Information Today articles from April 2009

Information Today archives from April 2009

Turning a new page in ebooks.
April 1, 2009... There's no question that ebooks have been an interesting part of the publishing industry for several years now, and no one knows for sure what place in history these electronic innovations will hold--or if they will just become history. ...

Thomas Publishing takes a digital spin.
April 1, 2009... The name Thomas Publishing has been on the lips of engineers and purchasing agents for more than 100 years, thanks to the Thomas Register of American Manufacturers, a sort of Yellow Pages for industrial companies seeking bearings, motors,...

Securing the mobile landscape.
April 1, 2009... As the work force becomes more mobile, security becomes a more critical issue from a corporate perspective. While an increasing number of handheld devices have computer-like capabilities, including internet access and email, the main device...

OCLC Members Council goes virtual, OAIster joins WorldCat.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The OCLC Members Council held its first virtual meeting in early February to discuss opportunities and challenges for the global information community, learn about collaborative services, and continue the transition from a Global Council to...

Hindawi sets monthly manuscript submission record.(NewsBytes)(Hindawi Publishing Corp.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Hindawi Publishing Corp.'s open access journal collection received more than 1,000 submitted manuscripts in February, the company's highest monthly total. Individually, the Biology and Medicine journals had the "most impressive" growth,...

ACS website wins PROSE award.(NewsBytes)(award for American Chemical Society)(Professional and Scholarly Excellence)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The American Chemical Society (ACS) won a PROSE (Professional and Scholarly Excellence) award for its publications website, which was created with Atypon Systems, Inc.'s Literatum software. Conferred by the Association of American Publishers,...

ALA takes on House copyright bill.(NewsBytes)(American Library Association )(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The American Library Association (ALA) is opposing a law that would repeal the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy. The ALAsays the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, H.R. 801, would amend the U.S. Copyright Code to keep...

Cornell University Library expands Amazon print-on-demand collection.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The Cornell University Library is beefing up its Amazon.com print-on-demand collection, adding more than 74,000 books to about 6,000 already available. The additions, which represent a substantial part of the library's rare and unique offerings...

SirsiDynix gets support facility for Canadians.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Bell Canada is providing SirsiDynix with a facility to handle co-location services in Montreal. Previously, support for Canadian software-as-a-service (SaaS) customers was provided by a SirsiDynix facility in Montreal, but increased demand made...

Inmagic posting nine-part blog series on social tech.(NewsBytes)
April 1, 2009... Inmagic, Inc. is posting a series of nine articles on its blog detailing the benefits of implementing social technologies with a knowledge management solution. Titled How to Cost Justify Your Social Knowledge Network Needs, the series states...

CCH offers free access to Federal Employment Law Compare.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... CCH, Inc., part of Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, gave employment attorneys and human resources professionals free access through March 31 to its proprietary content via State and Federal Employment Law Compare. The move was designed to help...

OverDrive helps 1,000 publishers adopt EPUB.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... OverDrive, Inc. is distributing titles from nearly 1,000 publishers in EPUB format through its Content Reserve wholesale distribution service, which currently holds about 150,000 titles. The publishers include Random House, Hachette Book Group,...

Seven publishers adopt MetaPress 2.0.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... MetaPress added seven more publishers to its list of MetaPress 2.0 users: the American Association of School Librarians, the American Society of Comparative Law, Brepols Publishers, the Harvard Education Publishing Group, the International...

Digital Library Federation releases Metadata Remediation report.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The Digital Library Federation released "Future Directions in Metadata Remediation for Metadata Aggregators," a report that evaluates tools used to normalize and enhance metadata. The project, which took inventory of existing tools for metadata...

Swets, JALIS consortium team up.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Swets inked a 3-year contract with the Chinese JALIS consortium. Under the agreement, Swets will provide a suite of SwetsWise e-access services to JALIS member universities in China's Jiangsu province. The suite, which includes direct links to...

Johns Hopkins University makes research public with Collexis.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Johns Hopkins University (JHU) put its Collexis Expertise Portal online for public viewing. Provided by Collexis, the portal lets users search, sort, or view research conducted by the university and its faculty. While most institutions limit...

University presses: the next to go?(Up Front With Barbara Quint)
April 1, 2009... Now, now, calm down. I know times are tough, but are things so bad that when I say "the next to go," the only place that comes to mind is a hangman's scaffold? I must admit that there may be one advantage to such gloomy thoughts. As Samuel...

