OCLC Top 1000: 2005 Complete list

"This list, updated for 2005, contains the "Top 1000" titles owned by OCLC member libraries—the intellectual works that have been judged to be worth owning by the "purchase vote" oflibraries." Complete list

NB. Web analytics, Web metrics, and e-metrics are expanding their scope everyday. Here is a focus on measuring the performance of vendors (aka brokers, distributors, etc.), beneficial for information professionals, esp. in Third World.

Efficiency analysis of brokers in the electronic marketplace

Virgílio A.F. Almeida^12a, Wagner Meira Jr.^3*,a, Victor F. Ribeiro^b, Nivio Ziviani^4a,b

^aDepartment of Computer Science, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
^bMiner Technology Group, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil

Abstract:

In this paper we analyze the behavior of e-commerce users based on actual logs from two large non-English e-brokers. We start by presenting a quantitative study of the behavior of e-brokers and discuss the influence of regional and cultural issues on them. We then discuss a model that quantifies the efficiency of the results provided by brokers in the electronic marketplace. This model is a function of factors such as server response time and regional factors. Our findings clearly indicate that e-commerce is strongly tied to local language, national customs and regulations, currency conversion and logistics, and Internet infrastructure. We found that the behavior of customers of online bookstores is strongly affected by brand and regional factors. Music CD shoppers show a different behavior that might stem from the fact that music is universal and not so language dependent.

REFERENCE ON THE NET or Net as a Reference Tool

NB. Is the following REFERENCE ON THE NET or Net as a Reference Tool. I would prefer the second title. Reference sources are now scattered both in the library and On the Net--And, librarians have been one of the first to use both the worlds.

Here is what I found and is interesting to show how much libraries (whether search in the library or via virtual Web) depend on the Net. This appeared in The Disseminator is an electronic newsletter published by the Nova Scotia Provincial Library V.9, N.11, November 2002*

Here are some more reference questions referred to the Provincial Library by the Regional Public Libraries. They were answered using resources found on the Internet.

Q. Would like plans for building a wooden clock and wooden mechanisms.

A. At the Canadian Home Workshop Magazine Article Index search page at http://www.canadianhomeworkshop.com/articles.html enter clock as a keyword. This locates quite a few clock woodworking projects with the month, year and page where they appeared in Canadian Home Workshop magazine. You can also search the project plans from Woodworker's Journal and Today's Woodworker Magazine at http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/wwjstore2/webpage3.cfm?DID=1. Again enter clock in the search box and this finds 46 plans which you can browse through. Another useful site is Woodworker's Website Association PlanSearch at http://www.woodworking2.org/PlanSearch/search.htm. Enter clock in the keyword search to locate 18 plans. Some are free including Wooden Clock 1 and Wooden Clock 2 on Brian Law�s Woodenclocks site http://www.woodenclocks.co.uk/. These have plans for wooden mechanisms.

Q. Would like names and addresses of Canadian companies which distribute or manufacture therapeutic magnetic products.

A. Here are three databases which are useful for answering this question:
At the Canadian Company Capabilities database at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_coinf/ccc/engdoc/homepage.html use the search words magnetic therapy to locate companies.

At the Canadian Exporters Catalogue search page at
http://www.worldexport.com/search/default.asp?Param=English select Safety, Medical and Health-Care Products in the Section field and in the Key Word field enter magnetic.

At the Canadian Trade-marks Database search page at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/cgi-bin/sc_consu/trade-marks/search_e.pl enter the phrase magnetic therapy and select the Wares and Services (11) field to search in.

***The Disseminator is an electronic newsletter published by the Nova Scotia Provincial Library, which has temporarily ceased publication with the Winter 06/Spring 07 issue.

From those who stumbled upon

PS. This review of StumbleUpon is not mine and this stumbling has nothing to do with a Mughal king who stumbled in his royal library at Delhi--In the words of the British orientalist Stanley Lane-Poole, "Humayun stumbled out of life as he had stumbled through it."

