Information Today articles from November 2005

Information Today archives from November 2005

WSIS preview and highlights of PrepCom-3.(World Summit on the Information Society, internet governance)
November 1, 2005... From Sept. 19-30, the clock in Geneva was ticking. After 3.5 years of ramping up, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was set to convene its final session in Tunis, Tunisia, on Nov. 16. It was already the middle of September...

Encryption key to data security.
November 1, 2005... As the number of data security threats continues to escalate, the emphasis on security continues to move from external to internal safeguards, according to experts who deal with data protection in large firms. While companies have worked...

The USA PATRIOT Act and libraries: a sensitive relationship.(PATRIOT Act's impact on libraries, provisions allows investigations includes libraries and bookstores)
November 1, 2005... The sensitive relationship between libraries and the USA PATRIOT Act is making headlines again. In August, a "member of the American Library Association" known only as John Doe filed a federal lawsuit after receiving a National Security Letter...

John Wiley & Sons acquires InfoPOEM, Inc.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... John Wiley & Sons, Inc. announced its acquisition of InfoPOEM, Inc., an evidence-based medicine (EBM) provider. EBM helps in patient management through clinical expertise from medical literature. The firm delivers daily e-mail summaries of...

Connotea awarded for Publishing Innovation.(Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Connotea, a free online reference management service for scientists developed by Nature Publishing Group (NPG), won the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP)Award for Publishing Innovation. Connotea is a free online...

Committee meets on Content Selection for Scopus.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Scopus has assembled a Content Selection Committee that will be responsible for taking the scientific information "wish list" from users and prioritizing new content. The committee, which met in Budapest, Hungary, in October, comprises 20...

Scirus partners with NDLTD.(Elsevier partners with Scirus and Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations )(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Elsevier announced a partnership between Scirus and the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) to add theses and dissertations of its member institutes to Scirus. Scirus will power a search service on the repository site...

Partnership to prevent identity theft.(MyPublicInfo partners Trilegiant Corp.)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... MyPublicInfo has launched a partnership with Trilegiant Corp. to create a new fraud-protection service to help prevent identity theft. Public Information Profile (PIP) provides a detailed summary of individual public records. "Your PIP enables...

H.W. Wilson makes pledge to new ALA Cultural Communities Fund.(American Library Association's Public Programs Office receives funds)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... H.W. Wilson will grant $50,000 to the American Library Association's Public Programs Office to support its new Cultural Communities Fund. This first-of-its-kind endowment program will help libraries develop and host arts and humanities projects...

HP to acquire Peregrine Systems.(News Bytes)
November 1, 2005... Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Peregrine Systems, Inc. signed an agreement in which HP will acquire Peregrine for $425 million. Peregrine and its leading IT asset and service management software portfolio will eventually be integrated into the HP...

Google Print and Open Content Alliance.(partnership to digitize book literature)
November 1, 2005... Students who study how innovations change the world should find the current efforts to digitize the world's past--specifically its book literature--fascinating and instructive. At present, two approaches dominate the scene, up from one just a...

Digitization plans top the news.
November 1, 2005... Information industry companies and library organizations stepped up to the plate in providing relief and outreach services to the victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We added several updates to our initial NewsBreak about the first storm....

Infotrieve joins Oracle PartnerNetwork.(developing a scientific data management solution )(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Infotrieve, Inc. joined the Oracle PartnerNetwork to provide an integrated scientific data management solution to customers in the life sciences as well as the research and development industries. Infotrieve will be an Oracle Database reseller...

Cornell University Library develops online preservation guide in Arabic.(online tutorial guide for librarians)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Cornell University Library's Department of Preservation and Collection Maintenance developed an online tutorial guide for preserving books and manuscripts for librarians in the Middle East. The tutorial, available in both Arabic and English, is...

CSA offers support for users displaced by Hurricane Katrina.(Cambridge Scientific Abstracts)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... CSA is implementing initiatives for customers affected by Hurricane Katrina, including a continuing subscription for faculty, librarians, and researchers not able to access the CSA database via traditional methods. CSA is also working with its...

