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Vol. 23 No. 10 — Nov/Dec 2003

Infosources Publishing has announced the launch of The Informed Librarian Online (http://www.informedlibrarian.com), a free Web site that compiles professional reading for librarians.

At the end of each month, an issue is posted that contains links to all of the tables of contents (and full text where available) of the journals, magazines, newsletters, and electronic publications from that month. More than 275 journals that address all aspects of librarianship and information science are covered by this service. Issues are e-mailed to subscribers monthly, with a link to the site.

Each issue of The Informed Librarian Online contains a specially written article on an important issue facing librarians. The site also offers discounts on new books of interest to librarians and a full-text article from the current journals.

Subscriptions are free, and passwords are provided free to subscribers to access the site.

Source: Infosources Publishing, Teaneck, NJ, 201/836-7072; http://www.infosourcespub.com.

Swets Blackwell Is Changing Its Name

Swets Blackwell has announced that it plans to change its company name to Swets Information Services in December. The new name will be officially launched during the Online Information 2003 conference in London.

As part of the agreement with Blackwell concerning the purchase of shares from the Swets Blackwell joint venture, the Blackwell trade name will no longer be used for subscription activities. The Blackwell name will continue to be used for the chain of Blackwell bookstores.

Swets Blackwell is a subscription agent with offices in 23 countries on six continents.

Source: Swets Blackwell, Runnemede, NJ, 800/645-6595;
http://www.swetsblackwell.com.

OCLC, LC, German National Library to Create Virtual International Authority File

OCLC, the Library of Congress, and Die Deutsche Bibliothek (the German national library) announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), an effort to include authoritative names from national libraries into one common global service.

The original goal of the VIAF project was to reduce cataloging costs by providing access to authority records worldwide. The new VIAF proof-of-concept project will virtually combine the personal name authority files of the Library of Congress and Die Deutsche Bibliothek into a single name authority service, making them available through an Open Archive Initiative server. For example, German users will be able to view names displayed in the form established by Die Deutsche Bibliothek, while U.S. users will be able to view names displayed in the form established by the Library of Congress.

The first stage of the current VIAF project, which involves matching the retrospective files, will take about 1 year to complete.

Source: OCLC, Dublin, OH, 800/848-5878, 614/764-6000; http://www.oclc.com.

MuseGlobal, Kreutzfeldt Electronic Publishing Launch German E-Book Portal

MuseGlobal, Inc. and Kreutzfeldt Electronic Publishing, a company based in Hamburg, Germany, have announced the launch of Deutsches eBook-Portal, a Web site that serves as a point of access to more than 2,000 German-language e-books from amazon.de, ciando.de, dibi.de, franklin.com, mobipocket.com, and pdassi.de. More shops will be added shortly.

In addition to allowing users to search the virtual catalog, the portal offers topical showcases with editorial descriptions of individual titles in 12 categories. Users can also download e-book software at the site.

Source: MuseGlobal, Inc., Salt Lake City, 801/208-1880; http://www.museglobal.com.

LexisNexis Has Plans to Begin Digitizing U.S. Congressional Serial Set

LexisNexis has announced that it will begin digitizing the U.S. Congressional Serial Set. Upon completion, the collection will contain material spanning 1789 to 1969, including 325,000 documents drawn from nearly 13,000 volumes, 52,000 maps, and the American State Papers.

The new digitization project will create opportunities for searching capabilities, including full-text searching (through OCR-generated ASCII text and full bibliographic metadata) and online retrieval of digital images, such as statistical tables, illustrations, photographs, lithographs, and maps.

Source: LexisNexis, Dayton, OH, 800/227-4908; http://www.lexisnexis.com.

LC Accepts September 11 Digital Archive

The Library of Congress has announced its first major acquisition of Sept. 11, 2001, materials with the addition of the September 11 Digital Archive (http://911digitalarchive.org) to its collections. The archive is a joint project of the City University of New York Graduate Center's American Social History Project and George Mason University's Center for History and New Media.

The collection contains more than 130,000 written accounts, e-mails, audio recordings, video clips, photographs, Web sites, and other materials that detail the attacks on New York, Washington, D.C., and western Pennsylvania and their aftermath. It is the largest digital collection of Sept. 11-related materials and serves as the Smithsonian Institution's designated repository for digital objects associated with the attacks.

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

GPO, NARA Preserve Online Documents

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) announced that they have agreed to ensure that the documents available today on GPO Access (http://www.gpoaccess.gov) will remain available permanently. GPO Access provides free online public access to more than 250,000 federal government titles.

