Online Images–Databases
Useful, Cool, and Interesting Database (Perfect for Testing New Computers), Terrafly
Virtually “fly” across the U.S. using satellite and aeriel imagery. Images are also returned with census data and other statistics. You can search (by location) or browse the database. Have fun!!!

Unstructured Information–Text Mining
Source: Computerworld
“Digging Into Documents”
What is text mining? What is information extraction? Learn about these and other topics in this interview with ClearForest’s President and chief scientist, Ronen Feldman.
See Also: “The Word on Text Mining” (via Intelligent Enterprise) (first posted on ResourceShelf 12/1/03)
See Also: A Roadmap to Text Mining on the Web
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Controlled Vocabularies–MeSH
Source: NLM
Full Text, Introduction to MeSH-2004
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Web Design
Source: Jakob Nielson’s Alertbox
Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003
“Sites are getting better at using minimalist design, maintaining archives, and offering comprehensive services. However, these advances entail their own usability problems, as several prominent mistakes from 2003 show.”
See also: The Ten Most Violated Homepage Design Guidelines

Congressional Research Service
Source: Toledo Blade
Toledo Blade Editorial Weighs In on Public Access to CRS Materials
The editorial is titled, “The Arrogance of Power.” From the editorial, “How do you know when a United States congressman has been around too long? When he starts to believe that he owns and controls what the American public pays for with its tax dollars. A case in point: Rep. Bob Ney, Republican of St. Clairsville in southeastern Ohio, a former state legislator now in his fifth term in Congress. As chairman of the House Administration Committee, Mr. Ney has denied a request that the public get full access to information distributed by the Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress.”
See Also: Copy of A Recent CRS Memo About Public Access to the Material (via Secrecy News)
See Also: Much More About What’s Happening in these Two ResourceShelf Postings
#1 ||| #2

Government Information–United States
Source: AP
U.S. Blurs High-Tech White House Images
From the article, “Deferring to Secret Service worries about terrorists, the government is deliberately blurring its highest-quality aerial photographs over Washington to hide objects in plain view on the roofs of the White House, Capitol and Treasury Department. The government also obscured aerial views of the Naval Observatory compound where Vice President Dick Cheney lives. It made no effort to blur detailed photographs showing the Pentagon, Supreme Court, CIA headquarters, Justice Department or FBI headquarters.” From a recent article on on SecurityFocus.Com, “It is not as if aerial imagery of the White House is hard to come by,” says Stephen Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. Aftergood adds, “Except in the case of unacknowledged government facilities, it is hard to see what is gained by this policy, and the downside, I think, is that it encourages public paranoia.” The SecurityFocus also correctly points out that “overhead images of the same sites taken as recently as last year are still easily found online and in print — a detailed shot of the White House roof even adorns a glossy government brochure on the National Aerial Photography Program.”

Briefly
UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library Receives $5 Million Gift (via Oakland Tribune)
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Talk of New Academic Library at the University of Wyoming (via Caspar Tribune)

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (4 Items)
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Intelligence–United States
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Just Released, Full Text Report, The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Efforts to Improve the Sharing of Intelligence and Other Information
This is an unclassified and redacted version of the report.
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Healthcare–United States
Source: Department of Health & Human Services
Just Released, Full Text Reports:
1) A Summary Of Both Reports
2) The National Healthcare Quality Report
3) The National Healthcare Disparities Report
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Healthcare–United States
Source: HHS
New Web Site, QualityTools
From the site, “…a clearinghouse for practical, ready-to-use tools for measuring and improving the quality of Americans’ health care.”
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Anthropology–Database
Source: Department of Anthropology, California Academy of Sciences
California Academy of Sciences Anthropology Collection Database
“Our entire collection database is online and searchable with approximately 17,000 objects and over 8,000 images.” Includes materials “from the indigenous cultures of western North America (exclusive of Mexico) and the Pacific Rim, including all Pacific islands and East Asia.” Database is updated monthly. Search by category, object name, materials, maker’s name, collection, catalog number, culture, global region, country, state/province/district, county.
See Also: Direct to Search Interface

Education
The Educator’s Reference Desk is Now Online
AskERIC is gone (other ERIC Clearinghouses have also closed). However, many of the important resources AskERIC provided are now available via The Educator’s Reference Desk. ERD is a service of The Information Institute at Syracuse University.
From the site, “Through The Educator’s Reference Desk (http://www.eduref.org) you can access AskERIC’s 2,000+ lesson plans, 3,000+ links to online education information, and 200+ question archive responses. While the question answer service will no longer be active, The Educator’s Reference Desk provides a search interface to the ERIC Database, providing access to over one million bibliographic records on educational research, theory, and practice.”

