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Vol. 23 No. 2 — February 2003

LinkFinderPlus 3.0 includes batch activation of the LinkFinderPlus Knowledge Base and batch maintenance of the Knowledge Base post-implementation. Delivered with more than 13,000 targets to link to full text and abstracts for citations, the LinkFinderPlus Knowledge Base is designed for minimum maintenance once the library activates its local subscriptions. Additionally, the upgraded product allows libraries to enable immediate access to electronic journals as they become available with a local option to add journal sites. LinkFinderPlus 3.0 also allows users to customize their displays to match the library's local look and feel.

Source: Endeavor Information Systems, Inc., Des Plaines, IL, 800/762-6300, 847/296-2200; http://www.endinfosys.com.

ATLA Undertakes Retrospective Indexing
The American Theological Library Association has announced that it has begun a project to retrospectively index 100-plus American, East Asian, Latin American, and European periodical titles that predate the beginning of ATLA's Religion Index One (1949 to the present). The goal of the Retrospective Indexing Project (RIP) is to provide comprehensive coverage of these journals, from the initial publication date and, in some cases, ancestral title, to the present. Twenty-four of these titles extend into the 19th century; the earliest, Theologische Quartalschrift, dates from 1819. Comprehensive indexing for each periodical will make such titles as Biblica (1920­ ), Christian Century (1884­ ), Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses (1924­ ), Jewish Quarterly Review (1888­ ), Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique (1900­ ), and Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (1881­ ) much more accessible.

According to the announcement, the RIP will be combined with the ATLA Religion Database and will ultimately reach end users' hands by way of online database vendors such as SilverPlatter, Ovid, and EBSCO, and directly from the ATLA product Web site. Funding for the project is provided by annual grants from participating ATLA institutions.

Source: American Theological Library Association, Chicago, 888/665-ATLA, 312/454-5100; http://www.atla.com.

MicroPatent Releases Patent and IP Tools
MicroPatent, a subsidiary of Information Holdings, Inc., has announced two product releases: the MicroPatent Patent Index Database (MPI) and Aureka 8.0, an IP management tool.

MicroPatent's Patent Index Database is a combination of patent data and proprietary features. It offers the European Patent Office's (EPO) INPADOC collection with other EPO files, such as the examiner data collection (DOC.db), and supplements them with content and features exclusive to MicroPatent. Highlights of the product include front-page updates from other MicroPatent databases; abstract information when it is not present in INPADOC; U.S. Class updates six times annually; and linking ability to claims, full text of available documents, and PDF files. Also, foreign characters within MPI have been mapped to English ones so that they are searchable.

Aureka 8.0 is a browser-based IP management and analytic tool set, which replaces the Aureka Online Services 2.5 client/
server system and the Aureka Foundation Server model. Aureka 8.0 offers new features, such as the ability to add and search nonpatent documents within their project folders, including news articles, invention disclosures, technical bulletins, and external search results; to make annotations on folders, lists, search strategies, citation trees, clusters, and ThemeScape maps, which can be shared and expanded on by authorized users within a group; to create reports on full IPC classes, forward and back citations, and patent document abstracts; and to perform traditional searching, clustering, and mapping.

Source: MicroPatent, East Haven, CT, 800/648-6787, 203/466-5055; http://www.micropat.com.

Innovative Introduces Via for Schools
Innovative Interfaces, Inc. has announced the introduction of Via, a completely integrated and networked library automation system for school districts.

The Web-based Via system has a full range of core ILS capabilities, including online public access, cataloging, circulation, graphical self-checkout, and inventory control. The product also offers advanced functionality such as advanced keyword searching, multimedia management, patron authentication for Web resources, and Web portal access. In addition, Via provides features that are specific to school media centers, such as homeroom-based notices, student bar code generation, overdue reports, customized reports, and more.

Via is Java-based and platform-independent.

Source: Innovative Interfaces, Inc., Emeryville, CA, 510/655-6200; http://www.iii.com.

Conferences

2003 CIL Conference Program Announced
Information Today, Inc. (ITI) has announced the program for the Computers in Libraries 2003 conference.

This year's event, to be held March 12—14 at the Washington Hilton & Towers in Washington, D.C., includes four program streams: Navigating the Net; Intranet, Portals, & Applications; Systems Roles, Resources, & Applications; and Web Design, Tools, & Applications. The complete program is available at https://www.infotoday.com/cil2003.

The CIL 2003 conference will bring together more than 100 speakers, plus three keynotes, pre- and post-conference workshops, and an entertaining and informative evening program. According to the announcement, the conference is designed to cater to all interests and all knowledge levels.

In addition to regular conference programming, Computers in School Libraries 2003 adds to the four simultaneous tracks and offers in-depth coverage of technology and its impact on the practice and concerns of librarians, teachers, and school library media specialists in the K-12 education systems. This 2-day conference, to be held March 14—15, is sponsored by MultiMedia Schools and features many experts in the field.

