percent of the total sales for a given text -- but that's encouraging enough to expand to more than 300 campuses next semester, says Dennis Flanagan, chief executive of MBS Direct."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Terrorism Source: U.S. Department of State Just Released: Country Reports on Terrorism "U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism." Download in sections as PDFs. -- Presidents of the United States--Speeches Source: Miller Center, University of Virginia Miller Center Presidential Speech Collection "The Scripps Library, through cooperation with various presidential libraries, has been collecting some of the more important presidential speeches of the past 60 years. These speeches are available in their entirety in full audio. When possible, we have also provided transcripts of the speeches. Recently we have expanded our collection to include the full text of some of the more important presidential speeches from the 18th and 19th centuries." See Also: WhiteHouseTapes.org (A ResourceShelf Site of the Week) See Also: Presidential Reference Files--Bibliographies
DocuTicker Best of DocuTicker DocuTicker is ResourceShelf's sister site and is updated daily with a wide variety of new full text reports on many topics from government agencies, think tanks, ngo's and many other organizations. + Gasoline Price Spikes and Regional Gasoline Content Regulation: A Structural Approach + World Health Organization releases new Child Growth Standards + U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress (PDF; 43 KB) + Vertex 2005 Sales Tax Rate Report (PDF; 143 KB) + Teen Relationship Abuse Survey (PDF; 100 KB) + The Devaluing of Higher Education: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession 2005-06 Friday, April 28, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Open Source Information Retrieval Workshop Info and CFP: Second International Workshop on Open Source Information Retrieval "The goal of the Open Source Information Retrieval Workshop (OSIR) is to bring together practitioners developing open source search technologies in the context of a premier IR research conference to share their recent advances, and to coordinate their strategy and research plans. The intent is to foster community-based development, to promote distribution of transparent Web search tools, and to strengthen the interaction with the research community in IR." -- Digitsation Source: The Electronic Library (via E-LIS) Developing a Digitisation Framework for your organisation This paper describes how a Digitisation Framework was set up at the University of Auckland Library from 2001 - 2004. The elements of the framework are discussed, how it was developed and implemented and what was learnt from this. The purpose of the paper is to help organisations of any size and type to set up their own digitisation framework in the near future.
Search Briefs + Yahoo Brings Babel Fish Translation Service into Suite of Services Let's review: + AltaVista's Babelfish Translation Service Debuts on Web (12/9/1997) + Overture buys AltaVista (2/18/2003) + AltaVista Purchased by Yahoo (7/15/2003) + New: Yahoo Branded Version of Babel Fish Debuts on Web (4/27/2006) The service has never left the Internet. What's new is the Yahoo branding and a separate web page along with two new translation options: Two more language pair choices: Simplified Chinese into Traditional Chinese, and Traditional Chinese into Simplified Chinese. Systran technology continues to power the Babel Fish service. Direct to Yahoo Babel Fish. Btw, the AltaVista interface to Babel Fish remains online. The AV version also offers a world keyboard while the Y version does not. -- + Yahoo To Create Better Portals Globally (via SEW Blog) -- + SideStep Launches Activity Search (via SEW Blog)
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Maps--China Source: MapAsia.com MapAsia.com "Search the location and information of more than 50,000 geographic records including cities, towns, roads, streets, landmarks, and facilities in Asia on an interactive digital map." -- Business--China Source: US Commercial Service Doing Business In China: A Country Commercial Guide for U.S. Companies 227 pages; PDF. Thanks to SB for the tip. -- Energy Industry--Research Guide Source: Business and Economics Research Advisor (BERA)/Business Reference Services Science, Technology & Business Division Library of Congress New: The Oil & Gas Industry BERA "The issue takes a global view of the industry and is intended to serve as a research aid for the discovery of interesting and useful sources worldwide. Included is a brief history of the oil and gas industry, oil and gas production, transportation and storage, marketing and distribution, as well as statistical sources, and a brief section on company research and finding aids. Sections on world natural gas production and alternative energy sources are also included in the guide." See Also: Past Issues -- Toll Collection--Glossary Source: International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association Glossary of Terms "A list of specialized words related to the Toll Industry." In alphabetical order, from AASHTO to WCDMA.
Briefly + UK: Winner of the 2006 CILIP/LiS Libraries Change Lives Award announced and more news from CILIP... + Oil paintings, Science and Technology, and Ceramic tiles all featured among this year's ISG (CILIP)/Nielsen BookData Reference Award winners
Web Search--Google Source: Sales and Marketing Management Google Execs Interviewed for a Sales and Marketing Magazine Cover Story (April 2006 Issue) Note: This is a subscription only article. If/when it becomes available to non-subs, we'll let you know*. The article (print version) includes comments from Marissa Mayer (she's pictured on the cover, here's the image) and Sheryl Sandberg, Google's vice president of global online sales and services. From the table of contents, "An extended Q&A with Google's vice president of global online sales and services, Sheryl Sandberg, to find out her thoughts on how their focus on products benefits its customers, how collaboration across departments is crucial to success, and what she looks for in new hires." * Note from Gary: As I've pointed out for a long time on ResourceShelf and elsewhere that many libraries of all types (including public) provide FREE full text access (for personal use) to databases that include hundreds, if not thousands, of publications (new and old). All of this from any web computer. Available 24x7x365. I just checked several dbases from local public libraries in my area and this article about Google is found (full text and full image) in several of them. Check with your library to see what you can access. Btw, it's often more than articles but also ebooks (print and recorded). All you need is a library card. This article has much more on the topic. Thursday, April 27, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor Our regular ResourceShelf readers know we have a weakness for unusual digital library collections. This week, we'll introduce you to one such collection and take a look at what else is available from the same institution. Left Wing Politics--United States--Ephemera Source: Richard Oestreicher, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh (hosted by the University of Pittsburgh's Digital Research Library) American Left Ephemera Collection "The collection of American Left ephemera on this website reflects the personal collection of Richard J. Oestreicher, Associate Professor within the History department at the University of Pittsburgh. The material primarily documents three of the largest and most influential left-wing organizations in the twentieth century in the U.S.: Socialist Party of America (SPUSA), Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA), and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Digitized items include flyers, leaflets, pamphlets, posters, postcards, illustrations, photographs, pins, ribbons, and miscellaneous objects." A good place to start browsing here at Oestreicher's overview of the collection. It talks about left and right "political designations," which first came about during the French Revolution "when the Jacobins sat on the left in the National Assembly and the Girodins on the right." (Who knew?) He describes major left-wing organizations in 20th century America, and some background on the collection itself. The collection comprises 125 objects; you can search by keyword or browse thumbnails. Alternately, you can browse by organization: + Communist Party USA + Social Democratic Party + Socialist Labor Party + Socialist Party USA + Students for a Democratic Society You can also browse by topic: + African-Americans and the Left + Ethnic Radicalism + The New Left + Spanish Civil War + Vietnam War Each image record includes its title, creator, description, format, date, rights, and other information. You can view images in several sizes and/or zoom in and out on selected parts by using on-screen button options. You'll also find annotated links to related collections. While you're here, you may want to take a look at some of the other collections put together by the Digital Research Library of the University of Pittsburgh's University Library System. The Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections are particularly nice. Baseball fans might be interested in this one. You can search any or all of the collections from a single page.
