Research Blog : google

Speak your mind…opinions welcome, wanted, and appreciated

SuDocQueen@evpl — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:11:00 GMT

Hello out there to everyone in EVPL blogland,

I have a dilemma that I could use your help with. Every year I sit down to plan a workshop on useful government documents and websites (more websites than actual documents now-a-days) and every year I get overwhelmed with the glut of information I could offer… Do I focus on how to find useful health and nutrition information? Or on how to find those interesting statistics you always hear quoted from the Census and Labor Departments? Or what about consumer safety information? Or how to navigate Social Security’s website? Or how about following legislation? The list can go on and on. So, I’m opening the floor to all of you, the people that the government is trying to reach with all of this information. What do you most want to know about? What do you need help discovering? Let me know how best to help you.

Vacation on a budget...

SuDocQueen@evpl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:38:00 GMT

Nowadays everyone’s talking about staycations. This reminded me of the wonderful vacations my parents took me on even when we had to watch every penny. How’d we do it? By visiting our National Parks and State Parks (and camping, but that’s a whole ‘nother story). Most parks have entrance fees for an entire passenger car that are cheaper than an individual ticket to Disney World.

Starting in the winter my parents would send away for scads of pamphlets and maps of parks like the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, and Slide Rock State Park. Planning early is still a good idea but now it’s even easier. All you have to do is go to www.nps.gov. From there you can learn about every national park in the country. They have a great search tool on that front page. Just click on the state you’re interested in visiting and you’ll get a list of all the parks in that state. But what if you know the name of a park but not what state it’s in? No problem. Click on the “Advanced SearchTool and Map.” From there scroll below the map and you’ll see a great browser tool that will let you pick your park by name, location, preferred activity, or even topic (like mountains or volcanoes or coral reefs).

But what about state parks? Well, if there’s a site out there that pulls all state parks under one “roof” I haven’t found it yet, but putting “state parks (insert the state name of your choice)” into Google does a terrific job of pulling up each state’s website.

And, if you’re at Central Library stop by and take a look at some of the books and pamphlets the National Parks Service still puts out. We have a whole series of pamphlets on the Blue Ridge Parkway trails. Just ask one of us about Call # I 29.149. Or if you’re interested in the historic details of sites, you might want to take a look in our I 29.88 area. Those are historic structure and site reports on places like Fire Island Lighthouse, the Eleanor Roosevelt Historic Site, and Antietam National Battlefield.

Google Public Data Search

librarianinheels@evpl — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:48:00 GMT

One of the great things about Google that not many are aware of is its versatility when it comes to finding information. For example, if you want to know how to convert $500 into Euros, go to www.google.com, type in 500 dollars in euros, and hit enter. You'll get the value of US Dollars to Euros at the current level of exchange.

Now it's possible to search for public data records using Google that may be otherwise difficult, or at least cumbersome, to find. For example, if you want to know the Unemployment Rate in Vanderburgh County, go to www.google.com, type in "unemployment rate Vanderburgh County Indiana" (without the quotes), and hit enter. You'll get a direct link, with a graphic, at the top of the search page. When you click on the graphic, or the accompanying link, you're directed to statistics from the US Department of Labor housed on Google.

For more information, visit the Official Google blog on how to perform these public records searches and what more will be added.

Historic 'Life' Magazine photos on Google

librarianinheels@evpl — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:33:00 GMT

I just discovered a really nifty tool for anyone interested in using, or just browsing, some of the iconic photos from Life magazine. Google has an online photo archive of millions of photos that are part of the Life photo archive:

"Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google." (from the Google/Life photo archive website).

This resource is perfect for school projects, or for any research project that requires photographic documentation. As a bonus, framed images can be purchased if you just like old photos, and you want something interesting to hang on your wall. The images are tagged so that searching within a subject is made easier. Here's an interesting blog post about the archive.

The photos are searchable and organized by decade. To search and view the collection, go to http://images.google.com/hosted/life

Magazines now included in Google Book Search

googler@evpl — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:46:00 GMT

Google hasn't published a list of titles, for some reason, but they've started adding lots of page images from a variety of magazines, some going back to the 1800s.

Start at books.google.com, and click on the small "Advanced Book Search" link that's to the right of the search box. If you want to find a particular magazine, use its title as a phrase search (as an example, type Mother Jones into the exact phrase box). If you want to look for topic in that magazine, type those keywords into the topmost search box (for example, type in pesticides). Be sure to use the radio buttons to restrict your search to magazines. You can also scroll down and specify years, to make sure you get only recent articles. (Or, for nostalgia's sake, you might enjoy a search in something like Popular Science for a time span like 1850-1900.)

