Online Encyclopedias
Source: TVC Alert
Tyburski “On Target” With Her Comments About Wikipedia
I couldn’t say it any better so I won’t! Genie hits the nail on the head wondering why so many people are enamored with this resource. Be very careful.

Information on the Internet
Source: AP
Survey: Internet More Important Than Ever
Look here. A college student admits that the library is the place to go for “real information”. From the article, “When you need real information you always go to the library. But (for) easier stuff, and you’re too lazy to go to the library, you can find it from Google,”…said Yale University junior Ralph Byrd, 20. As we all know a VERY minute of information is digitized but I wonder if Ralph ever uses the many databases and electronic journals that are easily accessible from outside the Yale Library? This AP story focuses on a new telephone survey conducted at UCLA. Here are a few results:
* “Only 53 percent of users believe most or all of what they read online, down from 58 percent a year earlier.” A few other blurbs from the article:
* “Alisha Richman, 20, of Houston, said she only trusts health information from doctors or hospitals and reports in science journals she reads online. Much of what’s out there, she said, is often “kind of iffy.”
* “About 61 percent of Internet users find the Net “very” or “extremely” important as an information source, compared with 60 percent for books and 58 percent for newspapers � within the margin for error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.”
* “Nearly 30 percent of Americans do not use the Net, most commonly because they don’t have a computer or one good enough. But nearly half the nonusers say they are likely to go online within a year.”
See Also: The Full-Text of the UCLA Report Will Be Available on Friday.

Digital Repositories
DSpace Set for “Fine Tuning”
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
From the article, “Six major research universities announced this week that they are working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to fine-tune an MIT program for archiving scholarly works called DSpace, which has become wildly popular in academe in just a few months…MIT designed DSpace with Hewlett-Packard Laboratories to allow professors to store reports and other research documents in a searchable digital archive. Eventually, MIT officials hope, professors will be able find scholastic research as easily as college students search for MP3’s of their favorite music.”
See Also: Much More About DSpace From the ResourceShelf (November, 2002)
See Also: Direct to the DSpace Home Page

Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items)
Privacy–Canada
Source: Privacy Commissioner of Canada
2001-2002 Annual Report to Parliament by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text
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Labor–United States–Statistics
Source: BLS
New Statistics, Several Tables, 2001 Major Work Stoppages
Also includes some historical data.
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Transportation–United States–Statistics
Source: BTS
New, Now Available in Print, Pocket Guide to Transportation, 2003
The news release has a few contact points (phone/fax/mail) where you can order free copies. A web version will be available in the next few weeks.
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Inventions–Lists & Rankings
Source: Encyclop�dia Britannica
The Editors of EB Name Greatest Inventions of All Time
Summary/Background ||| Complete List

Resource of the Week
Instant Messaging: SmarterChild is Back With a New Beta
SmarterChild is an instant messaging chatbot that might be of interest to you. It’s important to remember that this implementation is only a BETA from a technology company called ActiveBuddy. Nevertheless, I don’t think it will be difficult to vision how this type of technology could be used by a library or information center. Last year another version of SmarterChild was available but it went offline in July.
So, How Can You Test and Use SmarterChild? It’s simple!
1) Open Your AOL Instant Messaging (AIM) Client and IM: tobesmarterchild
2) Note: If you don’t have access to AOL IM Software You Can Use AIM Express (a Java Based IM Client). You’ll Still Need to Have an AIM Account. Don’t Have an AIM Login? You Can Get One Here for Free. You Do NOT Need to Have an AOL Account.
3) If These Options Don’t Work for You, You Can Demo the Technology Using a Web Based Interface. This Version Offers A Few Different Choice Than the AIM Beta Version.
What Type of Content is Available With This Beta?
* You Can Start Asking by Asking a Question. However, I Suggest Getting a Quick Overview by Asking SmarterChild, “What Can You Do?”
* Content includes news, sports scores, dictionary, thesaurus, calculator, translations, and more!
Here are a Few Questions I Asked SmarterChild
* What is the Capital of Australia?
* What is the Definition of Librarian?
* Please Translate “we need to leave for the airport in an hour” Into French
* Encyclopedia Tristan da Cuhna
See Also: Direct to the SmarterChild Home Page (SMS, E-Mail, and WAP Versions Available)
See Also: Direct to the ActiveBuddy Home Page

Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items)
Librarianship
Source: Emerald
FREE Full-Text Access of Library Review Through Sunday, February 2, 2003
You can browse/read/print the full-text of all content from Vol. 43.1 (1994) - Vol. 52.1 (2003)
Note: Beginning on Monday, February 3rd, full-text access to Reference Reviews will be available for one week. This content will also be available at no charge.
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Business Resources
Source: HBS Working Knowledge
“Researching Corporate Governance on The Corporate Library”
From the article, “The Corporate Library is the free-access portion of www.boardanalyst.com. While lacking the sophisticated screening tools and detailed reporting features of its subscription-based parent, The Corporate Library is still a useful and informative Web site covering all aspects of corporate governance.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items)
Health Insurance
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
Full-Text, A Consumer Guide to Handling Disputes with Your Employer or Private Health Plan
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Health Information
Source: NLM
MEDLINEplus: Seasonal Affective Disorder
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United Kingdom–History
Source: Public Records Office/The National Archives
Just Released, Government Records Relating to the Abdication in 1936 of King Edward VIII
“They include Cabinet minutes, letters from the King, and papers about Mrs Simpson.” A small selection of full-image documents are also included on the site.
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Criminal Justice–United States–Databases
Source: National Criminal Justice Research Center
New Search Functionality: NCJRS Abstracts Database
“The National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts Database contains summaries of more than 170,000 criminal justice publications.” You can now search this database using the National Criminal Justice Thesaurus. The thesaurus contains over 5,500 terms.
See Also: Search the National Criminal Justice Thesaurus
See Also: NCJRS Virtual Library
This database contains over 7000 full-text documents.

Information Industry–Elsevier
Elsevier Does eBook Deal With netLibrary
Elsevier is launching an eBook program. From the announcement, “netLibrary will host Elsevier eBooks, which will be available to any institution with a netLibrary account. Titles will come initially from the Science and Technology division within Elsevier, covering high-demand subject areas such as Computer Science, Life Science, Economics, Business, and Management, Engineering, and Environmental Sciences.”

Public Records–United States
Source: The Recorder
“Resolution Reached Over Access to Court Database”
From the article, “Santa Clara County, Calif., Superior Court has agreed to hand over a copy of its electronic case management database in a settlement that could serve as a road map for courts struggling with opening computer records to the public. Court administrators have agreed to copy the court’s civil case management database for the San Jose Mercury News, ending more than a year of litigation. The Mercury News sued the court, its CEO Kiri Torre and then-Presiding Judge Richard Turrone in federal court in October 2001 after the court refused to provide access to the database.”

Information Industry–divine
Source: Chicago Tribune
“Lawsuit: Divine Looted Company”
From the article, “Creditors of a Divine Inc. subsidiary that filed for bankruptcy protection Monday say the Chicago-based company looted the unit, fraudulently transferring $73.7 million before abandoning the business…Company officials, the lawsuit contends, “formulated a plan to enrich Divine at the expense of RoweCom, its employees and its creditors.”
Updated: This Story is Incorrect. See The 2/3/03 Info Today Update

Research Library Group
An Update on RLG’s RedLightGreen Project
From the article, What happens when you take a massive database of bibliographic descriptions and redesign it for the Web, not just as a resource for librarians, but as a tool for undergraduate students and the public at large? To put it another way: “How can we strip away the ‘librariness’ of the catalog so it looks more like what students expect?”…”

Online Books
Streaming Audio
More Search Day Articles
Search Day has published two more articles that I wrote while guest editor of the publication.
1) “Listen to the World”
A look at PublicRadioFan.Com
2) “What if Amazon Were Free?”
An introduction to The Online Books Page

Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items)
Government Documents–United States
Source: Law Librarians’ Society of Washington D.C.
Full-Text Article, “A Research Guide to the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations”
A new guide by Rick McKinney. A html version is also available.
See Also: The Law Librarians’ Society of Washington D.C. Legislative Source Book
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Manufacturing–United States–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census
New, 2001 Annual Survey of Manufactures, Statistics for Industry Groups and Industries
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text
See Also: 2001 Annual Survey of Manufactures, Geographic Area Statistics
Summary ||| Full-Text
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Business–United States
Full-Text, Annual Capital Expenditures: 2001
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text

Academic Libraries
Source: The Daily Evergreen
Students at Washington State University Discuss the Internet and the Library
From a brief article in the WSU paper, In an age where people consider the Internet to be replacing libraries as a functional means of research, some students are not willing to rule out fact-finding that many would consider more tedious. �As slow as it may seem, the library gives you a very broad array of information to choose from,� said Jacob Schwecke, a sophomore wildlife ecology major. �And it is easy to use as long as you learn how to refine your search.�

Information Visualization
Source: Federal Computer Week
Learn About: MetaCarta
“The key concept behind MetaCarta GTS is the integration of text search data with geography. Search results appear as points on a map instead of as a list of documents. Each point, in the form of a numbered rectangle, represents a document or a stack of documents related to that place.”
See Also: Direct to the MetaCarta Web Site
See Also: “MetaCarta Tracks Documents Back to Their Source” (via The Washington Post 8/11/02)