Web Search–AltaVista
Source: News.Com
“AltaVista: In Search of a Turning Point”
Jim Hu provides gives the goings on at AltaVista a thorough review. From the article, “Rivals such as Google have stepped up to challenge AltaVista’s position as the search technology leader, innovating new ways to find relevant search results that cut through the growing clutter of the Web. Facing declining revenues, AltaVista has also begun to experiment with aggressive advertising strategies pioneered by rival GoTo.com, drawing charges from consumer groups that its search results are now up for sale to the highest bidder.”

Newspaper Archives
Tasini Decision
Source: Editor and Publisher
San Diego Newspaper Shuts Down Archives
From the article, Citing a landmark Supreme Court ruling that publishers must get permission from free-lancers before using their articles in electronic databases, the San Diego Union-Tribune is blocking access to all of the archive’s contents created prior to Jan. 1, 2000. Also from the article, “It is possible to go through the database using various tools to attempt to extricate those things that are questionable under the (Supreme Court) decision,” [Hal] Fuson [vice president and chief legal officer of Union-Tribune parent Copley Press Inc] said. “But that’s a very time-consuming, laborious, and expensive process. And the amount of revenue that we derived from selling access to those databases is so small it is uneconomical to do it. We are going to continue to look at ways to restore portions of the database prior to Jan. 1, 2000, as we have resources available but I have no idea how long that will take.”

Information Industry–Questia
Source: Houston Chronicle
“Questia to Let College Buy Online-Library Service in Bulk”
Lead of article, “Questia Media continues to adjust its marketing strategy this summer with a plan to offer universities the ability to buy subscriptions for its online library and research service in bulk.” Also from the article, “The bulk purchase is something of a departure for Questia, which in the past was emphatic that it would only sell its $19.95 per month service to individuals. Most libraries are used to buying such online content through site licenses, which allow them to pay a lump sum based on the number of users.”
Thanks to LISNews.Com for the tip.

Scholarly Publishing
Full-Text Books Online
“California Digital Library and University of California Press Collaborate to Deliver Scholarly Books Online”
FREE Access to 60 University of California Press books now available via the CDL eScholarship initiative.
Direct to the Free Full-Text Content

Search Industry–Northern Light
Search Industry–Yahoo
Northern Light and Yahoo Form Strategic Alliance
From the news release, “Northern Light(R) Technology (http://www.NorthernLight.com) today announced a strategic alliance with Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), a leading global Internet communications, commerce and media company, to make available its premium content and search services to existing and future customers of the Corporate Yahoo!(TM)Enterprise Information Portal (http://corporate.yahoo.com)…Northern Light will provide access to its Special Collection(TM), an online business library of over 7,000 full-text sources, complementing the existing content and application modules on Corporate Yahoo!. The Special Collection is one of the largest collections of any online periodicals library, with over 60 million pages of information including thousands of trade journals, hundreds of newspapers, medical publications, academic journals, and newswires…Additionally, Corporate Yahoo! clients can expand their portal with Northern Light’s SinglePoint(TM) service, which provides access to all of a company’s information sources such as proposals and presentations in all of the major formats via a single user interface. Clients can incorporate internal content such as that contained in knowledge management systems, as well as third-party licensed content from leading market research vendors including The Yankee Group, AMI Partners, Frost & Sullivan and Jupiter.
See Also: More on Changes to Yahoo Corporate Portal Services

Enterprise Search Tools
Source: InfoWorld
“Search Technology Gains Recognition”
Here’s hoping that companies that purchase these search products have people in place with not only technology skills but with knowledge of information organization. From the article, [Search] is an important issue for enterprises because there is so much content now, if [companies] don’t have sophisticated way of finding that content, they are blowing their investments in the content,” he [Guy Creese, research director at the Aberdeen Group] said.
Companies mentioned in the article:
Verity
Smartlogik

Full-Text Document Shelf
Source: National Commission on Federal Election Reform
Final Report of the Commission
114 pages .pdf
See Also: National Commission on Federal Election Reform Web Site

