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.
Also check out DocuTicker, a compendium of 'grey literature' (reports published by government agencies, think tanks, research institutes and other public interest groups) available for free on the web.
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January 3rd, 2010
Commerce Department’s NTIA Awards Grants for Broadband Mapping and Planning in Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, Utah, and the U.S. Virgin Islands
The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) today announced that it has awarded grants to fund broadband mapping and planning activities in Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, Utah, and the U.S. Virgin Islands under NTIA’s State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program. The program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will increase broadband access and adoption through better data collection and broadband planning. The data will be displayed in NTIA’s national broadband map, a tool that will inform policymakers’ efforts and provide consumers with improved information on the broadband Internet services available to them.
NTIA received applications representing all 50 states, 5 territories, and the District of Columbia to participate in the program, meaning that all governments that were eligible to apply for grants did so, whether directly or through a designated entity. NTIA has now awarded 41 grants totaling approximately $78 million under the program, including today’s announcement, and the agency expects to finish announcing awards under this program in early 2010.
Source: National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)
Posted in Search News, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
January 2nd, 2010
When Did Your County’s Jobs Disappear?
Using the Labor Department’s local area unemployment statistics, Slate presents the recession as told by unemployment numbers for each county in America. Because the data are not seasonally adjusted for natural employment cycles throughout the year, the numbers you see show the change in the number of people employed compared with the same month in the previous year. Blue dots represent a net increase in jobs, while red dots indicate a decrease. The larger the dot, the greater the number of jobs gained or lost. Click the arrows or calendar at the bottom to see each month of data. Click the green play button to see an animation of the data.
Source: Slate
Posted in Business and Economics, Geographic, Source File | No Comments »
January 2nd, 2010
From the Article:
Toy makers’ online databases come to the rescue when consumers lose board-game directions and toy-assembly instructions.
Hasbro, a heavy-hitter in board-game offerings, owns titles from Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers and Cranium, among others. Answers on its Web site (http://www.hasbro.com/customer-service/toy-game-instructions.cfm) include: where to find discontinued products, what to do about missing puzzle pieces, and instructions for more than 7,200 games and toys.
Mattel offers a similar database (http://service.mattel.com/us/instruction_sheets_results.asp?Brand5&Category24) for its brands, including Fisher-Price, Hot Wheels, Barbie and American Girl.
A number of other Web sites offer board-game advice, including how to cheat at popular games such as Scrabble. On boardgames.lovetoknow.com, one article shows common two-letter words, including one that begins with the hard-to-use Q. And gamesinfodepot.com tips off the secrets to winning at Clue.
Source: Seattle Times
Posted in Reference Tools, Source File | No Comments »
January 2nd, 2010
Yes, that’s right. There is a Wikipedia article that links to a sizable collection of “unusual” articles from the social encyclopedia.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the collection:
This page is for Wikipedians to list articles that seem a little unusual. These articles are valuable contributions to the encyclopedia, but are a bit odd, whimsical, or something you would not expect to find in Encyclopædia Britannica. We should take special care to meet the highest standards of an encyclopedia with these articles lest they make Wikipedia appear idiosyncratic. If you wish to add articles to this list, a broad consensus amongst contributors has identified two main guidelines. If the article in question meets one or both of these categories then it could possibly be deemed unusual:
1. The article is something you would not expect to find in a standard encyclopedia.
2. The article contains some form of juxtaposition that most people would find unusual, such as “Killer Cockroach,” “Henry VIII in Space,” “edible computers,” and so on.
Note: this is a narrow definition, and some articles may still be considered unusual even if they do not fit these guidelines.
Have Fun!
Access the Wikipedia collection of Unusual Articles
Source: Wikipedia (via Hacker News)
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »
January 2nd, 2010
If you’re heading to the Olympics in Vancouver in a few weeks the “Fatabase” (talk about a name that gets right to the point) might be of interest. It contains nutritional information for 64 chain restaurants in British Columbia. Of course, many of these dining establishments are located in other provinces and in the United States so this info could also be useful.
Search by restaurant name/type of meal or keyword search.
Access The Fatabase
Source: Vancouver Sun
Posted in Consumer Issues, Databases, Directories, and Guides, Resources, Source File | No Comments »
January 1st, 2010
Jimmy Wales ended 2009 on two high notes.
First, the Wikipedia fundraising campaign that has been going on for the past few weeks reached its goal of $7.5 million yesterday.
Second, Wales was named Alabama’s Man of the Year. He’s from Huntsville, AL.
The Anniston Star newspaper has named Jimmy Wales, co-creator of the popular Wikipedia online encyclopedia, as its 2009 Alabamian of the Year.
