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Via: CASLIS Ottawa
Ulla de Stricker ’s checklist of enterprise behaviors related to information and knowledge management.
- Part 1: Policy
- Part 2: Corporate Memory
- Part 3: Current Awareness
- Part 4: E-Mail Management
- Part 5: Do we pass the test for “quality content” in emails?
- Part 6: Records
- Part 7: Making the business case for new – or old – money
Ulla has also recently published two books:
- Business Cases for Information Professionals: Here’s Why, Here’s How
Information Today, Inc – 2008
ISBN: 978-57387-335-2
- Is Consulting For You? A Primer for Information Professionals
ALA Editions – 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0-8389-0947-8
ISBN-10: 0-8389-0947-7
(Available from the Canadian Library Association.
All Conferences is a search directory that provides information on conferences, conventions, trade shows, meetings and so on. It’s arranged by subject area, with advanced search functions allowing searches for titles, city, country, date and so on. Covers a very wide variety of subject areas – just grabbing science and technology for example we’ve got oceanography, paleontology, physics, space, vibrations and so on.
Not entirely convinced of it’s worth though – it didn’t find the few library based conferences that I put in, but it does appear that conference organisers have to go to it, rather than them looking for conferences, which is a slight weakness I think. However, if you need to know about events, this might be worth taking for a spin.
100 Extensive University Libraries from Around the World that Anyone Can Access
CollegeDegree.com has published a list of 100 Extensive University Libraries from Around the World that Anyone Can Access. The post points to a wide array of digital collections, e-books, and research resources that are freely available online. Libraries and their collections are divided into the following categories:
- Digital Libraries
- International Digital Libraries
- Texts
- Medical Libraries
- Legal Libraries
- National Libraries of Europe
- Religious Studies
- Specialized Selections
- Academic Research
- American Universities
- International Universities
An info pro’s Web 2.0 tool kit
A colleague emailed me the other day to ask me what Web 2.0 tools and resources are critical for research. Following are what come to mind for me… what else would you use for search (not professional development or other non-research tasks)?
- a good blog-search tool like Technorati.com
- a familiarity with Google News Timelines and Google Search Timelines
- a couple of discussion forum search tools, such as Board Tracker and Board Reader
- a trending tool for analyzing buzz over time, like Blog Pulse, and Google Trends and Google Insights
- a podcast search tool like Podscope or Everyzing
- at least one professional-oriented social network service, such as LinkedIn
- possibly familiarity with and participation in Twitter
Mickie’s note: Thanks for another great post Mary Ellen !
Mickie’s note: This looks like a great tool !! Can’t wait to give it a test run :0)
Two graduates from California State University, Fullerton have created a social application for researchers called iBreadCrumbs which will record the Web pages they visit, bookmark them, and allow them to organize them into new or existing collections. These collections of Web resources are called breadcrumbs and can be edited, deleted, shared with friends, or with everyone. Future recording sessions can be added to previously created collections or breadcrumbs. Researchers can create groups, export their breadcrumbs in Excel format, and message other members. The network is ad-free.
Karen Blakeman has been an information professional for over 20 years and has been a freelance consultant since 1999. Her company (RBA Information Services) provides training and consultancy on the use of the Internet, and on accessing and managing information resources. Her newsletter and website provide invaluable and timely resources to a wide audience in business and library professions.
Twenty-one enthusiastic researchers attended UKeiG’s Business Information workshop on April 2nd in London. They came from a wide range of sectors and types of organisation, and when asked to compile their Top 10 tips they came up with 15! Here they are, in no particular order of importance:
1. FITA Import Export Business and International Trade Leads. http://www.fita.org/. The “Really Useful Links” in the menu on the left hand side of the screen takes you to a range of international sources on business information. One participant of this workshop found the “Doing business”, and in particular in the Middle East, especially useful.
2. Nationmaster http://www.nationmaster.com/. An interface to a plethora of statistics on web sites world wide. Some of the statistics are 2-3 years old but there are links to the original site so that you can search for more up to date information. Several participants suggested that this site is a good ‘index’ of where data is likely to be found.
3. Blogpulse http://www.blogpulse.com/. One of several blog search engines, but this was singled out for its Trends graphs. These show how often your search terms are mentioned in posts over a selected period of time. In a business context the occurrences will usually match reports in the mainstream media. When they don’t, click on the peaks in the graph to see what is going on behind the scenes. Superb for picking up on rumours and gossip.
4. Yahoo Finance. Go to any Yahoo and click on the Finance link. For the UK version go to http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/. Yahoo Finance provides basic information on stock exchange quoted companies on the major stock exchanges around the world. Information includes current share price information (delayed by 15-30 minutes) provided by the stock exchanges; company profiles; charts in which you can compare the company share price with another company, the sector and an index such as the FTSE 100; current news on the company and focussing on the regulatory news; and daily historical share prices as figures that can be downloaded to spreadsheets.
5. Freepint Bar http://www.freepint.com/. Head for the discussion area, labelled as the Bar, where you can post your query and tap into the knowledge of regular ‘tipplers’
6. Silobreaker http://www.silobreaker.com/. A new site pulling news from the usual newspapers and journals, but also blogs, video and audio. In addition It offers geographical hotspots, trends and a network visualisation tool, which was singled out by one participant.
