LISNews: Librarian News

As the U.S. government's official web portal, USA.GOV makes it easy for the public to get U.S. government information and services on the web. USA.gov also serves as the catalyst for a growing electronic government.

See: USA.gov's Science and Technology section, different Science Topics, and Science and Technology News, Reference, and Portals. Learn more about interesting facts in Facts for You
section.

Science 2.0 Gains Another Search Engine: Q-Sensei From Lalisio

"While the 2 million-plus article content nowhere near reaches the size and scope of behemoths such as Elsevier’s Scirus or Google Scholar, the Q-Sensei search engine (http://literature.lalisio.com/oai.html) has a metadata orientation that offers some interesting search capabilities."
and "At present, the Lalisio social network of scientists seems to be the most active side of the operation (www.lalisio.com)."

Read the full article in Information Today at:

Science 2.0 Gains Another Search Engine: Q-Sensei From Lalisio

Traditional libraries live on in an increasingly digital world

"America's reading rooms have transformed into modern community centers offering shelves of newly released movies and music, digital audio books and free Internet access. Some, like the Oshkosh Public Library, even offer occasional teen Pilates classes and moviemaking workshops in addition to story times and book clubs. Even in the digital age, when some thought computer screens would supplant ink and paper, libraries are far from becoming extinct".

Read the full article at:
Traditional libraries live on in an increasingly digital world

Libraries thriving in 21st century

This community will bring out information on new and existing projects conducted worldwide to help develop, exploit and use any technologies for the educational and economic upliftment in various regions of India. This community will also highlight important items from different blogs, internet sites and articles on teaching information literacy skills to various communities in India.

Access this community from the Digital Divide Network at
Information Initiatives in India and blog at InformationIndia

Some excerpts from this article:

"Libraries have transformed themselves from staid, sleepy institutions into hip community centers offering Internet service, classes for kids and seniors, and even coffee and video gaming nights.

Some have classes on citizenship for recent immigrants or provide sessions on improving computer skills. Most offer wireless Internet service, and many consult teen advisory councils for guidance on how to attract young people.

At most libraries, traffic is up -- in some cases, way up -- fueled in part by the lure of free computer use, according to experts and a Gannett News Service analysis of state and federal data. At the same time, budget pressures on cities and counties that provide most of the funding have forced dozens of libraries to cut back their hours or close."

Read the full article from the Greenville News at: Libraries thrive in the Internet age

"July 8, 2008 (Computerworld) While recent outbreaks of salmonella in the U.S. have made headlines, an automated real-time system that scours the Web for information about disease outbreaks spied early reports in New Mexico about suspicious gastrointestinal illnesses days before the U.S. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an official report on the problem.

The system, called HealthMap, is a free data-mining tool that extracts, categorizes, filters and links 20,000 Web-based data sources such as news sites, blogs, e-mail lists and chat rooms to monitor emerging public health issues. HealthMap, which is profiled in the July issue of the journal Public Library of Science Medicine and is open to anyone, was developed in late 2006 by John Brownstein and Clark Freifeld. Both men work in the informatics program at Children's Hospital Boston."

Read the full article in Computerworld at:

Infectious disease surveillance 2.0: Crawling the Net to detect outbreaks

Drexel University Libraries' Scholarly Communication Symposium:
Scholar 2 Scholar: How Web 2.0 is Changing Scholarly Communication

The Drexel University Libraries, with support from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), will present The 5th Annual Scholarly Communication Symposium titled: Scholar2Scholar: How Web 2.0 is Changing Scholarly Communication. Join us for a half-day symposium featuring a speaker presentation by Jean-Claude Bradley, Associate Professor, Chemistry and E-Learning Coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel University, followed by panel and roundtable discussions. An optional Dutch-treat networking lunch concludes the day.

Date: Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Time: 8:30 AM – 1:30 PM
Location: Drexel University, Edmund D. Bossone Research Enterprise Center, Market Street (between 31st and 32nd Streets), Philadelphia, PA
All are welcome! The event is free, but registration is required. For more information and to register, please visit:

Scholar2Scholar: How Web 2.0 is Changing Scholarly Communication

http://www.library.drexel.edu/scholarlycommunication/.

Registration:
Registration

Please join our wiki.

Scholar2scholar Wiki

Click on · Join
Join Scholar2scholar wiki -- Read More

"NEW DELHI: The 18th World Book Fair, the largest in the Afro-Asian region, showcasing books on youth and children kicked off in the Capital on Saturday. The major attraction of the Book Fair is the presentation by Russia, which is the guest of honour country at the fair. The other features of the fair are Youth Pavilion, Children Pavilion and the pavilion comprising books on and by Mahatma Gandhi."

Read the Full article from the Times of India at:
18th World Book Fair begins in Capital

See a video clip at: 18th World Book Fair opened in New Delhi

National Book Trust, India (NBT)

The National Book Trust, India (NBT) is a professional body working for the last fifty years in the field of quality publication.

It publishes a wide variety of quality books ranging from works of fiction to books on medical sciences and cutting edge technology for all segments of the society and for all age groups.

"Visakhapatnam (PTI): For the first time in the history of Indian Science Congress, a Virtual Congress of women farmers, who constitute a major chunk of the country's agricultural workforce, was held on Saturday as part of the annual science meet currently underway in this port city.

The Virtual Congress was jointly organized by Chennai-based M S Swaminathan Research Foundation and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in which women members of six Village Resource Centres (VRC) spread across the country participated through a technical know-how provided by the space agency.

Read the full article at:

Virtual Congress of women farmers at ISC meet

Librarian's gift: Oral history project preserves memories of South Asian immigrants

By Robert Roseth
News and Information

A gift from a UW librarian has spawned a three-phase oral history project, chronicling the influx of South Asians to the Seattle area from post-World War II to the 1990s.

