Senior Citizens–United States
New Database/Web Service: BenefitsCheckUp
Source: Civic.Com
From the article, “The National Council on the Aging Inc. is expected to announce a Web-based service today � BenefitsCheckUp � that older Americans can use to find federal and state assistance programs to which they are entitled. Millions of people have not been receiving benefits to which they may be entitled simply because they don�t know about them. Information has been difficult and time-consuming to track down. BenefitsCheckUp is designed to collect the information into a single, searchable database.”

Digitization Projects
More On the The Washington Post Project from UMI
A few days ago (5/18/00) we mentioned this impressive project soon to get underway. Here are a few more details.

Information Quality–Health
“Study: Health Info on the Web Often Incomplete”
Source: CNN
From the article, “Health information on Internet sites can be hard to find and it’s often incomplete, according to a panel of doctors who surveyed information on 25 Web sites…”Health information on the Internet is inefficient, incomplete and incomprehensible to many Americans,” said Sam Karp, a spokesman for the California HealthCare Foundation, a private group that funded the study, which is being published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.”
Direct to the Full-Text of the JAMA Article

Full-Text Document Shelf (3 Items)
Automobile Safety
Update: New Rollover Ratings Available from NHTSA
Source: NHTSA
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Mobile Phones
Research and Regulatory Efforts on Mobile Phone Health Issues. GAO-01-545
Source: GAO
See also: CNN: “More Study on Cell Phone Health Effects Urged”
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Computer Crime–Cyber Attacks
Critical Infrastructure Protection: Significant Challenges in Developing National Capabilities. GAO-01-323
Source: GAO
See Also: Computerworld: “NIPC Late on Cyberattack Alerts, Lacks Expertise”

Digital Reference
Collaborative Digital Reference Service
“Libraries Offer Online Reference Services to One Another”
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
From the article, “A brainchild of the Library of Congress, the service was conceived by librarians as an intellectually richer alternative to a quick-hit Web search, according to Diane Nester Kresh, director of public-service collections there. “We want to be offering an alternative to AskJeeves,” she says.”
Direct to the CDRS Site

Web Tools–Calendars
Web Site Preparation
Cool Resource: OCLC’s NetFirst NetCalendar
Here’s one to share with colleagues. Is it a calendar? Is it a web directory? How about both? This wonderful FREE RESOURCE provides you with quality sites that offer information related to upcoming special events (birthdays, historical anniversaries, etc.) The weekly update gives you plenty of lead time since it highlights events about 3 months in the future.
Each listing contains links to three web-based resources as well as a bit of background on the person, country, event, etc.
Highlights from 5/14/01 Issue
*Raoul Wallenberg: Birth Anniversary (8/5/1912)
*Atomic Bomb Dropped on Hiroshima: Anniversary (8/6/1945)
*Voting Rights Act of 1965 Signed: Anniversary (8/6/1965)
*Nixon Resigns: Anniversary (8/9/1974)

State Libraries–Washington
Source: Civic.Com
“Washington Workers Get E-Books”
From the article, “Through a deal with netLibrary Inc., the Washington State Library (www.statelib.wa.gov) offers more than 600 titles, most of them technical books and manuals. The books reside on netLibrary servers, and state employees can “sign out” books one at a time through netLibrary�s system after they�ve set up an account as a registered user.”

Web Search–Google
“Monika Henzinger: The Sage of Search”
Source: TheStandard.Com
“Not only are Henzinger and her team of 10 scientists dedicated to keeping the engine running smoothly, but also they’re in charge of adding new features such as translation, dictionary links, maps and white pages. Henzinger’s team is responsible for making Google run on wireless devices and, with voice recognition, on cell phones as well.”

Full-Text Document Shelf (5 Items)
Individual Wealth–Worldwide
“World Wealth Report 2001″
Source: Merrill Lynch, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
Direct to Full-Text Document
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Tax Rates
Historical Effective Tax Rates (1979-1997)
Source: Congressional Budget Office
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Minority-Owned Business Ownership–Statistics–United States
Source: U.S. Census
Asian and Pacific Islander-Owned Businesses
Summary/News Release ||| Direct to Full-Text
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American Indian and Alaska Native-Owned Businesses
Summary/News Release ||| Direct to Full-Text Document
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Energy–Maps–U.S.
East North Central Energy Market Map
Source: EIA
From the site, “shows the geographic locations of key energy sites in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin as of the year 2000. Natural gas pipeline flow, the Chicago market center, electric power plants and transmission lines, oil ports, refineries, and other sites are included.”