I have also compiled a list of where some ERIC Clearinghouse material can now be accessed.
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See Also: ERIC Database will not be accepting new material until “later” in 2004.
“Beginning in January and until the new ERIC model for acquiring education literature is developed later in 2004, no new materials will be received and accepted for the database. When the new model is ready later in 2004, the Department will communicate with publishers, education organizations, and other database contributors to add publications and materials released from January 2004 forward. The ERIC database will continue to grow, as thousands of documents selected by the ERIC clearinghouses throughout 2003 will be added. Database vendors will receive updated database files containing the newly added records.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items)
Business–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: Entrepreneur Magazine
New, 25th Annual Franchise 500
Links to the 2000-2003 lists are available.
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Broadcasting–Canada
Source: Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
New, Full Text, Broadcasting Policy Monitoring Report 2003
Numerous statistics and charts about broadcasting in Canada. This is the fourth annual report.
Summary ||| Full Text (HTML) ||| Full Text (PDF)

Business–United States–Databases
Source: GCN
Two U.S. Goverment Business Databases Will Combine
Beginning Jan. 1, 2004, SBA’s Pro-Net database and DOD’s Central Contractor Registration (CCR) database will be integrated into a single point for searching and compiling small-business sources…”
See Also: Announcement from Small Business Administration

Internet
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project
Just Relased, Full Text, America’s Online Pursuits: The changing picture of who’s online and what they do
Summary ||| Full Text

Industry Briefs
FAST Search & Transfer…Company Announces Marketing Deal With IBM
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Dialog…Upgrades to NewsEdge Product Announced

The Patriot Act
Source: American Libraries
Survey Shows No Illinois Libraries Contacted by FBI
From the article, “A recent survey of public and academic libraries in Illinois indicates that none have been visited by FBI agents looking for records under the auspices of the USA Patriot Act since September 2001. The results also show that few of the nearly 600 libraries responding to the online survey, conducted in September and November by the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, have adopted formal guidelines for dealing with a search warrant or subpoena from law enforcement.”
See Also: Full Text of Chicago Tribune Story Referenced in Article (registration required)

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items)
Festivals–United States–Database
Festival Network Online (FNO) Adds New Search Functionality
Festivals Network Online is a “nationwide craft show, art fair, music, festival & event guide.” A new feature on the web site allows you to access event info within a certain mile radius of a any zip code. Searching and basic info is free. To view full event details, a subscription (fee-based) is required. The database has info on more than 14,000 events.
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Christmas–United States
Source: PNC Bank
Christmas Price Index, 2003
“While stiff import competition is driving deeper discounts on merchandise sold in the United States, skilled labor cost is on the rise, resulting in a 16 percent increase in this year�s PNC Advisors Christmas Price Index � the biggest jump the Index has seen in its 19-year history. ” Costs have dropped for pear trees and golden rings. However, prices are way up for calling birds, French hens and swans a-swmming. Says a PNC investment strategist, �The low inventory of calling birds and swans this year, combined with a resurgence in demand, has boosted prices � a sign of consumer confidence returning.�
See Also: Flash Presentation of PNC Advisors Christmas Price Index

News Resources
News Aggregator NewsNow Currently Crawling More Than 15,000 Sources
On October 16th, ResourceShelf noted that NewsNow, a favorite aggregator of open web news sources, had just passed the 13,000 source mark. It’s now mid-December and we can report that NewsNow has passed the 15,000 source mark. Impressive and very useful! I said in October that NewsNow offers limited search functionality (only single words) for non-subscribers (the company offers several fee-based services). This is still the case. However, the hundreds of prefabricated categories, accessible via pull-down menus on the left side of the page, make NewsNow a very usable tool containing content not found from other news aggregators.

