The Population Reference Bureau’s 2008 World Population Data Sheet and its summary report offer detailed information about country, regional, and global population patterns.

Source: Population Reference Bureau

Research into ‘Web 2.0 accessibility’ for people with disabilities has recently gained momentum in library and information science studies due to the unique problems disabled individuals face because they must rely on digitized formats. People with disabilities who use assistive technologies are often restricted by incompatibility issues involving software and hardware when retrieving Web content since many resources have been constructed without consideration for disabled users. The result has been a new dilemma emerging for many information centers and libraries regarding how to provide access to Web 2.0 technologies which are not designed for persons with disabilities and are incompatible with many assistive technologies. Careful consideration must be given in the development stage of web design to the layout, navigation and compatibility of different assistive technologies used to view the site.

+ Full Paper (PDF; 149 KB)

Source: Cheris Carpenter (via E-LIS)

The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of material associated with Woodrow Wilson. This resource guide compiles links to digital materials related to Wilson such as manuscripts, broadsides, government documents, images, sheet music, and films that are available throughout the Library of Congress Web site.

Source: LC

This Directory originates with a Survey carried out recently by the former Round Table on Newspapers of IFLA, to secure information relating to National newspaper collection policies and procedures. This directory is being given wider circulation by the IFLA Newspapers Section to disseminate knowledge of newspaper collections.

Source: IFLA Newspapers Section

This month, almost 2 million first-year students will head off to college campuses around the country. Most of them will be about 18 years old, born in 1990 when headlines sounded oddly familiar to those of today: Rising fuel costs were causing airlines to cut staff and flight schedules; Big Three car companies were facing declining sales and profits; and a president named Bush was increasing the number of troops in the Middle East in the hopes of securing peace. However, the mindset of this new generation of college students is quite different from that of the faculty about to prepare them to become the leaders of tomorrow.

Each August for the past 11 years, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. It is the creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Public Affairs Director Ron Nief. The List is shared with faculty and with thousands who request it each year as the school year begins, as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation.

The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are “wired” and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world.

It is a multicultural, politically correct and “green” generation that has hardly noticed the threats to their privacy and has never feared the Russians and the Warsaw Pact.

Goodbye, Edgar. Hello, IDEA.

Edgar, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s electronic database of corporate filings, will be replaced by a new system dubbed IDEA, or Interactive Data Electronic Applications, the SEC announced Tuesday.

“This isn’t just a renaming of Edgar,” but an entirely new approach, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said at a press conference to unveil the new system.

IDEA will supplement Edgar to start and eventually replace it altogether. Once the system is up and running, Cox said it will give investors faster and easier access to key financial information about public companies and mutual funds.

Source: Dow Jones

See Also: SEC Announces Successor to EDGAR Database (via SEC)

The PubMed Summary results page [now shows] results from other high-quality resources in a column to the right of the PubMed search results.

The first example of this new feature will be the Drug Sensor developed at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). This sensor detects whether a drug name is present in a user’s search, and if so, presents exerpts of information from other resources that you can link to to read more. The summary consists of a title (created from the drug name in the search query), some content from the linked resource, and an attribution line. At this time, about 200 drug names are included.

Source: NLM Tech Bulletin

How does the government manage data that was born digital, meaning it was created in electronic form? Organizations as varied as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the White House, open-government groups, and House members have recently offered recommendations for managing the growing volume of such information. Their approaches underscore the differences of opinion about how much responsibility and power various entities should have over future federal recordkeeping.

Electronic records management has been the topic of proposed legislation and rules, court cases, congressional investigations, hearings, and government audits as agencies weigh options for maintaining the vast amount of official communication that is conducted electronically. Because federal employees use e-mail and other technologies daily for routine notes and important information, it’s not always easy to decide which messages qualify as records that must be preserved. And once a decision is made, the next question is how best to store the messages.

Under the Federal Records Act, NARA approves agencies’ recordkeeping schedules and maintains data once it is submitted for archiving, but each agency decides whether to keep a document. In the case of e-mail messages, individual users typically make the decision.

“I think there is a growing consensus that electronic mail and other forms of electronic records that are born digital need to be managed and preserved in electronic form,” said Jason Baron, NARA’s director of litigation.

Source: Federal Computer Week

Source: NSF

A new visual search engine could help photographers track where their photographs appear on the internet.

The TinEye search engine, developed by Canadian company Idee, allows users to search by uploading a picture rather than typing in a keyword. It then conducts a pixel-by-pixel search across the internet, flagging up all instances of that image even if it’s been cropped, merged or digitally altered in some way.

“TinEye does for images what Google does for text,” said Leila Boujnane, the chief executive of TinEye. “We are not limited by words, Google can only find an image if a particular search word is in proximity to it. We have the ability on a large scale to tell somebody where one of their images has appeared and how it’s being used.”

Source: ITPRO

A new public database in creative products – such as music, audiovisuals, newspapers and electronic publishing – has been launched by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Currently the site shows global trade flows for 1996-2006. Selected products are listed along with the major exporters and importers in major markets for such creative products as art and crafts, music CDs and video and films.

Direct to Database

Source: Irish Sun

This edition of Facts for Features highlights the many statistics associated with the return to classrooms by our nation’s students and teachers.

Stats include:

+ $7.5 billion
The amount of money spent at family clothing stores in August 2007.

+ 56%
Percentage of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in school in October 2006.

+ 11%
Projected percentage of elementary through high school students enrolled in private schools this fall.

+ Many, many more

Source: U.S. Census