CSA Withdraws Files from Dialog
As of October 1, 2002, all CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts) databases were removed from Dialog and DataStar. The 19 files are bibliographic abstract and index databases in the sciences and social sciences, including Oceanic Abstracts, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, LISA, Life Sciences Collection, ARTbibliographies Modern, Materials Business File, Engineered Materials Abstracts, and Ceramic Abstracts. CSA also plans to take its files off EBSCOhost. Also gone from Dialog are Chicago Tribune, Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, The Orlando Sentinel, and Newport News Daily Press. Although Dialog is suggesting alternative databases on its system, losing the CSA databases will punch holes in the purported comprehensive subject coverage of Dialog. Dialog's NewsRoom, with its 7,000 sources, is clearly a bright spot for the company [www.csa.com; www.dialog.com].
 

Google News Expands, Adds Sources and Images
Although still in beta, Google News has expanded to 4,000, mostly English-language, news sources that it crawls continuously. Since the news is gathered entirely by crawler and analyzed by automated search algorithms, stories are frequently duplicates. A tab above Google's main search box has been added to guide users to News, which is limited to the latest 30 days of stories. In a departure from its usual spare format, Google News now is formatted in double columns with breaking news accompanied by thumbnail images of news photographs. The colorful page design is not the only departure from Google's customary look and feel. There is no advanced search capability, but basic search supports most Google search syntax. Results can be sorted by relevance or by date. Google's insouciant attitude is evident at the bottom of the Web page, which states, "This page was generated entirely by computer algorithms without human editors. No humans were harmed or even used in the creation of this page" [http://news.google.com].
 

Alacritude Presents eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com
When Patrick Spain left Hoover's, he had no intention of leaving the information industry. He approached Tucows, which had purchased eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com from Infonautics, and offered to buy them. The sites had been languishing under both Infonautics and Tucows, noted Spain. "There had been no marketing. No one had listened to the customers and watched what they did." According to Spain, individual searchers may use Google, MSN Search, or WSJ.com, but they don't have all the sites, unlike their corporate counterparts. "They can't organize results. They're underserved." His new company, Alacritude LLC, aims to change all this. He thinks an intuitive, user-friendly interface, coupled with a low price tag, will benefit the ordinary Internet searcher. "These are the people who search because they're on a personal mission. They are using Internet resources to take control of their lives. They're interested in work, health, and wealth. We will give them tools for quick access to information. Our goal is to be an upscale Walmart." What's in the future? Additional technology and services in the next 6 months and possibly some other acquisitions [www.elibrary.com; www.encyclopedia.com].
 

Thomson Research Combines Research Bank Web and Global Access
Two major Thomson Financial products—Research Bank Web and Global Access—are being merged to form Thomson Research. The new Web-based application includes Investext; Markintell; Industry Insider; Extel Cards with data from Datastream and Worldscope; I/B/E/S global analyst earning forecasts, historical estimates, and recommendations; Worldscope; and Fair Disclosure Financial Network's transcripts of corporate earnings conference calls. Customers of Research Bank Web and Global Access will be migrated to Thomson Research [www.thomsonfinancial.com].

Social Sciences & Humanities

Heritage Quest Online is ProQuest's new Web-based genealogy resource developed specifically for library patrons. The product combines source materials from UMI Genealogy & Local History Online with resources from genealogy publisher Heritage Quest, a ProQuest acquisition. Users can cross-search U.S. census data, banking and military records, obituaries, and more than 24,000 family and local histories (both monographs and serials). The interface offers both novices and advanced users features including full-text searching, remote access, relevancy ranking, and online note-taking. The collection is ongoing, with new material added weekly [800/521-0600; 734/761-4700; www.il.proquest.com].

SIRS newest product, SIRS Interactive Citizenship, consists of two online interactive books that link to SIRS databases—What Citizens Need to Know About Government and What Citizens Need to Know About World Affairs. The product addresses the basics of government, geography, and world affairs issues and provides links to current information, including articles, government, historical documents, Web sites, and more. The books are organized by chapter and are available in both HTML and PDF formats. Product features include links to related articles and Web sites within text, correlations to national and state curriculum standards, an Educator's Guide, and the ability to e-mail chapters, articles, and Web site links [800/232-7477; www.sirs.com].

