Professional Reading Shelf
Medical Libraries
It’s Almost Here!!! National Medical Librarians Month 2005
Begins tomorrow!
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National Libraries
Source: ManagingInformation.com
National Libraries Of Japan And Holland Sign Joint Operating Agreement
“The Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB) in the Netherlands has signed a joint operating agreement with the National Diet Library in Japan. The two national libraries will cooperate in several areas, such as digitisation and long-term digital preservation. By means of exchange programmes, employees of both institutions will acquire experience and exchange specific knowledge.”
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OpenURL–RFP
Source: NISO
OpenURL Registry RFP Released (PDF)
“NISO is seeking to find an organization to serve as the Maintenance Agency for the OpenURL Registry. The scope of the work and obligations are detailed in a Request-for-Proposal released on July 6. Proposals are due October 15, 2005.”
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Information Technology
Source: JISC
Understanding Advanced Display Technologies
“The report has two main sections: the first half looks at how the human visual system (HVS) processes information and the relative success with which cathode ray tube and flat panel display technologies are able to match the HVS. It also looks at how and why ‘flatness’ has come to dictate current technology developments and where this may take us in the future.”
Summary ||| Direct to Full Text (PDF)

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Department of Homeland Security
Source: Inspector General/DHS (via DocuTicker)
Just Released, Emergency Preparedness and Response Could Better Integrate Information Technology with Incident Response and Recovery, OIG-05-36, September 2005
67 pages; PDF.
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Biology–Central America–Digital Collection
Source: Smithsonian Institution, et. al.
Electronic Biologia Centrali-Americana (EBCA)
“This digital edition of the important and out-of-print Biologia Centrali-Americana makes all 58 biolological volumes available. Descriptions of over 50,000 and images of over 18,000 species of animals and plants are now accessible as never before. This is the first step toward an extraordinary new set of electronic resources and knowledge tools for biodiversity studies — the Biologia Centrali-Americana Centennial.”
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Adult Education–United States
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
Labor Force Participation in Formal Work-Related Education in 2000-01
“This report uses the Adult Education Survey of the 2001 National Household Education Survey Program to examine the extent and nature of participation in work-related education among adults in the labor force. The report provides data on instructional providers, topics studied, employer support, and other employment-related inducements for participation.”
Full Report (PDF; 834 KB)
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Home Networks–Windows PCs
Source: O’Reilly and Associates
Home Networking — The Missing Manual: Using the Network With Windows Computers (PDF; 2.3 MB)
“Surfing the Web from your newly networked computers is fun, no doubt. But some of the best parts of having a home network revolve around what’s going on inside your house. You, proud network owner, have got your own wide world of resources waiting for you on the PCs sitting right within your home. The files, folders, disk drives, and printers — in fact, almost anything you can attach or store inside any computer on your network — can be shared among all your PCs. Sharing requires taking three basic steps….” Sample book chapter; 43 pp.

Search Briefs
+ MSN Shopping Adds Search Refinements for Hundreds of Product Categories
+ Preview Some New “Save Search” Features at AOL Search
+ Broadband Adoption in U.S. Homes Continues to Increase

Briefly
+ Factiva Upgrades Mobile Capability

Resources of the Week
——————————
by Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor

Natural disasters, stratospheric gas prices, a messy war in Iraq that goes on and on, two Supreme Court nominations on the line, evolution versus “intelligent design,” privacy-threatening security breaches, and a whole raft of other social issues creating divisiveness in society… Is it just me, or does it seem like the number of rumors and hoaxes flying around the Internet is reaching critical mass? My current personal favorite? Killer dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, freed from a Naval research facility by the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. Not that I really have time to go to the beach anyhow…

It’s probably a good time to review some of the sites on the Web where you can go to check this stuff out before forwarding it along to 100 of your closest friends. (And don’t we all have friends like this who are eager to “share” with us?)

+ Urban Legends Reference Pages: Always check here first, since this is the motherlode…and it’s nicely organized, for browsing and searching. Links on the front page will take you to the newest and 25 hottest urban legends. Both pages have their own RSS feeds. For each tale, you’ll learn where it came from (if possible) whether it is true, false, or undetermined/ambiguous. References and links to related information are often included. Killer dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico? Probably not. But they have been trained to detect mines, which could be useful.

