Information World Review articles from October 2005

Information World Review archives from October 2005

Google readies enterprise allies. EXCLUSIVE: IT integration partners will bring added value services to Google's push into the enterprise market.
October 24, 2005... Byline: Bobby Pickering. Google UK is planning to boost its Google Enterprise sales operation this week by launching a reseller initiative, modeled on the Google Enterprise Professional Programme which launched in the US last month. ...

BT targets MoD e-learning.
October 24, 2005... The Ministry of Defence has signed up British Telecom Global Services to deliver e-learning services in a move to cut training costs. The 10 year contract will extend the BT pilot of the Defence Learning Portal (DLP) to accommodate up to...

Yahoo challenges Google book digitisation project. Open Content Alliance establishes co-op agreement.(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... Byline: Mark Chillingworth. Yahoo is launching a direct rival to the Google Print book and library search service. As a founding member of the Open Content Alliance (OCA) co-operative, Yahoo will make the public domain collections of the...

Editor's View.(Editorial)
October 24, 2005... Their time has come Chatting with the chaps from ICC the other week, I was reminded of how much we are forced to hold back, waiting for technology to evolve. ICC, after all, purchased a microfiche library of Companies House pre-1996...

Biotech community built on shared Autonomy. MerseyBio builds social computing community centred around Autonomy IDOL search and pattern-matching platform, writes Mark Chillingworth.
October 24, 2005... Liverpool's MerseyBIO has developed a web-based information community for its members in the biotechnology business. Esymbio is the online heart of the MerseyBio, the business incubator service for biotechnology entrepreneurs, and utilises...

Ex Libris AIMs to raise $15m.(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... Byline: Tracey Caldwell. Ex Libris has announced it is to float on the London Alternative Investment Market (AIM) to raise approximately $15m ([pounds sterling]8.5m). A representative for Ex Libris told IWR that it is too early to say...

CABI hails new digital supplement.(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... Scientific database provider CABI Publishing is to release a new supplement to its abstracts service, CAB Abstracts Plus in January 2006. The new service will enable users to search 10,000 full-text documents that are difficult to find,...

A database of Shakespearean proportions.
October 24, 2005... The complete works of William Shakespeare, along with production stage notes, criticism and journal literature have been collected into a single online resource. Thomson Learning, the humanities publisher, has developed The Shakespeare...

SUPC trail blazes innovative e-book deals.
October 24, 2005... Byline: Tracey Caldwell. The Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium (SUPC) has blazed a trail in e-book procurement. It has appointed ProQuest to supply e-books in a contract awarded through a competitive tendering process that also...

OUP pushes e-book agenda.
October 24, 2005... E-books are back on the library agenda driven by academic users fed on a diet of e-journals, according to publishers and consortia. "Our customers expect electronic content," said Hazel Woodward, a librarian for Cranfield University and...

Outsell projects a search sector growth spurt. Major advances predicted for search, training and market research sectors, reports Bobby Pickering.
October 24, 2005... Things are looking less than rosy for the STM, legal, news and yellow pages/directories sectors of the information industry over the next few years, according to the latest forward-looking report from US market tracker Outsell. ...

BL recruits to define digital library vision. British Library creates new role for former Extenza boss to spearhead the development of the National Digital Library, writes Mark Chillingworth.
October 24, 2005... Ruth Jones has been appointed head of development at the British Library (BL), a new role that will involve redefining the role of the BL as a National Digital Library. Jones was the founding general manager of Extenza e-Publishing, seeing...

Moreover gives BvD all the news that's fit to Mint.
October 24, 2005... News searching and news alerts have been added to Mint UK, the company information service from Bureau van Dijk (BvD). In a deal with Moreover Technologies, BvD will integrate Moreover news aggregation into its products. Mint Web Watch...

Verdict delivered for Datamonitor.
October 24, 2005... Byline: Bobby Pickering. Business information specialist Datamonitor has acquired Verdict Research, a leading UK retail analysis company set-up by former Mintel editorial and marketing director Richard Hyman in 1984. The company has...

FT embargo to "definitely" go ahead this autumn.(Financial Times)(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... The Financial Times has insisted that it will go ahead with a content embargo "sometime this autumn" after abandoning its original decision to enforce it on 31 August 2005. The embargo will delay feeds of its content to news aggregators, such...

