Document Delivery
Source: Information Today NewsBreaks
Changes in Document Delivery at Infotrieve and The British Library
Marydee Ojala writes, “Two major document delivery sources announced changes to their delivery systems during the Special Libraries Association annual conference�Infotrieve and the British Library. Not surprisingly, given the tight-knit world of document delivery, there are similarities in the announcements.”
See Also: CISTI to launch new desktop service (via E-Content Institute)

Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items)
Scholarly Publishing
Source: ARL
New, White Paper, Publishers Mergers: A Consumer-Based Approach to Antitrust Analysis
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Controlled Vocabularies–Health
Source: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
Full-Text Article, “Classifying the precancers: a metadata approach”
Link to full-text (pdf) is located on left side of page.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents
United States
Source: U.S. Census
Fast Facts, The Fourth Of July

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents
Women–United States
Source: The Library of Congress
New, American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women’s History and Culture in the United States
From the site, “The site contains a slightly expanded and fully searchable version of the print publication American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women’s History and Culture in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 2001). The guide has been redesigned for online use, with added illustrations and links to existing digitized material located throughout the Library of Congress Web site. These materials are supplemented by a small number of newly digitized items that provide a sample of the many relevant types of materials available in Library of Congress holdings (see Building the Digital Collection). The Research Guide also provides practical search tips, detailed collection summaries of the Library’s voluminous multiformat holdings, and links to fuller catalog record descriptions and digitized material (see About the Guide for further information regarding the content and structure of the Research Guide portion of the site, as well as tips for using its search feature). In addition to the Research Guide, the gateway home page also provides information regarding preparing to do on-site research at the Library of Congress; tips on searching for women’s history resources in the Library’s catalogs; guidance on finding materials relating to women within the Library’s American Memory collections; and helpful orientations to women’s history sources in the Library’s online exhibitions and audiovisual Web broadcasts of lectures, readings, and symposia.

Information Industry–Elsevier
Derk Haank of Elsevier’s STM Division Resigns
Reed Elsevier Group plc today announced that Mr Derk Haank is to resign from Reed Elsevier with immediate effect. Mr Haank has been a director of Reed Elsevier and chief executive of the group�s science and medical division.
Mr Haank plans, in early 2004, to take up the post of chief executive of Springer, the science and business publishing business acquired (subject to regulatory approval) by Cinven and Candover, the European buyout specialists.

Professional Reading Shelf
Web Search
An Analytical Comparison of Approaches to Personalizing PageRank

Awards–Searchable Databases
Source: AMPAS
It’s A Wonderful Search for Oscar! The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Reintroduces Academy Awards Database
From the announcement, Search by nominee name; film title; song title; award category or year, alone or in combination. Results can be sorted, displayed and printed in multiple ways…The database had been unavailable while navigational and presentation difficulties in the previous search engine were corrected and improved. “The old database contained only the basic information about nominees and winners,” said Academy Executive Administrator Ric Robertson. “So while all the data was correct, it was only searchable by keyword and had limited and often inadequate capabilities for sorting and displaying search results.” This complete historical record of the Academy’s 75-year-old Awards competition lists some 6,500 people, almost 600 companies and countries and nearly 13,600 nominees (because many of the 6,500 people appear multiple times). Over the years there have been more than 9,000 nominations in 4,000 films…Librarians Libby Wertin and Lucia Schultz were the principal architects of the database’s features, with Information Systems Coordinator Vionette Sellars providing the technical coordination with Solus Development, which provided the actual programming. It took Wertin, assisted by Schultz, over two years to gather information from Academy Historian Patrick Stockstill’s printed nominations resource books and create a completely restructured database. “Ours is the only site where Academy Awards data is guaranteed to be correct,” Wertin said. That guarantee is not to be taken lightly, she added, “taking into account 75 years of changing award rules and the challenge of correctly reflecting the changes in the presentation of the data while still allowing it to be searched comprehensively.