Professional Reading Shelf Cataloging Source: American Libraries MARC Creator Henriette Avram Dies See Also: From 2004, Accomplishments and Other Info Henriette D. Avram (via University of Tennessee) -- Public Libraries--Readers Advisory Source: StatesmanJournal.com (OR) Salem library worker matches readers' tastes with book titles "If you've got a hankering for a book but can't quite decide what, Robin Beerbower likely can help you. Beerbower, the Salem Public Library's outreach coordinator, is known as one of the top readers' advisers in the state -- a person who specializes in suggesting books for patrons." -- Digital Preservation Source: LC Library Holds Strategy Session on "Preserving Creative America" Focus of session? Working with the commercial sector. "A recent Library of Congress strategy meeting with leading producers of commercial content in digital formats has revealed that creators of television, radio, music, film, photography, pictorial art, and video games are keenly interested in the preservation of their digital materials for archival and other purposes...The April 7 session, which drew more than 50 attendees from the private sector, focused on potential partnership projects between NDIIPP and the content producers. The Library plans to issue in 2006 a request for expressions of interest from private industry for cooperative projects as a way to catalyze preservation work in the private sector." -- Librarians Source: The Scientist Rise of the Bio-Librarian Access only available to subscribers of The Scientist. "Once the part-time, poorly paid province of postdocs and graduate students, biocuration has become a full-time, salaried career, driven by the explosive growth of biological data in recent years."
Multimedia Shelf Two archived lectures/webcasts. + Preserving Digital Public Television (via Library of Congress) This presentation took place on March 8, 2006. "Project director Nan Rubin discussed the "Preserving Digital Public Television" project, which is funded with a dollar-for-dollar matching award from the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. The "Preserving Digital Public Television" project is exploring the selection and appraisal of programs for preservation, a variety of technical issues and the roles and responsibilities for long-term preservation within the public television community. Among other technical topics, the project is examining appropriate formatting for video preservation. One of the key contributions from New York University, which is also part of the project, is the development of a model digital repository to demonstrate several of the project's technical findings. -- + Journalism: "Send us your photos: How the Net makes us all reporters" This presentation took place at Oxford University in October, 2005. "Nobody who uses the Internet or watches news programmes on TV can be unaware of the phenomenon of 'citizen journalism', found everywhere from personal blogs to sites like OhmyNews and Dan Gillmor's Bayosphere to the BBC, CNN, Sky, and every other news outlet where people are invited to send in photos, videos, or eyewitness reports of any newsworthy event they happen to witness. Journalist and website editor Bill Thompson will discuss the likely impact of this new form of journalism on the mainstream media, attempting to place it in a historic context both technically and in terms of the way journalism has developed. He will look at the ethical issues which new forms of newsgathering and publication raise, both for contributors and for the news organisations which use their material, and consider how those training tomorrow's journalists should respond."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Human Rights Source: NYU Law's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice New Web Resource: The Project on Extrajudicial Executions Via an e-mail: "NYU Law's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice has just launched a new web site: www.extrajudicialexecutions.org. The site aims to make information about issues taken up by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions more accessible. Features include: + A country-by-country guide to the Special Rapporteur's fact-finding visits and correspondence with governments. This will be helpful to anyone researching the human rights situation in a particular country. + A guide to the legal observations the Special Rapporteur has made on the death penalty, shoot-to-kill policies, human rights law in armed conflict, and other issues. This will be helpful to lawyers, scholars, and advocates working in the area of international human rights law. The Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions is an independent human rights expert appointed by the United Nations with a mandate to respond effectively to cases of extrajudicial killings around the world." -- Nepal--Demonstrations--Map Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs --ReliefWeb New, Nepal: Demonstrations -- Situation Map "Nationwide general strike started 6th April 2006. Night time curfew that started on 5th April still continues in capital, but daytime curfew lifted on 12th April. Curfew also in effect in many cities outside Kathmandu. Demonstrators continuously taken to the streets. This has left hundreds of people wounded. More emergencies will arise in coming days and need for care and treatment of wounded may arise both in capital and other parts of country." Full Map (PDF; 432 KB) -- HIV/AIDS Source: MedlinePlus New Resource Compilation: AIDS Medicines -- Bald Eagles--Webcams Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service and Wheeling Jesuit University It's Bald Eagle Cam!!! "Unique partnership between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's training facility in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and the technology center of the Wheeling Jesuit University is bringing real-time online views of the growth and development of three energetic American bald eagle chicks. The camera is strategically placed directly above their nest on the grounds of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Conservation Training Center." Streaming video is also available. "A link to the eagle cam and instructions for viewing is at http://www.fws.gov/nctc/cam/videoinstr.html. Video is available for viewing Monday through Friday between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. EDT through mid-June." See Also: Eagle Cam Blog
Internet--Statistics Source: EIU and Pew Internet and American Life Project Two New Statistical Reports 1) e-Readiness--Lists & Rankings Source: Economist Intelligence Unit Digital divide narrows, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit's seventh annual e-readiness rankings Key findings: + In e-readiness, the distance separating the best from the rest has declined Denmark and the US retain their top positions among 68 countries + Broadband connectivity is becoming less of a differentiator among e-readiness leaders The complete list (67 countries) is included. List is also available as PDF file. -- -- 2) Internet Penetration and Impact (via Pew Internet) "Surveys fielded in 2006 show that internet penetration among adults in the U.S. has hit an all-time high. While the percentage of Americans who say they use the internet has continued to fluctuate slightly, our latest survey, fielded February 15 - April 6, 2006 shows that fully 73% of respondents (about 147 million adults) are internet users, up from 66% (about 133 million adults) in our January 2005 survey. And the share of Americans who have broadband connections at home has now reached 42% (about 84 million), up from 29% (about 59 million) in January 2005."
