Resources of the Week: Open….Stuff
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

When we hear the term “open source,” we typically think of software. When we hear the term “open access,” we typically think of journals. But you’ll find other types of open…stuff out there on the Web, and we’ve got a couple of stellar examples for you.

+ OER Commons

OER Commons is the first comprehensive open learning network where teachers and professors (from pre-K to graduate school) can access their colleagues’ course materials, share their own, and collaborate on affecting today’s classrooms. It uses Web 2.0 features (tags, ratings, comments, reviews, and social networking) to create an online experience that engages educators in sharing their best teaching and learning practices.

Anyone who teaches on a more-than-occasional basis will quickly see the utility of a resource like this. Even if you, personally, don’t lack for fresh course material, you can check here to see what your colleagues are doing.

And we saw plenty of lesson plans and syllabi on unusual topics and contemporary issues:

• Web 2.0: Risks for STI/HIV - Opportunities for Prevention, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  

  This lecture explores the risks and prevention opportunities presented by the emergence of social networking and internet dating sites. Presented by the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health.

• Climate change, from The Open University:
  

  Climate change is a key issue on today’s social and political agenda. This unit explores the basic science that underpins climate change and global warming.

• Determining Dinosaur Speeds, from DLESE Community Service Center (SERC)
  

  This exercise has students determine how fast a dinosaur was moving based on the tracks it made. It allows students with minimal quantitative background to become motivated and begin to develop an appreciation for dimensional analysis as they see whether or not they could outrun the track-making dinosaurs. Measurements from any dinosaur track site can be used in this activity. Learning goals, context for use, teaching tips, materials, assessment tips and related resources are provided.

You can search the site if you’re looking for specific content; an advanced search form is available. Alternately, you can browse by subject area (Arts, Business, Humanities, Mathematics and Statistics, Science and Technology, Social Sciences) or by grade level (Primary, Secondary, Post-secondary). Also, on the righthand side of the page, there is a tag cloud you can use for topical navigation.

In the middle of the page, you’ll see a section labeled “OER Top Ten,” which features a series of tabs. When you first arrive at the page, you’ll be looking here at Featured content — especially current or unique course material — e.g., Beyond Burma - Studying Buddhism and Buddhist Culture around the World (New York Times Learning Network), Wheelchair Design in Developing Countries (MIT OpenCourseWare).

Clicking the next tab will take you to a list of the Most Popular courses. Number one right now is Basic Research Methods, from ItrainOnline. Moving along to the following tab, you’ll see the Highest Rated courses, led by MIT OpenCourseWare’s Physics I — which dates back to 1999, BTW. (Ratings are user-determined, from one through five stars.) Finally, the newest items can be found under the fourth tab.
–
+ Open Web Design

Open Web Design is a community of designers and site owners sharing free web design templates as well as web design information. Helping to make the internet a prettier place!

Indeed.

Let’s face it — few of us have formal design training…or natural talent. So what happens when you are tasked to put together a website for some organization, and you’re starting from…basically clueless? Well, you can browse the templates here until you see something that catches your eye. Or you can search by using a series of dropdown menus to narrow your selections by features, colors or intended use (business or fun). There’s also a link to the most popular designs. More than 3,200 templates are currently available here. Consider uploading your own if you think someone else could make use of it.

Resource of the Week: Prelinger Archives
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Warning! Time sink alert!

I’m not really sure how long it would take to to view all 2,000+ films in this collection, housed at the Internet Archive, but this site is really like a bag of potato chips. You can’t consume just one.

Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Over the next twenty years, it grew into a collection of over 60,000 “ephemeral” (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films. In 2002, the film collection was acquired by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Prelinger Archives remains in existence, holding approximately 4,000 titles on videotape and a smaller collection of film materials acquired subsequent to the Library of Congress transaction. Its goal remains to collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven’t been collected elsewhere. Included are films produced by and for many hundreds of important US corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions. Getty Images represents the collection for stock footage sale, and almost 2,000 key titles are available here. As a whole, the collection currently contains over 10% of the total production of ephemeral films between 1927 and 1987, and it may be the most complete and varied collection in existence of films from these poorly preserved genres.

