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Magazines > Information Today > December 2004
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Information Today

Vol. 21 No. 11 — December 2004

DEPARTMENTS
Product News and Reviews

Hoover's Online Expands U.K., Canadian Offerings

Hoover's, Inc. announced the expansion of its offerings in the U.K. and Canada. Hoover's has introduced a new U.K. service featuring access to company records, including more than 4,000 from Hoover's and 1.7 million from D&B U.K. In addition, Canada is now marketing Hoover's comprehensive, in-depth business intelligence on more than 2,300 public and private Canadian enterprises.

Depending on subscription level, the new Hoover's Online U.K. service provides customers with access to the following:

• 560,000 in-depth, downloadable D&B U.K. company records

• D&B's international database, including coverage on approximately 60,000 non-U.S./non-U.K. companies

• Hoover's list-building tools

Source: Hoover's Inc., Austin, TX, (512) 374-4500; http://www.hoovers.com.

Readex Creates Archive of Americana

Readex has announced the creation of a Web-based Archive of Americana, featuring fully text-searchable facsimile images. This new resource, comprising four major primary source collections, provides online access to America's printed record.

The cornerstone of the Archive of Americana is Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, based on Charles Evans' American Bibliography. This collection contains nearly every book, pamphlet, and broadside published in America from 1639 to 1800. Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker continues the Evans bibliography and includes books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in America between 1801 and 1819.

Complementing Early American Imprints is Early American Newspapers (1690­1876), based on Charles Brigham's History and Bibliography of American Newspapers. The largest collection of its kind, Early American Newspapers presents cover-to-cover reproductions of hundreds of rare newspapers and millions of issues.

The fourth collection in the Readex Archive of Americana is the U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817­1980) with American State Papers (1789­1838). Revealing events as they unfolded and decisions as they were made, these volumes of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives also include color maps, illustrations, and non-congressional publications.

Source: Readex, Naples, FL, (802) 875-2910; http://www.readex.com.

Dialog Enhances Dialog DataStar

Dialog announced that it has completed a series of enhancements to its family of Dialog DataStar services that help users better focus the search process, be alerted to relevant new content, and integrate research into their work flow.

"Our users around the world rely on Dialog DataStar for critical research across a spectrum of business functions, from product development to regulatory compliance," said Cynthia Murphy, Dialog senior vice president of strategic marketing. "We are committed to a program of continuous improvement to the services."

Enhancements to Dialog DataStar include the following:

• New post-processing tools, available on Dialog DataStarWeb and Dialog DataStarClassic

• Thesaurus upgrade, available on Dialog DataStarWeb

• News alert delivery tracker, available on all versions of Dialog DataStar

• Multiple file alerting, available on the Dialog DataStarWeb service

Source: Dialog Corp., Cary, NC, (919) 462-8600; http://www.dialog.com.

ISI Web of Knowledge Offers Biological Abstracts

Thomson announced that Biological Abstracts is now available on the ISI Web of Knowledge. Covering every life sciences discipline, Biological Abstracts offers essential journal literature—with more than 8 million archival records dating back to 1969.

The ISI Web of Knowledge allows users to access, analyze, and manage research information; it also integrates journal and patent literature, Web content, evaluation tools, and bibliographic management products. The ISI Web of Knowledge now offers new personalization features for authors, more sophisticated search tools for researchers, a more intuitive interface, streamlined integration capabilities, and new journal analysis tools for libraries. When accessed on the ISI Web of Knowledge, Biological Abstracts will be enhanced with value-added features and functionality, including new citation data.

Biological Abstract's BIOSIS indexing provides consistent term assignment to lead users directly to items of interest. The use of CAS registry numbers and MeSH disease headings offers users access to the current life sciences research literature through well-known, controlled vocabularies. The assignment of both common and formal taxomonic terms and controlled drug action terms, applied in conjunction with the original author's abstract, allows users to retrieve organism data without knowing the author's original term.

Source: Thomson Scientific, Philadelphia, (215) 386-0100; http://www.thomsonscientific.com.

NewsGator Online Edition Free to Consumers

NewsGator Technologies, Inc. announced that a new version of NewsGator Online will be free to consumers at http://www.newsgator.com. NewsGator has added a number of innovations to its existing Web-based aggregator, and users can now track all their RSS and newsfeeds online at no charge.

New features and functions in the updated Online platform include the following:

• Folders

• Per-Post Rating System

• Recommended Feeds

• My Clippings

• Smart Feed Enhancements

The free edition also includes subscription synchronization capabilities with NewsGator Outlook Edition.

NewsGator Online Premium Services are also available on a monthly subscription basis and start at $5.95 per user. Features include:

• Premium Content

• Mobile Edition, E-Mail Edition, and Media Center Edition

• Smart Feeds

Source: NewsGator Technologies, Denver, (303) 683-0506; http://www.newsgator.com.

EBSCO Adds Functionality, Content

EBSCO Publishing announced the addition of Searchable Cited References to the EBSCOhost version of CINAHL. The company also announced the addition of PsycEXTRA to EBSCOhost.

Searchable Cited References

Searchable Cited References provide a means for extending research by allowing users to locate additional information related to an article of interest. This functionality lets users link directly from a particular article to other articles cited in the bibliography of the original article. It also allows users to link directly from a particular article to other articles in the database that cite the original article.

Searchable Cited References can be used to augment more traditional approaches to literature searching; as tools to analyze research activity; to identify original publications in which an idea or concept was discussed; to compare user behavior today with user behavior several years ago; to trace the chronology of events, relationships among them, and their relative importance; to provide access to interdisciplinary literature; and to reveal papers relevant to a subject not found by using conventional indexes.

PsycEXTRA

The addition of PsycEXTRA enhances the existing collection of psychology and behavioral sciences databases available via EBSCOhost by providing coverage of relevant topics from a unique perspective. Aside from access via the American Psychological Association's (APA) PsycNet platform, this database will only be available via the EBSCOhost interface.

Produced by APA, PsycEXTRA serves as a companion database to PsycINFO, also available via EBSCOhost. PsycEXTRA consists of gray literature, including document types such as technical reports, conference abstracts and papers, newsletters, magazines, newspapers, consumer brochures, and more. This information includes publications issued by government agencies, private research institutes, psychology labs, corporations, scientific societies, and others. The database currently indexes approximately 45,000 records with full text provided for more than 22,000 of them. APA plans to add more than 30,000 additional records each year, with corresponding full text for many of them.

Source: EBSCO Publishing, Ipswich, MA, (978) 356-6500; http://www.ebsco.com.

CrossRef Adds New Services, Expands to New Content Areas

CrossRef now has more than 700 participating publishers and societies and is adding an average of 9,000 DOIs per day to its system.

Of the more than 12 million DOIs now registered with CrossRef, 850,000-plus are assigned to books and conference proceedings. CrossRef recently began offering discounted registration for components (such as figures and images) and multiple entries in large reference works. It has also moved to admit other types of original research content such as working papers.

Among the organizations that joined CrossRef in recent months are GeoScience World, Social Science Research Network, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.

Source: CrossRef, Lynnfield, MA, (781) 295-0072; http://www.crossref.org.

Blackwell's Adopts OpenURL Standard

Blackwell's Book Services has implemented the OpenURL standard in its Collection Manager system.

With the OpenURL standard in place, libraries can seamlessly connect to a variety of online resources (such as WorldCat, book review databases, Blackwell's Online Bookshop, or the library's own interlibrary loan service) by designating or identifying the libraries link resolver in their Collection Manager preferences.

Linking from Collection Manager to a union catalog without a link resolver is also supported in some cases, depending on the URL structure of the union catalog.