The agreement between GPO and NARA covers the content on GPO Access, including the online version of the Congressional Record, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, and other electronic publications distributed by the Superintendent of Documents. In addition, those without Internet access at home, school, or the office can access these publications through GPO's nationwide network of more than 1,200 federal depository libraries, which provide specialized assistance and services to local users.

According to the agreement, NARA will assume legal custody of the records as part of the official Archives of the U.S. GPO will retain physical custody and be responsible for permanent public access and preservation of the records.

Source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, 866/272-6272; http://www.archives.gov.

Seventh International Bielefeld Conference to Be Held in February in Germany

Bielefeld University Library has announced that the 7th International Bielefeld Conference, "Thinking Beyond Digital Libraries: Designing the Information Strategy for the Next Decade," will be held Feb. 3­5, 2004, at the Convention Centre in Bielefeld, Germany.

According to the announcement, the conference takes a fresh look at the event's original concept, which was designed to concentrate on new technologies and technology-associated services for academic libraries. The strong focus on innovative technology will continue, but the upcoming conference will also address the role and position of academic libraries within their universities by analyzing information strategies, work flows, competencies, and services from a universitywide strategic point of view. The event will be accompanied by an exhibition of communication technology suppliers, information service providers, and well-known publishing houses.

The conference languages will be German and English with simultaneous translation. The registration is $57. A technology workshop, "Intelligent Search Engine & Navigation Technology in Digital Libraries and Information Portals," will follow the conference. The full program and further details are available at http://conference.ub.uni-bielefeld.de.

Source: Bielefeld University Library, Bielefeld, Germany, 011-49-521-106-4050; http://www.ub.uni-bielefeld.de.

New/Improved Databases

ProQuest Introduces Los Angeles Times Backfile, Starting from 1881

ProQuest Information and Learning has announced the release of ProQuest Historical Newspapers­The Los Angeles Times, its new online resource.

The Los Angeles Times backfile offers researchers extensive coverage and analysis of the development of Los Angeles, the Pacific Rim, and the West's major industries. It includes information on film and entertainment; a window on the history of Western expansion and immigration; the Annual Trade Number Edition, published from 1886 to 1962, which reviewed the past year's news and provided a complete description of Southern California to entice prospective immigrants from the East and Midwest; and the Noticias en Espanol (The World's News in Spanish) column, which was published from 1922 to 1933 and was designed to serve the Times' Spanish-speaking audience.

The material currently available includes backfiles dating from the newspaper's founding in 1881 through to 1922. Every available backfile issue of The Los Angeles Times will be digitized from cover to cover, including news stories, editorials, photos, graphics, and advertisements.

The ProQuest Historical Newspapers project was initiated in 2001 to bring the historically valuable content of newspapers to digital form. The collection offers ready access to the complete run of each newspaper in full-page image format, starting from the very first issue.

Source: ProQuest Information and Learning, Ann Arbor, MI, 800/521-0600, 734/761-4700; http://www.il.proquest.com.

Project MUSE Offers Resources for Librarians

Project MUSE announced that it has recently added a "For Librarians" page to its Web site. According to the announcement, this resource contains a wealth of information to help librarians find out more about MUSE and make the most out of a MUSE subscription.

Features include downloadable subject guides for 15 academic disciplines covered by MUSE, including journal lists and searching tips; an FAQ page; tips to encourage the use of MUSE on campus along with a promotional materials request form; a tool for generating MUSE usage statistics for libraries; a tool to create a MUSE journal list that can be downloaded in different formats, such as Excel; and MUSE journal e-mail alerts.

Source: Project MUSE, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 410/516-6989; http://muse.jhu.edu.

ALPSP Journals Collection Is Now Online

The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), an organization whose goal is to disseminate academic and professional information, has announced that the ALPSP Learned Journals Collection (ALJC) is now online. The collection contains 247 journals from 25 publishers.

ALJC enables small and medium-sized publishers to package their journals with a single umbrella license. According to the announcement, it spares customers the hassle of negotiating licenses and pricing with many publishers, allowing them to access the e-journals directly via SwetsWise. Swets Blackwell has orchestrated ALJC's complex licensing structure and also serves as its worldwide access and sales agent.

The 247 ALJC titles are available both in the full collection and in three discipline-specific packages: Medicine and Life Science (85 titles), Science and Technology (57 titles), and the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (129 titles). Pricing is based on a percentage of ALJC's current collective print value and is guaranteed for 3 years. Both print-plus-electronic and electronic-only options are available. Detailed pricing information is on the ALJC Web site (http://www.alpsp-collection.org).

