Frost Byte - Volume 5, Issue 45

News

A DVD documentary of the Arctic Ice Dynamics Joint Experiment (AIDJEX) second pilot study is now available through NSIDC. From the documentation:

“The project described in this documentary was a pilot study conducted in 1972 in preparation for the AIDJEX main experiment of 1975 to 1976. The study included a main camp on drifting sea ice in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska along with two satellite camps forming a station triangle with a 100 km side length. A detailed description of the observational program and a running account of the results can be found in the AIDJEX Bulletin series published between 1970 and the end of the project in 1978. The Bulletin is accessible in hard copy in the Roger G. Barry Resource Office for Cryospheric Studies at NSIDC. The Polar Science Center at the University of Washington maintains an AIDJEX electronic library (http://psc.apl.washington.edu/aidjex/). It includes downloadable copies of the contents of all 40 AIDJEX Bulletins, AIDJEX Operations Manuals for the Pilot Study and the Main Experiment, and other resources.”

Thanks to everyone who worked to get the catalog page and documentation published, especially Ann who worked without any notice to complete the project for us.

Gloria has converted the USGS Professional Paper series from journal to monograph (i.e., book), and you will find them under the call # 55. To check them out, you will fill out the book card in the back of the item. If you need help, please contact Gloria or Allaina.

Staff Report

Gloria will be out on vacation beginning the 19th of Dec., returning on the 27th. Allaina will also be out of the office on the 24th, but the library will be open. The library will be closed on Dec. 25 and 26 in observance of the holiday.

Reminders

If an item has a spine label and a book card, to check it out just fill in the card and drop it in the box on the library table.

New Items in the Library

Journals and Reports

Image, #29
Antarctic Record, vol. 52, iss. 2
Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, vol. 40, iss. 4
Antarctic Science, vol. 20, iss. 6
Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 35, iss. 19
EOS, vol. 89, iss. 49
Physics Today, vol. 61, iss. 12
Earth System Monitor, vol. 17, iss. 2
International Journal of Climatology, vol. 28, iss. 14
Bulletin of the American Meterological Society, vol. 89, iss. 11
Polar Research, vol. 27, iss. 3
Cold Regions Science and Technology, vol. 55, iss. 1

Frost Byte - Volume 5, Issue 44

News

Several hundred unique users visit the DAHLI web site each month, roughly half of the users are from North America, the rest are scattered throughout the rest of the world. We have also begun to receive requests for materials that are not publicly posted due to copyright restrictions, as well as requests to post materials that are not yet on our list. Several of the documents that are available are quite popular receiving more than 100 requests each since the beginning of the year. These include:

United States Program for International Geophysical Cooperation – 1959. IGY General Report Series, no.6. Compiled and edited by Stanley Ruttenberg.

Recent glacier variations in southern South America. American Geographical Society southern Chile expedition, 1959, Technical Report. Donald B. Lawrence and Elizabeth G. Lawrence.

United States Program for the International Geophysical Year, 1957-1958. IGY General Report Series, no.5. Compiled and edited by Stanley Ruttenberg.

Preliminary report on Expedition Downwind University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography IGY cruise to the Southeast Pacific. IGY General Report Series, no. 2. Edited by R. L. Fisher. 1958.

Development of surface morphology on Fletcher’s Ice Island, T-3. David D. Smith.

These titles and others can be found on the Bibliography page of the DAHLI web site.

The only funding this project currently receives is through the NOAA Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP) for the digitization of the materials. All of these items are currently discoverable through the DAHLI web site and also through the IPY Publications Database (IPYPD).

Staff Report

Gloria will be out of the office Tuesday, the 9^th, and on vacation beginning the 19^th of Dec., returning on the 27^th. Allaina will also be out of the office on the 24^th, but the library will be open. The library will be closed on Dec. 25 and 26 in observance of the holiday.

Reminders

If you have any reference or citation information needs prior to or during AGU, please contact us. We will be glad to help you. You can use email, chat (Yahoo IM, Windows Live Chat, AIM), or stop by the office.

New Items in the Library

Journals and Reports

EOS, v. 89, iss. 47,48

Journal of Glaciology, v. 54, #187

Polar Science, v. 2, iss. 3

Cold Regions Science and Technology, v. 54, iss. 3

Geophysical Research Letters, v. 35, iss. 18

Books, Reprints, and Other Media

Polar visions by Ryan Vachon [DVD]

Final Cut Express 4 by Lisa Brenneis

Frost Byte, v. 5, iss. 43

News
Happy Thanksgiving! We hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

Gloria is re-classifying some titles that are currently designated as journal issues but are really individual titles in a monographic series. If you are looking for something and can’t find it, please check with her. She has pulled her first group off the shelf and has them in her office.

Staff Report

ROCS will be closed Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Reminders

Although we do not charge a late fee, we do have due dates! Please return items when they are due in order to provide everyone a chance to use the item. Thanks.

Thanks for all of the candy for the library’s candy basket!!!

New Items in the Library
Journals and Reports

Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, vol. 25, iss. 6
EOS, vol. 89. iss. 46
Exchanges, vol. 13, iss. 4 (#47)
Il Polo, vol. 63, iss. 3
Antarctic Record, vol. 52 Special Issue: Glaciological and meteorological observations during the Dome Fugi Project from 1991 to 2007

Books, Reprints, and Other Formats

Climate and Hydrology of Mountain Areas. Editors: Carmende Jong, David Collins, Roberto Ranzi

Sensing Our Planet : NASA Earth Science Research Features 2008. Editors: Jane Beitler and Stephanie Renfrow

Origin and Evolution of Earth : Research questions for a changing planet by the Committee on Grand Research Questions in the Solid-Earth Sciences.

