Both Gale and EBSCO have begun offering free, authoritative information on the H1N1 and seasonal flu for both health practitioners and the public. This content is pulled from each vendor's proprietary resources, but is available to all at no cost.
Thanks to both EBSCO and Gale for their quick response to this need. Please share these links with colleagues, family, and friends (and consider plugging Gale's widget into your library's website).
According to Nielsen, 10% of web searchers have. That doesn't sound notable, but in the world of search engines, cracking into the double digits in market share is quite a feat.
I haven't really given Bing a shot, or at least that was true up until I downloaded Internet Explorer 8. That version of IE integrates Bing a little more into the web experience. One nifty thing about that integration is the ability to search for a highlighted term. Just highlight something on any web page, as though you were going to copy and paste it into Google, and a little blue box appears. If you click it, you get the option of mapping the thing you just highlighted, translating it, or running a web search on it in Bing. Pretty slick, pretty intuitive, pretty surprising that isn't something that's been available for years.
With the large number of people using IE, Bing's chances of continued growth seem strong. Having a fallback from Google isn't a bad idea either, especially for those of us involved in web research. Have you tried Bing? My favorite thing about it is the results page preview pop-ups, which tell you more about a page before you click into it. Do you have a favorite thing about Bing?
The UK's Telegraph has a funny and unnervingly spot-on look at 50 things the Internet has done away with. In addition to
31) Privacy
35) Concentration
32) Chuck Norris's reputation
and
50) Your lunchbreak
...the library-minded among us might be interested to know that the following are now dead:
47) Footnotes
and
18) Authoritative reference works
Good to know. Thanks, Internet.
The Federal Reserve's Beige Book is published eight times per year and offers very current economic insight gathered from banks, businesses, and market analysts from across the country. Use the Beige Book to learn how an industry is operating in a specific area of the country, or to learn about trends in consumer spending, employment, and prices. The much-awaited new issue is released today, and many hope it will offer confirmation that our faltering economy is stabilizing.
The World FactBook, excellent source for country statistics, maps, and flags, has gotten a face-lift. The redesigned site is much more interactive and visual than the previous iteration, but the content is as useful for student projects, background on international news stories, or ready reference questions as ever. Check it out at: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
Via ResourceShelf
The most recent addition to our ongoing series, “2.0 Tools in 2.0 Minutes,” is now live. It provides an introduction to Yahoo!Pipes, which may help lessen your information load. Yahoo!Pipes can monitor multiple online sources automatically and will just deliver content from those sources according to filters that you set up ahead of time. This filtering functionality is just one of the many possibilities of Yahoo!Pipes. Check out several pipes that we’ve created here: http://pipes.yahoo.com/mlee or try a keyword search of the Pipes site for “library” for more examples.
What 2.0 tool do you use on a daily or weekly basis? How does it help you manage information or do your job more efficiently? Drop a note to tell your story and we may use your submission as our next “2.0 Tools in 2.0 Minutes” video.
The Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities have a joint venture that may be of interest to researchers and history enthusiasts. Chronicling America provides information on newspapers published since 1690 from across the U.S.
Use the Newspaper Directory to locate titles by location, date, or even ethnic or labor group focus. Once you’ve found one or more newspapers of interest, the site can help connect you with libraries in your area that own them. A search for Minnesota newspapers yielded some 3,000 title entries (though some entries were duplicates).
The site also includes digitized images of a set of newspapers, including the St. Paul Daily Globe from the late 1800s. Search for these on the Search Newspapers page.
This topic begs mention of several other resources. WorldCat, for instance, can help you locate and request newspapers via interlibrary loan. WorldCat is one of the ELM databases. Another excellent source is Minnesota Reflections. This site from the MN Digital Library provides online access to historical primary source materials including plat maps, diaries, letters, and photos.
Internet search providers are doing some innovative things these days. Recently, two examples surfaced: Wolfram/Alpha, which returns answers rather than sources; and Netbase, which looks at the language surrounding a search term to expand on a topic’s context.
Web Tool “as Important as Google” [Wolfram/Alpha], BBC News
A Smarter Search for What Ails You [Netbase], Technology Review
Many of these new search technologies promise to analyze the context of data and return specific answers to our questions, as opposed to current search engines that bring us to sources where we can find the answers. It’s a fine point, but an important one. Current search technologies require us to know of or at least analyze the source for an answer. New tech does more of this legwork for us in terms of sifting through a source to find data. But what does this mean, besides allowing us to type in “population Rhode Island” and being shown a number, rather than the Census Bureau web page where that number comes from?
