Quality Resources, Found for You
Welcome to ResourceShelf, where dedicated librarians and researchers share the results of their directed (and occasionally quirky) web searches for resources and information.
ResourceShelf is updated daily by an editorial team headed by Gary Price and Shirl Kennedy. Browse our postings, subscribe to our weekly newsletter, and capture RSS feeds to add ResourceShelf to your own reference collection.
View our newsletter and subscribe – it's free!
ResourceShelf is free, thanks to the support of our sponsors.
Here are the new URLs for our RSS feeds. We offer full text feeds for both ResourceShelf and DocuTicker. Make sure to check your aggregator to see if these are the URLs you’re using to receive the latest from both sites. Thanks!
Presentations from the 2nd Annual Digital Curation Conference Are Now Online
The conference took place about a week ago in Glasgow. A few more presentations will be posted soon.
See Also: Keynote Speech by Liz Lyon (PPT)
+ HighWire Launches Its 1000th Journal Site
HighWire Press celebrates a milestone today with the launch of its 1000th journal site, the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. The Society has been publishing mathematical research papers since 1865, now with the assistance of Oxford Journals, a division of Oxford University Press, one of HighWire’s premier publishing partners.
As of today the HighWire database contains 1,490,120 free full-text articles and 3,785,645 total articles.
See Also: BioMed Launches 100th independent Journal
Another Day and More Search Tools for Your Radar Scope
No slowdown in search tools coming in early 2007. Here are links to two new large general-purposeweb search engines set to launch next year.
1) Powerset
A) Will utilize Natural Language Processing
B) Currently in a “semi-stealth mode.” No specific launch date has been announced.
C) Powerset Blog
D) Recently Announced $12.5 Million in ‘Series A’ Funding
E) Powerset was recently mentioned in The Observer and The Times of London in the past couple of weeks.
2) Hakia
A A “meaning-based” search engine.”
A) Live “beta currently online and available for testing
B) No specific launch date set
C) This page lists what the company believes are Hakia’s most important features.
D) Example of a “Hakia gallery.”
Read the rest of this entry »
xFruits is one of two services (free) that we’ve been experimenting with for creating mobile friendly versions of ResourceShelf. Winksite is the other.
A quick mention that today xFruits is announcing several new tools (what they call “bricks”) that can take an RSS feed, OPML list, even an email post and make them easily accessible elsewhere. Very easy to use.
Here’s the xFruits ResourceShelf feed optimized for mobile.
New today:
+ RSS to MAIL
Get your RSS feeds delivered via e-mail either hourly or daily.
+ RSS to OPML
+ OPML to MOBILE
As you’ll notice on the xFruits homepage they offer many more “bricks” including:
+ RSS to Web Page
Here’s an example.
+ E-Mail to RSS
+ RSS to PDF
+ 1GB storage allocation for free Hotmail accounts is live!
2GB if you use Live Mail.
+ Carriers want to block our maps Says Google (via ZDNet)
Note: A webcast of the Google presentation is linked to in the article.
+
The Internet Archive Receives Microsoft Education Award From Tech Museum
Brewster Kahle says that the, “monetary award to work to support broad public access to digital works.”
You can read the full text of Rick Prelinger’s acceptance speech here.
Source: IA
+ An Intro an Overview of the Vox Blogging Platform (via Technology Review)
+Successful bids totalling £5.5m announced
JISC today announced the successful bids under the first round of funding of its capital programme. Representing an investment of nearly £5.5m, the 27 projects are being funded under the e-learning, e-infrastructure and repositories and preservation strands of the programme.
Among the 11 funded projects in the repositories and preservation strand of the programme is the national Repository Support Project to be managed by SHERPA at the University of Nottingham and supported by the University of Wales at Aberystwyth, the University of Southampton, UKOLN and the Digitial Curation Centre (DCC).
The project will provide a free ‘one-stop shop’ for advice and support to all HE institutions in England and Wales in establishing and developing digital repositories. Wider take up and development of institutional repositories is an important objective of the capital programme and, along with the other funded projects in this strand, the national support project will provide an important focus for national activities in this area.
