The RAND Corporation is a think tank that also functions as a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC). it is one of our favorite fishing holes for reports to post on DocuTicker, and we often find interesting items to post here on ResourceShelf as well.
RAND performs research in a wide range of subject areas -- the arts, workforce issues, military and defense, international relations, education, health care, and much more. It has a rather illustrious client list consisting of U.S. and foreign government agencies, state and local governments, universities, NGOs/nonprofits, professional associations, and corporations.
RAND's mission is to help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. The Office of Congressional Relations helps to further that mission by getting RAND's work to policymakers in Congress and U.S. federal agencies. It also provides information to RAND's research units about Congressional activities and interests.
There are basically two ways to browse here -- by type of resource or by issue. Resources include:
A variety of topical newsletters designed to update Congress on RAND research.
(Anyone can register to receive these free by e-mail; note that some are published more frequently than others.)
If you'd prefer to browse by issue, check the blue navigation panel on the left side of the page and chose from among the various legislative issues:
In the middle of the page is a section with four tabs -- Upcoming Events (i.e., briefings), New This Month (publications and other resources), Hot on the Hill (current issues for Congress), Newsroom (press releases).
This guide for members of Congress and their staffs describes how the RAND Corporation communicates RAND work to Capitol Hill, demonstrates how Congress can use RAND's resources, and provides an overview of the breadth of RAND research.
While you're here, you may as well browse the RAND Reports and Bookstore. Most publications can be downloaded as free PDFs, or you can purchase hard copies. You can search the RAND archive of more than 17,000 titles dating back to 1948.
RAND also offers a variety of Public Use Databases, which include social/cultural issue data sets and two noteworthy terrorism-related resources:
The RAND Voices of Jihad Database compiles speeches, interviews, statements, and publications of jihadist leaders, foot soldiers, and sympathizers. Nearly all content is in English translation, and has been collected from publicly-accessible websites. Original links are provided, along with excerpts and full-text content when available.
The RAND-MIPT Terrorism Incident Database is part of the Terrorism Knowledge Base (TKB) compiled by the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT); it includes records of international terrorist incidents that occurred between 1968 and 1997 as well as domestic and international terrorist incidents that occurred from 1998 to present.
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? 