Source: Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, West Sussex, U.K., 011-44-1903-871-686; http://www.alpsp.org and Swets Blackwell, Runnemede, NJ, 800/645-6595; http://www.swetsblackwell.com.

CSA Has Released Version 6.3 of IDS

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) has released version 6.3 of its Internet Database Service (IDS).

IDS users can now customize which fields appear in their search results by choosing the Custom Fields option in the Show drop-down menu. According to the announcement, IDS users who wish to see only specific fields in their alert messages, or who wish to exclude fields such as cited references, will find this feature beneficial.

New options in the IDS Administrative Profile module facilitate customization for libraries that utilize systems such as Serials Solutions and EZB. In addition, the search statement has been restored on the header message when IDS users save, print, or e-mail records.

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

Dialog Improves Company Profiles Service

The Dialog Corporation has announced that it has revamped its Dialog Company Profiles service.

Specific enhancements to the service include improved search interface features and forms: Company Search, with options to search by product and/or brand; Industry Search, which enables users to pinpoint companies within specific industry categories or by using SIC or NAICS codes; Article Search, which allows searching of a database of business articles with a subject guide, keyword, and full text; and Advanced Search, which allows users to search by multiple indexed fields. Also, enhanced functionality gives users new convenience and immediacy to navigate to related materials and follow displayed links. The new content sources available through Dialog Company Profiles have been supplied by Gale.

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

OLDMEDLINE Citations Added to PubMed

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has announced that 1.5 million OLDMEDLINE citations will be added to PubMed. The citations are to articles from international biomedical journals that cover the fields of medicine, preclinical sciences, and allied health sciences. The citations were originally printed in hard-copy indexes published from 1953 to 1965.

OLDMEDLINE citations have been created using standards that are different from the data-entry standards for MEDLINE records. There are also variations among OLDMEDLINE citations' data elements as well as in their format, depending on the original source from which the citations were obtained.

NLM says that it expects to continue converting citations from its older printed medical indexes to machine-readable form and to add these OLDMEDLINE citations to PubMed as time and resources permit. NLM expects to add citations published from 1950 to 1952 early next year.

Source: U.S. National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, 888/FIND-NLM, 301/594-5983; http://www.nlm.nih.gov.

CAS Releases Its SciFinder 2004 Edition

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has unveiled SciFinder 2004 Edition, a resource that now offers capabilities for chemical reaction exploration and analysis. These enhancements are integrated with CAS's weekly updated reaction database, which contains 7 million reactions.

SciFinder's new Analyze Reactions tool lets scientists profile reactions in terms of relevant categories, such as the catalyst used, the solvent involved, the number of reaction steps, or product yields. Also, SciFinder's new version provides structure searches of the entire CAS substance collection or allows focus by substance classes, such as coordination compounds, mixtures, polymers, etc.

All of the enhancements in the SciFinder 2004 Edition are also available in the corresponding version of SciFinder Scholar for students and faculty.

Source: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, OH, 800/753-4227, 614/447-3600; http://www.cas.org.

Gale Introduces Virtual Reference Database and Faster Way to Search InfoTrac Journals

Gale has announced the release of Gale Virtual Reference Library, a new program that integrates electronic reference books in an easy-to-use database interface. It allows libraries to select from an initial collection of more than 50 reference sources, including encyclopedias, almanacs, and series, to create a customized, integrated online information service. Gale manages the library's collection, showing patrons only the titles the library has purchased. These can be linked to from the library's OPAC through MARC records.

Gale Virtual Reference Library is accessed from a common menu that integrates all the library's Gale databases—e-books, resource centers, periodical databases, and electronic journals from Ingenta. Users can search a single e-book or search across the collection. Hyperlinks are used throughout, allowing users to travel to related content within the collection.

In a separate announcement, Gale reports that it has added a journal-search feature to its suite of InfoTrac Web products. In addition, it has updated the corresponding Marc856 and ASCII record sets with InfoMarks to fully utilize the new table-of-contents display style that's part of the new functionality. According to the announcement, Journal Search offers the fastest route to detailed information for thousands of journals. Using this feature, InfoTrac Web searchers have immediate access to journal-detail descriptions that include complete journal name, ISSN, publisher name, audience rating, format, index, and full-text coverage dates.

Source: Gale, Farmington Hills, MI, 800/877-4253, 248/699-4253; http://www.gale.com.

Automation Aids

Dynix Delivers a New Notification System

Dynix has announced that it has released Horizon Broadcast Messaging. Offered in partnership with TCN Broadcasting, the new system automatically queries databases to identify users with overdue materials, holds, and fines, while cost-effectively delivering appropriate notifications. The system also allows libraries to tailor announcements, such as upcoming event alerts, and deliver them to specific audiences.

Horizon Broadcast Messaging is delivered in an application service provider environment, enabling libraries to contact their users via phone messaging without purchasing additional telephony hardware and software. By using voice over IP technology, voice notifications can be delivered and administered from a simple Web interface. This allows libraries to make 100 to 400 calls per minute without using staff resources.

Source: Dynix, Provo, UT, 800/288-8020, 801/223-5200; http://www.dynix.com.

EOS Announces Release of New EOS.Web

EOS International has announced the availability of EOS.Web, a modular, scalable, customizable library knowledge management solution that employs the latest .NET technologies from Microsoft and Convera's RetrievalWare search technology. When combined with EOS' library automation knowledge base, these technologies help create information portals. This makes it easier to access, edit, share, and deliver information, the company reports.

Two modules, EOS.Web Indexer and EOS.Web KnowledgeBuilder, provide greater access to not only the library's structured bibliographic collection but also to local and remote stores of proprietary unstructured information, such as Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, press releases, or legal monographs stored as Adobe PDFs. More than 430 different file formats are supported.

Source: EOS International, Carlsbad, CA, 800/876-5484, 760/431-8400; http://www.eosintl.com.

Content/Linking Agreements

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts' IDS to Offer Communication Abstracts, IBSS

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) has announced that Communication Abstracts, produced by SAGE Publications, is now available on CSA's Internet Database Service (IDS).

Communication Abstracts, edited by Tom Gordon at Temple University, is a comprehensive source of information about communication-related publications on a worldwide scale. The database covers articles, reports, papers, and books from a variety of publishers, research institutions, and information sources in both communication literature and literature in other disciplines that's relevant to communication researchers.

In a separate announcement, CSA reported that the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) is now available through IDS.

The IBSS database provides coverage of the core social science disciplines of sociology, politics, economics, and anthropology. It contains more than 2 million records published since 1951. International in scope, a quarter of the IBSS database comprises materials not originally published in English. IBSS also covers books and monographs.

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

Google Connects Users to IEEE Papers

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has announced that researchers can now locate technical papers published by the IEEE through the Google search engine (http://www.google.com).

Google crawled the abstract records for all online IEEE technical documents and standards available through the IEEE Xplore online delivery platform. The project was expected to be completed in September, so Google users will now see the linked content in their search results.

Source: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Piscataway, NJ, 732/981-0060; http://www.ieee.org.

Elsevier and ACS to Link Their Services

Elsevier and two divisions of the American Chemical Society (ACS)—Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) and Publications—announced that they have agreed to provide linking between their services.

Under the terms of the agreement, users of Elsevier products and services will be able to link directly to ACS scientific journals. Users of CAS products and services will be able to link, via ChemPort, directly to Elsevier scientific journals. According to the announcement, links between these services will be completed by the end of the year. Also, in 2004, Elsevier journals will join ChemPort Reference Linking, enabling Elsevier users to access ACS scientific journals and CAS database records.

Source: Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 011-31-20-485-3757; http://www.elsevier.com and American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, 800/227-5558, 202/872-4600; http://www.acs.org.

Thomson Adds German Patent Collection

Thomson Delphion has announced that it now offers searching of full-text patent specifications from the German national collection. With entries that date to 1968, the collection includes applications, granted patents, and utility models.

The integration of German data from INPADOC with the new German national collection data, and the presentation of both on the Delphion Integrated View, allows users to see legal-status and family data in the same view as they see the text, claims, and other bibliographic information. The German national collection is also fully integrated into the Delphion work flow, including full-text German-language searching, integration into the cross-collection searching process, and inclusion in analytical and productivity tool functionality.

Source: Thomson Delphion, Philadelphia, 800/336-4474, 215/386-0100; http://www.delphion.com.

EBSCOhost Offers Two New Databases

EBSCO Publishing has announced that the InfoSci-Online database, published by Idea Group, Inc., is now available via EBSCOhost. According to the announcement, InfoSci-Online provides the most comprehensive, full-text collection of literature from the field of information science.

InfoSci-Online includes book chapters, journal articles, case studies, and conference proceedings, all in Adobe PDF. This content covers research from the fields of information science, technology, and management published by Idea Group, Inc. imprints. Updated monthly, the database grows by approximately 1,500 new book chapters, more than 250 journal articles and case studies, and more than 300 conference proceedings papers per year.

