Professional Reading Shelf
Digital Information
Libraries
Source: Ariadne
The April 2006 Issue of Ariadne is Now Available
Articles include:
+ Search Engines: Where We Were, Are Now, and Will Ever Be by Phil Bradley
+ Preserving Electronic Scholarly Journals: Portico
+ Retrospective on the RDN
Note: What’s the RDN? A resource we love.
+ Metasearch: Building a Shared, Metadata-driven Knowledge Base System
+ Folksonomies: The Fall and Rise of Plain-text Tagging
+ Serving Services in Web 2.0
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Art History–Imagery–Databases
Illinois Library Consortium Debuts Digitized Image Archive
“CARLI [Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois] has purchased the Saskia digital image archive from Scholars Resource. The collection contains 30,000 digital images of paintings, sculpture, and architecture, including images from many important collections: the Prado, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Uffizi, and the Louvre, as well as archaeological sites in Greece, Italy, Turkey, and Egypt. The images are displayed in both high resolution and thumbnail format. Additionally, the descriptive data about the images includes references to the occurrences of these images in 19 major art history texts…” Thanks to Bernie S. for the news tip.
See Also: Learn More about the Saskia Digital Image Archive

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Organized Crime–Database
Source: Nathanson Centre for the Study of Organized Crime and Corruption, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Organized Crime and Corruption Bibliographic Database
“Searches on this database can be performed in the title, author, or keyword fields. In addition, you may conduct an everywhere search that looks for a match in any of the title, author, keyword, or abstract fields…. We have compiled an extensive catalogue of keywords that are unique to organized crime. Using these keywords will help to refine your search and produce more accurate results.” Extensive help is available.
See also: Organized Crime in North America and the World: A Bibliography
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Spam–Lists & Rankings
Source: Sophos
The Top 12 Spam Relaying Countries

Search Briefs
+ Yahoo and the Yellow Pages (via Searchblog)

Multimedia Shelf
Internet Regulation–United States
Source: Oxford Internet Institute
Lecture (Webcast): Recent Developments in FCC Internet Regulation
This presentation was given about 10 days ago at Oxford Unversity. “Susan Crawford summarizes recent changes by the FCC on ‘common carrier’ rules, and assesses the current U.S. debate about the provision of a ‘prioritized Internet’.” Professor Crawford is a faculty member at Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University.

Professional Reading Shelf
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh–Economic Impact
Source: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Economic Development
Economic Impact Study: Regional Benefits of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
“With more than 2 million visitors annually, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is the area’s most visited regional asset. Yet, despite its 110-year history, the library has never quantified its contributions to the region. In 2005, the library partnered with Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Economic Development to explore the many ways that Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh impacts the economic vitality of the region. The report examines both the library’s value to the economy in terms of return on investment as well as its contributions to people and their communities.”
Highlights (PDF; 81 KB) Full Report (PDF; 1.7 MB)
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E-Textbooks
Source: The New York Times
The Bottom Line on E-Textbooks
“In one of the largest pushes to date, electronic versions of assigned textbooks are being made widely available for the first time, right next to their print counterparts at campus bookstores (before, you mostly found them through online specialty stores or directly through publishers, if at all). MBS Direct, which sells some 700 college textbooks in digital form, started the program at 10 campuses last fall and 31 this spring. Interest has been modest — about 5 percent of the total sales for a given text — but that’s encouraging enough to expand to more than 300 campuses next semester, says Dennis Flanagan, chief executive of MBS Direct.”

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Terrorism
Source: U.S. Department of State
Just Released: Country Reports on Terrorism
“U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism.” Download in sections as PDFs.
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Presidents of the United States–Speeches
Source: Miller Center, University of Virginia
Miller Center Presidential Speech Collection
“The Scripps Library, through cooperation with various presidential libraries, has been collecting some of the more important presidential speeches of the past 60 years. These speeches are available in their entirety in full audio. When possible, we have also provided transcripts of the speeches. Recently we have expanded our collection to include the full text of some of the more important presidential speeches from the 18th and 19th centuries.”
See Also: WhiteHouseTapes.org (A ResourceShelf Site of the Week)
See Also: Presidential Reference Files–Bibliographies

DocuTicker
Best of DocuTicker
DocuTicker is ResourceShelf’s sister site and is updated daily with a wide variety of new full text reports on many topics from government agencies, think tanks, ngo’s and many other organizations.

+ Gasoline Price Spikes and Regional Gasoline Content Regulation: A Structural Approach

+ World Health Organization releases new Child Growth Standards

+ U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress (PDF; 43 KB)

+ Vertex 2005 Sales Tax Rate Report (PDF; 143 KB)

+ Teen Relationship Abuse Survey (PDF; 100 KB)

+ The Devaluing of Higher Education: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession 2005-06

Professional Reading Shelf
Open Source
Information Retrieval
Workshop Info and CFP: Second International Workshop on Open Source Information Retrieval
“The goal of the Open Source Information Retrieval Workshop (OSIR) is to bring together practitioners developing open source search technologies in the context of a premier IR research conference to share their recent advances, and to coordinate their strategy and research plans. The intent is to foster community-based development, to promote distribution of transparent Web search tools, and to strengthen the interaction with the research community in IR.”
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Digitsation
Source: The Electronic Library (via E-LIS)
Developing a Digitisation Framework for your organisation
This paper describes how a Digitisation Framework was set up at the University of Auckland Library from 2001 - 2004. The elements of the framework are discussed, how it was developed and implemented and what was learnt from this. The purpose of the paper is to help organisations of any size and type to set up their own digitisation framework in the near future.

Search Briefs
+ Yahoo Brings Babel Fish Translation Service into Suite of Services
Let’s review:
+ AltaVista’s Babelfish Translation Service Debuts on Web (12/9/1997)
+ Overture buys AltaVista (2/18/2003)
+ AltaVista Purchased by Yahoo (7/15/2003)
+ New: Yahoo Branded Version of Babel Fish Debuts on Web (4/27/2006)
The service has never left the Internet. What’s new is the Yahoo branding and a separate web page along with two new translation options: Two more language pair choices: Simplified Chinese into Traditional Chinese, and Traditional Chinese into Simplified Chinese. Systran technology continues to power the Babel Fish service. Direct to Yahoo Babel Fish. Btw, the AltaVista interface to Babel Fish remains online. The AV version also offers a world keyboard while the Y version does not.
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+ Yahoo To Create Better Portals Globally (via SEW Blog)
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+ SideStep Launches Activity Search (via SEW Blog)

Resources, Reports, Tools, Lists, and Full Text
Maps–China
Source: MapAsia.com
MapAsia.com
“Search the location and information of more than 50,000 geographic records including cities, towns, roads, streets, landmarks, and facilities in Asia on an interactive digital map.”
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Business–China
Source: US Commercial Service
Doing Business In China: A Country Commercial Guide for U.S. Companies
227 pages; PDF. Thanks to SB for the tip.
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Energy Industry–Research Guide
Source: Business and Economics Research Advisor (BERA)/Business Reference Services
Science, Technology & Business Division Library of Congress
New: The Oil & Gas Industry
BERA “The issue takes a global view of the industry and is intended to serve as a research aid for the discovery of interesting and useful sources worldwide. Included is a brief history of the oil and gas industry, oil and gas production, transportation and storage, marketing and distribution, as well as statistical sources, and a brief section on company research and finding aids. Sections on world natural gas production and alternative energy sources are also included in the guide.”
See Also: Past Issues
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Toll Collection–Glossary
Source: International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association
Glossary of Terms
“A list of specialized words related to the Toll Industry.” In alphabetical order, from AASHTO to WCDMA.

Briefly
+ UK: Winner of the 2006 CILIP/LiS Libraries Change Lives Award announced
and more news from CILIP…
+ Oil paintings, Science and Technology, and Ceramic tiles all featured among this year’s ISG (CILIP)/Nielsen BookData Reference Award winners

Web Search–Google
Source: Sales and Marketing Management
Google Execs Interviewed for a Sales and Marketing Magazine Cover Story (April 2006 Issue)
Note: This is a subscription only article. If/when it becomes available to non-subs, we’ll let you know*. The article (print version) includes comments from Marissa Mayer (she’s pictured on the cover, here’s the image) and Sheryl Sandberg, Google’s vice president of global online sales and services. From the table of contents, “An extended Q&A with Google’s vice president of global online sales and services, Sheryl Sandberg, to find out her thoughts on how their focus on products benefits its customers, how collaboration across departments is crucial to success, and what she looks for in new hires.”

* Note from Gary: As I’ve pointed out for a long time on ResourceShelf and elsewhere that many libraries of all types (including public) provide FREE full text access (for personal use) to databases that include hundreds, if not thousands, of publications (new and old). All of this from any web computer. Available 24×7x365. I just checked several dbases from local public libraries in my area and this article about Google is found (full text and full image) in several of them. Check with your library to see what you can access. Btw, it’s often more than articles but also ebooks (print and recorded). All you need is a library card. This article has much more on the topic.

Resource of the Week
By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor

Our regular ResourceShelf readers know we have a weakness for unusual digital library collections. This week, we’ll introduce you to one such collection and take a look at what else is available from the same institution.

Left Wing Politics–United States–Ephemera
Source: Richard Oestreicher, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh (hosted by the University of Pittsburgh’s Digital Research Library)
American Left Ephemera Collection
“The collection of American Left ephemera on this website reflects the personal collection of Richard J. Oestreicher, Associate Professor within the History department at the University of Pittsburgh. The material primarily documents three of the largest and most influential left-wing organizations in the twentieth century in the U.S.: Socialist Party of America (SPUSA), Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA), and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Digitized items include flyers, leaflets, pamphlets, posters, postcards, illustrations, photographs, pins, ribbons, and miscellaneous objects.”

A good place to start browsing here at Oestreicher’s overview of the collection. It talks about left and right “political designations,” which first came about during the French Revolution “when the Jacobins sat on the left in the National Assembly and the Girodins on the right.” (Who knew?) He describes major left-wing organizations in 20th century America, and some background on the collection itself.

The collection comprises 125 objects; you can search by keyword or browse thumbnails. Alternately, you can browse by organization:
+ Communist Party USA
+ Social Democratic Party
+ Socialist Labor Party
+ Socialist Party USA
+ Students for a Democratic Society

You can also browse by topic:
+ African-Americans and the Left
+ Ethnic Radicalism
+ The New Left
+ Spanish Civil War
+ Vietnam War

Each image record includes its title, creator, description, format, date, rights, and other information. You can view images in several sizes and/or zoom in and out on selected parts by using on-screen button options. You’ll also find annotated links to related collections.

While you’re here, you may want to take a look at some of the other collections put together by the Digital Research Library of the University of Pittsburgh’s University Library System. The Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections are particularly nice. Baseball fans might be interested in this one. You can search any or all of the collections from a single page.

Professional Reading Shelf
Cataloging
Source: American Libraries
MARC Creator Henriette Avram Dies
See Also: From 2004, Accomplishments and Other Info Henriette D. Avram (via University of Tennessee)
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Public Libraries–Readers Advisory
Source: StatesmanJournal.com (OR)
Salem library worker matches readers’ tastes with book titles
“If you’ve got a hankering for a book but can’t quite decide what, Robin Beerbower likely can help you. Beerbower, the Salem Public Library’s outreach coordinator, is known as one of the top readers’ advisers in the state — a person who specializes in suggesting books for patrons.”
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Digital Preservation
Source: LC
Library Holds Strategy Session on “Preserving Creative America”
Focus of session? Working with the commercial sector. “A recent Library of Congress strategy meeting with leading producers of commercial content in digital formats has revealed that creators of television, radio, music, film, photography, pictorial art, and video games are keenly interested in the preservation of their digital materials for archival and other purposes…The April 7 session, which drew more than 50 attendees from the private sector, focused on potential partnership projects between NDIIPP and the content producers. The Library plans to issue in 2006 a request for expressions of interest from private industry for cooperative projects as a way to catalyze preservation work in the private sector.”
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Librarians
Source: The Scientist
Rise of the Bio-Librarian
Access only available to subscribers of The Scientist. “Once the part-time, poorly paid province of postdocs and graduate students, biocuration has become a full-time, salaried career, driven by the explosive growth of biological data in recent years.”

Multimedia Shelf
Two archived lectures/webcasts.
+ Preserving Digital Public Television (via Library of Congress)
This presentation took place on March 8, 2006. “Project director Nan Rubin discussed the “Preserving Digital Public Television” project, which is funded with a dollar-for-dollar matching award from the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. The “Preserving Digital Public Television” project is exploring the selection and appraisal of programs for preservation, a variety of technical issues and the roles and responsibilities for long-term preservation within the public television community. Among other technical topics, the project is examining appropriate formatting for video preservation. One of the key contributions from New York University, which is also part of the project, is the development of a model digital repository to demonstrate several of the project’s technical findings.
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+ Journalism: “Send us your photos: How the Net makes us all reporters”
This presentation took place at Oxford University in October, 2005. “Nobody who uses the Internet or watches news programmes on TV can be unaware of the phenomenon of ‘citizen journalism’, found everywhere from personal blogs to sites like OhmyNews and Dan Gillmor’s Bayosphere to the BBC, CNN, Sky, and every other news outlet where people are invited to send in photos, videos, or eyewitness reports of any newsworthy event they happen to witness. Journalist and website editor Bill Thompson will discuss the likely impact of this new form of journalism on the mainstream media, attempting to place it in a historic context both technically and in terms of the way journalism has developed. He will look at the ethical issues which new forms of newsgathering and publication raise, both for contributors and for the news organisations which use their material, and consider how those training tomorrow’s journalists should respond.”