Who Was There?

The content majors were there, including Dialog, Wilson, ProQuest, Thomson, EBSCO, OCLC, Swets Blackwell, and SIRS Mandarin. Most used their exhibit space to connect with established customers and used their time to "meet the people we need to see," rather than make major announcements. Wilson announced a new WilsonWeb design for its Web-search browser that allows students to search multiple databases (http://www.wilson.com). An added feature of the new product is an increased ability of library administrators to track user statistics.

The New York Times had a separate booth. In addition, its content was represented by its relationships with the traditional online research vendors. "We're here to check the B2B market for our content," said John Schwartz. "We wanted to learn more about reactions to the expanding partnership for our content and get a sense of the market."

Since many people also attend other library events, some made a point of noting an overlap of vendors at library and information conferences. Almost 50 percent of the InfoToday 2002 vendors were also at the Internet Librarian conference last fall. With the SLA and ALA conferences in June, and other library meetings on the horizon, conference planners need to look for ways to distinguish conference-hall exhibits. Overall, the library and information industry needs to attract new content, software, and service vendors.

Exhibit Hall Lectures

Three days of short—and free—lectures drew consistently packed audiences to the exhibit hall. There was frequently a crowd at the entrance of the 50-seat presentation area and an appreciative and attentive audience inside. Those vendors that lined the path to the area had a steady stream of people who were attracted to the free lectures.

Over 20 presentations covered practical information and advice on best practices in content management and organization, Web design, online trends, mapping information, library automation, and licensing. Lecturers pointed out the best Web sites for news, business, information professional literature, and new developments. "Lectures were tactical; they delivered concrete learning and could be put into action," said Nancy Kho of Global Reports.

Semantic Alley

For publishers, vendors offered categorization tools of increasing sophistication. Classification and metadata-tagging software seemed to be clustered along two aisles with the word "semantic" used to describe the technology. The show aisles attracted a constant flow of people who showed enthusiasm for the software and who demonstrated an appreciation of the features and functionality differences between the products.

Vivísimo (http://www.vivisimo.com) is a powerful tool for clustering intelligence for the rapid delivery and analysis of data. There is both increased need and national interest in software technologies that can handle huge, unstructured data sources. Vivísimo demonstrated its speed and hierarchical agility in handling and displaying unstructured data on the fly.

Engenium's Semetric Technology works with major news and defense databases (http://www.engenium.com). One of its first products is its HireReasoning software, which was recently awarded product of the year by Human Resource Executive magazine.

For those who think of Inxight (http://www.inxight.com) as visualization software, take a look at its Inxight Categorizer. The product has a strong natural language processing system that automatically classifies documents by subjects.

Other products attracting attention were ClearForest (http://www.clearforest.com) and epixtech (http://www.epixtech.com).

Expertise Identified

Need to know who knows what within your organization? Take a look at the elegant solutions offered by Tacit (http://www.tacit.com) or the KnowledgeLead software by Cadenza (http://www.knowledgelead.com). The companies produce software technologies to extract and deliver intelligence by identifying expertise within organizations from multiple e-mails, as well as document and content management text formats. Communities of interest and practice have been hot topics in KM circles. Having this type of software makes creating, connecting, and organizing communities of interest doable projects for corporations and large organizations.

Products for Publishers

LingoMotors (http://lingomotors.com) gives publishers a choice. They can use the TurboCat products to fully automate the categorization of documents or retain full or partial control and review of individual categorization assignments. Check out the TurboCat FLASH video for a clear explanation of categorization technology along with a sense of humor.

Other specialized products of interest to producers and managers of document sources are WizSoft (http://www.wizsoft.com), which connects search technology, data mining, and analysis technology; and Blue Angel Technologies' MetaStar product, which allows users to bring together diverse collections of documents from disparate locations (http://blueangeltech.com).

Visualization Attracts

People think graphically. The increasing number and variety of visualization software tools now gives users a new way to "see" and act on large quantities of diverse information sources. Antarcti.ca (http://www.antarcti.ca) creates easily recognizable shapes, including those that resemble linked islands of knowledge, architectural formats, and even double-helix organic forms. The Plumb Design Thinkmap platform (http://www.thinkmap.com) transforms static data into "engaging, animated displays that encourage interaction." Visit the Experience Music Project (of Seattle) to see a Thinkmap in action (http://www.emplive.com/digitalcollection).

Is Less More?

There were significantly fewer vendors and exhibitors this year. Several vendors commented that this wasn't entirely a negative factor. "With the demise of the dot-coms, there are fewer people pitching to us," said Jeff Riedel of ProQuest. "We are largely here to value our clients."

During the dot-com boom, there were floors of exhibitors with spacious double-wide booths, large display islands, and splashy eye-catching signage. Visitors needed several shopping bags to take home all of the tchotchkes, gimmicks, notepads, stick-ums, and freebies. This year, the exhibit hall was in a highly concentrated space with narrow aisles, smaller booths, few large display islands, and a paucity of giveaways. Is this a bad thing? No, not really.

Attendees want to know what's hot. Who are the new vendors? Who has a great new product? Getting a freebie pad of stick-ums isn't going to make or break an attendee's interest in products, desire to make contact with vendor representatives, or need to just view the information industry landscape. One vendor commented that in the past, they were run off their feet with "visitors" and ran out of giveaways on the first day. 2002 attendees are the qualified, known customers vendors want to touch base with and the type of new contacts they want to make.
 

Gail Dykstra is a consultant in content business development and digital rights management. Her e-mail address is gail.dykstra@dykstraresearch.com.