It means that the source is hidden or at least obfuscated, which begs a couple of questions: First, commercial vendors are presenting data rather than sources. Who says they have the principle of good information as a primary motive? Second, such services further remove searchers from the process of search and make us less responsible for checking the sources for found information. We’ll potentially be more reliant on the search tool, and less reliant on our own critical thinking skills.
I’m not saying that the Internet should be a place that requires a higher education to use, but I do think a higher level of skepticism can’t hurt. Some aspects of these technologies are easily lovable (quicker reference-type answers, making the Internet more practical for everyone, automatic relationship-building between topics) but some other aspects make me nervous. What do you think?
Have you seen the new issue of the International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics? How about SIMILE (Studies in Media Information & Literacy Education)? The Journal of Informetics? No? Well, surely you’ve seen the latest Knowledge and Information Systems, right?
Right? …Anybody?
If you’re in academia (or of that mindset) and find yourself in the horrifically shameful position of not knowing what’s currently being discussed in your field’s academic publications, consider TicTocs. This free site indexes the tables of contents from thousands of academic publications, and delivers whichever of those TOCs you select directly to your RSS feed reader. So you can stay current with the most recent findings from the International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology.
Or whichever publications you’re genuinely, or contractually-obligated to be, interested in.
I might also add that many of the ELM databases, such as Academic Search Premier, offer the option of setting up automatic alerts. These alerts let you know (by email or RSS feed) when new articles are added that match your interests - not just from specific publications but also on specific topics from specific publications. Just run your search and look for the “Alert/Save/Share” link in the upper-right corner of your results listing.
Help us spread the word about MnKnows – Dig Deeper @ Your Library (www.mnknows.org), the new portal that gives Minnesota students and library patrons one-stop access to five statewide library services: MnLINK Gateway, Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM), Minnesota Reflections, AskMN, and the Research Project Calculator. We’ve established a website where you can retrieve the MnKnows logos to add to your library’s website and use for other publicity purposes.
• See: “About” page on the MnKnows website: http://www.mnknows.org/about.php (“Help Us Promote MnKnows”)
Minnesota academic and state government libraries are receiving a packet of MnKnows bookmarks (100 per packet) in the Delivery System. If you want more packets, please see the contact information at the end of this message.
Minnesota public libraries are receiving bookmarks through their regional public library systems.
Minnesota media centers – please contact us directly to let us know how many bookmarks you need for your schools.
What do you think of when you think of “2.0”? For some, the term brings to mind time-wasting websites and misplaced library efforts. Others fully embrace 2.0 and spread themselves - and their libraries - successfully throughout the social web. Many of us are likely somewhere in the middle: interested in new tools, but not sure how to efficiently incorporate them into our professional duties.
Today we’d like to open up a new series of videos that speak to people in all of these scenarios: “2.0 Tools in 2.0 Minutes.” This ongoing series will profile a 2.0 tool and highlight its value to you, the busy library professional, in almost no time flat. You’ll find no 2.0 for the sake of 2.0 here, though; nothing bleeding edge just because it’s bleeding edge. Instead, we’ll only highlight tools that can help you do your everyday job more efficiently. We’ll answer the question, how can 2.0 tools help me be more productive, not less?
The series begins with what we believe to be the most essential element of the 2.0 revolution, and arguably the tool that can add the most productivity to your work day by bringing valuable information to you: RSS Feeds (2:00). Then we’ll take a look at how Greasemonkey (2:17) can help you customize and optimize specific websites. And we’ll end with a tour of a tool that grants free access to office products like word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation software from anywhere with an Internet connection: Zoho (1:59).
These videos are the first three in an ongoing series. To determine which tools to cover next, we’d like to hear from you. What single 2.0 tool has been most effective in making your work more efficient? Drop a comment and we’ll consider your favorite site for the dubious honor of being the next “2.0 Tools in 2.0 Minutes” video.
From Joyce Antler, Jewish Women's Archive Advisory Committee Chair
On March 1, 2009, the Jewish Women’s Archive will launch the free, online version of Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, edited by Professors Paula Hyman of Yale University and Dalia Ofer of Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Previously available only on CD-ROM, the Encyclopedia is the first comprehensive source on the history of Jewish women and includes more than 1,700 biographies, 300 thematic essays, and 1,400 photographs and illustrations. The Encyclopedia nearly doubles the content available on http://jwa.org/encyclopedia and gives Internet users all over the world free and easy access to a wealth of information.
To keep the Encyclopedia current, we hope to add new entries from time to time and to update published pieces as necessary.
