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Describes the `Chemist's Crystal Ball' system being used by students at Yale University to locate electronic information about chemistry, including bibliographic, database and on-line information. Comments from its developer Kimberly J. Parker.Briefly notes the Library of Congress has issued an update of `USMARC Format for Holdings Data'; A collection of articles on library networks is available from the University of Minnesota; Contact points for more information.

A report in the ''Arts, Briefly'' column on Friday about items from the New York Public Library's American collections that will be digitized and made available online misstated the given name of one of the brothers for whom the library's Berg Collection of English and American Literature is named. He was Albert A. Berg, not Alfred. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Letters written by George Washington, Henry David Thoreau's pencil-drawn map of Walden Pond and Mark Twain's manuscript of ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' are among the items from the New York Public Library's American collections that will soon be digitized and made available to the public online, the library announced on Thursday. The library, aided by a $500,000 grant from the Polonsky Foundation, has already begun digitizing the Thomas Addis Emmet Collection, which covers the early years of the United States and includes a copy of the Declaration of Independence written in Thomas Jefferson's hand and manuscript minutes of the Annapolis Convention, the 1786 meeting at which delegates unanimously called for a constitutional convention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Here an app, there an app, everywhere an apt app. Now the New York Public Library is creating iPad apps that bring its research collections into ''the palms of the public's hand,'' as library officials put it in a statement. Biblion: The Boundless Library is the name for a series of apps available on Apple's tablet computer that highlight different elements in the library's collection. It was developed by the library and the design firm Potion. The first edition showcases the library's holdings about the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, which are among those most consulted by researchers. Users will be able to turn over, zoom in on and roam through hundreds of items. At the end of this week the library is putting out an app that lets the public play Find That Future, from the game designer Jane McGonigal. This summer, look for an app enabling people to reserve books. The first app is available free at Apple's iTunes store and nypl.org. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 4,000 prints and 20,000 negatives of the work of the photographer and director Gordon Parks, including ''Charwoman,'' above, as well as a collection of images by Mathew Brady and other early American photographers, have been acquired by the State University of New York's Purchase College, the Gordon Parks Foundation said. Parks, the first black photographer at Life magazine and director of the early blaxploitation film, ''Shaft,'' died in 2006; the following year, his photography was acquired by the Meserve-Kunhardt Collection, which is giving his work to the school, along with 100,000 Civil War-era photographs by Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan, as well as the collection of Ed Clark, another Life photojournalist. Purchase College said that the collections would be housed at its library, where they will be preserved and made available for public view and study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aiming to outdo Amazon.com and recapture the crown for the most digital titles in an e-book library, Sony is announcing Thursday a deal with Google to make a half million copyright-free books available for its Reader device, a rival to the AmazonKindle. Since 2004, Google has scanned about seven million books from major university and research library collections. For now, however, Google can make full digital copies available only of books whose copyrights have expired. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Photographs, publicity materials and other documents from classic movies like ''Annie Hall,'' ''The African Queen,'' ''The Apartment'' and ''Raging Bull,'' will be presented to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Reuters reported. The items, from the archives of the United Artists/MGM film studio, will be passed on to the academy's Margaret Herrick Library for a new United Artists/ MGM collection. The announcement was made on Wednesday by Harry E. Sloan, chairman and chief executive of MGM. The restored photograph collection, which will be the library's most extensive, will be displayed and available to scholars. Other movies in United Artist's archives include ''Rocky,'' ''Some Like It Hot'' and ''Midnight Cowboy.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Describes the pilot project at the Louisiana State University library which scans its rare-book collections to make them available electronically to researchers and students. Photographs and maps in the original volumes, `Historical Collections of Louisiana' will be scanned into the computer later; Data bases to be issued in CD-ROMs; Comments by Faye Phillips; Contact point for more information.

Reports on the University of California system's announcement that it plans to create a new library whose collection would be available entirely on line. Details of the California Digital Library; Amount the collegiate system plans to spend; Comments from Richard E. Lucier, the digital library's first librarian; Goals of the library; The policy issues to be faced by the library's staff.