Professional Reading Shelf
Online Book Publishing–Copyright
Source: Knowledge@Wharton
Will the Online Book Publishing Flap Rewrite Copyright Law?
“The latest frontier in the digital content revolution — efforts by Google, Amazon and others to turn millions of books into bytes that can be accessed no matter where the reader is, sold by the page and easily searched — could redefine copyright law and change the way knowledge is shared around the world, say experts at Wharton.”
See Also: Amazon.com’s Search Inside the Book-”Extra” Services”
See Also: ebrary: Search and Read 20,000+ Full Text Books Online
See Also: Google Print Becomes Google Book Search
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Google Books Search
Source: NY Times
Coverage of the Google Book/Print Debate at the NY Public Library
The following is a great reminder that services like Google Print are being developed to first and foremost sell books. I think most librarians realize this but if they don’t the following will serve as a reminder. From the article:
Mr. [Allan] Adler [a vice president for legal and governmental affairs at the Association of American Publishers]said Google’s contention that its search program might somehow increase sales of books was speculation at best.

“When people make inquiries using Google’s search engine and they come up with references to books, they are just as likely to come to this fine institution to look up those references as they are to buy them,” he said, referring to the Public Library.

To which Google’s Mr. Drummond [Google's general counsel] replied, “Horrors.”
Thanks to JB for pointing out this quote.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Colleges and Universities–Lists & Ranking
Source: Inside Higher Ed
The New Carnegie Classifications
“The Carnegie Classifications have traditionally grouped institutions by degrees offered, so that doctoral institutions were in one group and community colleges in another, and so forth. The new classifications take a very different approach. Institutions are grouped (multiple times) based on what is taught, to whom, and in what setting. The old system — with some revisions — will still be used when a new list of institutional groupings is released next month.
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Academia–Professors–United States
Source: Council for Advancement and Support of Education, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Top U.S. Professors Honored
“The Council for Advancement and Support of Education and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching today named four university and college professors as national winners of the 2005 U.S. Professors of the Year Award. The professors, who each receive a $5,000 prize, were selected for their outstanding commitment to teaching undergraduate students and their influence on teaching. A state Professor of the Year was also recognized in 40 states, the District of Columbia and Guam.”

Professional Reading Shelf
OCLC–Meetings
Source: OCLC
OCLC Members Council discusses opportunities to continue expanding the collaborative worldwide
“OCLC has to globalize to maintain its leadership in a ‘critical mass’ effort such as WorldCat,” said Mr. [ChewLeng] Beh, CEO, eLPEDIA, Singapore (OCLC Asia Pacific). “A multi-lingual, multi-cultural WorldCat is needed. OCLC should focus on WorldCat and enrich it with global bibliographies in order to maintain its leadership in the world of libraries…” The OCLC cooperative continues to grow worldwide,” said Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO, in his update. Mr. Jordan pointed out that there are now some 54,000 libraries in 109 countries participating in OCLC services, which is an increase of 3,400 institutions from the previous year. He noted that, in the past five years, the number of libraries participating in OCLC outside the United States has increased from 6,000 to 10,500 and the number of countries from 75 to 109.”
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Digital Libraries–Science
Source: National Center for Atmospheric Research
Digital Libraries To Aid Teachers Affected by Hurricane Katrina
“Two of the nation’s leading digital science libraries will offer free online workshops on December 6 and 8 to teachers in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina at a time when textbooks and other traditional materials are in short supply. The libraries are managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) with funding from the National Science Foundation. The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) and the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) Program Center will hold the online workshops for science and math teachers of kindergarten through 12th grade classrooms. The goal is to familiarize the teachers with online educational materials that are freely available through the libraries and can help compensate for a scarcity of other materials.”
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PATRIOT Act
Source: ALA, American Libraries
Senators Stall Tentative Patriot Act Deal. House and Senate negotiators reached a tentative agreement

