Business Research
Source: HBS Working Knowledge
“The Research File” from the Baker Library (@ the Harvard Business School)
Each month the librarians at Baker prepare a fact and link-filled article on topics of interest to business researchers. The articles are available (no charge, full-text) in the HBS Working Knowledge newsletter. Here’s a rundown of article titles from 2002:
* December–”Baker Library Guide to Hedge Funds”
* October–”Using the Statistical Abstract Online”
* September–”Tools for Protecting Your Intellectual Property”
* August–”Academic Research Meets the Real World”
* June–”Doing Business With the Feds Online”
* May–”Tips for Benchmarking Against Your Peers”
Note: We often mention and many of you are aware that a plenty of useful material can’t be found (for many reasons) via Google and other web engines. These articles illustrate this point. You will not find them indexed in Google and most of the other major engines (as of today).

Web Search Industry
More Positive Comments About Yahoo, Google IPO?
Last week, after the Yahoo/Inktomi acquisition was announced, I noted a couple of comments from Charlene Li from Forrester. used the words “inveitable”, “ouster”, and Google in the same sentence. Today, more positive comments about Yahoo and how it could pose a challenge for Google. This time the comments are from Whit Andrews at Gartner. He writes, “The addition of Inktomi will further enable Yahoo to increase its presence within the microcosm of Internet search advertising, where Google exercises an outsized influence. Gartner believes that Yahoo will use the integrated technology to offer richer advertising opportunities � more business-oriented than technically driven. (For example, Inktomi’s business of allowing sites to set a “spiderable” section of their sites for a fee will likely appeal to Yahoo.)” If this materializes, will Google begin a paid-inclusion program in 2003? At about the same time the Gartner article appeared on the web, Rich Karlgaard of Forbes writes that a Google IPO in the first-quarter of ‘03 is “queued up”. Google IPO “rumours” been around for the past few years, I’ll believe it when the S-1 filing hits the EDGAR database. Stay tuned.

Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items)
Volunteering–United States–Statistics
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Report, New: “Volunteering in the United States”
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Crime–United States–Statistics
Source: FBI
Report, New: Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January - June 2002
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text
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Insurance–United States–Statistics
Source: National Center for Health Statistics
Report, New: American Children With Health Insurance Coverage
Summary||| Direct to Full-Text

Web Search–AlltheWeb
Limiting Syntax With AlltheWeb, Filetype:
I’ve discovered and a FAST spokesperson has confirmed that the syntax, filetype: will work with ATW. In addition to html material AllTheWeb provides access to pdf (Adobe Acrobat), .doc (Microsoft Word), and .swf (Macromedia Flash) content. You can apply this limit directly from the search box by typing:
filetype: pdf (Limiting to only Acrobat material)
filetype: msword (Limiting to only Word documents)
filetype: flash (Limiting to only Flash presentations)
See Also: Limits Can Also Be Combined By Placing the Filetype Limits Inside Parentheses (filetype:msword filetype:pdf)
See Also: The filetype: syntax also works with Google. However, to limit to Word documents use filetype:doc

Information Industry–Gale
Primary Source Microfilm
Cool Jobs: Meet Remmel Nunn, Traversing the Globe In Search of Content
Mr. Nunn travels throughout the acquiring content for Primary Source Microfilm or as he puts it, “My job is to identify rare archival collections and then to negotiate for their exclusive distribution on microfilm and online.” In this first essay for Gale’s newsletter he talks about some of his experiences in Russia.

Information Access
Upcoming Meeting: National Security and Scientific Openness
“The National Academies and the Center for Strategic and International Studies will co-host a public meeting on Jan. 9 to bring together scientists and policy-makers to discuss whether current publication policies and practices in the life sciences could lead to the inadvertent disclosure of “sensitive” information to those who might misuse it. The goal of this meeting is to start a dialogue between the life sciences and national security communities that might eventually lead to the development of a common set of publication policies for journals in the life sciences…Participants will discuss current bioterrorist threats to the nation, and past and present methods of controlling access to scientific information in the United States” The meeting will take place here in D.C. If you can’t attend, it will be webcast.
See Also: Agenda of the 1/9/03 Meeting

Professional Reading Shelf
Libraries–United Kingdom–Statistics
Source: Library & Information Statistics Unit (LISU) at Loughborough University
Full-Text, Library and Information Statistics Tables for the United Kingdom, 2002

Librarians
Source: Vaughn Citizen (Canada)
Meet the Ontario Librarian of the Year: Rosemary Bonanno
The award is given by the Ontario Library Association. From the article: “This is the key time for librarianship. We are managers of information and, going into the information age of the 21st century, this is going to be our century,” she [Bonanno] said. In 1994, when the Internet was new, many people thought there would be a decline in use of the library system, but Mrs. Bonanno disagreed. “We can find out how to get the information, the quickest route. How to make sure it’s authentic information. We are actually the tour guides of the net,” she said. “Librarians are trained to structure the search. We can sculpture that search question so it gets you the results you are looking for. There is a natural blend between the book and electronic products and that’s what we are doing here.”

