Professional Reading Shelf
Weblogs
Source: RLG DigiNews
Blog Today, Gone Tomorrow? Preservation of Weblogs
From the article, “Weblogs seem to be growing in number and stature, but a lot of them seem pretty ephemeral. Are any special efforts being made to preserve their contents?”
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Internet
Critical Information Skills
Source: News.com
Reservoir blogs: Fan fakes Tarantino diary
Want to be a famous film director? No problem. Create a site and say you’re that person. The web makes it easy. This is nothing all that new but it’s a good article for your critical info skills teaching folder.
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e-Books
Source: News.com
Have e-books turned a page?
From the article, “After more than a decade of false starts and empty promises, publishers may finally be starting to understand what consumers want from electronic books. Although revenues remain tiny, industry surveys show encouraging signs of growth in e-book sales over the past year. Publishing executives and analysts say the industry is finally coming to grips with the most significant issues that have stalled e-book adoption to date.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Health Information
New Topic Page/Compilation from MEDLINEplus
+ MedlinePlus: Personal Medical Records
Another excellent compilation of sites and resources.
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Hurricanes
Source: NOAA/Hurricane Research Division
Recently Expanded and Updated: Hurricanes (Frequently Asked Questions)
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Genealogy–United Kingdom–Databases
Source: The National Archives
Web gets even better for family history
“Family history will become even easier to do from home thanks to a new project by The National Archives. Information on over 55,000 people who became naturalised British citizens between 1844 and 1930 is now available free in the Catalogue…The project will be completed in March 2005 when 7000 naturalisations from 1931 to 1935, already available at the public research rooms in Kew, will go online.”
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Education–United States–Financial Support
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
Just Released, Federal Support for Education: Fiscal Years 1980 to 2003
“This report provides a comprehensive picture of total federal financial support for education from fiscal year 1980 through fiscal year 2003. A summary of dollar amounts spent on education programs in the U.S. Department of Education and other government agencies is provided.”
See: Full Report (PDF; 418 KB)
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Secrecy–U.S. Government
Source: OpenGovernment.org
Full Text Report, Secrecy Report Card: Quantitative Indicators of Secrecy in the Federal Government
“…an initial effort to establish measurable benchmarks for evaluating the level of secrecy in government.”
Summary/News Release ||| Full Text

Government Contracts–United States–Databases
Source: GCN
GSA to offer some free access to federal contract data
Free? It’s free AFTER paying a one time $2500 fee. From the article, “The General Services Administration will provide the public with free access to some federal contract information through the Federal Procurement Data System Next Generation. Access to all of the raw contract data will be provided for a one-time $2,500 fee, GSA official David Drabkin said today. The new FPDS will be available to the public Oct. 1, according to GSA…The new database will provide users with up-to-date contracting information, according to GSA. In the past, the data has been three to nine months old by the time it was published, Drabkin said…Access to some data may be delayed up to 90 days for security reasons, Drabkin said. For example, if the Army bought equipment or supplies that would indicate an upcoming military operation, ‘they wouldn’t want folks around the world to know what they were doing,’ he said.”
See Also: GSA News Release

Briefly
+ +SLA and New York Public Library Join Forces to Offer Free Research Service for Journalists at Republican National Convention

Resources of the Week
Business Research
Trip’s Lists Vol. 2
Note: Trip Wyckoff is the proprietor of SpecialIssues.com, a database containing information about salary surveys, industry outlooks, overviews, buyers guides, who’s who registers, etc., that can be found in more than 3,200 publications. He is also the current compiler of Price’s Lists of Lists, a resource I started about six years ago. It offers direct links to company and industry rankings. The LOL is available for free. From time-to time Trip posts interesting compilations of useful resources to ResourceShelf. His first compilation was posted about four months ago and is available here.

Buyers Guides
By Trip Wykoff
In this article, we take a look at the different types of buyers guides and the resources affiliated with them. Many magazines now have a buyers guide issue or products area on their websites. Buyers guides are advertising revenue-generating devices magazines use to do one or more of the following: 1) generate incremental income from their advertisers; or 2) reward advertisers; and/or 3) create a tool for identifying future advertisers and subscribers.

Buyers guides can be very useful for identifying companies, especially large companies that play in many niche industries. They can also help researchers understand players in an industry, understand market share and identify niche players in industries. Let’s take General Electric (GE), a large conglomerate, as an example. Below are listed nine different buyers guides; GE has a listing in each.

+ BioIT World
(GE Biosciences)

+ Business Finance Magazine
(GE Finance is listed.)

+ Door & Window Maker
(See GE Plastics profile.)

+ Food & Drug Packaging
(Look for GE Interlogix.)

+ Food Manufacturing
(GE Silicones, GE Water Systems are among the divisions listed.)

+ Medical Dealer
(GE is listed in the Manufacturers Directory; note how small the listing is, probably due to market share)

+ Plastics News
(GE has a large presence, no less than 3 divisions and 2 subsidiaries.)

+ Security Management
(GE Security has a listing; including regional distributors.)
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Trip’s Cool Buyers Guides
+ DM News
(guide to direct mail lists; can sort lists by NAICS code)

+ Quirk’s Marketing Research Review
(wonderful site for tips on researching markets)

Professional Reading Shelf
Archives
Source: The National Archives (UK)
New Issue Available, Recordkeeping (Summer 2004)
“Recordkeeping is a regular publication from The National Archives aimed at Archivists, Records Managers, and all those who care for archives and records. The magazine is published quarterly and will contain news from The National Archives and examples of best practice and case studies in archives and records management.”
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Information Science
Source: ASIST
The August 2004 Issue of the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology is Now Online
Articles include:
+ Analytic Myopia, Data Disintegration and Homeland Security by Lee Strickland
+ Emerging Content Requirements for New Products by Howard Williams
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PubMed
Source: NLM
Updated PubMed Tutorial Available
NLM has also made three new “animated” tutorials available using Viewlet technology from Qarbon.com.
+ Search PubMed for an Author
+ Searching PubMed by Author and Subject
+ PubMed Simple Subject Search Example

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Terrorism
Intelligence–United States
Source: CRS (via FPC)
Three New/Updated Congressional Service Reports:
+ Terrorism in Southeast Asia
+ Side-by-Side Comparison of Intelligence Community Reforms Proposed by 9/11 Commission, the Bush Administration, Senators Feinstein, Graham and Daschle, and Representatives Harman and Goss; and Current Statute (Memorandum)
+ Terrorism: Key Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and Recent Major Commissions and Inquiries

and
Presidential Elections in the United States: A Primer
A 53 page CRS report. Last updated in 2000. We are checking to see if a newer version exists.
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Health Insurance–Untited States–Statistics
Poverty–Untited States–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census
Released Today, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2003
Summary and Fast Facts ||| Direct to Full Text
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Securities–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: Securities Class Action Services/Institutional Shareholder Services
The SCAS 50 (2003)
“The SCAS 50 lists the top 50 plaintiffs’ law firms ranked by the total dollar amount of final securities class action settlements occurring in 2003 in which the law firm served as lead or co-lead counsel.”
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Drunk Driving–United States–Statistics
Source: NHTSA
Just Released, Drunk Driving Deaths 2003
Includes chart.
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Real Estate–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: Forbes
Most Overpriced Places 2004

Briefly
+ Rocketinfo Forms Strategic Alliance With Canadian Press News Agency

Enterprise Search
Federated Search
Source: GCN
Advanced search engines link many data sources
So many search tools, so little time. Sounds like federated search technology is finding a home at several government agencies.

Professional Reading Shelf
Digital Libraries
New Interesting Reads from the Journal of Digital Information
+ MatDL: Integrating Digital Libraries into Scientific Practice
“Digital repositories can be catalysts for new knowledge by providing information space and tools to facilitate the work of students, educators, or scientists. The NSF NSDL Materials Digital Library (MatDL) is adapting existing open source “tools”, such as an image gallery and a version control system, to meet the needs of users within the materials science community.”
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++ Supporting Community Inquiry with Digital Resources
“Today there are a number of fields that address the need to develop better means of employing information and communication technologies (ICTs) to help communities achieve their goals. Digital infrastructure and repositories are widely created to support the activities of educational, workplace, and scientific communities, as well as virtual communities of interest that may center on topics as diverse as entertainment, crisis management, and health. However, the research and development of ICTs faces numerous challenges.”
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Digital Preservation
Source: National Library of Australia
PADI (Preserving Access to Digital Information) and Safekeeping
An article by Marian Hanley, PADI Administrator, National Library of Australia, originally published in the High Energy Physics Libraries Webzine, Issue 9, February 2004.
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Encyclopedias
Source: The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)
Librarian: Don’t use Wikipedia as source
A school librarian tells a tech columnist to be careful.
+ See Also: “One great source — if you can trust it” (2004)
Noted tech columnist Hiawatha Bray shares his thoughts.
+ Not Available “On the Web”
Peter Jacso reviewed Wikipedia in the March/April, 2002 of Online To Wikepedia’s credit they offer a response here. I hope Peter will write an updated review soon.
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National Archives–Japan
Source: Asahi Weekly
Editorial: Role of National Archives
“The role of a national archive is to preserve important government documents and open them to the public. But the number of those documents offered to the National Archives of Japan has dramatically decreased in recent years. That is because government ministries and agencies have become unwilling to offer the documents under their control for public scrutiny.”
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Libraries
Source: Newsday
Library fits any budget but its own
From the editorial: “We don’t have any additional data,” Larra Clark, the association’s spokeswoman, said last week. “But from what I’ve heard from around the country, many libraries are still reporting increases in circulation. That good news is complicated a bit by all the cuts in library funding.” In other words, making an apples-to-apples comparison of the present and recent past is tricky. Even if more people continue to show up at libraries, tightened budgets have yielded reductions at many locales in library personnel and purchases of books, CDs, videos and other materials. Operating hours have been slashed.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Health–Statistics
Source: March of Dimes
New PeriStats Website Provides Easy Access To More Than 60,000 Graphs, Maps, And Tables On Perinatal Health
From the announcement, “…a complete redesign of its popular PeriStats Web site, offering the most current and detailed maternal and infant health statistics available in the United States. Funding was provided by the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health through a 2-year grant collaboration with the New York Academy of Medicine. The new PeriStats Web site offers state-specific perinatal data, including detailed data for the largest cities and counties in the United States, and is available free of charge…”
See Also: Direct to PERISTATS Database
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Education–United States–Statistics
Source: NCES
New Data Available, Education Finance Statistics School District Peer Tool
“The NCES Education Finance Statistics Center has updated the Public School District Finance Peer Search with School Year 2000-2001 financial data (the latest available fiscal data from NCES.) The Public School District Finance Peer Search permits you to compare the finances of a school district with its peers. Peer districts are districts which share similarities among such characteristics as total students; student teacher ratio; percent children in poverty; district type; and locale code. Aside from an automatic standard peer search, users can search for school districts by distance from a zip code, or can select school districts they wish to compare a school district to. Advanced users can select groups of school districts by a particular characteristic, such as percent of children in poverty (in School Year 2000-2001).”
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Foundations–United States–Statistics
Source: Foundation Center
Just Released, 2004 Foundation Staffing and Reporting
From an email message, “For the first time ever, the Foundation Center has released online statistics detailing foundation staffing and public reporting in the Grantmaker Stats area of “FC Stats.” Staffing data document patterns for professional and support staff and include information on boards of trustees. Public reporting data document foundations’ voluntary reporting patterns through the use of publications, annual reports, and Web sites. Information in both areas includes breakdowns by foundation type, region, asset range, and period of establishment. Data for 2004 are based on information from nearly 20,000 of the largest U.S. foundations.”
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Iraq–Documents in the News
Source: U.S. Army
Just Released, The Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib
News Release ||| Full Text

Government Documents–United States
Source: ALA
Congress Asks Ashcroft to Explain Why He Wanted Libraries To Withdraw Docs
From the ALA Washington Office, “On August 24, 2004, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Representative John Conyers Jr. (D-MI.), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote Attorney General John D. Ashcroft asking him to explain the rationale for the request that GPO instruct federal depository librarians to withdraw and destroy five documents. The ALA Washington Office has been in communication with the congressional offices since the DOJ request. Senator Leahy and Rep. Conyers Jr. said ‘Given the Administration’s penchant for secrecy, we fear that this action was yet another attempt to erode the public’s right to know.’ The Senators’ letter can be found online at:
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/dojlibraryltr82404.pdf”

Citation Analysis
Source: ISI
+ Science in Finland, 1999-2003
+ Science in Belgium, 1999-2003
+ U.S. Universities with High Concentrations in Communication, 1999-2003
+ Chemical Engineering: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 1999-2003
+ Library & Information Science: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 1999-2003
+ Computer Science: High-Impact Institutions, 1994-2004

Surveys
Share Your Opinions: Two Search Surveys
1) Sid Yadav Would Appreciate Your Opinion on the Future of Search Engines
It takes very little time!!!
2) GuideStar UK Would Like Your Views
The database (similar to GuideStar.org) is set to launch in April 2005. They would like your views about how you might use the search facility they plan on making available.

