Monday, September 28, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Artcyclopedia
Artcyclopedia is an online fine art search engine and "guide to great art on the internet." The site focuses mostly on painting and sculpture, but also includes some decorative arts, textiles and other artistic media. The site contains brief biographical sketches of artists and the movements they are associated with as well as links to other resources about each artist, including gallery and museum sites. A nice place to start when looking for information about an artist and artwork. The site does not contain pricing or auction information; artnet.com has a database of auction and gallery pricing information.
Example entries:
Malcolm Morely
Artists by movement: Dada
Arthur Lismer
Example entries:
Malcolm Morely
Artists by movement: Dada
Arthur Lismer
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Photomuse.org
Photomuse.org Historical photographs for research and recreational viewing from the George Eastman House and ICP collections.
"Thanks to the Internet and the World Wide Web, museums have an opportunity to serve audiences that do not have easy access to our buildings and collections. Photomuse.org is the online expression of a long-term alliance between George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film and the International Center of Photography (ICP).
While our museums each maintain websites supporting their respective programs and exhibits, George Eastman House and ICP collaborate in building Photomuse to provide online resources for the study of an important cultural subject: photography at work in the world. We invite all students and scholars -- be they academic or recreational -- to use this site and to assist us in making this a useful and authoritative learning tool."
Currently the search feature is not working; I hope to see it up and running soon.
Hungarian photographer Martin Munkacsi's lost archive
Gerda Taro's Spanish Civil War photography
Louise Brooks and the "New Woman" in Weimar cinema
"Thanks to the Internet and the World Wide Web, museums have an opportunity to serve audiences that do not have easy access to our buildings and collections. Photomuse.org is the online expression of a long-term alliance between George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film and the International Center of Photography (ICP).
While our museums each maintain websites supporting their respective programs and exhibits, George Eastman House and ICP collaborate in building Photomuse to provide online resources for the study of an important cultural subject: photography at work in the world. We invite all students and scholars -- be they academic or recreational -- to use this site and to assist us in making this a useful and authoritative learning tool."
Currently the search feature is not working; I hope to see it up and running soon.
Hungarian photographer Martin Munkacsi's lost archive
Gerda Taro's Spanish Civil War photography
Louise Brooks and the "New Woman" in Weimar cinema
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Gateway to 21st Century Skills
The Gateway to 21st Century Skills is a searchable database of lesson plans designed to incorporate the digitized resources of federal, state and international libraries and information providers. About the Gateway:
The Gateway organization was formerly GEM, a USDoE-funded school library project designed to develop content, technology and data standards for K-12 education. The project has been funded by the National Educational Association since 2005 and is now known as The Gateway.
Some cool resources easily findable through Gateway:
Two Unreconciled Strivings: African-American Identity in the Gilded Age, 1877-1915
On Becoming a Certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat
Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memphis Sanitation Workers: A NARA Teaching with Documents Lesson Plan
"The Gateway expands educators' capability to access Internet-based lesson plans, instructional units and other educational materials in all forms and formats. The Gateway's goal is to improve the organization and accessibility of the substantial collections of materials that are already available on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites to educators and learners.Access is free to users; consortium members pay a fee to make their records available to Gateway. Gateway then standardizes the metadata and adds elements to enhance access to the resources by K-12 teachers, their targeted user group.
The Gateway is a nonprofit consortium membership organization serving educators and trainers at all levels in the USA and around the world."
The Gateway organization was formerly GEM, a USDoE-funded school library project designed to develop content, technology and data standards for K-12 education. The project has been funded by the National Educational Association since 2005 and is now known as The Gateway.
Some cool resources easily findable through Gateway:
Two Unreconciled Strivings: African-American Identity in the Gilded Age, 1877-1915
On Becoming a Certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat
Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memphis Sanitation Workers: A NARA Teaching with Documents Lesson Plan
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Encyclopedia of Chicago
Today's resource is the Encyclopedia of Chicago, a joint digitization project of the Chicago Historical Society, The Newberry Library and Northwestern University. Site materials can be searched, as well as accessed by browsing encyclopedia entries, digitized materials including photographs, ephemera, advertisements and other images, maps and special features. A user guide for advanced use is provided.
The Homes of Chicago, 1874
Modern Kitchen, 1910
The Prairie School of Architecture
Rainbow Beach
The Homes of Chicago, 1874
Modern Kitchen, 1910
The Prairie School of Architecture
Rainbow Beach
Friday, September 18, 2009
AMSER: Applied math and science repository
This entry's going to be short, as it's officially happy hour and I'm still at my desk looking at pictures of the teabaggers. Clearly we need to be spending a lot more on education in this country, which brings me to our resource today.
AMSER, the Applied Math and Science Repository, is "a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use. AMSER is funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the National Science Digital Library, and is being created by a team of project partners led by Internet Scout."
Obviously designed by librarians, AMSER's resources are searchable and browseable by both LC subject headings and the GEM subject classification scheme.
There is a rich variety of educational resources for high school and college teachers and learners in this repository:
AT&T Knowlege Network
Finally learn those irregular Spanish verbos
American Garden Museum
Delights of Chemistry
When I was in school we didn't have any cool resources like this to help us learn. In fact, when I was in school we didn't even have the INTERNET. We just had vax terminals and 2400 baud modems and our trusty TI-81 scientific calculators with infrared data transfer capabilities that I programmed many, many physics and chemistry formulas into before our professors stopped letting us use them during exams.
Good thing you never grow out of being a nerd. :)
AMSER, the Applied Math and Science Repository, is "a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use. AMSER is funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the National Science Digital Library, and is being created by a team of project partners led by Internet Scout."
Obviously designed by librarians, AMSER's resources are searchable and browseable by both LC subject headings and the GEM subject classification scheme.
There is a rich variety of educational resources for high school and college teachers and learners in this repository:
AT&T Knowlege Network
Finally learn those irregular Spanish verbos
American Garden Museum
Delights of Chemistry
When I was in school we didn't have any cool resources like this to help us learn. In fact, when I was in school we didn't even have the INTERNET. We just had vax terminals and 2400 baud modems and our trusty TI-81 scientific calculators with infrared data transfer capabilities that I programmed many, many physics and chemistry formulas into before our professors stopped letting us use them during exams.
Good thing you never grow out of being a nerd. :)
Thursday, September 17, 2009
EpistemeLinks: philosophy resources on the internet
I resisted the temptation to type "internets" rather than "internet" in the title of this post. This is part of my overall language improvement plan that also involves not saying the word "dude" anymore. The situation is not as dire as it sounds, but still...
EpistemeLinks is a resource containing links to resources about philosophy, including course materials, etexts, quotations, journals and magazines, and, as a possessor of a degree in philosophy myself, two sections I myself would combine, Fun and Humour and "Job Listings."
The Fun and Humour section definitely warranted further investigation. Amazingly, users can search for jokes by philosopher- here is a list of jokes about Karl Marx. For those of steelier mettle to withstand various puns and philosophical "humor," a link to the Daniel Dennett-edited Philosophical Lexicon is provided as well.
Some of these are actually pretty funny. Or not, depending on your sense of humor. I would never deny anyone the right to cringe at these lexicon entries:
aquinas, n.pl. (from a-, not, and quine) Philosophers who refuse to deny the existence or importance of something real or significant.
churchland, n., (1) Two-ring traveling circus, a cross between a chautauqua and Disneyland, at which philosophers are given entertaining religious instruction in Science and nothing to eat but "phase space sandwiches". Hence churchlandish, adj. Doubly outlandish. (2) n. A theocracy whose official religion is eliminative materialism.
heidegger, n. A ponderous device for boring through thick layers of substance. "It's buried so deep we'll have to use a heidegger." Also useful for burying one's own past.
EpistemeLinks is a resource containing links to resources about philosophy, including course materials, etexts, quotations, journals and magazines, and, as a possessor of a degree in philosophy myself, two sections I myself would combine, Fun and Humour and "Job Listings."
The Fun and Humour section definitely warranted further investigation. Amazingly, users can search for jokes by philosopher- here is a list of jokes about Karl Marx. For those of steelier mettle to withstand various puns and philosophical "humor," a link to the Daniel Dennett-edited Philosophical Lexicon is provided as well.
Some of these are actually pretty funny. Or not, depending on your sense of humor. I would never deny anyone the right to cringe at these lexicon entries:
aquinas, n.pl. (from a-, not, and quine) Philosophers who refuse to deny the existence or importance of something real or significant.
churchland, n., (1) Two-ring traveling circus, a cross between a chautauqua and Disneyland, at which philosophers are given entertaining religious instruction in Science and nothing to eat but "phase space sandwiches". Hence churchlandish, adj. Doubly outlandish. (2) n. A theocracy whose official religion is eliminative materialism.
heidegger, n. A ponderous device for boring through thick layers of substance. "It's buried so deep we'll have to use a heidegger." Also useful for burying one's own past.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The People's Archive
I stumbled across The People's Archive while browsing open access journals in BioMed Central. I'm not sure why this was linked there but I think it's wonderful and wanted to feature it as today's Reference Site of the Day.
