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Magazines > Information Today > September 2004
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Information Today

Vol. 21 No. 8 — September 2004

DEPARTMENTS
Product News and Reviews

Questel·Orbit Introduces PatentExaminer

Questel·Orbit announced the release of PatentExaminer, a patent portfolio management system that analyzes patents and enhances the collaboration between search engines, engineers, and patent attorneys. PatentExaminer facilitates the examination process by displaying the full-text patents and original facsimile patents side-by-side. The management system allows users to create and name an unlimited number of workfiles as well as to copy, move, and delete results from one workfile to another. Records can be filtered and sorted based on a number of criteria, and reader access to the directories and workfiles is set by the administrator.

Source: Questel·Orbit, Inc., Washington, DC, 703/873-4700; http://www.questel.orbit.com.

Cuadra Associates Unveils STAR/Archives Version 2.0

Cuadra Associates, Inc. introduced version 2.0 of STAR/Archives, its archives collections management system. The new version, now available to customers, features both browser-based retrieval across collections and dynamic generation of finding aids from within the public access catalog. Included in the generation of finding aids is the most up-to-date information about the collection and its scope, history, creators, and inventory. Version 2.0 allows archivists to create a catalog, develop and maintain finding aids, and provide public access to their collections.

Source: Cuadra Associates, Inc., Los Angeles, 310/478-0066; http://www.cuadra.com.

TFPL, Dialog Publish Executive Report

TFPL, Ltd. and Dialog have published "Joined-up Knowledge Strategies," the executive report of TFPL's Chief Knowledge Officer's Summit for the public sector that took place in April.

The CKO Summit is an event where 20 of the leading knowledge executives from the public sector spend 2 days debating key issues and working together to formulate new knowledge strategies.

The executive report distills the group's discussions and learnings, and is published with the intent to help others develop their own thinking and learn from the outcomes. The report is available in printed format or as a PDF download free of charge from http://www.tfpl.com/thought_leadership/cko_summits.cfm.

Source: TFPL, Ltd., London, 011-44-020-7251-5522; http://www.tfpl.com.

xreferplus Adds Collins World Atlas Gazetteer

xrefer announced that it has integrated the Collins World Atlas Gazetteer into its xreferplus subscription service.

The Collins World Atlas Gazetteer in xreferplus contains 90,000 places and geographic features, with a 1:5,000,000 scale. Users can search and browse by location, or by any of 28 geographic features—from atolls to mountains and national parks to waterfalls. By combining the content of the Collins World Atlas Gazetteer with xrefer's cross-referencing technology, users can move between the atlas entries to any related entries in the dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference books in xreferplus.

Source: xrefer, Ltd., Boston, 617/426-5202; http://www.xrefer.com.

STN International Adds CSA Databases

FIZ Karlsruhe announced that it made seven new databases from Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) available on STN International. The new databases include Ante, Civileng, Mecheng, Enviroeng, Water, Aqualine, and Bioeng. Coverage focuses on life sciences, environmental and aquatic sciences, computer sciences, materials science, engineering, and aerospace. With these new files, STN now offers a total of 26 CSA databases and remains the largest independent online provider of CSA databases.

Another CSA database designed for library professionals and other information scientists, covering librarianship, information science, and their related areas, will soon be available on STN.

Source: FIZ Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany, 011-49-7247-808-555; http://www.fiz-karlsruhe.de.

LexisNexis Announces BlackBerry Update, Total Search Enhancements

LexisNexis announced the second phase of its wireless delivery option for the BlackBerry platform. The company also released an enhanced version of LexisNexis Total Search.

BlackBerry

According to the announcement, business professionals can now search, refine, and edit results sets from more than 14,000 information sources in the LexisNexis online service via BlackBerry. This simplified search makes it easy to view and search comprehensive full-text news; business, legal, and public records; and regulatory and legislative information sources while on the go.

Total Search v.2

In order to provide greater flexibility of knowledge-sharing capabilities to its customers, LexisNexis announced Total Search v.2, an enhanced release of the company's Web browser-based application that allows legal professionals to search the lexis.com service and a law firm's internal work product simultaneously.

The features of Total Search v.2 have been enhanced, and the application has been made more scalable for large installations. Features include the following:

• The ability to pull documents from multiple document management system sources as well as flat-file systems, such as a shared drive

• Support of Hummingbird DM5 as a document management source with the ability to retrieve documents directly from the network-shared drive

• The ability to search internal firm documents within specific areas of law using the "Search Advisor" taxonomy on lexis.com

Source: LexisNexis, Dayton, OH, 937/865-6800; http://www.lexisnexis.com.