Among other central objectives of the programme is the enhancement of the national e-infrastructure, and two funded projects in the e-infrastructure strand will build on work already being undertaken by JISC in the area of access management. Led by the University of Manchester and Cardiff University (in partnership with the London School of Economics), the projects will focus on security and identity management.
Source: JISC
The Man Whose Plan Began LexisNexis Dies (via NY Times)
H. Donald Wilson, who prepared the original business plan for what became Mead Data Central and its pioneering Lexis-Nexis database, died on Nov. 12 at his home in Mitchellville, Md. He was 82…In 1969, Mr. Wilson was asked by the Mead Corporation to assess a venture in computerized legal research that the company was considering. Mr. Wilson told his client that the searching of legal texts would be a useful tool for lawyers, as well as a promising business.
LexisNexis is now a division of Reed Elsevier.
See Also: Washington Post Obituary
Thanks to David Dilard at Net-Gold for the news tip.
Lists & Rankings: Top Ten Most Polluted Places in the World, 2006
This Top Ten list was compiled by the Technical Advisory Board of the Blacksmith Institute, an environmental NGO based in New York. The criteria used in ranking the include the size of the affected population, the severity of the toxins involved, and reliable evidence of health problems associated with the pollution.
See Also: Additional Info and Complete List via Blacksmith Institute ||| Full List (35 Cities Listed)
Source: Infoplease.com
Lists & Rankings: The 200 Largest U.S. Charities
Sort by Name | Total Revenue | Total Expenses | Surplus/Loss | Net Assets
The 200 on our list reported average gifts of $198 million, up 20% from last year. Almost matching that increase: the 18% jump in top pay (usually that of the nonprofit’s top person) to $486,878.
We determine the country’s largest nonprofits on the basis of private gifts (not total revenues) reported in the latest available fiscal year. The roster excludes academic institutions (which generally solicit only among alumni but usually are relatively efficient), charities with only a few donors (such as most private foundations), community foundations and religious institutions that don’t report numbers.
Source: Forbes
See Also: International Comparisons of Charitable Giving
See Also: Philanthropy 400: Largest U.S. Charities
Monthly Digest of UK Statistics (November, 2006)
143 pages; PDF
Twenty chapters of tables, covering the following topics: National accounts, including Gross Domestic Product (GDP); Population and vital statistics; Labour market; Social services, Law enforcement; Agriculture, food, drinks and tobacco; Production, output and costs; Energy; Chemicals; Metals, engineering and vehicles; Textiles and other manufactures; Construction; Transport; Retailing; External trade in goods; UK balance of payments; Government finance; Prices and wages i.e. Retail Prices Index (RPI); Leisure; and Weather.
See Also: Past Issues
Source: National Statistics
Web Sites: The Water Information Center
Inadequate drinking water is the second-leading cause of death among children worldwide, according to a new report from the United Nations Development Program. Almost 2 million children die from unsanitary water every year.
The Water Information Center, a Web site created by the National Academies, provides free access to more than 100 peer-reviewed reports on water-related issues and support to all who are working to create a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable world.
Source: National Academies
[This] Windows Vista FAQ can help you finalize your Vista plans. We’ve collected answers to every important Vista question we could think of, and we’ll continue to update this FAQ with more details as Vista rolls out. In the meantime, check in at the forum thread below with your own Vista questions, and we’ll see if we can dig up the answers.
Source: PC World
Posted 27 November 2006 on DocuTicker:
+ Major Christian Leaders Are Widely Unknown, Even Among Christians (The Barna Group)
+ Online victimization of youth: Five years later (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Bulletin)
+ EU: Fertility rates by region (Eurostat)
This IS NOT likely going to be the holiday season when mobile versions from popular shopping databases become THE way people shop for gifts. That’s likely still some time away (if ever).
Nevertheless, many popular shopping sites offer mobile versions of their search tools and can be useful especially for those always on the go. As Brian notes, wireless shopping is not a new idea. He tells us that PriceGrabber offered its first mobile version more than six years ago. However, as you can see below, shopping sites “going wireless” continue to increase. Here’s our first roundup. We will gather up some more in the next few weeks.
