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.”

Internet Information
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project
“Most Americans Expect to Find What They are Looking for Online in News, Health Care, Government Information, and Shopping”
The Pew Internet Project issued a news release that’s dated next week (12/29) with a few highlights from a research study about Internet usage. I’ll post a link to the complete report titled, “Counting on the Internet” when it’s made available.
**UPDATE 12/29: The full-text of the report is now online.**
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Here are a few passages from the news release:
–”New research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that most Internet users (80%) and many non-users (about 40%) expect that they will be able to find reliable information online when it comes to news, health care information, e-commerce, and government.”
–“A large share of Internet users now say that they will turn first to the Internet when they next need information about health care or government services.”
–”46% of Internet users say they will use the Net next time they have a medical inquiry, a figure statistically indistinguishable from the 47% of Internet users who say they will contact a medical professional.”
–”69% of all Americans, Internet users and non-users alike, expect to be able to find reliable, up-to-date news online; 85% of Internet users say this compared to 43% of non-users.”
–”At the same time, the high hopes for the online world are tempered when it comes to personal information. Only 31% of Americans expect to be able to find reliable information about someone online; 35% of Internet users say this and 25% of non-users say this.”
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What do these highlights say about the library world and database industry? Do they demonstrate that we’re getting the word out about authority issues or the services (databases, books, etc.) that we provide? I don’t think so. Please don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want libraries and librarians to be rigid gatekeepers to information, that was and is a bad idea. But our role as a teacher and guide have never been more important. Are we meeting the challenge? In my mind these numbers illustrate what’s becoming a regular discussion on The ResourceShelf, how well our profession markets itself, our skills, and the services we offer. In other words is the general public saying, why do I need a library or librarian if I’m using the Internet and getting something “reliable” when it comes to news, health, and other information? This survey, very likely to receive mainstream press attention, and similar reports force info pros to ponder many questions.
Here are a few that I’m thinking about:
1) Are we doing enough (anything) to promote and market the services we offer? To differentiate web resources from the others we offer? Maybe the reason that most people turn to the free web is because they don’t have an idea about what a library and fee-based resources can offer? Are they aware that in some cases these resources are available to them without having to leave their home or offices? Do they know that virtual reference is a service many libraries offer? What about simply picking up the telephone and calling the library?
2) Will the “powers that be”, in this case the people who write the checks to online database vendors, begin to question why they’re spending money on these materials when most people will first and perhaps only turn to the free web? Does the teacher have any idea that their students have “remote access” to many reputable databases via the local public library? Does the public, the business person, the student, believe that “it’s all” on the web? What are we doing to demonstrate that it’s not?
3) Where is the public with its ability to judge the quality of info on the Internet? Anyone with a Internet connected server, can place anything on it. Overall, this abililty to access data is a very good thing but problems do exist. What is the library world doing to teach the public how to judge and analyze the quality of this material? The recently published book by Anne Mintz and Genie Tyburski’s web site are great places to start. The news release also points out that one of the causes for these numbers is that, “search tools have become more powerful so people can locate the information they want.” This is a correct statement. However, what about the underlying data? Easier to find is one thing but what about the accuracy and authority of the material?
4) Has the library community done enough to market services and skills to those who haven’t been in a library in many years? Sure, many libraries do a good job at reaching patrons who visit the building, but what about the others?
5) Will the student of 2003 who are used to finding something, anything “on the web” become even more difficult to reach? Will they care about what libraries can provide? What about the small business owner? The worker in a corporate setting?
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Final Notes
Remember, many people only look at the first few results. Do people use several resources, search tools? Do most people rely on a single search engine? Do info pros have the skills to demonstrate and teach multiple tools? Do they utilize non-commercial directories? Are they aware of web search engine limitations but able to select an alternative search tool or printed resource that might get the job done?
See Also: An 11/18 ResourceShelf posting With Results of a Study About How People Use Search Engines
Again, only numbers, but from my conversations with info pros they are fairly accurate.

Information Industry–Yahoo
Information Industry–Inktomi
Source: News.Com
More on the Yahoo Acquisition of Inktomi
Paul Festa at News.Com provides analysis of the Yahoo! acquisition of Inktomi.
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Festa writes, “A primary question is whether Yahoo will be essentially shooting itself in the foot if it abandons Google’s search technology, which the market in short order rewarded with the status of virtual standard-bearer.” The market rewarded Google becuase it’s very good technology but other very good technology deserves attention. A great deal of Google’s success as a product and company is due to Google’s superb marketing staff. It did a great deal for making it the “standard bearer”.
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As many of us in the library world know very well, people want relevant answers (hopefully from an authoritative source), many searchers don’t care where they come from, they’ll take what they can get. For the last 18 months the general public and many info pro’s have heard nothing but Google, Google, Google so that’s where they go satisfied but unwilling (due in some respects to not knowing) anything else. Google is a high quality product and due a great deal of credit for making other web search tools better but other tools and resources are also very capable.
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Hopefully, 2003 will be about making choices, keeping current, and knowing the right tool for the info need. Nothing new here. It’s precisely what info pros have always done by buiding a strong collection, knowing what’s on the shelves, etc. I also hope 2003 will be the year librarians begin to remind the public that every answer is not found in Google, Jeeves, AlltheWeb, etc. but might be easily accessible through one of the many services, books, databases offered both by visiting the library in person or via remotely accessible services.
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Last week The ResourceShelf included a link to a Wired article titled, “Google vs. Evil”. In the post I said that these are two words we haven’t see near each other. Today’s article by Paul Festa also contains comments from a tech industry analyst that we also haven’t seen (ever?) since the “Google era” began. From the article, “Google faces its inevitable ouster,” wrote Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li in a research note published Monday. “With 23 percent of households visiting Google at least once a week, Yahoo must eventually switch its search over to Inktomi to ensure that Google doesn’t gain too much power. With Inktomi, Yahoo makes search a strategic asset.” [MSN and AOL] “will consider purchases of their own, potentially going after FAST or AskJeeves/Teoma to strengthen their search.”