The People's Archive is a web archive of video footage of famous thinkers, creators and artists talking about their lives. From the About page:
Oh how I have a soft spot for the wacky Freeman Dyson
Benoit Mandelbrot
Stan Lee
The People's Archive is a web archive of video footage of famous thinkers, creators and artists talking about their lives. From the About page:
"Peoples Archive, part of Web of Stories Ltd., is dedicated to filming for posterity the life stories of the great thinkers, creators, and achievers of our time. The people whose stories you watch on this site are leaders of their field, whose work has influenced and changed our world as we know it."The subjects of each biographical film speak on a technical level of their achievements rather than attempt to make their creative work understandable to a lay audience. The People's Archive is intended as a resource for present and future researchers to better understand the personalities, lives and times of the seminal thinkers of today.
Oh how I have a soft spot for the wacky Freeman Dyson
Benoit Mandelbrot
Stan Lee
Monday, September 14, 2009
British Pathe: 3,500 hours of British Pathe cinema newsreels
One of the oldest media companies in the world, British Pathe pioneered the use of the moving image for news and editorial purposes, developing the newsreel as a popular form of news distribution and entertainment. Between 1910 and 1970 British Pathe had produced over 90,000 individual news items comprising 3,500 hours of footage.
British Pathe newsreel footage is fully searchable and free for individual users to preview and enjoy; licenses for commercial use or redistribution must be negotiated with the company.
Kinks video
Tokyo Rose
Cat show, 1930's
Choose your doctor
British Pathe newsreel footage is fully searchable and free for individual users to preview and enjoy; licenses for commercial use or redistribution must be negotiated with the company.
Kinks video
Tokyo Rose
Cat show, 1930's
Choose your doctor
Friday, September 11, 2009
IssueLab.org: online publishing forum for non-profit research
As I have pointed out in several earlier posts, discovering and keeping up with grey literature that is not indexed by discipline-specific databases can be a challenging, yet rewarding, means of accessing valuable statistics and information. Issuelab.org is a publishing forum that aggregates and indexes literature from think tanks and other research-producing non-profits, making the process of searching grey literature on a variety of policy topics much easier.
From Issuelab's about page:
IssueLab data is OAI-PMH compatible and harvestable by OAI aggregators. Research can also be accessed via RSS feeds for different topics of interest.
Issuelab also has an interesting blog about non-profit research- topics cover the research process, getting research seen, and relevant legislation on open data and open access initiatives.
This is a fantastic resource for librarians, researchers, policy makers, and anyone who is interested in complex social issues like poverty, global health, criminal justice and a variety of other fields. I hope to see it grow in the future.
From Issuelab's about page:
"Each year billions of charitable dollars are spent on nonprofit research, research which journalists, policy analysts, legislators, students, activists, and grant makers all rely on to effectively address complex social issues. And yet despite the widespread interest in this work and the billions of dollars spent each year to produce it, most nonprofit research remains unpublished, hard to find, underexposed, or archived in issue-specific information silos. The nonprofit sector clearly needs a better solution than the current piecemeal approach to managing and sharing one of its greatest assets, while journalists, researchers, activists, policy makers, educators, and the general public need a much better solution for locating and accessing social research across issue areas. IssueLab is that solution."
IssueLab data is OAI-PMH compatible and harvestable by OAI aggregators. Research can also be accessed via RSS feeds for different topics of interest.
Issuelab also has an interesting blog about non-profit research- topics cover the research process, getting research seen, and relevant legislation on open data and open access initiatives.
This is a fantastic resource for librarians, researchers, policy makers, and anyone who is interested in complex social issues like poverty, global health, criminal justice and a variety of other fields. I hope to see it grow in the future.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Bookshare.org: accessible books for people with print disabilities
Bookshare.org is a non-profit that makes specially formatted files (large print as well as audio)of popular and scholarly books and magazines available to readers with print disabilities, including visual impairments, physical disabilities and severe dyslexia. The first year of membership costs $75; subsequent years cost $50. Since works are licensed to Bookshare under a special copyright agreement, users must submit proof of disability to be eligible for a Bookshare membership.
While individual memberships are encouraged, institutional memberships for schools and libraries are available at a higher rate ($300 for 30 downloads). Bookshare encourages institutions to have disabled patrons sign up for individual accounts. I think it would be wonderful if a library could subsidize all or part of the Bookshare licensing fee for their disabled patrons who cannot access their regular collections.
Bookshare continues to expand and upgrade their collection of available materials through licensing partnerships with publishers. Book content ranges from New York Times bestsellers to K-12 textbooks to Newbery Award winners to scholarly books published by The University of Chicago Press and New York University Press. Newspapers and magazines (including some Spanish language titles) are also available for download through Bookshare. Volunteer opportunities including book scanning, proofreading and reviewing are available for everyone interested.
While individual memberships are encouraged, institutional memberships for schools and libraries are available at a higher rate ($300 for 30 downloads). Bookshare encourages institutions to have disabled patrons sign up for individual accounts. I think it would be wonderful if a library could subsidize all or part of the Bookshare licensing fee for their disabled patrons who cannot access their regular collections.
Bookshare continues to expand and upgrade their collection of available materials through licensing partnerships with publishers. Book content ranges from New York Times bestsellers to K-12 textbooks to Newbery Award winners to scholarly books published by The University of Chicago Press and New York University Press. Newspapers and magazines (including some Spanish language titles) are also available for download through Bookshare. Volunteer opportunities including book scanning, proofreading and reviewing are available for everyone interested.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Smithsonian Library: Galaxy of Images
The Smithsonian Institution Libraries' Galaxy of Images contains a sampling of digitized materials from the many collections housed at the Smithsonian. In addition to the many digital collections created and maintained by library staff, the Galaxy of Images makes available high-resolution scans of materials that support research from the Smithsonian's holdings. Users can search or browse the images.
Some of my favorites:
Hand-tinted lithographs of "life on the moon"
Lily plant illustration from 1500
Workingman's Model Home, 1893
Chocolate bunny playing a guitar
Some of my favorites:
Hand-tinted lithographs of "life on the moon"
Lily plant illustration from 1500
Workingman's Model Home, 1893
Chocolate bunny playing a guitar
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Fedtastic!
When's the last time you saw an infovis application so innovative and easy-to-understand that you said to yourself, "That's fedtastic." Yes, I know, Followthemoney.org is pretty cool. Maplight.org is also a great way to track money and influence in government. But the government information resource I'm highlighting today truly is Fedtastic. No, really. That's what it's called.
Fedtastic received honorable mention in Sunlight Lab's Apps for America 2009 contest. Fedtastic takes difficult-to-find government information and makes it available to browers in an easy-to-use table format. The site is organized into four main categories: Data, Agencies, States and Congress. The Data category is separated into four sections: Money, Earth and People. Each of these divisions contains sortable data tables based on government information.
The Agencies section contains information about each federal agency and its recovery page and spending information, as well as links to each agency's own summary and budget pages.
Each state page displays budgetary information, as well as links to state representatives, home pages, the Wolfram Alpha and Wikipedia pages for each state, as well as recovery, census and OpenSecrets information.
The Congress pages list comprehensive voting information for each current Congressperson, as well as links to further information and analysis on each one's political attitudes and behavior, sources of campaign finance, and spending patterns. Which is totally fedtastic.
Fedtastic received honorable mention in Sunlight Lab's Apps for America 2009 contest. Fedtastic takes difficult-to-find government information and makes it available to browers in an easy-to-use table format. The site is organized into four main categories: Data, Agencies, States and Congress. The Data category is separated into four sections: Money, Earth and People. Each of these divisions contains sortable data tables based on government information.
The Agencies section contains information about each federal agency and its recovery page and spending information, as well as links to each agency's own summary and budget pages.
Each state page displays budgetary information, as well as links to state representatives, home pages, the Wolfram Alpha and Wikipedia pages for each state, as well as recovery, census and OpenSecrets information.
The Congress pages list comprehensive voting information for each current Congressperson, as well as links to further information and analysis on each one's political attitudes and behavior, sources of campaign finance, and spending patterns. Which is totally fedtastic.
Friday, September 4, 2009
The Art and Technology Program: 1967-1971 at LACMA
LACMA has put together a retrospective of the Art and Technology Program: 1967-1971 spend an afternoon on. Not that I did spend my afternoon looking at this site. I spent the afternoon working. But if I did have a free afternoon I would spend it looking at this mind-blowing catalog of the pairings of major California artists and technology corporations during the late '60s. Soo relevant on so many levels...
Jean Dupuy and Ampex
Larry Bell and the RAND Corporation
Robert Rauschenberg and Teledyne
Karlheinz Stockhausen and AT&T
For me, it's not too early to call this the best digitization project of the year.
