Historic Newspaper Archive

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.

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.

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

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.

Social Security Death Index

The Social Security Death Index is searchable for free!

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.

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.