Semantic meaning at Talis.(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... Library automation tools will be at the centre of the semantic web, according to Talis, the UK library automation specialist. Talis has hired Paul Miller from the Common Information Environment (CIE) project, which is jointly funded by JISC and...

Wolters Kluwer goes on a healthy acquisition spree.(Wolters Kluwer's Health Division, NDC Health Corporation)(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... Wolters Kluwer's Health Division made two significant acquisitions last month, acquiring the Information Management division of Arizona-based NDC Health Corporation, and the "total assets" of Pennsylvania-based Boucher Communications Inc (BCI)....

Informa confirms it is not on the acquisition trail.(Informa Group PLC)(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... Informa chief executive Peter Rigby has confirmed that the company is not out "actively hunting" for acquisitions, though he has expressed, once again, the company's interest in "combining" with Springer. In an interview with Dow Jones...

New award to honour victims of terrorism.
October 24, 2005... The organiser of the International Information Industry Awards, VNU Exhibitions, has announced a major new award this year to honour the OneSource employees caught up in the attacks on the Sharm el Sheikh resort in July. The Annalie...

Google clarifies Print differences in Europe.
October 24, 2005... Google UK has sought to clarify its position with the Google Print project, saying it is taking an entirely different approach in Europe. The company was hit last month by a class action lawsuit in the US brought by the Authors Guild, which...

SciFinder browses for similarity. CAS database overhaul introduces new search tools, writes Mark Chillingworth.
October 24, 2005... CAS, the scientific, technical and medical (STM) database arm of the American Chemical Society, has launched a major overhaul of its SciFinder service. Four new tools for searching the database have been introduced, including the ability to...

Market Watch - Robust budgets forecast.(information industry)(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... The worldwide information industry had aggregate revenues of $263bn ([pounds sterling]150bn) in 2004, a 9.8% increase on 2003, with 2005 revenues forecast to show a 7.8% growth, according to new research released by US industry analysts...

Facelift for CUP online journals.
October 24, 2005... Byline: Tracey Caldwell. Cambridge University Press (CUP) has updated its journal hosting platform. Extra features include Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom feeds for new content published by each journal, article citation downloads...

Reputation takes on 360 degree view at LexisNexis. Graphical interface from LexisNexis and Biz360 provides rounded view of market impact.
October 24, 2005... Byline: Kim Thomas. LexisNexis has strengthened its presence in the reputation management sector with a deeper alliance with market intelligence company Biz360 to release MarketImpact. Users of MarketImpact are provided with graphical,...

e-Gov faces access test.(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... Government information professionals working towards the Implementing e-Government (IeG) standards need to be addressing accessibility, experts say. Users with eyesight, hearing or learning difficulties must be able to easily access online...

ICC Information embarks on microfiche scanning project.(ICC Information Group Ltd.)(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... ICC Information has embarked on a massive company document scanning programme to transfer Companies House information it holds in the pre-1996 timeframe. Data on more than 360,000 "live trading companies" incorporated before 1996 will be made...

Thomson Pharma hits 100 target.
October 24, 2005... More than 100 organisations in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have signed up for Thomson Pharma since its launch in January, according to Thomson Scientific. Thomson Pharma is an information service that integrates a range of...

Ingenta to supply next-generation library to OECD.
October 24, 2005... The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has signed a new long-term deal with Oxford-based information systems provider, Ingenta. The OECD will use an Ingenta information commerce system under its SourceOECD e-library...

Springer nabs mathematical biology bulletin from Reed.
October 24, 2005... Springer is to publish the journal Bulletin of Mathematical Biology following a deal with the Society for Mathematical Biology. Springer will begin publishing in January 2006, replacing Reed Elsevier. Springer will increase the number of...

Medical Robots make surgical incision at Wiley InterScience.
October 24, 2005... A journal for the emerging field of medical robotics has joined the portfolio of healthcare journals published by John Wiley & Sons. The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery is now published by Wiley following...

OneSource matches info for sales teams.
October 24, 2005... Business information provider OneSource has launched a new service to improve sales and marketing performance. OneSource Match and Append enables an organisation to match its internal customer information with OneSource information on potential...

Communities of practice - What makes a good CoP? A community of practice is a powerful tool in any organisation, but you need a group of willing people and the right tools, writes Marcus Austin.
October 24, 2005... The Holy Grail of the information world is the ability to get to the right answer from the right person, or source, at the right time. We seem to be getting closer to achieving this, but even within an organisation that has the best search...

