Information Today articles from February 2006

Information Today archives from February 2006

Latest lawsuit threatens BlackBerry with shutdown.(case of Research in Motion Ltd. and NTP Inc. over patents)
February 1, 2006... The ubiquitous BlackBerry is getting a thumbs up all over the world these days. The BlackBerry wireless hand-held device has emerged as one of the dominant tools for providing wireless communication. I recently read one of the most...

Alliance appeals for federal security protection.(Cyber Security Industry Alliance wants government to assert greater leadership over information security)
February 1, 2006... The Wakefield, Mass.-based Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA) wants the federal government to assert greater leadership to protect the nation's information infrastructure in 2006. The massive data breaches in 2005, a barrage of...

Library schools and the copyright knowledge gap.(intellectual property)(Column)
February 1, 2006... Years from now, once librarians gain the benefit of perspective fostered by temporal separation, we will consider 2005 a watershed year. Certainly, epochal change has been discussed for some time, but last year, a series of events ensured that...

Blackwell publishes 100th journal in Asia.(Blackwell Publishing celebrates a milestone)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Blackwell Publishing celebrates a milestone this year when it publishes its 100th journal in Asia. According to Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.'s CEO Rene Olivieri, "The region's contributions are particularly vital to our medical and scholarly...

Jupitermedia agrees to sell shows and ClickZ .com to incisive media.(Search Engine Strategies and ClickZ.com Network sold to Incisive Media)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Jupitermedia Corp. has agreed to sell its Search Engine Strategies (SES) trade shows along with its ClickZ.com Network of Web sites to London-based Incisive Media. According to the announcement, the acquisition will help Incisive Media...

OCLC acquires Openly Informatics.(OCLC WorldCat)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... OCLC has acquired the assets of Openly Informatics. OCLC WorldCat, which is the world's largest database of bibliographic information, will extend Openly Informatics' 1.2 million-record database of linking metadata for electronic resources by...

Adobe acquires FileLine.(Adobe Systems Inc. acquires FileLine Digital Rights Management)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Adobe Systems, Inc. acquired FileLine Digital Rights Management (DRM), a division of Navisware. The acquisition extends the capabilities of Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server to protect business-critical documents in Adobe PDF, Microsoft Office, and...

CSA acquires Community of Science, Inc.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... CSA recently acquired Community of Science, Inc. (COS), a leader in grant-funding opportunities and researcher expertise information. COS, a spinoff of The Johns Hopkins University, facilitates the business of worldwide R&D, encompassing more...

Nature Publishing Group expands reach in Asia-Pacific region.(plans)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Nature Publishing Group (NPG) announced plans to expand its presence in Japan. Nature Japan K.K. and NPG offices in Hong Kong and Melbourne, Australia, have merged into NPG Nature Asia-Pacific. The group will handle editorial, marketing, sales,...

Use of ISI Web of Knowledge exceeds expectations.(Thomson Scientific's ISI Web of Knowledge user statistics)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Thomson Scientific announced that its ISI Web of Knowledge is exceeding usage expectations, with an average of more than 130,000 visits daily from researchers across the globe. In the U.K., there were a record 505,086 visits recorded last...

Thomson partnership to boost Chinese innovation.(The creation of the Ministry of Information Industry)(Thomson Corp.'s joint lab for intellectual property development)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... The creation of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), a Thomson Joint Lab for Intellectual Property Development, was designed to empower China with knowledge tools from Thomson. The joint lab, which will be located in the MII-China...

Good, better, best: a mission statement.(quality services by online information services )
February 1, 2006... From the sublime to the trivial, across the ever-widening expanse of online content, the cry goes up: "This is too much! Just give me the good stuff!" The struggle to provide reliable, relevant, accurate, usable information is definitely the...