The Web As a Research Tool
Source: Library Journal
REGISTRATION Required (Free) To Access Full-Text
Could Librarians’ Help Have Prevented Hopkins Tragedy?
The web is a wonderful, no, incredible information tool. However, only using the web does not make for quality and complete research. From the article, “Librarians know too well the misperception that everything is available on the Internet–but has that misperception now proved fatal? Perhaps, say medical librarians, after recent reports in the Baltimore Sun suggested that a Johns Hopkins medical researcher failed to uncover published research suggesting the potentially lethal side effects associated with inhalation of the drug Hexamethonium. According to the Sun, while investigators found that supervising physician Dr. Alkis Togias made “a good faith effort” to research the drug’s possible adverse effects, his search apparently focused on online resources, including PubMed, which is searchable only back to 1960. Previous articles published in the 1950s, however, with citations in subsequent publications, warned of lung damage associated with Hexamethonium. Dr. Frederick Wolff, a professor emeritus at the George Washington School of Medicine, told reporters Togias was “foolish” and “lazy” for not finding the articles. “Anyone trained in academic medicine knows how to do this research,” Wolff told reporters. “What happened is not just an indictment of one researcher, but of a system in which people don’t bother to research the literature anymore.”

Web Search–Pay-Per-Click/Paid Placement
Directory: Pay-Per-Click Search Engines
Paid-Placement by some of the major general-purpose engines has received quite a bit of attention in the last few weeks. Many engines (several who license content to the big guys) are entirely made up of paid listings. This directory should assist in indentifying many of them.

Information Industry–OCLC
Source: Information Today
OCLC Abandons Proprietary Database Software, Selects Oracle
Lead of article, “OCLC (http://www.oclc.org), the leading library vendor, continues building for its future as a master player in the emerging virtual library world. Getting down to basics, it has announced that it will substitute the market-standard Oracle software as its basic platform, eliminating the proprietary software used and developed over 3 decades.”

Library Catalogs–United Kingdom
Feasibility Study For A United Kingdom Union Catalog Now Available on the Web.
47 pages .pdf

Full-Text Resource Shelf
Source: U.S. Census
Census Brief: Congressional Apportionment
8 pages .pdf

P2P–Filters
Source: Committee on Government Reform, U.S. States House of Representatives
File Sharing Programs, Filters and “Adult” Content
From the Committee web site, “Internet file-sharing programs that provide children easy and free access to thousands of explicit pornographic videos and other pornographic materials. As Napster faces litigation, Internet users are increasingly turning to alternative file-sharing programs such as Music City Morpheus, BearShare, and Aimster. Pornographic files are widely available on these networks and children can be unexpectedly inundated by files containing explicit content for simple searches like �Britney Spears.� Moreover, many popular parental filters do not block access to pornographic materials obtained through file-sharing programs.”
16 pages .pdf

Food–Genetic Modification
Source: Royal Commission on Genetic Modification (New Zealand)
Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification
This site includes full-text of final report, executive summary, news releases, and related documents.

E-Books
Source: Sacramento Bee
E-books Open New Chapter for Libraries
From the article, “This school year CSU [the California State University System] set up a pilot project to give all students and faculty at its 23 campuses access to electronic books — known as e-books. So far, the university system has acquired the rights to 1,625 full-text e-books in a multitude of subjects — mostly scholarly reference books.”

High-Tech Industry
Source: NY Times
Google/Novell Chairman Eric Schmidt From a Roundtable Discussion About The High-Tech Industry
This is a selection of material from the transcript.

New or Recently Updated Research Reports (Full-Text)
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From the House of Commons Library (United Kingdom)
Farming After Foot and Mouth
46 pages .pdf
The National Lottery
62 pages .pdf
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From the Congressional Research Service (United States)
Fishery, Aquaculture, and Marine Mammal Legislation in the 107th Congress
13 pages .pdf
The Former Soviet Union and U.S. Foreign Assistance
17 pages .pdf
Global Climate Change
16 pages .pdf
Macedonia: Country Background and Recent Conflict
17 pages
Space Stations
18 pages .pdf

Ready Reference
Energy–United States–Statistics
Energy–Worldwide–Statistics
Source: Energy Information Agency
Energy INFOcard
Quick reference sheet with a basic selection of U.S. and World energy statistics
See Also: Energy INFOcard in .pdf

Digitization Projects–Journals
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
“JSTOR’s Journal-Archiving Service Makes Fans of Librarians and Scholars”
From the article, “All these will soon be cut up and given a new life as digital documents. JSTOR, a nonprofit, digital-archiving organization, has since 1994 collected full runs of venerable journals, scanned the pages into a database, and made the contents available online, at a price. The nonprofit company’s mission is twofold: to preserve and maintain journal literature, and to make that material more accessible. “It’s fabulously successful,” says Mark S. Sandler, a collection-development officer at the University of Michigan’s library. The service, which archives articles from more than 160 journals, is available at 786 American institutions and at more than 250 libraries around the world, from Estonia to Malaysia to Pakistan.”