The KML Handbook : Geographic visualization for the Web by Josie Wernecke

Frost Byte, vol.5, iss. 42

News
Despite ol’ man weather’s intermittent attempts, fall is still here & gorgeous, more often than not. Hope everyone is taking advantage of the delightful weather.

We have received a number of new titles in the library; you should stop by and perhaps check one or two out for your leisure time! Due to the extensive list, I’m just providing the titles.

Staff Report

Gloria and Allaina are both in the office this week.

Reminders

The Librarians are here to help you with your information needs. Feel free to stop by the office, email, or send us an instant chat message!

Thanks for all of the candy for the library’s candy basket!!!

New Items in the Library
Journals and Reports
Bedford Institute of Oceanography in review 2007
Seppyo, vol. 70, iss. 5
EOS, vol. 89, iss. 44, 45
British Antarctic Survey annual report, 2007-2008
Physics Today, vol. 61, iss. 11
CIRA, vol. 30
Journal of Climate, vol. 21, iss. 21
Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 35, iss. 17
Cold Regions Science and Technology, vol. 54, iss. 2
Jökull, #57
Boreal Environmental Research, vol. 13, iss. 5
Ice, #146
Pôles Nord et Sud, #1

Books, Reprints, and Other Formats

Ice People [DVD—two week check-out only]
Climate variability and extremes during the past 100 years
Shirokuma no koe = Voice of polar bear
Geodetic and geophysical observations in Antarctica : an overview in the IPY
perspective.
Creating Spatial Information Infrastructures : toward the spatial semantic Web
Statistical methods for spatio-temporal systems
Datums and map projections for remote sensing, GIS, and surveying, 2nd ed.
Hierarchical modeling and analysis for spatial data
Explorer : the life of Richard E. Byrd
High-Arctic ecosystem dynamics in a changing climate
Recession of equatorial glaciers : a photo documentation
Global change and the Earth system
Canadian Oxford World Atlas, 6th ed.
Darkening peaks : glacier retreat, science, and society
BiPolar
Qitdlarssuaq : l'histoire d'une migration polaire : Qitdlarssuaq : history of a polar
migration

Frost Byte - Volume 5, Issue 41

News

Time again for another Info Tip from Mary Ellen Bates:

Bates InfoTip
__________________________
Silobreaker

I have been watching Silobreaker ever since it launched in beta back in 2006. It was cool back then, and it's even more interesting now, in its "official" version.

In essence, the web site provides ways to monitor and search news, through a number of specific filters or across the board, and offers data visualization tools to help understand emerging trends. I have been impressed at how well Silobreaker handles multiple types of content and provides surprisingly good analysis. Note that Silobreaker focuses exclusively on current news and events. The content comes from news, blog, transcript and multimedia sources that cover everything from the latest developments in science and technology to the gaming industry and the world’s environmental hot spots.

If all you want is news filtered by general topic, just head over to any of the search engines’ news aggregation sites. What Silobreaker does is attempt to break down the virtual “silos” of information (both within organizations and simply in our personal news gathering) to enable you to get a wider perspective on current events. It accomplishes this in several ways; first, the home page contains news snippets from around the world and several data visualization tools to help you understand the latest trends. Silobreaker also offers vertical news portals for dozens of global topics, ranging from terrorism to business mergers, neuroscience and the Middle East. There are also customized pages with information on the global hot spots related to human rights issues, natural disasters, bribery, and so on. Silobreaker also organizes specialized trend analyses related to media coverage of the US elections, avian flu and other current topics.

What Silobreaker does particularly well is provide you with visual displays of information, which enable you to spot trends or relationships that might not be initially obvious. Say, for example, you want to find out about transgenic research. Start with what Silobreaker calls the “360° search”, which looks across its indexes, including fields for entities (people, companies, locations, organizations, industries and keywords), news stories, YouTube videos, blog postings and articles.

The search results page is a bit info-dense for this Baby Boomer’s eyes, but ah... the data viz tools make my heart swoon. In my transgenics search results, I have several boxed graphics showing the relative volume of articles, blog postings, and audio or video content over the past month that mentioned the word, a map of the world highlighting areas that are particular hot-spots for transgenic research, the relative frequency of various related words (in this instance, “biotechnology” and “protein”), and even several pithy quotes from retrieved articles.

Even more intriguing is the “network” grid, which maps out relationships among concepts, entities, people and locations. The grid does in fact resemble a dynamic network, with nodes representing various concepts and lines indicating when both were written about in the context of your search. Adjust the slider bars along the top and you can focus on the people, companies or concepts of most importance in your search.

For the search on transgenics, for example, I could learn that Barcelona has been a hot spot for transgenics research, that I should remember to use “plant biotechnology” as a synonym for “transgenic”, that three major players are Monsanto, GTC Biotherapeutics and Syngenta, and that both Alzheimer’s researchers and crop scientists are looking into transgenics. All this without having to open a single document; when I moused over any of the nodes in the network, I saw the context in which the node word(s) appeared in the retrieved news items. I even have a list along the side of the grid, indicating the most common names, companies, concepts and so on within the retrieved search set.

Give this news engine a try and let me know what you think.

Bates Information Services www.BatesInfo.com/tip.html

Staff Report

Allaina will be out of the office November 7^th – 11^th.

Reminders

The library is available for your use if you need more space to have a short meeting. It isn’t a private space, so you’ll have to share it with other library users. You can use the large table; although, you may need to bring in extra chairs. Just let us know if you need it, and we can help you get the space set up and also let you know if it is available.

New Items in the Library

Journals and Reports

Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 35, iss. 16

Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing [CD], vol 34, iss. 1-4

EOS, vol.89, iss. 43

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol. 89, iss. 7 State of the

Climate in 2007

Alaska GeoSurvey News August 2008

GewexNews – Special issue, vol. 18, iss. 3

Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World – Alaska Glaciers, USGS

Professional Paper 1386K

Books and Reprints

Snow and Climate : physical processes, surface energy exchange and modeling edited by Richard L. Armstrong and Eric Brun

Frost Byte, vol. 5, iss. 40

News
Jack Frost is definitely nipping at our noses, and there is snow on the peaks of the Front Range! Fall is a beautiful time of year!

The Glacier Photograph Collection has doubled in size! Since 2004, we've added about 1,000 to 2,000 images per year. This year, with the help of OPS students, we've actually doubled the number of images that we had at the end of January 2008. This brings the grand total to 9,834 images online! Many thanks to all who contribute to this project including, but not limited to, the NOAA team, I-Pin, and especially Michael Russell who has spent many hours on quality control and metadata for the digital images. And of course, we want to thank our funders, the NOAA Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP), and our contractor for the project HOV Services.

Last week, we displayed various configurations for ROCS’ logo and door sign, and we asked for your opinions. Thanks so much for your input, and as soon as we make the final decision, we will let you know.

Staff Report
Allaina is out of the office Monday and Tuesday. If you need to access archival materials, Gloria is available to help.

Reminders
Please don’t re-shelve the books you are perusing in the library. Just leave them on a shelf or in the return baskets, and we’ll put them up for you. This goes for the new acquisitions – journals and books too.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the candy basket!!!

New ROCS Items
Journals and Reports
EOS, vol. 89, iss. 41, 42
In Focus, vol. 8, iss. 2
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), vol. 89, iss. 6, 7, 9
International Journal of Climatology, vol. 28, iss. 5, 6, 8, 11, 12
Reviews of Geophysics, vol. 46, iss. 2
Cold Regions Science and Technology, vol. 54, iss. 1
Antarctic Science, vol. 20, iss. 5
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, vol. 134, nos. 633, 634, 635
Journal of Climate, vol. 21, iss. 12, 18, 19, 20

Books & Reprints
Geology of Bathurst Island Group and Byam Martin Island, Arctic Canada (Operation Bathurst Island) by J. Wm. Kerr

Frost Byte, Volume 5, Issue 39

News
As everyone knows (at least those who read the library blog), the new short name for the Roger G. Barry Resource Office for Cryospheric Studies is ROCS! Thanks to everyone who submitted suggestions and special thanks to all who voted.

Since the librarians suggested the winning name, we have brought goodies for everyone! Stop by around noon for your ‘prize!’

Gloria is awaiting approval for several purchases, so there aren’t many new items in the library at the moment. Once she receives approval, the shelves will be filled with new items for your research needs.

Staff Report

Allaina will be out of the office Thursday afternoon.

Reminders

We have a new student employee helping us in the library. Mike is working on several projects for us, so say hello when you pop in for that piece of candy. As with all of our student help, he is not available to answer your library-related questions. Please contact one of the librarians to help you with your research requests.

New Items in the Library
Journals and Reports
EOS, vol. 89, iss. 40
VAW Mitteilungen #206: Rutscherzeugte Impulswellen in Stauseen : Grundlagen
und Berechnumg by Valentin Heller, Willi H. Hager and Hans-Erwin Minor

Books & Reprints
Global Glacier Changes : facts and figures published by the World Glacier Monitoring Service

WAIS The West Antarctic Ice Sheet Initiative Fifteenth Annual Workshop, October 8-10, 2008, Algonkian Meeting Center, Sterling, Virginia : Agenda & Abstracts.

And the winner is.....

And the winner is..... ROCS!

Thanks to everyone for participating in our contest! Since ROCS was actually suggested by the staff of the Roger G. Barry Resource Office for Cryospheric Studies, we thought we'd share the prize with everyone. So, join us on Monday for some sweet treats that we'll bring in to share.

Keep an eye out for a new logo and a new sign to promote the collections! We will also be planning an open house some time in the future to promote our new identity and collections to NSIDC and other supporters.

Frost Byte - Volume 5, Issue 38

News

Ok folks. Today is the day. You have until NOON TODAY to get your suggestions in. After noon, we will post the list of names and open the polls for voting. Voting will end on Wednesday at 5:00pm. We will announce the winner and their prize on Thursday. Your suggested name could be immortalized forever within the halls of NSIDC and perhaps even beyond!

Send your suggestions to library@nsidc.org. If you've told us your suggestions in passing, be sure to email us as well just in case we didn't write it down. In the case of duplicate suggestions, the first to make the suggestion will get the credit. Past naming prize winners (Frost Byte) are still eligible.

Here is the official name once again:

Roger G. Barry Resource Office for Cryospheric Studies

If you made suggestions for the old name, you might want to revisit your suggestions. :-)

Staff Report

This weekend, Allaina attended the Emporia Diversity Initiative Leadership Institute, here in Denver. As stated on their web site:

“The Emporia Diversity Initiative (EDI), is a 3-year long (2006-2009), multi-partner project led by Emporia State University's (ESU) School of Library and Information Management (SLIM), to recruit and educate local minority library staff in Kansas, Colorado and Oregon. The EDI is funded with $857,754 dollars as a part of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program Awards of 2006.”

15 students (Ph.D., MLS, and undergraduates) are participants in the EDI program. This was the 2^nd Institute, the first being held in Kansas. As one of 6 invited speakers, Allaina was honored to be asked to speak to the attendees about her experiences as a SLIM student and as an archivist here at NSIDC.

