Industry
News
Compiled by
Suzanne Sabroski |
Industry News goes up on the Web at http://www.onlinemag.net as
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No Divine Presence in Library Subscription Renewals
If a library that employs you, or one that you frequent,
decided not to use divine inc.'s RoweCom unit, a.k.a.
Faxon, as its subscription agency, you should be
very thankful. Libraries that prepaid divine for subscription renewals now find
that their checks were cashed, but the money went to pay off other divine financial
obligations rather than to pay publishers. The result could be the stoppage of
journals flowing into library serials departments, depriving readers in public,
academic, school, and corporate libraries of current periodicals. Some of the
larger publishers have said they will continue libraries' subscriptions until
payment can be worked out. Further compounding the problem is divine's stated
plan to exit the entire subscriptions business and concentrate on what it calls
its "three solution areas: Web, Content and Collaboration Solutions; Customer
Interaction Solutions; and Managed Services and Infrastructure Solutions." EBSCO
Industries has signed a letter of intent to acquire the European operations of
RoweCom, but the acquisition requires French regulatory approval. As for operations
outside Europe, there are a limited number of companies still in the subscriptions
business that would be interested. Pending lawsuits by several states' attorneys
general will delay any acquisitions activity, however, and possibly dampen the
interest [www.divine.com; www.ebsco.com].
D&B May Not Clean Up with Hoover's
Opposition to the proposed takeover of Hoover's by Dun & Bradstreet is
gaining momentum. Marathon Partners L.P. has hired Marlin & associates
LLC as its financial advisor to "assist in helping to find alternatives" to
the deal. Marathon is an investment partnership that owns about 9 percent of
Hoover's Inc. From the December 5, 2002, announcement, Mario Cibelli, Managing
Member of Marathon, has been outspoken in his belief that the $7 per share
price offered by D&B is inadequate. He thinks the price should be over
$30, if the company is to be sold at all. Cibelli is convinced that the timing
is off, that Hoover's is a growing company with positive cash flow, and that
its new business strategy of stressing subscriptions over advertising revenue
will lead to success. Marlin & Associates is charged with identifying alternatives
to the proposed transaction and evaluating the financial situation from an
investment banker's perspective [www.hoovers.com; www.dnb.com; www.marlinandassociates.com].
COUNTER Code of Practice
Multi-agency project COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic
Resources) has published its COUNTER Code of Practice. It specifies the requirements
that vendors must meet to have their online usage reports designated COUNTER-compliant.
The Code will help both librarians and publishers in understanding how the
information they buy and sell is being used. A special meeting on the COUNTER
project will occur during InfoToday 2003, to be held May 6-8, 2003 in New
York City [www.projectCounter.org; www.infotoday.com].
Dialog on World Chambers Network
Users of World Chambers Network (WCN), a Paris-based trade organization, will
now have access to a subset of Dialog databases through a customized search
form. Included in the deal are 15 global news wire and newspaper databases
and 14 business and industry databases. WCN links more than 12,000 chambers
worldwide and attracts some 60,000 visitors per month. This is a one-way
deal; no data from WCN will flow to Dialog, apart from the Delphes database,
which has been online with Dialog for many years. Although WCN concentrates
on news and business data, no NewsEdge information will be online through
WCN. However, subscribers to NewsEdge will now be able to search the 7,000
sources represented in Dialog NewsRoom. This provides news information from
broadcast transcripts, global newspapers, periodicals, news wires, and trade
and scholarly journals [www.dialog.com; www.iccwbo.org].
Social Sciences & Humanities Classical.com has launched a streaming media classical music service
featuring over 10,000 recordings for libraries. The interactive service offers
on-demand listening to users in a library building as well as remote access
from a home PC. Extensive supplementary resources include themed playlists,
key composer biographies, and program notes on essential works and movements.
Classical.com is in active discussion with major libraries throughout the
U.S., Europe and Asia [+44 (0)20 7916 2000; www.classical.com].
