Volume 38, Number 3 - May/June 2014
EDITORIALFrontLines Page 4 We'd like to think that increasing the amount and variety of information results in more knowledge and less ignorance. But when everyone's a researcher, misinformation and disinformation coexist with solid information in search results. By Marydee Ojala Searcher's Voice Page 33 In this guest editorial, Charles Hamaker, associate university librarian for collection development and electronic resources at UNC-Charlotte, believes publishers are ready to set in motion a scheme to destroy the secondary textbook market by eliminating the competition and thus controlling prices. By Charles Hamaker DEPARTMENTSPage 8 Search Engine Update New Search Features, Developments, and Content By Greg R. Notess Page 66 Conference Corral Spreading the News; Re-Envisioning Information Businesses FEATURESPage 10 Downloading Ebooks: Solutions for a Complex Process With so many different vendors offering ebooks to libraries, issues arise about downloading due to the lack of standardization among vendors. Two Nova Southeastern University librarians offer their tips and techniques to solve downloading problems and make the process more transparent and obvious. By Melissa Maria Johnson, Matthew Buckley Page 14 M.B.A. Students Assess Business Databases How would end-user graduate students in a competitive intelligence class evaluate ProQuest Dialog and Gale Business Insights: Global as they gathered market, industry, and company information for their term projects? Their opinions and comments may surprise you.  Additional comments and tables can be found online as supplementary material to this article here
By Barbie E. Keiser Mythbusting: Seven Google Myths that Complicate Our Lives Everyone uses Google, and while that's not a bad thing, information literacy expert William Badke points out the seven myths that information professionals need to debunk if they are to help people search Google effectively and without succumbing to its hype. By William Badke Page 52 Revelations From Open Source Government Information From a secretive government agency with an opaque knowledgebase comes a surprising treasure trove of open source software listings. DARPA's open source code catalog contains links to software and to technical papers about open source contributions. By Stephen E. Arnold Page 56  Two law librarians, expert investigators and "cybersleuths," share their 10 tips for creative searching on people and companies. They reveal sites and search strategies they've found to be critical for ferreting out information that their targets would prefer remains hidden. By Bridget Gilhool, Jennifer McMahan Page 60 Fifty Shades of Scientific and Technical Grey Literature Often overlooked, grey literature contains valuable information, particularly in scientific and technical fields. Researcher Matthew Van Hendy explains how to find grey literature and lays out a large number of resources, mostly free, that contain this obscure information. By Matthew Von Hendy IN-DEPTH REPORTSPage 38 Creating an Online Presentation for News Reporters/Journalists Julia Muller, librarian for the Savannah Morning News, will periodically give a presentation to the newsroom reporters that includes tips for using the in-house archives as well as websites the staff might find useful. Before she did her most recent talk, she asked her fellow news librarians for suggestions, which she shares here. By Julia C. Muller Page 42 Colleges want to innovate in all facets of education, especially in the area of textbooks. Burt as Nancy Herther notes, education issues are never cut and dried, especially due to political impacts from both the state and federal levels. She examines whether the time has come for textbooks to join the digital frontier or if too many stumbling blocks still remain. By Nancy K. Herther COLUMNSThe Dollar Sign Page 74 Cracking the Business Codes Information professionals specializing in business research have a secret weapon—codes. It's not only the industry classification codes, which clients may already know, but also the concept codes, baked into bibliographic databases, that elude end-user searchers. By Marydee Ojala Online Spotlight Page 80 Learn to Love Your Information Vendor Antagonistic confrontations between librarians and vendors are counterproductive, Mary Ellen Bates has come to believe. Info pros and info providers need each other, sharing the goal of getting information to those who need it. By Mary Ellen Bates InfoLit Land Page 71 Those Baffling Assignments Professors give assignments that perplex students, who are accustomed to internet searching that encourages mashing up factoids and providing a personal opinion. Librarians are the champions, helping students understand research methods. By William Badke Control-Shift Page 28 Flat Design Travels to Library Websites The design elements and tools on Jeff Wisniewski's and Darlene Fichter's radar screen include recent web developments in flat design, scalar vector graphics, and color schemes. They show how to incorporate these into library website design to make sites look more modern. By Jeff Wisniewski, Darlene Fichter On the Net Page 68 Social Searching With Hashtags, Names, and Unshortening Social media is all the rage these days. As a nontraditional research source, techniques for searching social media sites include hashtag searching, social media search engines, uncovering names and accounts, and unshortening URLs. By Greg R. Notess Hard Copy Page 77 Recommended Reading on Interrogation Techniques, Library Obsolescence, Big Data, and Knowledge Management By Deborah Lynne Wiley Internet Express Page 35 Employee Analytics: Using Moneyball Tactics in Personnel Decisions Online games are a fun distraction, but nothing more, right? Not necessarily. Now, as Irene McDermott reports, some games are designed to help players learn about their personal strengths and weaknesses and can even help employers find the right individual who, in order to be successful in a certain position, needs very specific types of skills. By Irene E. McDermott |