Unfinished legislative business leads the news.(Yahoo! Inc. acquired del.icio.us, Inc. and introduced open shortcuts service)(Google Labs introduced Google Reader)(Thomson Gale enhanced services)(Industry Overview)
February 1, 2006... The year 2005 seemed to end in a race to beat the clock: Anxious shoppers scrambled to find holiday gifts as a bickering U.S. Congress scrambled to deal with several important pieces of legislation before adjourning for the holidays. ...

Open access update.(Select Committee on Science and Technology)(scientific publications)
February 1, 2006... The Select Committee on Science and Technology met on Dec. 15, 2005, in London's Westminster Hall for a session titled Scientific Publications: Free for All? Here are just a few highlights surrounding open access. Open Access Still Hot ...

Desktops: what are they good for?(Library Stuff Revisited)(Column)
February 1, 2006... [Editor's Note: We welcome another columnist to the pages of Information Today this issue. As many of you know, Steven Cohen is the creator of Library Stuff(http:// www.librarystuff.net), which is published by Information Today, Inc. In this...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2006... I read with interest your comparison of Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp. and Google's "library project" for the digitization of books [Keith Kupferschmid's "Are Authors and Publishers Getting Scroogled?" December 2005]. In an otherwise excellent...

Infotoons.(Cartoon)
February 1, 2006... I HAVE 1,000 TUNES... MY PHOTO-PHONE... MY POCKET WIZARD... AND, MY RASPBERRY! WAS THAT MY CELL PHONE? --OOH! MY RASPBERRY JUST ZAPPED ME. O.K., MY COMPUTER IS ON 24/7. MY LAPTOP GOES EVERYWHERE WITH ME. I'M CONSTANTLY...

Sanity check.(survey of internet users of electronic information resources )
February 1, 2006... People are always extolling the virtues of libraries going virtual... getting digitized... going beyond their four walls. But you know what? In a recent market study by OCLC, Internet users seem to be very happy going out to the library and...

A 'Cure' for access?(focus on publishing)(National Institutes of Health policy)
February 1, 2006... In last April's column, I reported on the stormy beginning of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) policy, providing public access to the research it funds. This past May, NIH-funded investigators were asked to submit to the NIH National...

New copyright guide published.(media associations publishes 'Campus Copyright Rights and Responsibilities: A Basic Guide to Policy Considerations' on copyrights law)
February 1, 2006... When the Copyright Act of 1976 was enacted, separate negotiations between educational institutions and publishers tried to deal with the thorny issue of copying materials for educational use. The result of these negotiations was the Agreement...

Motherhood and network security.(internet security tips)
February 1, 2006... My No. 1 son is a young man now. He's been on his own for almost 2 years. But you quickly realize that you don't cease to be a parent just because you have one this age. It's just that the job description changes somewhat. And when the phone...

Levi's puts your iPod in your pocket.
February 1, 2006... Forget carrying cases. Levi Strauss' RedWire DIX jeans will let you be attached to your iPod at the hip--literally. Sure, the denim giant's new design features a built-in iPod docking cradle. But it also has a retractable headphone unit to...

Libraries get helping hand.(international report)(Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)(Reed Elsevier PLC)
February 1, 2006... Bill Gates is the world's most admired chief executive, according to the 2005 CEO CapitalTM study. The survey, which polled 685 business leaders from 65 countries and was conducted by Burson-Marsteller (http:// www.burson-marsteller.com) with...

The case of open access.(conversation with Sally Morris of Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers)(Interview)
February 1, 2006... Sally Morris, chief executive of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), has been at her post and in the hot seat of open access since 1998. Since that time, membership has more than doubled (more than 317...

The calm before the storm.(National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services' annual conference plans)
February 1, 2006... The onslaught of information industry conferences is on the horizon. March will be a conference-rich month. At least 22 meetings have been scheduled, with all but two of them in the second half of the month. It's not that February has a paucity...

Conference calendar.
February 1, 2006... February 26-28: Philadelphia (Ritz-Carlton Hotel). The theme of the 2006 NFAIS Annual Conference is Content Unleashed: Delivering the New Information Experience. According to the announcement, the conference will focus on technologies that...

