Archive for February, 2009
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
From the Announcement:
On Feb. 26, the National Digital Newspaper Program added more than 112,000 additional historic newspaper pages to the Chronicling America Web site, hosted by the Library of Congress. The site now provides free and open access to 977,440 pages from 112 titles, that were published between 1880 and 1910 in 9 states (CA, FL, KY, MN, NE, NY, TX, UT, VA) and the District of Columbia. Six additional states–Arizona, Hawaii, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington–will be contributing content later in 2009. Chronicling America is a project of the National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
Direct to Chronicling America Database and Web Site
Source: Library of Congress
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Digitization Projects, Search News | No Comments »
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
Congrats to the info pros at NPR on the launch of their blog and thanks for including ResourceShelf on your “Blogs We Love” list.
From the FAQ:
NPR’s information provocateurs are emerging from the stacks to bring you a super-fresh perspective on what it’s like to be an NPR librarian. We’ll cover everything from pop-culture insanity and weird pronunciations to the history of NPR and libraries in the news.
Source: National Public Radio
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
From the Overview:
For the last several years we’ve presented our analysis of the enterprise search vendors, and we’re excited to present our 2009 report covering the tier 1 and tier 2 commercial vendors, open source solutions, and search-related tools and utilities.
Source: Enterprise Search Newsletter
Posted in Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
From the Text:
A number of libraries around the country are getting grants to train librarians and set up programs to teach people about investing through a collaboration between FINRA and the American Library Association. Gannon says his organization turned to libraries because libraries have the ability to reach large numbers of people who may need help with their money.
Source: National Public Radio
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
From the Article:
Following criticism by some authors, Amazon is pulling back on the experimental text-to-speech feature in the new Kindle 2.
Instead of making the automated reader available across the board, the company announced late Friday it will let rights holders choose title by title. Amazon maintains that it has the right to offer text-to-speech, insisting “Kindle 2’s experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given.”
See Also: Amazon.com Statement Re: Kindle 2
Source: paidContent (via Forbes)
Posted in Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
From the Article:
The White House’s Recovery.gov Web site for tracking the anticipated $787 billion outflow of economic stimulus law spending is getting more connected: It has begun adding links to federal agency and state Web sites that are monitoring their own share of spending under the law.
As of today, Recovery.gov is providing links to 10 state Web sites and 19 federal agency Web sites. More states and agencies are expected to participate soon.
Source: FCW
Posted in Government Documents and Political Information, Source File | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
From the Article:
We have more than 25,000 digital photographs stored on our computer hard drives–most of them of people. Until now, our sole means of tracking down a familiar face was to search manually: by date, EXIF data, “tags,” or the brute force of our own memory. Now computers can do the searching, thanks to the nifty face-recognition feature that Apple and Google have put into the latest versions of their photo-management systems.
Source: Technology Review
Posted in Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
From the Article:
NASA will recommend that its employees use a social networking site and online collaboration after a pilot program proved successful.
NASA released results from the pilot program this week. It said that micro-sharing and internal enterprise collaboration benefit large companies and government agencies like NASA, and the network it used should be implemented agency-wide this year.
Seventy-eight users initially signed on to Socialcast’s enterprise social media platform and invited 398 colleagues. Fifty-eight percent of those invited accepted invitations, and, within 60 days, 295 users of all ages had joined NASAsphere.
See Also: Read the NASAsphere Case Study from Socialcast
Source: InformationWeek
Posted in Social Media, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
From the Article:
Copyright. Plagiarism. Fair Use. They’re all important issues in the classroom. But do you and your students really understand their true meaning?
A series of five lessons specifically designed for media specialists who teach students in grades six to eight is now available online—and they’re linked to the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) teaching guide for media specialists, the Standards for the 21st Century Learner.
The lessons are available for free on the ReadWriteThink Web site, which provides educators and students with access to practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction.
Source: School Library Journal
Posted in Intellectual Property, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
From the News Release:
The 100th organisation to be awarded Designated status for its outstanding collection was announced today by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). The library, archive and works of art held by The Institution of Civil Engineers; which holds over 130,000 titles and is one of the largest specialist resources on civil engineering in the world; is the latest collection to join the scheme.
MLA’s Designation Scheme identifies the pre-eminent collections of national and international importance held in England’s non-national museums, libraries and archives, based on their quality and significance. These inspiring collections represent a vital part of our national cultural heritage.
