Muir Glacier - 63 years of change

Muir Glacier - 63 years of change
W.O. Field, 1941(l) & B.F. Molnia, 2004 (r)

Monday, August 25, 2008

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

Monday, August 18, 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)

Monday, August 11, 2008

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

Monday, August 4, 2008

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
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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.
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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)