Professional Reading Shelf
Microsoft Research
A New Article About the MyLifeBits Project from Microsoft Research
Full-Text article, The MyLifeBits Lifetime Story
From the MLB home page, “MyLifeBits is a lifetime store of everything. It is the fulfillment of Vannevar Bush’s 1945 Memex vision including full-text search, text & audio annotations, and hyperlinks. There are two parts to MyLifeBits: an experiment in lifetime storage, and a software research effort.”
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From the article abstract, “Storage trends have brought us to the point where it is affordable to keep a complete digital record of one�s life, and capture methods are multiplying. To experiment with a lifetime store, we are digitizing everything possible from Gordon Bell�s life. The MyLifeBits system is designed to store and manage a lifetime�s worth of data. MyLifeBits enables the capture of web pages, telephone, radio and television. This demonstration highlights the application of typed links and database features to make a lifetime store something that is truly useful.”
See Also: More on the MyLifeBits Home Page

Web Search–Google
Source: Baltimore Sun
Sergey Brin To Give Commencement Address at the University of Maryland
Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, will give the commencement address at the University of Maryland in College Park today. The Baltimore Sun article discusses Brin’s relationship with the university. The article quotes his father, Professor Michael Brin in a couple of places.
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From the article, “But there are challenges looming for [Sergey] Brin, several of which were outlined in a critical cover story in this month’s Fortune. Giants including Microsoft, America Online and Amazon are developing competing search engines, and there are reports of rifts within the company. “It’s not all pinky,” Michael Brin observed.” Thanks to P.W. for the link.
See Also: Another Lengthy Article About Google, This Time in Time Magazine
Key Passages:
+ “Some analysts � Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineWatch.com, for example � believe there are plenty of other companies capable of matching the quality of Google’s search results.” (Editors Note: No argument here)
+ “Google’s greatest asset right now may be not its technology but its brand � and Internet brands are notoriously volatile.”

Spam
Source: Brightmail
Spam Trends of 2003
From the report, In 2003, Brightmail saw spam surpass legitimate email � growing to more than 56% of all Internet email, up from just 40% a year ago. The report also lists the most popular spam mail subject lines.

Professional Reading Shelf
Government Information–United States
Just Released, GPO (Government Printing Office) Posts Its FY 2003 Annual Report

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (7 Items)
Iraq
Source: National Security Archive
Updated: The Saddam Hussein Sourcebook
“Declassified Secrets from the U.S.-Iraq Relationship”
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Religion
Source: U.S. Department of State
Just Released, International Religious Freedom Report for 2003
“This, the fifth annual edition of the International Religious Freedom Report, is issued in accordance with the mandate of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act. The report attempts to establish a baseline of fact about the status of religious freedom worldwide, both to illuminate the problems that exist and to provide a primary source for U.S. religious freedom policy.” Report viewable in sections, geographically divided: Africa, East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, Near East and North Africa, South Asia, Western Hemisphere. Appendices include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and The Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Training at the Foreign Service Institute Related to the International Religious Freedom Act, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), and Overview of U.S. Refugee Policy.
See Also: Preface, Introduction and Executive Summary
See Also: Access to reports from 2003, 2002, 2001 on one page
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Health
Source: World Health Organization
Released Today, The World Health Report 2003
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text ||| Direct to Statistical Tables
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Congressional Research Service
Source: CRS (via FPC)
Two New Reports
+ Drug Trafficking and North Korea: Issues for U.S. Policy
+ Japan-North Korea Relations: Selected Issues
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Crime–United States–Statistics
Source: NCES
Web Version Now Available, Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2003
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Labor–United States–Statistics
Source: BJS
Just Released, Work Experience of the Population, 2002 (Annual)
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African–Americans–Directory
A Roadmap to African-American Resources
A massive directory of over 2000 resources. It was compiled by Sherry Sherrod Dupree, Santa Fe Community College. Ms. Dupree is a researcher, consultant, and historian whose primary focus is African-American resources.

Professional Reading Shelf
Libraries and Librarians
Source: Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (UK)
Selected Full Text Articles from the January Issue of CILIP’s Library + Information Update Are Now Online
+ Inside out: the Big Book Share by Tricia Kings
+ Young people and the internet by Alison
+ Making your website more interactive by Robin Yeates
+ Phil Bradley’s Internet Q&A Column