Canada Resource Shelf (2 Items)
Economic Update
Canada Economic Update
Source: Dept. of Finance
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Rural Services
Pocket Directory of Rural Programs and Services
Source: Canadian Rural Partnership

Public Libraries
“Owning the Future: Looting the Library”
Source: Technology Review
From the article, “As we plunge into the digital realm, the nation’s 16,000 public libraries are striving to uphold their tradition as protectors of public access to new books and articles. But publishers, in an increasingly bald, frontal assault on the library’s mission, have something very different in mind: a pay-per-use model for information content that will largely shut libraries out.”

Library Jobs–Worldwide
Need a Job? FreePint Launches Job Database
Will Hann and the rest of the FreePint team have launched a new service FREE! where openings for “information-related” jobs from around the world can be located. If you have a position to fill, posting it to the database is also FREE.

American Memory Project
New Collections from American Memory Project at the Library of Congress
The Emergence of Advertising in America
From Duke University Library
The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis
From Northwestern University Library
These resources are part of the Ameritech Collection.

Public Records Research
Tyburski Answers The Question:
How To Find Vehicle Ownership With Only a License Plate Number
GT also provides answers to numerous other questions via the “How To…Do It With Research” portion of The Virtual Chase.

Web Resource Newsletters
The Scout Report To Cease “Subject-Specific” Reports
The GOOD NEWS is that The Scout Report will continue!!! From the site, “The Internet Scout Project is sad to announce that we will be discontinuing publication of our subject-specific reports as we have been unable to secure funding for them. The last issue of the Scout Report for Social Sciences & Humanities will be May 29, the last Scout Report for Business & Economics will be May 31, and the last issue of the Scout Report for Science & Engineering will be June 20.
Thanks to TC for the tip.

Full-Text Document Shelf (3 Items)
Software Piracy–Worldwide
Lists and Rankings
Source: Business Software Alliance
Direct To Summary & List (Top 10 Countries by Piracy Rate)
||| Direct To Full-Text of Survey
See Also: Related Story via The Register
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UNESCO
“UNESCO Books Now Free-Of-Charge Online”
From the news release: “Digital versions of UNESCO publications are now free-of-charge available on UNESCO’s website at http://upo.unesco.org/booksonline.asp. The titles, recently published also on paper under UNESCO’s imprint, are in their electronic version (PDF) free for downloading for a period of time, so as to allow wider use and further dissemination of UNESCO material. UNESCO also offers access to e-books, which are solely-digital, specially conceived for online use, with no printed counterpart.”
Direct to Publication List
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Higher Education–Finance
ERIC Digest: “Why Do Students Borrow So Much? Recent National Trends in Student Loan Debt”
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education

Info Industry–Dialog–United States
Public Training Sessions in U.S. Now Free To Dialog Customers
See Page 12 of the May Chronolog For Details.

Weather–Hurricanes
New Web Page: Hurricane Season 2001–Resources
Source: NOAA
This is also Hurricane Awareness Week here in the U.S.

Web Search–WebTop
WebTop CEO Is Out After Six Months
From the Story, “WebTop CEO Andy Mitchell is out of a job after just six months, following a recent move by parent company Bright Station to absorb the WebTop search operations into SmartLogik, Bright Station’s knowledge management subsidiary.”

www.blLists and Rankings
Lobbying–United States
Washington Power 25–Top Lobbying Groups
Source: Fortune

B2B–Statistics
Internet–Business
Various Statistics and Charts
Source: Forbes (Best of the Web)
Selected Topics:
Alliance Heavyweights
20 Most Visited B2B Sites: Past and Present

CrossRef
Digital Object Identifier–Reference Linking
“CrossRef Turns One”
From the article, “Since its inception, CrossRef has grown to include 70 leading journal publishers, both commercial and nonprofit, with over three million deposited records from 3,875 journals [4]. We are on track to add between 500,000 and one million new records per year. At present, the DOI Handle System resolves roughly 400,000 CrossRef DOI clicks per month. Hence, CrossRef has already transformed the experience of many scholars using electronic journals, by allowing them to go reliably from a citation in a given article to the full text of the cited material at another publisher’s website.
Source: D-Lib
Direct to the CrossRef Site (Includes Examples)

