Information Today Inc. Acquires Online Inc.
Further consolidating its dominant position as the publisher and conference producer to the information industry, Information Today Inc. followed its acquisition of ONLINE magazine last October by acquiring the remaining assets of Online Inc., the founder of ONLINE. These assets include two magazines—EContent and EMedia—and several trade shows, including Web Search University, Intranets, and Buying & Selling eContent. They will now be part of Online, a Division of Information Today Inc., and will remain in the Wilton, Connecticut offices. The Intranets conference had already been co-located with KMWorld, scheduled to take place in November 2002 in Santa Clara, California. Three Web Search Universities remain on the calendar¾September in Arlington, Virginia, October in Chicago, Illinois, and November in Dallas, Texas. The Online division will focus more on the business-to-business marketplace, while existing Information Today products are more oriented towards library, information professional, and online searcher communities. The acquisition parallels recent consolidations throughout the information industry. [www.infotoday.com, www.websearchu.com, www.kmworld.com]
 

Smartlogik Sold to Applied Psychology Research Ltd.: Goes from Dan to Dan
The last remaining vestige of M.A.I.D, Smartlogik plc, has been sold to a privately held U.K. company, Applied Psychology Research Ltd. Founded and taken public by Dan Wagner, M.A.I.D changed its name to The Dialog Corporation when it purchased Dialog and DataStar from Knight-Ridder. Another name change occurred, to BrightStation, when Thomson bought the information assets of Profound, Dialog, and DataStar. Hoping to capitalize on its technology, BrightStation sold off several e-commerce business units (Sparza and OfficeShopper) and renamed itself Smartlogik. The Muscat and Insight technology underpinnings were insufficient to sustain growth and to create profits, resulting in the sale of the company. Applied Psychology Research (APR) expects to continue its Youmeus relationship with Convera, believing that its semantic network technologic complements Smartlogick's classification and search technologies. The relationship with ISI established by Smartlogik will also continue under the APR aegis. APR's Youmeus "humanized" software specializes in understanding users with sophisticated, proprietary technology and generates intelligent, dynamic profiles of users based on their explicit requirements along with their implicit tastes and preferences. Dan Wagner is now CEO of venda.com.The president of Applied Psychology Research is Dr. Daniel Brown. [www.youmeus.com/apr]
 

Whizbang! Labs Goes Under
The information extraction technology company, Whizbang! Labs, precipitously closed its doors in mid-May, citing a lack of profits and funding. The creator of FlipDog, the fifth most visited recruitment site that it sold to Monster.com last year, Whizbang had contracts with LexisNexis for its Advertising Redbooks and Directory of Corporate Affiliations, with Dun & Bradstreet , and the U.S. Department of Labor. Whizbang's ability to spider the Web and internal sources of information, extract data, categorize it, and put it into a usable context was cutting edge, but expensive. Although the company is out of business, it has not declared bankruptcy and intends to continue providing its technology to existing customers. The ongoing plan is to sell the intellectual property, the software, and to provide ongoing opportunities for its very talented staff. [www.whizbang.com]
 

Scholars Portal Project Launches
Seven ARL libraries¾University of Southern California, University of California-San Diego, Dartmouth College, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, Iowa State University, and University of Utah¾in conjunction with Fretwell-Downing Inc., are joining forces to create the Scholars Portal Project. The goal of the project is to provide software tools for academic communities to have a single point of access to the Internet for high quality resources. The initial focus of the Scholars Portal Project will be on deploying FD's ZPORTAL to deliver cross-domain searching of licensed and openly available content. [www.arl.org or judith@arl.org]
 

SOCIAL SCIENCE/HUMANITIES

Through an agreement with Condé Nast Publications Inc., Gale Group is adding The New Yorker to its InfoTrac databases. This agreement is one in a series that expands coverage in Gale periodical databases, including those with Scientific American Inc., the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and Aspen Publishers. The new licensing agreements add more than 150 magazines, newsletters, and other publications to the more than 7,700 periodicals available through Gale products. More than 1,400 have been added since January 2000. [www.gale.com]

