Google has a newsletter for librarians now, which looks like they’ll make into a regular service. Unfortunately, all I have to go on is the link, which doesn’t link to subscription services or even any real information. It might just be an experiment, or there might be pages that I haven’t found yet. I’ve been looking at their website for a while, but if there’s more to this, I can’t find it. I’ll update this post as I learn more. And if anyone reading this does have more info, please post a comment with what you’ve heard.
Library Resources
Thomas Gets a Face Lift
It’s a short work week this week, so I have no excuse not tp post at least an article or two. In that spirit, here’s something I picked up by accident.
THOMAS, one of the more amazing government legislation research tools available to internet users, has gotten a significant face-lift. You can still search for legislation by bill number or textual content, but now there are pull-down menus that allow one to search for material that’s been sponsored by a particular lawmaker as well. If you’re interested in the legislative history of a given senator or representative this makes life considerably easier if all you have is the name of the congressperson in question.
Update: Something major that I overlooked in my brief once-over of the site is that those drop-down menus that make it so simple to browse through legislation by representatives or senator have a substantial shortcoming: they do not include the names of past elected individuals. So even if a bill proposed by Dan Rostenkowski (remember him?) over a decade ago lies in the database, you can’t access it from those particular menus. Granted, you can still locate the bill in question with some patient searching by text or name or bill number, but it’s a bit of a let-down just the same.
Google and Managing Metadata
BusinessWeek has another article on the trials and tribulation of Google as they continue to implement their Print for Libraries program. It’s interesting to watch this story develop over time, not the least reason for which is that Google’s big move in this direction was the subject of a serious panel discussion between David Ferriero of the New York Public Library, Mark Sandler of the University of Michigan and Dale Flecker of Harvard University at METRO’s 41st Annual Meeting this past Monday. The verdict: The Google Project is a big deal. A very Big Deal. An Unimaginably Huge, Impossibly Gargantuan, Enormously Important Deal. So wise librarians should stay tuned.
On that note, I found this nifty article on Managing Metadata by John Udell at Infoworld.
And now for something completely different: this comes from Richard Kim, the Digital Projects Manager over at METRO (Metropolitan New York Library Council):
"I would just like to congratulate Sue Benz and the staff at BPL for the wonderful collection they launched today. Brooklyn Public Library has digitized and is providing free online access to an exciting collection of 245 colorfully illustrated and often humorous advertising cards from businesses located on Fulton Street in downtown Brooklyn from the late 1890s to the early 1910s. Take a look."
Researching Urban Legends
Shirl Kennedy lists several nifty research sites in today’s Resource Shelf post:
"Natural disasters, stratospheric gas prices, a messy war in Iraq that
goes on and on, two Supreme Court nominations on the line, evolution
versus "intelligent design," privacy-threatening security breaches,
and a whole raft of other social issues creating divisiveness in
society... Is it just me, or does it seem like the number of rumors
and hoaxes flying around the Internet is reaching critical mass? My
current personal favorite? Killer dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico,
freed from a Naval research facility by the wrath of Hurricane
Katrina. Not that I really have time to go to the beach anyhow...
It's probably a good time to review some of the sites on the Web where
you can go to check this stuff out before forwarding it along to 100
of your closest friends. (And don't we all have friends like this who
are eager to "share" with us?)"