Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents
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Employment–United Kingdom–Lists & Rankings
Source: The Sunday Times
100 Best Companies to Work For 2002
Guide to the “to the best employers in Britain.”

Events in the News–Middle East
Various Reports from Legislative Research Organizations
The following reports are available from the Congressional Research Service. To access these full-text reports (.pdf) head to this page from Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) or this page from Rep. Mark Green (R-WI). Then, select/click the appropriate category and scroll to the report. Here are a few selected new and/or recently updated reports.
CRS Issue Briefs
IB93087 Egypt-United States Relations
IB93033 Iran: Current Developments and U.S. Policy
IB85066 Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance
IB82008 Israeli-United States Relations
IB93085 Jordan: U.S. Relations and Bilateral Issues
IB89118 Lebanon
IB93109 Libya
IB91137 Middle East Peace Talks
IB92052 Palestinians and Middle East Peace: Issues for the United States
IB93113 Saudi Arabia: Current Issues and U.S. Relations
IB92075 Syria: U.S. Relations and Bilateral Issues
The following Research Papers are available (.pdf) from the House of Commons Library (U.K.)
The Middle East Crisis: Camp David, the ‘Al-Aqsa Intifada’ and the Prospects for the Peace Process
Published 1/2001
Developments in the Middle East Peace Process 1991-2000
Published 1/2001
The following Materials are available from the Parliamentary Library (Australia)
Israel and the Palestinians: Endless Blood and Retribution?
Published 3/2002, PDF Also Available
Middle East Crisis: Losing Control?
Published 12/2000, PDF Also Available

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items)
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Business–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: Forbes
Forbes 500, 2002
“…34th annual 500s directory is a report card on the 2001 financial performance of America’s biggest corporations.”
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Major League Baseball–Lists & Rankings
Source: Forbes
Current Major League Baseball Owners
Player Costs by Team, 2001
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Health
New Additions: Medlineplus Webliographies
Cloning
Folic Acid
Heart Diseases–Prevention
Preventing Disease and Staying Healthy
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Police–United States–Statistics
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics
Full-Text Document: Characteristics of Drivers Stopped by Police, 1999

Web Search–Teoma
Source: ComputerWire
“Teoma Ready For Relaunch, Wants to Be Google-Beater”
This article discusses the upcoming “relaunch of Teoma”. I’ve had an opportunity to see and demo the new product and continue to be impresses. I’ll have more to say soon after the relaunch next week. Btw, when you have a spare moment make sure to read this article from a 1999 issue of Scientific American. It does an excellent job explaning several of the many of the concepts Teoma is utilizing.

Economics–United Kingdom–Chronologies
Business News–International–Chronologies
Source: Biz/ed
Chronolgy: The UK Economy – The Past Forty Years
From the site, “…a brief summary of key economic events in each of the years from 1955 to 1979.”
See Also: This page of chronologies (keyword searchable) from Biz/Ed is another excellent source. The page is home to both U.K. and International business events. The 2002 chronology was updated last week.

Web Resource of the Week
SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) Codes Database from D&B, 8 Digit Capability!
A couple of weeks ago we noted a business directory from D&B. It’s part of a fee-based service but using it to find phone numbers and addresses is free. In many cases this dbase also offers some value added info like top executive names and headquarter identification. This week, another high use database, D&B’s SIC Search providing SIC Codes to the 8 digit level! It’s searchable by either keywords or SIC code. Also available (free) to browse or download are tables of 4 digit SIC codes.

The Internet Archive–Internet Filtering
Source: Library Journal
“Internet Filters Block Wayback Machine”
From the article, The vast Wayback Machine, an ingenious service to Internet users, provides snapshots of past iterations of current web sites as well as sites that no longer exist. However, as activist Seth Finkelstein discovered, various Internet filter programs (or, as some call it, “censorware”) block access to the archive.”
See Also: Direct to Seth Finkelstein’s Investigation

