Archive for the ‘Databases, Directories, and Guides’ Category
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
In our first post today, we did not mention the databases (or where to find the info) that were a part of today’s OCLC, EBSCO, H.W. Wilson. news.
This post offers questions from an OCLC FAQ that link to info on a web page providing several lists of databases depending on the situation.
The questions are in the same order here as they are on the FAQ blog post.
From the FAQ:
EBSCO has acquired the rights to license a select number of databases that are now available on FirstSearch. These databases are listed below.
OCLC will continue to provide access to these databases on the FirstSearch platform through your current subscription period. At the end of your subscription period, OCLC will no longer provide access on FirstSearch to these databases:
A List of Databases Follows on the OCLC Web Page
Q. Will some of the FirstSearch databases not be continued on the EBSCOhost service after the conclusion of the current subscription period?
All current subscriptions will be honored through their subscription end dates. The following databases will not be supported on EBSCOhost after current subscriptions expire:
A List of Databases Follows on the OCLC Web Page
Is the OCLC FirstSearch service continuing?
Yes, OCLC will continue to offer the FirstSearch platform and service. All databases on the FirstSearch platform to which a library currently subscribes will be available through the end of the subscription period. Going forward, OCLC will continue to offer access to many databases, including WorldCat, the FirstSearch Base Package and several other databases including OAIster, the suite of RLG databases contained in the OCLC Research Collection package, and many other important databases. OCLC plans to discontinue access to databases as noted below. OCLC will continue to offer the H.W. Wilson databases through June 2011. More in the FAQ. The following databases will continue to be available on the FirstSearch platform:
A List of Databases Follows on the OCLC Web Page
The following databases are currently available on the FirstSearch platform. Libraries can renew subscriptions for these databases with OCLC and we will continue to support them through the subscription period. We will update libraries about the timeline for transition of these databases over the next few months.
A List of Databases Follows on the OCLC Web Page
Will the H.W. Wilson databases continue to be offered on the FirstSearch platform?Yes, for subscriptions through June 30, 2011.
A List of Databases Follows on the OCLC Web Page
OCLC will continue to provide access to all FirstSearch H.W. Wilson subscriptions through users’ current subscription periods. Additionally, Wilson will set up library accounts and provide access to the H.W. Wilson databases on the WilsonWeb platform for current FirstSearch subscribers. This dual access on both FirstSearch and WilsonWeb will begin over the next couple of months at no charge. Libraries can renew their H.W. Wilson databases on the FirstSearch database for 2010–2011 for subscriptions that will renew before June 30, 2010. For subscriptions that run through June 30, 2011, the H.W. Wilson databases will be available on both the FirstSearch platform and the WilsonWeb platform. These H.W. Wilson databases will migrate off the FirstSearch service to the WilsonWeb platform in 2011:
A List of Databases Follows on the OCLC Web Page
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Information Industry | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
The Open Library is the work of George Oates and members of the Internet Archive engineering team and staff.
It’s a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.
From a Blog Post:
1. This is v. 1 of the Reconstructed Site (aka soft launch). Right now, the URL is: http://upstream.openlibrary.org/
2. Works
The previous version of Open Library was only aware of editions of books, or “manifestations” in FRBR-speak. We’re excited to release Works, which helps catch all editions of the same book and collect them all under this one umbrella. Each work also has its own URI too – we’re hoping these propagate.
Note that our representations of Works is imperfect. We’re the first to acknowledge that there are lots of duplicate edition records in Open Library, and these dupes clog up our ability to derive or create works from editions.
3. Subject pages
We wanted to find a way to help people browse the catalog rather than having to know what they’re looking for before they start. So, we’ve gone through a process of breaking down and reconstructing the subject headings on our records, giving each heading a URL, and displaying a whole bunch of data about each heading: works about that subject, publishing history, related subjects, authors who write about it, and publishers who publish in that subject area.
4. Revamped search
We’ve rewritten search from scratch and upgraded to SOLR 1.4. Our ranking is very basic for now, so “relevance” doesn’t mean a lot yet. We can’t wait to improve on it, and in the meantime, you can also sort your searches by the number of editions, when things were published, or filter using facets.
We also noticed directly below the search box is box to limit your search to only e-books.
5. Cavets to be Aware Of:
The API, The Data, The Data
Odds & Ends
+ Of course, you can search the catalog but they also suggest browsing by subjects.
+ You can add books by completing a simple form.
+ Follow the Open Web Team on Twitter and/or an e-mail discussion focusing on librarianship.
