Web Search Briefs
Most Popular Search Queries 2004
Google ||| Google (International) ||| Yahoo
See Also: Year-End Lists from Other Engines

Education–Graduation
Source: Achieve
The Expectations Gap ? A 50-State Review of High School Graduation Requirements
“Recent studies have revealed that few of the nation?s high school students are gaining the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in college and work. A new report finds an important explanation for this phenomenon: states do not expect their graduates to take courses that truly reflect the real-world demands of life after high school. In fact, according to the study released today by Achieve, Inc., in every state, students can take the courses necessary to meet graduation requirements yet still leave high school unprepared”
+ Read the Report [PDF]

Professional Reading Shelf
Libraries–United Kingdom–Statistics
Source: LISU/Loughborough University
Just Released, The LIST
“The LIST is an annual sampler of UK library statistics from all sectors. It covers public, academic, special, national and school libraries and is available free online”
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Wireless Standards
Source: InfoWorld
Wireless Standards Snapshot
“Most wireless standards come from the IEEE, whose 802.11 category covers more than a dozen standards for specific wireless areas, but the IETF, Wi-Fi Alliance, and WiMax industry group also develop related standards.” Identifies wireless transport, security, management/roaming/QoS standards.

Briefly
ProQuest Online Information Service Introduces Author Profiles, Enhanced LAD User Interface

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Chronologies–2004
Source: AP
2004 Chronology, January Through July
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Population–United States–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census (via DocuTicker.com)
2004 State Populations Estimates
Nevada was the fastest-growing state in 2004.
Summary Top Ten Fastest Growing States (PDF) Detailed Tables
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National Basketball Association–Lists & Rankings
Source: Forbes
NBA Team Valuations 2004
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Games–Museum
Source: University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Elliott Avedon Museum and Archive of Games
“The Museum, established in 1971, is a public institution dedicated to research and the collection, preservation, and exhibition of games and game-related objects. As of spring 2004, the Website will be in its 11th year and continues to evolve.” Images of games in the museum are displayed by category. Click on each image to see how the game is played. Also here: Frequently Asked Questions About Games, Ethnography and Games. You can browse the games included on this site either alphabetically or via an ethnographic and geopolitical index. Very cool.

Web Search Briefs
Scirus launches new toolbar and IUCr Content Now Indexed in Scirus
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Search Mandatory On All U.S. Government Web Sites by End of ‘05 (via SEW Blog)

Professional Reading Shelf
Online Information
Source: Emerald
This Week Only: Free Full Text Access to Three Recent Issues of Online Information Review
Articles include:
+ Date-restricted queries in web search engines (Vol. 28 No. 6)
+ The unintended effects of hidden assumptions: biases on the internet
(Vol. 28 No. 6)
+ Citation searching (Vol. 28 No. 6)
+ A social science gateway in a shifting digital world: shaping SOSIG for users’ needs of the future (Vol. 28 No. 5)
+ Citedness scores for filtering information and ranking search results (Vol. 28 No. 5)
+ Web users’ information retrieval methods and skills (Vol. 28 No. 4)
+ Combining article content and Web usage for literature recommendation in digital libraries (Vol. 28 No. 4)
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Digitization Projects
Source: VNUNet
Internet Archive to build alternative to Google
We posted about this project last week. Btw, The New York Times about the Google project today.
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Digital Preservation
Source: New York Times News Service (via San Diego Union-Tribune)
PCs, CDs, DVDs full of e-files that need preserving
“America’s 115 million home computers are brimming over with personal treasures — millions of photographs, music of every genre, college papers, the great American novel and, of course, mountains of e-mail. Yet no one has figured out how to preserve these electronic materials for the next decade, much less for the ages. Like junk e-mail, the problem of digital archiving, which seems straightforward, confounds even the experts.”
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Scholary Publishing
Open Access
Source: BBC
BBC Radio 4 Airs Program About Open Access
The 37 minute program aired on Tuesday. An archived version is available on the web. “Scientific publishing is undergoing a revolution, with scientists and policy makers fed up with valuable research being denied to the public domain. Richard Black investigates”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Congressional Resource Service
Source: CRS (via FAS, FPC, and IPMall)
New/Updated Congressional Research Service Reports
+ Terrorism: Background on Chemical, Biological, and Toxin Weapons and Options for Lessening Their Impact
+ U.S. Arms Sales: Agreements with and Deliveries to Major Clients, 1996-2003
+ U.S.-China Counter-Terrorism Cooperation: Issues for U.S. Policy
+ Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy
+ Internet Gambling: An Abridged Overview of Federal Criminal Law
+ Internet Gambling: A Sketch of Legislative Proposals in the 108th Congress
+ Internet Gambling: Overview of Federal Criminal Law
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Aging–United States–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census
Source: U.S. Census
Census 2000 Special Report, We the People: Aging in the United States
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Franchises–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: Entrepreneur Magazine
Franchise 500 — 2005 Rankings
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Just Released–U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Task Force Report on Prescription Drug Importation (PDF; 18.2 MB)

Briefly
Speech takes on search engines: All About Speegle (via BBC)

Professional Reading Shelf
Libraries
Source: ARL
Libraries and Changing Research Practices: A Report of the ARL/CNI Forum on E-Research and Cyberinfrastructure
See Also: Slides and Presentations from the Forum
–
Information Visualization
Source: Information Today
Groxis Launches Grokker E.D.U. for the Education Market
From Paula Hane’s article, “Grokker E.D.U., its ’search-and-research’ platform for the education market. The new platform provides an optimized-for-education version of Grokker 2.2, the company?s metasearch application that shows contextually organized results from multiple sources, including the Web, in easy-to-navigate maps. Groxis also announced implementations of the new platform at Stanford University and a number of other universities and school districts.”

Briefly
+ CSA Acquires PAIS From OCLC
From the FAQ, ” OCLC remains interested in aggregating content via its FirstSearch service and NetLibrary, but has decided to exit the abstracts and indexing “content publishing” business by selling PAIS, the only abstracts and indexing content publishing business owned by OCLC.” You can read a statement and review the FAQ here.
–
New Release of ScienceDirect Online

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Faculty Status/Salaries–Academia–United States
Source: American Association of University Professors
Faculty Salary and Faculty Distribution Fact Sheet 2003-04
From press release: “The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has released an update on gender equity in academia. The sad story is that the 2003-04 figures show little improvement in the salary gap over twenty-five years of higher education history. Among full-time faculty, for example, 38 percent are women. But among full professors, only 23 percent are women. Conversely, women are well represented among the lower ranks; women are 58 percent of all instructors, 54 percent of all lecturers, and hold 51 percent of all unranked positions. The report on earnings shows a similarly skewed picture.”
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Asian Americans–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census
We the People: Asians in the United States
A new 24 page report.
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Hispanic Americans–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census
We the People: Hispanics in the United States
A new 20 page report.
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Military Studies–Webliography
Source: C&RL News
U.S. military and defense studies: Online Resources
A new compilation prepared by Edward Metz, a librarian at the Combined Arms Research Library in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.

Search Briefs (via SEW Blog)
+ Complete Searchable Archive of Time Magazine Now Available
+ Very Cool! Build Your Own Topic Specific Engine With Gigablast

Professional Reading Shelf
Librarianship
Source: CILIP
Selected Articles from the December Issue of CILIP’s Library + Information update are Now Online
+ Getting health information into communities
+ Preserving digital resources in the UK
+ Phil Bradley’s Internet Q & A
–
Special Collections–Cookbooks
Source: Ann Arbor News
We are what we ate, cookbook collection shows
“It was published in 1796, a very long time ago in the history of American culinary arts. Just think of it. There were no hot dogs, hamburgers or deli sandwiches to be found. Still, some of the recipes in the first American cookbook, part of a collection assembled by an Ann Arbor couple, wouldn’t seem so strange to our tastes today. There were recipes for turkey served with cranberry sauce, for instance…. That book and thousands of other pieces of American culinary history are being donated to the University of Michigan’s Clements Library….”
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Theft–Academic Library
Source: AP (via Akron Beacon Journal
Former library employee pleads guilty to selling ancient texts
“A former employee of the Kenyon College library pleaded guilty Friday to selling 50 rare books and other documents from the school’s collection for $26,000.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Newspaper Pictorials–World War I
Source: Library of Congress
Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures
“During the World War I era (1914-18), leading newspapers took advantage of a new printing process that dramatically altered their ability to reproduce images. Rotogravure printing, which produced richly detailed, high quality illustrations?even on inexpensive newsprint paper?was used to create vivid new pictorial sections…. The images in this collection track American sentiment about the war in Europe, week by week, before and after the United States became involved.”
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Cool Tools and Gadgets
Source: Wired
Wired Tools 2004
“The coolest geek shopping list ever – 129 of the best screens, cams, phones, games and gadgets of the year.”
See Also: Dan Giancanterino’s Gift Guide Roundup

Web Search Briefs
Web Search–MSN
Cool! Shortcuts for the MSN Desktop Toolbar Suite (via msnsearch’s WebLog)

