Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Canada–Imagery–Databases
Source: Library and Archive of Canada
New Database, Framing Canada: A Photographic Memory
“The photographic collections at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) contain more than 22 million images. Representing the history of photography from its beginnings in the early 1840s to the present day, these photographic collections are an invaluable resource for the visual history of Canada and Canadians. Featuring photographs from various public and private collections, Framing Canada: A Photographic Memory presents a searchable database of digitized photographic images from 1843 to the mid-20th century. These images tell the fascinating and ever-changing story of how Canadians see themselves and their world.”
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Grandparents–Caregivers—Fact Sheets
Source: AARP, et. al.
State Fact Sheets for Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children
“U.S. Census 2000 data tell us that 2.4 million grandparents are taking on primary responsibility for their grandchildren’s basic needs. Many of these grandparents have assumed this responsibility without the parent of the child being in the home. These grandparent and other relative caregivers often lack information about the range of support services, benefits and policies they need to fulfill their caregiving role. In an effort to remedy this situation, a group of child and aging advocacy and research organizations has prepared State Fact Sheets, which provide helpful state-specific data and information for all the states and the District of Columbia.” Individual fact sheets in PDF format.
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China–Economics
Source: OECD
New, Economic Survey of China
Exec summary and policy brief available.
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Federal Employers–Ranking
Source: American University’s Partnership for Public Service and the Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation
Best Places to Work in the Federal Government 2005
From press release: “Best Places to Work includes a ranking of 30 agencies and 220 subcomponents on overall employee engagement, as well as in ten work environment categories. The rankings also highlight trends among demographic groups, including workers under 40 versus workers over 40, men versus women, and African American, Hispanic, and Asian employees. Best Places to Work was made possible with technical assistance from Sirota Survey Intelligence, specialists in attitude research.” Site done entirely in Flash; may have accessibility issues. Results also to be posted on U.S. News and World Report site later this week.
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Internet Security
Source: Symantec
New, Internet Security Threat Report, Vol. 8
“Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today released its eighth volume of the Internet Security Threat Report, one of the most comprehensive sources of Internet threat data in the world. The semiannual report, covering the six-month period from January 1 to June 30, 2005, identified new methods of using malicious code for financial gain with increasing frequency to target desktops rather than enterprise perimeters.”
Summary ||| Full Text (Registration Required, Free)
See Also: Symantec: Mozilla browsers more vulnerable than IE

Search Briefs
+ Two Yahoo! Employees Recognized as Top Technology Innovators by MIT’s Technology Review

Briefly
+ Upgrade: SciFinder browses for similarity (via IWR)

Professional Reading Shelf
Legal Databases–United States–Milestones
Source: U.S. Courts
PACER Accounts Top 500,000
“Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), the service that allows users to obtain case information online from federal courts, now has over 500,000.”
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Hurricane Katrina–Medical Libraries
Source: MLA
Medical Libraries and Hurricane Katrina Website
“This Website is intended to be a portal to MLA efforts and relief efforts nationwide and to provide ideas on ways MLA members can support medical libraries that are having difficulty providing information services.”
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Archives–United Kingdom
Source: The National Archives
The National Archives Publishes Annual Report
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Web Browsers
Source: PC World
Build a Better Browser
“…35 free downloads add invaluable new features to Internet Explorer and Firefox.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Earthquakes–California–Handbooks
Source: USGS
Before The Next Big Earthquake: New Handbook Offers Vital Tips To Bay Region Residents
“A useful and perhaps life-saving new handbook is being released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Putting Down Roots in Earthquake Country–Your Handbook for the Bay Region is a practical, informative guide for Bay Area residents on earthquake preparedness. Hurricane Katrina’s disastrous aftermath serves as a stark reminder that natural hazards can strike suddenly, putting millions of Americans in harm’s way and that preparedness is key to survival. The handbook describes the likely impacts of future earthquakes in the Bay Area and gives seven important steps people should follow to prepare for, survive and recover from future earthquakes.”
Highlights ||| Direct to Full Text
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Hurricane Katrina–Geospatial Resources
Source: USGS
USGS Releases Hurricane Katrina Geospatial Clearinghouse

