DEPARTMENTS
Product News and Reviews
Snapshots International Launches
New Global Panorama Series Snapshots International announced the launch of the Global Panorama Series,
a collection of reports that contain aggregated figures from the single country
reports published within the Snapshots Series.
The Global Panorama Series offers two types of reports: Overview and Panorama.
Both are available for global or regional coverage. Overviews are segmented
by country or continent. If more drilled-down data is required, users can access
a Panorama report, which includes additional charts that showcase the market
shares for the top countries within each region.
The debut run of the Global Panorama Series will include 25 industry titles.
The coverage will be expanded in response to client demand. Regions include
the Americas, Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Europe.
Source: Snapshots International, London, 011-44-20-7829-8408; http://www.snapdata.com.
FindLaw Revamps FindLaw for the Public
Web Site, Adds Directory to Microsoft Office FindLaw announced the release of a new version of its FindLaw for the Public
Web site (http://public.findlaw.com). The company also announced that Microsoft
Office 2003 Editions will include its West Legal Directory.
FindLaw for the Public
The FindLaw for the Public Web site offers new features, including the following:
• State-specific content—Expanded state content in legal
consumer categories, including criminal law, DUI/DWI, divorce, and family
law
• A new look and feel—Improved user interface features a
new visual design, tab-based site navigation, and expanded topic-specific
navigation
for more than 40 legal topics
• Improved access to lawyers—Now easier for users to search
West Legal Directory to find and research lawyers in their area
West Legal Directory
FindLaw will allow its West Legal Directory to be added into Microsoft's
new Research task pane. This feature lets customers search for information
and incorporate it into their work directly from Microsoft Office applications
such as Excel 2003, Outlook 2003, PowerPoint 2003, Publisher 2003, and Word
2003.
According to the announcement, Office 2003 users can have immediate desktop
access to contact information for more than 1 million attorneys and law firms
listed in the West Legal Directory.
Source: FindLaw, Eagan, MN, 651/687-7082; http://www.findlaw.com.
Dogpile Upgrades Search Toolbar Dogpile announced an upgrade of its Dogpile Search Toolbar. It now includes
options for locating and accessing syndicated XML content.
According to the announcement, the new Dogpile Toolbar brings the benefits
of RSS and Atom content to more mainstream Internet users by simplifying the
process of finding and aggregating feeds. Using the automated RSS Scanner,
users can add new feeds to their Toolbar in two steps. To locate feeds, users
visit a Web site and select "Add Content" from a drop-down menu on the Toolbar
to view a list of available content from that site. They can then select any
number of feeds from those available and add them with one click. To protect
users' privacy, all information regarding personalized feed lists is stored
locally on their computer.
For viewing RSS and Atom content, the new Dogpile Toolbar puts users' personalized
headlines right into their Web browser with the scrolling content ticker. This
feature allows them to continually monitor the latest headlines from their
favorite sources. They can configure the size, speed, and scroll direction
of the ticker to best meet their needs.
Source: Dogpile, Bellevue, WA, 425/201-6100; http://www.dogpile.com.
Thomson Derwent Unveils New Alerting Service Thomson Derwent announced the availability of Derwent World Patents Index
First View (DWPI First View) on Dialog and STN International.
DWPI First View is a new alerting companion file to the Derwent World Patents
Index (DWPI) database of value-added patent information. For the first time,
DWPI users will receive previews of the latest published patent documents in
advance of their inclusion in Derwent World Patents Index. Searching DWPI First
View in combination with DWPI will deliver a comprehensive overview of global
patenting activity.
DWPI First View records contain enhanced bibliographic data for all new patent
documents along with original titles, abstracts, technical drawing images,
and English-language abstracts for patents from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan,
and Russia.
Source: Thomson Derwent, Philadelphia, 215/386-0100; http://www.derwent.com.
Dialog Announces New Services, Platform Dialog Corp. announced that real-time financial and business news and analysis
produced by CBS MarketWatch are now available through Dialog NewsRoom, Dialog
NewsEdge, Dialog NewsEdge Live, and NewsEdge Insights. The company also announced
the release of Dialog BillBack, a free, Web-based cost-recovery service, and
the launch of a new platform for its business-information, news, and market
research services.
CBS MarketWatch
CBS MarketWatch is the news service of MarketWatch.com, Inc., a multimedia
publisher of business news and a provider of financial information and analytical
tools. Its content now available through the Dialog services includes daily
news feeds of MarketPulse Bulletins (snapshot views of financial markets),
detailed reports on publicly traded companies, and columns and features covering
information such as breaking market news.
Dialog BillBack
Dialog BillBack tracks online research charges and generates usage reports
for client invoicing or internal budgeting through Dialog Profound and Dialog
NewsRoom services. Dialog BillBack will be available for Dialog Intelliscope,
Dialog Company Profiles, and Dialog NewsEdge later this year when new versions
of these services are introduced.
