Minneapolis Bridge Collapse Becomes Partisan Bone of Contention

In today's NYT article: Board’s Theory on Bridge Collapse Facing Tough Sell, the NTSB gets in in trouble with the Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Minnesota State Representative and Democrat, Jim Oberstar. Oberstar claims that the NTSB is jumping the gun with their claim that the 1/2" gusset plates used in the original construction of the I-35 bridge were 1/2" too thin and they caused the bridge's collapse last summer rather than neglect, which is the current theory. The more popular lack of maintenance belief has become a partisan issue. The final NTSB report isn't expected for 8 more months. For complete article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/us/30cnd-bridge.html?ex=1359349200&en=09693d9b0270a21e&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Do we need another reason to move to Hawaii?

Energy Department focuses on making Hawaii energy-independent.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1/28, Keefe) reported, "Federal and state energy officials are planning a major investment in new technologies in an attempt to make Hawaii the nation's first state to get the vast majority of its energy from renewable sources." The Energy Department will "solicit proposals from researchers, companies and others to dramatically expand Hawaii's use of solar and wind power." The agency will also seek to take advantage of the state's "unique resources to develop renewable sources of energy," such as "harnessing the power of ocean waves, creating new biofuels based on algae or palm oil, and increasing the use of underground heat generated beneath the island state's volcanoes." Hawaii was chosen by the Energy Department "because of its unique resources, its strategic location for national security, and the state's recent emphasis on developing more renewable energy." The Journal-Constitution noted, "Hawaii today gets about 90 percent of its energy from imported oil. Because of its isolation, its gasoline prices are typically the highest in the nation."

Omnibus Bill Mandates Access to Scientific Research

From ALA News: This includes the reinstatement of walk-in service at the Environmental Protection Agency’s 10 regional libraries. The funding is $1 million more than proposed by the Senate in June to reopen four libraries, including the headquarters library in Washington, D.C., and restore scaled-back hours elsewhere, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Also included in this bill is the mandate that the PubMed Central database receive for deposit within 12 months of publication peer-reviewed articles researched with funds from the National Institutes of Health. I know that the AAP is fiercely fighting this on behalf of journal publishers, but hopefully it will be stand. Read the full story: http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2007/december2007/omnibus.cfm

Facebook and Research, together??

Searching Library Collections in Facebook

Facebook has a new plug-in that allows searching of WorldCat from an interface within Facebook. Not only is OCLC getting into the social networking scene but academic libraries and even JSTOR has plug-ins available as well. More... (from the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Wired Campus, 1/8/08: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2643/searching-library-collections-in-facebook)

Social networking in Compendex, ScienceDirect

(This is an email I received from Lauren Ray, the UW Libraries' Educational Outreach Librarian.) "The Ubiquitous Librarian blog has a recent post on Elsevier's 2.0 tools, specifically how Compendex is using tagging through del.icio.us. I just tried a search in Compendex, and saw that by clicking on the detailed record for a citation, you have the option of adding a tag to the citation (which you can designate as public or for your eyes only). In ScienceDirect, when viewing a citation (Summary Plus), there is the option to "Add to 2Collab", a space in which you can bookmark and share Science Direct citations, websites, blogs, etc with other 2Collab users. I just tried a search in ScienceDirect, and ended up joining 2Collab. I would definitely recommend checking it out. There are library & info lit related groups in 2collab, including the group "Research Assessment and Citation Analysis". Even if you don't end up using 2Collab, it's worth exploring how these tools might help faculty and students enhance the way they discover new sources of information. You can also get a really nice overview of how librarians can use 2Collab from this 2 minute video, featuring a guided tour by the senior project manager for Science Direct: http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DJmNQB1tswgY. -Lauren"