Web Search–Google
Source: Newsbytes
“Google Turns Away Robots From Its Front Door”
Comment: This Newbytes article (linked above) contains information that is most likely old news for many of you. Webmasters and page creators have used the method described in this article to block spiders from crawling/indexing a site or a specific portion of a site for many years. We often refer to this content as the “opaque web”, material that is technically crawlable, but for one or more reasons (ie. the webmaster decides to have it excluded by using the robots.txt protocol) is not accessible via a general-purpose search engine. Numerous other reasons exist to make material not accessible via a general purpose engine. Many of these illustrate the need to make use of specialized search services. More on this topic later. In some cases you can view the robots.txt file itself and find out what content is not being crawled by entering the web page address and then asking to see the file (http://www..com/robots.txt).
Here are a few examples:
Washington Post
This robots.txt file includes a complete block to the spider for the Internet Archive.
Environmental Protection Agency
London School of Economics
Material found in the images directory is not to be crawled.
See Also: “Google’s Unidexed URL’s (via Search Engine Showdown)

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents
New/Updated Reports from the Congressional Research Service
It’s time for another look at a selection of new and or updated reports from the CRS. To access these full-text reports(.pdf) head to this page from Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) or this page from Rep. Mark Green (R-WI). Then, select/click the appropriate category and scroll to the report. Here are a few selected new and/or recently updated reports.
Issue Briefs
IB93056 Bosnia: U.S. Military Operations (Updated 3/5/02)
IB10045 Broadband Internet Access: Background and Issues (Updated 3/4/02)
IB82008 Israeli-United States Relations (Updated 3/19/02)
IB92052 Palestinians and Middle East Peace: Issues for the United States (Updated 3/19/02)
IB92089 Russia (Updated 3/6/02)
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Short Reports
RS21120 Auditing and Its Regulators: Proposals for Reform after Enron (Updated 3/19/02)
RS21136 Government Spending or Tax Reduction: Which Might Add More Stimulus to the Economy? (Updated 3/13/02)
RS21142 Status of Trade Legislation in the 107th Congress (Updated 3/13/02)
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Long Reports
RL30329 Current Economic Conditions and Selected Forecasts (Updated 3/21/02)
RL30052 Telephone Bills: Charges on Local Telephone Bills (Updated 3/13/02)
See Also: A New Research Report from the Parliamentartary Library, House of Commons, Australia
“Terrorism and The Law in Australia”
“Terrorism and The Law in Australia: Supporting Materials”

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents
E-Learning
Source: Financial Times
Full-Text, FT Survey: Understanding E-Learning

One Year Ago in the VAS&ND
Newspapers–Online
Source: New York Times
The New York Times Launches Site For College Students and Faculty
“College Times” offers several features including a “Yahoo like” directory of news content and an e-mail alerting service. You will need to be a registered NYT user to access the full content.

Hello from D.C.

Professional Reading Shelf
The March issue of Information Technology and Libraries is Available Online
This is a special issue focusing on open source software. All articles are available full-text on the web. Here are the titles of the feature articles.
“Open Source Software: A History”
“Possibilities for Open Source Software in Libraries”
“The Open Source ILS: Still Only a Distant Possibility”
“MARC It Your Way: MARC.pm”
“The EOR Toolkit: An Open Source Solution for RDF Metadata”
“Open Source, Open Standards”

Natural Language Processing–Experimental Projects
Summarization Software
Prototype Demo: NewsInEssence
In early February we highlighted an article about NewsBlaster, an news summarization tool, using “open web” content. The software is being developed at Columbia University. Today, word of a similar project from the Computational Linguistics and Information Retrieval Department at the Unversity of Michigan. The service is described as a NewsInEssence “prototype system for finding and summarizing multiple news articles on the web.” You can learn more about the components of the prototype by visiting this page.
UPDATE (3/28): New York Times Story About NewsBlaster

Web Search–Google
Source: International Herald Tribune
Interview With Chairman and CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents
Canadian Culture
New Web Compilation: CultureCanada.GC.CA
From the site, “…your window to the best Web sites about Canadian culture, heritage, sports and recreation.”

Hello from San Francisco, Calfornia!

Digitization Projects–U.S. Department of Defense
Source: Federal Computer Week
“DOD Digitizes Documents”
From the article, “As part of a new contract for declassification services, the Pentagon is creating an electronic catalog of newly available documents, making the historical record more accessible for future users.”…”Exactly where the digital files reside and what they will be used for has yet to be determined, said Bob Storer, chief of the declassification historical research branch for Washington Headquarters Services, which serves OSD.”