Digitization of Materials
“Limitations and Pitfalls of Digitisation”
Source: Conference Presentation by Colin Webb, National Library of Australia

Web Search–FirstGov.Gov
“FirstGov to Add State Links”
Source: FCW
From the article, “FirstGov, the Internet portal that provides access to all federal government Web pages, plans to add links to most state Web pages beginning this week. To accommodate the addition, FirstGov will change in appearance somewhat and add a state field to its search engine, said Beverly Godwin, FirstGov�s content director. Including state Web pages will increase FirstGov�s Web page index from 31 million federal pages to more than 50 million federal and state pages…” Let’s hope that the search capability and retrieval algorithm improve with the addition of these 19 million pages.

Web Search–Usenet
Google: Posting Direct To Usenet Now Possible
Source: The Register
From the article, “As from yesterday, users have the ability to post to Usenet groups. Google requires posters to have a valid email address, so “andrew@no-spam-we’re-British-dot-theregister-dot-co-dot-uk” won’t cut it. Users are encouraged to employ an anonymous account instead, and helpfully provides a list.”
Direct to Google Groups (Usenet)

Library Industry–Automation
SIRSI Acquires DRA
Source: LJ
From the article, “The privately held SIRSI Holdings Corp. announced May 17 that it will buy Data Research Associates (DRA) for $11.00 per share in cash, or about $51.5 million. By acquiring DRA, SIRSI effectively doubles its customer base. The combined company would be the No. 2 vendor in the library automation industry, based on number of installed systems.”

Digital Library Projects–Directory
A Great Directory of DL Projects and Resources
Kudos and more kudos to the British Columbia Community Networks Association for compiling and maintaing the great directory. This resource contains listings to projects from around the world. Sites can be viewed by title, institution, and subject. Additionally, links to DL contruction tools and a DL bibliography are also available.

Digitization Projects–Newspapers
The Washington Post: Digitization of Historic Archive To Begin Soon
Jennifer Belton the Manager of the Historic News Archives at The Post tells us the project will include material from 1877-1999. Bell and Howell Information Systems will do the digitizing with material “rolling out” over the next two years. Advertisements, obits as well as the full-text stories will be searchable and displayable.

Web Resources–FreeERISA
Trusts
Invisible Web
FreeERISA Adds New Database
A recently received e-mail alerts us to a new database of Common or Collective Trusts info. From the e-mail, “The database provides summary information on plan sponsors who participate in Common or Collective Trusts managed by banks, trust companies and other investment entities. Click on Find Plan Data Now. Upon selecting a financial services company, you can view the plan name, date filed, and plan sponsor for available Common or Collective Trusts. You also can sort results by plan name, sponsor and date filed.”

The Web World
Forrester Research: “The Death Of The Web Is Inevitable”
From the news release, “The problem with today’s Internet is that it’s dumb, boring, and isolated,” said George F. Colony, CEO and chairman of Forrester. “News, sports, and weather imparted on static Web pages offer essentially the same content presented on paper, which makes the online experience more like reading in a dusty library than participating in a new medium. Now that the novelty has faded, business executives and consumers are going back to reading newspapers and watching TV. Ultimately, the Net hasn’t truly become a part of our real worlds. Forrester defines two new waves of innovation, the X Internet and the executable Net.
Don’t get me wrong things are and will continue to change. It’s exciting. However, while it has plenty of problems with plenty of room for improvement, the web as we know it today, the research web, is still an amazing resource to access information. But, it’s only one of many resources, it’s not the answer. For many the finding, identifying, and accessing the “boring” or non-boring (see quote below) is the problem. As you know, much of the exciting and dynamic data already online cannot be easily if not entirely not accessed via the search interfaces most people use.
More via this article from The Register

Information Industry–Encyclopaedia Britannica
A Great Reference Tool, Why The Problems?
Source: InternetContent.Net
Thanks To GT for the tip.