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Ready Reference
Source: Answers.com
Answers.com Adds New Content
New reference content about:
Poker — poker rules and terms
First Names — first names and their origins
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Water
Source: EPA
Two New “Water” Documents
+ Bottled Water Basics (7 pages; PDF)
+ Filtration Facts (7 pages; PDF)
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Jewish Music–United States–Archive
Source: Lowell Milken/Milken Family Foundation
Milken Archive of American Jewish Music
“A musical adventure of historic proportions, the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music is an international undertaking to record, preserve and distribute a vast cross-section, comprising hundreds of outstanding pieces of American Jewish music from the past 350 years. While secular music by American Jewish composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Kurt Weill and Leonard Bernstein is widely available, the Milken Archive’s focus on the rich body of music specifically related to the American Jewish experience, both sacred and secular, is unprecedented…. In addition to its recording program, the Milken Archive has videotaped more than 100 oral histories of composers, conductors and performers; is commissioning a comprehensive history of American Jewish music; and is assembling an extensive collection of memorabilia. When completed, the Milken Archive will comprise the largest collection of American Jewish music ever recorded.” Includes:
+ Feature articles
+ Glossary
+ Annotated links

Search Briefs
+ Yahoo Cache Now Offering Direct Links to Wayback Machine
+ Results from Google Groups Now Appearing at the Bottom of Google Web Results Pages

Professional Reading Shelf
Books–United States–Censorship
Source: ALA
Materials for Banned Books Week 2005
Banned Books Week begins on September 24th. Lists include:
+ Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2004
+ The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000
+ The Top 10 List of Most Frequently Challenged Books

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Hurricane Katrina–Enviromental Issues
Source: EPA and CDC
Just Released, EPA, CDC issue joint New Orleans Needs Assessment
“EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) formed a joint task force to advise local and state officials of the potential health and environmental risks associated with returning to the City of New Orleans. The initial Environmental Health Needs & Habitability Assessment, issued September 17, 2005, identifies a number of barriers to be overcome and critical decisions to be made prior to reinhabiting New Orleans.”
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Health Insurance–United States–Surveys
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
Just Released, Employer Health Benefits 2005 Annual Survey
“This annual survey of employers provides a detailed look at trends in employer-based health coverage, including changes in premiums, employee contributions, cost-sharing policies and other relevant information. This year the survey also documented the prevalence of high-deductible health plans and savings account options, including the percentage of employers offering these plan types and the percentage of workers covered by them. The 2005 survey included 2,995 randomly selected public and private firms with three or more employees (2,013 of which responded to the full survey and 982 of which responded to an additional question about offering coverage). The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust jointly conduct the survey.”

Briefly
+ ALPSP calls for ‘urgent’ Google meeting

Professional Reading Shelf
History
Source: Center for History and New Media at George Mason University
Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web
The full text (web version) of a book by Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig.
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Public Libraries–Special Collections–Holocaust
Source: Indianapolis Star
Evansville library will open Holocaust archive
“A collection of Holocaust survivors’ testimonies, filmed as a memorial to the millions who lost their lives in the Nazi-run death camps of World War II, has become an educational resource to teach cultural acceptance. Universities and libraries in recent years have begun using the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation’s film archives to compile their own collections of survivor testimonies that chronicle the horrors of Adolf Hitler’s concentration camps. The Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library on Monday will be the latest to open a collection from the foundation — 115 films that document the lives of survivors and Holocaust witnesses who fled to Indiana, Kentucky, and southern Illinois after the war.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Emergencies–United States
Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency
National Situation Update
Daily update with news about weather, fires, etc. Archive of NSU’s available back to 2000.
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Information Security
Source: CIO/PricewaterhouseCoopers (via DocuTicker.com)
The Global State of Information Security 2005
“To borrow from forestry parlance, information security is an escaped wildfire. And according to ‘The Global State of Information Security 2005,’ a worldwide study by CIO and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), you are the firefighters, desperately trying to outflank the fireline and prevent flare-ups and firestorms. It’s a thankless, impossible business.”