The American Psychological Association's electronic journal article database, PsycARTICLES, is now available on the OCLC FirstSearch service. PsycARTICLES covers general psychology, plus specialized basic, applied, clinical, and theoretical research. It includes searchable full-text articles from 41 journals published by the American Psychological Association and allied organizations. Seven more journals are planned for inclusion in 2002. Coverage will increase from the 1999-2001 span available at release to include content back to 1998 and beyond. [OCLC: 614/764-6000, www.oclc.org; APA: www.apa.org]

HW Wilson's Biography Reference Bank (BRB) has been enhanced to retrieve data from the full line of WilsonWeb databases, making any article about any individual on any WilsonWeb database accessible. These articles include biographical profiles, features, interviews, essays, book reviews, performance reviews, speeches, poems, and obituaries. Any name in Wilson's name authority file is accessible, with 308,000 currently searchable. BRB expands with new coverage four times a week. [800/367-6770, 718/588-8400, www.hwwilson.com]

Fundación Cisneros, has launched the Colección Cisneros Web site [www.coleccioncisneros.org], which includes a major collection of modern Latin American art. Fundación Cisneros is a Caracas-based philanthropic organization dedicated to Latin American efforts. The Colección Cisneros contains some 1,500 works, primarily modern and contemporary art, with an emphasis on Latin America. The site is available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. [212/717-6080]
 

SEARCH ENGINES

Software start-up, Navagent, Inc. has released its Surf3D Web search tool that creates animated three-dimensional views of a Web search for users to see an overview and preview of Web destinations. The software works with most search engines and lets users search the Web for images, news, lists, auctions, MP3 files, PDF documents, and Web page summaries. The program displays networks of nodes and links, color, shapes, symbols, and captions to highlight information. Search results and Web sites can be navigated as if going through cyberspace with visual depth. [415/457-6659, www.surf3D.com]

Databeacon 5.3 is a new release of Databeacon's data publishing, analysis, and reporting software. The new version addresses specific data publishing needs of organizations such as Nielsen//Net Ratings that provide interactive data on the Internet or via extranets. Features include the interactive ability to view data values as a percentage of a row total, a percentage of a column total, or as a percentage of a grand total. The release offers a new Performance Index view of data, and introduces new calculations based on the distinct count of a category item, often used when publishing survey data and incidence reports [613/729-4480, www.databeacon.com]

trueSpace5 3D is a custom version of Caligari Corporation's authoring software for Adobe Atmosphere. Atmosphere is currently available as a public beta and is a Web tool for authoring, viewing, and interacting with 3 dimensional worlds. trueSpace5 combines modeling, rendering, and animation features with an interface based on direct manipulation of objects. It is used for product design, graphic design, video games, and 3D-world design. [800/351-7620, 650/390-9600, www.caligari.com]
 

PORTALS & INTRANETS

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded OCLC Online Computer Center a three-year, $9 million grant to build a Web-based, public access computing portal for public libraries and other organizations that provide open access to information. The new portal builds on the foundation's U.S. Library Program, which is providing computers with Internet access to over 10,000 U.S. libraries. The portal will address the ongoing needs of public libraries for managing hardware and software, implementing advanced applications, training staff and patrons, and delivering digital library services. [614/764-6096, www.oclc.org]

Four new taxonomies have been added as extensions to Applied Semantics, Inc.'s Auto-Categorizer product. They supplement the Open Directory Project (ODP) and International Press Telecommunications Council (ITPC) taxonomy portfolio, and include Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), Standard Industrial Classification System (SIC), Universal Standard Products and Services Classification (UNSPSC), and Geography Codes. These taxonomies are plug-and-play modules that can be individually licensed. Using the Taxonomy Administrator tool, users can also modify and extend the taxonomies for specific applications, or contract with the Applied Semantics' Professional Services group to do so. [www.appliedsemantics.com]

