Libraries
Copyright Issues
Source: CNET
“Library “Radicals” Targeted in Latest Copyright Battles”
From the article, “In this digital age, the custodians of published works are at the center of a global copyright controversy that casts them as villains simply for doing their job: letting people borrow books for free.” Also from the article, “We are not the enemy,” said Miriam M. Nisbet, legislative counsel for the American Library Association’s (ALA’s) office of government relations. She pointed out that libraries have always fostered a love of reading that encourages people to purchase books.Still, Nisbet acknowledged that libraries and copyright holders will find themselves increasingly at odds as technology continues to ease the digital transmission of published works. “The mission of libraries is to ensure access,” she said. “The nature of copyright is to restrict access. There’s a real tension there.”
Thanks to B.C. of LISNews.Com for the news tip.

Web Directories–Portals–Michigan
Michigan Launches New Statewide Portal
From a news release, “The new “one-customer” portal is revolutionary because it is the first state portal to incorporate the best practices of public and private sector portals. It provides a common look-and-feel across all state agency web sites, includes voluntary personalization and a statewide search engine. Also, it establishes standardized web technologies and content management tools to which all state agency web sites will be migrated by May 2002.”
Direct to the Michigan.Gov Portal
RELATED Story: Rhode Island Plans New Portal

Company News–Europe
Press Release Services
Source For European Company News: hugin
From the site, “…financial press releases, reports, financial calendars and company profiles.” Searchable. Material can also be sent (free) directly via e-mail.

Web Search–U.S. Government
New “Limit” Search Tool From GPO Access
From an email message received today, “A new GPO Access finding aid has been added to provide greater accessiblity
to Federal Government information. Designed to replace the Pathway Indexer, the agency search engine feature, and the discontinued GovBot, users may now search the Federal Government using the FirstGov search index.” Put in different terms, this engine limits FirstGov to only U.S. Federal Government and/or GPO Access materials.
Direct to the “Simple” Interface ||| Direct to the Advanced Interface

Full-Text Document Shelf (2 Items)
Minority-Owned Businesses–United States
U.S Census
Survey of Minority-Owned Business Enterprises (1997 Economic Census)
From the summary, “Minority-owned businesses grew more than four times as fast as U.S. firms overall between 1992 and 1997, increasing from 2.1 million to about 2.8 million firms, according to a report released today by the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau.”
News Summary (Includes Several Ranking Lists)
||| Direct to the Document
–
Health and Safety Statisitics–United Kingdom
Source: Health and Safety Commission
Health and Safety Statistics 1999/2000
230 pages .pdf

Current Events–U.S.
Information Technology–Lists and Rankings
Source: Interactive Week
Fast 50
From the page, “…Interactive Week’s ranking of fast-growing, publicly held Internet product and services companies.”

Prisons–United States–Statistics, Lists & Rankings
Source: Mother Jones
Special Report: Debt To Society
A package of articles on the prison population in the U.S. and its cost to the public
The “Incarceration Atlas” portion of the resource is full of statistics and rankings from all States.

Campaign Finance Reform–U.S.
Center for Responsive Politics “Campaign Finance Reform” Special Report
Background, links, lists, and more from this well-known compiler of campaign finance statistics.
Related Resource: Mojo 400 (Top 400, Individual, Campaign Donors, Searchable)

Education–News and Information
Current Awareness Tools
Source: Eisenhower National Clearinghouse
“Education Headlines”
A very useful compilation (updated daily) with links to news articles about education from U.S. sources.
NOTE: This service can also be delivered to you as a daily e-mail message.

