Information World Review articles from May 2005

Information World Review archives from May 2005

Beauchamp forced out of Tribal Tech. Tribal Technology set to drop library expert Peter Beauchamp after restructuring, writes Mark Chillingworth.(Peter Beauchamp)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Former government Chief Library Advisor, Peter Beauchamp, has been given notice to leave his position as Director of Library Services at Instant Library, as the library services provider re-brands itself as Tribal Technology, following a...

Library crisis threat to Science Museum staff.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Byline: Mark Chillingworth. Library staff at the Science Museum in London face the threat of losing their jobs, and the library's unique collections being lost. The museum is suffering a financial crisis and can no longer afford the upkeep...

Big patent overhaul pending.(International Patent Classifications)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... A major overhaul of International Patent Classifications (IPC), will come into effect on 1 January next year. Nanotechnology is among the new patent categories to emerge in the new IPC 8 classifications. "There were no nanotech patent...

Editor's view - Preparing Swets for battle.(interview with Arie Jongejan )(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 7, 2005... In his first interview with IWR since leaving Reed Elsevier, Swets' new CEO Arie Jongejan tells me that his biggest challenge is "positioning the company as a premier service provider in the electronic era". After the travails of recent...

Plans go online in Birmingham. City council drives forward with e-government targets.(with EMC Documentum)
May 7, 2005... Byline: Kim Thomas. Birmingham City Council has implemented EMC Documentum's Enterprise Content Management platform to manage documents for planning applications and construction and refurbishment projects. The council is using the ECM...

British Library to modernise web platform.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... The British Library is set to modernise its web technology, by consolidating several existing and planned websites on to a single platform. The library plans to implement Percussion Software's Rhythmyx enterprise content management system...

Cotswold in compliance leadership.(Cotswold District Council )(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Byline: Tracey Caldwell. Cotswold District Council (CDC) has joined the front runners in the pursuit of e-government compliance. Its implementation of a transactional content management system puts it among only 38 of 468 councils...

Historic revamp for London Library.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... The exclusive members-only London Library is to be re-developed as part of a [pounds sterling]25m expansion that will improve the service it offers. The refurbishment is the largest expansion it has undertaken in over 100 years, and will...

ESRC offers an enhanced view of our society today. Economic and social researchers get personalised service, reports Bobby Pickering.(Economic and Social Research Council)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has unveiled a beta version of a new website, ESRC Society Today, offering academics, students and researchers free access to research the council has funded, alongside a growing database of...

Stellent named as key player in Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Byline: Kim Thomas. Stellent is one of the companies named as a strong performer in helping companies meet the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in a new report from Forrester. For the report, The Forrester Wave: Sarbanes-Oxley...

Velterop departs BMC to promote OA.(Jan Velterop )(BioMed Central )(open access )(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Byline: Mark Chillingworth. Open Access champion Jan Velterop is leaving his role as a director and publisher at BioMed Central (BMC) to return to his roots as an independent consultant and advocate for open access publishing. ...

Vignette 7.2 gives portal a dashboard.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Vignette has released version 7.2 of its portal software, which uses service-oriented architectures to enable customers to produce large-scale portal applications serving millions of registered users more quickly. The Autonomy search...

DialogLink 5 is a time saver. Free download of new DialogLink software aims to simplify time-intensive searches and makes it easier to import content into different formats, writes Kim Thomas.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Dialog has released a new version of its DialogLink tool, designed to help information professionals search Dialog's extensive database of content. DialogLink 5, which is available as a free download, enables users to carry out a search...

Wigan council acts on payments targets.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Byline: Tracey Caldwell. Wigan Council is looking forward to making savings totalling [pounds sterling]250,000 after automating its purchase invoice process. The council was struggling to pay suppliers within 30 days and needed to...

CAS displays chemistry in mobile access.(Chemical Abstracts Service)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has developed and demonstrated handheld access to its STN and SciFinder services via Blackberry and PDAs. It expects the service to go live by the end of the year. "The pace of scientific research demands...

Development kit fits Factiva with new integration strategy.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Factiva has released a new version of the Factiva Developer's Kit, an application programming interface that allows functionality from the new Factiva SalesWorks and Factiva Companies & Executives services to be integrated into an...

