MayoClinic.com: First Aid Guide
This abstract is from this week's Scout Report.

"It seems that a number of misconceptions about basic first-aid continue to
be quite prevalent and, in some cases, their application can be quite
harmful -- resulting in the exacerbatation of a simple injury. With the
intent of providing free and medically sound advice, the Mayo Clinic has
developed this basic guide to first aid. Over thirty subjects are covered
within the guide, including how to address dislocations, burns, bruises,
frostbite, snakebites, sunburn, and toothache. If this first-aid guide
doesn't keep users busy enough, there are a number of other popular topics
addressed in a sidebar alongside the main guide. Some of the popular health
issues that the Mayo Clinic staff members respond to here include prostate
cancer prevention, low-carbohydrate diets, and seasonal affective disorder.
[KMG]"

http://www.mayoclinic.com/findinformation/firstaidandselfcare/index.cfm

Thurs.
Feb. 26th

FictionFinder

I think I wrote about this once before, but it still amazes me, so here it is again. Apparently the U.S. Department of Education declared almost 200 television shows inappropriate for captioning by the Department’s Technology and Media Services for Individuals with Disabilities program.

Here's the list. Check out the shows deemed unacceptable for the hearing disabled by our government censors.js

Recently Approved and Disapproved TV Programs for U.S. Department of Education Captioning Support:

http://www.nad.org/openhouse/action/alerts/captioningcensorship/list.html

Mon. 16 Feb.

Open House tomorrow

On Jan 13th I mentioned Amazon's initiative to scan and make searchable full-text of books with the hope that customer will find and buy books from them. I had also heard about Google doing something similar. Here's some confirmation from an article by John Markoff in the NYTs of Feb 1st called "The Coming Search Wars." Check out Lexis for this title and read the whole article which also has much about Google's battle with the "evil empire." js

"And Google has embarked on an ambitious secret effort known as Project Ocean, according to a person involved with the operation. With the cooperation of Stanford University, the company now plans to digitize the entire collection of the vast Stanford Library published before 1923, which is no longer limited by copyright restrictions. The project could add millions of digitized books that would be available exclusively via Google."

I usually like my Web silent, but if you don't, try this specialized search engine.

FindSounds: Search the web for sounds
http://www.findsounds.com/

Need a cha-ching, or maybe a seagull, for your computer alert sound--this is where to look for it. js

A brief quote from this article about getting tricked online. Watch your logins and passwords!!!

"False Hope for Stopping Spam" by Simson Garfinkel, Technology Review, 4 Feb. 2004.

" Some of the spammers are getting very clever -- and very dangerous.
Brightmail CTO Ken Schneider says that some spammers have taken legitimate account e-mail from Citibank, modified a single HTML link in the body of the message so that instead of pointing at Citibank's server, it points at a pirate server in China, and then sent out the e-mail to millions of addresses. All of the other links on the e-mail, including Citibank's contact information and its privacy policy, properly point to the Citibank server. But a person who unsuspectingly clicks on that one rogue link will end up on the pirate server in China. Try to log in there with a valid username and password, and the pirates gain full access to the user's Citibank account. This is spam in the service of organized crime. Ironically, when Brightmail blocks these e-mails, unsophisticated users sometimes complain that Brightmail is blocking a legitimate message -- the spoofs are that good."

From Vickey Baggott:

HOT DOCS at USA

Several histories have been released within the past few months covering subjects as diverse as the now defunct INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) and Title IX (gender equity in school sports). Government Documents is located on the 2nd floor, South of the University Library. Come check us out!

Celebrating a Century of Flight. National Aeronautics and Space Administration; U.S. Air Force; and U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, [2002] NAS 1.21:2002-09-511-HQ

Defense’s Nuclear Agency, 1947-1997. Dept. of Defense, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, [2002] D 15.2:D 36

Drug Enforcement Administration : a Tradition of Excellence, 1973-2003. Dept. of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, [2003] J 24.2:D 84/22

Open to All : Title IX at 30. Dept. of Education, Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, 2003. ED 1.2:AL 5

Retiring to a New Beginning : an Illustrated History of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Office of Policy and Planning, [2003] J 21.2:R 31/2

The Story of the Noncommissioned Officer Corps : the Backbone of the Army / David W. Hogan … [et al.]. Dept. of Defense, United States Army, Center of Military History, 2003. D 114.2:N 73/2003