Interested in learning more about “ephemeral films?” You can download a copy The Field Guide to Sponsored Films (PDF; 755 KB), written by Prelinger and published in January 2007 by the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Where to start? You could do worse than browsing the list of “Most Downloaded Items Last Week” on the righthand side of the page. Near the top of the list you’ll almost always find the 1951 Cold War classic, “Duck and Cover” - “Famous Civil Defense film for children in which Bert the Turtle shows what to do in case of atomic attack.” The entire “Atomic-nuclear: Civil defense” category is a fascinating look at a slice of American history. Icing on the cake — reviews posted by users, the vast majority of whom seem to be intelligent and articulate, unlike the general viewing audience at…well, YouTube. BTW, a longer list of Most Dowloaded items is available by clicking the “More” link. Further down on the righthand side, you can browse “Most Downloaded Items Last Month,” “Most Downloaded Items” (ever), and “Staff Picks.” (”Duck and Cover” is present on every one of these lists.)

Another interesting way of browsing here is via the ginormous tag cloud. You’re all but guaranteed to stumble onto some delightful serendipitous finds; I fished out the following half dozen jewels at random:
+ Trees to Tribunes (1937): “How newspapers are produced, beginning in the forest.”
+ Who’s Boss? (1950): “Husband and wife struggle to attain a balance of power in their marriage. This neorealist social guidance film was directed by Alexander Hammid.”
+ 6 1/2 Magic Hours (1958): “The comfort and delight of transatlantic air travel at the beginning of the jet age.”
+ Holiday from Rules? (1959): “‘Lord of the Flies’ from an adult’s point of view, starring four willful and confused children.
+ Motivation and Reward in Learning (1948): “Uses white rats to picture trial-and-error problem solving and to demonstrate the importance of motivation and reward in the learning process.”
+ Behind the Freedom Curtain (1957): “Sales film for voting machines, promoting them as engines of governmental efficiency and practical democracy.”

We think that teachers and public speakers in particular will find much useful content here; everything is available under the Creative Commons Public Domain license. Which, not surprisingly, has led to a related collection, Prelinger Archive Mashups.

What happens when you make close to 2,000 ephemeral public domain films freely available on the Web? People make art and more films are born!

Here’s a sample of films created with Prelinger Archives footage and uploaded to the Internet Archive. However, Rick Prelinger suspects thousands more are uploaded on other video sites. If you have a video you created using footage from the Prelinger Archives, please let us know so we can include it here.

The archive is also keyword searchable, and most of these films are available for streaming or download in a variety of formats. You can also view a series of thumbnails for each movie if you don’t want to commit to watching the entire film.

But if you’re a librarian, like both of your editors, you should definitely watch this one.

Resources of the Week — Keeping Tabs on the Global Food Crisis
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

While we’re also digging deeper into our pockets every time we pull up to the gas pump, a trip to the supermarket has also become a walk on the wild side — pricewise, that is. But those of us here in the U.S. and other industrialized nations at least have the luxury of…cutting back on luxuries to keep up with the ever-growing cost of basic commodities. We can unsubscribe from the premium cable channels, brown-bag it to work, take our vacations a little closer to home this year…

But in developing nations, the average person…well, has fewer options. Food has become downright unaffordable — and/or in extremely short supply. So lots of people are becoming more desperate with each passing day. Which, of course, increases the general level of instability in the world.

This week, we offer you a selection of sites you can visit to keep tabs on the world food situation. And don’t forget to check the Food and Agriculture category over on our sister site, DocuTicker, for the latest reports from think thanks, government agencies, NGOs, etc.

+ Global Information and Early Warning System on Food and Agriculture
“Established in the wake of the world food crisis of the early 1970s, the Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) remains the leading source of information on food production and food security for every country in the world, whether or not it is an FAO member. In the past 25 years, the system has become a worldwide network which includes 115 governments, 61 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and numerous trade, research and media organizations. Over the years, a unique database on global, regional, national and subnational food security has been maintained, refined and continuously updated. GIEWS has invested in innovative methods for collecting, analysing, presenting and disseminating information, making full use of the revolution in information technology and the advent of computer communications. The System supports national- and regional-level initiatives to enhance food information and early warning systems.