RetrievalWare 7.0, the latest version of Convera's search, retrieval, and categorization system, combines multimedia and cross-lingual search capabilities in a single product. It simultaneously searches and organizes all data types (e.g., text, video, image, and audio files) in multiple languages from a single user interface. RetrievalWare also delivers interoperability with enterprise applications using XML. New features include enhanced semantic network-based categorization, cross-lingual concept-based search, multimedia search, enhanced security, XML API support, and COM support. [800/788-7758, info@convera.com, www.convera.com]

Single-user versions of Data Harmony's Thesaurus Master™ and Machine Aided Indexer (M.A.I.) software are now available. M.A.I. is a natural language processing tool that assigns indexing terms to individual documents. TM helps with creating and maintaining a thesaurus or controlled vocabulary. They are compatible with any Java-enabled server, and Java APIs enable TM and M.A.I. to work with relational database management systems. [800/926-8328, 505/998-0800, www.dataharmony.com, www.accessinn.com]
 

ONLINE SERVICES

The Thomson Corporation has filed a registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a preliminary prospectus with securities regulatory authorities in Canada regarding a proposed public offering of common shares by Thomson and principal shareholder, The Woodbridge Company Limited. In connection with the offering, Thomson has applied to list its common shares on the New York Stock Exchange. Proceeds from the offering are expected to range from $1.3-1.5 billion. Thomson will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by Woodbridge. Proceeds Thomson does receive will be used for general corporate purposes, including repayment of existing debts. [203/328-8339, www.thomson.com]

Dialog and Gale Group have formed an alliance to build new online products and services for worldwide academic and public markets. The first set of products and services are expected to be available mid-2002, when further information will be released. The alliance seeks to leverage Dialog's content, brand, and technology with Gale's market position and sales support infrastructure for its worldwide markets. The alliance is described as comprehensive and long-term. [Dialog: 800/3-DIALOG, 919/462-8600, www.dialog.com; Gale: 248/699-8554, www.gale.com]

The National Post, one of two daily nationwide newspapers in Canada, has been added to Dialog's family of online services. The National Post focuses on news, business, and commentary, with a daily readership approaching one million. The newspaper's business and financial news section, The Financial Post, has already been available on Dialog services but is now available in full-text along with other sections of the paper. Besides being part of Dialog's NewsRoom database, The National Post may be searched on Dialog in Files 601 (early bird service) and 727 (archives). The Financial Post continues to be available in File 727. No longer online with Dialog are Washington Post (File 146) and Baton Rouge Advocate (File 382). [800/3-DIALOG, 919/462-8600, www.dialog.com]

ProQuest has added Village Voice publications to its Alt-Press Watch Database. Included are The Village Voice, LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly, City Pages (Minneapolis-St. Paul), Cleveland Free Times, OC Weekly (Orange County, California),and Nashville Scene. Coverage begins with January 2002 except for Village Voice, which has a backfile dating from its first issue in1955.

PeopleSoft, Inc. has joined the Factiva Partner Network. Under this partnership, Factiva will provide a content solution for the PeopleSoft 8.4 Enterprise Portal application. Through Factiva Search Module and Factiva Track Module, global news and business information has been integrated as Web services into the PeopleSoft 8.4 Enterprise Portal. PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal customers can now provide users access to Factiva's content. [646/742-3405, www.factiva.com]

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts' Web-based bibliographic management tool, RefWorks, has been enhanced. The tool helps users create a personal, searchable online database of references. References can be imported into RefWorks from a variety of platforms and sources; RefWorks is then used to format a manuscript and create a bibliography. RefWorks is compatible with nearly all major online services. Additional features include pricing models for unlimited site-wide or department-wide access, data sharing via the Web, automatic updates, browser independence, and remote user access. Enhancements include the ability to create multiple folders in their databases; check for duplicate records; globally edit  for author names, descriptors, and periodicals; add user-defined descriptors to multiple records at once; and define fields. [301/961-6761, www.csa.com]