Source: Information Today, Inc., Medford, NJ, 800/300-9868, 609/654-6266; https://www.infotoday.com.

Infonortics to Host Search Engine Meeting
Infonortics, Ltd. has announced that the Eighth Annual Search Engine Conference will be held in Boston's Logan Hilton April 7—­8, 2003.

In the opening keynote, titled The Search Engine Decade, David Evans will review the evolution of search engine technology and approaches from 1993 to 2003. According to the announcement, the conference's hot session topics are automatic classification, enterprise searching and applications, convergence of content and data technology, and image and video searching.

Presentations on automatic classification will describe technical challenges in taxonomy building, automatic clustering, and hybrid approaches, and will evaluate the relative merits of text filtering and categorization. Martin White will help you to select a search engine for your intranet system, and Stephen Arnold will outline major pitfalls you may face in implementing enterprise research. On the more technical side, Sue Feldman will cover the convergence of content and data technology, with additional presentations given by Endeca, iPhrase, and Verity.

Source: Infonortics, Ltd., Gloucestershire, U.K., 011-44-1666-505-772; http://www.infonortics.com.

New/Enhanced Databases

BIOSIS Makes Enhancements to Databases
BIOSIS has announced what the company is calling its largest-ever enhancement of the content of BIOSIS Previews, Biological Abstracts, and Biological Abstracts/RRM (Reports, Reviews, Meetings), which will add both more information and greater consistency throughout each of the database files.

The primary enhancements are the addition of more than 9 million CAS Registry Numbers to the 1969­1992 segment, the addition of more than 6,300 sequence data accession numbers, and the addition of BIOSIS Major Concepts over the entire range of the database, which had previously been available only in the more recent portion of the file. BIOSIS has also added more taxonomic data over this date range and has remapped MeSH disease terms and Biosystematic Codes throughout the database to improve search retrieval. The company reports that patent indexing information has been streamlined over the entire file as well.

BIOSIS says it plans to release the enhanced backfile in late March to its vendor partners, and the additional content consequently will be filtered into the database's various vendor platforms.

Source: BIOSIS, Philadelphia, 800/523-4806, 215/231-7500; http://www.biosis.org.

H.W. Wilson Expands Book Review Digest
H.W. Wilson has announced that more than a million reviews on more than 700,000 books are now searchable with the expansion of its reference product Book Review Digest, now Book Review Digest Plus.

Available on WilsonWeb, Book Review Digest Plus draws content from thousands of periodicals beyond its former base of 109. Users can now retrieve full-text reviews in addition to excerpts and citations. Also, the full-text reviews cover reference works, books for children, and textbooks instead of just general fiction and nonfiction.

Book Review Digest Plus allows users to search reviews by keyword, book title, article title, author, source, and more. A library holdings indicator lets users know if they will find cited books and periodicals on the shelves.

Book Review Digest Plus is updated daily. Retrospective coverage reaches as far back as 1983.

Source: H.W. Wilson, New York, 800/367-6770, 718/588-8400; http://www.hwwilson.com.

IEEE Creates a Digital Historic Archive
IEEE has announced that it will add more than 85,000 technical papers from select IEEE journals and conference proceedings to the 810,000 articles it currently has available online. This content, from 1950 to 1987, will be available to researchers at no additional or incremental charge through the company's Xplore online delivery platform.

IEEE Xplore powers online technical information collections such as the IEEE/IEE Electronic Library (IEL) and the All-Society Periodicals Package, as well as individual online journal subscriptions for IEEE members.

Thirteen societies have provided this new material, which covers a broad range of technologies in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields, according to the announcement. This content will be available to subscribers to the IEEE/IEE Electronic Library and IEEE members with online subscriptions at no additional charge.

Source: IEEE Publications, Piscataway, NJ, 732/562-5390; http://www.ieee.org.

Dialog Provides Searchable Domain Name Database, NewsRoom Through NewsEdge
The Dialog Corp. has announced the launch of a searchable database of more than 65 million current and historic Internet domain name records, called File 225.

The database includes records for about 20 million currently active domain names, with most containing "who-is" information. Unlike domain name look-up services available free on the Web, Dialog's subscribers can search from more than 50 indexed who-is data fields contained in domain registrations, including the registrant's name, corporate affiliation, address, and phone number, and specific technical information such as IP addresses.

In a separate announcement, Dialog said that its Dialog NewsRoom service, a continually refreshed database of more than 7,000 news sources from around the world, is now available through the Dialog NewsEdge service.

Dialog NewsEdge is an industry-specific, personalized current-awareness and news-alerting service for corporations. It combines news, analysis, and research from thousands of global sources with customized ranking. With the addition of Dialog NewsRoom, Dialog NewsEdge users can now jump from a news alert to the NewsRoom database to find related published articles.