Jean Dupuy and Ampex
Larry Bell and the RAND Corporation
Robert Rauschenberg and Teledyne
Karlheinz Stockhausen and AT&T
For me, it's not too early to call this the best digitization project of the year.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Anatomy Atlases: A digital library of anatomy information
Hi! The dust is settling on my new job and routine and I've been thinking about writing for Reference Site of the Day for too long- it's time to finally do it!
I'm very encouraged by the statistics for this blog. I'm seeing increased traffic from overseas, esp. developing areas that are underserved by library services but still in need of quality (and free) information. The search terms leading users to the blog are encouraging as well: posts are being discovered based on both topic and resource names with oftentimes a nice match between the resource and keywords used. I hope this continues, as a major goal of this blog is to publicize free and reliable information resources for public libraries, researchers, and underserved communities in all regions of the world.
Today's resource is Anatomy Atlases. I know I promised several of you that this blog wouldn't be "all about science" now that I work at a hospital, but this is an excellent site for all kinds of users. And as public librarians know, anatomy textbooks and resources have a way of not making it back to the library at the end of the semester. So an online version for nursing and other science undergraduates is a useful reference to have on hand.
Anatomy Atlases is curated by Ronald A. Bergman, Ph.D. The mission of the site is "To educate patients, healthcare providers, and students in a free and anonymous manner" with the stated purpose of improving patient outcomes. The site is searchable and browseable, and contains texts on microanatomy and cross-sectional anatomy.
Anatomy Atlases is one of a series of digital medical libraries made available by Michael P. D'Alessandro, MD and Donna D'Allessandro, MD. Other libraries include resources for medical students and pediatricians.
These are excellent, free curated resources for practicing doctors who have access to other up-to-date literature and, more importantly, those who don't.
I'm very encouraged by the statistics for this blog. I'm seeing increased traffic from overseas, esp. developing areas that are underserved by library services but still in need of quality (and free) information. The search terms leading users to the blog are encouraging as well: posts are being discovered based on both topic and resource names with oftentimes a nice match between the resource and keywords used. I hope this continues, as a major goal of this blog is to publicize free and reliable information resources for public libraries, researchers, and underserved communities in all regions of the world.
Today's resource is Anatomy Atlases. I know I promised several of you that this blog wouldn't be "all about science" now that I work at a hospital, but this is an excellent site for all kinds of users. And as public librarians know, anatomy textbooks and resources have a way of not making it back to the library at the end of the semester. So an online version for nursing and other science undergraduates is a useful reference to have on hand.
Anatomy Atlases is curated by Ronald A. Bergman, Ph.D. The mission of the site is "To educate patients, healthcare providers, and students in a free and anonymous manner" with the stated purpose of improving patient outcomes. The site is searchable and browseable, and contains texts on microanatomy and cross-sectional anatomy.
Anatomy Atlases is one of a series of digital medical libraries made available by Michael P. D'Alessandro, MD and Donna D'Allessandro, MD. Other libraries include resources for medical students and pediatricians.
These are excellent, free curated resources for practicing doctors who have access to other up-to-date literature and, more importantly, those who don't.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Supreme Court Resources
Interested in the Supreme Court? Who isn't?
Today's resource is Justia's Supreme Court resource page. The page lists recent court opinions, recent oral arguments, a listing of authoritative blogs by legal scholars, and a list of additional Supreme Court resources elsewhere on the web.
Today's resource is Justia's Supreme Court resource page. The page lists recent court opinions, recent oral arguments, a listing of authoritative blogs by legal scholars, and a list of additional Supreme Court resources elsewhere on the web.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History
Hello! We're back!
Today's reference site is a fun and informative collection of digitized resources at the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History at Duke University. In addition to over 7,000 high quality images of early 20th century advertisements for beauty products, television and radio, transportation and WW II propoganda in the Ad*Access collection, now we can view thousands of vintage televisions commercials online via the site. The commercials are part of the archives of the ad agency D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, an advertising agency whose records are in Duke's archives.
In addition to Ad*Access and AdViews, the Hartman Center also makes available a series of advertisements from the 1850's through the 1920's documenting the emergence of advertising and the rise of consumer culture in America. Also of special interest is the Medicine and Madison Avenue database: view 600 images of direct to consumer medical advertising from the early 1900's, including ads for various cough syrups, beauty products and household cleaners.
Sippy cup from 1952!
Is your baby enjoying the Results of Progress in infant feeding?
No matter where you go now...You can't escape from germs!
Today's reference site is a fun and informative collection of digitized resources at the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History at Duke University. In addition to over 7,000 high quality images of early 20th century advertisements for beauty products, television and radio, transportation and WW II propoganda in the Ad*Access collection, now we can view thousands of vintage televisions commercials online via the site. The commercials are part of the archives of the ad agency D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, an advertising agency whose records are in Duke's archives.
In addition to Ad*Access and AdViews, the Hartman Center also makes available a series of advertisements from the 1850's through the 1920's documenting the emergence of advertising and the rise of consumer culture in America. Also of special interest is the Medicine and Madison Avenue database: view 600 images of direct to consumer medical advertising from the early 1900's, including ads for various cough syrups, beauty products and household cleaners.
Sippy cup from 1952!
Is your baby enjoying the Results of Progress in infant feeding?
No matter where you go now...You can't escape from germs!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Encyclopedia Mythica: Mythology, Folklore and Religion
There are so many exciting deities, goddesses and beasts to read about in the Encyclopedia Mythica, a comprehensive online resource for mythological information from cultures around the world. Encyclopedia Mythica contains over 7,000 articles.
Content is divided into logical categories for browsing. The folklore section is divided into general folkore, Arthurian legends, and folktales from various regions. Content is also organized by geography; e.g., the mythology of Africa.
Additionally, the site can be browsed via the Bestiary, a catalog of heroes, and an image gallery.
Content is divided into logical categories for browsing. The folklore section is divided into general folkore, Arthurian legends, and folktales from various regions. Content is also organized by geography; e.g., the mythology of Africa.
Additionally, the site can be browsed via the Bestiary, a catalog of heroes, and an image gallery.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Catholic Encyclopedia
Feeling nostalgic about afternoons spent in Catholic school catechism? Reading the letters of Flannery O'Conner and wondering about some of the finer points of church doctrine? Just have a question about the Catholic faith? The Catholic Encyclopedia is the reference for you:
The site is maintained by Kevin Knight at New Advent, a Catholic website.
The Catholic Encyclopedia is browsable by clicking on alphabetic letters of indexed topics, and by typing queries into the search box at the top left of the page.
Designed to present its readers with the full body of Catholic teaching, the Encyclopedia contains not only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions. In all things the object of the Encyclopedia is to give the whole truth without prejudice, national, political or factional. In the determination of the truth the most recent and acknowledged scientific methods are employed, and the results of the latest research in theology, philosophy, history, apologetics, archæology, and other sciences are given careful consideration.
The site is maintained by Kevin Knight at New Advent, a Catholic website.
The Catholic Encyclopedia is browsable by clicking on alphabetic letters of indexed topics, and by typing queries into the search box at the top left of the page.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Perry Castaneda Library Map Collection
The Perry Castaneda Map Library at the University of Texas at Austin is an archives containing historical and present-day maps of regions around the world. The site archives older versions of CIA world maps, which cannot be found elsewhere on the internet. The collection not only contains maps of topography and location information, but also many thematic maps of current political, economic and epidemiological interest. Using the Map Collection is a great way to visualize complex information and trends in a quick snapshot.
The Map Collection website provide digitized maps from its own collection as well as links to other maps and cartographic information on the web. City map websites. Historical map websites.
Some interesting thematic maps:
Economic activity in Cuba in 1977
Agricultural land use in China in 1967
France population 1972
The Map Collection website provide digitized maps from its own collection as well as links to other maps and cartographic information on the web. City map websites. Historical map websites.
Some interesting thematic maps:
Economic activity in Cuba in 1977
Agricultural land use in China in 1967
France population 1972
Monday, July 13, 2009
The Linnean Collections
The Linnean Collections are digital archives maintained by The Linnean Society of London. The collections consist of specimens of plants, fish, shells and insects collected by Carl Linneaus, the inventor of modern biological taxonomy. The collection also contains biological specimens collected by James Edward Smith, another 18th century taxonomist. The archives also contains volumes from Linnaeus' library and his correspondence and manuscripts.
The collection is used by researchers to verify details about various species, including morphological details and written data about specimens. The materials are used in conservation efforts as well as for public browsing and enjoyment.
Advanced search
The collection is used by researchers to verify details about various species, including morphological details and written data about specimens. The materials are used in conservation efforts as well as for public browsing and enjoyment.
Advanced search
Friday, July 10, 2009
DL-Harvest from University of Arizona: Open Access Library and Information Science Papers
Greetings from western Michigan, where I'm eating sour cherries and hanging out with my family on a much-needed summer vacation. Today's resource is the DL-Harvest open access search engine from dLIST at the University of Arizona. DL-Harvest searches the OAI-PMH compliant records of various institutional repositories that collect library and information science papers, including CalTech Library System Papers and Digital Library of the Commons at University of Indiana. DL-Harvest has indexed over 36,000 papers from 14 different repositories so far.
