Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items)
Manufacturing–Software–Lists & Rankings
Source: MSI
Top 100 Software Vendors (Registration Required)
“MSI ranks the leading software vendors involved in the automation of plan, source, make, and deliver business and production processes.”
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High Speed Internet Access–United States–Statistics
Source: FCC
Statistical Summary, High-Speed Internet Deployment in the U.S.
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Local Telephone Access–United States–Statistics
Source: FCC
Statistical Summary, Local Telephone Competition in the U.S.
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Marriage and Divorce–United States–Statistics
Source: National Center for Health Statistics
Full-Text Report, Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States
Summary/News Release ||| Direct to Full-Text (110 Pages)

Public Libraries
Source: AP
Hawaii State Public Library System To Fund Study on the Value of Libraries
From the article, “The Hawaii State Public Library System will pay a mainland consultant nearly $100,000 to study the value libraries have for businesses, economic development and tourism, officials said…”Clearly, this is a way of getting the library’s image and the services that we provide that a lot of people don’t know about to our public and also to our potential funders,” said state Librarian Virginia Lowell.”

Law Libraries
Source: Boston Herald
“Library Database Program Withstands State Cuts”
From the article, “[Robert] Brink, the executive director of the Social Law Library – the state’s premier repository of legal information – was bracing himself for the elimination of $300,000 for his library’s database program. That’s a cut Brink is thankful wasn’t made when Beacon Hill lawmakers finally approved a $22.93 billion state budget last week. Saved was the database project, which allows any member 24-hour, 365-day-a-year access to a wealth of legal information, from thousands of state and federal court decisions to administrative agency regulations, statutes and session laws.”

Web Search–FAST (AllTheWeb)
FAST�S AllTheWeb Endorses the FTC Search Engine Disclosure Letter
From the news release, “AlltheWeb today also posted additional information regarding the presence of Web pages which have been crawled and indexed by FAST which can be found here: www.alltheweb.com/info/aboutresults.html.

U.S. Government Printing Office
Source: Library Journal
“Senate Subcommittee Criticizes Dismantling GPO Role”
From the article, “The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations harshly criticized a proposal by the Bush administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that printing and copying contracts now handled exclusively through the Government Printing Office (GPO) be put out for competitive bids.”

Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items)
Online Industry–PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service)
New E-Letter, Issue Number One of PAIS Direct Now Available
The first issue contains a lengthy list of “new” websites that are “noteworthy” in the area of public policy.
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Standards–United Kingdom
Source: Resource
Full-Text Report, Mapping of Standards for Museums, Libraries and Archives
From the news release, “The definition of a “standard” was deliberately kept as wide as possible, to ensure that the study would be both wide-ranging and comprehensive. It included any ’standard’ or guideline, regardless of its status as statutory or voluntary, and any document which advised on the quality assurance of the museum, library or archive service. For this reason certain standards such as library cataloguing conventions are not included.”

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items)
E-Government–Global
Source: UNESCO
Country Profiles of E-Government
Profiles for 15 countries including South Africa. India, New Zealand, and Canada.
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Labor–United States–Statistics
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
New Edition, Full-Text Report, Geographic Profile of Employment and Unemployment, 2000
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Critical Infrastructure–United States
Source: GAO
Full-Text Report, Critical Infrastructure Protection:
Federal Efforts Require a More Coordinated and Comprehensive Approach to Protecting Information Systems GAO-02-474
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Advertising
Ad Critic Launches (Fee-Based) As a Service of Ad Age
AdCritic.com launches as an Ad Age Group Web site today as one of Ad Age Group’s online publications. Free for subscribers of Creativity magazine, $69.95/USD for others.
See Also: Direct to AdCritic Site
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Health Information–Database
Source: Office of the Health and Information Highway, Canada
Information and Communications Technologies in Health Online Literature Catalogue
Material and linked urls from a variety of resources.
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Health Conferences–Database
Source: Office of the Health and Information Highway, Canada
Information and Communications Technologies Health Conferences Database
Events in Canada and the U.S.A.

News Briefs
Dialog Expands Its Graduate Education Programme To Europe and the Asia Pacific Region

Banned Bookshelf
Source: Associated Press
“Iowa Library Bans Teen Advice Book”

Telephone Reference
U.S. Government
Source: FCIC
New U.S. Federal Government 1-800 Number For Citizen Service Information
A toll free phone telephone call to 1-800-FED-INFO (that’s 1-800-333-4636) provides you with a staff member from the Office of Citizen Services and Communications to answer your questions. From the news release, “It’s the number to call to get the facts on everything from starting a small business and traveling abroad, to buying surplus government property and getting federal benefits. You can reach 1-800-FED-INFO (that’s 1-800-333-4636) Monday through Friday, 8 a.m to 8 p.m., Eastern Time. Recorded information is available around the clock.”

Web Search–Google
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
“Paying for Answers Online”
Ben Arnoldy from The Christian Science Monitor talks to Barbara Quint, Diane Kresh of LC, David Lankes from Syracuse Univ, and the editor/compiler of this weblog. (: The article focuses around the new Google Answers service. From the article, “An easier way to get useful information online may be to ask a human, not a computer. That’s the idea behind “Ask-A” or virtual reference services. While the concept has been around for a while, one of the Internet’s top search engines has embraced the idea with a new for-pay service called Google Answers. But, buyer beware, say information professionals.”

