Information Today articles from September 2008

Information Today archives from September 2008

No silver lining in Tiffany's infringement case.
September 1, 2008... Is eBay liable for direct or contributory trademark infringement when individual sellers post auction listings on the site to sell counterfeit products? A French court recently answered yes in holding eBay liable for $61 million. However,...

New Israeli copyright law--a 'slight' update from 1924.
September 1, 2008... In 1924, George V was king of England and Calvin Coolidge was president of the U.S. That was also when the current Israeli Copyright Law went into effect. From 1924, before the creation of the State of Israel, until 2008, Israel depended...

Going green: why helping the environment won't hurt your bottom line.
September 1, 2008... With global warming becoming a bigger concern throughout the world, many IT companies are taking steps to "green up" their operations. Though green initiatives are often associated with additional costs, these companies are discovering that...

Forrester Research acquires JupiterResearch.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Forrester Research, Inc. recently acquired JupiterResearch,LLC, along with its parent company, JUPR Holdings, Inc., from MCG Capital Corp. The terms of the acquisition were $23 million in cash and assumed liabilities, which are subject to...

JEGI: good news, bad news regarding 2008 M&A activity.(NewsBytes)(Jordan Edmiston Group Inc)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc. released its findings regarding M&A activity in the first half of 2008. While the overall picture looked increasingly cloudy, several areas, especially the Online Media & Technology and Marketing & Interactive...

Collexis, JISC reach out to U.K. researchers.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Collexis Holdings, Inc. and JISC Collections are teaming up to encourage greater collaboration and expand scientific knowledge in the biomedical research community in the U.K. For a specially negotiated subscription fee, researchers, teaching...

Columbia University Libraries to preserve historical interviews, memoirs.(NewsBytes )(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will give $371,000 to Columbia University Libraries for a 2-year project designed to preserve 820 recordings containing nearly 1,200 hours of sound. The tapes are part of the Oral History Research Office's...

Ask.com teams up with Photobucket.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Ask.com and Photobucket are pooling their resources with a multiyear, strategic agreement. Now, the Ask search box will be displayed on Photobucket.com and sponsored listings and display advertising will be syndicated to Photobucket. ...

Vivisimo case studies focus on innovation in enterprise search.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Vivisimo is helping customers and medical practitioners get the most out of search technology with three case studies it recently published on its website. The case studies discuss innovative enterprise search applications at the Houston...

Thomson Reuters boosts access to patent index and more.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Thomson Reuters will improve access to English-language versions of Asian patents by adding registered Japanese Utility Models to its Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) database. Chinese Utility Model Registrations were added to the DWPI in...

OCLC report addresses library funding issues.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... OCLC released "From Awareness to Funding: A Study of Library Support in America," a research study funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The study found that most people are unaware of how their local libraries are funded, that library...

So what's wrong with good, old-fashioned metadata?(Up Front With Barbara Quint)
September 1, 2008... Excuse the geezering, but what happened to the simple things in life? How about the daily realities of a sunny sky in September or even November (here in Southern California)? Or a relaxing ride through the country un-plagued by the vision of...

Social networking and collaboration platforms lead the news.(News Break Update)
September 1, 2008... I wrote about several new initiatives in the last issue that enabled social networking and fostered collaboration. Now there seems to be no end in sight for such news. Over the last month, my inbox has been filled with information about new...

New titles, publishers join ALPSP Learned Journals Collection.(NewsBytes)(Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers )(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) is beefing up its collection of journals with the launch of the 2009 ALPSP Learned Journals Collection. The collection includes 122 new titles, bringing the total to 773,...

MetaPress earns right to work with KnowledgeWorks.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... MetaPress completed the Serials Solutions KnowledgeWorks Certification Program, joining the ranks of 12 other organizations that have successfully passed. MetaPress will now be able to supply bibliographic metadata to customers via the...

Flock: an integrated interface (errr, browser).(WEB 2.0)
September 1, 2008... In June, updates on two browsers were released: Firefox version 3 and Flock version 2 (beta). Those in the know are already aware that the Flock browser (www.flock.com) was built (at least in part) with Firefox 3 (www.mozilla.com/ firefox)...

State Library of Queensland adopts Primo solution.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... The State Library of Queensland (SLQ) switched to the Ex Libris Group's Primo discovery and delivery solution. The service will provide a single search interface for the online sharing of SLQ's print, digital, audio, film, and licensed...

Accessible Archives revamps search for database users.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... To improve its users' search experience, Accessible Archives, Inc. added two new features to its online databases of 18th- and 19th-century American newspapers, periodicals, and county histories. Users can now distribute search results via...

Wilton Re Services catches the Tidal (Enterprise Scheduler) wave.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Wilton Re Services, Inc., citing the need to automatically drive each step of the process of aligning IT with its business, decided to standardize on Tidal Enterprise Scheduler. The program automates many processes that the company needs to...

Nature tops '2007 Journal Citation Report'.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Thomson Reuters' "2007 Journal Citation Report" features good news for several publishers. Eight of the top 20 science journals ranked by impact factor are published by Nature Publishing Group, including Nature, which was the No. 1...

Swets, six new publishers band together.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Swets is expanding the arsenal of its SwetsWise Online Content ejournal gateway by adding journals from six new publishers. These new publishers are the Duke University Press, Duncker & Humblot, Earthscan, J. Ross Publishing, the Optical...

Survey: ebooks on the rise, print books still strong.(NewsBytes)(Survey)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... According to a new survey released by ebook provider ebrary, web-based resources are making gains but print books are still well-respected. The survey results, which showed that 49% of the respondents do not use ebooks for several reasons, were...

EBSCO to take three religious collections digital.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... EBSCO and the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) will provide a trio of new collections of historical monographs and serials in digital format. The new additions are ATLA Historical Monographs Collection: 19th Century; ATLA...

Italian libraries, Elsevier team with Portico for digital preservation.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... As part of a digital preservation initiative directed by the Italian Coordination for Access to Electronic Resources group, 30 academic libraries in Italy are teaming up with Portico. The libraries join more than 460 other libraries that are...

LexisNexis bolsters congressional collection with new documents, features.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... New documents and features are on tap for LexisNexis' Congressional Digital Collection. The enhancements will add more than 66,000 published hearings and more than 26,000 high-resolution Serial Set map images, the completion of the LexisNexis...

Wiley-Blackwell, Physiological Society to remain publishing partners.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Wiley-Blackwell and the Physiological Society decided to continue their publishing partnership. Under the renewed agreement, Wiley-Blackwell will continue to publish the society's Journal of Physiology and Experimental Physiology journals. ...

Zinio to educate industry with digital publishing resource center.(NewsBytes)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... To keep the publishing industry up-to-date on developments related to digital publishing, Zinio created an industry resource center that will focus on the growth, continued adoption, and best practices for digital publishing. The resource...

In memoriam: Carolyn Finn.(NewsBytes)(death of Carolyn Finn)(Obituary)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Carolyn Finn, an active member of NFAIS and former president of ASIDIC in 2005 and 2006, lost her battle with cancer in June. She was 51. For many years, she served on the NFAIS Information Policy Committee and was the assembly representative...

Bits and pieces.(LETTER FROM THE EDITOR)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... For 4Q 2008, Information Today is tackling a range of topics, beginning with this issue. Keith Kupferschmid, senior vice president of intellectual property and enforcement for the Software & Information Industry Association, shares his insights...

Six of one, half dozen of another.
September 1, 2008... OK, "they" tell me email is mostly spam now. I don't have to look far to see my version of the truth. Day in and day out, messages that are unrelated to my current work assignments or job responsibilities come flowing into my email box at about...

Infotoons.(Cartoon)
September 1, 2008... Getya AIRLINES (WE "GET YA" COMING & GOING) AISLE OR WINDOW SEAT, CARRY ON OR CHECK-IN, $50 PER BAG. MEAL CHOICE IS A BAG OF MINI PRETZELS OR PEANUTS CAN I GET WI-FI? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ALL RIGHT FOLKS, WE HAVE A LIST OF...

Coming to grips with the NIH policy.(Focus on Publishing)(National Institutes of Health )
September 1, 2008... Last May, Peter Suber and I launched the Open Access Directory (http://oad.simmons.edu), a wiki serving as "a compendium of simple factual lists about open access (OA) to science and scholarship, maintained by the OA community at large."...

Summer days, random thoughts.(Internet Waves)
September 1, 2008... Summer just slipped by without much notice this year. I've been way too busy with the day job but in a good way. I've not had a real go-somewhere-and-do-something (or nothing) vacation in a long time, but I'm getting good at taking vacations...

