Professional Reading Shelf
Academic Libraries–Canada–Gay Culture
Source: London Free Press
Pride of place
“The sign on the front desk reads ‘Queeries.’ The office has a giant window in the shape of a Q. Green walls and purple carpets greet students. The Pride Library at the University of Western Ontario has come out of the closet, with 200 people celebrating its opening yesterday on the main floor of Weldon Library after 10 years of being shuffled from place to place.”
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EPA Libraries–Budget
Source: American Library Association
EPA Library Funds Cut 80% under Bush Budget
“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s network of libraries stands to lose $2 million of its $2.5 million in funding under President Bush’s proposed 2007 budget, which threatens to close the headquarters library and many regional facilities as well as shut down the libraries’ electronic catalog.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Airlines–United States–Statistics
Source: BTS
New, Flight Delays, Mishandled Bags, Consumer Complaints Up in 2005 Over Previous Year
Summary Full Text (PDF)
“U.S. airlines experienced a higher rate of flight delays, more reports of mishandled baggage and a higher number of complaints about airline service in 2005 than in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Air Travel Consumer Report…the 20 airlines reporting on-time performance with DOT recorded an on-time arrival rate of 77.4 percent in 2005, down from the 78.1 percent mark of 2004. These carriers also recorded a rate of 6.04 reports of mishandled baggage per 1,000 passengers last year, up from 2004’s rate of 4.91. The Department received 8,735 complaints from consumers about airline service last year, up 17.2 percent from 2004’s total of 7,452 complaints.”
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Winter Olympics–2006–Television Coverage–Statistics
Internet Coverage–Web Streaming
Source: IOC
Global television and new media figures set records in Europe and around the globe
“Coverage of the first five days of the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games dominated television ratings in Europe, especially in the host country Italy, with impressive audiences recorded in other key markets around the world…Internet streaming in European markets have already exceeded that of the Athens Games with 4.3 million live or on-demand streams served so far.”

Search Briefs
Recently Filed Documents in Motion to Compel Google to Supply Search Information

The following documents (full text court filings) were made on 2/17/06. All documents are PDF files.

+ Google’s Response to U.S. Government Filing, 25 pages
Full text of U.S. government filings linked here.

+ Declaration of Marty Lev, 3 pages.
Google’s Director of Safety and Security at Google.

+ Declaration of Google’s Matt Cutts, 15 pages.
How search works.
++ Exhibit A
All about a Greasemonkey Script
+++ Exhibit B
A Copy of a Post from John Battelle’s Searchblog

+ Declaration of Ashok Ramani, Formerly the Commercial Litigation Counsel to Google, 3 pages
++ Exhibit A, 16 pages
Dr. Stark’s CV.
+++ Exhibit B
Copy of a Steven Levy article from Newsweek.
++++ Exhibit C
Google’s Privacy Policy.

+ Memorandum in Opposition of Motion to Compel Google to Turn over Search Info, 16 pages.
Filed by ACLU.

Professional Reading Shelf
Library of Congress
Source: LC
Library Of Congress To Offer Special Junior Fellows Summer Internships
“The Library of Congress, home of the U.S. Copyright Office, is offering special 10-week summer internships to college students who will work full-time, starting on June 5 and ending on Aug. 11, to help locate and itemize uncataloged materials submitted to the office as part of the copyright registration process. The previous summer interns identified hundreds of literary, artistic, film and musical gems among the Library’s copyright deposits. The application deadline is Monday, March 13. Applications will be accepted only online and should be sent to the 2006 Summer Intern Program Coordinating Committee at interns06@loc.gov. For details on how to apply, visit http://www.loc.gov/hr/jrfellows.”
–
Electronic Journals
Source: ACRL
ACRL endorses call for urgent action to preserve scholarly electronic journals
“ACRL recognizes that the electronic environment poses significant challenges for long-term preservation of, and access to, information. Since most libraries do not actually own and store the content of the journals they license in electronic form, new models for preservation must be developed. Scholars may face serious loss of access to published research if libraries do not adopt effective electronic journal preservation strategies. ACRL encourages all academic libraries to take action to preserve their electronic journal collections.”

Search Briefs
+ Search National Weather Service Web Site With Vivisimo and MSN
Yes, cluster weather info and much more. (-: Think of it as a “slice of the complete FirstgovSearch database. This new option comes to the NWS site via the new and much improved search capabilities on FirstGovSerch.gov. Full overview of FirstGovSearch.gov here.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Documents in the News
Human Rights
Source: United Nations
Situation of detainees at Guant�namo Bay
Summary/Chronology ||| Direct to Full Text (54 pages; PDF)
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E-Commerce–United States–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census
New, Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales 4th Quarter 2005
PDF version also available.

Resource of the Week
By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor

Short write-up of a fun resource this week. Your deputy editor had her broken finger reset yesterday, and typing is awkward once again. Also, jury duty beckons…

Rock and Roll–Classic–Streaming Audio
Source: Wolfgang’s Vault
Vault Radio
“Bill Graham and his concert promotion company, Bill Graham Presents, produced more than 35,000 concerts all over the world. Graham taped thousands of these performances, and the tapes were acquired in 2003 by Wolfgang’s Vault. (Brief biographical trivia: Bill Graham was born Wolfgang Grajonca in Berlin in 1931. He escaped Nazi Germany, grew up in a foster home in the Bronx and anglicized his name at the age of 18. Graham died in 1991. Read more at CNET’s News.com.)

You can now listen to selected tracks from these concerts via FM-quality, 128K digital radio stream, freely available on the website. Just click “PLAY NOW,” and you’re up and running. Bill Sagan, the entrepreneur who paid more than $5 million for the collection of tapes, would like to license and publish the material and make it available via CD/DVD. In the meantime, you can buy posters, vintage tickets, T-shirts, and other rock-and-roll memorabilia here.

Tracks by “many of the greatest bands of the last 40 years” will be added to and removed from the Vault Radio playlist on a regular basis. A “Currently in Rotation” page shows you which artists and tracks are currently available. And this is the real thing: “The music you hear on Vault Radio has not been sweetened or polished. You’ll be listening to what the band played that night — nothing more, nothing less.”
–
See Also: A Few More Web Resources for the Music Fan

+ The Internet Archive: Live Music Archive
Over 30,000 shows ready for download. Free!
–
+ AllMusic.com
The best! Classical music, too!
–
+ Gracenote: The Music Info Database You’ve Used But Possibly Know Little About
–
+ Yahoo Releases Audio Search Engine
–
+ GoFish Adds Song Lyrics Search Option
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+ The Search for Music
Cool!!!
–
+ A Visual Search Engine for Music
–
+ Ask Jeeves Adds Multimedia Search
Direct links to bios, pictures, downloads, and more.

Professional Reading Shelf
Community and Junior College Libraries–Awards
Source: ACRL
Unique student orientation idea wins ACRL Community and Junior College Libraries Section Program Award
Kudos on the creativity. Great idea! From the announcement, “The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is pleased to announce that Eva Lautermann, library director, Sherry Durren, information literacy librarian, and Lois Shelton, library technical assistant, of the Georgia Perimeter College Jim Cherry Learning Resources Center, have been chosen to receive the 2006 CJCLS/EBSCO Community College Learning Resources Program Achievement Award for their work on the CSI: Information Literacy orientation. Using the television series, CSI, as their inspiration, the librarians wrote a script and clues for the orientation program in order to help familiarize students with using the library.”
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Health Information–United Kingdom
Source: Kable’s Government News
Patient data venture begins
“A new NHS information service has been made available which draws on a database containing details of every contact a patient has had with health care providers.” Many services from the Dr. Foster service are fee based but they do offer a public site filled with several consumer-oriented services.
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Military Libraries–United States
Source: FCW
Homeland security library gets more searchable
“The Naval Postgraduate School is enhancing search capabilities within its digital library of homeland security information by using software from Teragram, company officials said today.”
See Also: More About Teragram Technology in this SEW Blog Post
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Business Research–United States–EDGAR
Source: GCN
SEC holds pre-proposal conference for EDGAR contract
–
Information Industry–ebrary
eBooks
Source: IWR
ebrary bulks out its e-books range and makes subs more flexible
“E-book provider Ebrary has extended its pricing models and added 8,000 new titles to its service.”
See Also: Did You Know that ebrary Also Offers a Service for Consumers Named Shop ebrary?
It costs very little and offers access to over 20,000 full text titles. Read the full text online (no limit). Just pay a very small amount to copy or print a page.

Search Briefs
+ New, Answers.com Adds Access to Legal Biographies and Legal Definitions from West’s Encyclopedia of American Law
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+ Convera Signs First Commercial Clients for Excalibur Search Technology
Deals with Vivisimo/Clusty, HighBeam, and CNET Networks. Bottom line? It looks like a new and large open web database will soon be accessible via one or more of these partners.

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Photography–Dictionaries
Source: askSam
New, The Photography Dictionary
Yet another free online searchable database (also available for offline work) from the askSam team. “Unique database of photography terms containing over 2,400 words and definitions. This dictionary contains a combination of many different photography dictionaries, glossaries, and other photography-related information. Search the dictionary by any word or phrase.”
–
Elections–United Kingdom
Source: House of Commons Library
New, Research Paper, Local and Mayoral Elections 2005
19 pages; PDF.
–
Patents–United States–Fast Facts
Source: USPTO
United States Patent & Trademark Office Issues 7 Millionth Patent
This announcement includes a bunch of “fast facts” about other “milestone” patents.

Enterprise Search
Video: Interview with John Lervik, CEO of FAST Search & Transfer
This interview (.WMV file) aired on CNBC Europe last month.

Enterprise Search
Video: Interview with John Lervik, CEO of FAST Search & Transfer
This interview (.WMV file) aired on CNBC Europe last month.

In the News
Internet–China–Censorship
Source: Various
Coverage of the U.S. House Of Rep. Hearing: The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression?

+ Politicians lash out at tech firms over China (via News.com)

Direct Links to Prepared Statements from Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations Hearing (2/15/06)
+ Hearing Notice and Speaker List
+ The Honorable Christopher H. Smith
+ The Honorable James A. Leach
+ Mr. James Keith, U.S. Department of State
+ The Honorable David Gross
+ Mr. Michael Callahan, Yahoo
+ Mr. Jack Krumholtz, Microsoft
+ Mr. Elliot Schrage, Google
+ Mr. Mark Chandler, Cisco
+ Ms. Libby Liu, Radio Free Asia
+ Mr. Xiao Qiang, China Internet Project University of California-Berkeley
+ Ms. Lucie Morillon, Reporters Without Borders
+ Mr. Harry Wu, China Information Center
+ Ms. Sharon Hom, Human Rights in China
–
Related News from February 14, 2006
+ U.S. task force eyes Net censorship in China, elsewhere (via Reuters)
+ Transcript of State Department Briefing
+ See Also: Internet firms caught between Chinese rules and U.S. demands for free speech (via AP, Canada Press)
–
See Also:
+ U.S. Internet Providers and the ‘Great Firewall of China’
+ China’s New Internet Restrictions
Two “Background Q&A” briefs from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Multimedia Corner
Lectures
Source: MIT
Innovation Everywhere–How the Acceleration of “GNR” (genetics, nanotechnology, robotics) Will Create a Flat and Equitable World
Raymond Kurzweil talks at MIT. “His main points: technology evolves exponentially; the rate of technical progress itself is accelerating, so expect to ’see 20,000 years of progress in the 21st century, about 1000 times greater than the 20th century.’ Before you can say, ‘Hold your horses,’ Kurzweil is off and running.”

Professional Reading Shelf
Privacy–Libraries
Source: Proceedings 68th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information
Science and Technology (ASIST) (via E-LIS)
Using Lessons from Health Care to Protect the Privacy of Library Users: Guidelines for the De-Identification of Library Data based on HIPAA
From the abstract: “While libraries have employed policies to protect the data about use of their services, these policies are rarely specific or standardized. Since 1996, the U.S. healthcare system has been grappling with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which is designed to provide those handling personal health information with standardized, definitive instructions as to the protection of data. In this work, the authors briefly discuss the present situation of privacy policies about library use data, outline the HIPAA guidelines to understand parallels between the two, and finally propose methods to create a de-identified library data warehouse based on HIPAA for the protection of user privacy.”
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Public Librarians–Weblogs
Source: Hartford Courant (via Government Innovators Network, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University)
Government Innovators Network: Article: Blogs focus on books; Librarian reaching parents, children
“Children’s librarian Ginny Brouseau has joined the ranks of sports fans, courtroom watchers, and political hounds. She’s a blogger. In December, Brouseau created two online blogs that help her communicate with parents and children — preschool through high school age — about library programs and new books.”
–
Web Search–Statistics
Source: GovTech
Online Searches Grow 55 Percent Year-Over-Year
“Nielsen//NetRatings reported that the total number of searches in the U.S. conducted across approximately 60 search engines grew 55 percent year-over-year to nearly 5.1 billion searches in December 2005. There were 3.3 billion searches conducted via search engines in December 2004. While the number of searches conducted online swelled, the number of people connecting to the Internet rose a mere three percent to 207 million people in the U.S.” Complete News Nielsen//NetRatings Release (PDF).
–
Digital Repositories–United Kingdom
Source: JISC
New, Digital repositories programme launches wiki and mailing list
” JISC’s Digital repositories programme, a 4m pounds JISC programme to enhance the implementation and development of digital repositories in the UK, has recently launched a wiki called DigiRep, managed by the Programme’s support team, writes Julie Allinson.”

Scholarly Publishing–Citation Reports
Source: ISI
+ UPDATED: Australia Country Rankings
Ten-year country rankings for Australia among the 147 top-performing countries in all fields and all countries.
+ Computer Science & Engineering: High-Impact U.S. Universities, 2000-04
+ South Korean Science, 2000-04
+ Journals Ranked by Impact: Electrical & Electronic Engineering
+ Canadian Universities: Most Prolific in Economics, 2000-04
+ What’s the HOT Paper in Biology
+ What’s the HOT Paper in Chemistry

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Hurricane Katrina
Source: Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina
A Failure of Initiative: The Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina
Thanks to Karen S. for the news tip. (via DocuTicker.com)
–
Poverty–United States–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census
The Effects of Government Taxes and Transfers on Income and Poverty: 2004
From the summary, “A U.S. Census Bureau report, The Effects of Government Taxes and Transfers on Income and Poverty: 2004, was released today. The report provides alternative national poverty rates that range from 8.3 percent, using a more comprehensive definition of income that includes the value of noncash benefits and excludes taxes, to 19.4 percent, using another definition of income that excludes all government payments and does not deduct taxes. The official U.S. poverty rate of 12.7 percent was announced last summer.”
–
Pacific Ocean–Maps
Source: National Geographic
Interactive Online Map, Pacific Ocean
New from the NG Map Machine.
–
Public Health
Source: OECD
Study projects growing pressure on public health spending over and above effects of aging society
Highlights only. “Public spending on health and long-term care in OECD countries will double by 2050, if present trends continue, reaching an average level equivalent to nearly 13% of GDP compared with 6.7% today. Even if governments manage to contain rising costs, spending would still amount to the equivalent of around 10% of GDP by the middle of the century.” Available: Key Findings (by Country, PDF) Table: Spending into health care and long-term care (PDF)
–
Phishing
Source: Anti-Phishing Working Group
December Phishing Activity Trends Report (PDF)

Search Briefs
+ Apply For Jobs at Google Using New Online Application
Now, when you find a job at Google you’re interested in having, you can apply online using this new “online application.”
–
+ An Interview with the CEO of Findory, Greg Linden (via Don Dodge)
Findory is a personalized blog and news search engine. Worth a look!!! Gary interviewed Linden in 2004.
–
+ Filter By Authority is Added to Technorati Search (via SEW Blog)
–
+ BitTorrent Search Will Be Available in Upcoming Release of Opera Web Browser
–
+ For the Tech Geek: Recent Technical Lectures (aka “TechTalks”) at the Googleplex (via Google Planet)

Briefly
Westlaw: Stay Updated on Critical Information with the New Westlaw Watch (New)

Mobile Search
+ 4INFO Mobile Comparison Shopping Search Now Powered by Shopping.com
4INFO continues to offer new and improved mobile search tools.