Here are the new URLs for our RSS feeds. We offer 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!

• ResourceShelf: http://www.resourceshelf.com/feed/
• DocuTicker: http://www.docuticker.com/?feed=rss2

Lists & Rankings: America’s Most Admired Companies, 2008

Top 20
From the Top 20 (Overall)
1) Apple (Up from #7 in 2007 and 11 in 2006)
4) Google (Up from #8 in 2007)
16) Microsoft

#1 By Category
+ IAC/InterActive (Internet Services and Retail) with a score of 8.61*
++ Yahoo is also listed in this category with a score of 6.03

+ Intuit (Computer Software)

The 2007 and 2006 lists are also available online.

Full List

* Gary is Director of Online Resources at Ask.com, part of IAC/InterActive

IMLS Holds First Conservation Forum in Atlanta Jan. 31-Feb. 1; Webcasts Now Available

Three hundred museum, library, and archive professionals from 41 states and the District of Columbia gathered in Atlanta on January 31 and February 1 for the forum, “Preserving America’s Diverse Heritage,” sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in partnership with Heritage Preservation. This was the first of four meetings around the country held to raise awareness about the nation’s valuable and endangered collections. IMLS, the primary source of federal support for the nation’s museums and libraries, launched the forums as part of the national initiative, Connecting to Collections: A Call to Action. The multi-year, multi-faceted initiative aims to help museums and libraries save their collections from poor storage conditions, pest infestation, and exposure to light, humidity, and high temperatures.

A webcast of Preserving America’s Diverse Heritage is available at http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/heritage_preservation/080131.

New Report:
UK: From knowledge to health in the 21st Century, Aligning library/knowledge service to core NHS business
2 pages; PDF.

The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement has submitted two important documents to the Department of Health both of which underpin the improvement of NHS Library Services and ensures that high quality health knowledge informs patient care. They are the report of the National Review of NHS Health Library Services in England, sponsored by the Department of Health and authored by Professor Peter Hill (formerly the Postgraduate Dean for the North East) and the National Service Framework for Quality Improvement, which has been a key work stream of the National Library for Health within the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement.

+ The Review Report and the Framework for Quality Improvement can be located at: http://www.library.nhs.uk/aboutnlh/review

Direct to Individual Reports:
++ Report of a National Review of NHS Health Library Services in England: From knowledge to health in the 21st Century.

+++ National Service Framework for Quality Improvement for NHS Funded Library Services in England.

Source: NHS (via Tom Roper’s Weblog)

Digital Preservation Program Launches Newsletter
From the announcement:

A monthly online newsletter highlighting the important work that the Library of Congress’s digital preservation program (National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP)) is performing to collect and preserve the nation’s heritage in digital form will launch in March.

To subscribe to the newsletter, go to http://service.govdelivery.com/service/subscribe.html?code=USLOC_13. Here you will type in your e-mail address and press “Enter.” Then you will see a list of all available e-mail updates from the Library of Congress; you can subscribe to any of these services. To receive the NDIIPP newsletter, scroll down and click on “Digital Preservation.”

Source: Library of Congress

All A-twitter
by Rhea Kelly
Kelly shares several thoughts about using Twitter in the classroom which are based on article by Assistant Professor Dave Parry, University of Texas-Dallas.

Source: Campus Technology

+ White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
Mobile and PDA Sites

+ NOAA/NWS: Ocean Prediction Center EXPERIMENTAL Mobile Products

+ Pennsylvania, Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Courts

+ Virginia: Department of Taxation

+ Fairfax County, VA Mobile Web Site

See Also: Mobile Web: Seven Wireless Portals and Sites from Seven State Goverments #1

blinkx Survey of TV and Online Video Habits Reveals Surprising User Behavior

blinkx, the world’s largest video search engine, today announced the results of a new survey on television and online video viewing habits conducted on its behalf by Harris Interactive. The survey, designed to shed light into the interplay between television viewing and Internet usage, revealed some startling results.

Survey Highlights

A summary of some other highlights from the survey include:

+ 78% of adults who watch television use the web while doing so

+ 35% report doing so often or always

+ 62% of double-dippers surf for content related to what they’re watching

+ 40% of them look for products/services that appeared in or were advertised during the program they’re watching

+ 39% of them look for upcoming/related events

When it comes to watching video or television content online, twice as many online adults typically watch full-length television shows, movies, or sporting events, as compared to user-generated content (25% vs. 13%, respectively).

When it comes to finding Internet video content, consumer behavior is almost equally divided between search engines and users going directly to content owner Web sites.

Source: blinkx

+ SPARC Open Access Newsletter, no. 119, Featuring Harvard OA Mandate (Mar. 2, ‘08)

+

CBSSports, Facebook Connect
Located at www.facebook.com/brackets, CBSSports.com Tournament Brackets will be available to the site’s more than 63 million active users both online and via CBS Sports Mobile, creating a cross platform experience for all NCAA Basketball fans.

Source: NCAA

See Also: Facebook Mobile

Wikipedia co-founder and the person leading Wikia, Jimmy Wales, talks to CBS Marketwatch about how Wikia is going since it launched a few months ago.