Stats
+ 20 Million Records So Far
+ Goal: “A Web Page for Every Book Published”
That’s it for now. We’re going to take it for a spin and report back.
Posted in Books, Databases, Directories, and Guides, Digitization Projects, E-books | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
Another acquisition in the library world and this one will see EBSCO becomes an audiobook and eBook provider with acquisition of NetLibrary.
From an Announcement:
OCLC and EBSCO Publishing have announced that EBSCO has acquired the NetLibrary Division. The purchase includes the NetLibrary eBook and eAudiobook platform as well as operations and infrastructure in Boulder, Colorado. As eBooks become mainstream components of a library’s eContent collections, there is increasing value to libraries to be able to integrate eBook acquisitions and delivery with other electronic databases and eJournals. EBSCO will maintain and enhance the NetLibrary platform and will also work to integrate NetLibrary eBooks into the EBSCOhost platform. There will be no interruption in service to libraries.
The other news concerns FirstSearch. OCLC no longer wants to be a reseller of vendor-owned databases.
Therefore we will transfer or discontinue sale of the vendor-owned databases on FirstSearch when subscriptions have ended. We will instead increase our focus for both FirstSearch and WorldCat.org on providing libraries with access to a rich set of library-owned content and increasing visibility and access to the full scope of a library’s collection. We will work with libraries, publishers and other information providers to expand WorldCat.org as a comprehensive platform for eContent.
So, what about the vendor-owned databases?
As a part of this migration, EBSCO has acquired the rights to license a select number of vendor-owned databases that we currently offer on FirstSearch. Our long-term relationship with H.W. Wilson is also changing as we will work together to transition from reselling Wilson databases on FirstSearch to indexing Wilson databases in WorldCat Local over the coming months. There will be no interruption in service to libraries.
More Resources:
+ Letter to OCLC Members, Signed by CEO Jay Jordan
More detail on what was discussed above including:
Securing libraries’ investments in NetLibrary eBook collections is a critical element of the agreement. All NetLibrary eBooks purchased by libraries will be placed in a dark archive, the OCLC eBook Archive. EBSCO will continue to place all new NetLibrary eBooks purchased by libraries into the OCLC archive at least through March 2013.
Discoverability of your eBook collections through WorldCat.org will continue with your future NetLibrary eBook purchases. Today, records for more than 2.2 million eBooks are available through WorldCat.org and EBSCO will continue to offer OCLC MARC records free of charge to libraries for NetLibrary eBooks.
…proceeds from the sale of the NetLibrary assets will be invested both in advancing future member services and in current operations so that we can hold the line on prices. OCLC will hold prices flat in the U.S. on all WorldCat and WorldCat platform services for a second consecutive year—through June 2011.
+ All the Details: More on EBSCO and NetLibrary
+ All the Details More About from OCLC and H.W. Wilson
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, E-books, Information Industry, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
From the Article:
Back in 2000, the Queens County Clerk’s office began a project to make digital images of selected records. When the enormous advantages over microfiche or microfilm became apparent, the office began imaging all of its records, not just judicial Orders and Judgments.
“At first I resisted the idea,” [Queens County Clerk Gloria] D’Amico admitted at the meeting, “but I’m glad you talked me into it,” she added, nodding in the direction of her staff.
It turns out that Queens is within striking distance of “digitizing” the last of its archived paper records before the existing contract expires, which will leave the other four counties to get help with their archives.
Currently, the county staffs are handling the new paperwork as it comes in – a mind boggling 20 million images a year in Queens alone.
Source: Queens Courier
See Also: Queens Public Library Currently Digitizing Some of Its Oldest Holdings, Collection Will Go Online in Spring
Source: YourNabe.com
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Digitization Projects, Legal | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
From the NLM Technical Bulletin:
Searchers will soon be able can now tailor the display of PubMed search results using My NCBI. This will be a welcome change for those who prefer to see search results in the Abstract format, to view more than 20 citations per page, or to sort the order of results. In addition, the number of PubMed filters you can select has been expanded from 5 to 15.
The remainder of the page includes examples of how to customize results along with screenshots.
Source: National Library of Medicine
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
Happy 15th Birthday to the IPL Today!!! Congratulations!!!
Although the focus is on Flickr (as it’s “the best known” photo service) this new Internet Public Library Guide (#15) contains info about:
+ About Image Sharing (Including Several Flickr Alternatives)
+ How Flickr Works & Best Practices
+ Best Practices from ALA, Stony Brook University Health Services Library, Smithsonian Libraries, and the National Library of Scotland
+ Internet Public Library Fickr Examples
+ Hands On Activities
+ Webliography of Materials re: Flickr
+ Option to Participate in a Conference
Overall, another informative, easy to use guide from the IPL.
Source: Internet Public Library
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
From an EPA Web Page (with lots of info, instructions, and definitions):
EPA is for the first time providing free access to the consolidated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory on its Web site. Also for the first time the Inventory is available at Data.gov as a dataset and as an extraction tool, which makes the data easier to manipulate.
The EPA page lists several places to obtain the data and how you can use it. No web-based interface exists (yet?) for this material.
One source is Data.gov.
You can download the data files in .CSV format. They should work with spreadsheets, some text programs, and database tools.
Sources: EPA, Data.gov
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Government Documents and Political Information, Resources | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
From the Announcement: (PDF)
Now available and permanently free to access and use.
The ebrary Natural Disaster and Extreme Weather Searchable Information Center features “hundreds” of government documents “related to natural disasters and extreme weather.”
Access to the material is available at:
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/disaster/home.action.
“While government agencies house some of the world’s most pertinent information, it is not always easy to search and find the information you need online, especially across multiple websites. Additionally, downloading PDFs, a format used by many government and other agencies for their most important documents, can be extremely cumbersome and frustrating,” said Kevin Sayar, President of ebrary. “Using DASH! (Data Sharing, Fast), and other ebrary services, our staff was able to very quickly and easily aggregate PDF content and develop our new Natural Disaster and Extreme Weather Searchable Information Center.
Features Include:
+ Multiple options for searching, navigating, and browsing.
+ Ability to copy/paste and print text with automatic citations and URL hyperlinks back to the
source.
Sources Include:
+ Federal Emergency Management Agency
+ International Tsunami Information Center
+ Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC)
+ National Drought Mitigation Center
+ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
+ National Weather Service
+ U.S. Department of Homeland Security
+ U.S. Fire Administration
+ U.S. Geological Survey
+ other authoritative sources
Source: ebrary
See Also: H1N1 Information Center from ebrary (Also Free)
See Also: If you don’t have access to ebrary through your school, company, or other organization, check out ebrary Discover.
Access to Over 20,000 Full Text Books, New Material.
Pay only 25 cents per page to print or copy. Read, for free, as much as you like online.
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, E-books, Government Documents and Political Information, Reference Tools, Resources | No Comments »
Friday, March 12th, 2010
Here’s a national database that provides info about library and non-profit book sales around the country. More info about the database itself in this FAQ. We are working to find out if listings are submitted or parsed from book sale web pages.
On the Front Page
+ Search by Zip Code and Distance from the Zip Code
+ Search by State by Selecting a State on the Map
According to this page several refinements are available on a results page. However, they were not visible when we visited the site.
A listings page includes:
+ A Map
+ Email address, web site, address, link to get directions
+ Payment Options
+ Description and Sale Dates
In terms of comprehensiveness it’s hard to say. It likely depends on the area, if people know about the database, etc. In other words, results may vary. We did find sales listed months in advanced. Here’s a book sale scheduled to take place in November just outside of Chicago.
If you register (it’s free but note required you can set-up book sale alerts. You’ll be notified when new sales are scheduled for a Zip Code or an area surrounding a Zip Code.
A Book Store portion of the site is also available and includes:
+ Friends of the Library Ongoing Sales/stores
+ Thrift Shops with book sections
+ Non Profit Ongoing Sales/stores
Source: Book Sale Manager (via Twitter)
Posted in Books, Databases, Directories, and Guides, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Friday, March 12th, 2010
The PACER Case Locator is available here and allows you to search for court records in all district, bankruptcy, and appellate courts.
The Case Locator replaces the U.S. Party/Case Index.
A bit more about the PACER Case Locator on this PACER Service Center page.
The page mentions several new capabilities of the system. They include:
+ request lists of cases for a specified date range by court type;
+ conduct searches based on chapter, discharge date and dismissal date for bankruptcy cases;
+ access case information for the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation;
+ choose result formats, including HTML, delimited text, and XML which can be easily imported to other programs for analysis;
+ change the sort order of the results displayed; and
+ conduct refined searches within the results of a previous search.
The U.S. Party/Case Index will be available for the next few months to allow you time to become familiar with the capabilities of the new Case Locator. No specific timeframe is provided as to when Party/Case will be shutdown.
Finally, according to the service center both systems, the PACER Case Locator and the U.S. Party/Case Index, will provide the same results for identical searches.
Source: PACER Service Center
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Legal | No Comments »
Friday, March 12th, 2010
This new database is produced by the Harvard School of Public Health.
From the Announcement:
A new firearms research database launched by the Harvard School of Public Health makes scholarly articles more accessible to reporters, law enforcement, public health officials, policymakers, and the general public. The Firearms Research Digest provides summaries [this is not a full text database*] of articles gathered from social science, criminology, medical and public health journals and is written in clear, accessible language for use by those outside academia.
* Complete bibliographic info is provided to make accessing the complete article (if needed) simple using one of many methods.
The website currently covers six years of research published between 2003 and 2008. The digest will be expanded over time to include articles from 1988 to the present.
“Despite the increased ease of accessing articles through search engines like Google Scholar or PubMed, the sheer volume of returned information in technical jargon can be daunting,” said David Hemenway, professor of health policy and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and the Youth Violence Prevention Center at HSPH. “The principal objective of this digest is to present research findings in clear, lay language so anyone can readily understand the study results.”
The database interface on the home page is searchable by keywords, title, topic, and author.
Below the advanced interface link (where you can include a date range in your query are links that help the searcher begin an advanced search with hyperlinked topics (this database uses a controlled vocabulary), year, and publication. Selecting these options will automatically drop the user into the advanced interface.
You can do much the same with the advanced interface (including the selection from a list of topics) and another list of publication names.
A results page includes the number of hits in each search category and related topics with the number of entries that specific topic has in the database.
Finally, an actual result has most of its metadata hyperlinked. For example, all authors names, topics, publications, etc.
The Firearms Research Digest will be a useful resource for many people (reporters, educators, students, etc.) since the database is easy to use the digests are written without using any technical jargon. The database does need documentation/explanation to explain how the database works, especially topics vs. keywords, why one interface over another, and what the numbers mean next to each search category on a results page. At the present time there is either no “help” content or we missed it (which is quite possible).
Access The Firearms Research Digest
Source: Harvard School of Public Health
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Resources | No Comments »
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
We’ve mentioned several Footnote services in the past (ie. digitizing National Archives material and using it to build topical collections) and today news of free access (for a limited time) to their interactive version of the U.S. Census (where they are digitizing U.S. Census records for 5 census). You will need to register (requires only an email address and password) to view images of census pages.
From the Announcement:
…the Interactive Census Collection has the unique ability to connect people related to ancestors found on the historical documents. Simply by clicking the “I’m Related” button for a name on the document will identify you as a descendant and also list others that have done the same.
OCR is in use. You can search for words found in the actual images of pages.
Access Footnote’s Interactive Census
It is available for the 1860 (Complete), 1900 (5% Complete), 1910 (3% Complete), 1920 (3% Complete), 1930 (98% Complete) U.S. Census.
If nothing else this is a great way to test the service and yes, it’s even rather fun.
Source: Footnote
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Genealogy, Government Documents and Political Information, Resources | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
From the “About Page:
The Index to American Botanical Literature has provided a service to the American botanical community for over a century, published initially in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club and subsequently in Brittonia. Beginning in 1886, when Elizabeth Britton of The New York Botanical Garden was editor, the Index has provided bibliographic data both on books and articles in periodicals. In 1999, the Index went to an entirely electronic format.
The Index contains entries dealing with various aspects of extant and fossil American plants and fungi, including systematics and floristics, morphology, and ecology, as well as economic botany and general botany (publications dealing with botanists, herbaria, etc.). “America” is defined in the broadest possible sense, encompassing land and marine plants and fungi from Greenland to Antarctica. American territory outside this area, e.g., Hawaii, is not included.
The searchable database includes all those entries published in the Index since 1996, and thus includes botanical literature appearing since late 1995. We have made minimal progress in retrospective cataloging, and will continue to add older literature as time and manpower are available. If a bibliographic entry is not in the Index, it probably means either (1) the subject matter was considered inappropriate (e.g., physiology, genetics), or (2) the publication has not arrived at the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden.
Access and Search the Database
Search Using:
+ Category
+ Author
+ Title of Article or Chapter
+ Journal
+ Book Title
+ Keywords
See Also: Fact Sheets About Plants, Flowers, and Gardening Tips
See Also: 1000 Plants to Know (21 Pages; PDF)
Source: New York Botanical Garden (via Infomine)
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Media Guides, Factbooks, Fact Sheets, Press Kits, Resources, Science | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
First, Mountain View has announced that they’ve made an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and will work with the Rome and Florence National Libraries to digitize up to a million out-of-copyright works. The librarians at each library will decide what will be digitized.
The Google news release also contains a comment about Europeana, a European Commission project to digitize cultural materials from around Europe. For those interested, this page lists the organizations participating in the Europeana program. According to their web site, they have six million items (images, texts, books, sounds, videos) digitized so far.
In addition to Europeana there is also the European Library Material in this database comes from National Libraries throughout Europe.
On the topic of other digitization in Europe, the Google Blog notes:
Digitization of books is a tremendous undertaking, requiring the joint effort of a great number of public and private stakeholders. For this reason, we’re supportive of many other efforts at digitization, such as the European Commission’s Europeana. We want to see these books have the broadest reach possible — the books we scan are available for inclusion in Europeana, of which the Florence Library is a contributing member, and other digital libraries. The more of the world’s historical, cultural treasures we can bring online, the more we can unlock our shared heritage.
Stay tuned. It will also be interesting to see what other digital library projects ask for access to the scanned content.
See Also: Medieval Tomes Slated for Digitization (via AP)
This article reports that works by Galileo will be included in the digitization.
2) The other news from Google is about Google Maps. Beginning today, biking directions are available. The company says this has been a very frequent request of users. You’ll also find over 12,000 miles of bike trail info (from selected third parties including the Rails to Trails Conservancy that is also visible on maps. This second post is very interesting. It discusses many variables and other factors that go into creating a bike routing program.
The remainder of this post includes some very helpful screen caps. You can access the interface to get biking directions several ways including using maps.google.com/biking
Source: Official Google Blog
See Also: Ride Don’t Drive: Google Adds Bike Directions To Maps (via Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land)‘
Notes:
1) Biking data for about 150 U.S. cities as of today. More to come.
2) Not yet available for mobile devices but that is on the way.
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Digitization Projects, Information Industry, Reference Tools, Resources, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Note: This document was published by the Research Information Network in the UK.
From the Announcement:
The growth in the size of the research community and of the volumes of research being undertaken in the UK and across the world means that the amount of time and effort put into the peer review system is growing too, and that it is coming under increasing scrutiny. The guide looks at how effective peer review is in selecting the best research proposals, as well as in detecting misconduct and malpractice.
It also looks at how fair the system is, and at the different levels of transparency involved in the process: from completely closed systems, where the identities of reviewers and those whose work is being reviewed are kept hidden from each other, and reports are not revealed, to completely transparent systems where identities and reports are openly revealed.
The burdens on researchers as submitters and reviewers are by far the biggest costs in the peer review system, and the guide outlines some of the measures that are being taken to reduce those burdens, or at least to keep them in check.
Access the Full Text Guide (16 pages; PDF)
Source: RIN (Research Information Network)
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Several new database to share in this post.
The Daily Illini at the University of Illinois in Champaign Has Published a Several Searchable Databases Today.
1) Salary Guide
The Salary Guide database is a companion to the Salary Guide published in The Daily Illini on March 9, 2010. The database contains salaries of Urbana, Chicago and Springfield campus employees and is searchable by name, department, title and salary level.
2) Furlough List
The Daily Illini obtained documents under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act that named the administrators and employees who are affected by the University’s furlough plan to cut $17 million from the University’s operating budget. Click to review the names on the Dec. 15, 2009, furlough list in our searchable database.
3) Contracts
Contracts of University employees obtained under the Freedom of Information Act are presented here for your review. Check back as we add to this area of our Web site.
Background in this Editorial
From Illinois we move to Texas. where the Center for Investigating Reporting has published a searchable database that, “allows visitors to see how cities and counties in the Lone Star State have used anti-terrorism and preparedness grants since 2003.”
Background Article||| Access the Database #1 ||| #2 ||| Maps
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
From the National Library of Medicine Announcement:
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is pleased to announce the creation of the Directory of History of Medicine Collections database. This unique resource is available at:
http://wwwcf.nlm.nih.gov/hmddirectory/index.html.
The Directory of History of Medicine Collections aims to serve as a resource to provide information about history of health sciences collections worldwide. The collections described in the Directory database provide research, reference and interlibrary loan services to scholars interested in the history of the health sciences.
The database is keyword searchable, with the ability to refine your search results by categories: organization type, state/province, country, collection subject strengths and organization name.
To view the table of contents, which is arranged alphabetically by US state, and city, followed by other countries listed alphabetically, go to:
http://wwwcf.nlm.nih.gov/hmddirectory/directory/locations.cfm.
