Two Blogs to Help You

Just a quick note on two blogs I just came across.

Designing Better Libraries: "Exploring the application of design innovation and new media to create better libraries and user experiences." With this cast of contributors it has to be great: Steven Bell [Temple University] Brian Mathews [Georgia Tech University], John Shank [Pennsylvania State University], Jill Stover [Virginia Commonwealth University] Jeff Trzeciak [Mc Master University] and Michael Giralo [Princeton University].
URL: http://dbl.lishost.org/

For My Information: I couldn't find out the author, he/she writes "This blog helps me keep a record of the tools I use to teach my patrons - lawyers, legal assistants and other legal professionals - about the sites, sources and techniques used to conduct research...'for my information.'" Lot of good links here.
URL: http://resevoir.wordpress.com/

TURN TEXT INTO VOICE

ReadTheWords is a free online service that will read any text you enter aloud. You can upload documents in the following formats: Word, Adobe PDF, HTML, text, website address, RSS feed. There are 15 different voices you can choose, and they can handle English, Spanish and French. They even pronounced my name properly (Siess=cease), but goofed on SLA (they said “slaw”). Supposedly it takes less than a minute to generate one hour’s reading. You can listen online, download an mp3 file, embed it in a website or blog, or turn it into a podcast. Unfortunately, there are no navigation keys for the visually impaired, but it’s very impressive.

You have to register, but it’s free.

Thanks to Stan Schroeder of mashable.com for highlighting this service.

URLs:
http://readthewords.com
Schroeder’s review: http://mashable.com/2008/03/18/readthewords-read-text-aloud/

GOOD STUFF FOR ALL TYPES OF LIBRARIANS

Library Stream: Watching the flow of the social networking library, by Steve Campion [Pierce County (Washington) Library, Tacoma, USA]. New, but looks interesting.
URL: http://librarystream.wordpress.com/

QueryCAT
This is a database of over 4 million questions and answers from FAQs (frequently asked question lists).
URL: http://www.querycat.com/

The Stupid-Questions Answer People
Nina Platt [Platt Consulting, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA] has some good observations on how librarians are experts at answering “stupid” questions. Yes, we all know that there are no “stupid” questions—but some boggle the mind. She refers to a great article by the Snark, humor columnist for the Fulton County [Atlanta, Georgia, USA] Daily Report on what new summer law associates need to know. While you’re there, read some of Platt’s other musings—she’s good reading.
URLs:
Platt’s post: http://nlplatt.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/the-stupid-questions-
answer-people/
The Snark’s article, Survival Tips for Summer Associates Entering the real World of Law Firms, http://www.law.com/jsp/law/careercenter/law
ArticleCareerCenter.jsp?id=1191402190934&rss=newswire

OTHER “NEW” SITES I’VE FOUND RECENTLY

China Financial Markets, a blog from Michael Pettis [Peking University, China]. Good for current information and analysis.

URL: http://piaohaoreport.sampasite.com/default.htm


National Museum of African American History and Culture
Check out the Museum’s new website. It looks nice, There are sections on Milestones and Benchmarks, Exhibitions and Programs, Collections, Education, Collaboration, and more.

URL: http://nmaahc.si.edu/


Philosophy Research Base
From Erratic Impact, there is the history of philosophy, various philosophical topics, philosophers by name, philosophy departments, philosopher home pages, philosophy journals and organizations. You can search for new and used books (on Amazon or Powell’s Books). Featured websites include: American philosophy, analytic philosophy, ecological philosophy, queer theory, angst/dread/phobia, feminist philosophy and ecofeminism, music theory and ethnomusicology [which is usually part of anthropology], philosophy by time period (ancient, medieval, modern, 19^th century, 20^th century), and political theory. Interesting and somewhat unique site.

URL: http://www.erraticimpact.com/


Tufts University Courses for Free
“Tufts [Medford Massachusetts, USA] OpenCourseware is part of a new educational movement initiated by MIT that provides free access to course content for everyone online.” Currently, the only courses available are in the areas of Histology, Human-Animal Relationships, Law and Veterinary Medicine, Population Health, Veterinary Respiratory Pathophysiology, and Zoological Medicine—but they promise more in the future. This is a very interesting concept.