""There has been an intense level of civic engagement for a group that had so recently immigrated to the United States," says Amy Bhatt, a doctoral student in women studies and the current project oral historian and coordinator. Bhatt has been involved with the project at all phases, beginning as the interview transcriber. She says that the individuals who came in the first wave began quickly to work on establishing local fraternal and cultural institutions. These included schools that taught Indian languages, a Hindu Temple in Bothell, civic groups such as the Indian American Political Advocacy Council, and Ragamala, which provided traditional South Asian performing arts to the Seattle community. "

Read the full article at:

Librarian's gift: Oral history project preserves memories of South Asian immigrants

THOMSON SCIENTIFIC BESTOWS AWARD CELEBRATING INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN INDIA

"Intellectual Property Drives Economic and Technological Development in India
The importance of intellectual property as a major source for economic and technological development in India is demonstrated by the increasing creativity and impact of Indian research and technology throughout the world. The last five years have seen an increase in publications by 45 percent and a rapid increase in patenting activity."

Read the Full article at

THOMSON SCIENTIFIC BESTOWS AWARD CELEBRATING INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN INDIA

Social Software in Libraries is written by Meredith G. Farkas who at present is the Distance Learning Librarian at Norwich University in Northfield, VT.

About the Book:

About the Book
Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication, and Community Online

By Meredith Farkas

Foreword by Roy Tennant

Here is the first book to explore the growing phenomenon of social software and how these technologies can be applied in libraries. Social software lets libraries show a human face online, helping them communicate, educate, and interact with their communities. This nuts-and-bolts guide provides librarians with the information and skills necessary to implement the most popular and effective social software technologies: blogs, RSS, wikis, social networking software, screencasting, photo-sharing, podcasting, instant messaging, gaming, and more. Success stories and interviews highlight these tools’ ease-of-use—and tremendous impact. Novice readers will find ample descriptions and advice on using each technology, while veteran users of social software will discover new applications and approaches.

2007/336 pp/softbound/ISBN 978-1-57387-275-1

See .
Social Software in Libraries

Chapter 4 - RSS where my public blogline feeds and my Engineering Library Blog Englibrary are included.

Jay Bhatt’s Feeds in Bloglines
Englibrary Blog

and also

HigherEd BlogCon -- Read More

This site provides access to:

Informative Webcasts
Science Tracer Bullets and
A to Z Index of the Science Reference Services Web Site among several other important resources including

Technical Reports

The Technical Reports and Standards Special Collection has an extensive collection of over 4.4 million U.S. and foreign technical reports and standards.

For more information:

Science Reference Service from the Library of Congress

"Ask anyone which search engine they use to find information on the Internet and they will almost certainly reply: "Google." Look a little further, and market research shows that people actually use four main search engines for 99.99% of their searches: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask.com (in that order). But in my travels as a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO), I have discovered that in that .01% lies a vast multitude of the most innovative and creative search engines you have never seen. So many, in fact, that I have had to limit my list of the very best ones to a mere 100"

Read the full article at: Top 100 alternative search engines
Try experimenting with one of the search engines called Gigablast

Research Buzz reported that National Archives just announced Plan to Digitize Historic Documents.

Excerpt: "Now, the good news is that these materials will be digitized fairly soon. By February 6, the announcement said, the digitized materials will be available at no charge in National Archives research rooms in Washington DC and regional facilities around the country. The bad news is that the digitized documents will not be available at no charge through the National Archives Web site until five years have elapsed."

Read the full article at:

National Archives Announces Plan to Digitize Historic Documents

National Archives Announces Plan to Digitize Historic Documents

Excerpt:
"Googler Krishna writes that road data for lot of Indian Cities and even towns are now available on Google Maps. You can also use the Google Map data to plan trips between cities as there's detailed data for the Indian national highways as well." See Indian National Highways & Road Network now on Google Maps for more information.

From:
Digital Inspiration

Meredith Farkas reported two interesting tutorials in her blog entry on Random and cold medicine-induced thoughts on screencasting. These are: Calgary Public Library's basic Internet tutorials and Tutorials at the Orange County Public Library. Calgary's site include tutorials on Introduction to Computers and the Internet, Yahoo, Google, Internet Explorer, Hotmail, and several others. There are several virtual tutorials on searching EBSCOHost databases as well.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has 3884 objects from the collections able to be searched online. You may search the Museum's collections by either entering a series of keywords (artist's name, title, country of origin, etc.) in the Keywords field, by selecting one or more of the search options, or by entering the Museum's accession number for a particular object, if known. Keywords must be at least 3 characters in length to return valid results.

Search the Museum collection at: Find Art online at the Philadelphia Museum of art

Google is experimenting with new search tools through its innovative Google Products compilation.
Among these tools are: Google News Archive, Google Web Features , Google Phonebook, Google Music, Google Street Maps, Google Travel and Google Flight Status and Google Finance. Google also provides access to Google Web Accelerator to help speed up your web browsers.

Knowledgespeak reports a study on Open Access journals and its possible impact on journal subscriptions.

Excerpt: 'A study of librarian purchasing preferences commissioned by the Publishing Research Consortium (PRC), UK, has revealed the factors that could prompt a librarian to substitute journal subscriptions with open access (OA) materials. According to the study titled 'Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions: Co-existence or Competition?' the length of the embargo period and peer review are key determinants in a librarian’s decision to maintain, or not, journal subscriptions. The study raises questions about previous claims that librarians will continue to subscribe to journals even when some or all of the content is freely available on institutional archives.'

The full report from the Publishing Research Consortium is available at 'Study finds factors that could lead to cancelled subscriptions'.