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
National Transportation Safety Board–Databases
Source: NTSB
New Database, NTSB Safety Recommendations
“The National Transportation Safety Board has made all of its safety recommendations available to the public on the Internet. Since 1967, the Safety Board has issued about 12,400 recommendations dealing with safety issues in aviation, rail, highway, marine and pipeline…Web site visitors can search the database using a variety of criteria, including by mode, by keyword, and by addressee. Also available is the current status of each recommendation for each recipient, as well as a PDF version of the originating recommendation letter. All NTSB safety recommendations are classified open or closed and acceptable or unacceptable based on the recommendation recipient’s effort to implement the recommended changes. The recommendation database can be accessed at: www.ntsb.gov/safetyrecs.
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Information Technology
Source: Morgan Stanley (via Special Issues Newsletter)
New, Q3 2005 Global Technology Data Book
Summary. Full report is 45 pages; PDF.

Odds & Ends
Source: FirstGov
New Compilation of U.S. Government Podcasts
From the Air Forces to the State Dept. to NASA, Uncle Sam is podcasting!

Professional Reading Shelf
Librarians
Source: Inside Higher Ed
In Praise of Librarians
“My own ideal library is inconceivable without them. Buns and scowls and all, I don’t care. That we need our librarians is obvious. (And evolving.) That we must value our librarians is no less so. A college or university may not in fact be no better than its own librarians. But in my experience this continues to be exactly the case, and I wish we would value more than we do both the human interaction as well as the ideal knowledge they represent.”
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Science and Technology Libraries
Source: ISTL
The Fall 2005 of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship is Now Online
Articles include:
+ A Century of Progress? Adaptation of the Chemistry Library at the University of Chicago
+ And Then There Was One: Moving and Merging Three Health Science Library
Collections
+ Changing Mission, Strengthened Focus: A New Use for the Current Periodicals Room at the University of California, Santa Cruz
+ Capital Improvement: One Northern Virginia Library’s Support of Life-Saving Programs
+ Biology Article Retrieval from Various Databases: Making Good Choices with Limited Resources
+ Federal Repositories: Comparative Advantage in Open Access?
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Medical Libraries
Source: Library Journal
RX for Medical Libraries
“There are now approximately 2900 hospital libraries and an estimated 4000 staffers working in them, and they are at risk. As I see it, there are four main threats to medical libraries: deprofessionalization, a failure to do outreach, a shift in the culture toward McInformation, and ongoing budget crunches. We must cope with all of these now to ensure the survival of small medical libraries and the well-being of healthcare itself.” By Cheryl R. Banick, manager of the Veterans Hospital Library in Providence, RI.
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Archives–Portals
Source: ICA
Launching of the International Francophone Archival Portal (PIAF)
“On 2005 November 17, on the occasion of the World Summit of the Information Society, the International Association of Francophone Archives is launching its International Francophone Archival Portal (PIAF). This site is intended to be a clearing house offering training and exchange of information relevant to all the archivists of the Francophone community.”
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Censorship–Conferences
Source: IFLA
New, Presentations from the “Documenting censorship — libraries linking past and present, and preparing for the future” now Online
Aka IFLA/FAIFE Satellite meeting 11-12 August 2005

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
United States Congress–Databases
Source: Library of Congress
THOMAS Web Site Receives A Makeover
From the news release:
“Beginning today, the THOMAS congressional-information Web site (thomas.loc.gov), available free from the Library of Congress, has a new look, with features that improve site navigation and make it easier for users to quickly find the information they are looking for.

The new THOMAS features include:

+ A revised home page to increase visual appeal. This new interface has the look and feel of several others that have recently been upgraded, such as the overall library of Congress Web site home page at www.loc.gov and American Memory, the multimedia Web site that presents more than 10 million items of American history and culture. The revised look incorporates such persistent features as consistent headers and footers, as well as “breadcrumbs” that help users easily determine the path that leads from the home page to a page they are viewing.
+ A left-side menu for quick access to major sections of the site. This menu provides direct links to “Bills, Resolutions,” “Congressional Record,” “Government Resources” and information “For Teachers,” among others. The new “For Teachers” link takes educators to lesson plans, classroom activities and primary sources that have been designed and chosen by Library of Congress educational specialists. These resources are age-appropriate and have been tested and used by teachers across the country.

