The Library’s exhibit “125 Years of Discovery: The FDLP at Cal” celebrating UCB’s 125th anniversary of being a Federal Depository Library (see original blog posting for more details) is scheduled to close in late September. If you have not yet visited this exhibit, we encourage you to do so before it closes. The exhibit is located in the Bernice Layne Brown Gallery, just inside the North entrance of the Doe Library. The exhibit website will remain active:http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/doemoff/govinfo/federal/fdlpexhibit/
The UC Berkeley Library is taking part in a pilot project to make reports from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) available to the public in a database called DARTS (Depository Access to Reports, Technical and Scientific). The database indexes reports from 1964-present and provides full-text for 1998-present, though selected earlier reports are available full-text as well. Because NTIS is a self-supporting agency, many of these government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business reports had previously only been available for a fee. Since access to this database is resticted by password, you must come into the library and ask to be logged in at the reference desk. Anyone may read and print reports from this database and paper copies are available for purchase.
A Booz Allen study of consumers in the US and UK shows that the Web2.0 model of participation and collaboration is a ‘mass phenonmena’ and not something just for the 20 something set.
Web 2.0 relevance cuts across gender and age. Forty-one percent of U.S. MySpace users are older than 35. That number was 35 percent for the United Kingdom and 29 percent for Germany.
Web 2.0 users have few privacy concerns. Sixty-four percent of U.S. messages are freely available to the public. U.K. respondents reported that number as 61 percent, while Germany reported 73 percent.
Web 2.0 capitalizes on ubiquitous connectivity. Approximately one-quarter of surveyed MySpace users are accessing MySpace from a laptop, a school or office computer, an Internet-enabled cafe or a BlackBerry.
Web 2.0 communities influence opinions and purchasing decisions. Thirty-nine percent of surveyed MySpace users receive product picks from virtual peers.
This is one case where study findings for business seem especially applicable for both government and libraries.
