Information Today articles from June 2006

Information Today archives from June 2006

ProQuest: a question of financing.(Company overview)
June 1, 2006... ProQuest Co.'s financial future came into question in May as the publisher of information and education resources reached an agreement with its bank lenders and with private placement note holders in which both parties granted the company a...

Gaming: the next hot technology for libraries.(video game technology usage)
June 1, 2006... Gaming in libraries? No, we're not talking about gambling. We're talking about using video game technology to produce "virtual worlds" to deliver library services. Although still in its infancy for the library world, this technology once used...

Data security: an ounce of prevention.(tips to avoid personal information theft)
June 1, 2006... Just when we thought security efforts to curtail breaches were taking hold, the Reuters news agency reported in May that a laptop had been stolen from an Aetna employee's car. [Editor's Note: See Shirl Kennedy's column on page 17 for more on...

The Wellcome Trust receives first SPARC Europe Award.(Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... The Wellcome Trust received the first SPARC Europe Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications at the Third Nordic Conference on Scholarly Communication: Beyond Declarations--The Changing Landscape of Scholarly Communication...

Research Libraries Group and OCLC sign agreement.(contracts)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... The board of directors of the Research Libraries Group (RLG) and the OCLC board of trustees have signed an agreement that recommends collaborative efforts between the two service and research organizations. The combined organization, which will...

Study discloses chief obstacles to scientific productivity.(survey of biomedical scientists on the research fund by Publishing Research Consortium )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... The single most important issue obstructing the productivity of biomedical scientists today is the culture of research funding, according to a report commissioned by the U.K.-based Publishing Research Consortium (PRC). The report surveyed 883...

Datum Legal becomes an Attenex advantage partner.(Datum Legal announced that it has become an Advantage Partner of Attenex)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Datum Legal announced that it has become an Advantage Partner of Attenex. Datum Legal added Attenex's software, Attenex Patterns, because of its nonlinear approach to searching and grouping data. In-house installation of Attenex Patterns is...

BlackBerry service reaches into China.(manufacturer of the BlackBerry)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Research in Motion, Ltd., manufacturer of the BlackBerry, has partnered with China Mobile Communications Corp., China's largest cell phone company, to launch service in China. Although the actual BlackBerry units won't be sold in China, the...

Win, place, and show: losing and winning.(business success)
June 1, 2006... Coming in second or even third place is so close and yet so far. What a tragedy. Just think how the CEO of FedEx must feel each morning when he looks at the voluminous delivery statistics for UPS and the U.S. Postal Service. It must make him...

Scholarly resources, mobile content, and vertical search top the news.(Windows Live Academic Search of Microsoft Corp.)
June 1, 2006... Microsoft's entry into the scholarly search arena had to be the big news recently. In mid-April, it launched the beta of its Windows Live Academic Search (WLAS). Wisely, it chose to partner with key publishers and industry groups, including...

Mobile content takes off.(NewsBreak Update)
June 1, 2006... We're seeing the launch of more new services that offer news and other content for people on-the-go. News site MSNBC .com announced that it has joined forces with Action Engine Corp. to launch a beta mobile news service featuring an advertising...

Search engine news.(NewsBreak Update)(Google Inc. introduced Google Earth)(Pixsy Corp. introduced Pixsy.com 2.0)
June 1, 2006... Pixsy Corp., a developer of image search solutions, announced Version 2.0 of its search site, Pixsy.com. Pixsy has developed a proprietary visual search engine that aggregates RSS feeds, extracts photos and video thumbnail images, indexes and...

Vertical search.(Transinsight)(Company overview)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Founded in November 2005, Transinsight is a specialty software company focused on the life sciences providing products and solutions for "intelligent search technologies." The company's main product, GoPubMed, was partly developed during the...

Ongoing proquest woes.(NewsBreak Update)
June 1, 2006... On Feb. 9, ProQuest Co. announced that during a review related to its internal controls assessment required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the company discovered accounting irregularities. The internal audit found that royalty accounts were...

LITA names Ching-chih Chen Winner of the 2006 Kilgour Award.(school of library and information science )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Ching-chih Chen, a professor in the graduate school of library and information science at Simmons College, received the 2006 Kilgour Award for her achievements in the areas of global digital libraries, multimedia technology, digital imaging,...