Business models, 'propportunities,' and Econtent top the news.(NewsBreak Update)
April 1, 2009... Newspapers are clearly struggling these days. Some are trying to find the right business model, and others are just trying to stay alive. There was an interesting message exchange on PaidContent.org that started with a discussion of the...

Clickability: a new web business platform.
April 1, 2009... Clickability, an on-demand web content management solution provider, launched Clickability Corporate Solutions in February. The new offering is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform with multichannel and multilanguage capabilities that enable...

JSTOR, Ithaka join forces.(NewsBytes)(JSTOR join forces with Ithaka Harbors, Inc.,)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... JSTOR merged with Ithaka Harbors, Inc., adding its resources to a coordinated set of offerings that bear the Ithaka name. The new entity helps academic institutions use digital technology to enhance scholarship and teaching and reduce...

GlobalPost takes internet journalism worldwide.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Experienced journalists Phil Balboni and Charles Sennott founded GlobalPost, a for-profit venture designed to improve global journalism on the internet. The site provides coverage of several geographic areas often ignored by American news media...

Times Publishing Co. mulls Congressional Quarterly sale.(NewsBytes)(acquisitions)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The Times Publishing Co. of St. Petersburg, Fla., asked the Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc. to handle a possible sale of Congressional Quarterly, Inc. (CQ), which publishes the CQ Weekly magazine, Governing magazine, CQ Today newsletter, and...

In memoriam: Robert S. Taylor.(death of Robert S. Taylor )(In memoriam)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Robert S. Taylor died after a lengthy illness at the age of 90. He served as dean of the Syracuse University School of Information Studies from 1972 to 1981 and was responsible for changing the institution's name from the School of Library...

Letter from the editor.
April 1, 2009... As we weather the ebbs and flows of the economy this year, one thing remains certain: There's still plenty of innovation going on out there. Risk-takers in the information technology industry continue to roll out state-of-the-art products...

Infotoons.
April 1, 2009... GEEZ, I JUST CHECKED ON MY 401(K)--OR WHAT'S LEFT OF IT. THAT BAD, EH? BUT I'M STILL HOLDING ONTO MY REAL ESTATE THOUGH. WHAT KIND OF REAL ESTATE? AN ISLAND... HOME, YACHT, AND LUXURIES GALORE! NOT BAD WHERE IS IT? ...

Tweets on an otherwise blank space.
April 1, 2009... [A Twitter message, or Tweet, contains up to 140 characters, including spaces. My column mimics the form this month.--Ed.] Faced again with a blank screen and looking down the barrel of a deadline--if only I could get by with a...

No stranger times than these.(Focus on Publishing)
April 1, 2009... I serve on the faculty senate at Simmons College where we've been hearing about the bond market, the insidious relationship between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the structure of endowment funds over the past few months. Since Simmons is...

The Washington Monument Syndrome.(Internet Waves)
April 1, 2009... George Hartzog, the seventh National Park Service director, served during the Nixon administration and was the first such official ever fired from his position. Despite the fact that his department continued to increase the amount of...

HIPAA gets new privacy rules.(Legal Issues)
April 1, 2009... There's one famous quote that can certainly apply to Congress: "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made" (Otto von Bismarck). The high school civics version of how a bill becomes law is less the rule than the...

Imprezzeo: perfecting the art of searching for images.(IT Spotlight)
April 1, 2009... Here's a high-tech company that offers a new way to search for relevant images. FOUNDER Imprezzeo, an image-based search technology company that was founded in June 2007, has operations in New York, London, and Sydney, Australia. The...

Information business meets copyright policy.(Intellectual Property)
April 1, 2009... I have had the privilege of being involved with copyright for most of my life from a variety of perspectives: teacher, lawyer, librarian, musician, artist, and journalist. To me, copyright is more than a series of words on a page or a legal...

Tax-time phishing scams out to lure the unsuspecting.
April 1, 2009... The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is once again one of the most targeted organizations for hackers who are busy trying to obtain Social Security numbers, bank account information, and other data from unsuspecting taxpayers. Fraudsters...

Mimosa: a SharePoint archive.(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Mimosa Systems recently announced its next-generation archiving solution for Microsoft Office SharePoint called Mimosa Near-Point for Office SharePoint Server 2007. Microsoft reports that Office SharePoint Server 2007 has experienced a 35%...

