Back in May 2007, I wrote a post about alternatives to Wikipedia (view original post), one of which was a serious contender to the ever-popular, user-generated/edited encyclopedia and the other being a spoof. Since it’s Friday, Wired Magazine found even more pedias, some useful, some for fun. I thought that Dealipedia was interesting, and I’m sure that Barb would probably find Congresspedia to be utterly fascinating. On the other hand, I’m sure Chickipedia could be a serious time waster for some of you.
Source: 8 Best: Non-Wikipedia Pedias from Wired Magazine
We’re GOOgle for gadgets!
We’re all becoming converts to iGoogle. If you’ve not heard of it yet iGoogle is a fabulous productivity tool that Google released a while back. It allows users to add all kinds of useful “gadgets” to their homepage. Imagine having all your RSS feeds, blogs, to-do-lists, calendars, and images in one place! Neatly arranged! You can also choose nifty themes to decorate your page.
We love iGoogle so much that we made a gadget for the Library. Now you can have access to books, articles and all your library accounts right at your finger tips!
Check out our gadget and tell us what you think!
You can also search for our gadget under “whitewater” at add new stuff.
6 March 2008 – 4 PM
BI Lab (room 2211 in the University Library)
Financial markets – they’re like roller coasters - rocketing up, plunging down, leveling out and any variation in between. For those involved, it can be a gut-wrenching and exhilarating experience. People gamble their entire life savings on a chance to win it big. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. You should make sure to do your homework before beginning any venture to ensure a solid investment decision.
The Library would like to invite faculty and staff to an open session with Professors John Howat and David Porter of the Finance & Business Law Department. Howat and Porter have graciously agreed to share their knowledge of stocks and mutual funds and answer any questions that you may have about investing.
The session will also highlight library resources that help navigate the seemingly complicated financial world, namely Morningstar Library Edition, Standard & Poor’s NetAdvantage, and ValueLine Investment Survey. These well-respected investment information sources offer guidance in educating yourself about companies, industries and markets.
So mark your calendars and be sure to join us on March 6 at 4 PM! If you can’t make it right at 4 PM or you can’t stay the whole time, that’s OK too. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Kyle Naff, Business Librarian, at naffk@uww.edu or 472.5519.
Please note: This session will not tell you which stocks or funds to choose. Our speakers are very knowledgeable in personal finance, but they are not licensed investment professionals. They may be able to guide you in the right direction, but it’s up to you to decide where you’d like your money to go.
Just like us, the Library of Congress has a flickr account. Unfortunately for us, LoC has kicked our behinds when it comes to content. They have over three thousand photographs from their collections for all the world to view, admire, study, and best of all - use. The best part - the photos are from the first half of the twentieth century (1910s-1940s), which means that the copyright has expired. That means you can use these pictures any which way you’d like. Of course, make sure you still credit the photographer (if known). The flickr account also nicely compliments the American Memory Project that the LoC does.
Library of Congress flickr account
Thanks to Kelly for the link!
Today’s featured stuff is actually something that we got back in April - ScienceDirect College Edition from Elsevier. Recently (and without much notice or fanfare), our subscription greatly expanded. When we first acquired ScienceDirect, our collection included the most current four years of over 1900 journals. That’s not too shabby, especially since Elsevier published many of the top scholarly journals in a number of areas.
We now have access to all of the articles, in electronic full text format, for those journal titles back to 1995! That means that you can read more than eight million articles online! Wow!
You can get to articles from ScienceDirect by searching the collection directly (go to Find → Databases from the Library’s home page). The articles also come up in searches in EBSCOhost, Proquest and databases from other providers - just use the Find It! link to access them!
When people think of the library, they don’t necessarily think to turn to us for investment advice. While we wouldn’t advise anyone on where to put their money, we can point you to credible and respectable sources for that sort of information. Conveniently enough, Morningstar, one of the top investment analysis firms and financial resource, has released their picks on the stocks and funds that will perform well in the coming year. Reknown for their mutual fund Where to Invest in 2008 contains information on the ‘Four Funds for an IRA,’ the ‘10 Best Companies in the World,’ the ‘Best Funds for 2008,’ and ‘Tune Up Your Portfolio in the New Year.’
To access the Morningstar report, use the following link - the report is linked under Important Articles in the center of the page.
Be on the lookout in March for an upcoming library session about the investing resources that we offer!
Looking for international statistics? Country info? The United Nations may have just the numbers you need!
