"Making Educational Software Accessible: Design Guidelines Including Math and Science Solutions" (http://ncam.wgbh.org/cdrom) includes a review of current policies requiring the use of accessible educational software, a basic understanding of the needs of users with different disabilities, a summary of various approaches to serve users with different disabilities, specific solutions for designing software that is more accessible, and guidelines with specific checkpoints and detailed techniques for implementation.

Source: CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media, Boston, 617/300-5400; http://access.wgbh.org.
 

Northern Light Launches SinglePoint! Portal
Northern Light Technology, Inc. (NL) has introduced SinglePoint!, an advanced information portal, which will search a company's internal documents and other information resources along with all the Web and Special Collection documents provided by Northern Light.

According to the announcement, SinglePoint! includes a set of capabilities, tools, and methods for integrating and searching content according to customer specifications. It is installed as a service accessible through a corporation's intranet, but SinglePoint! is an outsourced solution, run on dedicated hardware housed at NL.

A NL representative reports that an important advantage for users is the content integration offered across a broad range of material, including subscription-based resources, because they won't have to remember separate logins and passwords or perform separate searches. SinglePoint! will provide a single logon for users and handle the logons that are passed to third-party content providers. Searches are integrated across all material that the customer specifies. NL can handle most common file formats, including Adobe PDF and PowerPoint.

Source: Northern Light Technology, Inc., Cambridge, MA, 617/621-5194; http://www.northernlight.com.
 

ISA Now Includes Coverage of E-Journals
Information Today, Inc. has announced that Information Science Abstracts (ISA) has begun covering e-journals in the information science field. The current issue of ISA, volume 35 number 8, is a special issue exclusively devoted to covering the complete runs of several e-journals.

The selection criteria for the e-journals covered in ISA include having an ISSN number and containing substantial research or review articles in the field. The e-journals included in this issue are Ariadne, D-Lib Magazine, First Monday, Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, Journal of Library Services for Distance Education, LIBRES: Library and Information Science Research, PACS-R: Public Access Computer Systems Review, and Review of Information Science. Other e-journals will be added in future issues.

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

Foundation Center Publishes Index on CD
The Foundation Center has announced that for the first time its Foundation Grants Index is available in a new CD-ROM format. The Foundation Grants Index on CD-ROM will enable funding researchers to quickly search through an authoritative database of over 100,000 recently awarded grants of $10,000 or more by the largest 1,000 U.S.-based foundations.

The CD-ROM's high-speed searching capabilities allow users to select multiple criteria and generate results within seconds. Field options include geographic focus, grant amount, grantmaker name, grantmaker state, recipient city, recipient name, recipient state, recipient type, subjects, text search, types of support, and year authorized. The CD also features several customization tools that help users organize and record the information they obtained during their searches. There is also a searchable notepad feature where users can create their own notes and append them to grant records.

The single-user version of The Foundation Grants Index on CD-ROM is $195.

Source: The Foundation Center, New York, 212/620-4230; http://fdncenter.org.
 
 

Automation Tools

Sagebrush Releases Winnebago Spectrum 5
Sagebrush Corp. has announced Winnebago Spectrum 5, the latest update to its integrated library automation program.

Spectrum 5 features an updated user interface with a new navigation toolbar that makes the product easier to use. Other updates include seamless integration with the Spectrum-in-Hand palm computing unit; advance booking; patron photo functionality; optional visual search module with customizable icon-based searching; HTML-based reports that staff can convert or cut/paste from Windows or Mac; global subject edit; and online Help with step-by-step instructions, examples that show how to complete a process, and reference information.

Source: Sagebrush Corp., Burnsville, MN, 888/753-7243, 612/890-5484; http://www.sagebrushcorp.com.
 

TLC Helps You Personalize Services, Updates ITS•forWindows, Library•Solution
The Library Corporation (TLC) has announced it will be providing libraries with an easy-to-use, Web-based service whereby their patrons can rate books, music, and movies on a scale of one to 10 and then receive recommendations for other titles they might appreciate. The new online service stems from an agreement between TLC and RatingZone and will be available to libraries through a software licensing agreement.