IEEE Releases IEEE Enterprise

IEEE announced that businesses may now access technology research in electrical engineering, computer science, telecommunications, imaging, robotics, and related fields through a new IEEE online product called IEEE Enterprise.

Subscribers to IEEE Enterprise choose from three levels of access, ranging from 350 to 1,750 full-text article downloads. Subscribers can search more than 1 million technical documents available through the IEEE Xplore online delivery system, and download full-text documents from IEEE journals and conference proceedings. Subscriptions may be renewed through an online form.

Subscribers to IEEE Enterprise will be able to do the following:

• View extended abstracts

• Subscribe to e-mail alerts for their key publications

• Receive free training and technical support

• Have up to five simultaneous users access the collection

IEEE Enterprise also includes an online collaboration tool, allowing all users at a subscribing company to share their downloaded articles and compare ongoing research.

Source: IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 732/981-0068; http://www.ieee.org.

Factiva Adds Three Newspapers from Axel Springer AG

Factiva announced an agreement with Axel Springer AG, Germany's largest newspaper publisher, to add three leading German newspapers to Factiva's collection of 9,000 sources.

Factiva's customers will be able to access German-language news and business information from Die Welt, Hamburger Abendblatt, and Die Welt am Sonntag. Die Welt offers comprehensive coverage of politics, business, finance, culture, the sciences, and sport. According to the announcement, Hamburger Abendblatt is the most-read newspaper in Northern Germany, and Die Welt am Sonntag is the sister Sunday newspaper of Die Welt, which offers more in-depth coverage of the week's events and issues.

Source: Factiva, Princeton, NJ, 609/627-2000; http://www.factiva.com.

Hoover's Unveils Hoover's Pro Premium

Hoover's, Inc. announced the release of Hoover's Pro Premium, a new subscription-based business information service designed to help small and midsized businesses more efficiently identify sales and marketing opportunities, and achieve business goals more rapidly.

According to the announcement, Hoover's Pro Premium will provide subscribers with access to three of the most powerful business databases available. Subscribers will be able to build prospect lists from more than 2.5 million U.S. and international businesses, as well as access and review information about more than 12 million U.S. and international businesses.

The new tools from which Pro Premium subscribers will benefit include the Family Tree Viewer and the Build Company List tool. Family Tree Viewer provides subscribers with the ability to view the total revenue generated from an entire corporate family, helping to identify cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

The Build Company List tool provides users with the ability to compile lists of companies from the three different databases using up to 29 different search parameters. These lists can then be downloaded to spreadsheets for importing into applications such as contact management programs.

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

Techstreet Launches Web Site Upgrades

Techstreet, a division of Thomson Scientific, has announced new upgrades to the Techstreet Web site. With the goal of helping customers find and obtain information faster, the Techstreet Web site includes new vertical industry stores, more options for browsing industry standards, and an updated graphical user interface.

Gregg Hammerman, director of operations and technology at Techstreet, said: "Our redesigned Web site gives customers two new ways to browse for standards. Six new industry stores are listed in an easy-to-use tab format across the top of the page, and a new Browse Catalogs drop-down box is conveniently located on the left. Industry stores contain the most important standards for any given industry, including regularly updated standards, new releases, newly revised documents, pre-published versions, and related industry content. The new drop-down box provides super-fast browsing of over 70 different catalogs from standards-developing organizations around the world."

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

Digital Preservation Program Launches Research Grants Initiative

The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program of the Library of Congress (NDIIPP) is partnering with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish the first research grants program to specifically address the preservation of digital materials. NSF will administer the program, which will fund cutting-edge research to support the long-term management of digital information. This effort is part of the library's collaborative program to implement a national digital preservation strategy.

The new Digital Archiving and Long-Term Preservation research program, which expects to make approximately $2 million in initial awards using NDIIPP funds, has three main focus areas for which proposals are sought:

• Digital repository models

• Tools, technologies, and processes

• Organizational, economic, and policy issues

The NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, Division of Information and Intelligent Systems, will issue a call for proposals shortly. Check the NSF Web site at http://www.cise.nsf.gov/div/index.cfm?div=iis for current information.

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

Access Innovations Offers MAI-Chem

Access Innovations is now offering its proprietary MAI-Chem chemical name indexing system for chemical research.

MAI-Chem gives researchers and chemical information specialists the ability to find and index, or tag, documents that contain variations of chemical names and compounds buried in large collections of electronically stored information, such as a database of patent documents, collections of in-house technical reports, or an archive of professional journal articles.