ARBAonline offers reviews of print and electronic reference works that help librarians keep library collections up-to-date, maintain quality standards, and ensure depth of coverage. The database is a joint initiative of Libraries Unlimited and Paratext, LLC. Sample reviews, free trial sign-ups, pricing, and ordering information are available. Pricing ranges from $150 to $350 annually, depending on type of institution and population served [www.arbaonline.com].
 

Biomedical

FIZ Karlsruhe has launched the PHARMAML and NUTRACEUT databases. Both databases provide pharmaceutical and nutraceutical information and are sourced from an international network of correspondents in Europe, America, Asia, and elsewhere. PHARMAML contains bibliographic and full-text information—including the full text of the weekly publication PharmaMarketLetter—on all aspects of pharmaceutical and healthcare industries worldwide. NUTRACEUT contains bibliographic and full-text information—including the full text of the weekly publication Nutraceuticals—covering global nutraceutical, functional foods, dietary supplements, and natural product industries. The databases are produced by London-based Marketletter Publications Limited [+49 (0) 7247/808 513; www.fiz-karlsruhe.de].

BIOSIS and the National Information Services Corporation (NISC) have announced the addition of Biological Abstracts, Biological Abstracts/RRM (Reports, Reviews, Meetings), and Zoological Record to the NISC platform. BIOSIS will now add these products to more than 200 databases available through NISC [BIOSIS: 215/231-7187; www.biosis.org; NISC: 410/243-0797; www.nisc.com].

Healthcare terminology tools provider, Health Language, Inc. (HLI), has announced a licensing arrangement for HLI's Knowledge Management tool set for healthcare, Cyber+LE, with Thomson Corporation's MICROMEDEX division. MICROMEDEX provides knowledge-based information for healthcare, safety, and the environment [MICROMEDEX: 303/486-6535; www.micromedex.com; HLI: 978/463-7876].

Thieme Publishing Group has signed a contract with Swets Blackwell to participate in SwetsnetNavigator. Nineteen titles from Thieme Medical Publishers and 68 titles from Georg Thieme Verlag will be available to SwetsnetNavigator customers, with print subscriptions to the corresponding titles. Customers will have access to abstracts and tables of contents, plus links to the full-text articles [+31 252 435 584; www.swetsnetnavigator.com].
 

Business & Finance

Snapshops International, publisher of international market research overviews, has launched a new Web-based pay-as-you-go service. Users can now purchase individual Snapshots Reports directly from the Snapshops Web site. The Snapshops Series has formerly been marketed as a complete collection to libraries, Information Centers, and other research centers, but is now available individually to users with an occasional need. Payment is by credit card, and discounts apply to multiple purchases. Intermediaries who must pass on costs to their own clients can track their usage by entering account numbers or charge codes [+44 (0) 7829 8408; www.snapdata.com].

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and ProQuest have announced a limited agreement permitting ProQuest to distribute journal content from the BoldIdeas Collection of business journals as part of the ABI/INFORM business database. Both indexing and full text for the titles will appear in ABI/INFORM Global and ProQuest 5000. ProQuest customers will see 40 additional new titles appear over the next few months. Further expansion of the file comes from ABI/INFORM Archive—a file containing complete backfiles for 25 business periodicals, digitized from the microform masters in ProQuest's vault. Meanwhile, Time Inc. has withdrawn its full-text images from ProQuest, although full text without images remains [John Wiley & Sons: 800/521-0600; 44-2083-263865; 734/761-4700; www.wiley.com; ProQuest Information and Learning: 800/521-0600; www.il.proquest.com].

Executive Briefing is the Economist Intelligence Unit's new Internet service designed to provide industry forecasts and analysis to global executives. The service provides 5-year country-by-country forecasts for eight key industries—automotive; consumer markets and retailing; energy; food, beverage, and tobacco; financial services; telecoms and technology; pharmaceuticals and healthcare; travel, tourism, and transport. Free trials are available online for qualified users at http://eb.eiu.com [212/698-9714; www.eiu.com].