Libraries
Source: AP
New Uses for Old Things: Underground Nuclear Bunker Becomes Library, Storage Facility
From the article, “Amherst’s bunker will hold about 500,000 of the colleges’ lesser-used books and journals. The 9.5 miles of underground shelves will be filled over the next decade with volumes packed according to size, not subject, and marked by bar codes retrievable by computers, Bridegam said. Most items will never leave the bunker, said David Spoolstra, who oversees the five-college section of the depository, housed in the area that once held room-sized battle computers. It’s what research librarians call a “light archive” meaning the works will be available only on request. Only archive workers will have access to the stacks and in most cases will provide academic researchers with an electronic copy, Bridegam said.”

Professional Reading Shelf
Libraries and Librarians
The January Issue of Walt Crawford’s Cites and Insights is Now Online
Btw, Cites & Insights has a new url, it’s now at: http://cites.boisestate.edu/.

Information Industry–divine
Source: Outsell E-Briefs
Outsell Ponders if divine’s Faxon Unit is the Enron of the Info Industry
Outsell, the well-known info industry consulting firm, published the following commentary about the divine/Faxon mess in a recent e-mail update to customers. David Curle has allowed the message to be reprinted on The ResourceShelf.
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divine’s Faxon Unit: The Enron of Our Industry?
Subscription agent Faxon, part of divine, Inc., has apparently shutdown certain operations and is preparing for some sort of reorganization. The company has not yet released an official statement*, but here’s what we know so far: – Customers have been referred to a Chicago firm, Development Specialists, Inc., which consults in reorganization, bankruptcy, and turnaround management. DSI is making no statements but promises a clarification of the situation next week.
(Note: Since This Message Was Sent, divine Has Released a Statement)
- In the meantime, libraries are scrambling to figure out how their subscription needs will be filled for next year, with few options or alternatives. Customers have been told to find alternative vendors; meanwhile, many of them have placed orders for 2003 – and sent in advance payments – that have not been placed with publishers.
- We know that Faxon has not paid a number of publishers for their 2002 subscriptions, nor are they receiving any orders for 2003 subscriptions.
- Faxon’s London, Ontario and Montreal offices have been closed and employees laid off.
- This morning, EBSCO announced that it would be acquiring the European operations of RoweCom, Inc., part of Faxon/divine that serves Europe. In that announcement, EBSCO states that divine has announced its “intention to exit the content subscription business.” We have been unable to obtain any such statement from divine.
- Financial perspective: divine’s cash was down to $30 million this June. In August, it received an equity investment of $61 million from Oak Investment Partners. One month later, the company reported total cash of $61 million – the equivalent of the Oak investment, but the $30 million of its own cash from June was gone. Current market valuation has the company worth $28 million, less than half of the Oak investment.
This whole fiasco is sad and troubling, and it reminds us of the other business scandals of our day. The implications are many and distressing:
- Lots of innocent people are going to be caught high and dry. Faxon customers will have a hard time scrambling to obtain services from the remaining industry players, EBSCO and Swets Blackwell, with no notice over the holiday season.
- The Enron-like aspect of this: Where is the cash? This business has always been based on customers paying in advance for their subscriptions, while agents pay the publishers only at the end of a calendar year, and get by on the float in between. Now the big question is – where did all that cash go? It’s on divine’s balance
sheet as deferred revenues, and the deferred payments have not gone to the publishers – so where has divine stashed it? Regardless of what happens with divine, we expect the practice of pre-payment will be gone for good after this episode.
- The publishers who have been stiffed by divine are also in a good position to help ease Faxon customers through the crisis, by continuing to honor subscriptions until the mess is worked out. Once again, we see a lot of collateral damage caused by companies – and an entire industry – done in by ego and hubris. We’re all for grand schemes and revolutionary visions in our industry, but they don’t get anywhere without a healthy dose of financial reality. Let’s hope that divine is the last of the failing dot.coms, and last of the Enrons, in our industry. Our hope is that a buyer for the Faxon unit will quickly emerge, one that will be able to restore services, and trust, to both buyers and publishers. (From Outsell E-Mail 12/20/02)
UPDATE (1/6 & 1/9) Information Today Has Updated Their Story With News of An Ad-Hoc Creditor Group Being Formed
See Also: Additional Stories on this Topic Can Be Found Under the 12/22/2002 Postings
See Also: Full-Text of RoweCom Statement to Customers
See Also: Chronology of divine Acquisition and Major Announcements (via Multex)
See Also: “Libraries Left in the Lurch” (via Crain’s Chicago Business)
See Also: Direct to the Outsell Web Site