Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports

Louise shared an article “CSR Reports” by Stephen Young and asked for recommendations of best sites. I volunteered to write them on the blog so I can get acquainted with these resources. But it is hard to pick up “best sites”. Just F.Y.I.

About CRS

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is the non-partisan public policy research arm of the Congress. It provides high quality and analysis for members of Congress in the form of CRS reports: Long Report (RL), Short Reports (RS), Appropriations Reports (A), Issue Briefs (IB), Briefing Books (BB), and Research Memo (RM).

For many years, these reports were only available through commercial subscriptions or by contacting individual members of Congress. There have been debates for years on whether CRS reports should be available to the public. The most recent news includes CRS Reports: Information, Please, and a letter from the Director of the Congressional Research Service. Today, some CRS reports are available on the Internet. Most of them are in PDF files. Some files are DOCs, HTMLs, and scanned reports.

1. I would recommend the following two sites which are relatively large, searchable collections.

Open CRS Network is a project of the Center for Democracy & Technology. As of March 30, 2007, it provides searching for 11811 reports from 1990 to date. Users may search for reports, browse featured collections, and receive updates via RSS. The site provides all versions of the reports. It provides access to previously acquired reports from the Federal of American Scientists CRS Archive, National Council for Science and the Environment, and Thurgood Marshall Law Library, and etc.

Congressional Research Service Reports by the University of North Texas Libraries (UNTL) started in June 2005. Reports (1990 to present) cover a variety of topics. Many CRS reports are updated on a regular basis, and this site includes all versions of the reports that could be located. Users have the ability to search keyword, title, author, subject, and report number, and browse the collection by subject.

Both collections cover a variety of topics, include reports back to 1990, and provide all versions of the reports. Open CRS searches better for all versions of a report. The UNTL collection provides better search functionality, and subject browsing.

2. The following sites provide selected CRS reports on specific subjects. Some sites simply list reports for browsing.

1)Agriculture & Issues: National Agricultural Law Center
2)Congress & its procedures: Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC
3)Environmental law & policies: National Council for Science and the Environment
4) First Amendment issues: US Congress, House, Rules Committee
5) Foreign relations, homeland security, military, national security & terrorism: Air War College, U.S. Embassy in Italy, Thurgood Marshall Law Library, GlobalSecurity.org,
U.S. State Department
6) Intellectual property, cyberlaw & e-commerce: Franklin Pierce Law Center

3. Zfacts.com

Zfacts is a Google-powered “CRS finder”. It looks into every CRS report on the web and only into CRS reports.

4. Google

You can always search in Google by entering the title or number of the report as a query and if possible limit the query to just PDF files (e.g., on Google simply type “filetype:.pdf” after the query or use the advanced searching feature).

IS Division Email Update No. 4

1) Spring Break, April 2-10. Classes resume Wed. April 11. Next week, April 2-6 a number of IS Division librarians will be on Annual Leave. Lewis Liu has been asked to serve as acting head of reference, until Louise Klusek returns on Friday, April 6. If there are any emergencies, check with Lewis, extension 1613.

2) Spring Break Reference Schedule. We expect it to be very quiet at the Ref Desk during the break. If it turns out that the desk is overstaffed (for some time slots there are three librarians scheduled), feel free to split the time. The second person can serve as an on-call back up in case it actually gets busy.

3) IS Division Meeting. Next IS Division meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 9, 2007 in room 135 from 3:00-4:30pm. Meeting will start promptly at 3pm.

4) Research Consultation. Sessions begin April 11. All time slots are now covered. Thanks, everyone, for volunteering.

5) Reading room. FYI. There have been changes in the Reading Room. Three new roundtables have been installed to encourage students to use the space for study and as an overflow venue for group meetings. The Direct Marketing Lab students have designed new signs discouraging students from using chairs as foot stools in the reading room. The signs read: good idea: studying in the reading room; bad idea: putting your feet on the chairs in the reading room.

6) Writing Center cooperation. Please note that flyers for programs offered by the Writing Center have been placed at the brochure rack adjacent to the Ref Desk.

7) General Reference Collection. If you have any suggestions for acquiring general reference books, please forward them to Louise Klusek.

8) Educational Technology Conference. Baruch's conference on educational technology is scheduled for Friday, April 13th.