New Technology
Web Search–Real Time
Competitive Intelligence Tools
Source: InternetNews.Com
“NetCurrents Scores Real-Time Technology Patent”
Very exciting! From the article, “Beverly Hills, Calif.’s NetCurrents Inc. Tuesday secured a patent for its real-time search application, a technology that enables monitoring of Internet messaging activity important to businesses for which up-to-date information is vital…A patent equals protection for NetCurrents to be sure, but to put how the real-time technology is crucial in better perspective, think about the effect that false information about public firms posted on online bulletin boards has affected the stock market. The victimized company has had to spend hours assuaging alarmed investors. With NetCurrents real-time technology, the truth can be put out across the Web much faster than in the past.”
See Also: Direct to the Full-Text of the Patent
See Also: Direct to the NetCurrents Site

Research Projects–Current Awareness Tools
Competitive Intelligence
Source: Business 2.0
“Hidden Treasure”
From the article, “A new category of software, call them “conversation trackers,” can assemble the big picture from thousands of customer comments in newsgroups, listservs, Web-based message boards, and big corporate email threads. These tools work better than keyword searches and a lot better than a human or even thousands of postings.”

New Technology
Info Industry–LexisNexis
Natural Language Searching
Source: Financial Times
Reed Elsevier/LexisNexis Invests in Natural Language Search Company, iPhrase
“The technology takes complex questions and tasks – such as a request to compare the salaries of chief executives of US public companies with sales of more than Dollars 50bn – and consults multiple data sources to produce a tailored response…Charles Schwab, the online and discount broker, is using the software, and CNet Networks, the online media group, has also signed up.
See Also: Read the Complete Press Release
See Also: Direct to the iPhrase site
See Also: More Materials Listed Under the 7/3/01 Header

Archives
Digital Preservation
Source: ABCNews.Com
“Fading Bits of History”
From the article, “Although there is considerable disagreement over the extent to which the historical record is in jeopardy � with many feeling it is quite secure � archivists and preservation officials agree there has been a change in the way we are recording history. And, they say, old ways of preserving that record need to be rethought.Information on paper could be stored in a static archive and checked occasionally for signs of decay, but digital information requires frequent conversion from old storage media, like computer disks and magnetic tapes, to newer ones.”
Thanks to G.T. and B.C. for the tip.

Census 2000–U.S.
Demographics–U.S.
Additional Summary File 1 (Detailed Demographic Info, by State) Now Available
This week:
Iowa
Kentucky
North Carolina
Washington

Full-Text Resource Shelf (5 Items)
—
Human Development–Worldwide
Source: United Nations
Human Development Report 2001:
Making New Technologies Work For Human Development
Note: The “Indicators” Database for Fast Access To Stats
—
Rail Safety–United Kingdom
Source: Health & Safety Executive
The Ladbroke Grove Train Inquiry
268 page .pdf
—
Food Consumption-Worldwide
Source: USDA
Changing Structure of Global Food Consumption and Trade
111 page .pdf
—-
Envrionment–Canada–Statistics
Source: Enviroment Canada
Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions 1990-1999
—-
Energy Consumption–United States–Statistics
Source: EIA
1999 Production and Consumption of Energy By State

Odds and Ends
*Transport Canada Now Offers Several Listservs to Alert You to New Documents, Speeches, etc. (Free)
—-
**The Chronicle of Higher Education Now Provides Selected Content For Mobile Devices (Palm, Pocket PC) and Other Wireless Devices
“Selected daily updates from The Chronicle, including coverage of information technology and distance education, as well as featured articles from our print edition and from the Career Network…”

Education–Database
Testing–Database
ERIC/AE Abstracts in Progress Database Now Available
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation
“The ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation (ERIC/AE) now offers an experimental database of abstracts of the most recent articles and papers on assessment, evaluation, research methods, and learning theory. The database is updated weekly and enables you to search for recent materials not yet posted to the ERIC database.”

Internet Usage–United States
Source: Wired
“Study: U.S. Loves, Fears Net”
A new study released by the Markle Foundation today. Here is a key quote from a Wired article reporting on the study. “The report found that 63 percent of Americans — and 83 percent of all Web users — have a positive view of the Internet. Among those polled, 45 percent said their dominant image of the Internet is that of a library, as opposed to other choices of comparison, like a shopping mall or banking and investment office.”

