Information Today articles from December 2006

Information Today archives from December 2006

Internet Governance Forum: all talk, different format.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)
December 1, 2006... From my perspective here in Vouliagmeni, Greece, it's impossible to say what the inaugural meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), held in an Athens suburb last month, actually covered. The meeting really wasn't about anything in...

What shook information technology in 2006?(Industry overview)
December 1, 2006... As we close the last issue of Information Today for 2006, I asked a few industry notables a key question that has been on my mind: What person or event do you think had the most impact on the information technology industry in 2006? Once...

The spirit of giving.(United Nations Environment Programme along with Yale University and publishers introduces Online Access to Research in the Environment)
December 1, 2006... 'Tis the season to indulge in the spirit of giving, and leave it to a group of forward-thinking individuals and corporations to collaborate on a project that will keep giving long into the future. The United Nations Environment Programme...

AOL acquires Relegence Corp.(America Online Inc.)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... AOL announced that it has acquired The Relegence Corp., the financial news and information search technology company. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Relegence, a privately held company, and its 60 employees will continue...

Study pinpoints leading factors to canceled subscriptions.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... A study that examined the purchasing preferences of more than 400 librarians internationally indicated several key factors that could prompt a librarian to substitute open access (OA) materials for journal subscriptions. The study revealed that...

Springer signs e-book agreements with universities and corporations.(Springer Science+Business Media )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Springer Science+Business Media has reported an increase in the demand for its e-books from the academic and business world as recent agreements have been signed with academic institutions around the world: the Greater Western Library Alliance...

Newspapers on the run.(Up Front with Barbara Quint)
December 1, 2006... A few years ago, a telemarketer called to ask me to subscribe to the print edition of The New York Times. Of course, this was in the days before the Federal Trade Commission (assisted by the Federal Communications Commission) set up its blessed...

Buying, selling, and partnering top the news.(NewsBreak Update)
December 1, 2006... The big news as we went to press was the announcement of an upcoming reorganization at The Thomson Corp., including the planned sale of the Thomson Learning division with its well-known Thomson Gale subsidiary. The sale of Thomson Gale had...

Milestone: Web sites top 100 million.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Netcraft recorded more than 100 million Web sites as of November. The Internet added 27.4 million sites in 2006, essentially doubling in size since May 2004 when the survey results hit 50 million. Blogs and small-business Web sites have...

EBSCO Publishing's health library receives accreditation.(from Utilization Review Accreditation Commission)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... EBSCO Publishing announced that it has been awarded the Health Content Provider Accreditation from URAC for Health Library content through 2007. This ensures that the provider delivers the highest quality of content and services. The...

ProQuest portal leads in 19th century research.(ProQuest Information and Learning Co.)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... ProQuest Information and Learning added new products to its 19th century collection, including the first digital versions of British Periodicals Collection I and Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, more than 70 years of content to the...

ClearForest and Business Objects arrange partnership.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... ClearForest Corp. announced that it has become a technology partner with Business Objects. ClearForest, which is a member of the Business Objects Technology Partner Program, will work with Business Objects to create structure from text sources...

Thomson announces strategic realignment.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... The Thomson Corp. announced that it will realign its operations to concentrate on providing electronic solutions to business and professional markets, effective Jan. 1, 2007. Thomson intends to sell its Thomson Learning businesses, which serve...

WebFeat launches partnership program for content providers.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... WebFeat launched the WebFeat Friendly Partnership Program for content providers to ensure that the partner's databases are optimized for use with WebFeat's federated search engine. Among the participating content providers are ABC-CLIO,...

NetLibrary offers Chinese e-content.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... NetLibrary is now offering subscription services to three Chinese-language databases from airiti, Inc. The new databases will provide librarians and their patrons with access to 338,000 full-text articles from leading Taiwanese and Chinese...

Project MUSE adds server in China.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Project MUSE set up a new server in China designed to introduce MUSE content to the university community. The new server is MUSE's latest development to expand its international subscriber base. Working with iGroup, MUSE's Hong Kong based sales...