Digital Libraries
Source: University Business
“Dewey Goes Digital”
From the article, “…all over the country, researchers and university affiliates alike are beginning to understand the power and convenience of digital libraries. Once described as “fantasy” projects for library science professionals, digital libraries now are seen as critical to the long-term survival of data. Just like traditional libraries with physical shelves and tangible books, these electronic archives contain everything from text to data, audio, video, images, and–in the case of Indiana’s archive–music. The difference, of course, lies in the medium: Everything in a digital library is, well, digital, meaning university affiliates can access data anytime from just about any place with a sophisticated computer and a secure Internet connection.”

Digitization Projects
Newsreels
Source: PC World
UCLA Film/Television Archive and IBM Work To Digitize 27 Million Feet of Hearst Metrotone News Reel Content
From the story, The preservation project’s goal is to categorize, organize, and digitize more than 27 million feet of newsreel footage from the Hearst Metrotone News Collection. The archive’s original newsreels–which disintegrate with age–will be preserved in an online repository, which can be accessed by the general public, historians, and scholars…The collection consists of newsreels for public viewing, unreleased stories, and outtakes shot from 1917 to 1971. The material spans global conflicts, technological and transportation advancements, medical breakthroughs, historic sporting events, and economic and political transformations such as the Great Depression and the New Deal.
See Also: More About the Hearst Newsreel Collection
See Also: Learn More About the UCLA Film and Television Archive
See Also: New York Times Article About the UCLA Television Archive

Information Science–Citation Analysis
Source: Institute for Scientific Information
ISI Announces Highest Impact Journals of the Decade (in Selected Fields of Science)
Background/Summary ||| Direct to Complete List (pdf)

Information Industry–Reed Elsevier
Source: Reuters
Reed Elsevier Wants to Acquire More Companies
From the article, Anglo-Dutch publishing group Reed Elsevier said on Thursday it plans to step up its acquisition drive, using some of its 700 million euro ($814.9 million) annual free cashflow to fund any deals…Contrary to a report in the Dutch financial paper Het Financieele Dagblad, however, a Reed spokeswoman told Reuters it does not expect to use all of that money and has no plans to buy Dutch state publisher SDU. “We think we’ve been a little too modest in terms of our acquisitions, and we plan to be a little more aggressive in the next two years,” she said. “We’re focusing on medium-sized companies, not huge pieces that would form a new leg of the business.”

Professional Reading Shelf
Bookstores–United Kingdom
Source: Library + Information Update
Change in store?
From the article, What impact are high-street book superstores having on the public library…
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National Libraries–Australia
The June, 2003 Issue of National Library of Australia News Is Now Online
Articles Include:
* “Valuing Are Scientific Heritage”
From the article, Work in cutting-edge areas such as medical science and environmental sustainability can only proceed from sound knowledge of what has gone before. This is what motivates the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, based at the University of Melbourne. It is interested in harnessing the Information Technology revolution, particularly digital technologies, to preserve and share our scientific heritage. “What we are trying to do on the Web is create cultural national parks, public spaces of intrinsic value that become part of our heritage,” says the Centre�s Director, Gavan McCarthy.
* “The Potentialities of Oral History: The “Seven Years On” Project”

The Library of Congress
LC Appoints New Associate Librarian for Library Services
Dr. Deanna Marcum’s appointment becomes effective in August. From the announcement, In accepting this position, Marcum said: �This is a transformational period for all libraries, including the Library of Congress, as we adapt to the influences of digital technology. I am honored that the Library has placed its trust in me to assume this leadership role, and I am thrilled with the opportunity to help the Library at what promises to be a defining historical moment.� Marcum served as director of Public Service and Collection Management at the Library of Congress from 1993-95. In 1995, she was appointed president of the Council on Library Resources and president of the Commission on Preservation and Access. She oversaw the merger of these two organizations into the Council on Library and Information Resources in 1997 and has served as its president since that time. From 1989-92, she was dean of the School of Library and Information Science at The Catholic University of America and vice-president of the Council on Library Resources from 1981-89.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items)
Aerospace–Lists
Source: Aviation Week and Space Technology
New List, The Top 100 Stars of Aerospace
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Travel
Source: Consumer Reports
Full-Text: Summer Vacation Guide
You don’t need a CR subscription to access full-text.
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Campaign Finance–United States
Source: Federal Election Commission
Full-Text Report and Lists: Congressional Candidate Spending 2001-2002
Page contains overview and direct links to numerous lists available in pdf and xls formats.
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State Courts–United States
Source: BJS
New, Full-Text Report, Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2000
Includes links to xls spreadsheets.
See Also: New, State Court Sentencing of Convicted Felons — Statistical tables
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Celebrities–Lists and Rankings
Source: Forbes
New, The Celebrity 100, 2003

