Higher GPA, less info from search engines in research papers

In a survey of more than 400 U.S. college students, Primary Research found
"The higher the grade point average the less information for research papers was obtained from search engines such as Google or Yahoo."

Thanks to Christian for alerting us to the description of the survey found on ResourceShelf:


http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/06/26/primary-research-publishes-the-survey-of-american-college-students-student-library-research-practices-skills/

which included the following:

"The report presents data from a survey of 400+ American college students about how they go about doing research in their college libraries. The 150+ page report gives extensive data on student use of major search engines, wikipedia, library databases, book collections and other library resources. The study also gives detailed information on how their professors advise them to use the library, and how comfortable they feel about their research skills and how helpful librarians have been in helping them in their research."

The full report is available from http://www.primaryresearch.com/

Coming Change in Social Media Business Applications

Check out:

The Coming Change in Social Media Business Applications: Separating the Biz from the Buzz, by Josh Gordon, from socialmediatoday.

http://www.socialscoop.biz/SMT_whitepaper_biz.pdf
I was alerted to this from CIOZone Daily

Quote from study, below:

"This study was designed to provide managers with guidance ...by measuring which social media tools are being used right now, and by whom. ...Part I is an overview of both current and future intended business use of social media. Part II focuses on the business use of Twitter, and Part III examines the business use of social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, with a separate focus on the four general business functions that social media serves: sales, marketing, public relations, and internal communications."
p. 2

Study concludes there is a "... coming shift in the use of social media--from a helpful tool for a variety of communication needs, to an essential tool for customer engagement." ... a "shift toward customer-centric use of social media"

Finding and analzying company financial data --June 20, 11 am

Finding and Analyzing Company Financial Data

How can you “zero in” on
• company financial data,
• company and industry financial ratios
• investment reports
and other sources for indepth analyses?

Join us for this workshop to explore sources that can help you find and analyze the data you need.

Saturday, June 20, 11 am to noon
University Library, meet at the Reference Desk

If you are interested in this workshop but are unable to attend, please stop by the reference desk, call 415-442-7244 or toll free 1-877-448-8542, or e-mail askalibrarian@ggu.edu to arrange for a workshop, in person or by phone and Web, tailored to your needs. Please also send us your ideas for other workshops and library services. We want to hear from you!

Data.gov goes public; see also US Gov Web Services and XML

The excitement over the public availability of Data.gov may grow as more data becomes available through it. Check it out at http://www.data.gov/ which includes the statement: "The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government."

Though resources available via Data.gov are currently limited, a wealth of data is available via http://www.usgovxml.com which "is an attempt to document in one place and in a uniform manner the web services and XML data sources that are provided by the US government." Quote from www.usgovxml.com retrieved May 23, 2009.

UN World Digital Library

Check out the UN World Digital Library, http://www.wdl.org/en/


Just found the following article by Steve Kolowich on The Chronicle's Wired Campus, see source attribution below:

"United Nations Opens World Digital Library"
"In the latest and perhaps broadest effort to provide instant
access to scholarly resources, the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization today inaugurated its World
Digital Library, a Web site that allows visitors to browse
through a trove of artifacts spanning the history of
civilization. The site, four years in the making, brings
together historical manuscripts along with secondary literature
describing them-translated into seven different languages. The
library includes scanned documents from 27 libraries in 19
countries so far, including a manuscript from ancient Japan that
is believed to be the first novel ever. James H. Billington, the
U.S. librarian of Congress, who heads the project, says all
countries are welcome to contribute. The idea is to use Web
technology to put all of mankind's most precious artifacts in a
single, shared repository." -Steve Kolowich
Quote from
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3726
retrieved April 21, 2009

Googlelabs, Newstimeline, Information and Epistemology

One of my favorite e-mail alerts, Information Aesthetics, led me today to Googlelabs' Newstimeline http://newstimeline.googlelabs.com/

which, according to Information Aesthetics,
"organizes news stories and other information by date ..."

Only problem, the first link I see on the page when I go to http://newstimeline.googlelabs.com/ is

"Dancing With the Stars': Mark Ballas now officially my favorite pro..."

Apr 14, 2009, 02:15 PM | by Mandi Bierly

Nothing against Mark Ballas or Mandi Bierly, but THIS IS NEWS??????

To paraphrase from the Bible in a way that may bring down the wrath of God (or maybe not, maybe she will just put something in her blog about it):

"What is news, that thou are mindful of it?"

Am reminded of T.S. Eliot's line:

"Where is the wisdom we have lost in information?"

As an armchair epistemologist, the choices in Newstimeline are fascinating.
As a librarian, I see here, yet again, the need for increased media and information literacy.

Also for me, this was a discovery of Google Labs, and I will rejoice in that. Check it out! http://www.googlelabs.com/

Social Data Visualization

"The new website Verifiable [verifiable.com] is yet another contender in the now seemingly crowded social data visualization area, which include other free services like Many Eyes, Swivel, iCharts, Trendrr, Widgenie, Track-n-Graph and Timetric. The goal of Verifiable is to "democratize data" as it allows to easily upload data, visualize it, join it with other data, and allows "the world" to interact with it.

Verifiable seems to be unique for its "clean, low-chartjunk philosophy" and its many included functionalities, including the ability to add one-click small multiples, access the data "behind" the visualization, interactively rechart it using different criteria, or to join the resulting visualizations with any other piece of data for comparison."

Quote from Information Aesthetics no_reply@infosthetics.com, received April 19, 2009.

To explore Verifiable go to http://verifiable.com/

Let us know what social data visualization sites work best for you.