Nstein Technologies signs deal with Transcontinental Media.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Nstein Technologies signed a contract with Transcontinental Media, Canada's largest publisher of consumer magazines. This deal deploys Nstein's Ntelligent Content Management (NCM) Suite to let Transcontinental optimize the publication and...

National Archive Publishing Co. marks first anniversary.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... National Archive Publishing Co. (NAPC) celebrated its first anniversary in late October. The company is composed of three main businesses: UMI Periodicals in Microform, XanEdu Custom Publishing, and NAPC Content Solutions. This year's...

Digital memory aids remember when you don't.(Gordon Bell and Sunil Vemuri's research on computer memory )
December 1, 2006... Ever wish you could go back to a certain time in your life? Maybe you'd like to re-experience some event from your past, such as the moment you were offered your dream job or when you landed the account that resulted in your promotion. ...

Letter from the editor.(Web sites reached 100mn marks)(Editorial)
December 1, 2006... Web surfers, beware. You have more ground to cover than ever before. When I was compiling our NewsBytes section for this issue, I came across a gem of a story. As of November 2006, the Internet had reached a milestone with more than 100...

Not on my holiday list.
December 1, 2006... I heard that the new iPod is the hottest item on shopping lists everywhere this year, but it's not on mine. Why? A couple of months ago when our marketing department gave me a leftover iPod Shuffle after a promotional campaign ended, I...

Infotoons.(Brief article)(Cartoon)
December 1, 2006... SO AL, GIVE ME THE LATEST ON GLOBAL WARMING... SINCE I'M ON THE FLY, CATCH ME ON MY BLACKBERRY OR CELL AFTER MIDNIGHT. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] AL, HERE'S MY UPDATE: SNOW IN BOSTON, BLIZZARD IN BUFFALO, CLEAR IN CLEVELAND, FRIGID IN...

Europe builds DRIVER.(Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research)
December 1, 2006... The Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research (DRIVER) project is an international partnership designed to build a large-scale public infrastructure for research information across Europe. The project is a joint...

Abolishing fair use?(Copyrights)
December 1, 2006... Fair use has been one of the problem children of copyright law for a long time. Since it was originally created, it has lived in a state of conflict. It was designed to let one person infringe legally on the copyright held by another, which may...

Marketed to since birth.(Advertising and children)
December 1, 2006... Everyone has friends, relatives, and co-workers who spend an inordinate amount of time forwarding jokes, homilies, etc., around cyberspace. Sometimes the message is something that is genuinely interesting or funny, but most of the time... it's...

Tips to gain control of your in box.(E-mail)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Too many e-mails? Check out these tips for keeping your in box in shape: Break the habit: E-mailing is an addiction, and experts believe the first step to conquering the addiction is to limit the number of times a day you indulge, even at...

What's hot in 'social softwr'?(software)(Column)
December 1, 2006... Being the final speaker on the last day of a weeklong conference can be a bit frightening for more than one reason. First, will anyone show up? Second, will I repeat most of what was said during the first 3 days? Third, since I was...

CAS agreement with Brazilian universities ups access to SciFinder Scholar.(Chemical Abstracts Service)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) will continue its agreement for the third year with the Brazilian Ministry of Education CAPES group to provide the SciFinder Scholar research tool to a consortium of Brazilian universities. More than 150...

JiWire offers Wi-Fi tips.(NewsFlash)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... JiWire (aka Joining Invisible Wires), a Wi-Fi company that offers a hotspot directory and a software suite to connect mobile users to a wireless network, offers these tips for wireless travelers: * Find a hotspot on the road: When you can't...

Clickhaus combats click fraud.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... clickhaus.org, an online database that shares the IP addresses of organizations that have been involved in click fraud, reported that 70 percent of annual online advertising spending is wasted because of click fraud. Click fraud occurs when a...

