Information Today articles from April 2006

Information Today archives from April 2006

USA PATRIOT Act: what's next?
April 1, 2006... On March 9, the USA PATRIOT Act was renewed. After nearly a year of proposals and counterproposals, two extensions, and ongoing behind-the-scenes negotiations, Congress passed two bills renewing the act. President Bush signed the legislation...

Cleaning up the Web: in search of Malware.(higher education, technology companies, and a consumer group join to fight against viruses)
April 1, 2006... Higher education, technology companies, and a consumer group are the latest to band together in an attempt to fight the growing problem of viruses, worms, adware, and spyware plaguing the Internet. The Stop Badware Coalition, a joint effort...

WSIS Internet governance forum takes shape.(World Summit on the Information Society launches Internet Governance Forum)
April 1, 2006... A new term has been added to the litany of Internet-governance attributes developed during the multiyear World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). In addition to "multilateral," "democratic," and "transparent," the soon-to-be-launched...

Clusty.com launches free site search for nonprofits, schools.(News Bytes)
April 1, 2006... Vivisimo recently unveiled a free search service for nonprofit organizations and educational institutions. Clustys Site Search Service offers a free search box and clustered search results in a dedicated search tab at Clusty.com. The new...

NEH grant to enhance Jewish studies collection.(News Bytes)
April 1, 2006... The Johns Hopkins University received a $500,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the Sheridan Libraries. The endowment will be used for collections and a librarian to support the university's Leonard and Helen...

Blackwell Publishing goes green.(News Bytes)
April 1, 2006... Blackwell Publishing has become a global publisher committed to conserving environmental resources. By committing to CarbonNeutral's standards, the firm is trying to mitigate carbon dioxide (a common greenhouse gas) emissions caused by energy...

That's infotainment: part deux.(convergence forecasted)
April 1, 2006... Convergence. What will it look like? We'll have product platforms you can hold in one hand, musical and video clip selections on the to-do lists for every database designer, and phone calls to TV Guide's digital programming office to schedule...

Legal wrangling leads the news.(search engine cases make the news)
April 1, 2006... Looking past the continuous onslaught of search engine news, several high-profile legal struggles from the past few weeks stand out as news items of interest to the information industry and to libraries. Among our top headlines were the ongoing...

Yahoo!, New World Library, museum join up on women's project.(News Bytes)
April 1, 2006... Yahoo! and the International Museum of Women are working on a project linked to the publication of an anthology called Imagining Ourselves: Global Voices for a New Generation of Women, edited by Paula Goldman. New World Library, publisher of...

Outsell, Inc. analyzes consumer news habits.(News Bytes)
April 1, 2006... An Outsell, Inc. survey of 2,800 consumers found that most Americans prefer to get their news from television and from local newspapers instead of the Internet. Outsell's HotTopics report, titled The Future of News: Latest Reader Study Shows...

Larry Brilliant joins Google.org as executive director.(News Bytes)
April 1, 2006... Google, Inc. announced the appointment of Larry Brilliant as executive director of Google.org, which administers Google's philanthropic activities. He will work with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company's co-founders, to define the mission...

Study: cell phones pose air safety risk.(News Bytes)
April 1, 2006... Results from a new study by the Carnegie Mellon University and supported by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration have shown that cell phones may pose more of a safety risk to navigation systems on aircraft than originally thought. Phones,...

OCLC Canada helps Manitoba Library Consortium.(News Bytes)(OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc.)(Manitoba Library Association)
April 1, 2006... OCLC Canada worked with the Manitoba Library Consortium to digitize more than 122,000 pages of historically significant newspapers, books, and historic maps to provide user access on the Web. This digitization effort is part of a project called...

Last call.(LETTER FROM THE EDITOR)
April 1, 2006... For the past several months, we have been extending an invitation in each issue of Information Today to participate in our first-ever 2006 People's Choice Awards. The deadline for nominations is drawing to a close, but you still have a...

The death-defying app.(weblogs )
April 1, 2006... What's all this talk about blogs being dead? Reading the numbers the Gallup Poll published early this year, the decrease in blogging would actually appear to be true. But what are these numbers measuring and why? According to the data that...

