Professional Reading Shelf
National Libraries–China
Source: People’s Daily
China: National Library opens digital portal
“A digital portal to collections of the National Library of China was opened on May 29, providing online search and accession to digitalized resources of the library. As the latest public service platform launched by the library, the D-portal combines 37 Chinese-language data banks, 77 foreign language data banks, 16,000-odd periodicals in both Chinese and foreign languages, as well as special resources including local records…”
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Newspapers–Digitization
Source: MarketingVOX
Digitized Archives of Small Town Papers Going Online
” SmallTownPapers has been digitizing newspaper archives for free and giving them a presence online, while preserving a rich – and searchable – historical record. Through the project’s website, browser can see an archived newspaper as it was printed and can also search through articles and advertisements, and look for photos.”
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Internet Resources
The June, 2005 Issue of the Internet Resources Newsletter is Online
Looking for some new and/or useful resources? If so, this is one great resource.
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Scholarly Publishing–Open Access
Source: International Yearbook of Library and Information Management 2004-2005: Scholarly Publishing in an Electronic Era (Chapter 6; via E-LIS)
The Next Information Revolution – How Open Access will Transform Scholarly Communications
“Complaints about spiralling serials costs, lack of service from large commercial publishers, and the inability to meet the information needs of researchers are not new. Over the past few years, however, we have begun to see new models develop that better serve the information needs academics as both authors and readers. The internet is now being used in ways other than just to provide electronic facsimiles of print journals accessed using the traditional subscription models. Authors can now ?self-archive? their own work making it available to millions and new open access journals extend this by providing a peer-review service to ensure quality control. SPARC and SPARC Europe play a prominent role in the new scholarly communication landscape as they encourage the progress of open access while working closely with scholars and scientists, who must recognize the benefits of change within academe in order for such progress to occur.”
Full text (Word document)
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National Libraries
Source: ManagingInformation.com
Over 11m Digital Records Now Available At European Library
“After three years of collaborative project work and ten months of operational development, The European Library was recently launched. Over 11 million digitised and born digital records and objects from 9 of Europe’s National Libraries are free to all.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Watergate
Source: Vanity Fair (via DocuTicker)
Full Text of Vanity Fair Article: W. Mark Felt Is Deep Throat
This is a full text preview of an article that will appear in the July 2005 issue of Vanity Fair. It’s a nine page PDF file. Thanks to E.D. for the news tip.
See Also: Watergate Timeline (via Washington Post)
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Women And Science–Europe–Statistics
Source: European Commission
Women & Science Statistics and Indicators
Various statistics and sources.
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Health–Web Resources
Source: MedlinePlus
Two New Compilations
+ Psychotic Disorders
+ Childhood Brain Tumors
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Medical Tutorials–Search Engine
Source: RxPG PLC
Spider Nevi
“SpiderNevi medical tutorial search engine project is a non-commercial volunteer project started by a group of doctors from UK and India. Its main purpose is to provide a free human edited tutorials directory to medical fraternity. All included links are reviewed by a volunteer team of doctors and medical students before inclusion in the SpiderNevi database.”

Briefly
Leading Children’s eBooks Now Available to Thousands of Library Websites Through Agreement Between Childrenselibrary.com and OverDrive

Search Briefs
All About the RSS “FeedMesh” (via eWeek)

Professional Reading Shelf
Librarians
Source: Daily Universe (BYU)
Librarians, the library’s secret resource
“The more than 30 subject librarians at the Harold B. Lee Library are one of the most valuable yet underutilized resources available to students.”
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Preservation
Source: University of Florida Libaries
Brittle Books Program
“The Brittle Books Program, a section of the Reprographics Unit of the Preservation Department, is responsible for the identification and care taking of the brittle materials in the library system. Approximately 540,000 volumes are thought to be brittle at this time.” Learn how brittle materials are identified and procedures for dealing with them.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Anatomy
Source: University of Texas at Austin
The eSkeletons Project
“The eSkeletons Project website is devoted to the study of human and primate comparative anatomy. It offers a unique set of digitized versions of skeletons in 2-D and 3-D in full color, animations, and much supplemental information. The user can navigate through the various regions of the skeleton and view all orientations of each element along with muscle and joint information. eSkeletons enables you to view the bones of both human and non-human primates ranging from the gorilla to the tiny mouse lemur. All of the large apes are represented as well as other species from different parts of the world. Many of these primates are rare or endangered species.” Cool.

