Professional Reading Shelf
Academic Libraries
Source: EDUCAUSE
New From EDUCAUSE, Enterprise Electronic Content Management Constituent Group
“Universities are creating electronic content at an ever-accelerating pace; however, little attention has been given to how most of that information is managed. Vast amounts of information can overwhelm users, and inaccurate information can cause inefficiency, propagate misinformation, degrade brand value, and place organizations in the path of regulatory and legal risk.”
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National Archives–United States
Source: Federal Computer Week
The records keeper
Comments from Allen Weinstein, the ninth archivist of the United States.
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Public Libraries–Geomapping
Source: Sirsi OneSource
Mapping Our Service Areas: Huntsville-Madison County Public Library
“Find out how the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library’s work to map their service area gave them a clearer picture of their political funding and patron activity – as well as shedding light on ways to improve resource allocation. Read on to learn how their efforts can benefit other public libraries too!”
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Libraries
Source: MLive
Commission hopes to make libraries more relevant to Americans
A Q&A interview with new NCLIS Chariman, Beth Fitzsimmons.
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Libraries–Africa
Source: AngolaPress
South Africans to help build Timbuktu library
“A group of South African academics and historians are heading to Timbuktu in Mali to help build a library to house thousands of manuscripts dating back to the 13th century.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Population–United States–Databases
Demographics–United States–Databases
Source: U.S. Census
Improvements to American FactFinder Database from U.S. Census Now Online
Several improvements went live late last week.
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Vital Statistics–United States
Source: National Center for Health Statstics
Just Released, Vital Statistics of the United States, 2000 Volume I, Natality
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Baseball–Prices
Sports Marketing
Source: Team Marketing Report
Just Released, Major League Baseball 2005 Fan Cost Index
“TMR’s exclusive Fan Cost Index survey, now in its thirteenth year, tracks the cost of attendance for a family of four.”
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Folk Music
Source: Ibilbio.org
New, Folktunes.org — The Folktunes Archive
As folk music is for the people and by the people anyone may contribute to this collection via wiki. There are a few types of recordings available for streaming and download: instructional, jam sessions, albums/demos, and vintage.”

Search Briefs
+ Searching via your Mobile Phone
+ Shopping Research: More About Become.com
+ Largest U.S. Corporations: Where Do Google and Yahoo Rank?

Briefly
+ Organization: WebFolio 2.0 Leaves Beta
+ Sony Pictures Plans to Build Digital Library (via LA Times)
+ Visualization: Infotrieve Using Inxight ThingFinder to Identify Drugs, Diseases, Anatomy, Organisms, Genes and Chemicals in Drug Discovery Research

Professional Reading Shelf
Libraries
Source: Carnegie Reporter (Carnegie Corp. of NY)
Do Libraries Still Matter?
“In the era of the Internet, will we still go to libraries to borrow books and do research? The answer seems to be a resounding yes, because libraries are more than just a place to keep volumes on dusty shelves.”
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Virtual Reference
Now Available: Presentations from the 2004 Virtual Reference Desk Conference
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Libraries
Dictionaries
Source: The New York Times
Happy 250th Birthday to Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language
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Presidential Libraries
Source: AP
A Visit to the New Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Baseball
Source: Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)
The Business of Baseball
“The goal of this site is to provide research tools for those wishing to learn more about the business end of professional baseball. The site is broken into several areas, including Data (databases and spreadsheets), Relocation and/or Expansion (documentation by jurisdictions exploring relocation and/or expansion), Documents (various documents, both current and historical, dealing with issues within the business of baseball), Bios (biographies from members of SABR on persons within the business of baseball), Reading Material (suggested reading material from the Business of Baseball Committee of SABR), Interviews (interviews with individuals that have had, or still do impact the business of baseball), History, which chronicles key moments in baseball history as it relates to the business side of things. And, the BizBall Forums, a location where business of baseball articles are Blogged, and where discussion and commentary occur (registration required).”

Professional Reading Shelf
Federal Depositories–United States
Source: FCW
Librarians face existential crisis:
“Some federal depository librarians are upset about the Government Printing Office’s move to significantly cut the distribution of printed government documents. GPO’s shift to electronic formats, which will redefine the librarians’ role as government information gatekeepers, will be an issue at this weekend’s Depository Library Council meeting in Albuquerque, N.M.”
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Health Information–Thailand
Online Information–Thailand–Quality
Source: Bangkok Post
Health websites mostly unreliable
“Most of the almost 2,000 Thai health websites are unreliable and pose a potential danger to people seeking advice, says a study by the Health Systems Research Institute. HSRI researchers who tracked 1,888 local websites providing health information last year found that 99% could not be relied upon to offer correct advice.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Intelligence–United States
Office of the National Intelligence Executive
Source: Carroll Publishing
Office of the National Intelligence Executive Organization Chart (PDF; 264 KB)
“This chart reflects the proposed structure based upon recent public materials as interpreted by our editors. The Office of the National Intelligence Executive is still being developed; adjustments to this chart will be made as they become official.”

