Resource of the Week: The Financial Crisis Timeline
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

As is painfully obvious by now, the current financial crisis is complex and multifaceted, affecting virtually every sector of the economy. The Financial Crisis Timeline, from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, is a valiant attempt to help us make sense of it all.

Says James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed:

The Federal Reserve and other agencies have taken many steps to contain the ongoing financial crisis and limit its impact on the broader economy. It is critically important that we clearly communicate our actions to better ensure their success. This web site was created to provide the public with useful information about major financial events and policy actions, both over the past months and going forward.

A quick look at the site is enough to tell you there is much more here than a timeline. You’ll find relevant articles and papers; an FAQ that tackles such issues as causes of the current crisis and how it compares to the Great Depression; a large collection of data, including financial data, national and international economic trends, and yields on various treasury securities; links to other government agencies offering relevant information and reports; and a glossary of financial terms.

Other links and resources you can find here:

• The FDIC Failed Banks List
• A Foreclosure Resource Center
• Dynamic Maps of Nonprime Mortgage Conditions in the United States
• SEC Actions During Turmoil in Credit Markets
• International Monetary Fund: The Financial Crisis
• OECD: Tackling the financial and economic crisis
• World Bank: Financial Crisis

Oh, by the way…the timeline itself is in the center of the home page. There’s a link to download it in PDF (153 KB). The earliest entry is:

February 27, 2007 | Freddie Mac Press Release
The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) announces that it will no longer buy the most risky subprime mortgages and mortgage-related securities.

But since this timeline is continually updated, you may want to opt for the RSS feed.

Resource of the Week — Congressional Resources from the RAND Corporation
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

The RAND Corporation is a think tank that also functions as a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC). it is one of our favorite fishing holes for reports to post on DocuTicker, and we often find interesting items to post here on ResourceShelf as well.
RAND performs research in a wide range of subject areas — the arts, workforce issues, military and defense, international relations, education, health care, and much more. It has a rather illustrious client list consisting of U.S. and foreign government agencies, state and local governments, universities, NGOs/nonprofits, professional associations, and corporations.

While poking around the vast RAND website one day, we stumbled across the RAND Congressional Resources page.

RAND’s mission is to help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. The Office of Congressional Relations helps to further that mission by getting RAND’s work to policymakers in Congress and U.S. federal agencies. It also provides information to RAND’s research units about Congressional activities and interests.

There are basically two ways to browse here — by type of resource or by issue. Resources include:

• Testimony by RAND staff
• Policy Issue Fact Sheets and Publication Profiles (essentially research reference guides in various topic areas)
• Congressional briefings summaries — past and forthcoming
• A Public Policy Experts Guide to more than 200 RAND researchers, by topic.
• A variety of topical newsletters designed to update Congress on RAND research.

(Anyone can register to receive these free by e-mail; note that some are published more frequently than others.)
If you’d prefer to browse by issue, check the blue navigation panel on the left side of the page and chose from among the various legislative issues:

• Aging, Retirement & Social Security
• Banking and Financial Services
• Child Policy
• Energy & Environment
• Education
• Health
• Homeland Security
• International Affairs
• Judiciary
• Labor, Population & Demographics
• Military & Civil Service Personnel
• National Security
• Public Safety
• Small Business
• Terrorism
• The Arts
• Transportation & Housing
• Veterans

In the middle of the page is a section with four tabs — Upcoming Events (i.e., briefings), New This Month (publications and other resources), Hot on the Hill (current issues for Congress), Newsroom (press releases).

Under New This Month, we found a brand new publication — RAND Corporation Guide for the One Hundred Eleventh Session of the United States Congress, which provides in-depth information about the organization.

This guide for members of Congress and their staffs describes how the RAND Corporation communicates RAND work to Capitol Hill, demonstrates how Congress can use RAND’s resources, and provides an overview of the breadth of RAND research.

While you’re here, you may as well browse the RAND Reports and Bookstore. Most publications can be downloaded as free PDFs, or you can purchase hard copies. You can search the RAND archive of more than 17,000 titles dating back to 1948.

RAND also offers a variety of Public Use Databases, which include social/cultural issue data sets and two noteworthy terrorism-related resources:

• The RAND Voices of Jihad Database compiles speeches, interviews, statements, and publications of jihadist leaders, foot soldiers, and sympathizers. Nearly all content is in English translation, and has been collected from publicly-accessible websites. Original links are provided, along with excerpts and full-text content when available.
• The RAND-MIPT Terrorism Incident Database is part of the Terrorism Knowledge Base (TKB) compiled by the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT); it includes records of international terrorist incidents that occurred between 1968 and 1997 as well as domestic and international terrorist incidents that occurred from 1998 to present.

Resources of the Week: Due Diligence
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

In our travels around the business web, we happened across a selection of papers about due diligence from the global consulting firm Deloitte LLP (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu). We know this is a topic of interest to a subset of our readers, so we thought we’d share these with you this week. (Note that Deloitte requires free registration to access its resources.)

+ Cross-Border Investigative Due Diligence: The Look Before You Leap Imperative

While appearing sound on the surface, your international expansion planning may have failed to identify underlying risks that can be mitigated with the right cross-border due diligence.

Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP presented a Dbriefs Webcast for financial executives, “Cross-Border Investigative Due Diligence: The Look Before You Leap Imperative,” that focused on what you can do to help recognize and identify potential problems with your global expansion plan before you take the proverbial big leap into new territory. The discussion covered issues around legal, financial and reputation risks, particularly in emerging markets. Panelists also described mitigating actions that come out of some of today’s top investigative practices, including intelligence gathering techniques and appropriate methodologies for conducting background checks.

While the webcast mentioned here doesn’t seem to be available online anymore, the associated summary white paper — Cross Border Investigative Due Diligence (PDF; 120 KB) — is still available for download.

+ The Top 10 Myths of Human Capital Due Diligence

Human capital and personnel costs are typically the largest expense items appearing on the income statements of most companies. Human capital due diligence during mergers and acquisitions (M&A) often is an underestimated and undervalued piece of the overall due diligence process. There is more to human capital due diligence, however, than just analyzing benefits and compensation — including correctly identifying significant cost increases and hidden liabilities that could account for millions of dollars in an M&A transaction.

Download the attached article (PDF; 355 KB) to learn about the Top 10 Myths of Human Capital Due Diligence, and how your company can do its best to increase the likelihood of achieving expected strategic goals from M&A.

