Online articles from March 2000

Online archives from March 2000

Thrive or Survive.(Technology advancements are catalysts for change)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... For this special issue on changing roles, we've selected several areas where adaptation and the ability to build up from traditional roles is critical. Even the smallest advances in technology can be catalysts for change. Take operating...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2000... CATALOGERS UNITE! To the Editor: I intend to enlarge your September ONLINE editorial ("Now That Cataloging Is Cool." p. 6; http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OLl999/editorial9.html), post it on my office door, and add it as a bookmark...

Clare Hart To Head Up Factiva.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Clare Hart has been named President and Chief Executive Officer of Factiva. Separately, Primedia announced that Tim Andrews would become the President and CEO of IndustryClick, a business-to-business vertical network of communities serving...

Bell & Howell Spins Off Information & Learning Division.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Bell & Howell has announced a restructuring in which it will spin off its Information & Learning and Publishing Services businesses into a separate as-yet-unnamed, publicly-traded entity. Prior to the spin-off, Bell & Howell plans to sell a...

Ingenta Buys Uncover.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Ingenta, a global research gateway for full-text journals, announced that it has purchased 100% of the issued stock of UnCover. Ward Shaw, Chairman of UnCover, will join ingenta's board of directors. The purchase means that UnCover's customers...

LEXIS Intranet Portal.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... LEXIS Intranet Portal offers legal professionals a single point of access for searching both a law firm's internal documents, plus external sources such as lexis.com and the Web. Users may customize intranet pages to deliver information based...

LOIS Professional Library.(new product from Loislaw.com)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Loislaw.com has released the LOIS Professional Library series for Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, and Utah. This release concludes Loislaw.com's commitment to provide nationwide coverage and release all 50 states, plus the...

EMBASE.com.(from Elsevier Science)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... EMBASE.com (Elsevier Science) is an integrated Web service that includes content from the EMBASE database, plus linking and navigational capabilities through an advanced search interface. The service will be further developed to include...

Books@Ovid.(from Ovid Online)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Books@Ovid focuses on medical, nursing, and drug-related content by providing 4 database of electronic versions of reference textbooks integrated under a single search engine and interface developed to search, retrieve, browse, and display book...

Giga Information Group and Gale Group have announced a strategic online content agreement.(to feature selected Giga content on ComputerSelect Web)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Giga Information Group and Gale Group have announced a strategic online content agreement, where Gale Group will feature selected Giga content on ComputerSelect Web. ComputerSelect Web subscribers will have access to a limited amount of Giga...

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) and SilverPlatter Information have partnered to offer links to several scientific journals.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... The American Institute of Physics (AIP) and SilverPlatter Information have partnered to offer links to several scientific journals hosted on AIP's Online Journal Publishing Service (OJPS) from SilverPlatter databases. Journals included in the...

ISI Chemistry Server (Institute for Scientific Information).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Version 2.0 of ISI Chemistry Server (Institute for Scientific Information) has been released, which permits cross-file searching of the Reaction Center and the new Compound Center databases. The Reaction Center database focuses on novel...

PartMiner, Inc.(acquires IQXPERT)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... PartMiner, Inc., a business-to-business marketplace for the electronic components industry, has acquired all the capital stock of IQXPERT, a subsidiary of the Information Services Handling Group and provider of component and supplier management...

OCLC and Pica Foundation have signed an agreement to establish a jointly owned organization.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... OCLC and Pica Foundation have signed an agreement to establish a jointly owned organization to serve the European library community. Pica Foundation has established a new Dutch limited liability company (Pica B.V.) and has transferred all...

Information Express.(sells domain name to DVD Express)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Information Express has sold its domain name, http://www.express.com, to DVD EXPRESS for two million dollars. The new URL for Information Express is http://www.ieonline.com, named after the company's online document ordering and alerting...

Epixtech, Inc.(and Ameritech Corp)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... During the recent acquisition of Ameritech Corporation by SBC Communications, Inc., long-term financing was obtained so that Ameritech Library Services (ALS) could become a privately-held company. epixtech, inc., formerly ALS, has announced its...

Blackwell's Information Services and Swets Subscription Service have merged their subscription agency and information services divisions.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Blackwell's Information Services and Swets Subscription Service have merged their subscription agency and information services divisions. The new company is called Swets Blackwell. Swets is the majority shareholder and the head office of the...