This article has a little more information on this project, for the curious.

And don't forget the Library's vast access to full-text magazines, available through databases we subscribe to (notably Masterfile). These databases can be access by all in any library, or from outside of the library by current resident card-holders.

Google Book Settlement May Transform Google Book Search Into Google Bookstore

Bufkinite@evpl — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 04:26:00 GMT

The November 3, 2008 Library Hotline has a lead article on a landmark settlement between Google and the Authors Guild (AG) and the Association of American Publishers (AAP), two organizations that had filed suit against it over the Google Book Search Project. The details are very sketchy, but "Google has announced that the parties have agreed to expand Google Book Search into what will be the web's largest online commercial book venture. Hotline says "the deal could mean significantly increased access to book content online," but not everyone is happy. Harvard University, for example, has noted that it will not participate with Google in the scanning of in-copyright works, and will continue with its policy of only allowing Google to scan books whose copyright has expired.

On it's web site, Google explains the settlement in terms of what will change and what won't. Access to books that are out of copyright won't change much at all. Access to books that are in copyright but out-of-print, or in copyright and in print, will change from the current "snippet" view to more of what is currently the preview view , where you're allowed to view up to 20 full pages of text, then decide whether you'd like to purchase "full online access" to millions of books. Publishers and authors will have their royalties managed through the creation of a "Book Rights Registry."

You can't, apparently, actually download the titles you purchase - at least not yet - but simply keep then on your "electronic bookshelf" within your Book Search account.

Libraries will be able to "purchase institutional subscriptions" allowing their customers access to the full text of the books on the library's "electronic bookshelf," but there's no information about being able to download or "check out" these ebooks. Public and academic libraries will also be able to offer terminals where users can access the out-of-print books for free. However, an article at Xconomy.com makes the point that, while libraries are supposed to be offered a free, view-only license to Google's digital collections, that the agreement actually "restricts each public library to exactly one Google terminal."

Time will tell whether the proposed model will generate enough money for authors & publishers, or enough interest from the reading & book-buying public. I'm not hopeful, because while I enjoy downloading ebooks to read, maintaining an "electronic bookshelf" on Google's servers as a virtual adjunct to my own print library isn't attractive to me at all.

What do you think?

Find an address by clicking a map

googler@evpl — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:37:00 GMT

This resource allows you to enter a city name or zip code, then on the subsequent map, get the mailing address of any point on that map.

The number of ways that various websites use Google maps is really incredible. There are blogs devoted to sharing various applications and "mash-ups," such as Google Maps Mania. Also, if you want to see if anybody has created a particular way of using maps, you can always Google the words "Google maps" and then your topic, like real estate, celebrities, or dog parks. The search doesn't need quotation marks or any other special technique.

LOC business webliography (and finding it again)

googler@evpl — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:31:00 GMT

One of the content feeds I've subscribed to is the Resource Shelf, which describes itself as "a daily newsletter with resources of interest to information professionals, educators and journalists." A recent entry (I'm a little behind -- it's from July 14) looked at what editor Shirl Kennedy called "niche statistics" and contains a diverse array of really specialized statistical sources on the web.

The link that really caught my eye was to wedding industry research, from Library of Congress Business Reference Services. Not the first part, the second -- the LOC's Business Reference Services, which I hadn't been aware of. Clicking the link and looking around a bit got me to the main page for their Business Reference Services, and from there to their list of internet resources. Thinking it looked pretty cool (and noticing it has a section for marketing research, something I'm always on the lookout for), I started wondering how I would find it again.

I not a big fan of bookmarking. I also don't like accumulating links via Del.icio.us particularly, either, although I make use of the hive mind there to find stuff sometimes. I prefer figuring out the search that's going to get me to the site again. (Yeah, this backfires sometimes.) I generally assume that I'm going to forget the actual name of the page but remember something about its location -- in this case, I might remember it's at LOC. So in Google, the search to find it again will be ["marketing research" site:loc.gov]. Or just ["marketing research" site:.gov] because this search (and I always test the search) puts the site I want on the first page of results, and also adds some other interesting stuff.

Fun, huh? I just wish I could calculate the odds of ever needing to find the site again -- or of succeeding when I try.