+ IT Due Diligence Is Fundamental for Post-Merger Synergy

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are all about synergy – whether cost savings or strategy support – and information technology (IT) can be instrumental in achieving this. A recent Deloitte study of 31 companies that had participated in significant M&A activity over the last year suggests:

1. Synergy correlates strongly with the financial success of a merger.
2. When IT is part of the due diligence process, it has a direct correlation with post-deal synergies.

Mark A. Walsh and Asish Ramchandran, principals with Deloitte Consulting LLP, in their latest point of view, “Ignorance is not bliss – IT due diligence is fundamental for post-merger synergy,” discuss why IT due diligence is elemental for post-merger synergy. It prompts the early identification of potential synergies, empowers business executives to take advantage of the important role IT plays in realizing these synergies, and supports the collaboration of business leadership and IT in determining an effective integration strategy. Without IT due diligence, certain risks — such as integration barriers, long lead times, deal-breaking costs and contract noncompliance — are not likely to be identified.

To learn about identifying synergies effectively during the due diligence process, download the attachment (PDF; 155 KB) below.

You’ll also find a link to a booklet — M&A Lies (And why they’re sometimes true). It can be ordered online or downloaded as a 17-page PDF (1.3 MB). There’s also a link to Deloitte’s Merger & Acquisitions Library.

+ Old Habits Die Hard: Why a Revised Approach to M&A Due Diligence is Key

Traditional approaches to M&A due diligence may allow vital issues in today’s cross-border M&A environment to fall through the cracks, potentially giving acquirers an incomplete, and possibly faulty, view of the deal landscape. In some cases, basic information required to make deal decisions simply doesn’t exist or is of questionable quality. Against these odds, how can management make the best quality investment decisions?

In this article, “Old Habits Die Hard - Why a Refined Approach to M&A Due Diligence is Key,” we discuss how savvy companies are adopting a more encompassing yet flexible approach to due diligence. This starts with a management decision framework that captures key diligence findings and translates them into a negotiating strategy and deal terms aimed at managing risk. Such a framework is critically important to help maintain discipline throughout the process and make the most well-informed business decisions.

To learn more, click on the attachment below to download the full article (PDF; 159 KB).

We also found a few items of related interest at academic websites, such as:

• The Art of Walking Away from the Deal (Knowledge@Wharton)
• Do You Want to Buy a Business? Questions You Should Ask (Oklahoma State University, Food and Agricultural Products Research and Technology Center) (PDF; 849 KB)
• Due Diligence Worksheet (University of California-Davis, Center for Entrepreneurship) (PDF; 79 KB)
• The Secrets of Great Due Diligence (Harvard Business School Working Knowledge)
• What Information Is Included in a Due Diligence Report (George Mason University Law Library) (PDF; 50 KB)
• Why Do So Many Mergers Fail? (Knowledge@Wharton)

And we found a few potentially useful checklists at Findlaw.com:

+ Buying a Business: Due Diligence Checklist

So you have decided to purchase an existing business.Regardless of whether the deal is structured as an asset transaction, a stock transaction or a merger, make sure you know what you are getting into by requiring detailed information from the seller regarding its business operations and finances. The following is a checklist of information and documents you should review.

+ Due Diligence Checklist - Going Public

In connection with taking a company public, the underwriter and its legal counsel are required to undertake a rigorous investigation of the company that intends to go public. This is referred to as the “due diligence investigation.” The goal of the due diligence investigation is to understand fully the business of the company, the risks and problems facing it, and to assure that the company’s registration statement is complete and accurate.

The following checklist is intended to provide you with a general idea of the documents and information that you will have to produce to cooperate with the underwriter and its legal counsel in its due diligence investigation.

+ Due Diligence Checklist - Being Acquired

So you have been approached by a potential acquirer of your business. Regardless of whether the deal is structured as an asset transaction, a stock transaction, or a merger, you can expect that the acquirer will want to conduct a detailed “due diligence investigation” of your company’s finances and operations. The following is a checklist of information and documents you can expect the acquirer will want to review.

Resources of the Week: A Handful of Health- and Safety-Oriented Databases
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

+ The Emergency Response Safety and Health Database (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)

The Emergency Response Safety and Health Database (ERSH-DB) is a rapidly accessible occupational safety and health database developed by NIOSH for the emergency response community. The ERSH-DB contains accurate and concise information on high-priority chemical, biological and radiological agents that could be encountered by personnel responding to a terrorist event.
…
The information contained in the ERSH-DB represents a compilation of material from a diverse array of sources, and is intended to address the safety and health information needs of a wide range of emergency response personnel, including, but not limited to, the fields of fire and rescue, emergency medicine, law enforcement, emergency management, public health, safety and health, and mortuary and funeral. As a central source of information, the ERSH-DB allows diverse segments of the emergency response community to share a wealth of information that is not readily accessible and to avoid duplication of effort.

+ United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) Database

UNOS collects and manages all data that pertain to the patient waiting list, organ donation and matching, and transplantation occurring on the OPTN, the nation’s organ transplant network.

Includes:

• National Data (status of U.S. organ donation and transplantation on a national level)
• Regional Data (status of U.S. organ donation and transplantation by UNOS region or center)
• State Data (status of U.S. organ donation and transplantation by state or center)
• Center Data (current and historical information about individual transplant centers)
• Annual Reports (through 2007)

There’s also an option to build your own reports.

+ RePORT: Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool (National Institutes of Health)

To provide NIH stakeholders with quick and easy access to basic information on NIH programs, the NIH has created a single repository of reports, data, and analysis, along with several tools for searching this database. A common classification scheme based on the traditional NIH budget categories is used to group similar reports. Several different filters can be applied to find information specific to a particular NIH Institute or Center, funding mechanism or topic of interest.

Includes the NIH Data Book:

The NIH Data Book (NDB) provides basic summary statistics on extramural grants and contract awards, grant applications, the organizations that NIH supports, the scientific workforce, and trainees and fellows supported through NIH programs. Tables and charts are provided in a variety of formats, including PowerPoint (PPT) slides and Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

+ WISQARS^TM: Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

WISQARS^TM (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System) is an interactive database system that provides customized reports of injury-related data from the national Center of Health Statistics (NCHS) and the violent death data from NCIPC’s (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control) National Violent Death Reporting System.

Includes data on fatal, nonfatal, and violent injuries. Offers tutorials and frequently requested charts, tables, and reports.