Confessions of a newshound.(Library Stuff Revisited)
April 1, 2009... In the past, my theories on keeping up-to-date mainly focused on the theme of how to do it (i.e., what tools to use to keep up effectively). They did not necessarily comprise the types of sites that we should be reading to stay current because...

Box up your files and move 'em to the cloud.(COOL TOOLS)
April 1, 2009... Computers have long facilitated the easy transportation of documents among work, school, and home: The 8-gigabyte flash drives that fit on key chains are certainly quite different from the 5.25" floppy disks we once used. And thanks to the...

H.W. Wilson Co.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of John Regazzi as chief strategy officer)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The H.W. Wilson Co. announced the appointment of John Regazzi to the newly created position of chief strategy officer. In this role, he will focus on new products, product enhancements, business development, and...

Ingram Digital.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of Frank Daniels as chief commercial officer and Kent Freeman as Chief Operating Officer)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ingram Digital announced the appointment of Frank Daniels as chief commercial officer and Kent Freeman as COO. In this role, Daniels will guide all commercial activities for the...

Swets.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of Henk C.J. Compier and Lorraine Ellery)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Swets announced two appointments for Swets Gateway. Henk C.J. Compier is the new director and Lorraine Ellery has been promoted to publisher sales manager. Prior to this, Compier was sales director at International Data Group. Before that,...

OCLC and the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) announced the recipients of the Library and Information Science Research Grants.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(award for Kathryn La Barre, Carol Tilley and Bill Kules )(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... OCLC and the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) announced the recipients of the Library and Information Science Research Grants. The awards went to Kathryn La Barre and Carol Tilley of the University of Illinois,...

ALA.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(American Library Association)(appointment of Patricia M. Hogan, Stephen L. Matthews, and Courtney L. Young)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... ALA announced that Patricia M. Hogan, Stephen L. Matthews, and Courtney L. Young have been elected to serve on its executive board. They will serve 3-year terms beginning in July. Hogan is an administrative librarian at the Poplar Creek...

Richard Bodien, director, marketing, Serials Solutions.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of Richard Bodien as new director of marketing )
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Despite recent technological advancements, Richard Bodien thinks there's as much innovation as there always has been. "Every time I think we have reached a new plateau of innovation, someone comes along with a new...

Report examines costs of OA publishing.(International REPORT)(open access)
April 1, 2009... Which of the three scholarly publishing models are having the most success in the open access (OA) domain today? A new report, commissioned by the U.K.'s Joint Information Services Commission (JISC) and published in late January, has a few...

New faces on NFAIS board.(NewsMakers)(National Federation of Advanced Information Services)(appointment of Terence Ford, Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie and Lynn Willis)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... A new team is settling into the governing chairs at the National Federation of Advanced Information Services, aka NFAIS. At the helm will be Terence Ford, head of research databases for the Getty Research Institute (The J. Paul Getty Trust) as...

Facebook frenzy.(NewsMakers)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... These are the kind of statistics that make Mark Zuckerberg smile. As the founder of Facebook, Zuckerberg can watch the number of global users keep rising and rising. At the start of 2008, Facebook reported a total of 34 million users outside...

More M&A, please.(NewsMakers)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc. (JEGI) is predicting strong M&A action in the media and information industry this year. Why? JEGI analysts have 10 good reasons: * Media companies will be pruning their...

Hot topics: intellectual property, print, and ethics.(Conference Circuit)
April 1, 2009... Last month, I noted that the May conference scene would be even more active than April was. And that's certainly true. Not only are there more conferences, but 80 new ones have also been added to the ITI Conference Calendar...

Information Today, Inc. conference dates.(Conference Circuit)(Calendar)
April 1, 2009... Buying & Selling eContent April 5-7 Camelback Inn, A JW Marriott Resort & Spa Scottsdale, Ariz. Content Delivery Summit May 11 Hilton New York * New York Enterprise Search Summit May 12-13 ...

NFAIS: greeting the Barbarians at the Gate.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)(National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services )
April 1, 2009... NFAIS structured its 51st annual conference in late February around the born-digital generation. The conference--titled Barbarians at the Gate? The Impact of Digital Natives and Emerging Technologies on the Future of Information...

SMX West 2009: search players are changing.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)(Search Marketing Expo )
April 1, 2009... It's a sign of the times. At the second Search Marketing Expo (SMX) West conference in mid-February at the Santa Clara Convention Center, the head count of more than 1,400 attendees proved to be down slightly from the previous year. However,...