Search Briefs + Ask.com Begins Rolling-Out Physical Maps of the World on Map Site Look for the "physical" maps option at the top of the Ask.com Maps page. Right now, maps available for level 7 or higher with more to come. This is in addition to the political/street level maps and aerial imagery that Ask offers. -- + Searcher Behavior Research Update (via Search Engine Roundtable) -- + Major IPTV Initiative Launches Free Service ||| Direct to BrightCove Launch your own broadband tv channel.
Briefly + Workshop Announcement and CFP: New Directions In Multilingual Information Access "Enabling multilingual access to the contents of Europe's national libraries will play a major role. At the same time, the Quaero project for the development of a European search engine was announced last summer by the French president Jacques Chirac. Similarly, in Asia, governments are concerned about the hegemony of US-based search engines. One goal of this workshop will be to explore whether the research community is ready to meet the challenges posed by these major initiatives. Can current prototype systems scale up or meet the requirements of content and usage that such programs imply? What is needed to move from the lab to the real world, in terms of research, resources, and equipment? How much more attention needs to be paid to presentation of multilingual results? It is time for the research and application communities to get together and examine these questions in depth." Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf British Library Source: BL New, The British Library's Content Strategy "On 25 April the British Library published a consultation document: "The British Library's Content Strategy -- Meeting the Knowledge Needs of the Nation". This sets out the Library's proposals for what information resources we should collect and connect with, in order to meet the needs of UK research, both today and in the future." Direct to: The British Library's Content Strategy (PDF) Direct to: The British Library's Content Strategy appendices (PDF) -- Medical Librarianship Source: MLA Now Available: April 2006 issue of The Journal of Medical Library Association Articles include: + An introduction to the Semantic Web for health sciences librarians + How to identify randomized controlled trials in MEDLINE: ten years on + The information seeking of on-duty critical care nurses: evidence from participant observation and in-context interviews + Consumer health information for pet owners + Electronic Resource Review: wired.MD + "Mini-Medical School for Librarians": from needs assessment to educational outcomes + Book Review: Collection Management and Strategic Access to Digital Resources: The New Challenges for Research Libraries + Book Review: Improving Internet Reference Services to Distance Learners -- Information Industry--Elsevier--ScienceDirect Source: Elsevier Newsletter: ScienceDirect TOP25 Hottest Articles Free. "When you subscribe to the ScienceDirect TOP25, you'll receive an e-mail every three months listing the ScienceDirect users' 25 most frequently downloaded journal articles, from any selected journal [in the SD database]..., or from any of 24 subject areas." -- Depository Libraries--United States--Conference Proceedings Source: U.S. Government Printing Office Proceedings of the Annual Spring Depository Library Council Meeting, April 2-5, 2006 A detailed agenda with additional information, names of speakers, Depository Library Council discussion topics, and educational programs is available on this page in HTML format below. It is also available in PDF. Some presentations available in PDF. -- Public Libraries--Computer Games Source: St. Petersburg Times Libraries try catering to gamers "Faced with the cost of replacing an outdated collection of CD-ROM games, library officials realized an online database might be the way to go. The library pays $10,000 a year - roughly what it pays for other research databases - and doesn't have to worry about replacing damaged CDs or buying new games every time Windows releases a new operating system."
Scholarly Publishing--Citation Reports Source: ISI + Science in Italy, 2001-05 + U.K. Universities: Highest Impact in Civil Engineering, 2001-05 + Journals Ranked by Impact: Hematology + Metallurgy: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 2001-05 + The "Hot" Paper in Medicine + The "Hot" Paper in Biology + Geosciences "Top 20 institutions [that] attracted the highest total citations to their papers published in Thomson Scientific-indexed Geosciences journals."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Iraq Source: U.S. Department of State Section 1227 Report on Iraq "The Department of State has released the first Presidential report to the United States Congress pursuant to the United States Policy in Iraq Act, section 1227 (c) of the National Defense Authorization Act, Section 1227 (c). The report covers current military, diplomatic, political, and economic measures that have been undertaken to successfully complete the mission in Iraq. The report offers an assessment of the current situation in Iraq -- paralleling the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq released by the White House in November 2005 -- and outlines goals and measures on the political, economic, and security progress." -- Phishing Source: Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Dhamija, Tygar, Hearst) Why Phishing Works (PDF; 827 KB) "To build systems shielding users from fraudulent (or phishing) websites, designers need to know which attack strategies work and why. This paper provides the first empirical evidence about which malicious strategies are successful at deceiving general users. We first analyzed a large set of captured phishing attacks and developed a set of hypotheses about why these strategies might work. We then assessed these hypotheses with a usability study in which 22 participants were shown 20 web sites and asked to determine which ones were fraudulent. We found that 23% of the participants did not look at browser-based cues such as the address bar, status bar and the security indicators, leading to incorrect choices 40% of the time. We also found that some visual deception attacks can fool even the most sophisticated users. These results illustrate that standard security indicators are not effective for a substantial fraction of users, and suggest that alternative approaches are needed." (via DocuTicker.com) See Also: Phishing and Crimeware Map See Also: February Phishing Trends Report Available (via Anti-Phishing Working Group) -- Enron Trial Documents in the News Source: Houston Chronicle Full Text: Enron Trial Transcripts Most recent accessible in middle column. Other transcripts can be found here. -- Agriculture--Databases Source: Food and Agriculture Organization, UN Updated: FAO GeoNet From the announcement, "A new version of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's spatial data catalogue, FAO GeoNetwork, which provides agricultural information to decision-makers, allowing them to access satellite imagery, interactive maps, and spatial databases from FAO, WFP, CGIAR, and others..." Thanks to Adena S. for the news tip. -- Development--Global--Statistics Source: World Bank Just Released: World Development Indicators 2006 "The World Development Indicators, published annually by the World Bank, is the world's most authoritative set of development statistics. It draws on an underlying database of more than 600 indicators covering 206 countries and territories. The World Bank works closely with other international agencies to assemble the most reliable statistics for its publications." Summary Direct to Full Text and Other Selected Stats See Also: More Key Development Data & Statistics -- Pets--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: ASPCA (via Infoplease) Top 30 Pet Names -- Television--United States--Lists & Rankings Source: TiVo Most-Recorded Shows (with TiVo) For the Week Ending 4/23/2006
Library Digitization Projects A new occasional feature on ResourceShelf. -- Digitization Projects--Audio Source: University of California, Santa Barbara Library Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project "With funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the UCSB Libraries have created a digital collection of over 6,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections. In an effort to bring these recordings to a wider audience, they can be freely downloaded or streamed online...Listen to thousands of musical and spoken selections from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and discover a little-known era of recorded sound."
