COLUMNS & NEWS
NewsBytes
Nstein Partners with BIOSIS, D&B
Nstein Technologies, Inc. announced that it has signed
a partnership agreement with BIOSIS, the life sciences
abstracting-and-indexing service. Nstein also announced
a partnership with D&B in which Nstein's linguistically
based entity-extraction software will utilize D&B'smillions
of company profiles. This will not only flag corporate
entities within documents but also make available links
to a repository of detailed company information.
BIOSIS
Through this agreement, Nstein will use BIOSIS indexing
to provide Ncategorizer and Nfinder software that's
designed specifically for the biological, pharmaceutical,
and biomedical markets. The combination of Nstein technology
and BIOSIS content allows users to incorporate BIOSIS'
subject expertise directly into their own information
collections.
By using this new version ofNstein's categorization
and entity-extraction software, which has been enhanced
with BIOSIS indexing, it is now possible for users
to move seamlessly from a search on their own collections
to one on BIOSIS Previews.
D&B
Nstein president Randall Marcinko said: "Through
this partnership, we are developing a custom Nfinder,
based on D&B's rich list of millions of company
names, and coupling it to the most robust entity-extractor
technology available in the market today. Our clients,
whether primary or secondary publishers, aggregators,
or corporate portals, will be able to add to the information
at their end-users' fingertips and create new and significant
revenue opportunities."
Source: Nstein Technologies, Inc., Montreal, 514/908-5406; http://www.nstein.com.
Zoological Record Increases Functionality, Availability
BIOSIS announced that it has enhanced the availability,
functionality, andcontent of Zoological Record (ZR)
to solidify its appeal among animal sciences researchers.
According to the announcement, BIOSIS has recently
made ZR available through new vendors, bolstered content
with more abstracts, and embedded more information
in each citation for flexible, powerful searching.
Enhancements to the ZR file format include additional
information fields, such as Broad Terms, which adds
subject categories to each record and allows users
to find records pertaining to a certain topic; Systematics,
which contains animals' taxonomic information; Super
Taxa, which references the hierarchic taxonomy of each
animal and provides a clear context for evaluating
related animals; and Taxa Notes, which lists English
vernacular names (e.g., primates, insects) for broad
groups that are relevant to the current animal. The
updated ZR Thesaurus now holds these natural language
names along with the controlled terms.
Source: BIOSIS, Philadelphia, 215/587-4800; http://www.biosis.org.
Plosker Launches Consulting Group
George Plosker, an information industry veteran,
announced that he has launched a consulting group aimed
at helping publishers and libraries develop marketing,
product, and service programs that improve alignment
with their customers. Plosker, who has more than 25
years of experience in online databases and electronic
content, is principal of George Plosker and Associates.
Services available include creating and executing
customer or user satisfaction surveys and staff training
and development. Product development and deployment
consultation is available to publishers and other vendors,
while libraries will be able to re-engineer their online
reference services with support from the new group.
Most recently, Plosker served as vice president of
content support for Gale, having spent several years
with IAC before its merger with Gale Research. Prior
to joining Gale, he spent 14 years at DIALOG Information
Services, Inc. (now Dialog Corp.), where he founded
and managed the company's Los Angeles office.
Source: George Plosker and Associates, San Carlos,
CA, 650/631-9251; E-mail: gplosker@attbi.com.
General Science Abstracts Now Available via EBSCOhost
EBSCO Publishing has announced that H.W. Wilson's
General Science Abstracts is available for customers
to try and purchase via EBSCOhost. Because EBSCO
has had a long-standing relationship with H.W. Wilson
(offering several other databases), it is equipped
to handle the data type for this database and plans
to release others in rapid succession.
H.W. Wilson's General Science Abstracts indexes articles
from more than 240 leading journals and magazines from
the U.S. and U.K., including popular science titles
and professional journals such as Popular Science, BioScience, Ecology,
and International Wildlife.
Designed for students and nonspecialists, General
Science Abstracts covers feature articles, reports
of symposia and conferences, biographical articles,
obituaries,reviews, and selected letters to the editor.
Topics include astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth
science, health & medicine, and zoology.
Source: EBSCO Publishing, Ipswich, MA, 978/356-6500; http://www.epnet.com.
Ingenta Signs Three Association Publishers
Ingenta, Inc. announced that it has signed three
major association publishers, bringing the total number
of its publisher accounts to more than 240.
The new signings include the following:
• American Sociological Association (ASA)—ASA
will have nine journals on Ingenta in 2004. ASA,
founded in 1905, is a nonprofit membership association
dedicated to advancing sociology as a scientific
discipline.
• American Pharmacists Association (APhA)—Ingenta
has been appointed by the American Pharmacists
Association to create an online presence for its industry-leading publication, The
Journal of the American Pharmacists Association. APhA is the largest
professional association of pharmacists in the U.S.
• National Association of Social Workers
(NASW)—NASW has selected Ingenta to create a
customized Web site that will both serve existing
NASW members and subscribers and increase the international
distribution and reach of the association's journals.
Source: Ingenta, Inc., Cambridge, MA, 617/395-4000; http://www.ingenta.com.
OeBF Announces Program
The Open eBook Forum (OeBF), the trade and standards
association for the e-book industry, announced the
creation of a Library Special Interest Group. OeBF
also announced an industrywide program to collect and
publish e-book and e-document sales and publishing
statistics on a quarterly basis.
Library Special Interest Group
According to the announcement, the Library Special
Interest Group was formed to enable publishers; e-book
resellers; andDRM, software, and hardware companies
to communicate directly with librarians to better appreciate
the opportunities and challenges of services for libraries
and their patrons.
The group meets on a weekly basis via conference
calls and maintains communication through an e-mail
list. Participation is currently open to the public,
and more information can be found on the OeBF Web site (http://www.openebook.org/oebf_groups/library.htm).
eBook Industry Statistics Program
Publishers and retailers who would like to participate
in the program can register at http://www.openebook.org/statsregistration.asp.
The program and the survey methodology were developed
by the OeBF eBook Industry Special Interest Group with
active involvement and support from several publishers.
Source: Open eBook Forum, New York, 212/924-9081; http://www.openebook.org.
Emerald Unveils ManagementFirst
Emerald, an international managementinformation publisher,
has announced the release of ManagementFirst, its enhanced
management portal.
Emerald is highlighting the practical, day-to-day
usefulness of informationgleaned from its top research-based
titles Management Decision, Strategy & Leadership, The
European Journal of Marketing, and The TQM Magazine.
Split into nine virtual communities, ManagementFirst
offers robust content from world-class management articles,
discussion forums, book reviews, guru interviews in
change management, e-business, human resources, innovation,
knowledge management, management styles, marketing,
quality, and strategy. A host of access options are
available, including free services, subscription to
one journal, or full access to all ManagementFirst
titles.
Source: Emerald, Bradford, U.K., 011-44-1274-785151; http://www.emeraldinsight.com.
ProQuest Expands Collection, Acquires Rights
ProQuest Information and Learning announced that
the Early American Fiction (17891875) database
will add 25 years of coverage with the integration
of dozens of rare early American novels and short stories.
The company also announced an agreement with University
of California Press that will bring the full text of
30 academic journals to the company's ProQuest online
databases.
Early American Fiction
According to the announcement, the collection is
the most comprehensive viewof American fiction from
the period and the only Web-based resource for most
of the works. When complete, it will hold more than
750 full-text first editions, all fully searchable.
The Early American Fiction database formerly covered
17891850. The source books come from the Special
Collections held in the University ofVirginia's Alderman
Library.
University of California
The agreement allows ProQuest to distribute the University
of California Press journal content electronically
to educational institutions, libraries, and other markets
around the world. Included are key titles such as Asian
Survey, Film Quarterly, Gastronomica:
The Journal of Food and Culture, The Journal
of Musicology, and more.
The agreement granting current full-text rights will
take effect on Jan. 1, 2004. Some content will be subject
to a 3-to-6-month embargo. In addition, the agreement
grants ProQuest rights to digitize complete backfiles
of selected titles as part of the company's PCI Full
Text archival database.
Source: ProQuest Information and Learning,Ann Arbor,
MI, 734/761-4700; http://il.proquest.com.
MetaPress to Provide Exposure for BertelsmannSpringer
MetaPress, a division of EBSCO Industries, Inc.,
has signed a multiyear contract with BertelsmannSpringer
for the development of a totally redesigned SpringerLink
Online Content delivery system.