Source: National Library of Medicine
Posted in Archives and Special Collections, Databases, Directories, and Guides, Genealogy, Reference Tools | No Comments »
Monday, March 8th, 2010
From the Announcement:
The JRC launched today the Internet version of its Publications Repository. Bibliographic data of almost 10000 articles and papers published since 1993 and representing a wealth of knowledge are now available to the public. In addition, more than 1700 technical reports (EUR series) are freely available for download. More than 19 000 authors have contributed to these publications.
Publications can be found by free-text search, or advanced search based on bibliographic data. [Browsing is also available.} The publications can be browsed by JRC Institute, publication year, author, or title and cross-links are supplied to find all works of a particular author.
The JRC Publications Repository is based on the open source software DSPACE, which has been developed at MIT and is already used by more than 500 organisations for building open repositories.
Access the Repository
Source: EC/Europa/AlphaGalileo
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Resources | No Comments »
Monday, March 8th, 2010
by: Joel Cummings, Washington State University; Alex Merrill, Washington State University; Steve Borrelli, Washington State University.
PREPRINT Version: The Use of Handheld Mobile Devices: Their Impact and Implications for Library Services (32 pages; PDF)
FINAL Version: In Library Hi Tech, Vol. 28 No. 1, 2010, pp. 22-40.
From the Abstract:
Purpose: A survey was undertaken to better understand the nature of handheld mobile computing use by academic library users and whether there is a significant demand and demand for using the library services with these small screen devices.
Design/Methodology/Approach: A survey was created to measure whether people want to access an OPAC with a small screen. Additionally through with open ended questions, the survey attempted to gain a broader understanding of handheld mobile computing’s impact on and implications for the services provided by academic libraries.
Findings: 58.4% of respondents who owned a web enabled handheld device indicated that they would use small screen devices, such as PDAs or web enabled cellphones to search a library OPAC.
Originality/Value: The increasing prevalence of handheld mobile computing devices such as PDAs and web enabled cell phones warrants investigation as to its impact on libraries. This study examines an academic library user population and the potential demand for using the library’s catalog with handheld mobile computing devices
Sources: Library Hi-Tech (via Spectrum Blog and Twitter)
Hat Tip: Gerry M.
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Libraries and Librarianship, Wireless Web and Search | No Comments »
Monday, March 8th, 2010
Resource of the Week: Catalog of Nonprofit Literature
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor
We are big supporters of nonprofits in general both here on ResourceShelf and over on DocuTicker, our sister site. Thus, we are huge fans of the Foundation Center. This is a venerable institution; in operation since 1956, it’s currently supported by roughly 550 foundations and is widely recognized as a pre-eminent authority on “organized philanthropy.”
There is an avalanche of useful information on the Foundation Center’s website, and most of it is free. We thought we’d give a little love to the Catalog of Nonprofit Literature — formerly known as Literature of the Nonprofit Sector (LNPS) — this week.
The Catalog of Nonprofit Literature is a searchable database of the literature of philanthropy. It incorporates the unique contents of the Foundation Center’s five libraries and contains approximately 28,000 full bibliographic citations, of which nearly 20,000 have descriptive abstracts. It is updated daily.
The basic search form offers a standard keyword search that allows for the use of standard boolean operators. Use the radio buttons to either search everything or restrict your search to full-text resources only. To the right are links to more information and/or help, including a guided tour, a bibliography of periodicals, and a quick look at recently added items.
The “standard search” is actually an advanced search form offerings several more options that facilitate a more precise query. If you click on the buttons labeled “Index,” a window pops up with a directory of relevant subject terms. Nicely done!
Though there are full-text resources in this database, many other items are not available online. They can be viewed at the Foundation Center’s headquarters in New York City, its national collection in Washington, D.C., or its field offices in Atlanta, Cleveland, and San Francisco. These libraries are freely open to the public; no appointment is necessary to use them. If none of these locations is convenient, you might want to try one of the center’s 400 “Cooperating Collections” — most located at public or academic libraries around the country, as well as in Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, South Korea, and Thailand. (If your institution is interested in housing a cooperative collection, The Foundation Center is currently soliciting applications.)
By the way, don’t leave this website without a look at the wonderful collection of Links to Nonprofit Resources. The navigation links on the right make it easy for you to browse by subject category; major subject headings are:
Posted in Archives and Special Collections, Databases, Directories, and Guides, Portals, Reference Tools, Resource of the Week, Source File | No Comments »