“In a period when the number of food emergencies has been growing, GIEWS continues to provide policy-makers and relief agencies throughout the world with the most up-to-date and accurate information available.”

Offers mailing lists by continent and an RSS feed.

See also: United Nations Secretary-General’s Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis

+ U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service: Factors in Food Commodity Price Increases
“The recent runup in global food commodity prices reflects both long-term trends and short-term events. Slower long-term growth in global crop production and more rapid growth in demand have tightened world balances of grains and oilseeds. In addition, about 5 years ago, global production of ethanol and biodiesel began to add to the demand for grains and oilseeds. Other factors that have put upward pressure on prices include the declining value of the U.S. dollar, rising energy prices, increasing agricultural costs of production, adverse weather conditions in 2006 and 2007 and, most recently, steps taken by some countries to curb their food exports to mitigate their own food price inflation.”

Selection of articles, reports, webcasts.

+ U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service: Briefing Room — Global Food Security
“Worldwide, some 1 billion people in 70 lower income countries are hungry, and the situation could grow worse in the poorest countries. Ironically, most of these people live in rural areas where food is produced. But food availability does not guarantee food security, which depends also on the ability to buy food and to utilize it effectively. Individual health and education levels, as well as local conditions such as safety of the water supply, affect the ability to utilize food effectively.”

Offers reports, feature articles, data, an FAQ and links to related resources.

+ International Food Policy Research Institute
“The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty. IFPRI is one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, an alliance of 64 governments, private foundations, and international and regional organizations.”

News updates, datasets, reports, press release newsfeed.

+ ReliefWeb: Global Food Crisis
“income growth, climate change, high energy prices, globalization, and urbanization are transforming the world food situation (International Food Policy Research Institute - IFPRI). Food prices are rising (some have more than doubled) affecting not only the worldÕs poor, but also communities that had so far been food-secure. “That’s the new face of hunger, people who suddenly can no longer afford the food they see on store shelves because prices have soared beyond their reach” (World Food Programme - WFP).

“Rising prices also hamper those in need of humanitarian assistance. WFP issued an emergency appeal to reach the people it originally planned to assist this year. According to WFP, an estimated 854 million people are food insecure. High food prices are believed to remain high, intensifying concerns about food security and risking a “major setback” in the accomplishment of the UN Millennium Development Goals (WFP).”

Updates, maps, related resources, data, key documents, FAQ.

+ USAID: Global Food Insecurity and Price Increase Updates
At present, 37 countries throughout every region of the world are experiencing localized food insecurity, lack of access to food, or shortfalls in food production or supplies. In the past year, global food prices have increased an average of 43 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. On April 14, the World Bank estimated that the doubling of food prices during the past three years could potentially push 100 million people throughout the world into extreme poverty.

Approximately 1 billion people — or nearly one-sixth of the world’s population — subsist on less than $1 per day. Of this population, 162 million survive on less than $0.50 per day. At the household level, increasing food prices have the greatest effect on poor and food-insecure populations, who spend 50 to 60 percent or more of their income on food, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute. Overall, increased food prices particularly affect the poorest people within developing countries. Among the populations affected by current food insecurity and price increase are people in Haiti and Tajikistan.

+ WashingtonPost.com: Global Food Crisis
Feature article series, graphics, news updates, links to related resources.

+ World Bank: Food Price Crisis
News, multimedia, regional information

+ Congressional Research Service report
Rising Food Prices and Global Food Needs: The U.S. Response

Resources of the Week: 10 Seriously Useful Firefox Add-ons
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Most of the information professionals I know are huge fans of Firefox, mainly because it is so…extensible. The sheer number and variety of add-ons that increase the browser’s utility…just staggering. If there is something you wish that Firefox could do, the odds are very good that someone with programming talent had the same thing in mind — and has created some sort of extension that adds precisely that functionality.

Since I spend so much of my working existence online, my Firefox browser is seriously pimped out with a stalwart set of add-ons that, collectively, make my life so much easier. The following are road-tested and highly recommended:

+ Add to Search Bar — Fire fox already has a built-in search box that allows you to add different site searches — e.g., the major Web engines, Amazon.com, Wikipedia, etc. This extension permits you to instantly add (right click menu) search functionality for any page you stumble across.

