From ResearchBuzz:
Atlanta Historic Newspapers Archive, available at http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/atlnewspapers. Though limited to one city, this site still manages to have more than 67,000 newspaper pages from 14 newspapers published in Atlanta between 1847 and 1922.
You'll need the Djvu plug-in, but is well worth a call to the Help Desk (7378) to get it installed.
Friday, April 09, 2010
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
My Favorite Google Secrets
By: Mary Ellen Bates of Bates Information Services
I'm getting ready for all my spring speaking engagements, including the AIIP conference, Computers in Libraries, Web Search University, and the SLA Annual Conference. My favorite sessions are the ones where I show some of the lesser-known features of Google, Yahoo and Bing. Some of the Google tools are particularly useful for web researchers; here are the ones that I'm playing with now.
On the search results page, select the "+ Show options" link at the top. This expands to show you a wide range of additional filtering tools. Although the options have been changing fairly frequently, one that is worth looking at lets you see only those sites you've recently visited, or just the sites you haven't clicked through yet. ("Visited pages" and "Not yet visited") If you have been trying a number of search strategies and feel like you are running in circles, clicking the "Not yet visited" option may help you find what you are looking for.
With Google Transliterate, you type a Roman character on your keyboard and Google transliterates it to the equivalent character in 19 languages. While this doesn't offer the translation feature of Google Translated Search, it lets you run a quick search to see the number of mentions of a name or brand in a language you cannot easily type on your keyboard.
Google Public Data Explorer is an example of Google taking public data and making it more intelligible. Right now, the data sets include the OECD Factbook, World Bank statistics, US Census data, and Eurostat tables, among others. You specify a data range, and Google will generate a line chart, bar chart, map or bubble chart. Keeping in mind that much of our value is in making sense out of information, this Google tool may be a helpful way of visualizing information for your clients.
I'm getting ready for all my spring speaking engagements, including the AIIP conference, Computers in Libraries, Web Search University, and the SLA Annual Conference. My favorite sessions are the ones where I show some of the lesser-known features of Google, Yahoo and Bing. Some of the Google tools are particularly useful for web researchers; here are the ones that I'm playing with now.
On the search results page, select the "+ Show options" link at the top. This expands to show you a wide range of additional filtering tools. Although the options have been changing fairly frequently, one that is worth looking at lets you see only those sites you've recently visited, or just the sites you haven't clicked through yet. ("Visited pages" and "Not yet visited") If you have been trying a number of search strategies and feel like you are running in circles, clicking the "Not yet visited" option may help you find what you are looking for.
With Google Transliterate, you type a Roman character on your keyboard and Google transliterates it to the equivalent character in 19 languages. While this doesn't offer the translation feature of Google Translated Search, it lets you run a quick search to see the number of mentions of a name or brand in a language you cannot easily type on your keyboard.
Google Public Data Explorer is an example of Google taking public data and making it more intelligible. Right now, the data sets include the OECD Factbook, World Bank statistics, US Census data, and Eurostat tables, among others. You specify a data range, and Google will generate a line chart, bar chart, map or bubble chart. Keeping in mind that much of our value is in making sense out of information, this Google tool may be a helpful way of visualizing information for your clients.
Charities
Charity Navigator's list of top 10s: (Charity Navigator is an independent charity evaluator):
10 Charities with the Most Consecutive 4-Star Ratings.
10 Charities Drowning in Administrative Costs
10 of the Best Charities Everyone's Heard Of
10 Charities Expanding in a Hurry
10 Most Commented Charities
10 Celebrity-Related Charities
10 Charities Worth Watching
10 Inefficient Fundraisers
10 Slam-Dunk Charities
10 Super-Sized Charities
10 Charities with the Most Consecutive 4-Star Ratings.
10 Charities Drowning in Administrative Costs
10 of the Best Charities Everyone's Heard Of
10 Charities Expanding in a Hurry
10 Most Commented Charities
10 Celebrity-Related Charities
10 Charities Worth Watching
10 Inefficient Fundraisers
10 Slam-Dunk Charities
10 Super-Sized Charities
Friday, March 19, 2010
Earth Day Experts
From "Green" Buildings to Sustainable Tourism: Ryerson Experts Discuss Earth Day
Ryerson University has put together a list of experts willing and able to speak with the media on a variety of environmental topics.
