Resources on the Generations

Sidney Lowe and Susie Skarl [University of Nevada-Las Vegas] have put together a great list of resources on dealing with the upcoming generations (X, Y, Millennials, etc.). Thanks to Stephen Abram for pointing it out on his blog, Stephen's Lighthouse.

URLs:
"Talking 'bout my generation: Exploring age-related resources" http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crlnews/2009/jul/agerelate.cfm

Stephen's Lighthouse: http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com

New Zealand Study Finds That Healthcare Workers Don’t Use Internet-Based Research Tools

A study by four researchers in Christchurch, New Zealand found that a frightening 37 percent rarely or never consulted Google and 58 percent rarely or never consulted Ovid Medline or PubMed. Medical and dental staff consulted search engines (83 percent) or library resources (63 percent) at least weekly, higher than nursing or allied health staff. All professional groups consulted coworkers or experts more frequently than they did online or library resources. They used Google more often than any other electronic resource (big surprise) and it received the highest value rating (yikes). Almost all searched using keywords; few used MeSH terms. Over 82 percent wanted more training on searching Internet-based resources, so there is still hope for educating them on the value of better sources.

Citation/URL:
Hider, Philip N., Gemma Griffin, Marg Walker [all of University of Otago-Christchurch], and Edward Coughlan [Christchurch Hospital], The information-seeking behavior of clinical staff in a large health care organization, Journal of the Medical Library Association 97(1):47-50, January 2009, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2605037

Want to Get Published?

If you have an article that you’re dying to get published, San Jose State University’s Laurie Putnam has several resources to help you.

Putnam, Laurie L. [San Jose (California) State University], Professional writing and publishing: Resources for librarians, C&RL News 70(4), April 2009, http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crlnews/2009/apr/prowritepublish.cfm

Writing and Publishing Resources for Librarians Who Write, San Jose State University Alumni News 11(1), article 5, 2009, http://slisgroups.sjsu.edu/alumni/newsletter/09Spring/alumnewsspring09.htm#article5

San Jose State University Library and Information Science Publications wiki_, http://slisapps.sjsu.edu/wikis/faculty/putnam/index.php/LIS_Publications_Wiki

Laurie Putnam’s LibraryWriting Bookmarks, Delicious, http://delicious.com/LibraryWriting

Good Stuff from Nicole Engard

Nicole Engard [Open Source Evangelist, LibLime, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] has two wonderful resources for librarians.

One is talia679's Feeds on Bloglines. Look at her list of library-related blogs in the following categories. You are sure to find several of interest to you. Business, Cataloging & Metadata, Conferences, Digital Libraries, Education, Gadgets, Law & Law Library, LIS, LIS Associations, LIS Career, LIS Fun, LIS News, Mac, Medical LIS, Open Source, Search Engines, Second Life Library, Tech News & Tips, Web 2.0 Misc., and Web Design

The other is What I Learned Today. She describes it as “Web 2.0 and programming tips from a library technology enthusiast, … covers blogs, RSS, wikis and more as they relate to libraries.”

URLs:
talia679's Feeds: http://www.bloglines.com/public/talia679
What I Learned Today: http://www.web2learning.net/

BUSINESS INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET

Nice group of links from RBA (Karen Blakeman of Rhodes-Blakeman Associates, Caversham, Berks UK).

Includes: key starting points leaflet, company registers by country, country specific information, day-to-day essentials (currency rates, biographies, maps, post codes), direct marketing, directories, financials & annual reports, government & politics, information brokers,market & industry research, mergers & acquisitions, news, statistics, information by industry sector, stock market & share prices, further reading.

URL: http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/

INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR INFORMATION SYSTEM NOW AVAILABLE FREE

The International Nuclear Information System database is now available for free. It comes from the International Atomic Energy Agency. According to the press release, there are over 3 million bibliographic citations and abstracts from all kinds of sources (journals, conferences, patents, laws, web documents, including over 85,000 full-text scientific and technical reports, conference papers, patents, theses and preprints.

URL: http://inisdb2.iaea.org/

FREE & LOW COST LEGAL RESEARCH

Georgetown University’s Law Library has created a web site with great resources for legal research that are very low cost—or even free (we like free).

There are entries about and links to many resources, including case law, statutes and codes, legislative histories, and administrative regulations. In addition, there are tables summarizing features and costs of the following low-cost databases: Caselex, Casemaker, Fastcase, lexisONE, Loislaw, VersusLaw, and Westlaw by Credit Card.

What a great compilation!