Two versions of the service will be available. The first, Quick Picks, takes less than 2 minutes. The other, Precision Guide, is more comprehensive. Users register as members, rate approximately 2 dozen items, and receive suggested titles. In addition, when these members return to the library's Web site, they may instantly receive additional recommendations based on their profiles.

In a separate announcement, TLC released ITS•forWindows 3.36, which is fully compatible with updated Library of Congress Control Numbers (LCCN) in use as of January. Other enhancements include new print capabilities, which permit librarians to quickly recover from a printer jam when printing cards, labels, or edit sheets; the addition of default extensions to the list of recognized file types; a safety measure that protects against accidental erasure of MARC record batches from the Internet queue; the option to print MARC record edit sheets in a single spacing mode; and improved options in the utility menu.

Also, the company announced the release of Library•Solution 2.1.1, specifically designed to improve cataloging capabilities worldwide and accommodate the LCCN changes, according to TLC. Other new features include an upgraded graphical user interface, which will help librarians make additions, modifications, or deletions of new titles or new copies of existing titles with greater ease and accuracy, and an improved statistics-gathering function.

Source: The Library Corporation, Inwood, WV, 800/325-7759, 304/229-0100; http://www.tlcdelivers.com.
 

COMPanion Releases Its Alexandria 5.4.2
COMPanion Corp. has announced that it has released Alexandria version 5.4.2.

New features include Alexandria Explore, an icon-based interface that patrons can use to search the collection and perform other librarian-configured activities; Study Program, which enables Accelerated Reader and Reading Counts users to search the collection based on program name, reading levels, points, and subjects; dictionary search interface for patrons who want to browse cataloging terms for those that interest them; circulation receipt printing; Advanced Bookings, which extends reservation capabilities and aids centralized management; multilingual support with Spanish translation included; and renewal of items via Researcher client.

Source: COMPanion Corp., Salt Lake City, 800/347-6439, 801/943-7277; http://www.companioncorp.com.
 

Inmagic, Inc. Releases Inmagic.NET Service
Inmagic, Inc. a developer of knowledge management and special library software, has announced Inmagic.NET, a new extension of its core text-based information management product, DB/TextWorks, and soon to be an extension of BiblioTech PRO. Inmagic.NET, according to the announcement, allows information professionals to speed acquisitions work flow by purchasing, cataloging, indexing, and disseminating information throughout an organization via a seamless, Net-connected environment.

Soon to be enabled for e-information of all kinds, Inmagic.NET's current version allows information professionals to order physical books directly from Baker & Taylor, barnesandnoble.com, Fatbrain.com, and a growing list of other information vendors. Purchases are enabled through a Web link to these vendors placed directly in DB/TextWorks. Customers who order through Baker & Taylor can download bibliographic data to Inmagic's servers, where it can be imported directly into customers' DB/TextWorks databases, where the data can be edited to meet individual preferences and needs.

Source: Inmagic, Inc., Woburn, MA, 800/229-8398; http://www.inmagic.com.
 
 

New Online Resources

Grolier Adds Lands and Peoples Online
Based on Grolier Educational's six-volume print set, Lands and Peoples Online offers eight features created especially for online users.

According to the announcement, the encyclopedia is filled with 330 highly interactive, continually updated, informative, easy-to-understand articles that link to 850 maps, 270 flags, and 500 photos, all in color; 3,000 internal article-to-article links; 2,500 external Web links; vibrant multimedia; complete search and browse options; and easy and rapid navigation. Other features include Focus: North America, Global News Desk, Electronic Atlas, Culture Cross, Passport to Fun, L&P Almanac, and The Grolier Internet Index.

Source: Grolier Educational, Danbury, CT, 800/243-7256; http://publishing.grolier.com.
 

FIZ Karlsruhe Creates the GetInfo Portal
FIZ Karlsruhe and TIB Hannover have announced that they have created GetInfo (http://www.getinfo-doc.de), a central port of call on the Web for full-text literature in science and technology.