E-Libraries–Commercial Viability
Source: News.Com
“Reading Online Libraries”
Gartner analyst, Marti Harris, offers a commentary about the future prospects of commercial e-library services. From the column, “Gartner believes that success in distributing to students content normally published by university and academic publishers–and the large-scale penetration of the e-learner market–requires a formal, contractual relationship with libraries. Selling pages at 25 cents to individuals and without contracted membership fees does not seem a good way to ensure long-term business viability.”
See Also “Web Companies Build Online Library”
From the article, “Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Ebrary said the service, dubbed Ebrarian 1.0, will be available on a co-branded Web site, enabling people to scour business and economic titles for free. People will also have the option to buy materials in print form or photocopy the information for a fee.”

Public Libraries
The Future of the Public Library
Note: The entire program can be heard online using RealAudio. The program aired July 18th on “The Connection” (WBUR, Boston). From the summary, “…public libraries are fighting back, reinventing themselves by reaching out to their communities and becoming places where people can log on, check out, listen in and speak up. Guests: Catherine Dibble, Director of Public service at the Boston Public Library; and John Guscott, manager of electronic services at the Lakewood, Ohio library and editor of the newsletter Library Futures; Suzie Neubauer, head of technical services at the Robbins Library in Arlington [MA].
Thanks to LISNEWS.Com for the tip.

Library Technology–Massachusetts
“Grants Boost Library Technology”
Source: Civic.Com
From the article, “Massachusetts libraries are getting more than $2.4 million in grants to improve their technology and accessibility…The money comes from the national Institute of Museum and Library Services (www.imls.gov) which is mandated under the 1996 Federal Library Services and Technology Act to promote access to learning and information resources for all types of libraries and for people of all ages.”

Aviation–United States–Database
Invisible Web
Access U.S. Aircraft Data Via FAA Aircraft Inquiry Site
From a news release, “Searchers get the aircraft’s description, the registered owner and co-owners, additional airworthiness data about engine type, temporary registrations and modifications. Searches may also be made by: aircraft serial number, make-model, state-county, and the name of registered owners.

Global Brands–Lists and Rankings
Source: Business Week
The Best Global Brands
Direct to Top 100 Most Valuable Brands (.pdf chart)

Full-Text Resource Shelf (3 Items)
Internet Usage–Statistics–Canada
Source: Statistics Canada
“Household Internet Use Survey”
From the reports, “Internet use took its biggest jump ever in 2000, according to the Household Internet Use Survey, dampening speculation that the Internet’s popularity may be levelling off.”
See Also: Additional Charts and Graphs from this Report (.pdf)
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Tax Revenue–United States
Source: U.S. Census
State Government Tax Revenues-2000
News Release/Summary ||| Direct to Report
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U.S. Department of Justice
Source: GAO
Department of Justice: Status of Achieving Key Outcomes and Addressing Major Management Challenges
49 pages .pdf

Web Archive Projects
OCLC Collaborates to Develop Digital Archive of Web Documents
Important and exciting research. From the release, “The goal of the Web Document Digital Archive project is to create a sustainable service to provide long-term access to web documents. The service will fill libraries’ basic needs for identification, selection, capture, description, preservation, and access to documents that would not be accessible in the future otherwise.”
See Also: Preservation Metadata: A Review of the State of the Art (Full-Text)
50 pages .pdf from OCLC/RLG Working Group on Metadata

New Database
Chemical Safety–Worldwide
International Program On Chemical Safety-INCHEM
From the news release, “The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today announced that thousands of chemical safety documents are now available free on the Internet - a development which will help countries to fulfil UN environment goals. According to WHO, the website of the International Programme on Chemical Safety (www.inchem.org) now offers easy access to thousands of searchable full-text documents from international bodies on chemical risks and chemical risk management.”
News Release ||| Direct to the Database

New Database
Buildings–United States Government
U.S. Government Leased and Owned Buildings
From the press release, “The GSA buildings and sites database allows the visitor to view expiring lease/occupancy information from more than 7,000 GSA leases and the locations of more than 1,900 GSA-owned buildings. Visitors to the site can view the information by GSA region or by state from congressional districts.”
Direct to the Database

Web Search–Pay-For-Placement
Source: IndustryStandard.Com
GoTo.Com Does Well, Financially
Despite increased scrutiny about pay-for-placement search tools one of the few dot coms that is doing well financially is GoTo.Com, a pay-for-placement search engine. GoTo and similar engines should not be stopped, shut-down, fined, or anything close. The issue in my mind is one of user education for both information professionals and those users who come to us for web search assistance. We should teach/alert people that different types of search tools exist and the answers you receive will be different and/or perhaps labeled differently, depending on which one you choose. It’s also important to alert users who use meta-search engines to pay close attention to exactly which engines they are searching. Most meta-search engines send the search to some percentage of pay-for-placement engines. Danny Sullivan has written an excellent article on this topic. This pay-for-placement controversy is a perfect opportunity for profession to get out and inform the public about something they should know about.