In a separate news release, EBSCO announced the addition of Plexus Publishing's Biology Digest to EBSCOhost.

Biology Digest offers lengthy abstracts that cover all the life sciences, including medicine, health, zoology, botany, environmental science, and many other categories. The database provides easy access to new scientific developments at a comprehension level appropriate for high school and college students. Biology Digest contains abstracts for articles from 200 journals.

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

H.W. Wilson Databases Link to JSTOR

H.W. Wilson has announced that JSTOR, an archive of more than 320 scholarly journals in 26 disciplines, joins the data sources accessible via WilsonWeb's WilsonLink service.

Customers who subscribe to WilsonWeb and are JSTOR participants will be able to link directly to the full-text articles in the JSTOR archive via WilsonWeb's SFX-powered OpenURL linking technology.

WilsonWeb enables libraries to integrate their OpenURL-compliant resources, including JSTOR, without installing or maintaining their own link server. If the full text of a cited article is not available on the WilsonWeb database searched, the user can click to perform an automatic search of all the OpenURL-compliant databases to which the library subscribes, regardless of vendor.

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

New Books

New Title from ITI Helps You Manage the Challenges Presented by the Ubiquitous Net

Information Today, Inc. has announced the publication of Net Effects: How Librarians Can Manage the Unintended Consequences of the Internet (ISBN: 1-57387-171-0, $39.50), edited by librarian, journalist, and Internet guru Marylaine Block.

According to the announcement, the Internet challenges librarians' ability to select information sources. This threatens the survival of the book, presents new problems of access and preservation, and puts new demands on budgets. Net Effects features nearly 50 articles by dozens of librarians that suggest practical and creative ways to deal with the range of Internet "side effects," regain control of the library, and avoid being blindsided by technology. In addition, the book examines the issues and brings together insights, war stories, and solutions.

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

New Title by Neal-Schuman Takes a Look at Reference Work in the Digital Age

Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. has announced the release of Introduction to Reference Work in the Digital Age (ISBN: 1-55570-429-8, $59.95), a new book by Joseph Janes that addresses the critical issues raised by new technologies.

This book is a timely mix of arguments and advice on topics such as determining the optimal use of desk/phone/e-mail/chat, selecting the right resource mix, and choosing software for specific services. Other features include a 10-step method for creating a reference service that helps librarians predict traffic volume, choose service points, and determine needs, plus other innovative models and guidelines that address key aspects of the reference interview and privacy issues.

Source: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc., New York, 212/925-8650; http://www.neal-schuman.com.

Special Pricing Offers

Gale Offers 'In the Loop' E-Mail Alert

Gale has announced the introduction of In the Loop, a biweekly e-mail alert with tailored information for librarians. It includes content on collection and professional development, how to maximize budget dollars, supporting patrons' needs, and special sales and product promotions from Gale. Also, each customer who subscribes to In the Loop will receive 15 percent off one Gale title.

In the Loop features a sign-up page where librarians can create personal profiles based on their areas of interest and collection development. Gale will catalog these profiles and forward information that's tailored to the librarian's request.

Source: Gale, Farmington Hills, MI, 800/877-4253, 248/699-4253; http://www.gale.com.

Classical Offers Charter Subscription

Classical International has introduced a charter subscription offer to reward early subscribers to the Classical Music Library listening service.

Libraries that subscribe to the Classical Music Library by Dec. 31, 2003, will be given 3 additional months free with their first annual subscription. The offer applies to both the Direct and Local Service versions of the product.

The Classical Music Library is a listening service for library and home computers. It offers a continually growing collection of 12,000 classical tracks for listening, browsing, and searching, as well as thousands of cross-referenced program notes, biographies, and images.

Source: Classical International, Inc., New York, 800/859-9306, 212/689-0536; http://www.classical.com.

Serials Solutions Freezes Pricing Schedule

Serials Solutions, Inc. has announced that it's freezing its 2003 price schedule and offering additional price breaks.

Through Jan. 1, 2005, Serials Solutions' price schedule will not increase for its A-to-Z title list reports; full MARC records for e-journals; and Article Linker, its full-featured OpenURL link resolver. In addition, the company is offering community and junior colleges a 25-percent discount on all services. It is also eliminating the $150 fee that was charged for hosted reports.

Serials Solutions continues to allow libraries to combine discounts, including consortia, multiple-year, multiple-product, and now, community college discounts. The price for an institution's service is determined by the number of full-text journal holdings tracked and service(s) selected.

Source: Serials Solutions, Inc., Seattle, 866/SERIALS, 206/545-9056; http://www.serialssolutions.com.