+ Coupon Craze — I do a lot of online shopping. This Firefox add-on automatically alerts you to any coupon codes, special deals, etc., when you are visiting online retailers. A similar extension is RetailMeNot.

+ Flashblock — I don’t know about you, but I really, really do not like it when I click on a link that takes me to a website where I am greeted by a Flash movie or animation that begins playing immediately. This extension proactively blocks all Flash presentations, replacing them with a right-pointing arrow that you can click to view the Flash content. When YOU want to look at it.

+ Forecast Fox — There are no windows in my workspace at the Day Job. This extension puts current weather information (from AccuWeather) in the bottom right of the browser window frame, and even lets me know when there are special alerts. So now I don’t have to actually get up from my desk and find a window to see what is going on outside. (Which is kind of sad, when you think about it…but that’s life.)

+ Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer — If you use more than just one machine to access the Internet — e.g., one at home, one at work — you need this. It keeps all of your Firefox bookmarks synchronized across every computer that you use.

+ Gspace — Nifty extension that lets you use your Gmail online space as an external hard drive. Who can’t use more storage?

+ No Squint — OK, my eyes are not what they used to be. If this is also true for you, download this extension immediately. It allows you to adjust the default text zoom level for any site — and then remembers it on a per-site basis. Lovely.

+ PDF Download — Click on a PDF link and it gives you the option to open, download or covert the PDF to HTML. What I find particularly valuable is that it tells you how large the PDF file is before you click to open it. Since I always like to inform people about PDF file size when I am posting to DocuTicker, this is extremely helpful.

+ Repagination — You come across a lengthy online article, and the website offers no apparent way to view/print it as a single page. Repagination makes this happen. Simple but elegant.

+ Video DownloadHelper — Makes it easy to download videos from YouTube and similar sites. Says it also works for audio and picture galleries, though I’ve never tried it with either. As always, copyright emptor.

Resource of the Week — UChannel
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

We regularly post links to webcasts here on ResourceShelf, and you may have noticed that a fair number of these originate at universities. Which makes sense, since most institutions of higher learning regularly play host to well-known speakers, sponsor lecture series, organize panel discussions, etc. These days, thanks to the Internet, you don’t have to be a member of a university community to partake of such events. If you’ve got a decent connection, you can be anywhere in the world — and listen or watch at your leisure.

If you enjoy webcasts of this nature, you will definitely want to spend some time at UChannel — “A collection of public affairs lectures, panels and events from academic institutions all over the world — for you to view, listen to, stream or download.” UChannel (or University Channel) is a project of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The About page tells us:

It is a place where academics can air their ideas and present research in a full-length, uncut format. Contributors with greater video production capabilities can submit original productions.

The UChannel presents ideas in a way commercial news or public affairs programming cannot. Because it is neither constrained by time nor dependent upon commercial feedback, the UChannel’s video content can be broad and flexible enough to cover the full gamut of academic investigation.

While it has unlimited potential, the UChannel begins with a focus on public and international affairs, because this is an area which lends itself most naturally to a many-sided discussion. Perhaps of greatest advantage to universities who seek to expand their dialog with overseas institutions and international affairs, the UChannel can “go global” and become a truly international forum.

The UChannel aims to become, literally, a “channel” for important thought, to be heard in its entirety. Television has become so much a part of the fabric of our world that it should be more than an academic interest. It should be an academic tool.

The tag cloud at the top of the home page makes for a very simple navigation scheme. Alternately, there’s a simple keyword search box on the lefthand side. While most of the tags are topical, several are school names, so you can go directly to media available from a particular institution. A list of contributors is available. The most recent additions, on the home page, clearly demonstrate the eclectic mix of content here, including:

* United States Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) discussing the 2008 election (University of Texas at Austin, LBJ School of Public Affairs)
* Israel-Palestine: Why Today`s Crisis is Rooted in the Denials of Yesterday, a lecture by Sylvain Cypel, Editor in Chief of Le Monde (Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs)
* Pearls, Politics, and Power: How Women Can Win and Lead, by Madeleine M. Kunin, Marsh Scholar Professor-at-Large at the University of Vermont (Middlebury College, Rohatyn Center for International Affairs)
* Global Warming and Climate Change, a keynote address by Nobel Laureate chemist Sherwood Rowland, Ph.D., at the Colby Institute for Leadership (Colby College, Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement)
* Memorial Mania: Issues of Commemoration and Affect in Contemporary America, a lecture by Erika Doss, Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado (Dickinson College, The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues)
* The Bin Ladens, a talk by Steve Coll, author of The Bin Ladens: The Story of a Family and its Fortune (London School of Economics and Political Science)

The presentations are in a variety of formats — mp3 audio, mp4 video, and several flavors of streaming audio and video. Member institutions can access broadcast quality mpeg2 video. UChannel also “provides free quality programming to TV operations that serve the public interest.”

You can subscribe to any or all of four RSS feeds here, described as follows:

1. Main - shows all new entries to the website
2. Podcast - shows all new mp3 audio files
3. Vodcast - shows all new mpeg4 (mp4 or m4v) video files (these are much larger than the audio files, and run about 200 MB for a one-hour lecture)
4. Blog - shows any new entry in our “Read This” column, which is reserved for news items related to the UChannel or its content

If you prefer, you can also watch these presentations via YouTube or Facebook, or access them via Apple’s iTunes Store. They are distributed under the Creative Commons ‘Attribution, NonCommercial, NoDerivatives’ Deed.

Resource of the Week: World Legal Information Institute (WLII)
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Believe it or not, we stumbled across this awesome resource while poking around in the Wirtz Labor Law Library at the U.S. Department of Labor website.

Officially launched in November 2002, the World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) is a “free, independent and non-profit global legal research facility” affiliated with several academic legal information institutes, among them Cornell’s Legal Information Institute and others from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, South Africa, Britain and Ireland, and the University of the South Pacific School of Law. WorldLII provides a single search facility for over 270 databases from 48 jurisdictions in 20 countries.

The user may select a resource area, among which are: legislation, case law, superior or high court decisions, journals, treaties, law reform, domain name decisions, and secondary materials.

Alternatively, a jurisdiction or geographic region may be selected, with an emphasis on Pacific and Commonwealth countries (for the United States only Supreme Court decisions are included).

Among recent additions to the website are World Trade Organization Panel Decisions from the last few years to present, New Zealand Privacy Commissioner Cases 1996 to present, and materials from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (CanLII).

And then we noted, at the end of this description, a hat tip to ResourceShelf contributing editor Stuart Basefsky of Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Martin P. Catherwood Library. Which sealed the deal for us. Stuart routinely brings to our attention quality resources that we otherwise might never have seen.

World LII currently provides access to “891 databases from 123 countries and territories via the Free Access to Law Movement,” which comprises legal information institutes from all over the world, including the venerable Legal Information Institute at Cornell University School of Law — online since 1992.

The collection of databases is basically one-stop shopping for everything available via its University-based LII members:

• Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII)
• British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII)
• Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII)
• Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII)
• Legal Information Institute (Cornell)
• Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute (PacLII)
• Wits University School of Law (Wits Law School)

Contentwise, these databases include case law, legislation, treaties, legal reform, law journals, and subject-specific information. These are organized geographically, by continent and then by country. Almost everything is in the English language, unless otherwise noted. A powerful federated search tool allows you to choose which databases to search. A dropdown menu provides Boolean options; additional options include sorting by relevance, word counts, and number of results displayed at one time. Extensive help is available.

You can also browse the offerings here by subject category — from Accounting & Auditing to Women & the Law. Clicking the Other Indexes link at the top of this page displays a list of law-oriented subject indexes available via other websites. (Scroll down below the main subject index.)

The World LII Catalog “provides links to over 15,000 law-related web sites in every country in the world. WorldLII’s Websearch makes searchable the full text of as many of these sites as WorldLII’s web-spider can reach.” Or browse by country. A Recent Additions page links you to the newest resources.

Other features include:

• Law Journals Project:
  

  The Law Journals Project aims to provide a comprehensive search facility for all academic law journals available via WorldLII and other Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) and the nearly 20,000 law journal articles and academic papers available through the Legal Scholarship Network (LSN). Currently, the search facility below allows searches over 45 law journals databases.

