Professional Reading Shelf
Digitisation–United Kingdom
Source: JISC
New digitisation report calls for cross-sectoral e-content strategy
From the news release, “Stuart Dempster, JISC’s Digitisation programme manager, said: “This is the first attempt from a national perspective to stand back and look at what we have achieved over the last ten years in the digitisation field. While the report points to the work that needs to be done, it also highlights the importance of digitised resources to a range of sectors, including education and research. JISC looks forward to playing its part in taking the report’s recommendations forward in collaboration with the EU Dynamic Action Plan.” Direct to Full Text Report.
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American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST)
New, ASIST Launches Redesigned Web Website
Included on the site is ASIS&T’s New Digital Library.
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Semi-Structured Data
Source: ACM Queue
XML and Semi-Structured Data
“What role can XML play in solving the semi-structured data problem?”
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Electronic Publications
Source: ScieCom info
New Article, Electronic Publications : Access Now and in the Future
Lunden, Tomas (Date Created: 15 Nov 2005) (Sweden)
“This is a report of a seminar held on the 18th October 2005 at the Swedish Royal Library. The seminar discussed technical, political and organisational issues involved in the long term preservation and access to electronic publications.” (via PADI)
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Public Libraries–Books
Source: The Buffalo News
When a library closes, who gets the books?
“The rights to thousands of books are at the center of a controversy brewing in the Town of Tonawanda. In question are about 30,000 books remaining at the now-closed Brighton Library, one of 15 libraries shutting down by year’s end to cut expenses in the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library system. A citizen group, Friends of the Brighton Library, hopes to use the Brighton Road building as a community reading room and wants all the materials left behind for public use. The town’s Library Board, meanwhile, already has planned a one-day book sale at Brighton, with the proceeds to benefit the two cash-strapped libraries staying open in Tonawanda. Who should get the books?”
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Digital Libraries
Source: JCDL
Just Released: The Joint Conference on Digital Libraries Call For Papers
JCDL 2006 will take place on June 11-15, 2006 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Taxes–Australia
Source: Parliament Library, Australia
New Report: Tax comparisons–Australia and selected countries
4 pages; PDF.
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Manufacturing–Statistics
Source: BLS
International Comparisons of Hourly Compensation Costs for Production Workers in Manufacturing (2004)
15 page; PDF also available.
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Blogging–FAQ
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Bloggers’ FAQ – Student Blogging
“The Bloggers’ FAQ on Student Blogging addresses legal issues arising from student blogging. It focuses on blogging by high school (and middle school) students, but also contains information for college students.”
See Also: Legal Guide for Bloggers
Updated last week.
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Hate Crimes–United States–Statistics
Source: FBI
Hate Crime Statistics, 2004
“Published annually since 1992, Hate Crime Statistics is the byproduct of the joint effort between the FBI and the law enforcement agencies that identify and report hate crimes. This partnership and, ultimately, this publication serve as the cornerstone in raising the Nation’s awareness about the occurrence of bias-motivated offenses. The publication has also become a statistical tool for those involved in the advocacy or the study of persons persecuted because of their inherent traits, such as the color of their skin, or the personal decisions they make, like what church they attend.”

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Arctic National Wildlife Refuge–Maps
Source: Congressional Research Service (via Open CRS)
Legislative Maps of ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge)

Briefly
+ Translation: Elsevier and Science Press Launch Joint Translation Center in China
+ Executive Briefing: New Publication from Harvard Business School Press and Economist Intelligence Unit

Beta File
+ Filangy.com
Save pages, tag pages, cache all that you view in your browser (your choice), and much more. All web-based, access from any computer.

Odds & Ends
+ Accessing Flight Info on the Web

Resource of the Week
By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor

When I am looking for papers and reports to put on DocuTicker, I aim for variety, and I try to include documents that most people would not otherwise see. Let me introduce you to one of my favorite fishing holes; it’s been around for awhile, but there are some nifty features you might find especially useful.

Social Sciences–Research Repository
Source: Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc.
Social Science Research Network
“Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a world wide collaborative of leading scholars that is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research. It is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences. Each of SSRN’s networks encourages the early distribution of research results by reviewing and publishing submitted abstracts and by soliciting abstracts of top quality research papers around the world…. The Abstract Database contains information on over 104,100 scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers. The Electronic Paper collection currently contains over 76,600 downloadable electronic documents in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Our users are downloading over 120,000 full text papers each month.”

Currently, the site comprises a number of sub-networks, each directed by a notable academic or group of academics:
+ Accounting Research Network (ARN) — “…publishes quality research in accounting topics including financial accounting, managerial accounting and audit, tax and litigation.”
+ Economics Research Network (ERN) — “…publishes quality research in economics currently covering 44 subject areas.”
+ Financial Economics Network (FEN) — “…publishes quality research in financial economics including corporate finance, banking and financial institutions, capital markets, derivatives and real estate.”
+ Information Systems Network (ISN) — “…an on-line venue providing access to working papers, tables of contents of journals, and professional announcements of interest to the eBusiness and eCommerce community.”
+ Legal Scholarship Network (LSN) — “…publishes quality research related to law, economics, and business in 61 different subject areas.”
+ Marketing Research Network (MKTG) — “…an online venue providing access to working papers, tables of contents of journals, and professional announcements of interest to the Marketing community.”
+ Negotiations Research Network (NEG) — “…an online venue providing access to working papers and professional announcements of interest to the Negotiation and Dispute Resolution community.”
+ Social Insurance Research Network (SIRN) — “…publishes abstracts of research papers in all areas of social insurance: disability income and work injury compensation; health care delivery & financing; poverty, income distribution & income assistance; social security, pensions, & retirement issues; and unemployment insurance.”

Some of these sub-networks are also part of the Management Research Network (MRN), which “now consists of the Corporate Strategy & Business Policy Network, Information Systems & eBusiness Network, International Business Network, Management Network, Marketing Network, Negotiations & Dispute Resolution Network, Organizational Behavior Research Network, and Production & Operations Research Network.”

“The SSRN eLibrary consists of two parts: an Abstract Database containing abstracts on over 104,100 scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers and an Electronic Paper Collection currently containing over 76,600 downloadable full text documents in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.” SSRN works with the publishers of more than 700 scholarly journals and 140 research institutions to disseminate abstracts of forthcoming research and working papers. You can search the Abstract Database by keyword (in title, abstract or both) or author, and limit by date range via a dropdown menu. If there is an available full-text paper associated with an abstract, you can view download options by clicking on the “Document Delivery” link at the upper left part of the screen. All documents appear to be in PDF format.

OK…on to the cool stuff. On the SSRN Top Downloads page, you can view the top ten “All Time Hits” (from January 2, 1997 to the present) in one column and the top ten “Recent Hits” for the past 60 days. If you want to view the top downloads in each of the specialized networks, go to the journal browse page and click the “top” icon to the right of each network name. There are several links around the site that will take you to top authors and top institutions (in terms of papers downloaded).

Registration at the site is easy and free — basically, you just enter an e-mail address. It allows you to subscribe to both free and fee-based journals. (Note: you may be associated with an organization that has an institutional account, which means you don’t need an individual login and you may have access to fee-based journals.) When you’re browsing through the available options, journal titles in blue are free and those in orange are fee-based. You can store papers of interest in an online “briefcase”. You can also submit your own abstracts and papers. The site offers an extensive FAQ that includes information about how you can use the content you find in the database.

Here’s a nifty feature I like that isn’t real obvious to the casual user of this site. If you’re looking at an abstract and want to see other papers by a particular author, click on his or her name to bring up a page that contains a list of his or her publications ranked by order of the number of downloads. Along with contact information, you’ll see a familiar orange XML button. Yes! You can subscribe to an RSS feed for that author which will let you know when he or she has submitted new papers or revised existing ones. Is this cool or what?

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Thanksgiving Day–United States–Fast Facts
Source: U.S. Census
Fast Facts: Thanksgiving 2005
All sorts of numbers and stats including:
+ 256 million
The preliminary estimate of the number of turkeys raised in the United States in 2005.
+ 998 million pounds
Total pumpkin production of major pumpkin-producing states in 2004
+ 3
Number of places in the United States named after the holiday’s traditional main course. Turkey, Texas, was the most populous.

Professional Reading Shelf
Internet Archive
Open Content Alliance
Source: SF Chronicle
Brewster Kahle Profiled in the SF Chronicle
The man behind The Internet Archive, The Wayback Machine, and the Open Content Alliance is profiled. We’re proud to say that Brewster is also a ResourceShelf reader.
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Academic Libraries–Business–Wiki
Source: Ohio University
The Biz Wiki
“The Biz Wiki is a collection of business information resources available through Ohio University Libraries. It is designed to assist business researchers in finding the best resources for their projects or topics. The Biz Wiki contains articles about business reference books, databases, websites, and other research guides. Nearly all of the resources will only be available to current members of the Ohio University community, as many of the resources are subscription databases or local reference resources. To learn more about the Biz Wiki, visit the About Biz Wiki page.”
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NetLibrary–Milestones
eBooks
Source: OCLC
NetLibrary reaches 100,000-title milestone
Although eBooks seem to be getting plenty of attention these days, I sad to say that the wonderful and amazing NetLibrary continues to do great work. Congrats to everyone at OCLC and NetLibrary on the milestone. Now, if we could just get more people to know that they have access to NetLibrary materials via their local library. (-: From the announcement, “The NetLibrary platform syndicates content from more than 400 publishers and makes it available in systems serving 13,000 libraries worldwide. NetLibrary titles are all represented in WorldCat so metadata for these titles are available to all OCLC member libraries. To meet increased demand for eContent worldwide, NetLibrary continues to expand its catalog by offering a growing collection of eBooks, eAudiobooks, eJournals and subject-specific databases from leading publishers worldwide. More than 20,000 new titles have been loaded in 2005 alone.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Information Policy–United States–Glossary
Source: Federation of American Scientists (Maret) (via DocuTicker.com)
On Their Own Terms: A Lexicon with an Emphasis on Information-Related Terms Produced by the U.S. Federal Government (PDF; 1.3 MB)
From Secrecy News: “The very words by which official secrecy policy is formulated and carried out are often obscure to the outsider. They embody a latent knowledge of statute and regulation, policy and practice that cannot be inferred from the words themselves. An excellent new publication helps “the outsider,’ i.e., the ordinary citizen of the United States, to comprehend the vocabulary of government information policy, and to discover its genealogical roots in official documents. From ‘access’ and ‘accountability’ to ‘Yankee White’ and ‘Xn,’ author Susan Maret, an adjunct professor of library science at the University of Denver, provides a concise definition of terms as well as links to official sources.”
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Computer Security
Source: SANS Institute
Just Released, The Twenty Most Critical Internet Security Vulnerabilities (Updated) – The Experts Consensus
Includes the SANS Top-20 2005.
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Business–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: Forbes
Recently Released, America’s Largest Private Companies 2005
Sort list by: Rank | Name | State | Industry | Revenues | Employees
“Though less visible than their publicly traded counterparts, private companies have plenty of clout in the U.S. economy. This year the 339 companies on our roster of closely held businesses sold a trillion dollars’ worth of goods and services and employed 4 million people.”
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Patents–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: USPTO
USPTO Receives Record Number of Patent and Trademark Applications for 2005
“In fiscal year 2005, the Department of Commerce?s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) received a record number of patent and trademark applications. The agency received 406,302 patent applications, and 323,501 applications for trademark registration as reported in its fiscal year 2005 Performance and Accountability Report released last week…he USPTO granted 165,485 patents, including 151,079 utility (inventions), 13,395 design, and 816 plant patents. Since 1790, over seven million U.S. patents have been granted. U.S. resident inventors received 85,238 U.S. patents in fiscal year 2005. California resident inventors received the highest share (23 percent, 19,928 patents) of these patents, followed by inventors from New York (7 percent, 5,631 patents), Texas (7 percent, 5,660 patents), Michigan (5 percent, 3,907 patents), and Massachusetts (4 percent, 3,443 patents).” Direct link to annual report with more stats.
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English as a Second Language–Resources
Source: Merriam Webster
New, LearnersDictionary.com
“Announcing Merriam-Webster’s LearnersDictionary.com, a new Web site especially designed for adult and teenage non-English speakers. Along with great interactive language exercises with audio, the site offers Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Word of the Day?a free service featuring easy-to-understand meanings with a focus on the practice and presentation of pronunciation”

Search Briefs
+ Ask Jeeves Adds Multimedia Search
+ Froogle Offers Local Shopping Feature and Other “Local” Shopping Search Sites

Briefly
+ Improving EDGAR: SEC Seeks Software Industry Help to Give Investors Access to Interactive Data

Professional Reading Shelf
Digitization Projects
Source: SearchDay
World Digital Library Project Announced, Backed By Library Of Congress & Google
Danny Sullivan and Gary have a fact-filled post up on SearchDay. Since LC will be looking for financial partnerships from many players, you’ve got to wonder if other web search companies (Yahoo, MSN, AJ, FAST, Vivisimo, etc.) and info industry players (Factiva, Thomson, EBSCO, Elsevier, etc.) will also become involved in the project either financially or with other resources? The post also looks at a couple of addtional digitization projects from LC. Btw, today’s announcement is yet another brilliant pr move by Google. Being the first company to partner will once again reinforce the Google brand in the minds of millions.
See Also: NY Times Coverage
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Science–Web Search
Source: GCN
Science.gov goes 3.0
“The newest version of the Science.gov search engine uses metadata to rank results, which should give users more accurate responses to queries, according to the Science.gov Alliance. ‘We’re trying to plow new ground with searches among multiple databases,’ said Walter Warnick, director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information, which hosts the Science.gov site. Warnick said the new version of the search engine makes searches for obscure terms easier, thanks to the new technology.”
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Online Books
Source: Information Today
Books Online: The Fee versus Free Battle Begins
A new “must read” article by Barbara Quint.

Comment From ResourceShelf’s Dale Copps responding to the following passage from Barbara’s article:
“As of now, Amazon does not have any plans to institute institutional access, e.g., to textbooks for a classroom of distance learning students or to librarians licensing content, but the representative expects the company to respond to all kinds of feedback from customers after the new paid access programs launch.”

Dale comments: “Am I the only who thinks DRM and announcements such as the above are
frontal assaults on the institution of the public/academic/corporate library? If we are going to be constrained to remain in a paper world while the rest of the world goes digital, our institutions are in big trouble.”
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Libraries–Privacy
Source: The New York Times
Books for Lending, Data for Taking
“At the library at North Carolina State University, students and faculty will soon be able to sign up for an Internet-based service that will alert them when favorite journals are published, with links to the articles. They will also be able to create home pages with links to databases, books, journals, Web sites and other resources. The library is one of several around the country that are borrowing techniques from Amazon, Netflix and other Internet companies that keep information about their customers’ purchases and preferences so they can better cater to their needs or tastes…. Yet for the libraries, privacy remains an important issue. The data such personalized programs store – information about what journals someone is reading, for example – could be sought by government agencies under laws like the USA Patriot Act.”
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Social Bookmarking
Source: ACM Queue
Social Bookmarking in the Enterprise
“Social bookmarking tools are taking off on the Web. Do they have a place within the enterprise, too?”
See Also: Socially Acceptable Behavior (via ACM Queue)
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Librarians–Awards
Source: Library Journal
27 Librarians Win New York Times Awards
“The New York Times Librarian Awards, in its the fifth year, has honored 27 librarians. This year’s winners represent 13 states, including Arizona, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Wyoming. Nominations from the general public were accepted from June through September and exceeded 1,200 with nominations coming from 48 states. The Times held a reception in honor of the winners on November 16, with author Alice Hoffman as guest speaker. Each winner received $2,500 and a commemorative plaque. A separate plaque featuring the winner’s name and title will be sent to the library where each winner works.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Country Studies
Source: Federal Research Division/Library of Congress
Just Updated, Country Profile of Tajakistan
PDF.
See Also: More Country Profiles from the FRD
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Iraq
Iran
Source: Congressional Research Service (via OpenCRS)
+ Iran’s Influence in Iraq
+ Updated: Internet Privacy: Overview and Pending Legislation
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Crime–United States–Statistics
Source: NCES
Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2005
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Aviation–United States
Source: BTS
New, Airport-to-Airport Statute Miles
“The direct airport-to-airport mileage (CFR Title 14, Part 247) is the official mileage record of the U.S. Department of Transportation.”

Search Briefs
+ MSN Powers UK’s Times Online; Ask UK Scales Back Ads
+ Harvard’s Involvement in Google Library Project
+ Feedster Tests FeedRank Search Sort Option

Odds and Ends
Blogs to Know About: RSS4Lib
Compiled and edited by Ken Varnum, a librarian at Ginn Library at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (Go Jumbos!). Ken describes the blog as, “partly a clearinghouse for novel uses of RSS and partly a place to brainstorm new ideas.” Of course, Steven Cohen’s blog, Library Stuff is also a must have place to turn to for RSS news. Steven is also a Contributing Editor here at ResourceShelf.