Source: The Dialog Corp., Cary, NC, 800/3DIALOG, 919/462-8600; http://www.dialog.com.

EBSCO Offers Music Literature Abstracts
EBSCO Publishing has announced that RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, published by the International Repertory of Music Literature, is available on EBSCOhost.

RILM provides abstracts and broad coverage with indexing of scholarly works published in more than 140 languages. The entries are classified by topic and include original-language titles, title translations in English, and full bibliographic information, including abstracts in English. The database also offers author, subject, and periodical indexes, as well as a detailed thesaurus.

RILM's data are drawn from music-related articles, books, bibliographies, dissertations, and films and videos. Reviews, recording notes, and pedagogical manuals are included if they are of scholarly interest. Subject areas covered in the database include theory and analysis, historical musicology, ethnomusicology, librarianship, liturgy, and criticism. Also included are interdisciplinary studies on music and related fields such as literature, dramatic arts, visual arts, acoustics, aesthetics, sociology, philosophy, and many more.

Source: EBSCO Publishing, Ipswich, MA, 800/653-2726, 978/356-6500; http://www.epnet.com.

Mergent Announces New Flagship Product
Mergent, Inc., a provider of global business and financial information, has announced the release of Mergent Online, the company's new flagship product, at http://www.mergentonline.com. Mergent Online will replace the company's FISonline.

According to the announcement, the new, fully searchable database will include a substantial amount of additional content and new features, with information on approximately 15,000 U.S. and 20,000 non-U.S. companies. Some key enhancements include cross-border searching across multiple databases; customized viewing and output for retrieving precise information; the ability to save search criteria for future reference; and the capability to export company reports into Microsoft Word or view PDF files in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

New content includes 15 years of detailed corporate financial statements; the latest financials by business and geographic segments; and extensive bankruptcy, reorganization, merger, and acquisition information for 6,000 companies.

Mergent Online is available in a customizable format, allowing clients to choose modules according to their needs.

Source: Mergent, Inc., New York, 800/342-5647, 212/413-7601; http://www.mergent.com.

Digital Collections

The IMLS's International Children's Digital Library, a Free Service, Makes Its Debut
The federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), in partnership with nonprofit, industry, academic, and other government organizations, has announced a 5-year, $4.4 million plan to build a digital library freely available for children worldwide.

Available now at http://www.icdlbooks.org, the library will consist of 10,000 children's books drawn from 100 cultures. The International Children's Digital Library, developed by the Internet Archive and the University of Maryland, is part of a larger research project to develop new technology to serve young readers.

While the International Children's Digital Library intends to provide young people ages 3­13 with online access to some of the greatest children's books in the world, another long-term benefit of the project will be in discovering how children best interact with digital books.

Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services, Washington, DC, 202/606-8339; http://www.imls.gov.

JHU to Digitize Peabody Audio Collection
The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Libraries has announced that it has received a grant to digitize a half-century of recorded Peabody Conservatory classical music performances and make them available on the Web.

The Peabody Digital Audio Archives Project, a $230,000 project funded by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, will enable the conversion to digital format of an estimated 10,000 audiotapes owned by the Peabody's archives. Technology specialists at the university's Milton S. Eisenhower Library will design a work-flow management system prototype. A Web-based digital audio library will be created.

The Peabody's audio collection contains rarely recorded solo and ensemble repertoire ranging from the Renaissance
to the avant-garde. Early tapes include performances by the Peabody Art Theatre, a program introduced in 1960 to provide young opera singers with a formal course of study that included performance opportunities. Other recordings include Gian Carlo Menotti-directed productions with Herbert Grossman conducting. Also in those first recordings are the world premieres of The Fall of the City, a music drama by James Cohn, and Sergius Kagen's Hamlet in 1962 under the direction of noted Shakespearean Joseph Papp. The collection also contains what are believed to be the first recorded concerts conducted by James Levine.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Libraries, Baltimore, 410/516-7160; http://www.jhu.edu.

Wilson's References to Appear as E-Books
H.W. Wilson has announced that some of its print reference works will soon be available in libraries as e-books.

Famous First Facts, fifth edition; Famous First Facts About Sports; Facts About the Presidents, seventh edition; and Speeches of the American Presidents, second edition; were to be released in the new format in January through netLibrary.

netLibrary, a division of OCLC, provides libraries and their patrons with anytime, anywhere access to reference, scholarly, and professional e-books that users can view, search, and check out via the Internet.

Source: H.W. Wilson, New York, 800/367-6770, 718/588-8400; http://www.hwwilson.com.

Collaborations

Fretwell-Downing Joins CrossRef Initiative
Fretwell-Downing, Inc. (FD) has announced that it has joined the CrossRef organization as an affiliate member.