Source: CBS Marketwatch

+ Free Animated Download of Horton Hears a Who! (via SLJ)
From the article:

An animated digital version of Horton Hears a Who! is available for free to teachers throughout March, thanks to the National Education Association’s (NEA) Read Across America celebration of Theodor Seuss Geisel’s (Dr. Seuss) 104th birthday.

The download, now available on Kidthing, brings the classic book to life with animation, narration, and sound effects. Librarians, teachers, and care givers can turn the sound off and read the book aloud—just like their parents did.

Send large files via email. No software required. (Fee >1GB) and free (up to 1GB) services available.

+ Commission launches European Radio Network (via EuraActiv)

+ New Database: Qatar: Database of private doctors launched

+ Will Digital Texts Succeed? (via CampusTechnology.com)

+ From Static to Dynamic — Choosing and Implementing a Web-Based CMS (via Computers in Libraries)

Resources of the Week: International Business and Economics Statistics (Part 2)
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Last week, we introduced you to a variety of sources for international business/finance/economic statistics. This week, as promised, we have even more for you.

+ You may have never heard of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). It’s not like you or I would have any reason to transact business with this institution, “an international organisation which fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks.” As a matter of fact, we couldn’t — even if we wanted to: “As its customers are central banks and international organisations, the BIS does not accept deposits from, or provide financial services to, private individuals or corporate entities.” Read more on the “About BIS” page.

There are, however, a few good reasons to visit this website. For one thing, it offers a comprehensive alphabetical list of links to central banks all over the world. It also hosts a Central Bank Research Hub, where you can find working papers from central banks worldwide. There are many different ways to browse these papers. You’ll also find a repository of speeches by central bankers.

Finally, there are A LOT of statistics here:

• the cross-border lending and borrowing of internationally active banks in key financial centres, including offshore centres (banking statistics)
• issuing activity in international and domestic securities markets (securities statistics)
• operations in over-the-counter and exchange-traded derivatives markets (derivatives statistics)
• effective exchange rate (EER) indices for 52 economies (effective exchange rates)
• operations in the global foreign exchange markets (foreign exchange statistics)
• external debt positions of individual countries based on BIS banking and securities statistics as well as on data from other international organisations (external debt statistics)
• payment and settlement systems in major financial centres (payment statistics)

–
+ B&E Datalinks, sponsored by the Business and Economics Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association, offers “a comprehensive set of links to data sites on the Web along with a user-based assessment of the quality of each site.” The search page allows you to either browse the sites by broad category (Macroeconomics, Labor and General Microeconometrics, Business Datasets, Finance) or do a keyword search in any or all of the categories.

For each resource, you’ll find a brief description, the date the entry was last modified, and a user-provided rating. There’s also a link to “more info” — generally a brief description of the organization providing the data — and another link that allows you to rate that resource. Do be aware that some of the entries have not been updated in quite awhile, so you will find the occasional dead link or outdated description.
–
+ The International Monetary Fund
“is an international organization of 185 member countries. It was established to promote international monetary cooperation, exchange stability, and orderly exchange arrangements; to foster economic growth and high levels of employment; and to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment.” We really like the Country Information Page, where you can browse IMF reports and publications by country. There’s some good, detailed stuff here, and much of it is quite current. Browsing under Afghanistan, for example, we unearthed a “Statistical Appendix” (PDF; 385 KB), dated February 20, that was filled with GDP data, industrial sector statistics, transportation and communications data, and agricultural data — including “Opium Production and Prices, 1994–2007.”

The Data & Statistics page, of course, is also worth a bookmark. Here you will find links to a number of statistical databases (some subscription, most free), manuals and guides, and even a few online discussion groups.
–
+ The Pliny Fisk Library of Economics and Finance (Princeton University Libraries) offers several useful resource collections:

• Basic Sources of Economic Statistics
• Economic and Political Risk
• International Trade Statistics

Don’t miss the excellent Guide to Globalization Resources, also available as a flat file. Keep in mind that, as with most academic libraries, research guides like this often contain links to subscription resources available only to members of that academic community.
–
+ Also worth a look — RenSearch: International Business Statistics from the Rensselaer Research Libraries, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
–
+ The Federation of International Trade Associations (FITA) offers a nicely annotated page — Really Useful Links for International Trade: Trade and Economic Statistics. And take a look at the Country Profiles and Resources — “…links to resources for most countries in the world as well as more than 80 country profiles developed by Export Enterprises, of Paris, France.” There’s also a link to Exportnavigator.com, a database of roughly 10,000 free market reports of various vintages.

Take a good look at the Tools of Trade section in the lefthand navigation panel on the FITA side; it offers a variety of resources, including glossaries, foreign exchange info, maps, trade law, transportation and logistics info, and much more. FITA, by the way, is kind of an umbrella organization for more than 450 independent international associations such as world trade clubs, chambers of commerce, and various related professional associations. It also offers a free bi-weekly e-mail newsletter — Really Useful Sites for International Trade Professionals — which highlights some of the resources on the website.
–
+ Finally, have a look at the World Bank’s Data & Research website. There is a wealth of material here, including working papers, research articles, journals and other publications. If you’re mainly interested in statistics, you can jump right to the page where this type of information is directly available.