On Vacation for 3 weeks

Why "meek librarian"?

When I saw this post on LISNews http://www.lisnews.com/article.pl?sid=04/07/08/1149200 7 Booked for TNT's quot;The Librarianquot; I looked the movie up in IMDB.com and found this summary:

Plot Summary for Librarian, The (2004) (TV)

When a magical artifact is lifted from his library, a meek librarian sets out to ensure its safe return. To do so, however, he enlists the service of a woman with exceptional martial arts skills - who becomes the enforcer in the relationship.

My double double made it into the dictionary

An article from the Toronto Star on new words added to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.



Double Double is a real word now and it is CANADIAN!



http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1088547022795&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&tacodalogin=no

The Search Engines Go Deep - From Outsell e-briefs July 2, 2004

The Search Engines Go Deep

We've commented from time to time on the fact that Web search engines are aggressively going after the kind of content that until now was primarily accessible through paid information services. In a recent Briefing, Outsell Vice President and Lead Analyst Chuck Richard summarized the various initiatives underway. Anyone who doubts that the search players want a piece of the scholarly and scientific publishing markets should be paying attention. The search engines state their missions as follows:

- Google: "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful";

- Yahoo!: "to invest more heavily to get more content into our search engine experience."

Here are the kinds of acquisition targets they are after:

- Yahoo!'s Content Acquisition Program will target content embedded in the "invisible Web"

- Google is indexing IEEE Xplore abstracts

- CrossRef Search pilot: the full texts of scholarly journals are searchable using Google

- Google is indexing the scholarly papers of 17 universities, including MIT

- Google is indexing Extenza e-journals, a division of Royal Swets and Zeitlinger

- Google is indexing a subset of OCLC WorldCat records

- Amazon's A9 search engine, powered by Google, accesses Amazon's "Search Inside the Book" function

Traditional aggregators face challenges on many fronts, and this is just one of them. The Briefing, "Competitor Assessment: Aggregators And Search Engines - Sparring, Partnering, Or Ignoring Each Other?" tells the whole story.

Available for purchase at www.outsellinc.com.

Springer Open Choice

Authors (and only authors) are given the choice to pay $3000 US per article and Springer will make the article available online for free to all.



Not sure about this one. The prices seems quite high to me. And how will it affect subscription prices. As described below, they promise to reduce the price if they have a lot of "open choice" content.







Springer Open Choice for Libraries



Springer Open Choice is designed to give authors the choice of how to have their research published in the same Springer journals to which they usually submit. By definition, this means that Springer journals will contain a mixture of Springer Open Choice articles, and articles published under the traditional subscription-based model. Springer plans to continue to evaluate its journal subscription prices on a yearly basis, based on a number of factors, including the amount of subscription-model content being published.



Libraries pay subscriptions for subscription-model content. Once a year (usually mid-year) the prices for the next year’s subscriptions are calculated. At that time, Springer will calculate the number of articles published under the traditional model in the previous 12 months. If that number is less than the twelve month period before that, then subscription prices will decrease accordingly. If it has increased, then prices will increase accordingly. In a nutshell: subscription prices are tied to the amount of traditionally published, subscription-model content, with adjustments being reflected in the next year’s subscription prices.



Springer Open Choice articles will always be clearly identified as such in our online platform to provide you with a visible measurement of Springer Open Choice adoption. For those customers with print-only subscriptions, a report detailing Springer Open Choice adoption by journal can be obtained at the end of each year from your Sales representative.



http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,10735,5-40359-12-115393-0,00.html

The Engineering Web

The specialized search engine that focuses exclusively on engineering and technical information.

GlobalSpec provides "engineering context and relevancy" and access to the Hidden Web. Plus much, much more!



http://www.globalspec.com

SLA Chemistry Division Web Conference Announcement

In keeping with its goal of bringing the SLA Annual Conference experience to its members who are not able to attend, the Chemistry Division of SLA will be sponsoring its first Web Conference, to be held throughout the month of July, 2004.

This conference will feature the Poster Session presenters from the June SLA Annual Conference in Nashville. There will be three to four presenters per week, with ample opportunity for you to read and see the presentations online, as well as discuss any questions or comments you may have with the actual presenters, who will be moderating the discussions for their respective presentations.



The format for the discussion portion will be through an asynchronous bulletin board, so you may participate throughout the week at times convenient to you. Each set of discussions will be closed, however, at week's end, at which time a new set of topics will be presented. So if you wish to participate in the discussions taking place during a given week, please don't put it off too long. The event will require registration, but this is free and painless.



The conference will take place at http://forum.lib.lsu.edu/slachem/. The site will be open for registration and participation beginning Monday, July 5. A schedule of the presentations is as follows:



July 5 - 11:

1) Jennifer Lee Baldwin, Margaret Dominy. "Science Information Literacy for the Undergraduate: Update."

2) Jennifer Lee, Don MacMillan. "Blended Learning in Chemistry: Using the Web to Improve In-Class Instructions."

3) Bill Armstrong. "The Creation and Implementation of an Information Retrieval Course for the Sciences at LSU using Blackboard."



July 12 - 18:

1) SuHui Ho, Jeff Williams. "Usability Study of a Web-Based Instruction Module."

2) Susan K. Cardinal, Kenneth J. Harper. "Helping Students Succeed at Identifying Organic Compounds: Optimizing Location and Content of a Guide to the Literature."

3) Kathy M. Jackson, Eva Maddox. "Evolution of a Chemical Literature Web Tutorial at Texas A&M."



July 19 - 25:

1) Eleanor M. Smith, May M. Chang. "Use of a Content Management System and Reusable Learning Objects to Develop an Integrated Suite of Instructional Materials for Scientific Information Literacy."

2) Carol E. Vreeland, May M. Chang. "Creating a Web-Based Science Tutorial: an Opportunity for Inter-Institutional Collaboration."

3) Linda Shackle. "Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Down the Video Stream."



July 26 - Aug. 1:

1) Smadar Izhaky, Beth Weil. "Using Streaming Video for Library Tutorials."

2) Daureen Nesdill. "Making Organic Chemistry Relevant."

3) Cory Craig. "Library Instruction on the Web: Tips, Strategies and How

to Get Started."

4) Kathy Whitley. "Information Literacy Teamed with Science Literacy."

MatWeb Material Property Data

The heart of MatWeb is a searchable database of material data sheets, including property information on thermoplastic and thermoset polymers such as ABS, nylon, polycarbonate, polyester, polyethylene and polypropylene; metals such as aluminum, cobalt, copper, lead, magnesium, nickel, steel, superalloys, titanium and zinc alloys; ceramics; plus semiconductors, fibers, and other engineering materials.



http://www.matweb.com/index.asp?ckck=1

Advances in Electronics Manufacturing Technology

Advances in Electronics Manufacturing Technology (V-EMT) is a peer-reviewed open access journal, covering commercially relevant technologies in an advertising-free environment. New papers are published every-other Monday.



http://www.vertilog.com/index.jsp