If you're one of our regulars here, you know we're huge fans of Intute, "a free online service providing access to the very best web resources for education and research, selected by subject specialists from "a consortium of institutions within the UK Higher and Further Education sector." Intute, which launched in July 2006, evolved from the Resource Discovery Network, UK higher ed's original subject gateway project.
In a Resource of the Week last month, about global RSS feeds, we singled out Intute's Social Science feed as a good source of new UK government publications, which we like to post on DocuTicker, our sister weblog. Recently, Paul Ayres, Research Officer for Intute's Social Sciences gateway, dropped us a note to thank us for the hat tip and remind us that Intute offers more than 100 subject-specific feeds from various parts of its service. So we thought we'd remind you.
This is not the only quality Web directory which offers subject-specific feeds; Librarians' Internet Index, notably, makes extensive use of RSS. But Intute's subject feeds are well worth your time because it is not U.S.-centric, and you'll be introduced to resources you might not otherwise see.
Learn Hebrew is a website aimed at beginners of Hebrew. It uses virtual 'flashcards' of over 1,700 Hebrew words and phrases arranged into 46 topics to build vocabulary and improve pronunciation. Each Hebrew word or phrase is presented as an image with Nikud vowels, and clicking on the word allows users to hear it spoken This multilingual site features menus, transliterations and translations in five different languages: English, French, Russian, Spanish and Dutch. Simple to use, this is a good resource for any learner of Hebrew needing quick and easy practice.
Run by amateur enthusiast Steffen Thorsen, the Time and Date website provides a number of tools for calculating times and dates, including calendars and world clocks relating to the current year as well as historical and future years. The variety of tools can be confusing, but they are simply laid out and easily customised, particularly after free registration. A calendar can be created for any year and customised to show the phases of the moon or the holidays in various countries. Calculator tools allow the user to find out the duration between any two dates. Current time tools workout the time in major cities worldwide. An attractive world map shows which parts of the Earth are currently in daytime and night time. The user can compare time zones between cities and calculate a suitable time to make international conference calls. There is a countdown to New Year 2008 and tools to create a customised countdown to any date. The user can find out which code is needed to make international calls from many countries and to calculate the distances between cities.
The ‘Pets Get Slim’ website is provided by the RSPCA and it supports the campaign to tackle the problem of overweight and obese pets. The RSPCA have teamed up with TV vet Joe Inglis and this website provides detailed information and guidance on how to help your pet lose weight. Features available include diet tips and exercise suggestions, a pet weight checker, and a search facility to find vets who run pet weight clinics. Pet owners can upload photographs and personal stories of their pets and share their pet's weight loss experiences with other pet owners (through the forum). News items and information on the national roadshows is provided.
The World Information Service on Energy (WISE) is an "information and networking center for citizens and environmental organizations concerned about nuclear energy, radioactive waste, radiation, and related issues." It focuses on promoting political and social changes, as well as researching for change through various outlets. The website provides newsletters, links and an archive of articles.
This is a blog written by Clotilde Dusoulier, Parisian woman and cookbook author. In her blog, Dusoulier shares her passion for food and everything related to food, including thoughts, recipes, musings, cookbook acquisitions, products, tools, restaurant experiences, ideas, and inspirations. Additional features include a recipe index, a picture gallery, and a guide to restaurants in Paris.
In addition to the subject-specific feeds, there are more general group feeds (e.g., Arts and Humanities; Health and Life Sciences; Science, Engineering and Technology; Social Sciences), feeds for Intute news (including a feed for new tutorials added to the site's excellent Virtual Training Suite section, and feeds for academic and professional conferences and events in a number of disciplines.
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