Electronic Journal Archives
“Harvard University Library and Key Publishers Join Forces for Electronic Journal Archive”
From the news release, “The Harvard University Library and three major publishers of scholarly journals –Blackwell Publishing, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and the University of Chicago Press–have agreed to work together on a plan to develop an experimental archive for electronic journals. The preservation and the archiving of electronic journals–which are increasingly “born digital” and for which, in many cases, no paper copies exist–present unique, long-term challenges to librarians, publishers, and, ultimately, to the scholars and researchers who will seek to access to them over time. The new joint venture is sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which recently made a $145,000 grant to the Harvard University Library specifically for the planning of an electronic journal archive.”

Football Teams–NFL
Financial Statements
Rankings and Lists
Revenues and Expenses of NFL Teams, Related Numbers
A court case involving the Oakland Raiders has brought some previously unavailable material on the public record. In addition to the article from the LA Times, you can find a .pdf of NFL Team Financial Statements and a chart of team profits and various financial rankings.

Info Industry–Factiva
Factiva Will License It’s Taxonomy
(Free for Factiva Customers) To Tag Internal/Intranet Documents
Using a controlled vocab can help by improving search precision! From the release, “Factiva Intelligent Indexing offers nearly 1,500 Subject Codes to classify industries, geographic regions and news topics, which Factiva customers can license free of charge. Additionally, Factiva provides a comprehensive list of approximately 50,000 public and 250,000 private Company Codes, which are available for an annual fee. The Factiva Intelligent Indexing Company Codes are constantly maintained to reflect the changing landscape of mergers, acquisitions and newly formed companies.”

Canadian Resource Shelf (4 Items)
Enviroment–Overview
“Tracking Key Environmental Issues”
Source: Environment Canada
From the update, “…an overview of the key environmental challenges facing Canada and the measures to address them.”
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Work Experience Programs–Searchable Database
Work Experience Programs
Source:Government of Candada
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Aerospace/Defense Industry–Statistics
1999/2000 Aerospace and Defence Survey
Source: Industry Canada
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Election Results
Poll-by-Poll Result Files, 1997 and 2000 General Elections
Source: Elections Canada
The link points to raw data files that can be imported into spreadsheet or database programs.

Nicholson Baker Watch
Chat Transcript
Here is the transcript of NB’s session hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education

Full-Text Document Shelf (4 Items)
State Level Demographic Profiles from Census 2000 Now Online
You’ll want to bookmark this page as new profiles come online in the next few days.
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Justice–Statistics–United States
New/Updated Resources from the Bureau of Justice Statistics
Drug and Crime Facts (Site Update)
From the site, “…updated with information from 20 statistical publications issued since the last update in June 2000. This site summarizes U.S. statistics about drug-related crimes, law enforcement, courts, and corrections from BJS and non-BJS sources.”
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Police–Statistics
Local Police Departments, 1999
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Sheriffs–Statistics
Sheriffs’ Offices, 1999

Legal Research–Tax–U.S.
Docket Sheets For Most U.S. Tax Court Cases Since 1986 Coming Soon To The Web
Source: AccountingWEB

Library Technology Update
The New Issue of Biblio-Tech Review is Online
Highlights:
*Ex-Libris To Power Next Generation Melvyl
*SIRSI Gets First Public Library in U.K.
*New Endeavor Installations In Australia

Public Libraries–Internet Filtering
“Libraries Win Delay in Installing Internet Filters”
Source: AP
From the article, “Public libraries will have until July 2002 to certify that they have adopted Internet filtering technologies required by a new federal law, under terms of an agreement reached in federal court.
The agreement came during a hearing on the twin lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Library Association challenging portions of the Children’s Internet Protection Act.”

Professional Reading–Internet Collection Development
The just released Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, an e-journal, has a series of articles on Internet Collection Development. These articles focus primarily on fee-based tools that are accessed using the Web as transport vehicle. It’s also important that we begin to consider some of these and other collection development and acqusition concepts for materials that are available on the “open internet”. In many cases if we can acquire, develop collections, and learn the resources these sites offer, like we have “traditionally” done (online, print, etc.) this material (often free) “on the web” will become even an even more useful resource to answer questions in a timely manner. I realize this is easier said than done but it’s something that we should strive to do. At the same time we need to continue considering the specific resources a complete site can offer in addition to looking at a site as one specific entity. Many times some of the most useful material is buried deep within a site.
Selected Articles for Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship(Spring 2001)
Collection Development in the Internet Age: An Introduction
by David Flaxbart, Editorial Board, Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship
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Selecting Electronic Publications: The Development of a Genre Statement
by Lila A. Faulkner and Karla L. Hahn, University of Maryland
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Developing an Online Science Journal Collection: A Quick Tool for Assigning Priorities
by Anne Christie and Laurel Kristick, Oregon State University
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E-Journal Bundling and Its Impact on Academic Libraries: Some Early Results
by Jonathan Nabe, Brandeis University
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Aggregated Science: An Examination of Three Multi-Disciplinary Databases
by J.B. Hill, Southeastern Louisiana University
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Managing Access to a Publisher Package: IEE, IEL, and Xplore
by John Matylonek, Oregon State University and Denise Bennett, University of Florida
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Collection Management Strategies in a Digital Environment
by Cecily Johns, University of California, Santa Barbara