Here’s one for your reference bookmarks: Times Topics, from the New York Times. The site is organized by topic – there are 14,000 of them covered – and provides prepared background reports (on many topics) and archived news stories (on all). Topics range from economic stimulus to global warming; from the peanut butter recall to Hamas; and far beyond. If all of that seems too heavy for a Friday, don’t worry, there’s something for everyone, including Neil Diamond fans.
(Found via FMI)
Many library databases (including a number of the ELM databases) help students and researchers create source citations to be included in their project or report bibliographies. For those that don’t, and for other types of research sources, from books to periodicals to multimedia, consider KnightCite. This excellent interactive tool from the Hekman Library of Calvin College takes basic information on each source and formats citations according to MLA, APA, or Chicago citation styles. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. Your students just might thank you.
While researching for a poem by Elizabeth Alexander, I learned of a terrific web resource created by collaborative entities at the University of Pennsylvania.
"PennSound (http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound), launched January 1, 2005, is a Web-based archive for noncommercial distribution of the largest collection of poetry sound files on the Internet. PennSound offers a large variety of digital recordings of poems..." (http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/news/press-release-launch.php)
PennSound is sponsored by Penn's Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing and co-directed by Al Filreis, English professor and director of Penn's Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, and Charles Bernstein, Penn English professor.
"The poetry sound files are retrievable both from a library catalog by authors' names and via Web search engines. PennSound combines aspects of a library archive and a Web music-download site. Basic bibliographic information is incorporated in each file so that a user downloads not only the sound but also key facts about the recording, including author, title, place and date of the recording, series, as well as copyright information." (http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/news/press-release-launch.php)
An article from Technology Horizons in Education Journal, called “Top 10 Web 2.0 Tools for Young Learners” lists some intriguing free and cheap technology tools to help the young folks among us get their learn on. I bet school and youth services librarians are already getting some good mileage out of tools like these.
One online learning site that I’ve been intrigued with, but never used, is called Cramberry (review from Read Write Web). You can use it to make free online flash cards for studying and can then access those cards from anywhere you’ve got an Internet connection.
What are some favorite online learning aids of the young people in your life/worklife?
When you talk to your non-library friends about libraries, is there one thing that seems to come up again and again? It’s the catalog, isn’t it? My friends always joke about the Dewey Decimal system; it’s like comic gold. And it makes me think that when most non-library people think about libraries, they think about library catalogs. So what do you think about your library’s catalog?
A recent survey (“Perceptions 2008: an International Survey of Library Automation”) looks at librarians’ satisfaction levels with library catalog systems, and provides insight into different vendors. Is your library automation system mentioned? Do you agree with the general drift of the feedback?
I think we can all agree that improvements can always be made in how our catalogs work. So, going forward, what are some things that can be done to make library catalogs easier for our patrons to use?
February 2 is the launch of the getSTEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) web portal, which is designed to connect Minnesota educators with science and technology businesses, in order to better prepare students for post-secondary education programs and careers in STEM. getSTEM is supported by a grant from the National Governors Association along with sponsoring businesses including: Thomson Reuters, Microsoft, 3M, Inetium, and Ecolab. Last fall, the project passed a major milestone when it was launched as a beta site at www.getSTEM-mn.com. Over the last four months, the getSTEM beta site has had over 8,000 visits and successfully partnered schools with businesses for guest speakers, school materials, business tours and more! Successes like these identify the need for the getSTEM web portal and the desire of schools and businesses to create meaningful partnerships. These successes have assisted in the progress to getSTEM 2.2... getSTEM will transition from beta to an official site on February 2, 2009. There is also a getSTEM for Teachers site at http://science.mpls.k12.mn.us/getSTEM.html.
The future success of Minnesota’s economy depends on a well-prepared pipeline of students with the education and skills to help keep Minnesota business and industry competitive. Please join us in our continued work to partner schools with businesses and higher education to create the talent needed for a highly skilled and plentiful technology workforce in Minnesota.
Where are students turning with increasing frequency for research help? According to a recent article in the International Herald Tribune, they’re turning to YouTube. The article, titled “Is YouTube the next Google?,” relays new search statistics that put YouTube ahead of Yahoo! Search in terms of popularity and tells the story of one nine-year-old who starts his homework research with YouTube.
Has your library ever put videos online as a way to reach out to your students, no matter their age? If so, drop a link in the comments, because we’d love to see examples.
And don’t think it’s just students embracing online video. A site called TeacherTube aggregates instructional videos and lesson plans from all grade levels and curriculum areas. Teachers, librarians, and other educators - as well as students - can browse through thousands of videos by broad topic channel and can keyword search for videos on specific subjects.