New Platform
Dialog Profound and Dialog NewsRoom are now operating on the new platform
and are accessible through a unified interface. Current versions of three other
Dialog services—Dialog Intelliscope, Dialog Company Profiles, and Dialog
NewsEdge—are also accessible through the shared interface and will be
available on the new platform later this year. The platform enables users to
readily search related arrays of content simultaneously and also to move between
Dialog services.
Source: Dialog Corp., Cary, NC, 919/462-8600; http://www.dialog.com.
Factiva Releases iWorker Search Technology Factiva announced the launch of Factiva iWorker Search Technology, an algorithm-based
product platform capability.
This patent-pending system seamlessly matches simple keyword searches to
the filtering capability embedded within Factiva's proprietary taxonomy. This
taxonomy consists of company, region, industry, language, and subject codes
that are universally applied to Factiva's entire content set to help ensure
more precise and accurate results. In addition, the search experience is personalized
as users set their preference for a specific region and industry. This influences
the relevance of their results.
Factiva iWorker Search Technology will be available in the following products:
Factiva.com, Factiva.com Individual Subscription, Factiva Search Module, and
Factiva Search in Microsoft Office 2003. A new Factiva Toolbar, powered by
the technology, has been created to give users access to Factiva's content
through their browser.
Source: Factiva, Princeton, NJ, 609/627-2000; http://www.factiva.com.
Wiley InterScience Introduces
New Organic Reactions Database Wiley InterScience announced the introduction of Organic Reactions, a comprehensive
new database devoted exclusively to important synthetic reactions.
Organic Reactions presents chemistry from a preparative point of view, with
a focus on reaction limitations, interfering influences, the effects of chemical
structure, and the selection of experimental conditions. The database includes
detailed procedures that illustrate the significant modifications of the chemical
reaction and tables that include all the pertinent examples of the reaction.
Each reaction is presented with information about the conditions, products,
and yields and is fully referenced to the primary literature.
Key features of Organic Reactions include the following:
• Structure and substructure search
• Reaction search
• Real-time, enhanced, full-text searching capabilities
• Critically selected content
Source: Wiley InterScience, Hoboken, NJ, 201/748-6645; http://www.interscience.wiley.com.
Westlaw Offers ResultsPlus for Searching Statutes West announced that ResultsPlus, a research-assistance feature available
on Westlaw, has been expanded to include statute searches. This new offering
recommends additional relevant information resources to help legal professionals
develop an understanding of the issues they're researching.
ResultsPlus, introduced to case law researchers in June 2003, points users
to relevant articles from American Law Reports and American Jurisprudence and
provides recommended key-number queries to enhance research accuracy.
ResultsPlus relies on information research technologies developed by West's
engineers. These technologies were originally designed to help West's attorney-editors
classify legal documents to the more than 100,000 topics and categories of
the West Key Number System.
Source: West, Eagan, MN, 651/687-7000; http://www.west.thomson.com.
Convera Rolls Out New Taxonomies Convera announced that it has introduced five new industry-specific taxonomies:
Genetics, Finance & Business, General Enterprise, Technology, and U.S.
Government. According to the announcement, these taxonomies contain industry-standard
thesaurus content enhanced by Convera linguists and taxonomists to optimize
the quality of information discovery in government and commercial applications.
Each of the new taxonomies incorporates specialized vocabulary to ensure
an accurate level of categorization. Large, diverse collections of unstructured
data can be browsed by navigating categories that users find intuitive and
useful to their personal information-retrieval objectives.
Source: Convera, Vienna, VA, 703/761-3700; http://www.convera.com.
WSJ.com to Offer Audience Search Service The Wall Street Journal Online (WSJ.com) announced that it will offer Audience
Search. This service, developed and powered by Revenue Science, Inc., uses
natural language keywords to create custom audience segments in real time and
rank the quality of those audiences for Web advertising campaigns. Singapore
Airlines, the first customer for this service, will use Audience Search to
target its advertisements to WSJ.com's travel-related Online Journal audience
segments.
Audience Search enhances the Online Journal's Interest-Based service, which
has been available to its advertisers since June 2003. It enables the Online
Journal to describe and create behavioral segments using keywords taken directly
from an advertiser's audience specification or request for proposal.
Source: Dow Jones & Co., Princeton, NJ, 609/520-4057; http://www.dowjones.com.
xrefer Adds CIA World Factbook to xreferplus xrefer, a provider of online ready reference services to academic, public,
and corporate libraries, announced that it has integrated the CIA World Factbook
into its xreferplus subscription service, adding interactive and exportable
data tables.