According to the announcement, BertelsmannSpringer's
value to the corporate, academic, and medical research
community is reflected by the exceptionally high-use
data collected on its current site (http://www.springerlink.com).
MetaPress has offered solutions to SpringerLink that
will help with the anticipated growth and use of its
content. These solutions include optimized, redundant
routing of user traffic across a scalable bandwidth
from five worldwide network providers.
This project's goals are to enhance the information
user's experience and deliver to Springer better evaluation
of use and market expectations. Springer will be ableto
provide the most up-to-date features and services by
measuring and managing patterns of online content usage
deployed by MetaPress.
The new SpringerLink system will offer refined alerting,
searching, and linking options that move the user to
content contributions with less navigation. SpringerLink
functionality will integrate across approximately 500
journals, book series, lecture notes, and subject-specific
libraries.
Source: MetaPress, Birmingham, AL; http://www.metapress.com.
National Library of the Netherlands, Kluwer Sign
Agreement
Peter Hendriks, CEO of Kluwer Academic Publishers,
and Wim van Drimmelen, director general of the Koninklijke
Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands,
signed an agreement on long-term digital archiving
of Kluwer Online's electronic publications.
Under the terms of the agreement, Koninklijke Bibliotheek
will receive digital copies of all Kluwer journals
and books made available on its Web platform, Kluwer
Online. The platform now contains 235,000 articles
from 670 journals and more than 600 e-books covering
the areas of science, technology, and medicine. In
2003 alone, more than 70,000 articles and 400 e-books
will be added.
Source: Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Netherlands,
011-31-78-6576810; http://www.wkap.nl.
Thomson Financial Partners with Alacra, Inc.
Thomson Financial Corp. announced a partnership with
Alacra, Inc., a provider of Public Information Book
(PIB) building solutions, to deliver its PIB generator,
Alacra Book, via Thomson ONE Banker. Alacra Book is
expected to be integrated into Thomson ONE Banker early
in the third quarter.
According to the announcement, Alacra Book is a fast,
adaptable Web-based publishing platform that facilitates
the collection and packaging of business information
from multiple sources into a single Adobe PDF document.
The combined content and technologies of Alacra Book
and Thomson ONE Banker will eliminate the hours of
researching and formatting formerly required to produce
the PIBs that investment banks use for detailed analysis
of a target company or prospective client.
Using Thomson ONE Banker, investment bankers will
be able to choose Alacra Book as an add-on work-flow
tool to build custom Public Information Books from
a multitude of third-party and proprietary sources.
Source: Thomson Financial Corp., New York, 646/822-2000; http://www.tfn.com.
CEPIS Membership Grows to 38 Members
The Council of European Professional Informatics
Societies (CEPIS) announced that it continues to expand
its membership. In April, during the 30th council meeting
in Dublin, Ireland, the Computer Society of Malta and
Luxembourg's ALI (Association Luxembourgeoise des Ingénieurs)
were welcomed as new members.
With the inclusion of Malta and Luxembourg, CEPIS
now represents 38 professional IT organizations from
33 countries, among them all 15 member countries and
all new applicant countries to the European Union.
CEPIS stimulates the use of ICT technology and advocates
best practice in the development of the information
society. Currently, one of the most important activities
is EUCIP (European Certification of Informatics Professionals),
the development of a harmonized certification procedure
for the official recognition of vocational qualifications
in informatics andother computer technology occupations.
Source: CEPIS, Frankfurt, Germany, 011-49-69-6308-392; http://www.cepis.org.
Infotrieve Announces E-Content Agreements
Infotrieve announced that it has signed article-distribution
agreements with the publishers of six professional
biomedical journals. The new agreements increase the
total number of journals to more than 4,600.
Infotrieve says that the number of individual articles,
book chapters, and conference proceedings that it now
offers for e-delivery is more than 2.8 million. This
represents a content pool of professional and peer-reviewed
literature that continues to grow as the company enters
alliances with additional publishers and other information
providers from around the world.
The six publishers now making their articles available
for distribution through Infotrieve are the following:
• American College of Physicians (ACP)
• The American Diabetes Association
• American Orthopaedic Society for Sports
Medicine (AOSSM)
• American Society of Plant Biologists
(ASPB)
• Annual Reviews
• Current Science, Inc.
Source: Infotrieve, Los Angeles, 310/234-2000; http://www.infotrieve.com.
|
