nov07c.indd I n t e r n e t R e v i e w s Joni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost DisabilityInfo.gov. Access: http://www. disabilityinfo.gov/ DisabilityInfo.gov is developed and main­ tained as a collaborative effort of 22 federal agencies. It is managed by the U.S. Depart­ ment of Labor’s Office of Disability Employ­ ment Policy. The purpose of this Web site is to connect people with disabilities to the infor­ mation they need to be active participants in the workforce and their communities. On the homepage, the “Hot Topics” section provides links to current interest resources, such as “Disability Benefits for Wounded Warriors” or “Supporting Caregivers Across the Life Span.” Most of these links (which change frequently) are to other government Web sites that offer information to help disabled individuals and their families. A search engine allows users to search the Web site by keyword, and the advanced search option allows limiting by interest group, subject area, and/or state. Users can subscribe to e­mail updates by entering their e­mail address. Navigation tools for the Web site include links to federal information under categories including “Employment,” “Education,” “Hous­ ing,” “Transportation,” “Health,” “Benefi ts,” “Technology,” “Community Life,” and “Civil Rights.” Each category includes links to “News & Events” and “Grants & Funding.” Some categories also offer a section on “Laws & Regulations.” A “Popular Links” section pro­ vides links to other relevant Web sites. Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian for public ser vices and collec tion development at Willamette University, e-mail: jroberts@willamette. edu, and Carol A. Drost is associate university librarian for technical services at Willamette University, e-mail: cdrost@willamette.edu A map of the United States creates a door­ way to state and local information. Using a pull­down menu, the user can choose one of the general categories and then select a state or U.S. territory. Each resource indicates whether the site covers state, county, or city­ specific information. “Press Room” leads users to an FAQ, “Research & Statistics,” information about federal partners, “News Releases,” and the “DisabilityInfo Connection Newsletter.” DisabilityInfo.gov is in conformance with the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, which provides guidelines to make Web sites more accessible to users with disabilities. The de­ signers of the site claim to be in conformance with level Double­A of the Web Content Ac­ cessibility Guidelines 1.0. Links to download Adobe Reader or Microsoft Reader are readily available from the Web site’s main page to help sight­impaired users navigate the site. The logical organization of this site and its conformity to accessibility guidelines benefi t all users, especially people with disabilities, their families, employers, workforce profes­ sionals, and veterans and service members. DisabilityInfo.gov is a comprehensive online resource, well designed to provide people with disabilities quick and easy access to the information they need.—Lea Currie, Univer­ sity of Kansas Libraries, lcurrie@ku.edu NASA Earth Observatory. Access: http:// earthobservatory.nasa.gov/. The NASA Earth Observatory is a public Web site for Earth satellite images and in­ formation related to the study of our planet through the use of remote sensing systems. The research and educational focus is “on Earth’s climate and environmental change.” The main sections of the site are “Data & Images,” “Features,” “News,” “Reference,” “Missions,” and “Experiments.” A second­ ary grouping of site content is by subject, including “Atmosphere,” “Oceans,” “Land,” “Energy,” and “Life.” Three main sections, “Data & Images,” “Missions,” and “Features,” November 2007 655 C&RL News http:earthobservatory.nasa.gov mailto:lcurrie@ku.edu http:DisabilityInfo.gov http:DisabilityInfo.gov mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu http:DisabilityInfo.gov http:disabilityinfo.gov http://www http:DisabilityInfo.gov provide the primary information related to the satellites, research, missions, and activities of the Earth Observatory. “Data & Images,” housing mostly data, reports the measurement of various Earth characteristics over time among its main subject categories. Site visitors can generate QuickTime animations comparing particular measurements over time. “Visible Earth” pro­ vides a substantial number of images from NASA. Specific satellite images of the Earth can also be found using the search feature on the observatory site. Select “Features” to read the results and view the images of specific remote sensing projects. Remote sensing has even been used to locate potential sites for fossil discovery, according to a study called “Finding Fossils in Space.” Past and future projects are also discussed under the heading “Missions.” interested in Earth satellite imagery.—Kristy Cook, McLennan Community College Library, kcook@mclennan.edu National Center for Biotechnology Informa­ tion (NCBI). Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov. Molecular biology is the scientifi c branch that studies macromolecular life processes, especially the structures and functions of nucleic acids and proteins that determine chemical cell processes and inheritance. NCBI was originally established by the National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health in 1988 to serve “as a national resource for molecular biology information.” Although the knowledge of this fi eld is rapidly changing, NCBI has successfully col­ lected the current, worldwide publicly avail­ able information in this field. NCBI is also continually building upon this knowledge through its own re­ The “Reference” section is useful for an overview of the earth sciences (in the context of studying the changing Earth), as well as biographies of pioneering geoscientists. An optional feature is the glossary mode, which produces links to key term defi nitions within the text. Another site feature of note is “Ask a Scientist,” with a question form and an archive of answered questions. Go to the “Experiments” page to find experiments and interactive games that can be used to instruct a variety of ages on the use of remote sensing to study the earth’s changes. The regularly updated NASA Earth Obser­ vatory includes current news and authored research articles and reports. The homep­ age provides an RSS feed or visitors can subscribe to weekly e­mail notices. The use of rollover images on some pages to bring up page content is problematic if a user accidentally moves his or her mouse over these images while reading the page. The award­winning NASA Earth Observatory is a fascinating and essential site for scientifi c re­ searchers, earth science students, and anyone search and informa­ tion management innovations and, in turn, is discovering new data interconnections. This process of continual knowledge generation provides the international scientifi c com­ munity with a comprehensive product that is well designed with many cross­reference links to data and literature. The homepage contains seven main hy­ perlinked choices located on the top toolbar. The options are “PubMed,” “All Databases,” “BLAST,” “OMIM,” “Books,” “TaxBrowser,” and “Structure.” NCBI’s PubMed, for example, offers access to more than 17 million scholarly biomedi­ cal journal citations and/or abstracts from MEDLINE journals, as well as citations and/or abstracts from other reputable life science journals dating from as early as 1950. Full text is furnished if available, free of charge (continues on page 664) C&RL News November 2007 656 http://www.ncbi.nlm mailto:kcook@mclennan.edu Michael Page has been appointed geospa­ tial data librarian for the General Libraries of Emory University. Deborah Raftus has been appointed Ro­ mance languages and literatures librarian at the University of Washington­Seattle. Amy Randolph is now associate director of advancement at the University of Illinois at Urbana­Champaign. Clara Ruttenberg is the new electronic resources management librarian at the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries. Mark C. Scott has been hired as reference librarian at the University of Pittsburgh. Adam Shambaugh has joined Temple University as business librarian. Gail Spears is now archives and special collections cataloger at Atlanta University’s Woodruff Library. Gail M. Staines is now assistant provost for university libraries at Saint Louis University. Alain St. Pierre has been appointed humanities/history librarian in the General Libraries of Emory University. Diane Turner has been appointed cura­ tor of the Charles L. Blockson Afro­American Collection at Temple University. Liz Uzelac has joined the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries as instructional services librarian. Melanee Vicedo is now reference librarian at Atlanta University’s Woodruff Library. Ann Robertson Whitney is now head of systems in the Health Sciences Libraries of the University of Washington­Seattle. Heather Williams is now copyright spe­ cialist and rights management coordinator for the General Libraries of Emory University. R e t i r e m e n t s Richard Golden has retired after 31 years at the General Libraries of Emory University. His passion for and knowledge of music played a large part in building the Emory library’s music collection over the years. His expert knowledge of cataloging and authority work in general, but especially in music cataloging, has contributed immeasurably to the quality of both Webcat and Worldcat. Rebecca (Becky) Johnson has retired from the University of Iowa (UI) Libraries. John­ son had been with the UI Libraries for 37 years, serving in a variety of reference­fo­ cused public services positions, most recent­ ly as head of reference and library instruc­ tion. She was early in recognizing the need to provide library instruction as a compo­ nent of reference services and helped de­ velop one of the libraries’ fi rst instructional modules. (“Reviews” continued from page 656) directly from publisher Web sites and other NCBI products. The “All Databases” link, which is also on PubMed pages, enables users to search across approximately 31 NCBI databases us­ ing Entrez, NCBI’s specialized search engine. “GenBank” is highly regarded by the scientifi c community for its annotated nucleotide se­ quences and its contributions to the under­ standing of the human genetic makeup and other organism genomes. “BLAST,” the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool, provides capa­ bilities for comparing nucleotide or protein sequences to estimate genetic, functional, and even evolutionary interrelationships. Another toolbar feature is “OMIM,” the Online Men­ delian Inheritance in Man, a database that supplies quick access to gene and genetic disorders information. NCBI also serves as a portal to taxonomic data and free specialized structural and biochemical databases that provide information that may be challenging to find by other means. “Books” proves full­text access to select­ ed biomedical books and is recommended for academic librarians developing their own print collections. Overall, based on the wealth and quality of information, NCBI is recommended for all academic biomedical online collections.—Caroline Geck, Kean University, cgeck@kean.edu C&RL News November 2007 664 mailto:cgeck@kean.edu