URL: http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/guides/freelowcost.cfm

85+ TOOLS AND RESOURCES FOR FREELANCERS AND WEB WORKERS

Sean P. Aune of Mashable has put together a list of resources for those working freelance on the Web. Not many relate to librarians, but may be good for your customers. If you do any freelance work, you should at least check out some of the Work Tools (especially time tracking and invoicing).

Also on the site are Adobe AIR applications and sections on job opportunities, freelance photography, and freelance programmers, web designers, and writers.


URL: http://mashable.com/2009/03/03/freelance/

WORLD BOOK FOR STUDENTS

The World Book now calls its Reference Center World Book Student and has added a timeline builder, a biography center, and hundreds of new videos and pictures to support student research projects. Students also now have the ability to establish their own research accounts. World Book Student still includes all the articles from the print versions of the World Book Encyclopedia, plus thousands of additional articles, learning resources, and research tools such as trivia quizzes, science projects, cyber camp, and special features such as African American Journey, Climates Around the World, and an Atlas with hundreds of maps.

You can subscribe for as little as US$49.95 per year. What a deal!

Disclosure: I grew up with and learned to read from the print World Book and it holds a special appeal for me.

URL: http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students

A SKETCHY DATABASE

An interesting new database has been announced. "Sketchory is a collection of 250,000 drawings...from SketchSwap.com. We opened Sketchory for all of you to rate, tag, search and re-use the drawings by keeping to the [Creative Commons] license which includes commercial use but requires attribution, among other things, with the additional prerequisite that you don't share over 1000 sketches."

The "we" refers to three Germans: Dominik Schmid, Philipp Lenssen, and Nikolai Kordulla.

You could use this to find drawings to put in a book, a blog, or slides for a presentation. Most are pretty crude, but the price is right (free).

URLs:
http://sketchory.com
http://www.sketchswap.com/about.html

AALL WIKI: TOOLS FOR SUCCESS IN TODAY’S ECONOMY

The American Association of Law Libraries unveiled its new Wiki of “resources to succeed in today’s economy.” Articles are divided into 4 categories. Career tools includes article on combating burnout, continuing professional education, job seekers, leadership training, networking and salary negotiation. Financial tools cover budgeting, general financial tools, funding, negotiation, and open access. Management tools include conflict resolution, customer service, hiring and recruiting law librarians, law firm library management, general management tools and managing, and promoting the law library. Finally, there is a section of public relations tools. Most so far are from Julia O’Donnell, AALL Director of Publications, but you can join the wiki and contributed items yourself.

URL: http://aallnet.pbwiki.com

RESOURCES ON THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

Law Librarian Blog has a list of resources on the current world financial crisis. They include source materials from Fordham's Law Library and FindLaw's website, Financial Crisis: From Wall Street to Main Street. Good stuff.

URLs:
Law Librarian Blog post: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/2008/12/another-resourc.html
Fordham Law Library: http://lawlib1.lawnet.fordham.edu/econcrisis/
FindLaw: http://www.findlaw.com/financial-crisis.html

THREE BOOKS ON FINDING INFORMATION ON THE WEB

Berinstein, Paula, Business Statistics on the Web: Find Them Fast—At Little or No Cost, Medford, NJ: CyberAge Books, 2004, ISBN 0-910965-65-X, US$29.95, foreword by Charles Cotton [former chair, Globespan Virata, Cambridge, England].

Berinstein, co-founder of Paula Hollywood, Inc., an animation software company and author of Finding Statistics Online (with Susanne Bjorner, Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc., 1998, ISBN 978-0-910965-25-5, US$29.95), has put together an impressive guide to sources of statistics relating to business, economics, and marketing. Chapter One, Quick Start, has “the absolute best tips” and “starting points for busy people.” Succeeding chapters cover sources of statistics and general search tips, followed by chapters covering US industry, non-US industry (heavy on English-speaking countries), market research, economic and financial statistics, company info, and demographics and population. She ends with a chapter on special tips and tricks, and “Your Competitive Advantage: Estimating Company Numbers You Can’t Get.” There are 32 sidebars and case studies and a glossary of statistics terms (from her previous book).