+ National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) On-line (Consumer Product Safety Commission)

CPSC’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) is a national probability sample of hospitals in the U.S. and its territories. Patient information is collected from each NEISS hospital for every emergency visit involving an injury associated with consumer products. From this sample, the total number of product-related injuries treated in hospital emergency rooms nationwide can be estimated. This web access to NEISS allows certain estimates to be retrieved on-line. These estimates can be focused by setting some or all of the following variables (and an example of each):

• Date (one year maximum range; e.g., how many injuries were treated in 1996)
• Product (e.g., how many bicycle injuries occurred)
• Sex (e.g., how many injuries occurred to women)
• Age (e.g., how many injuries occurred to people aged 35-55)
• Diagnosis (e.g., how many lacerations occurred)
• Disposition (e.g., how many people were admitted to the hospital)
• Locale (e.g., how many injuries occurred at a school)
• Body part (e.g., how many injuries involved the knee)

For example, the following query could be made: number of males between the ages of 50 and 70 treated in hospital emergency rooms between February 1999 and October 1999 for injuries associated with use of a ladder at home. The response would include the actual number of cases/injuries in the NEISS sample, and an estimate for the entire nation.

Bonus Search Tool: Vivisimo Bio MetaCluster

Type a query above and Vivísimo will send your request to the PubMed, Harrison’s Online, MerckManual and TRIPDatabase search engines and parse and cluster the search results. The resulting left-side folders are made automatically from the returned titles and summaries.

Clustering makes use of a proprietary General-Science and Biomedical knowledge base of synonyms, acronyms, spelling variants, and other meaning associations which help to interpret the search results.

Resource of the Week — RSS at CDC
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Here at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker, we’ve kept our steady eye on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website for years. We know that health information is perennially popular — and not just for those who work in health/healthcare-oriented facilities. No great mystery why, of course.

We all get sick…or injured. We would like to know what to do so we don’t get sick…or injured so often — or how we can get well as quickly as possible after we do get sick…or injured.

We also know — you as well as us — that the Internet is full of bogus (and downright dangerous) health information. So we all want to make sure we’re consulting vetted sources of information.

All of this being said, the CDC website is ginormous — and confusing. So how do you keep up with the best new stuff? As with many other government agencies, we use RSS. And the CDC helpfully places its collection of feeds on a single page, for easy access.

Picking through the various offerings here, we think there’s something for pretty much anyone — e.g.,:
+ For travelers:

• CDC Travel Notices
• Health Information for International Travelers (”The Yellow Book”)

+ For public health officials:

• CDC Public Health Law News
• Public Health Matters (current-events oriented editorial blog)

+ For environmental health professionals:

• Case Studies in Environmental Medicine
• Environmental Health
• Environmental Public Health Tracking Program

+ For emergency and public safety officials:

• CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response: News and Announcements
• CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response: What’s New
• CDC Emergency Text Messages
• Public Service Announcements for Hurricanes

There are a pair of feeds from CDC open access journals:

• Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal
• Preventing Chronic Disease Journal

And the average person — or reference librarian who addresses consumer health information needs — might be interested in:

• CDC Feature Series (stories about topical health-related issues)
• CDC Flu Updates
• Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (”science-based public health information”)
• NCHS Publications and Products (”publications, journal articles, and conference materials released by the National Center for Health Statistics”)

Do take note of the Podcasts tab at the top of the feed listings. Click on it to browse and listen to a variety of topical health-related podcasts, such as:

• What Kids Need to Know About Peanut Butter and Salmonella
• Emergency Preparedness Concerns for Older Adults
• National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

You’ll also find a series of podcasts on stress management for emergency responders.

The National Library of Medicine offers its own collection of feeds, including:

• AIDSinfo At-a-Glance
• DailyMed Drug Label Updates
• MedlinePlus Health News
• What’s New on MedlinePlus
• PubMed New and Noteworthy

USA.gov has put together a collection of health-related RSS feeds from a variety of government agencies, including specialized offerings such as:

• Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)
• Dental and Craniofacial Research News and Funding
• PandemicFlu.gov Website Updates
• Medicare.gov Site Updates
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Food and Drug Recalls from the Food and Drug Administration

For a few feeds related specifically to substance abuse and mental health news and publications, check the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration and the National Institute for Mental Health.

Resource of the Week: Carroll Publishing’s Transition Tracker
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Here’s a timely (free!) resource that crossed our radar screen this week, from a publisher that is certainly highly qualified to profile this sort of information.

Staying abreast of current developments throughout the transition from the old administration to the new is important to the American people. Carroll Publishing has always provided the best contact information at all levels of government for its clients. With the addition of Transition Tracker 2008, our government information coverage is even more comprehensive, now for the public.

What’s here?

+ Overview of the Transition, which list all the advisory board members, transition staff, agency review teams, and policy working groups.

+ A continually updated list of Newly-Appointed Officials.

+ A continually updated list of Newly-Nominated Officials

+ A list of Newly-Elected Officials, including governors, congressional representatives, mayors, and more.

+ And then there’s The Rumor Mill:

The following list is a compilation of appointments and nominations, widely reported in the reputable news media, of individuals expected to serve in the forthcoming Obama Administration. These positions have not yet been officially announced by the Office of the President-elect. Once an appointment or nomination is officially revealed by the Office of the President-elect, it will be removed from this list and added to our compilation of Newly-Appointed Officials and Nominations.

We’ve posted several items about resources offering various types of transition information, such as Lost in Transition (National Journal and Government Executive) and SourceWatch’s Presidential transition resources wiki. We offered other sites in our Change Is Good Resource of the Week last November.

But we figured we’d also highlight this one because it seems to be a very easy place to quickly find lots and lots of names.

BTW, Carroll also offers a My Elected Officials Search page, where you input your address and get back a long list of elected officials down to the state level, with contact information for each.

And…as they say in those television commercials…that’s not all! We also commend your attention to another free gem — this one from CQ Politics, which invites you to Track Obama’s Cabinet Nominees.

Barack Obama began vetting his choices for a Cabinet before he was even elected; his first announcement came just days after Nov. 4. In the past, nearly all Cabinet nominees have been confirmed, and with a Democratic Senate, it’s unlikely any of his choices will be rejected. Still, nominees such as Eric H. Holder to be attorney general, or Hillary Rodham Clinton for secretary of State could face some tough questions.

Senate committees with special jurisdiction over each position hold hearings to assess the merits of each nominee before voting to confirm. If the committee approves the nomination it is sent to the full Senate for a full vote.

The Senate may choose not to confirm a nominee in a few ways. Committee members may vote against a nominee or indefinitely drag out hearings — though rarely, a nominee may still proceed to the full Senate. The full Senate may vote against the nominee. Or, a senator or senators may filibuster to block the confirmation.

This is a matrix that shows each cabinet position, the nominee, and where in the process the nomination currently sits — e.g., committee hearing, committee vote, floor vote, confirmed. There is a picture of each nominee and a link to a relevant current news article on the CQ website.