"Our customers told us that they wanted a seamless way to access additional bibliographic content to assist in purchasing decisions," said Dan Miller, Blackwell's electronic services consultant. "And with OpenURL access to the full richness of Web content, they are finding resources to use in their collection development decision making that they never had access to before."

Blackwell's joins a number of library suppliers in adopting the OpenURL standard. Hundreds of library databases now support the OpenURL standard, and more than a thousand institutions use link resolvers, benefiting library staff and patrons by expanding the number of resources available to them.

Source: Blackwell's Book Services, Lake Oswego, OR, (503) 684-1140; http://www.blackwell.com.

Access Innovations Receives Patent

Access Innovations announced that it has been issued a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its MAI Lib software system.

MAI Lib automates the process of adding Library of Congress subject headings (LCSH) to documents stored in electronic databases and archives, which enhances the accuracy of searching those information reservoirs to retrieve targeted articles, reports, and other materials.

"We believe that our MAI Lib system is a significant step in the field of information management," said Marjorie M. K. Hlava, Access Innovations chairman. "For the first time, we are giving managers of electronic information resources the ability to combine the pre-coordinate system of cataloging done by libraries with the indexing systems used in the electronic information arena. Our system gives a new power to information managers to leverage their information assets."

The new MAI Lib system works by turning unstructured data into structured information assets that are identified and categorized by widely accepted LCSH and can be used for any number of business or research purposes.

Following detailed standards set in Marc 21 and the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, MAI Lib incorporates the entire 208,000-term set of LCSH with tools to combine headings.

Source: Access Innovations, Inc., Albuquerque, NM, (505) 998-0800;
http://www.accessinn.com.

Thomson ResearchSoft, SCIPROOF Announce Marketing Agreement

Thomson ResearchSoft and SCIPROOF, LLC announced a collaboration focused on SCIPROOF's flagship product, sciPROOF. Under the agreement, ResearchSoft will co-market sciPROOF worldwide to researchers in academic and government institutions as well as the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. The companies are also exploring work flow between their respective products to increase productivity for scientific researchers.

"We are pleased to offer the proofing capabilities of sciPROOF to our customers who conduct scientific research and publish manuscripts," said David Kochalko, president of Thomson ResearchSoft. "We have an ongoing commitment to deliver solutions that advance writing and publishing, and sciPROOF is the latest example of the kinds of innovative products we believe will benefit our users."

"By enhancing the standard proofreading features common in word processing software, sciPROOF complements the research and writing tools EndNote, Reference Manager, and ProCite," said Thomas E. Perrin, president of SCIPROOF. "As the market leader, ResearchSoft is our ideal partner, and this marketing agreement will introduce sciPROOF to millions of its customers."

Source: Thomson ResearchSoft, Philadelphia, (215) 386-2911; http://www.isiresearchsoft.com.

WSJ.com Offers The Morning Brief

The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com announced the launch of The Morning Brief, a daily e-mail that provides analysis of the past day's news (as seen by a variety of media and other outlets) along with breaking overnight news.

The Morning Brief will be distributed to subscribers and posted on the site weekdays at approximately 6:30 a.m. (EST). The primary focus will be business and finance and will also include highlights from world news. The e-mail will go beyond the WSJ's take on the top stories and will include links to a variety of online news sources.

"Building on the success of The Afternoon Report, our goal is to provide Online Journal subscribers an early-morning look at news of the past day, so they will know the collective intelligence of the market based on information from The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, as well as other newspapers and online news services," said Bill Grueskin, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Online. "And like The Afternoon Report, The Morning Brief delivers the content, insight, and analysis that Online Journal subscribers have come to expect in a convenient, summarized format."

Subscribers can sign up for the new e-mail delivery service or view The Morning Brief by following E-Mail Setup links on the home page. They can also go to https://users2.wsj.com/WebIntegration/WebIntegrationServlet?call A_SC.

Source: Dow Jones & Co., New York, (212) 416-2000; http://www.dowjones.com.

 


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