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Vol. 20 No. 11 — December 2003

Taylor & Francis Buys Swets & Zeitlinger

Royal Swets & Zeitlinger announced the sale of the publishing business and assets of Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers (SZP) and A.A. Balkema to the Taylor & Francis Group, a specialist publisher of scientific, academic, and professional books and journals. SZP will continue to operate out of its Lisse, Netherlands-based office before relocating to the Leiden area.

Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers was founded in 1916 and produces English-language journals and books in the specialist areas of engineering, ophthalmology, and neuropsychology as well as the life and social sciences. SZP has a staff of 37, publishes 41 journal titles and 100 new books per year, and has a backlist of around 2,000 book titles.

According to the announcement, the Taylor & Francis Group was particularly attracted to the high quality of SZP's publication list. It will enhance the company's existing scientific and engineering portfolios as well as reinforce the group's position in the STM book and journal market segments. The acquisition of SZP is consistent with Taylor & Francis' strategy of growing its portfolio of "must-have" information.

Source: Royal Swets & Zeitlinger, Lisse, Netherlands, 011-31-252-435-111; http://www.swets.nl.

Openly Informatics Partners with Sirsi

Sirsi Corp. announced a technology partnership with Openly Informatics, Inc., a provider of OEM linking software and services. Sirsi has selected Openly Informatics OpenURL linking technology as the core engine for Sirsi Resolver, a solution for OpenURL resolution and linking.

Offered as a stand-alone product and integrated with Sirsi Rooms Context Management Solutions, Sirsi Resolver can be configured to work seamlessly with all of Sirsi's online products, including iBistro, iLink, Web2, and the new Sirsi SingleSearch. Using information provided by these searching tools, the Openly Informatics engine powers Sirsi Resolver to deliver deep-linking access to full-text content for tens of thousands of journal articles and online services for books and all other bibliographic formats.

Source: Sirsi Corp., Huntsville, AL, 256/704-7000; http://www.sirsi.com.

State of Ohio Recognizes LexisNexis U.S.

LexisNexis U.S. announced that it has received the prestigious Thomas Edison Award from the state of Ohio. Gov. Bob Taft presented the award during ceremonies at the USAF Museum in Dayton. Ohio also honored eight small companies with Emerging Technology Awards.

"Ohio's leadership in technological innovation rests on the continued efforts of technology-based businesses such as those receiving Edison and Emerging Technology Awards," Taft said. "I commend these companies on their outstanding achievements."

The Edison Award recognized LexisNexis' global leadership in fostering or implementing innovation and in positively utilizing technology to impact its operation and the community.

Source: LexisNexis, Dayton, OH, 937/865-6800; http://www.lexisnexis.com.

Swets Blackwell Achieves COUNTER Level 2 Compliance

Swets Blackwell announced that it is the first subscription agent member to achieve level 2 compliance with COUNTER's international e-journal usage standards. Swets has signed a formal declaration of compliance with COUNTER, an international initiative launched in March 2002 to serve librarians, publishers, and intermediaries by facilitating the recording and exchange of online usage statistics.

COUNTER's (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources) specifications included data elements already collected by SwetsWise, Swets Blackwell's Web-based modular service, for the procurement, access, and management of subscriptions and online information. Covering more than 7,660 full-text publications from 272 publishers, SwetsWise's participation also increases the number of titles and publishers for which COUNTER-compliant usage reports are now available (http://projectcounter.org).

Source: Swets Blackwell, Lisse, Netherlands, 011-31-252-435-111; http://www.swetsblackwell.com.

Factiva Partners with Verity

Factiva and Verity, Inc. have announced an agreement that will help global enterprise customers organize their intellectual capital assets.

The companies will jointly allow enterprise customers to integrate a set of Factiva's industry-specific taxonomies with K2 Enterprise, Verity's intellectual capital management software. In addition, customers can gain access to Factiva's global collection of nearly 8,000 content sources and engage the taxonomy and technical experts of Factiva Client Solutions.

Under the terms of the partnership, Factiva will also provide its content and taxonomy expertise, including strategy and implementation that are adaptable to the specific needs and rules of an organization, for use with K2 Enterprise. Factiva will offer its established general business taxonomy for companies, industries, regions, and subjects, as well as its recently announced specialized pharmaceutical and healthcare taxonomy. Factiva Client Solutions, including its taxonomy specialists, will now be available to assist with Verity implementations.