Alacra is now offering several new services. Value Line Company and Industry Reports plus Dun & Bradstreet have been added to its premium content, while SNL Financial content has been added to Alacra's suite of company and financial databases. Alacra's M&A Monitor produces a database that analyzes selected corporate mergers and acquisitions. M&A Monitor provides deal information on all bids for U.K. quoted companies announced since January 1, 1992, and for both public and private transactions in sectors covered on a European-wide basis, including Food and Beverages; Pharmaceuticals; Telecommunications; Internet, Cable TV, Broadcast Media; IT (Services/Software); IT (Hardware); and Banking [888/333-0820; 212/363-9620; www.alacra.com].

Standard & Poor's has chosen eMeta technology to enhance and customize its financial data offered over the Web. eMeta will provide Standard & Poor's its eRights solution, an open infrastructure software solution for managing products, subscriptions, and user authentication necessary for the sale of digital content. eRights will serve as the backbone for all Standard & Poor's digital publishing efforts. With this technology, Standard & Poor's will be able to offer free trials of products and service and to conduct micro payments via individual credit cards. Initial plans are to move the Market Insight investment service product to the eRights platform, and other products later [Standard & Poor's: www.standardandpoors.com; eMeta: 800/804-0103; www.emeta.com].

LexisNexis Country Analysis is a new release from LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions. It is designed to aggregate news, analysis, in-depth reports, and statistics on 190 countries. Political Risk Service analyses and Country Risk Guides, Edimax monthly market newsletters, World Markets Research Centre twice-a-day news feed, Business Monitor International weekly analysis of politics and economics, Interfax international business news focusing on the emerging markets of Europe and Asia, and the U.S. government's status reports on industries are the sources [937/865-6800, www.lexisnexis.com].
 

Portals & Intranets

LookSmart, a search-targeted marketing company, has announced a distribution agreement with About, Inc., a division of Primedia. Under terms of the agreement, LookSmart will provide search results on About Network below the proprietary editorial and paid listings sections. Also, About's GuideSites will be integrated into the LookSmart directory and distributed across LookSmart's network of syndicated search partners. The agreement enables LookSmart search results to reach an additional audience of 20 million unique users per month through the About Network [www.looksmart.com; http://about.com].

Opencola Ltd., a developer of distributed content search technology, has signed an agreement with information management solutions provider, Moreover Technologies. The agreement will enhance Opencola's search application with real-time access to news and information through Moreover's Public Metabase. Moreover's Public Metabase is a subset of 2,700 sources from Moreover's CI-Metabase, an XML database of online news content [415/596-5428; www.opencola.com].

Web-based collaboration tools provider, iMarkup Solutions Inc. has integrated its Content Review Server with Documentum's WebPublisher. The integration provides a solution for companies that want to create a Web content management process accommodating workflow requirements and facilitating approval and publishing of changes to digital content. The improved workflow and integration are intended to help customers operate easily with thousands of digital content items [877/MARKUP1; www.imarkup.com].

Convera has announced full support for Documentum 5, the latest version of Documentum's enterprise content management platform. Convera's RetrievalWare will help Documentum users search for content easily and accurately and supports Documentum's expertise for companies competing in highly regulated industries [800/788-7758; info@convera.com; www.convera.com].

Applied Semantics News Series processes content for online and print publishers. It provides content categorization, summarization, event identification, and content tagging software to streamline newswire, editorial, archiving, and syndication processes. It comes bundled with industry-standard taxonomies such as International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) Subject Codes and SIC Codes and works with XML standards such as NITF, NewsML, ANPA, and PRISM. Applied Semantics News Series is powered by CIRCA Technology, a proprietary semantic engine that uses an ontological database of millions of concepts and relationships among concepts [www.appliedsemantics.com].

Aardvark is a Web site for librarians offering information about Asian libraries, Asian digital collections, library schools, and other related Asian information. Also included are a list of library conferences, Asian databases on the Web, library e-journals and e-zines, and current awareness information. The site is searchable and includes more than 2,500 links, with approximately 10 added per day [www.aardvarknet.info].