The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS)Abstracts Database is
now available on Cambridge Scientific Abstract'sInternet Database Service
(IDS). The U.S. government-funded NCJRS covers all aspects of local,
state, and international criminal justice, ranging from preliminary research
to descriptions of successful programs. The initial release of the database
on IDS contains over 170,000 records [301/961-6761; www.csa.com].
The Gallup Organization has launched a subscription-based news service
called the Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing. Delivered via e-mail each
Tuesday morning, the service features a weekly summary and analysis of the
latest proprietary Gallup Poll findings. Also included is a searchable archive
of Gallup's public opinion surveys, poll results, and original content articles
dating back to 1935. A 1-year subscription to the Tuesday Briefings is $95
[202/715-3030; www.gallup.com].
Sci-Tech Researchers using Cambridge Scientific Abstracts' (CSA) Internet Database
Service (IDS) bibliographic databases can now link their results to
the full text of AIAA Meeting Papers. AIAA (the American Institute
of Aeronautics and Astronautics) publishes more than 3,500 original presentations
each year from industry conferences. Over 25,000 papers published since
1996 and abstracted in the CSA Aerospace and Technology Database on IDS
are linkable with the service [301/961-6761; www.csa.com].
Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) reports that more than 50 percent
of the organic and inorganic chemical substances recorded in the CAS Chemical
Registry System during 2002 were derived from patent documents as opposed
to journal literature and other publications. This finding highlights a trend
evident since at least 1998, when CAS began tracking chemical substance disclosures.
CAS registers substances of all types as they are newly reported in patents,
journals, books, and other documents around the world [614/447-3847; www.cas.org].
STN International has announced significant enhancements to its STN
Easy for Intranets. The new capabilities enable information professionals
to easily distribute customized sci-tech information to their corporate
end users. Changes include pre-defined and editable search strategies from
over 80 STN Easy databases, and the ability to post search results from
over 200 STN databases [614/447-3847; www.cas.org].
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) has decided to publish a series
of open access journals funded by a $9 million grant from the Gordon and
Betty Moore Foundation. Following the lead of BioMed Central in the movement
to widely distribute original scientific works, open access publishing is
maintained by a fee from authors for processing and conversion of their manuscripts
into a professionally formatted research article. BioMed Central has welcomed
the move by PLoS to join in the effort to maximize the distribution of scientific
information [+44 (0)20 7323 0323; www.biomedcentral.com; www.publiclibraryofscience.org].
In an effort to inform librarians across all disciplines regarding electronic
publishing and digital libraries, Elsevier Science has launched the
quarterly newsletter Library Connect. Elsevier Science personnel will
announce educational events and industry conferences, as well as provide
coverage of technical developments and features on libraries and librarians.
The new effort is an expansion of the newsletter and seminar series Library
Consult that Elsevier has established in Southeast Asia [619/699-6478; www.elsevier.com].
Legal MicroPatent has announced the release of the MicroPatent Patent
Index Database (MPI) and Aureka 8.0. MPI combines the European
Patent Office's (EPO) INPADOC collection with other EPO files and supplements
them with exclusive content and features, such as linking to claims and
mapping of English characters to other language characters. Aureka 8.0
is an advanced, browser-based IP management and analytic
tool set [800/648-6787; 203/466-5055; www.micropat.com].
Thomson Derwent has announced the launch of Derwent Micro-Electro-Mechanical
Systems (MEMS) and NEMS Industry and Technology Patent Profiles
(ITP). These products provide the only source of MEMS specific patent
information that tracks research and development in the area of micro-devices.
The MEMS industry is estimated to continue to grow at a rate of 20 percent
annually [800/337-9368; 703/706-4220; www.derwent.com].
Search Engines Google has launched four new country-specific domains that offer
a localized interface to enable users to restrict searches to pages from
their respective countries. In an ongoing effort to make its search service
available to people throughout the world, the new domains include Google
Finland, Google Greece, Google Singapore, and Google United Arab Emirates
[650/623-4311; www.google.com.fi; www.google.com.gr; www.google.com.sg; www.google.com.ae].
