trendwatching.com: April 2006 trend briefing

trendwatching.com: April 2006 trend briefing: "Show us one experienced, switched-on consumer in a mature consumer society who does NOT google once a day. Or even once an hour. One consumer who has NOT researched the cheapest available fare, price, charge before buying a big ticket item. Who has NOT invested some time reading reviews, recommendations and suggestions from experts and fellow consumers on anything from hotels in Paris and designer vacuum cleaners to which specific seat to request on flight SQ220 from Sydney to Singapore. One who hasn't relished the feeling of being better informed about everything from 18th century gardening to alternative medicine to the real reasons for high oil prices, than his/her peers or, even better, his/her superiors.
All thanks to the insanely expansive and detailed web of information that continues to be spun, offering transparency of prices, of reviews, of opinions, and of detail. Yes, you�ve heard this before. But just for a moment, marvel at how incredibly addicted consumers have become to getting instant access to any kind of useful and relevant information. In fact, consumers are experiencing nothing short of an all-encompassing INFOLUST"

there is also a PDF of the report at: http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/briefing.pdf

Carnival of the Infosciences #35

blogwithoutalibrary.net - Carnival of the Infosciences #35: "Carnival of the Infosciences #35 Good day, carnival-goers, and welcome to the thirty-fifth Carnival of the Infosciences! " My first post, but second mention.

Some days we are noticed

I was called into a meeting today with no explaination. Seems I had been nominated for (and received) an award

"in recognition of contributions beyond your regular responsibilities to various XRCC Committees through creation and maintenance of web pages for groups such as UPC, NTC and XRCC UAC"

Nice to be recognized for something.

The Conversations Network � Our Mission

The Conversations Network: a non-profit online publisher of recordings of spoken-word events.

"Every day scores of educational, inspirational and entertaining conference sessions, lectures and other spoken-word presentations are lost. They simply evaporate because no one records them. Some of these presentations are by the greatest and most inspiring minds of our time, and many would be important to people in the far reaches of the planet, if only they could hear them.The Conversations Network (a California non-profit corporation) captures presentations, processes the recordings, and publishes them online for free under Creative Commons licenses. "

Multivariable Calculus

Multivariable Calculus

Multivariable Calculus
George Cain & James Herod
© Copyright 1996, 1997 by George Cain and James Herod. All rights reserved.

This is a textbook for a course in multivariable calculus. It has been used for the past few years at Georgia Tech. The notes are available as Adobe Acrobat documents.

Table of Contents
Chapter One - Euclidean Three Space
Chapter Two - Vectors--Algebra and Geometry
Chapter Three - Vector Functions
Chapter Four - Derivatives
Chapter Five - More Dimensions
Chapter Six - Linear Functions and Matrices
Chapter Seven - Continuity, Derivatives, and All That
Chapter Eight - f:Rn-› R
Chapter Nine - The Taylor Polynomial
Chapter Ten - Sequences, Series, and All That
Chapter Eleven - Taylor Series
Chapter Twelve - Integration
Chapter Thirteen - More Integration
Chapter Fourteen - One Dimension Again
Chapter Fifteen - Surfaces Revisited
Chapter Sixteen - Integrating Vector Functions
Chapter Seventeen - Gauss and Green
Chapter Eighteen - StokesChapter Nineteen - Some Physics

Endeavor Voyager EndUser 2006

April 20, 2006

Keynote speaker – Tom Turvey, strategic partner development manager Google
Google Books Google Scholar

· Book search launched at Frankfurt book fair October 2004
· People search for everything
· Best for finding archive information and linking it with the reader
· Google understands that not everything is on the internet
· Books.google.com Integrated into search
· Direct to page of book that is relevant

Partner Programme
· Partner programme has 1000s of partners
· Partner brand on each page
· Partner is top line on "buy this book"
· 20% viewable / month / viewer
· Publisher gets revenue from clicks
· Can view two pages each direction
· Very low resolution (72 dpi) – can't print copy or save
· A percentage of every book is never shown
· five publishers suing are partners in partnership programme

Library Programme
· four libraries in US (Stanford, Harvard, NYPL, Michigan) and one in UK (Oxford)
· 60% of books are in only one library
· 40% redundancy rate is ok by them
· Only 20% of a library is in public domain
· 10% are in print
· 90% are out of print (in or out of copyright)
· 70% of books published after 1923 may still be in copyright

· Three types of views
· From publisher programme – sample pages
· From library programme – under copyright no agreement – snippets
· From library programme – public domain – full book, no restrictions

· Snippet – full book is scanned – only three small parts shown no matter how many search matches – links to book sellers and OCLC
· Technical challenges – how to transport books safely from libraries
· Marginalia considered to be of value
· Full text is searchable
· All meta data considered valuable
· Goal is a comprehensive collection -- know that they are not there yet
· Over 100 languages
· Challenges – 100% accuracy in OCR – 100% image quality -- Web integration -- Metadata accuracy – multiple language support – scanning speed and automation
· Page feedback for quality on each page
· Math formulas are a problem for OCR
· They listen to librarians
· They go to library conferences
· They want to hear from us


Questions

They are working on advanced search options

Publisher books – don't have link to worldcat – if it is scanned as well it will have worldcat link – publisher want to sell books so they don't want link to library – a known issue – only some publishers have problems

Library of Congress subject headings – some are used as ranking tool behind scenes – maybe – on roadmap but no concrete plans

Do they have a digital preservation policy? – no – not part of their job – agreement with library

Metadata – used as placeholder – bias is to full text indexing – metadata second

Fair use – lean currently to publisher half of rights – not working to user rights (scholar use)

Worldcat relationship only – would like to use other and would like to use and hear about them but currently to link to library need to be in worldcat

Google has many things now – video, scholar, book, etc. – do they plan on going to one box for all search – they have references to others and are working on a combination of indexes but not yet

---

Tom Turvey was funny, personable, a great speaker, calm under questioning, forthcoming when he could be, etc.
If you get a chance to hear him, do so.

FAQ about searching Japanese patents from the European Patent Office

Patent information: "FAQ about Japan"


Can applications in Japan be filed in English?
Can Japanese applications be published earlier than 18 months from application date?
How soon after filing an application must a request for examination be filed in Japan?
What is the time limit to reply to official actions?
Are Japanese file histories open to public inspection?
Where can I find information on patent attorneys in Japan?
How long does it take on average for a patent to be granted in Japan?
What is the term of a Japanese patent?
What is the term of a Japanese utility model?
At what time are annual fees due in Japan?
Can a lapsed patent be restored?
Do SPCs (supplementary protection certificates) exist in Japan?
How long is the opposition period in Japan?
How can one challenge a granted patent in Japan?
What is the practice on patent marking in Japan?
What are Patent Abstracts of Japan (PAJ)?
Where can I get an English machine-translation of a Japanese patent or utility model document?
How are Japanese data handled in INPADOC?