Coming Soon
Next Week: Library of Congress Veterans History Project Features More Stories Online, African American Stories Go Online Feb. 1 in honor of Black History Month
“A selection of 23 fully digitized collections of materials submitted by African American war veterans will be highlighted on the Veterans History Project web site beginning Feb. 1, 2006. The collection of fully digitized stories is titled ‘African Americans at War: Fighting Two Battles,’ and will be added to ‘Experiencing War’ stories from the Veterans History Project at www.loc.gov/warstories“
Archive for January, 2006
Next Week: Library of Congress Veterans History Project Features More Stories Online, African American Stories Go Online Feb. 1 in honor of Black Hist
Thursday, January 26th, 2006Six Institutions to Receive Nation’s Top Museum and Library Awards
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006Professional Reading Shelf
Libraries and Museums–Awards
Source: IMLS
Six Institutions to Receive Nation’s Top Museum and Library Awards
Winners:
+ COSI Toledo, Toledo, Ohio
+ Johnson County Library, Overland Park, Kansas
+ Levine Museum of the New South (NC)
+ Mathews Memorial Library, Mathews, Virginia
+ Saint Paul Public Library, Saint Paul, Minnesota
+ Pratt Museum, Homer, Alaska
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Google Scholar
Source: One Entry to Research
Interview with Google Scholar Developer, Anurag Acharya
“Google Scholar went international 11 Jan when they included the Scandinavian languages Finnish, Swedish, Danish and Norweigan.”
See Also: Google Scholar Goes International
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Academic Libraries–California State University, San Marcos
Source: North County Times
Cal State library has transformed campus life
“There was a time in the mid-1990s when it appeared Kellogg itself might not happen, according to Pat Worden, the university’s interim vice president for student affairs. ‘There was a notion that we wouldn’t need a library because of the electronic revolution,’ Worden recalled last week. ‘We had to lobby the chancellor’s office hard that a library is more than just books. Given that we almost got nothing at all, it’s fabulous that we got something so extraordinary.’”
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Presidential Libraries–Ronald Reagan
Source: MercuryNews.com
Reagan Library in Simi Valley makes 1.3 million photos public
“Nearly 1.3 million photographs taken during former President Ronald Reagan’s eight years in the White House were released Friday for public viewing at his hilltop library. The release on the 25th anniversary of Reagan’s inauguration as the nation’s 40th president rounds out a photo collection that spans the first to last day of the Reagan presidency. Some 261,000 photos from 1981 to 1982 were previously available to the public…. The collection’s size is second to the 1.8 million photos at The William J. Clinton Library in Arkansas.”
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GPO–Annual Report
Source: U.S. Government Printing Office
Annual Report 2005 (PDF; 2 MB)
“GPO 2005 Annual Report–Voices of Change now available online.”
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Self-Publiahing
Source: LinkUp Digital
Self-Publishing: The Internet Makes It Easier to Go from Idea to Print
“All companies are not created equal, nor do they offer the same services. Particularly with respect to getting your book into the hands of book reviewers and book distributors, read the fine print and ask questions. Remember that when purchasing any item or service, the key is value, not the lowest price possible. Additionally, contact authors who have used a chosen company’s services.” Describes a handful of self-publishing websites.
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Children’s Literature–Awards
Source: American Library Association
American Library Association announces literary award winners
“The American Library Association (ALA) today announced the top books and video for children and young adults — including the Caldecott, King, Newbery and Printz awards — at its Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio.” Caldecott Medal winner — “The Hello, Goodbye Window,” illustrated by Chris Raschka. Newbery Medal winner — “Criss Cross,” written by Lynne Rae Perkins.
New Firstgov.gov Search Database Goes Live; Ask Jeeves Launches Their Own Image Database
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006Search News
Firstgov.gov
Source SEW Blog
New Firstgov.gov Search Database Goes Live
If you like Clusty and Vivisimo you’re going to love this. Gary has a detailed overview on SEW Blog. A major improvement.