Professional Reading Shelf
Digital Content Management
Source: Public Library Association
New Tech Note: Digital Content Management
History and overview. “Digital content management, as used in this TechNote, has sometimes been confused with electronic resources management. The former deals with the management of the digital files of a library or consortium; the latter deals with the management of subscriptions to electronic resources supplied by others. Electronic resources management is the topic of a separate TechNote.”
See Also: List of Other Tech Notes

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Online Books
Source: NLM
NLM’s “Turning the Pages” now Online
“Have you ever come across a beautiful old book locked away in a glass case in a library and wanted to leaf through it? Now, you can (virtually), anywhere in the world, using a computer and Web browser. Using the new, free, online version of ‘Turning the Pages’ (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/turningthepages), viewers can flip through three treasured books from the National Library of Medicine’s 16th century with a click of their computer mouse.”
See Also: Use “Turning the Pages” Technology at The British Library
12 full text books available.

Professional Reading Shelf
Corporate Archives–Directories
Source: The Society of American Archivists, Business Archives Section/Hunter Information
Directory of Corporate Archives in the United States and Canada
Last updated: 4/2005.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
United States–History
U.S. Census
Source: U.S. Census
Now Available Online from U.S. Census: Material from the 1890 U.S. Census
Files are in PDF format. Overview here.
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Faculty–Postsecondary Institutions
Source: National Center for Educational Statistics
2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:04) Report on Faculty and Instructional Staff in Fall 2003
“This publication is the first from the 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:04), a study of faculty and instructional staff employed in degree-granting public and private not-for-profit postsecondary institutions in the United States. This report describes the gender, race/ethnicity, tenure status, and income of all faculty and instructional staff, by employment status, institution type, and program area.”
Full report (PDF; 255 KB)

Search Briefs
New from Yahoo Research: Rerank Your Results Based on the Type of Material You’re Looking For!

Professional Reading Shelf
Science and Technology Librarianship
The Spring 2005 Issue of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship is Now Online
Articles include: The Importance of Open Access, Open Source, and Open Standards for Libraries, Survey of GIS Implementation and Use within Smaller Academic Libraries, and Scientific Research: The Publication Dilemma.
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Public Libraries–United Kingdom
Source; eGov Monitor
New, LONGITUDE: a toolkit of resources for public library staff to evaluate the long-term impact of IT-based services on users
“The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) has launched LONGITUDE: a toolkit of resources for public library staff to evaluate the long-term impact of IT-based services on users.”
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Libraries–Licensing
Serials
Source: NASIG (North American Serials Interest Group)
NASIGuide: License Negotiation 101
See Also: More NASIGuides
+ Electronic Resource Management
+ ISSN
+ OpenURL
+ Title Changes
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Scholarly Publishing–Conferences
Source: CERN
CERN workshop on Innovations in Scholarly Communication (OAI4)
Conference announcement and call for papers.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Design–Directory
Source: Dexigner Design Portal
DesignDirectory
Hierarchical-style “international design links database.” Keyword searchable. Anyone may submit links for inclusion; all submissions are reviewed by editors. Database currently contains about 4,900 links in 1,650 categories. See the newest and most popular links.
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Plant Pathology–Glossary
Source: American Phytopathological Society
Illustrated Glossary of Plant Pathology
From abaxial to zygospore. Many terms have a clickable icon that displays an illustraton. Nice. See Education Center for K-12 resources, Plant Disease Lessons and more.
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Food Safety and Nutrition–Terminology
Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
CFSAN Technical Lexicon: Version 0.9
“This is an electronic text file derived from the CFSAN Thesaurus, which installs into most word processors or email clients in a few minutes. It contains a comprehensive list of approximately fifteen thousand technical and scientific terms commonly used in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in correspondence and regulatory documents. Once installed, spell-checkers will not flag correctly spelled technical terms as misspellings. In addition, misspelled technical terms will be flagged, and the correct spelling offered as suggested spellings by the spell-checking tools of the word processor.”
Download and install the lexicon.
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Cigarette Smoking–United States
Source: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (via DocuTicker)
Cigarette Smoking Among Adults — United States, 2003
“One of the national health objectives for 2010 is to reduce the prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults to 12%. To assess progress toward this objective, CDC analyzed self-reported data from the 2003 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The results of that analysis indicated that, in 2003, approximately 21.6% of U.S. adults were current smokers. Although this prevalence is lower than the 22.5% prevalence among U.S. adults in 2002 and significantly lower than the 22.8% prevalence in 2001, the rate of decline is not sufficient to meet the national health objective for 2010 (2). Comprehensive, sustained interventions that reduce the rate of smoking initiation and increase the rate of cessation are needed to further the decline in cigarette smoking among adults.”