+ CIAC Hoax Pages (Hoaxbusters): This website is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Computer Incident Advisory Capability. However, the site maintainers tell us, “At CIAC, we find that we spend much more time de-bunking hoaxes than handling real virus and Trojan incidents. These pages describe some of the warnings, offers, and pleas for help that are filling our mailboxes, clogging our mailservers, and that generally do not have any basis in fact.” You can browse by category (including fake virus/malicious code warnings) or search the archive. There’s also a Full Hoax Index that allows you to see, on a single page, the contents of all the other pages on the site. Also included is a comprehensive list of links to other hoax sites, as well as scam/fraud information and reporting sites.

+ About.com Urban Legends and Folklore: You can search and browse here as well, but as is typical for About.com sites, the cluttered interface can be distracting. Below the title of each entry, on the right, you’ll see information about the origin of the rumor/hoax, its status and a link to a brief analysis. Clicking on Hoax Central on the lefthand nav bar takes you to a collection of stuff that is currently floating around, including Bogus Websites (remember the Bonsai Kitten?) and Faux Photos (always amusing). There’s a top 25 list here as well, and an image quiz (real or fake?).

+ TruthOrFiction.com: While not as content-rich as the three sites mentioned above, there’s a particularly good section on religious/spiritual rumors, including prayer requests, etc. Search or browse. Paid subscriptions are offered here for those who want to be promptly alerted to “the latest stories, eRumors, and hoaxes.”

+ purportal.com (”The Bunk Stops Here”): Keyword search five different hoax sites from a single page — the first three sites mentioned here, plus the CERT Computer Security Database and the Symantec (Real) Virus Encyclopedia. Well worth a bookmark. Purportal was a ResourceShelf “Resource of the Week” in 2004.

Professional Reading Shelf
Online Information
Source: Research Information
The October/November 2005 of Research Information is Now Online
Articles include:
+ Language skills help text mining
+ Automation reduces the cost of archiving
+ Archive programmes gain momentum
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Hurricane Katrina–Archives
Source: SAA
Report of Hurricane Katrina Damage Assessment
PDF.
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Used Books
Source: AP
Used Books Are $2 Billion Industry
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Library Databases
Source: GovTech.net
Revamped Michigan eLibrary Brings New Tools and Information Resources to Residents
“On Wednesday, the Library of Michigan and Department of History, Arts and Libraries (HAL) announced the Michigan eLibrary (MeL) is open for business with a brand new look, more user-friendly search and retrieval features, and a stable of information resources, all geared to provide Michigan residents with access to a comprehensive collection of information.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Civil War–United States–Maps
Source: American Memory Project, Library of Congress
Just Released, Confederate Army Maps Now Online
From a news release, A collection of Civil War maps, many of which were used by Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, is now available online at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/maps/hotchkiss/.
The maps, from the Geography and Map Division, were obtained from Mrs. R.E. Christian, granddaughter of Maj. Jedediah Hotchkiss (1828-1899), a topographic engineer in the Confederate Army.’ ‘The Hotchkiss Map Collection’ contains cartographic items by Hotchkiss (1828-1899), who made detailed battle maps, primarily of the Shenandoah Valley, some of which were used by Gens. Lee and Jackson for their combat planning and strategy. Several of the maps have annotations of various military officers, demonstrating their importance in the military campaigns. The collection also includes maps made or used by Hotchkiss during his postwar years, including maps with information about railroads, minerals and mining, geology and history. Most of them focus on Virginia and West Virginia, but also cover other states and even the world.”
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Joseph Stalin–Databases
Source: Univeristy of Pittsburgh Digital Libraries
New, Stalinka: Digital Library of Staliniana
“The Digital Research Library released an image collection visually documenting the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The website, Stalinka: Digital Library of Staliniana, is the result of a two-year effort between the DRL and Prof. Helena Goscilo (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures), Susan Corbesero (Department of History), and Petre Petrov (graduate student). The collection comprises 368 visual materials and artifacts relating to Stalin: photographs, posters, paintings, banners, sculptures, chinaware, pins, etc.”
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Country Studies
Source: Federal Research Division/Library of Congress
New, Country Profile of Thailand
PDF.
See Also: More Country Profiles from the FRD
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Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Weapons–Maps
Source: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Deadly Maps
“The complete collection of maps from Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Threats by Joseph Cirincione, Jon B. Wolfsthal, and Miriam Rajkumar is now available online. Included in the collection are maps that reflect the worldwide proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and their missile delivery systems. Additionally, country maps show the major nuclear installations, both civilian and military, in each country.”
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Crime Enforcement–United States–Statistics
Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (Syracuse University)
New, Criminal Enforcement Changes in the Bush Years Released
“New data show significant shifts have occurred in how the federal government enforced the law during the Bush Administration. From FY 2000 to FY 2004, federal prosecutions were up by over 31%. The data, obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act, also document changes in the kinds of cases being brought to court: immigration and weapons prosecutions are climbing while white collar crime and drug prosecutions are sliding. The new data go through the end of March 2005 (the first half of FY 2005).”
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Government–Canada
Source: Library and Archives Canada
New Online Exhibit, By Executive Decree
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Armed Forces–United Kingdom
Source: Ministry of Defence
Just Released, UK Defence Statistics, 2005

