Information Today articles from June 2003

Information Today archives from June 2003

Passionate about customer needs. (Interview With Ron Klausner).(president of ProQuest Information and Learning.)
June 1, 2003... In mid-March, ProQuest Co. announced the appointment of D&B veteran Ron Klausner as president of ProQuest Information and Learning. He started work in early April, and I caught up with him a few weeks later to chat about his experiences, the...

The eighth Search Engine Meeting. (Report From the Field).
June 1, 2003... After last year's detour to San Francisco, the Search Engine Meeting returned to Boston April 7-8 for its eighth annual gathering. Despite these shaky economic times, organizer Harry Collier of Infonortics, Ltd. was pleased with the turnout of...

UKSG conference 2003 and exhibition. (Report From the Field).
June 1, 2003... The United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) is a professional interest group of some 600 organizations, one-third of which are based outside of Britain. Members include publishers, intermediaries, libraries, and end users who benefit from a variety...

Le Monde now available through Dialog. (News Bytes).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Dialog has announced that the French newspaper Le Monde is now available for electronic searching and article retrieval through Dialog NewsRoom, an online database of more than 7,500 news sources from around the world. The new content...

Wiley InterScience, UICC launch online cancer resource. (News Bytes).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) announced the launch of TNM Online, an electronic database that provides medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, oncologic surgeons, and other cancer professionals...

Gale creates new department. (News Bytes).( Rights Acquisition & Management department)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Gale has announced the creation of a new Rights Acquisition & Management (RAM) department. The company combined two departments, Rights & Permissions and Copyright & Licensing, that functioned similarly at a high level. RAM's three main...

Over our dead bodies. (Up Front).(Amazon marketing glitches)(providing library reference service)
June 1, 2003... Want an instant giggle? Try searching for a fiction book title--mysteries especially--on Amazon.com and then check out the site's new "sponsored links" suggestions ("Customers interested in this title may also be interested in..."). Any...

The latest on Google, market research, and more. (Newsbreak Update).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Like it or not, news about Google is dominating both the technology and mainstream media. I recently reported on Google's acquisition of Applied Semantics (formerly Oingo), a company known for its semantic text-processing technology (http://...

USA PATRIOT Act debate continues. (Newsbreak Update).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Because of the privacy issues it raises, the USA PATRIOT Act, which gives federal agents broad powers to investigate and track potential terrorists, continues to rile librarians and civil libertarians. Some libraries have been destroying patron...

Widespread financial struggles. (Newsbreak Update).(public libraries face funding crises)
June 1, 2003... Meanwhile, financial challenges continue to pummel libraries and academic institutions, as well as the local, state, and federal government entities that support them. For example, as a result of deep public-funding cuts and the threat of...

Partner for growth. (Newsbreak Update).(BIOSIS exploring strategic options)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... One of the most venerable database producers has announced that it's looking for one or more partners to expand its available resources. The BIOSIS board of trustees stated in a press release that it's exploring strategic options to "ensure...

Market research Snapshots. (Newsbreak Update).(Snapshots International Ltd. launches new Latin American series of market research reports and enters deal with Alacra Inc.)
June 1, 2003... At InfoToday 2003 in New York, Snapshots International, Ltd. announced the U.S. launch of its new Latin American series of market research reports. At the Online Information meeting in London last December, the company forecast that it would...

MarketResearch.com. (Newsbreak Update).(relaunch of its market-intelligence site)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... MarketResearch.com announced the relaunch of its market-intelligence site. Based on months of client feedback and testing, it has been completely redesigned with more intuitive navigation, additional browse features, and new search...

Update on divine, Inc. (Newsbreak Update).(auction at bankruptcy court nets several buyers)
June 1, 2003... Last month, I noted that divine, Inc. was up for auction through the U.S. bankruptcy court in Boston. The auction, said to be a marathon session that lasted some 25 hours, was held April 28-29. Final approval was given by the court on May 12....