Briefly
+ Gates Foundation Presents Awards to Libraries in Denmark and China
+ CAS Extends Access to Additional Research from Early 20th Century (via Managinginformation.com)

Internet2
Source: News.com
Internet2: 2004 and beyond
From the article, “More than 227 universities, libraries, public schools and research institutions are connected to Internet2. The network connects to more than 57 international high-capacity networks. It provides a test bed for new technologies such as IP version 6.”
See Also: Direct to the Internet2 Web Site

Professional Reading Shelf
Academic Libraries
Source: ARL
New SPEC Kit from ARL: The Information Commons
From the announcement, “Many college students want access in one area to all the different tools needed to write a research paper, assignment, thesis, or complete a class project. In response, libraries have started exploring partnerships with others in the campus community to develop services that combine computer access and research assistance. The result is the “Information Commons.” This SPEC Kit looks at how this new service model fits into the existing framework of user assistance offered in academic and research libraries today. Additionally, it explores how the information commons is staffed and what training is needed to help staff members transition into this new service area.” Full Text is fee-based but a free executive summary is available.
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Law Librarians
Source: Columbus Business First
Demand for librarians at law firms on the rise
“Like many others, Schottenstein Zox & Dunn shrunk its collection of print material because of the increased availability of electronic legal information through password-protected services such as LexisNexis and Westlaw. But law librarians don’t appear to be victims of the downsizing trend, even though it has become much easier for lawyers and paralegals to conduct their own research. ‘If anything, my workload has increased a lot,’ [Librarian Margaret] Toole said. So much information is now available that having someone who can sift through it and find the relevant information quickly is a definite advantage, she said.”
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Online Research
Source: Dayton Business Journal
Know where to look when searching Web
Ohio librarian Rachelle Ramsey reminds readers of this business weekly the people are out there to assist them in accessing online info. She writes, “Research conducted by the Delphi Group revealed that most business professionals spend more than two hours each day searching for information needed for their jobs. Nearly 70 percent of survey respondents agreed that finding information is a difficult process and that they often can’t find the information they seek. Local business professionals can cut that time dramatically by using trained professionals — such as librarians — to assist them. As information professionals, reference librarians are trained to create effective search strategies to locate needed information in print or online.”
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U.S. National Commission of Library and Information Science
NCLIS Links Libraries and Emergency Preparedness, Recommends Libraries as a Trusted Information Network
From the announcement, “The U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) announced today that its program for promoting libraries as information providers for emergency preparedness is moving forward. ‘NCLIS is working with libraries to encourage participation in emergency preparedness at the community level,’ said Commission Chair Beth Fitzsimmons, of Ann Arbor, MI. ‘Making this connection between libraries and the distribution of emergency preparedness information is part of the work that NCLIS has taken upon itself. The Commissioners have chosen three strategic goals, and this work grows directly out of our efforts to achieve these goals. We are going to appraise and assess America’s libraries, we will strengthen the relevance of libraries and information services in the minds of American citizens, and we will promote research and development for improving library and information science. Encouraging the use of libraries as centers for emergency preparedness information fits right in, especially with our efforts to make libraries more relevant in American society.’

Health Research–Databases
Source: USDA/NLA/NIH
IBIDS: International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements Database Online With New Look and New Features
From the announcement, “The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC) at the National Agricultural Library are delighted to announce the “launch” of the new, improved, Web-accessible International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements (IBIDS) Database today, Wednesday, August 18, 2004.
The IBIDS database is available to the public free of charge through a Web interface …It currently contains over 730,000 citations on the topic of dietary supplements. Citations are available from 1986 to the present and abstracts are included where permission has been granted from the publisher.

So What’s New with IBIDS?
+ A New Look: The Web site has been redesigned to include images and other new features. Available abstracts are visible in the search result sets and records are easy to discern from one another due to the creative use of background color.

Briefly
+ IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellows for 2005 Announced
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+ The Organization of American States, ebrary and E-libro Join Forces to Facilitate Online Education and Information Sharing throughout the Americas

Web Search
FaganFinder Launches a New Resource: URLinfo
Another great tool from Michael Fagan via his already VERY useful Fagan Finder search page. Michael pinged us today to inform us about his new URLinfo resource that makes finding info about a specific web page/site from a variety of sources just a click or two away. It’s simple. At the top of the URLinfo page enter the url you want to learn more about. Then, simply click on any of the colored tabs to access data about the page/site.
Tabs include:
+ General (WHOIS info and more)
+ Links (Backlink info from a variety of sources)
+ Similar (Find related page links from several sources including Google)
+ Cache (Direct links to a variety of databases caching links)
+ Search (Just like it sounds)
+ Blogs/Feeds (Info from Daypop, Syndic8, and other blog/rss tools)
+ Translate (A massive set of translation sources direct from the Fagan Finder Translation Wizard (another tool we really like).
+ Track (Track page changes using a variety of sources)
+ Develop (Validation tools and more!)
+ Misc (Traffic stats from Alexa and other sources)
Also available is a resource that with just a few clicks will create customized bookmarklets to various parts of URLInfo. No coding needed. (-: It looks like Mr. Fagan has done it again and has built another useful tool. Michael also wanted me to let you know that feedback is welcome. You can contact him at: mfagan@gmail.com.