• International Treaties Library
• Global Legal Information Network
  

  (GLIN)
  GLIN is a public database of laws, regulations, judicial decisions, and other complementary legal sources contributed by governmental agencies and international organizations. These GLIN members contribute the official full texts of published documents to the database in their original language. Each document is accompanied by a summary in English and subject terms selected from the multilingual index to GLIN. All summaries are available to the public, and public access to full texts is also available in participating jurisdictions.

• International Courts & Tribunals Library
  

  The International Courts and Tribunals Project (ICT Project) aims to provide a comprehensive search facility for final decisions of all international and multi-national courts and tribunals, whether global or regional. The search facility below allows searches over the decisions of 20 International Courts and Tribunals, comprising over 20,000 decisions. Most databases contain complete backsets and are updated regularly. A few are still being completed.

• Law Reform Project
  

  This project aims to make searchable from one location all of the databases specialising in Law Reform available on any of the Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) that are part of WorldLII. The databases currently included are listed below. Individual databases may be searched on their respective host LIIs.

• Final Appeal Courts
• Privacy Law Library
  

  This project aims to make searchable from one location all of the databases specialising in Privacy law available on any of the Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) that are part of WorldLII. The databases currently included are listed above. Individual databases may be searched on their respective host LIIs.

To keep track of new information on the site, you can subscribe to World LII News.

Resource of the Week — fueleconomy.gov
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

This site — jointly maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection — is kind of a no-brainer choice for a Resource of the Week, given what is going on at the nation’s gas pumps. I will soon be working just five miles from home on a daily basis, and I downsized my motorcycle to a little guy who gets close to 60 mpg, so I am officially opting out of this mess as much as I possibly can.

On the other hand, I’ve used information found on this site to easily answer several ready reference-type questions in the past week alone. It’s a remarkably decent mix of educational and practical content. So even if you’re getting around on foot, bicycle or public transit, you’ll definitely want to have a look around here.

It’s not a bad idea to start with the FAQ. Here you’ll find a lucid explanation of how fuel economy ratings are derived, whether you can or can’t determine where the gasoline at your local station comes from, how to report suspected price gouging, and much more.

An entire section of this site is devoted to gas prices. Here you’ll find gas mileage tips, fuel economy information for new and used cars (back to 1985), links to sites that will help you find the cheapest gas in your area and get an idea of how prices in your state compare to prices elsewhere, and an extensive FAQ about fuel prices. (Hint: Here is where you’ll find extensive information about historical gas prices, which is something I’ve been asked to find on several recent occasions.)

Teachers and students, take note. There is much fodder here — especially via the articles highlighted in the News section — for school reports on such topics as how electric cars and hybrid vehicles work, alternative fuels, and new technologies being explored by automobile manufacturers.

There’s even a “social media” element here — the Your MPG feature allows you to post the actual fuel mileage for your vehicle(s) and see how it compares to what other owners are getting. And you can get a detailed “energy impact score” for your vehicle that shows — among other things — average mileage (including that reported by other drivers), petroleum consumption, air pollution, and safety. You can even do a side-by-side comparison of up to four different vehicles.

Oh, and mobile device users get their own version of fueleconomy.gov, which offers:

• Fuel economy ratings for all cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. back to model year 1985
• Annual fuel cost estimates
• Annual petroleum use (barrels of domestic and imported petroleum)
• Carbon footprint (tons of carbon dioxide emitted annually)

Especially in “these troubled economic times,” we think fueleconomy.gov is an excellent use of tax dollars. E-government at its best.

Resource of the Week — Association for University Business and Economic Research: State Economic Data Sources
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

As an information professional working in Florida, I routinely encounter requests for Florida-specific business and economic data. One of my favorite fishing holes for this type of information is the Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR) at the University of Florida (”Tracking Florida’s Population and Economy Since 1929″). While some resources from this agency cost money — i.e., the Florida Statistical Abstract, which can be found in virtually every Florida library anyway — there is plenty of information available here for free. Population estimates, demographic data, housing and building data, price indexes, working papers, research reports… The BEBR in the News archive alone is quite valuable, as it offers both press releases and links to news articles citing BEBR information.