Ryerson University has put together a list of experts willing and able to speak with the media on a variety of environmental topics.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Center for Housing Policy Report
This 12 page report researched by the Center for Housing Policy examines housing affordability trends for working households. Even though housing prices are falling, affordability is going in the other direction.
This report defines - severe housing cost burden - as spending more than 50 percent of income on housing costs, including utilities. The number of working households that spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing rose from 18 to 20 percent in the past 3 years.
This report defines - severe housing cost burden - as spending more than 50 percent of income on housing costs, including utilities. The number of working households that spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing rose from 18 to 20 percent in the past 3 years.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Charity Navigator
Charity Navigator uses a numbers-based rating system to assess the financial health of over 5,000 of America's best-known charities. Each charity receives a rating of one to four stars. At their web site they now have up their Top 10 lists. You can also search their database by keyword or charity name.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Accessing a million pages
Govpulse allows you to use filters, search and respond to the mounds of documents that the federal government releases. Browse the Federal Register from 1994.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
More research material on Google Scholar
You can now find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. Click the button, Legal opinions and journals, and type in a subject. The search seems to be full text searchable. The "how cited" link gives you list of other opinions that cite a particular opinion. The major cases are there as well as lesser known ones.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Mark your calendars
Sunshine Week celebration has been set for March 14-20, 2010. The N.C. Open Government Coalition will host a workshop on Tuesday, March 16th in Greensboro at Elon Law.
North Carolina's Creative Industry
According to a recent study prepared by the Policy, Research and Strategic Planning Division of the N.C. Department of Commerce, North Carolina has a $41 billion creative industry that employs almost 300,000 people or more than 5 1/2 percent of the state's total employment.
The creative industry includes arts, design and entertainment and new media.
The creative industry includes arts, design and entertainment and new media.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Trends in Higher Education
The College Board just released a series of reports:
Trends in College Pricing 20 page report includes the latest information on tuition, fees, room & board and other expense.
Highlights: Published tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities rose at an average annual rate of 4.9% per year beyond general inflation from 1999-2000 to 2009-10, more rapidly than in either of the previous two decades. The rate of growth of published prices at both private not-for-profit four-year and public two-year institutions was lower from 1999-2000 to 2009-10 than in either of the previous two decades.
Trends in Student Aid - 20 page report has the latest data on grants, loans and other avenues to help pay for college.
Highlights: 2008-09, undergraduate students received an average of $10,185 in financial aid per full-time equivalent (FTE) student, including $5,041 in grant aid and $4,585 in federal loans. Graduate students received an average of $22,740 in aid, including $7,558 in grant aid and $14,598 in federal loans.
Education Pays - 48 page report shows private and public benefits of a college education
Trends in College Pricing 20 page report includes the latest information on tuition, fees, room & board and other expense.
Highlights: Published tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities rose at an average annual rate of 4.9% per year beyond general inflation from 1999-2000 to 2009-10, more rapidly than in either of the previous two decades. The rate of growth of published prices at both private not-for-profit four-year and public two-year institutions was lower from 1999-2000 to 2009-10 than in either of the previous two decades.
Trends in Student Aid - 20 page report has the latest data on grants, loans and other avenues to help pay for college.
Highlights: 2008-09, undergraduate students received an average of $10,185 in financial aid per full-time equivalent (FTE) student, including $5,041 in grant aid and $4,585 in federal loans. Graduate students received an average of $22,740 in aid, including $7,558 in grant aid and $14,598 in federal loans.
Education Pays - 48 page report shows private and public benefits of a college education
Monday, October 19, 2009
Useful Twitter Searches
From: Bates Information Services, www.BatesInfo.com/tip.html
Seeing the word "useful" next to the word "Twitter" might seem oxymoronic to some... kind of like jumbo shrimp or deafening silence. We forget that the main complaint of Twitter -- that the signal-to-noise ratio is so low -- can be said of the web as a whole. Go to ten web pages at random and see how few web pages are even remotely relevant to what you do. What differentiates the web from the Tweetosphere is the existance of robust finding tools. Search engines play that role in the general web, enabling us to avoid most of the web pages that would not interest us. Most Twitter interfaces overload new users with unfiltered tweets, leading sensible people to throw up their hands and walk away.
