Information Today articles from October 2004

Information Today archives from October 2004

Ten years after.(Poynder on Point)
October 1, 2004... The open access (OA) movement has had some big wins this year: In July, a cross-party group of British politicians called on the U.K. government to make all publicly funded research accessible to everyone "free of charge, online." That same...

Colleges, Code, and Copyright.(Report From The Field)
October 1, 2004... The bottom line on copyright at academic institutions is still education. That was certainly the message received during the 2-day June 2004 University of Maryland University College conference called "Colleges, Code, and Copyright: The Impact...

The latest from Spain, Singapore, the U.K., and Iraq.(International Report)
October 1, 2004... Spain Most people tend to associate robots with NASA or large-scale repetitive tasks like factory automation. It turns out, however, that one of the more productive environments for developing robots is the library, and today there are a...

Nstein Technologies acquires Valsar.(News Bytes)
October 1, 2004... Nstein Technologies, Inc. announced that it has acquired Valsar Consulting Group, a firm specializing in the integration of IT solutions for large corporations and organizations. According to the announcement, Valsar is known for its business...

SpringerLink adds more than 650 titles.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... MetaPress announced that it has extended its agreement with Springer, part of Springer Science+Business Media, to add more than 650 STM journals from Kluwer Academic Publishing (KAP) to SpringerLink (http://www.springerlink.com). This agreement...

Hummingbird announces integration with LexisNexis total search.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Hummingbird, Ltd., a provider of integrated enterprise content management solutions, and LexisNexis have announced the integration of Hummingbird Enterprise and LexisNexis Total Search V.2. The combined technologies will provide increased...

Future of the NIH open access policy.(National Institutes of Health)
October 1, 2004... Hallelujah! The day of liberation has come! And only the first of many more, I would predict. (For my own modest coverage, check out the NewsBreak at http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb040913-1.shtml.) Basically, the National Institutes...

News about M&A, search, and content access.(News Break Update)(Mergers and Acquisitions )
October 1, 2004... Looking back over the last several weeks, I am struck by the number of company acquisitions in the information provider and content management space. I suspect that this veritable buzz of M&A activity is evidence of both the gradually...

It's not all about the markets.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... Thank you for the wonderfully satirical interview with the fictional publishing CEO in "Put Up or Shut Up" (Sept. 2004). Oh, it's not satire? Well in that case, kudos to Richard Poynder for asking such good questions with a straight face. ...

The big dupe.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... Your Springer interview [with Derk Haank, Sept. 2004] about the Big Deal prompts me to suggest a title called "The Big Dupe." Research scientists are being duped about open access, thinking it is free over the Internet. Free? PLoS charges...

No one rules the net, not yet.(Internet governance)
October 1, 2004... The Internet has evolved in a way that ensures no one person or entity is 'in charge.'"--The Internet Society "Internet governance." This was the dark horse of last year's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), when at the...

Infotoons.
October 1, 2004... * SIGH* WHAT'S WRONG? OH, I'M CONSUMED WITH THE ISSUES... YOU KNOW, NOVEMBER. OH? GOOD GRIEF! RELAX, I HAVE THE NOVEMBER ISSUES OF "PRICE GOUGE" AND "FASHION FOOL"! IT'S COMFORTING TO KNOW THAT THE FUTURE IS IN THE...

The politics of publishing.(Focus on Publishing)
October 1, 2004... In this time of elections I am reminded of Theodore Roszak, who stated in The Cult of Information that "information is never neutral, it is political through and through." If I want to drive that point home then I need look no further than the...

Who's responsible for copyright infringement?(Legal Issues)
October 1, 2004... Assume for the moment that I am sitting at my computer (which I am). Instead of finishing this column, I log on to Kazaa and download a half-dozen songs and a current Hollywood film. Next, I upload some of Annie Leibovitz's photographs onto my...

Thoughts about federated searching.(Internet Insights)
October 1, 2004... The words federal and federated do not always conjure up positive images. Still, "federated" is the most expressive adjective when it comes to the consolidated retrieval of results in response to a query sent to several databases hosted by...

Blue ribbon panel takes on future of NISO.(News Bytes)(National Information Standards Organization)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announced that 11 experts from industry, academia, and the library community have accepted seats on NISO's Blue Ribbon Panel, which will evaluate the progress, challenges, and opportunities...

Elsevier signs agreement to aid New Zealand researchers.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Elsevier announced that a new agreement has been signed with members of the New Zealand Vice Chancellors' Committee (NZVCC) and the Association of Crown Research Institutes (ACRI) that will provide New Zealand researchers with access to vital...

Swets joins Ingenta's subscription-activation initiative.(News Bytes)(Swets Subscription Service)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Ingenta, Inc. announced that Swets Information Services has joined its initiative to simplify the online access of e-journals for the 17,000 libraries that currently use ingenta.com. Building on an existing process of exchanging...

ASERL supports launch of alliance for taxpayer access.(News Bytes)(Association of Southeastern Research Libraries)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... The Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) has joined 3 dozen national organizations in launching the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA), an informal coalition of libraries, patient and health advocates, and other...

CAS science spotlight tallies real-time document requests.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... CAS announced that recording how often a journal's contents are cited in scientific literature has long been the conventional way of measuring the importance of specific publications and even of the authors themselves. However, the widespread...

November in Monterey.(On the Road)
October 1, 2004... If you are a librarian and use the Internet, then Internet Librarian is your conference. Held in Monterey Nov. 15-17, it's slightly later this year, so you have until late October to register at the low "early bird" price. After digesting the...

BCR partners with Collaborative Digitization Program.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... The Bibliographical Center for Research (BCR), a nonprofit, multistate library cooperative serving more than 3,000 libraries throughout the western U.S., has announced a new partnership with the Collaborative Digitization Program (CDP). ...

Conference calendar.(Information industry)(Calendar)
October 1, 2004... October 1: New York (St. John's University-Manhattan Campus). The NFAIS Committee on Best Practices/Usage Statistics will hold a 1-day forum from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. that will provide an overview of the current status and future trends in...

Infotrieve releases ArticleFinder 2.0.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Infotrieve, Inc. announced the release of ArticleFinder 2.0, an enhanced version of its proprietary information discovery tool. ArticleFinder 2.0 contains more than 26 million citations and 8 million abstracts primarily within the scientific,...

Ovid announces Books@Ovid platform enhancements.(Product News & Reviews)(Ovid Technologies Inc.)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Ovid Technologies announced enhancements to Books@Ovid, its electronic books platform. Books@Ovid's new intuitive search and browse features--such as natural language search capability, relevance ranking, and back-of-the-book index...

Political watchdogs reveal campaign chicanery.(Database Reviews)
October 1, 2004... The campaign season is in full swing, accompanied by horrifying levels of slinging mud, flying fur, and partisan acrimony. We're constantly assaulted with testosterone-drenched rhetoric from both sides. It's information overload with a real...

Wiley launches Speclnfo on Wiley InterScience.(Product News & Reviews)(John Wiley & Sons Inc.)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... John Wiley & Sons, Inc. announced the launch of SpecInfo on Wiley InterScience, its online publishing platform. With more than 434,000 curated spectra, SpecInfo provides an integrated spectroscopy solution for viewing, predicting, and searching...

ProQuest adds selections from EIU ViewsWire to ABI/INFORM.(Product News & Reviews)(ProQuest Information and Learning Co)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... ProQuest Information and Learning announced the addition of EIU ViewsWire selections to the ABI/INFORM suite of business databases. EIU ViewsWire, published by the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit, provides analytical briefings to...

Inmagic reveals Inmagic Presto!(Product News & Reviews)
October 1, 2004... Inmagic, Inc. announced the release of Inmagic Presto:, a Web-based content catalog for accessing, sharing, and re-purposing information assets. Built on the Inmagic Content Server using the Microsoft SQL Server back end, Presto! leverages the...

Nature Publishing Group puts Nature online.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Nature Publishing Group has launched the online Nature research journals archive collection. The collection contains more than 11,000 articles from Nature Biotechnology (formerly Bio / Technology), Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, and Nature...

Thomson Gale offers MLA International Bibliography, enhances databases.(Product News & Reviews)(Modern Language Association)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Thomson Gale now offers customers two ways to access the Modern Language Association (MLA) International Bibliography. The company also announced enhancements to three of its online databases. MLA International Bibliography Thomson...

IPCA available on EBSCOhost.(Product News & Reviews)(Internet & Personal Computing Abstracts)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... EBSCO Publishing announced the availability of Internet & Personal Computing Abstracts (IPCA) via the EBSCOhost interface. IPCA (formerly Microcomputer Abstracts) contains content that extends back to the 1980s and provides abstracts and...

ATLA updates ATLAS collection.(Product News & Reviews)(American Theological Library Association)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... The American Theological Library Association announced the August update of ATLAS, its online collection of major religion and theology journals selected by religion scholars and theologians. The update increases content to include 561...

Factiva adds U.S. government and military publications from Gannett.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Factiva has added nine sources of information about the U.S. federal government and the U.S. military from the Army Times Publishing Company, a division of Gannett. Factiva customers will now have access to the full text of the Federal...

Aries unveils Editorial Manager 3.0.(Product News & Reviews)(Aries Systems Corp.)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Aries Systems Corp. announced the release of Editorial Manager 3.0, which includes new features for reference works and review journals. Editorial Manager 3.0 is the first release of the application to provide tracking prior to author...

CAS extends access to research from early 20th century.(Product News & Reviews)
October 1, 2004... CAS has expanded its Scientific Century project by making thousands of additional early-20th-century articles from American Chemical Society (ACS) journals and others available online. According to the release, the enhanced content will enable...

Metafile delivers information with Document Distribution module.(Product News & Reviews)(Metafile Information Systems Inc)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Metafile announced the release of a Document Distribution module for its MetaViewer Enterprise software package that automatically delivers defined information from reports via e-mail, fax, or printer. The Document Distribution module...

HW Wilson adds two databases to WilsonWeb.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... HW Wilson added Science Full Text Select to WilsonWeb. The company also announced that Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective 1918-1981 is now available on WilsonWeb. Sc-ence Full Text Select HW Wilson announced the addition of...

Nature Publishing Group partners with EMBO.(Product News & Reviews)(European Molecular Biology Organization)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Nature Publishing Group, in partnership with the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), announced the launch of Molecular Systems Biology. The journal will be available in spring 2005 as a peer-reviewed, online-only publication with an...

Swets launches SwetsWise Title Bank.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Swets Information Services announced that it has launched SwetsWise Title Bank, a customized gateway to a library's collection of online and print holdings. SwetsWise Title Bank enables Swets' clients to customize their entire list of...

Satire sites on the Web: when we're overwhelmed with the 'reality of existente,' most of us would rather laugh than cry.(Link-UP@Home: your personal guide to the web)
October 1, 2004... "Movie Praised for Not Being as Bad as It Could Have Been," said the newspaper headline. The article reported that moviegoers coast to coast had hailed Catwoman, the Halle Berry action film, as "not as much of ah unforgivably awful piece of...

I deserve a medal.(Cyber Sports)
October 1, 2004... Baseballreference.com Your Field Correspondent, having been trapped in a hellish world of European dial-up connections during the Summer Olympics, has developed a whole new appreciation for your info-but-not-graphics-laden Web site. As...

The global net:.(Perspectives)
October 1, 2004... This is the first in a two-part series on international resources on the Net. Part I covers Internet demographic trends and resources that help you participate in the increasingly global Internet. Part II will explore intercultural dialogue and...

Swets information services adds eight publishers.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Swets Information Services announced that it has recently signed eight new publishers to SwetsWise Online Content. SwetsWise is the Web-based, modular service for the procurement, access, and management of subscriptions and online information....

netLibrary to distribute Penguin titles.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... netLibrary, a provider of e-books to libraries worldwide, has signed a distribution agreement with Penguin Group (USA), an affiliate of Penguin Group, the world's second-largest English-language trade book publisher. "We are very excited...

Ontario consortium makes RefWorks available systemwide.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... The Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) and RefWorks, LLC have announced an agreement that will make RefWorks, the Web-based bibliographic management tool, available to all OCUL members for the next 3 years. RefWorks allows...

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS).(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has announced the appointment of Brian Bergner as vice president of information technology. In this position, he will maintain and develop the technical infrastructure to support the company's database building...

FIND/SVP, Inc.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... FIND/SVP, Inc. has announced the appointment of Brian Ruder to the company's board of directors and audit committee. Currently, Ruder is the founder and CEO of Skylight Partners. Before this, he was executive vice president of global marketing...

LexisNexis Applied Discovery.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... LexisNexis Applied Discovery, a division of LexisNexis that provides electronic discovery service to law firms and corporations, announced that it has added personnel to its electronic discovery specialist team. Rachelle DeGregory, a...

Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... The Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) has announced the appointment of Albert Joseph as director of publisher relations. He is responsible for expanding partnerships with publishers by providing electronic STM...

Project MUSE.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Project MUSE has announced that Ann Snoeyenbos is now the sales coordinator for international and special markets. In this newly created position, she will identify subscription sales opportunities for MUSE journal collections in international...

PALINET.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... PALINET announced that Carla Hayden has been appointed to its board of trustees. Currently, Hayden is executive director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and the immediate past president of ALA. She is also ah adjunct faculty member...

Swets Information Services, Inc.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Rob Hoyer joins as West Coast regional sales manager)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Swets Information Services, Inc. has announced the addition of Rob Hoyer as West Coast regional sales manager for the academic market. Hoyer has 14 years of experience working with the library community, Previously, he held positions at both...

Clare Hart, president and CEO of Factiva.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(Brief Article)(Biography)
October 1, 2004... Clare Hart leads Factiva, a news and information solutions company that counts more than 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies as clients and whose products and services are available to more than 1.6 million paying subscribers worldwide. ...

Remember the 5.25-inch floppy?(Cover Notes)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... Protecting Your Library's Digital Sources: The Essential Guide to Planning and Preservation by Miriam B. Kahn Chicago American Library Association, 2004 ISBN 0-8389-0873-X 104 pages $40 The phrase library preservation conjures up visions of...

LexisNexis completes acquisition of Seisint, Inc.(News Bytes)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... LexisNexis U.S. announced that it has closed on its acquisition of Seisint, Inc., a U.S.-based provider of information management products and services, for $775 million. LexisNexis is a member of Reed Elsevier Group, PLC. Seisint will...

Speedy deliveries.(In Other Words)
October 1, 2004... You know that expression, "Everything old is new again"? When I was a little girl growing up in the 1960s, door-to-door service was the norm. The milkman came and left bottles. A truck brought the best potato chips ever, Charles Chips, in a...

The Skeptical Business Searcher: The Information Advisor's Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites, and Sources.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... 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...

The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook: A Guide for the Serious Searcher.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook: A Guide for the Serious Searcher By Randolph Hock Foreword by Gary Price The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook is the essential guide for anyone who uses the Internet for research:...

Choosing and Using a News Alert Service.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... 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...

The Accidental Webmaster.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... The Accidental Webmaster By 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 Web-mastering books focus on...

Pathways to Nursing: a Guide to Library and Online Research in Nursing and Allied Health.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... Pathways to Nursing: A Guide to Library and Online Research in Nursing and Allied Health By Dennis C. Tucker and Paula Craig This timely book provides a foundation within library and electronic research in the fields of nursing and...

Business Statistics on the Web: Find Them Fast--At Little or No Cost.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... Business Statistics on the Web: Find Them Fast--At Little or No Cost By Paula Berinstein Foreword by Charles Cotton Statistics are a critical component of business and marketing plans, press releases, surveys, economic analyses,...

The Web Library: Building a World Class Personal Library with Free Web Resources.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... The Web Library: Building a World Class Personal Library with Free Web Resources By Nicholas G. Tomaiuolo Edited by Barbara Quint With this remarkable, eye-opening book and its companion Web site, Nicholas G. Tomaiuolo shows how anyone...

Assessing Competitive Intelligence Software: A Guide to Evaluating CI Technology.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... Assessing Competitive Intelligence Software: A Guide to Evaluating CI Technology By France Bouthillier and Kathleen Shearer Foreword by Chun Wei Choo As commercial software products for competitive intelligence (CI) emerge and gain...