Watch out Britannica: here comes Wikipedia.(comparative analysis of Encyclopaedia Britannica with the e-book)
February 1, 2006... So, just how accurate is Wikipedia? In March 2005, Wired magazine called it "a repository of knowledge to rival the ancient library of Alexandra." In November 2005, London's Daily Telegraph called it "far larger than Britannica, far easier to...

Update: European common market's database directive.
February 1, 2006... Step back in time to 1996. That was the year the European Union (EU) agreed to a directive(required to implement the legal content in the national laws of EU member states) on the legal protection of databases. This new legal environment...

Current Science Group becomes Science Navigation Group.(NewsBytes)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Current Science Group announced that it has changed its name to Science Navigation Group, effective Jan. 1. The new Science Navigation Group reflects a blend of science and navigation businesses, including The Scientist, BioMed Central, Biology...

Blogging: a modern tool for an age-old quest: blogs are like magnetic fields with the attraction flowing in several ways.(weblogs trends and forecast)
February 1, 2006... When a young newspaper executive was considering the promise of online databases such as Dialog, he told me that when he really wanted to know something, "I just call three or four of my friends. I'd rather get my information from people I...

Feast of antics by football fans.(cyber sports, services at http://www.CollegeFootballHistory.com)
February 1, 2006... As anyone who has watched a college football game on television or in person can attest, college football fans are pretty nuts. Where else will guys wear nothing but shorts and body paint in school colors in 20-degree weather? You don't see...

All the (good) news that's fit to print: sites report from the sunny side of the street.(web sites servicse)
February 1, 2006... Are you a Cassandra or a Pollyanna? A Gloomy Gus or a Little Mary Sunshine? A Squidward or a SpongeBob SquarePants? If you're more like the cynical cephalopod than the sanguine sea sponge, I have news for you. In fact, most of the news...

Wireless isle.(OneVoice Communications launches a wireless communications service )(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... What's that on the street corner? It's an ATM; it's a phone booth; it's an arcade game... no, it's an InterComm Booth. And just what is an InterComm Booth? It's a self-contained workstation that features an affordable wireless communication...

The best of all worlds.
February 1, 2006... A suburban Washington, D.C.-based software company introduced a "unique" product called netBlender at the Consumer Electronics Show last month. The patent-pending netBlender combines DVDs, computers, and the Internet to produce what the company...

Living in an iPod world.(Apple Computer Inc.'s sales and earnings)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Apple CEO Steve Jobs started the new year by unveiling the company's 4Q report, showing $5.7 billion in sales and more than 14 million iPods flying off the shelves. And now, iPod accessories are reaping the benefits of big numbers too;...

Carnegie Library of Pittsburg.(Mike Nangia appointed)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh announced the appointment of Mike Nangia as director of information technology. Prior to this, Nangia directed projects for several Fortune 500 companies. In 2004, he began an independent consulting business,...

UK eInformation Group.(Michael Koenig is recipient of Jason Farradane Award)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... The UK eInformation Group (UKeiG) announced that Michael Koenig is the recipient of the Jason Farradane Award. This award, presented by UKeiG and sponsored by Kompass, honors an individual or group of people for outstanding work in the...

Factiva.(appointments)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Factiva has named six new executives: Karin Borchert has been appointed COO. She will be responsible for all aspects of product and content operations, customer service, and business infrastructure. Previously, she was chief product...

Project MUSE.(Harry A. Dean Jr. appointed)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Project MUSE has announced that Harry A. Dean Jr. is its new business manager. He will calculate publisher royalties, oversee all payments, and assist publishers. Most recently, Dean was principal of H. Dean Publishing, LLC, where he was...

H.W. Wilson.(appointed Deirdre Simmons )(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... H.W. Wilson announced that Deirdre Simmons has been" appointed manager of sales and marketing administration. In this newly created position, Simmons will help organize and manage WilsonWeb license agreements, trademarks, intercorporate...