Full-Text Document Shelf (5 Items)
E-Government–Benchmark Study
Information Age Government - Benchmarking Electronic Service Delivery - 2001
Source: Office of the e-Envoy (United Kingdom)
From the site, “International benchmarking studies have been carried out in 2000 and again this year to compare the Government�s progress against G7 and other leading nations in the development of electronic government services.” The report is available in several formats. The year 2000 report is also available at this url.
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Birth Rate–United States
Source: National Center for Health Statistics
Births: Preliminary Data for 2000
From the summary, “The U.S. teen birth rate declined to a record low in 2000, according to a preliminary report on births from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report showed that the 2000 rate was 22 percent lower than the rate in 1991 when the decline began. In addition, the report showed an estimated 4,064,948 births for all ages in 2000 in the United States, 3 percent more than in 1999 and the highest in almost a decade.”
News Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text
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Womens Health–United States
Source: National Center for Health Statistics
New Report: Utilization of Ambulatory Medical Care by Women: United States, 1997-98
From the news release, “A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) examines women’s use of ambulatory medical care in 1997 and 1998 and finds that in many significant ways their care differs from men.”
News Summary ||| Direct to the Full-Text
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Individual Proprietorships–United States–Statistics
Source: U.S. Census
Nonemployer Statistics: 1998
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text
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Employment–State and Local Government–United States
Source: U.S. Census
State and Local Governments Employ More Than 15 Million
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text

Web Search–Time Lag
“It’s Fresher at FAST”
Source: SearchDay
I’ve written a short article comparing the last time the crawler visited several pages from AllTheWeb (Fast), Google, and AltaVista for Chris Sherman’s daily newsletter.

Web Search–Vivisimo
Meta-Search
Search More Material With Vivisimo
I have not been a big fan of meta-search tools and for the most part I would still prefer to use each engine in its native format than head to a meta engine. Also, it’s important to know that many of the meta-search engines are compiling results from paid placement search engines like GoTo.Com and Sprinks. In addition, most meta-engines do not search Google. Nevertheless, I continue to be impressed with Vivisimo in terms of result organization by clustering, usability, limit searching, and presentation. Make sure to take advantage of the Vivisimo “Advanced Search” interface that allows you to select which engines you search, number of results returned, etc. Vivisimo offers several specialty searches. For example, search for news from CNN, Yahoo, and other sites and be able to take advantage of Vivisimo’s features. You can also search Medline, the USPTO Patent Database, Business.Com, and FirstGov.Gov. With sophisticated databases like Medline and USPTO you will be giving up most of the limiting features these resources offer via their native interfaces. However, Vivisimo’s clustering and presentation features may, allow those who don’t make use of sophsiticated search and limiting features, the opportunity to get a handle on result sets that are often very large.
Resources:
Vivisimo Advanced Interface
Demo Vivisimo Technology with other Databases
Demos available include: Librarians’ Index to the Internet, Google Groups, Microsoft.Com, and More.

Web Search–Google
Google Adds More Images to New Database
The Google Image Search Database has increased in size from 150 million images to about 250 million images.
Direct to the Google Image Search FAQ

Public Libraries
IFLA/UNESCO Publish Guidelines for Public Library Development
From a news report, “The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) recently announced the publication of public library guidelines under the title “The Public Library Service: IFLA/UNESCO Guidelines for Development”. The guidelines are intended to provide assistance to librarians in any situation to develop an effective public library service meeting the needs of their local community…The official launch of these Guidelines will be held at the IFLA Conference in Boston, Wednesday, 22 August, 09.00.”