At some point, it occurred to me that university-based resources like this probably exist in every state and that, perhaps, someone somewhere has compiled a list of these. And that is how I discovered the Association for University Business and Economic Research (AUBER)

The Association for University Business and Economic Research

• Advances research in business, economics, and public policy;
• Promotes the collection, analysis, and dissemination of business, economic, and public policy information, with emphasis on regional issues;
• Facilitates continuous improvement in the management, research, and services of AUBER members; and
• Demonstrates the importance of the economic development, outreach, and research roles of AUBER members, and increases the visibility of member units to their colleges, universities, and other constituencies.

The interactive map here makes it easy to locate university-based economic research agencies in every state and, sometimes, individual AUBER members who are associated with these agencies. Click on a state and you get a listing of agencies beneath the map. Click on the name of an agency for more information, including address, phone/fax/e-mail, key individuals, types of research activities performed and a link to the website, where available. Alternately, you can use the search form to locate people by title or last name, or agencies by research activity.

There’s also a searchable database of publications available from the various research agencies. Search by keyword, state, title or university, or view listings by publication type: Articles, Business Directories, Data Profiles, Economic Forecasts, Electronic Publications, Factbooks, Journals, Monographs, Newsletters, Statistical Abstracts. Note that these are title listings only; they don’t link to the actual publications, or even to the agencies that produced them. So if you see something you’d like to look at, you’ll have to go back and rummage around in the institution listings to locate the website of the agency that produced it, and then visit that website to find the document. (Alternately, of course, you can just try searching on the title in Google or any other large web engine.) It’s kind of inconvenient, but at least it gives you a quick look at what types of reports are available from these research units.

Bonus resources — other places to look for state and regional business/economic information:

+ Bureau of Economic Analysis: Regional Economic Accounts — Beaucoup tables, charts and graphs; many interactive.

+ Bureau of Labor Statistics: U.S. Economy at a Glance — Interactive map; also offers metro area data.

+ Business.gov: State and Local Resources — Interactive map (”Click on your state to find links to State regulations and local governments.”)

+ globalEDGE — State Insights — New-ish business-oriented resource mentioned here on ResourceShelf earlier this month.

+ National Association for Business Economics: Regional Economic Data and Issues — Useful list of links to relevant census data and information provided by other agencies — universities, federal and state agencies, etc.

+ U.S. Census Bureau: 2002 Economic Census: Geographic Area Series Schedule. From the U.S. Census Bureau; data is also available by business sector.

+ U.S. Census Bureau: Business and Industry: Census Bureau Economic Programs — “Economic Statistics by Geography, Sector, and Frequency”

+ U.S. Census Bureau: State Export Data — Includes:

• U. S. Exports of Goods by State, Zip Code Based, by NAICS-Based Product
• State Exports by Commodity and Country
• World Trade Atlas - State Export Edition Online.

+ U.S. Small Business Administration — State Economic Profiles

Small Business Profiles for the States and Territories, published in 2007 is a review of how small businesses fared in their respective states and how they contributed to the economic condition in their states and that of the United States. This annual profile contains sections on the following topics: the number of firms, industry composition, small business income, banking, women and minority business ownership, and employment.

Resource of the Week — Best of ResourceShelf 2008
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

If you couldn’t make it to the Computers in Libraries (CIL) conference last week, we’re bringing a small part of it to you, in the form of Gary’s annual Best of ResourceShelf presentation.

Gary’s presentation links to a wide range of tools and websites in several key ResourceShelf categories — mobile, multimedia, data mining/search, digitization, FireFox add-ons, people search, Web preservation, aerial imagery, resources for educators, and location-based and real-time information.

Note that the first item on this page says Shirl’s links. I am, in fact, allowed out in public from time to time, and I enjoyed helping Gary with this presentation.
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Resource of the Week: Subject Guides from the UC-Boulder Government Publications Library
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

If you’re one of our regular readers, you already know how fond we are of government documents. So you can imagine how our virtual pulse quickened when we encountered this large and beautiful collection of government-oriented subject guides covering everything from Acronyms to Worldwide Demographic Information.