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Ask Jeeves
Source: SEW Blog
Ask Jeeves Launches Their Own Image Database, New Refinement Features Also Available
A new and fresh image search database hits the web.
Update: Along with Gary’s comments (above), a more complete review of the site itself is now available from Chris Sherman. He’s very positive about the new database.
Just Released, America’s Most Connected Campuses
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Employment–Global–Statistics
Source: ILO
New Report, Global Employment Trends Brief
“The number of people unemployed worldwide climbed to new heights in 2005, as robust economic growth failed to offset an increase in people seeking work – especially among the vast and growing legion of jobless youth, the International Labour Office (ILO) said in its annual Global Employment Trends released today.”
Summary ||| Direct to Full Text
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Women in the Workplace–United States–Fast Facts
Source: BLS (via IWS News Service)
New, Fast Facts: Older Women Workers, ages 55 and over
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Government Documents
Electronic Publishing
Source: National Security Agency
New Guide, Redacting with Confidence: How to Safely Publish Sanitized Reports Converted From Word to PDF
14 pages; PDF. From a GCN story, “The National Security Agency has issued a report suggesting ways to improve federal officials’ use of redaction in documents being released to the public.”
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Academia–Technology–Lists & Rankings
Source: Forbes
America’s Most Connected Campuses
“Today’s students depend on technology to live, work and play. And today’s colleges have to provide high-tech tools in order to attract the best applicants. This third annual edition of The Princeton Review’s Most Connected Campuses examines the technological capabilities of the country’s best schools and tells you which 25 campuses are the closest to the cutting edge.” (via DocuTicker)
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Elementary and Secondary Schools–Enrollment
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
Public Elementary and Secondary Students, Staff, Schools, and School Districts: School Year 2003-04
“This report contains data from the Common Core of Data (CCD) non-fiscal 2003-04 state, local education agency, and school surveys. The report presents data about the students enrolled in public education, including the number of students by grade and the number receiving special education, migrant, or English language learner services. Some tables disaggregate the student data by racial/ethnic group or community characteristics such as rural – urban. The numbers and types of teachers, other education staff, schools, and local education agencies are also reported.”
Full Report (PDF; 464 KB)
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Baseball–Statistics and Analysis
Source: David Appelman (Hardball Times)
FanGraphs
“At FanGraphs we graph 9 crucial stats for every player that played in the Major Leagues since 2002. Between our season, daily and split graphs that comes to 33 graphs for each player for nearly 70,000 graphs in all. Every graph is updated every single day of the season with the most current stats. Not only do we graph ordinary stats such as batting average but we also provide graphs of various sabermetrics.”
Methodology
Free Directory Assistance from Any Phone; Some Advanced Search Syntax from Yahoo Hacks
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006Search Briefs
+ Some Advanced Search Syntax from Yahoo Hacks and the Launch of Rough Cuts from Safari Tech Books
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+ Bye Bye Beta: Google News is a Beta No More
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+ BusinessWeek on Yahoo and Social Search
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+ Private Searches Versus Personally Identifiable Searches
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+ Google to censor China Web searches (via News.com)
Journal Supply Chain Efficiency Improvement Pilot project gets underway
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006Briefly
+ Thomson Scientific Takes A Snapshot Of Global Innovation
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+ Journal Supply Chain Efficiency Improvement Pilot project gets underway
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+ Library of Congress: Mary-Jane Deeb Named Chief of the Library’s African and Middle Eastern Division
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+ New Interface to LexisNexis Congressional Unveiled
Safari Launches “Rough Cuts” Service, Read Manuscripts as They Are Edited, Make Suggestions to Authors and Editors
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006Professional Reading Shelf
Online Books
Source: Safari Tech Books
Safari Launches “Rough Cuts” Service
Safari, a service that provides searchable full text access to thousands of technology books, launched their “Rough Cuts” (beta) service today. This new feature allows the reader to take a sneak peak at manuscripts yet to be published. Material can be read online or downloaded as a PDF file. From the news release, “Readers who buy a Rough Cuts title get immediate access to an evolving manuscript…The initial version of a Rough Cuts book will not be fully edited, subjected to final technical review, or completely formatted. Similar to the nightly build in a software project, the Rough Cuts PDF is updated every time the author and editor make changes as they progress toward the finished book. Using the Rough Cuts service’s built-in Notes feature, readers can send feedback, suggestions, bug fixes, and comments directly to the author and editor.” More on Safari here. They offer services for individuals as well as libraries.
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Information Industry–Elsevier
Citation Analysis
Source: Info Today
Elsevier’s Scopus Introduces Citation Tracker: Challenge to Thomson ISI’s Web of Science?
A new article by Barbara Quint. “Long seen as the purview of Thomson ISI, citation tracking in scholarly journal literature is becoming an expected feature in digital collections of scholarly literature. Even Google Scholar offers a version. Elsevier’s Scopus service has long provided a ‘cited by’ feature on its search results page, but the new Scopus Citation Tracker service expands the functionality greatly. At full power that is, under the broadest licensed subscriptions–Scopus covers 14,200 journals (including 531 open access journals) from more than 4,000 publishers supplying 27-plus million abstracted citations. Its citation analysis features reach back to 1966 for the life sciences and 1996 for all other fields.”
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Access to Information–United States
Source: U.S News and World Report (via SECRECY NEWS)
CIA Limits Web Publication of Critical Reports
The Central Intelligence Agency has selectively declined to publish on its web site at least three unclassified reports produced by the Center for the Study of Intelligence that present an unflattering picture of the Agency, US News reported this week. See “A Tangled Web Woven,” by David E. Kaplan, US News and World Report, January 30, 2006
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Data Preservation–Conferences
Source: Digital Curation Center
Final papers, posters, and presentations from Ensuring Long-Term Preservation and Adding Value to Scientific and Technical Data (PV 2005) Now Online
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Intranets–Ranking
Source: Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox
Ten Best Intranets of 2006
“This year, we saw increased use of multimedia, e-learning, internal blogs, and mobile access. Winning companies also encouraged consistent design by emphasizing training for content contributors.”
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E-Mail Archives–Enterprise
Source: Intelligent Enterprise
Survey: Companies Court Document and E-Mail Risks
“More than half of executives say their firm’s storage strategies won’t stand up in court, and nearly three-quarters either view e-mail archiving as simply the creation of backups or they don’t archive e-mail at all. These are two of the most startling conclusions of a survey released today by AIIM International.”
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Library Publications
Source: LJ
Ron Shank Named LJ/SLJ Publisher
Digital Music Report 2006
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Digital Music
Source: International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)
Just Released, Digital Music Report 2006
“Digital music sales worldwide in 2005 reached $1.1 billion.”
+ Full Text Report (PDF)
+ Fast Facts and Stats
+ News Release and Exec Summary, Additional Links
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Spam–Lists & Rankings
Source: Sophos
Top Spam Producing Countries
The United States leads with 24.5% followed by China (including Hong Kong) at 22.3%.
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Crude Oil–Statistics
Source: EIA
Udpated: World Crude Oil Distillation Capacity, January 1, 1970-January 1, 2006
XLS file.
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School Crime–United States
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics
Just Released, Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2005
“Presents data on crime and safety at school from the perspectives of students, teachers, principals, and the general population. A joint effort by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics, this annual report examines crime occurring in school as well as on the way to and from school. It also provides the most current detailed statistical information on the nature of crime in schools, school environments, and responses to violence and crime at school.” (via DocuTicker)
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Transportation–United States–Statistics
Source: BTS
New Report (Highlights Only), More Freight Moves on U.S. Transportation System than Previously Reported, DOT Estimates
“Much more freight moves on the nation’s transportation system than previously reported and almost one out of 10 tons of freight shipments is related to international trade, according to ‘Freight in America,’ a new report from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). The report will also be available online at http://www.bts.gov/ in March”
See Also: New Report, Freight Rail Transportation: Long-Term Issues (via Congressional Budget Office)
US: More on Mobile Search, Free Directory Assistance, and Voice Activated Info Services
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006Mobile Search and Information
+ UK: Mobile on the motorway (via Kable.net)
Drivers will be able to access motorway CCTV images through their mobile phones under a trial project announced on 11 January 2006. The Highways Agency is starting a 12 month trial of the technology offering images to the public previously only shared with road service providers, police and emergency services. The service, which aims to help drivers plan their journeys, will initially involve 100 cameras on several of the busiest motorways including the M25, M1 and M6. Direct to Traffic.co.uk
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+ US: More on Mobile Search, Free Directory Assistance, and Voice Activated Info Services (via SEW Blog)
Get free directory assistance from inFreeDA and 1-800-FREE41.
Vivisimo and Serials Solutions Sign OEM Agreement
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006Briefly
+ Thomson Scientific Web Citation Index To Index Proquest’s Digital Commons Open Access Content
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+ Vivisimo and Serials Solutions Sign OEM Agreement
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+ SPARC Europe Announces Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications
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+ Health Info: Call for Web Site Raters
“[Consumer] WebWatch [from Consumer Reports] and its partner, the Health Improvement Institute (HII), are preparing to rate the next round of health sites for their joint venture, HealthRatings.org. HII is now seeking qualified professionals to rate diet sites. If you are interested in rating sites, please e-mail or visit HII.org. If you e-mail, please enter “HWR project rater application” in the subject line.”
MESH: The Video; Covert censorship in libraries: a discussion paper
Monday, January 23rd, 2006Professional Reading Shelf
Live Blog Coverage of the ALA Midwinter Meeting from LITA and PLA
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Controlled Vocabularies
MESH
Video: Branching Out: The MeSH Vocabulary
“…a 12-minute video introduction to the development, structure and use of the MeSH vocabulary. This video’s target audience is searchers of MEDLINE�PubMed, and it is used in the PubMed classes offered by NLM and the National Training Center and Clearinghouse. The video is available on the NLM Web site with other NLM Distance Education Program Resources, and is offered in Macromedia Flash, Apple QuickTime, and Windows Media formats.”
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Libraries–Censorship
Source: Australian Library Journal (2005)(via E-LIS)
Covert censorship in libraries: a discussion paper
By Kim Moody. “Librarians, through their professional associations, have long been committed to the social justice principle of free access to information. External censorship challenges to library collections threaten this principle overtly. However, censorship can also occur in libraries in various covert and often unconcious ways. This discussion paper raises concerns about current librarian practices and library processes which can effectively censor library collections from within. The paper concludes by highlighting specific areas of practice in which librarians need to be vigilant for such covert censorship.”
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Academic Libraries
Source: EDUCAUSE Review (January-February 2006)
Changing a Cultural Icon: The Academic Library as a Virtual Destination
By Jerry Campbell. “Deep into the digital age, academic libraries have relinquished much of their fundamental and sustaining role. For most people, including academicians, the library–in its most basic function as a source of information–has become overwhelmingly a virtual destination.”
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Public Libraries–Management
Source: Bay City Times
Library director faces criticism
“Bay County Library System Director Frederick Paffhausen is under fire after employees complained that he shouts and swears, belittles staff, sleeps in his office, shows up late and disheveled, and complains about Bay City and its libraries.”
New Topical Compilations from MedlinePLUS
Monday, January 23rd, 2006Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Law Firms–Mergers–United States–Statistics
Law Firm Mergers, 2005
“Law firm merger activity remained strong in 2005 with 49 total completed mergers and acquisitions involving US law firms, up two from 47 in 2004, according to Hildebrandt International, leading consultants to the legal industry.”
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Health–Web Resources
Source: MedlinePlus
New Topical Compilations from MedlinePLUS and NIH Senior Health
+ MedlinePlus: Bone Grafts
+ MedlinePlus: Rett Syndrome
+ Heart Failure
+ Osteoporosis
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Internet Use–Demographics
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project
Pew Internet & American Life Project Report: Generations Online
“Internet users ages 12 to 28 years old have embraced the online applications that enable communicative, creative, and social uses. Older users are more likely to engage in online activities that require some capital: travel reservations and online banking. Tables comparing how different generations use the internet are included in this data memo.”
Audio: An Interview with the CEO of Factiva, Clare Hart
Sunday, January 22nd, 2006Professional Reading Shelf
Public Libraries–Japan
Source: asahi.com
Tough times force public libraries to offer ‘customers’ more than books
“With their budgets slashed by cash-strapped municipalities, public libraries are becoming more business friendly and offering a variety of support services. These services, all designed to pull in more ‘customers,’ can range from loan consultations and how-to seminars to fashion shows.”
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Information Industry–Factiva
Source: Factiva
Listen to a Podcast Interview with Clare Hart, Factiva CEO
Clare Hart, President and CEO of Factiva, chats about the company and innovation. Download info here.
Tasty! An Encyclopedia of Spices
Sunday, January 22nd, 2006Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Spices-Encyclopedia
Cooking
Source: McCormick
The Enspicelopedia
An encyclopedia of spices from McCormick. A must for your “virtual cookbook” shelf.
See Also: A History of Spices
Reports from the Congressional Research Service on Internet Privacy, Net Technology, and Protecting Children from “Unsuitable Material”
Sunday, January 22nd, 2006Registry of U.S. Government Publication Digitization Projects
Saturday, January 21st, 2006Professional Reading Shelf
Government Documents–Digitization–Database
Source: U.S. GPO
Registry of U.S. Government Publication Digitization Projects
“The Registry contains records for projects that include digitized copies of publications originating from the U.S. Government.” Search or browse.
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Public Libraries
Internet Filtering
Source: LJ
County of Los Angeles Public Library Forced to Filter
Just Released, Highway Statistics 2004
Saturday, January 21st, 2006Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Highways–United States–Statistics
Source: Federal Highway Administration
Just Released, Highway Statistics 2004
Content also available in PDF and XLS formats.
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Travel–United States–Statistics
Source: BTS
Just Released, National Household Travel Survey: Pre- and Post-9/11 Data Documentation
The 2001 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) was conducted from March 2001 through May 2002. Because the data collection time period includes 9/11/2001, there has been considerable interest in using this data set to assess the effect of the events of 9/11 on travel behavior, especially for long-distance trips. This document discusses long-distance trip data set files only.
MapQuest Adds New Features
Saturday, January 21st, 2006Search Briefs
+ MapQuest Adds New Features
First Comparison of Canadian and U.S. Public Libraries
Friday, January 20th, 2006Professional Reading Shelf
Information Access
Source: Reuters
Web sites judged in a blink
Interesting read. It’s all about first impressions. (-: “Internet users can give Web sites a thumbs up or thumbs down in less than the blink of an eye, according to a study by Canadian researchers.”
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Web Search–Google
Source: Google
New Issue of Google Librarian Newsletter Available
Gary offers a review of the content and links to several related article that might be of interest here. The new issue features an article by the LII’s Karen Schneider on techniques to judge a web site’s quality with a follow-up piece by Matt Cutts who talks about PageRank.
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Public Libraries–United States
Public Libraries–Canada
Source: SirsiDynix OneSource
A First Comparison of Canadian and U.S. Public Libraries
“Visitors to public libraries in Canada and the United States have no trouble knowing they are in a library. There are books and other materials, staff, and computer terminals, and you can check items out. However, a preliminary comparison of comparable data from the two countries’ libraries shows differences in how each country provisions library service and how the citizens of each use their libraries.”
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Council on Library and Information Resources
Source: Council on Library and Information Resources.
