Web Search–Gigablast
Yet Another New Feature at Gigablast, “Giga Bits”
Monday, ResourceShelf ran an item about Gigablast adding a direct link for every url in its database to The Wayback Machine. This week ends with another new feature at Gigablast. “Giga Bits” are terms, located in a box at the top of a results page, to assist in refining and focusing your search.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (2 Items)
Law–United States–Directory
Source: Eaton County (MI) Prosecuting Attorney
Prosecuting Attorneys, District Attorneys, Attorneys General & US Attorneys on the Web
Geographically organized directory includes 2,360 sites. Covers all U.S. states, federal, Canada, international (includes justice ministries, etc.). Also offers links to relevant professional organizations.
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U.S. Federal Government–Budget
Source: Congressional Budget Office
1) Full Text, Paying for Iraq’s Reconstruction
2) Full Text, The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2005 to 2014

Theses–Canada
Source: Library and Archives Canada
Brand New, Theses Canada Portal
From the site, “Search the online catalogue for all the Canadian theses and dissertations in our collection and access for free the full-text electronic theses covering the period from 1998 to 2002.” The portal has additional information for students and universities. To purchase a thesis that’s not available digitally, you need to contact ProQuest. Basic and advanced search interfaces are available.

Professional Reading Shelf (2 Items)
Open Access
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Promise and Peril of ‘Open Access’
From the article, “If you wander through the stacks of university libraries, follow scientists into their research labs, or log on to vast stretches of scholarly cyberspace, you will find yourself on the battlefield of a war over scientific publishing. The good guys, in the eyes of many scientists and librarians, are the revolutionaries offering an alternative to the publishing status quo. They are creating online journals that charge no subscription fees. These agitators for change want to rescue librarians from the tyranny of prohibitively costly journals — upwards of $20,000 per year — and to empower researchers who, because of the expense, often have difficulty keeping up with new developments in their fields.” The COHE has two additional articles dealing with access in the 1/30 issue.
+ “2 Routes to Open Access: Archives and Institutional Subscriptions”
+ “Publishers Fear Government Intervention”
See Also: Transcript of an Online Colloquium with Peter Suber
Peter is the editor of FOS News and a leader in the open access movement. He chatted with COHE readers on Thursday afternoon.
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The February 2004 Issue of the Internet Resources Newsletter is Online
Always interesting and useful material from Roddy M., Catherine U., and Catherine F., from the Heriot-Watt University Library.

Enterprise Search & Web Search–Vivisimo
Source: eWeek
eWeek Praises Vivisimo’s Clustering Technology
If you’re read ResourceShelf regularly, you know that Vivisimo’s publicly available (and free) clustering/meta engine is a favorite. Today, eWeek gives their clustering technology for the enterprise (and what the public web site is based on) a glowing review.
See Also: Vivisimo
See Also: Search PubMed with Vivisimo
See Also: Search FirstGov with Vivisimo

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (6 Items)
Terrorism–Government Documents
Source: National Security Archive
The September 11th Sourcebooks
“National Security Archives online readers on terrorism, intelligence, and the next war.” The Taliban File (Vol. 7) was updated today.
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Avian Influenza
Source: World Health Organization
Resource Compilation: Avian influenza
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Health–United States–Statistics
Source: CDC
New Report, Health Care in America: Trends in Utilization
Summary ||| Full Text
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U.S. States Congress
Source: GPO
Just Updated, Congressional Directory, 108th Congress
The January 2004 Online Revision is now available.
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Financial Education
Source: Federal Reserve of Chicago
Financial Education Research Repository
“A [searchable] collection of research articles, working papers, reports and other studies related to financial education.”
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Business
Source: Business 2.0
The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business: 2004 Edition
“… fourth annual review of the most shameful, dishonest, and just plain stupid moments of the past year.”

Industry Briefs (2 Items)
Factiva Adds Several New Sources to Database
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New One-Stop Page for IEEE Publications Information

Resources of the Week
Two entries this time around.
1) Hoaxes and Scams
Purportal.Com
Simple, useful, and a real time-saver! This page offers easy access to five searchable archives from well-known sources containing hoax, virus, and urban legend information. Here’s a list of what you can search for at the Purportal.Com page:
+ Snopes Urban Legends Archives
+ About.com Urban Legends
+ CIAC Hoax Database
+ CERT Computer Security Database
+ Symantec (Real) Virus Encyclopedia
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2) Health Information–Collection Development
The Weekly MEDLINEPlus E-Mail Announcement List
MEDLINEPlus from the National Library of Medicine is a top choice for authoritative health information. The MEDLINEPlus E-Mail Announcement List (weekly) will notify you of all new MEDLINEPlus resources (we mention some on ResourceShelf) including new “Health Topic” compilations. Each update also contains DIRECT LINKS to all of the underlying resources added to each health topic page during the previous week. This is a “must have” for anyone interested in web-based health material and/or building a local collection of this type of information. To subscribe, simply go to this page and select the MEDLINEPLUS-NEW box. If you would like to see what the updates look like, I’ve posted a couple of them here.

Web Browsers
Source: eWeek
Another IE Spoofing Hole Found
From the article, “Security researchers are warning of another spoofing vulnerability in Internet Explorer, this time one that allows an attacker to mask the true file extension of malicious downloads. The file-extension spoof means that an attacker could lull a user into opening a malicious file from a Web site by making the file appear as a legitimate extension, such as a PDF or MPEG, researchers said on Wednesday.”
Update: Microsoft to Change IE Behavior to Block Spoofing Attacks (via eWeek)
Update: IE Update Will Block Some URLs (via PC World)

Citation Analysis
Scholarly Publishing
Source: ISI
+ Chemistry: High-Impact Institutions, 1993-2003
+ Journals Ranked by Impact: Applied Mathematics

Professional Reading Shelf
OpenURL
Source: NISO
OpenURL Standard Released for Review
Abstract ||| Full Text ||| Interested Party Comments

Web Search–MSN
MSN Search (U.S.) Runs Beta Test
Here’s a statement from Karen Redetzki, MSN Product Manager:
“In order to increase relevancy, MSN Search is testing solutions on MSN Search to a small percentage of consumers in various markets worldwide. Tests serve as no indication as to the direction MSN will eventually take in the future but rather are research to determine the most useful consumer experience on MSN Search. Tests or changes in one country do not necessarily indicate what may or may not be tested or changed in the US or other markets. We determine the needs of customers in individual markets and make the best decision for that market based on both consumer and advertiser wants & needs.”
Here are a couple of things I noticed:
+ Sponsored links directly below search box
+ Popular Topics gone from beta version
+ Featured sites gone from beta version
+ Page titles larger point size in beta version
+ Beta only available with IE browser
+ After a couple of searches with the beta version, I was asked to complete a survey about my searching habits and the engines I use. Thanks to C.A. for the news tip.
Examples
1) Search.msn.com ||| BETA.search.msn.com
2) Search.msn.com ||| BETA.search.msn.com

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (3 Items)
World Economic Forum
Webcast Archive: Highlights and Speeches from the 2004 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos Switzerland concluded on Tuesday.
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Advertising
Super Bowl Television Commercials Online
Commercials from Sunday’s game will be available online late Sunday or early Monday. Ads from 2003 and 2002 remain available.
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Transportation–United States–Statistics
Source: BTS
Bureau of Transportation Statistics Introduces the Transportation Services Index
From the site, “The Transportation Services Index (TSI), created by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), measures the movement of freight and passengers. The index, which is seasonally adjusted, combines available data on freight ton miles, as well as passenger miles traveled, that have been weighted to yield a consistent monthly measure. The first release of the TSI will be in March 2004.”

Industry Briefs (2 Items)
Thomson Will Acquire CCBN (Corporate Communications Broadcast Network)
Note: FullDisclosure.Com, CCBN’s publicly available site, was a Resource of the Week in October.
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EBSCO’s A-to-Z Database Now Includes Access Info For Nearly 1,000 Free Journals

Libraries–United Kingdom
Source: The Guardian
Libraries embrace digital age
From the article, “What if librarians could move in to find the answers to your problems? In one local authority, they have done the next best thing – they are available live through the library service’s website. It’s one of several lottery-funded library projects where the People’s Network programme has used �100m of lottery money – channelled through the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) – to supply terminals to every UK library service. ” The Resource Discovery Network (a ResourceShelf favorite) is mentioned in the article.