+ The ability to “browse” legislation by sponsor from the THOMAS home page.

+ Links in presidential nomination records to Senate hearings.

+ Links to related Library of Congress resources, such as the Law Library and Webcasts of public-affairs lectures and other events held at the Library.

+ Links to the full text of treaties from treaty records.

It is also possible to search multiple Congresses simultaneously by clicking on a link from the main home page. This popular feature, available in the previous version of THOMAS, is now much easier to find on the THOMAS home page.

In addition, THOMAS offers historical information on previous congressional sessions.

The Library’s Web specialists have made every effort to ensure that the new design is compliant with Section 508 and W3C accessibility guidelines. Older, legacy pages that the site may link to are in the process of being upgraded for compliance.”
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Internet–Europe–Lists & Rankings
Source: comScore
Top 100 Internet properties in Europe
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Fishing–United States–Lists and Rankings
Source: NOAA
Top 10 Commercial Fishery Landings at Major U.S. Ports
See Also: New Report: Fisheries of the United States — 2004
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Tourists–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) (via DocuTicker)
The United States Welcomes Highest Number of Travelers in History
“CBP cleared 86 million arriving air passengers from abroad in the U.S. for FY 2005. This is the largest number of air passengers traveling to the U.S. in history, and also marks the first year that the number of air passengers surpassed pre-9/11 levels,” the Commissioner stated in a speech to the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) in Montreal last week.”

Search Briefs
+ Google Changes Name of Google Print to Google Book Search
+ Yahoo and MSN: New Patent Apps Published
+ Access Local Gas Prices via SMS with Synfonic
+ Eurekster Launches Community-Powered Search “Swickis”

Briefly
+ Inxight Offers Entity Clustering of Federated Search Results in New SmartDiscovery Awareness Server 5.4
+ Groxis Releases Web2.0 Application for Enterprise Search Management

Resource of the Week
by Shirl Kennedy
—-
Word Processors–Web-Based
Source: Upstartle
Writely
Why would anyone need a Web-based word processor? I mean, just about everyone has a word processing program of some type loaded on their computers — quite likely, some iteration of Microsoft Word. Why would you want to go on the Internet to word-process something?

Well, what if you wanted to…
…collaborate on a document with several other people and not be forced to keep shipping the thing around as e-mail attachment…or worry about which version of Word somebody has?
…publish documents online, simply and easily, and instantly invite other people to have a look?
…post a document to your blog, automatically?

This week, we’d like to invite you to take a look at Writely, “which allows you to edit and publish documents online, either privately, in collaboration with specific people, or publicly on the Internet.” Writely is the first product of “a Silicon Valley-based software development company started by three senior software engineers — all with long track records in successful, mass-market, consumer software.” The application is currently in beta, during which time it is free to all users. Eventually, the developers plan to introduce additional features for paying subscribers, while continuing to keep the basic service free.

What you can do with Writely now:
+ Create and edit HTML documents — either from scratch online, or by uploading a Word or HTML document or an image file.
+ Allow anyone with an e-mail address to collaborate on your document with you.
+ Publish a document openly, for the whole world to see — or just to a select group of people, who will be e-mailed a password to view the document.
+ Automatically post the document “to any blog that supports the Blogger, metaWeblog or MovableType APIs.”

After you register for an account on Writely — fast and free — you can start working on documents immediately. During the beta period, there is no limit on total storage space for individual users; each individual document can be up to 500 KB in length, and each embedded image up to 2 MB in size. You can organize your documents by tagging them, much the way you do with photos on Flickr or e-mails in Google Mail. You can add more than one tag to a document and search by tags. And you can “star” documents that are important for some reason, so that they stand out. There are several ways to sort your list of documents.

Writely’s developers have put together an impressive FAQ document that tells you pretty much everything you need to know to use the application and its features…and then some. There’s also a Help Center, with more detailed how-tos, as well as a set of user forums, where you can ask questions. The developers monitor the forums and chime in with advice or information about new features. And there’s a weblog.

