Open CRS

Here's a new site devoted to collecting and making available CRS reports. It seems to have missed a couple of important collections - U.S. Embassy Rome and the Foreign Press Center - but perhaps those will be added as well. From the "about" information: "A project of the Center for Democracy & Technology through the cooperation of several organizations and collectors of CRS Reports, Open CRS provides citizens access to CRS Reports already in the public domain and encourages Congress to provide public access to all CRS Reports."

Latest report from Pew Global Attitudes Project

(headline from latest report of the Pew Global Attitudes Project):U.S. Image Up Slightly, But Still Negative: American Character Gets Mixed Reviews
The latest survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, released June 23, was conducted among nearly 17,000 people in the United States and 15 other countries from April 20-May 31. From the introduction: "Anti-Americanism in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, which surged as a result of the U.S. war in Iraq, shows modest signs of abating. But the United States remains broadly disliked in most countries surveyed, and the opinion of the American people is not as positive as it once was. The magnitude of America's image problem is such that even popular U.S. policies have done little to repair it. President George W. Bush's calls for greater democracy in the Middle East and U.S. aid for tsunami victims in Asia have been well-received in many countries, but only in Indonesia, India and Russia has there been significant improvement in overall opinions of the U.S.

Attitudes toward the U.S. remain quite negative in the Muslim world, though hostility toward America has eased in some countries. Many Muslims see the U.S. supporting democracy in their countries, and many of those who are optimists about the prospects for democracy in the Middle East give at least some credit to U.S. policies. But progress for America's image in these countries is measured in small steps; solid majorities in all five predominantly Muslim countries surveyed still express unfavorable views of the United States."

David Rumsey map collection

David Rumsey's map collection contains more than 150,000 maps and is one of the world's largest. Around 1998 Rumsey decided stopoed adding to the collection and turned his efforts to digitizing and making the collection available to others. The result is at www.davidrumsey.com - an amazing resource for history buffs and researchers. There is a short article about the collection in the July Issue of Technology Review.

UN Pulse

"UN Pulseis a service of the UN Dag Hammarskjöld library, and appears to be regularly updated. Also offers and RSS feed. From the "about" info: UN Pulse alerts you to selected just-released UN online information, major reports, publications and documents. Created and maintained by a team of reference librarians at the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library in New York, UN Pulse is updated as new information is published and received."

Full-text book searching

Greg Notess's article Searching Books Between the Coversin the May/June issue of Online magazine review the state of full-text book searching, and includes a comparison of Amazon's Search Inside the Book and Google Print.

Lugar Report on WMD Threats and Responses

Following excerpted from Richard Lugar's website:
Lugar Releases New Report on WMD Threats and Responses
"During the next ten years the world faces a 29 percent chance of a nuclear attack and the prospect of four new nations being added to the nuclear weapons club, according to a new survey of non-proliferation and national security experts compiled by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar. Over the same period, the experts rated the risks of a major chemical or biological attack as both greater than 30 percent, while the prospects of a dirty bomb attack were pegged at 40 percent.

The unique survey of 85 top international scholars, policy makers, diplomats, and technicians probed the attitudes of experts on both proliferation threats and international responses. The Lugar Survey found that 79 percent believed that their own country was not spending enough money on non-proliferation objectives. None of the experts surveyed believed that their country was spending too much on these goals."
http://lugar.senate.gov/reports/NPSurvey.pdf

Guide to Internet Research for Lawyers

Glenn Bacal's impressive Guide to Internet Research for Lawyers is useful for anyone doing legal research. "Completely updated with an edge and now with many new features, including annotated guides to best IP blog and news sites; IP sites for beginners; amusing IP sites; politically oriented IP sites; most useful websites for law students, and more!"
http://www.ali-aba.org/aliaba/glenbacal_2002.htm

Currently in Congress 1-15 June 2005

The latest issue of Currently in Congress is available on the U.S. Mission to South Africa's IRC webpage: http://pretoria.usembassy.gov/wwwhic00.html

Highlights: The House scraps a PATRIOT Act provision, curtailing the FBI's ability to search library and bookstore records; the Central America Free Trade Agreement bill edges closer; Congress votes to remain a member of the World Trade Organization; Congress puts pressure on Saudi Arabia's efforts to curb terrorism in that country; and six judicial nominees are confirmed under the bipartisan compromise to avoid filibusters and the nuclear option, but the confirmation of Dina Powell to be Asst. Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs is delayed. Hearings include: Guantanamo Detainees, oversight of the Diversity Visa lottery, future agriculture and food biotechnology developments, reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, third world debt, and oversight of the IMF.

Previous issues are archived on the website.

Language Map

The MLA Language Map displays the locations and numbers of speakers of the thirty languages most commonly spoken in the United States.

Del.icio.us

Social bookmarking through del.icio.us is a concept that is getting much attention these days. The idea of saving bookmarks to a server on the web, so that they can be used from any web connected computer, is not new - Furl, for example, has been around since 2003. What makes social bookmarking different is that you can see what other people have been bookmarking, and let others see what you have been bookmarking. De.licio.us also allows you to annotate and provide subject tags for bookmarks, which is a potentially powerful feature; by subject tagging and sharing bookmarks in this fashion, communities of social bookmarkers will be generating new subject collections of blogs and websites.