SmartCollector triples registered users.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... SmartCollector, an online collectibles and antiques research portal, announced that it has more than tripled its registered users (from 2,500 to more than 8,000) in less than 12 weeks. Collectors are using the site's free services to access...

You've got mail.(online information and web user statistics and survey)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Last week, I started reading "Digital Divisions," a report on online demographics that was written by Susannah Fox, associate director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. I figured I'd find out more about who's using the Web and why....

Laying odds on the World Summit.(World Summit on the Information Society, outcomes forecast)
November 1, 2005... Though I'm not a betting man, I'd have to place odds on how the World Summit on the Information Society's (WSIS) final meeting will turn out in Tunis, Tunisia, later this month. 3-1 odds: The question of Internet governance mechanisms will...

Infotoons.(Cartoon)
November 1, 2005... DID YOU MEET THE NEW GUY? I HEARD THAT HE CAN DO 20 THINGS AT ONCE! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] NO, I HAVEN'T. ISN'T HE THE GUY WHO'S BEEN ASSIGNED TO FIX ALL THE SECURITY GLITCHES IN THAT DATABASE OF OUR? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Web publishing 2.0.(Focus on Publishing)(Web 2.0 developed by Dale Dougherty)
November 1, 2005... The first time I heard the expression "social networking," I had visions of computers sipping chardonnay and nibbling on cheese from silver trays. But I eventually stopped rolling my eyes and came to embrace the term. I had a similar reaction...

Google Print and the fair use doctrine.(Authors Guild sues Google Inc. for copyright infringement)
November 1, 2005... My son recently brought a book home from kindergarten--it was a rhyming book with pictures about dinosaurs that he thought was great. Being the family legal egghead, however, I noticed the book's copyright warning: "No part of this publication...

Identity crisis.(survey of internet users and their password protection strategies)
November 1, 2005... Unless you are living in a rural cabin off the grid somewhere you are probably burdened with multiple logins that require passwords. Consider how many passwords are now an integral part of your life. For starters, most employed e-mail users...

The key to findability.(Peter Morville's latest book 'Ambient Findability' launched)
November 1, 2005... Peter Morville, better known as the father of information architecture, just added a copy of his latest book, Ambient Findability, to his bookshelf. Don't let the title fool you. Ambient findability, according to Morville, is a basic...

Digital update: London Portal opens doors to the city.
November 1, 2005... London may be one of the world's greatest cities, but its poor ranking on a list of official Web sites recently spurred the launch of the London Portal (http://www.yourlondon.gov.uk). This new site is designed to be the first choice for users...

Off to London town.(Online Information 2005 )
November 1, 2005... Online Information 2005 will convene in London's Olympia Grand Hall from Nov. 29 through Dec. 1 as the pinnacle of the busy conference season. The event is the place to "see and be seen," with more than 10,000 people expected to attend. Most...

InfoX 2005: information IQ.(information technology services industry conference)
November 1, 2005... Nearly 1,000 people settled into the five-session InfoX Showcase, which was held Sept. 2728 in New York. The event comprised Innovations in Search, Buying Digital, Taxonomy Boot Camp (the most popular of the conferences), Business Intelligence...

Conference calendar.
November 1, 2005... November 14-15: Philadelphia (Wyndham Philadelphia). PALINET will host its Annual Conference and Vendor Fair, which is themed Back to the Future: PALINET Libraries at 70 and Beyond. Stephen Abram, vice president of innovation at...

Personalized gifts on the Web.(websites offering giftware)
November 1, 2005... "A person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language," wrote Dale Carnegie in his classic book How to Win Friends & Influence People. "We should be aware of the magic contained in a name and realize that...

Fighting the good fight: CyberSports.(launch of a web site based on a book 'Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit')
November 1, 2005... If you're a hard-core, my-team-can-do-no-wrong kind of sports fan, you might want to turn the page and find something else to read. That's because today's topic is strictly for the Doubting Thomases among sports fans in the U.S., a land...