"I must say I was disappointed to find out that Ebay had recently bought Stumble, though. It seems that all the sites I most love are being snapped up by these huge corporations. One cannot blame the site developers, really, after all there is serious money to be made, and yet, my idealistic self would love to see these types of sites unfettered by corporate for-profit ties. But I guess that, across the board, things will be moving more in that for-profit direction rather than less… take a look, in fact, at my next post to see another chilling move in that direction." Read the full article @ Bookishdesi's blog

Putting Librarian Expertise to Work:
"StumbleUpon is a browser add-on for finding and sharing great websites. Unlike directories or search engines, StumbleUpon uses member ratings to form collective human opinions on website quality." [via MetaFilter]
This is somewhat similar to the tool I want for librarian pagerank. Instead of "good" or "bad," a site would be "authentic" or "trustworthy."

See also:

Good Gear Guide - StumbleUpon - Reviews - Software - Utilities - Desktop Search

Google it

Thanks to Dr. Smith for sharing his knowledge of how he stumbled...

Come see why The Wall Street Journal says:
"Next time you want to wander the Web, forget about Googling it. Stumble it."
– Chief 
drsmith@dr-smith.com

How to tell what I am, or What to Write Using a Life Story Template

Wonder if there is a topic more significant, compelling, or familiar to us than our own life stories as we have lived? Believe it or not, I picked up Victoria Ryce's By me, About me, in a store, and felt that this is a perfect subject that would inspire us to spell many tiny little moments that we have lived.

Moreover, this book with its templates* to write every little bit, helps ANYONE desirous of doing all-of-the-above. It also helps those who are interested in any of the following areas, such as, developing writing skills, dig the creative insights, externalize the moments to show and tell what you are, in fact. Call it autobiography or showing your true colors, to say: I am real and experienced, as well."

In short, here is an opportunity. Answer what YOU want to answer using this book's templates. There are 140+ questions at your fingertips.

*The book is full of templates or blank pages for you to fill, each page offers a question (aka clue to whatever details you could possibly add), such as:

My name, or names, and how I came to be called that (in the chapter: Childhood and family adventures)

The best boss I ever had and the worst one (in the chapter: Life as an adult)

The role spirituality has played in my life (in the chapter: Views of the world)

The saddest day in my life (in the chapter: The inner self)...

About the author: Victoria Ryce is a caregiver based in Picton, ON. She is also the author of Marketwise

. And the book By me, About me is published by Raincoast Books--Raincoast Books is the Canadian publisher of the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling.

Wiki Demystified - Plus Google and Minus Google, and No Google

Two stories motivated this post:

Search Google without wikipedia - a Firefox search plugin

Recently there has been quite a stir within the SEO community with people seeing a huge dominance of wikipedia in the Google search results (Graywolf has been one of the more vocal critics recently with a whole load of posts - although he’s been writing about it for some time).

But don’t just take Greywolf’s word for it - there’s plenty of articles about this, most notably recently the google cache wrote about how 96.6% of wikipedia articles rank in the top 10 of google.

It has been noticed outside the world of SEO as well - PR Blogger has just written an analysis of Fortune 100 companies’ wikipedia pages.

Yahoo gets upper hand over Google
"Larry Freed, president of Foresee Results which did the survey for the university, pointed out that users don't see anything different in Google's portal from what they saw three years ago. But Yahoo has refurbished its portal and gained in points." More on this Yahoo! Overtakes Google in Latest American Customer Satisfaction Index survey

My 2 cents:
The above search result, limiting search, is and was a common practice already and offered by Google. What's new that adds with a plugin? I don't know.

FYI. Search Google with a minus sign (or go to advance search feature and select: without the words), and see the results for: medicine -wiki, -wikipediahere and here for medicine here (without any search restrictions)

Wikipedia edits

There was significant interest in our piece yesterday on the online tool that shows the identity of organisations where employees have changed Wikipedia pages.