O'Reilly TOC 2009: books, reading, and publishing.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)(Tools of Change)
April 1, 2009... O'Reilly Media held its third Tools of Change (TOC) for Publishing conference in February in New York. And just as with the first two TOCs, it emphasized new directions in publishing, particularly book publishing. About 1,000 people attended...

Conferences around the world.(Conference Circuit)(Calendar)
April 1, 2009... For information on ITI's conferences, turn to page 24. April 15-17: Las Vegas (The Orleans). The ISOneWorld2009 Conference & Convention--run by the Information Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information policy and research...

Hulu: the new premium content model.(Database Review)
April 1, 2009... Watching TV is difficult these days. I can't stand broadcast TV anymore because of the commercials. I'm 60 years old; I don't have that much time left; I can't spend it watching ads for The Biggest Loser. My VCR is also worn out and, since...

SwetsWise Online Content comes to Apple devices.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Apple iPhone and iPod touch users can now use their devices to access Swets-Wise Online Content, which includes direct links to more than 11,000 journal titles. The program lets users search online content, use multilevel linking, download...

Collexis unveils CTSA experts platform.(Product News & Reviews)(Collexis Holdings Inc's Clinical Translational Science Awards)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Collexis Holdings, Inc. launched the CTSA (Clinical Translational Science Awards) Experts Platform, which includes research profiles for more than 60,000 life science researchers from 38 institutions. Subscribers can...

ALPSP eBook Collection hits MyiLibrary.(Product News & Reviews)(Ingram Digital )(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Ingram Digital is offering the ALPSP eBook Collection (AeBC) to libraries and other institutions using the MyiLibrary platform. The collection, which includes more than 1,200 titles from specialist society, academic, and university press...

RSuite CMS 3.1 released.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Really Strategies released RSuite CMS 3.1, which features a redesigned user interface and changes to the underlying interface architecture to improve functionality and usability. The product also includes enhancements to its forms functionality...

LibLime launches free cataloging service.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... LibLime introduced [double dagger]biblios.net, a free, browser-based cataloging service that contains more than 30 million bibliographic and authority records, all licensed under the Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License. Using...

ebrary gets new interface, features.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... ebrary has improved its user interface with several new capabilities. The service now offers chapter ranking of search results, QuickView for instant document viewing in a browser, and personalized bookshelves with folders for organizing and...

Nature Publishing Group rolls out new service, stats, websites.(Product News & Reviews)(European Society of Human Genetics)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The Nature Publishing Group is teaming up with the European Society of Human Genetics to give researchers who publish their work in the European Journal of Human Genetics (EJHG) the option to make their articles open access. Now, authors can...

Ex Libris Group releases Aleph 20.0, Ex Libris bX.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The Ex Libris Group released version 20.0 of its Aleph integrated library system, adding more than 85 enhancements designed to streamline staff workflows and reduce total cost of ownership. Librarians can now perform cataloging and...

Elsevier: synthesizing with Reaxys.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2009... Elsevier may have just turned the old saying "Better living through chemistry" into "Better chemistry through Reaxys." Reaxys is the latest web-based workflow solution designed specifically for synthetic chemistry and a broad range of...

Atiz: scanning one page at a time.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2009... Nick Warnock, president of Atiz, is the first to admit that "necessity is the mother of invention." He started out working with Xerox copiers (hardware and software) before showcasing his innovative sales and marketing skills as a finalist on...

AccuWeather.com Stratus now available.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... AccuWeather.com unveiled AccuWeather.com Stratus, a weather widget that works with Adobe AIR software. The application is a small, transparent button that displays day and night same-day forecasts and features a fly-out panel with 5-day...

Global Health databases come to ISI Web of Knowledge.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... CABI's Global Health and Global Health Archive databases are now available via Thomson Reuters' ISI Web of Knowledge. The arrangement enables Global Health users to access weekly content updates, detect emerging trends, and identify potential...

Skycore targets Facebook users.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Skycore, LLC is offering Mobile Organizer, a mobile messaging and scheduling application designed on the Facebook platform. The application lets Facebook users send free text messages and mobile media greetings to their friends, set up a...

Oce MAX Advanced targets document management.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Oce Business Services introduced the Oce MAX Advanced document performance management system, designed to reduce document management costs and improve operational efficiency. The system relies on Six Sigma tools that let clients measure,...

