Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Disaster Maps (via ReliefWeb Map Centre)
+ Tsunami–Indonesia/Sumatra–U.S. Government Aid–Map
Source: U.S. Department of State
Indonesia – Sumatra: Common operating picture – economic impact, infrastructure damage, US Government assistance (JPG; 828 KB)
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+ Iran–Earthquake
Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – ReliefWeb
Iran: Earthquake – Situation Map (PDF; 636 KB)
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Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency–United States
Source: DARPA
Recently Released Report: Bridging the Gap
“Providing an overview of DARPA and its programs, this document also serves as DARPA’s strategic plan.” 38 pages; PDF
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Children–Vehicles–Lists & Rankings
Source: Edmunds.com, Inc.
Top 10 Cars for Kids in Car Seats
“Several of our editors are parents of young children, so they’ve had the unique opportunity to try their car seats in all the newest models. Here are 10 cars that they say make for easy car seat installation….”

Web Search Briefs (via SEW Blog)
+ Yahoo Increases the Size of Image Database, Adds New Features
You’re now able to focus your search results using natural language.
+ A New Version of Copernic’s Desktop Search App is Available
This free app now even indexes your iTunes material!

Professional Reading Shelf
Cataloging
MARC
Source: IFLA
UNIMARC Holdings Format (Final Version)
84 pages; PDF.
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National Archives–United States
Source: NARA
Official Announcement: Allen Weinstein Becomes Ninth Archivist of the United States
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Health Research
Source: ResearchInformation
New website gives patients access to medical research
“Publishers and US voluntary health organisations have teamed up to provide medical research information to the public. Scheduled for pilot launch in spring 2005, patientINFORM (www.patientinform.org) will provide patients and their caregivers with free access to up-to-date, reliable research about specific diseases, initially cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. The information will be integrated into materials created for patients by the participating health organisations and will link to free full-text research articles and additional selected material on journal websites.”
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Web Research
Source: LLRX.com
Why Google Uncle Sam?
A new article by Peggy Garvin, author of The United States Government Internet Manual.
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Presidential Libraries
Source: AP
Clinton Library to Unveil Policy Records
See Also: George H.W. Bush Presidential Records Released (2/18/05)

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Population–United States–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census
Just Released, Foreign-Born Population Tops 34 Million, Census Bureau Estimates
“The nation’s foreign-born population numbered 34.2 million in 2004, accounting for 12 percent of the total U.S. population, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released today. The number of foreign-born is 2.3 percent higher than it was in 2003.”
See Also: Detailed Tables
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Labor–United States–Databases
Source: National Labor Relations Board
NLRB Improves Legal Research Capability Of Its Web Site
The National Labor Relations Board has enhanced the way in which the public can search for documents posted on its Web site, particularly Advice Memoranda issued by the Office of the General Counsel. Advice Memos are now arranged on the Web site by date of issuance with a year-to-year breakdown going back to the 1960s. Previously, these memos were sorted by the date of their release to the public. Another improvement is a new tool that links a user to the most recent publicly available Advice Memos.” Thanks to S.B. for the news tip.
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Health Research
Source: National Library of Medicine
+ MedlinePlus Adds New Features
+ Updated Training Manuals Available for PubMed, NLM Gateway, and ClinicalTrials.gov Available
+ New Shorter URL for the NLM Catalog
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Philanthropy–United States–Statistics
Source: Foundation Center
Just Released, Foundation Giving Trends: An Update on Funding Priorities
Summary ||| Report Highlights
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Journalism–Awards
Source: Long Island University
2004 George Polk Awards
“The George Polk Awards memorialize the CBS correspondent slain covering a civil war in Greece in 1948. They rank among America’s most coveted journalism honors. A committee of jurors who are faculty members or alumni of Long Island University select the winners from entries submitted by journalists and news organizations as well as nominations made by a panel of journalists and editors, including a number of former winners.” Includes links to award-winning pieces.
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Aquariums–Videos
Source: Monterey Bay Aqurium (via URLWire)
Monterey Bay Aquarium Online Video Library
“The Monterey Bay Aquarium web site video library offers a selection of videos about animals, exhibits and conservation research programs at the aquarium.”

The Mobile Researcher!
We’ve mentioned several new search tools for mobile devices, pda’s and cell phones in the past few months. Exciting stuff! In just the past 10 days, we’ve come across stories/news releases about content that an info pro might want to know about about becoming available for these mobile tools. A few examples:
+ WSJ.com and Outercurve Launch “The Wall Street Journal for Blackberry”
+ NCBI Bookshelf AHRQ Evidence Report Summaries Available for Handheld Computers
+ Random House Eyes Mobile Market
+ California Libraries Launch On-The-Go Service for Download Audio Books
ResourceShelf will continue to keep you posted about new content, databases and search tools for the mobile researcher. Of course, Jenny’s site is also a place to check for this type of info.