If you only use the sources in Quick Start, you will probably be able to find the majority of the statistics you will need, but for those difficult numbers—the only ones I was ever asked to find—you need to consult the other chapters. The other “must-read” chapters are the last two. Special Tips and Tricks covers determining what things cost, estimating your competitor’s marketing costs, how to use media kits and company filing to find out about industries, how to use government statistics, and—last but definitely not least—knowing the right questions to ask. In the very last chapter, Estimating Company Numbers You Can’t Get, Berinstein tells you what information you need to get started; how to draw up a timeline; how to find out how the company is funded; what to look for from the company’s products, how they are sold, and their target market; to use what you already know about the industry; to find out about competitors; what to infer from the company’s marketing; how to evaluate how much buzz the company gets in the media. I never would have thought to use all these tools in my competitive intelligence gathering.

This book should be in the library of every librarian (or market researcher) doing any type of competitive intelligence. And, since you should be doing CI if you want to become indispensable to your organization, that means you need this book.


Broderick, James F. and Darren W. Miller, Consider the Source: A Critical Guide to 100 Prominent News and Information Sites on the Web, Medford, NJ: CyberAge Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-910965-77-4, US$24.95.

Miller is a reporter who lives in Asheville, NC and Broderick teaches journalism at New Jersey City University in Jersey City, NJ. They have collaborated on a wonderful resource for journalism librarians and others who need to locate information from the media (widely defined). The 100 sources are presented in alphabetical order from Agence France-Presse to Yahoo! News, with AARP, Consumer Reports, Hispanic Web, PBS, Rolling Stone, Weather Channel, and WebMD in between. Each entry includes an overview, what you’ll find there, why you should visit, keep this in mind (warnings and caveats), off the record (little details), and a rating (from one to five “newspapers”). There is an appendix listing sites by ranking and an index.

I would have preferred a different arrangement, by subject, with an alphabetical index. If I knew what organization had the information I wanted, I probably wouldn’t need this book. That aside, it is a good guide to what’s out there and how to use it. I wouldn’t classify as a “must-have,” but as a “must-borrow.”

URL: http://www.TheReportersWell.com


Tamaiuolo, Nicholas G., The Web Library: Building a World Class Personal Library with Free Web Resources, Medford, NJ: CyberAge Books, 2008, ISBN 0-910965-67-6, US$29.95, edited by Barbara Quint [Quint and Associates, Santa Monica, CA], foreword by Steve Coffman [VP for Product Development, Library Systems and Services, Inc., Germantown, MD]

“This book will show you where to look for electronic versions of items that, if translated into physical terms that would sit on library shelves, would cost considerable money.” While Tomaiuolo was a medical librarian [he is now at Central Connecticut State University. New Britain], he found that the costs of research were escalating and that he could probably provide comparable service to his customers by using the Web. He cautions, “This doesn’t mean people won’t be visiting libraries. Librarians are on the leading edge of helping individuals find information. ...Nor does it mean that people should always opt for the least expensive resource.” He also reminds the reader that “it is unwise for individuals to trust everything they unearth on the Web. This is where a librarian’s knowledge and judgment become critical.”

The book begins with Free Articles and Indexes: Can You Afford Not to Use Them? and continues with chapters on news sources, ready reference, ask an expert and digital reference services, books, images, and art. There’s an entire chapter on technology: plug-ins, toolbars, privacy concerns, sources just for Netscape users, and blogs. In Final Considerations, he reminds us again that we can’t trust the Web, that some things will never be on the Web, and that the Web isn’t static and we need to keep looking for unfound information. The appendix has lists of links by chapter (which are more easily accessed from the website) and there is an index.

My biggest quibble with this book is the use of Personal in the title. Every library, personal or institutional, and librarian can benefit from reading and using this book. After all, the librarian’s mantra is cheaper, better, faster—and Tamaiuolo has created a guide to finding information that is (usually) free, reliable, and online. What more could one ask? Buy this book!

URL: http://www.ccsu.edu/library/tomaiuolon/theweblibrary.htm

HAVE YOU SEEN BNET?

BNET, short for Business Networking I guess, calls itself “the go-to place for management.” Their services include news feeds and analysis, special reports on specific business issues, “crash courses” on skills and business topics, podcasts, and executive summaries on trends and events. There is also a business library with “unlimited access” to white papers, tools and templates, and research articles. It is owned by US-based CBS Interactive, they have separate editors for the UK and Australia.
There is a limited (but ample) amount of information available without registration, but since registration is free, why not join and get all of this great stuff. If you’re working with management/business people (and who isn’t), you should at least look at BNET.