News Brief
Public Libraries–Internet Filtering
Library Filtering Trial Gets Underway in Philly (Multnomah County Public Library v. United States)
1) Update via The Oregonian
2) Update via Wired News

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items)
Energy–Global–Statistics
Source: EIA
New Edition: International Energy Outlook 2002
Highlights ||| Full-Text Document (pdf)
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Aviation–United States–Statistics
Source: NTSB
Aviation Accident Statistics, 2001
Summary ||| Direct To Tables (also Available as Spreadsheets)
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Business–Best Practices
Source: GAO
Executive Guide: Best Practices in Achieving Consistent, Accurate Physical Counts of Inventory and Related Property

Machine-Translation–Internet
Source: The Economist
“Tongues of the Web”
A brief history of machine translation along with comments on where mt is headed.
See Also: SYSTRANet
Free! A great set of machine translation tools for those of you who want/need to use mt. Over 35 language pairs available. Specialized, technical dictionaries for more precise translations are available. SYSTRAN powers the AltaVista BabelFish service.

Online Information Industry–True Query
Source: Information Today NewsBreaks
“True Query Launches Service for IT Market”
Paula Hane writes, “A newly formed company has taken on the task of providing information about technology products, markets, people, and companies to information technology (IT) knowledge workers. True Query, Inc. (http://www.truequery.net) has announced the availability of its namesake product, True Query, an online subscription service that provides the full text of articles from more than 60 technology publications produced by major IT publishers such as IDG, CMP Media, Cahners Business Information, and ZD Media.” “Although True Query is designed to fill the void left when eShaman.com (the former ComputerSelectWeb) went under last fall, Carpenter said the service has been designed from scratch and that his company has no connection with the defunct Shaman Corp.”
Direct to True Query

Web Tools–NoodleBib
NoodleBib
NoodleBib, one of my favorite web tools and part of the NoodleTools suite of servies, will be going to a fee-based model very soon. This is according to a note on the NoodleBib web site. The message includes this statement, “We have had to temporarily take NoodleBib offline, after our Web site host informed us on March 22nd that we are overloading their servers due to the amount of traffic that NoodleBib is now generating (over 41 GB per month). Within the next week, NoodleTools will begin monthly subscription access (subscription rates not yet finalized) to all tools on the site.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with NoodleBibs, this service allows you to build an MLA style bibliography by completing a series of web-based templates. When finished, the resulting bib can be easliy imported into a Word document. Good news, NoodleBib is developing an APA bibliography service.
UPDATE: 3/27 New Info on NoodleBib Pricing

Search Tools–Vivisimo
Source: Info Today NewsBreaks
“Viv�simo Clustering Chosen to Enhance Searching at Institute of Physics Publishing Site”
From Barbara Quint’s article, “The Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP; http://www.iop.org), a U.K.-based scholarly society publisher with a record of innovation in electronic publishing, has selected Viv�simo (http://vivisimo.com), a Pittsburgh-based advanced search engine company, to enhance its Electronic Journals service. Viv�simo runs a highly acclaimed Web metasearch engine, but it also markets its software to publishers and other data-hungry environments.”
Direct to the Vivisimo Web Search Demo

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents
Travel–Health Information
Source: CDC
Update, New Interactive Site: Health Information for International Travel (the “Yellow Book”)
From the site, “Health Information for International Travel (the “Yellow Book”) is published every two years by CDC as a reference for those who advise international travelers of health risks. The Yellow Book is written primarily for health care providers, although others might find it useful.
See Also: Direct to the “Yellow Book”
See Also: Create/View Customized Versions of the Data
See Also: Download the Full-Text of the Yellow Book (.pdf)

Professional Reading Shelf
Source: Digital Library Federation
“How and Why Are Libraries Changing?”
A draft of a white paper by Denise Troll. Troll is a Distinguished Fellow at the DLF and the Assistant University Librarian, Library Information Technology, Carnegie Mellon.