Professional Reading Shelf
ERIC
Source: ERIC
ERIC Provides Citation Management
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Libraries
Source: ALC
Gulf Coast Libraries Renewal Fund Created by Americans for Libraries Council
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Privacy–Social Security Numbers
Source: General Accountability Office (PDFs)
Social Security Numbers: Federal and State Laws Restrict Use of SSNs, yet Gaps Remain, by Barbara D. Bovbjerg, Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues, before the New York State Assembly Standing Committees on Consumer Affairs and Protection, Government Operations, and Banks, in New York City. (via DocuTicker)
Highlights Full Report

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Community Investment–Database
Source: Calvert Foundation
Community Investment Profiles Database
“Calvert Foundation and many community development organizations have worked together to present the most complete on-line resource for financial and program information on over 100 groups. If you want to read about how and where different community development organizations work, search this database.” Search by lending sector, geographic area, organization name. “Please register (free) if you would like access to the advanced version of the profiles database. Upon registration you will have access to more detailed financial information, more sophisticated search capability, and further information about the operations of the organizations in this database.”
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Electronic Voting
Source: National Research Council
Just Released (Prepub) Report, Asking the Right Questions About Electronic Voting
“…articulates important questions and issues that election officials, policy makers, and informed citizens should ask concerning the use of computers and information technology (IT) in the electoral process.”
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Disasters–Mental Health
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Disaster Mental Health Resources
“This page includes information on general strategies for promoting mental health and resilience that have been developed by various organizations based on experiences in prior disasters. While each individual is affected differently by a disaster, certain groups may share common experiences.”
See also: Information on Coping With Traumatic Events (National Institute of Mental Health)
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Hurricane Katrina–Environment
Source: EPA
Hurricane Katrina Response from the EPA
Daily updates
–
Hurricane Katrina
Source: National Climatic Data Center
Climate of 2005: Summary of Hurricane Katrina

Search Briefs
+ Answers.com Hires Veteran Linguist

Briefly
+ MetaCarta enters civilian government market
+ Springer Considers Going Public (via IWR)

Resource of the Week
By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor

Yes, we do love digital libraries here on ResourceShelf, and we stumbled across a really good one this week that we would like to share with you. Clear a block of time in your schedule before you start browsing here because there is plenty to see.

Academic Library–Digital Library
Source: University of Wisconsin Libraries
University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
“The University of Wisconsin Digital Collections provides quality digital resources from its academic libraries to UW faculty, staff and students, citizens of the state, and scholars at large.” To be perfectly honest, I stumbled into this site via a “side door,” if you will. I enjoy looking at prints of birds in old books (especially woodpeckers), and there is an amazing series of volumes digitized here — A natural history of birds. Most of which have not been figur’d or describ’d, and others very little known from obscure or too brief descriptions without figures, or from figures very ill design’d, by one George Edwards (1694-1773). Who could resist “The great spotted cuckow“? Definitely not me.

Naturally, I started clicking around to see what else was available here. I found some other cool bird books:
+ The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands: containing the figures of birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, insects and plants by Mark Catesby (1683-1749). Check out this woodpecker! He ended up as my Windows wallpaper at work for awhile.
+ Birds of North America by Jacob Henry Studer (1840-1904). This plate is especially charming.
+ American ornithology; or The natural history of the birds of the United States by Alexander Wilson (1766-1813). Behold the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in all its splendor.

But these bird books are just a small part of the amazing Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture: Image and Text Collections, which offers such gems as:
+ The house in good taste by Elsie DeWolf (1865-1950). (Now, where would you put the computer…?)
+ Sketches for country houses, villas, and rural dwellings; calculated for persons of moderate income, and for comfortable retirement by John Plaw (1744 or 5-1820). Here’s an interesting example.
+ The Art journal illustrated catalogue: the industry of all nations, 1851. Wonder what some of this stuff would bring on eBay?