Professional Reading Shelf
Audiobooks
Source: NY Times
Audiobooks Have Their Henry Higgins
“As a researcher at Recorded Books, the audiobook publisher, Paul Topping hunts for precise pronunciations of foreign expressions, medical maladies and obscure geographical and biological names. In his quest, he might consult his scores of reference books, conduct Internet research and telephone anyone from Alaskan librarians to C.I.A. officers to Antigua.”
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Wikipedia
Source: National Public Radio
Audio: Wikipedia’s Growth Comes with Concerns
From the NPR web site, “Wikipedia is a dynamic, online encyclopedia that allows users to create and edit their own entries. Volunteers then fact-check the entries to ensure accuracy. NPR’s Laura Sydell reports that as Wikipedia has grown dramatically in popularity, some have begun to question its accuracy.”
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Archives–United Kingdom
Source: The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
MLA announces detailed plans to transform England’s archives
“Building on the recommendations of the Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future: the report of the Archives Task Force, MLA has been working across government and with the nine regional agencies for museums, libraries, and archives to advocate for archives and has developed a programme of activities to take forward archive development In England.” More info here and here.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Iraq War–Bibliography
Source: Air University Library
Conflict Termination in the Iraq War 2003
Internet resources, books, documents, periodicals.
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Gender Statistics–Database
Source: World Bank
GenderStats
“GenderStats is an electronic database of gender statistics and indicators designed with user-friendly, menu-driven features. It offers statistical and other data in modules on several subjects. The data in each module is presented in ready-to-use format. Users have the option of saving the country views in Excel (or another spreadsheet software) to customize them for their own reports…. Data sources for GenderStats include national statistics, United Nations databases, and World Bank-conducted or funded surveys.” Choose a country from the dropdown menu and then select the category of data that you want.

Briefly
Factiva and Moreover Announce Deal

Thank You!
A Big Thank You to Pandia! From the Entire ResourceShelf Team!!!
Today, ResourceShelf was Named the Winner of Pandia’s Best Weblog on Searching Award.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Linguistics–Search Engine
Source: Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Maryland
The Linguist’s Search Engine
“…a new linguist-friendly tool that makes it possible to retrieve naturally occurring sentences from the World Wide Web on the basis of lexical content and syntactic structure. Its aim is to help linguists of all stripes in conducting more thoroughly empirical exploration of evidence, with particular attention to variability and the role of context.”
See: Getting Started Guide

Professional Reading Shelf
Open Access
Source: EurekaAlert/Georgia Institute of Technology
Comparing traditional scientific journals and newer Open Access journals
“Rising subscription costs in the 1990s forced university libraries into a ’serials crisis’ as they cancelled many academic journals, spawning a movement toward Open Access journals, where authors pay a fee to submit or publish a paper that is available at no cost online. In 2000, the average price of a subscription to a scholarly journal was shown to have more than tripled over the previous 14 years, reflecting the publishing industry’s growing consolidation and therefore, less competition. Dr. Mark McCabe, assistant professor in the School of Economics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, studies the economic viability of a new approach to academic publishing called Open Access…McCabe will present findings from his ongoing research on scientific communication with co-author Christopher M. Snyder of George Washington University. Their research compares the traditional business model of scholarly journals in which the “Reader Pays” for a (possibly electronic) subscription with the newer “Author Pays” or “Open Access” publishing model.”
See Also: Numerous Papers by Dr. McCabe Are Available Here
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Public Libraries–Video
Library turns monitoring of videos over to parents

Briefly
+ Google Adds “Small Pilot Project” to Google Scholar
+ A Very Brief Introduction to RLG’s RedLightGreen

