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NewsLink — Issue 72/October 2005 |
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| NewsLink is a free weekly e-mail newsletter featuring news and resources for the information industry. If you are receiving this issue as a forward and would like to become a subscriber, please visit our Web site at www.infotoday.com or send a blank e-mail to join-infotoday@lists.infotoday.com. | |
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IN THIS ISSUE 1) WELCOME 2) ITI SNAP POLL 3) NEWSLINK MONTHLY SPOTLIGHT 4) NEWSBREAKS 5) FEATURED ARTICLES 6) CONFERENCE CONNECTION 7) BOOKSHELF |
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1) WELCOME Welcome to the October 2005 issue of NewsLink, Information Today, Inc.'s FREE e-mail newsletter for library and information professionals. Our busy conference season has finally arrived. Our Fall 2005 calendar is packed with our flagship conferences. We start off next week in London for our Internet Librarian International event, October 10-11. This is the 7th annual event for information professionals in the UK. At the end of October, we bring Internet Librarian to the States. This year's event is in Monterey, CA. Librarians and info pros will meet from Oct. 24-26, 2005 to discuss the latest strategies for using, developing, and embracing Internet, Intranet, and Web-based strategies in their organizations. This year's theme is Shifting Worlds, highlighting the challenges and opportunities presented to the library world in a climate of constantly changing technologies. Our other events for the fall occur simultaneously in November. KMWorld & Intranets and Streaming Media West are both from Nov. 15-17 in San Jose, CA. The events were moved from last year's Santa Clara venue because of increased interest and attendance. We opted for a bigger venue to better facilitate the event and hope that you will join us in California. For more information on these conferences, go to http://www.kmworld.com/kmw05 and http://www.streamingmedia.com/west . If you have any comments or suggestions on any special content you would like to see covered or on how to improve this newsletter and the information held in it, please let us know at newslink@infotoday.com . Best Wishes, |
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2) ITI SNAP POLL Do you think the Google Print for Publishers program offers exciting new opportunities for publishers or presents only copyright problems and other challenges? Please comment at https://www.infotoday.com/ |
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3) NEWSLINK MONTHLY SPOTLIGHT Update on ERIC by Paula J. Hane The venerable ERIC database has been undergoing an extensive restructuring and modernization program. The ERIC database had been compiled by 16 subject-specific clearinghouses, but the clearinghouse contracts expired in December 2003 and a complete re-engineering began. (See our NewsBreak at https://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb030421-1.shtml.) In March 2004, the U.S. Department of Education awarded a contract for the new ERIC system to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) of Rockville, Md. CSC launched a new database interface on Sept. 1, 2004. On Oct. 1, 2004, more than 107,000 full-text non-journal documents (issued 1993–2004), previously available through fee-based services only, were made available for free. In the future, the collection may include other electronic resources such as audio and video materials. The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education, is responsible for the database of journal and non-journal education literature. The ERIC online system now provides the public with a centralized Web site for searching the ERIC bibliographic database of more than 1.1 million citations going back to 1966, the year ERIC began. The site is available at http://www.eric.ed.gov . The ERIC content is also available through third-party vendors, including EBSCO, Ovid/SilverPlatter, CSA, and OCLC FirstSearch. The new ERIC site lets users refine search results using keywords, publication date, publication type, or the ERIC thesaurus. In addition, the Web site lets users save and rerun searches using the My ERIC personalization feature. Recently, ERIC introduced improved features in the Basic and Advanced Search interfaces and expanded search result viewing options. Searchers can now construct nested Boolean searches using the AND, OR, and NOT operators in both Basic and Advanced Search. ERIC is also providing new metadata for materials published 2004 and forward, including educational level, peer-reviewed status of journals, and reference count. On Sept. 13, 2005, ERIC announced the release of citation management functionality. Searchers can now mark records for placement in a temporary work space called "My Clipboard." This new feature permits users to print, e-mail, or export records, as well as save them to a folder in their My ERIC account. The export feature is compatible with citation management software that supports multiple output styles. Many librarians and researchers have been intensely interested in the modernization of the resource and specifically concerned with questions of coverage, indexing, linking, and content additions. They watched anxiously during the hiatus when no new materials were being added while the new system was being readied. Two expert advisory panels now provide research, technical, and content expertise—the ERIC Steering Committee and a panel of Content Experts. SLA has posted a special ERIC Update page ( http://www.sla.org/content/SLA/advocacy/ERICUpdate/ERICUpdate.cfm) to inform its members. Much of the information there comes from Kate Corby, education and psychology reference librarian, Michigan State University Libraries. Corby, who is working with the ERIC Users Group, is archiving the information about recent changes and providing news details at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/doe.htm. Corby is generally upbeat on the modernized product. In an e-mail to me recently she wrote: "After a period of concern which included lots of missed deadlines, I have been quite pleased with the pace of ERIC activity since they began adding new content in late June. Those inclined to pick bones (and I’m one of them to a certain extent) can find things to criticize, but generally speaking they’ve been moving forward rapidly without many missteps." And what about the quality of the indexing and the abstracts? Corby provided this revealing assessment: "The indexing being done currently looks like good quality to me. The database is using abstracts provided by the journals, so some of them may not be as informative as the older ERIC-written abstracts, but they do appear to be assigning subject headings effectively. This was not done consistently in the closing days of the former ERIC Clearinghouses, so there are some problematic records in the database from that period. I have heard from some users who are less enthused about the indexing; the ‘notes’ field is one that has been specifically mentioned as missing and missed." Corby feels that one of the biggest problems at this point relates to linking decisions. She wrote: "The links to ERIC documents, which are now freely available full text on the Web, cannot be cut and pasted from the ed.gov search site. That site uses a java script to call the .PDF files. Just this week they added a feature to put citations on a clipboard and mail them to yourself (or others), but even this feature does not generate a useable link to the item. Some of the vendor interfaces do display a useable link to the document, but the ed.gov site java script is a bad decision that needs to be revisited in my opinion." If you are interested in the latest scoop about ERIC, there’s now a blog to share tips, techniques, and current information. It was launched this summer by Corby and others. The ERIC Users Information Exchange is a service of the ERIC Users Group, sponsored by the Education and Behavioral Sciences section of the Association of College and Research Libraries. (Comments and corrections to Kate Corby, corby@msu.edu.) Paula J. Hane is Information Today, Inc.’s news bureau chief and editor of NewsBreaks. Her e-mail address is phane@infotoday.com. |
