Published by rwatstein September 14th, 2008
in digital, collections and databases.
From 10,000-year-old American Indian tools and weapons to 20th century African masks, more than 26,000 artifacts in the Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology’s collections will be accessible online in a searchable database. Beginning Sept. 9, the public will be able to search the online database, www.wfu.edu/moa/database, and find a photograph and description of each object, including information about where it was collected. The collection includes Japanese kimonos, thousand-year-old Egyptian coins, 19th century Inuit dolls, pre-Columbian earthenware pots, and a vast array of other artifacts from cultures around the world.
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Published by rwatstein September 7th, 2008
in databases.
Dialog’s quick purchase by ProQuest came as a surprise to many in the industry, but Carol Tenopir says it actually is a good fit: its new parent is better situated to grow the service, and there are many untapped opportunities for PQ and Dialog to help expand each others’ offerings.
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Published by rwatstein August 31st, 2008
in children and databases.
After years of expanding education, Miami University’s Children’s Picture Book Database has expanded as well, receiving more than 1 million hits. Valerie Ubbes, director of the project, said she created the database in 1995 to expand education for children in preschool through third grade. “The picture books equal life,” Ubbes said. “It’s all about expanding health into wellness.” The database, which holds more than 5,000 children’s picture book abstracts, has partnered with Miami University Libraries, making it more accessible to all 50 states and foreign countries, Ubbes said.
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Published by rwatstein July 26th, 2008
in libraries and databases.
Gannett News Service released a searchable database July 17 that compares trends affecting public library systems between 2002 and 2006. The analysis used data from the National Center for Education Statistics as well as statistics collected from state library data coordinators, compared figures for the some 9,200 library systems, and found that library visits increased by roughly 10% during that five-year period and circulation of materials rose by 9%. The database also offers lists of public libraries with the highest circulation per capita, the most internet-capable computers per capita, and the highest operating expenses per capita (all 2006 data).
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Economist Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions keynoted the June 30 President’s Program of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA. His address, while not specifically geared to libraries, engaged the audience and stimulated some thoughtful responses from a panel of librarians, some of whom said they’d go back and streamline their lists of databases so they don’t overwhelm users. Here’s another account, from ACRLog.
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Published by rwatstein July 5th, 2008
in OCLC and databases.
Global library cooperative Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) is working with software development and consulting enterprise Index Data to extend the discovery capabilities of WorldCat Local to include all licensed and full-text resources of a library. Index Data will help OCLC incorporate metasearch into WorldCat Local for searching databases that are not indexed in WorldCat.org.
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Published by rwatstein June 21st, 2008
in databases.
Ann Arbor, Michigan–based electronic publishing company ProQuest signed an agreement June 12 to purchase the Dialog database service from media company Thomson Reuters. The transaction is expected to close by mid-July, pending completion of a formal consultation period and other customary closing conditions, ProQuest CEO Marty Kahn told American Libraries. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed
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Published by rwatstein April 6th, 2008
in information, censorship and databases.
A U.S. government-funded medical information site that bills itself as the world’s largest database on reproductive health has quietly begun to block searches on the word “abortion,” concealing nearly 25,000 search results. Called Popline, the search site is run by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland. It’s funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, the federal office in charge of providing foreign aid, including health care funding, to developing nations.
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Published by rwatstein December 9th, 2007
in libraries and databases.
Just a few of the study’s thousands of findings are:• Mean spending by corporate and legal libraries in the sample on Ebook licenses was $48,000; • Libraries reported mean price increases for full text and newspaper and magazine databases of 9.43% in the past year.
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Published by rwatstein November 12th, 2007
in collections and databases.
ProQuest, part of Cambridge Information Group (CIG), has announced an agreement with Gale, part of Cengage Learning, to connect their respective digital research databases of early modern English books via cross-search technology. In 2008, a search in ProQuest’s Early English Books Online (EEBO) will provide bibliographic search results from Gale’s Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) for mutual subscribers, and vice versa. The latest agreement is seen to streamline serious research in literature, humanities, history and a variety of cultural studies.
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Published by rwatstein September 29th, 2007
in genealogy and databases.
I’ve always found genealogy boring. But it’s about to get exciting, very exciting, and for everybody. Millions of people around the world spend hours tracing their “roots” as far back as they can. I’ve always suspected that people are really searching for self-identity. If they can learn their country of origin or discover descent from someone famous, they might be able to think more highly of themselves. They can, say, watch the Irish Day Parade with a new sense of entitlement. Unfortunately, many uncover unpleasant family secrets. Instead of finding aristocrats and royalty, people are likely to discover war deserters, criminals and illegitimate children. Even more common is to find family origins in countries not part of the family lore. Genealogy isn’t for wimps.
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