According to the announcement, this affiliation with CrossRef improves the accuracy of FD's OL² reference linking product by cross-checking citation and digital content information to ensure that the correct copy is provided. OL² automatically builds links between citation information and digital content.

CrossRef, which was established by scholarly publishers as an independent, nonprofit entity in 2000, uses open standards. It is an official registration agency of the Information Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Foundation, and is the first full-scale implementation of the DOI system.

Source: Fretwell-Downing, Inc., Overland Park, KS, 888/649-6542, 913/239-1200; http://www.fdusa.com.

Nationalgeographic.com Forms Partnership with Britannica for Homework Help Site
Nationalgeographic.com has announced that it has added Britannica Concise Encyclopedia to its Homework Help site.

Homework Help, an online resource for students, provides information, maps, images, and interactive features on a variety of topics including animals, history and culture, maps and geography, photography and art, and science and nature. The site can be accessed from Nationalgeographic.com's home page or directly at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/homework.

The agreement with Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. boosts the site's reference offerings with the 25,000-entry Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, which packs basic information from the 32-volume Encyclopedia Britannica. With the addition of Britannica's search capabilities and reference categories, students will now be able to access thousands more articles, photos, and illustrations.

Source: Nationalgeographic.com, Washington, DC, 800/647-5463, 813/979-6845; http://www.nationalgeographic.com.

FirstGov for Science Resource Announced
An alliance of 10 government agencies, encompassing 14 scientific and technical information organizations and collectively called the science.gov Alliance, has announced its new "FirstGov for Science" Web site. The agencies collaborated to create http://www.science.gov, a gateway to reliable information about science and technology from across federal government organizations via one integrated interface.

From science.gov, users can find more than 1,000 government information resources about science, including technical reports, journal citations, databases, federal Web sites, and fact sheets.

The agencies that make up the science.gov Alliance are the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, and Interior; the Environmental Protection Agency; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and the National Science Foundation.

The information is free, and no registration is required.

Source: science.gov Alliance, Washington, DC, 865/576-3469; http://www.science.gov.

Linking Agreements

CSA Adds Full-Text Links to AIAA Papers
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) has announced that researchers using its Internet Database Service (IDS) can now link their search results to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Meeting Papers.

Every year, AIAA publishes more than 3,500 meeting papers of research originally presented at the 50 to 60 AIAA-sponsored conferences annually. More than 25,000 papers published since 1996 and abstracted in the CSA Aerospace & High Technology Database on IDS are linkable with the AIAA Meeting Papers service.

According to the announcement, AIAA is the world's largest professional society devoted to the progress of engineering and science in aviation and space. Its primary purpose is to advance the arts, sciences, and technology of aeronautics and astronautics and to foster and promote the professionalism of those engaged in these pursuits. Although founded and based in the U.S., AIAA is a global organization with 30,000 members and an active international outreach.

Source: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, Bethesda, MD, 800/843-7751, 301/961-6700; http://www.csa.com.

SF-Systems and Ex Libris Integrate Systems
SF-Systems, a software company for the bookbinding industry, and Ex Libris, a developer of applications for libraries, information centers, and researchers, have announced that they have integrated LINCPlus, SF-Systems' library binding preparation system, with Ex Libris' ALEPH 500 ILS.

The integration of LINCPlus and ALEPH 500 allows users to directly query any title record in ALEPH 500 by entering the bar code in LINCPlus. All title information is instantly inserted into LINCPlus, reducing the amount of input required by the user to almost none. As well as being able to query title data, users can also enter the bar code to mark titles as checked in or checked out in ALEPH 500 from LINCPlus.

Source: Ex Libris, Inc., Chicago, 877/527-1689, 773/404-5527; http://www.exlibris-usa.com.

New Books

O'Reilly Offers Titles on Assorted Topics
In Dreamweaver MX: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland (ISBN: 0-596-00349-8, $34.95) readers will learn how to create any modern Web feature they can name: forms, animations, pop-up windows, and so on. The book contains unique examples that let the reader see and test—on the Internet—real Web pages that follow the development progress of the book's chapters. Step-by-step annotated tutorials guide thereader through the construction of a state-of-the-art Web site, complete with Flash buttons, Cascading Style Sheets, and dynamic databases. The book also contains undocumented work-arounds, shortcuts, and Easter eggs found in Dreamweaver itself.

MySQL Cookbook by Paul DuBois (ISBN: 0-596-00145-2, $49.95) providesa problem/solution/discussion format that offers quick solutions to everyday programming dilemmas. For every problem addressed in the book, there's a worked-out solution or "recipe"—a short, focused, ready-to-use piece of code. The discussion section explains how and why the code works so that readers can learn to adapt the techniques to similar situations.

Source: O'Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol, CA, 800/998-9938, 707/827-7000; http://www.oreilly.com.