Resources of the Week: 2009 Presidential Inauguration
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

January 20th is the Big Day. Barack Obama will be sworn in as the nation’s 44th president — and first African-American president. To commemorate this very special event, we bring you a round-up of inauguration-related information. Not that we haven’t already been doing some of this. To wit:
+ Fast Facts: Inauguration Resources #1 — Includes items from the U.S. Senate’s inauguration websites.
+ Inauguration Factfile from Infoplease.com
+ Master Inaugural Events Schedule, from ConklinScott, a political consulting firm

Our first stop today — USA.gov, currently hosting a Presidential Inauguration 2009 page. Here you’ll find links to information about the new president and vice president and their families, all the details associated with the impending inauguration, and Inaugural history, including materials from the Library of Congress.

Also from the Library of Congress — “I Do Solemnly Swear,” which is “a collection of approximately 400 items or 2,000 digital files relating to inaugurations from George Washington’s in 1789 to George W. Bush’s inauguration of 2001. This presentation includes diaries and letters of presidents and of those who witnessed inaugurations, handwritten drafts of inaugural addresses, broadsides, inaugural tickets and programs, prints, photographs, and sheet music.” It also includes an extensive bibliography.

LC’s Prints and Photographs Division has assembled a special collection of portraits of presidents and first ladies:

The Library of Congress has extensive resources for the study of the United States presidents and first ladies. Frequent requests for presidential portraits inspired Prints and Photographs Division staff to compile this ready reference aid of formal and informal pictures in the division’s custody. The selected images include at least one likeness of each of the first forty-two presidents and most of the first ladies. This presentation inaugurates a series of online illustrated reference aids that will appear under the running title “By Popular Demand“.

There’s also a timeline.

Bartleby.com offers a complete collection of keyword-searchable inaugural addresses, for every president from George Washington to George W. Bush. The American Presidency Project at UC-Santa Barbara also has a complete collection. If you want to search them, you’ll need to go to the site’s home page and use the search form with the dropdown box in the lower right corner. Some audio/video is also available here. Hear Franklin Delano Roosevelt tell us, in his first inaugural address (March 4, 1933) “that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself….”

If you’re fortunate enough to be headed to D.C. for the inauguration itself, you might be interested in the Special Inaugural Public Programs and Display at the National Archives.

In January, the National Archives will present a series of free public programs on Presidential transitions including a special display of original documents in celebration of the peaceful transfer of political power that occurs in our country every four years.

The Archives Library Information Center has a page devoted to information about the Presidents. The Inaugurations section comprises an eclectic mix of links. Trivia enthusiasts may want to jump right to the quizzes:

• Inauguration Quiz! (NARA)
• Who’s Who and What’s What: Presidential Inaugurations (New York Times)
• Presidential Inaugurations Quiz (Harry S. Truman Library & Museum)

The Smithsonian Institution also has a series of special inauguration-related events planned for visitors. According to its website, the museum has hosted inaugural celebrations since 1881. You can view materials on inaugural parades, the oath of office, and inaugural balls.

Resources of the Week: Quality Business RSS Feeds
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Business information was a high interest item on both ResourceShelf and DocuTicker even before the dog days of the global financial crisis. We use RSS to monitor high-value sources for items of interest to post on both sites. Here are five of our favorite feeds; some you may already know about, but we think you’ll find a couple unique ones here.

1. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge — A steady source of high-quality working papers, interviews with professors about their current research and articles of general business interest, such as:

• The Surprisingly Successful Marriages of Multinationals and Social Brands
• Marketing Your Way Through a Recession
• Achieving Excellence in Nonprofits

If you work with business information, it’s well worth monitoring the feeds of other leading business school publications, such as the “Knowledge@” series:

• Knowledge@Wharton
• Knowledge@Emory
• Knowledge@W.P. Carey

Those interested in the hospitality industry might want to explore the feeds available from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration.

2. Large international consulting firms like Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers offer a surprisingly large amount of high-quality reports, podcasts/webcasts and other resources — at no cost. Free registration is usually required.

3. USA.gov aggregates a nice collection of business/economics feeds from federal agencies. One you may otherwise overlook — the “What’s New” feed from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service — Yes, it’s about agricultural prices, but this agency also publishes data and reports of more general interest. A few recent examples:

• Rising Food Prices Take a Bite Out of Food Stamp Benefits
• Behavioral Economic Concepts To Encourage Healthy Eating in School Cafeterias: Experiments and Lessons From College Students
• Household Food Security in the United States, 2007

The feeds from the different Federal Reserve System banks are worth a close look, since they focus on economic conditions in a given geographic area. (Sometimes you may have to hunt around the websites for the feeds.) I regularly follow the Atlanta Fed (because I live in the southeast) and the New York Fed (because it generates some awesome stuff, such as Dynamic Maps of Bank Card and Mortgage Delinquencies in the United States and Dynamic Maps of Nonprime Mortgage Conditions in the United States).

4. If you want to keep up with business and economics in the European Union, you can pick through the large selection of EU feeds and find the ones that interest you — such as Enterprise and industry, Transport, Information society and media, Economic and monetary affairs, Financial programming and budget, and many more, including feed from individual agencies.

For the UK — Scott Vine, Senior Information Officer at Clifford Chance, a UK law firm, maintains a blog called Informationoverlord. On this blog, I found a large, detailed collection of feeds extracted from “all the bodies listed as ‘Central government departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies’ on DirectGov” — the UK equivalent of USA.gov. Pick and choose according to your specific interests. (This resource was posted to the blog last August, so be aware that “stuff” may have moved.)

For Canada — The Government of Canada’s News Centre offers a large RSS feed collection. These are organized into categories:
News by Audience (which includes a business-specific feed), News by Province, and News by Government of Canada organization.

For Australia — Check the Australian Government RSS Feed and Podcast Index. Most of the business-oriented feeds are offered by business.gov.au. Also worth checking: Austrade and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

For New Zealand — Check the selection of feeds on the official government website, Beehive. Scroll down to the “By portfolio” section for topical feeds.

See Also: A collection of government RSS feeds from many nations. Compiled and maintained by Scott Vine who also compiles a detailed list of UK feeds (see above).

Resource of the Week — Federal Citizen Information Center: National Contact Center
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

We’re all about saving time — and not just this time of the year, when everybody is stretched and stressed. Next month, we’ll have a new administration in Washington, DC. But the general structure of the government is really not going to change — checks and balances, you know. Which is why you should bookmark the National Contact Center.

Here you can find:

• Toll-free numbers for federal agencies, including many specialized hotlines, such as the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service Meat and Poultry Hotline and the Small Business Administration’s Small Business Answer Desk.
• Links to telephone directories for members of Congress (including committees and subcommittees), Cabinet departments and other federal agencies.
• The definitive collection of links to U.S. Government News/Press Release Websites Many — if not most — of these sites offer e-mail distribution services and/or RSS feeds. If you’re interested in this type of information, you should also check out USA.gov’s Government News page, which also links to you to blogs, podcasts, the Government RSS Library and more.
• An online knowledgebase, via USA.gov, that contains frequently requested information — e.g., how to apply for food stamps, what types of government grants are available, what’s involved in getting a passport, and much more. There are currently more than 2,400 unique records in the knowledgebase.

Still can’t find what you need? You can call or e-mail an information specialist — or chat with one online.

The Federal Citizen Information Center is part of the U.S. General Services Administration, which is basically the federal government’s centralized procurement agency and landlord — and also the agency behind USA.gov.

Resources of the Week: Modern-Day Piracy
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

No, we’re not talking about downloading “illegal” media. We’re talking about piracy on the high seas — something that has lately bubbled to the surface in the news media. 2008 has been a good year for pirates, judging by this Live Piracy Map from UK-based ICC Commercial Crime Services (CCS), the anti-crime arm of the International Chamber of Commerce.

This map shows all the piracy and armed robbery incidents reported to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre during 2008. If exact coordinates are not provided, estimated positions are shown based on information provided. Zoom-in and click on the pointers to view more information of an individual attack. Pointers may be superimposed on each other.

IMB stands for International Maritime Bureau, “a specialised division of the International Chamber Of Commerce…established in 1981 to act as a focal point in the fight against all types of maritime crime and malpractice.” The IMB’s Piracy Reporting Center is an excellent place to read up on the problem.

Before 1992, shipmasters and ship operators had nowhere to turn to when their ships were attacked, robbed or hijacked either in port or out at sea. Local law enforcement either turned a deaf ear, or chose to ignore that there was a serious problem in their waters.

The International Maritime Bureau aware of the escalating level of piracy, wanted to provide a free service to the seafarer and established the 24 hour IMB Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The main objective of the PRC is to be the first point of contact for the shipmaster to report an actual or attempted attack or even suspicious movements thus initiating the process of response.

The main aim of the PRC is to raise awareness within the shipping industry, which includes the shipmaster, ship-owner, insurance companies, traders, etc, of the areas of high risk associated with piratical attacks or specific ports and anchorages associated with armed robberies on board ships.

The PRC works closely with various governments and law enforcement agencies and is involved in information sharing in an attempt to reduce and ultimately eradicate this crime. Besides the piracy map, the agency offers other current information, such as:

+ Weekly Piracy Report
+ Piracy Prone Areas and Warnings
–
Over on the other side of the pond, you’ll find the United States Maritime Administration Advisories

Maritime Administration Advisories rapidly disseminate information on maritime danger, safety, and government policy, and other time sensitive matters pertaining to U.S.-flag vessel operations. Maritime Administration Advisories are issued by the Office of Security to vessel masters, ship operators, and other U.S. maritime interests. Advisories are communicated via telex or other message formats, and published on the Maritime Administration’s web site and the National Imaging and Mapping Agency’s Weekly Notice to Mariners.

Also available: Worldwide Threats to Shipping Reports (National Geospatial Intelligence Agency)
–
Reports and other resources
+ Noonsite, which bills itself as “the global site for cruising sailors,” offers reports and links to piracy information.
+ Don’t overlook the State Department’s Current Travel Warnings if you’re planning to venture to someplace dicey — i.e., Somalia, where you “are urged to use extreme caution…as merchant vessels, fishing boats, and recreational craft all risk seizure by pirates and having their crews held for ransom in the waters off the Horn of Africa…”
+ House of Commons Library Standard Note SN/BT/3794, Shipping: piracy (PDF; 139 KB)
+ Increase In Piracy And Terrorism At Sea; Little Evidence Supports Fear That The Two Crimes Are Merging (RAND Corporation)
+ International Maritime Organization: Information resources on piracy and armed robbery at sea (November 2008) (PDF; 376 KB)
+ Peril on the High Seas (Economist.com)
+ Piracy in Somalia: Threatening global trade, feeding local wars (PDF; 820 KB) (Chatham House)
+ Piracy – Threat at sea: A risk analysis (PDF; 2.5 MB) (Munich Re)
+ Piracy attacks in the Malacca Strait (PDF; 1.1 MB) (South China Sea Research Guide/Middlebury College)
+ Weak States Off-Shore - Piracy in Modern Times (PDF; 225 KB) (Hanns Seidel Foundation, Kenya)
+ Various satellite maps of hijacked vessels (UNOSAT)
+ International Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea: 1997-2006 (Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 2008 Pocket Guide to Transportation)

Resources of the Week — A Few Unusual Lists & Rankings
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

If you follow this feature regularly, you might remember that we’ve offered up collections of “niche” resources before — niche information, niche statistics, etc. This week, we offer up some unusual sources of lists & rankings — e.g., not from the fishing holes you already know about, such as Forbes.com or USNews.com.

+ TicketNews.com: Sellers Rankings and Events Rankings

TicketNews is a comprehensive resource for news, market analysis, event announcements, and information relating to the ticket industry. TicketNews keeps industry professionals and fans informed about tour dates, current and pending ticket resale legislation, rankings, ticket “steals and deals”, and more! TicketNews developed the algorithm for the exclusive weekly rankings of the industry’s top events and ticket sellers. The content is updated daily, with original articles from TicketNews reporters and an aggregation of 3rd party sources.

Here you can see lists — updated weekly — of the top primary ticket sales outlets (e.g., TicketMaster.com), top secondary ticket sales outlets (e.g., StubHub), and the top selling concert and sports events.

+ TMR Fan Cost Index

TMR’s exclusive Fan Cost Index (TM) survey, now in its sixteenth year, tracks the cost of attendance for a family of four.

The FCI includes:

• Two adult average price tickets
• Two child average price tickets
• Four small soft drinks
• Two small beers
• Four hot dogs
• Two programs
• Parking
• Two adult-size caps.

Rankings are available for the MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL.

+ U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base, Country Rankings

Find the largest countries and areas for any year, 1950 to 2050.

Data, including projections, was last updated in June. See Population Estimates and Projections Methodology to see how the data is calculated.

