The Connecticut Library Consortium has announced a series of Roundtables for Fall 2003 to Spring 2004. Topics include Audio Visual, Children's Librarians, Genealogy, Interlibrary Loan, Library Management, etc.

The Colorado Association of Libraries' Intellectual Freedom Committee has produced a brochure on the USA PATRIOT Act. The brochure contains answers to frequently asked questions on the Act, refers patrons to additional information sources, and is general enough to be used across the USA

EDINA Newsline - Autumn 2003 edition is now available

xrefer has announce that the National Library Board of Singapore has purchased an annual subscription to xreferplus, the online reference library. Under the terms of this license agreement, all residents of Singapore will be able to gain access to the reference service on a 24/7 basis in public libraries, at work or in their own homes via the library board's eLibraryHub website. The National Library Board has over 2 million library members nationwide, and the network includes 20 community libraries and 33 community children's libraries

The timetable for the NoWAL (North West Academic Libraries) programme of talks due to take place in October-December 2003 is now available

Parallel Lives: digital and analog options for access and preservation - Joint conference of the National Preservation Office and King's College London - 10 November 2003 - The British Library Conference Centre, London

CILIP Workshop - Working with digital images - 5 November 2003, London

Simmons College, Graduate School of Library and Information Science has announced its Online Course Preview for Fall 2003

Stipend recipients for the ARL Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce have been announced

Assessment for Advancing Diversity in Libraries - ARL/OLMS Online Lyceum course - October 14-31, 2003 - Participants in this course will have the opportunity to design and/or evaluate their library's diversity program, identify a strategy for program implementation and/or enhancement, and examine different methods to assess the program

The Library of Congress Portals Applications Issues Group (LCPAIG) is still interested in receiving comments from individuals, libraries, professional organizations, and vendors on its List of Portal Application Functionalities for the Library of Congress. The comment period will continue through September 30, 2003

The September 2003 issue of D-Lib Magazine is now available

Monica Ali, Margaret Atwood, Damon Galgut, Zoe Heller, Clare Morrall, and DBC Pierre are the six authors shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2003. The shortlist was announced by the chair of judges, Professor John Carey, at a press conference in London, 16 September

Muniscope tracks down research, legislation as well as practical solutions to current municipal issues. The Muniscope library collection has over 9,000 publications relating to urban, regional and rural settings. More than a library, Muniscope offers an extensive networking service across Canada

Global Access to UK Research: Removing the barriers - 20 November 2003 - Universities UK, London - The barriers of price and licensing restrictions are hindering access to the results of academic research world-wide, and this seminar will place UK initiatives in the context of international moves to create open access to published research

MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Links to online learning materials are collected here along with annotations such as peer reviews and assignments

The aim of Unixl.com is to provide a directory for university students and academics with relevant information on many subjects available at most universities worldwide. It will also include some research papers relevant to masters and PHD students

Picture History is an on-line archive of images and film footage illuminating more than 200 years of American history. Included in its holdings is the acclaimed Meserve-Kunhardt Collection of 19th century photography as well as thousands of images that have been researched and acquired by Kunhardt Productions for use in historical documentaries over the past fifteen years. Picture History is intended for the personal use of students, educators, scholars, and the general public curious about the past

Project MUSE has announced that it recently added a For Librarians page to its website. This valuable resource contains a wealth of information to help librarians find out more about Muse and make the most out of a Muse subscription

The Charters of Freedom – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights – are the foundation of American democracy. On September 18, 2003, the Charters of Freedom will return to public display in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building in Washington D.C.

Online event at WebJunction: Public Internet Service & CIPA - facilitated by Karen Schneider, Gary Bortel, Bob Bocher, & Carson Block

The Library Learning Network of the College of DuPage and the Colorado Digitization Program will present a national teleconference Digital Treasures for Teaching and Learning on Friday, October 10, from noon to 2:00 p.m. EST. The teleconference can be viewed live at libraries, universities, community colleges and other institutions with a satellite downlink

The 2004 Subscription Price List from IEEE is now available

Maximising Use of E Sources in Academic Libraries - a seminar for information professionals - 1 December 2003 - Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science

ERPANET and CODATA have announced a joint International Archiving Workshop on the Selection, Appraisal and Retention of Scientific Data. This three-day workshop, co-hosted by the Biblioteca Nacional, will be held in Lisbon, Portugal on the 15-17 December 2003

