Archive for January, 2009
Saturday, January 31st, 2009
A new compilation of facts from the U.S. Census. Here’s a small sample of what you’ll find:
40.7 million
As of July 1, 2007, the estimated population of black residents in the United States, including those of more than one race. They made up 13.5 percent of the total U.S. population. This figure represents an increase of more than half a million residents from one year earlier.
24
Number of states or equivalents in which blacks are the largest minority group. These include Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
2.4 million
Number of single-race black military veterans in the United States in 2007. More military veterans are black than any other minority group.
82%
Among single-race blacks 25 and older, the proportion who had at least a high school diploma in 2007.
Direct to Fact Sheet (6 pages; PDF)
Source: U.S. Census
Posted in Fast Facts, Media Guides, Factbooks, Fact Sheets, Press Kits, Resources, Source File | No Comments »
Friday, January 30th, 2009
From the InfoWorld Article:
The world of instant messaging is crowded and becoming even more so. It began with ICQ (does anybody use it today?), which was closely followed by AIM, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger . More recently, this trio is being challenged by other IM chat protocols, like Google Talk, and even by social networks like MySpace and Facebook , which have their own instant messaging features.
What this all adds up to is … a huge mess. To use any of these IM services in their native formats, you have to download and install a different chat program.
That’s where instant messaging applications like Digsby, Pidgin, or Trillian come in. These chat apps — which can be described as cross-platform or multiprotocol IM apps — support more than one instant messaging network. Instead of having the AIM and Yahoo Messenger chat programs running on your computer at the same time, you can use just one application to access your accounts from these two IM networks.
Source: InfoWorld
Posted in Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Friday, January 30th, 2009
From the Web Site:
The New Media Index is a weekly report that captures the leading commentary of blogs and social media sites focused on news and compares those subjects to that of the mainstream press.
PEJ is launching the New Media Index as a companion to its weekly News Coverage Index. Blogs and other new media are an important part of creating today’s news information narrative and in shaping the way Americans interact with the news. The expansion of online blogs and other social media sites has allowed news-consumers and others outside the mainstream press to have more of a role in agenda setting, dissemination and interpretation. PEJ wanted to find out what subjects in the national news the online sites focus on, and how that compared with the narrative in the traditional press.
Direct to First Weekly Report
See Also: Weekly News Coverage Index (Traditional Media)
Source: PEJ
Posted in Media, New Websites and Resources | No Comments »
Friday, January 30th, 2009
From the Site:
WHOIS in the field of Grey Literature” is a compilation of biographical notes provided by authors in the GL Conference Series. This online resource is maintained by TextRelease and likewise contains the biographical notes from TGJ, The Grey Journal.
Source: GreyNet
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Friday, January 30th, 2009
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
From the News Release:
“The Citizen Journalist’s Guide to Open Government,” an extensive multimedia e-learning module to help new media makers understand how to obtain public records and get into public meetings, launched today on the Knight Citizen News Network (www.kcnn.org). The guide features a unique interactive map that tells citizens how they can locate open-government information on each of the 50 state Web sites. Easy-to-find information on either the Governor’s or State Attorney General’s Web site gets a thumbs-up ranking. Hard-to-find information earns a thumbs down. Users can:
* Obtain local, state and federal government records.
* Appeal when a records request is denied.
* Take steps if they are excluded from a meeting.
* Learn what’s allowed in their state.
* Understand access to court proceedings.
* Link to more information.
Direct to The Citizen Journalist’s Guide To Open Government
Source: J-Lab
Hat Tip: S.B.
Posted in Access to Information, Databases, Directories, and Guides, Open Source Intelligence, Resources, Source File | No Comments »
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
From the Report:
A federal database that will allow car buyers to learn whether a vehicle has been stolen or rebuilt after a wreck will be launched on Friday – more than 16 years after Congress passed a law requiring its creation, and a year after three safety groups sued the federal government to force it to act.
“This information will be vital in helping consumers determine whether the used vehicle they are considering buying has been salvaged or rebuilt,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. “When buyers are kept in the dark, they can unwittingly buy cars and trucks that have serious safety hazards or have been completely rebuilt and often are not worth the price charged.”
Last year, Public Citizen, joined by Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety (CARS) and Consumer Action, sued the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in federal court in San Francisco, asking the court to order the government to implement the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System. In September, the court told the DOJ it had until Jan. 30 to make the information available on the Internet and to issue a rule requiring states, insurance companies and junk yards to report safety information.
The information to be made available Friday is still incomplete and covers less than two-thirds of U.S. vehicles. That is because insurers and junk yards have until March 31 to begin reporting data. Currently, 10 states are not reporting vehicle data at all, while two states that are – New York and California – are attempting to prevent public access to that data. The data will be available through third-party Web sites, which will charge a nominal fee per record search.
Source: Public Citizen
See Also: National Auto Fraud and Theft Prevention System Goes Live (via FBI)
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Resources | No Comments »
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
From a Global Legal Monitor Post:
In January 2009, the World Trade Organization (WTO) launched an online database of regional trade agreements (RTAs) and can be searched based on jurisdiction or based on other criteria, such as whether the agreement covers goods or services and the year it came into force. It contains all the notifications about RTAs, links to the contents of such agreements, legal provisions, and information on the WTO’s assessments of the agreements. In addition, there are downloadable tables of all RTAs currently in effect. The database’s establishment fulfills a requirement of the Transparency Decision on RTAs of the WTO General Counsel.
Direct to Database
Source: World Trade Organization (via LC)
Posted in Business and Economics, Databases, Directories, and Guides, Resources, Source File | No Comments »
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
Movie, Video Revenue Climb 7 Percent to $66 Billion in 2007
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Revenue for the motion picture and video production and distribution industry increased 7 percent in 2007, reaching $66 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Revenue from Web search portals increased 25 percent for a total revenue of $12.1 billion, and their online advertising space grew 32.7 percent with total revenue of $8.7 billion.
These new data come from the 2007 Service Annual Survey: Information Sector Services, a series of tables that is part of a larger survey that tracks economic activity in the services sector, which accounts for 55 percent of economic activity in the United States. This sector includes companies that produce and distribute information and cultural products, as well as companies that provide the means to transmit or distribute these products.
“Whether online news or a wireless signal for a mobile phone, the unique products that make up the information services sector play a significant role in our everyday lives,” said Mark Wallace, chief of the Census Bureau’s Service Sector Statistics Division. “Not only does this survey provide us with information, but it also demonstrates how profoundly this sector contributes to our overall economy.”
Posted in Fast Facts, Information Industry, Intellectual Property, Search News, Source File, Statistics, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
From the Abstract:
Grand challenges such as public health, security, genomics, environmental protection, education, and economics, are characterized by complexity, interdependence, globalization, and unpredictability. Although the unprecedented quantity of information surrounding these challenges can provide users with a new perspective on solutions, the data surrounding complex systems vary with respect to levels of structure and authority, and include vastly different contexts and vocabularies. To be successful in this domain we must extend our models of information science such that they operate successfully in environments where the quantity of relevant information far exceeds our human processing capacity. For example, the well-accepted precision and recall metrics break down when hundreds of thousands of documents are relevant. Solutions to grand challenges require that information scientists shift their focus from information retrieval towards information synthesis.
Authors: Blake, Catherine and Anderson, Caryn
Direct to Full Text Conference Paper and Bibliography (2 pages; PDF)
Source: Proceedings i-Conference 2005, State College, Pennsylvania, USA. (via D-LIST)
Posted in Info Management and Retrieval, Information Science | No Comments »
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
From the Abstract:
Increased off-site reference traffic has prompted the need for good tracking mechanisms, but why keep the subject of the reference question a secret? Why not use one researcher’s question to aid another? At Dickinson College, we developed a reference blog using Drupal that combines a public side, for sharing with a global audience the reference questions we’ve received and how we’ve responded, with a private side, for recording information about the transaction. We can now track off-site usage more effectively. Meanwhile, new patrons can discover our resources through blog entries of previous requestors.
Direct to PowerPoint Slides
Source: EDUCAUSE
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
From the Web Site:
The ten most widely read articles from last year’s online edition of EDUCAUSE Review focused on open education, Web 2.0, virtual worlds, e-books, digital libraries, analytics, and the top issues facing higher education IT:
Direct to List of Articles
Source: EDUCAUSE
Posted in Education, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
From the Article:
An online database has been established at www.800notes.com to help phone service customers track unsolicited calls from unknown phone numbers. The goal of the Web site is to provide the public with a tool for compiling questionable phone numbers and sharing information about those numbers.
“Many phone numbers used by the telemarketing industry, collection agencies, non-profits, even your bank, not mention con-artists, are unpublished,” Julia Forte, Web site co-creator said. “So, the idea is to let the public build a database of such phone numbers. If someone wants my business, I want to know who they are.”
The Web site can be accessed and used free of charge as it is supported by advertising. The service covers the United States as well as Canada. Success of the Web site relies on input by members of the public who have received unwanted or questionable phone calls.
Direct to 800Notes
Source: Lake County Record-Bee
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Source File | No Comments »
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
From the Story:
The key idea behind the Sagoon technology, “Random Vector Model” is to promote semantic search over the regular lexical search to provide more meaningful information to users. This is done by analyzing the content of Web data and news documents to find out hidden similarities among them. The implementation of “semantic analysis” requires a series of algorithms and mathematical calculations.
The Sagoon’s results cover a number of resources for variety in the results. The results are obtained from a combination of Sagoon’s index, Yahoo Boss, and some of the larger search companies in the online information industry.
Direct to Sagoon
Source: CIOL
Posted in Search News, Search Tools, Web Search | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
Top Ten Jury Verdicts of 2008
After steadily declining for years, the size of the Top Ten Jury Verdicts rose dramatically in 2008.
The top verdict in 2008 was $388 million, a significant increase over 2007’s top award of $109 million. The average award increased dramatically as well, driven by three verdicts of well over $100 million – including one of nearly $400 million. The average award for 2007 was just shy of $51 million, while the average award for 2008 more than doubled, to $112 million.
The year’s top verdict was awarded to a 70-year-old inventor who claims he was hounded by California tax authorities for the past 15 years. And five of the Top Ten Verdicts stemmed from personal injury cases, including $85 million for a medical school student who was badly injured after falling into a manhole and $84 million for an elderly man struck by a U-Haul with a faulty parking brake. Interestingly, there were no medical malpractice cases in the Top Ten.
Source: Lawyers USA
Posted in Lists and Rankings, Source File, Year End Wrap-Ups | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
From the News Release:
Over half of the adult internet population is between 18 and 44 years old. But larger percentages of older generations are online now than in the past, and they are doing more activities online, according to surveys taken from 2006-2008.
Contrary to the image of Generation Y as the “Net Generation,” internet users in their 20s do not dominate every aspect of online life. Generation X is the most likely group to bank, shop, and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online. And even Silent Generation internet users are competitive when it comes to email (although teens might point out that this is proof that email is for old people).
Direct to Full Text Report (9 pages; PDF)
See Also: PowerPoint Presentation
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project
Posted in Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
From the News Release:
Building on President Barack Obama and Secretary Tim Geithner’s commitment to increase transparency and accountability in the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), the U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced a new policy of posting investment contracts for future completed transactions to the Department’s website within five to 10 business days.
For contracts already completed, documents will be posted on a rolling basis, beginning today with the first nine contracts completed under the Capital Purchase Program (CPP), as well as contracts for transactions closed under the Systemically Significant Failing Institutions (SSFI) program, the Targeted Investment Program (TIP) and the Automotive Industry Financing Program (AIFP). Treasury will work in the coming weeks to make public all copies of existing investment agreements.
Confidential and proprietary information will be redacted from the publicly posted documents at the request of the individual institutions.
Direct to Contracts Web Page
Source: U.S. Treasury
Posted in Government Documents and Political Information | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
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Source: MoMB, KillerStartUps
Posted in E-books, Resources | No Comments »