Fun with copyright.(Legal Issues)
September 1, 2008... Copyright law can be pretty complicated. A friend of mine who is writing his first book recently asked me whether he should register the book with the U.S. Copyright Office before it is completed. It took me several resources and quite a bit of...

Words at work.(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... If you have Dilbert cartoons posted on your bulletin board or regularly tune into The Office on TV, you can pepper your conversation with these new corporate/ tech terms: A2O: Shorthand for comparing dissimilar things: apples to oranges....

Cuil-er than Google? Never.(Library Stuff Revisited)
September 1, 2008... Achoo! Pass me a Kleenex, please. Ouch! I fell down. Can you get me a Band-Aid? I need to find something online. I'll just Google it. Of course, the point being made here is that the word "Google" has become synonymous with searching...

Measuring mail and tracking tweet.(COOL TOOLS)
September 1, 2008... Email is truly the elder statesman of the internet, and Twitter is undoubtedly the golden child. Email has been there since the beginning, while Twitter hasn't been with us for a full 2 years yet. But there has been a lot of talk lately...

Digital preservation: an ever-growing challenge.(Insider's Perspective)
September 1, 2008... [This column lets experts in the information technology industry discuss the challenges and trends in their special niche in the marketplace. --Ed.] We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them....

SimpleFeed helps clients boost the value of RSS feeds.(IT Spotlight)
September 1, 2008... Here's a high-tech company that offers a solution for companies who want an effective way to reach their customers. FOUNDER After seeing an XML button on The New York Times website a few years ago, Mark Carlson started thinking that...

Seattle Public Library: keeping the focus on the customer.(dialogue with Andra Addison)(Interview)
September 1, 2008... Andra Addison, communications director for the Seattle Public Library, spent a morning with me during the SLA conference discussing the library's many innovations. She also shared some of her views on services offered by a major urban library...

Global collaboration links scientific information suppliers.(International Report)
September 1, 2008... While most of the new developments in information search, retrieval, and access may seem to be coming from relatively new players in the information industry, the traditional suppliers of information are not standing still. Some long-standing...

Crovitz joins ProQuest board of directors.(NewsMakers)(appointment of L. Gordon Crovitz)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] L. Gordon Crovitz, former president of Dow Jones' Consumer Media Group and former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, recently joined the board of directors of ProQuest. A graduate of the University of Chicago,...

Watch where you're texting.(NewsMakers)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... In many states, it's already illegal to send a text message while driving. Soon, it may be against the law to text while walking. Though this may sound strange, two pedestrians were killed in California as they were reportedly sending a text...

NISO board elects Pesch as new chair.(NewsMakers)(National Information Standards Organization appoints Oliver Pesch)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Oliver Pesch, chief strategist for EBSCO Information Services, was elected chair of the board of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) for 2008-2009. Pesch has been involved with NISO for several...

Have news, will travel.(NewsMakers)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... As the earthquake began to rock Los Angeles late last July, people were all a-Twitter. In fact, just seconds after the first tremor there, the first of the Tweets started too. It took the official news stations 4 minutes to sound the alert....

And the winner is ...(NewsMakers)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Lucie Osborn, county librarian at Wyoming's Laramie County Library System, stands alongside Pat Sommers, president of Gale, a part of Cengage Learning. Both are holding the check for $10,000 as part of the winnings for Osborn in the Library...

Coming in 2009.(Conference Circuit)(Calendar)
September 1, 2008... Internet@Schools East March 30-31 Hyatt Regency, Crystal City * Arlington, Va. Computers in Libraries March 30-April 1 (Preconference workshops begin March 29; postconference workshops begin April 2) Hyatt Regency, Crystal City *...

Conference dates for 2008.(Conference Circuit)(Calendar)
September 1, 2008... WebSearch University Sept. 22-23 (Preconference workshops begin Sept. 21) Washington Marriott * Washington, D.C. Enterprise Search Summit West Sept. 23-24 (Preconference workshops begin Sept. 22) San Jose McEnery Convention Center San Jose,...

Back to school ... and conferences.(Conference Circuit)
September 1, 2008... If you took a vacation this summer, this is an excellent time to scout out the rich conference opportunities offered this fall. Information Today, Inc. will offer its lineup of WebSearch University in Washington, D.C., and concurrent offerings...