Access Imagery Inc. is a new company specializing in digitizing library materials and creating associated metadata. Scott Wheelhouse, creator of the scanning, image handling, and cataloging processes used at MARC Link, has used this experience to develop the technology and processes for Access Imagery. John Merrill, MARC Link chairman, is president. Services include digitizing large format items, manuscripts, slides/transparencies, photos, and text, including OCR text file conversions. On-site scanning of materials is available, and files can be formatted for both access and preservation purposes. [800/687-1265, 801/356-8220]

ebrary has partnered with three international resellers—Coutts, iGroup, and E-libro.net—to distribute its ebrarian for Libraries service to global markets. Under terms of the agreements, Coutts Library Services will resell the ebrarian service to libraries throughout the U.K., Europe, North America, and the Middle East; iGroup is distributing the service throughout Asia, Australia, and New Zealand; and E-libro.net is distributing the ebrarian service throughout Latin America and Spanish language libraries in the U.S. [www.ebrary.com, www.couttsinfo.com, www.igroupnet.com, www.e-libro.net]
 

LEGAL

LexisNexis has released a new Matthew Bender treatise on electronic commerce and communications by Perkins, Smith & Cohen, LLP's Stephen Y. Chow. The treatise, E-Commerce and Communications: Transactions in Digital Information, addresses the collision of intellectual property, commercial, and communications law in cyberspace and on new statutes, such as the Uniform Transactions Act (UCITA) and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA). Areas examined include property rights, the Uniform Commercial Code, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, state contract law initiatives, challenges to copyright law, privacy, and security, and more. [937/865-7229, www.lexisnexis.com]

LexisNexis has enhanced its lexisONE Web site for solo and small-firm attorneys who need access to legal research material and practice-management services. The site offers an improved layout and design, plus features including an improved Free Case Law section; new registration process with fewer fields to complete; a new "Free or Enhanced ... Decide What's Best for You!" chart which shows the benefits of accessing the fully featured version of a case found via Free Case Law or running the same search at lexis.com for expanded results; and a consolidated Your Account and Subscriptions section for easier access to lexisONE profiles and easier management of subscriptions for Electronic Advance Sheets or Automated Forms. Also included are site areas offering five years worth of free case law, 6,000 free legal forms, legal research products, and news. [937/865-7574, www.lexisnexis.com]
 

SCIENTIFIC & TECHNICAL

ISI and Swets Blackwell have announced a linking agreement under which the full-text content in Swets Blackwell's SwetsnetNavigator e-journal service will increase ISI full-text links to scholarly journals. Users will be able to link from the ISI Web of Science and ISI Current Contents Connect components of ISI Web of Knowledge to the full text of journal articles in SwetsnetNavigator. ISI also announced the release of ISI Proceedings version 2.0 with cited references for records back to 1999, expanded to include meeting abstracts, and with new search capabilities that are found in ISI Web of Science version 5.0.  [ISI: 800/336-4474, 215/386-0100, www.isinet.com; Swets Blackwell: www.swetsblackwell.com]

An enhanced version of FIZ Karlsruhe's Beilstein database has been reloaded onto the STN service. Beilstein is an organic chemistry database of information from the Beilstein Handbook combined with primary organic chemistry literature. As part of a major upgrade to the database, a new Pharmacological and Ecological Data subject area has been added. The database has also been restructured for better searching, new topics have been added, and new compounds incorporated. To provide comprehensive coverage of the new Pharmacological and Ecological Data subject area, 60 extra journals have been added. The database will be updated quarterly. [+49-7247-808-513, www.fiz-karlsruhe.de, www.stn-international.de]

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has announced a new STN Easy Patent Tab feature, designed for those who are not patent search experts but need to access patent records. STN Easy users can now select the Patent Tab and search for patents by inventor, patent assignee, patent number, keywords, and more. Online help message and examples are available to help with choosing search terms specific to patents. Once a patent is located, the electronic full text of many are said to be accessible directly from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office at no additional charge. [800/753-4227, 614/447-3731, www.cas.org, http://stneasy.cas.org]

