Professional Reading Shelf
e-Books
Source: Wall Street Journal (Free Access)
A Hundred Books in Your Pocket
A new e-book reader is in coming from Sony.
See Also: Libraries in Taiwan, Hong Kong build NetLibrary eBook collection (via OCLC)
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Information Industry–ProQuest
Health and Medical Research–Databases
Source: Info Today
ProQuest Decides That Evidence Matters
Paula Hane writes, “Information overload is a critical problem in most professions, but none more so than in medicine, where life and death decisions can hinge on access to current treatment and research data. These days, there’s no way to keep up with the literature, even in one’s medical specialty. There’s a growing consensus that the future of clinical practice is in evidence-based medicine (EBM). And the major medical information vendors are clearly stepping up efforts to meet this need with appropriate content and tools. ProQuest Information and Learning announced it is now the exclusive global distributor of Evidence Matters to academic and hospital markets.”
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Public Libraries–Services
Source: Chicago Tribune
Libraries to try online orders
“Taking a page from online retailers, three suburban libraries are venturing into cyberspace with plans to offer books, movies and other material for home delivery. Beginning Feb. 1, patrons of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, Skokie Public Library and Indian Trails Public Library in Wheeling may browse the libraries’ holdings and borrow material online.”
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Web Page Design
Source: Internet Retailer
A small change produces a big boost at Alibris.com
Where you place the search tools on a page can make a big difference. “Realtors say value is all about location, and the experience of online bookseller Alibris demonstrates that’s true of web site real estate too. Alibris boosted sales by 400% simply by relocating one of its search features to a more prominent location…”

Search Briefs
+ Sharing and Sending Web Content and More Via SMS
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+ New “Bird’s Eye” Imagery for Detroit Added to MSN Live Local Database
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+ Google Images Censors Too in China
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+ Google’s Help Center Page About Censorship Back Online With New Text

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Motion Pictures–Academy Awards
Source: AMPAS
78th Annual Academy Awards Nominations Press Kit
Info and production notes.
See Also: The 78th Academy Awards Press Kit
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Consumer Fraud–United States–Lists & Rankings
Source: FTC
New, FTC Releases Top 10 Consumer Fraud Complaint Categories
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Weather–United States–Disasters
Climate–United States–Disasters
Source: NOAA
NOAA Updates List Of U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather, Climate Disasters
“The NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., updated the Web site that lists U.S. billion dollar weather and climate disasters from 1980 to the present.” Direct to List and Related Info.
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Business
Source: OECD, Directorate For Science, Technology And Industry, Committee For Information, Computer And Communications Policy, Working Party On The Information Economy
Digital Delivery Of Business Services
83 pages; PDF. Additional background reading. Report presented at the Conference on the Future Digital Economy: Digital Content Creation, Distribution and Access, Rome, Italy.
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Medicine–Timelines
Source: Infoplease.com
Medical Advances Timeline
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West Africa–Bibliography
Source: Air University Library
West Africa
Bibliography of books, documents, journals and Internet resources. Includes the countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote D’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo.
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Education–Rural America
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
Navigating Resources for Rural Schools
“This site is designed for persons who are interested in educational changes taking place in rural America. The site provides access to recent data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), as well as access to resources available through selected contractors and grantees of the U.S. Department of Education.”

Briefly
Factiva: 2005 Momentum Positions Company for Continued Success in 2006

Professional Reading Shelf
Public Libraries–New Orleans
Source: The Villager
Read it and weep: New Orleans libraries are in ruins
“Public libraries are indispensable to poor communities like New Orleans, because they serve as cultural centers for people who still have the integrity not to surrender to television and video games. Public library buildings are also useful for sheltering a great number of people. If anyone in government would have given any thought to public libraries in New Orleans, they might have built them to serve as shelters in a disaster. The storm that ripped the roof right off the scandalous poverty in our city also exposed the shabby treatment of programs intended to better community life. The complete lack of foresight and imagination by the bureaucrats in charge of public monies is beyond appalling. It’s criminal. Libraries may not be the first priority in a city beset by thousands of personal tragedies and hundreds of major and urgent needs, but they are an irreplaceable piece of the complex puzzle of urban civilization. Take away the library and what you have is a mindless shopping mall.” Commentary by Andrei Codrescu.
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Libraries–United Kingdom
Source: ALA
Dozens of British Libraries May Close
“Approximately 50 British libraries — many in small or isolated communities — could close this year as local governments in at least six counties look for ways to cut costs or more effectively allocate funds they spend on libraries.”
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Metadata
Preservation
Source: OCLC/RLG
PREMIS Maintenance Activity advances work begun by joint OCLC-RLG working group
“Following publication of the award-winning PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata in May 2005, the PREMIS Maintenance Activity, with financial support provided by the Library of Congress, has commissioned two consultancies to move the PREMIS work forward.”
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Institutional Repositories–Books
Source: JISC
New book explores institutional repositories
“Written by Theo Andrew and John MacColl of the University of Edinburgh and Richard Jones of the University of Bergen in Norway, the book — The Institutional Repository — explores the concept of institutional repositories, examining how they can be set up, maintained and embedded into general institutional working practice.”
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Open Accesss Archives
Source: University of Nottingham, UK and University of Lund, Sweden
New, Directory of Open Access Archives
“OpenDOAR – the Directory of Open Access Repositories – is pleased to
announce the release of its primary listing of open access archives, available
from www.opendoar.org“

