Information Today articles from October 2007

Information Today archives from October 2007

The copyright capers continue.(Investigative REPORT)
October 1, 2007... It may sound like something out of a George Orwell novel--cameras, printers, and other devices that embed information in documents including dates, times, serial numbers, and sometimes even your name. Other tools can scan files to find out who...

To bq, from ProQuest.(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... [Editor's Note: In the February 2007 issue of Information Today, columnist Barbara Quint devoted her Up Front With Barbara Quint column to what "sound" advice could "a consumer advocate, such as myself, give the new owners of all this luscious,...

Terms of use: the rules have changed.
October 1, 2007... Virtually every commercial and noncommercial Web site has Web site "Terms and Conditions," or Terms of Use. Typically, those Terms of Use state that the Web site owner is not liable for the accuracy of any content on the site or the quality of...

Thomson Learning announces name change to Cengage Learning.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Thomson Learning officially released its new company name in late August: Cengage Learning. The new name reflects the company's mission to be a "center of engagement" for its global customers. The name change comes on the heels of the recent...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics cites hot jobs.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Computer software engineers and computer systems analysts are among the top 30 occupations with the largest projected growth through 2014, according to a recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Most of the occupations that were...

New rules OK'd for patent applications.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently published new rules in the Federal Register that are designed to streamline the patent examination process by requesting applicants to use more precision in describing the scope of their...

Credo Reference and CARLI agree to online reference for libraries.(News Bytes)(Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Credo Reference (formerly Xrefer) has agreed to partner with The Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI). With the agreement, the CARLI institutions that subscribe will receive Credo Reference at a discount. The...

Knovel partners with Brill Academic Publishers.(News Bytes)
October 1, 2007... Knovel Corp. and Brill Academic Publishers have agreed to add Brill's scientific books in Knovel's online technical reference collection. The Netherlands-based Brill features content for engineers about polymers, thin films, fibers, and...

BioMed Central opts for OA publishing agreement with HHMI.(News Bytes)(Howard Hughes Medical Institute)(open access publishing)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... BioMed Central and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) announced a membership agreement in which HHMI has agreed to pay the article-processing charges for all research that HHMI investigators publish in BioMed Central journals. Under...

MuseGlobal invests in the future of search.(News Bytes)(Indiana University School of Informatics)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... MuseGlobal has become a full sponsor of the Center for Data and Search Informatics (DSI) at the Indiana University School of Informatics. DSI was founded in 2006 to spur cross-disciplinary research and education as well as transfer innovation...

Drexel University expands Internet public library into virtual learning lab.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Drexel University has agreed to collaborate with the University of Michigan and Florida State University to turn the Internet Public Library (IPL) into a virtual teaching and learning laboratory for digital reference. The project is designed to...

LiveNote adds patents to portfolio.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... The Thomson Corp.'s LiveNote announced the addition of two more patents in the Engate portfolio that have been issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The Engate portfolio covers real-time management of testimonial text and...

Who the heck is Tristram Shandy? Or what's not wrong with Google book search?(UpFront With Barbara Quint)
October 1, 2007... Here we go again: another round of dissing the Google Book Search project. This time it was an article in First Monday by Paul Duguid, adjunct professor in the School of Information at University of California-Berkeley and professorial research...

Social networking, new search engines, and more.(News Break Update)(Column)
October 1, 2007... The impressions I had from mid-to late summer were surreal--was this a bad movie script? Strange weather battered the world with floods, wildfires, storms, and earthquakes. Bridges collapsed. We worried about tainted food--for us and our...

No immediate changes expected from Swets deal.(Gilde Buy-Out)(Royal Swets and Zeitlinger)(Company overview)
October 1, 2007... Netherlands-based investment firm Gilde Buy Out Partners agreed to buy Royal Swets & Zeitlinger in late August for an undisclosed sum. Swets management is also participating in the buyout. Earlier this year, the institutional shareholders...

CAS sets a log-in record.(News Bytes)(Chemical Abstracts Service)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) recently announced that it logged the largest number of records to the CAplus database in 1 week: 24,623 records referencing chemical and related scientific research in the world's journals and patents were...

ProQuest extends agreement with Oxford University Press.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... ProQuest and Oxford University Press OUP) have agreed to extend their partnership to provide ProQuest customers with access to 154 OUP journals, which are available in certain ProQuest aggregated journal business and STM databases including...

Ingram Publisher Services to distribute Silverback Books.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Ingram Publisher Services, Inc. (IPS) announced that it has become the exclusive distributor of Silverback Books, Inc., publishers of books on food, cooking, lifestyle, and wellness topics. Ingram Publisher Services is part of the Ingram Book...

HP acquires SPI Dynamics, Inc.(News Bytes)
October 1, 2007... HP has officially completed its acquisition of SPI Dynamics, Inc., a provider of Web application security assessment software and services. HP is planning to integrate SPI Dynamics' software with HP's Business Technology Optimization (BTO)...

Nstein Technologies OKs deal with The Canadian Press.(News Bytes)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Nstein Technologies reported that it has signed a contract with The Canadian Press to implement Nstein's Ntelligent Content Management (NCM) Software Suite. The Canadian Press is Canada's national bilingual multimedia news agency, delivering...

Mycroft, Inc. merges with Talisen Technologies.(News Bytes)(Mycroft Talisen)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Mycroft, Inc. and Talisen Technologies recently merged; the new company name is Mycroft Talisen, which will become a provider of identity and access management (IAM) and related IT security services. Mycroft Talisen, with offices in the U.K....

Last call for votes.(LETTER FROM THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... If you haven't cast a vote for your favorite IT service, product, tool, or innovation in the 2007 People's Choice Awards, now is the time. We've sorted through all the nominations and have created a final ballot online just for you. Vote for...

Dangerous business.
October 1, 2007... As we go to press, Outsell, Inc. has yet to release its new industry forecast data, but according to the word on the street, the report reflects news that is going to shock some people: With the exception of Google, growth in this industry has...

Infotoons.(Cartoon)
October 1, 2007... CAN YOU BELIEVE THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IS GIVING THE GREEN LIGHT TO A SURCHARGE FOR PRIORITY WEB TRAFFIC? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FIRST MY IPHONE NOW THIS? YEP! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LIKE PRIORITY EMAIL? RIGHT, JUST...

Speed bumps for open access?(Focus on Publishing)
October 1, 2007... Depending upon which side of the open access (OA) movement you subscribe to, the news that Yale University had decided to drop its BioMed Central's (BMC) open access membership either made you gleeful or worrisome. In a public statement issued...

First sale doctrine put to the test.(Legal Issues)
October 1, 2007... The first sale doctrine, which was first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908 and later codified in the Copyright Act of 1976, allows libraries to exist. As Title 17, Section 109 of the U.S. Code, the doctrine permits the owner of a...

Web 2.0 alphabet: Part 1.(Internet Waves)(Website list)
October 1, 2007... We live in interesting times. I'm not talking about Election 2008, Iraq, global warming, the housing market, the omnipresent "terrorist threat," tuition costs, the state of the healthcare system, mercury-infused fish, E. coli-tainted produce,...

Computer associations speak out about fair use.(Intellectual Property)
October 1, 2007... Google and Microsoft are two of the most respected technology companies in America and a pair of the tech industry's fiercest competitors. Over the past 3 years, Google and Microsoft have competed against each other for tech talent and are...

Getting on the right track.(Library Stuff Revisited)
October 1, 2007... Many corporate librarians can remember the days when they manually tracked legislation for attorneys. Librarians would call a service every morning in Washington, D.C., or in the capital city of their particular state for updates on any number...

Whose data is it, anyway?(Insider's Perspective)
October 1, 2007... Ask CRM (client relationship management) administrators about who owns the data populating their CRM systems, and you will likely get one of two emphatic answers: "my company" or "me." Companies dedicate significant amounts of manpower,...

SoonR helps convert Smartphones into information tools.(IT Spotlight)(Company overview)
October 1, 2007... This month's spotlight high-tech company offers an innovative new service to help mobile users manage workflow whether in the office or out in the field. FOUNDER SoonR was founded in 2005 by Martin Frid-Nielsen (chief product officer...

The search for people search.
October 1, 2007... As the Web continues to grow and we rely more on search, vertical search engines become more important and more useful in sorting through the exponential expansion of content. The Web is filled with established verticals, such as travel and...

The ABCs of the word market.(INTERVIEW With Erin McKean)(Interview)
October 1, 2007... Erin McKean calls herself a "dictionary evangelist." At least, that's what it says on her business card. She is immersed in the world of dictionaries, words, and related works as chief consulting editor of the American Dictionaries for Oxford...

On-demand TV creates a stir in the U.K.(International REPORT)(British Broadcasting Corp.)
October 1, 2007... The BBC launched an on-demand Internet TV service (in beta) in late July that was previewed in the June issue of Information Today. But the launch was not without some controversy among a variety of interested parties. BBC iPlayer Launched...

iPhone tops 1 millionth sale.(News Makers)(Apple Inc.)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Mention the word "iPhone" and you may get a grimace from any of those gotta-be-the-first-to-buy-it shoppers who bought the new device when it first debuted last June at the initial $599 price tag (before the price was slashed by $200 in...

Milestone.(News Makers)(Brian H. Hall to retire)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Brian H. Hall, vice chairman of The Thomson Corp., has announced plans to retire from his post on Sept. 1. He leaves his role directing the company's growth strategy and investment decisions. Hall joined Thomson in...

Moving on up.(News Makers)(appointment of Randy Marcinko)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Randy Marcinko, CEO of Marcinko Enterprises, Inc., has been appointed CEO of Groxis, Inc. He will continue to work as CEO of both companies, effective with the September announcement. His new venture "represents another step forward in the many...

SLA salutes military librarians.(News Makers)(Special Libraries Association)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... The 300-plus members of the SLA Military Librarians Division were awarded the 2007 SLA Professional Award during the summer for their significant achievements and contributions in the field of librarianship and information science. Ethel...

Fall conference season gets under way.(Conference Circuit)(conference calendar of Information Today)
October 1, 2007... The leaves on the trees are changing color and starting to fall, which can only mean that we are in the middle of the busy information industry fall conference season. In October, about 70 conferences are on the ITI Conference Calendar...

IFLA 2007: progress, development, and partnerships.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)(International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions)(Conference news)
October 1, 2007... The World Library and Information Congress and the 73rd IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) General Conference and Council kicked off this year's event under the banner of Libraries for the Future: Progress,...

Think globally, act locally.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)
October 1, 2007... It may be a well-worn expression, but "think globally, act locally" could have been the tagline for the second Global Information Industry Summit, organized by the Software & Information Industry Association Sept. 5-7 in Berlin. In an era...

Conference calendar.(Calendar)
October 1, 2007... October 4-7: Denver (Denver Marriott City Center). The theme of the 10th anniversary of ALA's Library & Information Technology Association (LITA) National Forum is Technology with Altitude. Site: Denver Marriott City Center, 1701...

CrossRef: a new tool to detect plagiarism.(copyright management software)
October 1, 2007... For some researchers, reading a familiar passage in a scholarly or professional journal may not be a case of deja vu. It could be a case of plagiarism. The incidences of plagiarism in scholarly or professional literature are frequent...

Thomson Scientific introduces BONDplus for researchers.(Product News & Reviews)
October 1, 2007... Thomson Scientific released BONDplus, which is billed as "an integrated, web-based data platform to address the information and analytic needs of biological researchers." The platform delivers public and proprietary biological sequence,...

Knovel boosts online technical reference collection.(Product News & Reviews)(Knovel Corp. partnered with ASTM International)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Knovel recently partnered with ASTM International to add ASTM books and manuals to Knovel's online technical reference collection. ASTM International is one of the largest voluntary standards development organizations in the world, and its...

PayScale: the compensation Wiki.(Database Review)(evaluting the services rendered by online services)
October 1, 2007... Question: What do Wikipedia, the YouTube/Democratic candidates debate, and PayScale have in common? Answer: They are examples of average people taking over things that once only the experts controlled. With Wikipedia, it's information;...

H.W. Wilson debuts book on education in the era of globalization.(Product News & Reviews)(H.W. Wilson Co. introduced anew book on Education )(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... H.W. Wilson recently released International Perspectives on Education as the fourth title of six to be released in The Reference Shelf 2007 book series. The new volume focuses on how ideas are evolving that are central to the value and purpose...

inCampus, Inc. launches student ecommerce portal.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... inCampus, Inc. launched a gateway creating a new online marketplace for student-to-student commerce. Since its launch in July, 3,800-plus universities and community colleges nationwide have a presence on the site, and user registration has...

Near-time: a premium option.(Product News & Reviews)(Near-Time Premium launches an online publishing platform)
October 1, 2007... Near-Time's position in the cross-organization collaboration market has paved the way for a new business venture: Near-Time Premium. This new offering is a hosted Web 2.0 collaboration and publishing platform that lets groups and businesses,...

ScienceDirect: a growing collection of ebooks.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... The virtual shelves of Elsevier's ScienceDirect are brimming with new titles as more than 4,000 ebooks have been added to the collection. "We [were] right on schedule for the official launch in September, just in time for the start of the...

Wiley-Blackwell to launch biotechnology journal.(Product News & Reviews)(Microbial Biotechnology)(Society for Applied Microbiology)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Wiley-Blackwell and the Society for Applied Microbiology (SfAM) recently announced that they are publishing a new international journal called Microbial Biotechnology, beginning in January 2008 as part of Blackwell Synergy. For the first year...

Thomson West introduces Westlaw Case Evaluator.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Thomson West announced Case Evaluator on Westlaw, a new research feature that returns only the desired results unique to each query. The Case Evaluator lets litigators build a fact base representing the results of comparable cases, including...

WilsonWeb adds applied science & technology index retrospective.(Product News & Reviews)(H.W. Wilson Co.)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... H.W. Wilson introduced the Applied Science & Technology Index Retrospective: 1913-1983, historical content from the H.W. Wilson references: Applied Science & Technology Index and Industrial Arts Index. The retrospective includes more than 1,400...

Capital IQ: tapping into global financial data.(Product News & Reviews)
October 1, 2007... For investment banks and private equity firms on the prowl for information about hedge or mutual funds, Capital IQ has become a top "go-to" resource for Web-based professional financial information. Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's,...

Nirvanix: storage solutions for growing content.(Product News & Reviews)
October 1, 2007... Nirvanix is emerging from "stealth mode," according to CEO Patrick Harr, who just announced the official launch of the company in early September. He has set his sights on "staying ahead of the curve" by providing Internet storage and sharing...

EBSCONET offers Ejournal package tracking.(Product News & Reviews)
October 1, 2007... EBSCO launched its E-Journal Package Change Report, which is available on EBSCONET, in answer to rising customer demand for tools to manage ejournal package content. The tracking tool gives libraries a list of titles that have been added to or...

ProQuest's PRISMA offers 100-plus full-text titles.(Product News & Reviews)(Publicaciones y Revistas Sociales y Humanisticas)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... ProQuest's PRISMA (Publicaciones y Revistas Sociales y Humanisticas) now offers more than 100 full-text journals. This journal resource provides scholarly articles for the interdisciplinary academic study of Hispanic and Latin America, and the...

Jigsaw: adding more enhancement pieces to the puzzle.(Product News & Reviews)(Company overview)
October 1, 2007... Business is booming in Jim Fowler's corner of the enterprise collaboration world (see the related article on page 21). As CEO of Jigsaw, Fowler said the company is "growing in leaps and bounds" and closing in on a total of 7 million business...

Emerald Group Publishing Limited offers new acquisitions.(Product News & Reviews)
October 1, 2007... Emerald Group Publishing Limited announced two recent acquisitions: The International Journal of Accounting and Information Management (formerly the Asia-Pacific Journal of Information Management) from Waverley Professional Services was added...

Wiley-Blackwell and SCI launch new journal.(Product News & Reviews)(Society of Chemical Industry)(Biofuels, Bioproducts, and Biorefining)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Wiley-Blackwell and the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) announced that they have published the first issue of Biofuels, Bioproducts, and Biorefining (Biofpr) designed to serve the information needs in the field of sustainable products,...

OCLC.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(promotion of Rick Schwieterman, Chip Nilges and Bruce Crocco)(Online Computer Library Center )(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] OCLC has announced three executive staff promotions. Rick Schwieterman has been promoted to executive vice president and CFO. In this role, he will continue to oversee all enterprise activities related to...

The U.S. Government Printing Office.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(promotion of Reynold Schweickhardt and Michael Wash)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... The U.S. Government Printing Office announced two promotions. Reynold Schweickhardt, formerly GPO's chief information officer, will now serve as its CTO. In this role, he will be responsible for identifying new technology to move GPO forward in...

NOZA, Inc.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of Lonny Rollins, Tracy York and Kathleen Rogers)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] NOZA, Inc. has announced the appointment of three new people. Lonny Rollins is the new CTO. In this position, he will be responsible for the company's technical strategy for its new products. Before this,...

Safari Books Online.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointement of CJ Rayhill and Chip Pettibone)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Safari Books Online announced two executive appointments. CJ Rayhill will be senior vice president of product management and technology. In this role, she will oversee technology strategy, product development, and product management. Most...

Gary Rautenstrauch, CEO SirsiDynix.(the Executive Profile)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Gary Rautenstrauch, SirsiDynix's new CEO, sees at least one area where librarians and information professionals can make a difference in the 21st century--making sense of the massive amounts of information produced...

Web sites help students (and parents) with math and science.(Link-up @ home: Your Personal Guide to the Web)(survey of students gaining knowledge from websites)(Survey)
October 1, 2007... "We know math and science skills are the common currency everyone needs to have to succeed in the increasingly competitive global economy," said U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. But, as the national media has often reported,...

Softball takes up challenge to be a part of Olympics.(CyberSports )(International Softball Federation launched a campaign statin to include softball in olympics 2016)
October 1, 2007... Major League Baseball has done a pretty good job--as good of a job as it can--of killing baseball as an Olympic sport. It kept its best players from going to the games for the U.S. or any other country by not allowing major leaguers to...

Studying the intricacies of Social Network Analysis.
October 1, 2007... Social Networking: The Essence of Innovation by Jay Liebowitz Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2007 ISBN: 978-0-8108-5857-2 $35, softcover 130 pages Information professionals are naturally interested in how people share knowledge, both...

Free-for-alls.(In Other Words)(online library catalog)
October 1, 2007... No matter which baseball teams end up making it into the division playoffs and World Series, you know that at some critical, game-on-the-line point, one play will end up in a bench-clearing brawl. From Little League to the pro arena,...

Happy Birthday to You, :-).(Smiley emoticon celebratd it's 25th birthdaty)(Company overview)
October 1, 2007... Type one colon, then a hyphen, and finish it off with one parenthesis at the end. The result? You'll probably recognize this trio of punctuation marks as one of the best-known emoticons around. In fact, the Smiley face emoticon celebrated its...