CSA acquires Design and Applied Arts Index. (News Bytes).(Cambridge Scientific Abstracts)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... CSA announced that it has acquired the Design and Applied Arts Index (DAAI) from Design Documentation. CSA will make DAAI available through the Internet Database Service as well as on CD-ROM. According to the announcement, DAAI is the main...

ProQuest adds collections to DNSA database. (News Bytes).(Digital National Security Archive )(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... ProQuest Information and Learning announced that five new collections have been added to ProQuest's Digital National Security Archive (DNSA) Web-based resource. The National Security Archive and ProQuest Information and Learning have teamed to...

CAS enhances chemical patent coverage. (News Bytes).(Chemical Abstracts Service)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) announced the expansion of its chemical patent coverage. CAS's CA service now offers patents from New Zealand, Estonia, Monaco, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Hong Kong. GAS will also provide information from the...

ChemInform now in Wiley InterScience. (News Bytes).
June 1, 2003... FIZ Karlsruhe has announced it is now offering its ChemInform abstracting service for organic and organometallic synthesis via John Wiley & Sons' Wiley InterScience. FIZ Karlsruhe also announced, along with STN International, the launch of...

Gale adds National Geographic Explorer. (News Bytes).(Gale Group)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Gale announced that it's adding National Geographic Explorer, a classroom magazine for grades 3 to 6, to its collection of full-text periodicals. Through an agreement with National Geographic Society, National Geographic Explorer will now be...

ProQuest selects eMeta to power web archive. (News Bytes).(.)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... eMeta Corp., a provider of enterprise software that maximizes the value of digital assets and services, announced that ProQuest Co. has implemented the eRights Suite to protect and provide full commerce functionality for ProQuest Archiver....

WSJ Online to launch news feature on AOL's AIM. (News Bytes).
June 1, 2003... The Wall Street Journal Online, published by Dow Jones & Co., announced that it will make news summaries and stock quotes available to users of America Online's Instant Messenger services. The new offering extends WSJ's reach into the...

Kluwer Academic Publishers adds to its digital library. (News Bytes).
June 1, 2003... Kluwer Academic Publishers announced that it has added new custom books and e-books to its digital library via the Kluwer Online electronic gateway. The additions to the site include peer-reviewed, front-list books as well as classic titles in...

Openly Informatics announces 1Cate support. (News Bytes).
June 1, 2003... Openly Informatics, Inc. has announced the implementation of a new NISO linking standard in its 1Cate LinkServer Software. The OpenURL Standard version 1.0 was released as a Draft Standard for Trial Use on April 15, and the trial...

CCC's DRM solution goes live on Advanstar Web sites. (News Bytes).
June 1, 2003... Copyright Clearance Center, the world's largest licensing agent of text reproduction rights, announced that its Rightslink digital rights management solution is live on more than 40 Advanstar Communications online publications. Rightslink...

PubMed now links to full text in Alt HealthWatch. (News Bytes).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... EBSCO Publishing has announced that medical researchers can now link from citations in PubMed (using the PubMed Link Out feature) to the full text of articles found in Alt HealthWatch, a database that offers in-depth coverage on the many...

Spam, privacy, and the art of free speech.
June 1, 2003... I know that we're all deluged with it daily. I know that we all hate having to delete it. But in self-defense, spam pundits are clamoring "free speech!" It's what those pesky telemarketers claim too. As much as I hate people barging into...

Former JDoc editors respond to Bowes. (Letters to the Editor).
June 1, 2003... As members of the previous editorial team of the Journal of Documentation [JDoc] at Queen's University Belfast, we must point out some inaccurate statements on the part of Roger Bowes ("Surviving in a Harsh World," April 2003) relating...

Context is critical. (Letters to the Editor).
June 1, 2003... While I am honored that In formation Today found my comments at the NFAIS conference worth noting ("NFAIS 45th Annual Conference," April 2003), I must observe that context is critical in discussing any content-related issue. First, I was...