According to the announcement, the goal for the GetInfo service is to set up and operate a full-text server for electronic documents and metadata. The service will provide searching for free; users will only be charged for ordering full text. GetInfo is being supported by the German Ministry of Education and is expected to be available for access this spring.

As a central access point, GetInfo will make electronic publications of relevant specialist publishers, as well as gray literature, which is not readily available through commercial book channels. A single search in GetInfo covers the holdings of numerous other servers. Documents are displayed electronically. If documents are not available in electronic version, they can be ordered via TIB Hannover's and FIZ Karlsruhe's services (TIBOrder and FIZ AutoDoc, respectively).

Source: FIZ Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany, 011-49-7247-808-513; Fax: 011-49-7247-808-136; http://www.fiz-karlsruhe.de.
 

Greenwood's Literature in Context Online
Greenwood Electronic Media has announced Literature in Context Online (http://www.litincontext.com), which takes several of the most-studied books and packs them with primary source materials and expert commentary. Titles are To Kill a Mockingbird; The Scarlet Letter; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Macbeth; Hamlet; The Crucible; Things Fall Apart; Their Eyes Were Watching God; Pride & Prejudice; and Of Mice and Men, The Red Pony, and The Pearl.

For example, within the To Kill a Mockingbird online sourcebook, students can hear Chief Justice Earl Warren overrule the doctrine of "separate but equal" and view archival film footage of key events of the Civil Rights Movement and a video summary of the Scottsboro Trial. Other value-added features include Web-based study questions, Web links, contextual timelines, glossaries of cultural and historical references, and keyword and index searching.

Pricing starts at $105 for lifetime access. Libraries also get an unlimited number of affiliated users and on- and off-site access, and a special deal on all 10 sourcebooks, priced as a package for $900.

Source: Greenwood Electronic Media, Westport, CT, 203/226-3571; http://www.gem.greenwood.com.
 
 

New Books

Neal-Schuman Releases New Digitization Handbook and Internet Management Book
Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. has released two new titles for libraries that need to manage digital resources. The first is Digital Imaging: A Practical Handbook, by Stuart Lee of Oxford University Computing Services (ISBN: 1-55570-405-0, $55). Ittakes the reader through the digitization process from beginningto end, with chapters that cover assessing your collections, digitization techniques, metadata, delivery, archiving, file compression, preservation, image and text formats, and managing projects.

The second new release is Managing the Internet Controversy, edited by Mark L. Smith (ISBN: 1-55570-395-X, $45), and it's part of the publisher's Netguide Series. According to Neal-Schuman, the book "acknowledges there is no one-size-fits-all solution while delivering a wealth of practical guidance for librarians and library boards in managing and communicating about" Internet issues. The book's chapters are written by distinguished librarians such as former ALA president Ann Symons and Judith F. Krug, director of the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom. The volume also includes a section called "Checklist & Ideas for Library Staff Working with Community Leaders."

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

Artech Publishes Book on Network Security
According to a recent announcement from Artech House, its new publication Fundamentals of Network Security, by John E. Canavan (ISBN: 1-58053-176-8, $69), introduces you to fundamental network security concepts, principles, and terms, while providing you with practical techniques you can apply on the job. It helps you identify the best type of intrusion detection system, develop organizational guidelines for passwords, set computer security policies, and perform a security review and risk assessment.

The book presents tools that can be used to test, strengthen, monitor, and protect systems. Topics include LAN/WAN security, e-mail protocols, firewalls, and other essential network security topics, and can be understood even if you don't have a technical background.

Source: Artech House Publishers, Norwood, MA, 800/225-9977, 781/769-9750; http://www.artechhouse.com.
 
 

Updated Databases

ABC-CLIO Adds CLIO Notes Resource to the 'America: History and Life' Database
ABC-CLIO has announced that it has enhanced its America: History and Life database with its new supplemental searching and research tool, CLIO Notes.

CLIO Notes provides expanded searching opportunities for studying historical periods in detail and guides students through the key historical and cultural issues covered in American history courses. According to the company, CLIO Notes includes concise overviews of 22 historical periods taught in American history courses, detailed chronologies that provide global context for major events and issues of each period, study questions that help students select paper topics and prepare for class discussions, and lists of searching terms.

