CUNY librarians have agreed to a 60 day trial of bX Recommender starting Monday April 11.
bX Recommender works with SFX and with the universe of SFX user-choices across the world to generate citations similar to the one that generated the first SFX link. In other words, when the user has found a citation they like, bX Recommender will suggest other citations that other people who looked at the first citation have also looked at. It’s a version of “others have also liked…” that appears in a variety of other websites.
This additional information will appear in the SFX menu – it will separate the additional citations into those we have access to full-text and those we don’t. This post from the University of Minnesota Libraries might give you an idea of how it will look.
Students in one of the BPL5100 classes are looking for ten year trends for their company financial analysis. Several databases include historical ratio data:
Mergent Online – under the Company Financials tab
Edgar Online – click the green arrow for Ratios on the company page
Recently, I created a group in the CUNY Academic Commons for any librarian in CUNY who either helps staff our shared subscription to QuestionPoint or is interested in keeping tabs on it. Given the ephemeral nature of email and the challenges in finding old messages that might be useful or even essential, I’ve been trying to move away from email as the main means of communication about the service. I hope that this space on the CUNY Academic Commons proves to be an improvement in the way that information about the service is shared and discussed.
The New York Public Library and the libraries of Columbia University and New York University have announced the formation of a new collaboration,called the Manhattan Research Library Initiative, or MaRLI. The press release says, in part, that –
MaRLI will enable NYU and Columbia PhD students and faculty, as well as scholars whose work is based at NYPL, to check out materials from all three libraries, a first step to improve access to collections among the three institutions. The model is a departure from NYPL’s historical practice, whereby research materials have not been allowed to circulate.
New York Public Library users unaffiliated with NYU or CU can obtain borrowing privileges by demonstrating that they have exhausted the available resources for their projects and need sustained access to the resources of the three institutions. A research consultation with an NYPL librarian and a completed form are required.
We have a trial to the Cambridge Collections Online until April 26, 2011. On-campus access only.
Cambridge Collections Online offers subject or theme based collections of content within a richly functional, fully cross-searchable online environment.
The Complete Cambridge Companions is available as a complete collection and as two sub-collections comprising the Cambridge Companions in Literature and Classics and the Cambridge Companions in Philosophy, Religion and Culture.
Also available through Cambridge Collections Online, Shakespeare Survey Online, makes the distinguished 60 year history of the print series available online for the first time and exclusively.
Please let me know what you think of this product, either via email or here in the comments.
The NY Times just released a new set of nationwide census map depicting some of the recently released data from the 2010 Census. Mapping the 2010 U.S. Census compliments the mapping site that the Times previously posted, Mapping America: Every City, Every Block, which used data from the 2005-2009 American Community Survey.
With both datasets side by side we can see important differences between them. If we look at census tract 68 in New York County (the tract where Baruch College is located), according to the 2010 Census there are 7,614 residents and the two largest groups are white (71%) and Asian (14%). If we look at this same tract according to the 2005-2009 American Community Survey, the estimate is 5,501 residents of whom 80% are white and 8% are Asian. What’s going on here? How can they be so different?
The 2010 Census is a snapshot, a one time count of what the total population was on April 1, 2010. The ACS on the other hand is a moving image, a rolling average based on five years of sample data between 2005 and 2009. They’re not going to be the same as they cover different time periods and are calculated using different methods. Also, the NY Times and most other publications often fail to report the confidence interval and the margins of error for the ACS estimates – for the 2005-2009 ACS, the estimate for Tract 68 is 5,501 residents, plus or minus 459 residents at a 90% confidence level.
Estimates tend to be more reliable as the population being surveyed increases or the geographic area increases in size. So you’ll get better estimates for total number of people than you would for a particular group, and you’ll get better estimates for a county then you would a census tract.
Which dataset should you use? For most of our students, who are often more interested in socio-economic variables like income and education, you’ll have to stick with the ACS. If they’re looking for population data (age, race, gender) and those socio-economic variables as well, they should get all of them from the ACS and not mix the two datasets together. The 2010 Census is not going to include ANY of the socio-economic data; these questions were cut and the ACS is the only place for these variables. But, if you have patrons who are interested in population change from 2000 to 2010 or they’re only interested in demographic variables, then the 2010 Census is the place to go.
I’ve included some maps from both mapping sites below that show tract 68 – they display the same data (total population and race) in a different format (2005-2009 ACS is a dot density map that shows race, 2010 Census is a shaded area map that shows total population change).
NY Times ACS 2005-2009 Map for NY County Census Tract 68NY Times 2010 Census Map for NY County Census Tract 68
The 2010 Census Redistricting Data was rolled out on a state by state basis over the last month, and New York State was one of the last states to be released. A summary of NY State’s population change along with tables and maps to download is available in this press release.
New York State’s population grew from 18,976,457 in 2000 to 19,378,102 in 2010; a change of 401,645 or 2.1%. New York City’s population grew from 8,008,278 in 2000 to 8,175,133 in 2010; a change of 166,855 or 2.1%.