Web and e-mail filtering company, SurfControl, has launched E-mail Filter Application Programming Interface (API), a tool the lets Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer spam filtering services to home and business customers. SurfControl E-mail Filter API also provides Internet appliances that serve as e-mail gateways a RiskFilter database of known junk, spam, and nuisance e-mail; identification of junk messages with no false positives; C++ API for integration into mail services on Linux and Solaris; and ease of integration via sample code and a Developer's Guide [831/431-1692; www.surfcontrol.com].
 

Peopleware

Rick Noble has been named president and chief executive officer of Thomson Healthcare by The Thomson Corporation. He was formerly COO of Thomson Healthcare and CEO of MICROMEDEX.

LexisNexis has appointed Eric Geringswald director, Corporate Services, for LexisNexis Document Solutions. Geringswald will manage all seven LexisNexis Document Solutions branches. Ellen Campbell-Kaminski becomes vice president, Small Law Firm Marketing. Campbell-Kaminski comes to LexisNexis from Reynolds and Reynolds, where she served as director of Marketing.

Former president and CEO of NewsEdge, Clifford M. Pollan, has been appointed Dialog's executive vice president, Strategy and Alliances. The appointment comes as integration of NewsEdge into Dialog has been completed.

Dialog has appointed Viji Krishnan vice president, Content Development, with global responsibility for the collection and licensing of content gathered worldwide from publishers, information aggregators, and specialized data services. She will continue to be based in London.

Paul Calow has joined Blackwell Publishing as Journal Sales executive covering Belgium, France, Portugal, Scandinavia, and Spain.
 

Sci-Tech

Users searching bibliographic databases from CSA on its Internet Database Service (IDS) can now link search results to full-text journals from JSTOR, the American Meteorological Society, and the Geological Society of America. These partnerships provide access from bibliographic searches to full-text journals for mutual subscribers. Access to more than 8,100 electronic full-text journals from 20 organizations is available [301/961-6761; www.csa.com].

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) and the American Chemical Society (ACS) have combined forces to permit CAS information products users to identify and link to full-text articles in the ACS Journal Archives. Users can identify ACS articles published during the earliest years of Chemical Abstracts coverage, beginning in 1907, and access the full-text using the ChemPort feature included in all CAS and STN electronic services [614/447-3731; 800/753-4227; www.cas.org].

SciFinder 2002, the newest release of the CAS desktop research tool, offers increased reaction information, property data, and other content. New and improved features include new analysis tools for stereochemistry, experimental properties for more than 825,000 substances, the addition of thousands of reactions documents from 1907 to 1985, new panorama "pre-sets" to help users more easily define relationships to explore in scientific databases, and new Keep-Me-Posted and Get Reference features for sequences [614/447-3731; 800/753-4227; www.cas.org].

Web-based start-up, ScienceIQ, has launched a subscription e-mail service for science and technology learning. The company is a collaboration between Anton Skorucak, creator of the PhysLink.com physics and astronomy Web site, and Gene Mascoli, producer of the ScienceMaster.com online learning resource for middle and high school. ScienceIQ uses database-driven technology to deliver timely science content to teachers, students, media centers, and corporate intranets. It offers a Science Fact of the Day each weekday to subscribers worldwide, plus an online archive of science facts [408/266-1428; 562/432-5161; www.ScienceIQ.com].

Document Center Inc. is celebrating its 20th anniversary as distributor of standards and standards information. Document Center Inc. resells standards, which are published technical documents. The company initially sold standard in paper format only, but in 1993 pioneered use of the Internet for distribution via www.document-center.com. It now reaches an international market, selling standards in a variety of media. The product mix also now includes additional document management services such as monitoring, auditing, alerts, and more.
 