Info Industry–Dialog
Research Tools–Add-Ons
Hello to Dialog IQ
From the site, “The Dialog IQ application is an easy-to-use desktop search application…” It’s free to download and use. You do need to be a Dialog, DataStar, NewsLine or Profound customer.
See FAQ for Additional Details

Web Search–Google
Source: Business Week
“Google’s Successful Search”
From the article, “…Google, which handles 100 million Web searches everyday — including all of Yahoo!’s search queries — is zeroing in on profitability for this year’s third quarter. That’s a remarkable feat for a company that has raised just $25 million in one venture round and relies on Internet advertising for nearly half of its business. “Google’s doing the best job with search out there,” says Scott Gatz, Yahoo’s general manager of search and directory.”

Search Engines–Research
Researchers Tackle Search Engine “Information Overload”
From the release, “Researchers at Newcastle University have found a way of tackling a major world wide information retrieval problem – information overload. The team, in commercial partnership with the Newcastle upon Tyne-based NBS, have developed a search engine powered by complex techniques called ‘data mining’, which enables busy professionals to quickly find very specific information via a user friendly interface.The new search engine is being applied commercially for the first time and is being exclusively licensed to an electronic information service for construction industry professionals – architects, surveyors, contractors and engineers – the Construction Information Service (CIS). This is available in both online and CD-ROM formats on a subscription basis.”

Professional Reading–Web Search
Source: First Monday
“E-Commerce Web Queries: Excite and Ask Jeeves Study” by Amanda Spink and Okan Guner
From the abstract, “Web queries are a key process in e-commerce. Web queries are a primary means for translating people’s business product, service and information needs for e-commerce. This paper reports a study of business related queries submitted to the Excite and Ask Jeeves Web search services. We sampled a log of 10,000 Excite queries and 10,000 Ask Jeeves question format queries from 20 December 1999 to examine the business queries. Findings include: (1) business queries often include more search terms, are less modified, lead to fewer Web pages viewed, and include less advanced search features, than non-business queries; (2) company or product name queries were the most common form of business; and, (3) Ask Jeeves business queries in question form were largely limited to the format “Where can I buy …” or the request “I want to buy …”. The study provides insights into the beginnings of e-commerce Web searching.”

Web Search�WISEnut
Something New To Try
A General Web Search Engine: Query-Sensitive Searching With WISEnut
So, you want another general web search tool to try and make use of? WISEnut maybe worth some of your attention.
A Very Quick Overview
–The WISEnut spider creates the WISEnut database.
They do not purchase a database from a third party
–No Boolean, + and � signs can be used
–Searches 25 Languages
–Common Stopwords Searchable with A + in front of the term(s)
–Provides an �adult� content filter, �WISEwatch�
–Site clustering, number of results presented,
languages searched can be set by user
–Currency: I found several pages that were about 3 weeks old
–Results Ranking, what they claim, �The patent-pending WISErank relevancy ranking system is a revolutionary spam-proof way of using traditional text analysis and the structure of the Web to evaluate and rank pages. Its context-sensitive link analysis not only measures the relative importance of a given page, but also determines the relative relevancy of that page for a given query. In order to implement this complex and comprehensive measure of relevancy, WISEnut has developed ways to compute ranking algorithms significantly faster than the competition.”
–WISEguide: At the top of a results page WISEguide clusters similar results into �query-related� categories.
WISEnut was founded by one of the co-founders of MySimon, Yeogirl Yun.
Learn More
Direct to white paper that describes the WISEnut “ranking philosophy” in detail. It includes a discussion about how WISEnut is different than Google
Learn More: Who is Providing WISEnut with Venture Cap $$$

Web Search–Business
Source: Upside
“Search Engines Search for Profitability”
What does the following passage mean for those of us who use the web as a research tool? From the article, “Many in the search space are discovering that profitability may lie in the search results themselves. Bob Davis, former CEO of Lycos and now a partner with VC firm Highland Capital Partners, thinks that the pressure to develop sound business models may force people to look toward search as an increasingly important ingredient in revenue models. According to Davis, “It is not unreasonable for search services to charge for catalog listings. Search is a major distribution point on the Web, and we may see the day that, if you’re a business, and you want to show up in the search results, you have to pay. That’s the way the Yellow Pages do it.”