Geoffrey Adams, Director of Archive Solutions, Endeavor Information Systems.(management)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... In January, Geoffrey Adams walked into a new year and a new position at Endeavor Information Systems. As director of archive solutions--a newly created post--Adams is set to provide leadership and strategic direction for Endeavor's archival and...

Safety in numbers.(network and data security tips)
February 1, 2006... The growth of online shopping, which was expected to grow 30 percent by the end of 2005 compared to 2004, could have grown even more if consumers weren't as concerned about personal identity theft, according to a study conducted for TekSecure...

Dale Carnegie Training launches new Web site.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Dale Carnegie Training launched a new corporate Web site that reflects the company's global business reach to more than 75 countries worldwide. The Web site features the company's two lines of business: corporate solutions and public...

In memoriam.(death of Dale Baker of Chemical Abstracts Service )(Brief Article)(Obituary)
February 1, 2006... Dale Baker, who served as director emeritus of Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) since 1986, died last December. He was 85. He was a graduate and alumnus of Ohio State University, where he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees. He started...

Factiva Search 2.0 makes its debut.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... Factiva Search 2.0, which was launched in mid-January, is a new search tool powered by Factiva Discovery Technologies. Results can now be filtered and organized into groupings that allow users to discover a range of subjects, companies, and...

Xrefer adds Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Xrefer has agreed to integrate Britannica Concise Encyclopedia into the Xreferplus Ready-Reference collection. The encyclopedia contains more than 26,000 articles, plus maps, drawings, photos, and other materials. Xreferplus features full-text,...

blinkx.tv Reads sight and sound.(database review)
February 1, 2006... Have you heard of blinkx.tv? If you haven't, don't feel professionally inadequate, blinkx is a search engine, and with the flood of search engine news over the past year, we've all dropped somewhere lower on the learning curve. The company...

EDGAR Online adds I*Metrix Xcelerate to product line.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... EDGAR Online, Inc.'s I*Metrix product suite now includes I*Metrix Xcelerate, a new service that enables filing agents, exchanges, and regulators to process content into an eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) format. "We are leveraging...

Using technology to produce a better vintage?(Carnegie Mellon University researchers to make computer models of wine)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Thomas Jefferson once said, "Good wine is a necessity of life for me." And researchers at Pontifical Catholic University in Santiago, Chile, are attempting to make it easier for vintners to produce that "good" wine. The team of...

EBSCO introduces executive daily brief.(EBSCO Publishing launches Executive Daily Brief )(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... EBSCO Publishing announced the release of Executive Daily Brief (EDB), a joint creation with the Content Analyst Co. EDB combines Content Analyst's patented Concept Search with EBSCO's premium content to create a customizable business...

Questel-Orbit releases QPAT v4.0.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... Questel*Orbit recently released QPAT v4.0, which features a user-friendly design with enhanced navigation that adds power for searching the company's FamPat and PlusPat databases as well as its full-text patent collection. Other enhancements...

Congoo takes search in a new direction.(new search engine launched)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... January ushered in more than just a brand new year for the information technology industry. The IT world was abuzz with new products and services, including a new premium content search engine called Congoo (http://www .congoo.com) that bills...

Blackwell to publish 59 more journal titles.(Blackwell Publishing adds more partners)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Blackwell Publishing added 39 new publishing partnerships and 59 journal titles to its list. Now the publisher has a total of 665 society partnerships; 805 medical, academic, scientific, and professional journal titles; and more than 6,000...

The WSJ online debuts enhancements.(Wall Street Journal Online updates weekly columns)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Online recently reported updates to its Washington Wire and Fiscally Fit columns. Washington Wire, a weekly report on politics and policy that has appeared in the print edition of The Wall Street Journal since...

H.W. Wilson periodicals databases offer color pages.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... H.W. Wilson announced the debut of color page images on its WilsonWeb full-text periodicals databases. Page images bring researchers the complete text from core serials as well as important data in accompanying charts, illustrations, diagrams,...

