Archive for March, 2008
Monday, March 31st, 2008
From the news alert:
The focus of this issue is very much on Australasia. With a new Labor government in place since December 2007, Australia was expecting changes in research funding policy and procedure. The government is now beginning to announce these changes and the impact they will have.
In China, article output has increased 18% per annum over the last 10 years. We examine what is driving this growth and the effect it is having on the global research landscape.
Articles include:
+ Expert opinion: Social sciences literature in citation databases
Social scientists have traditionally published more often in monographs than journals, when compared to fundamental and applied science researchers. However, the last 40 years have seen a continuing trend towards publication in journals, resulting in more citation information for the social sciences being indexed in citation databases. Professor Charles Oppenheim assesses the databases with social sciences coverage.
+ Why did you cite…?
In this section, we ask authors what motivated them to cite certain references. This issue we talk to authors who cited Nobel Prize winners and ask whether winning the Nobel Prize has a positive effect on a scientist’s citation inflow.
Source: Research Trends
Posted in Citation Reports, Scholarly Publishing, Search News | No Comments »
Monday, March 31st, 2008
Study shows libraries work at supporting other languages
The American Library Association released “Serving Non-English Speakers in U.S. Public Libraries,” a study on the range of specialized library services for non-English speakers Wednesday at the Hennepin County Library’s New American Center.
The study found that Spanish is the most supported non-English language in public libraries. Seventy-eight percent of libraries reported Spanish as a priority language, after English, to which they develop services and programs. Asian languages ranked second in priority at 29 percent. Another
17.6 percent of libraries indicated Indo-European languages as a second priority.
Source: KSAX
See Also: Read the Full Text of the Report (via ALA)
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Search News | No Comments »
Monday, March 31st, 2008
Knowledge Management for Biomedical Literature: The Function of Text-Mining Technologies in Life-Science Research
Efficient information retrieval and extraction is a major challenge in life-science research. The Knowledge Management (KM) for biomedical literature aims to establish an environment, utilizing information technologies, to facilitate better acquisition, generation, codification, and transfer of knowledge. Knowledge Discovery in Text (KDT) is one of the goals in KM, so as to find hidden information in the literature by exploring the internal structure of knowledge network created by the textual information. Knowledge discovery could be major help in the discovery of indirect relationships, which might imply new scientific discoveries. Text-mining provides methods and technologies to retrieve and extract information contained in free-text automatically. Moreover, it enables analysis of large collections of unstructured documents for the purposes of extracting interesting and non-trivial patterns of knowledge. Biomedical text-mining is organized in stages classified into the following steps: identification of biological entities, identification of biological relations and classification of entity relations. Here, we discuss the challenges and function of biomedical text-mining in the KM for biomedical literature.
Source: International Technology, Education and Development Conference (via E-LIS)
Posted in Info Management and Retrieval, Papers and Presentations, Science, Source File | No Comments »
Monday, March 31st, 2008
The Conference on Convergence and Connectivity 2008: Broadband, Wireless and Mobile: Archived Conference Webcast
The Conference on Convergence and Connectivity 2008 (CCC 2008): Broadband, Wireless and Mobile brings together the best available input from industry, government and academia to develop a vision for digitally connected communities with an emphasis upon the applications and services delivered to public, private and individual users. By gathering leaders from different fields in a neutral setting, we hope to address opportunities created by digital communications technologies, as well as to develop guidance of values in a long-term strategy for future innovations.
The conference took place on Wednesday, March 26, 2008.
Source: Rice University
Posted in Webcasts and Podcasts, Wireless Web and Search | No Comments »
Monday, March 31st, 2008
Lists & Rankings: Brands With the Biggest Impact (2008)
What brands do people select as having the biggest impact in various situations?
Apple and Google top several of the lists.
All of the rankings can be accessed here.
Source: BrandChannel.com
Posted in Business and Economics, Lists and Rankings, Source File | No Comments »
Monday, March 31st, 2008
Unemployment Rate of U.S. Scientists and Engineers Drops to Record Low 2.5% in 2006
From the report:
The overall unemployment rate of scientists and engineers in the United States dropped from 3.2% in 2003 to 2.5% in 2006, according to data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT). This is the lowest unemployment rate measured by SESTAT since the early 1990s. It continues a trend of lower unemployment rates for scientists and engineers compared with unemployment rates in the rest of the U.S. economy. Comparable unemployment rates for the entire U.S. labor force in 2003 and 2006 were 6.0% and 4.7%, respectively.
Source: National Science Foundation
Posted in Business and Economics, Science, Statistics | No Comments »
Monday, March 31st, 2008
New Bibliography: Private Military Companies
Includes Internet resources, books, documents, periodicals, videos.
Source: Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center, Air University
Posted in Bibliographies, Webliographies, Source File | No Comments »
Monday, March 31st, 2008
Garmin enters deals with MapQuest, Google
Garmin International Inc. on Monday announced new deals with MapQuest Inc. and Google Inc. that will let consumers send data from Web sites directly to personal navigation devices.
Garmin International and MapQuest Inc. will jointly launch a new feature that can send trip-planning results from MapQuest.com to consumers’ Garmin devices. Garmin International and Google Inc. will offer a service that enables Garmin device users to send location information found on Google Maps directly to their Garmin devices.
Source: Kansas City Business Journal
Posted in Geographic, Information Industry, Search News | No Comments »
Sunday, March 30th, 2008
USA Counties — Downloadable data files have been created to accompany the web-based
USA Counties. Now users can download directly more than 5,900 data items from the Web site for the United States, the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and all 3,141 counties and county equivalents.
Information in USA Counties covers topics such as: age, agriculture, ancestry, banking, building permits, business patterns, crime, earnings, education, elections, employment, government, health, households, housing, income, labor force, manufactures, population, poverty, retail trade, social programs, veterans, vital statistics, water use, and wholesale trade.
Source: U.S. Census
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Source File | No Comments »
Sunday, March 30th, 2008
NOAA Debuts “Nautical Charts” As New Elementary Multimedia Educational Tool
is launching today a new multimedia elementary educational program, Nautical Charts, at the annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association in Boston.
Designed in cooperation with NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey for students at the third through fifth grade level, the media rich activity teaches young people about charting and navigation. Nautical Charts is available online at http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/nautical_charts/.
The activity uses animation to teach chart symbols, safe boating, and why nautical charts are important. Students have access to movies, sounds, pictures, and links to other resources. This activity uses the same characters and methodology employed in a similar multimedia tool, Sea Floor Mapping, launched last year online at http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education_new/seafloor-mapping/welcome.html.
Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Posted in Education, Online Education, Resources for Educators, Science, Source File | No Comments »
Sunday, March 30th, 2008
Herald librarian one of a kind
Salt-and-pepper braid to her waist, cigarette in hand, Rose Klayman was a fixture in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood.
Slowly, haltingly, she’d make her way up Biscayne Boulevard from Northeast 26th Street, where she lived, to Boulevard Liquors at 30th Street, where she helped out.
(sic) and famously quirky retired Miami Herald librarian — dead in her $650 second-floor efficiency. She was 71.
A hard-drinking, two-pack-a-day smoker who swore like a sailor, Rose Klayman died of respiratory failure.
She joined The Miami Herald in the 1960s, left ”in a huff” in 1970, according to one-time supervisor Gay Nemeti, then was lured back in 1984 because she was “a newspaper junkie.”
She took a buyout in 2001.
”We all did everything back then,” Nemeti said. “She was a database editor, then photo librarian. She had encyclopedic memories and knew how to ferret everything out of the files.”
…
Among other things, she had been a Saks Fifth Avenue sales clerk and a Playboy Club “bunny.”
She was married once, to David Klayman, more than a decade her junior. He went to prison on drug charges and died in 2003.
”She was crazy in love with him,” Nemeti said.
Source: Miami Herald
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Search News | No Comments »
Saturday, March 29th, 2008
From the post:
Google and Microsoft’s personal health record databases will be integrated into the Nationwide Health Information Network, according to an official in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. The federal health IT official also said that the NHIN will be expanded to include multicommunity integrated health systems.
Source: iHealthBeat
Posted in Information Industry, Search News, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Saturday, March 29th, 2008
OCLC Programs and Research Offers Online PARcasts
The first (and second) in a new series of podcasts and webinars from Programs and Research staff is now available on the OCLC Web site.
The podcasts are recorded impromptu interviews in which Programs and Research staff ask the question, “What’s keeping you awake at night?” to selected people who are thinking ahead, worrying about big issues or imagining the next big thing.
The first podcast is now available, in which RLG Program Officer Merrilee Proffitt interviews RLG Program Partner Mark Dimunation, Chief of the Rare and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress, about “The Value of Physical Artifacts in an Increasingly Virtual World”
Direct to PARcasts
Source: OCLC
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Search News | No Comments »
Saturday, March 29th, 2008
Authenticated Public and Private Laws
GPO is pleased to announce the release of Authenticated Public and Private Laws for the 110th Congress on GPO Access.
Source: GPO Access
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Government Documents and Political Information, Source File | No Comments »
Saturday, March 29th, 2008
Posted in Best of DocuTicker, Source File | No Comments »
Friday, March 28th, 2008
EPA Officials Brief SLA on Plans to Reestablish Closed Libraries by September 2008
The Special Libraries Association (SLA) today met with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials to review the agency’s report to the U.S. Congress on the future direction of its library network. The report, submitted on 26 March, explains the steps EPA intends to take to reopen libraries closed over the last two years, and details how the agency will allocate an additional $1 million dollars for libraries provided in the FY08 EPA budget earmarked for that purpose.
…
The report lays out the general approach EPA plans to take for each library location to reopen, and establishes operational standards applicable to all libraries in the EPA network. Specific site plans are still in the works.
According to the report, “Over the next few months, EPA will continue communicate with the affected stakeholders (including employee unions) as specific plans for each library are finalized. The agency is committed to working with employees and outside parties on future digitization plans (based on the third party review), a customer needs assessment, and long term strategic planning efforts. This process will establish the future direction for EPA’s libraries consistent with Agency needs, stakeholder interests, and library best practices and trends. The agency will foster growth of an effective network of coordinated services provided by professional library staff that focus on the customer’s access.”
EPA has also requested that, as a major stakeholder in the future success of the libraries, SLA and its members continue to provide counsel as part of a workgroup that will review the proposed digitization strategy and provide feedback on the agency’s next steps.
+ EPA National Library Network Report to Congress (PDF; 52 KB)
Source: Special Libraries Association
Posted in Access to Information, Government Documents and Political Information, Libraries and Librarianship, Search News | No Comments »
Friday, March 28th, 2008
Adobe opens shop on Web-based Photoshop Express
Adobe Systems opened up Photoshop Express on Thursday, its long-anticipated Web-based image editor aimed at the millions of consumers that want a simple way to touch up, share, and store photos.
Photoshop Express, available for free with 2 gigabytes of storage at www.photoshop.com/express, is a significant departure from Adobe’s desktop software business and a big bet that it can make money offering Web services directly to consumers.
The application, which needs Flash Player 9 to run, pushes the limits of browser-based applications and will likely ratchet up the competition on the dozens of free and online photo-editing products available now (see our full review of Photoshop Express and gallery of screen shots of the application).
Source: CNET News.com
Posted in Software and Web-Based Applications, Source File, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
