Federated Search Research

I am going to try to get back into posting here more often.  My extended break was mainly the result of (1) starting a new federated search research project in March, and (2) becoming Interim Coordinator of my library’s IT department in May.

I am happy to report the successful outcome of my research project!  My article – “Federated Search and the Library Web Site: A Study of ARL Library Web Sites” – was accepted for publication in the Journal of Web Librarianship and should be published early next year.

Although I am working on two other research projects, I am hoping this short post will be the start of more frequent activity here.

Biodiesel Cold-Weather Testing

A partnership between Purdue Univesity, the Indiana Soybean Alliance, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Alaska Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station resulted in an interesting cold-weather test of Permaflo (TM) Biodiesel.

Permaflo is a specially formulated to improve the cold-weather properties of biodiesel.  A cold-flow fractionation process is used to separate the saturated and unsaturated oil molecules from each other.  The unsaturated molecules, which are used for Permaflo, have a lower cloud point temperature (i.e., temperature at which the diesel gels/crystallizes).  Permaflo has a cloud point temperature as low as -67°F.  For more information about Permaflo, see the FAQ from the Indiana Soybean Alliance.

The cold-weather test, which took place in Alaska, had two components: transportation and stationary power generation.  Two vehicles running Permaflo were driven from Anchorage to Fairbanks, which is over 300 miles.  Then one vehicle was driven to the Arctic Circle, which is an additional 200 miles, where the group camped overnight using a generator running Permaflo.  During the test, updates and photos were posted on the Indiana Soybean Alliance website.

2007 Census of Agriculture

Today the 2007 Census of Agriculture data was made available from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.  From the census website, “The Census of Agriculture, taken every five years, is a complete count of U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate them. The Census looks at land use and ownership, operator characteristics, production practices, income and expenditures, and many other areas.”  The website provides other basic information about the 2007 census.

Data from the three previous censuses are also available online: 2002 | 1997 | 1992
Historical censuses (i.e., 1840-1950) are available in pdf format.

Full text in CAB Abstracts

CAB Abstracts is a leading database for the applied life sciences, including agriculture; environmental sciences; and human health, food and nutrition.

As of January 1, 2009, CAB Abstracts includes all full text content that was previously available only with a separate subscription. As a result, over 30,000 journal articles, reports and conference papers are now available full text (in pdf format) to ISU faculty, staff and students. Please note that CAB Abstracts includes over 5 million records, so only a small percentage of these will be available full text. Nevertheless, the full text content is often not available electronically elsewhere, because CABI focuses on hard to find research.

Lists of the full text journals and conferences (as of October 2008).

ISU’s current subscription to CAB Abstracts is limited to one simultaneous user. If you have trouble accessing the database because of this, please let me know so that I can consider increasing the number of users allowed.

Where Does Thanksgiving Dinner Come from?

Here’s a fun example of using geographic information systems (GIS) to map agricultural data – Thanksgiving Maps, Posters, and Geospatial Data.

Linda Zellmer, the Government Information and Data Services Librarian at Western Illinois University, used GIS to map where traditional Thanksgiving foods (e.g., green beans, potato, pumpkin, turkey) are produced in the United States.  Using 1997 and 2002 Census of Agriculture data, she has created two sets of maps, and when the 2007 Census of Agriculture data becomes available next year, she plans to create a new set of maps.

The most recent poster uses 2002 Census data.

Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy

The Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE) is a new, online-only, peer-reviewed journal from the American Institute of Physics (AIP). It is an interdisciplinary journal covering all area of renewable and sustainable energy-related fields that apply to the physical sciences and engineering communities. Topics covered include:

• Bioenergy – bioreactions and bioengineering
• Geothermal energy – geysers, heat pumps, and novel devices
• Marine and hydroelectric energy – waves, tides, and dams
• Nuclear energy – fission and fusion
• Solar energy – photovoltaics and solar thermal converters
• Wind energy – turbines and electrical systems and controls
• Energy conversion – solid oxide and proton exchange membrane fuel cells and novel devices
• Energy efficient buildings – photovoltaics, solar thermal converters, and passive solar approaches
• Energy storage – hydrogen and batteries
• Power distribution – conventional and superconducting transmission, fluctuating loads, and controls
• Renewable energy resource assessment
• Transportation – hydrogen, batteries, fuel cells, bioenergy, and vehicles

AIP has also created a companion website that includes:

• a blog in which insightful commentary on news, policy, and research related not just to the journal, but to renewable and sustainable energy in general, can be found
• a list of top stories culled from major newspapers, magazines, and websites, these stories cover the most important news happening in the field
• interviews (audio, video, and text) with researchers, newsmakers, and other persons of interest to the field of basic renewable and sustainable energy research.

JRSE research papers will be freely accessible through 2009. In 2010, a subscription will be required. If you find this to be a useful journal, please let me know, and Milner Library can consider a subscription for 2010.

Gartner Portal

In partnership with the Administrative Information Systems department, Milner Library is able to provide access to the Gartner Portal to all faculty, students and staff of Illinois State University. The Gartner Portal provides an extensive collection of reports on topics such as business intelligence, IT asset management, open source, security and privacy, and web services.

The Gartner Portal can be accessed via Milner’s website – http://www.library.ilstu.edu/ – or directly via – https://gartner.ilstu.edu/.

A Gartner representative gave a demo of the portal this morning at the College of Business. Here are some highlights from that session:

Magic Quadrants – Allow you to understand the relative positions of vendors in a market. These reports are updated approximately every 18 months, unless a market is very stable. Each report includes a market overview, the vendor inclusion and exclusion criteria, the evaluation criteria for “ability to execute” & “completeness of vision,” an explanation of the challengers, leaders, niche players and visionaries, and the individual vendors’ strengths and cautions.

Hype Cycles – Allow you to understand the relative maturity of technologies in a given domain. The graphs show where a technology is on the cycle of trigger technology, to peak of inflated expectations, to trough of disillusionment, to slope of enlightenment, to plateau of productivity. The graphs also use symbols to indicate the number of years to mainstream adoption. You can click on any of the technologies on the graph to see a definition, a justification, the business impact areas, selected vendors, market penetration, maturity, user advice, and more. These graphs seem like a great resource for students struggling to identify a topic for a project or research paper.

Research - You can browse and search all of the Gartner reports. You can browse by topic, industry, author, date, and more. All of the reports are available in html and pdf. The Gartner rep said that these reports can be shared with ISU students, as long as they are not made freely accessible to anyone. You can also create an alert so that you receive an email when a new report of interest is available.

Research Fast Finder – Near the middle of the main Gartner page, you can browse by markets, topics, and industry. One industry that would be of particular interest to ISU staff and faculty is the Education industry.

Teleconferences - Gartner hosts teleconferences that any ISU faculty, student or staff can register for. If you are unable to participate in a teleconference or if you would like to use a teleconference in class, recordings are available for download in the Replay Archive. The Gartner rep indicated that these recordings are usually available for approximately 6 months.

If you have any questions or comments about the Gartner Portal, please feel free to contact me.

Plant Management Network

Milner Library now provides access to the Plant Management Network.

This cooperative resource for the applied plant sciences offers an extensive searchable database comprised of thousands of resource pages from the network’s partner universities, companies, and associations. PMN also includes the network’s four peer-reviewed journals: Plant Health Progress, Crop Management, Forage and Grazinglands, and Applied Turfgrass Science.  The Plant Disease Management Reports are also included.

The four peer-reviewed journals are included in Milner’s Find It service, so if an article from one of these journals appears in a database search you’ve done (e.g. in AGRICOLA or CAB Abstracts), you should be able to link directly to the full-text!

Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks

When I was growing-up, my family took a vacation to Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks.  It was definitely my favorite family vacation … I was amazed by all of the wildlife we saw.  So I was thrilled to go back, and once again the wildlife did not disappoint!!

During our week in the parks we saw (in no particular order): black bears, a grizzly bear, moose, buffalo, elk, deer, otters, beavers, bald eagles, pelicans, geese, loons, chipmunks, squirrels, a marmot, and more.  Oh, and how could I forget all of the mosquitoes!!  Some of these animals were quite close to us; it was great to observe them, and of course, take pictures of them!!

We spent two long days in Yellowstone.  One day we explored lots of hot springs, geysers, and paint pots.  I remembered the paint pots, which are basically bubbling pools of mud, from my first visit to Yellowstone, so I had to see them again.  Of course, we saw Old Faithful, but we actually enjoyed the other geysers and hot springs around Old Faithful more.  Our other day in Yellowstone was spent at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River.  How impressive!!  We went first to the Artist Point on the South Rim, which was beautiful but also very crowded with tour groups.  Unfortunately, much of the North Rim was closed for construction, but thankfully we were still able to hike down to the brink of the Lower Falls.  The trail wasn’t very crowded, and the view was amazing.

Of course, everyone knows Yellowstone, but I personally like Grand Teton a little better.  The geological features in Yellowstone are great, but the mountain views in Grand Teton are breathtaking.  While in Grand Teton, we took a motorboat out on Jackson Lake for a closer view of the mountains, hiked to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point, hiked around part of Jenny Lake, and drove the Signal Mountain Summit Road.  We spent lots of time hunting for wildlife too, especially around dusk.  My absolute favorite place for looking for wildlife was Oxbow Bend.  This is where we saw otters, and we even saw a black bear swim across the river there.  If it weren’t for the mosquitoes, I could have spent hours there looking for wildlife and gazing at the mountains.

I could write so much about this vacation, but lastly I just thought I’d mention that we loved our lodging.  We stayed in Grand Teton at the Jackson Lake Lodge.  Our room was nicer than expected, and while it didn’t have a mountain view, it did have a nice meadow view.  The lodge also had nice restaurant options.  We ate most meals at the Pioneer Grill, where we got to know several of the friendly staff members by name, but we did eat one dinner in the Mural Room, where the menu includes buffalo, Idaho trout, elk, quail, and more.  The meal was delicious.

Another fabulous vacation!!

Ithaca, NY

Last month we traveled to Ithaca, NY for several days to see a friend who is a visiting scientist at Cornell University for 3 months.

We had a great time! We visited two wineries, walked in Sapsucker Woods at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, wandered around the Cornell campus, and hiked to a few waterfalls. When I was in Ithaca in October 2006 for a conference, I spent a day at Sapsucker Woods and absolutely loved it, so I was thrilled to go back. This time we were there in the afternoon, so we didn’t see lots of birds, although we did watch a heron catch a fish. When I was in Ithaca before, I didn’t have a chance to see any of the waterfalls that the area is so famous for. I was glad I was able to this time, especially since it was springtime and there was lots of water. The Taughannock Falls was particularly impressive.

Our next trip is to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in late July! Very exciting!