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4) NEWSBREAKS For a complete listing of previous NewsBreaks visit the Information Today, Inc. Web site at https://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks. NewsBreaks for Monday, October 3, 2005 The Other Shoe Drops: Google Print Sued for Copyright Violation Some would say it had to happen. And it has. Google has been charged with violating copyright in its massive digitization program, Google Print for Libraries. Publisher associations have complained strenuously about copyright concerns (see "Google Library Project Hit by Copyright Challenge from University Presses," https://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb050531-2.shtml), and Google has responded by suspending digitization of copyrighted works until November (see "Google Slows Library Project to Accommodate Publishers," https://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb050815-1.shtml). Nevertheless, the lawsuit has commenced. However, instead of publishers, three authors and the Authors Guild (http://www.authorsguild.org) have filed charges of copyright violation. National press, blogs, listserves, etc., have erupted with commentary, some siding with one side or the other, and many, sadly, incorporating some errors in fact. (They have my sympathies—see "CORRECTIONS: Google Print Not All I Said It Was," https://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb050829-1.shtml; "Searcher’s Voice: Apology," https://www.infotoday.com/searcher/oct05/voice.shtml; and "Up Front with Barbara Quint: About That Flaw in Google Print," Information Today, October 2005). --> https://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb051003-1.shtml Open Content Alliance Rises to the Challenge of Google Print What a great idea! Why didn’t we think of that? Google Print’s ambitious effort to digitize the world’s book literature has inspired others to initiate their own effort. And, with the Google Print program caught in the snag of a copyright lawsuit, the sight of a relay race handoff keeps hope burning for a brighter digital future. The just announced Open Content Alliance (OCA; http://www.opencontentalliance.org) creates an international network of academics, libraries, publishers, technological firms, and a major search engine competitor to Google—all working on a new mass book digitization initiative. The goal of the effort is to establish a flexible, open infrastructure for bringing large collections of digitized material into the open Web. Permanently archived digital content, which is selected for its value by librarians, should offer a new model for collaborative library collection building, according to one OCA member. While openness will characterize content in the program, the OCA will also adhere to protection of the rights of copyright holders. --> https://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb051003-2.shtml NewsBreaks Weekly News Digest Vivísimo and MSN Search to Power FirstGov.gov Alacra Adds Newstex Feeds ISYS Announces ISYS:web 7 |
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5) FEATURED ARTICLES For full-text coverage of the following articles please use the hotlinks provided. INFORMATION TODAY Can Google or other search engines sell keywords registered as trademarks? For example, can Coca-Cola buy the keyword "Pepsi-Cola" so that every time a searcher enters the term in a search engine, advertisements for Coca-Cola appear? ONLINE Magazine It’s a common theme these days: The economic downturn of the past several years has put customers and suppliers alike between the proverbial rock and a hard place. The result is the now-familiar statement, "The marketplace is flat." Whether buying or selling in this marketplace, people are looking for the best ways to "weather the storm" until a positive change takes effect. COMPUTERS IN LIBRARIES This article updates a story that CIL published in April 2002. Back then, the author described her work in Bulgaria, digitizing Slavic Medieval manuscripts in order to make their contents available online so more scholars could use them. In this 2005 follow-up, the author goes through the process of "participatory design," bringing those who would use her Web sites into the process of designing them. By following her focus group's recommendations, she succeeds in making her sites more user-friendly. SEARCHER Magazine You may or may not have worked with an architect before. If you have, it was likely on a single-family house or on commercial projects such as a library, corporate headquarters, government office building, hospital, or multifamily residential building, to name a few such types. It takes a lot of people to make buildings happen — architects, builders, lenders, regulatory agencies, clients. And there are certain points to consider when hiring an architect. This article examines general information about architects, design processes, and what clients should know. Some aspects of the design process and the importance of location and infrastructure will be highlighted. Two interviews with architects (see the sidebars on pages 51 and 52) provide insight into the client-architect relationship for library projects at Lake Forest College, the Perkins Library at Duke University, and the Seattle Public Library. MULTIMEDIA & INTERNET@SCHOOLS EContent LINK-UP DIGITAL What’s the worst thing that could happen when you travel with your laptop? Next to the plane crashing, it’s probably losing the laptop or the important data on it. There are lots of ways this can happen. There are also lots of ways you can prevent this, according to Kevin Coffey, a police detective and president of Corporate Travel Safety of Calabasas, Calif. This applies to business travel as well as traveling for pleasure. |
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6) CONFERENCE CONNECTION Get the latest event information available for the library and information fields in the Conference Connection. The Conference Report/Update gives you an inside look at the most recent information industry events, while the Conference Calendar is updated monthly to provide you with important contact information for up-and-coming industry events. CONFERENCE REPORT/UPDATE Internet Librarian 2005 Blog KMWorld & Intranets in November CONFERENCE CALENDAR October 2005 |