Information Today, Inc.(Acquires Knowledge Asset Media)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Information Today, Inc. has acquired Knowledge Asset Media, including KM World magazine, the KMWorld.com Web site, and the KMWorld Conference and Exposition and related assets from Bill Communications. KMWorld is an Intranets 2000 Conference &...

Intelliscope (Intelligence Data).(Introduces new save and search functions)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Intelliscope (Intelligence Data) now includes new save and search functions at no extra charge, similar functions available in InSite. This is the first step in Intelligence Data's plans to integrate InSite and Intelliscope. Both products may...

AMADEUS (Bureau van Dijk).(Coverage of the database has been expanded to over three million companies)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Coverage of the AMADEUS (Bureau van Dijk) database has been expanded to over three million companies in the 31 countries the database covers. Free trials and demonstrations can be arranged by calling Bureau van Dijk at 888/797-7120 or from...

Adforum.com.(Partners with Moreover.com)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Adforum.com, a searchable database of advertising agencies and their creative work, has partnered with Moreover.com, a provider of newsfeeds to portal sites, to develop online news products for the advertising community. AdForum will enhance...

Global Business Browser-European.(The latest addition to OneSource Information Services, Inc.'s Business Browser product line)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Global Business Browser-European edition is the latest addition to OneSource Information Services, Inc.'s Business Browser product line, and the first information tool to give the European market a fully integrated database of both regional and...

Current Contents Connect.(Version1.5 released by the Institute for Scientific Information)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Version 1.5 of Current Contents Connect (Institute for Scientific Information) was released in February for site-wide Internet customers. This new version lets users set up and manage alerts that run against the Current Contents data, then...

NLResearch.com.(A new Web site from Northern Light Technology)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... NLResearch.com is a new Web site from Northern Light Technology (http://www.NLResearch.com) for businesses, researchers, and information professionals. Features include Northern Light's Special Collection, single-query searches of both Web...

Questel*Orbit.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2000... Questel*Orbit has announced that sales in November 1999 were 15% above annual revenue targets. Due to growing interest in patents, trademarks, and domain names, plus the successful merger of the Questel and Orbit intellectual property search...

Ovid Technologies.(Presents a redesigned Web site)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Ovid Technologies has unveiled a redesigned company Web site (http://www.ovid.com). Features include customized product and company information for Ovid's academic, medical, and corporate markets, plus an expanded demo area, enhanced navigation...

OCLC FirstSearch Electronic Collections Online.(Adds 145 journals to the database)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... OCLC has added 145 journals from 17 publishers to its OCLC FirstSearch Electronic Collections Online service, bringing the total to 2,106 journals available online. Included in the recent additions are 64 journals from Oxford University Press,...

OCLC Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC).(A project of OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... OCLC invites libraries to participate in and contribute to the development of the OCLC Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC), an international effort to organize and ease access to electronic information resources on the Web. CORC is...

Searchwiz.com.(A new meta search engine)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Searchwiz.com (http://www.searchwiz.com) is a new Internet meta search engine that lets users find information by simultaneously searching ten popular search engines at one time, including Yahoo!, Lycos, Excite, and AltaVista. The top ten...

WholeWeb.net.(Plans to expand its page indexing operations)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... WholeWeb.net (http://wholeweb.net) plans to expand its page indexing operations, including cataloging and storage of all words on almost all Web pages, to more than ten million pages per day in January--anticipating analysis and cataloging of...

SurfSaver 2.0.(New from askSam Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
March 1, 2000... SurfSaver 2.0 lets a user save Web pages directly from the browser into searchable folders. The product integrates seamlessly with browsers and will be available in a standard version (free, ad-supported) and Pro ($29.95 online, $39.95 CD-ROM)....

10kwizard.com.(New Service of 10-K Wizard Technology)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... 10-K Wizard Technology LLC has launched lOkwizard.com, which searches the data in the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) EDGAR database. The site searches all SEC filings simultaneously, at no charge, and currently has 20,000 registered...

Peopleware.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Electronic Online Systems (EOS) International has named Joe Matthews, formerly Vice President of Sales, as Vice President of Business Development. Mark Patterson is now Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and Suzanne Kratz has been...

Alta Vista.(IPO planned)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Alta Vista has been busy adding more portal content the past few months. It also added another international mirror, AltaVista UK at http://www.altavista.co.uk. CMGI, AltaVista's parent company, has announced plans for an IPO for AltaVista. An...

Ask Jeeves.(Patent infringement lawsuit)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Ask Jeeves is being sued for patent infringement by two MIT professors.