Search Briefs
New Interface Available: Search Only Material in the Google Print Database

Briefly
RLG Introduces New Fine Arts Database: CAMIO–Catalog of Art Museum Images Online

Resource of the Week
by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor

Some of the niftiest stuff on the Internet these days involves GIS data and mapping. For example, see this list of Cool uses of Google Maps, pulled together by Jonathan Dube, over at CyberJournalist.net.

If you’ve never explored TerraFly, from Florida International University, don’t wait one minute longer. “Simply enter an address, and our system will put you at the controls of a bird’s view aerial imagery to explore your digital earth.” (Disable your pop-up blocker first.) Cool, non-obvious feature unearthed by Gary: Once you have an image displayed, you’ll see a scattering of lime green dots superimposed on it. Click on any one of these and another window pops up with tons of local information — population data, schools, local businesses, links to additional satellite images and more. Amazing.

Not quite had your fill of maps and aerial photos? Be on the lookout for Microsoft’s MSN Virtual Earth, schedule to debut this summer.

Our Resource of the Week also comes via the Florida State University System (I’m proud to say). According to the American Library Association, “Florida State’s Public Library Geographic Database (PLGDB) is America’s first ever Web-accessible and digitally-mapped public library database.” Let’s have a look.

Public Libraries–Geography–Database
Source: Florida State University
GeoLib
This database — includes the geographic locations of the roughly 16,000 public libraries in the U.S., along with “population characteristics” from the 2000 Census and library use statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics. For first-time users, there’s a PowerPoint tutorial. I found this somewhat difficult to download. (Your mileage may vary.) Fortunately, there’s also a printable PDF tutorial (352 KB), and for visual learners with a fast Internet connection, a set of instructional movies (in MP4 format). You’ll need to disable your popup blocker to navigate this site, too.

Actually, you may just want to go directly to the map and start experimenting. GeoLib requests that you complete a very brief survey first — name and e-mail address are optional. Mostly they just want to know the purpose for which you are using the site. You can submit your answer and then click the Launch Map Viewer link. (A “quick tutorial” and “help system” are accessible from this page, in case you suddenly feel the need for a life preserver. This resource is not highly intuitive.)

When you first access the map, you’ll see a somewhat compressed view of the United States, with a sidebar offering a variety of “map layers” — data overlays that you can choose. By default, the locations of central libraries are already selected, although you won’t really see this till you hone in on a particular geographic area. Probably the easiest way to start exploring is to click on the Quick Search tab at the top of the map. A Library Quick Search window opens; just for the heck of it, choose your own state from the dropdown menu, click the Branch Library radio button, type the name of your county into the text box and click Search. Up comes another window with a list of branch libraries in your county. Click the Zoom link next to one of the branches and watch what happens to the map. (If you don’t immediately see the branch identified on the map with a little red “read” symbol, make sure you have the Branch Library checkbox selected on the Map Layers sidebar.)