STN on the Web users may now apply BLAST searching to sequence information in the CAS Registry file and document records in STN databases. After identifying a sequence similar to a queried sequence, users can view associated published research and patents in a range of bioscience related databases on the STN network and link to the full-text of documents via ChemPort. Users of BLAST searching in the CAS registry have access to several information components provided by CAS analysts, including proteins and nucleic acids with modifications on the side chains that render them chemically different from the "wild type"; separate entries for sequences that differ by even one amino acid or base; names assigned by CAS scientists to reflect origin, function, clone, and other information available in the patent or journal record for the sequence; and a unique class of sequences generated by proprietary CAS algorithms that read chemical structures and translate them into sequences. [800/753-4227, 614/447-3731, www.cas.org, http://stnweb.cas.org]
 

BIOMEDICAL

Under an alliance between Dialog and BioSpace, Inc., Dialog has made part of its content available through BioSpace's public Web site, which provides information and resources in the life sciences arena. From anywhere within the site, users may click through to the Dialog site and search for articles, reports, and documents in relevant Dialog databases. Users may purchase the full text of documents online via credit cards. Initial Dialog content available to BioSpace users includes clinical databases, worldwide patents and related intellectual property information, world news focused on pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and scientific literature. [Dialog: 800/3- DIALOG, 919/462-8600, www.dialog.com; BioSpace: www.biospace.com]

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is a recent customer for data visualization company, Antarcti.ca Systems. For the NLM project, Antarcti.ca will build a visual data map for DIRLINE (Directory of Information Resources Online), which contains location and descriptive information about organizations, research resources, projects, and databases concerned with biomedicine, chemical, environmental, toxicology, and health information. NLM has more than 12 million journal article references and abstracts, plus a collection of over six million items, including books, journals, technical reports, manuscripts, microfilm, photographs, and images. [NLM: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/; Antarcti.ca: http://antarcti.ca]

Ovid Technologies announced it has added electronic versions of 115 leading medical text and reference books, including Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine to Books@Ovid through a licensing agreement with McGraw Hill Professional. [800/950-2035. www.ovid.com]

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) has posted a free Web site that provides information on the topic of anthrax. The site is part of CSA's Hot Topic series of free informational Web resources. It features an overview of the subject, summaries of key research articles, a glossary of terms, and links to related Web sites. [800/843-7751, 301/961-6700, www.csa.com]
 

BUSINESS & FINANCE

ECNext and content aggregator, Nerac.com, have formed a partnership under which Nerac.com will remarket the ECNext Knowledge Center. The ECNext Knowledge Center provides electronic access to thousands of country, company, and market intelligence reports, industry newsletters, and business news. [614/932-7007, www.ecnext.com]

Moody's KMV and Bureau van Dijk are partnering to provide a complete risk management solution that establishes a data link from Moody's Financial Analyst to BvD's company financial database, OSIRIS. The OSIRIS database provides quarterly and annual financials, ownership, news, ratings, earnings, official 10K and 10Q SEC filings and stock data for publicly quoted companies, including banks and insurance firms. [Bureau van Dijk: 212/797-7120, www.bvdny.com, www.bvdp.com; Moody's KMV: 574/472-5716, www.MoodysKMV.com]

SkyMinder 's New Release offers users enhanced functionalities and features for CRIBIS Corp.'s SkyMinder online business information provider. Enhancements include multiple function searching, simultaneous searching, more news, precise industry searches, and a new look and feel. [813/636-0981, info@skyminder.com, www.skyminder.com]

LexisNexis has added licensed content from Business Monitor International (BMI). BMI is a source of news, analysis, data, and forecasts on financial, economic, and political developments in emerging markets worldwide. Coverage includes news backed by weekly, monthly, and quarterly macroeconomic performance reports and political risk and market forecasts. LexisNexis users may also access BMI's analyses and forecasts on political and economic conditions in 21 countries in four global regions—Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. [301/951-4603, www.lexisnexis.com]

NewsEdge and The American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) have formed a partnership under which NewsEdge intends to make the Chamber's Web site the premier English-language source of Japan-related information for international businesses. NewsEdge-delivered content is now available on the ACCJ's public Web site [www.accj.or.jp]. The content includes customized new Editor's Picks covering Japan business topics, with other Editor's Picks including news from global sources vital to the interests of international firms active in Japan. [781/229-3000, www.newsedge.com]

Worldwide Corporate Actions is Exchange Data International's (EDI) latest product, designed to take account of 45 crucial events on a daily basis, which are collated through EDI's extensive links with over 130 local exchanges. Information sources are verified and collated into a single delivery stream. Typical information includes AGMS, liquidations, consolidations, mergers, and acquisitions. Data is distributed to desktop either via the Web or as a direct feed to an internal database or system. Features include a Portfolio Import Facility, search facilities, an Event Calendar, and an Event Announcement. [+44 (0)207 269-9150, www.exchange-data.com]
 

ALLIANCES & DEALS

Copyright Clearance Center's (CCC) Rightslink Permissions have been added to the Web site for the Christian Science Monitor's online edition, csmonitor.com. Rightslink Permissions will help the Christian Science Monitor instantly license reuse of copyrighted content. Site users can obtain immediate permission to reproduce articles by clicking on a rights and permissions link located near the content. Rightslink Permissions is also touted for its easy install feature. [CCC: 978/750-8400, www.copyright.com; Christian Science Monitor: 617/450-3746, www.csmonitor.com]

The Software & Information Industry Association, SIIA, has acquired the New York New Media Association, a community of nearly 6,000 professionals from 3,200 New York area companies involved in technology and new media. [www.siia.net]

OCLC Digital & Preservation Resources will use Olive Software to help libraries provide online searchable access to their historic newspapers so that these resources can be preserved and Web-accessible. The software builds an index of every article, photograph, and page, to convert newspapers in print or microfilm to digital format then deliver back to the library for Web publishing. Digitized collections are searchable down to the article level. Once a collection is digitized and prepared for online access, a library can mount the collection on its own server or choose to host the collection on an OCLC server [OCLC: 614/764-6000, www.oclc.org; Olive Software, Inc.: www.olivesoftware.com]

Factiva and MediaMap have expanded their strategic relationship, originally established in 1999, by adding MediaMap to the Factiva Partner Network. Under the agreement, Factiva will provide a content solution for MediaMap's upcoming communications management product, MediaMap Performa, giving users seamless access to Factiva.com and Factiva Select. [Factiva: 646/742-3405, www.factiva.com; MediaMap: www.mediamap.com]
 

PEOPLEWARE

Jordan Libit, a former senior executive of FileNET Corp., has joined Applied Semantics, Inc. as chief executive officer.

Daniel Rosensweig was named chief operating officer of Yahoo! while James Moloshok takes on the position of senior vice president of media & information. Rosensweig comes from CNET Networks and Ziff Davis; Moloshok was previously with Warner Brothers.

Fred Bullock is the new senior vice president and chief marketing officer for AltaVista Company's Internet Division. He previously held marketing positions with Alchemedia Technologies, Inc. and Apple Computer.

Rich Rosy has been chosen to lead the netLibrary Davison of OCLC, formerly serving as executive vice president, sales and publishing. Rosy succeeds Rob Kaufman, who is leaving to pursue other interests.

Rein van Charldorp has been named the new managing director of OCLC PICA. Before joining OCLC PICA, Charldorp spent 20 years at Reed Elsevier in science and business publishing, where he most recently was chief operating officer, Reed Business Information Netherlands.

Keith M. Kuperschmid has been promoted to vice president, intellectual property policy and enforcement, by the SIIA.

Wendy S. Braswell, a second-year student at the West Virginia College of Law has won the $20,000 grand prize for the Rewards of Working Smarter with LexisNexis program by using LexisNexis at lexis.com to conduct legal research.