Sony offers free online play for PS3.(Playstation 3)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Sony Corp.'s PLAYSTATION3 (PS3) is offering online play for free. According to the company's Web site, "We are sticking with our philosophy of maintaining an open platform; the online basic services such as playing online games, accessing...

Robots offer round-the-clock care for stroke patients.(Trinity Health's Michigan Stroke Network)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Stroke victims in Michigan can awake to find a robot at their bedside. Trinity Health's Michigan Stroke Network (which was launched on Nov. 1, 2006) provides the 22 member hospitals with education and training for staff on stroke care, access...

Search engines, European-style.(Quaero Corp.)
December 1, 2006... Organizations that are headquartered in the U.S. such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! continue to dominate the Web search space, but does Europe have anything to offer in comparison? At the moment, the answer is no. However, the underlying...

SIIA launches anti-piracy program.(Software & Information Industry Association )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has launched its Corporate Content Anti-Piracy Program (CCAP). Its first case is against a market research company that allegedly copied and redistributed digital articles without licenses....

WebJunction awarded grant from Gates foundation.(Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a $2 million grant to WebJunction to enhance the usability of the Web site and keep it in pace with its audience and growing content. The 1-year grant for WebJunction.org will help fund specific...

The high-trek, high-tech hiker.(Linnea Christiani of Marcinko Enterprises)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Linnea Christiani and her family like to travel during vacations--travel up, that is. In the January 2007 (Vol. 15, No. 1) cover story for Searcher, "High Technology: Online on Everest," Christiani recounts their adventures climbing 21,000 feet...

Endeavor's schools of digital collections.(Management of Images in a Distributed Environment with Shared Services)
December 1, 2006... The University of Leeds is one of four U.K. universities getting a jump on "spring cleaning" these days as part of a special digitization project. The 2-year program, better known as the Management of Images in a Distributed Environment with...

Archives: old and new.(International REPORT)
December 1, 2006... The Royal Library of Alexandria, which was founded by Ptolemy II in approximately 290 B.C., was once the largest library in the world. During its heyday, it was said to have held 532,800 scrolls. The library contents were filed and cataloged by...

Old year--new year: the conferences continue.(Conference Circuit)
December 1, 2006... Conference attendees are heading for a well-earned respite as conference organizers join the entire industry on a holiday break. As usual, no conferences are scheduled for the holiday season from Dec. 18 to Jan. 3, 2007. In my column last...

SCIP into Slovenia.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)
December 1, 2006... The 8th International Conference on Business Information, held biennially in Slovenia, attracted more than 50 delegates (information professionals, marketing researchers, and competitive intelligence specialists) on Oct. 26 to the Mons Hotel in...

Meeting global demands: Internet Librarian International 2006.(Conference notes)
December 1, 2006... "Discovering new resources and demystifying web technologies" was the subtitle for the 8th annual Internet Librarian International (ILI) conference. A record turnout was reported during the 2-day program, which was held Oct. 16-17 at the...

InfoCommerce: becoming one with your market.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)
December 1, 2006... InfoCommerce's annual 2-day conference, held Oct. 10-12 in Philadelphia, turned the spotlight on the real needs of today's businesses. Billed as The Working Conference for the Thinking Publisher, the meeting pulled together a group of about 300...

Scenes from Internet Librarian 2006.
December 1, 2006... This 10th annual Internet Librarian conference in Monterey, Calif., reported a record 1,493 attendees. Sessions centered on Web tools and strategies, social computing applications (such as wikis and MySpace), new ideas in mashups and gadgets,...

Conference calendar.
December 1, 2006... December 4-5: New Orleans (International Conference Center). The theme of the Eighth International Conference on Grey Literature (GL8) is Harnessing the Power of Grey. Speakers will present research results on collection development,...

Sane hallucinations on the Web.(Link-Up@Home: Your Personal Guide to the Web)(Synesthesia)
December 1, 2006... The Internet has allowed a group of people with unusual abilities to find each other and learn more about their powers. Some didn't even know that others had similar abilities until they read about them online. Conversely, some assumed that...

