Professional Reading Shelf
Books–Canada–Lists & Rankings
Source: Literary Review of Canada (LRC)
LRC Unveils The 100 Most Important Canadian Books Ever Written
Btw, many of these titles are available full text, online.
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Preservation
OCLC
RLG
PREMIS, A Joint OCLC-RLG Working Group, wins 2005 Digital Preservation Award
“The Preservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies (PREMIS) working group, jointly sponsored by OCLC and RLG, is an international set of more than 30 experts from libraries, museums, archives, government, and the private sector. In May 2005, PREMIS released its comprehensive guide to core metadata for supporting the long-term preservation of digital materials. Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata: Final Report of the PREMIS Working Group includes in a single document the PREMIS working group’s final report, the dictionary, and a series of examples illustrating use of the dictionary. The report, data dictionary, and examples can also be accessed.”
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Serial Prices
Source: Swets
Serials Price Increase Report #2
“Our Serials Price Increase Report is a service for customers that aims to provide a survey of annual serial price increases and a budgeting tool for libraries. The Report is updated and published monthly, this year from October, with the final report appearing in January.” Direct to Report.

Late Breaking!
New from The Internet Archive: Hurricane Katrina & Hurricane Rita Web Collection
Gary has posted an overview on the SEW Blog.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Documents in the News
Just Released: Iraq
Source: National Security Council
National Strategy for Victory in Iraq (PDF; 392 KB)
“The following document articulates the broad strategy the President set forth in 2003 and provides an update on our progress as well as the challenges remaining.”
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Digital Divide
Source: Orbicom
The Digital Divide Guide to Digital Opportunities: Measuring Infostates for Development
Country by country reports. 252 pages; PDF.
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Philanthropy–United States–Statistics
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project
New Data Memo, 13 million Americans made donations online after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
Direct to complete report. (PDF)
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Poverty–United States–Statistics
Source: US Census
Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE): 2003
“Estimates of population and poverty for school districts, as well as income and poverty estimates for states and counties. Included are estimates of the number of poor children ages 5 to 17 in the nation’s 15,000 school districts.”
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Iraq
Terrorism
Source: Congressional Research Service (via FPC)
New, Combating Terrorism: The Challenge of Measuring Effectiveness
See Also: Improvised Explosive Devices in Iraq: Effects and Countermeasures
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Hurricanes–Statistics
Source: NOAA/NHS
Noteworthy Records of the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season
Additional charts here.
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HIV/AIDS
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
World AIDS Day 2005 Resources from the Kaiser Family Foundation
This year, the theme of World AIDS Day on December 1, is “Keep the Promise,” which seeks to focus public attention of fulfilling commitments in the fight against HIV/AIDS. In recognition of World AIDS Day, the Kaiser Family Foundation has several new and updated resources, including a new Kaiser Public Opinion Spotlight; updated fact sheets on the epidemic globally and in the U.S.; a webcast of the United Nations event in New York City; updated information from the CDC on statehealthfacts.org; country-specific data on GlobalHealthReporting.org; and a timeline of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Search Briefs
+ New Search Shortcuts from Yahoo
+ Microsoft Testing Its Own ‘Google Base’ (via eWeek)

Briefly
+ New Fee-Based Service Covers UK Politics: Politics Today
From The Press Association. Includes, “searchable access to the BBC’s live and archived coverage of the Houses of Parliament.”
+ Firefox 1.5 Officially Released
+ Dialog Announces 2005 International InfoStar Winners
+ New Data Mining And Visualization Tool From Thomson Scientific