TransPerfect translations and Questel*Orbit, Inc. offer translation and patent services.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... TransPerfect and Questel*Orbit announced a partnership to offer translation and patent-searching services to clients. The combined efforts will be focused on providing Intellectual Property expertise in relation to patents and databases....

Cast your vote.(LETTER FROM THE EDITOR)(Editorial)
June 1, 2006... Get ready to vote in our first-ever People's Choice Awards. The nominations phase is officially over, and we're opening up the ballots again for our readers to cast their final votes for the best and brightest in the world of information...

IDKWILFBIKIWISI.(emails and library services)
June 1, 2006... My editorial this month is dedicated to all the reference librarians around the world. During the CM-Professionals' Summit in California this spring, one of the participants described the attitude of most information searchers by using the...

Infotoons.(Cartoon)
June 1, 2006... MAN, IT'S SO EASY TO BE A WRITER...LIKE PICKING CHERRIES! YOU'RE A DOPPLEBLOGGER! DOPPLE-WHAT? LOOK BRO, I JUST GRAB THIS HERE, LIFT THAT FROM THERE... I CUT AND PASTE, IT'S MY OWN! DUDE! TRY CONTENT THEFT... PLAGIARISM,...

The battles of open access.(Focus on Publishing)
June 1, 2006... It's springtime, and open access (OA) is sprouting up like wildflowers, even in the most unlikely places... such as Microsoft. In fact, I am surprised to be using OA and Microsoft in the same sentence. But I am less surprised about the debates...

I've been violated.(Internet Waves)(data breaches)(Editorial)
June 1, 2006... You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it. --Scott McNealy, chairman and former CEO, Sun Microsystems Among the things you don't like to see lurking in the mailbox when you get home from work is a letter from your insurance company....

Is Google's ranking system legal?(Legal Issues)(Column)
June 1, 2006... The first time I used an electronic database search engine was in 1982. I was a law student, and our school had just installed a Lexis terminal (about the size of a desk). I learned about Boolean search commands and selecting search terms to...

Copyright conundrum: documentaries and rights clearance.(Intellectual Property)(documentary movies)
June 1, 2006... Eyes on the Prize, which was released in 1987, is widely considered to be one of the finest and most comprehensive documentaries ever produced about the American civil rights movement. The original 14-part series, produced by filmmaker Henry...

Thinking and researching--don't just 'Google it'.(Library Stuff Revisited)(Column)
June 1, 2006... I'm writing this column on the train to work, with about 20 other commuters in my car. If I stood up now and asked my fellow passengers how they would research a particular subject (for instance, the latest information on Iran's nuclear...

The buzz about European domain names.(International REPORT)(HP Labs India introduced keyboard)(British Broadcasting Corp. launched 'Creative Future')
June 1, 2006... When the ".eu" domain name was launched to the public on April 7, 2006, European individuals and organizations could apply for a .eu Web site or e-mail address instead of the existing national suffixes (.uk in Britain or .de in Germany)....

Information Today, Inc. launches new portal in the enterprise search marketplace.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Information Today, Inc. (ITI) launched a new portal covering enterprise search and related technologies. The site (http:// www.enterprisesearchcenter.com) was released in beta in late May. The Enterprise Search Center is designed to be a...

Geomagic awarded patent for scanned data wrap process.(News Bytes)(3-D digital models)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Geomagic announced that it has been issued a U.S. patent for its process of automatically generating 3-D digital models from scanned point-cloud data. The wrap process now protected under U.S. Patent No. 7,023,432 is used in the Geomagic...

Thomson Scientific teams up with China's State Intellectual Property Office.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Thomson Scientific announced that it has secured an exclusive sponsorship with China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) to sponsor the SIPO China Intellectual Property News (CIPN) Public Intellectual Property Contest, aka the Thomson...

Fall conference calendar.
June 1, 2006... SEPTEMBER 17-19 destinationCRM San Jose, CA http://www.destinationcrm.com 18-19 WebSearch University Washington, DC http://www.websearchu.com OCTOBER 12-13 Streaming Media Europe London, U.K. ...