Briefly + Federal Citizen Information Center (the Folks in Pueblo) Begin Providing RSS Feeds Six feeds are available including FAQs From FirstGov.gov. + AOL Places New Web Site for Kids (aged 2-5) Online It's called KOL Jr. You don't need to be an AOL subscriber to use the site.
Search Briefs + Google Adds Detail to European Maps (via Beta News) Services like the wonderful Mappy.com (tons of features), Multimap, Maps24.com, and Maporama have provided street-level maps and directions for European cities and regions for many years. Btw, Mappy.com also provides detailed aerial imagery for 63 European cities. PagesJaunes offers gorgeous street-level imagery for cities in France and Spain. -- + A Well-Rounded Approach to Searching the Blogosphere (via SearchDay) -- + Search engine to target Arabic speakers (via ABC) Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Engineering--Databases Federated Search Metasearch Source: PerX New: Pilot Subject-Based Cross-Repository Search Tool Now Available Via an e-mail. Word of a new, "pilot service http://www.engineering.ac.uk providing subject resource discovery across a variety of digital repositories of interest to the engineering learning and research communities has been released by the PerX Project. Although the target repositories included in the Pilot are relevant to engineering, the cross-searching methods and interface used, plus the range of repository types included, should be of interest to many as a demonstrator of one method of resource discovery across multiple digital repositories. Twenty-eight repositories are currently cross-searched by the Pilot. These include: the Directory of Open Access Journals (engineering and technology sections), DSpace at MIT, the Energy Citations Database, the GROW Digital Library, NASA Technical Reports, Jorum, ePrints UK, Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), National Engineering Education Delivery System (NEEDS), Australian Research Repositories Online to the World (ARROW), CISTI - Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, Caltech Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory Technical Reports, and several more established repositories of interest to the engineering community. More repositories will be added to the Pilot as they are identified and configured." See Also: Source Listing See Also: Learn More About the PerX (Pilot Repoistory Xsearch) Project -- Scholarly Publishing--Podcast Open Access Source: EDUCAUSE Interviews with SPARC's Heather Joseph and CNI's Cliff Lynch These interviews took place at the recent CNI Spring Task Force Meeting that we blogged about last week. -- Digital Archives--Webcast Source: LC Archive Ingest and Handling Test "Keith Johnson, digital repository product manager at Stanford University, reported on Stanford's contribution to the Archive Ingest and Handling Test (AIHT), an initiative sponsored by the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program designed to test the feasibility of transferring digital archives from one institution to another. He was joined by Library program officer Martha Anderson, who provided an overview to the project."
Multimedia Shelf World Wide Web--Lecture Source: Oxford University Webcast: Sir Tim Berners-Lee Speaks on the The Future of the Web "The development of Web technology has been an exciting ride, a series of socially motivated technical innovations some languishing, others catching on in a viral way. As each development has suggested many new ones, and much of the original vision is still unfulfilled, there is a lot to do. This talk will discuss new challenges and hopes for weblike systems on the net." The lecture was given on March 14, 2006. Slides used during the talk are available here. See Also: TB-L's Lecture at Tufts Univ (March 28, 2006): "Web Design and Web Use: Hopes and Fears"
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text John F. Kennedy--Assassination U.S History--Pearl Harbor Source: NewspaperArchives.com New Newspaper Archives Online: Kennedy Assassination Archive and Pearl Harbor Archive More free and valuable content from NewspaperArchive.com. This time the company has released more than 50,000 historical newspaper pages (all full text) about the JFK assassination available online. All articles are full text searchable. Pages are delivered as PDF files and can be saved/printed. The company has also released Pearl Harbor Archive containing more than 40,000 newspaper articles. Access to both the database and the full text content is completly free. See Also: More Free Archives (Hundreds of Thousands of Pages) From NewspaperArchive.com on a Variety of Different Topics -- Television--United States--Lists & Rakings Source: Broadcasting and Cable New, Top 25 Station Groups at a Glance -- Women in the Workplace--United States--Statistics Source: BLS New Research Brief: Women Still Underrepresented Among Highest Earners -- International Business Trade Law Source: GlobalEdge New Section: Trade Law An "extensive business overview of international trade law." -- Spam Source: OECD OECD Anti-Spam Toolkit "[The] Anti-Spam 'Toolkit' as the first step in a broader initiative to help policy makers, regulators, and industry players orient their policies relating to spam solutions and restore trust in the Internet and e-mail." -- United States House of Representatives--Lists & Rankings Source: Clerk, U.S. House New Historic Lists of House Officers "These lists document the history of House Officers such as the Chief Administrative Officers, Sergeants at Arms, Parliamentarians, Postmasters, and the Doorkeepers of the House."