Professional Reading Shelf
+ Live Blog Coverage of the Online Information Conference in London, UK
Thanks to the InfoToday Blog.
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Google Library Project
Source: SEW Blog
Legal Issues for Google Library Project in Europe
The Information World Review (IWR is a VNU publication) article: Google digitisation faces Euro legal challenge, reports on Google’s book digitisation project (the Google Library Project to be precise) facing some legal obstacles in Europe. Here it is in a nutshell, direct from the article:
“Google has acknowledged that it cannot digitise copyright material from European libraries, according to the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP)”
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Information Industry–Elsevier
Source: IWR
Elsevier restructures and lays off 30 staff
“Scientific, technical and medical (STM) publisher Elsevier is restructuring itself, and will see 30 redundancies. The review of working practices will see the creation of five new business units, and aims to improve customer relationships between the publisher and its users.”
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Public Libraries–Theft
Source: Library Journal
Low-tech Responses Stem Major Thefts at MI Library
“Given that the library didn’t want to require staffers to handle the media, staffers adopted two solutions. One is to use a piece of laminate to cover the tag that had been peeling off. Also, the library started using permanent ink to identify the discs as library materials, and placing a 15-item limit on checkouts. The 4000 discs lost represent about one-sixth of the library’s 24,000-item collection of CDs and DVDs. Thefts have since plummeted.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Digitization Projects–Imagery
Source: LC
1 Million Digitized Images Now Available Online from The Library of Congress
“One searchable digitized collection from LC that you should know about is a catalog of imagery from The Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division. As of today, more than 1 million digitized images are available via the catalog. Access to the catalog is free.” More info about “What’s New” at the Prints & Photographs Division here.
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Employers–Database
Source: Working America
Job Tracker
“Find out which companies in your area are exporting jobs, endangering workers’ health or involved in cases of violations of workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act. The database contains information on more than 60,000 companies nationwide.” Search by zip code, state, company, industry.
Sources and Data
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Spam–Filters
Source: FTC
New, Email Address Harvesting and the Effectiveness of Anti-Spam Filters
“According to a new study released today by the Federal Trade Commission, spammers continue to harvest email addresses from public areas of the Internet, but Internet Service Providers’ anti-spam technologies can block the vast majority of spam sent to these email addresses. The FTC staff report also found that consumers who must post their e-mail addresses on the Internet can prevent them from being harvested by using a technique known as ‘masking.’” Direct to Full Text Report (PDF)
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Gardens–Literature–Online Exhibition
Source: The British Library
Online Gallery: The Writer in the Garden
“Enter a world of real and imaginary gardens portrayed by writers through the ages. See how gardens have inspired authors and how authors in their turn have shaped notions of the garden. This website, which is associated with a previous British Library exhibition, looks briefly at some of the ideas associated with the garden, from the middle ages to the present day. Using the work of poets, novelists, essayists, philosophers, designers, and scientists, it explores the interrelationship between writers, writing, and gardens.”
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Weblogs–Corporations
Source: Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
Does Your Company Belong in the Blogosphere?
“Bloggers have damaged a number of companies, but it’s time to think of the blog as your friend. Skillful blogging can boost your company’s credibility and help it connect with customers.”

Scholarly Publishing–Citation Reports
+ Science in England, 2000-04
See Also: 10-Year Country Rankings for England
+ Science in Denmark, 2000-04
+ Australian Universities: Highest Impact in Chemistry, 2000-04
+ Communication: Most Prolific U.S. Universities, 2000-04
+ Psychology: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 2000-04

Search Briefs
+ Gollum and Other Wikipedia Search Tools
+ UK: 192.com Directory Adds Genealogy Services
+ Searching Via Your Camera Phone

Professional Reading Shelf
Libraries–Disabilities
Source: IFLA
Pilot Project Results: “Information Now! Enhancing Digital Access to Learning Materials for Canadians with Perceptual Disabilities”
“The Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) Library, with funding from the Office of Learning Technologies (OLT), Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, has established a Community Learning Network which supports blind, visually impaired, and print-disabled adult learners across Canada as they extensively test the Library’s newest format — DAISY digital talking books on CD.” Direct to Final Report (PDF).
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Controlled Vocabularies–Standards
Source: NISO
Goal of NISO Z39.19: A Better Path to Content Management
“The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has released a revised controlled vocabularies standard, Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies.” Abstract and Full Text here.
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Serials–Statistics
Source: Media Daily News/Oxbridge Communications (Publisher of the National Directory of Magazines)
+ Interior Design Publications Experience Huge Growth: More Than Double The Number In Past Ten Years
+ Mags Shift To Lighter Fare, Away From Religion, Gay, Ethnic Themes
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World Summit of the Information Society
Source: ICA
The final official documents to the World Summit of the Information Society are available
“These documents include references to the necessity of the long-term preservation of the digital information and of supporting cultural institutions including libraries, archives, and museums.”
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National Archive and Records Administration
Source: NARA
Congress Approves FY 2006 Budget of $338 Million for the National Archives

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Public Policy–Resources
Source: Knowledge Quest (ALA)
Foreign Think Tanks, Part One
A new guide by Ken Umbach. From the article, “‘Policy and Data Resources on the Web’ discusses think tanks and other valuable but less widely known information and data resources, and suggests teaching strategies and curricular applications for them.”
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Dictionaries
Source: Oxford English Dictionary
OED Word of the Day Via E-Mail
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Higher Education–United States–Statistics
Source: National Science Foundation
New, 2004 Doctorate Awards Increase in Science and Engineering Fields for the Second Year in a Row
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Julius Caesar–Database
Source: askSam (William Shakespeare)
Free Searchable Version of Julius Caesar Now Available
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Hurricane Katrina
Source: Leadership Directories
Free, Information for Organizations Affected by Hurricane Katrina

Briefly
+ Thomson Scientific Launches Web Citation Index: New Scholarly Index Directs Researchers To Valuable Content From Repositories
+ Announcing IngentaConnect Complete: New service gives libraries a customized interface to IngentaConnect

Search Briefs
New Tools, Video Trials, and Services from AOL and MSN
Download hi-quality video content to your computer while your system is idle.

Briefly
Mobile: Students found using SMS during final exams in Australia

Beta File (aka Things Worth Taking A Look At)
+ SoonR
Note: Om Malik has an overview. We’re going to test soon. Very Cool!!