DL-Harvest provides access through a quick search, an advanced search, and a means to browse papers by repository.
DL-Harvest provides access through a quick search, an advanced search, and a means to browse papers by repository.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Infed.org: Informal education, lifelong learning and social action
Today's site is Infed.org, a resource that provides rich, well-documented outlines of social theories related to lifelong learning, informal education and social action. This is an excellent site for education majors, community organizers, youth workers, and anyone interested in the history of educational practice and theories of adult education.
The site is organized into sections on thinkers, ideas, practice and debate, and has a full index listing all entries in the encyclopedia. The biographical write-ups on various educational thinkers are excellent- see the entries on Steve Biko, Chris Argyris and Paolo Freire for examples of what the site has to offer.
The site is organized into sections on thinkers, ideas, practice and debate, and has a full index listing all entries in the encyclopedia. The biographical write-ups on various educational thinkers are excellent- see the entries on Steve Biko, Chris Argyris and Paolo Freire for examples of what the site has to offer.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Cinefiles: UC Berkeley's Pacific Film Archives Film Document Image Database
UC Berkeley's Pacific Film Archives Cinefiles hosts a film document image database of full image scans of various news articles, film and festival program notes, and other Pacific film-related ephemera.
I enjoy browsing by director.
CineFiles is a database of reviews, press kits, festival and showcase program notes, newspaper articles, and other documents from the PFA Library's collection. The collection contains documents from a broad range of sources covering world cinema, past and present. CineFiles currently includes materials on the films of over 175 directors whose works have been featured in PFA's exhibition program. Materials on additional directors' works are added regularly. The database also contains retrospective indexing of film titles beginning with "A" and of files describing Soviet silent films from PFA's collection. Brief authority records, including title, director, country, and year, are also currently available for over 25,000 films. When retrospective indexing is complete, the CineFiles database will hold over 200,000 documents. New titles and document images are added daily.
I enjoy browsing by director.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Jurn.org: Open Access Arts and Humanities Ejournal Search Engine
Jurn.org is a search engine that indexes and delivers results from over 3,000 full-text English language ejournals and scholarly websites in arts and humanities. Most of the journals indexed are open access or provide mostly free content. Jurn is a welcome addition to the range of tools for searching the ever-increasing amounts of open access and other free scholarly resources on the web. Sites such as the Directory of Open Access Journals, OAIster and Google Scholar do a laudable job of tracking and searching much open access literautre, there are still many sites not indexed by those engines. Google Scholar also mixes up free and paid resources- many of their search results are locked behind subscription databases like EBSCOhost and JSTOR who make their bibliographic records findable by Google Scholar. While that strategy is wonderful for article discovery, it is a hinderance for students who don't have access to those resources.
Jurn is a Google custom search engine. As such, the full range of Google search modifiers can be used to limit and refine queries in the Jurn search box.
About Jurn
Titles indexed
Jurn is a Google custom search engine. As such, the full range of Google search modifiers can be used to limit and refine queries in the Jurn search box.
About Jurn
Titles indexed
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Semantic search from Cognition
Today's reference site is a search engine. In fact, it's three search engines from Cognition, a natural language processing technology company in Culver City, California. These search engines employ linguistic computation techniques to deliver search results with superior relevance, since the engine is able to determine the context of query.
Cognition is not aiming to be a competitor to Google and other www search engines; rather, their goal is to apply semantic indexing to large datasets to deliver better results.
Cognition has made specialized search engines for three major websites:
Cognition's semantic search of Wikipedia
Cognition's semantic search of Medline
Cognition's semantic search of case law available from Public.Resource.org
"Cognition's technology employs a mix of linguistics and mathematical algorithms which has, in effect, taught the computer the meanings of virtually all the words and frequent phrases within the common English language. Semantic Natural Language Processing is superior to common pattern matching that is found in most search engines and text-interaction tools because it focuses on the understanding of word and phrase meanings within context. No other commercially available natural language processing technology comes close to Cognition in its breadth and depth of understanding the English language."
Cognition is not aiming to be a competitor to Google and other www search engines; rather, their goal is to apply semantic indexing to large datasets to deliver better results.
Cognition has made specialized search engines for three major websites:
Cognition's semantic search of Wikipedia
Cognition's semantic search of Medline
Cognition's semantic search of case law available from Public.Resource.org
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Measuring Worth: Purchasing Power of Money in the United States from 1774 to 2008
Want to know how far $50 went in 1899 as opposed to 2001? It would take $1,101.37 to buy as much bling in 2001 as you could with $50 in 1899. Historical purchasing statistics like this can be found at Measuring Worth, a private site created and maintained by Lawrence H. Officer and Samuel H. Williamson. From the site's About page>:
The site provides calculators for the historical relative value of money in various currencies as well as for measuring historical changes in purchasing power, savings growth, inflation rates, as well as daily closing values for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dating back to 1896. Plus more statistics and calculators.
Rigorously researched, this site is a great place to find historical economic data, especially if your library does not have access to historical Wall Street Journal issues and data.
The mission of this site is to make available to the public the highest quality and most reliable historical data on important economic aggregates, with particular emphasis on nominal measures.
The data have been created using the highest standards of the fields of economics and history and are rigorously refereed by the most distinguished researchers in the fields. Beginning with the United States and United Kingdom and continuing with Japan and China, we will continue to add series from other countries under the same high standard.
The site provides calculators for the historical relative value of money in various currencies as well as for measuring historical changes in purchasing power, savings growth, inflation rates, as well as daily closing values for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dating back to 1896. Plus more statistics and calculators.
Rigorously researched, this site is a great place to find historical economic data, especially if your library does not have access to historical Wall Street Journal issues and data.
Monday, June 29, 2009
NETRonline: Real Estate Information and Public Records Research
Resource Shelf just posted about the new historic aerial photography feature of the NETRonline (National Environmental Title Research) site. While the searchable and zoomable aerial photographs are very cool, I was happy to be directed to the NETRonline site, which I had never seen before. NETRonline is an information portal for property information, deeds and titles, and various other public records for counties in all 50 states that make their information available over the web.
The site has four main sections: the Property Data Store, where property information such as property reports, parcel maps and document images from county governments can be found (if available). Prices vary on the reports, but are quite reasonable for most searches ($5 for a parcel report; $60 for an ownership and encumbrance report).
The Public Records Online Directory provides links to county government websites that contain public records in all 50 states. Selecting a state and then a county brings up links to the websites of relevant taxation, assessment, registry and other record-holding offical bodies in that county.
NETR's Environmental Resources Directory lists state, local, commercial and non-profit agencies and groups that monitor for and cleanup environmental pollution that could impact environmental and property value.
Lastly, the historic aerials section of the site houses historic and current aerial photography for a large coverage area of the 50 states.
NETRonline will also do criminal record searches and other background checks on individuals for a fee.
The site has four main sections: the Property Data Store, where property information such as property reports, parcel maps and document images from county governments can be found (if available). Prices vary on the reports, but are quite reasonable for most searches ($5 for a parcel report; $60 for an ownership and encumbrance report).
The Public Records Online Directory provides links to county government websites that contain public records in all 50 states. Selecting a state and then a county brings up links to the websites of relevant taxation, assessment, registry and other record-holding offical bodies in that county.
NETR's Environmental Resources Directory lists state, local, commercial and non-profit agencies and groups that monitor for and cleanup environmental pollution that could impact environmental and property value.
Lastly, the historic aerials section of the site houses historic and current aerial photography for a large coverage area of the 50 states.
NETRonline will also do criminal record searches and other background checks on individuals for a fee.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Yale University Avalon Project
The Avalon Project is a digital library from Yale University's Lillian Goldman School of Law that provides linked full text of documents relating to law, history, economics, politics, dipolomacy and government. Documents range from the ancient (4000 BCE) to important legal documents of the 21st century, and include the Athenian Constitution, The Mayflower Compact, all of the Hague Conventions, and the Executive Order that established the Department of Homeland Security. You probably have to be a pretty big dork to get excited about these documents, but I trust that readers of this site are into that kind of thing in the first place.
Project Diana is a document collection of the Avalon Project that makes landmark human rights cases and documents available publically. The International Military Tribunal for Germany houses full-text testimony and documents of the Nuremburg trials.
Project Diana is a document collection of the Avalon Project that makes landmark human rights cases and documents available publically. The International Military Tribunal for Germany houses full-text testimony and documents of the Nuremburg trials.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics
RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) is a volunteer-run organization whose mission is to further disseminate economics research around the globe. RePEc's main offering is a decentralized database of working papers in economics, journal articles and software components related to economics. RePEc does not provide full-text to the indexed materials; only citations are made available via the database. However, if a paper is freely available via an institution with an open access mandate or one that otherwise provides free access to its economics working papers, a download link will appear next to the citation. In many cases papers can be obtained via interlibrary loan at your local library or through a document delivery service like Ingenta.