Source: ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, CA, 800/368-6868, 805/968-1911; http://www.abc-clio.com.
 

SIRS Announces Enhancements to Products
SIRS Mandarin, Inc. has announced that it has recently added new content and enhanced the functionality of several SIRS online reference databases. The company has also announced plans to integrate SIRS Knowledge Source into the Mandarin M3 Library Automation System.

New Related Article Links in SIRS Knowledge Source allow users to link to related articles in multiple SIRS databases. The product also contains an updated Dictionary and Thesaurus and a new online Source List that lets users view a list of newspapers, magazines, journals, and government documents from which SIRS editors select database articles.

SIRS Government Reporter has added two new National Archives units: "The Great Depression and the New Deal" and "The United States at War: 1944."

SIRS Renaissance has added Spotlight of the Month, a collection of full-text articles and graphics that offers broad perspectives on monthly topics. Its Glossary of the Arts has been updated.

The SIRS Discoverer Deluxe database for young readers has added Related Article Links. The New and Updated Topics feature now includes links from selected topics to related articles. Updated features include Country Facts, which has been revised with the latest population figures and recent major events; Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia, which contains 26,000 general interest articles; and The World Almanac for Kids 2001, a popular reference database with facts and information on a variety of topics.

SIRS Researcher, SIRS Renaissance, and SIRS Discoverer Deluxe users can now view 2001 Spotlight of the Month topics and preview articles in upcoming Spotlight collections. Spotlight of the Month topics are drawn from Chase's Calendar of Events.

Source: SIRS Mandarin, Inc., Boca Raton, FL, 800/232-7477, 561/994-0079; http://www.sirs.com.
 

Wilson Updates Databases, Adds Options
H.W. Wilson has announced that subscribers to WilsonDisc databases can now choose to install an optional WilsonWeb for the CD-ROM interface, which duplicates the navigational elements of WilsonWeb's Internet database interface, but requires no Web connection.

A browser-based interface, WilsonWeb for the CD-ROM requires either Internet Explorer or Netscape and TCP/IP viability. Software for WilsonWeb for the CD-ROM is included on the most recent database shipments.

In a separate announcement, Wilson reports that users of its Applied Science & Technology Full Text database can now click to find complete graphical information from many of the journal articles cited. Page images now join the full-text content, article abstracts, and indexing, making important photos, illustrations, graphs, charts, and diagrams instantly available.

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

CIS, Lexis-Nexis Offer PowerTables Feature
The Lexis-Nexis Group has announced that it has introduced the PowerTables feature into its CIS Statistical Universe Web product from Congressional Information Service, Inc. (CIS).

According to the announcement, with the help of expert academic librarians, a cross-discipline team of Lexis-Nexis and CIS employees started with a source list of more than 30,000 tables containing the most commonly sought statistics, developed a taxonomy, and created an index of the tables. Users of Statistical Universe just enter a word or two describing their subjects into a simple search form to find all the relevant tables that contain statistics about their subjects. The PowerTables search form allows the user to search by several criteria: geographical area, historical trends or future projections, date, category (such as demographic information), geographic area down to the community level, frequency of information, or industry.

Source: Lexis-Nexis Group, Dayton, OH, 800/227-9597, 937/865-6800; http://www.lexis-nexis.com.
 

IDEALOnDemand Offers Pay-Per-View
Academic Press has announced a new pay-per-view service called IDEALOnDemand, which allows access to all articles in Academic Press and Harcourt Health Sciences journals on IDEAL.

Through IDEALOnDemand, journal articles on IDEAL are available to individuals not previously authorized to access journals via the IDEAL consortia or institutional licenses. Each online order is payable with American Express, MasterCard, or Visa credit cards. When purchasing, a user must select an article, agree to terms of its use, and pay for this use. During a 24-hour access period, the user may view the article on IDEAL and may also download the article to his or her computer. The terms of use allow printing, copying, and storing the article for personal use.