Briefly
+ RLG signs Infoestrat�gica to distribute RLG databases throughout Latin America
+ Fast Search & Transfer sets out strategy to beat Google (via IWR)
+ EBSCO Fulfills Patient & Consumer Education Needs with Health Library

Professional Reading Shelf
Internet
Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project
New Study: Search engine use shoots up in the past year and edges towards email as the primary internet application
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Open Source–Licenses
Source: OSS Watch
OSS Watch publishes overviews of open source software licences
From the news release, “Rowan Wilson of OSS Watch might be able to help. Rowan has written a suite of briefing notes on five of the most popular licences. In straightforward language Rowan explores the history and key features of the GNU General Public License (GPL), GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), Mozilla Public License (MPL), Modified BSD License (BSD), and the Apache License.”
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Librarians
Source: Institute for Museum and Library Science (IMLS)
The Future of Librarians in the Workforce
“This is a two-year study sponsored by the Institute for Museum and Library Science (IMLS) that will identify the nature of anticipated labor shortages in the library and information science (LIS) field over the next decade; assess the number and types of library and information science jobs that will become available in the U.S. either through retirement or new job creation; determine the skills that will be required to fill such vacancies; and recommend effective approaches to recruiting and retaining workers to fill them. The study will result in better tools for workforce planning and management, better match of demand and supply, and improved recruitment and retention of librarians. The study is led by Dr. Jos�-Marie Griffiths, Dean of the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and includes researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, Syracuse University, the Special Libraries Association (SLA), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T).”
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Coalition for Networked Information
Source: CNI
Fall 2005 CNI Task Force Meeting project Briefings
The meeting will take place on December 5-6, 2005, in Phoenix, AZ.
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eBooks
Source: Library Journal
Archived, On-Demand Version Now Available:Library Journal’s URLearning Series: eBooks Take the Ivory Tower
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National Archive and Records Administration
Electronic Records
Source: NARA
National Archives Advisory Committee for Electronic Records Archives Meets

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
HIV/AIDS
Source: CDC/MMWR
New Stats, New HIV Diagnoses, 33 States, 2001-2004
“In the 33 states that conducted confidential, name-based reporting between 2001-2004, a total of 157,252 people were diagnosed with HIV. For the first time ever, this national total includes data from New York State, thus providing a more representative picture of the U.S. epidemic.” Direct to detailed summary.
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Real Estate–Closing Costs–Lists & Rankings
Source: BankRate.com
Mortgage closing costs: State rankings
“Bankrate.com researchers gathered closing-cost information from 50 states and the District of Columbia. Below, ranked from most-expensive to least-expensive, are the average total closing costs charged for a mortgage, in each state. (Editor’s note: Closing cost total does not include taxes, other governmental fees or escrow fees.)”
See: Study reveals closing cost differences
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Internet Filtering–Tunisia
Source: OpenNet Initiative
New Report, Internet Filtering in Tunisia in 2005
“The Tunisian Republic implements an Internet filtering regime that aggressively targets and blocks substantial on-line material on political opposition, human rights, methods of bypassing filtering, and pornography.”
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Las Vegas–Online Exhibition
Source: University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries
Before Gaming . . . Celebrating Las Vegas’ Centennial, 1905-2005
“Before Gaming. Before Hotels. Before the tourists came. Where Indians, explorers, settlers, and ranchers wandered, set down, picked up, and mostly moved on. Until the San Pedro, Salt Lake and Los Angeles Railroad stopped for water. Then Las Vegas was a small railroad depot-with-a-town in the desert. The earliest images of Las Vegas are from the private collections of the families who were here in 1905 or who arrived soon after: Helen Stewart, Walter Bracken, William Ferron, Ed Von Tobel, Fred and Maurine Wilson.”

Odds & Ends
Real-Time Traffic Reports for Major U.S. Cities via RSS
These feeds are free. Subscribers to the Traffic.com service can also have personalized feeds delivered via RSS and/or mobile device.
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New, Three New Lookup Databases via MelissaData (Free)
+ ZIP Code Maps
Displays a map with the boundary of a 5-digit ZIP Code
+ City Maps
Displays a city or town boundary map and demographics.
+ Congress Maps
Displays boundary maps of a congressional district and information about representative.
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Mobile: Idaho Launches Mobile State Web Portal

Briefly
+ Fast Signs Contract With Edmunds.Com
+ The Wall Street Journal Online, LexisNexis Establish Exclusive Alliance to Benefit Law Firms, Legal Practices