RYT Hospital

The Web is filled with hoax sites. Here's the best one I've ever seen. There should be a "Piltdown" award for websites! js

http://www.rythospital.com/clyven/

TGIF the 23rd

$$$

Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge: Research Notebook
http://www.hbsworkingknowledge.hbs.edu/topics/notebook/

Being more a "humanities" kind of person with a little social scientist thrown in for confusion, I usually avoid doing business reference whenever I can. It's fortunate the Head of Reference, Mary Engebretson, is an MBA who has a great handle on all those "business ratios" and FASB pubs. But here's a website that looks like it might be useful for the business majors hunting for info on the Web. HBS Working Knowledge: "'Research Notebook' offers tips, techniques, and observations about business research. It is written by the staff of Baker Library at Harvard Business School." It has research suggestions for topics like: Entrepreneurship, Finance, Globalization, Innovation, Leadership, Marketing, Operations, Organizations, Social Enterprise, Strategy and Technology. js

Finally a place where you can find out the truth about political claims. That's what this site does. If one candidate calls another "a closet Republican," this site will check to find out if it's just a dirty name-calling trick. What a boon for the conscientious voter! Use it! Then vote! js

FactCheck.org--Annenberg Political Fact Check
http://www.factchecker.org

"Our Mission
We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.

The Annenberg Political Fact Check is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The APPC was established by publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg in 1994 to create a community of scholars within the University of Pennyslvania that would address public policy issues at the local, state, and federal levels.

The APPC accepts NO funding from business corporations, labor unions, political parties, lobbying organizations or individuals. It is funded primarily by an endowment from the Annenberg Foundation." http://www.factcheck.org

Tues, 13th of January

Will Google and Amazon become the next OPACs [Online Public Access Catalogs] like our Southcat catalog--but better? Both are experimenting with allowing searches within the full-text of books. Amazon now has 120,000 scanned books which you can search if you are registered or recognized as a frequent user. The publishers are hoping that you won't know about libraries and will purchase the books you find. But hey, you're smart and so are your librarians! Just like in our 9,000 NetLibrary E-books, you can do a search in Amazon, identify which books look good, read a few pages and then check with us or Interlibrary Loan and get them for free. Wow, how great is that! Accessible, easy-to-use and free. Libraries are committed to getting you the information you need for your classes or for your research with the least possible cost--the perfect co-op. Use this new search engine, then be savvy enough to check our catalog or call us to see if we can get it quickly through ILL.

Here's the Search in This Book info page.

I haven't checked out the Google version yet, but will soon and let you know what it's all about. js

Monday, the first day of classes

Welcome or Welcome Back--to the University Library blog! This is where we try to alert you to new information sources or changes in the old ones—and other stuff that you might find useful related to education, information, libraries, librarians and extending to almost anything else that happens to make us laugh on slow news days. Send us your comments, suggestions or interesting links. js

Fri. the 9th of January

Fimoculous's 2003 Year In Review
http://www.fimoculous.com/year-review-2003.cfm

This is a collection of the Top 10, Top 100, or just "Tops" lists on the web for the following categories:

META-MEDIA | ONLINE | TECH/SCIENCE | BOOKS | MUSIC | FILM | DVD | TV | PEOPLE | ART | ARCHITECTURE | GAMES | PHOTOS | SPORTS | EDUCATION | HEALTH | THEATER | BUSINESS | STYLE | ADVERTISING/MARKETING | AUTOMOTIVE | POLITICS | BEER/WINE | DANCE | COMICS | IDEAS js

Thurs. the 8th

Song Lyrics Library
http://www.song-lyrics-library.com/

"Your free song lyrics source! Classic and popular song lyrics organized and browsable by artist and title. If you want song lyrics, here's the place to be."

Back from a low-keyed holiday break. Read some books, learned some new technology and got a few great presents. Here's one of my favorites, a sign that could be my motto for the year. JS

Mon, the 22nd

This is a great one for finding addresses for your Holiday greeting cards!
Phonebook Google
Example: phonebook:john smith los angeles ca
Use name city state and you will get all listings plus a Yahoo Map with 10 different views that can each be copied and pasted in WORD to have a one page map as you travel...