Source: Factiva, Princeton, NJ, 609/627-2000; http://www.factiva.com.

The Wall Street Journal Announces New Marketing Initiatives

Dow Jones & Co. announced new integrated sales and marketing initiatives for The Wall Street Journal and The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com. In addition, Dow Jones will begin reporting its U.S. print and applicable online subscribers together in its latest Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) statement. This brings total paid U.S. circulation under ABC rules for The Wall Street Journal to 2.1 million, the highest paid circulation in The Journal's 114-year history.

Over the past several years, while many publishers have seen circulation declines, the U.S. print Journal has held steady at 1.8 million. During the same period, the online Journal has grown to its current record paid circulation of 686,000. The international print editions add 175,000. The global Wall Street Journal franchise, therefore, currently has a print and online circulation of more than 2.7 million worldwide, of which 2.1 million are reported under U.S. ABC rules.

Source: Dow Jones & Co., New York, 212/416-2000; http://www.dowjones.com.

Emerald Acquires Journal, Handbook

Emerald, an international management and information science publisher, has announced the acquisition of the Journal of Business Strategy (JBS) and the Handbook of Business Strategy.

Written for senior managers, the Journal of Business Strategy provides in-depth articles that help the reader develop successful business strategies. Each issue focuses on practical applications of business theory, forecasting, business development, trend-spotting, and competitive intelligence.

JBS is one of 17 journals in the Emerald ManagementFirst "Strategy" collection. Authors/contributors to JBS also receive access to the Emerald ManagementFirst site.

Published annually, the Handbook of Business Strategy summarizes current strategic management issues in one comprehensive reference book. Marketing, branding, leadership, and growth strategies are covered as well as articles on newer strategic areas essential to any business, including knowledge management, corporate governance, working with consultants, and CRM.

Source: Emerald, Bradford, UK, 011-44-1274-777700; http://www.emeraldinsight.com.

Ovid Launches Taiwan Regional Data Center

Ovid Technologies, Inc., National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), and Flysheet Information Services, Inc. announced the establishment of a new Ovid Regional Data Center (RDC) in Taiwan. The RDC will be hosted by NCTU and Flysheet Information Services, based in HsinChu. Ovid's new data center will support customers in Taiwan, and the company has plans to support additional Asia Pacific markets.

This is the fourth Ovid RDC and the second outside North America. It is a complete mirror of Ovid data centers in Salt Lake City; Boston; and Manchester, England.

The new facility will provide clinicians, researchers, and healthcare professionals with fast, reliable, and continuous access to Ovid's collection of medical and health sciences journals, books, and databases, including its premier products Journals@
Ovid and Books@Ovid. With local server access, customers will see increased speed and reliability, faster retrieval of current content, up-to-date tools, and reduced server downtime. According to the announcement, built-in redundancy will allow the service to remain available during maintenance and scheduled downtimes.

Source: Ovid, New York, 646/674-6300; http://www.ovid.com.

BL Announces Historic Change in Legal Deposit Law

The British Library announced that a Private Members Bill, introduced in December 2002, has passed all its parliamentary hurdles and became law when it received Royal Assent. The Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 extends previous legal deposit legislation passed nearly 100 years ago in 1911. It enshrines the principle that electronic or e-publications and other non-print materials will be deposited in the future under secondary legislation. The act ensures that these publications can be saved as part of the published archive and become an important resource for future generations of researchers and scholars.

The introduction of the bill followed a BL-led campaign to bring the law up-to-date with the current world of publishing. The new act is generic and provides for secondary legislation to be approved by Parliament. This will ensure that non-print formats are included within the legal deposit system.

Since 1911, the six legal deposit libraries have been able to collect copies of all printed material published in the U.K. However, an increasing volume of important material had begun to be published in electronic and other non-print formats. These fell outside the scope of the 1911 Act and were not therefore being comprehensively collected. A 2002 study forecast a massive increase in online publications, predicting a near quadrupling (from 52,000 to 193,000) in the number of electronic journal issues published in the U.K. between 2002 and 2005.

Source: The British Library, London, 011-44-20-7412-7000; http://www.bl.uk.

Library Community Opposes Bill to Restrict Data Access

The Association of Research Libraries announced that Prue Adler, its associate executive director, voiced the opposition of the library community to the recently introduced "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act" (H.R. 3261). According to the announcement, she spoke on behalf of five of the nation's leading library organizations: the American Association of Law Libraries, ALA, the Association of Research Libraries, the Medical Library Association, and SLA.

For more than 200 years, facts have been in the public domain. The proposed legislation "would end this long-standing policy that has allowed the public and private sectors to flourish, advance research, and create a vibrant marketplace." Access to the broad array of research information, Adler noted, is critical to the health and wealth of society.

According to the announcement, the approach taken in H.R. 3261 is strikingly at odds with how scientific and research discovery is conducted. The scientific, research, and library communities increasingly support open access, which encourages the sharing of data and information to promote the advancement of science and innovation.

Source: Association of Research Libraries, Washington, DC, 202/296-2296; http://www.arl.org.

MacArthur Foundation Makes Grant

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced a grant of $600,000 over 3 years to Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society to explore options for the future of copyright in a digital environment. The grant is made through the foundation's special funding initiative on intellectual property and the long-term protection of the public domain.

The grant is in support of the Digital Media in Cyberspace Project, which is designed to help increase understanding of the legal, business, and economic aspects of how copyright might operate in the digital environment in the future. The project will look at possible future copyright scenarios and analyze the comparative advantages of each in terms of economic incentives, effects on the business landscape, impact on the interests of consumers, and legal and other costs involved in implementation.

Source: MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, 312/726-8000; http://www.macfound.org.

LexisNexis UK Uses XyEnterprise XML Web Services

XyEnterprise, a developer of XML content management and enterprise publishing software, announced that its XML Professional Publisher (XPP) Web Services technology has been deployed to support a sophisticated XML content management and publishing solution for LexisNexis UK. This solution supports LexisNexis UK in the seamless publishing and delivery of its legal, tax, and regulatory services and publications to a wide variety of customers and markets.

The XyEnterprise Web Services-based systems, in production use for case reports, enable LexisNexis UK to deliver editorial content from its Content@ Content Management System (also provided by XyEnterprise) to Letterpart, a U.K.-based publishing services provider. Letterpart hosts the XPP application that composes the source XML data for final print and Adobe PDF publication.

Source: XyEnterprise, Reading, MA, 781/756-4400; http://www.xyenterprise.com.

Publisher Axel Springer Teams with NewsStand

NewsStand, Inc., a digital distributor for newspapers and magazines worldwide, and publisher Axel Springer have teamed to launch digital editions of Sunday newspaper WELT am SONNTAG and daily newspaper DIE WELT (http://www.welt.de). Now, complete digital versions of the German newspapers can be read on a desktop, laptop, or Tablet PC, or they can be printed out page by page.

The first digital editions of WELT am SONNTAG and DIE WELT were made available in November. Readers can download their e-editions at http://www.newsstand.de and http://www.newsstand.com.

The digital editions feature the exact layout of the print edition. Readers can use digital functionality such as keyword search, direct jumps to desired sections, article continuations with one mouse click, rapid scan of two-page spreads, and zoom-in capability for items of interest.

Source: NewsStand, Inc., Austin, TX, 512/334-5106; http://www.newsstand.com.

ProQuest, NCBI Offer Access to ProQuest Medical Library

ProQuest Information and Learning, in cooperation with NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information), is now offering PubMed LinkOut capabilities in ProQuest Medical Library. ProQuest Information and Learning, a unit of ProQuest Co., creates and distributes databases to libraries and educational institutions worldwide.

ProQuest Medical Library is a ProQuest full-text journal database that provides in-depth coverage of all the major clinical and allied healthcare specialties, including nursing, pediatrics, neurology, pharmacology, cardiology, physical therapy, and many others. Coverage is global and includes key titles such as The Lancet and Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

PubMed is a database of citations and abstracts to biomedical and other life science journal literature, developed and managed by NCBI at the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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

Elsevier Adopts COUNTER Code of Practice

Elsevier has announced that its ScienceDirect product will comply with Release 1 of the international COUNTER Code of Practice, which governs the recording and exchange of online usage data and primarily focuses on journals and databases.

The COUNTER Code of Practice is supported by a global organization of librarians, publishers, and their professional organizations. According to the announcement, it promotes credible, consistent, and compatible measurement of the usage data from online information resources around the globe.

COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources) is a multi-agency, not-for-profit organization whose objective is to develop and maintain a single, internationally accepted, extendible Code of Practice.

The register of COUNTER-compliant vendors is available on the COUNTER Web site (http://www.projectcounter.org).

Source: Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 011-31-20-485-3757; http://www.elsevier.com.