RePEc pulls together an impressive range of economics citations from over 1000institutional publishers, including Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the World Bank and MIT Press.
The RePEc database can be accessed in several ways. The IDEAS interface is hosted at the University of Connecticut's Department of Economics. In addition to citations, IDEAS also contains information about over 11,000 economics institutions, 20,000 economics authors, and 24,000 New Economic Papers (NEP) reports on 85 different economics subfields.
EconPapers is another search interface for RePEc. Working papers, journal articles, software items, books, book chapters and author profiles are searchable through EconPapers.
Citations in Economics provides citation statistics and information about papers and authors listed in the RePEc database.
RePEc pulls together an impressive range of economics citations from over 1000institutional publishers, including Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the World Bank and MIT Press.
The RePEc database can be accessed in several ways. The IDEAS interface is hosted at the University of Connecticut's Department of Economics. In addition to citations, IDEAS also contains information about over 11,000 economics institutions, 20,000 economics authors, and 24,000 New Economic Papers (NEP) reports on 85 different economics subfields.
EconPapers is another search interface for RePEc. Working papers, journal articles, software items, books, book chapters and author profiles are searchable through EconPapers.
Citations in Economics provides citation statistics and information about papers and authors listed in the RePEc database.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Black Americans in Congress 1870- 2007
A recent Congressional document, House document 108-224, is a history of Black Americans in Congress 1870 - 2007. The entire book is available digitally in both .pdf and .zip format at the GPO website.
I regularly get requests for biographies of famous African Americans, and this is yet another great resource for students of American history of all ages. The material is comprehensive; the book is 803 pages long and has full biographies of the 121 African Americans who have served in Congress.
I regularly get requests for biographies of famous African Americans, and this is yet another great resource for students of American history of all ages. The material is comprehensive; the book is 803 pages long and has full biographies of the 121 African Americans who have served in Congress.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
Much research on human rights is done by government-funded agencies and non-governmental organizations. While material published in academic journals, news/magazine outlets like Foreign Affairs, governments and large international organizations such as the United Nations is findable through academic and public databases, there are hundreds more organizations dedicated to stopping human rights abuses that actively conduct, publish and disseminate research as grey literature. The University of Minnesota Human Rights Library has created a wonderful resource for finding this literature as well as provided a core library of over several hundred human rights treaties and other primary documents. The Library also offers a metasearch engine that allows users to search across multiple large human rights websites, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, at the same time.
The Links to Other Sites section contains a comprehensive listing of over 4,000 links to other human rights organizations around the world. Documents are available in nine different languages, and a mobile/PDA version of the site is available.
The Links to Other Sites section contains a comprehensive listing of over 4,000 links to other human rights organizations around the world. Documents are available in nine different languages, and a mobile/PDA version of the site is available.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Computer Science Technical Reports
While many individual university departments make their computer science technical reports publicly aviailable under the open archives model, it is only the New Zealand Digital Library that harvests and makes searchable in one place reports from nearly 300 different institutions. Instructions for advanced searching are available in the help section. An excellent resource that saves the trouble of identifying and searching individual repositories for up-to-date computer science information.
Friday, June 19, 2009
COPE: Cytokines and Cells Online Pathfinder Encyclopaedia
I am partial to science reference and research both personally and professionally, so today's resource is another free scientific reference site for researchers: Horst Ibelgauft'sCytokines and Cells Online Pathfinder Encyclopaedia (COPE). COPE is an independent bioinformatics project to create an electronic copy of the now out-of-print Dictionary of Cytokines (1995). Since this site is a labor of love, and the author teaches medical students in a developing country, financial help by site users is appreciated.
This resource provides great value to cell biologists, immunologists, molecular biologists and all researchers who study cytokines.
COPE is regularly updated and currently contains over 22,000 entries on various cytokine molecules. This page outlines data organization and search strategies for locating information in the database.
Subdictionaries of other molecule types are also incorporated into COPE's offerings, including a dictionary of angiogenesis, a dictionary of eukaryotic cell types, a dictionary of hormones, and a virulance factors dictionary.
This resource provides great value to cell biologists, immunologists, molecular biologists and all researchers who study cytokines.
COPE is regularly updated and currently contains over 22,000 entries on various cytokine molecules. This page outlines data organization and search strategies for locating information in the database.
Subdictionaries of other molecule types are also incorporated into COPE's offerings, including a dictionary of angiogenesis, a dictionary of eukaryotic cell types, a dictionary of hormones, and a virulance factors dictionary.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
OneLook Dictionary Search With Reverse Lookup
OneLook Dictionary Search is a search engine that crawls hundreds on online dictionaries. The dictionaries range from the general to the highly specialized, and are browsable by topic area. Search results are presented as links to third-party dictionary sites.
Another feature worth taking the time to learn is the Reverse Dictionary. This is a wonderful tool for discovering new and related words and vocabulary terms that relate to a particular concept. The Reverse Dictionary does not return perfect results; OneLook creators encourage you to rephrase your query if your results are not relevant, and the Reverse Dictionary works through "a motley assortment of statistical language processing hacks."
Advanced searching with wildcards and filtering by meaning allow for powerfully targeted query results.
Another feature worth taking the time to learn is the Reverse Dictionary. This is a wonderful tool for discovering new and related words and vocabulary terms that relate to a particular concept. The Reverse Dictionary does not return perfect results; OneLook creators encourage you to rephrase your query if your results are not relevant, and the Reverse Dictionary works through "a motley assortment of statistical language processing hacks."
Advanced searching with wildcards and filtering by meaning allow for powerfully targeted query results.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Open Library Project
The Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive and partially funded by a grant from the California State Library. The goal of the Open Library is to provide one web page for every book ever published. So far the library has collected over 30 million searchable bibliographic records (20 million are available), built a database to store them, and made available over one million full-text digitized books.
Book records come from a variety of libraries, publishers and other digital content repositories. Another goal of the Open Library is to create a new metadata schema for bibliographic records: the project has a working group for those interested in discussing the metadata to be included in the records beyond MARC data.
The Open Library, true to its name, is an open project and is actively soliciting volunteer help from librarians, programmers and book enthusiasts. I'm curious to see where this project goes and whether the futurelib metadata schema achieves widespread adoption in the library and book publishing industries.
Book records come from a variety of libraries, publishers and other digital content repositories. Another goal of the Open Library is to create a new metadata schema for bibliographic records: the project has a working group for those interested in discussing the metadata to be included in the records beyond MARC data.
The Open Library, true to its name, is an open project and is actively soliciting volunteer help from librarians, programmers and book enthusiasts. I'm curious to see where this project goes and whether the futurelib metadata schema achieves widespread adoption in the library and book publishing industries.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
CiteSeerX Beta
Today's reference site is CiteSeerX, a scientific (primarily computer and information science) digital library and search engine from Penn State University. In addition to over one million articles in its database of articles, CiteSeerX provides a suite of discovery tools to assist researchers in finding the most relevant literature, including citation rankings and impact ratings.
Advanced search provides a variety of search fields and sorting criteria. Results can be sorted by number of citations, recency, relevance and date order.
CiteSeerX provides a number of search and discovery features beyond just indexed content: autonomous citation indexing, reference linking, citation context, related content and query-sensistive summaries are only some of the advantages of the CiteSeerX interface.
Go to town, searchers.
Advanced search provides a variety of search fields and sorting criteria. Results can be sorted by number of citations, recency, relevance and date order.
CiteSeerX provides a number of search and discovery features beyond just indexed content: autonomous citation indexing, reference linking, citation context, related content and query-sensistive summaries are only some of the advantages of the CiteSeerX interface.
Go to town, searchers.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
OSTI.gov- federated science search
Happy Friday! Today's resource is a redesigned information portal from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) at the Department of Energy (DOE). The OSTI website recently underwent a redesign and now sports features such as tagging options for pages on the site and a Science Showcase discovery area, as well as a Web 2.0 tools including an RSS feed, search widgets, blog and bookmarking tools. Hat tip once again to Danny Luce for informing me about the site redesign.
What's really exciting about the OSTI site, however, is the powerful federated search capabilities. OSTI has partnered with Deep Web Technologies to provide federated search capabilities across multiple databases containing scientific information. This eliminates the need to search each database by hand, and also the need to know which databases contain the information you are looking for- a single query searches all sources of federal science information at once. OSTI provides three federated search engines on its site: the Science Accelerator, which searches DOE publications (including some archival materials), the US scientific information search engine at Science.gov, and a new Global Science search engine that searches global scientific repositories for reports and data.
OSTI also makes DOE datasets available for discovery by researchers with the DOE DataExplorer.
OSTI records are also searchable via the Open Archives Initiative union catalog OAIster. The Library Tools allow librarians to download both MARC and OAI records into their own catalogs.
I think the new website is a valuable addition to the library community, and really furthers OSTI's goal to accelerate the discovery of scientific information by researchers and the general public. Great work!