The CIA World Factbook contains extensive information on all the countries
of the world. It allows researchers to create customized tables comparing countries
on any of more than 130 data fields, including economic aid, government, labor
figures, Internet use, and more. Tables can be sorted online as well as exported
and charted for further manipulation.
In addition to customizable tables, the Factbook includes browsable information
for all countries on such topics as people, government, economy, communications,
and transnational issues, along with images of maps and flags.
xreferplus features 1.7 million authoritative full-text entries that cover
such subjects as art, medicine, science, literature, and more. The content
is linked by a network of cross-references that cut across topics, titles,
and publishers as well as text, image, and sound files.
Source: xrefer, Boston, 617/426-5202; http://www.xrefer.com.
Thomson ISI ResearchSoft Releases
Reference Manager 11 Bibliographic Software Thomson ISI ResearchSoft announced that it has shipped a major upgrade to
Reference Manager, its bibliographic software that streamlines research, writing,
and publishing for corporate, government, and academic researchers.
Reference Manager 11 delivers new ways to view and share reference collections,
including publishing Reference Manager databases on the Web, creating subject
bibliographies, exchanging references with colleagues, connecting to data-visualization
tools in one step, and supporting work groups with new network utilities.
Users can post up to 15 Reference Manager databases to the Web or to an intranet
with Reference Manager's built-in Web server and Web-publishing tool. Colleagues
can access the Web-publisher site to search, add, edit, and export references
in XML. Reference Manager 11 databases can also be accessed by third-party
applications and enterprise portals using SOAP and WSDL standards.
Source: Thomson ISI ResearchSoft, Carlsbad, CA, 760/438-5526; http://www.isiresearchsoft.com.
FIZ Karlsruhe Adds FRANCEPAT Database FIZ Karlsruhe announced that it has added the new bibliographic patent database
FRANCEPAT to its product portfolio. FRANCEPAT, a private service under a distribution
agreement with Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle
(INPI), contains more than 1 million records of French patents and patent applications
and more than 400,000 patent drawings.
FRANCEPAT covers all French patent applications and granted French patents
published by INPI. It includes all patents published in France since 1966 as
well as special pharmaceutical patents published between 1961 and 1978.
Records include bibliographic, administrative, and legal-status data for
each patent. Abstracts and descriptors are also available from 1978 on. All
records are in French, but English descriptors are available from 1987 on.
The database is updated weekly.
Source: FIZ Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany, 011-49-7247-808-513; http://www.fiz-karlsruhe.de.
Thomson Gale Offers MARC Records,
Adds New Database Features Thomson Gale announced that the MARC records from Literature Resource Center's
most-studied authors are now available for free. The company also announced
that it has added new features to four of its databases.
MARC Records
Using Literature Resource Center, MARC records containing InfoMarks allow
researchers to find information on the 2,600 most-studied authors. As a value-added
service for librarians, these records can be downloaded free of charge to the
library's OPAC. This enables local as well as remote library patrons to get
this information.
New Database Features
Thomson Gale's enhanced databases are Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center,
Custom Journals—including InfoTrac Religion & Philosophy and Military
and Intelligence Database—and What Do I Read Next?
The Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center 1.1 now includes nearly 200 biographies
of activists and reformers, the ability to cross-search against a customer's
Student Resource Center subscription, and improved statistical reporting.
Custom Journals' new InfoTrac Religion & Philosophy and Military and
Intelligence Database allow users to perform more focused searches. They offer
journal search, table of contents display of journal search results, and a
new e-mail format.
What Do I Read Next? now includes more than 100,000 adult, young adult, and
children's fiction and nonfiction titles; more than 60,000 plot summaries;
and information from 562 major book and literary awards.
Source: Thomson Gale, Farmington Hills, MI, 248/699-4253; http://www.gale.com.
SilkRoad Technology Announces the
Availability of its Eprise 2004 Software SilkRoad Technology, Inc., a provider of content management and collaboration
software, announced the availability of the Eprise 2004 content management
system. Eprise 2004 offers features built on top of the existing Eprise platform
that allow users to create, manage, deploy, and update rich, content-driven
Web sites.
Eprise 2004 manages the flow of content to Web sites by enabling nontechnical
business users to add, modify, manage, and publish content without the assistance
of a Webmaster or IT department. With Eprise, enterprises can create page templates
and incorporate them across a Web site. Using these templates, employees can
create and edit content without changing page structure or the site's overall
look and feel.
Version and rollback controls provide safe restoration of content when necessary.
Eprise's administration interface allows for constant auditing and tracking
capabilities along with the management of content-creation and -publication
tasks.
Source: SilkRoad Technology, Inc., Winston-Salem, NC, 336/201-5100; http://www.silkroadtech.com.