The newspaper said Wales fits its description as “an Alabamian who made a significant mark on events over the past year; someone who lived up to the state creed’s dictate ‘to foster her advancement within the statehood of the world.’”
Wales, 43, graduated from the Randolph School in Huntsville and earned a finance degree at Auburn University before entering graduate studies at the University of Alabama.
Source: The Anniston Star/AL.com
Congrats (twice) Jimmy!
Posted in Information Industry | No Comments »
January 1st, 2010
From the Article:
War stories are endlessly fascinating to Tom Beaty.
In those tales, war’s random tragedies and extraordinary acts are laid out in infinite variety, explains the 41-year-old Norcross [GA] entrepreneur. And they are disappearing fast as World War II’s veterans, most in their 80s or 90s, pass away.
“Every time I see an obituary for a World War II veteran who has died, it just hits me,� said Beaty. “All those stories gone.�
In 2001, Beaty decided to capture some of those tales on videotape. That grew into a collection of 200 interviews that he assembled into an online archive, Witness to War (www.witnesstowar.org), that he launched in 2006.
His plan is eventually to interview 1,000 veterans and civilians who were caught in the conflict and donate the collection of oral histories, photos and other materials to the Library of Congress.
But after putting eight years and perhaps $120,000 of his own money into the project, Beaty has realized it’s become too big and expensive for him to do on his own while running his business. To speed up the process before too many veterans get much older, he’s trying to raise $650,000 to hire interviewers and editors for his nonprofit organization.
“I feel like I can take it further, but I’m at the limits of my time.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Access Witness to War Collection
Posted in History, Resources | No Comments »
January 1st, 2010
From the Article:
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish is unveiling an online state database that will allow the public to view all large state contracts.
Denish says the site, which passed the Legislature in 2009 with bipartisan support, tracks state contracts of $20,000 or more. The Web site can be found at http://contracts.gsd.state.nm.us.
[Snip}
Denish says the online database marks a new day for openness and transparency in New Mexico government.
Source: AP (via KOB.com)
Posted in Business and Economics, Databases, Directories, and Guides, Government Documents and Political Information, Resources | No Comments »
January 1st, 2010
The year gets underway with this special day that is an initiative of COMMUNIA, the European thematic network on the digital public domain.
Every year on New Year’s Day, in fact, due to the expiration of copyright protection terms on works produced by authors who died several decades earlier, thousands of works enter the public domain – that is, their content is no longer owned or controlled by anyone, but it rather becomes a common treasure, available for anyone to freely use for any purpose.
Such works can also become a building block for new creations: people can transform a poem into song lyrics, or make a movie based on a public domain novel (check your local movie theaters to see how often that happens!). Literary works can be published on personal website and/or printed for friends or school distribution. Of course, you can also decide, for instance, to professionally print a beautiful hardcover leather-bound edition of a public domain book and sell it for a profit, while the book content will remain available for anyone to use freely. And the same goes for images, art works and other kinds of creative works entering the public domain under the same term expiration rule.
The website is full of resources that can be used today or any other day. Here are a few of them.
First, a link to Public Domain Works,
Public Domain Works is an open registry of artistic works that are in the public domain. You can find out more about the project here. There are currently 125318 persons, 12840 items and 299141 works in the database.
Second, Sprixi, a searchable database for public domain images.
Next, Public Domain Sherpa
Want to know if a specific work is in the public domain? (Or, if it’s not, when it will be?) Give the copyright term calculator a spin. You’ll need to provide some information about the work — for example, whether it’s published or unpublished. But the calculator keeps track of which US copyright act applies to the work in question, so you don’t have to.
Next, a summary of U.S. copyright law from the Copyright Information Center at Cornell University.
Finally, a list of authors moving into the public domain today including Sigmund Freud and William Butler Yeats. Make sure to read the disclaimer.
Hat Tip: TeleRead.org
Posted in Intellectual Property, Legal, Search Tools | No Comments »
January 1st, 2010
From the Article:
The Holy See’s archives contain scrolls, parchments and leather-bound volumes with correspondence dating back more than 1,000 years.
High-quality reproductions of 105 documents, 19 of which have never been seen before in public, have now been published in a book. The Vatican Secret Archives features a papal letter to Hitler, an entreaty to Rome written on birch bark by a tribe of North American Indians, and a plea from Mary Queen of Scots.
[Snip]
Although scholars have had access to the secret archives since 1881, they remain closed to the general public.
