Information World Review articles from March 2005

Information World Review archives from March 2005

Bangor library faces cuts. Drastic restructuring at Welsh University proposes [pounds sterling]300,000 cull of subject librarians, writes .(University Wales Bangor)
March 9, 2005... Subject librarians face redundancy this summer at the University Wales Bangor (UWB). The Executive of the UWB has proposed restructuring the library, laying off eight librarians to reduce costs. The UWB expects net savings of over [pounds...

Private sector calls for FoI confidentiality tags. Exclusive: Information professional urges DCA to issue guidance on records management, finds .(Freedom of Information, )
March 9, 2005... An information professional responsible for sharing sensitive commercial information with public bodies is calling for safeguards to ensure that confidential information is not inadvertently made public under the Freedom of Information Act. ...

Editor's View - An example to all.(Brief Article)(Editorial)
March 9, 2005... The UK's academic and workplace librarians face unsettling times, and the drums we hear beating in Bangor should be a wake-up call to all. Unless information professionals start enlightening top managers about their crucial role in any...

Prenax personal touch set to woo UK FHE institutions. Subscription service prepares to take on established players in higher education market by highlighting its customer service. talked to its UK MD.(Further and Higher Education )(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Magazine and newspaper subscription service Prenax is planning to take on Swets and Ebsco in the UK academic market. The company claims it offers superior customer service and online subscription management facilities that will appeal...

Repository directory to build on OA lists.(The Directory of Open Access Repositories )(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Fears that a new British-Swedish directory of open access repositories would add nothing to the open access (OA) cause have been allayed, writes Tracey Caldwell. OA guru Stevan Harnad originally questioned the value of the DOAR...

Infotrieve's life science strategy gets GenSys boost.(GenSys Software)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Byline: Bobby Pickering. Infotrieve has added another key component to its soon-to-be-launched life sciences electronic research platform, after acquiring GenSys Software. The GenSys electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) will be...

Fast paves way to search best practice.(Fast Search Best Practice by Fast Search and Transfer)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... A search engine consultancy service has been launched by Fast Search & Transfer, aiming to combat bad integration techniques and ensure organisations generate a return on investment. Fast Search Best Practice (Fast SBP) aims to help...

E-government deadlines could have a costly bite. Pressure builds on councils as IEG deadline looms, writes .(Implementing Electronic Government)
March 9, 2005... Local authorities could face a financial crisis if they fail to deliver services online by December's deadline to meet the Government's IEG strategy. If authorities fail to comply in December, central government could demand that funding...

Council puts South Tyneside on map.(South Tyneside Council)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... South Tyneside Council has mapped a clear path to meeting e-government targets by making council information and maps widely available via the web. It has implemented iShareMaps, a web-based mapping system from Aligned Assets, which supplied...

Bowker cuts its ties with Nielsen BookData.(RR Bowker)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... The bibliographic data services market is set for upheaval next month, when US giant RR Bowker cuts its ties with Nielsen BookData and launches against it in the UK, writes Bobby Pickering. Bowker will stop taking data from Nielsen BookData...

Swets goes cold on Extenza. European subscription giant sells electronic hosting division to focus on journal subscriptions and document management solutions, writes .(Royal Swets and Zeitlinger)
March 9, 2005... Dutch subscription agents Royal Swets and Zeitlinger is withdrawing from the electronic journal hosting market. The company has sold its Extenza e-Publishing Services division to US hosting specialists Atypon Systems, leaving it with three...

Transport Research Laboratory drives forward RM overhaul.(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Byline: Tracey Caldwell. The Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) has converted paper documentation that was taking up 30km of shelf space to electronic files in just three weekends. TRL provides land transport research, advice and...

French National Library criticises Google digitisation.(National Library of France)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Jean-Noel Jeanneney, director of the National Library of France, has criticised the Google library digitisation project in a column in the French daily newspaper Le Monde. The project will see Google digitise titles held in the university...

Binleys publishes upgraded IHM Yearbook.(Institute of Healthcare Management)
March 9, 2005... Healthcare information specialists Binleys has just published the IHM Yearbook 2004/05 following a major overhaul of the title since Binleys purchased the publishing rights from the Institute of Healthcare Management (IHM). Binleys will now...

Legal news aggregation service launched by Linex.(Linex Legal)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Law information distributor Linex Legal has launched an online news aggregator service. Legal information from more than a thousand sources, including news articles, reviews, commentaries, public announcements and newsletters can be obtained...

