Watson Library Museum

Thomas J. Watson Library

The Libraries of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Filed under: Instruction

Organize Your Research Using Online Tools — Guide

Downloads and printable versions our presentation:

What we’ll cover:

We’ve arranged the existing set of useful online tools for organizing your research into four broad categories: Administrative, Notification, Image/Picture, and Bibliographic.

Administrative Tools: these help you organize your research, allow you to share information with others easily, and access your information from anywhere in the world from any computer.

Notification Tools: set up these tools so you can be notified automatically any time content matching your criteria is added or updated.

Image/Picture Tools: these help you organize, manage and share your photos or images.

Bibliographic Tools: these tools can help you organize, annotate, format, and export/import bibliographic references — or even manage the entire research process.

Administrative Tools

Our first set of tools can be used to draft documents, organize pieces of information from the web, and create appointments using free tools available on the web. These tools not only help you organize your research, but also allow you to share information with others easily and access your information from anywhere in the world from any computer.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets

What can I do with it? (From Google Docs Help Screen)

  • Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text (or create documents from scratch).
  • Use our simple WYSIWYG editor to format your documents, spell-check them, etc.
  • Invite others (by e-mail address) to edit or view your documents and spreadsheets.
  • Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
  • View your documents’ and spreadsheets’ revision history and roll back to any version.
  • Publish documents online to the world, as Web pages or post documents to your blog.
  • Download documents to your desktop as Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, HTML or zip.
  • Email your documents out as attachments.

Here’s what you can do with spreadsheets:

  • Import and export of .xls, .csv, .txt and .ods formatted data (and export functionality for .pdf and html).
  • Enjoy intuitive navigation and editing, like any traditional document or spreadsheet.
  • Use formatting and formula editing in spreadsheets so you can calculate results and make your data look the way you want it.
  • Chat in real time with others who are editing your spreadsheet.
  • Embed a spreadsheet, or a piece of a spreadsheet, in your blog or website.

Why is Google Docs/Spreadsheets better than Word or Excel?

The most significant advantages are that Google Docs can be shared with anyone and accessed anytime, anywhere (that’s Web 2.0 technology). In Watson Library, we use Google Docs to create guides for classes such as this one. Though there may be multiple instructors editing a guide at the same time, there is only one master document. You can also track changes and deletions made by all collaborators.

How do I create a Google Doc?

To create a Google Doc, you must first create an account with Google. This is simple, free and will give you access to many other Google tools. Go to Google and click on “Sign In”. You can then click on “Create an Account Now”. You do not need a Gmail email account to create a Google account. You can enter any email address to create an account. Once you’ve created an account, you can simply sign in to your account and click on Docs.

To create an account, click on New. Here you’ll see that you can create a new document, spreadsheet, presentation or folder. Let’s click on Document. You’ll see you have a new window that opens and looks very much like opening a new Word document in the Windows environment. If you click on File, Edit, View or any other option from the top tool bar, you’ll see how similar it is to working with Word. Even your formatting options are the same (font, color, size, bold, italics, etc..). To create a document, simply start typing and formatting as you would with any Word document. Let’s look at a document with a thematic essay on Chinese Calligraphy from the Timeline of Art History.

How do I share a document with others?

You have several options for sharing a document, you can invite others to view the document (without the ability to edit) or you can invite others to collaborate (with the ability to edit). To share, simply click on the Share button at the top right of the screen. Here you can invite people (using their email addresses) to collaborate or view. Advanced permissions allow you to further extend invitations through your collaborators. When you type in an email address for a colleague, a message box will pop up on the screen. Here you can create your own text for the invitations, explaining the document. After you’ve sent the invitation, you can go back to editing the document.

What are the benefits of sharing a document?

There is one master document being edited by all collaborators, not several different versions being passed between colleagues.

You can chat live with other collaborators (the “discuss” option) about the document while editing. This is currently only available with Google spreadsheets.

You can present and edit with other collaborators in real time.

Publishing a Google Doc:

You also have the option to publish your document to the web so it can be viewed by anybody. This is useful if you are creating a document for a class or a conference.

Google Notebook

What can I do with it? (From the Google Notebook FAQ)

“With Google Notebook, you can browse, clip, and organize information from across the web in a single online location that’s accessible from any computer. Planning a trip? Researching an object? Just add clippings to your notebook. You won’t ever have to leave your browser window.”