Info Industry–Moreover
Source: The Guardian
Nick Denton Becomes Chairman at Moreover.Com
From the article, “Nick Denton, one of Britain’s best known young dot.com entrepreneurs, is stepping down as chief executive of the Silicon Valley firm that he founded. Online information service Moreover.com has appointed “Valley veteran” Susan Atherton to take over the day-to-day running of the company from 34-year-old Denton. Ms Atherton previously held senior positions with Doubleclick and Oracle and has been hired for her experience of selling product to large corporate customers.”

Medical Journals
“Free Access to Medical Journals To Be Given to Poor Countries”
Source: Washington Post
Lead of story, “Six giant publishing houses will announce today that they will provide free electronic access to about 1,000 medical journals to medical schools, research laboratories and government health departments in poor countries.”

Information Industry–Dialog
Source: Online
“ONLINE Dialogs with Roy Martin, New CEO of Dialog”
Marydee Ojala, editor of Online, chats with Roy Martin about a wide variety of topics. From the article, “Symbolic perhaps is the new theme for the company. Martin smiles. “Yes, there’s a new tag line. It’s ‘Information to Change the World.’ We think that it emphasizes the importance of the information contained within Dialog. This is information that customers use to make major business decisions, to develop truly innovative products, to use in real research. This is rocket science. Dialog is not My Yahoo!”
See Also: Additional Content from the July issue of Online

Libraries–Web Directory
UNESCO’s Library Portal Reaches 6,000 Link Mark
If you haven’t visited and bookmarked this site make sure to take a look. From the news release, “After only six months of existence, the UNESCO Libraries Portal has hit the mark of 6000 links. The Portal is intended to enhance access to information related to library resources available on the World Wide Web as well as to issues affecting librarianship. The site provides links to websites of libraries and information centres around the world irrespective of their language of origin.”
Direct to the UNESCO Libraries Portal

Web Search–AllTheWeb
New Interface, Features Now Online
Last week Danny Sullivan in Search Engine Watch mentioned that some changes to AlltheWeb.Com were coming. These changes are NOW online and ready for you to try.
–The home page has received a makeover along with the search results page now providing direct links (where applicable) to related content via other AllTheWeb search indexes. This new feature is called the “side bar”. For example, a search on “James Taylor” includes a “side bar” with links to image and video content. Likewise, a search from the AllTheWeb Pictures database will also contain top ranked results from the ATW text database.
–AllTheWeb now allows searches to be limited (ie. words title, host name, domain, etc.) directly from the search box using special syntax.
–Gone from the home page is the pull-down box to limit your search to “all the words”, “any of the words”, or “the exact phrase”. In its location is a menu to limit your search to a specific language. The results page now contains a link to a “offensive content reduction” filter. AllTheWeb now provides “search tips” with “suggestions on how to improve your search”. These new features, along with several others, can be turned on and off via the search customization page.
–The ATW Help page has be overhauled.

Web Search–Teoma
Greg Notess Releases Review of Teoma
Super Searcher Greg Notess has added a review of the new engine Teoma to his essential Search Engine Showdown resource. He has also updated the Search Engine Features Chart with Teoma data.

Info Industry–Factiva
Source: EContent
“Factiva.com: The New Dow Jones/Reuters Synthesis”
From Mick O’Leary’s article, “This summer Factiva�formed from the merger of Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing�will succeed its famous parents.Why replace two of the greatest brands in information? According to Clare Hart, Factiva president and CEO, the question can be answered in one word: integration. Factiva offers a complete suite of products for integrating external information throughout the enterprise. Hart says integration is what today’s game is all about, “There is no doubt in my mind. Anyone who is not playing in the integration space is not going to be playing in the corporate marketplace. Companies want to give decision-making information to their employees when they need it; they don’t want people to have to go to multiple sites.”
See Also: Additional Content from the July EContent