It’s important for libraries to stake a claim where people are looking for information. In the case of students and teachers, from grade school to college, the next frontier seems to be online video.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project has released a new report that should be of interest to all libraries: The Future of the Internet III. In this third installment of Pew's survey of internet experts and analysts about where the web is going, many topics are covered. A lot of the report has to do with changing devices and our changing interaction with them: voice recognition, mobile devices, touch screens, etc. It makes for very interesting lunchtime reading. You can read the report here (with links to sub-sections of the report), or Pew's press release here for the really brief version.
Do-It-Yourself Projects Enhance Learning by Geoff Butterfield has several inexpensive tech tricks that yield big classroom dividends. A sample of some, include a $15 steady cam and the Soda Bottle Rocket (from Make). The author suggests several websites that give step-by-step instructions for hands-on projects. The websites include: Howtoons, Instructables, Tech Savvy Teachers, and many others. To read the entire article, visit: http://www.edutopia.org/do-it-yourself-tech-projects#comment-39301
From LIS News- 100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of: Beyond Google, Wikipedia and other generic reference sites, the Internet boasts a multitude of search engines, dictionaries, reference desks and databases that have organized and archived information for quick and easy searches. In this list, we’ve compiled just 100 of our favorites, for teachers, students, hypochondriacs, procrastinators, bookworms, sports nuts and more.
Read more, at: http://www.teachingtips.com/blog/2008/07/07/100-unbelievably-useful-reference-sites-youve-never-heard-of/
From OCLC:
The OCLC WorldMap is a prototype system that provides an interactive visual tool for selecting and displaying international library holdings represented in WorldCat, and publishing, library, cultural heritage, and collection data.
The OCLC WorldMap allows users to select countries of interest, then to compare various library and cultural heritage data by country.
WorldMap will generate interactive graphs that compare several different kinds of data for up to four countries at a time. The data includes the number of:
* Holdings in WorldCat for titles published in each country,
* Languages represented in WorldCat for titles published in each country,
* Titles in WorldCat published in each country; or
* Libraries in each country (broken down by type of library),
* Library volumes in each country (broken down by type of library),
* Certified/degreed librarians in each country (broken down by type of library),
* Registered library users in each country (broken down by type of library),
* Library expenditures (in US $), for each country (broken down type of library),
* Cultural heritage institutions (museums and archives) in each country, and
* Publishers in each country.
Results are displayed on a new screen. In addition, the tabs for each country on the new screen allow viewing of the complete dataset for each country, and the sources for the data (N/A indicates no data are available). A key to the display (.pdf: 607K/6 pp.) is available.
The data for the map were generated from WorldCat and more than forty other sources. The non-WorldCat data in the prototype, however, may not be complete. OCLC is not responsible for incomplete or inaccurate data. If you know of other data sources that can be used to update our data, please let us know.
For more information on OCLC WorldMap
Time just released its list of the best 50 websites for 2008. With oil prices climbing, it is no surprise that a website used to locate the cheapest gas in town made the top of the list! For the complete listings, visit: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1809858_1809957,00.html?xid=site-cnn-partner
“Google's newly-launched Google Health provides consumers with a facility for storing their personal health record, via a combination of blog posting, webcast and what it terms a "factory tour" - a press briefing in all but name.” – Outsell (June 6, 2008).
To read more about this initiative and the pilot program that Cleveland, Ohio is doing with health care providers using Google Health to manage patients' records, visit: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9875967-7.html or http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/google-health-begins-its-preseason-at-cleveland-clinic/?ref=technology
PR Newswire announced today (http://newsblaze.
The AOL Latino 2006 Hispanic Cyberstudy revealed that only 15 percent of U.S. Hispanic Internet users read online content in Spanish only, with most users switching back and forth between English and Spanish.
Finding Dulcinea is a division of Dulcinea Media, Inc. "a Silicon Alley team of savvy Internet users" according to their website (http://www.findingd
Novelist Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process, journeying through her childhood and family history and into the worlds of physics and chance, looking for hints of where her own creativity comes from. It's a wild ride with a surprise ending.
View the discussion at: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/250
11 days until the next
Free Comic Book Day!
For more information, visit: http://www.freecomicbookday.com/
Trudi Jacobson and Laura Cohen of the University Libraries University at Albany, SUNY have recently rewritten their mid-90s guide to helping students and others evaluate Web sites. The new version of this document reflects the impact of Web 2.0. It can be found at http://library.albany.edu/usered/eval/evalweb/ They still consider it as a work in progress. Check it out - it looks great and quite useful!