The October 2003 issue of Walt Crawford's Cites & Insights is now available

In the continuing effort to better serve customers during tight budget times, Gale introduces In the Loop, a bi-weekly e-mail alert with tailored information for librarians including collection and professional development, maximizing budget dollars, supporting patrons' needs and information about special sales and product promotions from Gale

Emerald's Journals of the Week for September 15, 2003 are Managing Service Quality and Work Study

The next Samuel Swett Green Award for exemplary virtual reference will be presented in mid-October. The submission deadline for this award is September 19, 2003, at 12:00 midnight, PDT. Librarians may submit live session transcripts for sessions that have occurred between June 1 and September 19, 2003

New downloadable message print ads have been posted on the American Library Association web site to address the topics of the new role of librarians, recruitment, and pay equity

12th Nordic Conference on Information and Documentation - September 1-3 2004 - Aalborg Denmark

Cleveland Public Library has launched the online exhibition Baron's Mail Art Collection. A sample of 100 images from Baron's collection, recently given to Special Collections by the artist/collector. Two brief essays introduce the topic of the "appropriateness" of mail art collections among a research library's holdings

Academic Library Association of Ohio Annual Conference 2003 - Information, Innovation, Inspiration - Making the Connection - November 14, 2003 - Dublin, OH

Library and Archives Canada has announced the launch of Canadian Libraries: Bibliography, a rich collection of citations to information about Canadian libraries subdivided by library type, location and topics such as statistics and standards

The Friday Brain-teaser from xrefer - Remember 2002? This week we test your memory of events that occurred last year. You may be surprised at how much you have forgotten about it already. Answers page

1. Which British princess, the younger daughter of George VI, died in 2002?
2. At the Madrid summit in December 1995, the European Council decided that which new currency would be used from 2002?
3. Which British rock band released the album "Heathen Chemistry" in 2002?
4. Which writer won the Whitbread Prize in 2002 for his novel "The Amber Spyglass"?
5. Which golfer won the US Masters and US Open in 2002?
6. Which US film director, whose films included "The Lost Weekend" and "Sunset Boulevard", died in 2002?
7. Who started work as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 2002?
8. Who was re-elected as president of France by a landslide in 2002?
9. From 2002, all television sets sold in the United States contained a V-chip. What does the V-chip do?
10. Which 1998 novel by Nick Hornby was filmed in 2002?

The Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemical Information Group and the Chemical Structure Association Trust will be holding a joint one-day training course on chemical information on 30 October, 2003 in London. This one day training course will contain a series of presentations which will provide an impartial and critical overview of Chemical Information products. It will be given by specialists from academic information departments, vendor representatives and the pharmaceutical industry

The September 2003 issue of LIBRES, the international refereed electronic journal devoted to new research in Library and Information Science, is now available

The Royal College of Nursing has launched the website for the first historical nursing journal online. The project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, provides access to one of the first nursing journals, Nursing Record, from 1888 to 1956. This journal captures the world of nurses and hospitals and is a wonderful source for many fields of research, including women's history, gender, class, ethnicity, culture and colonialism. The journal includes articles, photos, illustrations and advertisements

Registration for the Digital Library Federation Fall Forum in Albuquerque, NM, November 17-19, 2003 is now open

The Technology Source from the Michigan Virtual University - September/October 2003 issue now available

Public Library Directors' Symposium - learn about Innovative Interface's path and plans for the future, share your ideas, hear speakers from within and outside of the library world, and meet informally with other library directors - October 19-20, 2003 - Berkeley, California

UKOLUG Seminar (London): Patents as part of Commercial Intelligence - Patent information is an important part of business and competitive intelligence. For those who are only occasional users of patent information or are new to this area, the UKOLUG meeting Patents for non-patent people will provide an essentail guide to resources and search techniques - 7 October 2003

Documents highlight U.S. role in Chilean Coup - newly declassified documents shed light on the U.S. government's role in the September 11 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende, the democratically elected leader of Chile. The military coup ended in Allende's suicide and thrust General Augusto Pinochet into power

What libraries can learn from bookstores: applying the bookstore model to public libraries by Chris Rippel, Central Kansas Library System

Libraries nationwide mark September 11 anniversary - ALA

The Center for Intellectual Property at University of Maryland University College is once again hosting its annual asynchronous online workshop series. This series is of interest to faculty, university counsel, librarians, and instructional design and information professionals. This series of online workshops will provide participants with an understanding of select intellectual property issues facing higher education in today's rapidly changing digital environment

Dynix Web Seminar Series: Marketing As If Your Library Depended On It - September 24, 2003 - free one-hour web-based seminar given by Pat Wagner of Pattern Research

Cold North Wind, Inc. and Sporting News, Inc. have announced an agreement to provide the archives of the 117 year-old Sporting News online. Beginning November 1, 2003, the entire published full-page, full-text archives of Sporting News magazine, which virtually chronicles the history of sport, will be available and fully searchable on Cold North Wind’s website, www.paperofrecord.com, an online portal providing a range of historical content aggregated from a variety of different sources. Subscriptions to Paperofrecord.com, which will include the Sporting News magazine archives, will cost $16.75US per month or $99.00US per year

To mark the acceptance of The September 11 Digital Archive in the Library of Congress's permanent collection, the Library will host a day-long symposium on Wednesday, September 10, 2003. September 11 as History: Collecting Today for Tomorrow, featuring commentary by leading U.S. historians, librarians, and archivists, will be held in the Library's Coolidge Auditorium

Archives, Learning & Social Inclusion - November 4, 2003 - York St. John College, UK

Policy Options is Canada's premier public policy magazine. Its goal is to encourage an informed debate on the important public policy issues of today, and of tomorrow. In each edition, short articles on the immediate issues that dominate the headlines are combined with in-depth analyses of longer-term issues that are certain to emerge on the policy horizon

Cat and class: it's OK for anyone! - 28-29 October 2003, London - this workshop provides a basic introduction to the skills of information organisation in the context of library and information services and a broad based framework built from principles and practice that participants can take away and develop in their own organisational context

International Workshop on Document Image Analysis for Libraries - January 23-24, 2004 - Palo Alto, CA. This is a 100% participation workshop aimed at bringing together researchers, practitioners and users interested in new technologies that help integrate imaged and encoded documents within digital libraries such that ideally, everything that can be done with encoded documents can also be done with imaged documents

The Library and Information Research Group invites applications for the 2003 Elsevier/LIRG Research Award. The purpose of the Award is to encourage research and innovation in library and information science. It is intended that particular attention will be paid to proposals intended to improve the accessibility, retrievability and usefulness of information. The maximum value of the Award is £1000

Alternative Funding Sources for Schools and Libraries - this free webcast, which is made possible by the sponsors of the LearningTimes Library Online Conference, will explore innovative funding models that public schools and libraries use to augment shrinking state and local fiscal budgets. October 2, 2003

Current Cites - Volume 14, no. 8, August 2003 now available

In2Books is an innovative literacy program that empowers elementary students to achieve their personal best by giving them meaningful books to keep and an adult pen pal to correspond with about the books. To reinforce and expand the learning experience, In2Books provides the key people in students' lives - family members, teachers, and adult pen pals - with state-of-the-art literacy and developmental training. Although initially launched only in Washington, D.C., In2Books plans to expand to other under-resourced public school districts across the country

The Guardian states that Internet shoppers have doubled their spending over the past year to more than £10bn as the e-commerce companies that survived the dotcom bust start to prosper. The most popular online purchases remain CDs, DVDs and books but the figures also show the web is increasingly the most popular way of buying travel, theatre, concert and cinema tickets

John Wiley & Sons increased sales and profits in the first quarter, ended July 31, with its professional/trade publishing division showing the most growth despite continued weaknesses in some of the unit's core markets. Wiley's U.S. professional/ trade revenues increased by 8% over the first quarter of the prior year, to $76.1 million

Emerald's Journals of the Week for September 8-14 are Pigment & Resin Technology & Collection Building

Among the recent acquisitions of the Library of Congress is the world's largest and most spectacular private collection of original cartoon art. Assembled over the course of sixty years by J. Arthur Wood, Jr., the Art Wood Collection of Caricature and Cartoon more than doubles the Library's existing holdings in this area. A true "Gift to the Nation," it contains an estimated 36,000 works by more than 2,800 artists, and includes a comprehensive array of political cartoons, caricatures, comic strips, humor cartoons, illustrations, and animation cels. Virtually every aspect of the genre is represented by leading creators, making the Library's cartoon collections both comprehensive and unrivaled in the United States

Open Access Now - August 25 issue now available

Gateshead Council's new library web site has gone live, offering a host of innovative services online. iKnow online is a new-style UK public library website. It's aim is to encourage library users to interact with their library service and with other library users, by offering innovative information services and easy to use communication channels, including Forums, Conference Rooms and Livehelp