Back to (summer) school.(libraries and information industry services)
June 1, 2006... Now that the long, wonderful days of June have arrived, our minds are undoubtedly filled with thoughts of summer... vacations, special projects, and a relaxed pace. But for many information professionals, particularly in the academic world,...

ITI's fall conferences.(Conference Circuit)(Calendar)
June 1, 2006... Planning for Information Today, Inc.'s busy fall conference schedule is well underway. My next column will have more details, but you can already find preliminary information at http://www.infotoday.com/conferences .shtml. Here are the upcoming...

Is search disappearing?(Search Engine Meeting organized by Infonortics, Ltd.)
June 1, 2006... Don't worry; search won't disappear any time soon. Google and its competitors are here to stay, and there will always be a need for stand alone Web search engines. But according to the buzz at the 11th Search Engine Meeting, which was held...

The Everett Brenner Prize.(won by Stavros Macrakis of Fast Search and Transfer ASA at the Search Engine Meeting )
June 1, 2006... One of the highlights of this year's Search Engine Meeting was the first presentation of the Everett Brenner Prize. The prize, consisting of an engraved silver cup and a cash award, honors the late Everett Brenner, who died Jan. 25, 2006. Mr....

SIIA content forum: time for change.(Software Information Industry Association)
June 1, 2006... Under the marquee for the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA), several hundred attendees from its content, soft ware, and education divisions walked into the 2-day conference for a chance to network, chat with industry notables,...

And the winner is ...(Software Information Industry Association Codie awards )
June 1, 2006... It's that time again. The Software Information Industry Association (SIIA) announced the Codie Awards. Billed as the only peer-recognized awards program of its kind in the information industry, the awards are known as "the Oscars of the...

Conference calendar.(Calendar)
June 1, 2006... June 7-9: Arlington, Va. (Marriott Crystal Gateway Hotel). The Society for Scholarly Publishing is sponsoring its 28th Annual Meeting, the theme of which is Beyond Borders and Bindings. According to the announcement, this year's conference...

The magic of multimedia: and the Courier-Journal is just one of many newspapers that discovered the magic of multimedia.(Courier-Journal and Louisville Times Co.)(Column)
June 1, 2006... The student performances at Lincoln Elementary in downtown Louisville, Ky., were typical of school productions--except for two things. One was that the students had developed skits and songs with the help of a professional "historical...

Enjoy the commercial break: CyberSports.(movies and television clips)(Column)
June 1, 2006... Imagine springtime and the swallows of Capistrano, or summer and the mosquitoes of Houston. When the bats and balls start clinking, the baseball commercials start rolling. Of course, all some teams have to do is simply announce that...

Now you can have your cake--and eat it too.(Microsoft Windows Vista)(Apple Computer Inc. is using Intel processors)(Windows on macintosh computers)
June 1, 2006... "Warning: Flying Pig Sighted" and "Hell Freezes Over" were among the many headlines of computer publication articles and online posts about two recent events that have shaken the computer world. Microsoft, Apple, and the Linux community,...

Sun Microsystems, Inc.(appointment of Jonathan Schwartz)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced that its board of directors has appointed Jonathan Schwartz as its CEO. He will take over from Scott McNealy, who will continue as chairman of the board and a full-time employee. Schwartz has been at Sun...

EVDB, Inc.(appointment of Jordan Glazier )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... EVDB, Inc., operator of Eventful.com, announced that Jordan Glazier is its new CEO. Most recently, Glazier was COO of Client Shop, Inc., where he helped build scalable business operations and achieve profitability. Prior to this, Glazier...

National Archive Pyblishing Co. (NAPC).(appointment of Bennett Lovett-Graff and Paul Pham)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... National Archive Publishing Co. (NAPC) announced that Bennett Lovett-Graff has joined the company as publisher for the NAPC Content Solutions service. As such, he will be responsible for the launch and growth of the service for libraries,...

Bristish Standards Institution (BSI).(appointment of Martin Smith )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... The British Standards Institution (BSI) has named publisher Martin Smith as its new commercial director of British Standards. In this position, Smith will generate content for British Standards, leverage international relationships, and grow...

Dialog.(appointment of Libby Trudell )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Dialog announced that Libby Trudell has been elected to the SLA board of directors. She will be installed during the SLA Annual Conference this month. She will serve as chapter cabinet chair-elect in 2006-2007 and as chapter cabinet chair in...

Tao Yang, senior vice president and chief scientist, Ask.com.(Ask.com names AskJeeves.com)
June 1, 2006... There are plenty of changes happening at Ask.com these days. The company changed its name from AskJeeves.com, retired its signature butler icon, and expanded its search technologies under the umbrella of Ask.com. And Tao Yang, Ask.com's...

Springer launches eBooks program.(Springer eBooks)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Springer is planning to launch its new eBook program at the ALA conference to be held June 21-24 in New Orleans. Some details will be available at the SLA conference to be held June 10-15 in Baltimore. The redesigned SpringerLink will give...

ProQuest completes parliamentary papers project.(ProQuest Information and Learning Co. digitization of parliamentary papers )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... ProQuest Information and Learning has completed the digitization of the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers from 1801 to 1900, which are considered to be the most detailed primary source for information on 19th-century Britain, its colonies,...

'Aladdin's Lamp' search engines scratch deep Web surface.(Google Inc.)
June 1, 2006... The mystique of the deep Web continues (deep Web: that part of the Internet that's not reached by popular search engines). The casual, uninitiated Web surfer imagines the deep Web as a mysterious El Dorado of content wealth, rich beyond measure...

Swets Information Services introduces SwetsWise 4.2 with RSS.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Swets Information Services released version 4.2 of SwetsWise, the Web-based, modular service for the procurement, access, and management of subscriptions and online information. The latest release includes RSS feeds to SwetsWise online content...

EBSCO A-to-Z adds seven new language options.(EBSCO Information Services)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... EBSCO announced that EBSCO A-to-Z is now available in seven additional languages (traditional and simplified Chinese, Dutch, Latin American Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese) for its expanding international customer base. This brings...

Jamcracker tracks growth of on demand and SaaS.(Product News & Reviews)(On Demand Ecosystem )(software as a service )
June 1, 2006... Whoever said there is strength in numbers might have seen the impact that software as a service (SaaS) and independent software vendors (ISVs) would eventually have in the information technology industry. Brent Arslaner, vice president of...

H.W. Wilson expands art full text coverage.(Product News & Reviews)
June 1, 2006... H.W. Wilson's Art Full Text now features full-text coverage dating back to 2000 for Art in America, The Magazine Antiques, and five journals from Oxford University Press. The enhanced offerings span a range of art, design, film, and media with...

Nature Publishing Group launches Neuroscience Gateway.(Nature Publishing Group and Allen Institute for Brain Science introduces online database services)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Nature Publishing Group (NPG) and the Allen Institute for Brain Science announced the launch of the Neuroscience Gateway, a free online resource for neuroscience and genomics research. The Neuroscience Gateway, which was available in early May,...

CSA announces access to MLA International Bibliography.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... CSA enhanced the subject access to the MLA International Bibliography, including browsing ability by literary genre, literary theme, place name, time period, and 22 other indexes from the Search Tools tab. The full-record display has also been...

Blackwell opens the doors to windows live academic.(Blackwell Publishing will use Microsoft Windows Live Academic )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Now that Windows Live Academic is in beta, Google Scholar faces some good old-fashioned rivalry. And publishers such as Blackwell Publishing, Inc. are expected to reap some of the many benefits of this competitive enterprise. Windows Live...

Intellext releases updated Watson search tool.(Product News & Reviews)
June 1, 2006... Intellext has released Watson 2.3 next-generation search tool to find and deliver relevant information to users. The latest version includes people and company content from ZoomInfo, a drop-and-drag feature to collect information, and Yahoo!...

Qualstar: the cutting edge of storage.(XLS Enterprise Tape Library System from Qualstar Corp.)
June 1, 2006... When it comes to storage capacity, Qualstar Corp. is giving its users plenty of options. In late May, Qualstar introduced its XLS Enterprise Tape Library System with expansion capabilities extending from 140 terabytes to more than four...

