Archive for December, 2001

8299147

Monday, December 31st, 2001

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources & Tools (3 Items)
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Federal Employees–Canada
Source: Treasury Board of Canada
Sources of Federal Employee Information 2001-2002
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Space–Images
Source: Space.Com
Coolest Space Science Images of 2001
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Films–United States–Lists & Rankings
National Film Registry 2001 Selections
See Also: National Film Registry Selections, 1989-2000

8278354

Sunday, December 30th, 2001

Information Industry–Year in Review
Source: Info Today NewsBreaks
“2001 News in Review”
Paula Hane, editor of Info Today’s NewsBreaks and contributing editor of Information Today, provides an excellent review of the major info industry news stories of 2001.
See Also: “2001 Looking Back, Looking Ahead” (Library Journal)

Search Terms–Lists & Rankings
Yahoo Most Popular Search Terms, Part 1, 2001
Yahoo Most Popular Search Terms, Part 2, 2001
AltaVista Europe, Top Search Terms, 2001

8259929

Saturday, December 29th, 2001

Legal Research
Academic Libraries
Two Interesting Articles from the Law Librarians in the New Millenium Newsletter
The Winter 2002 issue of this West Group newsletter for librarians has two articles that might be of interest.
1) “Class Discussion” (page 1)
Dan Dabney, senior director of Legal Product Research and Development at West discusses legal classification.
2) “Starting From Scratch: Tips on Building a Modern Academic Library Collection” (page 6)
Suggestions from Margaret Meaes Axtmann who helped build the collection at the University of St. Thomas law library.

U.S. Government–Electronic Records
Source: Federal Computer Week
“Electronic Records Baffle Agencies”
From the article, “A survey of more than 150 federal agencies and departments concludes that most agencies are still baffled by electronic records. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, most federal agencies create documents in electronic formats, but when preserving them as official records, print them on paper and put them into storage.”
See Also: The 12/19 posting contains a link to the full-text document discussed in this article.

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources & Tools (2 Items)
Books–Lists & Rankings
Source: Publishers Weekly
All-Time Bestselling Children’s Books
“A listing of hardcovers that have sold 750,000 copies and paperbacks that have topped the one million copy mark over the years.” The list currently contains 376 titles.

Health–Economic Issues
Source: WHO
Full-Text Report–Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development

8226472

Friday, December 28th, 2001

Legal Information–Worldwide
Legal Information–Hong Kong
New Prototype and Demo Now Available: World Legal Information Institute (Prototype)
and Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (Demo)
From the WLII site, “This is a prototype system that is intended to demonstrate the viability and functionality of a cooperative approach between the existing LIIs (Legal Information Institutes). The system currently combined access to all AustLII, BAILII, CanLII, PacLII and HKLII data as well as data provided by WITS in South Africa.”

Academic Libraries
Source: Business Week
A Tip o’ the Cap to Steven J. Bell of Philadelphia University
A letter to the editor by Steven J. Bell, Director of the Library at Philadelphia University appears in the 12/31/01 (domestic ed.) of Business Week. From the letter, “Librarians are tech-savvy, human search engines who are highly skilled at finding information on the Internet or teaching students how to use electronic databases effectively. Students who subscribe [to services like Questia] are probably paying for something they can get at their academic library as part of their tuition.” Bell was responding to a 12/10/01 article about Questia and other services.

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources & Tools (7 Items)
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Business–Canada–Lists & Rankings
Source: Report on Business Magazine
50 Best Companies to Work For In Canada

Climate–Global–Annual Review
Source: NCDC
Climate of 2001 – Annual Review, Significant U.S. and Global Events
See Also: Climate of 2001 – Annual Review, Preliminary Report

Population–United States
Source: U.S. Census
Current U.S. Population Estimates
“The nation has grown by 3.4 million people since April 1, 2000, increasing from 281.4 million counted in Census 2000 to 284.8 million as of July 1, 2001, according to estimates released today by the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau.”
Summary ||| Direct to Population Estimates

Internet Usage-United States
Religion–United States

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project
Full-Text Report: CyberFaith: How Americans Pursue Religion Online

Higher Education–Research–Statistics–United States
Source: NSF
Academic Research and Development Expenditures: [Early Release Tables] Fiscal Year 2000

Higher Education–Science–Statistics–United States
Source: NSF
Data Brief: “Growth Continued in 2000 in Graduate Enrollment in Science and Engineering Fields”

Grants–National Science Foundation–Guides
Source: National Science Foundation
NSF FY 2002 Guide to Programs

8202668

Thursday, December 27th, 2001

Online Databases–Directory
WebClarity Developing Database Registry
The registry began development at the end of October. From the site, “Individuals looking to access various types of resources can use the Resource Registry to search for specific databases of interest. A variety of searching and browsing options are available allowing users to quickly identify databases relevant to their needs. The Registry will then provide links allowing users to connect to the database by one or more methods including Web, Telnet and Z39.50/ISO23950 access.” “The Registry has been specifically designed to handle the complexities of describing Z39.50/ISO23950 resources. At the present time, the Registry contains several hundred entries describing these resources. It is currently comprised of Public and Academic library catalog databases from around the world.” Information about registering your databases is also available.
See Also: Read the Registry “White Paper”