9. Ticker Press Coverage. By now, everyone is probably aware that there are three articles about the library or librarians in the current issue of the Ticker-- on the Writeyourowntermpaper.com web site, Louise's presentation to the Human Resources Management society, and a humorous piece in the April Fool's section of the paper. If you have an upcoming appearances, presentations, or anything else of note that we could prepare a press release on, please contact Jerry Bornstein.

DialogClassic Web: New interface on March 30

More information can be found at:
www.thomsondialog.com/dialogclassicweb/ and

Documentation at: http://www.thomsondialog.com/dialogclassicweb/support/

FASB literature available on CCH Accounting Research Manager -trial

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to let you know that the trial for the FASB literature on CCH Accounting Research Manager is now underway. We have two concurrent users (the maximum that CCH is allowed to offer academic users.) Previously we didn't have access to the FASB literature and now we do, along with the interpretations and explanations offered by CCH.

To access this trial (this information may be shared with students):


The Internet address for the Accounting Research Manager ® site is: http://www.accountingresearchmanager.com

To access the Accounting Research Manager ®:

1. Enter the above address into your browser.

2. Click on Subscriber Login under the Subscriber section.

3. Enter your user name and password at the prompt. See Passwords for Library Patrons on the wiki for the user name and password.

4. You should then see the home page of Accounting Research Manager ®.

This provides us with two concurrent users of the FASB literature, which was previously unavailable.

(I also tried logging on through CCH Accounting Research Manager in the Newman Library's list of databases and I was successful once and unsuccessful other times, so access through http://www.accountingresearchmanager.com is suggested.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Rita

Should libraries keep the reference desk

Yet another reason to keep tuned in to the ACRL's official blog, ACRLog: a post by Steven Bell (who will be the keynote speaker at this May's LACUNY Institute) about whether or not we are "pandering" to our students at the reference desk and whether or not libraries will still have reference desks in five years.Don't miss all the good comments on the posts, too.

Technical Analysis

Students in Prof. Aronson's seminar in finance (FIN9790) are looking for scholarly articles on technical analysis. The Journal of Portfolio Management and the Financial Analysts Journal are two good titles to look at. We have subscriptions to both. I found the best databases were EconLit with FullText (trial) , JSTOR and SSRN.

CEO Interviews on Video

Google Finance is adding business videos including CEO interviews to its web site. Unfortunately they are not part of the company profile page. It find the videos, scroll down to the bottom of the Google Finance home page where you will see a selection of current videos. Click on "more videos at Google video." Use the search box on this page ( with the category "Business" if you like). Google is posting video from Reutersvideo, TheStreet.com, CBS, Forbes, FirstBusiness, and others.

Hoover's company records include videos too. Search for a company first, then pick either "CEOs on Camera" or "Industry Watch" (from the company record- at the left) for related videos.

Which Banks in Investext?

A question came up at this week's practicum about how to choose reports from the Investext database. How do you decide which reports might be best without opening every one? Here are some rules of thumb. Try reports from the big banks, the "bulge bracket" firms like Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan/Chase, Credit Suisse and Citibank (Goldman Sachs reports are not in Investext). Pick reports based on the analysts' name. Institutional Investor magazine publishes a yearly ranking of analysts in various industries in their "All-America Research Team." This article is in their October issue. The complete article is available in Business Source Premier (not ABI).

Another technique is to look for those reports with the subtitle "Initiating Coverage." These tend to be long, comprehensive reports issued either right after a company IPO or when an analyst adds a new company to his coverage list.

Leaking water on 5th floor

This morning a leak from the men's room on the 7th floor found its way to the southwest corner of the 5th floor. A number of books (about 55) have been pulled from the shelves so that they can be dried (at present, those books are on a truck in circulation). The affected items are from the WS and Z sections. A number of shelves on the 5th floor in the WS-Z section in the stacks are covered with plastic sheeting; several aisles are also closed off with tape. Other books from this section that didn't get wet but were in danger of getting so have been temporarily moved to the 5th floor sorting room.

If you have any questions about the status of this problem, please contact Jerry Bornstein or Ester Ramos.

Update to- Envelope left at ref desk --left side computer dealing with insurance plan

We have found a sealed envelope, possibly containing a payment, to the Biweekly Advantage Plan FNC Insurance Agency in Maryland. Please let me know if it is yours. Also, since it is postage paid, if no one claims it, do you think I should put it in the mail, considering it is for a biweekly insurance plan.

Rita

Update: After discussing this with my colleagues at the reference desk, we decided to open the envelope. We learned the identity, address and phone number of the person who was enrolling in an insurance plan. I called the person. He called back and it ended up being a student who was here in the library. He said he was very happy to get the envelope back as he had had it in his back pocket several days ago ready to mail and then he couldn't find it. (Also, hard at studying for midterms, he wondered if he had mailed it.) He thanked me for following up on it. I said I wasn't sure how it had gotten to the reference desk but I was glad it had worked out.

A Magic Moment

I loved this post on the ACRLog. We all have these wonderful eureka moments with students. This one was a group event - student, librarian and professor.

. . . . recently I had a number of students contacting me in a pre spring break panic. One was looking for primary sources on the United Fruit Company’s dealings in Costa Rica, but the sources had to be in a library somewhere in Boston, because she was going there for spring break. Her initial idea was to try the Boston Public Library. This student had already sat through a class with me on finding primary sources, so I was particularly interested in helping her find the resources on her own rather than just finding them for her. We sat together and I probed and pushed and made suggestions. It was apparent she had read a lot of the secondary literature and was quite knowledgeable and even passionate about the topic. Nothing seemed to be working though, until after 45 minutes, she stopped me and said,
“Wait. Go back.”

She noticed the cover of a book she had been reading displayed on a web page. There was a paragraph around the book that explained how the book was written using 78 boxes of photographs from the United Fruit Company Photograph Collection at the Baker Library of the Harvard Business School. I froze and felt my eyes get really wide as I realized we had just hit the jackpot. Some students though, like patients looking at x-rays, don’t realize what they are looking at even when it’s staring them in the face.

“Do you know what this is?”“What?”“This is it. This is what you need for your paper.”“It is?”“Yes. Let’s look at it together.”

Eventually we both got more and more excited about the find, and she wanted to call her professor to let him know. She called but he didn’t answer. Then, I spotted him (synchronicity!) walking through the library. I stood up and pointed at him.
“Hey! Look at this,” I said.

He looked at the screen and started smiling and jumping up and down. Then she started smiling and jumping up and down. Then I started smiling and jumping up and down!

What a bunch of geeks! I held back a bit, however, because I knew that she still had a long way to go, like getting to the library, getting there at the right hours, and getting into the library. Not to mention fitting the resources into her paper in the right way. Still, it was a magic moment that will keep me going for a while.

If you don't get the RSS feed from the ACRLog, try it. It's a good read.

18 clicks to Time magazine!

A recent presentation by Ellysa Cahoy at a library conference in Minnesota featured this amusing yet distressing video called "Finding Time" that demonstrates the countless hoops our users have to jump through on a college library web site just to get to a known item (in this case, online access to Time magazine).

Found via Lorcan Dempsey's weblog.

Next meeting of the Virtual Reference SIG to discuss VoIP reference

The subject of the next meeting of the Virtual Reference SIG will be the use of VoIP (voice-over internet protocol) software for reference services. Colin Bain from the Queensland University of Technology will speak about how his library has been using the Windows Messenger software to talk online with their patrons and answer their questions. As is usually the case with meetings of the Virtual Reference SIG, at least half the meeting or more will feature discussion and debate over the topic of the day.

The Virtual Reference SIG is sponsored by the Metropolitan Library Council of New York.

DATE: April 6, 2007

TIME: 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

COST: free

LOCATION: Newman Library, Room 415, Baruch College, 151 East 25th Street, New York, NY

RSVP: stephen_francoeur (at) baruch (dot) cuny (dot) edu

MORE INFO: http://vrsig.pbwiki.com/2007%20April%206%20Meeting

Tasty Baking

Tasty Baking Company, a Philadelphia-based, NASDAQ traded public company is the subject of this year's New York Society of Security Analysts Student Challenge. Teams of students research and write a report on a publicly traded company in this year long event. Companies chosen for the Challenge, like Tasty, are usually not widely covered by Wall Street analysts. Professors Onochie and Dahya are coaching the team from Baruch.

A sign with a sense of humor

Rochelle Hartman posted on her blog recently an amusing sign regarding acceptable noise in the library. Available as a Word document, the flyer can be downloaded and customized by any library for local use.

Podcast on Wikipedia

In the wee small hours that I've been spending with my newborn son, I've been enjoying a number of podcasts that I've downloaded on my iPod. The other night, I got a kick out of the first podcast produced by George Mason University's Center for History and New Media (read about their other projects here), which covered Wikipedia. The podcast, known as Digital Campus, aims to be:

a biweekly discussion of how digital media and technology are affecting learning, teaching, and scholarship at colleges, universities, libraries, and museums.