Adobe revamps Acrobat family. (Focus On Publishing).
June 1, 2003... In April, Adobe Systems officially announced its revamping of the Acrobat family of products--an event considered by some as the most important release since Acrobat 1.0. According to the industry newsletter Seybold Report, "Acrobat 6.0 will...

Digital facilitators. (Internet Insights).
June 1, 2003... "Digital facilitators" is not a term that you'll find in articles and conference papers. Given its special role, I use it to refer to an increasingly important information industry group, which should be differentiated from the traditional...

Pay attention to state legislation. (Legal Issues).
June 1, 2003... Most of the Legal Issues columns I've written have dealt with matters of federal law. In general, issues that most often affect the information community arise from the actions of Congress or the federal courts. These bodies have the lion's...

Picturing life in New York. (Conference Circuit).
June 1, 2003... Their work in the field is tedious. Biologists are trying to figure out where things live by picking the leaves of individual trees, capturing individual insects, and tagging individual critters. They record precise data about where and when...

Not just copy protection. (Report From the Field).
June 1, 2003... Digital rights management is so much more than just copy protection. It's a hot technology with an increasing demand in applications that have a pressing need to secure, authenticate, and share many forms of digital content. Attendees at...

Who pays for the free lunch? (Report From the Field).(payment systems for electronic publishing)
June 1, 2003... The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) is a U.K. -based not-for profit organization that's roughly equivalent to the U.S. Society of Scholarly Publishers. It has a membership of more than 230 organizations,...

Conference calendar.(Calendar)
June 1, 2003... June 2-4: Montreal (Hotel Inter-Continental). Competia, a leading consultancy and training organization for senior executives and analysts in strategic planning and competitive intelligence, is hosting the Competia International Symposium...

Reclaiming the digital commons. (Investigative Report).(move toward claiming World Wide Web for private use)(Column)
June 1, 2003... In last month's issue, I looked at growing fears that the Internet is in the process of being privatized by companies exploiting intellectual property laws to assert ownership over the Web's infrastructure and wall off more and more content....

Online Publishers Association (OPA). (International Report: Paris).(for OPA Europe)
June 1, 2003... Ten leading European publishers have come together to form OPA Europe, a new organization linked to the U.S.-based Online Publishers Association (OPA). Headquartered in Paris, OPA Europe will work to enhance the business climate for...

PULMAN, a European Commission-funded network charged with promoting international cooperation in the development of digital services for public libraries and cultural organizations. (International Report: Oeiras, Portugal).
June 1, 2003... Around 170 participants from 41 countries have signed a high-level manifesto that sets out goals for the future development of library services across Europe. This document also includes four cornerstone priorities and a 10-point action plan....

UNESCO designated April 23 "World Book and Copyright Day". (International Report: London).
June 1, 2003... In 1995, UNESCO designated April 23 "World Book and Copyright Day." Each year on that date more than 30 countries--including Australia, Finland, Germany, Italy, and the U.S.--pay tribute to books and authors. The aim is to encourage everyone,...

German rights society VG Wort and IT manufacturers. (International Report: Munich, Germany).
June 1, 2003... The proposed introduction of a copyright levy on the sale of new computers in Germany has led to a bitter dispute between German rights society VG Wort and IT manufacturers--notably Germany's largest computer manufacturer Fujitsu Siemens...

Dutch anti-spam activist Rejo Zenger. (International Report: Rotterdam, Netherlands).
June 1, 2003... The spam wars in Europe are heating up. They are also becoming more contentious. For instance, when Dutch anti-spam activist Rejo Zenger set up a name-and-shame Web site (http://www.spamvrij.nl) listing Dutch companies that send out spam or...

Liverpool city council. (International Report: Liverpool, England).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Liverpool city council has announced plans to create a new $64 million digital library that it says will become one of the world's biggest virtual archives. The project will also include a major online genealogy center. The archive will...