U.S. Government Publications–Commerce Business Daily
Final Week: Commerce Business Daily To Cease Publication, Replaced With Database
In case you missed the news last May, the CBD (where the U.S. Government publishes many procurement annoucements) will cease publication after the 1/4/2001 issue. From the annoucement, “… effective January 4, 2002, the Department of Commerce will cease publication of the CBD through the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). Agencies should recognize FedBizOpps as the official source for all procurement information and notices to be published under 41 U.S.C. 416(a)(2)(B) and the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 637(e) and (k)). Other notices that would be published, such as notices of subcontracting opportunities (15 U.S.C. 637(k)) will also be made available to FedBizOpps.”
See Also: Direct to the FederalBizOpps Database

Professional Reading & Learning Shelf (2 Items)
1) “Next Generation Web Search: Setting Our Sites”
by Professor Marti A. Hearst University of California, Berkeley,
From IEEE Data Engineering Bulletin, Special issue on Next Generation Web Search, Luis Gravano (Ed.),
September 2000.
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2) “Designing Information Architecture for Search”
Also by Professor Hearst. These slides were used at a tutorial presented at the 2001, SIGIR (Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval, ACM) Conference.

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources & Tools (4 Items)

State Policy Issues–Annual Report
Source: E-Mail
Stateline.Org Makes 2001 State Policy Highlights Report Available
From the e-mail message, “State of the States 2001,” a 58-page soft cover book, also includes profiles of the two governors elected in November and lots of other information. If you haven’t already done so, reserve your free copy of this useful resource by emailing your name and POSTAL mailing address to managingeditor@stateline.org.”

Economics–Europe
Source: Financial Times
Special Section: “Countdown to E-Day”
Key reference resources include Euro and Changeover FAQs, Eurozone Map, Euro Glossary, Euro Chronology and a Key 2002 Dates List.

Census–United States
Demographics–United States
Source: U.S. Census
Census Begins Roll-Out of Summary File 2 Data
Today, D.C. and Vermont data becomes available.

Sports–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: The Sporting News
The Sportings News Power 100 (Most Powerful People in Sports)
2000 list also available

Popular Music–Lists & Rankings
Source: Billboard
Billboard Year-End Charts
Numerous charts. Note: Abridged versions are available for non-subscribers. For example, the non-subscribers get the top 100 of the top 200 album chart.

8188694

Tuesday, December 25th, 2001

Reference
“The Convenience Catastrophe”
Source: Library Journal
Here are two passages from Roy Tennant’s insightful, must read, column. Roy writes, “Anyone who has worked a reference desk has seen users pleased with a quick and mediocre answer when, with a bit more time and effort, they could get a better one. It’s called ’satisficing.’ It’s human nature to seek that which is ‘good enough’ rather than the best. For many, it’s a simple equation of effort vs. payback. At a ‘good enough’ point that can only be determined by a specific individual, it becomes too much trouble to reach the optimum for the perceived gain.” He continues, “So how do we fight this tendency?” “We must provide more information online about what our print collections hold, so that potential users of our holdings can more easily discover the treasures they contain. Converting our card catalogs into digital form was merely the beginning. A title, an author, and a few subject headings are often inadequate to determine if a particular book will be useful or not. We need to work cooperatively to provide much more information about our books, particularly nonfiction works.”

Monitoring the News–BBC Monitoring
Learn About: BBC Monitoring
A bit of background about the folks in Caversham. This short article appears in a recent Factiva publication.
See Also: BBC Monitoring Home Page
See Also: BBC Monitoring Country Profiles (Free)
See Also: BBC Monitoring Week Ahead Calendar (Free)

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources & Tools (2 Items)

Year in Review-2001
Source: InfoPlease.Com
InfoPlease.Com’s Year In Review 2001 Now Online
� Fast Fact, one-stop shop features several lists including:
� Major News Stories, Month By Month
� Major Supreme Court Decisions
� Deaths in 2001
� Disasters in 2001
� Earthquakes 2001
� Arts & Entertainment, Month By Month
� Major Sports Stories, Month By Month
� Much More

Grammar–English Language
Several Resources from AskOxford.Com
Better Writing, Classic Errors and Helpful Hints
Jargon Buster (Basic Grammar Terms Defined, Examples)

Farm Subsidies–Databases–United States
Environmental Working Group Farm Subsidy Database, 1996-2000
From the site, ” 1996, a federal judge agreed with a lawsuit brought by The Washington Post to allow public access to USDA subsidy payment records. That lawsuit made it possible for EWG to build the Farm Subsidy database by assembling computerized records of tens of millions of farm program checks written by the U.S. Department of Agriculture during calendar years 1996 through 2000. The Environmental Working Group obtained these records through a Freedom of Information Act request.”
See Also: More Background About the Database

8164834

Monday, December 24th, 2001

Real Estate Assessment–United States–Directories
Real Estate Assessor Offices
I’ve heard from several of you letting me know that the compilation of property assessor offices made available from the University of Virginia was no longer available at its old url. Good news, the resources is still online. Many of the sites linked on the page provide access to invisible web databases. Btw, the page is part of Portico, a wondeful collection of web-based reference tools. A must bookmark!

