ResearchBuzz

ResearchSEA is a new resource providing both information about research coming out of Asia and pointers to experts in Asia. It’s available at http://www.researchsea.com .

From the front page, available research is broken up into several topics, including science, medicine, culture, technology, people, and business. Choose a section and you’ll be taken to a list of articles in that category, with the most recent articles first. Recent articles in Technology included “High-resolution fluorescence imaging”, “Biodegradable Cosmetics”, and “Palm oil and rubber wastes to stop landslides”. “Read More” links take you to press-release style overviews with the names of researchers but not contact information (you have to be a registered journalist to get the contact information.)

It looks like each topic only carries 50 articles at a time, but some topics are busier than others. The technology topic’s first five articles go back to August 3 at this writing, while the medicine topic only goes back to August 20. Members of the public and journalists can register with the site and elect to receive a daily or weekly digest of articles added to each topic.

In addition to the articles, there are several other resources on the site. “Focus On” are groups of resources, articles, and experts centered around one topic (currently there are three “Focus On” groups: Bird Flu, Peace and Conflict, and Women.) There’s a search engine that allows you to find experts by keyword (a search for pathology found two Malaysian experts and a search for manufacturing found experts from Malaysia, Pakistan, and Japan.) An events calendar lists notable scientific and medical events taking place in Asia (”First International Conference on the Medicinal Use of Honey”?) while an archive page lists releases by month.

Lots to see here.

The University of California has announced Calisphere, a digital library containing more than 150,000 digitized primary source materials about California. Calisphere is available at http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu .

The materials (which include photographs, newspapers, diaries, advertising, etc.) are from libraries and institutions from all over the state and they’re explorable in a huge number of ways from right off the front page. You can browse an index (from 1906 Earthquake to Zoot Suit Riots), browse by subject, or visit a directory of California Web sites. For teachers, there are themed collections organized by time period which contain primary source material, an overview of the time period/topic, relevant questions, etc.

These theme roundups were interesting but I was more intrigued by the index, so I decided to check out “Computers.” I got a set of 13 pictures (no articles and no site links) that included manufacturing, cleanrooms, an adorable little Altair from 1975, and for some reason a Pegasus. If you click on the thumbnail of the picture you get a (much larger) picture with a little additional information (owning institution, date, etc.) but to get the detailed information (description, rights, subject headings, etc.) you have to click “More information about this image” next to the large picture. This feels a little backwards to me — I’m used to seeing the thumbnails, then the details, then the large image last. A nice feature of the large image is that you have the option to print the image with or without the details.

I wandered around a few more sets of materials from the index, some of which were heavily populated (”Civil Rights”, “Maps”, “Richmond Shipyards”) and some of which weren’t (”John Steinbeck”, “Bear Flag Republic”.) If you want to see all the topics and the entire index at once, there’s a huge page that’s great for browsing at http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/browse-a-z.html. Teachers shouldn’t miss the guide page at http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/for-teachers.html .

Lots of great material here, though I wish the details for the pictures weren’t buried under a couple of extra clicks. A real timesink.

Plenty of new stuff available at LLRX ( LLRX.com ). Among the latest articles: Pragmatic Approaches to Knowledge Management, by Ron Friedmann ( http://www.llrx.com/features/pragmatickm.htm ), Global Law Firm Knowledge Management Survey 2006, by Gretta Rusanow ( http://www.llrx.com/features/kmsurvey2006.htm ), The Government Domain: Government Documents and the News, by Peggy Garvin ( http://www.llrx.com/columns/govdomain19.htm ), and of course Kathy Biehl’s most excellent After Hours column, this time providing highlights of the 2006 New York Fancy Food Show: http://www.llrx.com/columns/afterhours31.htm. Check out those articles and more at http://www.llrx.com .