However, I have found several real-life uses for Twitter lately, with just the search feature on Twitter. Let me know what other ones you come up with.
Use one of the word-cloud generators (I use Search Cloudlet, an add-on for Firefox) and see what words are most frequently used in conjunction with a news event. I searched Twitter to see what words most frequently came up in the context of health care reform. Right now, the buzzwords are public option, doctors, congress and include. Interesting that insurance companies aren't being mentioned very frequently.
Monitor live news, as reported by people nearby. If, for example, I want to see if there's a jump in the mentions of the H1N1 virus near me, I might search for "swine flu" OR h1n1 near:denver within:25mi
Monitor mentions of your organization's names, particularly those when the tweet includes an outbound link. If I was monitoring Crocs, the shoe company, I might search for #crocs filter:links
Gather hightlights from a conference. Within a week of the conference, just search for the hashtag for the conference on the Twitter web site ( for example, I'll soon be speaking at Internet Librarian, which has #IL2009 as its "official" hashtag). Keep clicking the "Older" link at the bottom of the search results page until you have all the tweets on one screen. Copy and paste that to a word processor, and you can easily skim through it to see key ideas. In fact, take all the words and throw them into Wordle.net, which generates a word cloud from any body of text you give it. You'll see the dominant themes of the conference, and can identify the key speakers.
Seeing the word "useful" next to the word "Twitter" might seem oxymoronic to some... kind of like jumbo shrimp or deafening silence. We forget that the main complaint of Twitter -- that the signal-to-noise ratio is so low -- can be said of the web as a whole. Go to ten web pages at random and see how few web pages are even remotely relevant to what you do. What differentiates the web from the Tweetosphere is the existance of robust finding tools. Search engines play that role in the general web, enabling us to avoid most of the web pages that would not interest us. Most Twitter interfaces overload new users with unfiltered tweets, leading sensible people to throw up their hands and walk away.
However, I have found several real-life uses for Twitter lately, with just the search feature on Twitter. Let me know what other ones you come up with.
Use one of the word-cloud generators (I use Search Cloudlet, an add-on for Firefox) and see what words are most frequently used in conjunction with a news event. I searched Twitter to see what words most frequently came up in the context of health care reform. Right now, the buzzwords are public option, doctors, congress and include. Interesting that insurance companies aren't being mentioned very frequently.
Monitor live news, as reported by people nearby. If, for example, I want to see if there's a jump in the mentions of the H1N1 virus near me, I might search for "swine flu" OR h1n1 near:denver within:25mi
Monitor mentions of your organization's names, particularly those when the tweet includes an outbound link. If I was monitoring Crocs, the shoe company, I might search for #crocs filter:links
Gather hightlights from a conference. Within a week of the conference, just search for the hashtag for the conference on the Twitter web site ( for example, I'll soon be speaking at Internet Librarian, which has #IL2009 as its "official" hashtag). Keep clicking the "Older" link at the bottom of the search results page until you have all the tweets on one screen. Copy and paste that to a word processor, and you can easily skim through it to see key ideas. In fact, take all the words and throw them into Wordle.net, which generates a word cloud from any body of text you give it. You'll see the dominant themes of the conference, and can identify the key speakers.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
New Report
The Center for Responsible Lending recently issued this 13 page report (PDF) titled, "Overdraft Explosion" . Bankdraft fees for overdraft protection has increased over 35 % in the past 2 years. At an average fee of $34 per overdraft, and over 50 million Americans overdrawing their checking accounts at least once over a 12-month period, that adds up to over $24 billion in fees for the baking industry.
No wonder banks push this "service" to customers even though a survey says most would prefer a denial of service rather than overdraft protection.
Numbers and charts are included in this report.
No wonder banks push this "service" to customers even though a survey says most would prefer a denial of service rather than overdraft protection.
Numbers and charts are included in this report.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Watch What You Wish For
This new movie/TV database is now in public beta. Jinni will find movies/TV shows based on mood, plot, genres, time/period, place, audience, award winning.