Mixed in with the actual guides are links to such key resources as The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance and earthquake/seismic info from the U.S. Geological Survey. But sometimes, when you expect a direct link to a resource, you get a nice surprise. For example, click on the link for the Government Accountability Office, and you are taken to a page that explains what it is, what it does, and how to use it, including integration with the local OPAC.

The subject guides themselves comprise collections of links to agencies, databases, reports and other items, with brief annotations. There are some unusual collections here, including:
+ Ask an Expert!, including links to “Ask an Expert” pages at many different agencies, including the Census Bureau, the National Park Service, and NASA. This unusual aggregation is a clever idea.
+ Kids Pages from various agencies (including the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Who knew?)
+ Declassified Documents, from the U.S. and other countries.
+ Statistical Information by State
+ Technical Reports — a nice compendium, which also includes links to subscription databases accessible to the university community.

Just cruising through some of these guides, we reacquainted ourselves with valuable resources that we haven’t visited for awhile. For example, in the Charities guide, we found a link to the Urban Institute’s National Center for Charitable Statistics, which we’d quite forgotten about. And the Religion Statistics guide is an excellent compendium of sites we know about and use regularly — e.g., Adherents.com — and The Pluralism Project at Harvard University, which we think is new to us. (Look at this collection of “in-depth profiles of individual religious centers,” which can be sorted by state or by religious tradition.)

Be aware that not every link in every subject guide is to an official government agency. But research institutions, think tanks, etc., also provide valuable information, and we’re glad to see that they were included as well.

And don’t leave this site without checking out the ginormous database of library-created research and subject guides and tutorials. Says here that the three “most request guides” are:
+ History Course Web Pages
+ Aerial Photography and Satellite Imagery
+ Religious Studies Subject Guide

Resource of the Week: Quick Guide to Military Information
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

I’ve just completed a major update of a resource I’ve been maintaining for several years. Though it is not a glitzy resource by any stretch of the imagination, I thought it would also be helpful to share this Quick Guide to Military Information as a Resource of the Week. Unless you work with military information on a regular basis, it is can often be frustrating to find what you need.

What’s here? Links to resources that provide the type of information I often need. Everything here — at least right now — is freely accessible on the open Web; all of these links were functional from my network at home. That being said, there are at least a few sections on some of these websites that are not open to the general public.

This guide is divided into nine sections:

• Major Directories and Search Engines
• Academic Sites
• Demographics and Statistics
• Facilities and Installations
• International Interest
• Legal
• Rank Insignia and Uniforms
• Miscellaneous (defense business, imagery, publications, etc.)

Note that the International Interest section contains a few items that are not specifically “military” in nature, but I’ve found them to be useful in the past, for ready reference.

The image repositories are particularly interesting. Unless otherwise specified, all DoD images are in the public domain, although you should credit the photographer for anything you use. You’ll also find audio and video on some servers. For example, check out this “Sounds From the Department of Defense” link. Who knew?

At any rate, enjoy…and please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.

Resource of the Week: CDC Health Information for International Travel 2008 (The Yellow Book)
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

The venerable Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy has long been informally acknowledged as the hypochondriac’s bible. However, the traveling hypochondriac may be much more interested in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Yellow Book.

The Yellow Book is published every two years by CDC as a reference for those who advise international travelers of health risks. The Yellow Book is written primarily for health care providers, although others might find it useful.

And not just the mainstream hypochondriac who, having exhausted the possibilities in the Merck Manual, is looking for more exotic diseases about which to obsess. This resource has attracted a diverse clientele in the 25 or so years since it was first published as a pamphlet that advised travelers on how to prevent such diseases as smallpox. The Yellow Book has proven to be a useful reference for the travel industry, international businesses, missionary and humanitarian aid organizations, and just plain regular folks who are planning a vacation abroad.

You can get a quick idea as to the scope of this resource by browsing what’s new in the 2008 edition, including updated yellow fever requirements and recommendations, updated malaria information, and a variety of new sections:

• Responsibilities of Clinicians, Travelers, and the Travel Industry
• Influenza section now includes information about avian and pandemic influenza
• Skin Problems in Returned Travelers
• Deep Vein Thrombosis/Pulmonary Embolism
• Humanitarian Aid Workers

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