There are several United Nations statistical databases available free (for non-commercial use) online at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/databases.htm:
- Census Knowledge Base
The Census Knowledge Base, a fundamental part of the resource centre for the 2010 World Population and Housing Census Programme, is a repository of documents relevant for the field of population and housing census taking. more…
- Common Database (UNCDB)
UNCDB provides selected series from numerous specialized international data sources for all available countries and areas. more…
- Demographic Yearbook system
Statistics on population size and composition, births, deaths, marriage and divorce, more…
- Distat, the United Nations Disability Statistics Database
Basic statistics on human functioning and disability, more…
- Good practices database
View this valuable source of information in good practices in official statistics, more…
- InfoNation
Experience this global learning project for middle and secondary students with statistical information on countries. more…
- Joint Oil Data Initiative (JODI)
View the monthly oil data for the countries reporting to UNSD, more…
- Millennium Indicators Database
48 indicators, to measure progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Declaration development goals. more…
- National Accounts Main Aggregates Database
Contains a complete and consistent set of time series of main national accounts aggregates from 1970 onwards, more…
- Population of capital cities and cities of 100,000 and more inhabitants
Population of city proper urban agglomeration, more…
- Population and housing censuses: census dates
Population and housing census information, more…
- Population and Vital Statistics on Internet
Quarterly report on the latest census and mid-year population; latest vital statistics of births, deaths and infant deaths, more…
- Service Trade Statistics
UN ServiceTrade, the United Nations database with Statistics on International Trade in Services, contains annual detailed trade in services data. more…
- Social Indicators
Tables with social indicators covering a wide range of subject matter fields such as education, housing, health, water, more…
- Statistics and indicators on women and men
Statistics and indicators on six specific fields of concern: population, families, health, education, work and politics and human rights, more…
On the same web page you’ll see a couple of subscription (”restricted”) databases also, which are not available. However, the University Library’s first-floor Periodicals Collection does contain Monthly Bulletin of Statistics issues (which provide economic data for countries and regions) since 1971 (and a few other earlier years as well).
The University Library is a federal depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!
CQ Weekly is a weekly magazine devoted to all things related to the activities of the U.S. Congress (its subtitle is “Congressional Quarterly’s Magazine on Government, Commerce, and Politics”). Get a recap of major actions of the past week, an analysis of major issues currently under consideration or coming up soon, roll-call votes, news about the latest political skirmishes, etc. It’s addicting! Keep up with Congress by reading a new issue every Monday.
How to use it:
The home page features the contents of the latest issue (click on the titles that you want to read). Use the options on the left side to browse other issues (click the “Read Recent Issues” drop-down and select a date), or search for articles or floor votes by keyword(s), topic or date. The advanced search allows a number of options including specifying committees, searching by bill numbers, and changing the way results are ordered. You can set up an account and save searches or create automatic email alerts (start by setting up your profile–another option on the left-side margin).
How far back does it go?
UWW students and faculty/staff have access to articles from this respected publication online starting with October 1983. In the University Library’s Reference Collection is the annual summary volume, Congressional Quarterly Almanac, going back to 1959.
In addition, the Weekly is actually part of a suite of CQ databases available to the UWW community for political research. Go to CQ Electronic Library and search any or all of these components: CQ Weekly, CQ Researcher, CQ Congress Collection, CQ Public Affairs Collection, and CQ Voting and Elections Collection.
More and more newspapers are shifting their online business models to compensate their declining print circulation numbers. The Wall Street Journal is no exception. The New York Times reported yesterday that Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, anticipates dropping the online subscription price for WSJ.com after the completion of News Corp’s acquisition of Dow Jones & Company, publisher of WSJ. This is all well and good, but expect more ads on the website - increased advertising revenues will make up for the loss of the subscription rates.
You can always read the print edition of the Wall Street Journal here at the Library on the first floor in Periodicals or online via Proquest, free and without the ads.
full article: Murdoch Intends to Drop WSJ.com Fee - New York Times
That is, if you have a laptop with you.
But seriously…
Are you going to be studying abroad for part or all of the spring semester? First of all, I’m incredibly jealous because I would love to study abroad again (the picture to the right is of me in Nice, France while I was studying in Barcelona). But the other thing to consider is that you have to prepare - you have to know about the place where you’ll be spending some quality time broadening your horizons. The Library has plenty of information on particular countries and even travel guides. Make sure to check them out before you’re off traveling to distant lands.
And of course, don’t forget that you can use the online resources available from the Library both here in Wisconsin as well as wherever you have internet access. Just a heads-up, the libraries don’t work the same in other countries and may be a tad confusing. You always have us to fall back on if you need help.