For more information, see http://www.academicpress.com/www/ideal/aboutondemand.htm. Also, an IDEALOnDemand screen appears whenever a user tries to view an article without having licensed access.

Source: Academic Press, San Diego, 619/231-6616; http://www.academicpress.com.
 

CAS Improves Linking in ChemPort, Adds Convenience Features to STN on the Web
Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has inaugurated the ChemPort Reference Linking Service for scientific publishers, which adds free links from references in scientific articles to the world's largest sci-tech databases and is also free of charge to those publishers.

The links allow users to click on references within the Web versions of the publishers' journals and for no additional charge continue their research in the CAS or MEDLINE databases by viewing records for the cited articles. From there researchers can link directly to the full-text electronic document if it is from one of the more than 100 participating ChemPort publishers.

In a separate announcement, CAS and the other operators of STN International have announced that they have enhanced STN on the Web with new convenience features, including one-click access to unique functionality and full-text content that lets searchers explore beyond database record retrieval.

Improvements include the new Citing References button for one-click viewing of sources that cite the document the user has identified through an STN on the Web search; improved transcript features; a choice of transcript formats, including HTML, RTF, ASCII, and PDF; and Alert (SDI) Assistant, which walks users through the process of setting up an automatic current-awareness search for an STN database of interest.

Source: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, OH, 800/753-4227, 614/447-3731; http://www.cas.org.
 
 

Forums  for Learning

LC Calls for American Memory Fellows
The Library of Congress (LC) has announced its American Memory Fellows Program, an excellent opportunity for librarians, media specialists, and teachers to work with the LC to understand better how primary sources can enrich the learning experiences of students in grades 4 though 12. This is a yearlong professional development opportunity, the cornerstone of which is the American Memory Fellows Institute, held in Washington, DC, at the Library of Congress in two 6-day sessions, July 15­20 or July 22­27, 2001.

To apply, visit http://learning.loc.gov/learn/amfp. Applications must be postmarked by February 26.

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

ITI Will Replace NOM with InfoToday 2001
Information Today, Inc. (ITI) has announced the launch of InfoToday 2001, the global conference and exhibition on electronic information and knowledge management. InfoToday 2001 will take the place of the National Online Meeting (NOM) and will include expanded coverage of the electronic information industry as well as new coverage of the knowledge management field. InfoToday 2001 will be held at the New York Hilton & Towers on May 15­17, 2001.

InfoToday 2001 will be composed of three simultaneous conferences: National Online 2001, KnowledgeNets 2001, and E-Libraries 2001, which are designed to stand alone and which also highlight the common interests of those involved in these three fields, ITI reports.

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

E-Communities

Library of Congress Begins Electronic Archive
The Library of Congress (LC) has announced that beginning in January 2001, it will acquire its first complete set of an electronic journal archives.

The American Physical Society (APS), which represents more than 42,000 physicists and is a leader in the creation of e-journals, will soon begin electronically sending to the LC information from more than a century of physics research, including scientific history on the electron. The complete archives of eight of the world's premier physics journals will soon be freely accessible to all LC users. These archives will be continually updated, creating a repository of both historic articles and the latest physics research. The Library of Congress will serve as a permanent repository of the journals.

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

BiblioMondo Library Network Created
BiblioMondo, "the World's eLibrary Network," has been launched. It was created after software company Best-Seller acquired the European software company ALS International, Inc. and renamed the company BiblioMondo, Inc.

According to the announcement, BiblioMondo provides massively scalable networking for multimedia libraries (audio, video, and digital works) and access to their vast content via the Internet or corporate intranet. BiblioMondo has network nodes in London, Paris, Cologne, Amsterdam, Philadelphia, and Montreal.

Source: BiblioMondo, Inc., St. Laurent, PQ, Canada, 514/337-3000; http://www.bibliomondo.com.
 

Share Your Library-Related Research and Register It with MCB University Press
MCB University Press has announced its Library and Information Services Internet Research Register. If you are working on some research or a project and would like to tell your colleagues in the library community about it, MCB University Press invites you to share it online.

