The weekly reference collection: research gleanings:
Has the Jayson Blair affair skewed everything? AJR reports NYT's Rick Bragg has been suspended because no credit line was given to the stringer who did much of the reporting on a story on Apalachicola oystermen. Apparently that's the Times' national desk's policy, Bragg says he wouldn't have done it differently, and the stringer says he never expected credit.
Meanwhile, the Blair story gets nastier as Howard Kurtz reports details from Blair's book proposal.
Another Times reporter in trouble: Chris Hedges' speech at Rockford College was booed down. Local paper's coverage includes a transcript, video, and a forum.
None of this is funny.

The useful links....

Reference

Nikon Digital Archives history of the camera.

Hispanic Yearbook, 2002 has lots of stats and a searchable directory of businesses, media, organizations.

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London, 1674-1834. Searchable.

Masterfoods Online Cooking Glossary

Music of Puerto Rico: a guide, bios, etc.
News:

110 years of the Washington Post, now digitized and available through Proquest, joining the New York Times archive there.

Local TV News Database contains over 10,000 stories, from University of Delaware study of influence of local news.
Statistics:

Metro areas with highest number of immigrants: new report from Census.

U.S. Veterans, 2000 Census study finds most veterans living around bases in Virginia and other states, and older vets in Florida (especially Cape Coral and Clearwater). But Hialeah is city with lowest percentage of vets; Miami 3d lowest.

ACCRA Cost of Living Index get local index or compare cities.

Community Information by ZIP Code a directory from Cal State library.
Public Records:

192.com, the UK people search site, is now offering neighbors searches. Free.

"National" criminal records databases: what's the story new article from BRB publications. Good background on where these databases come from, what's available.

Palm Beach County occupational licenses

Palm Beach civil court search.

New Nexis public records databases: Canadian person locator: The CNPAGE file contains 23 million consumer records containing name, address
and telephone number. Find this under Public Records/Non-US. And:
Convictions!: The CRIMNL file includes statewide criminal history records from nearly 70% of the US population. Includes Corrections Dept databases from 30 states (AZ, CT, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, ME, MD, MI, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, SC, TN, UT, WA, WI). Also includes various court files: in Florida, e.g. it has criminal courts records from Palm Beach, Pinellas, Suwannee Counties, plus a database of criminal court records from 58 of the 67 counties in Florida.

Public Records Search Guide 66-page pamphlet from LexisNexis. Great descriptions of databases, search strategies.
Florida:

Florida Postcards great collection from Jacksonville Public Library. And Palm Beach public records above.
People: Tools: Business, Journalism: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Subjects of Jayson Blair's errors didn't bother to call the Times to complain; Amazing. In LA Times.

Guidelines on use of US Patriot Act from US Justice Dept.

Fascinating Florida Today story on Columbia's debris trail: what if it had landed on Dallas?

Doonesbury Website moves to Slate.

Earth and Jupiter from Mars actual photo: Earth near top, scroll way down to see Jupiter. Fascinating. (story, closeups).

Electronic Iraq news from Iraq including a mirror of Salam Pax's Where is Raed? Weblog, including the pictures he can't afford to post....