The weekly update: thoughts on new tools, and useful links:
Friday, I sent a message to the NewsLib group discussing opportunities for news librarians/researchers to use or create Weblogs. So far there's little interest or awareness of this area. At least, however, researchers -- and journalists -- should be reading journalism blogs, for more insight into the value in blogging (there are some library/research and other blogs listed here too).
And here's a related topic that we should be paying attention to: RSS/personal news syndication. Read other bloggers in new media,librarianship, and journalism, and you'll see this is a subject that matters.
RSS (Rich Site Summary/Real Simple Syndication) is a wonderful way for people like me to gather the news I want to read from whatever sources I need to keep up with. It's something that every news agency and newspaper should be offering. (In many cases news readers can only get the headlines from a syndicator like NewsisFree. Getting the full text directly into your news reader is much more useful.) It's something bloggers can offer, too, depending on the tools they use. More info on RSS is here: Weblog Tools.
I commented on RSS, Friday, with a link to some interesting discussion going on on Sheila Lennon's site. Here are a couple more RSS links that came up this week:

News that comes to you Online Journalism Review's JD Lasica on RSS news syndication/news readers.

The Next Frontier by Rusty Coats, from American Press Institute.

KFSource a law librarian's weblog; includes a special section on RSS.

And more useful links....

Reference

Irish Resources in the Humanites from UC Dublin.

Terrorism Preparedness Compendium from CDC, articles from Morbidity and Mortality Report on Anthrax, Smallpox, and other terrorism resources.

National Guard and Reserves called up as of Jan. 22.

Al's Iraq Resources war, military and Iraq links from Poynter's Al Tompkins.

UN Iraq weapons inspectors report

Natural History Notebooks short profiles (with line drawings) of plants and animals.

Federal Clip Art purchase clip art of logos, badges, aircraft, a lot more, in republish quality (PC or Mac).

Beliefnet links on Iraq and war news from a religious/moral viewpoint.
Governments/Politics

Political State Report this Weblog summarizes and links to political news by state. (From The Daily Kos).

CapitolHearings.org listen to Congressional hearings live; from C-Span.
Tools

Boardreader searches message boards.
Journalism

Elements of Digital Storytelling report from study by Nora Paul and Christina Fiebich at UMN new media center.

The Reporter's Privilege guide from Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Rewrite a Weblog on the future of newspapers, from editors connected to Medill school.
Business:

Statistics of U.S. Business, 2000 from Census.
Florida:

Florida Center for Environmental Studies at FAU. Has a Links database where you can search over 600 environmental links. (Or you can browse alphabetically).

MiamiStories.com Yup. Just stories. You can even Click on this map to find stories about a particular part of town. This site's been around for awhile. Nice design. Nice links page too.

Craigslist Miami new, a Miami version of the apparently wildly popular online bulletin-board sites which started in S.F., spread to NY, and now here. People post events, jobs, things for sale (or wanted). Check it out. (NY Times story on Craigslists here.)

Florida pl8s: a collection of old Florida license plates (and other states/countries).
People:

Abdication Papers previously secret documents on Edward VII and Wallis Simpson, from HM Public Record Office.
News:

Boston Globe project on world hunger a yearlong series of stories.

A couple interesting new features on the NY Times website (registration required): Standoff with Iraq brings together stories, maps, graphics, and the Iraq Navigator links guide compiled for NYT newsroom.
And: Al Hirschfeld and his work an online tribute and slide show.

From a NewsKnife press release via email: Newly launched Google News Watch at www.newsknife.com monitors Google News regularly, comparing it with 27 major US news web sites and 12 UK news sites. The idea is to see how well Google’s robot picks the top news stories compared with leading US and UK sites.
Public Records

New York State UCC records search.

California Business Portal search corporations, limited partnerships.

Statistics: no links this week.


Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Rewrite a Weblog on the future of newspapers, from editors connected to Medill school.

Behind the Homefront a new Weblog from Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press; "A daily chronicle of news in homeland security and military operations affecting newsgathering, access to information and the public's right to know."

If you've bookmarked Dave Barry's Weblog at the davebarry.blogspot.com address, be aware that the blog will be moving to the Davebarry.com address sometime soon. You can reach it from there now.

Digital Edge awards from NAA, awarding innovative Website news and ads.

Political State Report this Weblog summarizes and links to political news by state. (From The Daily Kos).
Fun/Entertaining:

"George Bush" writes a Nigeria letter