Professional Reading Shelf
Encyclopedias
Source: AP
Microsoft Asks for Help Editing Encarta Encyclopedia
Make suggestions, change/update facts. Editors will then (in theory) verify and change the entry…”Encarta is not requiring such novice editors to identify themselves, said Gary Alt, Encarta’s editorial director. But it is asking them to reveal the source of their information if possible, and the editorial staff will check for both factual errors and evidence of bias.” ResourceShelf likes this model. In fact, MS should ask the library community (perhaps working through ALA, SLA, CILIP and other groups) to get involved. Contributing editor Steven Cohen shares his thoughts here.
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Education–Databases
ERIC
Source: ERIC
ERIC Annouces Beta Version of Open Online Submission System
“This system enables individual contributors to submit non-journal materials that will be considered for inclusion in the ERIC database. In order to continue the high quality, education focus of ERIC the submitted materials will be evaluated against the Screening Critera. As part of the Beta system, there is no established selection or processing turnaround time.”
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Academic Libraries
Source: News.com
Way to Go Intel, NOT!!!
“A day after Intel said it would offer $10,000 for a copy of a magazine in which Moore’s Law was first announced, a University of Illinois engineering library noticed that one of its two copies disappeared.”
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Collection Development
Source: C&RL News
Growing needs and limited budgets: The challenge of supporting print and electronic resources
A new article by Joan Gotwals, former vice provost and director of libraries at Emory University. She writes, “As librarians understand and college and university administrators often do not, the role of libraries and librarians is ever more important in assisting users in the hybrid world to navigate the dizzying universe of electronic information and relate these sources to print and archival materials. It also requires greater subject expertise and, I believe, will likely result in a need for more Ph.D.s on the library staff, especially in research universities.”
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Digital Libraries
Source: D-Lib
The April Issue of Digital Libraries is Now Available
Articles include:
+ A Review of Social Bookmarking Tools
+ Initial Experiences in Developing a Chronologically Organized Digital Library for Continuing Education in Biodefense

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Internet–China–Filtering
Source: OpenNet Initiative (via DocuTicker.com)
Just Released, Internet Filtering in China in 2004-2005
“The OpenNet Initiative tested China’s Internet filtering of web content, blog postings, and e-mail correspondences. Our testing found efforts to prevent access to a wide range of sensitive materials, from pornography to religious material to political dissent. Unlike the filtering systems in many other countries, China’s filtering regime appears to be carried out at various control points and also to be changing over time. China operates the most extensive, technologically sophisticated, and broad-reaching system of Internet filtering in the world.”
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Business–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: San Jose Mercury News
Recently Released, 2004 Silicon Valley 150, 2004
The 150 largest companies in Silicon Valley.
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Rivers–United States–Pollution
Source: American Rivers
Just Released, Most Endangered Rivers of 2005 announced
“Some 860 billion gallons of untreated sewage foul America’s rivers with pollution and make millions of Americans sick each year, but the federal government has turned its back on the problem, warned American Rivers with the release of its 2005 America’s Most Endangered Rivers report. These problems are particularly apparent and poised to get worse along the Susquehanna River, which tops this year’s list of rivers facing uncertain futures and crucial turning points.”

Briefly
ISI Web of Knowledge Now Delivers Life Sciences and Biomedical Content from MEDLINE

Resource of the Week
by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor
According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies, the number of deaths from medical errors in U.S. hospitals is estimated to be anywhere from 44,000 to 98,000 per year. The cost of medication errors alone in the U.S. are estimated at somewhere around $2 billion per year. These are not insignificant numbers. This week, we’ll take a look at a new website from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) that intends to function as “a national ‘one-stop’ portal of resources for improving patient safety and preventing medical errors.”

Patient Safety
Source: Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ)
AHRQ Patient Safety Network (PSNet)
“AHRQ Patient Safety Network (PSNet) is a new national web-based resource featuring the latest news and essential resources on patient safety. The site offers weekly updates of patient safety literature, news, tools, and meetings (’What’s New‘), and a vast set of carefully annotated links to important research and other information on patient safety (’The Collection’). Supported by a robust patient safety taxonomy and web architecture, AHRQ PSNet provides powerful searching and browsing capability, as well as the ability for diverse users to customize the site around their interests (My PSNet). It also is tightly coupled with AHRQ WebM&M, the popular monthly journal that features user-submitted cases of medical errors, expert commentaries, and perspectives on patient safety.”

This site is chock full of interesting features and information. The “What’s New” section on the left side of the home page offers links to journal, newspaper, and magazine articles; books and reports; audio-visual resources, and more. On the right side of the page, you can “Browse the Collection” in one of two ways — by resource type or by general subject area: Safety Target, Approaches to Improving Safety, Error Types, Clinical Error, Target Audience, Setting of Care. The entire site is seachable via a text box in the top center of the home page, or you can use the sophisticated advanced search form to restrict your query to various combinations of resource types, topics, etc., via dropdown menus. As you browse through the site, each page offers a search box that limits the results to information in that particular area.

Be sure to scroll down and click on the two resources on the bottom right-hand side:
+ Patient Safety Classics: “The most influential, frequently cited articles, books, and resources, in patient safety,” — keyword searchable.
+ Did You Know? — Graphs illustrating particularly relevant statistics. You can browse the entire collection of these on a separate page.

If this is a topic of interest to you, you may also want to see:
+ Medication Errors, from the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
+ The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention offers a Taxonomy of Medication Errors (PDF; 48 KB)
+ The Institute for Safe Medication Practices publishes several Medication Safety Alert newsletters.
+ The National Patient Safety Foundation has an extensive library of resources.
+ “The MEDERRORS Library contains a unique collection of article summaries on all subjects related to medication errors, including the incidence and cost of medication errors, error reporting, and prevention programs, and the application of industrial quality assurance techniques to the health care industry.” Sponsored by Bridge Medical.
+ Duke University Medical Center Library offers a subject guide on medical errors.
+ Read the Institute of Medicine’s landmark study on medical errors, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, online at the National Academies Press.

Professional Reading Shelf
Law Librarians
Source: New York Lawyer
An Ode to Librarians Open (reg req, free)
Written by two associates from a NY law firm.
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Digitization–Books
Source: Technology Review
The Infinite Library
5 pages about the digitization of books, Google’s library digitization program (pro’s and con’s) and comments from a number of library luminaries.
Key Quotes:
+ “I chafe at the presumption that once you digitize, there is nothing left to do,” says Donald Waters, a former director of the Digital Library Federation who now oversees the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s extensive philanthropic investments in projects to enhance scholarly communication. “There is an enormous amount to do, and digitizing is just scratching the surface.”
+ “And considering that the flood of new digital material will make the job of classifying, cata­loguing, and guiding readers to the right texts even more demanding, librarians could become busier than ever.”
+ Also, no mention of services like NetLibrary, ebrary, Project Gutenberg, Safari, and others.
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Information Industry–LexisNexis
Privacy
Source: Dow Jones
LexisNexis Exec: May Have Been Data Breach Before 2003
“A LexisNexis executive said Wednesday there may have been an earlier breach of consumers’ personal data that was never reported to the public.”
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Librarians–Jobs
Source: CareerJournal.com/Wall St. Journal
Librarians Reference These Sites When Seeking Work
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Librarians
Source: Zap2it
Remember the TV Movie The Librarian From Earlier This Year?
Get ready for the sequel!!!
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Censorship
Source: The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression
2005 Jefferson Muzzles
“Announced on or near April 13 — the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson — the Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech and press and, at the same time, foster an appreciation for those tenets of the First Amendment. Because the importance and value of free expression extend far beyond the First Amendment’s limit on government censorship, acts of private censorship are not spared consideration for the dubious honor of receiving a Muzzle. Unfortunately, each year the finalists for the Jefferson Muzzles have emerged from an alarmingly large group of candidates. For each recipient, a dozen could have been substituted. Further, an examination of previous Jefferson Muzzle recipients reveals that the disregard of First Amendment principles is not the byproduct of a particular political outlook but rather that threats to free expression come from all over the political spectrum.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Poetry
Source: Gale
A New Free Resource from Gale: Poet’s Corner
“…a free Web site packed with biographies, poems and activities to help families, students and teachers celebrate National Poetry Month. This year, a special day-by-day downloadable calendar highlights important events in poetry.”
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Population–United States
Source: U.S. Census
Just Released, U.S. County Population Estimates
Flagler, Fla., is the fastest growing county in the United States.
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Computer Security
QuickStudy: Biometric authentication
“Biometric authentication is the verification of a user’s identity by means of a physical trait or behavioral characteristic that can’t easily be changed, such as a fingerprint.”