Search Briefs
+ Roll Your Own Search Engine With Rollyo (Beta)*
***Make sure to check out Rolly, very cool! The possibilities are endless.
+ Export or Backup Your Gmail Contacts List with Just a Few Clicks
+ Yahoo Desktop Search Out Of Beta, Gets LiveWords Contextual Search
+ Dynamically Search and Browse RSS News Headlines
*** Very interesting technology!

Briefly
+ Proquest Offering 2000+ Medical e-Books From MyiLibrary
+ MetaPress Announces Web Site Enhancements

Professional Reading Shelf
National Archives–United Kingdom
Source: National Archives, UK
The National Archives tackles digital compliance
“The National Archives have reached another milestone in digital preservation testing and compliance. In conjunction with the UK Data Archive, The National Archives have released a report comparing their preservation practices to the leading internationally recognised standard for digital archives. This provides a model for other organisations to test the compliance of their own systems.” Direct to full text of report (PDF).
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Academic Libraries
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
In Depth: Libraries
This is a special Chronicle supplement on libraries containing a package of stories, most of which are available to subscribers only:
+ Thoughtful Designs: “As they renovate old libraries and plan new ones, colleges consider the purpose of the buildings — and how to make them popular.”
+ Evolving Roles: “Today’s reference librarians need IT and pedagogical skills. Institutions are adapting in various ways, says W. Lee Hisle.”
+ The Beauty of Browsing: “Fred D. White doesn’t want stacks closed and mechanized. He wants to hold books in his hand and see where they take him.”
+ Should Librarians Get Tenure? Yes, It’s Crucial to Their Jobs: “College librarians are crucial partners in teaching and research, and they should be eligible for tenure like their faculty colleagues, says Catherine Murray-Rust.” (This one is available free to non-subscribers.)
+ Should Librarians Get Tenure? No, It Can Hamper Their Roles: “Librarians should be involved in college governance, but, writes Deborah A. Carver, they don’t face the academic-freedom issues that professors do, and don’t need tenure.” (This one is available free to non-subscribers.)
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Library Catalogs
Source: Center for Research Libraries
Center for Research Libraries Releases New Catalog
“The Center for Research Libraries has unveiled a new online catalog, allowing researchers additional functionality in searching and displaying the more than one million records in the catalog. The added functionality includes two new search types: a dedicated newspaper search and a combined author and title search. The newspaper search feature enables patrons to search all newspapers held by the Center by geographic area. Using a list provided in a drop-down box, patrons can search for foreign newspapers by country or for domestic newspapers by U.S. state.”
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Scholarly Publishing
Source: The Economist
The paperless library
“Free access to scientific results is changing research practices.”
See Also: New Report: Governments should improve access to publicly funded research, finds OECD report
Direct to Full Text: OECD report on the scientific publishing industry (119 pages; PDF).
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Librarians–Pregnancy
Source: Catherine Woodworth Wong (http://www.sciencelibrarian.org/)
Pregnant @ the Reference Desk
“I have created this web site to serve as a resource to help pregnant librarians and adopting parents as I included some adoption resources as well. When I was pregnant, I was so busy working that I did not know about a lot of this stuff. I am trying to include things that you may not have found as opposed to the really popular web sites!” Covers librarian parenting e-mail lists, health issues, maternity clothing, librarian-recommended websites. (via librarian.net)