Online Services

Information Science Abstracts (ISA) is now accessible through the EBSCOhost search interface. Published by Information Today, Inc., ISA promotes the science, management, and technology of information through abstracting of pertinent books, journals, e-journals, conference proceedings, reports, and patents. ISA is published nine times a year and provides worldwide library and information science records from more than 450 publications dating back to 1966. When accessing ISA, EBSCO database users can use EBSCO SmartLinks and CustomLinks to link from a citation in a results list to corresponding full text in other EBSCO databases or electronic journals to which a library subscribes, plus the library's OPAC, online ILL forms or services, and several document delivery services [609/654-6266; www.infotoday.com].

Dialog has completed major enhancements to the Alerts service for DialogClassic, DialogClassic Web, and DialogWeb services users. Enhancements include the ability to run single Alerts across multiple files of content sources, automatic removal of duplicates of the same documents retrieved from multiple files through Alerts, more options for delivery of documents containing images, and improved scheduling. The enhancements are now available with no change to the fee to maintain Alerts through Dialog services [800/3-DIALOG; 919/462-8600; www.dialog.com; www.thomson.com].

The Dialog NewsRoom database has recently been launched as a stand-alone, Web-based service accessible at www.dialognewsroom.com. More than 7,000 sources are now included. The stand-alone Dialog NewsRoom additionally offers about 1,500 of those sources with a 5-year archive [800/3-DIALOG; 919/462-8600; www.dialog.com; www.thomson.com].

Dialog has re-entered the document delivery market, expanding the number and diversity of sources from which articles and reports can be ordered, and improving the delivery process for documents, including patent documents from around the world. Articles, reports, and other documents can be ordered from more than 10,000 scholarly and professional journals. Dialog is also offering a one-on-one reference service
to locate hard-to-find titles unavailable from primary sources. Documents are delivered in full form either in full electronic format or as a photocopy [800/3-DIALOG; 919/462-8600; www.dialog.com; www.thomson.com].

ProQuest has formed an agreement with Canadian-based Southam Publications Inc. to add full text from Southam's Canadian newspaper titles to its ProQuest and Micromedia ProQuest electronic databases. The agreement covers 17 daily, 53 weekly, and six monthly Southam newspapers and permits ProQuest Company to distribute this content to educational institutions, libraries, and other markets worldwide. The agreement will extend over a 4-year period, effective January 1, 2003 [800/521-0600; www.il.proquest.com].

Swets Blackwell has received accreditation by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The ISO has issued Swets Blackwell its 9001:2000 certificate, valid for a 3-year period. The certification is applicable across Swets Blackwell's global network of offices in 21 countries, each of which will receive an accreditation certificate. Swets Blackwell says it is the only subscription agent to be ISO 9001:2000 certified [+31 252 435 584; www.swetsblackwell.com].

Net.Journal Finder has been updated with Net.Journal Directory 11 data. Over 23,000 periodical titles and over 80,000 data listings are included in this update [inquiries@hermograph.com].

Factiva, moving forward in its merger of Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing, has added Dun & Bradstreet reports, a database of 36.5 million Company Snapshots for international companies, and Investext reports in PDF format. The Investext file has the two most recent reports on 30,000 companies and 55 industries. Spanish and Italian interfaces have also been added. Factiva's News Page has added Newsstand, a much larger version than the one familiar to Dow Jones Interactive subscribers. Newsstand will present daily news from 80+ sources in 17 countries, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Sydney Morning Herald, Financial Times, Handelsblatt and South China Morning Post. An additional search screen on the standard search page will facilitate searching by Factiva Intelligent Indexing search terms [www.factiva.com].
 

Alliances & Deals

The Thomson Corporation has acquired privately held, U.K.-based Current Drugs Ltd. Current Drugs provides databases, systems, and services such as the Investigational Drugs database (IDdb). Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Current Drugs will become part of the Scientific & Healthcare operating group within Thomson and will continue to be run by its current business management group led by Ian Tarr, reporting directly to Michael Tansey [203/328-8339; www.thomson.com].

Under an alliance between Global Securities Information, Inc. and LexisNexis, LexisNexis will now offer GSI's LIVEDGAR product through the LexisNexis service so that LexisNexis subscribers can access GSI's LIVEDGAR product from within LexisNexis. Links in both LexisNexis and GSI will allow users to move between the services and use the features of each. GSI's content will also continue to be available electronically through GSI's LIVEDGAR Web platform [GSI: www.gsionline.com; LexisNexis: www.lexisnexis.com].
 