From OCLC Abstracts - January 21, 2008, Vol. 11, No. 3
"The new WorldCat Facebook application provides access to WorldCat searches and user-created lists from personalized pages within a Facebook account. The application includes a home screen with the WorldCat search box, as well as quick links to WorldCat searches based on topics listed in a Facebook profile as personal interests. The application also includes:
-- a built-in, advanced WorldCat search;
-- a panel that allows users to invite other Facebook friends to install WorldCat;
-- a “Something to Read” panel that displays books recently added to WorldCat lists; and
-- a “Favorite WorldCat Lists” panel where users track their own lists or those of other WorldCat users."
To read more click here.
In today's issue of American Libraries Direct (1-9-08) they cite an excellent article with Google Tricks & Tips. below is the excerpt: Gina Trapani writes: “When it comes to the Google search box, you already know the tricks: finding exact phrases using quotes like ‘so say we all’ or searching a single site using site:ala.org. But there are many more oblique, clever, and lesser-known search recipes and operators that work from that unassuming little input box. Dozens of Google search guides detail the tips you already know, but today we’re skipping the obvious and highlighting our favorite obscure Google web search tricks.” Don’t forget to look at the comments for more tips. The full article can be read at: http://lifehacker.com/339474/top-10-obscure-google-search-tricks
On the ili-l listserv a great graphic to help illustrate the various layers of web visibility was discussed. Janet Moelzer suggested the following article and graphic:
Have you checked out Minnesota's latest newspaper? MinnPost is completely online and a non-profit organization. Check out the thoughtful journalism at: http://www.minnpost.com/
Metronet, a Minnesota Multitype Library Cooperation System servicing all library types in the 7 county metropolitan area, has embarked on a new project for their second year in collaboration with the St. Paul Public Schools on integrating information literacy skills. This year's project or initiative is incorporating the concept of "23 Things" which helps teachers and media specialists become more familiar with technology and how it can be applied to libraries and the K-12 classroom.
Read more to learn how the Metronet Information Literacy Project is incorporating the "23 Things" model into their initiative at: http://metromili.blogspot.com/
Thanks to the October Issue of Information Today I am aware of two tools, that I love!
- Image Generator.org (www.imagegenerator.org) which has hundreds of free customizable graphics and clipart. Easy way to make simple new signs, logos, etc.
- ePassportPhoto (www.epassportphoto.com) - This website lets you upload photos taken with a digital camera and then validates them with passport photo regulations. What a time saver and cheaper than any instore price! The basic photos are FREE!
From the New York Times:
At the Wikimania conference in Taipei, this weekend there was a group of volunteers active in editing the online encyclopedia who started calling themselves “The Old-Codgers Coalition.” Like many at the conference, they were trying to cope with the impact of the site’s popularity.
These days, Wikipedia editors bandy various guidelines and rules of thumb for assessing the merit of articles. The old codgers have proudly followed the credo “Ignore All Rules.”
Success has also meant that there is less so-called “low-hanging fruit,” articles to write from scratch about important subjects. And finally, success means that Wikipedia has become too big for states around the world to ignore.
http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/
This 8-minute video developed by the Museum of Media History charts the development of digital tools and news up to 2015.
A participant in today's MORE webinar series discussed the following website. The site breaks down search engines and resources depending on if the patron needs to refine their topic, find quality results, research a specific discipline, etc. It is a great resource for the K-12 educators and beyond. Noodle Tools Information Need: http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html
Wondering what blogs to read? PC World just announced their list of top 100 blogs to watch. Among which are three of my personal favorites: Slashdot, Engadget and ReadWriteWeb. To read the complete list with descriptions and links, click: http://tech.msn.com/news/articlepcw.aspx?cp-documentid=5051140>1=10138
Check out this YouTube video on creating wikis!
Check out AL Focus - the video home of ALA's American Libraries!
First, enjoy their video, WHEEL OF CONFUSION
I heard about this new company called BookSwim, http://www.bookswim.com/ which advertises itself as an online book rental library. Similar to blockbuster.com or Netflix, you build a cue of books you want to read and they send them to you! They offer no late fees, free shipping both ways and a selection of over 150,000 titles. What are the possible implications of companies like this on libraries? Do we need to rethink how and where we serve our customers? Thoughts?
From Calisphere:
"Calisphere is the University of California's free public gateway to a world of primary sources. More than 150,000 digitized items — including photographs, documents, newspaper pages, political cartoons, works of art, diaries, transcribed oral histories, advertising, and other unique cultural artifacts — reveal the diverse history and culture of California and its role in national and world history. Calisphere's content has been selected from the libraries and museums of the UC campuses, and from a variety of cultural heritage organizations.