The focus of the story was changes the CIA had made to pages, but other organisations - including The Vatican, the US Democratic Party and US company Diebold - didn’t escape our attention.

New tool exposes self-edits in Wikipedia

A new tool can help trace anonymous Wikipedia edits -- and improve the reliability of the online encyclopedia.

DUSSELDORF, GERMANY (08/16/2007) - A word of caution about editing entries "anonymously" in Wikipedia: a tool has been developed that can show who made the changes.

Organizational Anonymous Editing of the Wikipedia for Public Relations Benefits


My 2 cents:
Does identifying the organization or collective group of people editing it (more so do that without expertise), doesn't increase or decrease the value of tool. And comparing this Wiki, with Enclyclopedia Britannica has already been dealt in the media: Wikipedia study 'fatally flawed'

How To Find Sites Faster Online Without Using Google by Rohit Bhargava

See also my previous posts:

Top 7 Alternatives to Wikipedia

'Wiki' Wins Place in Oxford English Dictionary

Wikipedia and Academia Hit News Headlines Again

Is this yet another Wiki in Library and Information Science

Researchers Turn Web Blather to Books

Top 7 Alternatives to Wikipedia

[NB. This is not a review or view from my Desktop. This is courtesy: Jimmy Atkinson]

Published on Thursday 7th of June, 2007

Touting itself as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit", it's no wonder that Wikipedia has garnered so much bad press lately. After all, it is hard to imagine that millions of anonymous users could accurately maintain a factual and unbiased living encyclopedia. Wikipedia is a non-profit site that is policed by hundreds of volunteers, yet very few of these volunteers have the experience and knowledge of a professional writer/editor. A cultural bias has seemed to have washed over many entries on the site, as general consensus replaces cold, hard facts. There is also a matter of vandalism, which the site is susceptible to. These problems, coupled with the almost obsessive behavior of many of the volunteers (try placing an external link on the site without having it removed), have led people to other sources for information. If you are looking for a different kind of online encyclopedia, try the seven alternatives to Wikipedia listed below. Read the full article
1. Scholarpedia
2. Citizendium
3. Encyclopedia Britannica Online
4. MSN Encarta
5. Infoplease
6. Conservapedia
7. Uncyclopedia

Bottomline:
What do others say about an alternative to Wiki
Then the question remains:

Can we compare oranges and apples?

Can we compare a fee-based product (safe and authoritative) with a freebie (free, almost close to being unauthoritative)

Is there an equation in an (open source) document with what comes in a edited and propreitary protected information service?

See also related posts from my Blog:

Wikipedia and Academia Hit News Headlines Again

Is this yet another Wiki in Library and Information Science

Researchers Turn Web Blather to Books

Google Books: Whats Not to Like?

AHA Blog
April 30, 2007
Google Books: Whats Not to Like?
By Robert Townsend
"The Google Books project promises to open up a vast amount of older literature, but a closer look at the material on the site raises real worries about how well it can fulfill that promise and what its real objectives might be.... "

contents include:

Poor Scan Quality ...
Faulty Metadata ...
Truncated Public Domain ...

+ comments by academics, bloggers, historians, etc.
continue reading

PS. This is not from my desktop. Courtesy: Middle East Librarians Assn List: melanet-l@cornell.edu

'Wiki' Wins Place in Oxford English Dictionary

INTERNATIONAAL NIEUWS
'Wiki' finally legit, says OED
Gregg Keizer, InfoWorld
Six years after Wikipedia.org debuted, editors at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) have finally deigned to add the word "wiki" to the OED's online version.
The term joined a handful of other technology-related entries added to the online OED as part of the dictionary's quarterly update. Also added: "Infobahn," "malware," "undelete" and "virtualize." Continue reading
See also:

'Wiki' is Now an English Word, Techtree News Staff

Previous posts from my Blog:

Wikipedia and Academia Hit News Headlines Again

Is this yet another Wiki in Library and Information Science

NB. This is not a review from my desktop.