Humanities
National Library of Canada Places Seven New Sites Online
The resources are part of the NLC Digital Library Program.
Highlights:
For music enthusiasts, Sheet Music from Canada�s Past (www.nlc-bnc.ca/sheetmusic/) showcases Canadian printed music published between 1800 and 1920. A new phase of The Virtual Gramophone (www2.nlc-bnc.ca/gramophone) has added World War I-era recordings to this rich site documenting the first decades of Canadian recorded music.
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Images in the News: Canadian Illustrated News 1869-1883 (www.nlc-bnc.ca/cin) provides a searchable database of over 4000 images drawn from that magazine, illustrating the people, places and events that shaped Canada during that period. This collection of images is also included in ImagesCanada (imagescanada.ca), a new collaborative site hosted by the National Library that provides access to 65 000 Canadian images covering everything from cowboys to kayaks.
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Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill (www.nlc-bnc.ca/moodie-traill), developed in collaboration with the National Archives of Canada, documents the life and writings of these sisters, who were two of Canada�s most notable early literary figures. The site draws upon original materials from manuscript collections held by the National Archives and the National Library.
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Guardians of the North (www.nlc-bnc.ca/superheroes) bring popular culture to life as it explores the Canadian superhero in comic books published from 1940 to the present.
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First among Equals: The Prime Minister in Canadian Life and Politics (www.nlc-bnc.ca/primeministers) and its accompanying site adapted for a Grade 4-6 level audience (www.nlc-bnc.ca/primeministers/kids) focus on Canadian prime ministers. This site introduces the private lives and political careers of all Canadian prime ministers since Confederation, and is enhanced with online games and resources for teachers.
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Page by Page: Creating a Children�s Book (www.nlc-bnc.ca/pagebypage), one of a number of sites have been designed with younger users in mind, describes the production of a children�s book from concept, through sketches and draft narratives, to final proofs. Zoom Upstream, by Tim Wynne-Jones and Eric Beddows, is currently featured, and Ginette Anfousse�s �cole will be added soon.

Business–E-Commerce–Retail–Statistics
Retail E-Commerce Sales, 1st Quarter, 2001
Source: U.S. Census/ESA

Archival Issues
The Paperless World
Source: FCW
“Facing the Pitfalls of Going Paperless”
From the article, “For those who labor in the field of document preservation, dealing with electronic documents is fraught with difficulties. For example, there is the problem of the proliferation of formats, said [John] Brinkema, who is developing an electronic archive for the U.S. Courts. Besides multiple formats for documents, there are multiple versions of most formats, and a given format is not always compatible with the versions that came before or after it, he said.”

A Few Notes About U.K. Resources (2 Items)
Design–Searchable Database
Image Databases
Design Council Slide Collection
From a recently received e-mail message, “The Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) is delighted to announce that the Design Council Slide Collection is now searchable on-line via the VADS website. The Design Council Slide Collection contains nearly 3000 fully catalogued images covering a wide range of subjects including tableware, furniture, lighting, toys, domestic appliances, textiles, wallpapers, office equipment, engineering components and machinery. Other areas of design such as architecture, town planning, interior design, graphic design and corporate identity are also included. The addition of this resource to the collections already on-line means that VADS now provides more than 6000 images and records covering many areas of late 20th century design, for use in research, learning and teaching. The collection was digitised as part of the JISC Image Digitisation Initiative (JIDI).”
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Legal Research
More About the Resource Discovery Network
Source: LLRX.com
A couple of days ago we noted some excellent training resources from the RDN. This just published article from LLRX.com by Steven White discusses using the RDN as a tool for legal research.