JISC and BAILII embark on Open Law digitisation project.(Joint Information Systems Committee )( British and Irish Legal Information Institute )(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... The government's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is to jointly fund a major law digitisation project in association with the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII), which will see the digitisation and free internet...

Ingenta connects with Springer to pass the 1K mark.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... German scientific publisher Springer has extended its existing deal with online technology provider Ingenta. The IngentaConnect service will now host over 1,000 core Springer titles, providing library subscription or pay-per-view access to full...

Endeca powers search on updated US cancer information site.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... The National Cancer Institute (NCI), one of the components of the US National Institutes of Health, has updated the search facility on its www.cancer.gov website to provide faster and easier access to cancer information. The site is used...

LiS show up 36% at NEC. Bobby Pickering reports on some of the movers and shakers making an impact at this year's Library + information show as it returned to the NEC's Pavilion Hall.
May 7, 2005... The Library + Information show (LiS) returned triumphantly to the NEC in Birmingham last month, in a merger with the specialist museum exhibition MUREX that yielded a 36% attendance increase. Show organisers said the increase in attendance,...

Market Watch - Collective judgement.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 7, 2005... For many organisations, knowledge strategy means getting the right information to the right person at the right time, to enable the best possible decisions to be made. Companies often bet on the success of the 'expert decision maker' who, if...

Conference repor - Bloggers' Euro conference embraces esprit de corps. Social computing and corporate blogging were among the subjects of a major conference last month in Paris. IWR columnist David Tebbutt was there.
May 7, 2005... The LesBlogs & Social Software conference held in Paris last month was the first attempt to bring together the movers and shakers of the social software world in Europe. It tackled a wide range of applications and issues, both internal and...

Hot topic - Need to know. As the EU gears up to toughen its anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, Michelle Perry investigates the implications for information professionals and asks how much organisations really know about their customers and business partners.
May 7, 2005... Since the introduction of new European-wide anti-money laundering rules last year, the regulatory net has been sweeping around more and more UK businesses and across a wider spectrum of industry sectors. Other business sectors now targeted...

Opinion - Unshackle the information slaves in your organisation. Information managers can add a real business edge, argues David Tebbutt, but only if companies relax their grip on information systems and let them think for themselves.
May 7, 2005... I read somewhere that only about 10% of the useful information in an organisation is stored within its content management systems. So why are companies so triumphal about managing it? More to the point, how can software sellers get away with...

Portal preview - Europe stands together. The European Library has now entered its final phase of beta testing, with the official launch of the revised site set for next month. Tracey Caldwell took an initial look at the new portal to find out what the site will have to offer.
May 7, 2005... The European Library provides unparalleled access to many of the cultural treasures of the EU national libraries. Its primary aim is to offer information about library collections and treasures, alongside a free search facility that links to...

Profile - Moving with the times. Helen Day has enjoyed a diverse career in a variety of information professional roles at Boots the Chemists. Jane Dudman went to Boots' Nottingham HQ to meet her.
May 7, 2005... Helen Day is a thoroughly modern information professional. Her work shows the way technology and information is now entwined so closely that it is hard to tell where one starts and the other finishes. Day has been an information...

Desktop Detectives. IWR LABS: There is a growing realisation that users are spending too much time hunting for information - either on the web or on their desktop PCs. It's time to integrate the two and make the process easier. Davey Winder explores this new frontier.
May 7, 2005... A recent Butler Group Review paper on business intelligence (February 2005) reports that anywhere up to 80% of a knowledge worker's time is spent hunting for information, and 80% of corporate information is held on users' desktop PCs. ...

Sector update - Enterprise content management. Enterprise content management (ECM) applications have become the central tools for managing the wide spectrum of information a modern organisation has to deal with. These tools create and manage websites, intranets and portals as well as manage documents and emails for compliance. Rachael Singh compiles this directory of a selection of vendors.
May 7, 2005... EMC Documentum www.documentum.co.uk Overview: With a single platform, EMC Documentum software provides collaboration, content creation, content management, delivery and archiving for business operations, from content sources such as...

Resources - Extended arm of the law. Context's Justis.com has just had a major makeover, and beneath its refreshing new design, Eira Hayward found a great deal of easy-to-use legal information.
May 7, 2005... Independent UK publisher Context has released an updated version of its Justis.com online legal database, incorporating various additional features designed to enhance its appeal. The update is the first big overhaul to the product in the six...