Old Bailey--London's venerable central court. (International Report: London).
June 1, 2003... A free keyword-searchable compendium of 100,000 trials conducted from 1674 to 1834 at the Old Bailey--London's venerable central court--has been launched at http://www.oldbaileyonline.org. The site warehouses the actual texts of trial...

LexisNexis enhances lexis.com. (Product News & Reviews).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... LexisNexis announced that it has enhanced Iexis.com, its flagship legal information service, with advanced functionality for Shepard's reports. According to the announcement, several upgrades to the Shepard's reports are being released,...

Ovid introduces LinkSolver. (Product News & Reviews).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Ovid announced the release of LinkSolver, its new universal link resolver. According to the announcement, LinkSolver provides end users with advanced linking capabilities that they can use to access their library's entire collection of...

Free sites for EDGAR data. (Database Review).(U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission database of public-company filings)
June 1, 2003... Which database gets repackaged the most? I propose EDGAR, the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) database of public-company filings. Its data--10Ks, 10Qs, and the like--is the sine qua non of business, financial, and investment...

MicroPatent upgrades systems. (Product News & Reviews).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... MicroPatent announced three system upgrades: a new PatentWeb navigation tool, additional German data, and improved date-range options in PatSearch FullText. According to the announcement, these new features increase workflow efficiencies, save...

RefWorks announces new release, feature. (Product News & Reviews).(RefWorks Web-based bibliographic management tool)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... RefWorks announced that it has released a new version of its RefWorks Web-based bibliographic management tool. The company also announced the availability of direct exports from OCLC, Ovid, and ProQuest. Among other features, RefWorks now...

Gallup launches platform to support archive. (Product News & Reviews).(Gallup Organization announced the launch of the Gallup Brain, a Web-accessible repository for public-opinion data collected by the Gallup Poll since 1935)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The Gallup Organization announced the launch of the Gallup Brain, a Web-accessible repository for public-opinion data collected by the Gallup Poll since 1935. Subscription-based access to the Gallup Brain is available at http://brain.gallup.com...

ITI releases new books. (Product News & Reviews).
June 1, 2003... Information Today, Inc. announced the publication of The Accidental Webmaster, a new book by Julie M. Still, and Building & Running a Successful Research Business, by Mary Ellen Bates. The Accidental Webmaster The Accidental Webmaster...

Dialog adds market research reports to Profound. (Product News & Reviews).( Dialog Profound Researchline )(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Dialog announced that it has enhanced its Dialog Profound Researchline service by adding market and industry data and analysis from 20 new information providers. More than 200,000 market research reports are now available for electronic...

Copernic rolls out Copernic Agent 6.1. (Product News & Reviews).(Internet desktop search tool.)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Copernic announced the availability of Copernic Agent 6.1, the newest version of its Internet desktop search tool. This update features improvements and enhancements that are based on customer feedback. Highlights of the new release include...

ebrary unveils new fee-based research site. (Product News & Reviews).(ebary Discover full-text book and documents Web site)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... ebrary announced the availability of ebrary Discover (http://discover.ebrary.com), a new fee-based Web site that provides independent researchers with anytime, anywhere access to titles from mare than 150 leading publishers, such as Cambridge...

Convera introduces RetrievalWare 8. (Product News & Reviews).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Convera announced the availability of RetrievalWare 8, a new knowledge discovery platform that helps large organizations automate their knowledge management and discovery processes with an infrastructure that can be optimized for specific...

Inmagic releases Content Server. (Product News & Reviews).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Inmagic, Inc. announced the release of Inmagic Content Server, a product that combines a robust and flexible database management environment with high-speed search and categorization. Content Server allows business users to create content;...