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
African-Americans–Fast Facts
Source: US Census
Fast Facts: African-American History Month: February 2006
See Also: African Americans at War: Fighting Two Battles (New, via Library of Congress Veterans History Project)
See Also: MartinLutherKingArchive.org
See Also: Black History Month Resources (via Gale.com, No charge)
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Domestic Surveillance–United States
Source: FindLaw
Compilation: Documents Relating to NSA Domestic Surveillance Program
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Classified Information–United States
Source: Congressional Research Service (via OpenCRS and FAS)
Protection of Classified Information by Congress: Practices and Proposals
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Business–Lists and Rankings
Source: Business 2.0
101 Dumbest Moments in Business
“From notorious former mental institutions being converted into high-end condos, to candy bars with curious names, see the top examples of shenanigans, skullduggery, and just plain stupidity of the year.”
Direct to Full List
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Energy–United States–Lists & Rankings
Environment–United States
Source: EPA
Top 25 Green Power Purchasers in Green Power Partnership
“The following is a list of the Top 25 Partners in the Green Power Partnership. Top 25 Partners are Partners whose annual green power purchase is the largest, and whose green power purchase has been completed. Their actions are helping drive the development of new renewable energy sources for electricity generation.”
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Budget–United States–Glossary
Source: CBO
Glossary of Budgetary and Economic Terms

Search Briefs
+ AOL’s (quick) answer Feature on Web Results Pages
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+ Related Phrases Now Part of Google’s Define: Feature and What Others Offer
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+ Check out Cool Bird’s Eye Imagery from Windows Live Local on Bird’s Eye Tourist

Briefly
Faculty of 1000 Medicine LAUNCH
“…online literature evaluation service draws upon the authority and experience of nearly 2500 of the world’s leading researchers and clinicians to highlight and evaluate the most important papers in the medical sciences…”
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+ Consumer Health Complete Now Available from EBSCO Publishing

Professional Reading Shelf
Digital Libraries–Education
Source: Collegiate Times
Digital library curriculum project
“The rise of digital libraries is fairly new. Its most primitive ancestry can be traced back 15 years – not nearly long enough for it to have found a niche as a subject at many institutions of higher learning. As a result, it is relatively difficult to find adequately trained individuals who can design and add to these digital libraries. All of that, however, is about to change. As of Jan. 1, Virginia Tech and the University of North Carolina have been working together towards providing a quality educational curriculum on the development and preservation of digital libraries.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
News–Databases
Video Databases
TVEyes Launches New Video Search Service: Keyword Search Web Accessible TV Content, Free!!!
Just online (and still being tested) keyword search video from several large news organziations and then watch the video segment where those words are spoken. This overview contains links to many more free and fee-based video search tools that all researchers should know about.

Professional Reading Shelf
Digital Curation
Source: DCC
Digital Curation Centre Case Studies and Interviews
“The purpose of this series is to disseminate examples of best practice, share experiences with digital curation issues, and to identify future digital curation requirements among our user communities.” Thanks to PADI (Preserving Access to Digital Information) at the National Library of Australia for the site tip.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
U.S. Congress–Biographies
Source: GPO
Just Released Online, New Edition: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress 1774 – 2005
View bios by Congress (1-108) or alphabetically. All files are PDF and cannot (as far as I can tell) be searched using a single interface. The closing date for the compilation was Jan 3, 2005. It’s also possible to download the entire document as a single file (10.3 MB, Zip) and then search the complete document using the Adobe Acrobat search function. The entire document is 2225 pages. From the annoucement, “Last published in 1989, the comprehensive 2,236 page directory provides the biographies of thousands of Members of the Senate and House who have served from the first through the 108th Congress. The most recent edition of the Biographical Directory details the changing face of Congress and lists Members by their full name, and for the first time nicknames or initials. Also listed are territorial delegates, resident commissioners, and vice presidents.” Document is also known as House Document No. 108-222. The complete news release is available here.
See Also: The Office of History and Preservation of the US Congress Also Offers a Searchable Biographical Directory of the U.S Congress
Along with bio info (not sure what source they’re using, you’ll also find bibliographies, research collection info, and more.