Nature delivers first OA journal with EMBO launch.(open access)(European Molecular Biology Organisation )(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Nature Publishing Group, in association with the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO), has launched an open access (OA) journal, Molecular Systems Biology, for this expanding scientific discipline. The new title will focus on...

Analytical Sciences boosts Wiley's backfile collections.(John Wiley & Sons )(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... STM publisher John Wiley & Sons has announced its latest Backfile Collection, the Analytical Sciences Backfile. More than 29 years' worth of content from journals such as Biomedical Chromatography have been digitised in the second backfile to...

PLoS launches into Pathogens, calls for papers.(Public Library of Science )(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... The Public Library of Science (PLoS), has announced a new journal for the growing science of pathogens. PLoS Pathogens will be available from September 2005 and is currently accepting papers. The journal will be edited by John Young, professor...

HW Wilson puts Free Trade on the Reference Shelf.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... HW Wilson has launched a title devoted to the subject of free trade within its Reference Shelf Series. Free Trade will look at issues surrounding free trade agreements, and how they affect the nations involved. It will offer a range of...

Springer snaps up Dutch medical journal treasure chest.(Brouwer Media)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... German publisher Springer has acquired Dutch medical publishers Brouwer Media. Springer Science + Business Media acquired Brouwer from Dutch publishers Consolidated Graphic Industries. In the deal, Springer has gained 17 medical journals to add...

Economic facts booked by OECD.(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the international assembly of 30 countries which share a commitment to democratic government and market economies, has published a book of core economic data from its members....

Scotsman gives a full account of itself in online archive.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Scotland's national broadsheet newspaper The Scotsman has re-launched its online archive to include editions of the paper from 1897 to 1950. Users can view individual articles or entire pages of the newspaper. The search engine produces results...

Resources - Knowledge goes on the move. David Tebbutt tackles a theoretical book that relates its findings to the bigger picture of knowledge usage in organisations and its impact on business and academia.(Book Review)
May 7, 2005... If you are interested in the theories of how knowledge spreads among regional as well as international communities, then Knowledge Spillovers and Knowledge Management is for you. The editors have brought together a collection of papers that...

Resources - Don't blame the technology. Intranets fail because of the people who manage them, not the technology. Jonathan Gordon-Till reviews this practical guide on ways to make them work.(Book Review)
May 7, 2005... The emphasis of this handy volume is not on technological solutions, but on addressing the human and organisational framework within which intranets exist. According to this practical guide, "Intranets are not IT applications. They rely on...

Resources - Training.
May 7, 2005... Making a business case 25 May 2005, London The Special Libraries Association (SLA) Europe has joined forces with information management consultant Lesley Robinson to put on a one-day workshop for making a business case. With more than...

Diary.(Calendar)
May 7, 2005... FoI SOS 25-26 May 2005, Manchester You could say that the SOS should have gone out in May of last year, but this Ark Group event is pitched at information professionals who have put their Freedom of Information (FoI) policy in place,...

Backchat - Iron Mountain treasures are beyond comprehension.(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... You must have seen those Iron Mountain vans fanning out across the countryside ferrying important records to one of their 82 centres across the UK. So what do they keep down those abandoned mines and underground MoD shelters? Well, important...

Backchat - Not quite the glitz of the Oscars, but pretty close.
May 7, 2005... The International Information Industry awards are already calling for nominations for this year's big event on 30 November. Projects, products, people and teams will all be rewarded, based on nominations from colleagues and peers. Those dinky...

Backchat - Endgame - The quiz for the most INFORMED information professionals!
May 7, 2005... And finally... a simple little quiz put together by the finest minds at IWR. Assemble your answers into an email, send it to endgame@iwr.co.uk along with your name, job title, the organisation you work for, and phone number. The first correct...

Backchat - Flashback. May 2001. We delve into our archives to find out who and what were making the headlines in our pages four years ago, in the month that Tony Blair won his second landslide.
May 7, 2005... WMRC gets motoring into the global automotive market Four years ago, as New Labour was returned with a second landslide victory, there was a strangely haunting echo of today's state of the nation in our lead cover story. "WMO sights car...