Information Today articles from November 2007

Information Today archives from November 2007

Legal update 2007: where the lawsuits are.
November 1, 2007... Lawsuits are a fact of life for most major corporations, organizations, and agencies. These groups may find themselves involved in dozens of lawsuits over a variety of issues during the course of a typical year. Customers and users sue over...

Library reference points: 'Slow Down Cowboy': tales of a Web 2.0-challenged baby boomer who teams up with tech-savvy Gen Xers.(Personal account)
November 1, 2007... While I was entering items into the events calendar on the Web site of the Philadelphia chapter of the Medical Library Association late one evening, a strange message flashed on my monitor: "Slow Down Cowboy." Huh? Was someone virtually...

Better strategies mean better corporate security.
November 1, 2007... With data breaches making headlines nearly every week, companies are still trying to come up with a winning formula to stay protected against data theft. Top security experts point to certain areas where companies seem to be the most...

Swets signs 400th publisher to SwetsWise online content.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Swets recently signed agreements with seven publishers: American Economic Association; Armand Colin; Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.; Research Information; Royal Irish Academy; University of Buckingham Press; and University of Toronto Press to...

IGI global partners with EMpact Sales.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... IGI Global announced a partnership with EMpact Sales to market two of its electronic resources to organizations in Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland. EMpact's sales force and support team will provide InfoSci-Journals...

Lightning Source celebrates 10 years.(News Bytes)
November 1, 2007... Lightning Source, Inc., a subsidiary of Ingram Industries, Inc., recently celebrated its 10th year of publishing. In the past decade, consumers have purchased more than 44 million books manufactured by more than 5,000 publishers around the...

Columbia University conference marks opening of human rights archives.(News Bytes)(Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research at Columbia University Libraries )(Conference news)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research at Columbia University Libraries hosted a conference for more than 240 scholars, human rights activists, legal advocates, librarians, and archivists from around the world. The conference,...

BSI British standards joins CrossRef.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... CrossRef announced that BSI British Standards has joined its system. BSI will now register standards with CrossRef and implement interlinking with other scholarly and scientific publications through the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) System....

Wiley-Blackwell forms book publishing partnership with ISTE.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... In January 2008, Wiley-Blackwell will become an exclusive co-publisher of ISTE, Ltd. in the Americas, Asia, and other territories worldwide. Under the agreement, the two companies will co-publish about 60 books per year on electrical, civil,...

EBSCO Partners with Tufts Health Care Institute, Tufts University School of Medicine.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... EBSCO Publishing recently partnered with Tufts Health Care Institute (THCI) and Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) Office of Continuing Education to provide institutional access to Internet point-of-care CME/CE credits via DynaMed,...

WebFeat surpasses 120 million database searches in 2007.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... WebFeat has surpassed 120 million database searches for its clients in 2007, and it expects to meet the 150 million mark by the end of the year. The former figure represents a 50 percent increase in database searches since 2006; the company...

Questys Solutions holds 13th annual conference.(News Bytes)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... Questys Solutions held its 13th annual Reseller and User Group Meeting in Palm Springs, Calif., in October. The meeting offered 2.5 days of hands-on training classes to users and resellers. Sessions included end-user training and IT classes to...

Caringo signs Proact as reseller in Nordic, Baltic markets.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Caringo, Inc.'s reseller agreement with Proact is expected to further expand its European market with its content storage software CAStor. Proact, which specializes in managing, securing, and storing mission-critical information, is now a...

Swets acquires ScholarlyStats from MPS Technologies.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Swets announced that it has acquired exclusive rights to ScholarlyStats from MPS Technologies (MPST). ScholarlyStats is a Web-based portal that simplifies collecting, consolidating, and analyzing ejournal usage statistics from multiple sources;...

JEGI reports 3Q M&A findings for media, information industries.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc. (JEGI) reported that M&A for the media and information industries reached record highs in the first three quarters of 2007, already exceeding records for 2006. Through September 2007, the 637 transactions that...

Unlimited Priorities forms cooperative relationship with Basch Subscriptions.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Unlimited Priorities Corp. and Basch Subscriptions, Inc. have agreed to present their firms' offerings to current and prospective clients in the information community. Basch Subscriptions will provide its subscription management services to...

LISU releases survey on public library spending.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... National research and information center LISU reported the results of its 2006-08 survey of public library spending. The survey, sponsored by Nielsen Book, details the spending in 2006-07 and the latest budget estimates for 2007-08 on library...

The future of durability.(Up Front With Barbara Quint)
November 1, 2007... Preservation, the task of retaining knowledge of all kinds in a usable and enduring form forever (if possible), is one of the missions to which all information professionals subscribe at one level or another. Librarians meet their...

Ad-supported content steals news headlines.(News Break Update)
November 1, 2007... "Give it away for free" must be the new mantra for publishers and technology companies. And the adjunct to this mantra is "advertising is what drives revenues." Actually, a third component exists: Trust that the search engines will drive...

Words to work by.(Up Front with Barbara Quint)
November 1, 2007... Pepper your conversation with any of these new tech terms: connectile dysfunction: The inability to get a connection. Most commonly experienced using a cell phone, but can refer to laptops with Wi-Fi cards, etc. If it persists for more than...

Google and IBM forge computing program.(News Flash)
November 1, 2007... Google and IBM announced that they will team up to provide hardware, software, and services needed to teach large-scale distributed computing, also known as cloud computing, with Academic Cluster Computing Initiative. The initiative will cost...

VMware releases VI 3.5 details.(News Flash)(Virtual Infrastructure 3.5)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... VMware announced details regarding features on its unreleased Virtual Infrastructure 3.5, including an experimental feature that shuts down unnecessary servers. The feature, called Distributed Power Management, monitors how hard servers are...

TiVo links with Rhapsody for streaming music.(News Flash)(TiVo announced a partnership with Real Networks)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Digital video recording (DVR) service TiVo announced a partnership with Real Networks to embed its Rhapsody music program through subscribers' DVR devices. The deal with Rhapsody will allow TiVo users to find and listen to music without...

Seagate Technology offers new hybrid drive.(News Flash)(Samsung Company Limited)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Seagate Technology joins rival Samsung in offering hybrid drives that manufacturers claim decrease PC boot-up time and boost battery life with its Momentus 5400 PSD, which stands for "power savings drive." The combination disk storage and flash...

Microsoft adds free games to Xbox 360.(News Flash)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Microsoft announced that it will include two free video games with its Xbox 360 and 360 Elite consoles, just 2 months after industry competition prompted hardware price cuts. The two games are Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance,...

Hercules introduces industry-certified Outdoor iPod speaker.(News Flash)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Hercules announced the release of its i-XPS 120 Outdoor speaker for use with an iPod. It's the first compact speaker system for the iPod that has official IP 53 certification for being resistant to water and dust particles. The system features...

Quark updates publishing system.(News Flash)(Quark Publishing System )(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Quark introduced Quark Publishing System (QPS) 7, the latest version of its collaborative workflow software. The system is based around its desktop publishing software QuarkXPress 7 and has system requirements of Mac OSX v10.4.9 or later, Java...

Letter from the editor.(Editorial)
November 1, 2007... The votes are in, and the ballots are being tabulated for the 2007 People's Choice Awards. Our 10 winners will be announced in the next issue. This year's categories include Top New Innovator, Top New IT Enterprise, Top Search and...

Law of the blog.
November 1, 2007... This is a free country, and you can say anything, right? Well, you can as long as it's legal, and as long as what you say doesn't reach countries where it might be a criminal offense to say what you just said. Bloggers are learning the...

Infotoons.
November 1, 2007... SO ANNE, WHAT ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR THIS THANKSGIVING? I DON'T KNOW... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] C'MON! WHAT ABOUT: IPHONES, WIKIPEDIA, SECOND LIFE, AND YOUTUBE!!! FACEBOOK [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] --AND WIDGETS, MY...

My views on open access.(Focus on Publishing)(Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine)(Viewpoint essay)
November 1, 2007... Anyone who reads this column knows that I follow the topics concerning open access (OA) closely, especially as OA events are occurring at an almost staggering rate. With the launch of Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine...

Inter partes patent review: a new option?(Legal Issues)
November 1, 2007... As patent reform efforts meander through the channels in Congress, the information and technology industries struggle to cope with the thousands of patents that may or may not apply to their activities. Last year's battle over the patents...

Web 2.0 alphabet: Part II.(Internet Waves)
November 1, 2007... Last month, we explored the Web 2.0 alphabet from Ajax to meebo. This month, we're exploring N-Z, so let's pick up where we left off: N is for Ning, an oddly named service that lets you "create, customize, and share your own Social Network...

For the record.(Correction notice)
November 1, 2007... In the October 2007 issue of Information Today, Swets' chief commercial officer was misidentified in Phillip Britt's article "No Immediate Changes Expected From Swets Deal." Thomas Snyder is the chief commercial officer at Swets. IT regrets the...

Progress report: the British Library and Microsoft digitization partnership.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)
November 1, 2007... Microsoft made it clear that it wasn't going to let Google tackle mass book digitization exclusively when it announced a partnership with The British Library (BL) in November 2005. The BL/Microsoft project is designed to digitize 25 million...

Orders of the courts ... for free?(Library Stuff Revisited)
November 1, 2007... Case law is public record, right? Ask 10 people at random on the street, and more than half of them will probably reply that they think it is. Since our federal and state courts are an outgrowth of the municipalities where they are situated, we...

The Financial Times introduces new corporate content license.
November 1, 2007... Financial Times made headlines of its own recently when it unveiled plans to introduce a new single license for corporate customers. With this new plan, customers will be able to access The Financial Times (FT) content through any digital...

BLC partners with open content alliance to digitize books.(News Bytes)(Boston Library Consortium, Inc.)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The Boston Library Consortium, Inc. (BLC) has teamed up with the Open Content Alliance (OCA) to build a freely accessible library of digital materials from all 19 member institutions. The BLC is the first large-scale consortium to embark on a...

NBC pulls popular SNL video from site.(News Bytes)(Saturday Night Live)(National Broadcasting Company Inc.)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Since NBC failed to secure the digital rights to the background music used in a Saturday Night Live skit, the network had to pull the video from its YouTube channel and its own Web site. The skit was Andy Samberg's "I Ran So Far," which samples...

OTTO Digital helps companies optimize their Web presence.(IT Spotlight)(Company overview)
November 1, 2007... FOUNDER Jonathan Mendez founded OTTO Digital in April 2006 as the marketing services agency arm of software provider Offermatica. Mendez, who currently serves as OTTO Digital's chief strategy officer, originally planned to create his own...

Social networking sites for the MySpace-Wary.
November 1, 2007... By now, MySpace has taken over most of the Internet. Teenagers, bands, filmmakers, and politicians have all created profiles on the social networking giant, gathering huge media attention and a purchase by Google. But even if you can't tell at...

A new role for John J. Ragazzi.(News Makers)(College of Information and Computer Science)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... John J. Ragazzi, former president and CEO of Elsevier, Inc., who became Long Island University's dean of the College of Information and Computer Science (CICS) in 2005, has decided to join LIU's college faculty. He will continue his teaching...

Steven Sieck launches new consultancy firm.(News Makers)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... He's known to many as an information industry business strategist and industry analyst. And after 25-plus years of experience helping industry leaders through the changing digital and information environment, Steven K. Sieck is launching his...

Library predictions, anyone?(News Makers)(Urban Libraries Council)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The Urban Libraries Council (ULC) has launched a unique program that is aimed at preparing librarians for the future. With its far-reaching gaze looking 12 years into the future, ULC's Foresight 2020 will teach librarians how to spot trends and...

Welcome to the board.(News Makers)(American Society for Information Science and Technology)(Donald O. Case appointed as presidents)(Vicki L. Gregory appointed as treasurer)(Efthimis Efthimiadis and Barbara Wildemuth appointed as director)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) recently announced the results of the 2007 election. Dick Hill, ASIS&T executive director, congratulated the winners of the following appointments: Donald O. Case,...

HP Acquires Opsware, Inc.(News Bytes)(Hewlett-Packard Company)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... HP recently acquired Opsware, Inc., a data center automation software company. The deal combines Opsware's IT automation offerings with HP Software's business and IT service management capabilities. The merger is expected to boost HP's Business...

Lockheed Martin to market FortiusOne technology.(News Bytes)
November 1, 2007... Lockheed Martin recently signed a cooperative marketing agreement with FortiusOne, a geospatial analytics company that provides next-generation mapping services. Under the agreement, Lockheed Martin will have exclusive marketing rights for...

Books: bridging the digital divide.(INTERVIEW With John Ingram)(Interview)
November 1, 2007... Ingram Industries plays a major role in the book publishing industry. From its modest beginnings as a local instate textbook distributor, it has grown to prominence and has branched out into related areas. Ingram Industries, the major sponsor...

Columbia University library acquires papers of C. L. R. James.(News Bytes)(Columbia University's Rare Book & Manuscript Library)(Cyril Lionel Robert James )(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Columbia University's Rare Book & Manuscript Library added the papers of 20th-century political intellectual Cyril Lionel Robert James (1901-1989). The James papers include correspondence, notebooks, manuscripts, and an unfinished autobiography...

USC, SC Launch! and Collexis announce global virtual library for hydrogen fuel research.(News Bytes)(University of South Carolina)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The University of South Carolina signed an agreement with Collexis Holdings, Inc. and SC Launch! to create a partnership for hydrogen fuel research. Collexis will build a hydrogen-fuel dashboard, similar to a virtual library, which will be...

Knovel adds 15 academic institutions to subscriber list.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Knovel Corp. announced that 15 academic institutions from 11 countries have been added to its subscription list. Knovel's collection of 280-plus academic subscribers now reaches 44 countries with technical references to more than half of the...

Leveraging universal search.
November 1, 2007... Universal search is the "new black." Google started this fashion trend back in May when it launched universal search to great fanfare at its Searchology conference. Other search engines joined the buzz. Ask then pointed out that it had its...

Journals adapt to the Web 2.0 Era.(International REPORT)
November 1, 2007... Some people think peer-reviewed journals have had their day and now face an inexorable decline. However, not everyone feels the same way. The tables of contents (TOC) in journals now can be delivered and personalized for today's Web 2.0...

Conference dates.(Conference Circuit)(Calendar)
November 1, 2007... FOR 2007 Enterprise Search Summit West Nov. 6-7 San Jose McEnery Convention Center San Jose, Calif. KMWorld & Intranets Nov. 6-8 San Jose McEnery Convention Center San Jose, Calif. Streaming Media West...

The last (but not the least).(Conference Circuit)
November 1, 2007... As we review the final conferences set for November and December, we will leave some space for an overview of the conferences set for next month. As usual, the number of conferences diminishes in December, officially stops after Dec. 18 because...

Trends, tactics, and truth in the information industry: the Fall 2007 ASIDIC meeting.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)(Association of Information and Dissemination Centers)
November 1, 2007... At ASIDIC's Fall 2007 meeting (Sept. 9-11 in Arlington, Va.), keynote speaker Eugenie Prime said that predicting the future is always risky; this meeting made great strides in making a few predictions. Speakers from a variety of industry market...

2007 InfoCommerce: the new data.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)
November 1, 2007... The packed audience at the 2007 InfoCommerce meeting, billed as the conference for data publishers, gathered at the Park Hyatt in Philadelphia, Sept. 25-26, as data publishers channeled trends and innovations into their discussions about the...

Customer intimacy at Wolters Kluwer.(INTERVIEW With John 'Jack' Lynch)(Interview)
November 1, 2007... John "Jack" J. Lynch Jr. was appointed to the Wolters Kluwer executive board in April 2007. He was previously senior vice president of business development, a position he held since he joined Wolters Kluwer in June 2006. I interviewed him after...

Conferences around the world.(Calendar)
November 1, 2007... For information on ITI's conferences, turn to page 32. November 1-2: Dallas (Magnolia Hotel). Understanding the Data Around Us: Gathering and Analyzing Usage Data is sponsored by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO)....

Infosolve technologies introduces open source data quality solution.(Product News & Reviews)
November 1, 2007... Infosolve Technologies recently released its OpenDQ V2.0 solution, which is designed to address structured and unstructured data quality in a single solution. It also extracts, transforms, and loads the data into one integrated solution. ...

Blackwell book services now a Worldcat Selection service partner.(Product News & Reviews)(OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc.)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... OCLC WorldCat Selection subscribers can now receive notification records for Blackwell materials within the WorldCat Selection interface. This partnership will allow selectors of library materials to view new title data from multiple vendors,...

Search engines, visualization, and KartOO.(Database Review)
November 1, 2007... A lot more was happening back in the old days, when search engines were first emerging. It seemed that every few months some new search engine came along that was radically different from all the others, and it shook up the status quo. You...

Thomson Scientific welcomes Prous Science to the group.(Product News & Reviews)(Thomson Corp. Thomson Scientific)
November 1, 2007... The Thomson Corp. has added another key player to its portfolio. Prous Science, a Barcelona, Spain-based global information solutions firm specializing in drug discovery content, has now become part of the Pharmaceutical/Chemical business unit...

Wrox press releases Silverlight book.(Product News & Reviews)
November 1, 2007... With the recent Microsoft release of Silverlight, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering media experiences and interactive Web applications, Wrox Press announced the release of Silverlight 1.0, a reference book with full-color...

OCLC adds new features, functionality to CONTENTdm.(Product News & Reviews)
November 1, 2007... OCLC has enhanced CONTENTdm 4.3 with new features and functionality that allow librarians to more easily manage and access PDF documents and to integrate digital collection growth into their current cataloging workflows. The new release...

Scirus expands search index.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Scirus added 26 new university and research institute repositories to its search index. This latest addition brings the total number of repositories indexed in Scirus to more than 100, with a combined total of more than 1.8 million records. ...

Emerald announces digitization of complete archive.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Emerald Group Publishing's latest project is under way to digitize the full archive of its journal titles in business, management, library and information services, materials science, and engineering. Emerald is working with The British Library...

Thieme Electronic book libraries now COUNTER-Compliant.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Thieme Publishing Group recently implemented the COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources) international initiative, which makes statistical comparisons of users of its English and German electronic book libraries. The...

Applists.com provides unlimited apps for iPhone, iPod touch.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Applists.com recently released its Version 2.0, enabling easier access to iPod touch and iPhone applications. Upgrades to the service include a thumb-friendly interface, a search box to find applications more quickly, precreated lists or "sets"...

Thomson Scientific extends patent data, functionality of INPADOC.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Thomson Scientific recently announced that the INPADOC/Patent Family and Legal Status database on Dialog has been enhanced with an extended content set, additional search capabilities, and more comprehensive results for patent searchers....

Semantra: a showcase for corporate data.(Product News & Reviews)
November 1, 2007... Having corporate data is one thing; getting the most use out of that data is quite another story. That's the reason why Semantra's Semantic Enterprise Platform (SEP) digs into that data, finds what you need, and presents it to you in a variety...

Questel releases QPAT v6.(Product News & Reviews)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Questel recently integrated PatentExaminer with QPAT to form a search service that also lets users navigate, display, and export search results. The service includes a Quick Search page so patent searchers can...

PhysMath central announces publication advancements.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... PhysMath Central, BioMed Central's open access publishing platform for physics, math, and computer science, launched PMC Physics B, a journal focusing on condensed matter and atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics. The publishing house's...

Wazap! Announces search plug-in for gamers.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Game search engine Wazap! announced the launch of its browser search plug-in (compatible with leading search engines), which displays gaming-related results from the Wazap! database above the top search engine results within the user's browser....

MuseGlobal-Groxis partnership transforms content into information.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... MuseGlobal recently integrated its Muse Content Machine into Groxis' information and management discovery tool Grokker. The Muse Content Machine provides source management, access management, search integration, and application modules, all...

IMS launches POPCORN add-on for publishers.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... IMS designed sales tool POPCORN as an add-on to its eBasket product. The tool allows users to search a company's name and find images of every press release, article, and feature story about that company that the publication has produced. The...

Oxford University goes live with SFX.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Oxford University, ranked one of the top 10 universities worldwide by the Times Higher World University Rankings 2006, implemented the Ex Libris SFX link resolver at its Oxford University Library Services (OULS) to manage the university's...

Scopus: insights into research trends.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Keeping track of news in the research community is now easier than ever. As the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and Web sources, Scopus is introducing a free, biweekly newsletter...

MyiLibrary adds 5,000 new titles.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... MyiLibrary, part of Ingram Digital Group, added more than 5,000 titles to its MyiLibrary platform with the addition of 21 new publishers including the Pennsylvania State University Press, Salem Press, SFC Publishing, University of British...

Astaro announces new automated PCI compliance reporting.(Product News & Reviews)(Payment Card Industry)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Astaro Corp. added the Astaro Compliance Reporter (ACR) to its line of security products. The move will reduce the need for organizations to train employees or hire outside consultants for the specific purpose of risk assessment compliance....

ColumbiaSoft introduces Document Locator, geared toward AEC firms.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ColumbiaSoft recently introduced Document Locator, which is designed to improve management of computer-aided design files, drawings, project files, financial documents, and communications for architecture,...

Globalization dissertation tops ProQuest's best-sellers.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... ProQuest announced its best-selling dissertation list from 2006; the top-selling piece was written by Department of Homeland Security chief learning officer George L. Tanner. His piece "The Problem of 'World Order' When the World is Your...

Wiley-Blackwell to publish The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Beginning in February 2008, Wiley-Blackwell will publish The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, which has been published by the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering (CSChE) since 1957. The journal, published six times a year,...

TeamViewer 3.0 beta published.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The next generation of the desktop sharing solution TeamViewer 3.0 is now available with updated enhancements and improvements. Major components of the solution, which allows instant remote control of computers anywhere on the Web, have been...