Want someone to really listen to you? Sometimes it takes a machine. (from the get started video)
To celebrate their public beta launch Jinni will make a donation to Best Friends Animal Society for every person who signs up for their free registration.
Want someone to really listen to you? Sometimes it takes a machine. (from the get started video)
To celebrate their public beta launch Jinni will make a donation to Best Friends Animal Society for every person who signs up for their free registration.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Where is the money going?
Recovery.gov is tracking what agencies/organizations are getting stimulus money by state. They have a cool interactive map that allows you to search by zip to find local recipients.
Some general N.C. awards:
90 contracts - $80,465,108
1802 grants - $3,678,194,703
433 loans - $275,204,830
Total awards: 2325 - $4,033,864,641
Some general N.C. awards:
90 contracts - $80,465,108
1802 grants - $3,678,194,703
433 loans - $275,204,830
Total awards: 2325 - $4,033,864,641
Sugared Beverages, Obesity and Taxes
The Center for Science in the Public Interest has issued a new report titled: "Taxing sugared beverages would help trim state budget deficits, comsumers' bulging waistlines, and health care costs" (PDF)
The report contains a spreadsheet with numbers for the different states. Here are the numbers for North Carolina:
Budget Deficit (2010) & Potential Revenue from nickel-a-drink* Tax
FY 2010 Budget Gap Annual New Revenue
4,600,000,000 220,000,000
New Revenue Share of Budget Gap - 4.78%
North Carolina's state obesity rate is 29 percent.
* A drink is defined as a 12 oz. serving
The report contains a spreadsheet with numbers for the different states. Here are the numbers for North Carolina:
Budget Deficit (2010) & Potential Revenue from nickel-a-drink* Tax
FY 2010 Budget Gap Annual New Revenue
4,600,000,000 220,000,000
New Revenue Share of Budget Gap - 4.78%
North Carolina's state obesity rate is 29 percent.
* A drink is defined as a 12 oz. serving
Monday, October 05, 2009
H1N1
Trust for America's Health has a new report out saying that if 35 percent of the population gets the flu, 15 states could run out of hospital beds at the height of the flu season.
That would be 3,227,845 North Carolinians. According to the report , 42,464 people in North Carolina may need to be hospitalized.
North Carolina is one of the 12 states that would be at 75 to 99 percent of their hospital bed capacity.
This is the part of the report that deals with North Carolina.
That would be 3,227,845 North Carolinians. According to the report , 42,464 people in North Carolina may need to be hospitalized.
North Carolina is one of the 12 states that would be at 75 to 99 percent of their hospital bed capacity.
This is the part of the report that deals with North Carolina.
Code of Ethics
The Society of Professional Journalists has posted a Code of Ethics:
1. Seek Truth and Report It
2. Minimize Harm
3. Act Independently
4. Be Accountable
The SPJ Code of Ethics is voluntarily embraced by thousands of writers, editors and other news professionals. The present version of the code was adopted by the 1996 SPJ National Convention, after months of study and debate among the Society's members.
Sigma Delta Chi's first Code of Ethics was borrowed from the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1926. In 1973, Sigma Delta Chi wrote its own code, which was revised in 1984, 1987 and 1996.
Click the link above to read the entire code.
1. Seek Truth and Report It
2. Minimize Harm
3. Act Independently
4. Be Accountable
The SPJ Code of Ethics is voluntarily embraced by thousands of writers, editors and other news professionals. The present version of the code was adopted by the 1996 SPJ National Convention, after months of study and debate among the Society's members.
Sigma Delta Chi's first Code of Ethics was borrowed from the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1926. In 1973, Sigma Delta Chi wrote its own code, which was revised in 1984, 1987 and 1996.
Click the link above to read the entire code.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Government Information
From an L.A. Times article on Monday:
Government pooh-bahs live by the credo Information is Power. Here are a few of the guerrillas working to overthrow the resulting dictatorship.The article informs us about (with links) free web sites that offer information that you would have to pay for at other sites. One web site Datamasher.org is a Sunlight Foundation grant winner who writes software that slices and dices government data. Check out what they have done with high school graduation rates mashed up with income. You might be surprised at North Carolina's ranking.
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