Lots more here. “The Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture collects and creates electronic resources for study and research of the decorative arts, with a particular focus on Early America. Included are electronic texts and facsimiles, image databases, and Web resources. Made possible by the Chipstone Foundation, the project is produced at the University of Wisconsin Madison General Library System.” There are many ways to browse the collection, and everything is keyword searchable, including the images. Search volumes individually or search the whole collection. You’ll also find a nicely annotated list of primary documents in their original format.

I kept clicking around and discovered that the Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture is only one section of a huge, fabulous digital collection. While some of the materials are specific to Wisconsin and the upper midwest, there is a variety of general interest material here as well. I commend your attention to:
+ Chambers’s Book of Days (”A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in connection with the Calendar”). Click on your birthday on the calendar here and enjoy. I share a birthday with Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV. Who knew?
+ The James Joyce Scholars’ Collection: “The selected works compiled in the James Joyce Scholars’ Collection (JJSC) all share two characteristics: 1) all the books are currently out-of-print and 2) they are valuable, perhaps indispensable, to those who seek a more complete understanding and appreciation of the richness of James Joyce’s literary works.”
+ New Communication Technologies, Their History and Social Influence: An Annotated Bibliography: “This annotated bibliography covers scholarship on the history and influence of new communication technologies. The term ‘new’ is used in a historical sense, which is to say that all technologies were at one time new. For example, innovations in timekeeping, the reproduction of visual images, and Johann Gutenberg’s invention of printing with movable metal type were new in the context of the period between the thirteenth and mid-fifteenth centuries and they helped to make possible the modern world. This bibliography attempts to cover both very old and very recent developments in communications, and in so doing to place the rapid changes of our modern-day world into historical perspective.” You can search by keyword or browse by subject heading (or search by multiple subject headings). Each entry is richly annotated. Awesome!
+ Ravenstein Atlas des Deutschen Reichs. This atlas of the German Empire was published in 1883, and you can download individual maps.
+ SouthEast Asian images & Texts: “…contains digitized images, including photographs and slides, that librarians, scholars, and other subject specialists have deemed important to these fields of study will be added to the collection on an ongoing basis.” Lots of material about the Phillipines here. See also: Portal to Internet Asian Resources.

Also here — links to niche databases such as:
+ The Women’s Studies Core Books database: “…a project of the Association of College & Research Libraries — Women’s Studies Section. Book titles currently in print are selected by academic librarians that volunteer to maintain a subject area.”
+ Women’s Audio Visuals in English: “…a database maintained by the University of Wisconsin System Women’s Studies Librarian’s Office that lists documentary, experimental, and feature film and video productions by and about women.”
+ PrimateLit: “…provides bibliographic access to the scientific literature on nonhuman primates for the research and educational communities. Coverage of the database spans 1940 to present and includes all publication categories (articles, books, abstracts, technical reports, dissertations, book chapters, etc.) and many subject areas (behavior, colony management, ecology, reproduction, field studies, disease models, veterinary science, psychology, physiology, pharmacology, evolution, taxonomy, developmental and molecular biology, genetics and zoogeography).”
+ Historical Research in Europe: A Guide to Archives and Libraries: “The intention is to unite web-based and printed resources which provide information about European libraries and archives in a single interactive database. The collections of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which are exceptionally strong in guides to European archives and libraries, form the basis for the printed materials included here. Websites are gathered from a variety of sources. The database is updated and new resources added on a monthly basis. Hyperlinks are verified and updated every month.”

Much more to look at here. Poke around and find treasures of your own. For those who are working on a digital project at their own institutions…or are thinking of doing so, you’ll find extensive documentation that includes “detailed and specific workflows, project models, and industry standards,” and also a page of related links. And last, but certainly not least, there’s contact information for the hard-working people behind this initiative.

