Resources of the Week: Free Stuff From Pricey Database Vendors
Resources of the Week: Free Stuff From Pricey Database Vendors
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor
Since we worship at the Church of Free here on ResourceShelf, we thought we'd take a look at some of the gratis content lurking on database vendor websites. Know of anything good that we missed? E-mail us so we can add it to our list.
We have found that if you're exploring vendor websites on your own, you'll often find the good free stuff in the press/media area or possibly in a special area for librarians.
EBSCO Publishing is proud to provide the Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) database as a free resource to anyone interested in libraries and information management. This world-class bibliographic database provides coverage on subjects such as librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more. Delivered via the EBSCOhost platform, LISTA indexes nearly 600 periodicals plus books, research reports, and proceedings. With coverage dating back to the mid-1960s, it is the oldest continuously produced database covering the field of information science.
This index of over 260 titles from the most popular teacher and administrator trade journals, periodicals, and books is now also offered free via the EBSCOhost platform. This database provides coverage on key education topics such as Assessment, Continuing Education, Current Pedagogical Research, Curriculum Development, Instructional Media, Language Arts, Literacy Standards, Science & Mathematics, and more for K-12 Teachers & Librarians.
EBSCO actively researches issues that affect the professional library community. Scroll through the links below to find articles and other suggested reading materials from respected authorities.
The changing landscape of librarianship demands a wide selection of approaches to promote library resources. Our offerings will help librarians reach out to customers, e.g., faculty, communities, students, managers, and administrators.
-- Elsevier Library Connect
Monthly newsletter and "Practical Assistance Pamphlets"
Selected titles:
+ How Libraries Are Training Users on E-resources: Best Practices
+ How to Design Library Websites to Maximize Usability
+ How to Get Published in LIS Journals: A Practical Guide
Also, free librarians trivia screen saver (for OS X and Windows)
-- Factiva White Papers and Case Studies (PDFs; free registration required)
Selected titles:
+ Quality Information Finds Prospects: How to Close Deals Faster with Timely Information
+ Best Practices in Media Measurement
+ Tracking the Influence of Conversations: A Roundtable Discussion on Social Media Metrics and Measurement
The LexisNexis® Featured Topics provide you with the latest survey findings, white papers and web site resources provided by our company. The survey findings and white papers can be downloaded for your reference.
Selected titles:
+ Delivering ROI is Information Professionals' Top Priority for the Future
+ Maximizing Value of Corporate Intranets and Internets
+ Identity Fraud: A Critical National and Global Threat
The Reference Reviews Archive includes the reviews of James Rettig, Peter Jacso, Blanche Woolls, David Loertscher and John Lawrence.
-- Thomson Healthcare White Papers
Selected titles:
+ Harnessing the Power of Clinical Decision Support to Improve Healthcare Outcomes
+ From Information to Action: Empowering Patients with Education to Improve Outcomes
+ Increasing the Safety and Cost-Effectiveness of Medication Use Through Clinical Decision Support
Now, and every quarter, Thomson Scientific takes the pulse of the industry with this lively free review of the latest phase changes in the pharmaceutical pipeline.
In The Ones To Watch you'll get expert insight into the five most promising drugs:
* reaching the market
* entering Phase III trials
* entering Phase II trials
* entering Phase I trials
+ Register to receive notice of other free content, including "news of our latest releases, expert free reports you can download, and advice on how to get the most out of your Thomson data solution."
Each week, the Research Services Group of Thomson Scientific provides an update based on Essential Science Indicators and their Research Performance & Evaluation Tools. In addition, !QUICK SCIENCE! is a weekly quick look at a specific area of research science. Each link opens a pop-up window to read, and easily close when you finish reading.
-- Thomson West Many topical free e-mail newsletters
Selected titles:
+ Quinlan Education Law
+ Quinlan Grants for Cities and Towns
+ The Estate Planner
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? 
