Two free web resources

Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 10 November 2009 02:23.

I’ve been mailed links to two resources by different readers. Each resource has high research value, and I thought your attention should be drawn to them.

The first is the authoritative source for anyone who wants to examine the spoken parliamentary record - like, for example, when the post-war Labour government first decided to invite Jamaican immigrants into our midst. This, of course, is Hansard and is:

generated from information from Hansard, the Official Report of debates in Parliament. Information presented here is generated from the publicly available XML files ... There’s Hansard itself; by volume, just the Lords sittings, Commons sittings or Westminster Hall sittings. You can also view Written Answers, Written Statements, Lords reports or Grand Committee reports.

We also have extracted lists of People who are recorded as having spoken, Constituencies, Offices, Acts, Bills and Divisions. You can also see information about the Source files containing the original XML and the Data files we generate from them.

I am indebted to JB for the link.

The second link is for something quite different but no less useful, and it is to “perhaps the most comprehensive biomedical site on the net”, according to the reader, James, who sent it:

BioMedSearch is an enhanced version of the NIH PubMed search that combines MedLine/PubMed data with data from other sources to make the most comprehensive biomedical literature search available. BioMedSearch also provides advanced account features that allow saved searches, alerts, saving documents to portfolios, commenting on documents and portfolios, and sharing documents with other registered users. Registering for BioMedSearch is free.

MR readers are a useful lot, I’m pleased to say.

Tags: No particular place to go

Comments:

Posted by Dan Dare on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:45 | #

With respect to Hansard, the above link is exceptionally useful for historical research, and I have used it extensively when preparing the article on race relations legislation. A complementary source is ‘New’ Hansard which includes everthing since 1988, up to and including three hours ago. Very handy if you want check what was actually said rather than what was printed in today’s fish-wrap.

I’d also flag the research reports of the Commons library, which MPs themselves use when swotting up on the background to a new Bill. They’re usually very well written and highly useful for background detail.

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:28 | #

I thought of you and of David Hamilton when I first opened the link to the Hansard site. Of course, the great question of who pressed for what and why remains unanswered, though one wonders whether the Andrew Neather and Jonathan Portes of yesteryear left a papertrail accessible through FoI requests.

Posted by quote on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:58 | #

Galton once wrote:

Extreme selfishness is not a common vice. Narrow thoughts of self by no means absorb the minds of ordinary men; they occupy a secondary position in the thoughts of the more noble and generous of our race. A large part of an Englishman’s life is devoted to others, or to the furtherance of general ideas, and not to directly personal ends. The Jesuit toils for his order, not for himself. Many plan for that which they can never live to see. At the hour of death they are still planning. An incompleted will, which might work unfairness among those who would succeed to the property of a dying man, harasses his mind. Personal obligations of all sorts press as heavily as in the fullness of health, although the touch of death is known to be on the point of cancelling them. It is so with animals. A dog’s thoughts are towards his master, even when he suffers the extremest pain. His mind is largely filled at all times with sentiments of affection. But disinterested feelings are more necessary to man than to any other animal, because of the long period of his dependent childhood, and also because of his great social needs, due to his physical helplessness. Darwin’s law of natural selection would therefore be expected to develop these sentiments among men, even among the lowest barbarians, to a greater degree than among animals. - http://galton.org/essays/1860-1869/galton-1865-macmillan-hereditary-talent.html

Posted by Valentin on Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:33 | #

Hello,

I’ve been emailed this website and I’d like to tell you about a new biomedical search engine called novoseek. It indexes Pubmed Medline database, FUll TExt articles from Open Access Journals in PubMedCentral and US awarded grants. It is based on a unique semantics technology and takes into account synonyms, homonyms and context when performing a search. Therefore no matter what you are looking for, the search engine takes the synonyms into account and offers the most comprehensive results.

In addition, it offers a sidebar with related concepts to your search to refine it easily.

It was launched in February 2009 and has already seduced a large amount of life sciences professionals. http://lane.stanford.edu/howto/index.html?id=3956

Feel free to try it at http://www.novoseek.com

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:42 | #

”I’ve been emailed this website and I’d like to tell you about a new biomedical search engine called novoseek. It indexes Pubmed Medline database, FUll TExt articles from Open Access Journals” (—Valentin)

That’s a bit misleading: I just did a medical article search at Novoseek and clicked on the first two articles on the page that came up: both were accessible only by paid subscription or by individual purchase (and one article cost $31 to purchase, just the article, not a subscription!). The wording in Valentin’s comment implies implies Novoseek is a site that will bring up just open access journal articles. It isn’t.

Posted by BSK on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:09 | #

RT @karenblakeman: New useful search engine that returns full text scientific articles not subject to access fees http://www.knowmade.com/free-fulltext-pdf.html