Professional Reading Shelf
Dictionaries
Source: Oxford English Dictionary
New on the OED Site, Learning Resources
“A new Learning Resources area has been added to the site, with exercises for different school levels, as well as some articles, quizzes, and useful links.”
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Web Search
Source: Webology
Precision and Recall of Five Search Engines for Retrieval of Scholarly Information in the Field of Biotechnology
“This paper presents the results of a research conducted about five search engines- AltaVista, Google, HotBot, Scirus and Bioweb -for retrieving scholarly information using Biotechnology related search terms. The search engines are evaluated taking the first ten results pertaining to ’scholarly information’ for estimation of precision and recall. It shows that Scirus is most comprehensive in retrieving ’scholarly information’ followed by Google and HotBot. It also reveals that the search engines (except Bioweb) perform well on structured queries while Bioweb performs better on unstructured queries.”
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Digital Libraries
Source: D-Lib
The September 2005 Issue of D-Lib Magazine is Available
Articles in the new issue include:
+ Anatomy of Aggregate Collections: The Example of Google Print for Libraries
+ Institutional Repository Deployment in the United States as of Early 2005
+ An Examination of Citation Counts in a New Scholarly Communication Environment
+ Current Cites: What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Education–Statistics
Source: OECD
Just Released, Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators — 2005 Edition
Full text is fee-based. However, statistical tables and and executive summary (64 pages; PDF) are available for free. You’ll also find a link to the OECD Online Education Database.
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Call Centers–United States
Source: Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies, Cornell Univ.
U.S. Call Center Industry Report 2004
62 pages; PDF. “This national benchmarking report represents the first large scale survey of management practices and outcomes in the U.S. call center industry. This industry has grown dramatically over the last decade, employing an estimated 3 percent of the country’s workforce. This U.S. study is part of a larger global call center industry project. It is the first in a series of national reports on the call center industry in over 15 countries worldwide.”
See Also: The Indian Call Centre Industry: National Benchmarking Report
26 pages; PDF.
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Telecommunications
Source: FCC
Just Released, Trends in the International Telecommunications Industry
Highlights ||| Full Text
53 pages; PDF.
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Population–United States–Fast Facts
Source: U.S. Census
Fast Facts About the Unmarried Population in the United States
Next week is “Unmarried and Single Americans Week.”
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Agriculture–Hub
Source: University of Kentucky College of Agriculture
Agripedia
“Agripedia has been created to allow students to use resources across the country in an integrated, interactive learning resource on the Internet. As an “encyclopedia of agriculture”, Agripedia presents facts, figures, demonstrations, examples, graphics, and more regarding the concepts, practices, and vocabulary of agriculture in a multimedia format using audio clips, graphics, text and animation. AGRIPEDIA not only provides ready access to instructional sites on the web, it also helps students navigate the tangle of the world wide web with ease.”
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Pulp Fiction–Canada
Source: Library and Archives Canada
Tales From the Vault
“Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is proud to present its Canadian pulp art and fiction collection, straight from the special collections vault. The collection featured in this virtual exhibit, Tales from the Vault!: Canadian Pulp Fiction, 1940-1952, is one of the very few known pulp magazine holdings in Canada, and is available for consultation at LAC.”
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Hurricane Katrina–Aerial Imagery
Source: MSN Virtual Earth, MSNBC
Hurricane Katrina: New Orleans Virtual Flyover
“Before and after photos of Hurricane Katrina.”

RSS Round-Up
by Steven M. Cohen, Contributing Editor
—–
A few RSS resources I found in my travels which may be useful for the information professional:

+ GPO Access launched a feed for their “What’s New” Page.

+ Current Copyright Literature, a page edited by Tobe Liebert, the Assistant Director for Collection Development & Special Projects at the Tarlton Law Library. This list of links to scanned first-pages of articles has an RSS Feed.

+ A list of LC Classification Heading Feeds for new books enetered in the University of Alabama Libraries catalog.

+ A way to set up customized feeds of new materials in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign library.

+ The Edmonton Public Library has subject guides that are RSSified

(Many thanks to RSS4Lib for a few of these resources.)

Briefly
+ Norwegian Health Service Signs ProQuest For Journal Deal