Calisphere is a public service project of the California Digital Library (CDL). Through the use of technology and innovation, the CDL supports the assembly and creative use of scholarship for the UC libraries and the communities they serve. Learn more about the CDL."
May 7, 2007 A panel on the future of commerce, journalism, and community on the Internet, featuring Barry Diller, Arianna Huffington, and Craig Newmark. Moderated by Ken Auletta. From “2012: Stories from the Near Future,” the 2007 New Yorker Conference.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2007/web2012
Recently on the ILI-listerv (ACRL's Instruction Section Information Literacy Instruction Discussion List) a discussion thread has been started on ways to deliver staff training for libraries on topics such as Web 2.0.
One of the members responded by pointing to an online resource called "Learning 2.0." It is a resource that can be customized and tailored to your own institution. The right-hand column provides links to other libraries doing the Learning 2.0 program.
Wow! This is a terrific video "starring" Vermont librarian, Jessamyn West. It shows her installing "Ubuntu" to two computers that were donated to The Calef Library in Washington, Vermont. Ubuntu comes bundled with Open Source software such as OpenOffice, Gimp (like Photoshop), Firefox, and Gaim (Instant Messenger). This is a great work-around for those who do not want to or cannot purchase various software programs. Check it out!
Recently launced is a new "Wikipedia-like" website for biology enthusiasts, Encyclopedia of Life. The goal of the project is to create a free online resource that catalogs and describes all the planet's known species.
From American Libraries Direct:
Researchers from the Syracuse University School of Information Studies, the American Library Association (ALA), and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, are working together to research games in libraries through a project called Game Lab. Researchers will tackle the development of a classification structure for games and determine the public good served by the library that provides gaming programs. To read the entire article
To follow the work of this project check out the Game Lab blog
If you haven't yet visited the traveling exhibition, "Wild Music," at the Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul, you may want to as it moves on to Raleigh, NC on May 14th. The final day is this Sunday, May 13th.
It's a large exhibition at 4,000 square feet and is a production of the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Association of Science-Technology Centers, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro School of Music. Additionally, major support has also come from the National Science Foundation. Harman International, Inc. and the NEC Foundation of America are supporters as well. For more on the exhibition
However, if you won't be visiting the Science Museum of Minnesota this week or weekend, check out the "Wild Music" website - this can be a great source for student activities and/or personal enjoyment long after the exhibit has traveled far from Minnesota. The site can be viewed in English or Spanish.
Experience "Wild Music" online!
These two tutorials are at the top of my list for content and delivery. Check it out!
Plagiarism tutorial from Paul Robeson Library of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey:
http://library.camden.rutgers.edu/EducationalModule/Plagiarism/
CLUE - from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries (a tutorial to orient the student to UW-Madison Libraries and college level research tools and strategies):
Check out this outstanding tutorial!!
From the ILI-L listserv:
The Peer-Reviewed Instructional Materials Online (PRIMO) Committee of
the Instruction Section of ACRL announces its site of the month for February 2007.
To read the full interview and browse the archive of previous profiles, please see
http://www.ala.org/ala/acrlbucket/is/iscommittees/webpages/emergingtech/site/index.htm
*** PRIMO Site of the Month Interview, February 2007 ***
A Beginner's Guide to Business Research
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/tutorials/zicklin/research/
Author: Louise Klusek
Institution: Baruch College, The City University of New York
Interviewer: Britt Fagerheim
Description: A Beginner's Guide to Business Research is an e-learning
module designed specifically for students doing company research for the
first time. This module is a required information literacy component of
Introduction to Business, a 1000-level course required of all students
intending to major in business at Baruch College. The Guide covers two
major sources of information: company websites (including annual
reports, 10-K filings, webcasts and press releases) and business
databases for news, company profiles, histories and up-to-date stock
information.
Google launched a patent database that includes US patents from the 1790's through mid 2006, with plans to add patents that are more recent. Google Patents can search US and international patent classes, assignees, inventors and patent numbers. It can limit by issue and filing date. However, older scanned patents include many optical character recognition errors and the database does not include patent applications.
Taken from Online magazine, March/April 2007,pg 14.
Check out this public resource!
From the MPC:
The Minnesota Population Center (MPC) is a University-wide interdisciplinary cooperative for demographic research. The MPC serves sixty faculty members and research associates from ten colleges and nineteen departments at the University of Minnesota, and employs nearly a hundred research support staff, including computer programmers and technicians, administrative staff, research assistants, and data-entry staff. As a leading developer and disseminator of demographic data, we also serve a broader audience of some 6,000 demographic researchers worldwide.