The welcome address was given by Dr. James Williams, Dean of CU Libraries. Dean Williams introduced CU as a campus active in science research and as a magnet for students who wish to pursue careers in research and science. He touched on the library’s position to support this type of research and their efforts to move forward to expand their abilities to provide support now and into the future as more and more digital collections come to the library.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Mark Winston, Assistant Chancellor and Director of the John Cotton Dana Library at Rutgers University. He spoke about Leadership and Organizational Change. He also addressed the topic of “being the only one” which inspired the audience to discuss this topic in detail in the Q & A afterwards. Dr. Winston is the author of Opportunity for Leadership: Full and Informed Participation (2008) and Leadership in the Library and Information Science Professions: Theory and Practice (2002). He is also the editor of Managing Multiculturalism and Diversity in the Library: principles and issues for administrators (1999).

Reminders

If you have recommended titles for the library collection, you may use the request form located on the intranet. You may also email us at library@nsidc.org. Gloria maintains a running list of all suggestions. Keeping in mind our limited budget, please also include any available options for funds to pay for any requested materials.

New Library Materials

Journals and Reports

Boreal Environment Research, vol. 13, iss. 4

Arctic, vol. 61, iss. 3

Physics Today, vol. 61, iss. 10

Cold Regions Science & Technology, vol. 53, iss. 3

Breaking News!!

The library and analog archives is now officially the "Roger G. Barry Resource Office for Cryospheric Studies". So, we now need your help to come up with a short acronym or nickname. Please submit your ideas to library@nsidc.org by this Friday, October 10th. On Monday the 13th we will compile the suggestions and the voting will begin. So, get those suggestions in soon!

Oh, and we will add the obvious to the list - RGBROCS!

Thanks in advance!

Frost Byte, vol. 5, iss. 37

News
The “short name” contest is still on hold, but hopefully, it will be back on track later this week. Stay tuned for updates.

As you might know, Google has entered the forum of mapping, and our favorite information specialist has a list of the cool functions Google has included in their mapping product. Read on for her tips . . . .

Bates Info Tip
________________________________________________________________________Cool
Uses for Google Maps
I can't remember how long ago it was that I switched my
default map searching from Mapquest to Google Maps, but it's been a long time.
Google has been improving its map search fairly regularly, but I have been so
focused on finding out how to get from here to there that I haven't noticed.
Here are a few of the ways I have been using Google Maps recently.

• To find the number and locations of a type of business in an area. By pulling up the map of Washington DC and searching for "printing", and then selecting the "Copying & Duplicating Services" category, I can see how many copy shops there are within three miles of where my client is considering locating his business.
• To find out what companies are located in a building. Type in the street
  address, and Google Maps will show all the businesses listed in the telephone
  directory for that address. Click on any of the businesses and you will see
  detailed information on the business.
• To see how the distribution of cosmetic surgeons in a city correlates to population density. Are most of the cosmetic surgeons in downtown Seattle or out in the suburbs? How does that compare to the distribution in San Antonio? How did I do this? Click the "My Maps" tab on the left side of the screen, then click "Browse the directory". Here you'll see an amazing collection of user-generated overlays to Google Maps -- everything from how much light pollution there is at night in a particular area to US Census Bureau population information to a little clock you can drag to any point and see what time it is at whatever location you are currently viewing -- a great tool for everyone who can't remember what time zone Colorado
  is in (Mountain Time - otherwise known as the "flyover-country" time zone).
• To find out more information about a particular company, without leaving
  Google Maps. For each of those cosmetic surgeons that I found, I can click the "More info" link and find all kinds of other information. I can see user reviews ("From beauty to beast - beware!"), links to the surgeon's web site, information on the surgeon's educational background, board certification, years of experience, and other information. The information gathered together on each company comes from sites designed to help consumers select a business. For healthcare, that includes Vimo.com, Vitals.com and HealthGrades.com. For hotels, you may see links to reviews from Orbitz.com and TripAdvisor.com. If nothing else, there will usually be links to the Better Business Bureau and SuperPages. And you'll see the company's address and phone number, links to the company's web site, and even an image of the front of the building, if there is a Street View for the company's location.
• To find out what I don't know that I want to know. One of the features of the My Maps area of Google Maps is the ability to see user-generated overlays for whatever area you are currently viewing. I am heading out to Seattle and have some free time, but I am too time-crunched [or] lazy to find out what I should see while I am there. So I pull up Seattle in Google Maps and zoom in so that I am just viewing my hotel and about 5 miles in any direction. Then I click the My Maps tab, click "Popular user-created maps" and I see the overlays for Seattle that have been created by others. I can now get pointers to what I should see for a "Seattle Mini-vacation", the best Seattle photography locations, and even "Directions to the places donating cake to the Social Justice Fund's Annual Dinner." How did we ever manage before the web?
  Bates Information Services www.BatesInfo.com/tip.html
  

Staff Report
We will be in the office all week.

Reminder
The library and archives are open from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. The archives are available upon request during that time. The library catalog and the electronic pubs page are available any time via the intranet.

Thanks to everyone who donates to the library’s candy fund!

New Items in the Library
Journals & Reports
Materialy Gliatsiologicheskikh Issledovanit [Data of Glaciological Studies], vol. 103
EOS, vol. 89, iss. 39
Data Catalogue. World Data Center for Geomagnetism, Kyoto, #28

Books, Reprints, & Other Formats
Version Control with Subversion by C. Michael Pilato, Ben Collins-Sussman and Brian W. Fitzpatrick

Frost Byte, vol. 5, iss. 36

News

The contest to name the library and archives is going to be on hold for a little while. We still have some tweaking to do on the name, and we will post again when things are squared away. Do keep those ideas coming! We’ve only received a couple so far and need more. We will let you know of the new deadline and any changes to the details as soon as possible.

The DAHLI project quietly continues. We’ve just sent to our contractors a set a 30 slides donated by John Hollin (INSTAAR) of his time at Wilkes Station, Antarctica, during the International Geophysical Year. We will digitize these images and after we gather the needed metadata from Dr. Hollin, add them to the DAHLI database.