Resources of the Week
3 selections.
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Lobbyists–United States–Searchable Database
1) PoliticalMoneyLine�s Federal Lobbyist Directory
PoliticalMoneyLine is a respected resource for campaign finance and related information. The site�s creators and chief database programmers, Kent Cooper and Tony Raymond, have built a large and growing assortment of both free and fee-based search tools.
The Federal Lobbyist Directory (search or browse) contains data about, �Individuals or Entities That Lobby, Lobby On Behalf of Others, or Hire Lobbyists To Lobby For Them�. Currently, the database offers material for about 2500 lobbying organizations, 25,000 clients, and over 28,000 individual lobbyists. Searching �Microsoft� returns a list of current lobbyists, and links to images of original filings. A search for �Patton Boggs� returns a client list, links to political action committee data, a list of company lobbyists, and direct links to quickly access new registrations and former clients.
The Federal Lobbyist Directory (available free) as well as other fee-based and PoliticalMoneyLine resources are “more that worth” of a place on your virtual reference shelf.
See Also: PoliticalMoneyLine and BNA Also Offer Access to the Latest Lobbyist Registrations
Browsing the filings is free. Keyword searching requires a subscription.
See Also: New, Candidate & PAC & Party Disbursements Search
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You Might Have Missed
Congressional Research Service
2) Another Frequently Updated Source for Congressional Research Service Reports
I’ve said on several occasions, a single publicly available source offering access to CRS reports is not available. Plus, in many cases the reports you do find “on the web” are not very current. CRS spends a great deal of time updating material. A selection of reports compiled by the U.S. Embassy in Rome is one of a few sites that does a good job of making the most current version of reports (the ones it collects) available. Again, no single source offers access to all CRS reports.
Other Sources That Add and Update CRS Reports on a Regular Basis:
Reports from the Congressional Research Service (Gateway)
Environmental Topics–CRS Reports
International Relations–CRS Reports
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3) History–Digital Collections
Source: Hebrew University of Jerusalem/Jewish National and University Library.
Historic Cities: Maps & Documents
From the site, The site is intended to contain maps, literature, documents, books and other relevant material concerning the past, present and future of historic cities and to facilitate the location of similar content on the web.

The Internet Archive
A New Feature (in Beta) from The Wayback Machine
In Beta is a new feature that allows you to take any archived page that you access via The Wayback Machine* and quickly convert the html web page into a pdf file. Here’s how to get it working.
1) You Must Use the Advanced Interface
2) Enter the URL you’re looking for but before hitting the search button, select the “Convert to PDF” option. It’s the last option listed on the page.
3) Example: A search for archived pages from http://www.ifla.org
4) Located next to each entry, on the results page, you’ll see a button labeled “PDF”. Select the desired page and click. Now, enter your e-mail address and click convert. In a matter of minutes, a pdf of the selected web page will be sent as an attachment direct to your e-mail.
* The Wayback Machine, part of the Internet Archive, is a searchable archive of over 10 billion web pages back to 1996.
See Also: DocMorph and MyMorph
A free service from the National Library of Medicine that will convert many document types (it recognizes 50 formats) on your computer to a pdf document. Make sure to also take a look at a free desktop app called MyMorph. It makes converting docs even easier.