Information Industry–Yahoo–Legal Issues
Source: The Recorder
Yahoo vs. NCR Over Patents
From the article, “Yahoo Inc. is going into the ring to defend itself against patent infringement claims by NCR Corp. NCR — a leading manufacturer of ATMs and formerly known as National Cash Register — sent Yahoo a letter two months ago, claiming the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Internet portal infringed 10 of its computer patents and demanding a licensing fee. With millions of dollars potentially at stake, Yahoo filed suit against NCR in San Francisco federal court Dec. 13, seeking a court order that it is not infringing NCR’s patents and that NCR’s patents are invalid…The patents at issue in the Yahoo case cover “ordering and downloading resources from computerized repositories;” a “computer system for management of resources;” and a “mechanism for dependably managing Web synchronization and tracking operations among multiple browsers,” among other claims.”
…and While We’re Discussing Intellecutual Property, a National Law Journal Review of the Biggest IP Cases of 2002

Audio Searching
Source: InfoWorld
“The Power of Voice”
Back in August The ResourceShelf featured several articles about keyword searching of audio files. Today, another article on this interesting topic. From the article, “Fast-Talk Communications’ revolutionary phonetic indexing and search technology brings the magic of full-text search to the formerly opaque realms of audio recordings and video soundtracks. If you consider the way in which Google has already become everyone’s indispensable “outboard brain,” and extrapolate that to all the voice data that exists — and to the vast quantities that soon will exist — it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Fast-Talk is one of the most disruptive technologies in the pipeline.” Thanks to C.S. for the news tip.
See Also: Direct to the Fast-Talk Web Site

Information Industry–IEEE
Engineering Information
New From IEEE, “Individual Researchers Gain Access to over 300,000 IEEE Technical Articles”
From the announcement, “Individual researchers can now access the wealth of technical information published by the the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) during the past five years using the new IEEE Member Digital Library. This online service, which will be available in January, encompasses more than 300,000 technical articles from about 120 IEEE periodicals and 1,800 IEEE conference proceedings. The IEEE Member Digital Library allows subscribers to read up to 25 articles and papers per month from IEEE journals, magazines, transactions and conference proceedings…The IEEE Member Digital Library is billed monthly at US$35 to the member’s personal credit card. All subscribers must be IEEE members.”

Government Printing Office
Source: AP
“GPO Wins Budget Job”
From the article, “For the first time since the initial budget was printed in 1921, the nation’s public printer had to earn the job through competitive bidding. The Government Printing Office won with an offer of $387,000, the Office of Management and Budget announced this week, a sharp reduction from the more than $500,000 the GPO charged last year. Based on a comparable amount of work, the estimated savings are $118,370, the budget office said.”

Resources, Tools and Full-Text Documents (3 Items)
Campaign Finance–United States–Statistics
Source: Federal Election Commission
New, Party Fundraising 2002 Election Cycle (Hard and Soft Money)
Also available are several Excel spreadsheets with statistics from 1992-2002.
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Climate
Source: National Climatic Data Center
New, Climate of 2002-Preliminary Annual Review
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Health Information
Source: National Library of Medicine
New, MEDLINEplus Compilation, “Breathing Problems”

Research Libraries
Four People Awarded Honorary Degrees at Bodleian Library (Oxford University) Celebration
From the announcement, “As part of the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of the foundation of the Bodleian Library four distinguished men and women with close connections with the library world were awarded honorary degrees…” The degrees were awarded to:
* James Billington, Librarian of Congress
* Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library
* Professor Sir Brian Follett, Chairman of the Arts and Humanities Research Board
* Paul LeClerc, Chief Executive Officer of the New York Public Library

Librarians
Source: AP
More on Librarian Shortages, Recruitment
From the article, “Southington Public Library director Jay Johnston said he has had an increasingly difficult time hiring qualified librarians. “The bubble’s going to pop in a few years,” he told the Record-Journal of Meriden. “Librarians help people with everything from resumes to trigonometry to book recommendations, he [Johnston] said. “It’s really about people,” he said. “The public librarian is a consultant.”…”There are other factors that play into the shortage, such as low salaries despite required advanced degrees. The average starting salary in 2001 was $36,818. Municipal librarians must hold a master’s degree in library science, while school librarians now known as media specialists must have a master’s degree in library science and teacher certification.”