Staff Report
Gloria will be out on Friday, the 3rd.

Reminder
Gloria and Allaina are available to help with any research needs you might have.

Thanks to everyone who donates to the library’s candy fund!

New Items in the Library
Journals & Reports
Physics Today vol. 61, iss. 9
Il Polo, vol. 63, iss. 2
Seppyo, vol. 70, iss. 4
Polar Record, vol. 44, iss. 231
Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, vol. 19, iss. 3
Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 35, issues 14 and 15

Frost Byte v. 5, iss. 35

News
The Information Center (library) and the Analog Archives have a new name! In order to ensure our long-term viability and hopefully bring in more financial support, we decided (and received approval from the various people involved) to create a single identity for both departments. Our new name is the Roger G. Barry Cryospheric Resource Center at NSIDC. This is just the first step we need to take to bring greater awareness to our historically important collections.

But as you can see, it’s a very long name! So, we are asking for your help! We are looking for an acronym or ‘nick’ name that is easier to remember, and we are turning to you for suggestions. Can you think of a short and memorable name for the Roger G. Barry Cryospheric Resource Center at NSIDC?

If you can, please email the library with your suggestions. We need all suggestions by the 29th of Sep. We will compile a list of your ideas and send them out to everyone for a vote. You will have until Oct. 2 at noon to cast your vote. The winning suggestor will receive a prize (to-be-determined) and will have that special thrill of seeing their winning suggestion on our new internet site!

Staff Report

The Society of American Archivists 2008 annual conference was held in San Francisco on August 24th – 30th. Allaina spent 8 days attending two pre-conference workshops, presenting as part of a panel, and attending several meetings and conference sessions of interest. The workshops were both about processing and describing archives collections, building on previous workshops Allaina attended at the 2005 conference. Her goal is to use the information learned at these workshops to jump start the arrangement and description of the materials held at NSIDC, add these descriptions to the open source Archivists Toolkit software, and make the collections more accessible to interested researchers at NSIDC and elsewhere. The presentation panel (Leveraging Outreach to Further Your Goals: Tips for Small Repositories) consisted of 3 speakers. Allaina’s part was titled: Creating an Archives Web Presence at NSIDC. Archivists are always intrigued by the collection at NSIDC and the way that the materials are managed. The audience seemed quite interested in being able to access the holdings online.

Most of the sessions Allaina attended were also about creating access to the collection. They mostly revolved around the topic of creating finding aids, which are tools similar to NSIDC’s data documentation pages or catalog pages. Another session, The Reluctant Administrator, or How I Learned to Love Management, sponsored by the Lone Arrangers Round Table, was also very interesting and helpful. This was also a panel discussion that allowed attendees to share their problem solving techniques and encourage other “lone arrangers” (i.e., solo archivists) to tackle their day to day tasks that non-lone arrangers have staffs to assist with. One of the last sessions was Old Movies, New Audiences: Archival Films as Public Outreach Tools. Allaina attended this session to pick up some ideas that might be useful for the Good Days on the Trail film. In addition, she also picked up some potential grant sources for film preservation.

In her second week away from the office, Allaina trekked to Estes Park for her annual week of Archives in the Park. This is a graduate course offered by the School of Library and Information Management (SLIM) at Emporia State University. Allaina attended this course as a student and has returned every year since to assist. This was her 5th year with the program and the 10th year of the program. This year her task was to assist the curator of collections at the Estes Park Museum with a historic photograph project. The students were tasked to organize this large collection so that the curator could later weed extra copies and better manage the collection and the space it fills in their storage space. See this article for a write up about this year’s course activities.

Reminder
Keep your eye on this blog for more announcements concerning our next steps.

Thanks to everyone who donates to the library’s candy fund!

New Items in the Library
Journals and Reports
EOS, v. 89, iss. 36, 37
Polar Geography, v. 31, iss. 1-2
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, v. 89, iss. 8
Alberta Water Supply Outlook Overview, Sep. 12, 2008
Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, v. 25, iss. 5
Nimbus, v. 14, iss. 1-2, 47-48
Journal of Climate, v. 21, iss. 15, 16, 17
Earth System Monitor, v. 17, iss. 1

Books, Reprints, and Other Formats
"Observational analysis of the variability of the sea surface heat flux near the temperature front in the Kuroshio Extension region." M. H. Konda, et al. (Reprint)

Nares Strait : Radarsat Ice Animation (March 2006 - February 2007) produced by Laboratory for Applied Geomatics and GIS Science (LAGGISS); Canadian Ice Service (DVD)

Materialien zur Kenntniss des unvergänglichen Boden-Eises in Sibirien = Materials on the understanding of permafrost in Siberia by Erki Tammiksaar and Karl Ernst von Baer

EUMETSAT Annual Report 2007

Oledenenie severnoi evrazii v nedavnem proshlom i blizhaishem budushchem = Glaciation in North Eurasia in the recent past and immediate future. Editor-in-Chief, V. M. Kotlykov

An Assessment of contemporary glacier fluctuations in Nepal’s Khumbu Himal using repeat photography by Alton C. Byers

Frost Byte, v. 5, iss. 34

News

We do hope that everyone is enjoying the fall-ish weather! I know that I love sleeping without the noise of fans trying to bring in some cooler night air.

In the last two weeks, the librarians’ office has undergone a small transformation! In other words, those piles of issues and repairs are no longer towering over Gloria’s head, threatening her with concussion and contusions. We have repaired books, researched problems, and cleaned up many of the issues. It is good to feel safe from falling stacks of paper!

We do have one request to ask of you. If you would please check the shelves in your office and at home for any of the Information Center’s books, we would sincerely appreciate it. We have ~30 missing items; some of these were last seen before we joined NSIDC. Later this week, Gloria will post a list of the missing items to the Bulletin Board. Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Staff Report

Allaina is out of the office this week and will return on the 15th. Gloria will be out of the office for a few days the following week.

Reminder

Please don’t loan any library item to someone else. If someone needs it, return it and let them check it out. Remember, according to policy, if an item you checked out is lost, you have to replace it. Check here for our policies on replacing lost or damaged items, as well as who can check out books.

Thanks to everyone who donates to the library’s candy fund!

New Items in the Library
Journals and Reports
EOS, v. 89, iss. 34, 35
Geografisk Tidssdrift, v. 108, iss. 1
Geophysical Research Letters, v. 35, iss. 12, 13
Journal of Glaciology, v. 54, no. 186
Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, v. 40, iss. 3
Polar Science v. 2, iss. 2
Neige et Avalanches, no. 122
Pages News, v. 16, iss. 3

Books, Reprints, and Other Formats
Methodology of extracting sea ice motion vectors . . . . by Takanori Matsumoto and Takahito Imai (Reprint)

Nares Strait : Radarsat Ice Animation (March 2006 - February 2007) produced by Laboratory for Applied Geomatics and GIS Science (LAGGISS); Canadian Ice Service (DVD)

Materialien zur Kenntniss des unvergänglichen Boden-Eises in Sibirien = Materials on the understanding of permafrost in Siberia by Erki Tammiksaar and Karl Ernst von Baer

EUMETSAT Annual Report 2007

Oledenenie severnoi evrazii v nedavnem proshlom i blizhaishem budushchem = Glaciation in North Eurasia in the recent past and immediate future. Editor-in-Chief, V. M. Kotlykov

An Assessment of contemporary glacier fluctuations in Nepal’s Khumbu Himal using repeat photography by Alton C. Byers

Frost Byte, v. 5, iss. 33

News

Once again, our favorite ‘search tips’ librarian has sent us information on one of her newest finds.

Bates InfoTip
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SortFix, August 2008

There are lots of search engines who claim the title of “Google Killer.” Google doesn’t seem to be on its deathbed yet, and I have found what might be the ultimate “Google Enhancer.”

SortFix.com lets you type in a search query and compare the results from Google, Yahoo and the Open Directory Project. (Yes, maybe not the directory I would have chosen, but it’ll work for proof of concept.) What is noteworthy, though, is in the search results screen. In addition to the usual Google (or Yahoo or ODP) results, there are three large colored boxes at the top of the search results page. (click here to see the search result for the search “biomass (energy OR power)” If you don’t see any text in the boxes, try again using Internet Explorer.)

The left-most box shows “power words” – related words and concepts that frequently appeared in the search results. The middle box shows your current search words, with a Boolean OR indicated by a line connecting the two terms. The right-most box is for words you want to exclude from search results.

What sets SortFix apart is that you can drag and drop words among these boxes. In my search for biomass energy, for example, my Power Words included “renewable” and “wind [and] solar”. I can drag either of those Power Words from the left box to the middle box, adding these words to my query. I can also NOT any word of phrase by moving it to the right box.

Having these three boxes makes it very easy to construct complex Boolean searches without worrying about the search syntax. But that’s not all… If you change your setting to “Expert”, you also have access to two more boxes in the search results page – Dictionary and Standby. The Dictionary box is as you might expect –drag a word into that box and a short definition of the word is displayed. But the feature that almost exploded my brain was the Standby box. This is brilliant – it is a holding pen where you can put words or phrases that you don’t want to include in the current search but that you might want later. Wow. Can you imagine this function in any of the value-added online services such as Dialog, Factiva or LexisNexis?

The Expert mode adds some other nice features as well. You can add phrases to your search query, and there are two additional buttons under the middle box – [Synonyms] and [OR]. Click any of your search terms and then click the [synonyms] button, and – assuming you are using SortFix on Google search results – it will add a tilde (~) in front of the word. As we Google nerds know, that generates a search for not only the specific word but for similar concepts. For example, a search for ~children will also include results with child, kids and childhood. (Click the “synonyms” link when looking at Yahoo or ODP search results doesn’t do anything.) The default for adjacent words is a Boolean AND, but you can indicate any words you want OR’d together by highlighting the words and click the [OR] button.

The most significant problem with SortFix is that it is designed for Internet Explorer; on Firefox or Safari, you can see the search results but none of the SortFix features are functional. And, curiously, I compared the results from SortFix and Google for the identical search and found quite a few differences among the first ten results.

It appears that the best uses of this search engine are for searches where you know you will be trying a number of alternative words and phrases, and would appreciate the Standby box; when you prefer to, as SortFix says, “Start Dragging, Stop Typing”; and when you want to have a very visual tool for constructing your search logic.

Bates Information Services, http://www.BatesInfo.com/tip.html

On a similar note, Mark P. posted on the bulletin boards about Cuil, still another new search engine trying to rival Google, Ask.com, etc. I have read some of the comments made by librarians this month on Cuil, and they are waiting for the “cuiler” version. Of course, Mark’s post linked to results based on a search for ‘sea ice’ and the librarians searched on their names. I think Cuil does a better job on topics rather than on personal names, based on the various posts on the list serve. Page one of the Mark's results on Cuil returned seven hits from NSIDC, with photos! The librarians’ search results’ images were often not of the person they were searching for at all.

Staff Report
Allaina is out of the office this week attending the Society of American Archivists' annual conference in San Francisco. She will be checking email periodically.

Reminder

Although they are not listed in the “New Items in the Library” section, we have added numerous titles donated by Roger. Take a moment to search the catalog to find all of the new items.

Thanks to everyone who donates to the library’s candy fund!

New Items in the Library
Journals and Reports
EOS, v. 89, iss. 33
Mariner’s Weather Log, v. 52, iss. 2
Polish Polar Research, v. 29, iss. 1
Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, v. 34, iss. 2 (on CD ROM)
Earth Observer, v. 20, iss. 4
International Journal of Climatology, v. 28, iss. 10
Il Polo, v. 63, iss. 1
Alberta Environment Water Supply Outlook Overview Aug. 15, 2008

Frost Byte, vol. 5, iss. 32

News

Gloria attended the Beginning Book Repair workshop presented by Amigos Library Services (hosted by BCR in Auroroa) last week. Although she knew some of the book repair techniques, she learned a lot. You can look forward to seeing more books returned to the stacks and fewer sitting on the work table in her office.

She hopes to attend future book repair workshops in order to increase her ability to keep your collection of print materials in good repair.

Staff Report

Allaina will be out all of next week (25th – 30th) at the Society of American Archivists annual conference in San Francisco. She will be checking email periodically.

Reminder

We have two check-out sheets on the library table for your convenience. One is for journals and the other is for reprints. Please double-check that you are filling in the one for the item you are borrowing.

New Items in the Library
Journals and Reports
EOS, v. 89, iss. 32
Exchanges, #46, (v. 13, iss. 3)

Books, Reprints, Other Formats
Compendium of the Proceedings of the First Nine International Conferences on Permafrost 1963-2008. (CD-ROM)

“Permafrost creep and rock glacier dynamics” by Wilfried Haeberli, et al. [Permafrost & Periglacial Processes v. 17: 189-214 2006] (Reprint)

Frost Byte - Volume 5, Issue 31

News

We continue to add digital images to the Glacier Photograph Collection. We are also in an on-going process to clean up the existing metadata. Should you come across anything that looks odd, please let us know so we can correct it if needed. There are now almost twice as many images in the collection than there were at the beginning of the year. As it grows, it will become more difficult to locate these metadata discrepancies. Your help is appreciated! Send an email to library@nsidc.org with any comments or questions about the collection.

Staff Report

Gloria will be out the 14th and 15th to attend a book repair course.

Reminder

If you are interested in any of the materials in the Analog Archives room (269), please stop by the library so that we can assist. There are maps, ice charts as well as the analog archives materials available for your research needs.


New Items in the Library

Journals and Reports
EOS, v. 89, iss. 31
Physics Today, v. 61, iss. 8
Geophysical Research Letters, v. 35, iss. 11
Journal of Climate, v. 21, iss. 15

Frost Byte, vol. 5, iss. 30

News

Despite the heat, we continue to work diligently here in the library, researching and cataloging donations from Roger and others, making room on the shelves and in the vertical files for them, and in general, doing library work. Since none of this is really newsworthy, we have added the latest search tip from Mary Ellen Bates for your reading enjoyment.

Bates Info Tip
________________________________________________________
Searchme.com

Searchme is an intriguing new attempt to make web research more like how we look for information in (gasp!) print resources. Its search results page is insanely intuitive, highly visual and yet easy for us text-oriented folks to use. Solely in terms of user-friendliness, Searchme is one of the best search engines I’ve seen. It also does a surprisingly good job at clustering results, and it has a nice feature for easily sharing web pages with others. Note that this site is in public beta, meaning that it is not in its final version, and some features and functions may change without notice. And it has indexed “merely” one billion pages, so it’s working with a significantly smaller index than, say, Google, which hit the one-billion-page mark way back in 2000.

You will notice the differences of Searchme as soon as you type in your search query. There is no “Search” button to click to initiate the search; Searchme starts finding and categorizing results as soon as you start typing. Type the letters S U and N, for example, and small icons appear below the search box with categories such as astronomy, astrology, computer programming, stocks, global warming and so on. Searchme has started retrieving results, sorting them on the fly, and presenting you with ways to slice and dice the results. (There is also a “Search All” icon, if you want to see all the results.) Different queries will have different categories – a search for “oil shale”, for example, generates results sorted in categories for geology, business news, mining, US government, alternative vehicle fuels, and so on.

What is particularly impressive is the search results page. Think of holding a hand of cards – you see one card fully and the other cards in slices. Searchme’s search results page looks somewhat similar. In the middle of the page is an image of the first retrieved web page, with your search words highlighted. On the right is a smaller image of the next result. Drag that to the middle of the screen and the first page shuffles off to the left and a fresh page appears on the right. Double-click any image and you are taken directly to that page, either in the same window or, if you change your preferences, in a fresh window or tab.

Unlike most search engines, Searchme does not limit the number of pages from a web site displayed in search results. For example, nine out of the first ten search results from the “computer programming” stack of my “sun” search were from the Sun Microsystems web site.

Searchme also supports a page-sharing feature, called a “stack”. If you see a web page you want to save and share with others, simply drag it to the “Stacks” link in the upper right corner of the search results page. (And notice the cool animation of the page as you pick it up and drag it over to the stack.) You can build multiple stacks; each has its own name and settings. And you can directly add pages to a stack by clicking an icon and typing (or pasting) in a URL, title and description. You can share a stack with others in several ways – emailing the URL of the stack, inserting the URL in a blog entry, or sharing it in Digg, Reddit, del.icio.us, Twitter or MySpace. See http://www.searchme.com/stack/5728 for an example of a Searchme stack of pages on Sun Microsystems. Note that, while not listed in a public spot, stacks are not strictly private; anyone who has the URL can view the stack.

Searchme is also collecting stacks on less serious topics. There is a chimney stack (http://www.searchme.com/stack/5512) and a pancake stack (http://www.searchme.com/stack/551b).

My only real gripe is that, as of right now, Searchme has no help file or advanced search feature; I’m hoping that these are developed before Searchme graduates out of beta.
__________________________________________________________
Courtesy of Bates Information Services, www.BatesInfo.com/tip.htmlA version of this InfoTip with live links is available at www.batesinfo.com/tip.html An RSS feed for my InfoTip is at www.batesinfo.com/tip.rss

Staff Report
August 14th & 15th, Gloria will be at a book repair workshop in Aurora CO. Aug 25th through 29th, Allaina will be in San Francisco at the Society of American Archivists conference.

Reminder

Most items have a three-month borrowing period. Check our policies for all library items here: http://newice.colorado.edu:8000/intranet/LIBRARY/

New Items in the Library

Journals and Reports
EOS, v. 89, iss. 30
GEWEX News, v. 18, iss. 2
Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, v. 34, Supplement 1: Special issue on
Hyperspectral Remote Sensing (CD_ROM)
Antarctic Record, v. 52, iss. 1
Fennia, v. 185, iss. 2
Polar Research, v. 27, iss. 2
Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre. Annual Report, 2007

Books, Reprints, Other Formats
High northern latitude surface air temperature : comparison of existing data and creation of a new gridded data set 1900-2000. Svetlana I. Kuzmina, et al. (Reprint)

Frost Byte - Volume 5, Issue 29

News

Work continues on the collection of Austin Post glacier images. The OPS students are working away at the huge number of images, creating metadata and doing quality checks on the digital scans before they are added to the collection. Thanks to Michael and Robert for their hard work and also to I-Pin who updates the metadata database as needed.

Staff Report

Gloria will be working from home on Wednesday.

Reminder

The library catalog is available on Igloo. The user name is “catalog” and there is no password.

New Items in the Library

Journals and Reports

EOS, v. 89, iss. 29

Boreal Environment Research, v. 13, iss. 3

Journal of Glaciology, v. 54, #185

Monthly Surface Climatic Data Report, China, #1, 2, 3 (2008)

Polar Times, v. 3, iss. 13

Antarctic Science, v. 20, iss. 4

International Journal of Climatology, v. 28, iss. 9

Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, v. 25, iss. 4

Alberta Environment Water Supply Outlook, July 18, 2008

Seppyo, v. 70, iss. 3

Frost Byte, vol. 5, iss. 28

News
Is it autumn yet? As the temperatures rise, we hope that everyone is staying cool and enjoying all of the various summer activities offered in the Rockies.

If you didn’t see the announcement, AGU has decided to revert all of its journals to the online version and discontinue the print one. Here’s the announcement (posted on the bulletin board earlier this month):

The Demise of Print
No print subscriptions to AGU journals will be available after 2010. This change only applies to AGU journals and not to Eos and it will be announced to AGU members in an Eos article tomorrow (Albarède, F. (2008), The demise of print, Eos Trans. AGU, 89(28), 257). A copy of the article is available on AGU Web site at:http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2008EO028_print_article.pdf.

The decision to move to online only journals was a difficult one to make and stemmed from two inescapable facts: the print product is becoming more and more only a pale replica of the electronic version and the cost of producing a printed version (and in turn print subscription prices) has escalated dramatically to a point where it will no longer be economically feasible to have a print version.

From the time AGU made the electronic journal the version of record in 2002, one of the goals was to take the journal beyond the printed page. This has led more authors to take advantage of the ability to use animations, video, and even interactive material and has also resulted in the print version being only an ersatz of the electronic one.

Another consideration is simply economic. The additional costs of producing a printed version of an AGU journal are borne only by the subscribers to that format. This pricing principle was established in fairness to those who take only the electronic version. As the number of print-only subscriptions continues to drop, there are fewer institutions over which to amortize the costs. Additionally, the production costs keep soaring - especially paper and postage. Thus, the price per subscription has been escalating rapidly.

What does this decision entail for libraries?Some changes will happen as early as next year, when AGU no longer accepts any new print subscriptions, although subscribers taking print in 2008 will be able to renew in that format in 2009. In 2010, a first round of AGU journals (to be announced in early to mid-2009) may become online-only. By 2011, all AGU journals, but not Eos, will be online-only products.

Institutions that still have print-only subscriptions to AGU journals in 2008 will be offered a free trial access to the online version later this year, as well as other incentives to encourage them to switch to electronic subscriptions. Any institution can provide desktop access to its researchers, faculty, and students for about 60% of the costs of the print subscription. If your institution currently has a mix of print and online subscriptions to AGU journals, please consider switching all of them to online-only.AGU is very much committed to remaining a leader in Earth and space science publishing. This move will ensure that costs are kept down, that only a superior product is delivered, and that AGU products are available to more users.

If you have any questions about this change and the new options available to your library, please feel free to contact AGU at institutions@agu.org.

Gloria will include this change in the AGU journals in her assessment of the library’s current subscriptions and future purchases for next year’s budget.

Staff Report
Gloria and Kristin have worked their way through most of the donations from Roger, and we will soon have the time to focus on all of the other library needs. Thanks to Roger for his generous donations!

Reminder
Thanks to those of you who contribute to the library’s candy fund. We greatly appreciate it.

New Items in the Library
Journals
Australian Antarctic, iss. 14
Polar Record, vol. 44, iss. 3, no. 230
Cold Regions Science and Technology, vol. 53, iss. 2
Research Report of the Public Works Research Institute, #210
EOS, vol. 89, iss. 27, 28
WDC-MARE Reports, #005 (2007), #006 (2008)
Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 35, iss. 10
Monthly Surface Climatic Data Report, China, Aug-Dec 2007
Physics Today, v. 61, iss. 7

Books, Reprints, etc.

Moutain Weather and Climate, 3rd edition by Roger G. Barry.

Investigating climate change : scientists search for answers in a warming world by Rebecca L. Johnson