ALA '08: the future of libraries.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)
September 1, 2008... I f the program at the ALA Annual Conference is a barometer of the condition of the library community, this year's reading was neither fair nor stormy, but rather it implied a great deal of uncertainty. Not only was the total number of...

SMX local & mobile: converting dollars from online to offline.(REPORT FROM THE FIELD)
September 1, 2008... San Francisco was the site of the second Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Local & Mobile conference July 24-25. The nearly 300 attendees were more seasoned than those at most search conferences, and they were heavily grounded in the realities of...

Conferences around the world.(Conference Circuit)(Calendar)
September 1, 2008... For information on ITI's conferences, turn to page 28. September 1-3: Auckland, New Zealand (Auckland University of Technology City Campus Conference Centre). Web technologies, methodologies, and applications are the focus of the Ninth...

Retrospective: 25 years ago in Information Today.
September 1, 2008... In celebration of Information Today's silver anniversary this year, we pulled the first issues--now quite yellowed--out of the archives and have been reading all the news that was fit to print about the then-burgeoning information technology...

Research 2.0: the age of collaboration.(Survey)
September 1, 2008... When it comes to social media, just what kind of buy-in do researchers actually have for the new wave of 2.0 tools? Brant Emery, development manager for Elsevier's 2collab, went right to the source. He recently surveyed a broad range of...

Ex Libris Group.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of Carl Grant )(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ex Libris Group announced that Carl Grant has been re-appointed president of its North American subsidiary. Previously, Grant was president of Ex Libris North America from 1998 to 2003. Most recently, Grant was...

Computing Technology Industry Association.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of Todd Thibodeaux at Computing Technology Industry Association )(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) announced the appointment of Todd Thibodeaux as its president and CEO. Most recently, Thibodeaux was senior vice president of industry relations at Consumer...

Blackwell.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of Robin Champieux)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Blackwell announced the appointment of Robin Champieux as director of sales and customer experience for North America. In this role, she will be responsible for the sales team and the newly created customer experience department. Champieux has...

OCLC.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of Chris Thewlis)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] OCLC announced that Chris Thewlis has been named regional manager of its Australia office. In this role, he will direct OCLC's Australia and New Zealand operations including sales, implementations, marketing,...

Really Strategies, Inc.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of Mark Dash )(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Really Strategies, Inc. announced that Mark Dash has joined the company as vice president of partnerships for RSuite CMS partner program. In this position, he will provide RSuite clients with additional integration and technology choices in...

Government Printing Office.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of Nicholas Lefevre )(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Government Printing Office announced that Nicholas Lefevre is now its general counsel. In this position, he will serve as GPO's chief legal officer and provide legal opinions and advice to the public printer. He...

Inform Technologies.(People Line & the Executive Profile)(appointment of Josh Kirschner )(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Inform Technologies announced that it has named Josh Kirschner chief marketing officer. In this role, he will develop new channels for the company's semantic web technology for online media properties and establish a...

Cindy Hill Vice President, Information Management System, Inc.(People Line & the Executive Profile)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Although the way information professionals do their jobs may have changed drastically over the years, their role has remained the same--to provide answers to users' questions or inquiries. "Traditionally, this...

Lessons from the lab: collaboration in action.
September 1, 2008... When a team of scientists from various disciplines are interested in the same topic, collaboration is bound to happen. That's the premise behind the collection of soon-to-be released titles from Wiley, according to Sean Pidgeon, vice president...

Google unveils Knol to the public.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... Google released its Knol product to the public in late July, after months of beta testing. The project is a site that hosts many knols (units of knowledge) written by "topic experts" about a variety of subjects. Through a process called...

Thomson Reuters releases citation reports.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... The Scientific business of Thomson Reuters released the "2007 Journal Citation Reports" ("JCR"), which presents the quantitative, objective "data to evaluate the world's leading journals and their impact and influence in the global research...

Economic scorecards grade the U.S. and its competition.(Database Review)
September 1, 2008... Is the U.S. over the hill? Is the world's biggest economy going down the tubes? It certainly seems like it, with banks collapsing, wages declining, living costs soaring, and jobs disappearing. Yes, there are some positive trends. The...

SirsiDynix upgrades Enterprise Portal Solution, SchoolRooms.(Product News & Reviews )
September 1, 2008... SirsiDynix unleashed new versions of Enterprise Portal Solution and SchoolRooms to improve performance, stability, and security for its users. The programs will link a user's Z39.50 search results to the native OPAC in multilibrary settings,...