Btw, even if you don’t buy something online, we believe info pros should be aware of this technology (e-commerce transactions via mobile) and envision/brainstorm how it might have a place in a typical info center or library for the benefit of the user.
+ Amazon.com
Mobile interface at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/h.html
or
http://www.amazon.com/access
More Amazon:
++ Search Amazon.com SMS or Wireless with TicTap
++ Search Amazon.co.uk Via SMS with txtbux
++ Amazon-OnTheGo
+ Become.com
The main url http://www.become.com does a nice job of detecting browsers from mobile devices.
+ eBay
http://wap2.bonfiremedia.com/
+ Froogle
http://wml.froogle.com
or via SMS
http://www.google.com/mobile/sms/index.html
+ Frucall
A brief ResourceShelf mention from earlier this month and an interview with the CEO (via ComparisonEngines.com).
+ PriceGrabber
WAP interface at: http://www.atpgw.com/
+ ShopWiki Mobile
http://m.shopwiki.com/mobile/
+ SCANBUY
+ Slifter
Location-based shopping search. Here’s an interview with the CEO.
+ Smarter.com
An SMS price comparison tool.
Details here.
+ UpSnap
Price comparison.
+ XP Bargains
Technology bargains updated daily.
PDA Interface: http://www.xpbargains.com/pda.php
WAP Interface: http://www.xpbargains.com/wap.php
+ Yahoo Shopping (Beta)
Details here.
Direct at http://us.wap.yahoo.com/p/shopping
Tip of the cap to Comparison Engines editor, SingleFeed founder, and ResourceShelf friend, Brian Smith for his help.
No Hotel, Tent: The International Children’s Digital Library Goes to Mongolia
by Ben Bederson, Human-Computer Interaction Lab, Computer Science Department, University of Maryland
Note: If you’ve never visited the The International Children’s Digital Library it’s more than worth a look. The ICDL’s search interface, the quality of the digitization is excellent, and presentation is superb.
The Library Administration and Management Association (LAMA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), announces the launch of a new blog, “LEADS from LAMA.” The blog, which had a soft launch in August, replaces the electronic newsletter of the same name. It is available from the News page on the LAMA web site or directly at blogs.ala.org/lamaleads.php.
Additional info in this news release.
Source: ALA
Slides Now Available Online: Director of Digital Curation Centre Speaks at OCLC
“Chris Rusbridge, Director of the Digital Curation Centre at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), presented ‘To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow:’ the players on the curation stage,” as part of the OCLC Distinguished Seminar Series.”
Abstract ||| PPT Slides
See Also: Direct to Digital Curation Centre
Source: OCLC Research
The Internet Archive Gets Its Own Blog
What’s New at the Internet Archive debuted about a month ago. Congrats to Brewster and the rest of the IA team at The Presidio in S.F.
Briefs #2:
+ Brewster Kahle Talks Book Scanning (via Google Blogoscoped)
+ Google Checkout audit: Where are AdWords ‘badges’? (Via ZDNet)
+ NASA’s WorldWind Adds New Plug-In, Take Hi-Res Screen Shots
This plug-in alows you to take high resolution and widescreen panorama style screenshots suitable for print in World Wind. This is the equivalent of taking pictures with a 5+ mega pixels digital camera.
The plug-in is named: Big screenshot (panorama)
New Paper: Recent Developments in Digital Archiving and Preservation
by Pam Gatenby for the CDNL Meeting in Seoul
PDF; 11 pages.
This presentation provides an overview of some recent developments relating to digital archiving and preservation that would be of particular interest to national libraries. The developments covered are ones that the National Library of Australia is involved in has particular interest in.
Revisiting Whittaker & Sidner’s “Email Overload” Ten Years Later
by Danyel Fisher; A.J. Brush; Eric Gleave; Marc A. Smith, Microsoft Research
From the abstract:
Ten years ago, Whittaker and Sidner [8] published research on email overload, coining a term that would drive a research area that continues today. We examine a sample of 600 mailboxes collected at a high-tech company to compare how users organize their email now to 1996. While inboxes are roughly the same size as in 1996, our population’s email archives have grown tenfold. We see little evidence of distinct strategies for handling email; most of our users fall into a middle ground. There remains a need for future innovations to help people manage growing archives of email and large inboxes.
Direct to Full Text Publication
4 pages; PDF.
Source: Microsoft Research
See Also: Full Text of 1996 Paper: Email Overload: Exploring Personal Information Management of Email
by Steve Whittaker and Candace Sidner
Source: ACM
+ OCLC Members Council discusses values of the cooperative
+ Milestones: BioMed Central is proud to announce its launches 100th independent journal: Source Code for Biology and Medicine.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division Places 11 New Finding Aids Online
Available in outline view, HTML, and PDF.
+ Mabel Thorp Boardman Papers
+ Panama Collection of the Canal Zone Library-Museum
+ Joshua Coit Papers
+ LaFollette Family Papers
+ George Lardner Papers
+ Nicholas Longworth Papers
+ Cord Meyer Papers
+ Edna St. Vincent Millay Papers
+ Leighton W. Rogers Papers
+ Lessing J. Rosenwald Papers
+ Glenn Theodore Seaborg Papers
Source: Library of Congress
2006 “10 Worst Toys” List
“W.A.T.C.H.’s annual ‘10 Worst Toys’ list nominates representative toys with the potential to cause childhood injuries, or even death. W.A.T.C.H.’s annual ‘Toy Conference’ has generated extensive national press and media coverage. Because of these efforts, and the positive response from both the media and the public, there have been many toy and product design changes. Founder Edward M. Swartz and W.A.T.C.H. have fearlessly exposed potentially dangerous toys to the general public. As a result, children’s lives have been saved.”
Source: World Against Toys Causing Harm, Inc.
Posted 26 November 2006 on DocuTicker:
+ International comparisons of charitable giving (Charities Aid Foundation)
+ White Paper on Medical Financing (American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, Inc.)
+ Subsidized Monopolists and Product Prices: The Case of Major League Baseball (International Association of Sports Economists)
Council on Library and Information Resources Issue, November/December 2006 is Now Online
Articles include:
+ Charles J. Henry Named CLIR President
+ Preservation Experts, Leaders Inform CLIR’s Agenda
+ Discussions Advance Action Agenda for Cyberinfrastructure in the Humanities by Anne Okerson
+ Report Examines Impact of Changes in Scholarly Publishing on Art History
Source: CLIR
Meet The Librarian: Ann Jason Kenney
Ann Jason Kenney, the director of information literacy at Rice Memorial High School in South Burlington, recently participated in the School Library Journal leadership summit in Chicago. An article she wrote titled, “The Final Hurdle?: A new test may finally bring information literacy the recognition it deserves,” appeared in the March 2006 issue of School Library Journal.
The article discussed the newly developed Information and Communication Technology assessment from Educational Testing Service, the Princeton, N.J.-based administrator of well-known tests such as the SATs. Rice was one of five high schools nationwide to serve as an ICT test pilot site this year.
Source: Burlington Free Press
Thanks to David Dillard for the news tip.
+ OPAC/ILS News: Endeavour Will So Be Part of Ex Libris (via LJ)
Techie private equity outfit Francisco Partners has made its second strike deep inside library vendor territory in five months, this time acquiring Endeavor Information Systems from parent Elsevier for an undisclosed sum.
te
See Also: Official News from Ex Libris
See Also: FAQ
See Also: Letter to Customers
Databases: Searching America’s Byways
The National Scenic Byways Program is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. The program is a grass-roots collaborative effort established to help recognize, preserve and enhance selected roads throughout the United States. Since 1992, the National Scenic Byways Program has provided funding for almost 1500 state and nationally designated byway projects in 48 states. The U.S. Secretary of Transportation recognizes certain roads as All-American Roads or National Scenic Byways based on one or more archeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational and scenic qualities.