7. Contact a relevant research, trade or professional body for help in locating experts. sources of information and reports. They may not have anything on their web site but there may something ‘on file’ that they are willing to supply free of charge or for which they are prepared to negotiate a fee.
8. Intelways http://www.intelways.com/. An interface to many search tools grouped by type e.g. news, video, image. Type your search terms in once and click on the different search tools one by one. A reminder of the different types of information that you should be looking at and of the wide range of search engines that are out there.
9. Click on the Advanced Search option for any of the tools that you encounter, be it Google et al or a web site’s own search option. They offer great ways of focussing your search by date, file format, site, author etc.
10. RBA Business Souirces http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/. Selected sources of business information organised by type e.g. statistics, share prices, company registers. Yes, it is my own site [blush] but they did insist!
11. Phil Bradleys’ web site and blog. http://www.philb.com/ and http://philbradley.typepad.com/. Excellent sources of information on Web 2.0 ’stuff’ and search tools. In particular, his blog has no-nonsense reviews of new search tools that claim they will change the world of search.
12. Intute http://www.intute.ac.uk/. Forget about the ac.uk label. This is an excellent starting point for anyone working in business and wanting to identify quality resources on a wide range of subjects and industries.
13. Hometrack http://www.hometrack.co.uk/. This site provides key statistics and data on the UK housing market and financing of that market. Especially relevant in the current economic climate. (Mickie’s note : Wonder if there is one like this for Canada? Off to search for it!)
14. Alacrasearch http://www.alacra.com/alacrasearch. A Google custom search engine that focuses on business sites selected by Alacra. [A personal note: this is in my top 5 favourite search tools]. (Mickie’s note: Mine too, I appreciate the category breakdown here)
15. CIA World Factbook – country profiles. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factboo/. Key statistics on every country. For those of you of a more adventurous disposition when it comes to travel, it even includes the number of airports with unpaved runways.
Why searching is like smack
By mebs
I was recently reading Nina Platt’s 5 Reasons Librarians are Better than Search Engines. The blog entry is mostly about how search engines will never replace a skilled researcher, but my eye caught the following:
My sister, while doing some research recently, likened searching on the internet to setting off fireworks. The search is like an explosion that sends millions of answers off in several directions much like a firework can send fire and color up into the night for all to see. While reviewing one set of answers, another set of fireworks could be set off distracting you from what you already found and taking you further away from what you need. There is no one to guide you to the right materials.
While I can see the analogy — sometimes the info I find does feel as ephemeral as a fireworks display — I also saw how a miniaturized version of “fireworks” is what keeps us searching.
You know how it gets sometimes, when you just can’t put down the mouse, you keep finding one more web site to answer this research project… I just found a promising site – I have to keep going…. What’s actually happening is that, each time you find a good lead or a new resource, you get a little shot of adrenaline – a mini-fireworks display. You click a couple more times and – kaboom – another little adrenaline shot. click, click. kaboom.
We find it hard to end a search because we’re constantly getting little buzzes of excitement, and who wants to stop that?
How very true, and affirming that there are others out there that need to feed the ‘addiction’ like I do :0)
CollegeDegree.com presents an annotated guide to 25 Useful Social Networking Tools for Librarians. (Or library professionals!) The list includes social networks, social bookmarking communities, social news websites, and more in the categories of:
- Communication
- Distribution
- Organization
Via: iLibrarian
Thomson and Reuters get approval to merge
From the AP article:
Regulators have signed off on a deal that will create an enormous supplier of financial news and information, giving their blessing to a combination of Thomson and Reuters as long as the companies help other parties compete in the arena of financial database services.
The U.S. Department of Justice, as well as regulatory authorities in Europe and Canada, where Thomson is based, cleared Thomson’s purchase of Reuters on Tuesday as long as the two parties sell copies of four databases (Reuters Estimates, Reuters Aftermarket Research, Reuters Economics, Thomson Fundamentals) that provide earnings estimates, economic information and other data to investors.
Libtech’s note: And Thomson just gets bigger and bigger …
From Infotoday Newslink, a Review of the Year 2007 and Trends Watch by Paula Hane:
“It’s important to pay attention to trends—both within our industry and in the larger technology, business, and cultural arenas. It helps us keep our edge and decide on new directions for services and products (…)”
“Here are a few other things I’m watching this year:
- Accelerating number of mobile content applications—and new devices
- Increased spending for online ads with further declines in print
- Increasing popularity of widgets for content delivery
- Niche community networking sites are expected to grow in popularity as people grow weary of the megasites (MySpace, Facebook, etc.)
- Increasing use of social networking capabilities in enterprise settings
- New collaborative workflow tools will emerge as companies demand more collaboration across organizations
- Software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications will continue to grow in popularity for a segment of businesses
- Growth of open source tools and services
- Ongoing book digitization projects (Google, Open Content Alliance, etc.)
- Continued progress and growth in open access initiatives
- Further movement from fee-based to free content
- Continued buzz around user-generated content with publishers testing new publishing models
- Increased interest in text analytics, data extraction and mining, semantic search, and related technologies
- Continued interest in testing visualization tools for information discovery and analysis
- Security and privacy remain major concerns”
Hane’s article also lists 2008 predictions from a number of other information industry sources and analysts.
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