Conferences–ASIST (American Society for Information Science and Technology)
Source: ASIST
The Complete Conference Program for the ASIST Annual Conference is Online
Direct to Complete “Additional Conference Information

Online Databases
Source: Info Today News Breaks
Sage Publications Withdraws Titles from EBSCOhost, ProQuest
From the article, “According to Richman, libraries are increasingly substituting full-text database access for print journal subscriptions, thus jeopardizing �the continued viability of Sage�s journal publishing program. Journals cannot sustain themselves without income from subscriptions.� (This is what precipitated the instatement of the lengthy embargo period for Sage titles on EBSCO and ProQuest in the first place.) Evidently, royalties earned from EBSCOhost and ProQuest were �not substantial enough to support the cost of publishing a journal,� and Sage would have been ultimately forced to cease publication of certain titles, thus decreasing the amount of available scholarly research.”

E-Books–Statistics
Source: Open eBook Forum
Open eBook Forum Releases Industry Growth Statistics
From the site, “Open eBook Forum members that contributed data include Adobe Systems Inc., AOL Time Warner Book Group, HarperCollins, Microsoft Corporation, OverDrive, Random House, Inc., Simon & Schuster, Palm Digital Media and McGraw-Hill.”
See Also: Direct to the Open eBook Forum

Weblogs
“The Microcontent News Blogging Software Roundup”
John Hiler with a comprehensive round-up of all of the major pieces of blogging software. It will be useful to those of you needing help picking the right tool. The article also contains a link to this massive comparison chart of weblog tools from BlogComp. Btw, for those of you who might not have noticed, The VAS&ND uses Blogger software. Thanks to C.S. for the news tip.

Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items)
Librarians and the Internet
The Summer 2002 Issue of Library Journal’s NetConnect is Now Online
Tons of great stuff. Here’s just a small sample.
“A Hard Look at Wireless Networks” by Marshall Breeding
“The Wireless Student & the Library” by Bill Drew
“Creating a Yahoo! with Values” by Karen Schneider (More on the Fiat Lux Consortium we Mentioned Last Week)
“Full-Text Reference Down to a Science” by Gail Golderman and Bruce Connolly
Several Product Reviews From Jenny Levine
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Digital Preservation
Source: CLIR
Conference Proceedings, Full-Text, The State of Digital Preservation: An International Perspective
From a symposium held in Washington D.C., April 24-25, 2002.
Material included in this Publication:
Introduction: The Changing Preservation Landscape, Deanna Marcum
Overview of Technological Approaches to Digital Preservation and Challenges in Coming Years, Kenneth Thibodeau
The Digital Preservation Research Agenda, Margaret Hedstrom
Understanding Digital Preservation: A Report from OCLC, Meg Bellinger
Update on the National Digital Infrastructure Initiative, Laura Campbell
Experience of the National Library of the Netherlands, Titia van der Werf
Digital Preservation�A Many-Layered Thing: Experience at the National Library of Australia, Colin Webb
Good Archives Make Good Scholars: Reflections on Recent Steps Toward the Archiving of Digital Information, Donald Waters

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items)
The British Library–Annual Report
Full-Text, The British Library, 29th Annual Report and Accounts 2001-02
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Electronic Dissertations
Source: UNESCO
The UNESCO Guide for Electronic Theses and Dissertations
“The UNESCO Guide to Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs), a resource for graduate students who are writing theses or dissertations, for graduate faculty who want to mentor ETD authors, for graduate deans who want to initiate ETD programmes, and for IT administrators at universities is now online available in English and Spanish.”
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Electronic Dissertations–Database
Source: UNESCO
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
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Bankruptcies–United States–Lists and Rankings
Source: BankruptcyData.Com
The Largest Bankruptcies 1980 – Present (Top 15)
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Nuclear Industry–Global–Timeline
Source: EIA
Nuclear Timeline (1996-Present)
“The timeline provides a chronology of significant events in the U.S. and world nuclear industries from 1996 through present.”

Enterprise Search
Source: eWeek
“Sharpening Search Software”
New products due this week from Entropia and divine. Last week saw the introduction of a new version of OneStep from natural language search company iPhrase.

Resources, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items)
Presidential Nominations–United States
New from THOMAS, “Presidential Nominations” Database and Search
Material back to 1987.
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United States Congress–Appropriations
Status of FY2003 Appropriations Bills
An up-to-the-minute “scoreboard” to the current status of these bills as they work through Congress. From THOMAS.

News Search
Source: Ottawa Citizen
Company Profile: RocketNews.Com
A profile about the Canadian company that provides one of the better news search engines of “open web” news content. In fact, the publicly available engine started as a simple product showcase for the company. From the article, “Currently, RocketNews.com has 1.5 million news articles in its database, searches 5,500 sites in multiple languages at any given time and is attracting more than six million hits a month — “and we get zilch,” [co-founder Rick] Van Well laments.” “Rocketinfo’s prime business is in designing software that defines, collects and analyzes news and information for companies and organizations, which use the material for either competitive or market intelligence.”
See Also: Direct to RocketNews.Com (Advanced Interface)