Fixing computer glitches.(technical support services from PlumChoice Computer Help )
November 1, 2005... One of Hewlett-Packard's (HP) recent TV commercials suggests that personal computers are reliable and stack up well against low-tech products such as pens and staplers, which break easily in the commercial. Come on. According to most...

Philadelphia: the wireless city that loves you back.(News Makers)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Philadelphia is in the midst of a grand techno-savvy plan to create the country's biggest municipal wireless Internet system. The Atlanta-based EarthLink, Inc. is in charge of the 135-square-mile network, which is now being billed as a...

Look out, Microsoft.(Google Inc. partner with Sun Microsystems Inc.)(Outsell, Inc.'s Marc Strohlein analysis the impact of the partnership on the industry)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Since last month's announcement that Google, Inc. and Sun Microsystems, Inc. will be offering online word processing and spreadsheet functions expected to rival Microsoft Corp.'s Office products, Outsell, Inc. took a look at the impact of the...

Go digital.(News Makers)(digital music sales climb)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Thanks to the iPod revolution, the music industry is changing... and quickly. According to a recent report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, digital music sales climbed to $790 million (6 percent of industry...

New study reports effects of OA on scholarly journals.
November 1, 2005... "The Facts About Open Access," a study sponsored by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and HighWire Press/Stanford University Libraries (with...

Thomson Corp.(Jesus Ortiz appointed at Thomson Elite)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Thomson Corp. announced that Jesus Ortiz has been named chief technology officer for Thomson Elite. In this position, he will lead software product development to support the company's growth initiative. In 2004, Ortiz joined Thomson Elite...

Lycos, Inc.(Alfred Tolle appointed)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Lycos, Inc. announced that Alfred Tolle joined the company as CEO. He will be responsible for Lycos' P&L and will also lead the management of all the Web sites. Currently, Tolle is on the board of directors at Daum Communications Corp., an...

Swets Information Services.(Ezra T. Ernst appointed)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Swets Information Services has announced the appointment of Ezra T. Ernst as its new CEO in North America. Previously, Ernst was vice president of business development at Wolters Kluwer Health, medical research division, where he...

Marcinko Enterprises, Inc.(Chris Broekhoff appointed)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Marcinko Enterprises, Inc. (MEI) announced that Chris Broekhoff has joined the company as vice president of business development. In this role, he will join a team of licensing professionals who help MEI's publisher clients monetize their...

Blackwell Publishing.(Barbara Kaplan appointed)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Blackwell Publishing announced that Barbara Kaplan is its new vice president of journal sales in the Americas. She will be responsible for fulfilling the needs of consortia and building new partnerships with corporate, academic, and government...

Thomson.(Richard Klasco appointed at Thomson Healthcare)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Thomson announced the appointment of Richard Klasco to the newly created position of chief medical officer (CMO) of Thomson Healthcare. In this position, Klasco will serve as the principal spokesperson on medical matters. He will work to...

American Theological Library Association.(Barbara Kemmis appointed)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... The American Theological Library Association (ATLA) announced that Barbara Kemmis is the new director of member services. Most recently, Kemmis was vice president of library services at the Donors Forum of Chicago. Before that, she was the...

Matthew Cockerill, publisher of BioMed Central.
November 1, 2005... Matthew Cockerill has a good vantage point as the recently appointed publisher of BioMed Central. His vision builds upon the first-hand knowledge he has gained from working at BioMed Central since its founding in 1999. "One of the most...

Dialog offers CSA research Alerts service.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Dialog now offers Alerts subscriptions to CSA research databases for its corporate and government customers. The Alerts will also be available for the more than 30 databases covering CSA scientific and technical research being added to Dialog....

Eedo Knowledgeware to market Eedo Enable software tool.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Eedo Knowledgeware announced the launch of Eedo Enable, a search-and-retrieval tool that indexes repositories and personal hard drives and harvests meta data (which is held in a central repository). Users can then complete federated searches of...

Yahoo! goes deep.(developing a fee-based content 'Yahoo! Search Subscriptions')
November 1, 2005... Search engines are desperate to dig into the deep Web. They have been quite successful at cataloging the public (or surface) Web, and now they're ready to do the same for the deep (or hidden) Web. Generally, these plans are not completely...

Nature Publishing Group to launch Nature Physics.(research journal )(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Nature Publishing Group (NPG) reported the launch of Nature Physics, a research journal for top-tier physics research. The first issue, which was pub lished in October, is available online (http://www.nature.com/naturephysics). The journal...

Watson 2.0 sidebar available for MSN Search Toolbar.(add-in for Windows Desktop Search)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Intellext ("Intelligence in Context") recently announced that Watson 2.0 will become an add-in for Windows Desktop Search. "MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search is a key component of our broader strategy to help people find...

KnowNow eLerts streamlines RSS instant notification service.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... KnowNow, Inc. introduced eLerts, a continuous instant notification service that delivers RSS content directly to users as it is published. The service allows users to receive info without being anchored to a specific site, RSS reader, or...

Alacra adds Newstex Newsfeeds.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Alacra, Inc. reported that it will add Newstex Newsfeeds to its premium content sources. Newstex will provide tailored, real-time news and commentary from news wires, newspapers, magazines, financial and business sources, official government...

Campus copyright made easy.(Copyright Clearance Center partners with Blackboard Learning System to offer copyright licensing service)
November 1, 2005... With awareness about permissions, copyright, and fair use at an all-time high, digital users want a quick, painless, and surefire way to maneuver through all the legal fine print. Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) has teamed up with Blackboard...

Perseus: getting all the answers.(Perseus Development Corp. enhances its survey software and launches Perseus SurveySolutions/EFM 1.4)
November 1, 2005... Customer satisfaction is on many minds lately. That's one of the reasons Perseus has beefed up its enterprise Web survey application with the new Perseus SurveySolutions/EFM 1.4. The revamped enterprise feedback management (EFM) solution helps...

CSA adds PsycBOOKS to Illumina platform.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... CSA added PsycBOOKS, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA), to the CSA Illumina platform. PsycBOOKS offers access to more than 12,000 chapters from more than 730 books, including out-of-print editions and more than...

OUP uses Mark Logic Server to create content delivery platform.(Oxford University Press)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Mark Logic Corp. announced that Oxford University Press (OUP) will use Mark-Logic Server to build a content delivery platform to provide online content products to libraries and academic institutions. OUP will offer customization to maximize...

Thomson's Business Intelligence Services offers single solution for research markets.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Dialog NewsEdge and Dialog Intelliscope customers will now be served by the newly named Business Intelligence Services unit of Thomson Corp. The unit's flagship product is Thomson Business Intelligence, which uses online search methods to...

MetaPress enhances Web site.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... MetaPress enhanced its publisher content aggregation site with detailed information about the entire MetaPress system. Users can now search through all site content, which includes 2,989 titles from more than 60 publishers. Pay-per-view is also...

EBSCOhost offers Electronic Journals Service.(Product News & Reviews)
November 1, 2005... EBSCO recently created the EJS E-Journals database to provide users with a single interface for EBSCOhost database searches and article-level searches within EBSCO-host Electronic Journals Service (EJS; http://ejournals.ebsco.com). The database...

Questel-Orbit acquires trademark expert Edital.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Questel*Orbit recently acquired Edital in a merger that allows both companies to provide a more comprehensive market presence in patents and trademarks. For the past 5 years, Questel * Orbit has pursued vertical integration in the patent area,...

HP's ITSM line cuts IT service management setup time.(Hewlett-Packard Co. launches Information Technology Service Management)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Hewlett-Packard (HP) introduced a line of software and services for enterprises that cuts the time required to set up network management software in half. It also reduces costs. The new IT Service Management (ITSM) line is part of the HP...

Clarification: EBSCOhost enhances Electronic Journals Service.(EBSCO Information Services )(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... EBSCO Information Services announced enhancements for EBSCOhost Electronic Journals Service (EJS; http://ejournals.ebsco.com). EJS Enhanced features a new Article-Level Activity usage report for administrators, better journal searching...

Edgewater Networks' EdgeMarc series offers secure VoIP and VPN management platform.(voice over internet protocol, virtual private networks)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Edgewater Networks, Inc. and LineSider Communications have established a joint initiative to engineer and deliver a policy-based VoIP and VPN solution based on Edgewater's EdgeMarc platform. The solution will provide any enterprise, especially...

All the news, all the time.(Inform Technologies, LLC developed a news and search platform)
November 1, 2005... Inform Technologies, LLC is raising the bar on how people use and retrieve news. The company, under the direction of CEO and co-founder Neal Goldman, has created an innovative blend of news and search with Inform, its news reading platform. The...

Synapse Technology adds services for database marketers.(IQEngine database access software launched)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Synapse Technology introduced IQEngine, a suite of service products to help database marketers improve the quality of marketing databases. "Working with bad data can sometimes be worse than having no data at all," said Debbie Bradley,...

Coming to grips with metadata.(Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval by David Haynes London: Facet Publishing, 2004 ISBN: 1-85604-489-0 186 pages $95 hardcover Librarians have been talking about metadata for a long time. Webopedia describes metadata as "data...

Mergers and acquisitions--legal and otherwise.(In Other Words)
November 1, 2005... I met my first Gulf Coast evacuee last weekend. Katy seems to be doing well in her new surroundings in Bowie, Md., as a long-term guest of my friend, Robin. Of course, I haven't checked in with Robin to see how Katy is getting along with Lexie,...

Cashing In with Content: How Innovative Marketers Use Digital Information to Turn Browsers into Buyers.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... 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,...

Yahoo! to the Max: An Extreme Searcher Guide.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... 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)
November 1, 2005... Theories of Information Behavior Edited by Karen E. 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,...

The Accidental Library Manager.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... 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...

The Successful Academic Librarian: Winning Strategies from Library Leaders.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... 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...

Choosing and Using a News Alert Service.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... Choosing and Using a News Alert Service By Robert Berkman There are dozens of competing firms that offer an e-mail-based news alert service. But how to know which one is best? This comprehensive new guide explains how these tools work...

Understanding and Communicating Social Informatics: A Framework for Studying and Teaching the Human Contexts of Information and Communication Technologies.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... 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 Skeptical Business Searcher: The Information Advisor's Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites, and Sources.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... The Skeptical Business Searcher: The Information Advisor's Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites, and Sources By Robert Berkman Foreword by Reva Basch This is the experts' guide to finding dependable, high-quality company and industry...

Governmental delegations to watch in Tunis.
November 1, 2005... EU: Represented officially by the U.K. this year, the EU has emerged as a would-be WSIS conciliator, which might possibly succeed in brokering a compromise solution to what otherwise appear to be irreconcilable differences on Internet...

The need for global policies.(internet governance issues at PrepCom-3 conference)
November 1, 2005... What is it some nations think they need to control about the Internet? Why do we need Internet governance by governments? The answer emerges only by considering the breadth and scope of policylevel issues, identified by the WGIG and...

Governance options still up for discussion.(PrepCom-3)(world summit on the information society)(egovernance)
November 1, 2005... The delegations departed PrepCom-3 in Geneva on Sept. 30, leaving eight draft texts on Internet governance lying on the table, including one from the EU (delivered by the U.K. delegation) that seemed to some, including the WSIS secretariat in...

WSIS preview: who's who and what's what at the upcoming Summit in Tunisia.(Working Group on Internet Governance)(World Summit on the Information Society)(world summit organised by International Telecommunication Union)
November 1, 2005... Three Organizations to Watch at WSIS-Tunis ITU: Summit Kingpin and WSIS Heir Apparent It was at the proposal of the International Telecommunications Union, aka ITU (in 1998), that the United Nations ultimately (in 2002) decided to...

The library position at WSIS.(International Federation of Library Associations, World Summit on the Information Society)(Brief Article)(Interview)
November 1, 2005... "In our official statement, we did not want to get in the business of adding commas and words," said Peter Lor, secretary-general of the International Federation of Library Associations, during an interview with Information Today in Geneva. ...