Reference Tools–Dictionaries
Source: AP
Early Review of Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary, “Inconsistent Definitions”
From the article, “Definitions of some notable people are inconsistent, misleading or outright inaccurate:
–From George Washington to George W. Bush, presidents in the Microsoft dictionary also receive the label “statesman,” except for two: Nixon (”37th president of the United States”) and Zachary Taylor (”military leader and 12th president of the United States”). Franklin Pierce is not even labeled a president, just a statesman.
–Dick Cheney and Al Gore are both listed as “statesman and vice president of the United States.” But Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s vice president, is simply a “politician.”
–Paraguay’s Alfredo Stroessner is a “dictator.” Spain’s Francisco Franco is an “authoritarian leader.” Saddam Hussein and Augusto Pinochet are “national” leaders. Idi Amin is a “head of state.” And Joseph Stalin is a “statesman.”
–The entries for Hillary Rodham Clinton, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy and other presidential wives all note they were first ladies. But Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, is identified only as a “feminist.” “She wouldn’t have even understood that word,” says David McCullough, author of the best-selling biography “John Adams.”
Anne Soukhanov, the dictionary’s general editor, acknowledged a “glitch” in the editorial process. She said the definitions were shortened versions of entries in the Microsoft Encarta World English Dictionary, published in 1999, and that vital information was inadvertently left out. “It would have been much nicer if cross-checks had been made in individual categories like vice president,” she said. While Soukhanov defended the dictionary’s overall integrity, saying the mistakes were not “world-threatening,” a longtime analyst of the reference field was more troubled. “Consistency is an obvious hallmark of a good reference book,” said Ken Kister, author of the consumer guide Kister’s Best Dictionaries.”

Web Search–Google
Interesting and FUN, Google Zeitgeist
Various Google statistics, popular searches, trends, etc. Most interesting:
“Languages Used to Search Google”
“Top Searches Divided by Category”
“Top 5 Misspelled Queries”

Business–International–Lists and Rankings
Forbes International 500-2001

Professional Reading–Library Hi Tech
FREE Full-Text Access to Library Hi Tech Available Through Sunday, July 8th
Emerald, formerly MCB University Press, is offering free access (browse, read, print) to Library Hi Tech back to 1997.
MORE! Free Library Related Articles from Emerald
See Also: Library Link (another free service from Emerald)

Census 2000–United States
Demographics–United States
Source: EconData.Net
Here are a few reports based on Census numbers that might be of value.
1) Tables for Race and Ethnic Distributions in the United States
Source: Equal Opportunity Opportunity Commission
2) Census Notes from Fannie Mae
Source: Fannie Mae Foundation’s Census Notes
3) Statistical Information on Older Persons
Source: Administration on Aging
4) Census Issues
Source: Brookings Institution–Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy

Invisible Web
Coursey Tackles the Invisible Web
ZDNet columnist David Coursey with another column about the Invsible Web. I am thrilled to see that the “direct search” resource I compile is mentioned. Remember, I do my best to add new and newly discovered IW resources to this weblog.

Business–Sports
Web Compilation: Sports Business Resources
Compiled by Rodney Fort, a member of the Econonics Dept. faculty at Washington State University. If your looking for numbers involving the business of sports (college, pro, or stadiums) this is a great place to begin. Many of the specific numbers are available in a spreadsheet format that includes a full bibliographic citation. Scroll the left frame to get a sense of what is available. Very useful if you are looking for older data.

Full-Text Document Shelf
Source: National Intelligence Council
Transformation in Defense Markets and Industries: Implications for the Future of Warfare
From the report: “This volume documents research on twelve specific countries. The purpose of the research was to develop a basic understanding about how those countries are dealing internally with the issues associated with change in defense markets and industries.”
Country List:
Australia ||| China ||| France ||| Germany ||| India ||| Iran ||| Israel ||| Italy
Russia ||| Singapore ||| South Africa ||| Taiwan

Web Search–FirstGov
Source:GovExec
“FirstGov Web Portal Deluged With Citizen E-Mail”
It seems that people think FirstGov is more of an online reference service and not a directory/search resource. From the article, “Many citizens just don�t know where to go for answers to their questions about the federal government,� said [Deborah] Diaz [Deputy Associate Administrator of the Office of FirstGov]. The number of feedback e-mails has diminished, while the number of queries looking for responses has increased.�

Business-Worldwide–Lists and Rankings
Source: Business Week
Business Week Global 1000
Companies ranked by market capitalization from 21 countries.
Direct to Interactive List
Direct to Complete List (.pdf)
Direct to Complete List, by country(.pdf)

Web Directories–JoeAnt
Source: SearchDay
An Introduction to JoeAnt
A few weeks ago we included a link to JoeAnt, a new web directory. Today, Chris Sherman, our friend and co-author, provides us with a complete review.

Academic Libraries–Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL)
New Executive Director for ACRL
“The American Library Association is pleased to announce that, effective August 1, Mary Ellen Davis is the executive director of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). A veteran of the largest American Library Association (ALA) division, Davis replaces Althea Jenkins, who will join Florida State University staff as director of the University Libraries.”

Webliography–Computer Science
Source: Computers & Research Libraries
“Computer Science: A Guide to Selected Resources on the Internet”
Thanks to M.M. for the tip.

Cost of Living–World–Lists and Rankings
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
Worldwide Cost of Living Survey (Limited Content)
This press release includes a list of the world’s costliest cities (top 20).

Canadian Resource Shelf (3 Items)
Two New “Fact Sheets” From the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
*Protecting Your Personal Information
*Protecting Your Privacy on the Internet
–
Canadian Political Parties Submit 2000 Fiscal Period Returns
They will be searchable online at the beginning of August.

Smithsonian Institution–New Online Exhibit
Smithsonian Scrapbook: Letters, Diaries & Photographs from the Smithsonian Archives
From the site, “A look at interesting documents from the Smithsonian Archives collection including Mary Henry’s eyewitness account of the Civil War in the City of Washington, William H. Dall’s observations of Alaska in the 1860s, and letters from Solomon G. Brown, the first African American employee at the Smithsonian Institution.”

Future Events–Database
Web Calendars
New Service From Reuters: Kalends
This link takes you to the free consumer oriented Kalends.Com site (searachable) that features, general interest, business, holidays, and trade show events set to occur in the U.K. and elsewhere. I did note some U.S. material. Reuters is also marketing several fee-based Kalends products to the enterprise market. From the news release, “KALENDS has content agreements with a number of niche event information suppliers including FENS (political dates); TSNN (worldwide conferences information); NetEarnings (US company results); Dynamic Listings (UK entertainment events); and Whereonearth (providing geolocation information to pinpoint event locations).”
From a netimperative.com story, “The service makes use of more than 160 bureau diaries operated by Reuters about the world and includes information penned by the company�s journalists to provide up-to-the-minute details on its data service.”
See Also: WhatsOnWhen.Com

Invisible Web
Source: Time Europe
“Illuminating the Web”
From the article, “It’s not that Google, HotBot and other popular search engines are bad � in fact they’re better than ever and improving constantly � but the technology they employ is no match for the sheer speed and diversity of Web growth. Search engines rely mostly on crawlers, software robots that hop from site to site and from one URL (uniform resource locator, or Web address) to another, indexing the contents of pages as they go. For most pages, crawlers do a fine, if slow, job. But when they bump into sites where information is held inside a database, they grind to a halt.”

Web Search–Google
Source: Montreal Gazette
“The Search Engine That Could”
“Ten million different people use its site every month, the company says. On average, it processes 100 million searches a day (up from 60 million six months ago), via its own site as well as those of sites like Yahoo!, which pay Google to handle their Web searches.”
Thanks to I.S. for the news tip.

News Search–Moreover
Source: Time Europe
“A Master of Headline Grabbing”
From the article, “The average site is visited by the average search engine once every 15 days,” says [Nick] Denton [Moreover founder, CEO]. “And that’s not good enough if you’re trying to extract high-value, time-sensitive information.”

Web Search–FirstGov
Source: Federal Computer Week
New Search Technology On the Way For FirstGov
Let’s all hope they make a good choice. FirstGov as a keyword search tool has never lived up to the hype. From the article, “FirstGov has begun searching for a new search engine. General Services Administration officials, who run the governmentwide portal, are asking industry leaders, vendors and researchers to suggest “search service solutions” to power FirstGov in 2003 and perhaps earlier…Requirements include the GSA asking for an engine “that can crawl and index “unstructured government databases,” such as large databases of geographic or numeric information that are expected to become accessible via the Internet”. Some of this material currently resides on the Invisible Web.
Note to the FirstGov Decision Team: When you select a general engine that crawls this “specialized” data (many can crawl it), it will not mean a great deal. The tool you select must do more. Why? If the search interface does not provide the proper “specialized” access and limiting points for getting the data out, already large databases will become larger. Retrieving precise results for the specific data type will be difficult and access to the “structured” material will become even more of a challenge to retrieve.
See Also: Read FirstGov’s RFI from the Commerce Business Daily

Web Search–Legal
LawCrawler Now Powered By Google
We missed this one last week. Lawcrawler moves from using AltaVista to Google search technology. Remember, all Google limiting syntax is also available. So, to limit to only .pdf material try: .
Direct to LawCrawler
Direct to Additional LawCrawler Databases including Country Search
See Also: Read a review of the “new” LawCrawler from LLRX.com

Search Industry–iPhrase
Natural Language Search
Source: Boston Globe
Reed Elsevier Invests in iPhrase, A Natural Language Search Company
From the article, “iPhrase Technologies Inc., a local start-up developing a way to search Web sites and huge databases through plain English questions, is announcing a $25 million venture capital infusion today. iPhrase said the investment should cover its needs until it reaches or nears profitability. Besides the money, a significant part of the announcement is who the lead investor is: Reed Elsevier Group, the Anglo-Dutch publishing giant that owns the Lexis-Nexis law and news databases and is closing a deal to buy textbook publisher Harcourt General.”
Direct to the iPhrase Web Site
UPDATE: More Materials Listed Under the 7/11/01 Header

Census 2000–U.S.
Demographics–U.S.
Additional Summary File 1 (Detailed Demographic Info, by State) Now Available
Reports for:
Colorado
Maryland
New Mexico
North Dakota
Oregon
ALSO Online Today: Census (Population Counts) For Outlying U.S. Areas
U.S. Virgin Islands
Guam
American Samoa
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

Personal Computers–Help
Source: Consumers Union
New Web Resource From Consumer Reports:
What To Do With A Problem Computer
FREE ACCESS is provided to this resource with information on how to get manufacturers to fix computer problems in a rapid manner. Also, recall alerts, a directory of computer companies, and sample complaint letters.

Reference Tools–Encyclopedias
Source: Crain’s Chicago Business
Meet the New CEO of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ilan Yeshua
From the article, “As a first step [in returning the company to profitabilty], Mr. Yeshua is overhauling the print set, the company’s core business since 1768. This November, Britannica will release its first updated edition since 1998. And the firm plans to further beef up its publishing effort with a series of one- and two-volume reference books.

Reference Tools–Dictionaries
Source: Washington Post
Coming Soon: Dictionary Wars 1.0
The lead of the article, “When the 1,728-page Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary appears in bookstores next month, “it will start the Third World War of Dictionaries,” says its top American editor, Anne Soukhanov. “It will shake things up,” says Michael Agnes, editor in chief of Webster’s New World dictionaries.”

Web Search–Spiders
Search Demos
Try Some “Spider” Software on Your Computer
For those of you who like to demo new “stuff” here are a few interesting programs that you can test on your Windows machine. The software is provided by the AI Lab at the University of Arizona. I am going to try them and will report back.
1) The CI (Competitive Intelligence) Spider
Allows you to specify a list of pages to crawl and keyword search.
2)The Meta Spider
3)The Cancer Spider

Web Search–Google
Web Search–Training
Google Adds “Technology Overview” Material
Today, Google added a set of pages that provide an overview of how Google technology works. These pages are found on the press portion of the Google site but they may be useful to those of you who provide WWW search training
Overview Page
Google Search Features
Tips on Searching The WWW
Life of A Query (Chart)
Google Technology Highlights

Web Research Tools–NY Times Book Review
Tasini Decision
Pre-1997 Material Gone From NY Times Book Review Web Database
Pre-Tasini decision all reviews back to 1980 were available on the web for free. From the site, “To comply with a recent United States Supreme Court decision, we are limiting that search to the period from January 1, 1996 to the present. In the period prior to 1996, The Times typically did not have written agreements with freelance book reviewers to permit republishing reviews in electronic form.”
We were alerted to this news via the always useful, timely, and important resource, LISNews.

