Information Today articles from December 2004

Information Today archives from December 2004

The tale of Iraq's 'cemetery of books'.(International Report)(Transcript)
December 1, 2004... [Editor's Note: This is an edited version of Saad Eskander's keynote speech at the Internet Librarian International 2004 conference held in London Oct. 10-12.] Introduction We all know how significant is the role of national libraries...

Platform battles at EUSIDIC.(Report From The Field)(European Association of Information Services)
December 1, 2004... The European Association of Information Services (EUSIDIC) took "Content Ownership Versus Platform Ownership Or The Platform Battle" as its 2004 conference theme. Although no one actually came to blows during the October meeting in Helsinki,...

KMWorld & Intranets 2004.(Report From The Field)
December 1, 2004... The fall usually finds me attending the Internet Librarian conference in Monterey, Calif., and savoring the local seafood on the wharf. This year, for the first time, I decided to taste the offerings at another fall event held several weeks...

EBSCO Publishing partners with All Academic.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... EBSCO Publishing has entered into an agreement with All Academic, Inc. that will provide researchers with access to a growing collection of full-text conference papers from top scholarly societies. EBSCO's recent partnership with All...

netLibrary teams with Recorded Books.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... netLibrary has teamed with Recorded Books, LLC to create a new program for delivering audiobooks to libraries through the Web. Key elements of the program include an innovative pricing structure, unlimited access, the ability for patrons to...

Blackwell Publishing purchases Food and Nutrition Press, Inc.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Blackwell Publishing announced its purchase of Food and Nutrition Press, Inc. The acquisition adds 11 journal titles and 50 books to Blackwell's food science list. As part of the agreement, Blackwell will now publish Foodservice Research...

Librarians as Santa's Elves.(Up Front)
December 1, 2004... It's Christmas season! And what gift do I and my information professional colleagues want under our trees? What gift will make us happy for all of 2005 and many decades to come? A nice, big (BIG!) depository for all the open access scholarly...

The latest on Ingenta, Scopus, OA, and more.(NewsBreak Update)(HighBeam Research)
December 1, 2004... Every year at this time, I always wonder where the last few months have gone, dismayed that I'm hopelessly behind in what I wanted to accomplish by the end of the year. But my trip to KMWorld & Intranets in late October was very stimulating....

ICOLC updates statement of current perspective and preferred practices.(News Bytes)(International Coalition of Library Consortia)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) announced a second update to its 1998 Statement of Current Perspective and Preferred Practices for the Selection and Purchase of Electronic Information. Last updated in 2001, this...

U. of I. plays role in digital preservation project.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign has been chosen as one of the lead institutions in a new Library of Congress (LC) project to save at-risk digital materials nationwide. The U. of I. Library and the U. of I. Graduate School of Library...

LexisNexis content available via BlackBerry.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... LexisNexis U.S. announced the availability of LexisNexis content to attorneys and law firms through the BlackBerry wireless platform. With this latest phase of wireless delivery options, legal professionals now can search the LexisNexis...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
December 1, 2004... The October Internet Insights column by Peter Jacso presented the results of a review of WebFeat Prism as implemented by the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (N.C.) and by the Thomson ISI Web of Knowledge. Please be...

Federated searching fact check.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... Regarding Peter Jacso's October 2004 article "Thoughts About Federated Searching" [page 17], there are a number of corrections I need to make. Statement: The author tested and benchmarked WebFeat 3. Fact check: The author never tested...

Fear factors.
December 1, 2004... The bellwether of the dot-com era and the Google of Wall Street in its day, AOL is having a face-off with the cosmic truth of technology enterprises: Technology comes and goes, and product life cycles do not tend to last longer than a...

Infotoons.
December 1, 2004... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Captions: AHA! AFTER YEARS OF CHARGING HIGH PRICES, IT LOOKS LIKE AOL'S BUBBLE HAS FINALLY BURST. THAT STINKS I LOVE BUBBLES! NO, SILLY! I MEAN AOL IS LOSING SUBSCRIBERS BECAUSE FOLKS ARE MOVING TO...

Publishers sue Treasury Department.(Focus on Publishing)
December 1, 2004... In October 2003, the U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) clarified its position regarding the editorial practices at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and clearly hoped that the uproar...

Jacso's cheers and jeers-for 2004.(Internet Insights)
December 1, 2004... This year, I will dispense my cheers and jeers to organizations, products, and/or services that have done the most and least in helping users quickly and efficiently find the most promising licensed and/or open access databases on the topics...

E-rate program on hold: new E-rate accounting rules.(Legal Issues)(Telecommunications regulations)
December 1, 2004... The federal E-rate program was established in 1996 as part of a broad effort to bring high-speed Internet access to schools and libraries around the country, particularly in rural areas. Under the program, schools and libraries can receive...

The OA battle marches on.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2004... Richard Poynder's historical review of open access (OA) in your October issue is one of the most balanced accounts of this topic. Steve Harnad, the crusader-hero of this movement, should feel happy that his subversive proposal could not be...