According to the announcement, the register will be built up into an invaluable resource, enabling the history of research in a particular field to be tracked. The register focuses on bottom-line research-into-practice. Users will be able to check on research already underway; identify research methodologies, possible collaborators, and sources of funding; and identify types of research and areas where further research is required.

The research register is hyperlinked to the LIS journals of MCB University Press via EMERALD, and is now also available for use through the public domain service LibraryLINK at http://www.liblink.co.uk.

Further details of the register and its editorial objectives are available at the site (http://www.literaticlub.co.uk/research/registers.html). You may register your research by completing the online questionnaire.

Source: MCB University Press, Ltd., West Yorkshire, England, 011-44-1274-777-700; Fax: 011-44-1274-785-200; http://www.mcb.co.uk.
 

Infotrieve's Virtual Library Platform Debuts
Infotrieve has announced its Virtual Library platform, a means of locating, selecting, and purchasing published literature in a customized and co-branded environment.

Operating as a free-to-search, pay-per-article system, the Virtual Library platform delivers other benefits to Infotrieve customers, including a free user account management system; a personalization engine to customize visuals and search parameters; free Table of Contents Alert Service to select articles from customer-preferred journals; the upcoming Article Finder, a bibliographic database containing over 22 million citations and over 10 million abstracts from 35,000 important scholarly journals; and a growing e-journal collection on a pay-per-article basis expected to reach several thousand journals this year.

Source: Infotrieve, Los Angeles, 800/422-4633, 310/208-1903; http://www.infotrieve.com.
 
 

Content Additions

Ovid Adds Nine New Titles to Books@Ovid
Ovid Technologies has announced that it has added nine new titles to Books@Ovid, bringing the total number of textbooks and references in the database to 26.

The nine new Books@Ovid titles are Practice of Geriatrics, third edition; Sleisenger & Fordtran's Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease, sixth edition; Surgery: Scientific Principles and Practice, second edition; Oski's Pediatrics, third edition; The 5-Minute Emergency Medicine Consult; Danforth's Obstetrics & Gynecology, eighth edition; The 5-Minute Pediatric Consult, second edition; Williams Textbook of Endocrinology, ninth edition; and Textbook of Gastroenterology, third edition.

Books@Ovid customers can subscribe to any number of individual titles in the database. User access is via the Web on Ovid Online.

Source: Ovid Technologies, New York, 800/950-2035, 212/563-3006; http://www.ovid.com.
 

SilverPlatter Beefs Up Database Collection
SilverPlatter Information, Inc. has announced plans to make the PASCAL SciTech database available as both an individual subset and as a package with PASCAL BioMed. The PASCAL package is published by INIST, a service unit of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).

PASCAL SciTech covers all aspects of the sciences and takes a multidisciplinary approach to research information. The PASCAL package covers all major international journals, reports, and conference proceedings in important cross-disciplinary fields. Its trilingual indexing allows keyword searching in French, English, or Spanish regardless of the original language of the article.

In a separate announcement, SilverPlatter revealed its plans to publish the scholarly art database Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA), from the J. Paul Getty Trust and CNRS. This database is scheduled for release during the second quarter of this year and will be available for Internet, intranet (ERL), or CD-ROM subscriptions.

BHA is the successor database to the International Repertory of the Literature of Art (RILA) and Répertoire d'Art et d'Archeologie (RAA), and includes all records from these databases plus new data covering 1990 to present. SilverPlatter's total BHA coverage spans 1973 to present.

Source: SilverPlatter Information, Inc., Norwood, MA, 800/343-0064, 781/769-2599; http://www.silverplatter.com.
 

e-psyche Is Now Available via EBSCOhost
EBSCO Publishing has announced that it has made the e-psyche database of psychology-related materials available via EBSCOhost.

The e-psyche database contains journal coverage for more than 3,500 titles and is updated weekly by EBSCO. In addition to journal coverage, the database also contains newsletters, dissertations, preprints, indexed Web sites, technical reports, and conference proceedings. e-psyche offers sophisticated linking capabilities providing access to author e-mail addresses, publisher URLs, full-text links, and citations. The majority of the backfiles date as far back as 1998, with several titles dating back even further.

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