Information Industry–ProQuest
Digitization Projects
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
“A Project Seeks to Digitize Thousands of Early English Texts”
From the article, “Academic libraries are working with a major corporate partner, ProQuest Information and Learning, to create digital editions of 25,000 early English texts. A new database will hold fully searchable versions of works by Bacon, Galileo, Newton, and others, produced from 1475 to 1700.”

Web Databases–PubScience
Invisible Web
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
More on the Possible Elimination of PubScience
Lead of Story, “A Web site operated by the U.S. Energy Department that allows scientists to search journals for citations and abstracts in the physical sciences is in jeopardy because of a bill approved on Wednesday by the House of Representatives. The bill is accompanied by a report that recommends eliminating the service.”
See Also: “Current Science Group, Elsevier Science Offer New Science Services” (via InfoToday)

Events in The News–Milosevic Initial Appearance
International Criminal Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia
Milosevic Appearance To Be Heard Live on the Net (7/3/01)
The site linked above is to the media center page. It contains links to streaming media feeds (in English) as well as key documents, statements, and press releases.
Direct to Streaming Audio Page
Direct to ICTY Main Page

Education
More Useful Material from ERIC
“Journals on the Web-A Mini Guide”
“…list of websites that include either full text or tables of contents and abstracts for the journals that ERIC/ACVE indexes and abstracts in Current Index to Journals in Education [as of Summer 2001].”
“Government Initiatives Resources”
“…links to higher education resources published by, or under the auspices of, the federal government.”
Webliography: Fire Safety Resources

Higher Education–Russia–Directories
Source: IREX (International Research & Exchanges Board)
Guide to 100 Higher Educational Institutions in Russia
Full-Text available in .pdf. Over 200 pages.

Full-Text Document Shelf (2 Items)
Firearms–U.S.–Statistics
Source: BJS
Background Checks for Firearm Transfers, 2000
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Energy–U.S.
Source: EIA
Foreign Direct Investment in U.S. Energy in 1999

Searchable Database–Food Safety
Invisible Web
Source: USDA
New Database: Food Safety Research Database
“The searchable database provides information on nearly 500 food safety research projects dating from 1998 to the present including research done or funded by: USDA Agricultural Research Service; USDA Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service; the Food Safety Consortium (researchers from the University of Arkansas, Iowa State University, and Kansas State University); and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services� Food and Drug Administration.”
See Also: USDA Food Safety Information Office

Web Resource Reviews–Travel
Peter Jacso Takes A Look at A Couple of Travel Sites
In his July column, Peter reviews Travelocity and Expedia.

Web Search
Image Search
Source: ZDNet
“Porn Outsmarts Search Filters”
Article lead, “Search companies are increasingly turning to censorware to court G-rated customers such as corporations, schools and parents, but they’re still showing too much skin.” Thanks to GT for the tip.

Company Watch–BiblioMondo
Montreal Gazette
“The Global E-Library”
Key quotes from company CEO Todd Joron, “What BiblioMondo has recognized is that there are libraries in every city of every country in the world and historically they are the points of excellence within a community. They have all of the information. What we’ve done is taken that model, applied it to software and used those libraries as leverage points, turned them into digital points of presence.” Today, “if you use a search engine like Google or Yahoo!, you get about 200,000 hits and you’ll never get past the first 10 of the first page. As the Internet grows to a billion users, the number of Web sites becomes unmanageable. There have to be quality points of presence that people can go to. Libraries are the No. 1 source of quality information available.”

Salary Survey–Internet Related Jobs
Internet World Salary Survey 2001