Define Google
Example: define:library
Besides having a "DEFAULT" spellcheck when you put in a misspelled query - you can also get definitions for "terms" and "phrases" as well as individual words.

Cache Google
Example: cache:www.lisnews.com/
Sometimes you badly need to access a page to find it down - Google takes snapshots of it's spidered pages and by typing in the following, you can get the last copied version... just put cache: in front of a URL on Google ( without the http:// with NO spaces) to search for any Website that may have been Cached

Google viewer
http://labs1.google.com/cgi-bin/gviewer.cgi?q=
relax and enjoy a parade of web page results - you can also save it to your favorites and view them "offline"

Google Desktop
http://toolbar.google.com/deskbar
without logging on to your the internet browser - if you just want to do one quick search - download the free Google deskbar for Windows. It stays humbly in the bottom right corner of your window and will bring up and allow you to resize the search screen results...js

Etch-a-Sketch Online Need to kill an hour--or two?

For the economists: 12 Days of Christmas Cost Index

http://www.pncbank.com/12days/
How goes the economy? The cost of 5 gold rings dropped by 5.6 percent, and the pear tree by 28.6 percent from last year, but the price for swans and calling birds has driven costs up markedly from last year's survey.

Forgot verse two? The Choral Public Domain Library http://www.cpdl.org/

Free sheet music and sound files.

Or try the online Christmas songbook at: http://christmassongbook.net/

This from Marylaine Block: 2003 Snow Sculpture Championships
http://www.themoens.com/Photos/Events/snowSculpture/y2003/main.htm
Photos from this year's championships and previous years as well, along with a video on how they make the gigantic blocks of snow.

Want something to read over the holidays that's not on the NYTs Bestseller List? Here's the British list of favorite books. js

"The Big Read series was broadcast on BBC Two from 18 October to 13 December. Web, SMS, phone and interactive voting ended on 11 December and only the phone vote was opened briefly for the duration of the final programme on 13 December. Here is the final ranking of the Top 21 books based on all votes that were submitted throughout the series."

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/vote/

I finally got around to updating the Reference page on Eserver.org, a project started by Geoff Sauer in 1990, and since then collaboratively enhanced and maintained by a group of writers, artists, editors and scholars. js

After a hard semester of library research, you need a creative way to waste your time. Try this:

Mr. Picassohead Mr. Potatohead for the artistically-challenged websurfer. http://www.mrpicassohead.com/

Here's my creation:

Librarians often extoll the value of academic research journal articles for their lack of bias, refereed proven quality and financial disinterest-- and then along comes an exposé like this Observer [UK] article that bursts our ivy-covered balloon. OK, we knew that the pharmaceuticals companies are out for mega-profits, but we never thought that they could subvert researchers so often and so well! If it proves to be correct then honest researchers need to take action or it will besmirch even the most objective of research. We really don't need any more fodder for our skepticism and cynicism!

Here are a few quotes, but read the whole article:

"Estimates suggest that almost half of all articles published in journals are by ghostwriters. While doctors who have put their names to the papers can be paid handsomely for 'lending' their reputations, the ghostwriters remain hidden. They, and the involvement of the pharmaceutical firms, are rarely revealed. . . .

"One standard procedure I have used states that before a paper is submitted to a journal electronically or on disc, the editorial assistant must open the file properties of the Word document manuscript and remove the names of the medical writing agency or agency ghostwriter or pharmaceutical company and replace these with the name and institution of the person who has been invited by the pharmaceutical drug company (or the agency acting on its behalf) to be named as lead author, but who may have had no actual input into the paper,' she wrote. . . .

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1101680,00.html

js

Dec. 08, '04

"One of the most common selling points for computers in schools, even in first and second grades, is to prepare youngsters for tomorrow's increasingly high-tech jobs. Strangely, this may be the computer evangels' greatest hoax. When business leaders talk about what they need from new recruits, they hardly mention computer skills, which they find they can teach employees relatively easily on their own. Employers are most interested in what are sometimes called "soft" skills: a deep knowledge base and the ability to listen and communicate; to think critically and imaginatively; to read, write and figure, and other capabilities that schools are increasingly neglecting.
A report from the Information Technology Association of America, which represents a range of companies that use technology, put it this way: 'Want to get a job using information technology to solve problems? Know something about the problems that need to be solved.'"