8142960

Sunday, December 23rd, 2001

Reference Tools–Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source: The Straits Times (Singapore)
“Britannica Bites Back”
From the article, “The world’s oldest encyclopaedia stopped printing in 1999 and saw sales plummet. Now the 32-volume print set is back, but can it survive in the Information Age?”

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources
Business–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: Forbes
Forbes Platinum 400, 2002
“All 400 of these corporations show the strategy, stamina and growth to be standouts among their peers.” Searchable, create customized lists.

8125071

Saturday, December 22nd, 2001

Web Search–Images
Source: RLG DigiNews
Image Search FAQ
Richard Entlich provides a solid overview of searching for images on the web. The article includes a brief review of image searching, details about many key search tools with several charts (perfect for training), and details on how image searching on the web works. The article also includes a study on how well these image retrieval tools work. Well done!

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources
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Canada–History
Source: National Library of Canada
“Exploring Canada Virtually”
From the site, “These two exciting new sites, which can be found www.nlc-bnc.ca/explorers and www.nlc-bnc.ca/explorers/kids are dedicated to the discovery and exploration of our great country. Their content is based primarily on the published accounts of a selection of explorers, including the Vikings, John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain and George Vancouver. Histories of the Northwest Passage, Acadia and the Arctic are all available at the click of a mouse.”

8095294

Friday, December 21st, 2001

Online Information–LexisNexis
Online Information–WhizBang

LexisNexis and WhizBang Form A Strategic Alliance
Some very exciting technology ready for utilization by LN. From the news release, “With this alliance, LexisNexis will employ WhizBang!’s Extraction Framework(tm) to deliver the most comprehensive, current information to users of the LexisNexis Advertising Red Books� and Directory of Corporate Affiliations(tm) (DCA).” “WhizBang! Labs extraction technology integrates proprietary software products that automatically find, classify and extract information from a wide variety of unstructured sources including corporate intranets, extranets, web pages and document databases. WhizBang!’s Extraction Framework combs these sources for targeted information that coincides with content contained within the Red Books and Directory of Corporate Affiliations databases, extracts the relevant data and drives it to refresh specific records.” WhizBang technology powers the FlipDog job database.
See Also: “WhizBang! joins LexisNexis Project” (via Deseret News)
See Also: Direct to WhizBang
See Also: WhizBang White Papers (Explanation of Technology)

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources (3 Items)
Energy–Statistics
Source: EIA
Annual Energy Outlook 2002 with Projections to 2020
See Also: Supplemental Tables To AEO 2002
See Also: Assumptions to the AEO 2002

Businesses–United States
Source: U.S. Census
Statistics of U.S. Businesses: 1999: All Industries
Use pull-down menu (top-right) for detailed state data.

Violence in the Workplace–United States–Statistics
Source: BJS
Violence in the Workplace, 1993-99
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text

8069105

Thursday, December 20th, 2001

Database of the Week
Online Journals
An Old Fave: jake (jointly administered knowledge environment)
Do you need to know what full-text database a particular journal is located? If so, give jake a spin. From the site, “jake is a reference source which makes finding, managing, and linking online journals and journal articles easier for students, researchers, and librarians. jake does this by managing metadata about online resources with a database union list, title authority control, and linking tools, as well as making it easy to customize for a specific library’s holdings.” Currently the database holds contents info for 195 databases. Btw, you can also download the complete holdings of a particular database directly into MARC or delimited text formats. In fact, most of jake can be modified as it’s freeware. Btw, for those of you who are jake regulars the new official url is: http://www.jake-db.org. Finally, you can find a beta of an alternative interface to jake from Simon Fraser University.

Web Search–Google
Google’s Year-End Zeitgeist Now Available
Lists and rankings of the most popular search terms and trends.
See Also: Ask Jeeves list of the Most Popular Questions of 2001

Digital Archiving
Source: RLG DigiNews
“Collaboration Between RLG and OCLC With Digital Archiving Initiatives”
Robin Dale from RLG and Meg Bellinger from OCLC discuss several cooperative initiatives.

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources (6 Items)

Careers and Occupations–United States
Source: BLS
New Edition Online: Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2003-03

Careers and Occupations–United States
Source: BLS
New Edition Online: Career Guide to Industries, 2002-03

Energy–United States–Directory
Source: EIA
Redesign, Energy Information Directory
From the EIA site, “…a web only product that includes the latest information on Government and non-Government organizations that provide public energy information. Included are information centers, technology centers, State energy offices and numerous trade associations with a concise and up-to-date listing of energy contacts and resources.”
See Also: Key World Energy Statistics, 2001 ed. (Source: IEA)

Poverty–United States
Source: U.S. Census
1998 Povery Estimates, By County
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text Report

Business Journals–Impact Factor–Lists & Rankings
Source ISI
Journals Ranked by Impact: Business
Top 10 for 2000, 1996-2000, 1981-2000.

Social Sciences–Citation Rates–Lists and Rankings
Source: ISI
Social Sciences (General): World’s Most-Cited Institutions, 1991-2001
Top 5

8037867

Wednesday, December 19th, 2001

Web Search–Ask Jeeves
Ask Jeeves Announces Most Popular Questions for 2001
What do the masses want to have answered?

News Tools–NewsNow
Google Adds Top News Headlines
Find headlines for top stories, updated hourly, from over 100 open-web news sources. Categories include World, US, Business, Entertainment, Technology and Sports. Another excellent news compilation resource is NewsNow. This site compiles stories from many open-web sources in hundreds of different catagories. You can find a list of categories via the pull-down menus on the right side of the page. New content is addded every five minutes. Open windows will auto refresh. For a “virtual news ticker” check out the NewsNow Live Feed which places all headlines on a single page that updates automatically. NewsNow is also keyword searchable.

Online Information–Hoover’s
Hoover’s Adds New Search Functionality To Subscription Product
From the annoucement, “The new search technology gives Hoover’s Online users rapid, comprehensive results from Hoover’s proprietary database, plus non-U.S. companies from Mergent, as well as company, subsidiary and branch locations covered by D&B. Hoover’s new search technology also paves the way for future enhancements, including additional advanced search fields and capabilities…Hoover’s new search technology allows Hoover’s Online users to search for companies using a number of criteria, including company name, ticker symbol, keyword, and D&B D-U-N-S Number.”

Document Delivery
“Article Economy”

Outsell/Infotrieve Place $ Value on “Article Economy”
A recently released survey from Outsell (commissioned by document delivery vendor Infotrieve) set the value of the “article economy” at 1.6 billion. From the news release, “The results of the survey of both corporate and academic librarians and end users show a growing demand for electronic delivery of journal articles using the Pay-Per-View model. Increases in print journal subscription prices, advances in online document delivery technology, and the growing sophistication of users and librarians account for this shift in emphasis toward document delivery, particularly electronic delivery…For the purposes of the study, Outsell defined the Article Economy as including published journal articles, self-published articles, papers from conference proceedings, and chapters from monographs and books. Document delivery was defined as including inter-library loan.”

Online Information–BioMed Central
Scholarly Publishing

Source: Managing Information
“Biomed Central Adopts Processing Charge for Articles”
From the article, “BioMed Central will introduce a processing charge for articles published in its online journals beginning on January 1 2002. The decision to introduce processing charges is apparently the result of a consultation process across the scientific community and with representatives of key funding bodies…BioMed Central believes that the payment of a small processing charge in return for immediate and permanent free access to published research will become a widely accepted and standard part of science funding policy. Preliminary discussions with funding bodies and research institutions suggest that payment of processing charges from research grants and infrastructure funding will be allowed. With this in mind, it has been decided that from January 1 2002 there will be a US$500 processing charge for any article accepted for publication in BMC journals.”
Update: More On This Topic from The Chronicle of Higher Education

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources (3 Items)

ERIC (Education Resource Information Clearinghouse)
ERIC Annual Report 2001

Government Records–United States
Source: NARA
Full-Text Report, Current Recordkeeping and Records Use Within the Federal Government
See Also: Report Also Available in PDF

E-Books
Source: JISC/DNER
Full-Text, “Shaping A Strategy for E-Books: An Issues Paper”
This September, 2001 report was written by Hazel Woodward and Louise Edwards.

8012107

Tuesday, December 18th, 2001

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources (3 Items)

Scholarly Publishing
Full-Text Article
Source: ARL Bimonthly Report 218 (October, 2001)
Beyond Core Journals and Licenses: The Paths to Reform Scientific Publishing
by Jean-Claude Gu�don, Universit� de Montr�al

Lawyers–United States–Directories and Databases
Source: LLRX.Com
“Finding Lawyers: Directories, Web Sites & State Bar Sources”
A comprehensive webliography. Impressive!

Forests–United States–Searchable Database
Source: U.S. Forest Service
U.S. Forest Service Image Database

7978319

Monday, December 17th, 2001

Web Search
Excite Results No Longer from Excite’s Own Database
After a few weeks of continuing to provide its own results, it appears that Excite.Com is now serving results from Overture’s paid-inclusion database (supplemented with Inktomi content). At the bottom the page is the option to try “Excite Metasearch” which provides Dopgpile results. The Excite directory now serves ODP (Open Directory Project) results. So, it looks as if the switchover has begun and time to say so long to the Excite crawled database. Results at other Excite sites may vary.
See Also: “Excite.com Spared from Extinction” (via SearchDay)
See Also: Excite UK to Shut Down

Archives–Canada
A New Project from the National Archives of Canada, “Accessible Archives”
From the site, “The National Archives of Canada has embarked on a new project�Accessible Archives�which looks ahead to the services we will be offering in the near future. Our objective is to serve Canadians better by making the holdings of the National Archives more accessible to them.”

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources (4 Items)
Information–Credibility
Web Credibility Project @ Stanford
From the site, Our goal is to understand what leads people to believe what they find on the Web. We hope this knowledge will enhance Web site design and promote future research on Web credibility.” Makre sure to take a look at this paper/study, “What Makes A Web Site Credible?”. It’s available in full-text. Thanks to Tom Mighell, editor of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, for pointing this one out.
See Also: Evaluating the Quality of Information on the Internet

Crime–United States
Source: FBI
Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January to June, 2001
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text

Government Benefits–Canada
New Web Site: Canada Benefits
“The new Canada Benefits Web site provides Canadians with access to government-wide information about financial assistance and entitlements programs for individuals.”

International Migration
Foreign Born Population–United States

Source: U.S. Census
New Full-Text Working Paper: Evaluating Components of International Migration: Estimates of the Foreign-Born Population by Migrant Status in 2000

7978002

Sunday, December 16th, 2001

New Search Technology–Audio Search
Source: Popular Mechanics
“Audio Search Engine Helps Reconstruct Holocaust History”
From the article, “Advances in the field of automatic video processing for search and retrieval helped Johns Hopkins University engineers develop this particular audio search engine. Based on speech recognition, the system will be used by the Shoah Foundation to make information in its archives of more than 51,000 video interviews more easily accessible…”We want to build a speech-recognition system that is good enough to recognize most of the words that a historian or educator might enter into the audio search engine,” says Bill Byrne, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins.”

Photo Archives–Bettman
Source: Business 2.0
If You Visit the Bettman Archive Make Sure To Wear A Coat!

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources
Calendars-2002
Space
Integrated NASA Launch Schedule
“This is a launch forecast of anticipated dates for the NASA Space Shuttle and NASA payloads on expendable vehicles.”
See Also: NASA Space Calendar

Early Web Search Engine Announcements

Saturday, December 15th, 2001

Web Search–History
Early Web Search Engine Announcements
Today is the 6th anniversary of AltaVista announcing the beginning of a public beta for the new search engine. To mark the occasion I’ve located early or first announcements for several search tools. These posts were found via the just completed Google Usenet archive.
Martijn Koster Annouces the Availability of Aliweb (11/30/93)
An Early Mention of JumpStation by Jonathon Fletcher (2/27/94)
First Mention of McBryan’s World Wide Web Worm in the Usenet Archive is this Technical Query (3/14/94)
Brian Pinkerton Announces the Availability of Webcrawler (6/11/94)
Steve Kirsch Announces Free Demos Of the Infoseek Search Engine (7/18/94)
Jerry Yang Alerts a Usenet group to the Yahoo Database (9/21/94)
Carnegie Mellon University Center for Machine Translation Announces Lycos (8/14/94)
UC Berkeley Announces Inktomi (9/26/95)
Introduction of Excite (9/27/95)
AltaVista Public Beta Press Release (12/15/95)
First Mention of Google on USENET (March 30, 1998)

See Also: How Things Can Change Department: Sergey Brin Asks for Help Finding a Low Airfare from SFO-BWI. (August 18, 1994)
A few week’s ago, GMSV reported on Google’s growing fleet of jets.

See Also: Tim Berners-Lee Introduces the World Wide Web (8/6/91)

Web Search–Google
Something New From Google, Searchable Catalogs
Another day and something new from Google, at least it seems that way. So far Google news always seem to good news for the searcher. This time Google introduces a beta of Google Catalogs. Here you can keyword search and view (images) of pages from over 600 catalogs. The catalogs are from many well-known retailers. Google will be more than happy to include your companies catalog. According to the site, “Inclusion in Google Catalog Search is currently free for publishers. There is no obligation and nothing you need to do other than provide Google with copies of your catalogs.” Related services for retailers are fee-based. Content can also be accessed via a directory with catalogs broken down into 11 top-level categories. An advanced interface allows you to limit to a catagory or to a specific catalog. This is one impressive and practical use of search technology.
Thanks to search engine guru Avi Rappaport for alerting us to this new Google beta.
Update: Learn More from Katie Dean’s Wired News Article

7919566

Friday, December 14th, 2001

Web Search–FirstGov
Source: Federal Computer Week
FirstGov Asks For Opinions
From the article, “The General Services Administration is turning to agency Webmasters for suggestions on how to improve the FirstGov governmentwide portal. Federal Webmasters received an e-mail request Dec. 13 to provide “suggestions and concerns with our search engine services” from the Office of FirstGov in GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy…The questions include how important it is for FirstGov to support document types other than HTML, Adobe Systems Inc.’s Portable Document Format and Microsoft Corp.’s Word, and how important it is to have access to reports on metrics, such as the frequency of search terms, frequency of access by link and average relevancy of selected links.

Web Search–AltaVista
A Few Comments From AltaVista
This interview which is only attributed to “AltaVista UK” is a quick read. The question about AV’s index being old does not seem to be answered. The rest of the interview focuses on using web search as a marketing tool and how AV hopes to start indexing “deep” web content. Like most things in the web search world only time will tell & actions speak louder than words.

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources (5 Items)

Glossary–Multi-Language
Internet Terms

Source: Translation Bureau, Canada
Panlatin Internet Glossary
From the site, “The work is a multilingual lexicon which contains the terms most frequently encountered in relation to the Internet. A list of 300 terms in English was drawn up to serve as the common base list for the project. The other participants in the Glossary project contributed the appropriate equivalents in their own languages, namely French, Catalan, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian.”

Glossary–English-French / French-English
E-Government
Source: Translation Bureau, Canada
Government On-Line (GOL) Glossary, 2nd edition
From the site, “This revised and expanded publication contains 3,075 entries culled from a large number of bilingual documents about Government On-Line and its many components, including technology infrastructure, privacy and computer security, business processes, people issues, communications and information management. The second edition of the Government On-Line Glossary includes approximately 450 new entries, 350 of which were taken from an in-house glossary prepared by a team of information technology experts. The additional 100 new entries were extracted from Industry Canada GOL documents or were based on the suggestions received following publication of the first edition. The glossary features terminology from a variety of fields, including informatics, telecommunications and the Internet; it is designed for anyone translating or writing documents about e-government.”

Glossary–English-French / French-English
Source: Translation Bureau, Canada
Glossary of Terms Pertaining to Disabled Persons
From the site, “The Glossary of Terms Pertaining to Disabled Persons contains some 1 800 entries. In this glossary the user will find not only a reflection of sociological change, but the names of programs, associations and organizations, as well as terms from such related fields as rehabilitation and technical aids.”

Biography–New Zealand
Dictionary of News Zealand Biography

From the site, “This website contains over 3,000 biographies of New Zealanders who have ‘made their mark’ on this country. It does not include people who are alive. This site (and the printed volumes) contains: the biographies of 3,049 people in 2,977 biographical essays & the biographies of 493 Maori people in 481 essays, translated into Maori from the English-language biographies.”

Leadership–Book Lists
Source: For Managers (Harvard Business School Publishing)
“Required Reading”
This link takes you to an executive summary of a Harvard Business Review, December 2001 article by Barbara Kellerman. “…a list of works that form an exception to the general rule that leadership is inseparable from context. The titles on this list apply as much to leadership in business as they do to politics, as much to leadership in China as they do to the United States, as much to leadership in the twenty-first century as to leadership in the sixteenth. In a field of study that is almost obsessively particular, these books are universal.” This executive summary contains the complete list.

7887885

Thursday, December 13th, 2001

Resource of the Week
Information Technology–News
TechNewsWorld.Com

What’s going on in the world of information technology? TechNewsWorld.Com, part of the Newsfactor News Network, compiles breaking technology news from numerous “open-web” tech news resources and places them onto a single page. Each page is updated with the latest content every five minutes. Material is also organized into various subjects including Computer Viruses, E-Commerce, Internet Piracy, Networking, and The Web. Selecting a link from a top-level page takes you to a summary of the article. Another click moves you directly to the full-text. The far-right side of the page provides a pull-down menu that sorts articles by country and time-posted. Material is also searchable via a box at the top of the page. Useful, informative, and a great time saver.

Web Search–Google
Google Groups and Stopword Searching

Nothing major, just something I came across while searching the Google Groups database. On Nov. 29th we mentioned that a search of Google’s web index would no longer force the searcher to place a + sign before each stopword. A simple example, “to be or not to be”. However, this new feature does not work with the Google Groups (Usenet archive) database. You will need to place a + sign before each stopword.

Web Search–WiseNut
WiseNut Licensed By Lycos Japan To Power Portal
One of the first licensing deals we’ve seen for Wisenut. According to the company this database of Japanese language content contains 78 million pages Might this signal that the primary Wisenut database is going to being updated very soon? We can only hope! Btw, AlltheWeb supplies the web page database to the Lycos.Com site.

Encyclopedias–Encyclopaedia Britannica
For Your “Don’t Forget Print” Folder, EB Publishes Revised Print Edition
From the annoucement, “Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. today announced that it has published a revised printing of its famous 32-volumeencyclopedia, the first revision of the printed set since 1998″ “Despite the benefits of electronic publishing, books remain a remarkably efficient platform for the storage and retrieval of information,” said Dale
Hoiberg, senior vice president and editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. “But more than that, books are a treasure, a vital part of our civilization. To behold the encyclopedia on the shelf or browse through an open volume are pleasures no other medium can provide.”

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources (7 Items)

SPECIAL UK/EUROPEAN EDITION
Business–United Kingdom–Lists & Rankings
Source: The Sunday Times
Fast Track 100: The Fastest-Growing Companies in Britain, 2001
Free Registration Required To Access
See Also, Fast Track 100, 2000

Electronic Commerce–European Union
Source: EU
EU Launches eLexPortal.Com
From the site, “eLexPortal.com provides current information about variations in legislative and regulatory eCommerce matters across the EU for non-specialist entrepreneurs and business people, in particular for SMEs, by: presenting eCommerce information relating to legislation and policy in a user-friendly manner; explaining eCommerce policy in the EU; and providing user-tailored answers about eCommerce legislation and regulatory policy throughout the European Union.”

Charities–England and Wales
Site Relaunch: Charities Commission for England and Wales
Of Special Note: Database of Registered Charities

Food Safety–United Kingdom
Site Update: Food Standards Agency Places Revamped Site Online
Also Available: E-Mail Alerts and Other Updates
—–
Population–World
Source: U.S. Census
An Aging World: 2001
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text (.pdf)

Information Technology Industry–Lists & Rankings
Source: Intelligent Enterprise
The Intelligent Enterprise Dozen (plus 48 Companies to Watch in 2002)
“Our annual editors’ choice of IT solution providers contributing the most to the development of intelligent enterprises.” Each entry includes short profile of company.

Information Technology Industry–Lists & Rankings
Source: Business Week
Update: The Info Tech 100
“…biggest, the fastest-growing, most profitable, or have the best returns”

7859146

Wednesday, December 12th, 2001

Congressional Research Service
A Selection of Recently Updated Web Accessible CRS Reports

Time for another short list of recently updated reports from CRS. These reports are available (full-text) on the web. Access to these and other reports are available from either the web site of Rep. Chris Shays OR Rep. Mark Green. Once on either of these pages, click and scroll to the appropriate report. All reports are pdf’s. Most of these reports will not be found using a general purpose search engine and cannot be linked to directly.
Listed in the Issue Briefs section:
IB10072 Endangered Species: Difficult Choices (Updated 12/6)
IB10012 Intelligence Issues for Congress (Updated 12/7)
Listed in the Short Reports section
RS20727 Energy Independence: Would It Free the United States From Oil Price Shocks? (Updated 11/17/01)
RS21075 Terrorism Insurance in the Post September 11 Marketplace (Updated 12/7/01)
Listed in the Long Reports section
98-45 Commemorative Observances: A Chronological List (Updated 11/8/01, Contains 2002 Info)
RL30516 Mergers and Consolidation Between Banking and Financial Services Firms: Trends and Prospects (Updated 11/17/01)

Web Search–Inktomi
Inktomi Adds New Search Capabilities, Coming Soon: Hotbot Europe
Inktomi, the search services company that supplies search “power” to many engines (MSN Search, Hotbot and portions of AOL Search) has added new technology to assist in identifying certain types of content. From the announcement, “Inktomi has incorporated new regional identification and blending technologies as well as enhanced language analysis into its Web search platform, providing geographic context to international search results.”
Web Search enhancements include:
Regional Identification: By examining the link structure of the Web, Inktomi has gathered contextual clues that identify content of interest to users in a particular region, enabling portals to provide a more relevant search experience by allowing the distinction between content from countries that share a language but do not share cultural commonalities.
Regional Blending: With regional blending, portals can now weight content of regional user interest more highly in the relevance calculation to provide more accurate results and a differentiated Web experience to users.
Enhanced Language Analysis: Inktomi’s Web search platform utilizes a native Unicode base to serve all languages, including Japanese and Chinese, out of a single database for enhanced relevance. Additionally, the search engine is now aware of the differences between the text in various languages for improved word breaking of queries.
Of course, only time will tell if this new functionality in the Inktomi algorithm will prove beneficial to searchers. Remember, each engine uses Inktomi in a different manner. This means that each Inktomi search partner not only has its own “chunk” or “flavor” of the entire Inktomi database but the ranking/relevancy algorithms are also different for each search partner. Greg Notess’s Inktomi choices are Hotbot and MSN Search.
MORE News: Coming VERY Soon, The Debut of Hotbot Europe! Stay Tuned!

Natural Language Searching–iPhrase
Learn More About iPhrase and Natural Language Searching
On Monday we mentioned a new natural language search feature using Yahoo Finance. The nlp technology is from iPhrase. Yesterday, iPhrase CEO Noam Ben-Ozer appeared on CNNfn. You can watch the interview online using Real Player or Windows Media Player.