CSA adds Ulrich's product line.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... Ulrich's serials product line of international periodicals information became part of CSA, effective January 2006. The product line, previously produced and distributed by R.R. Bowker (CSA's sister company within the Cambridge Information...

SiSTeR Technologies launches Pic2Vid for marketers.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... SiSTeR Technologies, Inc. announced the commercial availability of the company's Pic2Vid for Marketers solution suite. With its patent-pending technology, Pic2Vid's Web-based solution automatically generates streaming video content with voice...

Global graphics offers enhanced jaws PDF creator for Macs.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... Global Graphics now offers a new version of Jaws PDF Creator that lets Macintosh users create high-quality PDFs. Jaws PDF Creator version 4.0 can create PDFs from virtually any Mac application. Enhancements include file production that is fully...

EBSCO launches updated LinkSource.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... EBSCO announced the latest release of LinkSource, which has been re-engineered with cutting-edge Web technology. The full-featured, OpenURL link resolver has several enhancements, including integration with EBSCO A-to-Z and the A-to-Z...

Journal nets two top awards.(Blackwell Publishing)(American Journal of Transplantation)
February 1, 2006... It's not every day that a medical journal becomes the leader in its field. So when kudos were awarded to American Journal of Transplantation (AJT), which is published on behalf of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the American...

DataLinks offers real-time data mining reports.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... Business Intelligence, Inc. has developed a data query tool called DataLinks that simplifies data gathering and reporting so that reports can be easily generated on a personal laptop. The learning curve can be measured in minutes with...

dtSearch unveils .Net Spider API.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... dtSearch Corp. released version 7.2 of its dtSearch product line, which searches terabytes of documents across a desktop, network, Internet, or intranet. The new version adds a .NET Spider API for the dtSearch Engine for Windows and .NET and...

ChemSW launches RFID with CISProMobile.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... ChemSW, Inc. recently launched CISProMobile, a new RFID (radio frequency identification) solution that can be integrated with the CISPro Chemical Inventory System. CISProMobile enables labs to use RFID technology to cut inventory time and...

Docutek ERes offers extended copyright permissions capability.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... Docutek, a SirsiDynix company and a leading provider of Internet software for academic, public, and K-12 libraries, released version 5.2 of Docutek ERes, its electronic reserves system. Docutek ERes allows librarians to Web-enable their course...

AccuNurse 2.0 provides real-time updates for families.(Product News & Reviews)
February 1, 2006... AccuNurse is a voice-activated, hands-free documentation and communication system that is used to review resident care plans and to document care as it takes place by incorporating VoIP, speech recognition, Internet, and wireless technologies....

Do you need an information gateway?(Portals and Libraries written by Sarah C. Michalak )(Book Review)
February 1, 2006... Portals and Libraries edited by Sarah C. Michalak New York: Haworth Press, 2005 Published simultaneously as the Journal of Library Administration, Volume 43, Numbers 1 and 2 ISBN: 0-7890-2932-4 228 pages $29.95 softcover We have all heard...

Manual steering.(In Other Words)
February 1, 2006... If you're like me, when you get a new gadget you try to save time by not reading the instruction manual. You simply assume that, because you're a person of high intellect, you can just figure everything out yourself. Also, if you're anything...

Cashing In with Content: How Innovative Marketers Use Digital Information to Turn Browsers into Buyers.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 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)
February 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...

Theories of Information Behavior.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 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 Accidental Library Manager.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 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)
February 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)
February 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...

Understanding and Communicating Social Informatics: A Framework for Studying and Teaching the Human Contexts of Information and Communication Technologies.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2006... Understanding and Communicating Social Informatics: A Framework for Studying and Teaching the Human Contexts of Information and Communication Technologies By Rob Kling, Howard Rosenbaum, and Steve Sawyer This book presents a sustained...

The Librarian's Internet Survival Guide: Strategies for the High-Tech Reference Desk, 2d ed.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 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...