Submissions are sought for a special edition of Journal of Digital Information on new applications and contexts for Knowledge Organisation Systems (KOS). This includes but is not restricted to novel applications and representations of KOS in advanced digital library (DL) and semantic Web environments. Submission deadline is 7 October 2003

In anticipation of the Centennial of the Journal of Biological Chemistry in 2005, all back issues now available online. The entire archive, 1905-2002, is available, searchable and free

The American Printing History Association Annual Conference - New York - 24-25 October 2003. Focuses on recent and innovative research in printing history and the book arts, work that makes use of new methods of study or interpretation, that benefits from newly available primary sources, and that treats overlooked or forgotten persons, techniques, or design elements

The Friday Brain-teaser from xrefer - identify well-known people with the same first name. This time, the name is Robert - or Bob. Try to guess who they are from these descriptions, and then see how you did by visiting the answers page

1. 19th-century Scottish author who wrote "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" and "Treasure Island"
2. American singer, born 1941, composer of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and "Masters of War"
3. American actor and director, born 1937, directed the films "A River Runs Through It" and "Quiz Show"
4. 18th-century Scottish poet who wrote "Auld Lang Syne"
5. Younger brother of an American president, who served as attorney general during his brother's presidency and was assassinated in 1968 by Sirhan Sirhan
6. 19th-century English poet who wrote "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" and "My Last Duchess"
7. American engineer, born 1934, who invented a synthesiser which is named after him
8. American poet (1874-1963), author of poems "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "The Death of a Hired Man"
9. German composer (1810-1856) who wrote "Carnaval", "Papillons" and the Spring Symphony
10. British musician, born 1945, a founder member of Soft Machine, his solo albums include "End of an Ear" and "Ruth is Stranger than Richard"

GeoLib is a research program of the Florida Resources and Environmental Analysis Center, which is within the the Institute of Science and Public Affairs at The Florida State University. Its mission is to improve access to digital geographic information for library planning and to apply marketing research theories in solving real-world library problems

The NEO Information Centre was established by the UK Government in response to the recommendations of the Task Force Report on potentially hazardous Near Earth Objects to provide accurate and level-headed information on Near Earth Objects to the public and media and to support the international NEO science community

Info@UK - September 2003 newsletter is now available

Selecting Electronic Products: a beginners guide - 22 October 2003, London - This workshop is designed to assist participants to develop the skills and confidence needed to select and exploit electronic information products. The course will include some practical exercises

The Katharine Kyes Leab & Daniel J. Leab American Book Prices Current Exhibition Awards are given for excellence in the publication of catalogs and brochures that accompany exhibitions of library and archival materials, as well as for electronic exhibitions of such materials. The judging of these catalogs, brochures, and electronic exhibitions is carried out by the Exhibition Awards Committee of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS). The announcement of the best catalogs, brochures, and electronic exhibitions selected from the pool of current Leab Award submissions will be made in the spring of 2004, to be followed by the awarding of certificates to the winning institutions at the 2004 American Library Association Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida

ETD 2004: Seventh International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations: Distributing knowledge worldwide through better scholarly communication - June 3-5, 2004 - University of Kentucky, Lexington

Library and Archives Canada has announced the redesign of the website for Canadian Subject Headings, offering free, up-to-date access to over 6000 subject authority records in the English language, providing in-depth coverage of Canadian topics, including those recently in the news. Coverage focuses on the Canadian cultural, economic, historical, literary, political and social experience

The University libraries of Cornell, Gottingen, and Michigan have announced the first public availability of a significant body of mathematical monographs with access provided through a distributed full text search protocol. The virtual collection, comprising more than 2,000 volumes of significant historical mathematical material (nearly 600,000 pages), resides at the three separate institutions and is provided through interfaces to the three entirely different software systems

Westminster Union List of Periodicals has now been converted into a database and is searchable online

The National Preservation Office is holding a workshop for potential library and archive users of its Preservation Assessment Survey. The workshop will be held at the British Library, London. The cost will be £50 plus VAT, which includes refreshments. Lunch is not provided but participants can use the British Library's restaurant. Numbers are limited to fifteen. The workshop will cover sampling techniques, assessment methods and use of the supporting database

Palgrave Macmillan and the Berkeley Electronic Press offer a combined portfolio of 46 peer-reviewed e-journals (35 e-titles), in all territories except USA and Canada

September 2003 issues of Information Today, ONLINE, Computers in Libraries, Searcher, MultiMedia Schools, and CRM Magazine are now available

Version 50 of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography is now available. This selective bibliography presents over 1,950 articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet

Public Library Association - 10th National Conference - February 24-28, 2004 - Seattle, Washington

Recall is a search engine at the Internet Archive that indexes the text of over 11 billion pages. The archive has pages dating way back to 1996 through the present day

The Thomson Corporation has announced that it has acquired Techstreet, Inc., a digital content delivery company that provides full-text industry standards and specifications to engineers, researchers, and technical and information professionals worldwide. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed

A new discussion list, LIS-UKBIBS, is now available for UK cataloguers, indexers and all those interested in the application of bibliographic standards and metadata in the UK library environment. Supported on the jiscmail list service, LIS-UKBIBS has replaced the old LIS-UKMARC list

The ALPSP Learned Journals Collection has launched its unique collection of 247 journals from 25 diverse publishers. The ALJC enables small and medium-sized publishers to package their journals with a single umbrella license, pricing model and delivery platform. The new online collection is the result of a unique collaboration between the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, Swets Blackwell and Extenza. Swets Blackwell has orchestrated ALJC's complex licensing and legal structure and also serves as its worldwide sales, marketing and access channel

Dialog has announced that it has bolstered its popular Dialog Company Profiles service with an improved search interface, more robust navigation features and an expanded roster of authoritative reference sources

Esquire Cover Gallery - contains 857 magazine covers, dating from 1933

The August 31, 2003 issue of LLRX.com is now available. LLRX.com is a unique, free Web journal dedicated to providing legal and library professionals with the most up-to-date information on a wide range of Internet research and technology-related issues, applications, resources and tools

Internet Resources Newsletter - Issue 108 - September 2003 - edited by Roddy MacLeod, Heriot-Watt University

ASSIGN News from Social Science Libraries and Projects - September 2003 now available

London's Museums Archives and Libraries have collated an events list to advertise and promote the wide range of Black History Month celebrations, events and activities taking place in the London region from October 2003 onwards. Over the past few months over 150 libraries, archives/record offices, museums, galleries and heritage sites throughout London have sent in details about forthcoming events – such as local history talks, seminars, workshops, exhibitions/displays, book/poetry readings, music and drama performances, etc. – organised to celebrate the history and cultural heritage of Britain's Black, Asian and other minority ethnic communities over the centuries

The Informed Librarian Online is a monthly compilation of the most recent tables of contents from over 275 titles - valuable domestic and foreign library and information-related journals, e-journals, magazines, e-magazines, newsletters and e-newsletters. Free subscription available.

Swets Blackwell has announced that it plans to change its company name to Swets Information Services in December 2003. The new name will be officially launched during the Online Information 2003 conference and exhibition held in London, UK on December 2 - 4 2003

The LearnAlberta.ca web site supports lifelong learning by providing quality online resources to the Kindergarten to Grade 12 (K-12) community in Alberta. Students, teachers and parents will find multimedia learning resources that directly relate to the Alberta programs of study. LearnAlberta.ca is a safe, reliable and innovative collection of learning resources developed by Alberta Learning in consultation with stakeholders

Emerald is providing free access to Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials & Journal of Property Investment & Finance until September 7 2003

A National Science Foundation Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel recently recommended a new Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Program, which offers a chance to reformulate many processes of scientific investigation around the unique opportunities of information technology, and for libraries to contribute to scholarly activity in science and engineering research in new ways

Spectrum is a programme run by the American Library Association with the aim of providing 50 bursaries each year to people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds to study library and information science

The CAIS/ACSI conference will be held June 3-5, 2004, and is part of the annual Congress of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, which runs from May 29 to June 5, 2004 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Second Nordic Conference on Scholarly Communication - Towards a New Publishing Environment - Lund 26-28 April 2004

Last week's brain-teaser was about the largest things in the world. Now here's a quiz to test your knowledge of the smallest examples of things in various categories. Answers are here.

1. What is the world's smallest continent?
2. What is the word for the smallest unit of data which a computer system can handle?
3. Which is the smallest state of the United States?
4. What phrase is used for a grand piano of the smallest size?
5. What is the word for the smallest number of members of a committee which must be present before a meeting can be held?
6. What is the world's smallest ocean?
7. What is the word for the smallest element of the image displayed on a computer or TV screen, consisting of a single dot?
8. "MLD" is an abbreviation in medicine for the smallest quantity of a toxic substance or infectious agent that is found to be lethal. What does "MLD" stand for?
9. What is the world's smallest republic?
10. In linguistics, what is the word for the smallest unit of meaning in a language?