Kurt Molholm's lessons learned.(Interview with Kurt Molholm)(Interview)
December 1, 2004... On Nov. 1, Kurt Molholm retired from his position as administrator of the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). During his 44 years of public service in the federal government, he was also very active in organizations serving the...

WilsonWeb offers project COUNTER statistical reports.(NewsBytes)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... WilsonWeb has passed an audit of its usage statistics reports by Project COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources). Standardized database usage statistics through COUNTER compliancy is an issue of increasing importance...

Where the Internet is taking us: with its widespread adoption as a primary source for information access and communications, the Internet continues to transform our businesses, our institutions, and our lives.(Perspectives)
December 1, 2004... Year-end is a time to look backward and forward. In terms of the Internet, looking backward gives us a clear view of the tremendous changes that have been taking place in our culture as result of widespread access to the Net. Looking forward...

Basketball inventor hails from where?(CyberSports)
December 1, 2004... OK, kids, put away your textbooks--or, more accurately, your wirelessenabled laptop computers with the DVD burners and more hard drive space than the Library of Congress--because it's time for a pop quiz. Where was the inventor of...

Are you Tigger, Pooh, or a box of macaroni?(Online Tests)
December 1, 2004... So I'm Owl. Of all the Winnie-the-Pooh characters, I was afraid I would be most like the skeptical Eeyore. But I'm Owl. Apparently, I'm "always full of stories and facts" and "love to talk about my experiences." Of course, I "don't always have...

Hoover's Online expands U.K., Canadian offerings.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Hoover's, Inc. announced the expansion of its offerings in the U.K. and Canada. Hoover's has introduced a new U.K. service featuring access to company records, including more than 4,000 from Hoover's and 1.7 million from D&B U.K. In addition,...

Readex creates Archive of Americana.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Readex has announced the creation of a Web-based Archive of Americana, featuring fully text-searchable facsimile images. This new resource, comprising four major primary source collections, provides online access to America's printed record....

GuruNet: cheap, simple, and good.(Database Review)
December 1, 2004... What do people want from their information? Three things: They want it cheap, simple, and good. And--this is important--they want it in that order. This premise explains a lot: the slow progress of the early professional and consumer online...

Dialog enhances Dialog DataStar.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Dialog announced that it has completed a series, of enhancements to its family of Dialog DataStar services that help users better focus the search process, be alerted to relevant new content, and integrate research into their work flow. ...

ISI Web of Knowledge offers Biological Abstracts.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Thomson announced that Biological Abstracts is now available on the ISI Web of Knowledge. Covering every life sciences discipline, Biological Abstracts offers essential journal literature--with more than 8 million archival records dating back...

NewsGator Online edition free to consumers.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... NewsGator Technologies, Inc. announced that a new version of NewsGator Online will be free to consumers at http://www.newsgator.com. NewsGator has added a number of innovations to its existing Web-based aggregator, and users can now track all...

EBSCO adds functionality, content.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... EBSCO Publishing announced the addition of Searchable Cited References to the EBSCOhost version of CINAHL. The company also announced the addition of PsycEXTRA to EBSCOhost. Searchable Cited References Searchable Cited References...

PsycEXTRA.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The addition of PsycEXTRA enhances the existing collection of psychology and behavioral sciences databases available via EBSCOhost by providing coverage of relevant topics from a unique perspective. Aside from access via the American...

CrossRef adds new services, expands to new content areas.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... CrossRef now has more than 700 participating publishers and societies and is adding an average of 9,000 DOIs per day to its system. Of the more than 12 million DOIs now registered with CrossRef, 850,000-plus are assigned to books and...

Access Innovations receives patent.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Access Innovations announced that it has been issued a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its MAI Lib software system. MAI Lib automates the process of adding Library of Congress subject headings (LCSH) to documents stored...

Thomson ResearchSoft, SCIPROOF announce marketing agreement.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Thomson ResearchSoft and SCIPROOF, LLC announced a collaboration focused on SCIPROOF's flagship product, sciPROOF. Under the agreement, ResearchSoft will co-market sciPROOF worldwide to researchers in academic and government institutions as...

WSJ.com offers The Morning Brief.(Product News & Reviews)(Wall Street Journal Online )(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com announced the launch of The Morning Brief, a daily e-mail that provides analysis of the past day's news (as seen by a variety of media and other outlets) along with breaking overnight news. The...

MuseGlobal, Inc.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... MuseGlobal, Inc. has announced the creation of two new positions to support its partner program.

EOS International, IME.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Graeme Wilson has been promoted to vice president of the partner program. Previously, Wilson held positions at EOS International, IME, and the University of Glasgow. He holds an M.Sc. in information management from the University of Strathclyde...

Blackwell's Book Services.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Blackwell's Book Services has announced the addition of two new regional library representatives for North America.

U.S. mid-Atlantic territory.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Dan Havercamp is the new regional sales manager for the U.S. mid-Atlantic territory. Before this, he was with Gale's Primary Source Microfilm division. Previously, he was head of technical services at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico...

Sylvain Robichaud is the new regional library consultant for the provinces of Eastern Canada.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Sylvain Robichaud is the new regional library consultant for the provinces of Eastern Canada. Most recently, he was a library services consultant with OCLC Canada. Before that, he was head of research at Quebec Amerique. Robichaud earned his...