Another blog to check out: The Inspired Librarian by Sally Daniels. Daniels is a school library media specialist in New York. She has blogged on some interesting topics and links to helpful sites and resources.
Check out Doug Johnson's The Blue Skunk Blog
From his bio: Doug Johnson has been the Director of Media and Technology for the Mankato Public Schools since 1991 and has served as an adjunct faculty member of Minnesota State University, Mankato since 1990.
At a recent conference I had the pleasure of meeting two representatives from ISEEK. Check out their site!
This description from their website:
ISEEK, the Internet System for Education and Employment Knowledge, is a web-based gateway to Minnesota career, employment, education, and business development information and services. The Internet system helps you make smart choices about careers, employment, education, and business growth.
ISEEK provides information in four main areas:
To learn more about ISEEK visit: What is ISEEK?
WebJunction Minnesota has a brand new look!
Check it out at: http://mn.webjunction.org
From Marvin Stewart, Event Specialist at Center for Intellectual Property, University of Maryland University College -
The Center for Intellectual Property (CIP) at the University of Maryland University College is excited to announce the launch of a new blog portal addressing the cultural, political and legal context of copyright issues:
(c)ollectanea! http://chaucer.umuc.edu/blogcip/collectanea/
Continue reading "(C)ollectanea!: Collected Perspectives On Copyright" »
New open access library science journal called "Evidence Based Library and Information Practice." Thought you all
might want to take a look: http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/index.
Thought I would show everyone this new sign technology that I read about on the blog, LibrarianInBlack.
Signbot lets you create your very own LED Scrolling Sign image.
The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection is a general collection of more than 250,000 maps covering all areas of the world. This online collection has been created by the University of Texas at Austin Libraries.
This amazing collection includes maps of:
Furthermore, you can find historical maps, outline maps, and maps of current interest (i.e. Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea, Somalia).
Explore the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection online!!
"The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition has as its mission to support and advance efforts to improve student learning and transitions into and through higher education. We achieve this mission by providing opportunities for the exchange of practical, theory-based information and ideas through the convening of conferences, teleconferences, institutes, and workshops; publishing monographs, a peer-reviewed journal, a newsletter, guides, and books; generating and supporting research and scholarship; hosting visiting scholars; and administering a web site and electronic listservs."
For a guide to our profession's literature on the First Year Experience and Students in Tranisition see the annotated FYE Bibliography.
The Central Pennsylvania K-16 Information Literacy Network is a website primarily designed to support the K-16 Information Literacy iniatitive of Central Pennsylvania. Their Resources page, however, can be quite helpful to any school library media specialists or academic librarians focusing on instructional programs.
Family Genealogy and History Internet Education Directory, a project of V. Chris & Thomas M. Tinney, Sr., established in 1997, offers free coverage of the Genealogy World in a Nutshell. SEARCH This Site, provides updated site search engine access by Google, Pico, and Yahoo!
"This is a professional worldwide humanities and social sciences mega portal, connected directly to thousands
of related sub-sets, with billions of primary or secondary family history and genealogy database records. It encompasses all other key worldwide genealogy sites. Our goal is to promote scholarly educational access to all key worldwide Internet genealogical and family history databases and resources. Independent researchers are
always invited to voluntarily email us, to report any broken, changed, inappropriate, misdirected, new, outdated or undiscovered pertinent genealogy and family history links."
The "Second Wave" and Beyond scholarly community, launced in April 2006, is an innovative form of electronic communication and research that brings together feminist thinkers, both scholars and activists, to create a stimulating and supportive environment in which to pose and analyze compelling questions about feminist activism and theories, define new directions for historical research on this period, and provide a new venue for publishing traditional articles but also for writing and recording this history in ways made possible by the medium of online publication.
More specifically, look here to find dicussions, chronologies, oral histories and memoirs, images, reviews, bibliographies, resource links, teaching and research resources, and more.