Search Engines

AskEarth.com is a question/answer Web site, similar to Google Answers, which provides a forum for everyday people (rather than experts) to answer questions and do research for others on almost any topic. Currently in the beta development stage, the site is touted as a tool for supplementing research and data searches, particularly searches for specific, hard-to-find details, user experiences, and opinions. Members post their questions with a payment bid, often stating they won't pay for an answer. Questions are e-mailed to members who have identified themselves as having related expertise. After receiving a successful answer, the respondent is paid a majority percentage of the bid amount, with the remaining amount going to AskEarth [www.askearth.com].

Described by its U.K. creators as a "shortal," www.1do3.com (one-do-three) takes users in three clicks or less to a short list of useful Web sites most likely to meet their needs. The site is to have evolved out of frustration with search engines that provide thousands of results instead of the few most useful and is designed for both Internet novices and regular users. Features include internal search based on natural language heuristics, instant navigation using "phone number" CallCodes, a Web log, and Web site "commenting." [+44 (0)1243 512951].

The intergovernmental organization Commonwealth of Learning [www.col.org] has installed Convera's RetrievalWare as the search and categorization engine on its new Knowledge Finder portal. RetrievalWare indexes public domain information to help users search content from a single point. RetrievalWare also intuitively compensates for alternative spellings and typos. The Swedish daily newspaper, Aftonbladet, has also installed RetrievalWare search technology on its Swedish-language Web site, internal text archive, and commercial photography site. Aftonbladet's Web site [www.aftonbladet.se] now offers nearly 10 years of archived content. Aftonbladet's internal archive stores articles written by staff and serves as an electronic clippings file for checking facts or dates. On the Aftonbladet photography site, photographs from the newspaper's archives are available for sale [800/788-7758; www.convera.com].

Intelliseek has created an Applied Research Center, picking up talent from the recently defunct WhizBang Labs. The Center, to be headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will concentrate on building advanced solutions to current and future Intelliseek products. The research scientists' interests concentrate on machine learning, text mining, information retrieval, filtering, and statistical language processing. The next-generation technologies under development will initially contribute toward Intelliseek's BrandPulse and Enterprise Search Server products, with more to come [516/618-6756, www.intelliseek.com].
 

Legal

TrademarkBots.com has formed a marketing alliance with SOCAP.org. Under the agreement SOCAP.org will include TrademarksBots among the tools it offers to corporations. SOCAP membership includes nearly 3,000 corporate consumer affairs/customer service professionals, representing 1,500 companies with most listed in the Fortune/Forbes 1000 [TrademarksBots: 239/434-3850; info@trademarksbots.com; www.trademarksbots.com; SOCAP.org: 703/519-3700; www.socap.org].

IXIASOFT's Net-ready database server technology is now in use in Europe and the U.S. to manage XML documents for large organizations such as the U.K. Public Records Office, AT&T, and the U.S. Air Force. IXIASOFT offers a document-centric XML server that lets organizations index, retrieve, and store thousands of XML documents [212/651-4216; www.ixiasoft.com].

LexisNexis now offers a new litigation support tool that uses DolphinSearch's technology to ease trial preparation and electronic data discovery. Several enhancements have been made to LexisNexis patent offerings, primarily to help users link directly to PDF images of official patents, including text and drawings, at www.lexis.com. LexisNexis provides access to patent text and drawings as published in the Official Gazette, and this version of the patent appears in dual-column format and contains line numbers for pinpoint references. LexisNexis has added some new features to www.lexis.com, including custom IDs and passwords for law students, organization of the Source Selection feature into tabbed categories, a Find a Source tab, a Fast Print option, a Print/Download Utility, the National Directory of Legal Employers Mail Merge function, and a What's New link. LexisNexis Courtlink has announced plans to expand its services, including providing online access to case records from Los Angeles County Superior Court. LexisNexis Courtlink will also increase access to courts in Virginia and enhance search functionality to New York Supreme Courts [800/543-6862; www.lexisnexis.com].