The American Society for Clinical Pharmacology teams up with NPG.(American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics)(Nature Publishing Group)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... The American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) and Nature Publishing Group (NPG) announced that NPG will publish the society's journal, Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (CPT). The journal will be relaunched in...

ScanYourPC.com site offers help for infected PCs.(Ascentive introduces its new websites)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Ascentive introduced its ScanYourPC.com Web site to combat PC risks with a comprehensive online service station that scans and repairs computer problems. This all-in-one site lets users have a simple way to run multiple free scans on their PCs...

dtSearch offers high-speed terabyte search.(dtSearch Corp.)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... dtSearch Corp.'s Version 7.2, which searches terabytes of documents on a desktop, network, Internet, or intranet, is a search tool that can produce results in near-instantaneous speed. It's been billed as the tool "that can help you pick a...

e-know introduces Compliance Express Services.(e-know, Inc.)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... e-know, Inc. announced its new Compliance Express Services, which is designed to roll out the Code of Conduct or any critical policy to employees and certify them in 2 weeks or less. This new service fulfills customer requests for efficient...

Lycos offers iS3 security toolbar.(iS3, Inc.)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... iS3, Inc., creator of STOPzilla, announced the launch of a new co-branded version of its security toolbar on Lycos. iS3 will offer Lycos users a free downloadable security bar to protect against user threats on the Internet, including phishing,...

The science and art of mapmaking today.(Book review)
June 1, 2006... Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users by Cynthia A. Brewer Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2005 ISBN: 1-58948-089-9 203 pages $24.95 softcover We can all appreciate a good map, even if we are not design professionals. We use them in...

American Society of Indexers selects 2006 Hines Award recipient.(American Society of Indexers to award Janet Perlman)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... The American Society of Indexers (ASI) announced the winner of the Theodore C. Hines Award for 2006. Janet Perlman, a 25-year member of ASI, has served the indexing profession as a member of the ASI board of directors. She also co-founded the...

Thomson acquires Centre for Medicines Research International.(News Bytes)
June 1, 2006... The Thomson Corp. announced the acquisition of the Centre for Medicines Research International (CMR), which provides R&D performance metrics to the global pharmaceutical industry. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. CMR...

The NEA Foundation appoints three new members to board of directors.(News Bytes)
June 1, 2006... The NEA (National Education Association) Foundation recently announced the appointment of three new members to its board of directors: Steve Sidel, president of Discovery Education; Larry Nelson, director of collaboration and partnerships for...

Thomson, Shin Nippon Hoki Shuppan K.K. announce joint venture for Japanese legal information market.(Thomson Corp.)(Shin Nippon Hoki Shuppan K.K. )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Shin Nippon Hoki Shuppan K.K. and the Thomson Corp. signed an agreement establishing Westlaw Japan K.K., a business that will develop online service for the world's second-largest legal information marketplace. Westlaw Japan K.K. combines the...

Pomp and Circumstances.(In Other Words)(high school life)(Column)
June 1, 2006... It's June, which means all across the nation, high school seniors are trading their end-of-school hassles for mortarboard and tassels and making that long walk to the risers to the seemingly endless rendition of "Pomp and Circumstance." (Did...

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of copyright.(Copyright Clearance CenterEs Rightsphere)
June 1, 2006... The folks at the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) have been busy at the drawing board working on a new rights advisory and management tool. After months of tweaking and refining, the CCC is introducing Rightsphere to resolve the two-fold...

ICANN Vetoes .xxx domain names.(News Makers)(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) voted against creating a special .xxx domain name for the adult entertainment industry. Conservative groups and some pornography Web sites posed opposition to the proposal, which...

Internet leak leaves Chili Peppers seeing red.(News Makers)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... The Red Hot Chili Peppers' newest album. Stadium Arcadium, was leaked on the Internet prior to its May 9 U.S. release. Bass guitarist Michael Balzary (aka Flea) originally expressed his distress over the incident in an open letter: "If you...

SPARC honors Herbert Van de Sompel.(News Makers)(Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Herbert Van de Sompel, head of the digital library research and prototyping team at the Research Library of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), was named the first SPARC Innovator by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources...