50 sites for booklovers

Mashable's 50 sites for booklovers!

Jottit

If you need to post something on the web immediately, at no cost, and independently of your own website - Jottit is one solution. Just go to Jottit, type in your text, click "create page", and Jottit creates the page at a unique url. Its Markdown formatting system is somewhat primitive - the syntax is only a small subset of html - but it does allow hyperlinks and basic formatting.

more resources for students and teachers

Resource Shelf's resource of the week is this nice assortment of resources for teachers and students.

Online access from public libraries

(from http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/015954.html)
Public libraries are sole source of online employment and education information for millions of Americans

ALA: "Ever-growing patron demand for computer and Internet services in U.S. public libraries has stretched existing Internet bandwidth, computer availability, and building infrastructure to capacity, according to a new study “Libraries Connect Communities: Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study 2006-2007,” conducted by the American Library Association (ALA) and the Information Use Management and Policy Institute at Florida State University (FSU). The study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and ALA, found that more than 73 percent of libraries report they are the only source of free public access to computers and the Internet in their communities. Surveyed libraries said that the top three Internet services most critical to their community are online educational resources and databases for K-12 students (67.7 percent); services for job seekers (44 percent); and computer and Internet skills training (29.8 percent)."

Libraries Connect Communities: Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study 2006-2007 Report

Customize Google

Customize Google is a useful Firefox addon that lets you add wanted and remove unwanted features to your Google searches.

Features

• Use Google Suggest (suggest words while you're typing)
• Add links to competitors
• Rewrite links to point straight to the images in Google Images
• Removes image copying restrictions in Google Book Search
• Secure Gmail and Google Calendar, switch to https
• Block Google Analytics cookies
• Hide the Gmail spam counter
• Make URL previews on sponsored links visible NEW!
• Add favicons in the web search result NEW!

• Remove ads
• Anonymize your Google userid
• Add a result counter in search result
• Filter spammy websites from search results
• Add links to WayBack Machine (webpage history)
• Remove click tracking
• Add links from Google to your bookmark manager
• Use a fixed font for Gmail mail bodies
• Stream Google search result pages NEW!
• Sticky Google Preferences NEW!

CRS capital punishment report

RL34163 The Death Penalty: Capital Punishment Legislation in the 110th Congress
September 07, 2007. While most capital offenses are state crimes, Congress did revive in 1994 the death penalty as a federal sentencing option. More than a few federal statutes now proscribe offenses punishable by death. This CRS report surveys legislation in the 110th Congress that would modify federal law in the area.

Geography teaching aid

Statetris (tetris with a twist) is a game that teaches you (or pupils) where the 50 states are located - and for a test of your "U.S.centrism", try locating the regions of France, the counties of the U.K, and the nations of Africa and Europe. (another fine tip from Neat New Stuff)

Free Full Text

FreeFullText.com provides direct links to over 7000 scholarly periodicals which allow some or all of their online content to be viewed by ANYONE with Internet access for free (though some may require free registration).

09/11 resources

Here, courtesy of Resource Shelf, are some 09/11 resources.

FactCheck.org

FactCheck.org will surely come in handy as the as the campaign trails become increasingly littered with facts during the coming year. Note also the companion site, www.factcheckED.org, which is intended to help educators teach their students to be smarter news consumers.

LOC teachers page

The Library of Congress page for teacherswill soon sport a new look - here's a preview.

The promise of noopolitikk

The promise of noöpolitik
by David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla
This is another interesting article from First Monday, about the noosphere - a realm of communal mind conceived of 80 years ago by Teilhard de Chardin, but only now enabled by cyperspace - and its impact on grand strategy and diplomacy in the form of noöpolitik. The authors' thoughts on noöpolitik will be collected in a forthcoming handbook on public diplomacy.

Table 1: Contrast between realpolitik and noöpolitik.
Realpolitik	Noöpolitik
States as the unit of analysis	Nodes, non–state actors
Primacy of hard power (resources, etc.)	Primacy of soft power
Power politics as zero–sum game	Win–win, lose–lose possible
System is anarchic, highly conflictual	Harmony of interests, cooperation
Alliance conditional (oriented to threat)	Ally webs vital to security
Primacy of national self–interest	Primacy of shared interests
Politics as unending quest for advantage	Explicitly seeking a telos
Ethos is amoral, if not immoral	Ethics crucially important
Behavior driven by threat and power	Common goals drive actors
Very guarded about information flows	Propensity for info–sharing
Balance of power as the “steady–state”	Balance of responsibilities
Power embedded in nation–states	Power in “global fabric”

Infomania

I hate to interrupt, but this is important...
"Infomania is the mental state of continuous stress and distraction caused by the combination of queued messaging overload and incessant interruptions."
Interested? Read the whole article, "Infomania, why we can't afford to ignore it any longer," in the August issue of First Monday.

IFLA Toolkit for Developing Reference Services

This toolkit might be of interest to IRCs, and their library contacts, in some parts of the world; "To assist librarians and decision makers in developing countries and elsewhere, the Reference and Information Services Section, through an IFLA project, successfully developed a Toolkit for Developing Reference Services. Designed to enrich reference knowledge and to advance reference services, the Toolkit prepares reference librarians and decision makers to understand reference functions and the information needs of library users."

Views of Press Values and Performance: 1985-2007

A new Pew report examines perceptions of the press:
"The American public continues to fault news organizations for a number of perceived failures, with solid majorities criticizing them for political bias, inaccuracy and failing to acknowledge mistakes. But some of the harshest indictments of the press now come from the growing segment that relies on the internet as its main source for national and international news. The internet news audience – roughly a quarter of all Americans – tends to be younger and better educated than the public as a whole. People who rely on the internet as their main news source express relatively unfavorable opinions of mainstream news sources and are among the most critical of press performance."

Cyberjournalist list

The Cyberjournalist List is a very extensive list of blogs published by journalists. Includes blogs..

• Published by news sites - ongoing
  
• Published by news sites - spot news and events
  
• Published independently by journalists
  
• Personal sites of journalists

Whereabill

The Whereabill (discussed in the Garvin column mentioned in previous post) is a rare bird that shows WHERE a bill becomes a law, and where it may have wandered along its way. Could be an amusing teaching aid for IRC folks and diplomats who are still in the business of explaining the U.S. legislative process to students and educators.

Insanely useful government websites

A recent posting by the Sunlight Foundation on "insanely useful [government] websites" has inspired Peggy Garvin to write about those sites and some others in her July 27 "Government Domain" column at LLRX.

Government Innovators Network

(an interesting post from Neat New Stuff)
"The news media never talk about government when it's working well, but in
fact, state, local, and regional government agencies are coming up with
thousands of ideas for better service to their communities. You can find
documents, news stories, multimedia, awards, and upcoming events about
them here. Search or browse through broad categories or through
Innovation Awards. (A search for LIBRARIES retrieved nearly 300 items.)"

Madison Avenue principles for hearts and minds

This sounds vaguely familiar; a new Rand report suggests that Madison Avenue advertising principles might be effective in winning hearts and minds around the world. "Enlisting Madison Avenue: 'The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation' extracts lessons from business practices and adapts them to U.S. military efforts in a unique approach to shaping the attitudes and behavior of local populations in a theater of operations. Foremost among these lessons are the concepts of branding, customer satisfaction, and segmentation of the target audience, all of which serve to maximize the impact and improve the outcome of U.S. shaping efforts. Enlisting Madison Avenue also offers insights based on previous operational endeavors to provide a much-expanded blueprint for shaping target audiences."

web2.0 forum

For more on the issues raised by Andrew Keen in Cult of the Amateur, visit the Britannica blog's lively forum on web2.0 One of the bloggers, can you believe it, is that unrelenting ridiculer of blogs Michael Gorman - has he found his medium at last?! Gorman's opinionated rants would surely not get a hearing in the refereed and scholarly world he calls home, but he enriches the blogosphere with his contributions - always amusing, well-written, and insightful.

GAO Public Diplomacy report

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report yesterday to Senator Richard Lugar on the evolving strategic communications and public diplomacy initiatives at the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors. As one might expect of an accountability(formerly accounting) office, emphasis is on measurable results - no touchy-feely stuff. A buzzword is "campaign-style", and one of the recommendations for the State Department is to "Formally endorse and adopt a research-based campaign-style approach to thematic communications." The State Department responds to the report by suggesting that its own “ABCDE” communication process model - a planning tool that can be used to think through the message and the best way to deliver it to a target audience - is essentially the kind of campaign-style approach the GAO is asking for. The ABCDE model is explained/exemplified (not very clearly) in the new PD Strategy document that was posted here last month.

Cult of the Amateur

Andrew Keen's new book "The Cult of the Amateur" takes a dim view of the erosion of authority that is the hallmark of web2.0 - everyone a publisher, anyone an expert. His views are not unlike those former ALA president Michael Gorman set forth in an article on blogs a few years ago, which did little to endear him to web2.0-happy librarians. The Wall Street Journal recently carried a debate between Keen and David Weinberger (author of "Everything is Miscellaneous") which nicely illuminates the pros and cons of the matter. See also Michiko Kakutani's review in the New York Times

State government information

Peggy Garvin provides a useful overview of state government information resources at the LLRX.com website. And while you're at it, check out Sabrina Pacifici's Competitive Intelligence - A Selective Resource Guide

Opportunity 08

Brookings and ABC News have partnered to create Opportunity08, a website that focuses on issues that will shape the 2008 presidential election. Here's how Opportunity 08 describes itself: "Voters say they want to hear more from candidates about the issues and less about partisan politics. As we enter a presidential race with wide-open primaries in both political parties and enormous debate about the direction for the country, there is a unique opportunity to discuss solutions to America’s most pressing policy challenges. Opportunity 08 aims to help presidential candidates and the public focus on critical issues facing the nation, providing ideas, policy forums, and information on a broad range of domestic and foreign policy questions."

Legistorm

You read about Legistorm's salary database here last November, and here's information about the travel database (if you've been wondering what those CODELS do - and buy - when they come to town, here's your chance to find out);
"Our travel database contains roughly 27,000 trips and provides a unique window into how private organizations are trying to gain influence in Washington. No other source of congressional trip data is as comprehensive or accurate or provides the users the same ability to view the original documents.

What's more, you can perform full searching, view each original disclosure form and check out maps of the trips. If that's not enough to keep you interested, we have identified which trips took place at a time and location coinciding with major events - like the Superbowl or Mardi Gras - which may have provided additional travel incentive.

Voter Watch

from Neat New Stuff...
VoterWatch - the Congressional Record You Always Wanted
http://www.voterwatch.org/
Because the Congressional Record is not a faithful representation of what
occurs on the floor of Congress, this "nonpartisan nonprofit
organization" has created this searchable database of videos of Congress
at work. Browse by date or topic, or search by keyword of member of
Congress or both.

PBS series America at a Crossroads

In the site's own words...
"America at a Crossroads is a major public television event that premiered on PBS in April 2007. This ongoing series explores the challenges confronting the post-9/11 world — including the war on terrorism; the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan; the experience of American troops serving abroad; the struggle for balance within the Muslim world; and global perspectives on America’s role overseas."

A program dealing with anti-Americanism in Europe will air in August and examine perceptions of the U.S. role in the world in France, UK and Poland.

Anti-Americanism in Europe

This CBN program looks at anti-Americanism in European media. The site also links to two sites that might be useful for information on European anti-Americanism, Gateway Pundit and David Medienkritic. Obviously these sites and CBC have a clear political agenda, but I found some of the information to be quite interesting, particularly the interview with "Uncouth Nation" author Andre Markovits at http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/

web2.0 for the classroom

Here's a review of some web2.0 applications that are useful teaching tools.