Dogpile.(Adds Google)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Dogpile, one of the Go2Net multiple search engines, has added Google to the list of search engines that it queries.

Fast.(Has expanded its database)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Fast has greatly expanded the size of its database and added advanced search features. In December, it released a database that claimed 210 million URLs. Then, mid-January saw the release of a 300 million record database--the largest a search...

Go (Infoseek).(Its advanced search form is described)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Go (Infoseek) has an advanced search form, linked as "search options," which offers its field searching and limits through drop-down menus. It also offers display options for 10, 20, 25, or 50 records at a time, although the option for 50 only...

Google.(Has added RealNames hits to its results.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Google has added RealNames hits to its results. These appear on the same line as their first regular result with a superscript RN next to them. Try a search on IBM for an example of how it is displayed. Google also has added a specialty search...

HotBot.(A new beta version)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... HotBot has a new beta version up and running at http://beta.hotbot.com. At first look, there is little difference between the beta and the regular version, but the fine print at the bottom shows that HotBot is using technology from E-Cyc,...

Lycos.(Lycos Pro switches to a Fast Search and Transfer interface)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Lycos has made a major investment in Fast Search and Transfer. Lycos has been using Fast's MP3, FTP, and Rich Media (sounds, images, and videos) databases for some time. In mid-January, Lycos Pro (its advanced search) switched over to a Fast...

MetaCrawler.(Relaunched by Go2Net)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... MetaCrawler has been relaunched by Go2Net with a new interface and the addition of a music and auctions metasearch options. It also now includes Google in its group of Web search engines.

MSN Web Search.(Has switched back to an Inktomi database)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... MSN Web Search has switched back to an Inktomi database. After announcing a switch from Inktomi to AltaVista in January 1999 and then finally making the change in September, Microsoft did an about face in December. AltaVista was replaced by...

Northern Light.(Northern Light Technologies L.L.C.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Northern Light passed the 200 million mark for URLs in its database of Web pages toward the end of November 1999.

SpeechBot.(An experimental audio search engine from Compaq)
March 1, 2000... SpeechBot, an experimental audio search engine from Compaq, is available at http://speechbot.research.compaq.com. It indexes popular U.S. radio shows. Instead of using the more labor-intensive approach to first creating transcripts and then...

Oingo.(Offers its "meaning-based search" technology)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Oingo has moved out of beta. It now offers its "meaning-based search" technology royalty-free to portals and other content providers. It remains to be seen who may take up Oingo on the offer. Meanwhile, its site continues to use the Open...

Simpli.com.(Offers new search technology)
March 1, 2000... Simpli.com offers another technology for narrowing search terms to the proper context. It is currently available in beta for public view on its site. In an interesting user interface twist, a searcher enters a term and then the drop-down menu...

Webtop.(another approach to a general Web search engine)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Webtop from Dialog (http://www.webtop.com/) is another approach to a general Web search engine. It offers several different search options, such as copy and paste and drag and drop for grabbing a block of text to use as the search string....

WholeWeb.net.(indexing one billion Web pages)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... WholeWeb.net is undertaking an ambitious goal that will compete directly with Fast's rate of growth. WholeWeb.net has no public search site at this point, but it has announced the ambitious goal of indexing one billion Web pages by June 30,...

The Numbers.(statistical comparison of search engines)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... The statistical comparison of search engines at Search Engine Showdown (http://SearchEngineShowdown.com) run on November 29 found Northern Light back in the lead and surpassing the 200 million record milestone. Also, at that time, the dead link...

New roles come of age.
March 1, 2000... Fifteen years ago, the potential of librarians and libraries appeared particularly far from fulfillment. This was, of course, a difficult time for organizations of all kinds. American business was reeling from the severe recession of the 1980s,...

The changing roles of information professionals excerpts from an outsell, Inc. study.(caught in the pickle of organizational and industry changes)
March 1, 2000... This article is mandatory reading for information professionals caught in the pickle of organizational and industry changes. The traditional business models of library operation are defunct, and the emerging models haven't yet been cemented....

The changing role of the Information Vendor.
March 1, 2000... Dramatically increasing competition, a fragmenting market, and a need to educate information seekers on the value of high-quality products are a few of the trends shaping the role of today's information vendor. Some companies are responding by...

I NEVER LEARNED ABOUT THAT IN LIBRARY SCHOOL: Curriculum Changes in LIS.
March 1, 2000... If you work as an information specialist in a corporation, government agency, hospital, library, or as an independent information professional, you have probably thought to yourself at least once, I never learned about that in school. Depending...