URL: http://ocw.tufts.edu/


Five-Part Series of Web Resources for Students
From Scholatici (a project of Gideon Addington—student at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA), this is a series in honor of Student Productivity Week. You may find something new here for your customers. Thanks to Librarian in Black for the information.

The five parts are: (go to the Student Help Forum section)

1. Beyond Wikipedia: 20 References You Can’t Do Without
2. Books on the Web (e-books)
3. The Full System: Note Taking, Scheduling, and Studying
4. The 10 Best Facebook Apps for Students and 3 to Avoid
5. 6 Facebook Apps for Students and everyone else

URL: http://www.studenthelpforum.com/

BLOGS ON PHARMACY AND THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

I ran across the following recently.

Drug Channels, “expert viewpoints by Dr. Adam J. Fein [Pembroke Consulting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] on the latest pharmaceutical industry trends affecting manufacturers, wholesalers, pharmacies, PBMs, and payers,” http://www.drugchannels.net/

Life on the Pharm, “navigating the labyrinth of regulatory compliance in the pharmaceutical industry,” by a housewife who is an “avid reader of medical literature”—for what it’s worth, http://life-on-the-pharm.blogspot.com

The Pharm Blogosphere, “a blog about blogging about the pharmaceutical industry,” by John Mack, publisher of Pharma Marketing News. Has a great list of blogs about the industry. http://pharmablogosphere.blogspot.com

ORG CHARTS ONLINE—NICE IDEA, BUT NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME

CogMap: The Org Chart Wiki has a great idea, but the execution is shaky. They promise organization charts for companies around the world. There are about a dozen posted, but the only companies I’d heard of are Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and “United States of America.” They are not complete and there is little detail. Also, it seems anyone can edit them, so who knows how reliable the information is. But they are an interesting read, especially the USA one.

URL: http://www.cogmap.com

DATABASES FOR SPANISH-SPEAKING JURISDICTIONS

About databases from Globalex, from Dennis Kim-Prieto [Rutgers School of Law, Newark, New Jersey].

URL: http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Databases_
Spanish-Speaking_Jurisdictions.htm

TIPS FOR TECHNOLOGY CHANGE

1. Research technologies not only before you adopt them, but also while you’re using them.
2. Don’t get emotionally attached to a particular technology.
3. Continuously research competing technologies to the ones you are using now.
4. Don’t build yourself into a corner.

Lucas McDonnell [PricewaterhouseCoopers, Canada], unCommon Knowledge, 4 January 2007, quoted in Becoming a Technology Agnostic, David Lee King, 21 March 2007

URL: http://www.lucasmcdonnell.com/increase-knowledge-innovation-
and-manage-technology-change/

DATA ON (U.S.) CORPORATE LIBRARIES

(from a press release from Primary Research Group)

Here are some tidbits from Corporate Library Benchmarks (New York: Primary Research Group, 2007, ISBN 1-57440-084-3.

Online and other electronic information accounts for more than 65 percent of the materials budgets of corporate libraries, and more than 80 percent of the library content expenditures of companies with greater than US$5 billion in annual sales.

The median number of patron visitors to the physical location of the library was only 13.5.

The ratio of librarians to other service personnel was almost two to one.

Only one library in the sample outsourced research functions to researchers or librarians based in developing countries such as India, Russia or China.

Overall, more libraries lost FTE [full-time equivalent] positions over the past two years than gained FTE positions. More than 30 percent of the libraries in the sample lost full time equivalent positions over the past three years, while 11.63 percent gained positions.

In 2006, the libraries in the sample estimated that their budgets had increased a mean of 7.38 percent, and a median of 5 percent.

Close to 40 percent of the libraries in the sample believed that the library accounted for 80 percent or more of company spending on electronic information typically associated with the library, such as spending on journals, databases, newsletters, e-books and directories.

62.16 percent of the libraries in the sample keep a written log of the reference questions received from library patrons.

Competitor profiling was of dramatic importance to the librarians in the sample. It was a primary theme more in more than 15 percent of research assignments for about 53 percent of organizations in the sample, and it was a primary theme in more than 30 percent of assignments for more than 29 percent of survey participants. Competitor profiling was particularly important in heavy industry and finance.

The librarians in the sample spent a mean of 3.47 hours per week reading blogs or [electronic lists].

The librarians in the sample traveled more than 35 miles away on library business a mean of 5.52 times in the past year, and a median of three times.