Professional Reading Shelf
Digital Information
Source: Journal of Digital Information
Metadata and Data Quality Problems in the Digital Library
From the abstract:
“This paper describes the main types of data quality errors that occur in digital libraries, both in full-text objects and in metadata. Studying these errors is important because they can block access to online documents and because digital libraries should eliminate errors where possible. Some types of common errors include typographical errors, scanning and data conversion errors, and find and replace errors”
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Virtual Reference
Source: OCLC
PowerPoint Slides: Seeking Synchronicity: Evaluating Virtual Reference Transcripts
Juried presentation (PPT:450K/30slides) given 18 January 2006 at ALISE 2006 Annual Conference by Marie L. Radford (Rutgers) and Lynn Silipigni Connaway (PDF:1.3MB/20p.).
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Center for Research Libraries
Source: CRL
New Issue (Winter 2005-06) of Focus Now Available
PDF; 6 pages. Focus of issue is, “evaluating digital archives & repositories.”
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National Libraries–Sweden
Source: ScieCom SRC
The Royal Library, Sweden’s National Library, signs the Berlin declaration

Search Briefs
Looking for Web Video? Try Searchforvideo
Pulls content from many video sources and databases. Close to a video metasearch engine. Site continues to get better each time we check.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Copyright
DMCA
State of the Union Speeches
Source: AskSam
Three New Searchable/Browsable (FREE) Databases from Ask Sam
All database can be searched/browsed online or downloaded for offline use.
+ U.S. Copyright Law (title 17 of the US Code)
“Search and analyze the full text of the Copyright Law of the United States of America & related laws contained in Title 17 of the United States Code. Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of ‘original works of authorship,’ including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.”
+ The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
“Search and analyze the full text of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Passed in 1998, the DMCA is a bill designed to bring the Copyright Law up to date with digital media.”
+ State of the Union Addresses of the American Presidents
“Search and analyze the full-text of all State of the Union Addresses from 1790-2005.”
See Also: More AskSam Databases (Free)
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Brands–United Kingdom–Lists & Rankings
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
2005’s Top 10 Fastest Growing Brands In The UK
2 pages; PDF. Wikipedia placed seventh.
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Women in Business–United States–Statistics
Source: US Census
Just Released, Women-Owned Businesses Grew at Twice the National Average in 5-Year Period
“The number of women-owned businesses grew 20 percent between 1997 and 2002, twice the national average for all businesses, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report. The nearly 6.5 million businesses generated more than $940 billion in revenue, up 15 percent from 1997.”
Direct to Summary Direct to Full Text (PDF) Map (PDF)
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Population–United States–Statistics
Source: US Census
Just Released, New 2004 American Community Survey (ACS) Tables
“Approximately 120 tables include population profiles for race, Hispanic origin, and ancestry groups; new place-of-work geography tables; and a new detailed table on median age at first marriage.”
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Asian Americans–Fast Facts
Source: Infoplease.com
Famous Firsts by Asian Americans

Briefly
+ Coming in February: New Technology for Alerts from Science.gov
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+ H.W. Wilson Periodicals Databases Now Deliver Color Page Images

Resource of the Week
By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor

In the overall scheme of research-worthy content, up-to-date health statistics are valued highly. Gary mentioned a new site here about a week ago that I think deserves a closer look.

Health Statistics
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF)
GlobalHealthFacts.org
“GlobalHealthFacts.org, a project of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, provides free, up-to-date and easy-to-access data by country on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other key health and socio-economic indicators. The data are displayed in tables, charts, and color-coded maps and can be downloaded for custom analyses. GlobalHealthFacts.org is a companion site to GlobalHealthReporting.org, a project operated by the Foundation with major support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”

If nothing else, you have to love this site for its ultra-clean, user-friendly interface. Choose a country from the dropdown menu in the Data by Country box at the upper right and get statistics about people with AIDS, TB, malaria, and other related information in easy-to-read chart form. You can view “Notes and Sources” about any statistic by clicking a small link under the box containing that statistic, at the lower right. To compare a given statistic against data from all countries, simply click the small “Compare” icon at the upper right. Beneath the dropdown menu are links that will take you to regional data for HIV/AIDS, Malaria, or TB.