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
September 11th
Source: The Memory Hole
All Available NY Fire Dept Dispatch Tapes From 9/11
“The Fire Department of New York’s radio dispatches from the morning and early afternoon of 9/11. For over three years, they fought in court to keep these recordings secret but were finally forced to release them in August 2005. For the first time anywhere, we’ve made the contents of all 21 audio CDs available online.”
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Psychology–Full-Text Documents
Source: York University (Toronto)
Classics in the History of Psychology
“Classics in the History of Psychology is an effort to make the full texts of a large number of historically significant public domain documents from the scholarly literature of psychology and allied disciplines available on the World Wide Web. There are now over 25 books and about 200 articles and chapters on-line. The site also contains links to over 200 relevant works posted at other sites.” Searchable.
+ Index by author
+ Index by topic
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Natural Disasters–Children’s Books
Source: University of Illinois Extension Disaster Resources (by Lynn Blinn Pike, Ph.D., University of Missouri)
Children’s Literature on Floods and Natural Disasters
“Reading about floods, understanding what causes floods, and talking about natural disasters in general will help children who have experienced a flood to communicate their feelings and fears. Through thoughtful questioning, children can be guided to relate their own experiences to those of the characters in the books.”
See also: Bibliography: Books on Disaster For Kids (FEMA)

Citation Reports
Source: ISI
+ Science in Finland, 2000-04
+ U.K. Universities: Most Prolific in Mathematics, 2000-04
+ Dentistry/Oral Surgery & Medicine: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 2000-04
+ Journals Ranked by Impact: Entomology

Search Briefs
+ Dynamically Search and Browse RSS News Headlines
+ Time For Results Counts / Number Of Matches To Go?
+ Google Claims To Be Most Comprehensive — But Helps Defuse Size Wars By Dropping Home Page Count

Briefly
+ Market for Business Online Services Projected to Grow 3.1% to $36 Billion in 2005, Says Simba Information’s Business Information Markets Report
+ Wales: Internet Makes Archive World Smaller (via ManagingInformation.com)

Professional Reading Shelf
Digitization Projects–Canada
Source: Library and Archives Canada
Digitization Program for the Archival Community
A list (with links) to the digital projects (2004-2005) that have received funding and support from Library and Archives Canada, the Canadian Council of Archives and the Department of Canadian Heritage.
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Scholarly Communication
Source: ARL (Bimonthly Report 241)
Seeking a Global Perspective on Scholarly Communication: Contributions from the UK
“How do the University of Chicago Press’s titles compare to Elsevier’s in terms of median price? How long does it take first-time submitters to self-archive a work through the Internet? How do librarians and publishers feel about the concept of a national site license for a collection of journal titles? These questions about our current scholarly communication system are addressed in recent reports commissioned in the United Kingdom. It is worth taking a close look at three of these reports as much of the data collected and many of the findings are highly relevant for North American research institutions.”
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Information Technology
Source: JISC
New, TechDis staff packs published to support accessibility
“Engaging staff with e-Learning can be difficult, particularly where their personal IT skills are modest. This difficulty can be compounded by misguided accessibility training that attempts to give highly technical advice to people who lack the skills to make use of it. The resulting confusion can lead to tutors and lecturers – the staff with biggest potential impact on accessibility – retreating to traditional, less accessible teaching approaches. The JISC-funded service TechDis has produced a series of self-supporting staff development packs aimed at highlighting the important issues surrounding technology and disability. Each pack is self-standing and can either be delivered as a session independently or adapted into a wider staff development programme. Direct to TechDis Staff Packs.
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Public Libraries–United States–Statistics
Source: NCES
Updated, Compare Public Libraries Database
“Compare Public Libraries allows users to compare one library (the library of interest) with similar libraries (the comparison group). For example, a user may wish to compare one library’s total circulation with the total circulation of a group of libraries with similar total expenditures. Once you complete your analysis you can view the results and download them as an Excel file. This data tool has just been updated with information for fiscal year 2003.”
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Researching Hospitals
Source: TVC Alert
Conducting Research on Hospitals