CLIR Issues, Jan/Feb 2006
+ A Forum for the Future Student
“In 2004, Patricia Wand, university librarian at American University (AU), invited CLIR to cosponsor and shape a symposium that would start the process of rethinking the delivery of library and information support on the AU campus. The event, “Symposium 2010,” was held March 14-15, 2005. American University has just issued a final report on the symposium, titled The Academic Library in 2010: A Vision, available at http://www.library.american.edu/Symposium_2010.pdf. In the following article, former CLIR staff member and symposium attendee Amy Harbur captures highlights of the event.”
+ DLF Seeks Comments on Metadata Object Description Schema
+ Ann Okerson Joins CLIR
+ CLIR Forms Advisory Committee for Scholarly Communication
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National Archives and Records Administration
Elecronic Records
In new position, NARA’s Cahoon will tout e-records
Source: GCN
The National Archives and Records Administration has promoted Reynolds Cahoon, the agency’s CIO for the past 10 years, to take a new position promoting and educating other agencies about using electronic records. Cahoon will be NARA’s first senior adviser of electronic records, in which he will educate other agencies, the CIO Council and the Office of Management and Budget about the ‘importance of building records management functions into the design of agency business systems,’ said Allen Weinstein, NARA archivist.”
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Web Software Development
Source: JISC, TechWatch
Advanced software development for Web applications (PDF)
“This report outlines the development of Web frameworks, dicusses the current state of the art and lays out in detail two of the newer developments, Cocoon and Ruby On Rails. The report then speculates on the future direction of frameworks in the next few years and discusses the possibility of non-technical staff being able to build applications using sophisticated tools that generate the code. The tools may be built on developments in tagging software components that are being explored in some recent Semantic Web projects and the report ends by outlining one such project, PiggyBank.”
Just Released, 2005 Computer Crime Survey
Friday, January 20th, 2006Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Music–Digitization Projects
Source: American Memory Project, Library of Congress
Just Released, The Rosaleen Moldenhauer Memorial: Music History from Primary Sources: A Guide to the Moldenhauer Archives
“he Moldenhauer Archives at the Library of Congress contain approximately 3,500 items documenting the history of Western music from the medieval period through the modern era and are the richest composite gift of musical documents ever received by the Library. Before his death, Hans Moldenhauer (1906-1987) established a directive and provided funds for the Library of Congress to publish The Rosaleen Moldenhauer Memorial: Music History from Primary Sources: A Guide to the Moldenhauer Archives (2000). This online presentation features the full text of this guide, which contains a series of essays by musicologists discussing individual items from the Moldenhauer Archives, as well as an inventory of items held in the Library’s collection and in nine other institutions worldwide. The online presentation also includes digitized versions of more than 130 primary-source documents from the collection.”
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Computer Crime
Source: FBI
Just Released 2005 Computer Crime Survey
The link takes you to a summary. The 19 page PDF report that was here is no longer available. I did notice that the url was indexed but not cached by MSN Search or Google.
However, Yahoo also indexed the url and they offer an html version (converted from PDF) of the report. A good illustration of why knowing and using more than one web cache can be useful.
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Population–United States–Statistics
Source: US Census
Foreign-Born Population of the United States from the American Community Survey: 2003
“Data on the foreign-born population in 2003 illustrating demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, such as age, educational attainment, poverty status, and population by state. These characteristics are presented by U.S. citizenship status, year of entry into the United States, world region of birth, and by sub-region of birth for Latin America.”
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Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder–Bibliography
Source: U.S. Army War College Library
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Military (PDF; 212 KB)
“Due to current military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been a renewed interest in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its presentation in military personnel. This bibliography lists citations for books, documents, articles, audiovisuals, and Internet sites related to this topic. Specifically, the cited items focus on PTSD resulting from combat exposure in current and past military engagements and peacekeeping operations. The majority of the items cited are dated 1990 to the present. A few notable exceptions include material concerning PTSD in veterans of the Vietnam War.”