NewsStand, Inc.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... NewsStand, Inc. has announced the addition of Pam Clark as account manager for newspapers and magazines. In this position, she will be the main liaison to publisher clients and will manage all digital circulation marketing programs using...

Elsevier Science.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Elsevier Science has announced that James Butcher has returned to the editorial staff of its medical publication The Lancet. Most recently, he worked as senior editor at the Public Library of Science's open access medical journal, PLoS...

Brodart Co.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Brodart Co. has announced the retirement of its founder and CEO, Arthur Brody. According to the announcement, Joe Largen, president and COO, will now assume the chairman of the board position in addition to his present position. Source:...

OCLC announced that the Meadow Grove Library (Neb.), the Storm Lake Public Library (Iowa), and the Windsor Public Library (Ontario, Canada) have earned the Technology Planning awards from WebJunction.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... OCLC announced that the Meadow Grove Library (Neb.), the Storm Lake Public Library (Iowa), and the Windsor Public Library (Ontario, Canada) have earned the Technology Planning awards from WebJunction. This award recognizes technology planning...

Robert Granader, CEO of market-research.com.(People Line & the Executive Profile)
December 1, 2004... As founder and CEO of MarketResearch.com (MRDC), Rob Granader has helped make this dot-com startup an established tool for business information users around the world. With more than a third of its business outside the U.S., this year...

Internet Librarian International 2004.(Report From The Field)
December 1, 2004... Two days, two keynote sessions, two different worlds. Whereas Danny Sullivan's Internet Librarian International keynote looked forward to the next developments in search engine technology (mostly directed to those of us who are spoiled for...

Spring conference Calendar.(Calendar)
December 1, 2004... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 16-18 Computers in Libraries Washington, D.C. http://www.infotoday.com/cil2005 16-18 Internet@Schools East 2005 Washington, D.C. http://www.infotoday.com/I@SE2005 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 10-12 Buying &...

A side Trip to the Intel Museum.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... When in Santa Clara, visit the Intel Museum, which is only 2.5 miles from the convention center. It was a nice, brisk walk on a beautiful October afternoon. The museum is a popular stop for student groups--thousands of students in grades 2 to...

Not just chemical information.(Report From The Field)(International Chemical Information Conference)
December 1, 2004... The International Chemical Information Conference (ICIC) began 16 years ago as a forum to discuss the specialized and complex issues of chem ical information retrieval. The 2004 ICIC occurred Oct. 18-20 in the charming and historic lakeside...

Conference Calendar.
December 1, 2004... December 7-9: Orlando (Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate). DCI's Portals, Collaboration, and Content Management Conference has been created to teach you how to design a portal from scratch and improve the performance of your existing...

Make a sticky Web Site.(Cover Notes)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Library Web Sites: Creating Online Collections and Services by A. Paula Wilson Chicago: American Library Association, 2004 ISBN: 0-8389-0872-1 146 pages $35 No doubt your library already has some sort of Web site. It was probably created...

Weather or not.(In Other Words)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Although it didn't exactly make the headlines during the final weeks of the presidential campaign, sometime in October, a short article appeared in my newspaper that said the Farmer's Almanac was predicting a really bad winter. A week or so...

The Skeptical Business Searcher: the Information Advisor's Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites, and Sources.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Skeptical Business Searcher: The Information Advisor's Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites, and Sources By Robert Berkman This is the experts' guide to finding dependable, high-quality company and industry data on the free Web....

The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook: a Guide for the Serious Searcher.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook: A Guide for the Serious Searcher By Randolph Hock Foreword by Gary Price The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook is the essential guide for anyone who uses the Internet for research:...

Choosing and Using a News Alert Service.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Choosing and Using a News Alert Service By Robert Berkman There are dozens of competing firms that offer an e-mail-based news alert service. But how to know which one is best? This comprehensive new guide explains how these tools work...

The Accidental Library Manager.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... 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...

Best Technology Practices in Higher Education.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Best Technology Practices in Higher Education Edited by Les Lloyd A handful of progressive teachers and administrators are integrating technology in new and creative ways at their colleges and universities, raising the bar for all...

Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence: the Online and Offline Secrets of Top CI Researchers.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence: The Online and Offline Secrets of Top CI Researchers By Margaret Metcalf Carr; Edited by Reva Basch; Foreword by Jan Herring Companies operating in today's unpredictable roller-coaster...

The Web Library: Building World Class Personal Library with Free Web Resources.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Web Library: Building a World Class Personal Library with Free Web Resources By Nicholas G. Tomaiuolo Edited by Barbara Quint With this remarkable, eye-opening book and its companion Web site, Nicholas G. Tomaiuolo shows how anyone...

Assessing Competitive Intelligence Software: a Guide to Evaluating CI Technology.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Assessing Competitive Intelligence Software: A Guide to Evaluating CI Technology By France Bouthillier and Kathleen Shearer Foreword by Chun Wei Choo As commercial software products for competitive intelligence (CI) emerge and gain...