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News From the SBA

The Small Business Administration features headline news and press releases at http://www.sba.gov/news/indexheadline.html. At the top of the page, major articles are listed with available format, such as HTML and Video.

Beneath that, press releases listed in reverse chronological order and are available in HTML, PDF and text formats. The most recent press releases are also available in Spanish HTML. This front page has releases going back to January 2002, with a link to 2001 releases.

From this site you can also link to a form that lets you subscribe to several different lists, including the SBA News Release list, and several other different agency lists.

New Web Site for Volunteer Opportunities

A new version of the Freedom Corps Volunteer Network has been unveiled at http://www.usafreedomcorps.gov.  Here you can walk through a series of steps to find volunteer opps.

From the front page you chose your zip code and your location (you can specify zip code, US state, or that you want international or "virtual" opportunities.)

When you click the "Find Opportunities Now" you're not taken immediately to a list of opps. Instead you're taking to a disclaimer site saying "the USA Freedom Corps does not necessarily endorse the views expressed or the volunteer opportunities presented on this site..." etc etc and so on. Okay, fine. Click on the "Continue" link and you'll get a list of opportunities under four tabs: one-time, ongoing, full time, and volunteer agencies.

Opportunity information includes a brief description of the opportunity, a date that I think is a deadline (not all opportunities have dates), the organization with the opportunity, and who the opportunity might be most suitable for (seniors, groups, teens, etc.) You'll have to click on a link to the right to see all the opportunity details as they are listed at VolunteerMatch.

Survey Favors E-Government

The second part of the Digital State Survey has been released from the Center for Digital and Government Technology. This portion measured E-Commerce and Business Regulation, Digital Democracy and Management and
Administration. The survey shows that election year prospects and budget shortfalls have not dampened enthusiasm for e-government and technology programs on the state level.

Arizona had the highest ranking score for Digital Democracy. In the area of E-Commerce, first place was a tie between Virginia and Washington. The three winners shared first place in Management and Administration. To view the
complete list of rankings, click on http://www.centerdigitalgov.com and follow the Digital State Survey link. You can read a release about the survey at
http://www1.internetwire.com/iwire/iwprj?id=45081&cat=te.

Internal Memos

The folks behind F'd Company have started a new service: a database of corporate memos online at http://www.internalmemos.com/.

Click on one of the column headings of Company, Memo, Size or Date to view the memos in the order of the column heading. Companies include Citigroup, Hewlett Packard, IBM and other names we see every day.

This site also has a company or keyword search option. Search results are listed by date. Memos can be accessed for free unless a green dollar sign proceeds the memo title. The green $ indicates a subscription is required to read the memo, and subscription fees start at $45 per month.

Lawyers Blog on Civil Litigation

LitiGator (http://www.litig8r.net/) is a Radio Weblog specializing in civil litigation. Though it sometimes goes a bit a field (recent entries have featured a comment on West Nile disease and Mariah Carey) there's plenty of legal
commentary here. Topics include "Silly-Ass Lawsuits," lawyers and knowledge management, court procedure, and the DCMA .

"Power Utilities on the Internet" Updated

Competitive Analysis Technologies (CAT) has released its tenth quarterly update of "Power Utilities on the Internet" with 3,500 natural gas and electric resource profiles. The revised edition is available via the Internet, as a stand-
alone CD-ROM or as a hard copy. Online demonstrations are available from www.catsites.com/demo. Additional industry-specific databases available from CAT include "Oil and Gas on the Internet" in both Upstream and Downstream versions. Get more information from the press release at
http://library.northernlight.com/FC20020731730000023.html.

Medical Research for Non-Medical Librarians

There is an excellent, excellent page of resources at
http://denison.uchsc.edu/outreach/medbib3.htm that focus on medical research for non-medical librarians. Not everything on this page is available online, but much of it is, and the stuff that isn't is sourced well enough that you can find it at your local library or bookstore.

The page starts with a list of categories at the top. Categories include Child Health, Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) Resources for Consumers, and Multilingual Health Information. Each topic is anchored to a list of resources
further down the page. Resources include books, Web sites, and articles. Annotation is great.

If you like this site, consider also visiting http://denison.uchsc.edu/outreach/index.html, the homepage of Denison Library Outreach. A lot of resources here are available only to subscribers, but the subject guides to the Internet are a good browse.

ABC News Launches "News On Demand" Premium Service

ABC News announced earlier this week the launch of their news subscription service, "ABC News On Demand". You can subscribe at http://abcnews.go.com/. For $4.95 a month, this subscription offers access to the several selections from ABC News programs, including "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings," "Nightline," and "Nightline UpClose" in
their entirety, the morning after the live broadcast, with 30 days of archived shows.

I think this is a good first step, and maybe I'm asking too much for $4.95, but why the skimpy archives? 30 days? I could potentially find a lot of use for this as a researcher, but what if I want something from a year ago? Maybe there should be a three-tier subscription service -- say, $4.95 for access and 30 days' archives, $7.95 for access and a years' archives, and $9.95 for access and all archives.