PRINCIPLED LIBRARIES: Finding Stability in Changing Times.(the mix of collection and resources keep changing)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... What's a good librarian to do? Accepted wisdom in the early 1990s suggested that nearly all your new resources would be digital by now, putting you well along the way to the Promised Land of the virtual library. Somehow, something went wrong:...

Linux and CD-ROM Networking: An Academic Library's DIY Solution.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... The CD-ROM has played a major part in allowing libraries to provide end-user access to electronic information services. Single subscriptions replaced the complicated charging mechanisms of online hosts, interfaces became user-friendly, and it...

Webforia Reporter a review.(Web search, bookmarking, and page-capture capabilities )
March 1, 2000... Webforia Reporter is an excellent tool for the Web researcher who needs to find, organize, and share information with others. Reporter combines Web search, bookmarking, and page-capture capabilities with a heavy-duty presentation tool. Reporter...

A GLOBAL BUSINESS INFORMATION NEWCOMER: SkyMinder.com.(from CRIBIS)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... A new entry in the battle of content aggregator databases is SkyMinder from CRIBIS. CRIBIS is a new division of the CRIF group, a global provider of business information and decision-support systems. SkyMinder is an information professional as...

Search Engine Inconsistencies.(numbers are not always accurate)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Most search engines provide the number of results for every search. However, the numbers are not always accurate. According to Aldous Huxley, "Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life." Far too often, it is also contrary to...

Information Role Models in Market Research.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Developments in market research illustrate some of these new directions in online information. The editorial theme of this issue is new roles for information professionals. Not to "role" over and play dead, but I'm not excited about...

Changing Roles of Information Professionals: Choices and Implications.(insights from a study with 200 corporate information professionals)
March 1, 2000... Each choice to embrace a new role or to continue an existing role has an implication. In our last column, Outsell President Anthea Stratigos shared real-life stories and reflected about creating win-win opportunities in a time of deep...

Search Master: A New Role for Information Professionals.(search masters for intranet)
March 1, 2000... Systems analysts are only half of the answer. Information professionals are the other half. Intranet users are crying out for someone to help them find information quickly and accurately. Systems analysts and application developers have...

Vortals on the Rise.(vertical portals)
March 1, 2000... Vortals are quickly becoming an important source of business, professional, and technical information. Vortal. Yes, here's yet another bit of Web jargon to deal with. You may have heard the term, and might even know a little about it. But...

New Sounds for the New Millennium?(MP3 audio format)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... One gigabyte of disk space on a notebook computer is enough to store 16 hours of MP3 music at 128K, making it a great way to take music on the road... By now, you've probably heard of MP3, the revolutionary audio format that will wipe out...

The Juggler's Guide to Managing Multiple Projects.(project management)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... The Juggler's Guide to Managing Multiple Projects by Michael S. Dobson ISBN: 1-880410-65-6 Published: 1999 Pages: 134; softcover Price: $32.95 Available from: Project Management Institute, Four Campus Boulevard,...

Project Management Competence: Building Key Skills for Individuals, Teams and Organizations.(from Jossey-Bass Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Project Management Competence: Building Key Skills for Individuals, Teams and Organizations by J. Davidson Frame. ISBN: 0-7879-4662-1 Published: 1999 Pages: 232, softcover Price: $34.95 Available from: Jossey-Bass...

Planning, Performing, and Controlling Projects: Principles and Applications, 2nd ed.(designed as an undergraduate textbook)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Planning, Performing, and Controlling Projects: Principles and Applications, 2nd ed. by Robert B. Angus Norman A. Gundersen, and Thomas P. Cullinane ISBN: 0-13-099878-8 Published: 2000; Pages: 290 hardcover Price: $53.00...

Project Management: The Managerial Process.(Available from McGraw-Hill Higher Education)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... Project Management: The Managerial Process by Clifford E. Gray and Erik W. Larsen ISBN: 0-07-365812-X Published: 2000 Pages: 496, hardcover Price: $90.07 Available from: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, PO Box 182604,...

They Know What You Did Last Summer.(search engines can be very efficient at picking up offhand comments)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2000... "We can no longer depend on privacy through obscurity." I said that in an interview with Steve Steinberg of Wired magazine in May 1996. My point was that search engines, despite their copiously documented shortcomings, can be very efficient at...