+ Foundation Center: Top 100 U.S. Foundations by Asset Size

The list below includes the 100 largest U.S. grantmaking foundations ranked by the market value of their assets, based on the most current audited financial data in the Foundation Center’s database as of September 11, 2008. Fiscal records will be updated when more recent audited financial information is obtained.

Number one? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

+ American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery: Top surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures among men and women in 2007

Nearly 11.7 million cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed in the United States in 2007, according to statistics released today by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. The Aesthetic Society, which has been collecting multi-specialty procedural statistics since 1997 says the overall number of cosmetic procedures has increased 457 percent since the collection of the statistics first began. The most frequently performed procedure was Botox injections and the most popular surgical procedure was liposuction.

This is actually a press release — dated February 25, 2008 — offering trends and demographic data for 2007. It also includes frequency of cosmetic procedures by age group.

+ High Value Domain Name Sales - Full List 10/18/08

So what are domain names worth? The answer is that it depends. Like a lot of intellectual property, the vast majority of domain name sales bring prices in 3, 4, 5, or 6 figure range. Nevertheless, there have been roughly sixty seven transactions of a million dollars or more.

This year (2008) Fund.com at just under $10 Million tops the list so far. Pizza.com went for $2,605,000 while DataRecovery.com reportedly sold for $1,659,000. Domain Name Journal reports that Invest.com has sold for $1,015,000.

Assembled from Domain Name Journal, Namebio.com, Domain Name News, MSNBC, Forbes, and Reuters, here in descending order is the list (believed to be reasonably accurate)…

Of course, we always like to mention Gary’s venerable List of Lists — “a database of ranked listings of companies, people and resources freely available on the Internet” — hosted by Special Issues. If you’re not familiar with this resource, it’s well worth a good browse.

Resources of the Week: One of These Things Is Not Like the Others
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Regarding the public availability of Congressional Research Service reports…maybe the situation will be different in the new administration. Maybe these valuable, taxpayer-funded documents will finally be posted online BY the Congressional Research Service AS THEY ARE ISSUED. In our opinion, there is no logical reason for the hoop-jumping necessary to pry these things loose from the CRS.

Granted, access is a lot better than it used to be, thanks to the tireless efforts of various academic and nonprofit organizations to corral as many of these reports as possible and make them freely available online. The Center for Democracy and Technology’s OpenCRS, for example, is a great place to start searching; not only is it a huge archive of these reports, but it links to other key report collections, such as:

• National Council for Science and the Environment
• Federation of American Scientists
• Thurgood Marshall Law Library/University of Maryland School of Law
• National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism

Archive-It.org, in partnership with the Social Sciences Resource Group at Stanford University, links to a large number of CRS report collections, including the venerable archive at the University of North Texas Libraries. And the Marian Gould Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington School of Law offers an excellent CRS pathfinder. If you can’t find the report online, you can always request it from your congressional representative’s office. Or you can buy it from a private company that obtains and sells them — which annoys us so much that we won’t identify it or link to it here.

The sheer volume of government information now available online is amazing, and has made life infinitely easier not only for researchers, but for the average citizen. We have not yet heard a compelling reason why the Congressional Research Service — a division of the Library of Congress — remains a black hole. This Washington Post story, from February 2007, blames “a wall erected by lawmakers” who regard the agency “as an extension of” their own staff.

We’re not buying that excuse. Equivalent agencies in other countries routinely place their reports online:

+ Parliament of Australia — Parliamentary Library Research Papers
Large, searchable collection of reports, organized chronologically, from 1993 forward. Also notable, a comprehensive page of links to all Parliamentary Library publications.

+ Canada — Library of Parliament Research Publications

The Parliamentary Information and Research Service (PIRS) provides a consulting service for individual parliamentarians, responding to questions that require research and analysis on legal, economic, scientific, or social science matters. Researchers obtain and analyze material, and write letters, short notes and longer research papers at the request of Senators and Members of the House of Commons. In some cases, responses are provided to clients by telephone briefings or by meetings with individual parliamentarians and/or their staff.

Awesome collection here, organized by category, from Aboriginal Issues to Transport.

+ New Zealand Parliamentary Library Research Publications

• Research papers
  

  Research papers from the Parliamentary Library are published here. Research papers cover a variety of topical subjects of relevance to Parliament.

• Bills Digests
  

  A Bills Digest is a guide written to assist members of Parliament when they consider a bill. Bills Digests are published here in pdf form.

• Electorate profiles
  

  Electorate profiles for each of the seven M?ori electorates and 63 general electorates in New Zealand are published here. Electorate profiles are produced by the Parliamentary Library. Each profile includes election results, statistics about people, households and industries, and maps.

+ UK Parliament — Research offers:

• Commons Library Research Papers
  

  Research papers on subjects of current interest, compiled for MPs by the staff of the House of Commons Library.

• Commons Library Standard Notes
  

  Standard notes are topical briefings prepared by the House of Commons Library for Members of Parliament and which may be of wider interest.

• Lords Library Notes
  

  Research notes on subjects of current interest, compiled for Lords by the staff of the House of Lords Library.

• Parliament and Constitution Research
  

  A selection of research papers and standard notes produced by the House of Commons Library on subjects such as: central government, constitution, Crown, devolution, elections, Parliament, and political parties.

• Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
  

  Short briefing notes and longer reports on science and technology issues published by POST.

Resource of the Week: Change Is Good
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Here in the U.S., at long last, we have a new President-Elect. And, for the first time, this means a new presidential transition website. Simple but elegant and still under construction — Change.gov. At the top left, you’ll see a countdown, in days, till the January 20, 2009 inauguration.

“The Newsroom” is basically a blog of press releases from the new administration that sits front and center on the site. You’ll also find biographies of Barack Obama, the President-Elect, and Joe Biden, the Vice President-Elect. You can watch Obama’s election victory speech in Grant Park, in Chicago.

There are a variety of links at the bottom of the page under the headings Newsroom, Learn, American Moment, America Serves, and About This Site. There’s also a link you can click to apply for a job in the new administration. Fill out the brief online form and you’ll receive, via e-mail, a link to a more extensive online form. (Note: These are non-career positions, not civil service.)

Among the links at the bottom of the page — and also along the right side — you’ll find a link to something called the GSA Transition Directory:

The Presidential Transition Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-293) authorizes the General Services Administration (GSA) to develop a transition directory in consultation with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The Act provides that the transition directory “shall be a compilation of Federal publications and materials with supplementary materials developed by the Administrator that provides information on the officers, organization, and statutory and administrative authorities, functions, duties, responsibilities, and mission of each department and agency.” Senate Report 106-348 clarifies that the directory is intended to “assist in navigating the many responsibilities that fall on a new administration” that is “confronted by an overwhelming amount of material.”

Obviously, there’s not much information here yet, but if you click around, you will find some interesting governmental odds and ends:

• A Survivor’s Guide for Presidential Nominees, from The Brookings Institution.
• Links to relevant sections of the U.S. Government Manual (2008-09 Edition).
• A link to the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009
• A link to An Overview of the Executive Branch Ethics Program, from the United States Office of Government Ethics
• A link to a PDF document: Preparing Presidential Appointees for Leadership: A History (PDF; 157 KB)
• What will the Federal government pay to relocate a new Appointee and his/her family? Look here.
• Information about Freedom of Information

And the new administration wants to hear from you:

Tell us your story and the issues that matter most to you. Share with us your concerns and hopes – the policies you want to see carried out in the next four years.

The White House Transition Project is an interesting resource:

Since 1997, the White House Transition Project has combined the efforts of scholars, universities, and policy institutions to smooth out the American presidential transition. WHTP bridges the gaps between the partisan forces engaged in settling elections and the decision processes essential to governing by providing non-partisan information about the challenges of the American presidential transition and the strategies for overcoming those challenges. It provides these and other resources to presidential campaigns, to the president-elect, and to the new administration. These resources include three separate report series providing a White House institutional memory, perspectives on past transitions, and advanced research covering special aspects of transitions and governing. The WHTP also provides unique analysis of the appointments process and a clearinghouse on other transition resources.

Lots of historical stuff here, including photo archives. A couple items of note:
+ Presidential Power in National Security: A Guide to the President-Elect (PDF; 500 KB), from the Law Library of Congress
+ White House Transition Project Expert Registry (PDF; 211 KB)

Other transition resources, governmental and otherwise:
+ Hearing — “Passing the Baton: Preparing for the Presidential Transition”

On Wednesday, September 24, 2008, at 2:00 p.m., in room 2247 of the Rayburn House Office Building, the Subcommittee held a hearing titled, “Passing the Baton: Preparing for the Presidential Transition.”

This hearing continued the Subcommittee’s oversight of the ongoing preparations for the upcoming presidential transition. With only 77 days between the November election and the January inauguration, the transition teams of the executive branch and the incoming administration will have much work to do to ensure that the incoming Administration can begin its work immediately. The hearing reviewed the steps that GSA is taking to fulfill its responsibility to assist members of the incoming and outgoing administrations. The hearing also reviewed expert research on federal executive management challenges surrounding the transition.

Testimonies and other documents in PDF.

+ General Services Administration: Presidential Transition

The transfer of power from one administration to the next marks a significant moment in U.S. history. The Presidential Transition Acts of 1963 and 2000 give the General Services Administration (GSA) a prominent role in this process. They authorize the Administrator of GSA to provide the President-elect and the Vice-President-elect the services and facilities needed to assume their official duties.

+ Government Accountability Office: 2009 Congressional and Presidential Transition

Following each presidential election, GAO serves as a resource to assist with the transition to a new Congress and administration. On this Web site, using its institutional knowledge and broad-based, nonpartisan work on matters across the government spectrum, GAO provides insight into, and recommendations for addressing, the nation’s major issues, risks and challenges. Also located throughout the site are key reports for further research, as well as contact information for and video messages from GAO experts.

+ Council for Excellence in Government: Presidential Transition
Offers links to various news articles and reports. One hot item that will show up here soon — The Prune Book Online:

PrunesOnline is a must-have tool for prospective Presidential appointees, the Presidential Personnel Office looking for the best and brightest, members of Congress, journalists, advocacy groups, and regular citizens who want to know more about the people working for them. It’s your guide to the presidential appointment process and the people involved.

This, of course, follows from the infamous “Plum Book” — United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions — the new version of which is due out this week.

Published by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Government Reform alternately after each Presidential election, the Plum Book lists over 7,000 Federal civil service leadership and support positions in the legislative and executive branches of the Federal Government that may be subject to noncompetitive appointment, nationwide. Data covers positions such as agency heads and their immediate subordinates, policy executives and advisors, and aides who report to these officials. The duties of many such positions may involve advocacy of Administration policies and programs and the incumbents usually have a close and confidential working relationship with the agency or other key officials.

+ IBM Center for the Business of Government: The Presidential Transition

The next President will face a wide range of challenges - economic, political, and social. He will need to be able to lead an effective government that can address these challenges. The IBM Center for The Business of Government is committed to helping identify and bring best practices from research to practice to help address these issues.

There’s a blog here, addressing “management challenges for the next president,” as well as various guides, reports, and issue briefs.

+ 1105 Government Information Group: Government Transition 2009 Wiki

This public service Wiki site seeks to be a repository of those ideas and recommendations from knowledgeable organizations and experts–and provide a forum for elaboration and discussion. In particular, this site will focus on transition ideas pertaining to Program Execution, Performance Management, Procurement and Acquisition, the use of Information Technology, and the management of Human Capital in government.

This non-partisan site is being made available as a public service by 1105 Government Information Group. [The lead collaborators of the site currently include 1105 Government Information Group chief editors Wyatt Kash (Government Computer News), John Monroe (Federal Computer Week) and Nick Wakeman (Washington Technology) along with other government transition experts, including: John Kamensky, of the IBM Center for the Business of Government.

Of special note: the “Key Players” page, which seeks to “catalogue think tanks, government agencies, academic institutions and other thought leaders following and generating assessments about transition issues related to government management.”

+ Congresspedia: Presidential transition resources
A fine collection of relevant laws, Congressional Research Service reports, discussions/hearings, media coverage, supporting documents and other materials. (”Congresspedia is part of SourceWatch, a similarly collaborative, wiki-based website documenting the people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda.”)

+ Finally, our friends at the Free Government Information blog have assembled a collection of special interest resources “relevant to government information and technology policies during this transition period” — The Transition: Information, Technology, and Information-Technology.

Resource of the Week: United National Audiovisual Library of International Law
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Our friends at UN Pulse — a perpetually useful blog by the staff at the UN’s Dag Hammarskjöld Library — tipped us off to this unique, new resource from the UN Office of Legal Affairs.

The Audiovisual Library is a unique, multimedia resource which provides the United Nations with the unprecedented capacity to provide high quality international law training and research materials to an unlimited number of recipients on a global level. The Audiovisual Library consists of three pillars: (1) the Historic Archives containing documents and audiovisual materials relating to the negotiation and adoption of significant legal instruments under the auspices of the United Nations and related agencies since 1945; (2) the Lecture Series featuring a permanent collection of lectures on virtually every subject of international law given by leading international law scholars and practitioners from different countries and legal systems; and (3) the Research Library providing an on-line international law library with links to treaties, jurisprudence, publications and documents, scholarly writings and research guides. The Audiovisual Library is available to all individuals and institutions around the world for free via the Internet.