In 2005, the libraries in the sample maintained a mean of 6.00 workstations primarily for librarian use, with companies in the information services or informatics sector maintaining the greatest number of workstations for librarians. This figure rose slightly to 6.1 in 2006.

More than 71 percent of the libraries that use subscription agents pay their agents in one lump sum, while 28.6 percent paid them in increments throughout the year. Incremental pay was somewhat more common among the smaller organizations, as it was among companies in industry and information services/informatics.

The study presents a broad range of data, broken out by size of parent organization, type of industry, and also between organizations that have decreased the physical size of their library in recent years vs. those that have maintained or increased it. The report includes data on salaries, budgets, spending for books, directories, magazines and newspapers, journals, online databases, CD-ROM and other information vehicles. The benchmarking report is based on data from 48 major corporate and other business libraries of organizations with mean revenues of approximately US$3.6 billion.

The 130-page report has more than 250 tables and charts. The cost of the report is US$189 and can be ordered at http://www.primaryresearch.com./publications-
Information-Science.html. It is available in either PDF or print format.

"FREE" FORM BUILDER

Wufoo is an HTML form builder and looks like it should be very easy to use once you figure it out from the scant documents. (Sorry about the pun—I couldn’t resist.) There’s a free version that allows you 3 forms, 3 reports, 10 fields, and 100 entries a month; other options go from $9-199 per month. The site gives lots of examples (a customer satisfaction survey, workshop registration, job applications, wedding invitation, exercise and diet tracker, address book, “catalog” for a music or DVD collection, diet log, household inventory, event planner, to do list, time sheet, and contact form), but it would be nice to have templates that you could just copy and use.

URL: http://www.wufoo.com/

COMMUNICATION 2.0 FROM ALA

Part of their wiki, Read Write Connect provides links to the most popular resources from the American Library Association. Included are blogs, discussion forums, Flickr pictures, gadgets (custom search engines), mailing lists, Member Newsletter, podcasts, RSS feeds, videos, virtual worlds, and wikis. There’s also a sidebar with “hot” links such as conferences, YALSA on MySpace, and other wonders. ALA may not be completely 2.0 yet, but it’s sure working at it.

URL: http://wikis.ala.org/readwriteconnect

CHECK OUT SOME GOOD WEB SITES

Site of the Month

“Leo [Klein] is writer, designer and webdeveloper living in Chicago. He is also a librarian and an academic” but not working in a library right now. I had expected someone from the Chicago Public Library. The best thing on his site is the Site of the Month, featuring a library website and his commentary on it. The current one is Queens Borough (New York City) Public Library.

URL: http://www.chicagolibrarian.com/

TOP 25 WEB 2.0 SEARCH ENGINES

The people at Online Education Database have put this list together. “Some offer functionality that's slowly making its way into traditional search engines. Others further the attempt to traverse the invisible Web and index other previously unsearchable research sources. It is definitely worth trying them out.

URL: http://oedb.org/library/features/top-25-web20-search-engines

HANDBOOK ON COPYRIGHT AND RELATED ISSUES FOR LIBRARIES

This is a practical guide to topical legal questions affecting the information work of libraries in the fast moving digital environment. Each topic is described briefly, the main policy aspects for libraries are outlined, and there are links to library policy statements for further reading. It is sponsored by the UNESCO Information for All Programme. You can download each chapter in html or pdf format. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 License.

The chapter titles are: The Relationship between Copyright and Contract Law: Electronic, Resources and Library Consortia, Technological Protection Measures—the “Triple Lock,” Copyright, the Duration of Protection and the Public Domain, Orphaned Works, Collective Rights Management, Public Lending Right, The Database Right—Europe’s Experimental, Creative Commons: an “Open Content,” Open Access to Scholarly Communications, Copyright and Trade Agreements, International Policy Making: a Development Agenda for WIPO, and National Policy Making: Advocating for Fair Copyright Laws.

URL: http://www.eifl.net/services/handbook.htm

SCIENCE.GOV VERSION 4.0

Science.gov has announced version 4.0 which adds deep ranking, refining of searches, sorting of results, and the option of having the results emailed to you or your customer (with comments).