While exploring OSTI's new site, I clicked through to Deep Web Technology's site and saw some additional federated search products that are also very helpful. Many are already familiar with Scitopia, a deep web federated search engine that searches government science data, patents and the papers of over 15 societies that collectively provide over 150 years of science and technology scholarship. ScienceResearch is another deep web science search engine. Biznar, a global business search engine, and Mednar, a medical search engine, were also developed by Deep Web Technologies. Free browser plugins for each of these sites allow you to search these engines directly from your own website.
What's really exciting about the OSTI site, however, is the powerful federated search capabilities. OSTI has partnered with Deep Web Technologies to provide federated search capabilities across multiple databases containing scientific information. This eliminates the need to search each database by hand, and also the need to know which databases contain the information you are looking for- a single query searches all sources of federal science information at once. OSTI provides three federated search engines on its site: the Science Accelerator, which searches DOE publications (including some archival materials), the US scientific information search engine at Science.gov, and a new Global Science search engine that searches global scientific repositories for reports and data.
OSTI also makes DOE datasets available for discovery by researchers with the DOE DataExplorer.
OSTI records are also searchable via the Open Archives Initiative union catalog OAIster. The Library Tools allow librarians to download both MARC and OAI records into their own catalogs.
I think the new website is a valuable addition to the library community, and really furthers OSTI's goal to accelerate the discovery of scientific information by researchers and the general public. Great work!
While exploring OSTI's new site, I clicked through to Deep Web Technology's site and saw some additional federated search products that are also very helpful. Many are already familiar with Scitopia, a deep web federated search engine that searches government science data, patents and the papers of over 15 societies that collectively provide over 150 years of science and technology scholarship. ScienceResearch is another deep web science search engine. Biznar, a global business search engine, and Mednar, a medical search engine, were also developed by Deep Web Technologies. Free browser plugins for each of these sites allow you to search these engines directly from your own website.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Tree of Life Web Project
Did you see the wonderful article in the New York Times this week about the echidna? Did you want to take one home? Me too.
In case you are interested in learning more about monotremes, or any other living creature, the Tree of Life Web Project can provide an overview, pictures and a bibliography of additional resources about the animal/plant/fungus/algae/slime mold/bacteria of interest.
The Tree of Life Project is an NIH-funded "collection of information about biodiversity compiled collaboratively by hundreds of expert and amateur contributors. Its goal is to contain a page with pictures, text, and other information for every species and for each group of organisms, living or extinct. Connections between Tree of Life web pages follow phylogenetic branching patterns between groups of organisms, so visitors can browse the hierarchy of life and learn about phylogeny and evolution as well as the characteristics of individual groups."
Additional teaching resources for students and teachers are available in the learning section of the site, including ways individuals and classrooms can contribute to the Tree of Life Project.
Another major resource documenting information about life on earth is the Encyclopedia of Life. While the Encyclopedia is a separate resource, the Tree of Life and Encyclopedia share resources, software tools, and coordinate their efforts to avoid content duplication. Tree of Life focuses more of phylogenetic relationships between species, while the Encyclopedia focuses on pages about individual species.
In case you are interested in learning more about monotremes, or any other living creature, the Tree of Life Web Project can provide an overview, pictures and a bibliography of additional resources about the animal/plant/fungus/algae/slime mold/bacteria of interest.
The Tree of Life Project is an NIH-funded "collection of information about biodiversity compiled collaboratively by hundreds of expert and amateur contributors. Its goal is to contain a page with pictures, text, and other information for every species and for each group of organisms, living or extinct. Connections between Tree of Life web pages follow phylogenetic branching patterns between groups of organisms, so visitors can browse the hierarchy of life and learn about phylogeny and evolution as well as the characteristics of individual groups."
Additional teaching resources for students and teachers are available in the learning section of the site, including ways individuals and classrooms can contribute to the Tree of Life Project.
Another major resource documenting information about life on earth is the Encyclopedia of Life. While the Encyclopedia is a separate resource, the Tree of Life and Encyclopedia share resources, software tools, and coordinate their efforts to avoid content duplication. Tree of Life focuses more of phylogenetic relationships between species, while the Encyclopedia focuses on pages about individual species.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Health Resources: Grey Literature
The health information universe is a constantly changing and growing body of knowledge. While much exists online and in health databases, there is a wealth of one-off, technical, government-sponsored and non-profit research being conducted that is not indexed by any major databases. This research is called grey literature. Discovery and harvesting of grey literature has become easier with the explosion of web publishing in recent years; still, it is difficult and time consuming to search for organizations that publish the material you are interested in, not to mention the task of gathering, internally indexing, and updating the material.
To help librarians and researchers discover and find grey literature, I'm sharing a few resources today that can help with your search.
First, the New York Academy of Medicine (the second largest medical library in the U.S. open to the public, outside of the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda) publishes a report of grey literature they collect. In addition, the Academy maintains a blog about current urban health awareness featuring the latest reports added to their catalog. For health care policy reports and analysis, the Academy of Medicine maintains a resource in partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation called Health Policy Picks.
In addition to reports in the Academy of Medicine's collection, a very helpful list of organizations that produce grey literature in the health field is maintained at the library's website.
The Duke University Medical Center Library also maintains a listing of sources of grey literature.
Another tack to take when searching for unindexed material is to access the CRISP database. CRISP is a database of federally funded biomedical research projects being conducted at universities and other research institutions, including those funded by the NIH and FDA among other agencies. For thsoe searching for clinical trials, CRISP has added two indexing terms: Clinical Trials, Phase I and Clinical Trials, Phase II/III/IV.
The University of New Mexico maintains a website of resources of grey literature in the health sciences as well as another listing of organizations that produce grey literature relating to health.
GreySource is a web-based selection of resources that explicitly refer to the term "grey literature" on their sites. Contains materials in languages other than English.
While this is only a brief introduction to grey literature searching, I hope it serves as a starting point for finding reports and research not represented in major indexes. Happy searching!
To help librarians and researchers discover and find grey literature, I'm sharing a few resources today that can help with your search.
First, the New York Academy of Medicine (the second largest medical library in the U.S. open to the public, outside of the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda) publishes a report of grey literature they collect. In addition, the Academy maintains a blog about current urban health awareness featuring the latest reports added to their catalog. For health care policy reports and analysis, the Academy of Medicine maintains a resource in partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation called Health Policy Picks.
In addition to reports in the Academy of Medicine's collection, a very helpful list of organizations that produce grey literature in the health field is maintained at the library's website.
The Duke University Medical Center Library also maintains a listing of sources of grey literature.
Another tack to take when searching for unindexed material is to access the CRISP database. CRISP is a database of federally funded biomedical research projects being conducted at universities and other research institutions, including those funded by the NIH and FDA among other agencies. For thsoe searching for clinical trials, CRISP has added two indexing terms: Clinical Trials, Phase I and Clinical Trials, Phase II/III/IV.
The University of New Mexico maintains a website of resources of grey literature in the health sciences as well as another listing of organizations that produce grey literature relating to health.
GreySource is a web-based selection of resources that explicitly refer to the term "grey literature" on their sites. Contains materials in languages other than English.
While this is only a brief introduction to grey literature searching, I hope it serves as a starting point for finding reports and research not represented in major indexes. Happy searching!
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Openjurist.com
Today's resource is a new site that makes public domain legal data searchable: Openjurist.com. Open Jurist is a legal database of U.S. Supreme Court opinions and, more excitingly, United States Courts of Appeals opinions (via the Federal Reporter), which, to my knowledge have never been available online outside of LexisNexis Academic Universe and Westlaw. FindLaw has some Federal Court of Appeals opinions online, but only from 1995 to the present.
Another non-subscription case law resource is AltLaw, a project of Columbia Law School's Program on Law and Technology and the Silicon Flatirons Program at the University of Colorado Law School. AltLaw also contains searchable and browsable opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals, but only has opinions from the second and third series of the Federal Reporter, whereas Open Jurist also includes the Federal Reporter, first series dating back to 1890.
Great new developments in making public domain knowledge truly public and accessible! Hat tip to our government documents librarian Danny Luce for letting me know about Open Jurist.
Another non-subscription case law resource is AltLaw, a project of Columbia Law School's Program on Law and Technology and the Silicon Flatirons Program at the University of Colorado Law School. AltLaw also contains searchable and browsable opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals, but only has opinions from the second and third series of the Federal Reporter, whereas Open Jurist also includes the Federal Reporter, first series dating back to 1890.
Great new developments in making public domain knowledge truly public and accessible! Hat tip to our government documents librarian Danny Luce for letting me know about Open Jurist.
Monday, June 8, 2009
RSAP: Research Society for American Periodicals
Today's resource is the wonderful list compiled by the Research Society of American Periodicals (RSAP). "The RSAP is an interdisciplinary organization of scholars interested in American magazines and newspapers. It publishes the journal American Periodicals, sponsors panels at the annual meeting of the American Literature Association, and has a free moderated discussion list."
The Research Resource Page on RSAP's site links to a wealth of digitized 19th, 20th and 21st century American periodicals, zines and other alternative literature. Larger digitization projects like Cornell and Michigan's Making of America collections are featured, as well as smaller local, historical, ephemera and genre collections.