Writely does not currently support all browsers, but you’ll be OK if you are using:
+ IE 5.5+ (Windows)
+ Mozilla 1.4+ (Mac & Windows)
+ Firefox 1.0.6+ (Mac & Windows — except for 1.5b1 on the Mac!)
Right now, you’ll have to disable your pop-up blocker to work with Writely, although the developers say “a future release will do DHTML dialogs instead,” making this unnecessary. There are plans to support PDF and RTF formats in the future as well.

Writely has been described as a sort of Wiki, with a slick front end and the ability to set permissions. It’s made with Asynchronous JavaScript Technology and XML (AJAX), the same technology that powers other dynamic Web-based applications such as Flickr, GMail and Google Maps.

Note: If you’re a user of Ask Jeeves Desktop Search, the latest release incorporates the ability to search Writely documents, according to the Ask Jeeves weblog.

Professional Reading Shelf
Archives
Source: The Internet Archive
Web-archive-on-demand service for libraries launched
“The web team at Internet Archive launched the public website Archive-it that allows users to create, manage and search their own web archives through a web interface. The service as been developed, in particular, for memory institutions and state archives. IA has been testing and developing the application through a pilot program which includes 13 other institutions, mainly Libraries and Archives, who are potential users of this service.”
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Citation Indexing
Source: Current Science Online
As we may search — Comparison of major features of the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar citation-base
A new article (PDF) by Peter Jacso. The article is included in a tribute Dr. Eugene Garfield and 50 years of citation indexing.
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Libraries–Marketing
Source: Chris Olson
The November Issue of Chris Olson’s Marketing Treasures Newsletter is Now Online
Highlights include:
+ Tips for Holding Brainstorming
+ Blueprint for Your Library Marketing Plan
+ Free Articles for Library Newsletters
–
Persistent URLs
PDF.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Lectures–Databases
Source: Search Engine Watch Blog
Speeches, Lectures, and More Added to BlinkxTV Database
“As of today Blinkx is making hundreds of hours of material keyword searchable from Harvard, Princeton and Cambridge, UC Berkeley, Middlebury College, Columbia University, Washington State University to name just a few of the institutions. This Netimperative story has more info and some examples of the content you’ll find. That’s not all. Blinkx is also announcing an arrangement with the Smithsonian Institution here in DC to make some of their video content keyword searchable.”
Note from Gary: The CTO of Blinkx tells me in an email that it was my pestering that helped start this initiative. Cool!
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Europe–Databases
Source: MLA
New Database/Online Catalog: MICHAEL, A Multilingual Online Catalogue
“At a conference today in Bristol, the Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council (MLA) launched MICHAEL, the multilingual online catalogue which aims to provide quick and simple access to the digital collections of museums, libraries and archives from European countries. In future, students and researchers will be able to discover information about European digital collections that might previously have been difficult to find. The services will also support cultural tourism, the creative industries and other interests…Work on Michael began in 2004 to create an open source database for recording digital collections that can be accessed through websites in many different languages. Work is continuing on cataloguing the rich digital collections in the UK, and a European portal of digital collections from Italy, France, and the UK will be launched in 2006. As the project moves forwards, new partners will join the project from Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, and Poland. By 2007, the MICHAEL portal will be available in at least 12 European languages and give access to digital collections across Europe.”
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Privatization–Database
Source: The World Bank
Privatization Database
“This site provides information on more than 9,000 privatization transactions in developing countries from 1988 to 2003. Search transactions by country, region, or sector for a particular time period or for the entire period covered in the database.”
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Legal Industry–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: National Law Journal
The NLJ 250, 2005
“The National Law Journal’s 28th annual survey of the nation’s 250 largest law firms, the overall number of attorneys at the largest firms, 116,671, increased by 4.4 percent from the past year, compared with a 1.5 percent growth rate in 2004 and 1.6 percent in 2003.”
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Canada–Digital Collections
Source: Library and Archives Canada
New, Cool Canada
“This site highlights lots of cool people, places, inventions, events, and achievements that make Canada cool!”
–
Crime–Art–Lists & Rankings
Source: FBI (via DocuTicker)
New, Top 10 Art Crimes