Professional Reading Shelf
Open Archive Initiative
Source: Free Pint
“The Open Archive Initiative (OAI) and Google Scholar”
“There has been some disagreement about the merits of Google Scholar. Whatever your position on this, it is certain that the actual workings of Google Scholar are still the subject of speculation. What follows is not an unpicking of Google Scholar’s innards but an exercise in trend watching. I think I might have spotted a trend in the act of tipping!”
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Music Preservation
Source: Los Angeles Times
Keeping Track of the Scores
“What sets Feinstein apart from many collectors is his belief that musical rarities, once discovered, should not be hidden away. He says they are cultural artifacts and that every effort must to be made to carefully preserve them in public libraries or archives, so researchers and the public can enjoy them.”
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Iraqi Libraries
Source: The Harvard Crimson
Harvard To Help Stock Iraqi Library Collections
“In the new program, Harvard librarians have begun to compile lists of books and reference materials that will augment the collections in the Iraqi libraries. After Iraqi librarians indicate which books from the list they want, HUL will help them obtain the necessary funding to purchase them, according to Jeffrey Horrell, associate librarian of Harvard College for collections.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
IT Salaries–Survey
Source: Certification Magazine
The Big Payoff: CertMag’s 2004 Salary Survey
“Based on salary figures from the 2004 Certification Magazine Salary Survey, you might want to consider a career in either Cisco networking, telephony, project management or IT security.”
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Literacy–United States
Source: RAND Corporation
Achieving State and National Literacy Goals, a Long Uphill Road
“RAND gathered information from the 50 states and the District of Columbia (DC) on state assessment systems and student performance on reading or English language arts and writing assessments in order to measure adolescent’s (grades 4 through 12) performance toward state literacy goals. Also examines the relative performance of students against national standards represented by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).”
Summary (PDF; 0.1 MB) ||| Full Report (PDF; 6.8 MB)

Professional Reading Shelf
Digital Information
Source: CNI
Project Updates from the Fall 2004 Coalition for Networked Information Task Force Meeting Are Now Online
Including:
+ The Vanderbilt Television News Archive: A Progress Report
+ An Update from the OAI
+ Status of Volume Book Scanning
+ Is Stuff Safe Yet? Publisher Cooperation, Collection Expansion, Technology Development, Community Sustainability
+ Going ‘On-Web’
+ Archiving the Political Web: Prospects and Challenges
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Health Information
Source: NLM
Index Medicus Ceases as a Printed Publication
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Libraries
Source: Kansas City Business Journal
Linda Hall Library unveils $18.5M expansion
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Library Buildings
Source: Library Journal
Library Buildings 2004 — Great Libraries in the Making
“We are in an age of experimentation. From Cerritos, CA, to Salt Lake City to Seattle, library users are experiencing public libraries the likes of which they have never before seen. While the 1990s may be remembered as the era of the anchor facility, when libraries were called upon to define and support a community’s renaissance, this decade’s library projects are responding to a new set of expectations and opportunities. A key element, of course, is technology. While older buildings may have accommodated technology, today’s new libraries are formed by it.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Health
Source: CDC
Just Released: Married Adults are the Healthiest, New CDC Report Shows
News Release ||| Summary ||| Direct to Full Text
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Climate–United States–Statistics
Source: NOAA
New, Climate of 2004 in Historical Perspective
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Australia–Images
Two New Picture Trails from PictureAustralia
+ By Road
“From the cycle car of 1904 to the sports car of the 1980s, from motor rallies in 1911 to the V8 supercar series in 2000, motor transport has become a major form of recreation and travel for many Australians.”
+ By Rail
“From the interior of a railway carriage in 1910 to the first electric railway in Sydney in 1968 – and discover the important role the railway has played in Australian society.”
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Enduring Institutions Project
Source: Booz Allen Hamilton
Booz Allen Hamilton Lists the World’s Most Enduring Institutions
“Why is it that some institutions endure for decades or even for centuries while others disappear into history? Booz Allen Hamilton has sponsored a novel project identifying ten of the world’s most Enduring Institutions over the past century. The list celebrates those institutions that have managed to reinvent themselves time and again — and remained market leaders — as the unique circumstances of their founding have given way to changing conditions.”
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Dogs–Library
Source: American Kennel Club (AKC)
The AKC Library
“The American Kennel Club maintains one of the world’s largest libraries devoted to dogs, the development of purebred dogs and the sport and enjoyment of dogs. Open to the public, the Library presently contains approximately 17,000 volumes including bound periodicals, foreign and domestic stud books, art, literature, sporting, history and juvenile books…. The Library’s mission is to serve as a public reference collection and archive on matters relating to purebred dogs and the various roles they play in our lives.” Resources include:
+ Caius (OPAC)
+ AKC Recognized Breeds
+ Dog Breeds That Generally Do Well With People With Allergies
+ AKC Library Links
+ Support Dogs for the Handicapped
+ AKC Dog Registration Statistics