"Because variations in the naming of chemical compounds are virtually unlimited, identifying documents that contain a specific chemical name or compound has long been a challenge in chemistry and chemical research," said Marjorie M. K. Hlava, Access Innovations president and chairman. "Our MAI-Chem program goes a long way to overcoming that obstacle. It is a boon for chemical researchers, librarians, archivists, and patent data storage specialists."

Source: Access Innovations, Inc., Albuquerque, NM, 505/988-0800; http://www.accessinn.com.

MicroPatent Launches Command Line Searching

MicroPatent, LLC announced the launch of command line searching within its PatSearch FullText database.

The new command line interface allows authorized full-text subscribers to perform many advanced search functions while working directly on top of the BRS search engine. Users can examine specific fields of interest, stack and combine queries for targeted research, execute complex strategies with the use of command prompts, and take advantage of many other command line options.

The following search functions are available within the command line interface:

• Expanded truncation

• Narrower years-to-search options

• Comprehensive subsearching

• Control of the default Boolean operator

• New print options

• More flexible sorting

Source: MicroPatent, LLC, East Haven, CT, 203/466-5055; http://www.micropat.com.

ProQuest Announces Two New Resources

ProQuest Information and Learning introduced Ancestry Library Edition. The company also announced the launch of Digital Commons @.

Ancestry Library Edition

ProQuest and MyFamily.com have teamed to produce a new tool to support genealogy research in libraries. The Web-based Ancestry Library Edition will replace and supercede AncestryPlus, which will be phased out over the coming year. Ancestry Library Edition was scheduled to be available on Aug. 30.

According to the announcement, the Ancestry Library Edition interface will have a cleaner look with more user-friendly search options. Additionally, the new database will feature genealogical resources not previously available in the electronic library market. Exclusive new content available in Ancestry Library Edition includes the Immigration Collection, which features New York and San Francisco passenger lists and the New York Petitions for Naturalization Index.

Digital Commons @

According to the announcement, ProQuest Digital Commons @ is an ideal way to capture, preserve, and disseminate the intellectual output of a university, consortium, or discipline-specific organization. Libraries that use Digital Commons @ will be able to offer services such as full-text searching, export to XML, full support for OAI, and personalized e-mail notification for updates. Additionally, ProQuest can provide a head start on content for Digital Commons @ customers by immediately loading an academic library's entire dissertation content—creating a critical mass of valuable content.

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

CSA Adds Bibliography, Databases to Internet Database Service

CSA announced the addition of QuikBib to its Internet Database Service (IDS). CSA also announced the addition of three full-text journals to IDS.

QuikBib

Researchers using IDS from CSA can now use the new QuikBib tool to generate a bibliography from their search results. QuikBib takes search results from bibliographic databases and formats the citation information into bibliographies. QuikBib also gives the user a choice of a number of different bibliographic styles and output options.

The QuikBib service is available to subscribers at no additional cost.

Full-Text Links to Three Services

Researchers using IDS can now link from their search results to electronic, full-text journals offered through Blackwell Synergy, Wiley InterScience, and Oxford University Press. With these additions, IDS subscribers can link search results to more than 10,000 electronic, full-text journals provided by more than 30 services.

Source: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, Bethesda, MD, 301/961-6761; http://www.csa.com.

Elsevier Engineering Information Unveils Enhanced ChemVillage

Elsevier Engineering Information announced the latest release of the ChemVillage discovery platform, enhancing the way users access chemistry content. With focus on applied chemistry research, ChemVillage offers access to high-quality, text-based resources, including bibliographic databases Beilstein Abstracts and Chimic, and Chemical Business NewsBase, a business news source covering the global chemicals industry.

This latest release enhances the research process through upgrades to the platform's underlying technology. The FAST search engine has been implemented to deliver standard-bearing search and retrieval speeds. Intuitive functional enhancements include multiple database searching with user-controlled deduplication, personalized searches, and extensive full-text linking options. Unlimited e-mail alerting offers all users the ability to receive weekly updates on record additions in their areas of interest.

Source: Elsevier Engineering Information, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 201/356-6800; http://www.elsevier.com.

PAIS International Now Available on EBSCOhost

EBSCO Publishing now offers the PAIS International database as part of its suite of subject-specific databases on EBSCOhost. The database includes references to more than 530,000 journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, gray literature, research reports, policy papers, Internet documents, Web sites, conference reports, and other sources from more than 120 countries. Some of the topics covered include affirmative action, AIDS, climate change, ethnicity, environmental degradation, political persecution, war and conflict, and women's rights.