Danger with a capital D.(CyberSports)(GrindTV.com and Whitey Ford.com)(Website list)
December 1, 2006... Your Field Correspondent usually doesn't pay much attention to extreme sports. At my age, traveling more than 30 miles to cover a high school football game is extreme enough. But the press release for the newly redesigned GrindTV.com was so...

Wi-Fi cities: a plan of action.(municipal wireless network)(Column)
December 1, 2006... U.S. cities are enthusiastic about bringing wireless Internet systems to their communities. By mid-2005, at least 100 municipalities were planning such networks, aka municipal wireless network or Muni Wi-Fi. By September 2006, the movement...

Collarity search technology channels relevancy with search communities.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Collarity, Inc. opened its doors with Collarity Compass, a search technology that ranks information automatically based on individual interests and community search to improve relevancy. Collarity, named for a combination of "collaboration,...

Globalyzer: getting software ready for an international market.(Product News & Reviews)
December 1, 2006... These days, when companies of all sizes need to have products and services ready for a global marketplace, customizing software is no easy feat. It's not just a matter of translating data and code from one language to another. Hidden codes can...

DataPlace to the rescue.(Column)
December 1, 2006... We all need statistics from time to time, whether it's for a report, a presentation, a proposal, or to settle an argument with the know-it-all in the next office. But statistics users face two problems: finding them and using them. Unless...

Blackwell Book Services teams up with ebrary to deliver e-books.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Blackwell Book Services and ebrary, Inc. introduced ECHO, an e-content hosting platform for libraries. Librarians worldwide can now purchase and manage e-book and print collections within their current acquisitions work flow. ECHO, which is...

Full-image online newspaper collection releases new option.(PressDisplay 3.0)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... ProQuest Information and Learning has announced the release of PressDisplay 3.0 with added features and functionality, including cross-searching of the entire title archives to the collection of more than 300 titles in the online newspaper...

Ovid debuts Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Journal Legacy Archive.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Ovid Technologies, Inc. announced that it will offer the Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) Journal LegacyArchive on Journals@Ovid. The LWW Journal Legacy Archive offers more than 3 million pages of information--more than 800,000 articles of...

Nstein introduces content management suite for e-publishing industry.(Nstein Technologies )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Nstein Technologies announced the introduction of the Ntelligent Content Management Suite (NCM) for the e-publishing industry. The solution combines Nstein's text-mining technology and content management applications from the European-based...

MPS Technologies launches BookStore in beta.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... MPS Technologies plans to develop a digital book platform with the beta launch of BookStore, a digital warehouse that lets publishers make content available for search and purchase online, while retaining control of all copyright, metadata,...

CrossRef launches Simple-Text Query service.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... CrossRef has launched its Simple-Text Query service. With partner Inera, CrossRef has created a custom version of Inera's eXtyles refXpress that parses unstructured, simple-text references into granular and valid XML and returns any matching...

Rightslink: one-shop stopping.(Copyright Clearance Center)
December 1, 2006... When it comes to negotiating the maze of copyright permissions and licensing, the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) has been reaching out to scores of publishers dealing with similar issues. In fact, BMJ Publishing Group, Ltd. has recently...

Wiley set to publish Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education.(International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology has selected John Wiley & Sons)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IIYBMB) has selected John Wiley & Sons to publish Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, effective with the January 2007 issue. The print and online journal will be available...

NPG and ISME announce new publication.(Nature Publishing Group and the International Society for Microbial Ecology)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Nature Publishing Group (NPG) and the International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME) launched a new international publication called The ISME Journal: Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology. The journal will be available in print...

Factiva enhances new taxonomy warehouse.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Factiva has introduced its enhanced Taxonomy Warehouse, a community directory and information source for taxonomies, thesauri, and classification schemes. The enhancements have added more than 100 taxonomies; a redesigned Web site; a new A-Z...

SirsiDynix SchoolRooms launches Web site.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... SirsiDynix has redesigned and enhanced its Web site for SchoolRooms (http:// www.schoolrooms.net), an online learning portal for the K-12 community. The site now delivers user-friendly and interactive information about the portal through...