Search Briefs
+ Google Adds Two New Features to SMS (Text Messaging) Service
+ Cool Maps: Metrobot Launches Nationwide Mapping Search Engine (via All Points Blog)
See Also: 2004 Article from SearchDay About Metrobot

Briefly
+ IEEE Xplore Digital Library Adds Tables of Content Alerts By Email and RSS
Via an email: Users of this free service select which IEEE journal(s) they want to know about, then receive notification whenever a new issue is posted online, along with a link to the issue’s table of contents in the IEEE Xplore digital library. In addition, all users of the IEEE Xplore digital library now have free access to non-indexed, ancillary content (often called ephemera) from IEEE publications. This includes content such as editorials and book reviews. To sign up for Table of Contents Alerts, visit any journal’s listing in IEEE Xplore, or: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocalerts_signup.jsp
–
+ InfoUSA Expands Indian Operations, Adds Search Feature

Professional Reading Shelf
Knowledge Management
Source: Baseline
How Much Is Knowledge Worth?
“Workers’ knowledge can be a valuable asset. Some companies know how to utilize it–and some don’t. Paul Strassmann lays out which are which, and why.”
–
Toolbars
Source: NLM
New Resource: NCBI Search Toolbar
“The NCBI Search Toolbar is now available for download from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/toolbar/
The Toolbar is an optional addition to your Web browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox) that expedites searching the NCBI’s resources. It also highlights search results and provides shortcuts to NCBI resources.
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Libraries
Source: Info Today
Libraries–The Information Society in Action
“The WSIS pre-conference, Libraries–the Information Society in Action, was held Nov. 10-11 in Alexandria, Egypt. It was organized by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions in co-operation with the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and was supported by several sponsors. The pre-conference presented some of the best practices from libraries around the world in the areas of health, education and training; media literacy; preserving of cultural heritage; and disaster preparedness. Several hot-button issues emerged during the event.”
–
Libraries
Source: IFLA
Full Text: Alexandria Manifesto on Libraries, the Information Society in Action
–
Librarians
Source: ARL
ARL Recruits Subject Experts into Research Librarianship
“The first institute of the ARL Academy: Careers in Academic and Research Libraries was held September 19-21, in Washington, DC and was evaluated as a success thanks to the three partner graduate schools, Library of Congress staff, and the talented and engaging Academy fellows.”
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Digital Libraries
Source: D-Lib
The November Issue of D-Lib Magazine is Now Available Online
Articles include:
+ What is a Digital Library Anymore, Anyway? Beyond Search and Access in
the NSDL
+ Questions & Challenges Arising in Building the Collection of a Digital Library for Education:
+ Requirements for Digital Preservation Systems: A Bottom-Up Approach

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Marketing
Source: Ad Age
Ad Age Global Marketing Report 2005
Includes list of Top 100 marketers. 53 pages; pdf. Registration required, free.
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UNESCO
Source: Dag Hammarskjold Library, United Nations HQ
Happy 60th Birthday to UNESCO
See Also: 60 Weeks
“Each week for 60 weeks they have a different theme related to UNESCO areas of interest. Thanks to Susan for the news tip.
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Internet Access–Broadband–Lists & Rankings
Source: Computer Industry Almanac
New List: Top 15 Countries in Broadband Subscribers
–
Hurricane Katrina
Source: Congressional Research Service (via OpenCRS)
Hurricane Katrina Recovery: Contracts Awarded by the Federal Government
–
VoIP
Emergency Services
Source: GovTech
New, FCC Launches VoIP 911 Website
The Joint FCC/NARUC Task Force on VoIP 911 Enforcement has launched a new website to provide consumers, industry and state and local governments information about the rules that require certain providers of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services to supply 911 emergency calling capabilities to their customers. The address is www.voip911.gov

Search Briefs
+ Poking at Google Base
Gary takes a look at the latest offering from Google.
+ Search AOL Shopping Using AOL Instant Messenger
+ Yahoo Debuts the Shoposphere

Briefly
+ Federated Search: Swets Information Services Launches SwetsWise Searcher–A New Federated Search Solution Powered by Vivisimo Technology
+ ProQuest brings 19th Century periodicals into digital age (via IWR)

Professional Reading Shelf
Medical Library Websites–Usability Survey
Source: National Library of Medicine
Volunteers Needed for Website Usability Study
“The American Institutes for Research is a not-for-profit organization that supports agencies and organization to improve the usability of their products, websites and applications. AIR is currently recruiting the following types of individuals to participate in a usability study of several medical library websites:
-Medical librarians
-Health professionals, including community-based organization staff members
-Public librarians
-Health consumers”
Participate from your own computer. “AIR will pay study volunteers $100 for their participation.”
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Cryptome–Libraries–Free DVD
Source: Cryptome
Cryptome Archives: DVD
“Cryptome offers…a single DVD of the Cryptome archives of 27,000 files from June 1996 to November 2005…. Archives include all files of cryptome.org, cryptome2.org, jya.com, cartome.org and eyeball-series.org…. A free DVD will be sent to public and .edu libraries which make a request to Cryptome: jya [at] cryptome.net…. Cryptome welcomes documents for publication that are prohibited by governments worldwide, in particular material on freedom of expression, privacy, cryptology, dual-use technologies, national security, intelligence, and secret governance — open, secret and classified documents — but not limited to those.” If you’re not a library, you can get a copy of the DVD by making a $25 donation.
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Academic Libraries–Marketing
Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Libraries lure students with latt�s
“Serving coffee is just one of the extraordinary new steps the university is taking to court students reluctant to give up the ease of Google searches for the intimidating stacks of a research library. Making academic libraries relevant to the digital generation is a national obsession on campuses.”
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Semantic Web
Source: ACM Queue
Order from Chaos
“As more ontologies become available, it becomes harder, rather than easier, to find an ontology to reuse.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text Documents
Electronic Books
Source: Search Engine Watch Blog
Search and Read Full Text Books Online via ebrary
“Since book search is all the rage these days I want to spend a few minutes talking in-depth about a service I’ve mentioned in the past but didn’t really describe in detail. The service is called ebrary that has been around since 1999. ebrary offers numerous services including one that lets you search and read over 20,000 in-copyright books for free. You pay only to print and copy text.”
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Supreme Court–United States–Hearings
Source: askSam
Searchable Database (Free): Judge Samuel Alito Published Opinions
The good folks at askSam have compiled a new searchable database that consists of the full text of more than 350 of Alito’s published opinions. Search online or download and search offline. More free askSam databases here.
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Religious Freedom–International
Source: U.S. Department of State
7th Annual Report on International Religious Freedom
From press release: “The 2005 report covers 197 countries and territories. In some countries, we find that governments have modified laws and policies, improved enforcement or taken other concrete steps to increase and demonstrate respect for religious freedom. In far too many countries, however, governments still fail to safeguard religious freedom. Across the globe, people are still persecuted or killed for practicing their religion or even for just being believers. This year, we have re-designated eight ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ — Burma, China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Vietnam. These are countries where governments have engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom over the past year. We are committed to seeking improvements in each of these countries, improvements like those we have actually seen in Vietnam, which have been further advanced by agreement on religious freedom that our governments signed just this last May.”
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Aerospace Industry
Source: Aviation Week & Space Technology
2005 Aviation Week & Space Technology Source Book
Includes “industry outlook” articles; profiles of prime contractors, major airlines, regional airlines, cargo airlines; specification tables. Many documents in PDF format.
See also: Aerospace Industries Association — Statistics
–
Criminal Justice–United States–Statistics
Source: BJS
Two New Reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistcs
+ Capital Punishment, 2004
“During 2004, twelve States executed 59 prisoners.”
+ Hate Crime Reported by Victims and Police
“During July 2000 through December 2003, an annual average of 210,000 hate crime victimizations occurred.”