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents
Public Records–Real Estate–United States
Compilation: NETRonline Public Record Directory (Real Estate)
1-2 click access to a national directory of assessor offices, state web sites, etc. If online info is not available for a specific county/parrish phone number and address is provided. This site also provides a link to a handy ready-reference database to determine the county/parrish location of a particular city/town.
See Also: PORTICO (via Univeristy of Virginia)

Web Search–Google
First Tweak of Google News Beta
Google has made a welcome addition to their recently launched news engine. Results can now be sorted by relevance (default) or by date with the most recent articles appearing at the top of the results list. Time is determined by the time the article was crawled and then by date. The links to toggle this feature are located directly below the red bar on the right side of the page.
Examples:
1) A search for the term Enron, sorted by relevance
2) A search for the term Enron, sorted by date

And More News From the GooglePlex…

Distributed Computing
Web Search–Google
Google Toolbar
Source: ZD Net
“Can Google’s Toolbar Unlock Genes?”
From the article, Google has begun an experiment that could turn its modest toolbar software into a supercomputer to tackle scientific problems such as untangling genetic codes.” “The main motivations were to try to leverage Google’s expertise with large computer systems and to try to give something back to science,” said Susan Wojcicki, a Google product management director and the head of the Google Compute project.Google co-founder Sergey Brin initiated the project, Wojcicki said, and people started trying the software two weeks ago. An option on Google’s toolbar lets the participants in the project download the necessary software to their computer. Google is considering offering the program to a larger audience, Wojcicki added.”
Note: The Google Toolbar is available to all Windows based IE users. However, the program described in the article is not available to the general public at this time. Stay tuned!

Professional Reading Shelf
Source: Journal of Electronic Publishing
“The Indexing of Scholarly Journals: Tipping Point for Publishing Reform?”
From the journal web site, “John Willinsky and Larry Wolfson say content management is more than just writing and publishing works electronically (or correcting errors as they arise). It involves making the work accessible. They propose a free on-line indexing service that would help guarantee that all content is easy to reach.” This article is from the December, 2001 (Vol. 7 No. 2) issue.

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents
Canadian Government
Site Launch: Government of Canada News Room
This new service culls news releases from various Government of Canada departments and agencies. The “today’s news” page will automatically refresh every 5 minutes. Other sections of the site include, “News by Departments and Agencies” and Photographs. A search engine is also available.

News Briefs
“ACLU Takes Aim at Library Filtering Law” (via PC World)
Case will be argued before a three-judge panel in Philadelphia beginning on Monday. The official case name is Multnomah County Public Library v. United States.
See Also: Trial Schedule and Witness Bios
See Also: Children’s Internet Protection Act (via Multnomah County Public Library)
See Also: Additional Resources via ACLU site

Web Resource of the Week
ILLWeb
Mary Hollerich of the Pritzker Law Library at Northwestern Univeristy in Chicago has compiled one “must have” resource. From document suppliers to ILL Codes and Guidelines this compilation has it all. Make sure to check out the lengthy list of web accessible verification tools.

U.S. Government Information
Source: Washington Times
“Web Sites Told to Delete Data”
From the article, “The White House yesterday ordered all federal agencies to scrub their Web sites of sensitive information on weapons of mass destruction and other data that might be useful to terrorists, The Washington Times has learned…Late yesterday afternoon, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card sent a memo to the heads of all agencies and executive departments ordering an “immediate re-examination” of all public documents. The officials were told to report their findings within 90 days to the Office of Homeland Security.”You and your department or agency have an obligation to safeguard government records regarding weapons of mass destruction,” Mr. Card wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Times.
See Also: “White House Orders Agencies To Purge Data From Web Sites” (Source Washtech.Com)

Web Search–Google
First Amendment Issues
Source: ZDNet UK
“Cult Forces Google to Remove Critical Links”
From the article, “The Church of Scientology is using the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act to remove links to a critical Web site from the Google search engine.” “The move could have huge implications for other Web sites, particularly those that criticise large organisations. The Church of Scientology asked Google to remove the links under a controversial US law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).”
UPDATE (3/22/02) “Google Restores Scientology Links”

Web Search–Yahoo
Yahoo Now Cataloging Selected PDF Material
Yahoo is now adding direct links to selected .pdf files. PDF material can be found in the “web site” category either by searching or browsing the Yahoo directory. Entries are labeled as .pdf files. Yahoo is also labeling material returned as “web page matches”, powered by Google, with an indicator as to filetype (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.).
Thanks to our friend C.S. for the news tip.