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Celluar Subscribers–Global–Lists & Rankings
Source: Computer Industry Almanac
Just Released, China Tops Cellular Subscriber Top 15 Ranking
“The worldwide number of cellular subscribers will surpass 2 billion in 2005 – up from 11M in 1990 and 750M in 2000. China is the clear leader in cellular subscribers and will reach nearly 400M at year-end 2005 – nearly twice as many as the USA. Russia has seen tremendous growth in the last few years and is projected to be in third place by year-end 2005. Rapid expansion in India will see a future climb in the rankings to a possible #2 in 2010. Worldwide cellular subscribers are forecasted to reach 3.2B by the end of 2010.”
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MBA Programs–Lists & Rankings
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
European school takes top spot in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s MBA rankings
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College Rankings–Influence
Source: Cornell Higher Education Research Institute
The Influence of the U.S. News and World Report Collegiate Rankings on the Matriculation Decision of High-Ability Students: 1995-2004 (PDF; 216 KB)
“The annual U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) Guide to America’s Best Colleges is a much anticipated magazine among both high-ability prospective students and college and university administrators. In this paper we use a decade of Colgate University Admitted Student Questionnaire surveys to estimate the influence of changes in a school’s USNWR rank on the probability of matriculation of high-ability students. We find that the school choice of students is more responsive to changes in rank the higher (better) a school is ranked. This sensitivity to rank is independent of other objective measures of quality. As a group, women (aided and full-pay) are slightly less sensitive to the rankings than men, minorities (full-pay) are less sensitive to the rankings than non-minorities, and the rankings themselves have become more important over time for aided students. In terms of financial factors, the net cost of attendance along with the packaging of the aid matters for aided students. Finally, merit aid in general does not appear to influence high-ability full-pay students. Our results suggest that it is rational for college administrators (especially those at the highest ranked institutions) to pay attention to their USNWR rank because it is an important influence in yielding accepted students.” (via DocuTicker)
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Hurricanes–United States–Map
Source: NOAA (National Hurricane Center)
Continental United States Landfalling Hurricanes 1950-2004
Very nice map, in .jpg format.

Search Briefs
+ For Many, It’s All About the Very First Search Result
+ Infospace Gets Ready to Launch Mobile Search Client
+ Google Video Gets Flashy

Briefly
+ Autonomy and NetLibrary (OCLC) Announce Deal
+ Department Of Justice Awards $26 Million To Enhance State Criminal Justice Records
+ New Release of Factiva Public Figures & Associates Provides Enhanced Compliance with Global Anti-Money Laundering Regulations

Professional Reading Shelf
Information Industry–Forecasts
Source: Outsell
In a New Report, Outsell, Inc. Forecasts Single Digit Growth For The Information Industry, Reaching $358 Billion
“Outsell, Inc. has released FutureFacts: 2006 and Beyond, the market?s first-ever comprehensive forecast of the trends and drivers fueling the Information Industry. The report pegs the Information Industry to reach $358 billion by 2008, lending credit to innovative companies like Yahoo!, Google, Baidu, Interactive Data Corporation, Greenfield Online and, HealthStream Inc. for growing the market.” The full text of the report is available (free) here (registration required).
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Searching–User Interface–Children
Source: Human-Computer Interaction Lab, University of Maryland
Interface Design for Children’s Searching and Browsing
From the abstract, “Elementary-age children are among the largest user groups of computers and the Internet, so it is important to design searching and browsing tools that support them. However, many interfaces for children do not consider their skills and preferences. Children are capable of doing Boolean searches, but have difficulty with the sequential presentation of hierarchical structures used in many category browsers. Based on previous research, we believed a simultaneous presentation of a flat category structure might better support children. We conducted two studies of searching and browsing with these two types of category browsers. Our results suggest that a flat, simultaneous interface provides advantages for both Boolean searching and casual browsing. These results add to the understanding of children?s searching and browsing skills and preferences and suggest guidelines for other interface designers.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Renters–Satisfaction–Lists & Rankings
Source: Apartment Ratings, Inc.
Renter Livability and Satisfaction Survey: Top Cities for Renters List 2005
“The Renter Livability and Satisfaction table is based on the results of analyzing data collected from users of ApartmentRatings.com regarding renter satisfaction and average rent along with data regarding local economic conditions from secondary sources. The index uses the most up-to-date information available from government research agencies for income and rental vacancy. The most current data were available for 2003 and 2004 respectively.”
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Interactive Voice Response Systems
Source: Intuit QuickBase
Find-A-Human — IVR Phone System Shortcuts (USA)
“Instructions for bypassing IVR systems to get to a human as quickly as you can.”
See also: Info for Amazon.com, eBay and PayPal customer service (Cliche Ideas)
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September 11th
Source: 9/11 Commission
New Version, Four Flights and Civil Aviation Security (PDF)
The September 12, 2005 version of the Staff Monograph on the “Four Flights and Civil Aviation Security” resulted from a second review of the report by the executive branch. This version was released by the U.S. Department of Justice and transferred into the custody of the National Archives on September 12, 2005. This newer version contains less redacted information than the first version released on January 28, 2005.
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Crime–United States–Statistics
Source: BJS
Just Released, Criminal Victimization, 2004
“Victimization rates for every major type of crime measured were unchanged from their 2003 levels.”
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Pensions–United States
Source: Congressional Budget Office
New, A Guide to Understanding the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation