Cambridge University appoints a woman librarian for the first time in its 650-year history. Anne Jarvis, 46, will replace Peter Fox, who steps down after 15 years. The library stocks more than eight million books and volumes and is one of only six legal deposit institutions in the UK and Ireland.
Source: BBC
The UN Office of Legal Affairs, Codification Division has launched several new online resources:
+ Official Records of Diplomatic Conferences;
+ A new portal for all legal publications;
+ UN Legal Publications Global Search; and
+ RSS feed for the Audiovisual Library of International Law.
Source: UN Pulse
Wondering how much it might cost for knee replacement surgery in Montana? A baby delivery? Heart bypass surgery?
Thanks to a detailed new Web site, you can now look online for costs at hospitals across the state, for scores of procedures and afflictions.
Direct to Web Site and Database
Source: The Missoulian
President Bush may be gone from the spotlight, but the government Web sites created by agencies during his administration are bringing attention to NT, where the dead sites will be archived in the university’s cyber cemetery. The project was created in 1997, said Government Collections Office digital librarian Starr Hoffman.
Source: North Texas Daily
The New Hampshire State Library says a new service, the New Hampshire State Digital Publications Library, is now online and available for use by the public.
The service was designed to provide access to the growing number of State of New Hampshire agency publications that are available in digital format. It serves as a permanent archive of publications that would otherwise become unavailable when state agencies update their Web sites.
Direct to The New Hampshire State Publications Digital Library
Source: AP
The Elsevier Foundation has announced today that it has committed a total of $555,000 in grants to ten institutions from around the world in support of initiatives that promote the work of libraries and scholars in science, technology and medicine. The winning proposals were selected from over 165 applicants worldwide for their innovation and potential for impact in the developing world, nursing community and academic workplace. This year’s grants also include the newly launched Nurse Faculty Mentored Leadership Development Program.
Four grants have been awarded under the Innovative Libraries in Developing Countries program. The winners include institutions across Africa and Asia, dedicated to improving access to scientific information, developing information resources, and training librarians and researchers on how to use and deploy information for patient care, HIV/AIDS research, and agricultural development.
The winning proposals for the Innovative Libraries in Developing Countries grant are:
* Collaborative Digital Reference Service System (CDRSS) for University Libraries in China: An Exploratory Study, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
* Information and Library Needs Assessment to support the Orotta School of Medicine, Physicians for Peace and GWU Medical Center Training project in Eritrea, George Washington University Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library
* Building on an operational health network to develop a health information library network in Cameroon Centre International de Reference “Chantal Biya” (CIRCB)
* Creating an Integrated Library System (ILS) Using Open Source Software KOHA for BRAC, University Library, Aysha Abed Library BRAC University
Source: Elsevier
From the Announcement:
GreyNet has recently purchased permission from Emerald to make available the papers published in the GL Conference Proceedings, 1994-2000. Since its relaunch in 2003, GreyNet has sought to recover this earlier research in the field of grey literature and make it available to librarians, researchers, educators, students, and net-users alike. These earlier collections will be included in the OpenSIGLE Repository and will rely on the efforts of INIST-CNRS to OCR the full-text of the conference papers and GreyNet to provide their corresponding metadata records.
In 2008, GreyNet’s conference based collections 2003-2007, were included in the OpenSIGLE Repository. And, by the close of this year, it is anticipated that all of the papers in the International Conference Series on Grey Literature will be fully accessible via the OpenSIGLE Repository.
Direct to OpenSIGLE Repository
Source: GreyNet
Private Eye Reading: The Top 50 Detective Blogs
True crime stories have intrigued the masses for as long as crime has been around. Whether people want to understand the psychology behind the crime, are just curious to get the gossip, or, like a puzzle, want to figure out the details to solve the crime, the desire to get the scoop is a strong one. These sites bring the detectives and their work to you through the the writings on their blogs. Whether you want to read about detectives on the police force, private eyes, British detectives, true crime, or even a little bit about fictional detectives, these blogs will provide you with hours of crime and criminals.
Source: e-Justice Blog
Resources of the Week — Digital TV Transition
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor
As this article is being written, it looks like the there’s an impending deal in the Senate to delay the nation’s switch to all-digital television from next month until June 12. Among other things, it would give consumers access to more of those coupons to subsidize the purchase of converter boxes for older TVs. According to the Nielsen Company, more than 6.5 million U.S. households are not prepared for the switchover.
The Nielsen Company, it just so happens, is a great source of information on the transition, if you want to keep up with what’s going on. Focus on: Digital TV Transition is actually an offshoot of the company’s always-interesting Nielsen Wire blog.
In 2005, Congress mandated that television stations switch from analog to digital signals in 2009. The purpose of this switch was to increase the efficient use of the spectrum, to expand consumer choice for video programming, and to increase the amount of spectrum available for public safety and other wireless services. In addition, Congress was able to raise nearly $20 billion by auctioning the analog spectrum that has been used for broadcast television.
The switch to all-digital television broadcasting, which was originally scheduled to occur on February 17, but which could be postponed four months, is arguably the most significant change in television since the introduction of color. It means that every household will have to get ready for these new transmissions. Since the mandate, broadcast stations have invested billions of dollars to upgrade their facilities and towers to comply. Networks and cable and satellite operators have built infrastructure to support the enhanced capabilities of the digital world. And tens of millions of Americans have bought new televisions, signed up for cable or satellite transmission or acquired digital converter boxes.
Nielsen’s role in digital transition has been two-fold:
- to provide the television industry, policy-makers and local communities with information about how ready television households are for this transition, and
- to make sure we are ready to measure television broadcasting when it moves to digital transmission.
Be sure to check out the interactive “readiness map,” which provides data on “digital readiness” in the top 56 U.S. television markets.
—–
The official government site — The Digital TV Transition — is an effort by the Federal Communications Commission to provide consumers with all the information they will need to weather this transition — although actually, if you have a newer TV and/or cable or satellite service, this will basically be a non-issue for you. At any rate, there’s enough stuff here to truly make your head spin. BTW, if you’re interested in one of those converter box coupons, you’ll want to go here or here.
—–
Cruising around the Internet, we find various guides, including…
+ Your Guide to the Digital TV Conversion (Popular Science)
+ Get Ready for Digital TV (AARP)
+ A Guide to the Digital TV Conversion (SmartMoney.com)
+ Preparing for the DTV Conversion (Washington Post)
—–
Our friend Al Tompkins at the Poynter Institute has a roundup of pros-and-cons on delaying the conversion. (Note: Shirl Kennedy works for the St. Petersburg Times, which is owned by the Poynter Institute.)
—–
What would you do if
- your dog ate the bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips that was left out on the kitchen counter?
- your cat had a seizure right in front of you?
- your dog fell down the stairs and started limping?
- your cat was overheating on a hot summer day?
To avoid the feelings of panic that may accompany these situations, we recommend the following steps to better prepare you for a pet medical emergency. The following links summarize the basics you need for giving first aid care to your pet.
Source: American Veterinary Medical Association
From the Introduction:
Research libraries exist to support scholarly work. In recent years, the literature on scholarly practices and information use has been growing, and research libraries should be prospering from this increased base of knowledge. Unfortunately, the profession has no effective means for systematically monitoring or synthesizing the published results. This review begins to address the problem by reporting on the state of knowledge on scholarly information behavior, focusing on the information activities involved in the research process and how they differ among disciplines. It provides an empirical basis for identifying promising directions and setting priorities for development of digital information services to support and advance scholarship.
Source: OCLC
Hat Tip: P.S.
Topics Include:
+ Project Gutenberg’s Twitter Feed
+ 400 Chinese eBooks in our Archives
Source: Project Gutenberg
The newly released documents include correspondence between President Eisenhower and private citizens, records from the White House Social Office, the White House Telegraph Office, and from the papers of Sherman Adams, Eisenhower’s chief of staff. .
Source: The Eisenhower Library
Direct to Tracer Bullet: Archaeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy is the interdisciplinary study of prehistoric, ancient, and traditional astronomies within their cultural context. Its sources include both written and archaeological remains and it embraces calendrics, practical observation, sky lore, celestial myth, and more. Its true scope establishes it as an “anthropology of astronomy.”
Source: Science, Technology and Business Division, Library of Congress
The British Library and JISC have commissioned a major new study into the information seeking and research behaviour of young scholars born between 1982 and 1994 – commonly dubbed ‘Generation Y’.
The study will track a number of researchers over a three-year period, analysing their activity and habits in online and physical research environments. The study will also assess their usage of library and information resources, both on and offline. The research subjects will be doctoral students beginning their PhD programme in the academic year 2008/09.
Source: The British Library
Historians face a ‘black hole’ of lost information if we do not preserve websites and other digital records, the head of the British Library warned today.
Chief executive Lynne Brindley said our cultural heritage is at risk as the internet evolves and technologies become obsolete.
Even family photographs could die with those who took them if digital pictures are not transferred earlier to a relative’s computer or printed.
Source: The Daily Mail
Hat Tip: S.C.
See Also: Dame Lynne Brindley challenges Government on Digital Britain (via British Library)
The resources provide information and methods for exploring image history, processes, content, and meaning. Information about searching and using the Prints and Photographs Division collections can be found in the general “Information for Researchers” document.
Source: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
From the Web Site (7 pages; PDF):
This bibliography is a list publications collected to specifically provide a higher education perspective on cyberinfrastructure, e-research, and e-scholarship.
Source: EDUCAUSE
The New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) released the 2009 Horizon Report, the sixth edition of this annual joint publication, today at the ELI Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida. Each year, the Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education over the next one to five years. “Campus leaders and practitioners alike use the report as a springboard for discussion around emerging technology,” noted Larry Johnson, chief executive officer of the NMC. “Over the six years that the report has been published, the impact on technology planning and discussions on campuses has been substantial. Now with six years of data to consider, we continue to look back at the overarching trends over time. What we see is that there are several long-term, conceptual themes that have affected, and continue to affect, the practice of teaching and learning in profound ways.” Roughly 75,000 copies of the 2008 Horizon Report were distributed in print and electronically last year.
According to EDUCAUSE President Diana Oblinger, “Learning, discovery, and creative expression are fundamental to higher education. Technology can help in each of those areas. But our community wants to know which emerging technologies are best for what uses. And, what examples demonstrate their potential? The Horizon Report addresses those critical questions.”
In defining the six selected areas for 2009—mobile devices, cloud computing, geotagging, the personal web, semantic-aware applications, and smart objects—the project tapped into an ongoing discussion among knowledgeable individuals in business, industry, and education, as well as published resources, current research and practice, and the expertise of the NMC and ELI communities. The 45 members of the advisory board engaged in a comprehensive review and analysis of research, articles, papers, and interviews; discussed existing applications and brainstormed new ones; and ultimately ranked the items on the list of more than 80 technologies identified for consideration in terms of their potential relevance to teaching, learning, and creative expression. This year’s advisory board included representatives from eight countries—Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Board members conducted most of their work online during the fall of 2008 using a variety of collaboration tools, including a special wiki dedicated to the project.
Direct to Complete Report (36 pages; PDF)
Source: EDUCAUSE, New Media Consortium
Subscribe to the
ResourceShelf
Newsletter »
Also check out DocuTicker, a compendium of 'grey literature' (reports published by government agencies, think tanks, research institutes and other public interest groups) available for free on the web.
You are currently browsing the ResourceShelf blog archives for January, 2009.