Once you have a library located on the map, you can start viewing demographic data for the surrounding area by using the numerous checkboxes on the Map Layers sidebar. Only one layer can be viewed at a time; color-coding is used to indicate characteristics. You can see what the colors represent (Legend) by clicking the small box to the left of the demographic label. (It’s gray, with a carat mark inside.) Each main demographic category — age, education, income, poverty by age, children under 18, race, etc. — has a plus sign to the right of it that you click to reveal the options. Other layers besides demographics include congressional and state legislative districts, geographic boundaries (states, counties, census tracts, etc.), and physical features like types of highways and bodies of water.

Note: If you want to view U.S. public libraries by congressional district, a feature sponsored by ALA, a tutorial (Word document) is available.

If you’d like to print out the map you have displayed, click the Print PDF tab at the top of the window, near the center. You’ll see a sidebar — Create a Printable Map. Type a name for your map into the text box and click Submit Query. You’ll get yet another window with a printable version of your map. You can also e-mail your map (in PDF or JPG format) to yourself or someone else. Click the little envelope icon; it’s the one at the extreme right end of the row of icons at the top of the window.

I found the Locate tab at the top of the window to be an efficient way of zooming in on a particular geographic area. When you click on it, you get a sidebar that allows you to specify a zip code or a city/state combination. Once you’ve got the relevant map displayed, click the Layers tag to get the demographic options sidebar again. You can zoom in and out by clicking the standard + and – magnifying glass icons at the top and then clicking on the area of the map in which you are interested. If you zoom in close enough, street names are displayed.

It does take some practice to become proficient at using GeoLib — there are so many features I haven’t even touched on here — but the payoff could be high, in terms of gathering statistical information about the users (and potential users) of any public library system. It could, for example, help you plan the location of future branches or decide what types of services to offer based on the characteristics of the local population.

This project is sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Enjoy.

Professional Reading Shelf
Digitization
Source: UNESECO/FAO
UNESCO and FAO Launch Training CD-Rom [Free] on Digitisation for Librarians and Laymen
“UNESCO and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization are launching the “Digitization and Digital Libraries” module to teach librarians and laymen how to digitize documents and put them on line and create virtual libraries. The kit, available from the FAO and UNESCO free of charge, is compatible with a wide range of computers…”
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Librarians
Source: The Stanford Report
Librarian, marine biologist finds niche at Hopkins
Joe Wible has worked in libraries for more than 30 years and logged more than 1,000 dives in his life, making him perfectly suited for his job as head librarian and bibliographer at Hopkins Marine Station this, despite a salvaged sign he keeps in his office window: ‘No wet suits in the library!!’”
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Preservation–Canada
Source: Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Pages for the ages: U of S prof on quest to reassemble pages of centuries-old manuscripts
“From inside a peach-coloured cardboard container, the white-gloved hands of librarian Linda Fritz gingerly lift each mounted page. Some of the aged pages are tiny — the size of a cigarette box — and others are long and broad.”
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Patents–Databases
Information Visualization
Source: IWR
STN set for a new analysis vista
“Users of the STN International online service for science and technology researchers are now being offered a new analysis and visualisation (A&V) tool, STN AnaVist. Developed jointly by Chemical Abstracts Service in the US and Germany’s FIZ Karlsruhe, the software aims to give information professionals deeper insights into scientific literature and data extracted from STN databases. It will be officially released ‘this summer’.”
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Government Information–United States
Public Libraries–United States
Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services
Request for Proposals: National Study on User Satisfaction with Access to Government Information and Services at Public Libraries and Public Access Computing Centers
“The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is seeking proposals for a national research study on how individuals with limited access to Internet resources (those who do not have broadband access from home, work, or school; who choose to access government services and information from locations other than home, work, or school; or who do so through traditional means of access) access federal, state, and local government services and whether such users are satisfied with the access provided by public libraries and public access computing centers.”