Cool Stuff Forget Static Street Level Imagery, Check out What Immersive Media is Building: 360-degree views of Surroundings Sure, Pages Jaunes (cities in France and Spain), A9, and now MSN Live Local all offer very cool street-level imagery for various places but check out what Canada's Immersive Media is doing for 25 U.S. cities. Hal Reid from Directions Magazine does a great job summarizing. He writes, "[Immersive Media] involves 11 cameras taking 360 degree imagery in real time, all merged into a single image. The imagery is geo-referenced; you can measure how big or how far apart things are. If you are doing anything related to real estate, city planning, etc., you need to see this." ResourceShelf agrees. They call it (your new word for the day) their technology Telemmersion. Demo here. See Also: Read More About Similar Concepts and Technology Monday, April 24, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Data Security Source: Computerworld Top Secret: Securing Data with Classification Schemes "Many technology executives are taking note of the new breed of data classification or information content management (ICM) offerings, which promise to help set policies and access controls on sensitive data buried in unruly, unstructured data sets. Vendors are positioning ICM storage software as an alternative to labor-intensive content management or metadata tools...According to IDC, enterprises will see a staggering 52% growth in data over the next year - much of it an increase in unstructured data. Besides data volume spikes, security concerns -- especially in the area of compliance -- are spurring interest in ICM..." -- Serials--United Kingdom Source: JISC SUNCAT continues to grow as further records are added "The national serials union catalogue - known as 'SUNCAT - has moved into a new phase of its development with the addition of data from seven more libraries. The pilot service already contains over 4 million records from 22 of the largest UK research libraries and the databases of the CONSER programme and the ISSN International network..." Learn more about SUNCAT See Also: List of Online Union Catalogues in the UK -- Archiving--Digital Images Source: Digital Curation Centre Digital Images Archiving Study: Final Draft "This article is part of a series of feasibility studies produced by the AHDS (Arts and Humanities Data Service) which aim to assess the preservation risk and retention criteria for digital content. The purpose of the Digital images study is to define the preservation requirements of digital image files and to determine archiving methodologies and future research directions. Issues discussed include the properties of digital images, preservation methods, images metadata, life cycle models and assessing preservation costs." -- National Archives--United States Source: NARA National Archives Web Site Launches Spanish Portal "For the first time, the National Archives web site now includes a Spanish portal, viewable online at www.archives.gov. The new "Espanol" portal, which is linked from the top of every page on the web site, provides basic information to Spanish-speaking customers about records, services and exhibits at National Archives facilities nationwide." -- Public Libraries Source: Information Week Kids Unplug For Library Books
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Personal Wealth--United Kingdom--Lists & Rankings Source: Sunday Times of London Just Released, Rich List 2006 "The definitive guide to the richest 1,000 in Britain and Ireland." Direct to tables. All tables are available as PDF files. Also includes Europe's Richest 100. You can also search the list. -- Journalists--World War One Source: National Library of Australia Online Exhibit: Despatches from Gallipoli "Despatches from Gallipoli is a website which includes transcripts of the news stories of journalists Charles Bean, Keith Murdoch, Phillip Schuler and Charles Smith and highlights the role of the correspondent in the development of an Australian identity. Official war correspondents were an innovation of the First World War and their despatches provided a means for everyday Australians to receive information about the activities of their troops. Overseas news services provided minimal coverage of Australian troops and soldiers' letters to home were often out of date. The website includes war images, accounts of battles, examples of censorship, and discussions of the Australian legend. It also includes a copy of a letter written by Keith Murdoch, the father of Rupert Murdoch, to Prime Minister Fisher regarding the conditions facing Australian troops at Gallipoli." See Also: More Online Exhibits from the National Library of Australia -- Parliament--Australia Source: Parliamenrary Library New Research Note: Members of the Commonwealth Parliament with War Service -- Afghanistan--Geology--Map Source: U.S. Geological Survey Geologic and Mineral Resource Map of Afghanistan Full color map in (large) PDF format (121 MB)
Briefly + RLG's Merrilee Proffit Interviewed (via EDUCAUSE) Merrilee is one of the key people behind the development of a ResourceShelf favorite resource and frankly one that deserves more attention, RedLightGreen. You can learn more about this very useful (free) service here. Proffit also played a role in the development and recent release of ArchiveGrid that we posted about here. - + LITA names Ching-chih Chen winner of the 2006 Kilgour Award "'The Kilgour Award Committee takes great pleasure in acknowledging the important work and contributions of Ching-chih Chen, whose research has led to significant achievements in the areas of global digital libraries, multimedia technology, digital imaging, interactive videodisc technology, global information infrastructure, and information management,' said Qiang Jin, chair of the award committee." See Also: A List of Dr. Chen's Writings and Accomplishments See Also: Dr. Chen is Also Supervising the Development of the Global Memory Net "GMNet's goal is to develop a model of international collaboration through the development of this global gateway to world culture, history, and heritage. The main portion of GMNet is its extensive image collections of GMNet's own as well as those contributed by its content collaborators, such as the US Library of Congress' Asian Division, and many other major institutions in the world...Global Memory Net (GMNet) will be launched for public access in 2006."
Search Briefs + Microsoft Enhances Search Options on MSN Messenger with "Shared Search" + Search with friends + Drag and drop results + Now available on Windows Live Messenger Beta and MSN Messenger. + Currently only available in the US, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Japan. + Image search coming soon. + Screen caps and instructions here and more detail here. -- + Jim Lanzone Named CEO of Ask.com Personal note from Gary. We're very excited for Jim and for Ask.com. Jim was the person who recruited me for my new job and even personally introduced me in this blog post a few months ago.
Briefly + LexisNexis Launches Legal Portal site martindale.jp -- New Hosted Patents Search Offering Introduced on Engineering Village 2 Sunday, April 23, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Open Access Source: Open Access News More on Biochemical Journal's century of free content George Porter writes, "A highlight of Biochemical Journal's centenary, as noted by Peter Suber, is the completion of the Wellcome Trust funded retrodigitization project. The complete backfiles are freely available through both PubMed Central and the journal's website." -- Weblogs--Records Management Source: AIIM E-DOC Lions, Tigers, and Blogs - Oh MY!
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text College Athletics--Finances--Database Source: Indianapolis Star NCAA Financial Reports Database "This is the most detailed, publicly available database of college athletic department financial information ever assembled. It came from forms required by the NCAA for the 2004-05 school year. While the NCAA reports such information only in aggregate, the data is presented here by individual school -- with the ability for users to sort by category and conference, and to compare two schools." -- Occupations--Lists & Rankings Source: Money Magazine Best Jobs in America "MONEY Magazine and Salary.com researched hundreds of jobs, considering their growth, pay, stress-levels and other factors. These careers ranked highest." Librarian did not make the top 50, but a report is available. Says the average pay is $52,977.
DocuTicker Best of DocuTicker DocuTicker is ResourceShelf's sister site and is updated daily with a wide variety of new full text reports on many topics from government agencies, think tanks, ngo's and many other organizations. + The Beauty of Bets: Wagers as Compensation for Professional Athletes + Community Colleges Today: The Presidents Speak Study + The Death Penalty in 2005 + At the Cross Roads: US/Mexico Border Counties in Transition + Crime and the Nation's Households, 2004 + Snapshot: Health Care Costs 101, 2006 Edition
Mobile Search + Two New Features from Yahoo Mobile: Access Your Yahoo Photos (Beta) and Backup Mobile Phone Contacts A new beta from Yahoo Mobile. You can now access photos saved to Yahoo Photos via the Yahoo Mobile portal. You can get an idea using a regular web browser with this URL. If a friend has "shared albums" on Yahoo Photos, their albums can also be viewed using the mobile portal. Of course, you'll need their Yahoo user ID. Also from Sunnyvale...Cingular and T-Mobile subscribers with SyncML compatible phones can now back up their contacts into their Yahoo account. Saturday, April 22, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf Website Usability Source: Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content "Eyetracking visualizations show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe." -- Libraries--Cell Phones Source: Inside Higher Ed The Silencer "The decline of Western civilization proceeds apace. One shudders to imagine life in decades hence. A case in point: People now use cell phones in research libraries. Wandering the stacks, they babble away in a blithe and full-throated manner -? conversing, not with their imaginary friends (as did the occasional library-haunting weirdo of yesteryear) but rather with someone who is evidently named 'Dude,' and who might, for all one knows, be roaming elsewhere in the building: an audible menace to all serious thought and scholarly endeavor. This situation is intolerable. It must not continue. I have given this matter long consideration, and can offer a simple and elegant solution: These people ought to be shot."
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Earth Day 2006 The Earth From Space + New, Visible Earth: A Catalog of Images of Our Home Planet Wow! Quite a collection. + NASA's Earth Observatory The EO is also home to NASA's Blue Marble collection. Direct to Blue Marble monthly imagery for 2004. An EO weekly newsletter is available. + Earth from Space, Images Taken by Astronauts + NOAA: Operational Significant Event Imagery Report "The Operational Significant Event Imagery team produces high-resolution, detailed imagery of significant environmental events which are visible in remotely-sensed data available at the NOAA Science Center in Suitland, Maryland." A daily update is also available. + Have You Tried NASA's WorldWind 3D Open Source App? (Free) ||| More Here and Here (World Wind Plug-Ins) Other Resources + Energy Star Buildings Database ||| Energy Star Store Locator ||| Additional Energy Star Resources + EPA Green Vehicle Guide + The Air We Breathe: Real Time Air Quality Info and Visibility Webcams See Also: More Resources via Earth Day "Smart Answer" (Ask.com) See Also: Ask.com Has a Special Home Page to Celebrate Earth Day, Google Offers a Special Logo
Search Briefs + Berkowitz Moves from IAC/Ask.com to MSN (via NY Times) Note from Gary: We wish Steve the very very best in his new job at MS. Friday, April 21, 2006
Professional Reading Shelf File Formats Source: Law.com Corporate Alzheimer's: Coping With Forgotten File Formats "Could drifting file formats cause a kind of corporate Alzheimer's that threatens our ability to recall contracts, insurance policies, financial records, payroll data and other critical documents?"
Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Business--Conference Calls--Transcripts Source: Seeking Alpha Seeking Alpha, 123Jump and Others: Finding Transcripts and Overviews of Earnings Conference Calls We all know that numerous sources exist. Here are three. Two free, one fee-based 1) Seeking Alpha (FREE) Often posted within hours of a call's completion. Seeking Alpha is also an aggregator of stock market and personal finance blogs. 2) 123Jump.com (FREE). This service was featured as a Resource of the Week a few months ago. 3) Thomson StreetEvents (via the Alacra Store). Extensive archive. Most transcripts cost $75.00. You can also subscribe to the service direct from Thomson Financial. -- Earthquakes--California--Maps Source: USGS and California Geological Survey Two New Maps Offer New Look at Hazards and Geologic History of the Greater San Francisco Bay Area "The first map/poster updates the locations of all faults in the Bay Area known to have deformed the Earth´s surface during the past 2 million years using the latest, most detailed digital mapping. The most hazardous faults include those that broke during historic earthquakes in 1868, 1906, and 1989, along the San Andreas and Hayward faults. The second map/poster shows the Bay Area's geologic materials and structures, which is in part derived from the new map of young (Quaternary) geologic deposits announced by the USGS last February. This poster reveals the complicated geologic history that has led to the landscape that shapes the Bay Area. This new USGS poster is unique in the United States for its level of detail and scope of coverage for a major urban area. -- Environment--United States Source: EPA, NLM New, 2004 Toxics Release Inventory Now Available via NLM's TOXNET Via an email. "The 2004 Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) has been released on TOXNET. The new release (1987-2004) contains 1,553,330 records. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) TRI provides information on the releases of over 600 specific chemicals into the environment as reported annually by industrial facilities around the United States. NLM's TOXMAP uses maps of the United States to help users visually explore TRI and Superfund Program data. NLM's TOXNET (http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/) is a group of databases on hazardous chemicals, environmental health, and toxic releases." -- -- Chernobyl Accident Source: WHO and IAEA Two New Reports to Mark the 20th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Accident + Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident and Special Health Care Programmes Summary ||| Facts ||| Direct to Full Text (PDF) ++ Environmental Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident and Their Remediation: Twenty Years of Experience (via IAEA; PDF; 180 pages) See Also: Numerous Chernobyl +20 Resources
Briefly + Full Text Transcript of Google's Q1 2006 Earnings Call + Full Text Transcript of Yahoo's Q1 2006 Earnings Call See Also: More About Earnings Call Transcript (Free and Fee-Based)
Search Briefs Google Scholar Unveils New Sorting Option and Other Ways to Keep Current Part 1 Some news from the Googleplex this afternoon. First, Google has unveiled new versions of Google Scholar for Germany and Spain. Second, Google Scholar now offers a new sorting option. In addition to the "all articles" sort, top right on the results page, you'll see a new link labeled "recent articles." What's important to realize is that this new option is not a date based sort. According to Google engineer, Dejan Perkovic, who posts on the Google Blog, "It's not just a plain sort by date, but rather we try to rank recent papers the way researchers do, by looking at the prominence of the author's and journal's previous papers, how many citations it already has, when it was written, and so on." To use an an ISI term, think impact factor "like." Interesting and potentially useful and another reason for Scopus (Elsevier) and ISI (Thomson) to keep tabs on what Google is up to. + Here's a simple, unsophisticated search (the way most people search) of Google Scholar for research for avian influenza. First, using the "all articles" sort and then the "recent articles" sort. + Results Before I begin I'm going to do something I don't like to do, use Google page estimates. They are often WAY off the mark. However, since Google Scholar is a smaller database vs. the main Google database, we will use them. As always, be careful. ++ Avian Influenza (All Articles) 13,400 results. ++ Avian Influenza (Recent Results) The number of results drops by more than 50% to 5,030. REMEMBER, this number is an estimate and even if the researcher wanted to view all of the results, they are not able to. Just like Google Web Search, Google Scholar shows only 1000 results maximum per query. In the first 30 results the 1 article from 2006 (appears at #27) 8 articles from 2005 17 articles from 2004 2 articles from 2003 2 articles from 2002 Note: A Google Scholar search for "avian influenza" limited to 2006 shows 485 results. But only 1 2006 dated article appears in the first 30 results. Perhaps, this gives us a bit of a clue to the defintion of "recent" and how publication date influences or does not influence the "recent" sort. I would think that on a changing topic like the avian influenza, recent publications would get a higher weighting. In case your interested, in the first 100 results, using the recent sort, only 15 articles from 2006 appear. Of course, this is only one search example but we think GS would be even more useful if researcher's were told: + The overall date range of material when using the "recent results" sort without having to look entry by entry. + Offering a pure date sort would be useful. Finally, a way of highlighting articles in the "all results" sort that also appear on the "recent articles" list. Of course, a journal list that would also provide the indexed date ranges included in GS would be useful. + Knowing how often the database was updated (hourly? daily? weekly? monthly? longer?) would be good to know. + What methodology Google uses to determine "subject area" limits? Are they sourced based? + We've noticed lots of material that shows ingentaconnect.com as the source on a results list. For example, see the third entry here. IngentaConnect is not a journal or publication. It's a document delivery service. The source of the article is the Journal of Dental Hygiene. Remember, Google Scholar remains a work in progress so it's likely that these issues will be worked out. I'll admit to noticing this issue because it related to a pet peeve. It's when people cite Google News, Yahoo News, Moreover, or one of a number news aggregators as THE source. They're aggregators of disparate sources and with just a few exceptions don't have a team of journalists reporting the news like AP, Reuters, WSJ, NY Times, AFP, The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, etc. Finally, you can also use the "recent article" sort with Google Scholar Advanced Search. In other words, create a search limited to a single year(s) and then view the articles ranked using Google Scholar's "recent" sort" methodology which is not explained (is it possible to get more documentation?) other than what Dejan Perkovic says in his blog posting. Also, via the Google Scholar preferences page, you can now import citations into BibTeX, EndNote, RefMan, and RefWorks. This feature comes about a week after MSN Academic Live launched with citation import options to BibTeX/EndNote. We've also learned that 13 union/regional catalogs are now included in the GS database. More here via Peter Suber and Google's Anurag Acharya. UPDATE: Google Scholar Feature from ResourceShelf Contributing Editor, Librarian, and Internet trainer, Dan Giancanterio, Has Shared a Few Comments About this New Feature on ResourceShelfPLUS Part II: Other Tools and Concepts to use to Keep Current with Academic and Other Types of Materials Here are a few options to keep current with scholarly publications, new web entries, just about any web content. In most cases by "new" we mean publication date or posted date. To have material sorted using other metrics, you'll need to look at Web of Science, Scopus or the new Google Scholar feature. Alerting Services There are many of them out there. From the web-based TrackEngine, Trackle, and WatchThatPage.com to the client-based (and ResourceShelf favorite), WebSite-Watcher (WSW). Here are just a few ideas about how the RS team utilizes these tools. Btw, some of these services are more robust than others with WSW being the most useful (IMHO) and offering the most