I was curious to see how many hundreds of thousands, or at least thousands, of del.icio.us users had bookmarked ircworld. To do that, I registered with the service, bookmarked ircworld (my small but growing collection of del.icio.us bookmarks are at http://del.icio.us/osloirc and clicked on the "1 other person" (?!) who had bookmarked ircworld. I was then able click through to that individual's subject collection of bookmarks.

Another useful feature; when you find del.icio.us bookmark collections that look especially relevant to your interests, you can subscribe to the rss feed that is generated by each del.icio.us page, and thus be alerted to new additions.

In the past I've used bookmarks minimally, relying almost exclusively on search engines to find information. I find however that del.icio.us bookmarklets increase the convenience and utility of adding, organizing and using bookmarks, and the social aspect (along with the inclination every librarian has to build collections) makes it fun! You really need to try it to understand how it works and why it might be useful.

Debbie Weil's deliriously enthusiastic entry about Del.iciou.us at Blogwrite is admirably lucid and an good introduction. For an example of the trail an avid social bookmarker leaves behind, see Weil's collection of bookmarks at http://del.icio.us/wordbiz

Inevitably, there is similar service called de.lirio.us, but I haven't figured out what the difference is.

Peanut Butter Wiki

Wiki is a software technology that enables collaborative publishing/editing of documents on the web. The best known example is surely Wikipedia, but one could easily imagine other uses on a smaller scale ...f.ex. putting together a conference agenda, or creating some kind of online forum in which to interact with PD audiences. Peanut Butter wiki is a free webbased application that allows you to set up your own Wikis; to get a sense of how it works, see http://ircworldwiki.pbwiki.com You can get the userid/password by reading my posting about this on the eurirc listserv, or by sending me an email)
p.s. - please sign the guestbook!

WebJunction

Here is a web site I liked and wanted to share:

WebJunction is an online community of libraries and other agencies sharing knowledge and experience to provide the broadest public access to information technology.

http://www.webjunction.org/do/Home

In 2002, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) a three-year grant to build a portal for public libraries and other organizations that provide open access to information. Building on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's five-year-old U.S. Library Program, which has provided over 40,000 computers with Internet access to more than 10,000 libraries across the United States and Canada, WebJunction is the work of five organizations, led by OCLC.

National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP)

From the National Digital Newspaper Program website:

"The National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of all U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages. Supported by NEH, this rich digital resource will be developed and permanently maintained at the Library of Congress. An NEH grant program will fund the contribution of content from, eventually, all U.S. states and territories."

Currently in Congress 15-31 May 2005

The latest issue of Currently in Congress is available on the U.S. Mission to South Africa's IRC webpage:
http://pretoria.usembassy.gov/wwwhic00.html

Highlights: judicial nominations start moving while the Bolton nomination gets stuck again; House passage of stem cell bills, anti-spyware bills, and the introduction of a resolution supporting the development of an HIV vaccine. Hearings include Treasury Secretary Snow's report to Congress on international exchange rate policies; piracy of intellectual property; weapons proliferation, terrorism and democracy in Iran; integrity of UN peacekeeping operations; protecting judges; Commission for Africa; and the UN Oil for Food program.

Previous issues are archived on the website.

print.google.com

The beta of the controversial (for copyright reasons) print.google.com is available at print.google.com

National Hazards Support System

The USGS Natural Hazards Support System (NHSS) at http://nhss.cr.usgs.gov/is a web tool that helps monitor, respond to and analyze hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, severe weather, floods, wildfires, and tsunamis.

Marcus Zillman's White Papers

Marcus Zillman's website www.whitepapers.us provides link collections and internet mini-guides on a great range of topics.

"Beyond Google" presentation

Since early 2004, Information Resource Officer Karen Hartman has delivered her “Beyond Google: What's New in Web Search, Weblogs and RSS Technology” over 12 times, to more than 600 librarians, teachers and legislative researchers in Southern Africa.

A text version (plus a link to a zipped copy of the .ppt file) of a recent update to her PowerPoint presentation, is now available at:
http://pretoria.usembassy.gov/wwwhit50.html

Currently in Congress 1-15 May 2005

The latest issue of Currently in Congress is available on the US Mission to South Africa's IRC webpage:
http://pretoria.usembassy.gov/wwwhic00.html

This fortnightly update of selected current events in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate is compiled by the IRC in Cape Town. It is written primarily for an Africa-wide audience, but it includes legislation and hearings of a general interest as well.

Previous issues are archived on the website.

Journalist's Guide to the Federal Courts

A Journalist's Guide to the Federal Courts is intended to assist reporters assigned to court coverage. The section on the Federal district courts provides a walk-through of each stage of both a criminal and a civil case. It also describes the key players in the federal trial courts and identifies the types of court information a journalist might need, as well as possible sources for that information.

CFR report on Dialogue with the Muslim World

The Council on Foreign Relations released on May 7, 2005 a Council Special Report (CSR) titled: "A New Beginning: Strategies for a More Fruitful Dialogue with the Muslim World".

From the Foreword:

"This report [...] shows that it is possible to project a more favorable image of America in the Muslim world. Through focus group research in Morocco, Egypt, and Indonesia, they learned that although hostility is intense, there is an opportunity to change minds. "

The report (96 pages) is available in .pdf format online at: http://www.cfr.org/pdf/Anti-American_CSR.pdf

Feedburner

Feedburner is a service that provides free statistics on RSS feeds, including
feed circulation, which news aggregators people use to read your feed, and what feed items subscribers most often "clickthrough" to read on your site. There is aslo a "pro" option that provides greater detail for a fee. www.feedburner.com

Making of U.S. Foreign Policy

Another IRC Barcelona information product that may be of interest for educators and others is the infopack on "The Making of U.S. Foreign Policy"

Historical Timeline of U.S. Foreign Policy

IRC Barcelona has produced a handy "Historical Timeline of U.S. Foreign Policy"HistoryUSForeignPolicy.doc

"The 2005 Political Typology" Pew report

The 2005 Political Typology: Beyond Red vs. Blue

The latest installment of the Pew Research Center's Political Typology finds significant cleavages within both major parties that go well beyond the familiar red-blue divide. The in-depth polling identifies challenges for both parties with their core constituencies and with voters in the middle of the electorate.

[...] As part of the release of the 2005 Political Typology, the Pew Research Center has created an interactive website where users can find out where they fit in the Political Typology, and to see how the various typology groups feel about major issues of the day. The special website can be found at Pew Political Typology.

This is the fourth such typology developed by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press since 1987. Many of the groups identified in the current surveys are similar to those in past typologies, reflecting the continuing importance of a number of key beliefs and values. These themes endure despite the consequential events of the past four years - especially the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.

Higher Education website

www.insidehighered.com appears to be a useful supplement to Chronicle of Higher Education. Read more about it at
http://www.insidehighered.com/about_us

Best named search engine?

Yahgoohoogle

Brookings report on World Public Opinion

Brookings Briefing
Who Will Lead the World? Shifting Alignments in World Public Opinion

(summary from Brookings website:)
"Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has emerged as the world's sole superpower, both in military and economic terms. A new poll however, suggests that not everyone around the world is happy with the United States' global influence, and would prefer a change in the balance of power. Publics around the world appear to be looking more to Europe and even China to play a more prominent role, while the influence of the United States and Russia are largely seen in a negative light. Such a potential realignment has significant implications for U.S. foreign policy. The poll, conducted by GlobeScan, together with the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, surveyed over 23,000 respondents in 23 countries around the world."

Two PD reports

GAO recently released: U.S. Public Diplomacy: Interagency Coordination Efforts Hampered by the Lack of a National Communication Strategy GAO-05-323, April 4, 2005
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05323.pdf

(from the abstract:)
"The war on terrorism has focused attention on the important role U.S. public diplomacy plays in improving the nation's image. The United States has undertaken efforts to "win hearts and minds" by better engaging, informing, and influencing foreign audiences; however, recent polling data show that anti-Americanism is spreading and deepening around the world. GAO was asked to examine (1) to what extent U.S. public diplomacy efforts have been coordinated and (2) whether the private sector has been significantly engaged in such efforts."

Another interesting report is the UK's Foreign Policy Centre's "British Public Diplomacy in the Age of Schisms"(February 2005). The report addresses many of the same issues and challenges that the U.S. faces in its public diplomacy efforts.

(from the introduction:)
"...Why is a new direction needed?
Authors Mark Leonard, Andrew Small and Counterpoint director, Martin Rose examine how Britain can forge a new public diplomacy role to suit an unstable, shifting, post-Iraq world, where divisions - or schisms - push nations into very different alliances. The lack of a significant debate about the role of public diplomacy post-Iraq, and the reliance on a Cold War-style public diplomacy suggests that a major rethink is needed. The authors argue that a new public diplomacy should be about mapping these schisms and bridging them, with a focus on trust and mutuality in the long-term, rather than about just delivering the message."

Presidents on Tape

An interesting site for anyone interested in the presidency (following excerpted from Scout Report, April 1, 2005)

WhiteHouseTapes.org [Macromedia Flash Player, pdf, Windows Media Player, QuickTime]
http://www.whitehousetapes.org/

"Since 1940, six American presidents have secretly recorded close to 5,000 hours of conversations, many of which have been of great interest to presidential historians, the press, and the general public. This remarkable site provides access to a wide range of those conversations, and is hosted and maintained by the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. From the site's homepage, visitors can browse a list of highlighted audio clips (complete with full transcripts) and also access educational resource materials for use in the classroom. The site also has some additional virtual exhibits on a number of topics, including Vietnam and the civil rights movement. Finally, the site also contains a search engine so that visitors can quickly locate the audio clip or conversation they are looking for