Rowland Institute Library Blog

This is a good list of sites that list new web resources, including some favorites of mine like the Scout Report and Neat New Stuff on the Net, also indicating if these are available via e-mail and/or RSS, of an academic or popular bent and so forth. I’d add a couple that have e-mail notification, namely the NSF Sci-Tech Library Newsletter and the LANL Library Newsletter, although many items in the latter are restricted to LANL personnel. While there may be some overlap, services such as these invaluable, gifts to the research community. (Source: Librarian’s Index to the Internet)

The Library of Congress has a collection of web sites with sources of quotes about science and also an extended bibliography. (Source:ResourceShelf

“Apple’s Unlikely Guardian Angel” discusses how Microsoft consistently developed products for the Mac over the years, even as others abandoned it.

(No, no, not the Village People)

The U.S. Office of Naval Research is exploring how weblogs can be used as communication tools for research groups. (Source: SciTechDaily)

From Wired News:
“While the nation was distracted last month by images of Saddam Hussein’s spider hole and dental exam, President George W. Bush quietly signed into law a new bill that gives the FBI increased surveillance powers and dramatically expands the reach of the USA Patriot Act. ” …

Evidently the legislation enables federal agents greater access to financial institutions’ records. The article mentions alarms sounded last year by various individuals and organizations when hints of PATRIOT II came to light.

Quite a bit of information about it also on Betsy Devine’s blog.

The Harvard Libraries cancelled more than one hundred Elsevier journal titles and posted a list on their web site. A letter from Sidney Verba, University Librarian, discusses how the university decided to reject Elsevier’s offer of a long-term contract. Facing higher online access fees, the libraries decided to eliminate titles for which there was little use and evidently little demand, “reclaiming control over our collections.” The impact will be felt differently across the university, with some libraries paying considerably more for certain journals this year.

Reinforces the idea stated by Dave Winer that everybody has a printing press now with the web and blogs. This USA Today article names a number of bloggers across the political spectrum, some professional journalists, some just opining and more …. (Source: beSpacific)

… or at least passed the first few hurdles. Boing Boing cites the NASA site as an excellent example of a photoblog.

Update (1/6, 2:20 PM EDT): NSF SciTech Library Newsletter points out Exploratorium webcasts on various Martian topics.

CNN explores Grokker and Vivismo, search engines evidently posing a challenge to Google. (Source: The Virtual Chase) I’ve seen a little bit of Vivisimo, which clusters results in categories, but not Grokker, which is a standalone software program that analyzes search engine results and creates an interactive map. (Elsewhere there was an article about somebody swearing off Google and trying to learn better search techniques, but the reference escapes me at the moment.)

Update 1/7/04: It was on the BBC site, titled “Is Google good for you?” (thanks, Search Engine Watch)

“Creating Community, On-line and Off,” a segment from Harvard magazine,
describes the various uses of blogging at Harvard, particularly the
initiative at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society
(Source: j’s scratchpad)

Update: The Rowland Institute Library weblog is mentioned!!