Information Retrieval–United States–Patents
A Selection of Recently Awarded Search and Information Retrieval Patents by the USPTO
Method and Apparatus for Retrieving Documents Based on Information Other than Document Content
(Assignee: Inktomi, No. 6,360,215)
Method and System for Suggesting Related Documents
(Assignee: Fuji Xerox/Xerox, No. 6,356,922)
Method for Interactively Creating an Information Database Including Preferred Information Elements, Such as Preferred-Authority, World Wide Web Pages
(Assignee: IBM, No.6,356,899)
Method and Device for Classification Using Iterative Information Retrieval Techniques
(Assignee: Verizon Laboratories, No. 6,353,825)
System and Method for Associating an Extensible Set of Data with Documents Downloaded by a Web Crawler
(Assignee: AltaVista, No. 6,351,755)
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Law Librarians
Source: AALL Spectrum via Law.Com
“How Goes the Law Librarian Job Market?”
From the article, ” The law librarian job market doesn’t seem to be consistent with the rest of the legal profession. Contrary to the stream of recession-related attorney layoffs and pay cuts, job openings and higher salaries abound in academic, private and government law libraries.”

Info Industry News Briefs
Compton’s Encyclopedia Returns to Encyclopaedia Britannica
EB Launches New Product for Schools and Libraries, Britannica Online School Edition

ONE YEAR AGO in the VAS&ND
Electronic Journals–Databases–Australia
National Library of Australia Launches Australian Journals OnLine (AJOL)
From the site, “AJOL is the National Library of Australia’s database of Australian electronic journals, magazines, webzines, newsletters and e-mail fanzines. The database provides full details and access to over 1700 titles that include local and overseas works with Australian content, authorship and/or emphasis as well as entries for sites which advertise or promote Australian journals.”

Online Reference Tools–Oxford University Press
OUP Begins Roll Out of Oxford Reference Online: The Core Collection (Fee-Based)
First mentioned on the VAS&ND back in November, the OUP began releasing its new online reference database today. According to an article in Web User, the first release contains over 1.5 million entries from over 100 Oxford reference books. The article also says that by the end of the decade the database could contains over 130 million entries. All material is fully searchable. We will have more on this new product very soon.
See Also: Browse the Complete Title List
See Also: Take An Online Tour
See Also: News Release

Archiving Electronic Resources–United Kingdom
“Publishers Support Voluntary Scheme to Save Electronic Publications for the Future”
From a British Library news release, “Over 100 publishers have signed up to a voluntary scheme for the deposit of electronic publications, the British Library announced. More than 800 monographs and 850 journals (or over 13,000 separate issues) have been archived for the future as a result of the scheme.Set up in January 2000, the voluntary code of practice between the publishing industry and the six legal deposit libraries aims to ensure that electronic publications are preserved, and their content made accessible for the long-term. Since that date non-print publications in microform (eg microfilm) and offline electronic media (i.e. electronic publications issued on physically separate digital media, such as CD-ROMs, DVDs and magnetic disks) have been added to the national published archive.”

Scholarly Publishing
Source: Free Pint
“Evolution or Revolution: The Future of Scholarly Publishing”
This article was written by Paul Harwood. He is Regional Director for Swets Blackwell and “responsible for the company’s business in the UK and Ireland”.

Business Search (Yellow Pages)–United States
Business Search (Yellow Pages)–Canada
Switchboard.Com Announces Search Enhancements
Improvements include:
*Wildcard Searching Using the Asterisk
*Find Keywords Anywhere In The Business Name
*Sort By Business, Distance
Switchboard.Com is powered by data from infoUSA.Com.
Demo the new Switchboard.Com Engine

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items)
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3 New Reports From the Eurostat “Statistics in Focus” Series
Information Technology–European Union–Statistics
Source: Eurostat
Full-Text Report: Internet and Mobile Phone Usage in the EU: The Upward Trend Continues in 2001
8 pages .pdf, From the “Statistics in Focus” series.
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R&D–European Union–Statistics
Source Eurostat
Full-Text Report: R&D Expenditure and Personnel in European Regions 1997-99
8 pages .pdf
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Patents–European Union–Statistics
Source: Eurostat
Full-Text Report: Patent Activities in the EU: Towards High Tech Patenting 1990 to 2000
8 pages .pdf
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Hacking–Canada
Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Full-Text Report (Now Available on Web): Hackers: A Canadian Police Perspective
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Stories in the News–Arthur Andersen
Accounting Industry–United States
Source: Forbes
“The Andersen Defection Directory”
Clients lost since 1/1/2002.

Digital Archive Projects–United Kingdom
Source: The Guardian
“British Library Begins Website Archive”
From the article, Stephen Bury, the head of European and American collections at the [British] library, said there is a need for an objective, trusted archive that will still be around in 200 years. Mr Bury said that without the archive, important aspects of British culture will disappear as websites change. He sited an art project in which a London taxi became a roving canvas. The taxi has ceased to do its rounds, but the project is preserved – for now – at cabgallery.com. However future generations would lose access to the project if it is not archived.”
See Also: The Digital Preservation Coalition

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items)
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Employment Outlook–United States
Source: Occupational Outlook Quarterly
Full-Text Article, Table: “The 2000-10 Job Outlook in Brief”
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European Culture
Source: EU
New Resource: European Culture Portal
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Geographical Data–Canada
Source: Statistics Canada
Now Available: Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) 2001
Available on the web or for purchase. From the announcement, “The 2001 SGC is organized into two volumes. Volume I, The Classification, contains tables of SGC units with their names and codes, tables of related standard areas, an alphabetical index of place names, and lists of changes that have affected names and codes of municipalities since January 2, 1996. Volume II, Reference maps, shows the locations and boundaries of the geographical areas in the classification. These maps help clients relate statistical data to the corresponding geographical areas.
Direct to Volume 1 ||| Direct to Volume 2

Professional Reading Shelf
The March Issue of Digital Libraries is Now Online

Public Access to Information Post 9/11
Environmental Information–United States
Source: OMB Watch
“Access to U.S. Government Information Post September 11th”
This article mentions a recent change in availalibilty to Envirofacts, a comprehensive set of databases from the EPA. From the article, “In March 2002 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will no longer allow direct access to the Envirofacts databases. In an email to Direct Connect Users, EPA stated that “As part of our continuing efforts to respond to Homeland Security issues . . . starting April 1, 2002, Direct Connect access will no longer be available to the general public. Direct Connect access to Envirofacts will only be available to U.S. EPA employees, U.S. EPA Contractors, the Military, Federal Government, and State Agency employees.” Limited and less flexible access to Envirofacts databases will continue to be available to the public via the Envirofacts website.” This site also provides a comprehensive list of other changes to government databases since 9/11. Thanks to G.T. for the news tip.

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items)
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Reference Tools–Dictionaries
New: Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary Now Available Online (Fee-Based)
An individual subscription costs $29.95 a year or $4.95 a month.
Direct to the M-W Unabridged Dictionary
See Also: Direct to the M-W Collegiate Dictionary/Thesaurus (Free)
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Canada–Population
Canadian Census 2001
Source: Statistics Canada
Full-Text Report: “A Profile of the Canadian Population: Where We Live”
This is the first data coming from the 2001 Census.
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Digital Archives
The September 11 Digital Archive
From the site, “Funded by a major grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and organized by the American Social History Project at the City University of New York Graduate Center and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, the Digital Archive will contribute to the on-going effort by historians and archivists to record and preserve the record of 9/11.”
See Also: September 11th Archive (via Internet Archive)
See Also: Archive of Television Broadcasts from 9/11 (Streaming Video from 20 Broadcast Organizations From Around the World)
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E-Commerce–Statistics–United States
Source: U.S. Census
New, Full-Text Report: 2000 E-Commerce Multi-Sector Report
“Second official snapshot of e-commerce for key sectors of the economy.” “The report also revises previously-released data for 1999.”
Text ||| Tables ||| Forms
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Fast Fact File–Lists and Rankings
Theft–Automobiles–United States
New: Most Stolen Vehicles, 2001
National and state rankings are available as .pdf files.

Hello From London!
I’m in the U.K. Attending the Internet Librarian International Conference

Web Directories–Internet Public Library
Happy 7th Anniversary to the Internet Public Library
Birthday greetings to the IPL folks in Ann Arbor. We are looking forward to seeing the IPL’s new look due this Summer.
Direct to the Internet Public Library

Web Search–Google
Source: Newsweek
“Faster Than The Rest”
From the 3/25/02 issue. A profile of Google from a business perspective.

Periodical Databases
“The Article Economy”
Source: Library Journal
Transcript: “An LJ Round Table with the Aggregators”
From the article, “…as libraries and distributors of aggregated articles and journals have scaled up to meet user expectations, challenges and questions abound�for libraries, for publishers, and for patrons.” “With these questions in mind, the editors of LJ invited a host of key players to a round table discussion of aggregated databases at the recent 2002 American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in New Orleans. Moderated by Yale University’s Ann Okerson, the event marked the first time that three of the major “aggregators” (EBSCO, Gale, ProQuest) had sat down together to share their thoughts on the rapidly changing information landscape.”

Archiving Electronic Resources
Source: Newsbytes
New Zealand: Introduction of Legislation To Assure Deposit of Electronic Content In National Library
From the news release, “New legislation will see web sites, CD-ROMs and other electronic publications forming a stronger part of the collections held in the National Library as a record of New Zealand�s heritage. Currently, New Zealand publishers are required to provide copies of books to the National Library. Under the National Library Bill introduced today, anyone publishing material electronically in New Zealand may be asked to provide a copy to the Library. The Bill allows for publishers’ commercial interests to be protected. Also from the news release, “Increasingly, information is being published only electronically and for a short time, such as on Web sites,” said Marian Hobbs, New Zealand’s minister responsible for the National Library, in a statement Wednesday. This material is just as important as books in recording New Zealand’s heritage.” -Marian Hobbs, The Minister Responsible for the National Library.
See Also: “New Zealand’s National Library To Archive Web Sites” (via Newsbytes)

Web Search–Google
Google Releases “News Search” Beta
Another week goes by and something new from Google. Today, a beta of a searchable Google News database. It can be accessed at http://news.google.com or via a box on the Advanced Search page. According to a company spokesman the database is refreshed with new content every hour and contains material from over 100 English-language sources including Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and Reuters. Each entry includes a time stamp of when the content was first crawled and links to related articles (if available). You can learn more about Google News Search via this faq.
Syntax?
It appears that the Google limit syntax works with the news database.
Examples:
intitle: terms in the headline
intext: terms in the text of the article
site:cnn.com limits from a particular source (if available).
We’ll keep testing and at the same time be on the lookout for new content and functionality.
See Also: AllTheWeb News Search (The database includes open web news content in several languages)

Odds & Ends
Due Online at the Beginning of April: A “Revised” Beta From Teoma
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Freebies
An Opportunity To Get A Free Engineering, Mathematics or Computer Book, Your Choice,
From the EEVL and Several Major Publishers
Thanks to EEVL Manager and Editor of the Internet Resources Newsletter , Roddy MacLeod, for the news.

Resource of the Week
History–Canada
Source: Micromedia ProQuest
The Canadian Timeline
The Canadian Timeline, a resoure provided by Micromedia ProQuest, was placed online in the past few days to help subscribers, “locate stories and news items in Canadian history when using Micromedia ProQuest resources.” Neat idea! However, The Canadian Timeline is also being made available (NO CHARGE) for ALL web users. It serves as a handy web-based ready reference/fast facts tool. The timeline contains major events from the past 100 years and was compiled by members of the Micromedia editorial team. The site is browsable by year and subject. Categories include Business and Finance, Arts and Entertainment, Military Highlights, and Sports. It can also be searched by keyword.

Citation Indexing
Research
Updates on ISI’s “What’s New in Research” Site
Several lists and rankings available for free from the Institute for Scientific Information. This is just some of the informative and interesting info available on this site.
A Few Examples of Recently Added Lists:
Science in Japan, 1997-2001
Literary Studies: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 1996-2000
Environment/Ecology: High-Impact Institutions, 1991-2001
Science in France, 1997-2001
25 Most-Cited Journals
Economics & Business: Most-Cited Authors, 1991-2001

Professional Reading Shelf
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Web Search
Bias In Web Search Engines
Source: SearchDay
Chris Sherman discusses “Assessing Bias in Search Engines” an article that recently appeared in Information Processing & Management. You can read the complete article, no charge, by visiting the Elsevier web site.
See Also: Another paper, “Shaping the Web: Why the Politics of Search Engines Matters” written by
Lucas Introna of the London School of Economics and Helen Nissenbaum of Princeton University is also worthy of your attention.

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items)
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Digital Reference–Bibliography
Sloan’s “Digital Reference Services Bibliography” Receives Major Update
A must have resource! Thanks to Bernie Sloan from the University of Illinois for making it available.
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Manufacturing–United States–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census
Full-Text Report: 2000 Annual Survey of Manufactures, Geographic Area Statistics
“California Leads the Nation in Manufacturing Jobs”
Summary/Fast Facts ||| Direct to Full-Text
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Canadian House of Commons
Source: Elections Canada
New Web Site: Federal Representation 2004

Web Search–WiseNut
WiseNut Acquired By LookSmart
LookSmart paid $9.25 million in stock for the search company. The press release does not mention if the Wisenut engine will remain as a stand-alone service. From the news release, “As we integrate WiseNut’s search technology over the next few quarters, LookSmart will be able to offer our portal and ISP partners a full service solution that includes a scalable billion document index infrastructure, next generation search relevance and strong listings revenue,” said Evan Thornley, chairman and CEO of LookSmart. “By acquiring WiseNut, LookSmart becomes the first company to have both high quality scalable search technology and strong listings revenue generation.”
See Also: “LookSmart to Buy WiseNut” (via Internet.Com)
Direct to the WiseNut engine

Reference Tools–Historical
Encyclopedias
Browse and Read the Full-Text of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th Edition)
This project, funded by it’s creator’s company, PageWise, is providing users with free access to a fully scanned version of the 11th ed. of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Byron Reese, CEO of PageWise writes, ” We OCR’ed a scan of the 1911. We wrote tons of custom code to do as good a job as possible. We are systemically going through and hand-editing each entry. In spite of having full time people devoted to it, it will take years to finish.” Caveat: Be careful when quoting from this site! Currently the encyclopedia contain a small amount of advertising. Reese has also informed that he has the blessings of EB management. More about the this project in the next few weeks.
Note: Why Encyclopedia Britannica and not Encyclopaedia Britannica? According to Reese the “encyclopedia” spelling is used 96 times more than encyclopaedia on various search engines.

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items)
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Campaign Finance–United States
Source: Federal Election Commission
Congressional Campaign Fundraising Statistics 2001-2002
Numerous lists and tables available in html format. Some material is available in html and Excel formats.
A Few Examples:
2001-2002 Top 50 Senate Campaigns by Receipts
2001-2002 Senate Campaign Debts
2001-2002 Top 50 House Campaigns by Contributions from Individuals
2001-2002 Top 50 House Incumbent Campaigns by Debts Owed
2001-2002 Top 50 House Challenger Campaigns by Disbursements
2001-2002 Top 50 House Open Seat Campaigns by Cash on Hand

Labor–United States–Statistics
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
” Working in the 21st Century”
From the site, “…a set of charts and related information about subjects ranging from education levels to retirement plans.” All charts are also available as .pdf files with the actual numbers also available as a .txt (ascii) file. Nicely done BLS!
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Education–United States–Statistics
Source: NCES
Update: Quick Tables and Figures
Browsable and searchable access to education statistics. NCES reports the addition of hundreds of new tables. Some library statistics are available.

United States Government–Information Technology
E-Government–United States
Source: GAO
Full-Text Report,
Information Resources Management: Comprehensive Strategic Plan Needed to Address Mounting Challenges GAO-02-292 41 pages .pdf
See Also: “GAO Urges Unified E-Gov Plan” (via Federal Computer Week)