Professional Reading Shelf
Higher Education–United Kingdom–Databases
Source: British Library Newsletter
E-theses: opening up research
“In partnership with CURL (Consortium of Research Libraries), we are pleased to have secured funding for an 18-month project to create the first stage of an online resource allowing full access to UK PhD theses. Our British Thesis Service currently gives access to more than 170,000 doctoral theses, but they are only collected ‘on demand’ and researchers have to know that the thesis actually exists before they can order it. Within this project, the British Library has responsibility to provide the technical infrastructure for the service, including a central electronic store and the means for students and researchers to search for and access full text of their selected thesis.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Student Achievement–International Comparisons
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G8 Countries: 2004
“This report shows how the U.S. education system compares to other major industrialized countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russian Federation, United Kingdom) in four areas: (1) the context of education; (2) preprimary and primary education; (3) secondary education; and (4) higher education. This report is an update of the 2002 G8 Report, and is part of a series to be published in alternate years.”
Full Report (PDF; 724 KB)
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Patents–United States–Database
FreePatentsOnline.com
“The FreePatentsOnline.com database contains all patents published by the USPTO since number 4,000,000. New patents are published by the USPTO every Tuesday, and are automatically added to our database.” Free PDF downloads. Unclear who is behind this site; domain is registered to someone in San Antonio, TX. Says here: “We have over 100 gigabytes of data which includes the full text of US patents from number 4000000 to 6857132 (most patents before 4,000,000 exist only as images, not searchable text). As more patents are published by the US Patent Office, we add them. We also have over 2 terabytes (a terabyte is 1000 gigabytes) of images so that you can view the illustration from the patents.”

Do a simple keyword search from the homepage, or click the advanced search link for two more choices — Quick Search (”designed for those not familiar with the advanced syntax of USPTO searches”), which allows for date range, “must contain” and “must not contain; and Expert Search (”Construct your own query here using the same language as the USPTO. All USPTO advanced syntax may be used.”) On the left side of the home page is an option to browse patents by number, or search for a specific number. Be sure to check out the Crazy Patents page. Someone has actually patented a motorized ice cream cone. No wonder we have an obesity epidemic in this county.

Library Catalogs
Source: RLG
RedLightGreen Adds New Links to Libraries, Releases Firefox Plugin
RedLightGreen, the web-based and easy-to-use union catalog (over 120 million records) (a tool we’ve been tracking since the very beginning), sent along a note with a couple of news items. If you’ve never checked out RedLightGreen, it’s more than worth a look.
+ They’ve added new links to “to thousands of libraries.” Gary’s local public library is now included.
+ A plugin for the Firefox toolbar is now available. Cool. Of course, NeedleSearch users have been able to search RedLightGreen from a Firefox toolbar for well over a year. (-:
See Also: A Few Articles About RedLightGreen since it launched in 2003.

Professional Reading Shelf
Public Libraries–San Francisco
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Librarian picks words carefully
“The mayor’s pick for a new city librarian made his San Francisco debut this week during a press conference to announce the appointment. Luis Herrera, who is scheduled to take command of the library system in April, made an ambitious promise when it comes to his new job: ‘There’s a tremendous amount of responsibility, and I will not disappoint you.’ In a brief interview Tuesday, he showed political adeptness when he offered his views on the debate over whether the library should focus resources on building its book collection or expanding technology, such as putting more computers with Internet access into the branches.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Science–Alert Tools
Source: Science.Gov
Science.gov Now Offering Alert Service
The new alert service from Science.gov that we mentioned yesterday is now live! We’re looking forward to trying them out. “From the Science.gov homepage (www.science.gov), individuals can set up an account and let Science.gov do the searching for them. Each week, up to 25 relevant results from selected information sources will be sent to the subscriber’s email account. Results are displayed in the Alert email and in a personalized Alert Archive, which stores six weeks of alerts results. In the Archive, past activity can be reviewed and Alert profiles edited. Individuals can choose specific sources to monitor, or select the “All Sources” option. Science.gov drills down into hard-to-find research information collections, spanning more than 47 million pages of government R&D results. More than 1,700 government information resources and 30 databases on a wide variety of scientific topics are available — all in one place and searchable with just one search tool.”
See Also: DOE/OSTI Joins CrossRef to Assign DOIs to Technical Reports
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Consumer Issues–Directories
Source: FTC
FTC, International Partners Unveil New Tool To Help Consumers Resolve Cross-border Problems
“The Federal Trade Commission and consumer protection agencies around the world have created a valuable new tool to help consumers resolve cross-border disputes. The International Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Directory contains contact information for dispute resolution service providers that can help consumers resolve problems with foreign sellers, regardless of the seller’s location. The directory was unveiled today on econsumer.gov, a joint Web site operated by consumer protection agencies in 20 countries.”
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Electronic Discovery–Database
Source: Preston Gates & Ellis LLP
Electronic Discovery Case Database
“Preston Gates & Ellis maintains and continually updates a database containing nearly 300 electronic discovery cases collected from state and federal jurisdictions around the United States. This database is searchable by keyword, as well as by any combination of 19 different case attributes, e.g., back-up tapes, allegations of spoliation, etc. Each search will produce a list of relevant cases, including a brief description of the nature and disposition of each case, the electronic evidence involved and a link to a more detailed case summary if available.”

Ready for Purchase
+ A New CD From The British Library Sound Archive: Voices of History
“Hear the voices that made history! This two-CD set features historic recordings from the Sound Archive of some of the most famous and influential people active from the early days of sound recording to the middle of the 20th century. Forty speakers are represented, covering politics, women’s rights, commerce, royalty, religion and society. Starting with a rare 1888 recording of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, the speakers include suffragette Christabel Pankhurst and the first sitting woman MP Nancy Astor; Mahatma Gandhi on Hinduism and Aga Khan III on the world of Islam; William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, and philosopher Bertrand Russell.”
+ New From IFLA: World Guide to Library, Archive and Information Science Associations
Second, completely revised and expanded Edition. It contains 633 comprehensive, updated entries from more than 130 countries. Over 170 new entries are documenting the latest trends and developments in the organisations of libraries, archives and information science.

Resource of the Week
by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor
Presidential History–United States–Audio
Source: Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia
WhiteHouseTapes.org
Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward — of Woodward and Bernstein Watergate reknown — likes to call the Nixon White House tapes “the gift that keeps on giving.” Indeed, when we think about tape recording in connection with the Oval Office, Richard M. Nixon is definitely the name that comes to mind. However, he was not unique among presidents in making sub rosa White House recordings.

As you will see when you explore this week’s Resource of the Week, WhiteHouseTapes.org, “hosted and maintained by the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs.” Here you can listen to more than 5,000 hours of White House conversations recorded between 1940 and 1973 by six American presidents:
+ Roosevelt
+ Truman
+ Eisenhower
+ Kennedy
+ Johnson and, of course…
+ Nixon

The tapes are available in three audio formats: FLAC, WMA, and OGG. Extensive digital audio help is available, as is general assistance.

Meanwhile, the Center is committed to publishing “authoritative transcripts” of the recordings. A few are currently available in full text, including three volumes covering the three months after JFK initially began recording meetings (July 28 to October 28, 1962).

The Center has assembled some of the recordings into virtual exhibits on several key topics: Civil Rights, Vietnam, the Space Race, and Politics. You’ll also find a bibliography of “all major publications directly related to the tapes, whether they are about the tapes themselves or make notable use of the tapes”; teaching resources such as White House virtual tours and multimedia clips; and research resources including voice clips of other notable individuals and public domain photos. (Note: I had some trouble using this Flash-based menu on a Win2K machine.)

There are other resources to explore at the Miller Center, “a nonpartisan research institute at the University of Virginia that gathers new knowledge about the American presidency and our government, shares that knowledge with scholars, officials and the public, and contributes to the contemporary debate about public policy.” Besides the Presidential Recordings Program, you can browse:
+ The Presidential Oral History Program
+ American Political Development (”research in political history”)
+ The Forum Program (”brings together leading experts and thoughtful audiences for lively discussions of critical public policy topics”)
+ The Kremlin Decision Making Project (”translating, editing and publishing the international edition of the most secret materials of the Khrushchev-era”)
+ AmericanPresident.org (”premiere online resource on the presidency and the executive branch of government”)
+ Public Service Program (reports “that seek to remedy problems of executive governance.”)

Professional Reading Shelf
Librarians–United Kingdom
Academic Libraries–United Kingdom
Source: The Guardian
Bangor librarians face internet threat
Sadly, we had a feeling that one day this type of story would appear. “Bangor University is proposing to sack eight of its 12 librarians because students can find the information they need on the internet. Bangor, which is part of the University of Wales, has become the focus of a national campaign to save the “Bangor eight” as unions fear the cuts could be replicated in university libraries elsewhere.” Here’s a comment from a Bangor University librarian, “‘The university thinks that because we have the internet it no longer needs skills teaching, that people can do literature searches themselves. I would say this has, in fact, complicated the resources. They need librarians to guide you through it. So many students think they can do those searches on Google. That’s not true. Users are confused and need guiding through this.’”
UPDATE: We were reminded of this post from 2003. I guess we’ve seen this before.
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Citation Analysis
Scholarly Publishing
Source: ScienceWatch.com/ISI
New Article, Hottest Journals of the Millennium (so far)
Listings for 11 fields.
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Digital Maps
Source: Newsweek
It’s the Road Taken
Meet the companies (Navteq and Tele Atlas) and the people who build the map databases that power MapQuest, Yahoo Maps, Google Maps, MSN Maps, and MANY other services.