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

Dialog Adds News Reporting from Europe and Hard-to-Monitor Countries

Dialog has added in-depth news covering Europe and hard-to-monitor countries to its Dialog NewsRoom service.

Dialog NewsRoom is an online database that aggregates news reports from around the world with editorial materials from more than 8,000 global sources, including newspapers, news wires, specialty newsletters, trade media, and scholarly journals.

The following are highlights of recent content additions to Dialog NewsRoom:

• News reports collected from local media based in such hard-to-monitor countries as China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, and Serbia

• Five news wires from ANSA, a leading Italian news agency

• Seventy-five to 100 articles added daily from Economist Intelligence Unit's ViewsWire, a business intelligence service covering developments in more than 180 countries

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

Aries Systems Updates Editorial Manager

Aries Systems Corp. announced that it now offers Editorial Manager 3.0. Editorial Manager 3.0 is the first release of the application to provide tracking prior to author submission. For example, review journals can create manuscript proposals with target publication schedules. Authors are then invited to submit manuscripts based on those proposals. Similarly, peer review journals can invite authors to submit commentaries on existing manuscripts, and the linked submissions are tracked through peer review to production.

Other major enhancements include greater flexibility in Reviewer and Editor recommendation forms, ongoing improvements to the user interface, and an expansion of the acceptable file formats allowed for submitted files. Additionally, Editorial Manager 3.0 has extended the compatibility of the system with third-party applications.

Source: Aries Systems Corp., North Andover, MA, 978/975-7570; http://www.editorialmanager.com.

Ingenta Introduces RSS Feeds

Ingenta, Inc. announced that RSS feeds are now available as a feature of the Ingenta service. RSS is a Web syndication protocol that allows publishing of headlines from any Web site in a machine-readable, XML-based format. A program known as an RSS aggregator or feed reader can check RSS-enabled Web pages and display any updated articles that it finds.

With the launch of the second version of the IngentaConnect beta Web site, users will be able to sign up for RSS feeds of new issues loaded for journals, showing the latest issue numbers and dates with a link to the full table of contents on ingentaconnect.com.

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

NTIS Begins New Automatic Delivery Service

The National Technical Information Service (NTIS) has developed a new product, S&T (Science & Technology) on CD, the CD-ROM version of its SRIM (Selective Research in Microfiche) service. Subscribers to the new S&T on CD get the full text of every document NTIS acquired during the last 2 weeks in their preselected subject area.

Highlights of S&T on CD include the following:

• Digital documents are stored in PDF that can be viewed using free Adobe Acrobat reader software.

• One or more CDs containing the digital documents related to selections from some or all 375 subject categories are sent every 2 weeks.

• A Cumulative Catalog Index CD-ROM of the digital documents is sent quarterly and annually.

• The Cumulative Catalog Index CD-ROM includes a search engine that finds information about the digital documents.

Source: National Technical Information Service, Springfield, VA, 703/605-6000; http://www.ntis.gov.

WebFeat Introduces WebFeat 3

WebFeat announced the arrival of WebFeat 3, which features a suite of new personalization capabilities called MyWebFeat.

Todd Miller, CEO of WebFeat, said: "WebFeat 3 represents a culmination of what federated searching is all about: bringing the right capabilities to users searching for better information and greater results. With MyWebFeat, individual users can now customize their own WebFeat experience within the parameters of their libraries' core systems. Specifically, MyWebFeat allows individuals to organize and display library databases in exactly the way they wish, creating subject categories to match their research needs. Users can modify the look and feel of their federated search environment by selecting presentation templates. And within MyWebFeat, they can manage the way results are returned, opting to save results of a single search or receive alerts that run at a frequency they set."

Source: WebFeat, Old Brookville, NY, 888/757-9119; http://www.webfeat.org.

Thomson ISI ResearchSoft Releases EndNote 8

Thomson ISI ResearchSoft announced the release of EndNote 8, an upgrade to the company's bibliographic management software. Known for introducing innovative features, including the ability to search online bibliographic databases, organize references and images, and create instant bibliographies, EndNote 8 offers Unicode support for any language, unlimited library size, new reference types and fields, and enhanced support for electronic resources.

EndNote 8 allows users to move an EndNote library to any handheld device running Palm OS 4.1-5.x, and to locate references with the new "find reference" function. Version 8 provides more than 2,200 ways to connect EndNote with bibliographic databases and publishing styles.

Source: Thomson ISI ResearchSoft, Carlsbad, CA, 760/438-5526; http://www.isiresearchsoft.com.

 

 


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