Brooklyn Public Library has digitized nineteenth-century editions of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
The Library of Congress recently added a beta search to the Chronicling America collection, which shows highlighted search terms in digitized thumbnails. More newspapers are regularly added to that collection as well. UPDATE: The Library of Congress blog just announced more changes to the Chronicling America site today. Notable improvements are new date range search capabilities and persistent URLs for bookmarking.
For anyone looking for historic newspapers for primary sources, the RSAP's resource list is an excellent place to start.
The Research Resource Page on RSAP's site links to a wealth of digitized 19th, 20th and 21st century American periodicals, zines and other alternative literature. Larger digitization projects like Cornell and Michigan's Making of America collections are featured, as well as smaller local, historical, ephemera and genre collections.
Brooklyn Public Library has digitized nineteenth-century editions of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
The Library of Congress recently added a beta search to the Chronicling America collection, which shows highlighted search terms in digitized thumbnails. More newspapers are regularly added to that collection as well. UPDATE: The Library of Congress blog just announced more changes to the Chronicling America site today. Notable improvements are new date range search capabilities and persistent URLs for bookmarking.
For anyone looking for historic newspapers for primary sources, the RSAP's resource list is an excellent place to start.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events: Pre-1620 to 1920
Today's site is another American literature site: Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events: Pre-1620 to 1920. The site is compiled and maintained by Donna Campbell, a tenured associate professor of English at Washington State University. A timeline, a brief history of literary movements, and biographical sketches of American authors are featured. The author also provides bibliographies of seondary works about various authors.
A great resource for students of American literature and anyone interested in more information on a particular author or major literary movement.
A great resource for students of American literature and anyone interested in more information on a particular author or major literary movement.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
A to Z Teacher Stuff
Teachers oftentimes come to the library looking for lesson plans and other materials to assist in their class planning. This is a guest post written by my colleague Deborah Pecora introducing a great resource for teachers:
For educators or home schooling parents the site A to Z Teacher Stuff is loaded with thousands of lesson plans, downloadable materials, ideas from other teachers on successful lessons, science experiments and projects, games to name a few options. It is well organized by tabs at the top of the page: themes, lessons, tips, articles, discuss, store, pintables, subject, grades and search that each give material for grades K-12. The site includes information for family involvement and special education lessons. Do you need help creating a word search puzzle or would you like to create your own handwriting practice sheets? A location does these for you in seconds. Also included is a site of “webquests” - topical subjects and lesson plans for children of all grades to learn or practice using websites. Books and materials to purchase online are available. From poetry to science all areas of education are included.
For educators or home schooling parents the site A to Z Teacher Stuff is loaded with thousands of lesson plans, downloadable materials, ideas from other teachers on successful lessons, science experiments and projects, games to name a few options. It is well organized by tabs at the top of the page: themes, lessons, tips, articles, discuss, store, pintables, subject, grades and search that each give material for grades K-12. The site includes information for family involvement and special education lessons. Do you need help creating a word search puzzle or would you like to create your own handwriting practice sheets? A location does these for you in seconds. Also included is a site of “webquests” - topical subjects and lesson plans for children of all grades to learn or practice using websites. Books and materials to purchase online are available. From poetry to science all areas of education are included.
Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read
Greetings from Brooklyn on a perfectly sunny yet not too hot nor windy beginning of summer day!
Today's site is the charming work of Pat Pflieger, the creator of Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read. The site is a treasure trove of transcriptions of major works of children's literature from 1800 - 1872, inlcuding books, magazines, and articles about children. Also included are annotated bibliographies and scholarly writings about Victorian children's literature and its impact on American culture. A subject index and title list provide additional browsing support.
Focusing heavily on the seminal children's literature magazine of the time, Robert Merry's Museum, the site's contents paint an entertaining, informative and oftentimes cringe-inducing portrait of the American Victorian worldview as it was re-packaged to influence and educate the next generation.
Selections:
The Slave's Friend, a children's magazine published by the American Anti-Slavery Society in the 1830's.
Diary of a Little Girl in Old New York
Today's site is the charming work of Pat Pflieger, the creator of Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read. The site is a treasure trove of transcriptions of major works of children's literature from 1800 - 1872, inlcuding books, magazines, and articles about children. Also included are annotated bibliographies and scholarly writings about Victorian children's literature and its impact on American culture. A subject index and title list provide additional browsing support.
Focusing heavily on the seminal children's literature magazine of the time, Robert Merry's Museum, the site's contents paint an entertaining, informative and oftentimes cringe-inducing portrait of the American Victorian worldview as it was re-packaged to influence and educate the next generation.
Selections:
The Slave's Friend, a children's magazine published by the American Anti-Slavery Society in the 1830's.
Diary of a Little Girl in Old New York
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
1902 Encyclopedia
Today's reference site is the 1902 Encyclopedia. 1902 Encyclopedia is a digitized and searchable version of the 1902-03 Encyclopedia Britannica (10th edition). The text is not presented as page images but rather as type on the screen, with scanned images from the original pages presented alongside the text.
Famous 19th century thinkers and scientists wrote many of the articles for the 1902 Encyclopedia Britannica. Thomas Huxley wrote the entry on Darwin's theory of evolution; William Morris contributed an article on the history of mural decoration. More famous entries are listed on the contributers page.
Famous 19th century thinkers and scientists wrote many of the articles for the 1902 Encyclopedia Britannica. Thomas Huxley wrote the entry on Darwin's theory of evolution; William Morris contributed an article on the history of mural decoration. More famous entries are listed on the contributers page.
Monday, June 1, 2009
AcademicInfo.net
It is sometimes difficult to select the right resources for this blog. While I don't want to highlight the completely obvious sources of reference information, I also don't want to focus on information and collections that are too specialized or obscure. So today I'm sharing a comprehensive site that contains subject guides suitable for educators and librarians on a host of topics: AcademicInfo.net.
Of special interest to librarians are the Subject Guides compiled by the site's editors. Ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Zoology Societies, including everything in between, AcademicInfo can provide answers and resources for a wide range of reference questions.
AcademicInfo is also a clearinghouse on information about distance learning and online education.
Of special interest to librarians are the Subject Guides compiled by the site's editors. Ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Zoology Societies, including everything in between, AcademicInfo can provide answers and resources for a wide range of reference questions.
AcademicInfo is also a clearinghouse on information about distance learning and online education.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Govfresh.com
Keeping in yesterday's spirit of participatory democracy, today I'm sharing another site that makes keeping track of government initiatives and information that much easier and more transparant.
The first site is Govfresh.com. Govfresh is the one-stop-shop for live feeds from the White House, Congress and Federal agencies, including Twitter, Flickr, and RSS feeds.
While the site itself is not an official government site (it's run by two social media entrepreneurs), all feeds are official with the exception of the House and Senate Twitter feeds (I'm not sure where they are from; the site doesn't say) and the Supreme Court RSS feed, which is provided by Cornell Law School.
The first site is Govfresh.com. Govfresh is the one-stop-shop for live feeds from the White House, Congress and Federal agencies, including Twitter, Flickr, and RSS feeds.
While the site itself is not an official government site (it's run by two social media entrepreneurs), all feeds are official with the exception of the House and Senate Twitter feeds (I'm not sure where they are from; the site doesn't say) and the Supreme Court RSS feed, which is provided by Cornell Law School.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Data.gov
Data.gov is one of my favorite new Open Government initiatives from the Obama administration. Still in it's infancy, data.gov offers an impressive array of federal datasets for download to programmers, researchers, statisticians and journalists, as well as some handy ready-to-use widgets for easy data visualization for those who don't want to play with the data themselves.
Data is available for download in XML, CSV/text, KML/KMZ and ESRI formats. Here's the tutorial for how to use the site.
I added an national environmental public health tracking widget to the bottom of this page for demonstration purposes.
More public datasets, some from the federal government and some from private entities, are becoming increasingly available as semantic web markup and data mashing enters the mainstream. Here are a few more sources for public data:
Amazon Web Services, including an English-language Wikipedia extraction and Freebase data dump
The University of Virginia Library's Historical Census data
Datamob has lots of fun datasets, including links to historical NYC ridership data and the Federal Reserve Economic Data API, in case you want to crunch your own.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Core Historical Literature of Agriculture
In this broad and fair but fickle and undulating clime, where Dame Nature's promises of flowery-springtime are so frequently frowned upon by a polar wave, which drives the lifeblood back to the very heart of every unprotected living thing, some kind of protection from the lingering wintry blasts is an absolute necessity to every grower of early garden vegetables...
So begins "A Manual for Vegetable Plants" by Isaac F. Tillinghast, a volume digitized in Cornell University's Core Historical Literature of Agriculture. From Cornell's introduction: "The Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA) is a core electronic collection of agricultural texts published between the early nineteenth century and the middle to late twentieth century. Full-text materials cover agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, crops and their protection, food science,forestry, human nutrition, rural sociology, and soil science. Scholars have selected the titles in this collection for their historical importance. Their evaluations and 4,500 core titles are detailed in the seven volume series The Literature of the Agricultural Sciences, Wallace C. Olsen, series editor."
The collection contains searchable and browsable scanned pages of books and journals that together form a core of full-text literature that is interesting not only to researchers but to organic gardeners, small farmers and anyone interested in the history of farming. I find it fascinating to read about the concerns of market gardeners before modern agricultural technology made pesticides and herbicides widely available; the earlier literature from the 18th century is similarly intriguing.
Some holdings I enjoyed:
Why Farmers are Poor from 1940
Letter From Maine: Cure for Robbing! from the American Bee Journal of of August 1868
Sweet Peas Up-to-Date 1897
This collection is just one of Cornell's Windows on the Past digitized series.
So begins "A Manual for Vegetable Plants" by Isaac F. Tillinghast, a volume digitized in Cornell University's Core Historical Literature of Agriculture. From Cornell's introduction: "The Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA) is a core electronic collection of agricultural texts published between the early nineteenth century and the middle to late twentieth century. Full-text materials cover agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, crops and their protection, food science,forestry, human nutrition, rural sociology, and soil science. Scholars have selected the titles in this collection for their historical importance. Their evaluations and 4,500 core titles are detailed in the seven volume series The Literature of the Agricultural Sciences, Wallace C. Olsen, series editor."
The collection contains searchable and browsable scanned pages of books and journals that together form a core of full-text literature that is interesting not only to researchers but to organic gardeners, small farmers and anyone interested in the history of farming. I find it fascinating to read about the concerns of market gardeners before modern agricultural technology made pesticides and herbicides widely available; the earlier literature from the 18th century is similarly intriguing.
Some holdings I enjoyed:
Why Farmers are Poor from 1940
Letter From Maine: Cure for Robbing! from the American Bee Journal of of August 1868
Sweet Peas Up-to-Date 1897
This collection is just one of Cornell's Windows on the Past digitized series.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Perseus Hopper
Today's reference site is the Perseus Hopper, an ancient world collection out of Tufts University. Searchable collections of artifacts and texts on the "history, literature and culture of the Greco-Roman world" are now accompanied by Renaissance, Germanic, Arabic and 19th century American materials (among others), as the Perseus Hopper also serves as an ongoing experiment in digitization for the Tufts library.
A complete digitized set of the works of Shakespeare is hosted on the site, as well as some digitized Civil War material. Perseus Hopper is an interesting amalgam of historical materials made available on one site.
A complete digitized set of the works of Shakespeare is hosted on the site, as well as some digitized Civil War material. Perseus Hopper is an interesting amalgam of historical materials made available on one site.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Animal Diversity Web
Animal Diversity Web is an "an online database of animal natural history, distribution, classification, and conservation biology at the University of Michigan." The beautifully illustrated and organized site contains a wealth of easy-to-understand information about thousands of the world's animals. Search is robust: simple search (that turns up relevant results for the few examples I tried) is available on all pages, and an advanced search tool allows students and researchers to search taxonomically and by a set of keywords of animal characteristics.
Additional resources available on Animal Diversity Web are videos of spinning animal skulls (!), audio of frog calls, and resources for K-12 and college teachers.
I know where I'm going to spend the rest of my afternoon.
Additional resources available on Animal Diversity Web are videos of spinning animal skulls (!), audio of frog calls, and resources for K-12 and college teachers.
I know where I'm going to spend the rest of my afternoon.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Marxist Internet Archive
The Marxist Internet Archive (M.I.A.) is an educational repository containing biographies, writings and analysis of major Marxist thinkers. From Fabian to Utopian Socialist to Paris Commune thought, M.I.A. makes available an enormous range of material on major Marxist thinkers and movements, including primary documents and audio. Of special note is the section on the Black Panther Party- I get asked for material on the Panthers regularly and have little in our formal collection to offer that is not marked reference because of the high theft potential.
M.I.A. is a massive site and a valuable resource for anyone interested in Marxism, economics, the history of ideas and philosophy. Highly browsable as well as searchable, the Marxist Internet Archive is at the top of my reference list for material on economics and philosophy.
Run by 63 volunteers, M.I.A. has been on the web since 1990 and looks to be a thriving resource in years to come.
M.I.A. is a massive site and a valuable resource for anyone interested in Marxism, economics, the history of ideas and philosophy. Highly browsable as well as searchable, the Marxist Internet Archive is at the top of my reference list for material on economics and philosophy.
Run by 63 volunteers, M.I.A. has been on the web since 1990 and looks to be a thriving resource in years to come.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Two health literacy sources
I've been following the MLA conference (in Honolulu!) via Twitter this year (hashtag: #mla09). I'm enjoying all the commentary, presentations and new sources shared by conference participants. One new site came to my attention via the Twitter feed: MLA's new Health Literacy Resource webpage. According to the MLA's website:
Resources are divided into two sections- resources for health and information professionals, and information for health consumers. Resources for librarians include a fully-developed curriculum, including two PowerPoint presentations and supporting materials, ready-to-go training materials from the NIH SeniorHealth team, and other resources and tips for delivering effective health literacy instruction.
Resources for health consumers include a consumer health library directory, a "medical-ese to English" dictionary, and other government consumer health information presented in easy-to-digest form for adults and seniors (no materials for teens).
Second health resource: MedlinePlus in Spanish. I did not know about this and I'm glad that I do. MedlinePlus is my favorite source of authoratative consumer health information, and I'm seeing more and more Spanish-speaking patrons at the reference desk. Great work from NIH.
The popular media and professional journals alike are increasingly
carrying reports and studies of the difficulties and frustrations health
professionals and patients face in coping with the barrage of available
information in a way that results in informed health care decisions.
There is a huge need to bring sense to the information universe if MLA's
vision of "quality information for improved health" is to be achieved. There is
at the same time a significant gap in the awareness by the public and by
opinion-leaders and decision-makers of the contributions that health sciences
librarians can make (and are making) to bring order to the chaos.
Resources are divided into two sections- resources for health and information professionals, and information for health consumers. Resources for librarians include a fully-developed curriculum, including two PowerPoint presentations and supporting materials, ready-to-go training materials from the NIH SeniorHealth team, and other resources and tips for delivering effective health literacy instruction.
Resources for health consumers include a consumer health library directory, a "medical-ese to English" dictionary, and other government consumer health information presented in easy-to-digest form for adults and seniors (no materials for teens).
Second health resource: MedlinePlus in Spanish. I did not know about this and I'm glad that I do. MedlinePlus is my favorite source of authoratative consumer health information, and I'm seeing more and more Spanish-speaking patrons at the reference desk. Great work from NIH.
Monday, May 18, 2009
ThisNation.com
ThisNation.com, according to its website, is "dedicated to providing factual, unbiased information about government and politics in the United States of America." The site is written and researched by Jonathan P. Mott of Brigham Young University, the site contains a library of primary documents including famous executive orders, war messages, Supreme Court decisions, foreign policy documents and American oaths and traditional songs. A multimedia section contains pictures of U.S. Presidents, and an online civics textbook provides additional content for students of the U.S. political process.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Globalhealth.gov
Today's site is www.globalhealth.gov. Maintained by the Office of Global Health in the Department of Health and Human Services, globalhealth.gov delivers timely and authoritative information on global disease outbreaks, refugee health, international health regulations and international travel. The site contains links to global health reports, including a HHS report on the Global AIDS Pandemic. Currently the front page offers timely, authoratative information on H1N1 swine flu.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Welcome!
Welcome to Reference Site of the Day! My goal is to review and post one reference website per day. I plan to feature a variety of sites, including academic, scientific, government and statistics sources. Reference Site of the Day keeps you informed with the new and classic reference sources from around the web.
The first reference site I'd like to feature is the the fully digitized Dictionary of the History of Ideas (DHI). Maintained by the Scholars' Lab at the University of Virginia Library, DHI is a digitized and indexed text of the reference text of the same title by Philip Weiner, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, in 1973-4. An updated 6 volume version, The New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, was published also by Charles Scribner's Sons (a Gale imprint) in 2004, and judged by RUSA to be "an outstanding reference source."
Concepts covered in DHI are accessible by alphabetical, subject and author browsing, as well as advanced searching capabilities.
I came across this wonderful web reference while answering a reference question on the history of the concept of love.
The first reference site I'd like to feature is the the fully digitized Dictionary of the History of Ideas (DHI). Maintained by the Scholars' Lab at the University of Virginia Library, DHI is a digitized and indexed text of the reference text of the same title by Philip Weiner, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, in 1973-4. An updated 6 volume version, The New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, was published also by Charles Scribner's Sons (a Gale imprint) in 2004, and judged by RUSA to be "an outstanding reference source."
Concepts covered in DHI are accessible by alphabetical, subject and author browsing, as well as advanced searching capabilities.
I came across this wonderful web reference while answering a reference question on the history of the concept of love.
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