Preservation–Photographs
Source: Wired News
Bill Gates, Photographs and Freezers
From the article, “Talk about creepy. Bill Gates’ minions are currently laying the floor for a 10,000 square foot, tomblike facility in rural Pennsylvania to preserve, in part, an image of Albert Einstein’s tongue. It’s the future home of the Bettmann Archive, a renowned collection of more than 11 million historic photographs and negatives — including such iconic images as Einstein sticking out his tongue and the Wright Brothers in flight. It’s a symbolic declaration that physical photographs are dead and should literally be buried. Gates’ plans call for more than mere burial. The Bettmann Archive will be stored in specially engineered, subzero rooms — a first in the history of photo preservation. The Bettmann facility, scheduled to open in 2002, will operate at minus-4 degrees Fahrenheit, with 35 percent humidity. In comparison, New York’s Museum of Modern Art currently stores 95 percent of its photographs at 60 degrees Fahrenheit, with 40 percent humidity.”

Internet Domains
Source: Wired News
The Lowdown on .Info
Registration begins today. From the article, “Between now and Aug. 27, anyone who owns a registered trademark can pay to reserve a dot-info domain through an exclusive procedure intended to prevent new Web addresses from falling prey to cybersquatters…Registration for the general public begins on August 27th. From the article, “Although there are no restrictions on what a dot-info site may be used for, Afilias is pitching the domain as better suited for so-called informational sites than for commercial ones. LaPlante uses the example of a pharmaceutical company that is registering dot-info addresses for each of its drugs, and using the sites to provide information about their use and side effects. Even so, there’s no guarantee that a dot-info site will in fact be informative. There’s also nothing stopping a company from simply taking the same information that’s on its existing dot-com or dot-net site and copying it onto a dot-info extension.”

Census 2000–United States
Demographics–United States
Additional Summary File 1 (Detailed Demographic Info, by State) Now Available
This Week:
Alaska
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
New Hampshire
Oklahoma

Full-Text Document Shelf (3 Items)
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Transportation–United Kingdom
National Travel Survey: 1998-2000 Update
Source: Department for Transport
40 pages .pdf
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Education–United States–Statistics
Web Version of The Condition of Education Now Available
From the site, The Condition of Education summarizes important developments and trends in education using the latest available data. The report, which is required by law, is an indicator report intended for a general audience of readers who are interested in education. Full-Text .pdf versions of the previously released print edition are also available.
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Agriculture–United States
Source:USDA
Agricultural Prices–Annual
From the site, “This report contains the annual summary of indexes of prices received and paid by farmers; prices received for farm commodities by states and prices paid for production items by region and the U.S., past year and earlier years.”

Demographic Data–American FactFinder (U.S. Census)
Invisible Web
Massive Amounts of New Content Added to American FactFinder Database
Quite a busy period. Although some of this material may be available elsewhere on the Web, AFF puts everything in one searchable location and adds a wonderous amount of utility to it. For example, most of these data sets allow you to customize, while online, the sort and display of the data to fit your needs. Invisible Web? Absolutely! While the top-level pages in AFF can be found via a general search engine (Excite, AltaVista, Google) the data that resides below these pages cannot be accessed. You need to use AFF to get at this treasure chest of material. At this address, you can access and manipulate available Census 2000 information for any U.S. address.

Digitization Projects
Olive Software, British Library, Oxford and OCLC Cooperate to Put Printed Treasures Online
Although this news release is a few months old, I still think you will find it of interest. Make sure to give the demo a whirl. From the press release, “An international team including the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University, the Malibu Project (Oxford, King�s College, London, and Southampton University), the British Library Newspaper Library, OCLC Preservation Resources (the only organization in the U.S. devoted exclusively to providing high-quality preservation reformatting services to the library, archival, and preservation community), and Olive Software Inc., has been working together to produce an online facsimile library of historic newspapers and documents.”

Web Search Industry
Source: Online Journalism Review
Search Engines and Editorial Integrity
From the article, “Many of us in the new media industry have watched in despair during the past few months as several major search engines have abandoned all pretense at editorial integrity by adopting deceptive, misleading advertising practices at the expense of their users.”