STN International fills out patent offering with Epfull.(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... German scientific information provider Fiz Karlsruhe has added the European Patents Full Text database (Epfull) to the STN International science, technology and medicine online service. Epfull provides users with access to the full text of...

Stellent adds email and digital asset management to ECM.(Enterprise Content Management)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Enterprise content management (ECM) specialist Stellent has released version 7.5 of its ECM application, which now includes email management and digital asset management capabilities. Folders for the Stellent ECM now automatically appear in...

Prospect Swetenhams titles strike Key Note merger.(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Swedish information group Bonnier has merged two of its product ranges for the British business information market. Publishing division Key Note and market intelligence reports from the Business Publications division Prospect Swetenhams will be...

Factiva's Reputation intact. Reputation project is back on stream as Factiva secures technology and content boosts for initiative, post IBM WebFountain bust-up. Bobby Pickering reports.(2B Reputation Intelligence)
March 9, 2005... Factiva is back on stream with its internal development of a reputation management solution, after acquiring a small UK-based media monitoring solutions provider, 2B Reputation Intelligence. The company has also struck a deal with news...

Library House to calm the Dragon.(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Byline: Mark Chillingworth. One of the five investor "dragons" from hit TV series Dragons' Den has set up a research company called Library House to track entrepreneurial businesses and specialist markets. BBC2's Dragons' Den pitted...

BL recruits heads with experience.(British Library)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... The British Library has recruited two new department heads from outside the public sector. Tony Llewelyn, former managing director of CABI Publishing, now heads the Scientific, Technical and Medical Information department, and Jackie Marfleet...

Market Watch - Blogs get corporate edge.
March 9, 2005... According to dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster, 'blog' was the most looked-up term of 2004. Blog analysis firm Technorati keeps tabs on more than seven million blogs and reckons that 12,000 new ones are created every day, while recent...

Hot topic - Bangor wake-up call. As universities increasingly rely on the internet to provide information, some are considering cutting back on subject librarians to save money. asks if this is all a false economy?
March 9, 2005... Subject librarians at University Wales Bangor (UWB) face redundancy, as the institution looks to reduce staff costs. Proposals have been justified on the grounds that web-based content negates the need for so many subject librarians, but that...

Innovation - Sun rises on health sector path-finder site. Chasing the Sun is a path-finding UK-Australian collaboration to provide an after hours on-line reference service for urgent clinical questions relating to patient care. got a measure of its scope and ambitions as the project goes live.
March 9, 2005... Chasing the Sun will allow health professionals in the south west of England to have access to out-of-hours librarian support to reach life-saving information, courtesy of their Australian counterparts. And when the Aussie librarians are tucked...

National libraries - A library with a Eurovision comes to life. The European Library opens its virtual doors this month. For the first time librarians and researchers will have access to a treasure trove of culture as 10 of the largest national libraries in Europe put major collections online. reports.
March 9, 2005... When The European Library (TEL) goes live, its forerunner Gabriel will be taken offline, with much of its content incorporated into the new site. Jill Cousins, head of The European Library Office, explains why Gabriel is being replaced:...

Opinion - Rise of the machines could mean the end of info pros. argues that the semantic web will eventually make the role of info pros redundant, but are we ready for enforced early retirement?
March 9, 2005... Looking forward to early retirement? If the techno whiz kids in and around the semantic web have their way, you won't have long to wait. I mean, what is the point in specialising in metadata and taxonomies when the computers - and, to a...

Company information - Questions in the house. As Companies House improves electronic filing and continues to drive down the price of accessing the information it holds on companies in the UK,investigates the wider implications on the market in company information.
March 9, 2005... Lowering prices is generally seen as a good thing, but in the case of Companies House, the body that holds UK company information, the situation is more complex. With its latest reduction in prices, Companies House has again raised...

Social computing - Making the right connections. Are information professionals just gatekeepers who control access to information, or should they be creating infrastructures to encourage users to communicate and share knowledge and information? reports.
March 9, 2005... According to Euan Semple, head of knowledge management at the BBC, "People don't read documents. They want conversations. They want to connect." It's an increasingly common view that organisations need to consider doing more to develop social...