This is a very rich resource, but there is plenty of helpful information on how to access the content — for example, this detailed page on what is in the Historical Archives and how to navigate this section of the site. Topics included here: Criminal Law, Decolonization, Diplomatic and Consular Relations, Disarmament, Education / Science / Culture, Environmental Law, Health, Human Rights, International Economic Law, International Organizations, Law of Outer Space, Law of the Sea, Law of Treaties, Peace and Security, Refugees and Stateless Persons, Succession of States.

About the Lecture Series section:

A series of lecture cards lists the lectures given by each lecturer under a particular subject matter heading. Each lecture card includes the name, professional affiliation, photograph and a brief biography of the lecturer; the title, a brief summary and the recorded lecture; and related materials such as a lecture outline, power point slides or recommended reading, to the extent provided by the lecturer.

You’ll need RealPlayer to watch the lecture videos. Topics here include: Arctic, Boundary Delimitation Courts and Tribunals, Criminal Law and Procedure, Cultural Heritage Development, Diplomatic Protection, Disaster Prevention and Relief, Environmental Law, Health and Science, Human Rights, International Civil Aviation, International Economic Law, International Labour Law, International Law, International Migration Law, International Organizations, International Watercourses, Law of Armed Conflict, Law of Outer Space, Law of the Sea, Law of Treaties, Peace and Security, Regional Organizations, Rule of Law / Democracy / Good Governance, Specialized Agencies and Related Organizations, States, United Nations.

And then there’s the site’s Research Library:

The research library contains links to other web-based resources providing international law-related materials of interest to the researcher and practitioner alike. The library is divided into four components: resources relating to treaties and treaty status information; materials concerning the jurisprudence of international courts and tribunals; access to selected United Nations publications and to repositories of official documentation; and selected scholarly writings in international law, including publications and journal articles as well as information on research guides presently available on the Internet.

The collection of scholarly writings in the library is a joint pilot project with HeinOnline. It includes:

• Scholarly Writings of Faculty members
• Scholarly Writings on Legal Instruments in the Historic Archives
• Scholarly Writings on Lectures in the Lecture Series
• Selected Classics in International law

According to UN Pulse, “The Audiovisual Library aims to provide free, scholarly resources to students and practitioners around the world, particularly in regions where there are few resources for the study of international law.”

Resources of the Week: Cold or Flu?
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

It seems like whenever the seasons are in transition, more people get sick. In some cases, it may be allergy. The weather patterns change and new particles of whatever are floating around in the air where you live. If you’ve lived in one place for awhile and you do have allergies, you’re well aware of those times of the year that are most troublesome for you.

But as we move on into the colder weather (here in the Northern Hemisphere), flu season also approaches. And we start seeing more information about who/what/where/when/why/how to get a flu shot. Should you get one? All the information you need is here in the CDC’s (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) document: Influenza Vaccination: A Summary for Clinicians. Though it’s “for Clinicians,” this summary is written largely in non-technical language and tells you pretty much everything most people need to know about flu shots. (Always check with your own health care provider, however. Remember that we are information professionals, not medical professionals.) This document is part of CDC’s Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Resources for Health Professionals site, which falls under the more general resource, Seasonal Flu site, where you’ll find a wealth of information for both health care providers and consumers.

Where can you get a flu shot — that is, besides your own doctor’s office, which may not be convenient. Check the American Lung Association’s Flu Clinic Locator. Just plug in your zip code, provide a geographic distance range via the dropdown menu, and specify a range of dates. The Lung Association also provides a wealth of influenza information for consumers.

And then there’s the National Library of Medicine’s MedlinePlus, if you really need A LOT of information. The Flu page informs us that

Flu is a respiratory infection caused by a number of viruses. The viruses pass through the air and enter your body through your nose or mouth. Between 5% and 20% of people in the U.S. get the flu each year. The flu can be serious or even deadly for elderly people, newborn babies and people with certain chronic illnesses.

It continues on from there to describe symptoms, and it provides a huge, nicely organized collection of links to more information — from the basics to clinical trials, journal articles, multimedia resources, organizations, directories, alternative therapies and much more.

But let’s face it. Even if you’re vaccinated and extremely well-informed, you may well get sick anyhow. Most of us get up and go to work every day, go shopping, go to the movies, participate in community activities…there’s no avoiding people and their germs. And if you’re a parent, you know that every small child is a viral smörgåsbord. So here you are, feeling lousy. Is it a cold or the flu?

According to the CDC:

The flu and the common cold are both respiratory illnesses but they are caused by different viruses. Because these two types of illnesses have similar flu-like symptoms, it can be difficult to tell the difference between them based on symptoms alone. In general, the flu is worse than the common cold, and symptoms such as fever, body aches, extreme tiredness, and dry cough are more common and intense. Colds are usually milder than the flu. People with colds are more likely to have a runny or stuffy nose. Colds generally do not result in serious health problems, such as pneumonia, bacterial infections, or hospitalizations.

Colds, of course, occur much more frequently. According to the American Lung Association, “Adults get an average of two to four colds per year, mostly between September and May.” (Children get six to eight.)

This adds up. According to the CDC, “In the course of a year, people in the United States suffer 1 billion colds.”

You can get a cold by touching your eyes or nose after you touch surfaces with cold germs on them. You can also inhale the germs. Symptoms usually begin 2 or 3 days after infection and last 2 to 14 days. Washing your hands and staying away from people with colds will help you avoid colds.

There is no cure for the common cold. For relief, try

• Getting plenty of rest
• Drinking fluids
• Gargling with warm salt water
• Using cough drops or throat sprays - but not cough medicine for children under four
• Taking over-the-counter pain or cold medicines - but not aspirin for children

Earlier this year, if you remember, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended against giving over-the-counter cold and cough medicines to children under the age of two. In general, this stuff needs to be stored where curious little people can’t get to it. Says the CDC:

An estimated 7,000 children ages 11 and younger are treated in hospital emergency departments each year because of cough and cold medications, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Approximately two-thirds of those incidents were due to unsupervised ingestion (i.e., children taking the medication without a parent?s knowledge).

Read the complete study published earlier this year in the journal Pediatrics.

As we all know, there is no “cure” for the common cold. But there are things you can do and ingest to make yourself feel better. The Mayo Clinic offers a rundown of what works and what doesn’t.

We just hope you stay healthy.