Source: The Telegraph (UK)
Posted in Archives and Special Collections | No Comments »
January 1st, 2010
From the Article:
The first effects of France’s new law against internet piracy will begin to be felt as the new year begins.
The law was passed after a long struggle in parliament, and in the teeth of bitter opposition from groups opposed to internet restrictions.
Illegal downloaders will be sent a warning e-mail, then a letter if they continue, and finally must appear before a judge if they offend again.
The judge can impose a fine, or suspend their access to the internet.
The Creation and Internet Bill set up a new state agency – the Higher Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Copyright on the Internet (Hadopi).
The law was backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy and the entertainment industry.
Source: BBC
Posted in Access to Information, Search News | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
From All of Us To All of You, Happy New Year!
Thank You for Your Continuing Support of ResourceShelf and DocuTicker in 2009.
We Sincerely Appreciate It.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
Jennifer Harbster from the Inside Adams blog at LC has written a post about the special foods prepared for New Year’s Eve or day in the U.S. and around the world.
Here’s a Tasty Sample:
In the American South, there is a tradition of eating black-eyed peas (Hoppin’ John) and greens, such as collards, on New Year’s Day. This tradition is considered to bring good luck and prosperity: the peas symbolize coins and the greens symbolize paper money. Often, there is rice in the dish, which swells up with water symbolizing an increase of riches.
Those of Spanish and Portuguese descent eat 12 grapes, raisins, or pomegranate seeds at midnight, one at each stroke of the clock.
The Japanese have a custom of eating toshikoshi soba (buckwheat noodles) representing longevity and wealth.
Many more examples in the complete blog post.
Source: Library of Congress (Inside Adams)
Posted in Fast Facts | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
From the Lake Superior State University Announcement:
Word “czars” at Lake Superior State University “unfriended” 15 words and phrases and declared them “shovel-ready” for inclusion on the university’s 35th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.
“The list this year is a ‘teachable moment’ conducted free of ‘tweets,’” said a Word Banishment spokesman who was “chillaxin’” for the holidays. “‘In these economic times’, purging our language of ‘toxic assets’ is a ’stimulus’ effort that’s ‘too big to fail.’”
Here’s the 2010 List:
Note: The actual announcement contains selected definitions and comments.
1. Shovel-Ready
2. In These Economic Times
3. Stimulus
4. Toxic Assets
5. To Big to Fail
6. Transparent/Transparency
7. Czar
8. Tweet
9. App
10. Sexting
11. Friend (as a Verb)
12. Teachable Moment
13. Bromance
14. Chillaxin’
15. OBAMA-prefix or roots?
The LSSU Word Banishment Committee held out hope that folks would want to Obama-ban Obama-structions, but were surprised that no one Obama-nominated any, such as these compiled by the Oxford Dictionary in 2009: Obamanomics, Obamanation, Obamafication, Obamacare, Obamalicious, Obamaland….We say Obamanough already.
See Also: Lists from Previous Years (Archive Back to 1976)
See Also: Complete List (Alphabetical) of Banished Words
Source: LSSU
Posted in Lists and Rankings, Year End Wrap-Ups | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
YouTube’s Suggestion Challenge: Getting users to spend more time on the site looking at more videos. Right now the average user spends 15 minutes per day on YouTube.
As you’ll read further down the page, the challenge to get users to look at titles and click on suggested videos is not only an issue for YouTube.
From the Article:
Mr. Walk [director of product management at YouTube] leads a team of about a dozen engineers, designers and project managers who are fine-tuning YouTube to give its users what they want, even even when the users aren’t quite sure what that is. The goal is to get them to spend a few more minutes on the site every day.
This is easier said than done. YouTube will not disclose the size of its video library, but the company has said that about 20 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. That is the equivalent of more than 100,000 full-length movies uploaded every week. With hundreds of millions of clips to choose from, the challenge that Mr. Walk’s team faces is to figure out how to select the 5 or 10 or 20 that a user might enjoy most.
[Snip]
But perhaps more important, YouTube must finesse what technicians call discovery. That’s the art of suggesting videos that users may want to watch based on what they have watched before, or on what others with similar tastes have enjoyed. The effort requires mastering data-mining techniques similar to those used by the likes of Netflix and Amazon to make movie or book recommendations.
“I don’t think the YouTube problem is different from the Netflix problem or the Amazon problem,� said Christopher T. Volinsky, executive director of statistics research at AT&T Labs Research. Mr. Volinsky recently helped lead a team that won a $1 million prize established by Netflix to improve that site’s recommendation engine by 10 percent.
