Research Infrastructure

Library and Information Center

Rowland Institute at Harvard
Library News & Notes
August 27, 2004

Upcoming Rowland Seminars and Meetings

August 31, 1:15 PM Prof. H. Hotani CREST Japan Science and Technology Agency

Internet Sites of the Week

All That Secrecy Is Expensive
A recent report by OpenTheGovernment.org documents that the federal government spent nearly $6.5 billion dollars classifying information last year. Some wonder if it is wasteful and/or making us less secure. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,64731,00.html

Animal Vegetable Video
Animals and plants are outfitted with minuscule video cameras so that one can view things from their perspective. http://www.anivegvideo.com (Source: Jason Figueiredo)

Color Index
The New England School of Law Library’s catalog offers novel access to familiar bibliographic criteria (“I’m not sure, but it had a red cover …) http://portia.nesl.edu/screens/well_its_red.html (Source: Library Link of the Day)

Customized RSS feeds
ResourceShelf grouped together a number of sites where you can type in a search statement and generate an RSS feed for that search. The list includes: Topix.net http://www.topix.net (such by keyword, phrase, topic, zip code, etc.) Yahoo News http://jeremy.zawodny.com/ynews-search-rss.php Feedster http://www.feedster.com HubMed (searches PubMed) http://www.hubmed.org/ RSSWeather http://rssweather.com/ (weather updates – can specify by zip code) Armed with these feeds, your RSS reader can crawl the sites and display new items that match your criteria.

New MIT President
Susan Hockfield, a Yale neuroscientist, is the first woman president of MIT.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/president-announcement.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/education/27mit.html http://snipurl.com/8ozn (Sources: New York Times, Science in the News)

The Seven Person Conference Bicycle
(Disclaimer: no financial connection with this company.) Dr. Edwin Land reportedly said that a committee should consist of four people and a taxicab and that their work should be finished by the ride’s end. This device would accommodate a few more persons and opinions, for better or worse.
http://www.hammacher.com/publish/78743.asp?catid=20&promo=inthenews (Source: NSF Sci-Tech Library Newsletter)

Smart Talk
This PCWorld guide gives an overview of cellular phone calling plans and services and offers suggestions on getting the best value. http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,116994,00.asp (Source: ResourceShelf)

NEW BOOKS/VIDEOS

Received August 14 - 20, 2004