Blinkx is the world's largest and most advanced video search engine. Fed by automatic spiders that crawl the web for audio video content and content partnerships with over 60 leading content and media companies, blinkx uses visual analysis and speech recognition to better understand rich media content. Users can search for content, create personal TV channels that automatically splice relevant content together and even use our download feature to automatically download content to mobile devices. Blinkx is a privately-held firm, based in San Francisco and London and was founded in early 2004 by Suranga Chandratillake.
http://www.blinkx.com/
Retrievr is an experimental service which lets you search and explore in a selection of Flickr images by drawing a rough sketch. http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/ VERY interesting! How many of us have at one time or another seen something on the Web and you wish you bookmarked or tagged it, and now you can't locate it again? Well, this site allows you to search Flickr images by trying to be an artist and taking your hand at sketching the image, then it pulls back results based on your sketch! This has a lot of potential to reach the greater Web itself. I think in the near future you will see this type of feature fine tuned, so not everyone has to be a Da Vinci to use it, and it will search a broader area. Stay tuned to this concept as the Web is more and more for visual learners and users!
Forgetting what information you need from sites for bibliographies, and just keep track of your favorite and needed resources? Check out Zotero!
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use research tool that helps you gather and organize resources (whether bibliography or the full text of articles), and then lets you to annotate, organize, and share the results of your research.
http://www.zotero.org/
So, my question is, a lot of schools, colleges and universities have purchased licenses to EndNote or RefWorks, will you start encouraging patrons to use this FREE citation manager instead? What are the prons and cons of this resource?
LISZEN: Library Blog Search engine
from http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/2006/10/liszen_library_.html
By sarahfaery@hotmail.com
Ever want a Technorati-esque site that would only search for biblioblogosphere posts? Well, your wait is over! Per an announcement on the Library Zen blog, LIS Student Garrett Hungerford has created LISZEN, a library-blogs-only search engine that trolls 530 different library-related blogs. The site has been up and down today as, I suspect, we have overloaded the server. Many readers have commented with suggestions for improving the engine. Keep an eye on it!!!
Coming Next Week! WebJunction Minnesota!
WebJunction Minnesota, an online service for the Minnesota library community, launches September 10, 2006. It is a collaborative effort of Minnesota State Library Services, a division of the Minnesota Department of Education; MINITEX Library Information Network; Metronet, a Minnesota Multitype Library Cooperation System; and WebJunction.
WebJunction is an online community and portal that supports library staff with technology and library development materials; provides courses for online learning and professional development; and brings the library community together in online discussions and programs.
WebJunction Minnesota offers an online community space where Minnesota libraries and staff can share best practices, policies and procedures, learning opportunities, and expertise to promote high quality library services. Minnesota library staff will have access to all the resources of the global WebJunction site plus local content of interest to the Minnesota library community, free online courses, and local discussion forums. Content will grow and change according to Minnesota library community needs.
WebJunction Minnesota will be promoted in various venues this fall, including the annual conferences of the Minnesota Library Association and the Minnesota Educational Media Organization. Alert your colleagues in the library community to prepare for the launch by signing up now for a free user account at www.webjunction.org. Stay tuned for more details!
WebJunction Minnesota is funded in part with federal IMLS Library Services and Technology Act funds, administered by State Library Services in cooperation with MINITEX Library Information Network and Metronet. Minnesota joins nine other states – Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont, and Washington – in the WebJunction Community Partner program.
Questions, comments, or suggestions for content? Contact Mary Ann Van Cura, State Library Services and WebJunction Team Lead, at maryann.vancura@state.mn.us, Jennifer Hootman, MINITEX Library Information Network, at hootm001@umn.edu, or Deanna Sylte, Metronet, at deanna@metrolibraries.net.
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.comis a place to find and leverage professional opportunities, now and throughout your career. LinkedIn enables you to:
-Present yourself and your professional capabilities
-Find and reconnect with colleagues and classmates
-Leverage powerful tools to find and reach the people you need
-Build a powerful network of trusted professionals
-Discover professional relationships and opportunities
-Tap into inside connections and information
-Get the edge that gives you competitive advantage
There are already 6 million professionals in the LinkedIn Network, and that number is growing fast. Whether you seek a job, a hire, a reference, a sales lead, an expert, or an inside connection at one of 50,000 companies, LinkedIn is an irreplaceable resource for building your professional relationships and achieving your goals.
Does the pronunciation key in Webster's not cut it for you at times? Try http://www.yourdictionary.com. This website has an audio stream and definition of the desired word.
Want to jazz up your standard PowerPoint presentation? Below you will find some great sites to assist you in creating anything but a ho-hum presentation.
http://sociablemedia.typepad.com/beyond_bullets/Beyond Bullets has tip and tricks to PowerPoint more effectively. This is a site that is trying to sell information, but the free resources are great.
Are your files too large to e-mail? Sick or carrying around or forgetting your USB drive? Check out You Send It, http://yousendit.comIt is a service to send files back and forth for free up to 1 G. For a nominal fee you can send secure and larger files as well.