Infotoons.(Cartoon)
April 1, 2006... DID YOU HEAR THAT CONGRESS JUST RENEWED THE PATRIOT ACT? YEP, GET USED TO MORE ROVING WIRETAPS, COURT ORDERS, PEOPLE LOOKING OVER YOUR SHOULDER. WHAT ABOUT OUR CIVIL LIBERNES, OUR RIGHT TO PRIVARY? MOM, APPLE PIE, AND THE GIRL NEXT...

NIH public access update.(Focus on Publishing)(National Institutes of Health)
April 1, 2006... The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued its progress report to the House Committee on Appropriations in January. In the report, the NIH described the success of its public access policy to "[e]nsure that NIH-funded research results are...

The problem with Orphan Works.(internet use for distributing contents)
April 1, 2006... The Internet provides a comparatively simple and inexpensive method for publishing and distributing content. Anyone who can use a server or Web-hosting service and has basic Web creation software, along with some spare time, can become a...

A trio of mini-rants.(Internet Waves)
April 1, 2006... Where I work, we have folks enrolled in a variety of different post-secondary education programs. Some are face to face, others are virtual, some are undergraduate, and others are graduate and post-graduate. Being a generally good-hearted soul,...

The next generation of reading lists.
April 1, 2006... Information professionals are list makers. From Gary Price's classic List of Lists (http://www.special issues.com/lol) to Peter Scott's lists of all things RSS (http://www.allrss.com), we always try to put information into some type of list....

O'Connor's copyright legacy.(Intellectual Property)(Sandra Day O'Connor)(Samuel A. Alito Jr. to be the 110th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court)
April 1, 2006... On Jan. 31, the U.S. Senate confirmed Samuel A. Alito Jr. to be the 110th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. After being sworn in that day, Alito succeeded Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who announced last summer she would retire immediately upon...

Wireless cities bridge the digital divide.(Wireless Philadelphia to make use of wi-fi through a deal with EarthLink Inc.)
April 1, 2006... The city of firsts will soon be able to add another item to its list: Philadelphia is set to become one of the first major American cities to complete a citywide Wi-Fi network. On March 1, Philadelphia Mayor John Street announced that a...

Unleashing the power of the global village.(keeping the computer on will decrease global warming)
April 1, 2006... Using your computer for something useful--in between online shopping, downloading music, or exchanging e-mails with friends--is a growing phenomenon. You can now use your computer to contribute to research that may help save the planet from a...

State library association meetings boast big benefits.(Conference Circuit)
April 1, 2006... It's not an April Fools' joke--you don't need to attend a large national information conference to network with your peers or learn about advances in your field. Many excellent conferences are organized by local chapters of national...

Content unleashed: the 2006 NFAIS meeting.(National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services)
April 1, 2006... "How do we make a perceived stodgy industry cool?" This was a question posed by Linda Beebe, keynote moderator of the 2006 NFAIS Annual Conference, which was held Feb. 26-28 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia. Beebe, senior director...

Building bridges: the 2006 Miles Conrad Award Lecture.(Carol Tenopir)
April 1, 2006... The Miles Conrad Lecture, delivered in honor of G. Miles Conrad (the founder and first president of NFAIS), is always the highlight of the annual NFAIS meeting. This year's recipient was Carol Tenopir, a professor at the University of...

Of millennials and mashups.(Stephen Abram at National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services conference on New Information Environment)
April 1, 2006... Leave it to industry pundit Stephen Abram, vice president of innovation at SirsiDynix, to point to the proverbial elephant in the room. "The future is already here... it's just not evenly distributed yet," he said in his NFAIS keynote titled...

London Book Fair 2006: from cover to cover.(Cover story)
April 1, 2006... With hundreds of book fairs around the world--ranging from small-town literary gatherings to the annual mega-events in Frankfurt, Germany--only about 35 fairs are regarded as international enough to attract the attention of leading global...

Conference calendar.(Calendar)
April 1, 2006... April 9-11: Scottsdale, Ariz. (Camelback Inn). Information Today, Inc. will host the seventh annual Buying & Selling eContent conference. This event brings together content industry executives, enterprise buyers, and content solutions...

LexisNexis, Ozmosys team up to deliver customized alerts.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... LexisNexis U.S. teamed up with Ozmosys to produce LexisNexis Research Total Alerts, a customized information alert delivered via e-mail to LexisNexis customers. The new service, powered by Ozmosys, helps attorneys stay up-to-date with the...

IHS launches Fasteners eCatalog.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... IHS, Inc. unveiled its IHS Fasteners eCatalog, the first engineering-oriented parts research tool for industry standard and military fasteners. The e-catalog offers time saving features and enhancements for better productivity, efficiency, and...

Questel-Orbit adds enhancements to IP product line.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... Questel*Orbit released FamPat Plus, a full-text key content enhancement to FamPat, its international patent database. This new key content includes Patent Object, Advantages and Previous Patent Drawbacks, as well as Independent Claims. It also...

BUDDIE winner handles criticism well.(2006 BUDDIE award )
April 1, 2006... Yes, it's awards season again. In this year's murky morass of mediocrity, we have a beacon of quality and distinction in the 2006 BUDDIE award for the Best Unknown Database. This year's winner is particularly close to my heart, because it...

EBSCO introduces enhanced Registration Tracker.(Product News & Reviews)(EBSCO Information Services)
April 1, 2006... EBSCO announced enhancements to its Registration Tracker, part of the e-journal management tool EBSCOhost Electronic Journals Service Enhanced (EJS). It offers library administrators a central place to manage registration and show the...

Blackwell acquires two dentistry journals.(Product News & Reviews)(Blackwell Publishing)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Blackwell Publishing recently acquired two dentistry journals: Journal of Esthetic and Restorative Dentistry (the official journal of nine aesthetics-oriented societies around the world) and Clinical Implant Dentistry and Related Research, both...

Information Today, Inc. acquires two directories.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... Information Today, Inc. acquired two funding directories from Thomson Gale: Corporate Giving Directory and Foundation Reporter. These two key directories are designed to help fundraisers and development officers find charitable support for...

McGraw-Hill enhances network for products.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... The McGraw-Hill Construction Network for products, built on the Sweets publishing foundation, delivers online resources for building-product information. The new site was designed for architects with these enhancements: * Improved search...

CSA launches Community of Scholars.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... Community of Scholars, now available through the CSA platform, offers researchers a way to expand their research for relevant information beyond documents to relevant people and organizations in specific interest areas. The Community of...

Dialog launches knowledge-sharing tools.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... Dialog is adding two new tools to its DataStarWeb: AlertsManager, which will help information professionals find ways to control the information flow of their organizations, and ReportAid, which will assist in the post-processing and...

Wiley InterScience introduces Author Resources.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... Author Resources, a suite of tools and services designed to improve research for journal writers, is one of the latest innovations from John Wiley & Sons, Inc. This new service, available to Wiley InterScience users, provides information about...

Helping hand online.(HelpMeRemote.com)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Try to imagine life without a home computer for business, games, and keeping in touch with family and friends. With the number of viruses bombarding files these days, it may be only a matter of time before the "blue screen of death" brings an...

Tracking The Sopranos on Google Maps.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... Can't remember where Tony Soprano was when he pointed a .38 at his nephew Christopher or what street he was on when he caused Phil to drive his car into a parked delivery truck? Fans of HBO's The Sopranos can now turn to Crime. Organized....

Unotron offers SpillSeal washable keyboards, mice.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... Unotron introduced its SpillSeal protected and patented washable, corded optical mouse product line to complement its SpillSeal corded and wireless computer keyboards and receivers. Other devices in the product line include Smartcard Readers....

Emerald Group Publishing debuts product to help community colleges.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... Emerald Group Publishing, Ltd. released a suite of products for the community college market called Emerald Management Xtra College. These new products target the day-to-day issues facing faculty, students, and librarians in associate degree...

Thomson Pharma offers ability to analyze clinical information.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... Thomson Scientific enhanced its Thomson Pharma solution for professionals on the drug development pipeline. The new Thomson Pharma Brand Management Module is a strategic tool designed to help executives in the global pharmaceutical industry to...

CSA Illumina offers FRANCIS.
April 1, 2006... FRANCIS is now available on CSA Illumina. It provides international coverage of more than 4,000 journals, books, and other documents in the humanities, social sciences, and economics. This multilingual database includes European publications,...

NetLibrary offers eAudiobook collections.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2006... NetLibrary and Recorded Books, Inc. have expanded distribution of their eAudiobook program to libraries in Latin America and Asia Pacific. The eAudiobooks Core Collection features English-language best sellers, book club favorites, and...