Full-Text Document Shelf (3 Items)
Source: NHTSA
Replacement Tire Report
From the news release, “The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced today that it has completed its review of 11 different models/sizes of tires that were designated by Ford Motor Company as replacements for Firestone Wilderness AT tires on Ford vehicles.”
News Release ||| Sumary of Document (Full-Text Not Yet Available)
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Higher Education
R&D–United States–Statistics
Source: National Science Foundation
Academic Research and Development Expenditures: Fiscal Year 1999
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National Parks–Canada–Statistics
National Historic Sites–Canada–Statistics
Table of Visitor Statistics From Selected National Parks and National Historic Sites
6 pages .pdf

Web Search–AllTheWeb
More on The Changes To AllTheWeb.Com That We Mentioned A Couple of Weeks Ago
This morning the Fast/AllTheWeb management released an official news announcement with “official” word about many of the changes we higlighted a couple of weeks ago.
From the news release:
*The Entire Database is Refreshed Every 9 to 12 Days
If AllTheWeb can live up to this claim this is a major step forward.
*The AllTheWeb Multimedia Database Provides Access to 70 Million Files
See Also: The AllTheWeb review from this site on 7/08/01

Web Search Industry
Source: InfoToday.Com
“Consumer Watchdog Files Complaint Against Eight Search Engines for ‘Crass Commercialism’ “
Chris Sherman provides a complete overview of the recently filed complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. From the article, “Commercial Alert, a 3-year-old group founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader, has filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against eight Web search engines �for placing ads in search engine results without clear disclosure that the ads are ads.� Named in the complaint were AltaVista Co.; AOL Time Warner, Inc.; Direct Hit Technologies (owned by Ask Jeeves); iWon, Inc.; LookSmart, Ltd.; Microsoft Corp.; and Terra Lycos S.A. (owner of HotBot and Lycos). �These search engines have chosen crass commercialism over editorial integrity,� said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert.”

Search Tools–Northern Light
Intranet and Extranet Searching
“Northern Light Launches Daily Site Search for Corporate Web Sites, Intranets and Extranets”
“Northern Light(R) Technology (http://www.northernlight.com) today announced a new set of services to provide search technology and content to corporations for use on their public Web sites, internal intranets and corporate extranets. Search ToolKit(TM) combines site search including a daily crawl of the public pages of a company’s site, and includes the option to access related content from the Web and Northern Light’s online business library. Search ToolKit gives companies new ways to increase the usability of their Web site by providing timely access to their site’s content to better insure customer retention and allow for the “stickiness” so desirable in today’s competitive Web environment.”
Thanks to GT for the tip.

Web Search–FirstGov.Gov
Source: Federal Computer Week
The Latest on FirstGov
According to the article it’s going to “get better” over the summer. I hope so.

Full-Text Document Shelf (3 Items)
Elections–United States
Source: Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives
Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 7, 2000.
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Performing Arts–United States
Source: Pew Charitable Trusts/RAND
The Performing Arts in a New Era
From the news release, “The report, The Performing Arts in a New Era, by Kevin McCarthy, Arthur Brooks, Julia Lowell, and Laura Zakaras, is the first to analyze the entire performing arts system–theater, opera, dance and music in the commercial, professional nonprofit, and the community-oriented volunteer sector–over the past 30 years. The major objective of the study was to examine trends affecting audiences, artists, organizations and finances and to identify the policy implications of those trends.”
Research Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text
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Cell Phones–Safety–United States
Source: NHTSA
NHTSA Reports on Major Survey Of Cell Phone Use by Drivers
Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text

Web Directory–Corporate Archives
Directory of Corporate Archives in the United States and Canada
Published by the Society of American Archivists, Business Archives Section

Energy–Petroleum–United States
Gasoline Prices
Source: EIA
New Resource: Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update
Pricing and industry information, updated daily.

Elections–Canada
Source: Elections Canada
Now in HTML: “Canada’s Electoral System”
Also Available as a .pdf file.

Electronic Journals
Digital Archives
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
Harvard and Several Publishers Build Experimental Archive for Electronic Journals
From the article, “One issue it will examine is how to design long-term digital archives. Paper books and journals have lifetimes extending many decades, and once acquired, require little more than to be kept in a dry place. But “most digital things, if left unattended for 10 years, become unusable,” says Dale Flecker, associate director for planning and systems in the Harvard University Library. That is because digital technologies are developing so fast that they soon become obsolete. Archiving may often require a different technology than that used for current access to digital materials.”

Electronic Resources
Libraries–Australia
Source: National Library of Australia
Electronic Information Resources Strategies and Action Plan 2001-2002
From the report, “This paper documents the National Library’s proposed strategies and actions in relation to Australian and overseas electronic information resources for the period 2001-2002.”

World Bank–Contracts–Database
Invisible Web
Contracts/Contractor Search
From the database home page, “Procurement under World Bank-financed projects results in the award of approximately 20-30,000 contracts (total value of about $20 billion); about 10,000 are subject to prior review (total value of about $10 billion). The search function below allows you to search major contracts that were reviewed and agreed to by Bank staff before they were awarded; i.e., “prior reviewed” contracts.”

