Scrapple no longer meets so this blog has become my own way to keep things that interest me: articles about research libraries providing access to scholarly output, things that happen in my day, stuff I might use in a class some day, things I don't want to forget, you know.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Vivisimo's Clusty service
Vivisimo is not new but it's worth remembering. This is one of those services that searches the web and then groups the results in various ways. I did a search on Kpelle (an ethnic group from West Africa) and like the hits I got this way better than what I got in Google. There was more news.
Visual Tools
- Kartoo - a visual search engine
- Anacubis - desktop information analysis software
- Anacubis Google Search - http://www.anacubis.com/googledemo/google/index.asp- run the search and then expand the sites that link to the page.
- TouchGraph Google Browser - attempts to visualize the relationships between websites
- Visual Thesaurus - commercial product, can try for free
- Grokker - download software for $49
- An Atlas of Cyberspace - Shows screenshots and provides links for various visual tools
- WebBrain - displays a directory structure visually. Clicking on a subject changes the view to show related subjects
- Potato Land - click on Shred, enter a URL and it will visually shred any website. Seems fairly useless, but interesting.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Google Maps
Zounds! Google Maps is awfully cool. You drag the map around and can zoom with a tool bar that acts as if you can pick any point on the scale to zoom in on. The map designs are way better than MapQuest/Yahoo/etc. When you get directions the map is similarly zoomable. It worked better for me in Firefox than Netscape and it was a bit slow/jerky but still impressive.
Friday, February 25, 2005
Crazy barcoding stories
So there have been some crazy barcoding stories in the news lately. Some researchers at UCLA are considering using RFID to track cadavers.
Scientists intend to barcode all life on earth!
Read more about what people are not saying about RFID. In this article, one analyst is quoted as, "If you're behind the curve, obviously, you'd want to hide that from everyone, especially Wal-Mart and the DOD."
And yes, he is referring to the Department of Defense.
Scientists intend to barcode all life on earth!
Read more about what people are not saying about RFID. In this article, one analyst is quoted as, "If you're behind the curve, obviously, you'd want to hide that from everyone, especially Wal-Mart and the DOD."
And yes, he is referring to the Department of Defense.
Some stuff on the Google Print Project
This Chicago Trib article is a nice summary of the project even though there is nothing terribly new.
From the web sites for the libraries participating in the project:
From the web sites for the libraries participating in the project:
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Build your own TiVo
I remember this was discussed at a Scrapple meeting. Here's a page I stumbled across recently for those who (like myself) might like to try it:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1121844,00.asp
Also, there is the Whole Hacking TiVo FAQ
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1121844,00.asp
Also, there is the Whole Hacking TiVo FAQ
Wiki Web sites
Wikis are a type of web page that can be edited by anyone - giving us yet another tool for online collaboration. Some services are emerging around Wikis - such as JotSpot. JotSpot's new service targets businesses that want to give authorized users a common location to collaborate. According to the CNN news story, coworkers could take a spreadsheet, customize it and revise it and have all information for a project reside in one Wiki Web site.
Read more about what Wiki's are. Here's a listing of Wiki's: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BiggestWiki
If you're saying, wiki what are you talking about?!? You might know of a Wiki and not even realize it. Wikipedia - the Free Encyclopedia.
Combining the best of blogs and Wikis is a Bloki hybrid.
Read more about what Wiki's are. Here's a listing of Wiki's: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BiggestWiki
If you're saying, wiki what are you talking about?!? You might know of a Wiki and not even realize it. Wikipedia - the Free Encyclopedia.
Combining the best of blogs and Wikis is a Bloki hybrid.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Topic Maps
Being discussed on LITA-L. Reference to an old article (2002) at http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/09/11/topicmaps.html. Will add more references as I explore.
Friday, February 11, 2005
A9 Yellow Pages Photos
A9 (the search engine owned by Amazon.com) now offers photos of the businesses at addresses in several cities as part of their yellow pages. You can find out more about how they did it here.
The French Yellow Pages (Les Pages Jaunes) has done this for several cities in France and Spain.
Monday, February 07, 2005
New search engine MuseSeek: "Others search, we find"
MuseSeek (http://www.museseek.com ) comes from MuseGlobal (http://www.museglobal.com.
Graphics are 'not to my taste' but the engine is pretty cool.
They let you choose one of their 9 categories to do the searching (Web Engines, Business, Entertainment, News, Booksellers, Sports, Libraries, Reference, or Careers.)
Advanced Search lets you more than one category to search and they offer 2 boxes with the choice of AND, OR or NOT.
**n.b., Link that says it lets you 'change the search rules' actually lets you change the display rules. Options include:
Graphics are 'not to my taste' but the engine is pretty cool.
They let you choose one of their 9 categories to do the searching (Web Engines, Business, Entertainment, News, Booksellers, Sports, Libraries, Reference, or Careers.)
Advanced Search lets you more than one category to search and they offer 2 boxes with the choice of AND, OR or NOT.
**n.b., Link that says it lets you 'change the search rules' actually lets you change the display rules. Options include:
Results per page:
10 results per page 20 results per page
Results per source:
10 results per source 20 results per source
Retrieval by:
Fastest Relevance Date
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Good article about Search Engines
Phil Bradley's regular column in Ariadne this month talks about what else users are looking for in a search engine. Not just how good is it (really who knows) but by features like toolbars that let them easily search without typing a whole URL, to watch for new email, to easily add items to a blog and so forth. So we are/will be beginning to see people look for bundles.
For my money, one of the very nice features of Firefox is that you can add as many search engines as you want to the tool bar. This kind of openness makes it appealing to librarians supporting public workstations.
For my money, one of the very nice features of Firefox is that you can add as many search engines as you want to the tool bar. This kind of openness makes it appealing to librarians supporting public workstations.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Is MetaData dead? or is the sky just falling?
From a msg posted to the LITA listserv.
From: Brian Elkins
To: lita-l@ala.org
Date: Monday - January 31, 2005 5:59 AM
Subject: [LITA-L:1006] Impact of Google
quoting Joseph Esposito to liblicense-l on Jan 30"...what exactly is Google planning to do? How will this fit into emerging metadata schemes? Will Google become the 'universal interface' for all research? Is metasearch dead? Will enabling data harvesting by Google become a priority for publishers, and if so, how wiil this affect the libraries that license content?..."
This one's just for fun
You can see how fast WorldCat is growing. The page automatically reloads every eight seconds.
Search LexisNexis for free
Yup, that's right. See the announcement in Information Today
(You'll need a subscription to and EBSCO database like Academic Source)
or go directly to http://www.lexisnexis.com/alacartenow . Caveat: You have to register and, of course, you'll have to pay for articles if you want to get them from L/N.
(You'll need a subscription to and EBSCO database like Academic Source)
or go directly to http://www.lexisnexis.com/alacartenow . Caveat: You have to register and, of course, you'll have to pay for articles if you want to get them from L/N.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Google Suggest
Try it out at http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en
"As you type your search, Google offers keyword suggestions in real time"
They seem to be offering something like a browse search terms option.
"As you type your search, Google offers keyword suggestions in real time"
They seem to be offering something like a browse search terms option.
Comparing search engines again
Check out a comparison of Google and SCIRUS (an Elsevier product) by a guy in the UK:
http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/library/news.htm
http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/library/news.htm
Dynamic "appropriate resolver" bookmarklets
See Daniel Chudnov's site http://curtis.med.yale.edu/dchud/resolvable/for a prototype of a way to use OpenURLs via bookmarklets.
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