Looking good in print: as powerful as PCs are in making you look good in print, they can be equally powerful in making you look bad.
April 1, 2006... More and more of the research, education, and communication we deal with involves photons and electrons flying around cyberspace. Yet, a surprising amount of that data still winds up in a physical format that was invented in China in the early...

A sport where pencil is king: CyberSports.(crossword puzzles)(Editorial)
April 1, 2006... One of your Field Correspondent's biggest time-killers at work is wading through the digital blizzard that engulfs the old e-mail in box every day. From insider stock trading information on obscure oil company stocks (and just why would I...

Keeping cyberteens safe.(corruption of teenage on latest technologies)
April 1, 2006... It's a well-known phenomenon: Teens often know more about technology than their parents. But you may be surprised to learn that this phenomenon dates back to at least the early part of the last century. In a newspaper cartoon published in...

EPS forecasts boost in legal, tax, and regulatory publishing market.(News Bytes)(Electronic Publishing Services Inc.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... The latest edition of the Electronic Publishing Services, Ltd.'s "EPS Market Monitor--Legal, Tax and Regulatory (LTR)" predicts a growth rate of 5.3 percent for the LTR publishing market through 2008. Predictions included a slightly increased...

CSIA appeals to Senate to OK international Convention on Cybercrime.(News Bytes)
April 1, 2006... The Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA) appealed to the Senate to "make it a priority this year to finally ratify the Convention on Cybercrime, adopted through the Council of Europe, which the Bush Administration signed in 2001." The...

Datalink.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Ari Kaplan joins as a senior consultant)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Datalink has announced the appointment of Ari Kaplan as senior consultant responsible for database solutions. In this position, he will help the company expand its Oracle storage practice and work with customers to increase the performance of...

Marcinko Enterprises, Inc.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Adam Sass joins as Director)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Marcinko Enterprises, Inc. (MEI) announced that Adam Sass has joined the company as director of publisher relations. In this role, he will serve as MEI's principal liaison with its clients, keeping publishers apprised of emerging opportunities...

SirsiDynix.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Dean McCausland joins as the new CFO)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... SirsiDynix announced that Dean McCausland is its new CFO. Most recently, McCausland was CFO at Fast Channel Network, Inc. Prior to that, he was CFO for several other high-tech and consulting companies. McCausland holds a bachelor's...

GenieKnows.com.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appoints Tiffany Mitchell, Gina Kosta and Mark Harper )(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... GenieKnows.com, a division of IT Interactive Services, has announced three new appointments. Tiffany Mitchell has been appointed director of business development. In this position, she will negotiate business development relationships....

ProQuest Information and Learning.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appoints Simon Beale )(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... ProQuest Information and Learning announced the appointment of Simon Beale as senior vice president of global sales. In 2002, Beale joined ProQuest as vice president of international sales and marketing. Prior to that, he held several sales...

Richard P. Ream, President, Noozz America.(People Line & the Executive Profile)
April 1, 2006... What do Cadbury Schweppes, General Motors, BMW, and the governments of France, the Netherlands, and the U.S. have in common? When it comes to the news about emerging markets, each of them turns to Noozz .com, a comprehensive information...

Keeping up with the Joneses Web Page.(Cover Notes)(Content and Workflow Management for Library Websites: Case Studies)(Book review)
April 1, 2006... Content and Workflow Management for Library Websites: Case Studies edited by Holly Yu Hershey, Pa.: Information Science Publishing, 2005 ISBN: 1-59140-533-5 259 pages $69.95 softcover Anyone who has worked on a library Web site should know...

Information seekers.(online searching)(Editorial)
April 1, 2006... While recovering from minor surgery that turned into major surgery, I had plenty of time for one of my favorite pastimes: reading. I devoured the first six of the Harry Potter books. Fellow Potter aficionados know that Harry is a Seeker on...

Cashing In with Content: How Innovative Marketers Innovative Marketers Use Digital Information to Turn Browsers into Buyers.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2006... Cashing In with Content: How Innovative Marketers Use Digital Information to Turn Browsers into Buyers By David Meerman Scott; Foreword by Michelle Manafy Gimmicky Web sites are out. Content is in. In Cashing In with Content, award-winning...