+ Browse Byways By Name
+ USDA Forest Service Byways & State-Designated Byways
Source: US DOT
Databases: Hazards Data Distribution System (HDDS)
USGS EROS [Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science] Hazards Data Distribution System (HDDS). Data access and delivery services are provided by the following interfaces that take into consideration users’ network capability. Users are able to obtain full-resolution GeoTIFF images or JPEG images at medium (10x) and low (50x) quality compressions.
Global in scope.
Source: USGS
2006 EContent 100
“Here we present the 100 companies that lead the digital content industry today. Of course, we want you to learn about them all—but this year, during the voting process, I paid particular attention to the companies that generated the liveliest banter among the judges, and we’ve decided to profile only 20 of these in this issue. (Mind you, these are the companies that made the list; profiling a few who didn’t make it might have also been pretty entertaining stuff.)”
+ Full List
+ Profiles of “the 20 companies that generated the most banter among the EContent 100 Judging team”
Source: EContentMag.com
National Archives and Records Administration: FY2006 Performance and Accountability Report
NARA’s Performance and Accountability Report was prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Chief Financial Officers Act, as amended by the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000, and covers activities from October 1, 2005, to September 30, 2006
Source: NARA
New EarthTrends Information Guides
EarthTrends has just released a new set of topical Information Guides, accessible through the ‘Quick Links’ section of the homepage.
EarthTrends Information Guides serve as a great starting point for navigating the main content of EarthTrends, providing users with an easy way to assess the depth and variety of resources available on our site for a particular topic area. Each guide features a brief topic summary, a list of relevant EarthTrends content, and related links.
EarthTrends Information Guides are currently available for the following topic areas:
BIODIVERISTY
CLIMATE CHANGE
CORAL REEFS
DRYLANDS
ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS
FINANCIAL FLOWS
FISHERIES
HIV/AIDS
INTERNATIONAL TRADE
MULTILATERAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS
POPULATION AND DEMOGRAPHICS
POVERTY
PROTECTED AREAS
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
TRANSPORTATION
WATER RESOURCES
Source: World Resources Institute
Databases: ICANN Launches Public Comments on Whois Task Force Report
ICANN is launching a public comments period on the Preliminary Task Force Report on Whois Services. This report forms part of the GNSO policy development process (PDP) on Whois which seeks to build consensus on policy issues in the generic top level domain (gTLD) space. The public comment period will last from 24th November, 2006 to 15 January, 2007.
After the public comment period, the Whois Task Force will consider the public comments received and prepare a final task force report for submission to the GNSO Council. The Council is expected to deliberate on the final task force report in early 2007, and work to achieve a super-majority vote on a recommendation to the ICANN Board. The GNSO Council will then submit a report to the ICANN Board, and the Board will then carry out its own deliberations and voting.
Full Text Report (HTML) ||| PDF
Source: ICANN
Statistics: Internet Usage in the United Kingdom (Sept, 2006)
6 pages; PDF
Three out of four connections to the Internet are now via broadband. In September 2006, broadband connections accounted for 75.2 per cent of all Internet connections, up from 72.6 per cent in June 2006. This is according to the latest update to the survey of Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The index of all connections rose to 109.5 in September 2006, compared to the base month of 100 in March 2005. The index increased by 0.8 per cent between June 2006 and September 2006. Dial-up connections continued to decline and accounted for 24.8 per cent of all Internet connections in September 2006.
Source: National Statistics Office, UK
Statistics: Podcast Downloading
Some 12% of internet users say they have downloaded a podcast so they can listen to it or view it at a later time. However, few internet users are downloading podcasts with great frequency; just 1% report downloading a podcast on a typical day.
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project
Posted 25 November 2006 on DocuTicker:
+ Base Stations and Wireless Networks: Radiofrequency (RF) Exposures and Health Consequences (Environmental Health Perspectives)
+ UK top destination for foreign R&D investment (Eurostat)
+ 2006 Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators Report Published (Environment Canada)
Design by Beccary and Weblogs.us
·
XHTML
·
CSS