EBSCO Publishing offers integration toolkit.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... EBSCO Publishing now offers a way for hospitals and medical offices to integrate EBSCO resources with any Electronic Health or Medical Record (EHR or EMR) system. The EBSCOhost Integration Toolkit (EIT) is designed to reduce the cost and...

Dialog adds Australian database to IP coverage.(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Dialog has added the TRADEMARKSCAN-Australia database to the Dialog platform, expanding its intellectual property portfolio and providing greater coverage for the Asia-Pacific region. Dialog also offers trademark coverage for Japan and South...

WilsonWeb adds Current Issues: Reference Shelf Plus.(H.W. Wilson )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... H.W. Wilson has added Current Issues: Reference Shelf Plus to WilsonWeb. The full-text database offers selected articles from key publications on social, scientific, health, political, and global issues. Users can also use the database, which...

Vivisimo celebrates technology milestones and debuts new features.(Clusty)
December 1, 2006... Clusty, Vivisimo, Inc.'s consumer search engine designed to cluster results, celebrated its second anniversary in October with a new Web site design including a retro-looking Clusty patch and updated features. The site, which first introduced...

ProQuest historical newspapers adds New York Tribune.(ProQuest Information and Learning and New York Public Library)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... ProQuest Information and Learning and the New York Public Library have added the New York Tribune from 1900 to 1910 to ProQuest Historical Newspapers. The Tribune was once considered one of the most avant-garde newspapers of its time, covering...

Wolters Kluwer Health.(Karen Abramson appointed )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Wolters Kluwer Health announced the appointment of Karen Abramson as president and CEO of its medical research business unit. Most recently, Abramson was vice president and general manager of CT Corsearch, a division of Wolters Kluwer...

EBSCO Information Services.(Phil Wallas and Tom Dyer appointed )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... EBSCO Information Services announced the promotion of Phil Wallas to senior publisher relations executive and the appointment of Tom Dyer to the position of publisher relations executive. In these positions, Wallas and Dyer will coordinate...

Science Foundation Arizona.(Leonard W. Fine and Gary Greenburg appointed )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Science Foundation Arizona announced the appointments of two scientists. Leonard W. Fine is the new director of research and education and Gary Greenburg will serve as scientific program officer. In this position, Fine will develop and lead...

The Internet Society (ISOC).(Terry Monroe appointed)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... The Internet Society (ISOC) announced the appointment of Terry Monroe as its director of development and membership. In this role, he will lead the newly expanded membership department. He will be responsible for developing member products and...

Newstex.(Rick Smith appointed )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Newstex announced that Rick Smith has joined the company in the newly created position of director of client services. In this position, he will ensure that clients are satisfied with the Content On Demand and Blogs On Demand services. His...

Blaise Simqu, President and CEO, SAGE Publications.
December 1, 2006... Blaise Simqu is quick to disclose his formula for a successful business: Combine a positive work environment with a quality product line. This is the type of vision that Simqu instills for his company as president and CEO of SAGE...

Managing your digital rights.(Digital Rights Management: Protecting and Monetizing Content)(Book review)
December 1, 2006... Digital Rights Management: Protecting and Monetizing Content (NAB Executive Technology Briefings) by Joan Van Tassel Burlington, MA: Focal Press, 2006 ISBN: 0-240-80722-7 280 pages $39.95 softcover Just about every media consumer is subject...

Going by the book.(in other words)(Book review)
December 1, 2006... As the child of a police captain and the grandchild of a chief of police, I obey the rules. I don't run with scissors. I wait 2 hours after eating before swimming. I follow the speed limit. I don't put my trash out early. I remove my cap when...

What's hot for 2007?
December 1, 2006... So what's going to be hot for the information technology industry in the coming year? Just ask Joe Rizzo, advisory partner and U.S. technology sector leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers, who sees the horizon looking pretty bright for the...