Yahoo! to the Max: An Extreme Searcher Guide.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2006... Yahoo! to the Max: An Extreme Searcher Guide By Randolph Hock; Foreword by Mary Ellen Bates With its many and diverse features, it's not easy for any individual to keep up with all that Yahoo! has to offer. Fortunately, Ran Hock--"The...

The NextGen Librarian's Survival Guide.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2006... The NextGen Librarian's Survival Guide By Rachel Singer Gordon Here is a unique resource for next generation librarians, addressing the specific needs of GenXers and Millennials as they work to define themselves as information...

The Accidental Library Manager.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2006... The Accidental Library Manager By Rachel Singer Gordon Most librarians enter the field intending to focus on a particular specialty, but eventually need to take on certain supervisory or managerial responsibilities in order to move forward....

The Successful Academic Librarian: Winning Strategies from Library Leaders.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2006... The Successful Academic Librarian: Winning Strategies from Library Leaders Edited by Gwen Meyer Gregory The role of academic librarian is far from cut-and-dried. For starters, there are the numerous job classifications: staff or...

The New OPL Sourcebook: A Guide For Solo And Small Libraries.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2006... The New OPL Sourcebook: A Guide for Solo and Small Libraries By Judith A. Siess This new edition of the essential management guide for small and one-person libraries (OPLs) features a wealth of practical tips, strategies, and success...

Theories of Information Behavior.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2006... Theories of Information Behavior Edited by Karen Fisher, Sanda Erdelez, and Lynne McKechnie This unique book presents authoritative overviews of more than 70 conceptual frameworks for understanding how people seek, manage, share, and use...

The Librarian's Internet Survival Guide: Strategies for the High-Tech Reference Desk, Second Edition.(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2006... The Librarian's Internet Survival Guide: Strategies for the High-Tech Reference Desk, Second Edition By Irene E. McDermott Edited by Barbara Quint In this updated and expanded second edition of her popular guidebook, Searcher columnist...

Elsevier's new Atlas wins top award.(Elsevier Science Publishing Company Inc.)(Association of American Publishers)
April 1, 2006... When Elsevier's Atlas of Clinical Gross Anatomy won top honors from the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division (PSP) of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) in February, Linda Belfus stepped up to the podium before the packed...

Finding ways to recover from disaster.(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Southeast last year, many businesses came to a complete standstill. Data and equipment were ruined, while offices were submerged and personnel dealt with recovery on the homefront. Norlight, a...

SAGE acquires Westminster publications journals.(News Bytes)(Sage Publications Inc.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... SAGE Publications announced the acquisition of 10 medical journals from Westminster Publications, adding titles for angiology, pediatrics, and vascular surgery. The new titles will begin publishing this month. Source: SAGE Publications...

Wiley partners with the American Ceramic Society.(News Bytes)(John Wiley & Sons Inc.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and The American Ceramic Society (ACerS) announced a joint multiyear agreement to publish books and meeting proceedings. Wiley and ACerS will co-publish approximately 20-30 books and proceedings annually about ceramics,...

Chicago.com, Inc. launches beer.chicago.com.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Chicago.com, Inc., Your Chicago Search Engine, launched a special section of its Web site. beer.chicago.com is the first interactive guide to bars, clubs, and pubs in the Windy City. Google mapping technology powers the section, letting users...

And now for a smaller laptop.(new product Microsoft Origami)
April 1, 2006... Microsoft Corp. rolled out its new Origami in early March. Billed as an Ultra-Mobile Personal Computer (UMPC), it's a cross between a laptop PC and a mobile-size device. Its lightweight design (less than 2 pounds) features a 7-inch screen and a...

Linda Belfus, Elsevier's vice president of medical education, received the 2005 R.R. Hawkins Award from the Association of American Publisher's Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division on Feb. 7 in Washington, D.C.(News Makers)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Linda Belfus, Elsevier's vice president of medical education, received the 2005 R.R. Hawkins Award from the Association of American Publisher's Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division on Feb. 7 in Washington, D.C., for Elsevier's Atlas...

The truth behind the cubicle: the Dilbert dilemma.(News Makers)(designing of cubicles)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Water coolers and ergonomics and cubicles, oh my! Office workers sequestered behind cubicle walls may be happy to hear that even the man who invented cubicles wasn't happy with them, according to a recent article in FORTUNE by Julie...