Archive for November, 2008
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
DoD launches national resource directory for wounded warriors
The Department of Defense today launched the National Resource Directory, a collaborative effort between the departments of Defense, Labor and Veterans Affairs.
The directory is a Web-based network of care coordinators, providers and support partners with resources for wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans, their families, families of the fallen and those who support them.
“The directory is the visible demonstration of our national will and commitment to As new links are added each day by providers and partners, coverage from coast to coast will grow even greater ensuring that no part of that journey will ever be made alone,” said Lynda C. Davis, Ph.D., deputy under secretary of defense for military community and family policy.
Located at www.nationalresourcedirectory.org/ , the directory offers more than 10,000 medical and non-medical services and resources to help service members and veterans achieve personal and professional goals along their journey from recovery through rehabilitation to community reintegration.
Source: National Guard
See also: DoD launches ‘Wounded Warrior Diaries’
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, New Websites and Resources, Source File | No Comments »
Friday, November 21st, 2008
European library site crashes hours after launch
European culture went digital — but it only lasted a day.
A massive online library and museum project crashed within 24 hours of its launch after millions sought to view treasures collected from museums, national libraries and archives, the European Union said Friday.
“We are doing our utmost to reopen Europeana in a more robust version as soon as possible,” the http://www.europeana.eu site said. “We will be back by mid-December.”
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Search News, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Friday, November 21st, 2008
World’s Best Colleges and Universities
U.S. News & World Report is proud to publish our first ever World’s Best Colleges and Universities rankings. These rankings are based on data from the THE-QS World University Rankings, which were produced in association with QS Quacquarelli Symonds. QS Quacquarelli Symonds, one of the world’s leading networks for careers and education, has been publishing world rankings since 2004. These rankings have obtained increasing influence among academics worldwide and have a growing impact among prospective students and government policymakers.
The U.S. News World’s Best Colleges and Universities rankings enable our readers to understand more fully how well American institutions perform when compared with other institutions of higher learning around the world. The bottom line is that they perform very well: Nearly 60 schools in the Top 200 Universities Worldwide are in the United States.
1. Harvard University (United States)
2. Yale University (United States)
3. University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
4. University of Oxford (United Kingdom)
5. California Institute of Technology (United States)
+ World’s Best Colleges and Universities: Top 200
Posted in Education, Lists and Rankings, Source File | No Comments »
Friday, November 21st, 2008
Fair Use Economy Represents One-Sixth of U.S. GDP
Fair Use exceptions to U.S. copyright laws are responsible for more than $4.5 trillion in annual revenue for the United States, according to the findings of an unprecedented economic study released today. According to the study commissioned by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and conducted in accordance with a World Intellectual Property Organization methodology, companies benefiting from limitations on copyright-holders’ exclusive rights, such as “fair use” generate substantial revenue, employ millions of workers, and, in 2006, represented one-sixth of total U.S. GDP.
The exhaustive report, released today at a briefing on Capitol Hill, quantifies for the first time ever the critical contributions of fair use to the U.S. economy. The timing proves particularly important as the debates over copyright law in the digital age move increasingly to center stage on Capitol Hill. As the report summarizes, in the past twenty years as digital technology has increased, so too has the importance of fair use. With more than $4.5 trillion in revenue generated by fair use dependent industries in 2006, a 31% increase since 2002, fair use industries are directly responsible for more than 18% of U.S. economic growth and nearly 11 million American jobs. In fact, nearly one out of every eight American jobs is in an industry that benefits from current limitations on copyright.
+ Full Report (PDF; 2.28 MB)
Source: Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA)
Posted in Business and Economics, Intellectual Property, Search News, Source File | No Comments »
Friday, November 21st, 2008
Top Ten Coast Guard Rescues (Word; 43 KB)
From press release:
The U.S. Coast Guard will announce during a ceremony Saturday in Grand Haven, Mich., that it has rescued more than one million persons since it was established in 1790.
…
The number of lives saved was calculated by the Coast Guard historian’s office through research of logs and records from the Coast Guard, the Revenue Cutter Service, the US Life-Saving Service, the Lighthouse Service and other agencies that eventually became the modern Coast Guard. In addition to tallying the total number of lives saved, the historian’s office has compiled a list of the top ten rescues in the Coast Guard’s history. The list shows the breadth of the Coast Guard’s efforts to save lives in peril on the seas for over 217 years.
“While this top-ten list is subjective, it certainly conveys the heroism of our people conducting this vital mission,” said Rear Adm. Mary Landry, director of governmental and public affairs.
+ Coast Guard rescue videos
Posted in Lists and Rankings, Source File | No Comments »
Friday, November 21st, 2008
Assessing and Improving the Safety of Internet Search Engines (PDF; 519 KB)
In principle, search engines’ listing rules, ranking rules, and advertising policies might shield users from some bad practices, and users’ good judgment could protect them from others. But empirically, search engines often lead users to dangerous content. My analysis of search engine safety finds bad practices among approximately 5% of search results for popular keywords, or roughly one site per page of search results.
Source: The Power of Search Engines (via HBS Working Knowledge)
Posted in Search News, Source File, Web Search | No Comments »
Friday, November 21st, 2008
Credit Card Glossary: Terms and Definitions
Confused by credit card terms? CreditCards.com’s glossary of credit card definitions will help. From account holder to Regulation Z, we have defined the most-common and most-confusing credit card terms.
Source: CreditCards.com
Posted in Business and Economics, Glossaries, Source File | No Comments »
Friday, November 21st, 2008
Posted in Best of DocuTicker, Source File | No Comments »
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
North American Transportation Statistics
From Introduction:
Statistics On-Line Database presents information on transportation and transportation-related activities among Canada, the United States and Mexico, both within individual countries and between the countries. This database, presented in French, English, and Spanish is, accessible in table and time series formats, and covers twelve thematic areas, including transportation and the economy, transportation safety, transportation’s impact on energy and the environment, passenger and freight activity, and transportation and trade.
This On-Line Database currently contains 31 tables with additions planned for the future, and allows users to obtain both value data in any of the three national currencies and volume data in metric or U.S. measurement units via the time series function. Data in table or time series format can be printed or downloaded for further processing and analysis. For most tables, data are available for 1990, 1995 to 2004. The data will be updated on a regular basis, thus a few tables already contain more recent data.
The On-Line Database updates a subset of tables and figures from the North American Transportation in Figures report published in 2000. The report, also released in French, English and Spanish, includes data for 1990, 1995 and 1996, with value data reported only in current U.S. dollars and all measurement units in metric.
Source: Statistics Canada and Transport Canada from Canada; the Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT) (Ministry of Communications and Transportation), the Instituto Mexicano del Transporte (IMT) (Mexican Institute of Transportation) and the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (INEGI) (National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics) from Mexico; and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and the U.S. Census Bureau from the United States.
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Source File, Statistics | No Comments »
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
From the article:
The British Library in London is among more than 1,000 cultural organisations making contributions to a European online library.
The free multimedia venture, Europeana, will also see input from the European Commission and the Louvre Museum.
Internet users will be able to access more than two million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archive documents, paintings and films.
These will be sourced from institutions across the EU’s member states.
Source: BBC
Direct to European Digital Library
See Also: Learn More About Europeana
Backround, contact info, and history.
Source: BBC
See also: France Dominates Europe’s Digital Library (New York Times)
Posted in Access to Information, Archives and Special Collections, Libraries and Librarianship, New Websites and Resources, Search News, Source File, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
Clustering Tags in Enterprise and Web Folksonomies
Tags lack organizational structure limiting their utility for navigation. We present two clustering algorithms that improve this by organizing tags automatically. We apply the algorithms to two very different datasets, visualize the results and propose future improvements. Publication Info: To be published and Presented at International Conference on Weblogs & Social Media, Seattle, March 31st, 2008
+ Full Paper (PDF; 231 KB)
Source: HP Labs
Posted in Info Management and Retrieval, Papers and Presentations, Social Media, Source File, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
New Google Watching Service Launched by ArnoldIT.com
Blogger and technology expert Stephen Arnold has launched a free service (www.arnoldit.com/overflight) that aggregates the headlines from Google’s own blogs. Overflight, “An ArnoldIT.com Intelligence Service,” is an RSS aggregation service that aggregates the headlines from Google’s 74 weblogs. The most recent headlines are grouped using the same categories that Google favors. A fee-based service offers more bells and whistles.
SOurce: Information Today NewsBreaks
Posted in New Websites and Resources, Search News, Source File, Web 2.0, Web Search | No Comments »
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
Who’s Who to vet U.S. vets after Tribune report
Who’s Who, the country’s biographical reference standard since its founding in Chicago 110 years ago, spends up to $1.5 million a year checking the educational and work histories submitted by those listed in the volume.
But military decorations? “We never thought anybody would be dumb enough” to lie about those, said Who’s Who publisher Jim Pfister, so Who’s Who never vetted those. Now it will.
Pfister, himself a decorated Vietnam veteran, decided to do so after a Tribune investigation discovered that a third of the medals for valor claimed by hundreds of Who’s Who “biographees” are not supported by their military records. “We will change some of our processes in scrutinizing the awards section,” he said.
See also: Claims of medals amount to stolen valor
See also: Top excuses for unverified medals of valor
Source: Chicago Tribune
Posted in Information Industry, Information Literacy, Search News | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Posted in Search News | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Top 10 Best Newspaper Websites
As a follow-up to our research on newspaper websites that we published recently, we decided to break out a list of the best examples of “good†newspaper websites. Steve, Todd and I collaborated on the following list, judging sites not only on their web features but also on the design, aesthetics and general usability of the site.
Top ten, in order, are New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Denver Post, Houston Chronicle, Knoxville News Sentinel, Fresno Bee, Austin American Statesman, Tennessean, San Jose Mercury News.
Source: Bivings Report
Posted in Lists and Rankings, Source File | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Online Map Shows Ease of Doing Business in 175 Countries
The World Bank Group has created the “Doing Business Map,” a visual learning tool to complement the Doing Business database, which provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 175 economies.
Take a trip around the world to discover how easy (or difficult) it is to do business in various developing countries. Click on green, yellow, or red placemarks to learn more about each country. Countries marked with a star were the top 10 reformers in 2005/06, the timeframe of the most recent Doing Business report.
Source: World Bank Group, International Finance Corporation
Posted in Business and Economics, Geographic, Source File | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Animal Testing: Launch of a new website to inform about the development of alternative methods
The European Commission has launched today a new website, the so-called ‘Tracking System for Alternative test methods Review Validation and Approval (TSAR)’, designed to track the development of new alternative test methods which should replace, reduce and refine current animal testing.
“The launch of this website is good news: it proves that we are serious about our commitment to develop alternative methods to animal testing and to be transparent about progress being made” said European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Poto?nik. “It is in all our interests to avoid the use of animals in testing, for both ethical and animal welfare reasons. We also need fast, reliable and cost-effective test methods which ensure the safety of products for users, to help European industry, and which satisfy regulators.”
The purpose of TSAR is to enable citizens and other interested parties to track progress of the review, validation and approval of alternative test methods, ensuring greater transparency of the process. The ultimate aim will be to cover each and every step of the validation route, from submission of a new method for pre-validation through to final adoption by its inclusion in EU legislation and/or related Guidance Documents. It will also explain the decisions that have been made at every step of the process. When the final decision on a proposed test method is negative, TSAR will clearly indicate the reasons why this decision has been taken. The website will be updated whenever a phase in the process is completed, ensuring the latest information is always available. However, to enable a rapid launch, the initial version covers only the part of regulatory approval of methods in the field of chemicals.
Source: EUROPA
Posted in New Websites and Resources, Science, Search News, Source File | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
University Publishing in a Digital Age
Scholars have a vast range of opportunities to distribute their work, from setting up web pages or blogs, to posting articles to working paper websites or institutional repositories, to including them in peer-reviewed journals or books. In American colleges and universities, access to the internet and World Wide Web is ubiquitous; consequently nearly all intellectual effort results in some form of “publishingâ€. Yet universities do not treat this function as an important, mission-centric endeavor. The result has been a scholarly publishing industry that many in the university community find to be increasingly out of step with the important values of the academy.
This paper argues that a renewed commitment to publishing in its broadest sense can enable universities to more fully realize the potential global impact of their academic programs, enhance the reputations of their institutions, maintain a strong voice in determining what constitutes important scholarship, and in some cases reduce costs.
+ Full Paper (PDF; 471 KB)
Source: Ithaka
Posted in Scholarly Publishing, Source File | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Compare credit cards’ rental car insurance policies
If you’re a veteran car renter, it’s likely you routinely decline the rental company’s offer of additional insurance coverage, smug in the knowledge that you’re not wasting money. After all, if you get in an accident, your credit card will cover your deductible, right?
Maybe not. A closer look shows that credit card companies’ policies vary sharply in who’s covered, at what level, in which vehicles and where.
+ Includes chart.
Source: CreditCards.com
Posted in Fast Facts, Source File | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Posted in Best of DocuTicker, Source File | No Comments »
