Hurricane Tracking and News Reporting 2.0

I am quite impressed with the Web 2.0 features that the New Orleans Times-Picayune and NOLA.com have incorporated into their website!  You can:

• Follow the hurricane blog at http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/schleifstein_blog/ and subscribe to a RSS feed for the blog.
• Follow the newspaper’s latest headline updates on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NOLAnews
• Bookmark your favorite blog posts and articles to your social bookmarking service, such as del.icio.us.
• The use of Cover It Live on the blog at http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/schleifstein_blog/
• Subscribe via RSS to the Hurricane Gustav photo gallery and view a cloud tag for the photos.

Photos from the Times-Picayune – nola.com: Photo Galleries

I don’t think they have a YouTube Channel for the hurricane or a Flickr account at this point, but that may change as this historic and menacing storm barrels toward the Gulf Coast.    Hopefully, these tools will help disseminate information in a timely and helpful manner.   I also discovered the National Hurricane Center is testing out Hurricane Gustav podcasts—these are brief updates on the storm.

NHC Experimental Podcasts

For now, my prayers and good thoughts for safety and comfort go out to anyone who may be in the path of this hurricane.

Welcome UGA VII!

As a proud alum of UGA, I’d like to welcome Loran’s Best, UGA VII!

Pageflakes for Pathfinders 2.0!

Check out our new Environmental Science Pagecast at Pageflakes! Our Pagecast provides you the latest RSS feeds from our favorite Environmental Science publications and resources! Please take time to check out our Environmental Science Pathfinder page as well!

Panik Science Current Events Research (theunquietlibrary) via kwout

Pew Study: Search Engines Used Regularly by 49% of Internet Users

Pew Internet: Search Engine Use

The Pew Internet and American Life project has just published a new study that reports 49% of Internet users employ the use of a search engine use on a typical day.  The report also found that younger users are more likely to use search engines regularly than older Internet users.  What accounts for this jump in search engine use from the 2005 study?  The authors surmise that increased access to broadband Internet connections, improved search engine performance on individual websites, and the improved quality of general search engines are the three major factors for the increase in search engine use.

What implications does this study have for us as librarians and educators?  More than ever, we need to take the time to show students tips and strategies for effective searching of major search engines; in addition, we need to expose students to alternate search engines that may better fit their searching needs.  As we continue to teach our students about website evaluation strategies, we should also make our students aware that search engines yield paid and unpaid results—many users may not realize how this factor can “color” the results they get from a particular search engine. 

You may also be interested a more detailed study of Internet use conducted by the Pew foundation in 2005—although it is three years old, the findings are more detailed than the 2008 study and reveal some interesting data about Internet usage.