Opinion - Records management is resting on shaky ground. David Tebbutt exposes a faultline that results in responsibility for records and document management being batted back and forth between departments.(information management)
October 24, 2005... At a recent Butler Group conference on document and records management, research analyst Richard Edwards claimed that more than 70% of records management professionals believe that IT is responsible for management of corporate documents and...

Opinion - Copy checking. A newspaper copyright agreement is a good thing to have, but you might want to check there isn't something already in place, says NLA Digital's MD Andrew Hughes.
October 24, 2005... While anyone would be sympathetic to the copyright sensitivities of a provider of high-priced market research - where 50 pages can sell for more than [pounds sterling]2,000 - it's sometimes harder to feel the pain of the press baron who prints...

e-gif compliance - Local sites for local people. As the deadline approaches for implementing the e-Government Interoperability Framework, local councils have been discovering the benefits of working co-operatively with other public sector information providers. Kim Thomas investigates.
October 24, 2005... The December 2005 deadline for local councils to make their services available online is rapidly drawing near. Statistics issued in August this year by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) suggest that the vast majority of councils...

Linking Technologies - Resolution to persistence. It's a minefield out there for information professionals trying to keep up with linking and cross-reference technologies on the internet. Tracey Caldwell takes you through some of the key issues surrounding link standards and initiatives like OpenURL, DOIs and CrossRef.(electronic texts)
October 24, 2005... A large part of an academic librarian's job is providing library users with access to the scholarly texts that the university has paid for. Many hours work goes into maintaining links to electronic texts at content providers, publishers and...

Call for nominations - Industry awards - Entrance qualifications. Nominations are about to close for this year's International Information Industry Awards, the glittering highlight of the year for UK info pros. Do you know a team or an individual who deserves recognition this year? If so, you have only a few days left to support them with a free nomination.
October 24, 2005... Few who were there, and still sober, can forget the sight of Hoovers Online marketing manager Raife Watson on the dancefloor of the Royal Lancaster Hotel's ballroom. His incomparable air guitar solo was heartfelt, and the exuberance was...

Group Test: News Aggregators - News in views. Davey Winder evaluates some of the tools required to exploit the benefits of RSS, including news aggregators that collect, manage and display feed data, and RSS feed creation software that lets you edit, manage and publish your own feeds.(Product/Service Evaluation)
October 24, 2005... RSS is quietly revolutionising the web, summarising site content for distribution and viewing in any format. Any data source that is made available in RSS format can be viewed by any RSS-aware application, and this data is "pushed" to the user...

Sector update - Enterprise Search & Knowledge Retrieval. The Enterprise Search market has witnessed a move towards specialisation by key vendors. Autonomy is touting compliance and financial regulation usages, while Verity is targeting business processes, Endeca the retail sector, and so on. This month's Sector Update focuses on the latest offerings to make an impact on the search and knowledge retrieval market.
October 24, 2005... Autonomy - www.autonomy.com Overview: Autonomy is recognised by independent analysts as a leading tool for organisations looking to fully automate the process of analysing, managing, unifying and utilising information. Autonomy uses...

Resources - OUP archive boosts Humanities. First of a range of new backfile projects from Oxford Journals will give researchers and academics full access to its Humanities Archive. Mark Chillingworth sized it up.
October 24, 2005... The Humanities Archive from Oxford Journals, the journal publishing division of Oxford University Press (OUP), is the first of a major digitisation and backfile project OUP has undertaken. Launched in July, the Humanities Archive will be...

Resources - Book review - Net's friendly companion. Mark Chillingworth reviews a user friendly guide book to internet technology that welcomes the web as a benefit to information professionals and libraries.
October 24, 2005... In The Library and Information Professional's Internet Companion, the three authors have written a bright and airy book that is quite literally a friendly companion. In some corners of the information industry the internet is viewed as...

Resources - Book review - Latest lessons in e-learning. Diverse approaches to e-learning and the role of the information professional are discussed in this latest guide. Tracey Caldwell gives us the low down on it.(Supporting E-learning: A Guide for Library and Information Managers)(Book Review)
October 24, 2005... This collection of essays from UK library professionals represents a diversity of approach to developing and supporting e-learning. Editor Maxine Melling defines e-learning widely, as learning "facilitated and supported through the use of...

