Word here that MSN Search is now offering current temps and a four day forecast when you enter weather (city name). Over on the Ask.com blog you’ll find this post with info about numerous weather related Smart Answers. Disclaimer: Gary was the co-author of the Ask post. Ask also offers climate info and disambiguation for locations (via a pull-down menu) if a user searches without a state or country. Example. Both a Google via a OneBox and a Yahoo via a Shortcut also provide weather info posted directly on web results page.

Exciting stuff. Librarians have always needed to do more in the recruitment arena.

From the news release:

First Lady Laura Bush announced $20,869,145 in grants from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. Thirty-five awards will go to universities, libraries, and library organizations across the country today to recruit and educate librarians. The grants are designed to help offset a current shortage of school library media specialists, library school faculty, and librarians working in underserved communities, as well as a looming shortage of library directors and other senior librarians, many of whom are expected to retire in the next 20 years.

A complete list of those receiving grants can be found here.

Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services

Metadata in a Global World
Source: OCLC Systems & Services (via E-LIS)
by Norm Medeiros, 2006
Abstract: This article reviews the DLF/NSDL draft publication, “Best Practices for Shareable Metadata.” The article highlights some of the areas where data providers typically fail in ensuring their metadata’s interoperability. The article closes with a brief summary of the RDA Forum held at the 2006 ALA Midwinter Meeting.

From the announcement:

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), with concurrence from the National Science Foundation (NSF), today signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding that provides an avenue for preserving valuable digital data collections. This collaboration marks the first time NARA has established an affiliated relationship for preserving digital data with an academic institution. Some of the digital data under SDSC’s technical stewardship was produced by or for agencies of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. The Memorandum of Understanding provides for governance of Federal electronic records and other Federal informational materials within the collections under applicable Federal laws, regulations and authorities.

Source: NARA

Yahoo Mail has always been accessible via Yahoo’s Mobile deck but today the company launched a beta of a new mobile mail service. The most notable change in the beta is that your mail is now searchable on your mobile device. Very useful.

You can view the Yahoo Mobile site on any browser at this url and view the Yahoo Mail beta here (assuming you have a Yahoo login). Compare with the current version of Yahoo Mail here.

MSN Mobile is also beta testing a mobile version of Windows Live Mail. Presently, Windows Live Mail Beta does not offer (are we missing the link?) a search function. For updates, see the Live Mail blog.

The mobile version of Gmail at http://m.gmail.com does provide a search option.

AOL’s Mobile Portal also offers access to AIM Mail Mobile but mail search is not available.

Yahoo began beta testing Yahoo Photos on their mobile platform a couple of months ago.

In case you don’t have Yahoo Mobile, a few screen caps follow:

+ Yahoo Mobile homepage
+ Yahoo Mail Mobile Beta page
+ Search box
+ Search results page
+ List of Actions, Found at Bottom of Each Message

*For the record, these screen caps were taken from a Treo 700P/Sprint using PDA Reach.

Adena Schutzberg from Directions Magazine offers a detailed review (a sneak preview really) of SkylineGlobe.com. Here you can register to be one of the first to know when it goes live. Sure sounds cool!

Adena writes:

The end user site has not been publicly launched, as I noted, but I got a sneak preview. A free downloadable 5Mb browser plug-in is required to access SkylineGlobe.com. That’s important; this is not a desktop app like Google Earth, but a plug-in. There’s also a professional version, SkylineGlobe Pro, that allows not just viewing, but the ability to author 3D environments and to collaborate. It runs $500/year.

Schutzberg goes on to say:

While the data are very nice, the tools are the stars of the show at SkylineGlobe.com. There’s a data creator for scribbling or marking points of interest. (With the Pro version you can annotate the SkylineGlobe terrain model: create, import, manipulate and edit new and existing objects.) There are traffic cams. Click on one in the list in the Tools pane and you fly to its location and see near real time images of traffic. In the demo, traffic cams are available from several dozen spots in Washington DC.

Isn’t competition fun! (-: Here’s a video demo (via News.com)

See: Also: More about Skyline here where it’s still possible to download their TerraExplorer software (free) and fly around several U.S. cities as well as London, Sydney, and Paris.

Foreign Language Test Database
“The Foreign Language Test Database is a searchable database of secondary and college level tests in languages other than English. We are in the process of expanding the database; it currently contains more than 140 tests in 63 languages. The database is maintained by the National Capital Language Resource Center, a joint project of Georgetown University, The George Washington University, and the Center for Applied Linguistics.”
Source: Center for Applied Linguistics

Forum Guide to the Privacy of Student Information: A Resource for Schools

This guide was written to help school and local education agency staff to better understand and apply FERPA, a federal law that protects privacy interests of parents and students in student education records.

Source: NCES

A new study from Thomson Medstat reports that migraine headaches cost U.S. employers more than $24 Billion annually in direct and indirect costs.

Thomson Medstat, conducted two studies analyzing the direct and indirect costs of migraine headaches among large U.S. employers. Sponsored by Ortho-McNeil Neurologics, Inc., the studies concluded that direct healthcare costs to American employers — including prescription drugs and in-patient, out-patient, and emergency room care — total approximately $12.7 billion annually. Indirect costs associated with migraine — including absenteeism, short-term disability, and workers’ compensation — total $12 billion annually.

Source: Thomson (via DocuTicker.com)

The 2006 list from the Society for Human Resource Management

+ Includes: Detailed List (sortable)
+ Profiles, photos, and videos.

Source: SHRM

Just Released by the National Science Foundation: Academic Institutional Profiles: 2003

Academic Institutional Profiles are produced annually by the Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Profiles are produced for universities and colleges that have reported nonzero data for the past 3 fiscal years in at least one of the following annual surveys:

Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges
Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering
Survey of Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges and Nonprofit Institutions
The profiles are updated as data from each survey are finalized and released. Trend data for selected years are displayed in statistical tables within each profile.

Each profile also includes the institution’s ranking on an aggregate measure for each survey in which the institution has a nonzero value for the latest survey year reported. Tied institutions are ranked alphabetically in the accompanying ranking tables.

Individual profiles can be selected either from the alphabetical list of institution names or through a search engine. Search options are institution name, partial name (e.g., “Texas”), or FICE code.

Source: NSF

A Report Prepared By Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Democratic Staff And Senate Democratic Policy Committee, June 28, 2006

The College Cost Crunch: A State-by-State Analysis of Rising Tuition and Student Debt
70 Pages; PDF.

Rising tuition and student loan debt is a national problem. No state has escaped the college cost crunch. But individual states have been affected to different degrees. This report provides information on the college affordability problem in each state as well as how students and their families in each state would benefit from Democratic proposals. The following tables and individualized state reports provide information for each state
on:

• The rising cost of college;
• The erosion of the value of the Pell Grant;
• The amount of student loan debt incurred by college graduates;
• The amount of family income needed to pay for college;
• The amount of savings if student loan interest rates were cut in half;
• The reduction in monthly costs if student loan payments were capped at 15
percent of a borrower’s discretionary income;
• The increase in the average Pell Grant award and the number of students
eligible
if the maximum Pell Grant were increased to $5,100; and
• The number of students and families who are likely to benefit from
re-instituting the college tuition tax deduction, which expired at the end of 2005.

Thanks to ResourceShelf Contributor Stuart Basefsky for the link and annotation.

• Timor-Leste Atlas Map (as of June 2006) (PDF, 153k)

• Sudan: Darfur field atlas (PDF, 96Mb)

• Sudan: Darfur humanitarian access map (PDF, 482k)

Source: ReliefWeb

New Full Text Books from the National Academies Press

• Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years (PrePub)
• Going the Distance? The Safe Transport of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste in the United States
• Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities

Source: National Academies Press

Direct to Full Text (33 pages; PDF)

From the Summary:

Given the ongoing growth of globalization, our practitioners and multinational clients asked for greater insight on the different perspectives of companies on fraud between developed and emerging markets.

The 9th Global Fraud Survey (pdf, 340kb) is the result of interviewing and listening to over 500 corporate leaders, including Chief Executive Officers, Chief Financial Officers, Chief Risk Officers, Internal Audit Directors, and business unit directors. They represent many of the world’s major organizations.

Since our 8th Global Fraud Survey in 2003, corporations have expended significant resources to assess and improve their internal controls. The concentrated efforts of those charged with governance, internal and external auditors, regulators, law enforcement and others, have led to considerable progress in preventing and detecting fraud. Corporations believe that they are better positioned to deter and detect fraud than ever before. Despite this belief, there is little evidence that clearly indicates fraud has reduced. In fact, one in five of the companies that we interviewed experienced significant fraudulent activity in the past two years.

Guba is a service that’s been around for years. In recent months they began offering a video upload service that will automatically and for free make your footage available in Flash, iPod, and PSP formats for viewing. Now, Guba has signed a distribution deal with Warner Brothers (more from TechCrunch) allowing you to rent (Video on Demand) or purchase (Download-To-Own), depending on the title a number of movies. From Syriana to Good Night and Good Luck to the Best in Show and the 1st Season of the Flinstones. Rentals (VOD) offers 24 hrs. of viewing time at $1.79 to $2.99. Here’s the full press release. Other players in this space include CinemaNow and MovieLink. We’re also big fans and users of Vongo which offers a large number of movies as well as a 24hr feed from Encore. It’s a flat rate service and depending on the film you can watch it as many times as you like until the license expires, often many months. You can also choose to have videos download when your computer is not busy. Vongo also offers a number of video-on-demand/24hr titles.

Shirl is taking the week off (very well deserved) from Resource of the Week this time around. Of course, she is continuing to post an amazing amount of new content on ResourceShelf’s sister site, DocuTicker.

This week’s Resource of the Week comes from RS Contributing Editor, librarian, and compiler of the IWS Documented News Service weblog, Stuart Basefsky. It’s a
reprint (with Stuart’s permission of course; thanks S.B.) of a recent IWS post that offers a great +overview of the many databases offered by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Resource of the Week
A Review of International Labor Organization Databases Accessible on the Web
by Stuart Basefsky, MLIS
Martin P. Catherwood Library, School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR), Cornell University
Director, IWS News Bureau, Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS)
Contributing Editor, ResourceShelf

ILO Databases
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/support/lib/dblist.htm

ILO databases are available in the following subject areas and nearly all of them are free and unrestricted.
+ Country and Regional Information

GLOBAL COMPACT (Country Information)

http://www.unglobalcompact.org/

Country information system on human rights, labour standards, and environmental protection. (Maintained by the United
Nations Global Compact Network with the participation of the ILO and UNEP)

 

+ Labour Legislation

APPLIS 

http://webfusion.ilo.org/public/db/standards/normes/appl/index.cfm?lang=EN

A database on the application of international labour standards

 

 

Conditions of Work and Employment
database 

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/condtrav/database/index.htm

Includes comprehensive legal information from countries around the world. Covers maternity protection, minimum wages,
working time. 

 

 

Corenit 

http://www.oit.org.pe/corenit/

Base de datos del Control Regular de Normas (in
Spanish) 

 

 

e.quality@work 

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/gems/eeo/index.htm

compilation of basic information on gender equality laws, policies and programmes, including international labour standards as well as national legislation, policies, practices and institutional arrangements introduced by governments, trade unions and public and private sector enterprises

 

 

ILOLEX 

http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/english/index.htm

A database on international labour standards containing ILO Conventions and Recommendations

Quick database search of: 

ILO Conventions

http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/english/convdisp1.htm

and

ILO Recommendations 

http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/english/recdisp1.htm

 

 

NATLEX 

http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex_browse.home?p_lang=en

A database of national labour law 

 

 

QVILIS 

http://www.oit.org.pe/qvilis_world/index.php

A database on complaints and violatons of trade union rights 

 

 

TRIBLEX 

http://www.ilo.org/dyn/triblex/triblex_browse.home

Thematic analysis of the case law of the ILO Administrative Tribunal 

(more…)

Word from Vivisimo (the Clusty people), the technology that powers FirstGovSearch.gov, Clustermed.info and other sites has signed a deal with Bitratings KK of Japan to bring Vivisimo’s dynamic clustering to mobile users in Japan.

Consumers will be able to access the new mobile search site in one click from the keyword search menu on KDDI phones or navigate to it by typing in the URL for the site on handsets offered by other carriers.

Traditionally, Japanese consumers searching on mobile Internet sites select search categories from a previously compiled list—keyword searching is difficult and hard to understand. Users have to scroll through multiple pages of search results to find information, a cumbersome process that prevents many consumers from attempting to perform searches via their mobile devices.

More in this news release.

See Also: For the Life Science Searcher: Have You Tried Vivisimo’s Biometacluster.com? Free!

Metadata – general introduction, Discovery metadata, and Other types of metadata
Presentations by Michael Day, UKOLN (University of Bath)

• Cataloguing online resources: an introduction to metadata for librarians

Manchester, UK; 56 slides

• Other types of metadata -METS, PREMIS, …

38 slides.

See Also: Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information (Version 2.1)
Full text book from The Getty. Written by Tony Gill, Anne J. Gilliland, Mary S. Woodley. Edited by Murtha Baca

Earlier today, Philipp Lenssen over on Google Blogoscoped (one of the very best Google Blogs) posted a note about someone discovering “human hands” on scans of pages of books being digitized by Google as part of their Google Library Program. Yes, most likely a beta issue but it’s worth being on the lookout for.*

Last week, another story made the rounds on a library listserv, LIBREF, we believe. In this case the book was a compilation of plays by William Shakespeare and included some scanned fingers and other “stuff.” Instead of reposting some examples here, here’s a direct link to some examples that we contributed to GB late Wednesday.

*As we all know (but often forget) Google is not the first and not the only ones to be doing book digitization. Here’s just one example.

+ This post has details (U of T has been scanning books for years). You’ll also find a link to a story about an actual human “scanner” and a cool video of a scanning machine that operates in both manual and auto modes. The Univ of Toronto is contributior to the Open Content Alliance.

+ A recent article about U of Toronto Scanning: Building an Online Library, One Volume at a Time (via WSJ, free)

+ A video of Book Scanning Robot at the University of Toronto in action.

See Also: Philipp Lenssen is also the author of 55 Ways to Have Fun With Google. The full text (in PDF) is available here. Worthy of your attention. Few, very few, know more about G that P.L. Hopefully, he’ll write other books about other engines. (-:

See Also: Since it appears that Lenssen thinks that sleep is overrated or he’s just the most productive person on Earth, Philipp is also the creator and developer of the wonderful Games for the Brain site. Invigorating summer fun (or winter fun for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere.