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Vol. 21 No. 3 — March 2004

Thomson Delphion Enhances European Patent Data Analysis

Thomson Delphion announced that it is now possible for customers to get more complete search results and more thorough analysis of key European patent data. Through an extension of its partnership with CHI Research, Inc., Delphion has added European corporate hierarchy data to its existing U.S. data, creating a resource in which this information can be leveraged across patent collections.

Without corporate hierarchy data, assignee searching and analysis can be problematic because separate patent applications often use different forms of the company name, according to the announcement. This requires users to identify all variations in order to get complete information. In addition, patent documents identify the assignee that owned the patent when it was granted, but companies merge, get acquired, spin off, and change names.

Patents can also be sold or transferred from one company to another. Delphion leverages corporate hierarchy data to standardize corporate names and incorporate merger and acquisition activity, making it possible for users to find all patents from a corporate entity, even when names are misspelled.

Source: Thomson Delphion, Lisle, IL, 630/799-0600; http://www.delphion.com.

Ingenta, EBSCO Launch Subscription Initiative

Ingenta, Inc. announced the first stage in a new initiative to simplify the process by which libraries configure online access to their e-journals.

Launched jointly with EBSCO, the new process will significantly reduce the workload for libraries and administrators, according to the announcement. Subscription agents Kinokuniya and Harrassowitz are also using Ingenta's new system, which has already activated more than 75,000 subscriptions. Ingenta intends to roll out the service to other participating subscription agents over time.

Previously, libraries using ingenta.com to access their subscribed e-journals had to review the list of subscribed journals available at Ingenta and confirm their subscriptions to these titles one by one. This data was then validated against subscription files from the publisher. The new process eliminates this task for librarians and administrators. In the future, libraries will have seamless and pre-configured access via Ingenta to all the subscribed e-journals they've purchased through a subscription agent.

Source: Ingenta, Inc., Providence, RI, 401/331-2014; http://www.ingenta.com.

EBSCO Celebrates 60 Years of Business

EBSCO announced that it is now celebrating its 60th year of serving the library and business communities.

"It has been exciting to work with a firm that is committed to superior service and has consistently managed outstanding growth," said F. Dixon Brooke Jr., vice president and division general manager of EBSCO Information Services. "Along with our 60th anniversary, we're also celebrating our achievement of becoming an industry leader, a position that is both gratifying and humbling."

In 1944, EBSCO Industries, Inc. founder Elton B. Stephens and his wife, Alys Robinson Stephens, formed a partnership to sell magazines, personalized binders, and racks to the U.S. armed forces.

Today, under the name EBSCO Information Services, Stephens' original vision has expanded into a group of companies that provide information access and management solutions through print and electronic journal subscription services, research database development and production, online access to more than 100 databases and thousands of e-journals, and e-commerce book procurement.

With more than 30 offices located in 19 countries around the world, EBSCO serves libraries in the academic, medical, government, public, and school markets, as well as corporations and other organizations.

Source: EBSCO, Birmingham, AL, 205/991-6600; http://www.ebsco.com.

Elsevier, NESLi2 Conclude New Agreement

The UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and Elsevier, part of the Reed Elsevier Group, announced the conclusion of a new agreement as part of NESLi2, the national electronic journals initiative for the higher education and research communities in the U.K.

The new 2-year agreement, which began in January, provides the framework under which the U.K.'s universities and research communities will have electronic access to Elsevier's STM journals through the ScienceDirect platform. These include many of the most highly ranked and important journals in their respective fields. The new agreement has been expanded to cover access to the Academic Press and Harcourt Health Sciences journals acquired by Elsevier in 2001.

NESLi2 was launched in June 2003 and covers subscription agreements for the years 2004 to 2006. It is the successor scheme to the original NESLi, which ran from 1997 to 2002.

JISC is a joint committee of the U.K. higher education funding bodies and is responsible for supporting the innovative use of information and communication technology to support learning, teaching, and research. It's best known for providing the Super JANET network, a range of advice and support services, and a portfolio of high-quality resources.

Source: Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 011-31-20-485-3911; http://www.elsevier.com.

NISO Develops INFO URI Scheme

Working under the auspices of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), a joint task force of the publishing and library communities has developed and published a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme aimed at the identification of information assets.

According to the announcement, information assets should be interpreted rather broadly to include, for example, documents and terms from classification schemes. The INFO URI scheme is a consistent and reliable way to represent and reference such standard identifiers as Dewey Decimal Classifications on the Web so that these identifiers can be "read" and understood by Web applications.

Led by four NISO members and associates—Los Alamos National Laboratory, OCLC, Elsevier, and Manifest Solutions—the initiative builds on earlier consultations with representatives from the World Wide Web Consortium and the Internet Engineering Task Force.

An Internet draft for the INFO URI scheme was first published Sept. 25, 2003, and a revision published Dec. 5, 2003 (see
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/
draft-vandesompel-info-uri-01.txt).

Source: NISO, Bethesda, MD, 301/654-2512; http://www.niso.org.

LC Releases George Washington Papers

The Library of Congress announced that the final release of digital images from the George Washington Papers are now online at the American Memory Web site (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html).

In this final release, 45 items have been added. These letters, survey documents, and other materials date from 1763 to 1797. They are part of the Addenda to the Washington Papers—manuscripts acquired after the bulk of the collection had been processed and microfilmed. Among the newly added manuscripts are survey documents relating to the future city of Washington, D.C., and letters to and from Washington, Noah Webster, and Gen. John Cadwalader.

This final release will bring the total to more than 65,000 items, consisting of correspondence, letterbooks, journals, financial account books, military records, reports, and notes accumulated by Washington from 1741 through 1799.