GPO provides access to McCarthy transcripts. (Product News & Reviews).(U.S. Government Printing Office providing public access to the transcripts of closed-door hearings conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy from 1953 to 1954)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) announced that it is providing public access to the transcripts of closed-door hearings conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy from 1953 to 1954. Paper copies are available from GPO's sales program....

Stellent launches City/County eGovernment Solution. (Product News & Reviews).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Stellent, Inc. announced the release of the Stellent City/County eGovernment Solution, a content management product suite that offers a pricing model to accommodate county and municipal agencies' diverse application needs and budgets. The...

Google offers more than just a search box: you can choose from a list of nearly 100 languages, including Esperanto, Klingon, Pig Latin, and Elmer Fudd. (Link-Up@Home).
June 1, 2003... With an index of more than 3 billion URLs, Google is the most popular search engine on the Web. Millions of people use it every day because it offers an uncluttered interface and fast, accurate results. You just type a few keywords into the...

When technology and spirituality meet. (Link-Up@Home).(religion, philosophy and spirituality websites)
June 1, 2003... During unsettled, troubling times, people often turn to religion for reassurance and fortitude. It has always been that way, and it's that way now with anxiety over war, terrorism, and a weak economy. Computers and the Internet, like any...

Score this. (Cyber Sports).(sports-related web sites)
June 1, 2003... Back in the good ol' days--and we're talking the really, really old days here--it seemed nearly everybody in the stands at a ballgame had a pencil and scorecard. Of course, that was the time before ballparks had scoreboards bigger than the...

Cooking resources Web sites. (Perspectives).
June 1, 2003... The Internet is the ultimate current awareness tool, even for food and cooking trends. You might think that only those in the business have to keep up with culinary trends, but many people do just out of personal interest. The proliferation of...

The Stroh Brewery Co. (People Line).(Kim Gabbert named new manager of corporate communications)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Gale has announced that Kim Gabbert will be its new manager of corporate communications. She will develop and direct the company's corporate communications strategy and act as its main spokesperson. Prior to this, she was director of public...

ProQuest Co. (People Line).
June 1, 2003... ProQuest Co. announced that Andy Wyszkowski has been named president of ProQuest Business Solutions and Bruce Rhoades has been appointed to the newly created position of senior vice president of strategy and technology. Most recently,...

BIOSIS. (People Line).
June 1, 2003... BIOSIS and NFAIS have announced that Linda Sacks, BIOSIS' senior vice president of product development and marketing, is NFAIS's president-elect. Previously, Sacks was marketing director at Elsevier Science, where she managed such...

U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). (People Line).
June 1, 2003... The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) announced that Richard G. Davis has been named director of the Office of Electronic Information Dissemination Services (EIDS). As such, he is in charge of GPO Access, the Web site that provides...

NewsStand, Inc. (People Line).
June 1, 2003... NewsStand, Inc. announced the appointment of Myles Fuchs as its senior vice president of sales. In this role, he will develop the business and sales initiatives for existing and new business sectors and manage relationships with publishing...

Ex Libris (USA), Inc. (People Line).
June 1, 2003... Ex Libris (USA), Inc. announced that Russell McDonald is the Information Services Division's new vice president of sales. McDonald is returning to Ex Libris from Elsevier, where he was vice president of sales strategies for the past 2...

EDGAR Online, Inc. (People Line).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... EDGAR Online, Inc. announced that Benjamin Burditt and Richard Feinstein have joined its board of directors. Feinstein will also serve as chairman of the audit committee. Presently, Burditt is senior vice president of Scripps Ventures,...

The executive profile: Bernard Dumouchel, director general of CISTI.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Since 1998, Bernard Dumouchel has been director general of the National Research Council's Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI). He is a career librarian and information specialist who holds bachelor's degrees in...

Making your way through the KM maze. (Cover Notes).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Enterprise Knowledge Portals by Heidi Collins New York: AMACOM, 2003 ISBN: 0-8144-0708-0 430 pages $35 If you're a corporate information worker, you've surely struggled with knowledge management and have tried to figure...

In other words. (Cover Notes).(Editorial)
June 1, 2003... As Cousin Nettie sings in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, "June is bustin' out all over--all over the meadow and the hill." Or at least here in Medford, N.J., the pollen is bustin' out all over--all over the cars in our parking lot! In...

Building & Running a Successful Research Business: A Guide for the Independent Information Professional. (New Titles for the Information Professional).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... By Mary Ellen Bates This is the handbook every aspiring independent information professional needs to launch, manage, and build a research business. Organized into four sections, "Getting Started," "Running the Business, "Marketing," and...

The Librarian's Internet Survival Guide: Strategies for the High-Tech Reference Desk. (New Titles for the Information Professional).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... By Irene E. McDermott In this authoritative and tremendously useful guide, Irene McDermott helps her fellow reference librarians succeed in the bold new world of the Web. This handy book features troubleshooting tips and advice, Web...

Business Statistics on the Web: Find Them Fast--At Little or No Cost. (New Titles for the Information Professional).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Paula Berinstein Statistics are a critical component of business and marketing plans, press releases, surveys, economic analyses, presentations, proposals, and more--yet good statistics are notoriously hard to find. In this practical...

The Accidental Webmaster. (New Titles for the Information Professional).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Julie M. Still Here is a lifeline for the individual who has not been trained as a Webmaster, but who--whether by choice or under duress--has become one nonetheless. While most Webmastering books focus on programming and related technical...

Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence: The Online and Offline Secrets of Top CI Researchers. (New Titles for the Information Professional).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... By Margaret Metcalf Carr Companies operating in today's unpredictable roller-coaster economy have increasingly turned to Competitive Intelligence (CI) as an effective means of building and maintaining an edge. This book presents leading CI...

Software for Indexing. (New Titles for the Information Professional).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... In this thorough and objective review of the software products used in indexing, professional indexers share their favorite features, tips, and techniques. Starting with a chapter on dedicated indexing programs, CINDEX, MACREX, SKY Index, and...

Super Searchers on Madison Avenue: Top Advertising and Marketing Professionals Share Their Online Research Strategies. (New Titles for the Information Professional).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... By Grace Avellana Villamora Research professionals in the advertising and marketing game are a rare breed. Working in one of the business world's true pressure cookers, these super searchers find and analyze the information that fuels...

The Accidental Systems Librarian. (New Titles for the Information Professional).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... By Rachel Singer Gordon The Accidental Systems Librarian takes the approach that anyone with a solid foundation in the practices and principles of librarianship and a willingness to confront changing technology can serve effectively in a...

The Surround Stuff: today's content providers go in search for the true source of value. (Special Supplement to EContent).
June 1, 2003... Jesse Kornbluth is the content director for AOL, and thus influences one of the most-read online resources in the world. I heard him address a conference, which he started this way: "I propose we find the guy who first coined the term...

The competitive advantages of rich media. (Special Supplement to EContent).
June 1, 2003... The world we live in is visual--but most business communication isn't. Think about the following facts: * Studies show that people retain only 10% of the information they read, 20% of the information they hear, but 50% of the information...

Intelligent content and technology integration. (Special Supplement to EContent).
June 1, 2003... To create a unified digital library environment, information managers can no longer select database products based purely on content. Instead, they must seek out implementations from leaders who can also offer new technologies for organization,...

Premium content integration: capitalize on the opportunities now. (Special Supplement to EContent).
June 1, 2003... Organizations today face unrelenting pressure to achieve greater productivity, higher revenues per employee and smart responses to clients and competitors. To realize these objectives, business professionals need access to content resources...

Sound content management starts at the local level. (Special Supplement to EContent).
June 1, 2003... As the ocean of information deepens every minute of every hour of every day, leading-edge thinkers in the world of corporate content management are coming to realize one inalienable truth: One size does not fit all. ...