URL: http://www.bnet.com

GREAT NEW PATIENT NETWORKING SITE

“Patients Helping Patients Live Better Every Day” is the motto of a new website called PatientsLikeMe. The site provides information and networking for patients with “life-changing diseases.” Diseases included so far are ALS, MS (multiple sclerosis), HIV, Parkinson’s, and Mood Disorders (depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar, or anxiety). You create a profile of your condition, your mood (today), your medicines and dosages (!), a history of your symptoms, and your weight. Not only can you connect with others who have similar conditions or are on similar medications, but you can track your condition over time. You can even print out a sheet to take to your doctor.
It was founded by three engineers from MIT who were inspired by a young friend with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). How do they make money? By selling “anonymized” data and permission-based access to healthcare providers. (They tell you which information they share and which they don’t.)
I really like this site and see great things for it once there are more people on it.

URL: http://www.patientslikeme.com

NEAT MEDICAL DATABASE

I just ran across SearchMedia, a site that has as its goals to "answer your clinical question, offer additional medically-relevant information and satisfy your curiosity." It searches over 1000 websites but is free to the user (ad-supported). It is a product of CMPMedica, a publisher.
Searching can be limited by type of information: research reviews, practical articles or news, CME, evidence-based articles, patient education, complementary medicine, practice guidelines, clinical trials, or practice management. They even suggest broader and narrower search terms. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the results.
e
URL: http://www.searchmedica.com/

KNOW THE RULES—OF THUMB, THAT IS

This is a fascinating site. It has “every rule of thumb on earth in one place!” Some of the 151 categories are: advertising, automobiles, business, children, entertaining, farming, gambling, language, management, movies, relationships, restaurants, sports, weather, and writing. For example: “If you don’t want a cat to jump into your lap, don’t make eye contact with it.”

URL: http://rulesofthumb.org/

TWO BLOGS I’VE JUST COME ACROSS

ECJBlog has “news and analysis about the European Court of Justice.” They’ve recently added a subscription service to their newsletter through FeedBlitz. The blogger is Allard Knook, a PhD Candidate at the Institute of Constitutional and Administrative Law, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.

URL: http://courtofjustice.blogspot.com


The Journal of Medical Internet Research’s blog has excepts from recent posts on various eHealth Blogs, such as davidrothman.net, The Krafty Librarian, Medicine 2.0 and more. A nice aggregator-type service. JMIR is “the leading peer-reviewed journal for health and healthcare in the Internet age, has been around since 1999 and is open access. It is sponsored by the eHealth RESEARCH Network and published by Gunther Eysenbach, Centre for Global EHealth Innovation, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

URL: http://www.jmir.org/cms/view/ehealth_blogs

THREE USEFUL WEBSITES--THEATER, CITIES, AND CALCULATORS

THEATER RESOURCES
Arslynx International is a free, non-ad-sponsored site with information on everything theater—from acting and architecture, through costume design and directing, to stage management, video, and world theater. It is the creation of Richard Finkelstein, a professor of theater design for over 25 years—now at James Madison University, living in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

"In general, Artslynx links to non-profit resource libraries as master sites themselves. In areas where Artslynx feels that there is no comprehensive listing, Artslynx creates its own.”

URL: http://www.artslynx.org/theatre/

TOP 101 U.S. CITIES—LOTS OF LISTS
Want to know the top 101 U.S. cities that people commute from? Or with the least cars per house? Or with the most people having Doctorates? Then this is the site for you. It is the companion to a similar site, City Top Lists. I couldn’t quite figure who puts this out, but they say that “a lot of content on our site is user generated,” so you might take some of it with a grain of salt.

Answers to the above: Burke, Virginia (54%), Manhattan, New York (60% have no car); and Palo Alto, California (8.3 %).

URLs:
Top 101: http://www.city-data.com/top2/toplists2.html
City Top Lists: http://www.city-data.com/toplists.html

FREE CALCULATORS AND CONVERTERS
I frequently need to convert something to something else (money, centimeters, etc.). This is a great site to find the right tool. It includes basic calculators, online statistics calculators, numbers calculators, online matrix calculators, conversions, color converters, date and day calculators, mortgage calculators, unit conversions, conversion factors and tables, BMI (body mass index) calculator, bandwidth calculator, and a love calculator (no kidding!). There are also many free mathematics tutorials.
It is a product of HIOX, an Indian web products developer.

URL: http://www.easycalculation.com/

A PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY

This is neat! Howjsay.com lets you type a word in, using either British or American spelling, and it speaks the word in “Standard British English.” Notes: there are no obscene or profane words; there are some alternative pronunciations; there are no phonetic transcriptions; and it is a “work in progress.” It is the work of Tim Bowyer, Amman, Jordan.

URL: http://www.howjsay.com/