Contents

• President's Corner
• Research Tip of the month
• Member News
• Errata
• Warm-up the Keyboard!
• Community Outreach Project
• Legal Research Institutes
• Welcome New Members!

President’s Corner: Living Legends
By Anne Caputo, DC/SLA President

I recently sat watching the Kennedy Center Honors on television. Seeing the likes of James Earl, Chita Rivera, Paul Simon, Elizabeth Taylor and James Levine honored for their lifetime of giving pleasure to us made me think about living legends in the world of information professionals. It is a rare opportunity to hear from these, our own legends, but the first week of December offered a chance to hear from not one, but two of these treasures. This month I’ll focus on Barbara Quint , a speaker at the Library of Congress Luminary Lecture series. Next month I’ll talk about Toni Carbo who spoke at our holiday party.

Barbara Quint, also known simply as 'bq,' Editor of Searcher magazine, and one of the world’s most famous online searchers, is widely acknowledged as the most creative, controversial, and influential writer to emerge from the online information industry. An audio 'Luminary Lecture' at the Library of Congress on December 4th featured vintage bq on "No Guts, No Glory: Information Professionals March in the 22nd Century." Vintage Quint from beginning to end, the audience of 50-odd LC staffers and guests were treated to such Barbaraisms as,

• Implementation is the key - we need flamboyant courage to continue to serve the information needs of our customers.
• Branding and image are important to our survival. Ditch the bun and move ahead.
• Globalization, disintermediation and centralization and mega trends in the information world. How will we act on these trends?
• Traditional information structures are in a state of collapse, including scholarly publishing and subscription services. How does this change affect us and what will we do about these changes?
• How will the ‘privatization’ of federal government information affect access?
• Concerns about the dominance of unstable structures, including the ubiquitous Google and Northern Light. How does Google stay in business?
• Need for united action, or the need to think like a consortia and work in concert.
• Look for new funding options and using political action to raise our profile.

And, as a parting gift, bq’s views on skills needed for the 22nd Century. Guess what they are and how many of us can claim to have them all?

Basic technical skills

Database building skills
Word processing and spreadsheet skills
Web management skills

And…

Knowledgeable

on any technology that distinguishes truth from falsehood
on platforms for content exchange

And…

Legal and contract negotiation skills
Networking skills
A proactive approach to library work

And…

An "Out of the Box" thinker.

This is a tall order. bq is provocative and outrageous at times, but lively and thought-provoking always. The audience was stirred up and the questions went on until well after the allotted time period. A living legend, yes, and an incisive thinker. Barbara is the original "Out of the Box" thinker herself.

This is one of those cool tricks that you’ll probably only use once a month but will be so glad you have when you need it. And what’s "web link look-up?" It means finding out what web sites have links TO a particular site. For example, I could use this trick to find out what web sites have linked to this Tip of the Month page. And yes, anyone who has a web page likes to see who has linked to them -- it’s a nice ego boost.

But beyond the personal fame meter, I use web link look-ups to find web sites that cover the same general topic as the site I'm looking at. For example, I was researching reports on whether digital photos printed on color ink-jet printers faded quickly. After much searching, I found a great report on just this topic. I assumed that other pages that linked TO this excellent report might also discuss this topic, so I used the web link look-up trick to see what web sites were pointing to this report. Sure enough, I found several other pages with similar research and other information on the topic. Bingo!

Another use for web link look-up is in competitive intelligence research, when you’re trying to track down former employees of a competitor in the hope that you can interview them and find out more about that competitor. Using this technique, you can find web sites that have the word RESUME or CV and that contain a link to your competitor’s web site. Those sites are likely to be resumés of present or former employees of the company, who list both the name and the web site of the employer.

And web link look-up is a nifty way of finding hidden relationships among organizations. I needed to find out what the executive from a small association was up to, so I used this technique to search for links to his biography page on the association’s web site. Surprisingly, I turned up a link to his biography from a lobbying group’s web site. It turns out that he was on the board of directors of this advocacy group as well as serving as an executive for the association. My client was very intrigued at this information, which wasn’t disclosed in any of the executive’s biographical material.

So, how do you find web links? The syntax is simple. For most search engines, type link:the.web.site.you.want (example: link:www.BatesInfo.com) in the search engine’s search box. Note that you don’t include the "http://" portion of the URL. Try it in www.google.com and see what you find.

If you want to look for web sites that link to a specific URL and that mention a particular topic (like the competitive intelligence research I mentioned above), use the "advanced search" page; each search engine handles this type of query differently.

For example, you can go to the Advanced Search page of AllTheWeb.com (www.alltheweb.com/advanced), and type www.enron.com in the first Word Filters search box, pull down the menu on the right and select “in the link to URL”. Go to the next Word Filters search box, type resume, Select “Must include” on the left pull-down menu. Then click [Search] and you’ll turn up resumés of people who at one point have worked for Enron.

There are some limitations to this trick, at least in some search engines. Google won’t let you search on any additional terms if you’re doing a link: search. That is, you can’t search:

link:www.wilhelm-research.com permanence

for web sites that both link to Wilhelm Research's web site AND talk specifically about permanence of color ink-jet prints. Likewise, the competitive intelligence trick I described above won't work in Google, since you can’t include the word RESUME to the link search. And this trick doesn’t work well if you’re looking for links to a very popular web site. Try searching for link:www.amazon.com, for example, and you'll get tens of thousands of pages. But it’s a great way to find "more like this" pages and to see who's talking about you.

Give this trick a try the next time you want to see who’s pointing to a particular site. And let me know if you think of new ways to use web link look-up.

-------

Mary Ellen Bates is the owner of Bates Information Services, providing business research to business professionals, consulting services to the information industry and workshops for library professionals. She can be reached at 202-332-2360, mbates@BatesInfo.com or http://www.BatesInfo.com.

Special Libraries Association assumes no responsibility for the statements and opinions advanced by the contributors to SLA’s publications. Editorial views do not necessarily represent the official views of SLA. Acceptance of advertisement does not imply endorsement of the product by SLA.

Subscriptions:
Chapter Notes is free to DC/SLA members. Subscriptions to non-members are available at $10 per year.

Advertising:
Advertising rates effective September 1997 are: $95-1/4 page; $175-1/2 page; $290-full page. For information regarding advertisements, contact the DC/SLA Chapter Notes Business Manager:

Kelley Weber
Surface Transportation Board
Phone: 202-565-1668
Email: weberk@stb.dot.gov

EDITOR’S NOTE:
Friday, January 17th is the deadline for materials which can be included in the February 2003 issue. The issue is distributed approximately three weeks after the deadline. The preferred submission format is a Word document sent via email.

Materials for Chapter Notes should be sent to the Editor:

Cynthia Holt
The Gelman Library
George Washington University
2130 H Street NW
Washington, DC 20052
Phone: 202-994-1352
Email: holt@gwu.edu

Listserv Moderator:
Kelley Weber
Surface Transportation Board
Phone: 202-565-1668
Email: weberk@stb.dot.gov

DC/SLA Internet Committee:
Frederik Heller
Phone: 202-383-1157
Email: fheller@realtors.org

SLA Headquarters
ATTN: Address/Name Changes
1700 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009-2508