Get “fast facts” via the interactive world map at the top left. Clicking on a country generates immediate statistical data directly underneath the map. Small plus sign icons allow you to “zoom in” on a given geographic area. Underneath the map, you’ll notice scrolling news headlines from GlobalHealthReporting.org. Click on a headline to read the story.

At the lower right is a Data by Topic box, which will take you to more detailed and varied statistics about HIV/AIDS; TB; Malaria; Other Diseases and Conditions (avian flu, SARS, yellow fever); Programs, Funding, & Financing (grant data and numbers of physicians, nurses, and midwives) ; and Demography & the Economy (population, women, population under age 15, urban population, land area).

If you look at the upper right-hand part of the page, you’ll see three tabs. The first two are basically an alternate navigation scheme: Data by Country and Data by Topic. The third tab displays a variety of tools for you — including raw data downloads, a full list of direct links to topics covered on the site, a glossary, and an e-mail sign-up link that takes you to a page of KFF subscription newsletters. By the way, you can save your favorite links here for future reference if you register (free) at the site.

Professional Reading Shelf
OCLC
New Publication, NextSpace
“NextSpace grew from the OCLC Newsletter and will analyze industry trends and technology developments, as well as feature news about OCLC. The goal is to help member libraries stay informed and make key decisions. The new community page brings together in one area of the OCLC Web site activities that OCLC undertakes on behalf of, or alongside, the library community, such as standards development, advocacy advertising and member reports. The page also provides a forum for librarians to dialog and comment on OCLC initiatives and general industry issues.”
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GPO–Libraries
Source: U.S. Government Printing Office
GPO ALA Update (PDF; 112 KB)
“The GPO ALA Update for January 2006 is now available.”
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Web 2.0
Source: SirsiDynix OneSource
Web 2.0, Library 2.0, and Librarian 2.0: Preparing for the 2.0 World
Stephen Abram’s monthly column provides “a little information on Web 2.0 and its newborn babies, Library 2.0 and Librarian 2.0.”
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Information Retrieval
Source: Information Research
New Issue of Information Research Now Online (January 2006)
Content includes:
+ User satisfaction with referrals at a collaborative virtual reference service
+ Constructing Web subject gateways using Dublin Core, RDF and Topic Maps
+ Combining ethnographic and clickstream data to identify user Web browsing strategies
+ Some features of alt texts associated with images in Web pages
+ Book Review: Ambient findability by Peter Morville
+ Book Review: Digital copyright by Paul Pedley

Search Briefs
+ Google Now Censoring In China
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+ Ask Jeeves Launches (Beta) German Site
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+ U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy Ask Attorney General for More Info On Web Search Subpeonas

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Information Technology
Source: Computerworld
Quick Study: Flash
“Flash is a popular multimedia Web authoring program that uses vector and raster graphics, a scripting language and bidrectional streaming of video and audio to create animated presentations, also called Flash movies. In practice, the term Flash refers to the authoring program, the Flash Player virtual machine or browser plug-in, or the application files.”
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Elections–Canada
Source: Michael Fagan, Puzzlepieces.com
Canadian Election Analysis: Urban vs Rural
Election results scraped from the CBC and Elections Canada.
Data available in Excel spreadsheet.
See Also: Election Night Results Database (39th General Election, via Elections Canada)
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Poverty–Databases
Source: World Resources Institute
EarthTrends Poverty Resource
“This resource explores the dimensions of human well-being through a combination of maps, datasets, resources, and short articles on the linkages between poverty and the environment. It is part of the EarthTrends environmental information collection at the World Resources Institute.”
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Drug Information–United States
Source: National Library of Medicine
DailyMed
“DailyMed provides high quality information about marketed drugs. This information includes FDA approved labels (package inserts). This Web site provides health information providers and the public with a standard, comprehensive, up-to-date, look-up and download resource of medication content and labeling as found in medication package inserts.”
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Environment–United Kingdom–Maps
Source: Kable’s Government Computing
New, Online map for coastal defence
“The UK is to get an online coastal atlas with constantly updated marine data, the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has announced. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency led two year project to create the online atlas, which is hosted by a web based interactive mapping site known as Magic (multi-agency geographic information for the countryside). The Magic service uses geographical information systems (GIS) to bring countryside data together in one place.”
See Also: Direct to Magic