Professional Reading Shelf
Library and Information Science
Source: ISI
New Ranking, Library & Information Science: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 1999-2003
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Multimedia Content–United Kingdom
New Web Site and Pilot Project, Creative Archive Licence Group
“The purpose of this site is to introduce the Creative Archive Licence. The Creative Archive Licence and the Creative Archive Licence Group logo are markers that let you know when you can access, download and re-use content from the contributing organisations. In developing the licence, the BBC, Channel 4, the bfi and the Open University hope that other organisations will join the Creative Archive Licence Group and release content that will fuel a truly creative nation.” Note: At this time the license is only available for UK residents.
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National Archives
Source: RLG
Coming Next Month: RLG International Archival Gateways Meeting
“Interest is growing in gateways that will make multiple national databases accessible to researchers. At this meeting, approximately 25 participants will discuss policy and technical issues in their national databases about archives, and explore collaborative solutions to accessing and integrating data from different national systems.”
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Librarians–Australia–Standards
Source: ALIA
Standards of professional excellence for teacher-librarians launched
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Conferences
Source: eContent Institute
Presentations from the 2005 Information Highways Conference are Now Available Online
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Information Industry–LexisNexis
Source: AP
LexisNexis theft much worse than thought
“Publisher and data broker Reed Elsevier Group PLC said Tuesday that up to 10 times as many people as originally thought may have had their profiles stolen from one of its U.S. databases.” More in this LN news release.

Professional Reading Shelf
Library and Information Science
Source: ISI
New Ranking, Library & Information Science: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 1999-2003
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Multimedia Content–United Kingdom
New Web Site and Pilot Project, Creative Archive Licence Group
“The purpose of this site is to introduce the Creative Archive Licence. The Creative Archive Licence and the Creative Archive Licence Group logo are markers that let you know when you can access, download and re-use content from the contributing organisations. In developing the licence, the BBC, Channel 4, the bfi and the Open University hope that other organisations will join the Creative Archive Licence Group and release content that will fuel a truly creative nation.” Note: At this time the license is only available for UK residents.
–
National Archives
Source: RLG
Coming Next Month: RLG International Archival Gateways Meeting
“Interest is growing in gateways that will make multiple national databases accessible to researchers. At this meeting, approximately 25 participants will discuss policy and technical issues in their national databases about archives, and explore collaborative solutions to accessing and integrating data from different national systems.”
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Librarians–Australia–Standards
Source: ALIA
Standards of professional excellence for teacher-librarians launched
–
Conferences
Source: eContent Institute
Presentations from the 2005 Information Highways Conference are Now Available Online
–
Information Industry–LexisNexis
Source: AP
LexisNexis theft much worse than thought
“Publisher and data broker Reed Elsevier Group PLC said Tuesday that up to 10 times as many people as originally thought may have had their profiles stolen from one of its U.S. databases.” More in this LN news release.

Scholarly Publishing–Citation Reports
Source: ISI
+ Top Ten Most-Prolific Journals (All Fields), 1994-2004
+ Science in Canada, 2000-2004

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Space Shuttle–Satellite Images
Source: Space Imaging
New Image, The Space Shuttle Stack
“To assist in reporting the anticipated launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery, Space Imaging is releasing an IKONOS satellite image showing the Shuttle “stack” – the orbiter, external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters – situated at Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The image was collected April 8,shortly after the Shuttle began its 4.2-mile journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad…The orange external fuel tank and one of the solid rocket boosters are visible in the image. The Mobile Launcher Platform (MLP) is also visible
to the left of the launch pad.”
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Iraq
Source: Congressional Research Service
Updated Report, The Kurds in Post-Saddam Iraq
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Drug Abuse
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration
Drugs of Abuse
“We are pleased to introduce the 2005 edition of Drugs of Abuse. This DEA magazine delivers clear, scientific information about drugs in a factual, straightforward way, combined with scores of precise photographs shot to scale.”
Printable version available in PDF (4.2 MB)
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Labor–Statistics–United States
Source: BLS
New Web Tool, Location Quotient Calculator: New BLS Web Tool Allows Local Area Comparisons by Industry
“The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has added a powerful new tool for labor market analysis to its web site services: the Location Quotient Calculator. The new calculator generates location quotients, a measure that is familiar to regional labor economists as a way to readily compare the industrial activity levels among different areas of the country.”
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Work Zone Safety
Source: American Road & Transportation Builders Association, Texas Transportation Institute
National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse
“The purpose of the clearinghouse is to provide information and referrals to government agencies, public and private organizations, and the general public concerning the safe and effective operation of traffic work zones.” What’s here:
+ Accident Statistics
+ Laws and Regulations
+ Equipment and Technology Information
+ Public Education and Outreach Programs
+ Research Publications
+ Standards and Specifications
+ Federal and State Best Practices
+ Training Courses and Programs
+ Searchable database of experts
Website is searchable.

Search Briefs (via SEW Blog)
+ Podscope: New Search Engine Will Allow You to Keyword Search Every Word Spoken in a Podcast