In the Wikipedia discussion, one participant mentioned how he requires his students to write a new entry in Wikipedia themselves or to substantially edit an existing entry. By so doing, the students get first-hand experience in how knowledge is constructed in this popular resource.

The podcast participants also discuss whether "the launch of Windows Vista has any significance, ponder the rise of Google Docs as an alternative to Word, and cover recent stories about Blackboard’s patents and their social bookmarking site, Scholar.com."

Podcasts are not only a great way to pass the time when you're pacing back and forth at 2 am with a sleepless baby, they're also perfect for long subway commutes and treadmill time at the gym. Other library-related podcasts I like:

Library Geeks

Hosted by Dan Chudnov, formerly at Yale, now at Library of Congress, who you may know as the man behind the now-defunct JAKE project, which offered an open-source directory what databases had which periodicals in full text. My favorite episodes include the one he did with Tim Spalding from LibraryThing and on the one on Zotero, the free reference citation management software.

Talking with Talis

Covers library 2.0 issues. Hosted by ILS vendor, Talis.

Open Libraries

Hosted by Jay Datema, the technology editor at Library Journal

Collection management follow-up

This is perhaps even more complicated when considering that we also belong to CUNY. In fact, the Concise e-version was purchased as part of the Gale Virtual Reference set by ERAC/CUNY (which also explains why all of CUNY can access the title).

Collection Management

Memo

Subject: Science Reference (ANY Subject) Collection Management

To: Louise, Michael and Katherine

From: David

Date: March 19, 2007

This is a corrected and expanded version of a collection management memo, which Louise and I discussed briefly and previously sent to Michael, Louise and Katherine. It is posted to the Blog to pique discussion!

On the broadest possible practical and conceptual level—what do we want to do across the disciplines with core reference holdings that are important enough for a large number or a majority of CUNY campuses to subscribe to the resources with the usual consortial pros and cons? Also do we want a “new-fangled” digital version rather than paper version considering all of their pros and cons? The memo concentrating on only one important resource is below.

Perhaps we should modify the method of acquisition of the “family” of the Mc-Graw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology?

All campuses get the Concise version of the McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology in digital format. Eleven campuses in CUNY acquire the full length version of the encyclopedia (2002 edition) not to mention other editions. Maybe all campuses through the CUNY consortium can cost effectively acquire the full length electronic version of the encyclopedia expanding access at a modest increase or for the same or even a lesser cost and saving of space. If we can not convince other CUNY divisions to buy this as a money-saving consortium we alone should consider buying this fundamental resource in the latest electronic version.

To this Louise and I (added) raised many related questions, a few of which are repeated here also for response. What is our true cost, capital investment and operating cost for paper on the shelves vs. digital forms of the same sources? Can anyone in-house provide us with an econometric template, which we non-quantitative librarians can use? Alternately does anyone know of such a math model? Also do we, for example, want a great pdf version of Scientific American with all of its superb and famous quality illustrations despite disadvantages of shallow backlist; duplicates holdings in html only. Do we want—and are we able—to weed with this set of goals as well as the goal of creation of an info. commons on the second floor?

Thank you. We look forward to your responses.

David

OCLC network problems resolved

...as of 8 am today.

This updates yesterday's post on OCLC.

OCLC network troubles today

Here's an alert I just got from OCLC about network problems affecting a number of their services (QuestionPoint, ILLiad, First Search, etc.).

OCLC System Alert

Posted: 3/19/2007 9:55:34 AM ET

Network Problem Affecting Access to OCLC Services

Alert Status: Condition reported

Affected Services:
CatExpress
Connexion browser
Connexion client
FirstSearch
ILLiad
QuestionPoint
WebJunction
WorldCat Resource Sharing

Description:
OCLC is currently experiencing a network problem that appears to be preventing access to several OCLC systems such as FirstSearch, Connexion, QuestionPoint and Webjunction etc. OCLC staff are working to correct the problem as quickly as possible.

OCLC system alerts are posted to http://www.oclc.org/support/systemalerts/default.asp
system_alerts@oclc.org is a post-only e-mail address. Please direct all system alert inquiries to your Regional Service Provider or call OCLC Customer Support at 1-800-848-5800 (USA) or +1-614-793-8682.

Standard OCLC Service Hours

OCLC Connexion (including CatExpress, WebDewey), Z39.50 Cataloging,WorldCat Selection, OCLC FirstSearch, WorldCat Resource Sharing, WorldCat Collection Analysis and OCLC Local Holdings Maintenance are regularly available 24 hours, Monday through Sunday. OCLC occasionally conducts maintenance on these systems, which is typically completed on a Sunday from 2 am - 6 am ET. OCLC usually provides advance notice about these maintenance periods.

Thank you,
OCLC Support
OCLC
6565 Kilgour Place, Dublin, OH 43017-3395
http://www.oclc.org/

Survey for Baruch College website redesign

In case you didn't get or notice the item in the recent email from Dennis Slavin (sent to the faculty and staff mail lists) about the survey for the college's site redesign, here's his message:

Baruch College is in the process of redesigning the home and top-level pages of the www.baruch.cuny.edu web site to improve the site's overall usefulness. You can contribute to this process by completing the following five-minute survey. Your feedback will help us to improve the site's design and functionality. Thank you for participating.

http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/websurvey

CRSP: Access restored

Business Source Premier - Connection Problem

The link to Businees Source Premier is incorrect, and connects to Business Source Complete instead. Mike has been notified.

How to access trial databases

Just a reminder that all trial databases get a "subject" of Trial, so searching by Trial will get you a list of all databases currently on trial. Unfortunately it seems the order is limited to the order in which they were entered, but still it is better than nothing.

Lexicon Follow-up

Here are some follow-up points ont the Lexicon project.

1) Lexicon issues for 1971, 1994, 1998, 1999 and 2002 are not available in the reference collection, only in Archives. But due to the high traffic and fragility of the volumes (1971 volume is a looseleaf copy only), these issues are no longer available for the students to photograph. Prof. Edelstein will be contacted directly to schedule an appointment for him, or a delegated representative, to do the photographing. Students have access only to the materials available at reference.

2) Please discontinue referring students who seek access to the missing copies to Sandra Roff. Please explain to the situation as described in point 1 above.

3) As Rita Ormsby suggested in a previous post, in order to better protect the collection, overnight we will store the volumes in one of the file cabinet drawers, so they will not be visible and tempt students to go behind the desk to use them before we open at 9:00am. The librarian who opens the desk should move them out to the ready reference shelves.

Again thanks for your cooperation on this.

Lexicon yearbooks when the ref desk is closed-a suggestion

I suggest that the Lexicon yearbooks not be left on the ref desk counter when the ref desk isn't open. When I came in to open the desk at 9 a.m. today some students had removed all the volumes to another area on this floor for the project.

Edelstein Sociology Class - LEXICON Digital Photo Assignment -

Students from Prof. Edelstein's introductory sociology class are stopping at the reference desk, phoning the desk, and sending messages to chat reference asking questions about accessing the library's collection of Lexicon, Baruch's yearbook.

As an extra credit assignment, the students have been asked to use their digital cameras to make photographs of the yearbook pages with photos of the sociology faculty from 1969-present. Perhaps 30-100 students are potentially involved. We have moved the 1969-present collection of the yearbook to the Reference Desk. Students are allowed to make their copies at the lower level desk. Please do not let them remove the books from the desk area. If they need extra light, feel free to move the lamps at the reference workstations.

We want to assure everyone a level playing field and to avoid any temptation for someone seeking a competitive advantage to cut out pages. Prof. Edelstein, who has been here since 1969, is retiring this semester, and the project is apparently designed to generate a collage of faculty pictures as a gift to the college/department. Students say he says that he will select the best of their photos for the final product.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Blackwell-Synergy journals: remote access restored

ISI Web of Knowledge TRIAL

We have a trial to ISI Web of Knowledge until May 31, 2007, sponsored by ERAC. In particular it gives us access to Web of Science (Science Cit. Index, Social Science Cit. Index and Arts & Humanities Cit. Index) from 1975 to the present. There had been a lot of interest in this product in the past so please let users know and any feedback you can give me would be welcome. It is on our list of databases.

Update on Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage--some new features have been added

Last week Harry Gee and I attended the CUNY sponsored session on Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage. There are some recent additions to this service, which I've summarized. Please let me know if you have any questions.

• The weekly stock reports are 8 pages long, as compared to two pages in the printed Stock Report volumes.
• The SubIndustry reports are updated monthly and update the Industry Surveys.
• Credit Week is now part of the Industry Reports.
• There is a quarterly update to the Corporate Records.
• Since January, if one clicks on the Industry tab, and looks in the left column, there is a link for IPC Notes. These are Standard & Poor’s Investment Policy Committee Notes for Asia, Europe, the U.S. and Global.
• Also available since January, is another feature that Baruch does not subscribe to, described as “Compustat Light”, the most 8 recent quarters of data available from Compustat for companies. S & P rep Dan Sovocool explained that this version was easier to use than the full Compustat service. He explained to the librarians who were unfamiliar with the product that Compustat offers standardized data elements for research. Howard Bernheim of S & P would be the person to contact if we would want this service. Sovocool thought the price would not be much since we already subscribe to Compustat (through WRDS).
• Baruch does not currently subscribe to the 30,000Global Reports that are available. Excel Analytics is also available to download financials into Excel.
• S&P is phasing out their print products, although Sovocool did not have a complete timetable.
• S&P announced in late February that it will be selling its mutual fund data business to Morningstar Inc. Sovocool said that the sale agreement includes a five year agreement for S&P to license mutual fund data from Morningstar for use in S&P products so NetAdvantage users should not notice any difference in the mutual fund information that is available.
• The Learning Center on the site offers very good information to help increase
information literacy. (I had discovered this on my own a while back.)

Blackwell-Synergy journals: no remote access

We have been blocked from remote access to all Blackwell-Synergy journals (mostly Blackwell journals) because of excessive downloading over the weekend. This does not appear as a separate database on our listing, but the link will show up if someone searches through our full-text listing. On campus access is working.
Saad and I are investigating.

Student suggestions received at the ref desk re photocopier and abbrevations used in workshop signup form

Suggestions that I received from students today at the reference desk:

A sign or sign about the availability of photocopy machines would be appreciated. Now, if the students know there used to be a machine on the 2nd floor, they learn it has been moved when they enter the room and must then go elsewhere. Otherwise, they don't know where the machines are located.

Another student suggested that the abbreviations used on the workshop signup form as to the locations of the workshops are difficult to understand. He was looking for the Subotnick Center.

I thought I would post and pass these suggestions on.

Accounting professor will pickup mid term exam for his course

Accounting professor Robert Pawlewicz will stop by the reference desk for an envelope that contains a practice midterm exam for his class. It is blank. I found it at the reference desk when I came to it this morning and gave him a call in case a student was looking for it.

Science Direct: downtime March 11 from 1am to 8am EST

Value Line: Access Restored

Another source for older annual reports (pre-Edgar filings)

Yesterday I helped someone in the library who was looking for Berkshire Hathaway's annual reports from the 1960s. (This was before Warren Buffett's involvement and when Berkshire Hathaway was a textile manufacturer in Massachusetts.) He had been referred to the U of Penn's annual report collection, then to Columbia, and then to us. We have the Disclosure microfiche but the earliest dates were from the late 1970s. I found two annual reports on Thomson Research from 1967 and 1968.
(A Thomson rep explained to me a few years ago that they have a service in which people can request old SEC filings, including requests for annual reports, for a fee. Once someone has requested the filing, the pdf is also added to their database.)

I also learned that the Thomas J. Long Business & Economics Library at the University of California Berkeley has an extensive collection of annual reports, some from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s through 1979 (when Disclosure microfiche began available. The listing is by company and notes the years available. This is a good list to remember.

It turned out that the person I was helping came in on a METRO card. As he was not a student or faculty or staff, I suggested that he follow the information on the Long library's web site and place his request through ILL at his public library.

CRSP daily feed has been disconnected (temporarily)

An accounting professor called me this morning to say that the CRSP daily feed had been disconnected. In checking with Mike Waldman I learned this occurred because the bill wasn't paid on time and a 30-day extension came and went--it is in the process of being paid. Mike said to allow 10 working days.

Printer Cartridge

A printer on the second floor needs a toner cartridge; an out of order sign is on the printer and the helpdesk notified.

envelope for student who will be in Sunday

I've placed an envelope in the "hold for pickup" at the reference desk for Sylvia Bernsteini who said she would be in Sunday morning.

International Trade Statistics and Values

This International Trade Statistics site was helpful with finding the US $ value of fish exports from Indonesia. I used the "General Trade Data 2001-2005" section, which allows one to search by country and product group. (It links to sources from the International Trade Centre UNCTD/WTO.)

I wasn't able to quickly find this information using our library databases. Does someone know which library database (if any) provides the same information?

Science Direct: downtime March 3rd starting at 6:30am EST