Source: New York Times
Posted in Information Science, Multimedia Search, Social Media | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
From the Summary:
Congress enacted the USA PATRIOT Act soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The most controversial sections of the Act facilitate the federal government’s collection of more information, from a greater number of sources, than had previously been authorized in criminal or foreign intelligence investigations. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), and the national security letter (NSL) statutes were all bolstered. With the changes came greater access to records showing an individual’s spending and communication patterns as well as increased authority to intercept e-mail and telephone conversations and to search homes and businesses. In some cases, evidentiary standards required to obtain court approval for the collection of information were lowered. Other approaches included expanding the scope of information subject to search, adding flexibility to the methods by which information could be collected, and broadening the purposes for which information may be sought.
Access the Complete Report (30 pages; PDF)
Source: Congressional Research Service (via OpenCRS)
Posted in Access to Information, Government Documents and Political Information, Privacy | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
One of the things we did a lot of in 2009 was sharing mobile web resources with you from a wide variety of libraries and data providers. We will be doing a lot more of it in 2010.
Here’s one mobile web site (beta) that launched in early 2009 from the National Library Board, Singapore that we did not mention. It’s called, “Library in Your Pocket.” An excellent name, btw. You can access it at: http://m.nlb.gov.sg/ and it’s visible on non-mobile browsers if you want to have a look.
From “Library in Your Pocket,” You Can:
+ Run a Catalogue Search
+ Get Account Info
+ Learn About Library Events
+ Check Books on the New Arrivals Shelf
+ ASK! A Librarian
+ Browse National Library Board Blogs
+ Subscribe to e-notification Service (Reminders About Content You Have Checked Out)
+ Read a Selection Short Stories from Singapore
+ Contacts & Information
+ Feedback
What’s Next?
The trial will run until January 2010 and depending on users’ responses to this mobile service, NLB will chart the next phase of its development.
Finally, Elsevier’s Library Connect (November, 2009 Issue) contains an excellent article about how the mobile site was developed.
Because we had observed customers jotting down catalog search results, a troublesome act when pen and paper weren’t at hand, we decided to include, in the mobile portal, the “SMS Me� feature. It allows customers, while searching our catalog, to send book details in the form of SMS (Short Message Service) messages to their mobile phones. Then, they can refer to the messages while searching for items on shelves. We also decided to include in the portal some reading material, library information and an inquiry service.
[Snip]
To date, the Library in Your Pocket has attracted an average of 4,000 unique visitors, 26,000 page views and 4,000 transactions per month. Also, 800 comments have arrived,
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
New NREL Web Site Helps Campuses Go Green
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Cornell University have launched a Web site to help campus-based institutions develop clean energy and carbon-reduction strategies.
The Web site, Climate Neutral Research Campuses, is available at http://www.nrel.gov/applying_technologies/climate_neutral/
Research campuses consume more energy per square foot than most facilities. Laboratories and data centers run at all hours, using power-hungry equipment and cooling and ventilation systems to ensure high-quality scientific results and meet health and safety regulations. But they also have greater opportunities to reduce energy consumption, implement renewable energy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Sustainable NREL Program institutionalizes sustainability at NREL’s Campus of the Future and makes NREL a global model for sustainability, including some of the world’s most energy-efficient laboratories and office buildings.
Source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Education, Science, Search News, Source File, Technology and Internet | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
From the Article:
Stevan Harnad, professor of cognitive science at the University of Southampton, has said it is his personal mission to “ram open access down everybody’s throats”.
But his postings on a blog launched by the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to discuss ways to improve public access to federally funded research have caused controversy.
The pro-open access Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) has written to Professor Harnad to ask him to stop posting critiques that inhibit new open-access advocates from participating in the forum.
“Some of our community members are hesitating to participate, as they are concerned that the dynamic has become ‘post a comment and have it critiqued by Stevan’,” writes Heather Joseph, SPARC’s executive director.
The article goes on to say that Professor Harnad as agreed “voluntarily and willingly” and his detailed comments will be sent offline.
Source: Times Higher Education
See Also: OSTP Blog Post, “Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research: Implementation”
Posted in Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »
December 30th, 2009
A video segment that runs 8:35 about Google Book Search is now online.
You can watch the video, listen to the segment, and/or read the text transcript about . The story aired on the PBS NewsHour on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 night.
Interviewed for the report were:
+ Dan Clancy, Google
+ Michael Keller, Stanford Libraries
+ Gary Reback, Open Content Alliance
+ Pam Samuelson, Professor, University of California-Berkeley
+ Amy Thomas, Berkeley, CA Bookseller at Pegasus Books
Source: PBS.org
Posted in Books, Digitization Projects, Information Industry, Intellectual Property | No Comments »