Web Search–MSN
Source: News.Com
“MSN search bot a glimpse of ambitions”

MSN has been sending out database building web crawlers. What this precisely means (product launch? testing technology?) has yet to be determined. Those of you interested in what MS might be doing in web search arena will want to take a look at a few of the “search related” patents Microsoft has been awarded and recent technical papers on search topics. ResourceshelfPLUS has been compiling some of this material.
* ResourceShelfPLUS–Recent Search Related Patents (Microsoft Patents at #5 & #12)
* ResourceShelfPLUS–Microsoft Technical Papers and Search Related Patents: A Selected List

Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items)
Plagiarism–Webliography
Source: ACRL News
Full-Text, Plagiarism and cyber-plagiarism: A guide to selected resources on the Web
Compiled by Patience Simmonds, a librarian at Penn St. University.
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Legislation–United States
Source: Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C.
New Publications:
1) “An Overview of the Congressional Record and Its Predecessor Publications”
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2) “Sessions of Congress with Corresponding Debate Record Volume Numbers” (1789-2003)
See Also: Legislative Source Book

Web Search–Google
Be Careful: Another Example of Using Google To Search for Popularity
Using Google to measure the popularity of X (very popular with reporters) have been mentioned on ResourceShelf and in many other sources. Jonathan Dube’s recent Poynter.Org article offers an excellent overview. The accuracy, validity, and meaning of utilizing Google (or any web engine) as a popularity measuring tool by simply searching the amount of hits the term/phrase returns is also questionable. However, this is not the focus of the post. So, why this posting? Well, it seems that when many people use this technique also don’t understand how Google works and forget to place phrases in quotation marks.
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Here is another example for your files from Sunday’s St. Petersburg Times.
From the article, “Online degree programs promoting virtual classrooms and specialized software are springing up all over the country; a search for “online college degrees” in the Google search engine recently returned more than 1-million results.” Although it’s written in quotes (meaning an exact phrase in search speak), the writer searched for online AND college AND degrees as THREE separate terms that can appear anywhere on a web page without having a relationship to one another. Google returns about 900,000 hits. However,
searching “online college degrees” (what is being discussed in the article) as a PHRASE returns around 15,000 hits.
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Many other problems exist. Here are just a few of them.
* First, Google’s database is distributed on thousands of computers around the globe. Running the identical search at different times and from different locations will return different numbers. These numbers are just ESTIMATES. This was also pointed out by Dube in a follow-up story.
* Second, what about plurals? Google doesn’t offer truncation or nesting and the writer did not OR variations together. For example: “online college degree” OR “online college degrees”
* Third, the lack of a controlled vocabulary causes all sorts of problems. What about synonyms like university, web-based, diploma.
* Fourth, database lag time. If it’s a new term, person in the news, etc. has the main database been refreshed (it might need several cycles) to reflect a trend.
* Fifth, database coverage. Are certain words, terms, concepts, people more popular than others in the web world.
* Sixth, spam. Web engines are getting much better at recognizing and eliminating it. Nevertheless, it still gets into the database. Page totals could be skewed by these types of web pages.
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See Also: Another Example: This time from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Search to find out popularity of the phrase, “unfunded accrued actuarial liability”. Writer did not search as a phrase and got about 15,000 (a search today yields 19,000). Searched as a phrase the search returns around 250 results. **Thanks to S.B. for the news tip. **

Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items)
Health Insurance–United States
Source: National Academies/Institute of Medicine
New, Full-Text Report, Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America
From the site, “The report is the first-ever economic analysis of the costs of uninsurance for society overall.”
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text Report ||| Web Page With Additional Resources
See Also: Searchable Compilation of Additional NAS Reports About Uninsurance
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Documents in the News
Spam–Law Suits
Full-Text Documents, Law Suits Microsoft Has Filed Against Alleged Spammers ||| Background Info
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Hispanic Population–United States–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census
New, Full-Text Report, The Hispanic Population of the United States
Summary/Fast Facts ||| Direct to Full-Text
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Intelligence–United Kingdom
Source: Intelligence and Security Committee
Full-Text, Intelligence and security annual report
Statewatch also offers an additional story about material deleted from the report. Direct to the report.