Sector update - Library information services. The modern information department and library need the latest tools and services to operate effectively. Library systems must include link resolvers, access to electronic journals and current subscriptions. This month's Sector Update draws together a wide range of library services, including document delivery, journal subscriptions and book data. Compiled by .
March 9, 2005... British Library www.bl.uk/business Overview: The British Library holdings are available in its reading rooms, via its website, and through remote document supply. British Library Direct (launching April 2005) will augment existing...

Resources - Single source goes to law. LexisNexis' revamped and updated Butterworths Direct service will slice through online legal documents for speedy searching. took it for a test spin.
March 9, 2005... LexisNexis Butterworths is a "single source", updated version of the old Butterworths Direct suite of online products. Its advertising features a smiling lawyer who says he had 30 minutes to find recent cases on freedom of expression, and found...

Resources - Elsevier launches quarterly nanomedicine journal.(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... The emerging science of nanomedicine has a new journal. Scientific publisher Elsevier has launched, in association with the American Academy of Nanomedicine, a new title called Nanomedicine, Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine, a peer-reviewed...

Resources - Breast cancer information free to clinicians.(Breast Cancer Online)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Cambridge University Press is publishing a free online journal for healthcare professionals involved in the treatment of breast cancer. Breast Cancer Online, which is edited by Professor John Robertson of Nottingham City Hospital, asks users to...

Resources - Thomson Gale's History Resource Centre makeover.(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Thomson Gale has re-launched its History Resource Centre: Modern World database. The newly-titled History Resource Centre: World covers 5,000 years of history, and features improved search and additional content for subscribers. The resource...

Resources - HW Wilson links to author searches on Scirus.(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... US database publisher HW Wilson has entered into an agreement with Elsevier's science search service, Scirus. WilsonWeb databases will now automatically link to Scirus, enabling users to move instantly from a citation within a WilsonWeb...

Resources - European political science comes to Macmillan.(Palgrave Macmillan)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Journal publisher Palgrave Macmillan is to publish European Political Science (EPS), the journal of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). ECPR is an independent scholarly association that promotes cross border research and...

Resources - Institute of Physics brings conferences to the library.(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... The Institute of Physics (IoP) has announced a series of journals, which will publish all the presentations from international conferences. The Journal of Physics: Conference Series provides full coverage of four of 2004's most significant...

Resources - Digging up the official dirt. Investigative journalist Heather Brooke offers a solid guide for getting access to government information. checks out his new-won rights.(Book Review)
March 9, 2005... The investigative writer Heather Brooke knows about using Freedom of Information (FoI) laws to uncover the hidden truth. As a former reporter in the US, Brooke used the equivalent American FoI act to uncover the misuse of public funds by...

Resources - Spotlight on the workplace. So why should academic and corporate librarians book 20-21 April in their diaries and head to the L+i Show in Birmingham? Bobby Pickering seeks some answers.(Library + information Show)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... The springtime L+i Show is back at the NEC in Birmingham. But while the show has traditionally been seen as a key event for public and school librarians, the organisers are going out of their way to attract more academic and workplace...

Resources - Training.
March 9, 2005... Introduction to the ESDS International Databanks 6 April 2005, University of Manchester As hosts to the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS), Manchester Information and Associated Services (Mimas) is offering training courses to...

Diary.(information industry)(Calendar)
March 9, 2005... London Book Fair 13-15 March 2005, Olympia, London This is the last year London's book bonanza will be held at Olympia before the show heads out to Docklands. The show attracts publishers, booksellers and information professionals....

Backchat - STM publishing boss could teach MI6 a thing or two!(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... Backchat was amused to discover that Jack Straw's Foreign Office has tasked an anonymous "senior business figure" with looking into an overhaul of MI6 - following the intelligence failures on WMD that led to the war in Iraq. The review will...

Backchat - Industry players move forward with a little mea culpa.(information industry)(Brief Article)
March 9, 2005... We seldom hear the sound of apologies from anyone in this industry. But Backchat senses a change in the air. We particularly admire the approach of Nielsen Bookdata, which has acknowledged the depth of frustration and anger among its customers...

Backchat - Flashback - March 1995. Flicking through Issue 101 of IWR in our archives, there was a sense of deja vu. All these familiar names - Martin White, Tim Owen, et al - and yet so much water has flowed under the bridge since!
March 9, 2005... Martin White moves to TFPL We brought you the hot news that Martin White was about to join Nigel Oxbrow's crew at TFPL, in order to set up a division offering market research and consultancy to the information sector. In 1995, White...