A New Service to help Open Access to Research Information

From a recent press release:

"OpenDOAR – the Directory of Open Access Repositories – is please to
announces the release of its primary listing of open access archives, available from www.opendoar.org.

This classifies archives holding research papers, conference papers,
theses and other academic materials that are available as “open access”. This means that anyone with an internet connection has access to this information without paying any charges."

State of the Union Addresses

State of the Union Addresses of the American Presidents: Free Searchable Version

Search and analyze the the full-text of all State of the Union Addresses from 1790-2005. The State of the Union Address is an annual event in which the President of the United States reports on the status of the country. The address is also used to outline the President's legislative proposals for the upcoming year. The text is extremely useful in a searchable eBook.

Two database trials

Routledge Religion Resource

Routledge Politics and International Relations Resource

These indexes provide access to the full text of reference works under the subjects of Religion and Politics and International relations. A wide breadth of subject matter that benefits students in a range of disciplines including philosophy, history, Asian studies, and sociology. Searches can be performed across articles and references at one time.
Trial links may be accessed from the library's home page or you may click here: http://www.reference.routledge.com/subscriber/uid=12405/?authstatuscode=202

Global Health Statistics

GlobalHealthFacts.org, a project of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, provides free, up-to-date and easy-to-access data by country on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other key health and socio-economic indicators. The data are displayed in tables, charts, and color-coded maps and can be downloaded for custom analyses.

No Surprise. Digital Music is Big Business

The IFPI has relased it's 2006 Digital Music Report. A couple of paragraphs from the press release:

Sales of music via the internet and mobile phones proliferated and spread across the world in 2005, generating sales of US$1.1 billion for record companies - up from US$380 million the previous year - and promising further significant growth in the coming year.

The findings are released today in IFPI's Digital Music Report 2006, a comprehensive review of the development of the digital music market internationally.

Study: College students lack literacy for complex tasks

A study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts has found that college students lakc basic literacy in three areas. Key paragraphs from the article:

The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.

Without "proficient" skills, or those needed to perform more complex tasks, students fall behind. They cannot interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.

Music Information on the Web

A column at the ACRL ( Association of College and Research Libraries) website surveys many quality websites related to music.

Will 2006 Be the Year of the E-book?

Sony is coming out with a new e-book reader in early 2006. Other companies are set to follow later in the year and in early 2007. Key issues are rights management and usability.