Resources - Ebsco sets its sights on terrorism with new database.
October 24, 2005... US-based subscriptions agent and information aggregator Ebsco has launched a database focusing on terrorism through its EbscoHost service. The International Security and Counter Terrorism Reference Centre, as it will be known, will provide a...

Resources - HW Wilson references contemporary women's rights issues.
October 24, 2005... HW Wilson has released the fourth new title in its Reference Shelf series, titled Women's Rights. The book analyses contemporary issues involving women's rights, including Christian fundamentalism versus reproductive rights, Muslim women, sex...

Resources - January 2006 launch for Wiley biotech journal.
October 24, 2005... John Wiley & Sons is launching a new biotechnology journal in January 2006 to complete its line up in the growing biotechnology field. Biotechnology Journal will be available in print and on the Wiley Interscience online platform. The new...

Resources - Materials, testing and African cultural journals join Swets.
October 24, 2005... Six publishers have signed agreements with Swets Information Services to place journals on SwetsWise. Edinburgh University Press adds the journal Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. Six journals from the American Society for...

Resources - Beilstein support organic growth at BioMed Central.(BioMed Central Group in co-operation with Beilstein-Institut launches open access journal)(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... Open access publisher BioMed Central has launched a new journal in co-operation with the Beilstein-Institut, a German research organisation. The duo will publish Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry as an open access title covering organic...

Resources - AP information Services HR directory turns 21.(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... Directory publisher AP Information Services has released the 21st edition of its Personnel Manager's Yearbook 2005/06, a directory containing the contact details of 83,000 personnel and HR managers at 12,000 UK and Irish companies. There are...

Resources - FT reference joins Xrefer.
October 24, 2005... Online reference provider Xrefer has agreed a deal with book publisher Dorling Kindersley to add its Financial Times World Desk Reference title to the Xrefer Ready-Reference service. Ready-Reference provides information centres with an online...

Resources - Site review - Keywords off the menu. Revamped GMID market information database shows the plus side of browsing a search menu rather than using keyword searches, finds Mark Chillingworth.
October 24, 2005... Global Market Information Database (GMID) from Euromonitor received an overhaul of its web interface this summer with the aim of making the depth of the database easier to un-tap. GMID is a business reference system that allows users to...

Resources - Book review - Concise cataloguing guide. Jonathan Gordon-Till assesses a book that unravels the complex world of Anglo-American cataloguing, written by the current president of the ALA.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 24, 2005... Before you construct something you need to know the ground rules, and the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, Second Edition (AACR2) will probably be the basis for any information centre looking to build a catalogue. This book does have one...

Resources - Training.(improving the accountants management skills)
October 24, 2005... Supporting your case using budgeting & costing data 1 November 2005, London Cilip has designed a course to help information managers make the most of financial data when bidding for continued or extra funds. Attendees will learn how to...

Diary.(Calendar)
October 24, 2005... SLA Europe Scottish Evening 19 October 2005, The Dome, Edinburgh The board of SLA Europe is hosting this free informal get together for all interested Scottish information professionals. Brief presentations will be given by Veronica...

Backchat - Will ALA be blown off course by Rita, Katrina and the waves?
October 24, 2005... Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have blown a hole through the oil refinery, jazz and gambling industries in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. But they must have also been responsible for sleepless nights for those brave people who organise the...

Backchat - Searching for a brew or twoogle.(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... Thanks to our friends at The Inquirer (www.theinquirer.net), who have come up with a new party game: Google World Domination. It involves thinking up names for specialist search engines that Google might launch. The ones we liked: Broogle (to...

Backchat - Reed Elsevier comes under unfriendly fire.(Brief Article)
October 24, 2005... Things are looking a little torn over at Reed Elsevier. While one part of the company made masses of money out of the armaments industry last month, by organising the Defence Systems & Equipment International show in Docklands, another part of...

Backchat - Flashback. October 2000: We delve into our archives to find out who and what were making the headlines in our pages five years ago, as LexisNexis added nexis.com to the dot.com boom.
October 24, 2005... Mergers & acquisitions data free on web from Zephus Our smiling cover star was Andrew Haddow, managing director of online financial information upstart Zephus.com. The company was offering a new mergers and acquisition database for free on...