COLUMNS & NEWS
NewsBytes
Alexander Street
Press Indexes Oral History Collections
Alexander Street Press announced that it is bringing oral history to the
forefront of research with Oral History Online, an index of English-language
collections.
According to the announcement, oral histories contain rare and personal insights
into everything from human rights abuses during apartheid in South Africa to
life as a Japanese American after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet, trapped
on cassettes and hidden in corners of the Internet, the personal stories of
millions of people have been largely inaccessible to the scholars who need
them most.
With 2,300 collections already identified and more to come, Oral History
Online will help with the study of politics, women and gender, race relations,
labor, immigrants, health and medicine, history, and more.
When it's launched early this year, the index will include direct links to
more than 2,000 video files, 1,000 audio files, and 10,000 to 20,000 pages
of full text. Oral History Online will provide a single point of access to
these collections and give researchers deeper reach into the narrations with
Alexander Street's Semantic Indexing.
Source: Alexander Street Press, Alexandria, VA, 703/212-8522; http://www.alexanderstreet.com.
NISO Publishes
White Paper on Patents, Open Standards The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announced that it
has published a white paper on Patents and Open Standards by Priscilla Caplan,
assistant director of the Florida Center for Library Automation.
According to the announcement, this white paper is a timely reminder to everyone
involved in standards development of the relationship between standards, patents,
and the policies of standards-development organizations. Originally published
as the feature article in the October 2003 issue of Information Standards
Quarterly, NISO is making this information available as a free download
from http://www.niso.org/press/whitepapers/Patents_Caplan.pdf.
The paper reviews some patent basics and then considers the following questions:
• What is an "open standard"?
• What are the policies of other
standards-setting organizations
that govern patented contributions to standards?
• What are the implications for NISO?
The paper concludes with an update from NISO on its recently adopted Patent
Policy.
Source: NISO, Bethesda, MD, 301/654-2512; http://www.niso.org.
EBSCO Publishing Acquires New Database EBSCO Publishing announced that it has acquired the International Bibliography
of Theatre (IBT) database. IBT is a comprehensive multicultural and interdisciplinary
research tool available to theater students, educators, and professionals.
Initiated by the American Society for Theatre Research, IBT is a component
of EBSCO's list of subject-specific secondary databases that cover the humanities.
Since 1984, the Theatre Research Data Center (TRDC) at Brooklyn College has
published 14 volumes of IBT.
These volumes comprise a fully indexed, cross-referenced, and annotated databank
of more than 60,000 journal articles, books, book articles, and dissertation
abstracts on all aspects of theater and performance in 126 countries. As an
expert in the subject area, TRDC will continue indexing various titles for
the database as well as coordinating international contributors.
Source: EBSCO Publishing, Ipswich, MA, 978/356-6500; http://www.epnet.com.
Swets Test International Sold to Harcourt Assessment, Inc. Royal Swets & Zeitlinger NV announced the sale of Swets Test International
(STI) to Harcourt Assessment, Inc., a U.S.-based provider of high-quality assessment
instruments and testing programs.
STI, located in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and the U.K., is a leading
publisher in the fields of human resource management, healthcare, and education.
STI will be integrated into the existing operations of Harcourt Assessment
International, the international unit of Harcourt Assessment, Inc., and will
report to Ian Taylor, the London-based vice president of international operations.
Source: Royal Swets & Zeitlinger NV, Lisse, Netherlands, 011-31-252-435-584;
http://www.swets.com.
Nstein Collaborates with Health Canada Nstein Technologies, Inc. announced that it has signed an agreement with
Health Canada to spearhead a new Global Public Health Intelligence Network
(GPHIN) platform for monitoring potential public health risks and threats around
the world. GPHIN is an initiative developed by Health Canada in collaboration
with the World Health Organization.
The mission of the GPHIN platform is to monitor, aggregate, and disseminate
health information to the international public health community. This will
provide an early warning of potential public health risks or threats such as
SARS or any potential chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear-related
public health risks or threats.
Nstein's technology solution will power the system, providing 24/7 real-time
monitoring, aggregating, and translating information of public health significance
in six languages (English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Arabic) for
dissemination to the public health community worldwide.
Source: Nstein Technologies, Inc., Montreal, 514/908-5406; http://www.nstein.com.
ContentScan,
Majors Scientific Books Sign Agreement ContentScan, Inc., publisher of the Dome family of discipline-specific online
information services, announced an agreement with Majors Scientific Books to
distribute ContentScan's entire line of Dome services to medical and hospital
libraries.
From one convenient, accessible location, each Dome increases research productivity
while searching across content categories such as journal articles, books,
grants, authors, Web resources, and institutions.
Resources included in each Dome are refereed and selected based on the relevance
to their fields. According to the announcement, each item within the Dome is
linked to related items, providing researchers with richly networked and easily
navigable representation of their discipline's content and community.
Source: ContentScan, Inc., San Diego, 858/452-1264; http://www.contentscan.com.
SLA Now Accepts Multiple International
Currencies The Special Libraries Association (SLA) now accepts membership dues in selected
international currencies. Members may now pay by check to join or renew in
Euros, British pounds, Canadian dollars, and Australian dollars. The expanded
options offer flexibility for members without having to convert their currency
to American dollars.
"Offering payment in multiple currencies gives our members improved flexibility," said
SLA executive director Janice R. Lachance. "We will be considering more ways
to enhance our global tools as well as continually evaluating our services
for a growing global membership. This is an exciting first step in the globalization
of SLA."
For more details on SLA's enhanced payment flexibility, go to http://www.sla.org/membership or call 202/234-4700.
Source: SLA, Washington, DC, 202/234-4700; http://www.sla.org.
Percussion Software Partners with Convera Percussion Software, a developer of practical software solutions that enable
customers to maximize the value and quality of enterprise content, announced
that it has formed a partnership with Convera, a provider of search and categorization
solutions.
The partnership is initially focused on utilizing Convera's RetrievalWare
search technology for the content delivery environments based on Percussion's
Rhythmyx 5 Enterprise Content Management system and the newly announced Rhythmyx
Express Portal.
According to the announcement, the combination of RetrievalWare search technology
and Rhythmyx Content Management System creates a powerful one-stop-shopping
solution for organizations that want to roll out robust, secure, and highly
scalable search capabilities for Internet, intranet, and extranet applications.
Percussion will provide RetrievalWare to Rhythmyx delivery environments starting
immediately.
Source: Percussion Software, Stoneham, MA, 781/438-9900; http://www.percussion.com.
ProQuest Announces Distribution Agreement ProQuest Information and Learning has signed a new agreement with The
New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) to distribute its full
text electronically to libraries, hospitals, and educational institutions.
ProQuest also announced an agreement with Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt, a German
economic and financial news publishing group, to distribute Schmalenbach
Business Review (sbr).
NEJM
According to the announcement, NEJM is considered the world's gold
standard for keeping up-to-date on the best practices in medicine. A career
companion for physicians, it also helps define and reinforce clinical care
for physicians in training. Thousands of academics throughout the world use NEJM as
a teaching tool.
sbr
The agreement with Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt will bring sbr, the
international edition of German business journal Schmalenbach Business Review,
to ProQuest's ABI/INFORM suite of online business periodical databases.
sbr's goal is to publish original and innovative research. Its quarterly
English-language issues focus on accounting, finance, taxation, marketing,
neo-institutionalism, and more, bringing together the most important management
areas.
Source: ProQuest Information and Learning, Ann Arbor, MI, 734/761-4700; http://www.il.proquest.com.
NewsNet Founder Dies John H. Buhsmer, 71, of Gulph Mills, Pa., died of complications from heart
disease on Oct. 4, 2003. He was founder of NewsNet, Inc.; an online pioneer;
a former vice president of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin; and a
foundation president.
In 1973, Mr. Buhsmer, who had always loved newspapers, became vice president
in charge of personnel and labor relations at the Bulletin. In 1982,
he founded NewsNet, an early online business information services company.
He retired in 1983 when he became visually disabled.
Mr. Buhsmer grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. After earning a bachelor's degree
from Kings College in Wilkes-Barre, he served in the U.S. Army in Germany for
2 years. In 1958, he married his high school sweetheart, Maurita.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Buhsmer is survived by his father, Charles Sr.;
sons John Jr. and Dennis; daughters Mary Shannon, Patricia Tigani, Judith,
Kathleen DeRose, and Caroline Peters; a brother; and five grandchildren.
Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer
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