Search Briefs
Ask Jeeves Unveils New Features
Chris Sherman and I have a look in a SearchDay article. The “Zoom” feature discussed might be very useful for info pros. The other new service, “Web Answers” is not without issues (aka far from perfect) but is still worth a look.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Drugs–Canada–Canada
Source: CBC
Adverse drug reaction database goes online
Health Canada is making its database of adverse drug reactions available to Canadians in a searchable online format…” Direct to
Canadian Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring Program (CADRMP) Adverse Reaction Database
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Businesses–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: Entrepreneur and PriceWaterhouseCoopers
2005 Hot 100: The Fastest Growing New Businesses in America
” Which companies are breaking out of the pack this year? Our Hot 100 shows they run the gamut, from real estate and restaurants to staffing and spas. These companies are no more than five years old, but have annual sales in excess of $1 million. Read on to learn more about these rising stars and their success secrets.”
How the Rankings Are Compiled
Trends and Stats From the Hot 100
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Congressional Research Service
A Selection of New/Recently Updated CRS Reports
Source: Congressional Research Service (via FPC and National Library for the Environment)
+ Genetic Testing: Scientific Background and Nondiscrimination Legislation
+ Iraq’s New Security Forces: The Challenge of Sectarian and Ethnic Influences
+ Organization of American States: A Primer
+ Terrorism and Security Issues Facing the Water Infrastructure Sector
+ Forest Fire Protection
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Investing–Portals
Source: MSN
MSN Money Adds New Research Tools
New services including:
+ Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) Center
+ Currency Converter and Cross Currency Table
+ MSN Money “Only” Search Tool
+ News Sources Added to Newscenter
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Human Rights
Source: Amnesty International
Amnesty International Report 2005
“This Amnesty International Report, which covers 149 countries, highlights the failure of national governments and international organizations to deal with human rights violations, and calls for greater international accountability.”
Full Country List by Region
Supplementary press materials (via DocuTicker)

Professional Reading Shelf
National Libraries–New Zealand
Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa
National Library Applauds New Digital Strategy
“The government’s new Digital Strategy is a giant step forward for New Zealand, and will be widely celebrated by the nation’s library and information community, says National Librarian Penny Carnaby. For the past two years the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa has been working closely with the Ministry of Economic Development, other central government departments and Local Government New Zealand, and consulting with the library and information sector, to develop this essential contribution to the nation’s digital well-being.”
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Libraries
Source: Center for Research Libraries
Spring 2005 Issue of CRL Focus is Now Online
Articles include:
+ South Asia Microform Project–a Ghazal of Historical Resources
+ Digital South Asia Library
+ A Union Catalogue for South Asia
+ DSAL’ s Digital Jewel: The Institute of Indian Studies Center for Art and Archaeology Photo Archive
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Electronic Resources
Source: British Academy
Just Released, E-resources for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences — A British Academy Policy Review
“Information and communications technology is having a major impact in the form of, and access to, research resources. The Academy has consulted national and representative bodies, and individual researchers, and has examined the technical and organisational issues of e-resource provision and access. Its survey and analysis leads to a series of recommendations addressed to institutions and to individual researchers.”
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Information Management
Source: via E-LIS, to be published in Library Review
The Nature of Information in the 21st Century: Conundrums for the Informatics Community?
“The proliferation of electronic information via the Web has witnessed the unique characteristics of information distend yet further. With such seismic developments occurring in such a short period of time, it seems prudent to once again consider the very nature of information and to assess whether this accelerated growth has implications for the work of the informatics community and our information society. The paper begins by revisiting and refreshing the unique characteristics of information via a reappraisal of the relevant literature. These characteristics are then contextualised within the New Economy and traditional economic theory. Once these unique characteristics have been examined, the author discusses how the nature of information in the 21st century presents the informatics community with new and difficult challenges.” By George Macgregor, Centre for Digital Library Research, University of Strathclyde (UK)
Full paper (PDF; 152 KB)
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PubChem
Open Access
Source: Open Access Working Group via SPARC
Support for NIH’s PubChem Database
“OAWG sends letter to U.S. Representative that calls for support for an online information resource that aids biomedical research.” Direct link to PubChem.
UPDATE: Chemical publisher goes after NIH