According to the announcement, the George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress is the largest collection of original Washington documents in the world.

Source: Library of Congress, Washington, DC, 202/707-2905; http://www.loc.gov.

Glasser LegalWorks Acquired by FindLaw

FindLaw, a Thomson business, announced that it has acquired Glasser LegalWorks, a producer of legal and law practice seminars, events, and publications. According to the announcement, the acquisition of Glasser LegalWorks accelerates FindLaw's strategy of becoming the premier provider of expertise marketing solutions to large law firms.

Glasser LegalWorks will become part of FindLaw. The company's operations and employees, under the direction of Lynn S. Glasser and Stephen A. Glasser, will continue to be based in Little Falls, N.J. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The acquisition expands FindLaw's line of expertise marketing services and accelerates the company's strategy of offering a line of services that enable lawyers and law firms, corporate counsel, and industry service providers to network and learn best practices for tackling current issues for their clients and businesses.

Glasser LegalWorks brings to FindLaw an extensive series of seminars, forums, and newsletters covering the latest issues on substantive legal topics, and management of law firms and corporate law departments. The Glasser events feature hundreds of the profession's foremost experts and thought leaders.

Source: FindLaw, Mountain View, CA, 650/210-1900; http://www.findlaw.com.

OCLC Announces New Services

OCLC announced it now offers services that allow consortia to build group online union catalogs and provide resource sharing and reference services under one locally customized interface.

OCLC group catalogs are based on library holdings set in WorldCat. OCLC creates a catalog from WorldCat holdings contributed by group members so that library users can find what they need close to home. If users are unable to find what they need in their local area, they can expand their search to a larger region within the group, or to the entire WorldCat database.

Gathering holdings information within a group helps facilitate item discovery and resource sharing through the OCLC services that many libraries in the group are currently using. Libraries that do not use WorldCat for cataloging can batch-load records into the database to make their holdings information available for a group catalog. And libraries can also customize and brand their group catalog. For example, they can add logos for both the group and for a library within the group.

Source: OCLC, Dublin, OH, 614/764-6000; http://www.oclc.org.

ProQuest Enters Agreement for Springer-Verlag Titles

ProQuest Information and Learning announced a new agreement to distribute 103 scholarly journals published by Springer-Verlag. Key titles in science, technology, medicine, economics, and business are included in the licensing agreement. Many of the journals are newly available online. Other titles that were formerly available only through a single distributor may now be accessed in ProQuest as well.

Springer-Verlag publishes approximately 500 journals and 2,600 books covering medicine, life sciences, and business for an international audience. Key titles in the new agreement include The Journal of Economics, Economic Theory, Neurogenetics, Psychological Research, and Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology.

The Springer titles will be available in ProQuest's ABI/INFORM family of online business periodical databases; ProQuest Research Library; and ProQuest Science, Technology, and Medical databases. Most of the new titles will be available early this year; all 73 of the STM titles are new to electronic distribution. The other 30 titles, covering economics and business, were previously available only through a single distributor. They can be accessed through ProQuest beginning in August.

Source: ProQuest Information and Learning, Ann Arbor, MI, 734/761-4700; http://www.il.proquest.com.

SLA Offers Language Translations at Web Site

SLA announced that it has expanded accessibility to its online content by integrating language-translation services from WorldLingo (http://www.worldlingo.com).

Visitors to sla.org can now access free, electronically prepared translations of HTML text by selecting any of 12 languages: Chinese (simplified and traditional), Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

This new service is intended to provide rudimentary translation. Visitors to the site may also select a professional translation option from WorldLingo. This fee-based service allows visitors to request a quote on professional translation of any page or document found on the SLA Web site.

Upon receiving the quote, visitors may choose to purchase or decline. Electronically prepared translations are not available for attached documents (for example, Word or Adobe PDFs), but fee-based professional translations may be obtained.

Source: SLA, Washington, DC, 202/234-4700; http://www.sla.org.

West Unveils Westlaw StatutesPlus

West, a Thomson business, has announced the release of Westlaw StatutesPlus, a service that provides timesaving new ways to find, verify, read, and interpret statutes online.

"Westlaw StatutesPlus offers the most thorough, efficient statutes research experience available. It leverages specific benefits of print research with online functionality," said Andy Martens, vice president of primary law development at West. "StatutesPlus gathers all of the materials needed to interpret and verify statutes in a streamlined, intuitive system. All documents discussing the statute are brought together, so researchers can be confident they aren't missing anything."

According to the announcement, statutes research is notoriously difficult and time-consuming. Statutes are primary laws passed by state legislatures or the U.S. Congress and are often interpreted in state and federal court cases. The enactment of a new statute can reverse case law precedent. Legal practitioners and other researchers in government and highly regulated industries, such as banking, insurance, and tax, often conduct statutory research.

Source: West, Eagan, MN, 651/687-7000; http://west.thomson.com.

Extenza e-Publishing Services Achieves COUNTER Compliance

Extenza e-Publishing Services, a division of Royal Swets & Zeitlinger, announced that it has achieved Level 1 compliance with COUNTER's international e-journal usage standards.

Extenza e-Publishing Services has signed a formal declaration of compliance with COUNTER, an international initiative launched in March 2002 that is designed to serve librarians, publishers, and intermediaries by facilitating the recording and exchange of online usage statistics.

Extenza will provide access to a uniform set of usage statistics on its site, with reports available to both publishers and librarians.

Source: Extenza e-Publishing Services, Abingdon, U.K., 011-44-1235-857750; http://www.extenza-eps.com.