Information Quality
Source: News.Com
First Time, Health Web Sites Awarded Accreditation
From the article, “Millions of Americans going to the Internet for health information got a little more guidance with the independent certification on Wednesday of 13 health-related Web sites. The American Accreditation HealthCare Commission, which certifies managed care organizations and other health care companies, said it was reviewing dozens of other sites as well. “The newly accredited sites are some of the nation’s largest and busiest health sites, including WebMD, WellMed, InteliHealth, the Health Insurance Association of America, Healthwise and Healthyroads,” said the commission, an independent and nonprofit group. You can find the complete list of accredited sites and 15 others that are “in-process” via the AAHC site.
See Also: The Virtual Chase Section on Evaluating Web Info Quality

Online Industry–LexisNexis
LN Does Deal With Knight Ridder

Bottom line: More content for LN. From the annoucement, “Through the relationship, Knight Ridder Digital is syndicating its content available to LexisNexis users; and LexisNexis is powering access to on-point information to 17 Knight Ridder newspapers in 28 markets.Twenty-eight full-text daily Knight Ridder publications from top media markets throughout the country now will be available to LexisNexis customers, many same-day or and within a day of publication, powered by Knight Ridder Digital. The offering includes major metropolitan papers such as The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, the Detroit Free Press, The Charlotte Observer, the Pioneer Press in St. Paul, MN., and The San Jose Mercury News.” Thanks to GT for the news tip.

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources (5 Items)

Public Utilities–Electric–United States
Source: EIA
Financial Statistics of Major U.S. Publicly Owned Electric Utilities
541 pages .pdf, includes several lists and rankings

Health–United States–2002 Events
Source: NHIC
2002 National Health Observances
Also available in .pdf
Also searchable by date via HealthFinder.Gov

Womens Health–United States–2002 Events
Source: NWHIC
Calendar of Women’s Health Events

Federal Holidays–United States–2002 Events
Source: Office of Personnel Management
Federal Holidays
Dates available through 2006

Scholarly Publishing
Updated: Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography
Version 40 of Charles Bailey’s bib contains over 1500 entries.

7827574

Tuesday, December 11th, 2001

Web Search–Google
Google Announces Web Document Index Increase, Google Groups Out of Beta, More

Quite a busy day for Google. Here’s a review.
1) Google Increases Total Number of Documents Available
Number now totals over 3 billion documents. This number includes not only includes 2 million web pages (html, pdf, and other formats, 25% of these docs are non-English language web pages) but also Usenet (Google Groups) postings and images (over 330 million).
2) Google Groups Now Out of Beta
Search Usenet postings back 20 years. May, 1981 to be precise.
3) News Searching With Google
Result sets will now include links, if available, to relevant news stories from selected web based news sources. Example: A search on “George Bush” returns two articles as of 12/11/01. I would not rely on Google as your primary news search tool.
4) Labeling of Recently Recrawled Content
For example, notice the “hit” for our blog. The url line now mentions the date the page was last refreshed in the Google database. Btw, Google does an impressive job of recrawling content however, do not assume that the search engine finds all New content from the site. Example, even though Google is recrawling the CNN site several times a week, do not assume they have found all new content. In this type of situation consider using a “site” search tool.
—-See Also: Chris Sherman has more on all of this Google news in his Search Day newsletter.
—-See Also: Perspective on Engine Size Numbers from Pandia
—-See Also: Wired News on Usenet group access via Google

Intranets
Source: Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox Newsletter
10 Best Intranet Designs of 2001
Nielsen provides a Top 10 list and a few overall trends. More is available in a fee-based report.

Libraries
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
It’s An Academic Library and a Public Library
From the article, “Over the weekend, Nova Southeastern University celebrated the opening of a five-story, 325,000-square-foot library with an unusual genesis: Half of the building’s $45-million construction cost was covered by Broward County, Fla., the county in which the university is located. The building will operate both as an academic facility and as a public library.”

Music–United Kingdom
Searchable Databases–United Kingdom

Cecille, A U.K. Music Resource Database Set, for November 2002 Debut
From the news release, “The website will be a one-stop-shop for information and will provide a profile of collections at institutional and collection-within collection level, detailing the scope and scale of materials held, access policies and contact details.”

New, Updated, & Newly Discovered Resources (4 Items)

Scientific Conferences–Databases
Invisible Web

worldmeet
Search for info on scientific meetings and conferences from around the world. Impressive!

Full-Text Report
Info Quality
Internet Filtering

Source: Kaiser Foundation
“Generation Rx.com: How Young People Use the Internet for Health Information”
This report also contains info on the use of filtering software.
See Also: Newsbytes Article About the Report

Budget–Canada
Source: Department of Finance
Canada Budget 2001

Capital Punishment–United States–Statistics
Source: BJS
Capital Punishment 2001
Summary ||| Full-Text (.pdf)
16 pages .pdf