Unisfair: a platform for virtual events.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... As travel expenses escalate and budgets shrink during this economic slowdown, businesses are finding ways to "do more with less," according to Brent Arslaner. As vice president of marketing at Unisfair, Arslaner says the concept of virtual...

TX Text Control 14.0 to support new formats.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... The Imaging Source revealed a host of new features that will be included in version 14.0 of its TX Text Control word processing component. Chief among the new features is support for the MS Word standard Office Open XML format, legacy Word...

ERIC embraces WilsonWeb.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), a longtime research standard, just jumped on the WilsonWeb bandwagon. ERIC will make its 1.1 million bibliographic citations and more than 100,000 full-text entries searchable on the WilsonWeb...

Atypon Systems brings de Gruyter journals online.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Atypon Systems, Inc. and Walter de Gruyter teamed up to release Reference Global, an online journal, book, and reference work website for de Gruyter scholarly content. All of de Gruyter's journals will be available on the site, including...

ChaCha: Q&A for today's mobile users.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... Got a question? Chances are ChaCha has an answer. Whether you're shopping for a new sweater in Boston, craving Kung Pao chicken after midnight in Dallas, or searching for the gate when you change flights in San Francisco, ChaCha uses a...

QuestaWeb expands electronic proof of delivery to all mobile devices.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] QuestaWeb, Inc. is taking electronic proof of delivery to the next level with new functionality for its TradeMaster Global Trade Management System. The new feature will allow any supply chain participant to use any...

Plagiarists beware, CrossCheck is here.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... CrossRef is targeting plagiarists with its new CrossCheck service. Powered by the iParadigms iThenticate service, CrossCheck lets users verify the originality of works submitted for publication by checking against a database of proprietary and...

Thomson Reuters takes aim at biomarkers.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... Thomson Reuters is jumping into the biomarker field with its new product, BIOMARKERcenter. The product will provide a framework for assessing biomarker potential and alerting pharmaceutical companies using the product about changes in biomarker...

Dow Jones lets Factiva Reader users go outside the network.(Product News & Reviews)(Dow Jones & Company Inc.)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Dow Jones & Co. is expanding the news distribution capabilities of Factiva Reader users with a new feature for the service. Users will now be able to distribute business news to people who are not members of their organizations, including...

Inmagic: turning up the knob on social volume.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... With a name like Inmagic, it's not unusual for the company to pull a few surprises out of its proverbial hat. For the past 25 years, Inmagic, Inc. concentrated on the special libraries/special collections niche, according to Mike...

Finder! Becomes first app released from GeoCommons Suite.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... FortiusOne is rolling out the first application in its GeoCommons Suite, Finder! The application will allow users to find, import, export, and mash up geodata for business, government, and consumer applications. The second GeoCommons Suite...

COUNTER compliance, new format support on tap for Safari 5.8.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... Safari Books Online unleashed Safari 5.8. The new version will include COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources) compliance and support for online videos in Adobe Flash, Windows Media Player, and QuickTime format. ...

Inmagic targets small libraries, reveals social knowledge network.(Product News & Reviews)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Inmagic, Inc. is extending its reach beyond large libraries and organizations with the release of Inmagic Genie 3.1. The new version will include access and management of traditional and nontraditional library materials; flexibility for...

Swets unveils new versions of ScholarlyStats, SwetsWise eSource Manager.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... Swets is poised to unleash ScholarlyStats 1.6. The release includes new ebook usage reports and collection platforms, updated dashboard reports, and a new brand identity. Swets also began beta testing on SwetsWise eSource Manager, an electronic...

Clarizen: building a better project team.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... The team behind Clarizen wants users to "Kiss Microsoft Project Goodbye." Clarizen, Inc. credits its project management solution with three key benefits that give it an edge over Microsoft Project software: It's intuitive, it's web-based, and...

Woopra: the heart of the numbers.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... When you're having trouble telling a unique visitor from a friendly hit on your site, it's time to dig deeper into the data. So show me the web analytics. That's where Woopra comes in, according to John Pozadzides, president and CEO. "You...

SirsiDynix targets Enterprise search, K-12 libraries.(Product News & Reviews)
September 1, 2008... SirsiDynix is aiming to make library search easier with SirsiDynix Enterprise. The faceted search product will feature fuzzy search technology, search index updating, new user interfaces, faceted finding aids, consortia support, integration...