EBSCO Publishing Enhances LinkSource EBSCO Publishing announced that its LinkSource service now offers several
new features designed to maximize its effectiveness in libraries. With the
addition of more customization options, LinkSource provides more access to
full text across all of a library's e-resources in ways that can be configured
to best meet the needs of many different institutions and library types, according
to the announcement.
LinkSource's new features include the following:
• An expanded knowledgebase of more than 550 database definitions
and 100 link templates
• Automatic processing of A-to-Z export files
• The ability to prioritize access to full-text content
• The option to take the end user directly to the article if
full text is included on the LinkSource menu
• Additional customization of the LinkSource menu
Source: EBSCO Publishing, Ipswich, MA, 978/356-6500; http://www.epnet.com.
Library of Congress Adds AACR2 to
Web Edition of Cataloger's Desktop Tool
The Library of Congress' Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) and the co-publishers
of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd edition (AACR2), have agreed to
add AACR2 to the Web edition of CDS's Cataloger's Desktop cataloging tool.
AACR2 had previously been in Cataloger's Desktop's CD-ROM version.
The rules in AACR2 form the basis for descriptive cataloging practice in
the English-speaking library community, with implications for cataloging standardization
worldwide. Their inclusion in Cataloger's Desktop on the Web ensures that Web-based
cataloging will employ standardized description, which in turn makes the cataloging
interchangeable from one catalog to the next. The Web version of Cataloger's
Desktop becomes available as a subscription publication in June.
Source: Library of Congress Public Affairs Office, Washington, DC, 202/707-2905;
http://www.loc.gov.
San Jose Public Library Launches New Digital Service
OverDrive, Inc. announced that the San Jose Public Library has launched a
new digital library (http://ebooks.sjlibrary.org). This resource will give
residents access to popular e-books directly from their home or office. OverDrive
supplied the technology for the new service.
The site features a collection of best-selling e-books from popular authors
and publishers such as HarperCollins, Time Warner, McGraw-Hill, Zondervan,
Scholastic, and John Wiley & Sons. The collection features titles in Adobe
PDF that can be downloaded and read using free Adobe Reader software available
from the site.
Each patron is allowed to download up to 10 e-books. Patrons can also choose
automatic e-mail notification for when a wait-listed title becomes available
for checkout. E-books automatically check in when due.
Source: OverDrive, Inc., Cleveland, 216/573-6886; http://www.overdrive.com.
Thomson Releases 2004 Patent Focus Report
Thomson Scientific announced the publication of the 2004 Thomson Patent Focus
Report. This document offers the most recently available statistics for patent
filings worldwide and focuses on legislative and infrastructure developments
in the Japanese Patent Office (JPO), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO),
and the European Patent Office (EPO) during 2003. It can be downloaded from
http://www.thomsonderwent.com/ipmatters.
The JPO section looks at revisions to the Official Fees Schedule for patents
and the overhaul of Japan's utility model system. The USPTO review includes
revisions to the Strategic plan, plus discussion on the inauguration of the
Nanotechnology Customer Partnership and the Federal Trade Commission report
on patent quality and quantity. EPO coverage includes extensive discussion
of the Community patent plus a focus on software patenting and stem-cell patenting
legislation.
Source: Thomson Scientific, Philadelphia, 215/386-0100; http://www.thomsonscientific.com.
Omnigraphics Releases Headquarters USA Print Directory as Electronic Database
Omnigraphics announced that Headquarters USA is now available as HQ
Online, a searchable electronic database. This database offers access to the
headquarters and main offices of top businesses and organizations in the U.S.
and Canada.
All contact information in HQ Online is verified by direct editorial contact
and regularly updated throughout the year. Rates for both in-library and remote
patron access are published rather than negotiated, with pricing for remote
access based on the population served.
The 115,000 businesses and organizations in HQ Online have been individually
selected by experienced editors. The database also lists nonprofit organizations;
professional associations; government agencies and offices; educational and
cultural institutions; and prominent business, government, and organizational
leaders.
Source: Omnigraphics, Detroit, 313/961-1340; http://www.omnigraphics.com.
Surpass Software Offers Centralized
Cataloging Pricing for Surpass Copycat
Surpass Software announced that it now offers new centralized cataloging
pricing for Surpass Copycat. This cataloging tool provides for free downloading
of MARC records with no annual database subscription needed. With the new pricing,
districts with centralized cataloging pay a single flat price for Copycat and
can freely catalog unlimited items for all district or system libraries. Surpass
Copycat can be used with any library automation system.
Pricing starts at $1,195 for districts with 10 to 19 libraries. Annual support
starts at $180. Districts with more than one central cataloging person can
purchase workstation licenses for the central cataloging locations at $120
each, just as with other Surpass products. Libraries in the district that wish
to do their own cataloging can purchase their own copy of the software at the
regular price of $450.
Source: Surpass Software, Calhoun, GA, 706/625-5399; http://www.surpasssoftware.com.
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