Archives–Russia
Digitization Projects
“UNESCO Sponsors Russian Archives Online Project”
From the article, “UNESCO, the Federal Archival Service of Russia (Rosarhiv) and Abamedia, a USA based media development and production company, recently signed an agreement to co-operate in the Russian Archives Online (RAO) project which has for objective to provide an Internet-based medium for the viewing, searching and licensing of audiovisual materials held by State and other archives and museums in Russia.”

Full-Text Document Shelf (2 Items)
Canada/U.S.–Economics
Canada/U.S.–Competitiveness
Source: Industry Canada
Industry-level Productivity and International Competitiveness Between Canada and the United States
From the site, “This report quantifies the sources of economic growth at the industrial level in Canada and the United States and assesses the relative competitiveness of American and Canadian industries.”
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Privacy–United States
Criminal Record Information–United States
Source:BJS
Public Attitudes Toward Uses of Criminal History Information
From the site, “Presents the results of the first national survey of public attitudes towards use of criminal history information for a variety of purposes…The survey specifically addressed public attitudes toward use of criminal record data in various employment situations, opinions on uses of arrest vs. conviction data, and attitudes toward collection of fingerprint data.”

Professional Reading
Vendors
Databases–Full-Text
Source: Digital Libraries
The New Digital Divide: Dissecting Aggregator Exclusivity Deals by Steven J. Bell
From Bell’s column, “Like many librarians, I prefer to base aggregator database licensing decisions on features such as search interface, quality of abstracts, availability of a strong controlled vocabulary and other added value features. I should not be forced to choose an aggregator based solely on the availability of full-text content. However, if the trend toward exclusivity deals between publishers and aggregators continues, then a library’s decision variables may grow slim.”
See Also: Larry Krumenaker’s article, “A Tempest in a Librarian’s Teapot: EBSCO, ProQuest, Gale Exclusive, and Unique Titles” from the July/August issue of Searcher.

Maps–Europe
MultiMap Adds Street-Level Maps for 12 European Countries
From the news release, “Visitors to the site (www.multimap.com) can now access street-level maps across Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Sweden and Denmark.”
Direct to the MultiMap European Map Interface

Full-Text Document Shelf (3 Items)
Children–United States–Statistics
Source: Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics
America’s Children 2001
Highlights ||| Full-Text and Additional Material ||| News Story
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Wireless Industry–United States
Source: FCC
State of Competition in the Wireless Industry (6th Report)
News Release/Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text
144 pages .pdf
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Nursing–United States
Source: GAO
Nursing Workforce: Emerging Nurse Shortages Due to Multiple Factors

Public Company Filings–United States
Source: LLRX.Com
Guides to SEC Filings’ Contents
A comprehensive webliography. Need to understand what a 10-K is? How about an F-4?

News–Legal Documents
A New Alert Tool from FindLaw.Com: Breaking News
From the announcement, “E-mailed to subscribers the day news of major civil and criminal cases breaks, the Breaking Documents newsletter delivers motions, complaints, judicial opinions and more. Weekly Documents, which is e-mailed each Wednesday, summarizes the week’s significant legal documents.”
Subscribe (free) to the Breaking News Alert

Travel–United States–Statistics
Source: TIA (Tourism Industries, International Trade Administration)
Now Online: U.S. Resident Travel to Overseas Destinations (Year 2000 Statistics)
Also:Top Destinations Visited by Overseas Travelers in 2000

Emergency Planning–Databases–United States
Chemical Spills–United States
Source: EPA
Revamped: Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) Database
Now searchable by Zip Code, State, Name/Address

Search Engines–Australia–Lookle
Search Engines–Google
Will Google Take Lookle To Court?
According to this press release, Google is looking at Lookle for possible intellectual property infractions. Lookle is a pay-for-placement search engine.
See Also: “Google Threatens Lookle.com With Trademark Suit“