Source: Museum, Libraries and Archives Council
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
From the News Release:
Searches for several terms related to the economic downturn showed dramatic gains during the past year. Among the most notable increases were searches relating to the deteriorating job market, including searches using the term “unemployment” (up 206 percent to 8.2 million searches) and “unemployment benefits” (up 247 percent to 748,000 searches). Meanwhile, terms relating to personal asset situations, including “mortgage” (up 72 percent to 7.8 million searches), “bankruptcy” (up 156 percent to 2.6 million searches), and “foreclosure” (up 67 percent to 1.4 million searches) also grew strongly. And Americans, resilient as they are, are seeking ways to save money, as evidenced by the increase in the number of searches for “coupons” (up 161 percent to 19.9 million) and “discount” (up 26 percent to 7.9 million).
Source: comScore
Posted in Information Seeking, Search News, Web Search | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
From the Announcement:
Special Libraries Association (SLA) now offers free online courses as an exclusive benefit to SLA members. The free programming encompasses all non-certificate online courses that are part of SLA’s Click University, including programs such as Click U twice-monthly Webinars, the SLA Online Libraries and Click U Replays. Also available to members as part of their membership dues are execuBooks, recorded Annual Conference continuing education courses, 23 Things, the SLA Innovation Lab and SLA Leadership Training.
Click U Premium courses at the SLA Annual Conference and the Click U Premium Certificate Programs in knowledge management, competitive intelligence, and copyright management will remain as fee-based offerings.
Source: Special Libraries Association
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
From the Announcement:
The four projects of the Preserving State Government Information initiative are making it easier to get information about their activities.
Each consortium of state partners has prepared a brochure for broad distribution, including to government officials and to professional communities.
The partner initiatives are focused on capturing, preserving, and providing access to a rich variety of state and local government digital information. The four lead projects work with 23 states to collect and preserve publications, geospatial data, legislative records, executive agency documents, and other information of long-term value. Each project works to develop and share tools, services and practices to help all states make progress in managing their digital heritage.
Source: NDIIPP
Posted in Digital Preservation, Info Management and Retrieval | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
From the Story:
The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) said this week they will file an amicus brief pertaining to the pending Google Book Search settlement. ARL associate executive director Prue Adler told the LJ Academic Newswire the brief would be written by attorney Jonathan Band, author of the Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement, and would amplify for the court concerns library leaders voiced at recent meeting in Washington, DC.
Source: LJ
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Search News | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
From the News Release:
OCLC Members Council conducted its first-ever virtual meeting February 9–11 to discuss opportunities and challenges confronting the global information community, to learn more about collaborative services, and to continue the transition to a Global Council and Regional Councils.
Continuing its governance transition, Members Council voted to ratify the Global Council Bylaws as approved by the OCLC Board of Trustees, and also approved new Membership and Governance Protocols and referred them to the Board with the recommendation that the Board approve them.
In his report to Members Council, Larry Alford, Chair, OCLC Board of Trustees, and Dean of University Libraries, Temple University, stated: “These are exciting times for OCLC as we move forward in our governance plan, and I think this meeting will demonstrate the power of technology to connect OCLC members, to connect libraries and librarians and other cultural heritage institutions from around the world to foster cooperation and collaboration.”
Source: OCLC
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
From the Article:
The University Library [U of Virginia] and the Heritage Microfilm Company recently teamed to make Alderman Library’s international newspaper microfilm collection available in a searchable online database.
Microfilms, which are film reels that hold images of documents, require large machines to read them and often do not age well. Moving the University’s collection online will make it easier for researchers to access the newspapers and will preserve the collection, said Barbie Selby, research and information services manager for Alderman Library.
“It’s a pretty old technology,” Selby said about microfilm, adding that “vinegar syndrome” — a pungent smell that develops after time — often ruins the film reels. “[Microfilms] could be a good resource but it’s not [being] used to its full potential.”
Jamie Leon, regional specialist for Access NewspaperARCHIVE, an Internet gateway to various newspaper collections, said he contacted Selby to digitize the library’s international newspaper collection.
Source: Cavalier Daily
Posted in Digitization Projects, Info Management and Retrieval, Information Industry, Search News | No Comments »
Friday, February 27th, 2009
A just released guide focusing on diabetes medicines.
Source: MedlinePlus
Posted in Resources, Science, Source File | No Comments »