Like other Google tools, you need to create a free Google account to use Google notebook. Once you create an account, log in to Google Notebook and begin adding clippings from the web. Again, because your notebook lives on the web, there’s no need to worry about file size or accessing it from your own computer, it can be accessed anywhere at anytime. You are also able to share your notebook with others or publish it to the web.

Let’s look at an example of how Google notebook can assist your research. Here we have a Google notebook for research on Le Corbusier. As you can see on the left side of the screen, this notebook is one of several that we’ve created for class demonstrations. Under the Le Corbusier heading, there are several different categories that we’ve created to organize our the information and images we’ve pulled in from the web. It’s up to you how organized you want to be-you can have many categories or none at all. What we’ve done is basically copy and pasted all of this data into this notebook so we can access it quickly from any computer.

I’ll now show you how to create a notebook from scratch. I first click on Create a new notebook on the top left of the screen. I’m prompted to create a title for this notebook. I’m going to create a notebook for research on Otto Dix. I go ahead an type in Otto Dix as the title and click on OK. Now I’m ready to start compiling content. There are two options for inserting content, you can open up a new tab in your Internet Explorer window and simply copy and paste your content or you can download a browser extension, which allows you to open up a mini-notebook that won’t force you to leave the page you’re on. I’ll show you examples of both. Let’s start by simply opening up a new tab and begin looking for content to put in our notebooks. For starters, let’s look for publications about Otto Dix in WATSONLINE. Here is a list of subject headings for the artist. In the list, I find a catalog for an exhibition held in Frankfurt in 2006. If I want to keep a record of this information in my notebook, I can simply highlight the record and copy and paste it into my notebook. From here, I can also add my own comments or labels for this particular note within my notebook. By adding a label, I can quickly search my notebook to find this particular book (or other books I might have noted from Watson) by simply labeling it “Watson”. I could also use the label “exhibition” or the author’s name or “Otto-Dix-Haus”. If I change my mind about any of these labels or the note itself, I can delete them at any time. To add more than one label, simply separate them with commas.

Now, I’ll look for some images to add to my notebook. I’ll start with a search on the Museum’s website for Otto Dix. I’ve already done the search and found these results. I’ll open up the image of The Businessman Max Roesberg, Dresden. I can enlarge the image and then simply copy and paste it into my notebook. I just click below my last note to add another note. Let’s say I also want a portion of the Timeline of Art History that mentions Otto Dix. I can highlight the secion that is relevant (specifically, the key event from 1924) and, again, copy and paste into my notebook. Now that I have several different notes, I can begin adding section headings or categories. Simply click above the note you wish to categorize and click on Add Section. Type in your section header and click OK. You’ll see your header also now shows up on the left side of the screen under your notebook title. I can also add headers for images and timeline. The more robust your notebook becomes, the more useful you’ll find these section headers.

If you download a browser extension you can add items from the web page that you’re on. Once you’ve downloaded the browser extension, simply click on it to open up the mini-notebook. You can choose which notebook you want to add content to from there.

For more information on using Google Notebook, click here.

Google calendar

What is it?

A free, online, shareable calendar service. Here are some of its features (from the Google calendar help file):

Features
Calendar Sharing: Set up a calendar for your deparment, and share it with everyone on staff. Or share with your assistants so you can view each other’s schedules side by side.

Invitations: Create event invitations, send them to colleagues, and keep track of people’s responses and comments, all in one place. Your friends can receive your invitation and post responses even if they don’t use Google Calendar themselves.

Quick Add: Click anywhere on your calendar where an event belongs (or use the Quick Add link), and start typing. Google Calendar understands whole phrases like “Meeting with editor” and will pop new events right into your agenda.

Search: Find the date of a departmental meeting. Or, search public calendars to discover new events you’re interested in and add them to your own calendar.

Mobile Access: Receive event reminders and notifications on your mobile phone.

Event Publishing: Share your organization’s events with the world. Learn more with our Event Publisher Guide.

Click here to get a tour of Google calendar.

Let’s look at an example of how Google calendar could help you with your work in the Museum. I’m going to open a calendar that we use in Watson for scheduling staff members and workspaces. After opening up this calendar, you see “My calendars” on the left side of the screen. You can add calendars for different members of your department or research staff. You can add as few or as many as you need. It is not necessary to view all calendars at once, you simply click on the calendar that you need and only those appointments will display on the screen. Click here to see instructions on how to share a calendar. You can share your calendar with anyone, and those invited do not need to have a Gmail account.

To create a new appointment or event, click on Create Event at the top left of the screen. From here, you can create your event details and invite others to attend. You can choose the recurrence of the event and how/when you want to be reminded. Click here for more information about creating events.

You can search your calendar for specific events based with just keywords. For example, if I want to find an appointment for lunch with Dan, I can simply click on type they keywords from the appointment in the search box at the top of the screen and click on Search Calendar. Here I see that one appointment is found.

If my calendar is shared with others, I could post a comment about an event for others to view. Here is an example. Anyone who shares your calendar can also post comments.

For more information on using Google calendar, click here.

Zoho

What is Zoho? (from the Zoho FAQ page):

“Zoho is a suite of online applications (services) that you sign up for and access from our Website. The applications are free for individuals and some have a subscription fee for organizations. Our vision is to provide our customers (individuals, students, educators, non-profits, small and medium sized businesses) with the most comprehensive set of applications available anywhere (breadth); and for those applications to have enough features (depth) to make your user experience worthwhile.”

Like Google, Zoho offers a wide selection of free tools that you can access anywhere anytime that are stored securely on their server. Also, like Google, you need to first set up an account to use these tools. From the tools screen, you’ll see there are tools for creating documents, spreadsheets, presentations (like PowerPoint), scheduling, and organizing. There are a few tools that Zoho has that are not duplicated by Google. First, we’ll look at Zoho Planner. This is a tool similar to Google Notebook, but with additional functions such as scheduling features that allow you to create “to-do” lists with due dates and appointments. You can create an entire page for one particular research project (here I’ve created one for research on Otto Dix). As you can see, I’ve added a to-do list, which can easily be edited, appointments related to this research, notes (which are quick and easy to edit or delete by hovering your mouse over the note), and attachments from your computer or a flash drive (such as images).

If you choose to share your page with others (for example, if you are teaching a class and want your students to be able to view your page), simply click on Page Sharing at the top right of the page. You can choose to share the page publicly (viewable by anyone on the web) or with selected colleagues. And, like with Google tools, you can choose if you want other people to be able to just view the page or edit. Again, this is useful if you’re teaching a class and want your students to just view the page, but your teaching assistant to be able to edit.

There are many other tools available through Zoho that you can explore. If you create other Zoho documents or presentations, you can quickly switch over to them by clicking “Switch To” at the top right of the screen.

For more information on Zoho, click here.

Notifications

The common feature of all of these notification tools is that once they are set up, you simply sit back and let the content come to you. We suggest setting up more notifications than you think you might need, and adjusting or cutting back after a trial period if necessary. Search criteria or terms are often either more or less productive than you might think.

My Library Account via WATSONLINE

Once set up, the “Saved Searches” feature of My Library Account can automatically email you when new WATSONLINE books meet your specified search criteria. You may also keep a list of one-click WATSONLINE searches if you would rather occasionally check in.

Simply log in to My Library Account through WATSONLINE (link on the upper right) or the library portal (link in left sidebar) with your name and Museum ID number. See the Registration Desk staff if you do not have an account.

You’ll be brought to your My Library Account home page. Along with “Saved searches” there are more features that we won’t go into here — for more complete information, see this My Library Account guide on our library portal.

You can go directly to Saved Searches (we’ll see that shortly) or use the search form to perform a search in WATSONLINE– we’ll search for the phrase “metropolitan museum of art” as an author. Once you are on the results page, click the “save search” button to add the search to your saved list.

If you are logged in you may at any point while in WATSONLINE click the “Your Patron Record” button. Then, from the “saved searches” page of My Library Account you can manage them.

I’ve set up a bunch of example searches like the following:

  • subject word = “lithography”
  • call number is NE230* (the number for the History of American lithography; the * character truncates the search and this will return NE2303.7 L37 2005, NE2304.K45 1986, etc.)
  • author = “metropolitan museum of art”

On the “saved searches” page in My Library Account, you can manage your searches in the following ways:

  • Remove saved searches you no longer need, using the “Mark to remove” checkbox.
  • Toggle on/off email alerts for search results of your saved searches, with the “Mark for email” checkbox.
  • Re-execute your saved searches with a single click, with the “Search” link on the right.
  • When updating your list, take care to click the “Update List” button and not the “Remove All Searches” button.

The following screenshot is an example email you will receive from the WATSONLINE server. This one is for the MMA as author search. The server checks weekly for new WATSONLINE records, so it’s possible that you will get something every week. All the matching results are compiled into one email, and the nice thing about the email is that a direct link to the WATSONLINE record is provided so you may click right through to the record.

Google alerts

A Google account, though not a Google email address, is required for this service. You can set up email notifications for news, web pages and/or blog entries matching your search criteria. You can choose the notification frequency, but this will also depend upon the popularity and specificity of your search terms. You can register other email addresses and have alerts sent to those accounts, too.

So once you’ve set up or logged in to your Google account, this is the Manage Account screen. Note on the left that I have two email addresses registered on my one Google account. The Alerts link is there on the upper right and this drops you right on to a page where you can set up an Alert, or click on the link to Manage your Alerts.

It’s pretty easy — just enter your search terms (they may be simple or complicated), choose the sources you want to search, how often you’d like to receive alerts, and your email address. You can always come back to Manage your Alerts if you’d like to remove or change one. Links to do so are automatically included at the bottom of all Alert messages as well.

Some examples I already have set up are:

  • Daily comprehensive alert for “lithography and art -semiconductor”
  • Daily alert for news with the phrase “metropolitan museum of art”
  • Weekly alert for blogs with the word “banjo”

On the Manage your Alerts screen you can do the following:

  • Delete an Alert
  • Change the delivery email address
  • Clicking the “edit” link allows you to change the search terms, type, and how often.
  • Choose between HTML and text emails
  • Create a New Alert

Here is an HTML email from my metmuseum.org inbox from the “Metropolitan Museum” alert. The links are embedded in the body of the email so I can click right through to the appropriate web page. Note also the links at the bottom allowing me to click right through to Manage my Alerts.

RSS

We’re not going to go too deeply into RSS since it’s already well-covered by this page from our recent Web 2.0 presentation, but we are going to provide you with a quick introduction of how it works.

RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content such as blogs, news feeds, and Podcasts. The initials RSS stand for, among other things, Really Simple Syndication.

Instead of you visiting all your favorite blogs and websites to see what’s new, you can have the new content syndicated, or published, to you. Items are pushed out to you electronically whenever new content is posted. It works like a magazine subscription in that there are three basic elements:

  1. “Feed reader” or RSS-compatible browser required to read RSS items. (The “mailbox”)
  2. A blog or page you would like to keep up with. (The “magazine”)
  3. The updated content: blog posts, podcasts, etc. (The “issues”)

So basically, you get yourself a mailbox by setting up a feed reader; find an item you’d like to keep up with and tell your reader to track its feed; and check your reader on a regular basis for new content. From the reader you can scan new items quickly and click through to only those ones you want to read.

I already have an active Google Reader account (my “mailbox”) set up. So the examples I’m going to show you will start with finding feeds, for example: Eye Level (the Smithsonian American Art Museum blog) and the University of Chicago Press journals (I’m going to select the Journal of Near Eastern Studies). It’s simple– merely click on the RSS icon (the orange square with the radiating waves of information) and add it to your feed reader, or paste it into the “add subscription” part of your reader.

You should also be aware that we try to include available RSS feeds of journals the Watson Library subscribes to in our E-journals A-Z list pages, and you can add them directly to your readers from the list.

A new and helpful tool we’ve found for web pages or sites that don’t have RSS feeds is http://page2rss.com/, where you can paste in a web address and the Page2RSS service will check for page updates, delivering them to your feed reader if the page has changed.

Images

Flickr

What is Flickr?

See our page on Flickr from the Watson Library Web 2.0 presentation here. Flickr is a free, online tool that helps you manage your images and search images made available by others. For the purposes of this class, we are going to show you how to use Flickr for organizing your own personal photos, including images of objects that you downloaded to your computer or flash drive.

Once you open up Flickr, you need to create an account (the account is free, unless you choose to upgrade to the Pro version, which has an unlimited amount of storage, the free account has 100MB of space). I’m going to open up the Watson Library account and upload some images. From my homepage, I click on Upload Photos. I then click on Choose Photos. Here I am prompted to choose the files I want to upload. I am choosing Otto Dix images that I have downloaded from ARTstor. I am going to keep Add More at the bottom of the file list to add all of the images. Once I’m done adding files, I can set my security level. I can make the images private (visible only to me), visible to just friends or family (useful if I’m working on a research project and want a selected group of colleagues to view these images) or the general public. If you make your images visible to the public, anyone searching Flickr will be able to view them. You must then click Upload photos.

You can go in and add descriptions to your images. You can add a title, description and tags (tags, like keywords, can help you (and others, if your images are public) find your images later). You can also add your images to a set. You can quickly get back to your set at another time by opening your Flickr account and clicking on Sets and Collections (or under “Organize”) at the top of the screen.

In addition to adding images, you could also upload files that you’ve scanned at Watson Library’s digital scanner. I have a file I scanned from the Glitter and Doom exhibition catalog. I can upload this the same way I uploaded the image files.

Flickr also allows you to share images with others. One way is to open your set and click on “Share this” at the top right of the screen. You can add the email addresses of the people you want to view your images.

For more information on using Flickr, click here.

Picasa

Picasa is free software that you can download to your computer to organize, manage and share your photos. It is another Google product. You may need to get a System administrator to download Picasa to your computer, if you are using it here in the Museum. When you download Picasa, you can choose to have all of the photos stored on your computer automatically downloaded and sorted by their file folder and date. It’s a quick one-step process and you can begin organizing immediately. The other option is to select a particular file or image to dowload. Your images live on your computer unless you choose to make them a web album. These albums can then be made visible to the general public or to a select group of people. Here is an example of a file that I have downloaded into Picasa. When you open a web album, you can quickly organize or add captions to your photos. You can also launch a slideshow.

When using Picasa on your computer, you can also edit your photos (crop, straighten, add tint, adjust red-eye), create a collage, export, email, print, add to a blog, or order prints. For more information about downloading and using Picasa, click here.

Bibliographic

These tools can help you organize, annotate, format, and export/import bibliographic references. In this section I’m going to cover three categories of resources you can use to help manage the research process: Saved (or “marked”) records from WATSONLINE; web-based citation “clearinghouses;” and the bibliographic manager Zotero.

Exports/Marked records from WATSONLINE

The saved/marked records feature of WATSONLINE allows you to mark records as you browse the catalog, then email the records you’ve marked to yourself in a few varieties of format. Note that saving/marking records is entirely separate from My Library Account and is only usable on a per-session basis; that is, you can’t save records to a list, close WATSONLINE and still have those records saved when you come back later.

You may save records individually from a search results browse list (click “save to list” in the left column), or you can add records to your list while viewing an individual record (click the “Mark the record” button in the top row). If you would like to view your saved records or clear the set you’ve already saved, the buttons are in the WATSONLINE top navigation row (“View marked records” or “Clear marked records”).

Opening the saved/marked list gives you the opportunity to send the list to any email address, view the records on screen or save them as a text file to your local computer– all in your choice of format. You may also do a little list management by removing selected items if you wish.

The basic steps are:

  • While searching or browsing WATSONLINE, save it to the marked list
  • View the marked list
  • Export the list in a few format options
  • Then you can cut & paste or import it somewhere else

Here is a screenshot of an emailed list in full citation display.

Web-based citation “clearinghouses”

Some of you may have used or heard about some of these resources or their more pedestrian counterpart, del.icio.us. We’ll simply mention these web-based “reference managers” or “citation clearinghouses” so we’re sure you’re aware of them. If you are familiar with del.icio.us already, these operate under the same basic set of principles:

Provide a web-platform, accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection, so people can upload and save links to useful resources; organize and share them, and perhaps discover new related resources. The difference between the three I’ve listed here and del.icio.us is the emphasis on scholarly references– the basic idea is the same, but these platforms provide more options and functionalities for managing and using citations to build bibliographies and enrich the research process.

Despite this progress, we’ve tested these reference managers and come to the conclusion that they are not robust or flexible enough to meet the needs of researchers here at the Museum. Depending upon the particular platform you look at, the problems may include the following:

  • Not flexible enough to handle several types of bibliographic formatting standards.
  • Existing citations are nearly all science-tech-medical, with little in the humanities.
  • Exporting references to word processing programs or other reference managers leaves a little to be desired.
  • On-screen organization and navigation is inflexible or confusing.
  • Citations must be manually entered for many types of resources.

Three of the leading web-based reference managers are listed here. You can think of them as like del.icio.us for references.

What I would like to spend some time showing you is something we’re really excited about: the research manager Zotero. There are several reasons why it’s not ready for prime time here either, but its development is steadily moving forward and at some point in the future we hope to be able to show you Zotero in its mature form.

Research/bibliographic manager: Zotero

Zotero (http://www.zotero.org/) is a robust and flexible research manager, and its functionality is so promising that we’ve decided to give you an idea of what it’s about in case any of you would like to begin using it. At the moment, Zotero only exists as an extension for the Firefox browser, which is not (yet) supported here in the Museum, so we’re going to show it to you via Powerpoint screenshots. A version to sync between multiple computers is in beta testing and a web-based version is in development. Those are the last and largest pieces of the puzzle that’s missing for Zotero to become an essential tool.

What is Zotero?
An extension of the Firefox browser that integrates the entire research process into a single tool: bibliographic applications, word processing, and document archives. It helps you save, annotate, organize, and export articles, library catalog records, online resources, other documents and their bibliographic references. Zotero also automatically formats references and can export full bibliographies and item-by-item reports on your research.

You can think of a Firefox extension as a tool that you download and install into the browser itself to add new things that the browser can do. It’s basically a fancy personal toolbar, and Zotero is free to download and you can use it on- or off-line. It has been built by researchers, for researchers, and is supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Zotero:

  • Plug-in for the Firefox web browser, hence not available in the Museum
  • Terminal-specific
  • Save, annotate, organize, export “items” in your library
  • Free, open source and continually updated
  • You can work on or off line
  • Built by researchers, for researchers
  • Funded in part by Mellon and the Institute of Museum and Library Services
  • I highly recommend viewing the tutorials on the Zotero web site.

Steps:

  1. Download Firefox browser (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/)
  2. Install the Zotero plug-in from the Zotero web site
  3. Now in browser — in bottom right.

Viewing the Zotero work screen:

  • Hidden, part- or full-screen modes
  • Three panes:
    1. left: create collections & sub collections and manage saved searches (can drag & drop; items can be in multiple collections at the same time)
    2. center: info & notes related to items in a collection (click on an item/note, it will appear in the right column.)
    3. right: item column– can edit or take notes on an item.

Capturing & adding items to your library:

  • Click icon in location bar, will be added. info viewable in right column. can add other info via tabs on right.
  • Works with most info sources: library catalogs, Google, news, Amazon, databases.
  • Tabs on right
    • Notes: unlimited number for an item
    • Attachments: can attach word docs, excel, pdf, images
    • Tags: add tags to help keep track (library catalog items will automatically import subject headings as tags)
    • Related: allows you to link related items in your collection.
  • Can save browse lists from library catalogs all at once.
  • Can create an archive a copy of a web page, highlight and take notes ON the page (like working with print resources)
  • Saves records & notes in an insane number of possible languages

Using what’s in your library:

  • Can export in a wide variety of formats & citation styles, including text, web pages, and reports (custom reports coming soon).
  • New: with Word & OpenOffice plugins, you can add fully formatted in-text citations, footnotes, and alphabetized bibliographies to your documents.
  • Can drop fully formatted citations into web pages (blog posts, Google Docs, wikis)

Under development:

  • Zotero 1.5 (in beta testing) will allow you to bacck up your data and sync across multiple computers
  • Zotero 2.0 will have server-side features that you can opt into
    • That is, access your library from anywhere via the web
  • Can share collections, notes, and public domain documents (folders) with users worldwide
  • Scholarly groups in macro- and micro- disciplines serving as a platform for official orgs and ad-hoc groups
  • As the database builds, they plan to offer recommendations for scholars with related interests
  • RSS feeds for colleagues or groups for new items of possible interest (new resources & research, etc.)