Reference Tools–Encyclopaedia Britannica/Britannica.Com
New Premium Service On the Way from Britannica.Com
Key news:
***”Beginning in the next few days, the company said, customers will be required to pay five dollars a month or $50 a year for access to the full text of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which has been available free since the site launched in October 1999. With this move, the full Britannica will no longer be available free anywhere.”
***”On the Britannica.com site, the comprehensive encyclopedia will form the basis of a new paid premium service designed for everyone who needs in-depth information of the highest quality. Later in the year other databases, such as video clips and an encyclopedia for students in grades five through nine, will be added to the premium service. The new version of the site being released this month will also provide additional ways for users to navigate the information in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, such as topical browsing and a map browser. The subscription service will be free of banner and pop-up advertising.”
***”For people who primarily need quick, concise facts at their fingertips, the Britannica.com site will continue to offer a range of free sources to meet the need for basic reference. At the time fees for the full encyclopedia take effect, the opening paragraphs of all encyclopedia articles will be made available free, giving non-subscribers access to introductions, overviews and basic facts. Features that will continue to be free include Britannica’s Internet Guide, a directory of valuable Web sites selected and reviewed by Britannica.com’s editors; an archive of recent news articles; and selected articles from top magazines. Other information sources, such as a new online encyclopedia for looking up quick facts, will become part of the free service later in the year.”
Direct to the Britannica.Com Resource

Archives–Web Directory
UNESCO Archives Portal
In addition to the UNESCO Libraries Portal that we mentioned about a week ago, make sure to visit another useful web resource that contains links to over 4400 archives and archive related tools. The directory of audiovisual archives is one of my favorites.

Professional Reading–Collection Development
Internet Resources
Source: Council on Library and Information Resources
Building Sustainable Collections of Free Third-Party Web Resources
From the summary, “There is a growing body of material on the Web that is of value to higher education and research and can be accessed for free. But the notion of free access can mask a range of hidden and long-term costs associated with developing and managing collections of Web-based resources. What are the costs and other considerations? Can third-party Web resources serve as a pillar of a sustainable digital library? Author Louis Pitschmann provides some answers to this question in a new report from the Digital Library Federation (DLF) and the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), entitled Building Sustainable Collections of Free Third-Party Web Resources. Mr. Pitschmann, the incoming dean of libraries at the University of Alabama, begins his report by underscoring the valuable service that libraries can offer in making high-quality Web-based resources accessible to their patrons�as they have done for years in the print realm. He cautions, however, that third-party public domain Web resources are fundamentally different from scholarly print and analog formats, and that “developing collections of free Web resources is a process that requires its own set of practices, policies, and organizational models.”
Read the News Release/Summary ||| Direct to the Full-Text Content (50 page .pdf)

Video Search
Source: Technology Review
Searching for Video Content
From the article, “Video-search and database tools that directly find images can be far more powerful than keyword searches. At Columbia University, a team led by Shih-Fu Chang is developing software that can search a video for particular features in the images�such as shape, color and motion. For example, you could select a static image from a catalogue and have the software find close matches in the video frames. Or you could make a simple sketch of a blob, with a few arrows to show how it moves, and the system finds video segments that match these features. For instance, you could roughly sketch the shape of the Mir space station and a human figure moving outside it.”
See Also: Video/Image Search Demos from Prof. Shih-Fu Chang (Columbia University). Chang is Mentioned in the Article
See Also: Learn More About the Informedia Digital Media Library at Carnegie-Mellon. This project is mentioned in the article.

Full-Text Document Shelf (5 Items)
Medical Research–Stem Cell Research
Source: NIH
Stem Cells: Scientific Research and Future Research Directions
222 pages .pdf
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College Students–Credit Cards–United States
Source: GAO
Consumer Finance: College Students and Credit Cards
78 pages .pdf
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Education–Science and Engineering–United States–Statistics
Research and Design–United States–Statistics
Source:NSF
Three New Reports from the National Science Foundation
Science and Engineering Degrees, by Race/Ethnicity of Recipients: 1990-98
Academic Employment of Recent Science and Engineering Doctorate Holders
Federal Funds for Research and Development: Fiscal Years 1999, 2000, and 2001
Volume 49
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State and Local Governments–United States
Source: U.S. Census
State and Local Government Spending-1998
Direct to Summary ||| Direct to Full-Text Materials
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Census 2000–U.S.
Demographics–U.S.
Additional Summary File 1 (Detailed Demographic Info, by State) Now Available
This Week:
Arizona
Maine
South Carolina
West Virginia

Legal–U.S. Department of Justice
New Site: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy
This new site includes complete lists of Federal judicial vacancies and nominations.

Voice Portals–TellMe.Com
Source: News.Com
TellMe.Com Announces Layoffs, Departure of Co-Founder
Last week a major article in the NY Times about voice portals. At the same time TellMe was laying off 16% of its staff. The company, while still making the free service available will be focusing on selling its services to others.