Natural Language Searching
Question Answering Software
The National Library of Medicine Invites You To “Ask Cosmo”
Cosmo is a new natural language, question answering, “virtual representative” from the NLM. From the announcement, The National Library of Medicine (NLM) receives hundreds of e-mailed questions each day on its customer service line. Because many of them are simple and asked numerous times each day, NLM decided to develop software that would answer these queries and thus free up customer service representatives and reference librarians to answer more complex questions…Cosmo is familiar with hundreds of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Based on software from NativeMinds, Cosmo is online 24×7.
See Also: Other Virtual Reps Using NativeMinds Software

Archives
Source: Toronto Star
“The electronic genie”
From the article, There is a story that neatly summarizes the challenges archivists face as they grapple with the digital revolution. In 1986, the British Broadcasting Corporation created the Domesday Book Mark II, an electronic version of the original record of English lands that was written at the instigation of William the Conqueror in 1086. The BBC’s version contained 25,000 maps, 50,000 pictures, 60 minutes of video and millions of words. It cost 2.5 million pounds to create. Only 17 years after its creation, the Domesday Book Mark II can’t be read. The BBC computers used for the project no longer work and the disks on which it was stored are not readable by other computer systems. But the 917-year-old original is still available to researchers in London’s Public Records Office. Welcome to the archivist’s digital dilemma. For as much as some local archivists and librarians admit they must embrace the e-revolution, they are not comfortable with it in its present state.

Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents
History
Source: Harvard University Law School Library
New, Nuremberg Trials Project: A Digital Document Collection
From the site, The Library has approximately one million pages of documents relating to the trial of military and political leaders of Nazi Germany before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) and to the twelve trials of other accused war criminals before the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT). These documents, which include trial transcripts, briefs, document books, evidence files, and other papers, have been studied by lawyers, scholars, and other researchers in the areas of history, ethics, genocide, and war crimes, and are of particular interest to officials and students of current international tribunals involving war crimes and crimes against humanity. To preserve the contents of these documents — which are now too fragile to be handled — and to provide expanded access to this material, the Library has begun a digital project to create and present images or full-text versions of its Nuremberg documents on the Internet, along with analytical information about each document and general information about the trials.
See Also: A List of What Material is Currently Available

Information Industry–LexisNexis
Source: Information Today NewsBreaks
“LexisNexis Nearing Completion on a New Platform”
Marydee Ojala offers more info about two stories we’ve mentioned in the past couple of weeks.
1) LexisNexis To Adopt Single Technology Platform (7/22)
2) FAST Signs Deal with LexisNexis (7/16)

Librarians
Source: International Herald Tribune/NYT
“How a librarian saved Basra’s treasured books”
From the article, “Alia Muhammad Baker’s house is full of books. There are books in stacks, books in the cupboards, books bundled into flour sacks like lumpy aid rations. Books fill an old refrigerator. Pull aside a window curtain, and there is no view, just more books…All told, Baker says, the books number about 30,000. And then there are the periodicals. These books are fugitives, and Baker, a 50-year-old librarian in stout shoes, is the engineer of their underground railroad. As British forces stormed Basra in early April, she spirited the volumes out of the city’s Central Library, over a two-meter (7-foot) wall, to the backroom of a restaurant and later into trucks to carry them to her home. Even friends and library employees have been enlisted as caretakers for the troves of books she rescued. The books constitute about 70 percent – all there was time to save – of what was the library’s collection.

Professional Reading Shelf
Libraries and Librarians
The August Issue of Walt Crawford’s “Cites and Insights” is Now Online

Access to Information–United States
Freedom of Information Act
Source: GCN
“Lamberth finds EPA in contempt for e-document purge”
From the article, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth this week held the Environmental Protection Agency in contempt for destroying electronic documents in violation of a court order issued as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request. The contempt charge appeared to have little practical impact, but Lamberth did rule yesterday that the agency must pay legal expenses of the Landmark Legal Foundation of Herndon, Va., the plaintiff in the FOIA and contempt proceedings…The court found that EPA officials had reformatted PC hard drives, erased and reused e-mail backup tapes, and deleted e-mails that potentially could have held information deemed relevant to Landmark�s FOIA request. The legal foundation had sought records about environmental regulations that EPA officials reportedly sought to rush into effect before the Bush administration took office in 2001.

Library Organizations–United States
National Commission on Libraries and Information Science Names a New Chairperson
From the announcement, President George W. Bush has named historian Joan R. Challinor Chairman of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS). Dr. Challinor succeeds Martha B. Gould, whose term on the Commission expired July 19, 2003. Dr. Challinor, a resident of Washington, DC, was appointed to her current term on the Commission by President Bill Clinton in 2000; she was first appointed to the Commission in 1995.

Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents
Education–United States-Statistics
Condition of Education – Now Web Enabled With 2003 Numbers
The Condition of Education web site is an integrated collection of the indicators and analyses published in The Condition of Education for 2003, 2002, 2001, and 2000. For each indicator there are links to the supporting documents (charts, tables, standard error tables, and supplemental notes). You can also download the indicator and corresponding supporting materials in PDF format. Some indicators may have been updated since they first appeared in print.

Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items)
Portals
Source: JISC/PORTAL Project
New Full-Text Report, “Stakeholder Requirements for Institutional Portals”
Overview ||| Direct to Full-Text ||| Other Deliverables
See Also: “Institutional Portals: A Review of Outputs” (Literature Review)
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Libraries
Conference Presentations and Papers: 2nd European Library Seminar/3rd Gabriel Seminar
The conference took place last month is Lisbon, Portugal. Here are the titles of a just a few of the presentations:
* Metadata Development in The European Library
* Digital Preservation at the KB – From a safe place to permanent access
* Digital collection in the National Library of Russia: organization and development
* InterParty Project

Digitization Projects
Source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Hawaii’s Law Library Microform Consortium Digitizes Content
From the article, For 27 years the Kaneohe-based nonprofit Law Library Microform Consortium has transferred volumes of law books onto microfiche. Some 91,000 volumes, in fact. In partnership with the University of Hawaii, Wayne State University Law School and the University of Michigan, it is now putting the volumes online. LLMC-Digital’s goal of 100 million online pages will make it the biggest digital law library, according to Executive Director Jerry Dupont. It will continue to offer microfiche copies…So far just over two-thirds of American law schools have signed up for the new online library, as have 15 large mainland law firms…The beta-test site is open for free at www.llmc.com but after Sept. 1 the subscriber-only site will replace it…”Librarians like the fact that with the technology we’re adapting, the first thing they get is the actual picture of the original book.” Most users know exactly what it is they are looking for, although the data will be searchable, Dupont said. Thanks to S.C. for the news tip.

Web Search–Ask Jeeves
Source: Forbes
Butler Fired! Ask Jeeves to Remove His Image from Advertising
Fine, the butler will no longer be seen in Ask.Com advertising. At one time I was very anti-Jeeves. It did have a well deserved bad reputation. However, in the past two years, particularly after Jeeves acquired the Teoma technology, searching with Ask Jeeves and Teoma have seen major improvements. The problem is that many people have failed to take a look. Perhaps removing the Mr. Jeeves drawing from advertising will help. It can’t hurt. However, what would really help is for many people to realize that more than one web engine can produce quality results. Here’s a sentence that appeared in a Forbes article about Google a few months ago.
“Even Google’s engineers admit Fast and Teoma deliver results comparable to theirs.”
-Forbes, May 26, 2003

Scholarly Publishing
Open Access Movement
Source: LJ/SPARC
A Q&A With Peter Suber
From the interview with our friend Peter, Longtime Earlham College Professor of Philosophy Peter Suber has become a well-regarded and popular voice in scholarly communication since first launching his Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter. Now, with the FOS Newsletter reborn under the auspices of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) as the SPARC Open Access Newsletter (SOAN), Suber is devoting his full energies to the future of scholarly communication.
See Also: Don’t Forget to Also Visit Suber’s Free Online Scholarship Weblog.

Scholarly Publishing
Open Access Movement
Source: LJ/SPARC
A Q&A With Peter Suber
From the interview with our friend Peter, Longtime Earlham College Professor of Philosophy Peter Suber has become a well-regarded and popular voice in scholarly communication since first launching his Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter. Now, with the FOS Newsletter reborn under the auspices of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) as the SPARC Open Access Newsletter (SOAN), Suber is devoting his full energies to the future of scholarly communication.
See Also: Don’t Forget to Also Visit Suber’s Free Online Scholarship Weblog.

Resources, Reports, Tools, and Full-Text Documents
Foundations–United States–Statistics
Source: Foundation Center
Highlights From The Foundation Center Yearbook
This four page pdf includes several charts and graphs. Info about purchasing the full-text document is also provided.

Briefly
An Interview with Overture’s CEO, Ted Meisel (via Marketwatch.Com)
Included in the this q & a interview are Meisel’s comments about what MSN might be up to. Registration required (free) to read this interview.

Web Search–Hotbot
Changes To the Underlying Engines at Hotbot
Hotbot, a tool that allows you to easily search four web engines and then easily move between result sets has made a few changes to its underlying engines. Hotbot is not a meta-engine where result sets are merged together. When the “new” Hotbot launched in December you were able to search the AllTheWeb, Inktomi, Google, and Teoma. Here is a list of what you’ll now find.
* Inktomi is now labeled as Hotbot
* Lycos (Same database as AllTheWeb)
* Ask Jeeves replaces Teoma (This is basically a name change since both use the same database).
* Google remains
* Related Searches are available at the top of each results page. You’ll see the same choices with Google, Hotbot, and Lycos. Ask Jeeves offers different choices.
* Spell Check is Now Available (Using spell check technology from each engine).
See Also: ResourceShelf’s Hotbot Overview from December 15, 2002

Resources of the Week
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News
International Security
Country News and Reports From the Overseas Advisory Safety Council
On The Overseas Advisory Safety Council (OSAC) web site you learn that the organization “was established in 1985 by the U.S. Department of State to foster the exchange of security related information between the U.S. Government and American private sector operating abroad. Administered by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, OSAC has developed into an enormously successful joint venture for effective security cooperation”.
The web site is home to numerous resources aimed at those with an interest in international security. Included on the site is a calendar of “significant dates and dates to watch” around the world.
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OSAC Public Newsletters are worthy of a special mention. Three newsletters are available and could be of value to people in business, the news industry, and other fields.
1) Daily News
“�a daily compilation of global news, to include cyber crime and terrorism. It is automatically generated every morning at 0830 EST and delivered via email�” The Daily News and an archive of past issues is also available on the OSAC web site
2) Executive Alerts
“�timely information on various subjects. This deliverable is written by the OSAC Executive staff for the purpose of distributing needed information.”
3) Report Updates
“�information based on your region of interest. As new Web Reports are added to our site, they are delivered to you via email based on your region of interest.” Regions include: South and Central Asia, Europe, The Americas and Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and East Asia and the Pacific. Reports are also available and searchable (back to 1986) on the web site. They can be found (by type) under the �Web Reports� section near the top of the page. Reports categories:
* Safety and Security
* White Collar Crime
* Crime and Safety Reports
* Warden Reports
“Messages issued from an Embassy to the U.S. Citizen population regarding the local security situation.”
* Foreign Press Reports
* Homeland Security Events
* Country Council Reports
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Product Searching
Amazon Light 2.0
It seems like every time you search the Amazon result pages are full of more ’stuff’ including advertising links. Amazon Lite (first mentioned on ResourceShelf about a year ago) helps get you to book, cd’s, or other listings easily and quickly and then provides a clean and uncluttered entry page for each item. Since the beginning of this year, Alan Taylor, Amazon Light’s creator, has been developing a beta version of Amazon Light 2.0. Btw, Amazon Light’s original interface and functionality still work perfectly.
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Version 2.0 offers you the chance to search books, music, dvd’s, and nine other categories of merchandise. It also offers you a chance to browse by categories (left column). The rest of the main page is made up of a search box (upper left), a ‘list’ box, (upper right column) where you’ll find the items you’ve selected for possible purchase, a �history box�, listing queries from your current visit and a “recent search” box that offers a “mini-copy” of your search results once you click on an item. Entry pages for books, cd’s, dvd’s, and other products, are clean and uncluttered. An entry page for a book contains title, author, ISBN, image of the book cover, related items, and a couple of customer reviews (if available). A direct link for that item on the Amazon.Com site is also provided on each entry page. Demo both interfaces and see which one works best for you.
Note: Amazon Lite is part of Amazon’s affiliate program.
See Also: Amazon Light UK and Amazon Light DE are also available.
See Also: DVD New and Future Releases Calendar

CIPA
Source: ALA
FCC CIPA Order
This new document analyzes today’s order and also provides links to the primary docs. From the ALA site, On July 23, 2003 the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) adopted an order that updates regulations pertaining to the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) for libraries. This order was adopted to reflect the recent Supreme Court decision in American Library Association Inc. v. United States issued on June 23, 2003.

Professional Reading Shelf (4 Items)
Librarianship
Source: Free Pint
Full-Text, Interview with Cindy Hill, President, Special Libraries Association
Cindy was interviewed at SLA 2003 by Free Pint’s Annabel Colley.
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Information Science
Now Available, Full-Text, August/September ‘03 Issue
Bulletin of the of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Articles include:
* “Knowledge Compass: Opening Windows, Punching Holes in Stovepipes, Forming Communities, Connecting People to People”
* “Metadata Use in the Commercial Banking Industry”
* “What Do You Do With It Now That You Have It? The Impact of Web Weather and Climate Information”
* “Records and Information Management Perspectives Part 2: Access to Public Information”
* “Farmers’ Access to Agricultural Information in Nigeria”
* “Guarding the Borders or Blocking the Way? IAs to be Banned!”
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Librarianship
Now Available Online, Full-Text, July ‘03 Issue, Journal of the Medical Librarian Association
Articles include:
* “Developing an academic medical library core journal collection in the (almost) post-print era: the Florida State University College of Medicine Medical Library experience”
* “Information-seeking behavior in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM): an online survey of faculty at a health sciences campus”
* “Benchmarking information needs and use in the Tennessee public health community”
* “The role of the academic medical center library in training public librarians”
* Book Review: Attracting, Educating, and Serving Remote Users Through the Web
* Book Review: Teaching Technology
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Databases–PsycINFO
Now Available, PsycINFO News Summer 2003
Articles include:
* “New Gray Literature Database”
* “New Material from “Cover to Cover” Journals”