Science.gov is a search engine for government science information and research results. Currently in its fourth generation, Science.gov provides search of more than 50 million pages of science information with just one query, and is a gateway to over 1,800 scientific Web sites. The content for this project is contributed by participating agencies. The Web page search function is provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, and the “explore by subject” search of selected federal scientific and technical Web sites is maintained by NTIS (the National Technical Information Service).

URL: http://www.science.gov

KMLE MEDICAL DICTIONARY

King’s Medical Library Engine provides a medical dictionary, terminology, and abbreviation search; a medical link directory directed at medical professionals; a web search engine to search through sites in the medical link directory, and searching of medical journals and drug. The site administrator is an MD and there is a Korean version.

URLs: http://www.kmle.com (Korean version: http://www.kmle.co.kr/)

MORE GOOD RESOURCES TO CHECK OUT

Foreign Relations of the United States
“The official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publications” beginning with Abraham Lincoln in 1861. Browsable and searchable; some full-text (produced by OCR). Produced by the State Department’s Office of the Historian, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, and the University of Illinois at Chicago Libraries. (Over 67,000 sessions recorded from July 2006-mid February 2007.)

URL: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS

MEDLINE®/PubMed® Resources Guide
Links to resources providing detailed information about searching these great medical databases. Divided into News, Overviews, Journals, Data Structure and Variables, Data Policies, Searching, Tools and Utilities, Statistics, Help and Training Resources.

URL: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/pmresources.html

Online Spanish Dictionary
Finally, a “definitive” Spanish dictionary from our friends at Merriam-Webster.

URL: http://www.m-w.com/ (check the Spanish-English button)

Other Spanish dictionaries:
SpanishDICT.com, http://spanishdict.com/index.cfm
WordReference.com, http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=welcome
Yahoo! Education’s dictionary, http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dict_en_es/
Ultralingua Online Dictionary, http://www.ultralingua.com/onlinedictionary/
OR, find a long list of general and specialized Spanish dictionaries at http://www.alphadictionary.com/directory/Languages/Romance/Spanish/

Next Generation Librarianship: Where Do We Go from Here?
The College of DuPage (Illinois) Press has a great list of resources on this important issue. You might also check out my new book, Out Front with Stephen Abram: A Guide for Information Leaders, compiled by Judith A. Siess and Jonathan Lorig, ALA Editions, 2007, ISBN 0-8389-0932-9. It has a lot on this subject (and other good stuff, too).

URLs:
List: http://www.dupagepress.com/COD/index.php?id=1183
My book: http://alastore.ala.org/SiteSolution.taf?_sn=catalog2&_pn=product_detail&_op=2238

NEW GOVERNMENT RESOURCES from Australia, Tonga, and Canada

The Australian Parliamentary Library has a new RSS feed for their new documents and one for This Week in Parliament.
URLs:
New Documents: http://www.aph.gov.au/library/rsspubs_feed.xml
This Week in Parliament: http://www.aph.gov.au/rss.htm

Tongan Legislation Online is now available and searchable. It is funded by New Zealand's International Aid & Development Agency.
URL: http://legislation.to/cms/home.html

The Maps, Data, and Government Information Centre of Carleton University [Ottawa, Ontario, Canada] has made available a Google Custom Search for Federal, Provincial, Territorial, and Municipal Canadian Government Documents on the Web. Thanks folks.
URL: http://www.library.carleton.ca/madgic/

USABILITY RESOURCES

The University of Michigan Library has put together a good list of Resources for General, Library, and Digital Library Related Usability. It includes websites, articles, books, and podcasts. (Usability suggestion for them: yellow type on white is not easy to read!)

URL: http://www.lib.umich.edu/usability/resources.html

A FEW QUICK LINKS

No real details, just links to some good resources.

Homeschooling and Libraries, http://homeschoolingandlibraries.wordpress.com/

National Postal Museum (USA), http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods, http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html
(Move your cursor over a square to find out more about each method.)

Public Library Toolkit, http://www.aallnet.org/sis/lisp/toolkit.htm, “meant to help public librarians understand the process of legal research, effectively develop and use the information located within their libraries, utilize information outside their libraries, with the end goal of helping the patron locate the legal information they need.”

To create a map, you might try one of these sites:
MapBuilder, http://www.mapbuilder.net
Quikmaps, http://www.quikmaps.com
Wayfaring, http://www.wayfaring.com/

The Canadian Atlas Online, http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas/
Available in English or French, also in a children’s version.