Web Search–Google
Source: News.Com
Whatever Happened To Google’s WHOIS Lookup Shortcut?
About three week’s ago ResourceShelf posted news that Google was offering a shortcut to a WHOIS lookup service. The day after ResourceShelf wrote about it, the shortcut was gone. Today, News.Com’s Stefanie Olson explains why. From the article, “The issue cropped up about two weeks ago, when Google quietly launched a service allowing visitors to look up data on domain name owners from public databases–collectively known as Whois–run by registrars worldwide. Although largely unpromoted, the service generated enough traffic to surpass Network Solutions’ (NSI’s) daily Whois use limits, which aim to stop spammers and other undesirables from harvesting information about its customers…The tussle highlights a growing problem for Google as it seeks to be all things to all people. The company’s challenge is to offer visitors helpful new search services without alienating the Internet operators it relies on for advertising or partners that may have different priorities.”
See Also: If You Need WHOIS Information both CentralOps.net and WHOIS.Sc are excellent resources.

and in other Google News…
The Company Will Open an R&D Center in Switzerland
Thanks to C.A. for the news tip.
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Google faces trademark suit over keyword ad (via News.Com)

Professional Reading Shelf
Digital Library Federation
British Library Joins Digital Library Federation

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full-Text Documents (5 Items)
Documents in the News–United Kingdom
The Hutton Inquiry
Full Text, Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly C.M.G.
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Awards
76th Academy Awards Nomination Announcement Press Kit
Kit includes:
+ Master list of nominees
+ Biographies and photos of major award nominees
+ Nominations Fact Sheet
+ Nominees Sidebars (Interesting facts)
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Computer Security
Source: GCN
Department of Homeland Security Launches Cyber Alert Program
From the article, “The Homeland Security Department this morning took the wraps off a National Cyber Alert System to advise the general public and computer technicians about systems security threats, such as the current MyDoom worm.”
See Also: U.S. CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) Home Page
See Also: Official News Release and Info About Accessing Alerts
E-Mail alert links on left side of page.
See Also: CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) at Carnegie Mellon
See Also: Federal Computer Incident Response Center (FedCirc)
Includes a page of statistics.
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Education–Statistics–United States
Source: NCES
Projections of Education Statistics to 2013 – Now Web Enabled
From the site, “Projections of Education Statistics to 2013 is the 32nd report in a series begun in 1964. This report provides revisions of projections shown in Projections of Education Statistics to 2012 and Projections of Education Statistics to 2011. It includes statistics on elementary and secondary schools and degree-granting institutions. Included are projections of enrollment, graduates, teachers, and expenditures to the year 2013.”
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Online Exhibits
Isaac Asimov Online Exhibit
“Isaac Asimov was one of the greatest science fiction writers of the twentieth-century. Many critics, scientists, and educators believe Asimov’s greatest talent was for popularizing or, as he called it, “translating” science for the lay reader. This online display features visuals and descriptions of some of the over 600 books, games, audio recordings, videos, and wall charts included in the West Virginia University Libraries? Asimov Collection.” (Via DrWeb’s Domain) Thanks to SDK for the link.

News Search
We Missed One: Topix.Net
In a review of several new and upcoming web search tools last week, I failed to include Topix.Net. A beta version of this news resource is now available. The database includes content from 3100 sources organized into over 150,000 topics. Over 30,000 of these topics allow you to browse news by geographical location. Material is also searchable. Topix.Net is the creation of Rich Skrenta, one of the engineers that built the Open Directory software.

Enterprise Search
FAST Search and Transfer Launches Major New Product for Enterprise Market
It’s called ESP (Enterprise Search Platform) and according to the company offers a “360-degree view” of ALL content (structured and unstructured, any platform, Intranet or Web, 77 languages, 225 formats) across an enterprise. The product also offers dynamic categorization and is built on a “Search Derivative Applications (SDAs)” infrastructure allowing for easy customization. FAST’s search technology powers several web-known web sites including FirstGov, Scirus, and CareerBuilder.
See Also: FAST CEO Conference Presentation, Digital Libraries: What Should We Expect from Search Engines
Slides from an August 2003 presentation by FAST CEO John Lervik.
See Also: Fast accelerates enterprise search (via InfoWorld)