Search engine optimization and marketing firm MoreVisibility.com has
announced that it has been selected as an approved reseller of LookSmart search
listings. MoreVisibility.com also has reseller and strategic agreements with
Ask Jeeves, Inc./Teoma, Inktomi, AltaVista, and Overture [305/937-1711; www.morevisibility.com].
Entopia has announced the launch of Entopia Government Solutions
LLC in response to demand for its KM software and services in the government
sector. As an exclusive provider to the U.S. federal government, Entopia
Government Solutions provides the infrastructure to support the use of Entopia
Quantum and Entopia Knowledge Builder across a wide range of
agencies and organizations [650/232-1332; www.entopia.com].
Business & Finance Mergent, Inc. has released a new flagship product to replace FISonline. Mergent
Online will feature a fully searchable database of over 15,000 U.S.
and 20,000 non-U.S. companies. New content includes financial statements,
annual reports, bankruptcies, M&A, and reorganization records, in addition
to retaining the features of FISonline [704/365-1444; www.mergent.com].
Bureau van Dijk (BvD) has added data on all Chinese listed companies
to its OSIRIS database. The information is sourced from Huaxia Credit,
a pioneer in credit risk management in China [212/797-7120; www.bvdep.com].
SchlumbergerSema, a business segment of Schlumberger Limited,
has been selected by European Business Register (EBR) to be the distributor
of official company information on the U.K. market. The information from
national members of EBR such as Companies House of UK, ORT of France, and
Infocamere of Italy, will be distributed through the new EuroInfoPool portal.
A single online gateway to official registered data from over 18 million
European companies will be the result, along with credit rating reports of
over 22 million European companies [+46 8 738 5000; www.euroinfopool.com].
To help users cope with a riskier world environment, an electronic version
of the Disaster Recovery Yellow Pages has been released. Over 3,000
vendor listings in 270 categories, such as drying and dehumidification of
paper and microfilm records, are featured, along with hot links to vendor
Web sites. In addition to the CD version, a three-ring binder copy is still
available; both sell for $98 [617/332-3496; www.disaster-help.com].
Peopleware Pat Tierney has been appointed chief executive officer of Reed Elsevier
Group's Global Education publishing division, reporting to CEO Crispin Davis.
Mr. Tierney joins Reed Elsevier from The Thomson Corporation, where he was
CEO of Thomson Financial.
Mark Capaldini has been named partner with the investment banking
and consulting firm Focus Enterprises.
ECNext has announced the appointment of Chris Skudder as chief executive
officer. Skudder's initial focus will be to scale the company's sales and
marketing activities to take advantage of growing market opportunities, according
to ECNext. He previously served as an executive in the broadband and communications
sectors.
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) has announced the promotion of Sheila
Marks to the position of senior director. She will oversee both the
Journal Division and Publisher Services at CSA, which will now operate
as one unit.
Yves H. Boucher has been named to the board of directors of Nstein
Technologies. Mr. Boucher joins the board from his former position as vice
president and chief financial officer at Nstein.
Ingenta plc has announced two appointments in the formation of a new global
customer service group. Adam Chesler has been named vice president,
New Business, and Christopher Woodhead has been named director, Client
Management. Both will report to chief operating officer Simon Dessain.
InfoSpace Inc. has replaced the company's chairman and chief executive Naveen
Jain with James Voelkner, a company director and former president
of XO Communications. Jain will remain on the board of directors.
Portals & Intranets Serials Solutions has announced the development of two new linking
services. Journal Linker enables patrons to link from an abstract
or index to a list of all the library's full-text holdings for that journal;
from there they can link to the full text of any of the library's holdings.
For
a full-featured OpenURL resolver, Article Linker will provide article-level
links and extended services such as links to interlibrary loan services. Serials
Solutions LLC provides comprehensive e-journal access service to libraries
worldwide [866/737-4257; www.serialssolutions.com].