Alacra launches Alacra Pulse Platform, Street Pulse Program.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Alacra, Inc. launched its new Alacra Pulse Platform and Street Pulse, the first product for that platform. The platform combines web content from traditional news sources with information from blogs deemed reliable by Alacra's editors to...

H.W. Wilson goes to the theater.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... H.W. Wilson released Play Index 2003-2007, a resource that lets users search plays by subject, style, setting, staff, and production requirements. Designed for teachers, students, drama coaches, and other researchers, the print and online...

New website targets ebook community.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Gutenberg.com, billed as a "central information resource and social network for the ebook community," was recently launched. The site offers sections about ebook readers, ebook content, the industry, and technology. Editorials are also...

Medpedia launches in beta form.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The Medpedia Project released a public beta version of Medpedia, a technology platform for the worldwide health community that contains up-to-date medical information submitted and maintained by international health experts. The platform...

WebJunction's Library Management competencies now available.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... WebJunction released Library Management Competencies, a guide to courses and resources for library managers. Available at the WebJunction website, the guide identifies the key aspects of managing a library and defines the associated knowledge,...

New European Library website goes live.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The European Library unveiled a new version of its website, which features learning and research materials from 38 national libraries in Europe. The new site includes several enhancements recommended by users, such as multilingual search...

TVissimo adds online video support.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... TVissimo, a free website that lists air times of television shows and movies, added online video to its broadcast TV search. When users search for a show or movie, the site displays a 2-week TV schedule as well as available online videos from...

Future Point Systems: new analytic views in Starlight.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2009... Future Point's Starlight Visual Information System is taking visual analytics to an all-new level. Its award-winning technology (R&D100 and FLC [Federal Laboratory Consortium] Awards Program) gives users analytical data that "can help tame...

U.S. GPO unveils FDsys.(Product News & Reviews)(Government Printing Office)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The U.S. Government Printing Office's (GPO) new digital system, FDsys, is now live. Replacing GPO Access, the new information management system lets the GPO gather, process, preserve, and archive U.S. government information and then make it...

Reprints Desk overhauls STM Document Delivery.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Reprints Desk, Inc. upgraded its STM Document Delivery service, adding web services technology that lets users order directly from their intranets or corporate websites. The service also gives clients access to the Reprints Desk delivery engine...

Two chapters added to E-Resources Management Handbook.(Product News & Reviews)(UK Serials Group )(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... The E-Resources Management Handbook, an open access guide to information industry issues published by the UK Serials Group (UKSG), is adding another seven chapters. Two of these chapters follow the original book's formula, providing analyses of...

Wiley-Blackwell to publish Physiology Online.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Wiley-Blackwell was named publisher of Physiology Online, which covers current physiology knowledge and will be launched online in January 2010. The online journal will contain all 30,000 pages of the American Physiology Society's (APS)...

BioOne platform gets upgrade.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... BioOne is bringing enhanced functionality and a redesigned interface to its community members with the BioOne platform. Serviced by Allen Press, Inc. and powered by Atypon Systems, Inc., the upgraded platform includes personalized profiles...

InCites: charting research performance.(Product News & Reviews)
April 1, 2009... When institutions and organizations want to track their performance in the marketplace or analyze research productivity against their peers, metrics can prove to be a valuable tool. That's why the Healthcare and Science business of Thomson...

askSam Systems launches Obama speech database.(Product News & Reviews)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... askSam Systems compiled the complete transcripts of more than 220 speeches by President Barack Obama into a free, searchable database called The Speeches of Barack Obama. The database includes transcripts dating from 2002 to 2009 that can be...

Milabra tackles image and video recognition.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Milabra unveiled a web-based image and video recognition engine for online media companies. Also called Milabra, the engine "reads" images rather than just file names and tags, helping users ensure that their image and video content is...

Faronics Software targets libraries with WINSelect 7.1.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... Faronics Software launched WINSelect 7.1, a tool that lets libraries take more control over their computers. With the program, librarians can limit their operating systems and applications to include certain features, ensuring that catalog...

RAD Data Communications, Ipanema Technologies team up.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
April 1, 2009... RAD Data Communications and Ipanema Technologies are working on a joint system that will improve added-value services in layer 2 and layer 3 virtual private networks (VPNs). Based on RAD's intelligent customer premises equipment and Ipanema's...