Archive for May, 2007
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
USGS Pilot Project Makes High-Quality Landsat Data Available Through Web
As of June 4, 2007, the USGS will be releasing selected Landsat 7 image data of the United States through the Web (glovis.usgs.gov or earthexplorer.usgs.gov). These data are of high quality with limited cloud cover.
This Web-enabled distribution of new and recently acquired data is a pilot project for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), currently projected for launch in 2011. The project will allow the Landsat data user community to help refine the distribution system planned for the upcoming LDCM. Each scene will be registered to the terrain, or “ortho-rectified,” prior to being placed on the Web. Copies of these data will also be available on CD or DVD at the cost of reproduction.
Source: USGS
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Government Documents and Political Information, Resources for Educators, Source File | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
Libraries: Damage to 300-year-old diary mean some serious questions need to be asked at the British Library
The British Library hasn’t had the best of months, what with the recent passing of its architect Sir Colin St John (Sandy) Wilson, The Times also revealed that a 300 year old diary entrusted into the libraries care had suffered severe damage.
The diary of a prominent Jacobite rebel, Thomas Tyldesley, was given to the British Library for safekeeping in 1994. But since then, someone had spilt oil across the pages and cut off its original leather front cover. It emerged later the diary had taken additional damage from damp, mould and mildew.
Source: IWR Blog
See Also: How British Library allowed 300-year-old diary to be ruined (via Times of London)
Posted in Archives and Special Collections, Libraries and Librarianship, Preservation/Conservation, Search News | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
Imagery of Saturn Added to NASA’s World Wind 3D Digital Globe
This addon includes Saturn, Patrick Murris’s Planetary Rings plugin, moons, feature names, and some physical properties of the rings.
World Wind also includes:
+ Earth
+ Moon
+ Mars
+ Venus
+ Jupiter
+ Sloan Digital Sky Survey
+ Mercury
Source: World Wind Central
Posted in Resources for Educators, Science, Software and Web-Based Applications, Source File | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
The May/June Issue of CLIR Issues is Now Available
+ National Centers for Cyberinfrastructure: CLIR’s Strategic Contribution
+ Searching Isn’t Everything
+ Humanists Receive Library Fellowships
+ CLIR Names 2007 Rovelstad Scholarship Recipient
+ 2007-2008 Mellon Dissertation Fellows Named
Source: Council on Library and Information Resources
Posted in Info Management and Retrieval, Libraries and Librarianship, Search News, Web Search | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
+ TextMap Adds World News Analysis and Animations
Our second mention of this very interesting research tool on ResourceShelf.
TextMap tracks references to people, places, and things appearing in news text, so as to identify meaningful relationships between them. TextMap monitors the state of the world by analyzing both the temporal and spatial distribution of these entities. We currently analyze over 1000 domestic and international news sources every day. TextMap uses natural language processing techniques to identify entity references and a variety of statistical techniques to analyze the juxtapositions between them.
See Also: TextBlog, A Blog Search Engine, TextMed (Medical Search) and TextBiz
Source: SUNY, StonyBrook
+ Loki for Mac Now Available!
We’ve been using it for months on our PC. Cool and very useful.
+ Create Your Own Newsletters in Factiva.com
+ Google Developer Day Will Be Webcast This Thursday
+ Google deal said to bring U.S. scrutiny (via NY Times)
See Also: Google 8-K Filing Regarding this Matter
+ The Royal Library of Denmark Breaks New Ground with Primo
+ Google Maps takes it to the streets (via News.com)
We talked about this feature last week and also listed a couple of other services that offer street-level imagery in France and Spain and other locations.
+ Microsoft Virtual Earth: New York, New York in VE3D (via VE Blog)
Posted in Information Industry, Search News | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
Afghanistan 2007
Source: Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center, Air University
Contents
* General Information
* Culture and Customs — General
* Culture and Customs — Women
* Economic Aspects
* Foreign Relations — General
* Foreign Relations — United States
* Global War on Terrorism
* History
* Narcotics Trade
* NATO in Afghanistan
* Politics and Nation-Building
* Security and Defense — General
* Security and Defense — United States in Afghanistan
o United States — General
o Appropriations and Expenditures
o Operation Enduring Freedom
Posted in Bibliographies, Webliographies, Source File | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
The March 2007 Issue of the Internet Resources Newsletter is Now Online
Like they do each and every month, Roddy MacLeod and his team from Heriot-Watt University Library in the UK gather numerous links to high quality web resources. Yes, as we are often asked, the work of Roddy MacLeod was and remains a motivating force to the entire ResourceShelf team.
See Also: The Heriot-Watt Team Also Offers the Cool, TechXtra
Find articles, key websites, books, the latest industry news, job announcements, ejournals, eprints, technical reports, the latest research, thesis & dissertations and more!
See Also: We First Mentioned TechXtra in this June 2006 Resource of the Week post.
Posted in New Websites and Resources, Resources for Educators, Source File | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
From the news release:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched the Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog, a five-week-long blog about pandemic preparedness. Participant bloggers include some of the nation’s most influential business, health care, faith-based and community leaders. This online event is part of a new campaign to help Americans prepare for a potential influenza pandemic and engage U.S. leaders in the challenge to help others prepare.
“The conversation about individual preparedness for pandemic flu must extend nationwide through all possible channels, including social media and the Internet,†HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said. “The blog summit is an innovative and efficient forum for bringing together leaders for a lively discussion on the pandemic preparedness movement. Comments are welcome and encouraged by all who visit the blog…
Direct to: Pandemic Flu Leadership Weblog
Source: HHS
Posted in New Websites and Resources, Resources for Educators, Science, Source File, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
This is just a small sample of the timeline resources the BBC offers. We will be listing more in the near future.
+ British History Timeline (Interactive)
Explore all of British history, from the Neolithic to the present day, with this easy-to-use interactive timeline. Browse hundreds of key events and discover how the past has shaped the world we live in today.
+ UK: Prime Ministers and Politics Timeline and Bios
+ Prime Ministers and Politics and Timelines
+ Space Exploration Timeline
+ Genocide Under the Nazis Timeline
A unique timeline depicting the events that led to genocide
+ World War II
+ Wales: Religion and Beliefs Timeline
+ Ancient Greece Timeline
+ History of R&B (1940-)
+ BBC World Series Timeline
+ BBC TV Timeline
U.S. Focus:
+ US school shootings
+ U.S. Railroad Accidents
+ US-Cuba relations
Source: BBC
Posted in Chronologies and Timelines, History, Resources for Educators, Source File | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
Canada: Update 2007: Collection and Preservation of Web-Based Provincial/Territorial Government Publications
by Andrew Hubbertz
17 pages; PDF.
From the intro:
The 2005 study, which preceded this one, surveyed members of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) and Canadian provincial and territorial legislative libraries.1 One of the findings from that study was that legislative libraries were the principal players in the collection and preservation of web-based government information. The notable exception was the province of Quebec, where Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), formerly the Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, is charged with that role. In most cases, the provincial and territorial legislative libraries have been collecting the publications of their jurisdictions in print for many years. In some cases, this is an informal arrangement, in many it is legally mandated, as it is as well for the BAnQ. In some jurisdictions, the legal mandate has been formally extended to electronic publications. In spring 2007, CARL engaged the author to update the 2005 study. Given what was learned in 2005, no attempt was made to revisit CARL libraries. And the legislative libraries and BAnQ, when approached, were simply asked to describe what activities, if any, they have undertaken. There has been no attempt to utilize a survey instrument or to gather statistics across these jurisdictions.
Source: CARL (Canadian Research Libraries
Posted in Access to Information, Digital Preservation, Digital Repositories, Digitization Projects, Government Documents and Political Information, Search News | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
Fiftieth Anniversary of First Digital Image Marked
It was 50 years ago this spring that National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now known as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST) computer pioneer Russell Kirsch asked “What would happen if computers could look at pictures?†and helped start a revolution in information technology.
Source: NIST
Thanks to Pete Weiss for the news tip.
Posted in Digital Preservation, Search News, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
From the 2007 Spring Meeting:
Podcasts from CNI’s 2007 Spring Task Force Meeting
Stephen Murray – Professor of Art History & Archeology at Columbia University. Professor Murray has developed an online database that presents his unique research — chronicling the documentation of over 100 Romanesque structures through comprehensive digital photography and three-dimensional QuickTime Virtual Reality panoramas.
Peter Brantley – new Executive Director of the Digital Library Federation. In this interview, he talks about the digital library landscape and the challenges that lie ahead.
Jack McCredie – Associate Vice Chancellor, Emeritus, CIO, Emeritus, and Senior Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He discusses collaboration between departments, campuses, and institutions and the issues and challenges facing system unification.
Marc Smith (Part I) – Senior Research Sociologist at Microsoft Research (MSR) specializing in the social organization of online communities and computer mediated interaction. In this first part of our interview he looks at online communities and collective action. We also discuss some of the projects he and his colleagues are researching.
Source: Coalition for Networked Information
Posted in Access to Information, Info Management and Retrieval, Information Seeking, Search News, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE) has just announced its first international Digital Preservation Challenge. The challenge invites participants to overcome the barriers hindering access to six digital objects. The first Digital Preservation Challenge is open to individuals from any country or discipline.
More info and rules here.
Source: DigitalPreservationEurope (via Nestor)
Posted in Digital Preservation, Digital Repositories, Search News | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
The Air Force Handbook 2007 (PDF; 16.7 MB)
This handbook highlights the tools and capabilities that empower our Airmen, both on the ground and in the air to be success- ful in their warfighting endeavors and the defense of the nation.
The systems and equipment highlighted in the following pages showcase the technological lengths to which we will go to ensure that we will now and in the future continue to be the world’s most capable Air Force as we fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace.
This handbook is a tool just like the equipment listed within its pages. Use it as the resource for which it was intended and together we will continue to focus on winning the Global War on Terror and ensuring the safety and security of our great nation and its citizens.
Source: United States Air Force (via Federation of American Scientists/Secrecy News)
Link and description via ResourceShelf’s sister site, DocuTicker.com.
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Government Documents and Political Information, History, Resources for Educators, Source File | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
Canada: Your Guide to Data Sources on Census-related Topics
In this online guide you will find lists of surveys and data sources available at Statistics Canada. Used to obtain information on a variety of subjects, including census-related topics, these surveys and data sources complement the existing information obtained through the census.
There are three ways to access the information. The first is through the list of 14 census-related topics. The second is by type of survey. The third is by using the A to Z survey list.
To view data tables, you may access free summary tables which provide an overview of statistical information on Canada’s people, economy and governments. Additional information is also available in CANSIM ($), your online resource for socio-economic statistics.
Source: Statistics Canada
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Resources for Educators, Source File, Statistics | No Comments »