Inmagic, Inc. has released a Spanish version of DB/Text
WebPublisher for enterprise use and DB/Text WebPublisher Lite for
single database use. Similarly, French versions of the two products were
released in May 2002, as Inmagic is aggressively seeking to expand its
international reach [800/229-8398; www.inmagic.com].
Online Services Long the most widely consulted index of subjects in the popular press, Readers'
Guide to Periodical Literature is now available online via WilsonWeb.
The entire retrospective content dating back to 1901, with nearly 3 million
citations from over 500 U.S. magazines, has versatile search options as
well as a library holdings indicator to let users know if the cited articles
are on hand. Readers' Guide Retrospective is the online equivalent
of 43 Readers' Guide annuals saving libraries over 12 feet of shelf
space on average.
H.W. Wilson has announced that Swets Blackwell Service has
joined the list of WilsonLink full-text sources accessible with its
open-URL technology. SwetsWise offers over 7,000 titles with a focus
on scholarly and research journals [www.swetsblackwell.com].
Several of H.W. Wilson's familiar print reference books are now available
in libraries as e-books, including Famous First Facts, 5th Edition;
Famous First Facts About Sports; Facts About the Presidents, 7th Edition;
and Speeches of the American Presidents, 2nd Edition.
Over 1 million reviews on over 700,000 books are now searchable with the
expansion of Book Review Digest. Available on WilsonWeb with full-text
reviews in addition to excerpts and citations, Book Review Digest Plus will
be updated annually with coverage back to 1983. Index to Legal Periodicals & Books
Full Text is a new WilsonWeb database based on the classic reference
Index to Legal Periodicals & Books.It features more than 15,000 full-text
records to start (articles as far back as 1994), with new entries being added
in daily updates. Index records reach as far back as 1981 [800/367-6770; www.hwwilson.com].
ProQuest's UMI group has unveiled an electronic dissertation submission
program in conjunction with The Berkeley Electronic Press. The new
system allows a graduate student to upload an approved dissertation into
the publishing system for formatting and distribution. The service is being
rolled out to graduate schools throughout 2003; interested parties may send
e-mail to electronic_submissions@il.proquest.com.
Significant expansion of international information now comes from ProQuest with
the acquisition of Norman Ross Publishing. Materials ranging from
rare newspapers and journals to music scores and government documents in
Slavic, Japanese, and European languages are now available. Former president
Norman Ross and other key staff members will be joining the ProQuest staff.
A separate agreement between ProQuest and Roger's Publishing Limited will
bring the full text of 64 periodicals to the company's line of business and
general reference databases. As Canada's largest publishing company, Rogers
Publishing brings such titles as Maclean's, Canadian Business, and MoneySense
to the deal [800/521-0600; 734/761-4700; www.il.proquest.com].
SkyMinder has announced the online integration of Eastern European
and Japanese credit information from local providers. Through Graydon
UK, SkyMinder now offers data from Coface Intercredit Holding AG covering
companies based in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, as well as Japanese content from Teikoku.
Additionally, a new SkyMinder User Guide and Product Demo are
now available online [813/636-0981; www.skyminder.com].
Factiva has announced enhancements to its Factiva.com product.
Historical market data from Reuters and SunGard, the Celex database
of European Union documents, and a Japanese-language interface have
been added, as well as the ability to view the full text of articles alongside
a list of the search results. Other interfaces in French, German, Spanish,
and Italian are currently offered, with plans to add Russian and Chinese
in 2003.
A strategic alliance between Factiva and AtHoc, a provider
of enterprise communication and alerting software, has been reached. The
Factiva-AtHoc solution will allow users to receive real-time news updates
on an ongoing basis [www.factiva.com; www.athoc.com].
Alliances & Deals Information Today, Inc. (ITI) announced that it has completed the
acquisition of Streaming Media, Inc. from Penton Media, Inc. The acquisition
was a stock purchase whereby ITI acquired 100 percent of the stock of Streaming
Media from Penton Media, Inc., a Cleveland-based publisher and trade show
company. Streaming Media, Inc. produces conferences and exhibitions in the
streaming media field, hosts the StreamingMedia.com Web site and e-mail newsletter,
and produces industry-specific reports [609/654-6266; www.infotoday.com].