options. It's well worth the $40/U.S. fee. What all of these tools allow you to do is monitor pages (static web pages) and in some cases, dynamically generated search result pages for changes and new/changed content. A WSW add-on named Local Website Archive makes archiving any page very easy. Here are a few examples of how you might use these services to monitor the web for new scholarly or academic content. + Going to the source is one of our favorite things about the web. If there is an academic whose work is important to you, monitor their web page for new papers that they're making avaialable via their personal web site. + Often, universities will offer preprints and technical reports from a group at the school and place them in a database. Set an alert and you'll be notified when new material is placed online. For example, we monitor the publication server from the Stanford Info Lab. + Create keyword searches in various databases like OAIster. Simply create a search (look at the limiting features available), take the url and then place it into WSW or a similar service. When new material hits the database matching your search criteria you'll be notified. This technique works for many but not all databases. + Monitor conference web sites. If/When papers and presentations from the event become available online, you'll be the first to know. + Monitor the web for publicly available research, tech reports, etc. from corporations like Microsoft Research. For example, enter your keywords, consider limiting by date (let's say the current year), grab the url and go. It's that easy. + Monitor the "new" entry pages from preprint archives of interest like the arXiv.org and RePEc. + Yes, it's technically possible (but be careful, Google terms of service issues) to create a url with Google Scholar and MS Academic Live and monitor for new additions with an alert service. Consider limiting to the current year and checking the max of 100 results at a time. Of course, if the new entry doesn't fall into the first 100 results you will not be alerted to it. Another reason to be as specific as possible. Our suggestion is to monitor once a day or two/three times a week. Table of Contents (Direct from Publishers) Most offer services and they're free. Most often linked direct from publisher web site. This page from the City University of Hong Kong offers a bunch of direct links to these types of services but by no means is complete. Table of Contents (via Ingenta and InfoTrieve) + Ingenta delivered via RSS or email. Free. Registration required. + InfoTrieve. Searching the toc database (most current issue) is free. E-mail alerts are fee-based. Books + Glenn Fleishman's wonderful ISBN.nu offers RSS alerts for any author, title, or subject search in their metasearch of multiple online bookstores. Look for the RSS icon in the address bar. More here + Amazon.com offers an alert service as do many other online bookstores. Libraries More and more libraries are offering their new book lists online and many via RSS. Here's an example from the University of Alberta. It's More than Text Use an alerting tool or RSS to monitor university sites for lectures and presentations. The ResearchChannel.org aggregates lectures from many schools. Stay ahead of the action by monitoring the premiere page for new progams. Don't Forget E-Mail Numerous email alerts are still available. For example, E-LIS (E-Prints in Library and Information Science) offers a daily email alert or RSS feed. You might also want to plug in a keyword search into METALIS, limit by year, and plug the URL into an alert service. Traditional Database Providers These days most database services from LN to Factiva to ProQuest allow users to create keyword based search strategies and be alerted when new material hits the database. Since many of these databases offer numerous searchable fields, it's possible to create extremely specific alerts. Web-based databases are also included. For example with PubMed you create search strategies and have new results delivered by email or RSS. Personalized RSS feeds are also available at Engineering Village 2. Thursday, April 20, 2006
Resource of the Week By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor We're pleased to take a look at an excellent federal library site this week. Although some of its services are restricted to members of its parent agency, there's plenty of content here to share with everyone. Libraries--Federal Government Source: U.S. Department of Transportation U.S. Department of Transportation Library "The DOT Library is one of the largest transportation libraries in the United States. The library holds more than 200,000 titles, including over 1000 periodical titles. The library collects materials related to all areas of transportation, both in print and electronic formats. The technical collection is the primary source for materials concerning general transportation, surface, and water transportation. Special topics include: bridges, driver studies, engineering (emphasis on civil), highways and highway safety, history of transportation, land utilization, marine engineering, mass transit, merchant marine, navigation (except air), oceanography, pipelines, railroads, ships and shipbuilding, statistics, traffic engineering, traffic surveys and forecasts, urban transportation, and waterways." Wow. Prowl around here and you'll find many interesting items. There's the OPAC, of course, which contains more than 80,000 bibliographic records. Do a simple keyword search; browse by title, author, publisher or other categories; or use the power search function, which provides Boolean options via dropdown menus. We find the Online Digital Special Collections particularly intriguing. Here you can access a variety of historical materials, including Civil Aeronautic Manuals, Historic Railroad Investigation Reports, Historical Aircraft Accident Reports, historic and superseded regulations of various types and more. A number of annotated bibliographies -- on statistics, special topics in transportation, and aviation safety and security -- are available here. There's also a large selection of vetted Web resources, including links to search engines, ready reference materials, newspapers and journals, full-text documents online, and transportation resources, associations and libraries. And there is a page of links to DOT law libraries. Highly recommended: Putting the DOT Puzzle Together: A Collection of Web Sites and Points of Contact Throughout DOT Headquarters. This is a comprehensive pathfinder through the bureaucratic maze that is a large and complex federal agency. Don't miss the excellent list of links to statistical information. Finally, take a quick look at the DOT Historian's home page. Here's where you'll find the department history, biographical sketches of the secretaries of transportation, chronologies, and a bibliography.
Professional Reading Shelf Electronic Journals--Standards Source: British Library, Library of Congress Library of Congress, British Library to Support Common Archiving Standard for Electronic Journals "The Library of Congress and the British Library have agreed to support the migration of electronic content to the NLM DTD standard, where practicable. The libraries hope that their advocacy of migration to this standard will help ensure long-term access to electronic journal content." -- XML Source: Center for Technology in Government New, The XML Toolkit "This Web site offers a library of resources to assist in managing a Web site using XML. It was designed and developed as a product of the Web Site Management Using XML Testbed, conducted by the Center for Technology in Government in 2005 - 2006. The library of resources is intended to grow over time and benefit from the contributions of its visitors and users. Future releases will contain more code samples and examples for different Web environments." -- Research Libraries--Statistics Source: ARL Graph: Expenditure Trends in ARL Libraries, 1986-2004 2 pages; PDF. -- Museums--Conservation--United States Source: IMLS Institute of Museum and Library Services Awards Over $2.7 Million for Critical Conservation at Nation's Museums "Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice, Director of the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), announced today the 40 museum recipients of the 2006 Conservation Project Support grants totaling $2,772,000. The recipients will match the grants with an additional $4,609,603. This year the Institute received 144 applications for a wide range of projects, including conservation treatment, training, and surveys." See Also: Complete List of Recipients |