Yahoo! Inc. and Inktomi Corporation announced a definitive
agreement has been signed under which Yahoo! will acquire Inktomi for a purchase
price of approximately $235 million. The transaction is subject to customary
closing conditions, including regulatory approval and the approval of Inktomi's
stockholders. The companies should complete the transaction in the first
quarter of 2003 [www.yahoo.com; www.inktomi.com].
Nstein Technologies, Inc., a provider of computer-aided indexing
(CAI) solutions to the e-publishing industry, and Thomson/Gale have
announced an agreement to provide Gale's subject taxonomy through Nstein's
automated indexing software. According to the companies, this agreement will
enhance content search and retrieval services and extend market reach for
both companies in many domains, including: business/financial services, law,
medicine and health, technology, and social sciences. Nstein has also announced
agreements with le Service developpement des technologies de l'information
(SDTI) for use of its categorization technology products in the Canadian
market,and with United Press International (UPI) for use of its Arabic
Concept Extractor [Nstein: 514/908-5406; www.nstein.com;
Thomson/Gale: 248/699-8554; www.gale.com;
SDTI: 450/773-4232; www.sdti.ca;
UPI: 202/898-8010; www.upi.com].
Mohomine, a provider of text-processing automation software, and Wordmap
Limited, developers of taxonomy management systems, have announced
a strategic relationship to develop an integration of their content-classification
technologies. Mohomine's MohoClassifier will be combined with Wordmap's Taxonomy
Management System in the development of a total enterprise solution
[Mohomine: 858/362-3000; www.mohomine.com;
Wordmap: +44 (0) 1225 358 184; www.wordmap.com].
The Thomson Corporation announced that it has acquired Delphion
Research from privately held Delphion, Inc. for approximately $22 million.
Delphion Research offers full-text patent documents, including over 35
million records from 70 patent offices worldwide. Delphion Research will
become a part of the Scientific Group within Thomson, and will be managed
by Bob Smith from the current Delphion management team. Delphion, Inc.
will continue to own and manage its other software development and services
businesses [Delphion: 630/799-0600; www.delphion.com;
Thomson: 215/386-0100; www.thomson.com].
A joint venture between Cuadra Associates (CA) and Access Innovations,
Inc. (AII) has resulted in the development of MAI STAR, combining
Cuadra's STAR information management and retrieval system with Access's
Data Harmony Machine Aided Indexer [Cuadra: 310/478-0066; www.cuadra.com;
Access: 800/926-8328; www.dataharmony.com].
Thomson ISI ResearchSoft has announced a partnership agreement with Openly
Informatics, Inc., developers of the 1Cate OpenURL link service.
Under terms of the agreement, ISI ResearchSoft will distribute 1Cate as
part of the company's new package of Web-based solutions [ISI ResearchSoft:
800/722-1227; 760/438-5526; www.isiresearchsoft.com;
Openly Informatics: 973/509-7800; www.openly.com].
Biomedical BIOSIS has announced the largest-ever enhancement of the content
of BIOSIS Previews, Biological Abstracts, and Biological Abstracts/RRM. In
addition to its core academic market, BIOSIS has been expanding its customer
base into business and the private arenas. Primary enhancements are the addition
of over 9 million CAS Registry numbers to the 1969-1992 segment and over
6,300 sequence data accession numbers. Patent indexing has been streamlined
over the entire file as well [215/231-7187; www.biosis.org].
BIOSIS has also launched BiologyBrowser, an interactive portal
designed for the life sciences community. This Web-based free portal creates
a dynamic environment that connects users through discussion forums, controlled
Web links, science news, and other free resources [www.biologybrowser.org].
Biological & Agricultural Index Plus has now tipped the scales
with over 1 million records from leading journals. The H.W. Wilson database
is updated daily and features full-text articles. It supports WilsonLink
SFX open-URL technology [800/367-6770; www.hwwilson.com]. |
