Information Today

Are Authors and Publishers Getting Scroogled?

On Oct 19, five publishers sued Google claiming that the Google Print Library Project violated their exclusive rights provided by US copyright law. The point of contention is whether Google violates copyright law by digitizing millions of books without the permission of the books' authors and publishers and putting them on its servers to allow them to be searched online. Once the project became public, numerous groups and publishers cried foul. The first to protest publicly was the Associatio...

By Law: Catching Up with Malware

Companies large and small are still feeling the effects of spyware. According to Webroot Software Inc, a Boulder, CO-based firm specializing in antivirus protection, adware-infected computers lose 10% to 90% of their productivity, depending on the type and number of installed adware/spyware programs. Beyond that, firms and individuals spend countless time and expense trying to eradicate these programs or paying professionals to do so. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asked a US District Cou...

Counting Oa Journals

I think we are getting confused about what an open access journal actually is. Released in October, "The facts about Open Access" is a study of the financial and non-financial effects of alternative business models for scholarly journals. The authors cite the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) as "widely viewed as the definitive listing of Full Open Access Journals." Some of the findings in the study, however, suggest that there are some problems with using DOAJ as a data source. Clearl...

Give Them What They Want

Regardless of what kind of library you work in, you are the one in the best position to know what your customers want and need. You also know that when it comes to providing services, one size does not fit all. I once worked in an engineering library where some of the engineers were not at all interested in learning how to search databases. Some people "get" commercial databases immediately, see the value of subscription services, want to learn as much as they can, and are willing to wrangle ...

New Study Recommends Telecommunications Reform

A new study published by Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) stressed that the best way to achieve President Bush's goal of universal broadband access by 2007 is through a series of deregulatory legislative initiatives. The authors wrote that Congress should address ways to reduce the size of the FCC and the scope of its regulatory agenda - the future of communications literally depends on it.

Conference Calendar

4-7: Poipu, Kauai, Hawaii (Hyatt Regency Kauai). The University of Hawaii-Manoa College of Business Administration is sponsoring the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. The conference will feature nine tracks, including Collaboration Systems and Technology, Digital Media: Content and Management, Internet and the Digital Economy, and Software Technology. It will offer advanced seminars, tutorials, workshops, and symposia, among other events.

Behind the Scenes: Verisign's Acquisition of Moreover

The combination of Moreover's content aggregation services and VeriSign's global feed management infrastructure now lets VeriSign offer an intelligent, scalable, real-time platform for bloggers, publishers, enterprises, and Web portals. The new content aggregation services will use VeriSign's ping server infrastructure, which automatically notifies subscribers when new content is added to a Web site or blog.

Ovid's E-Book Platform Offers Clinical, Academic Reference Titles

Ovid Technologies announced that it added more than 160 medical, scientific, and engineering titles from Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Pharmaceutical Press, McGraw-Hill, and...

Thomson Researchsoft Updates Reference Manager 11

Thomson ResearchSoft announced an update to the Reference Manager bibliographic management software.

The Successful Academic Librarian: Winning Strategies From Library Leaders

2005, 256 pp, hardbound, ISBN 1-57387-232-6, $39.50

Understanding and Communicating Social Informatics: A Framework for Studying and Teaching the Human Contexts of Information and Communication Technologies

2005, 240 pp, hardbound, ISBN 1-57387-228-8, $39.50

Siia's Stand

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is actively monitoring the implementation of the Google Print Library Project and the responses of publishers and authors. SIIA is fully supportive of the goals of the Google Print Library Project. What the SIIA does not commend, however, is how Google has chosen to implement the project.

Ili 2005: Oxford University's New Mission

Two world-renowned information resources are on a mission. The first - the Bodleian Library - was founded in 1602. The other - Google - was founded in 1998. Why and how these two organizations will work together was the topic addressed by Internet Librarian International (ILI) keynote speaker Ronald Milne, acting director of university library services and Bodley's librarian at the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library. The speech was given on Oct 10, 2005, in London. The Bodleian has a his...

Letter to the Editor

I read with interest the article written by Shirley Duglin Kennedy in the September 2005 Internet Waves column of Information Today about the free online dictionary, Wikipedia. As a library science student, I was surprised to learn in a reference class that Wikipedia is a "voluntarily" edited encyclopedia. I had never used it before, but some of my co-workers, [who are] seasoned librarians, use it regularly. I investigated and found that I like Wikipedia.

War and Peace

Five leading US publishers have filed suit, under the auspices of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), against Google for its library digitization project. In September, The Authors Guild filed a class action suit on behalf of authors whose copyrighted works are up for scanning. And last May, the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) issued a widely publicized letter of protest. Google's mass digitization effort, which has been called industrial-sized scanning by some and...

Blogger Beware

Many people might consider the blog to be the modern embodiment of the soapbox. The growth of blogs has been phenomenal. The growth of blogging, however, has been accompanied by a growth of legal threats to bloggers. Free speech is not as broad as it is often perceived, as many bloggers have found out in a number of ways. Blogging in and about the workplace has emerged as the most likely venue for legal difficulties. Blogging about "life at work" is a fairly common practice, because a person'...

Finding Items Hidden in the Shadows

When I heard about Shadows, the new search and blogging tool that Pluck Corp (http://www.pluck.com) unveiled in October at the BlogOn 2005 Social Media Summit, I decided to give it a try. Shadows is the creation of Pluck, an Austin, TX-based company that was cofounded in 2003 by Dave Panos and Andrew Busey. According to Panos, in life, the best sources of advice, information, and entertainment are the people you meet along the way. Shadows reconnects you with this natural order - putting you ...

Shifting Worlds: Internet Librarian 2005

Nearly 1,100 attendees representing 44 states, Canada, and several other countries turned out for Internet Librarian 2005 (IL 2005), which was held Oct 24-26 in Monterey, CA. The roster included 120 speakers and moderators and 45 exhibitors. This year's theme, Shifting Worlds, reflected the reality of providing opportunities to streamline operations, improve and enhance customer relationships, and develop new applications. Keynote speaker Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & America...

Managing Mobile Security

By putting workers on a single wireless device rather than having them carry a cell phone in one hand and a pager in the other, a company can save nearly $100 per month per employee, according to Stephanie Burnham, general manager of managed mobility for Sprint Business Solutions. Using a single type of device also helps security management, because security protection, upgrades, etc, can be streamlined for one type of device rather than for several. Burnham supplied a few basics for adopting...

People Line &Amp; the Executive Profile

[Todd Miller] attributes WebFeat's popularity to its compatibility and no-hassle factor. In fact, one of the fastest-growing segments of its business in 2005 came from libraries that were replacing faulty federated search engines. "Our company is growing rapidly," said Miller. "We've more than doubled in size in 2005."

Digital Book Index Mirrors World of E-Books

The world of e-books is bigger than you think. The Digital Book Index (DBI; http://www.digitalbookindex.com) is a catalog of more than 110,000 e-books, from commercial best sellers to specialized research documents. The term "book" in the database title is too limiting, because DBI includes an array of textual and graphic content in addition to conventional books. The term "index" is also too modest. "Gateway" and "aggregator" are more accurate, because DBI not only catalogs e-books, it also ...

Keys to Landing Government Contracts

The federal government is likely to spend $250 billion on contracts involving information technology. For those companies that want to land a contract, Evan Scott, president and CEO of the Philadelphia-based Evan Scott Group International, offers some advice in the following areas: 1. timing, 2. partnerships, 3. strategic contacts, and 4. the right staff.

Nature Publishing Group to Publish Chinese Cell Research Journal

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) and the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, which is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, agreed to publish the journal Cell Research, China's...

Ebsco Publishing Introduces Age-Specific Interfaces

The new Kids Search interface from EBSCO Publishing is specifically designed for elementary/middle school end users.

Sane Solutions Partners with E-Commerce, Online Vendors

Sane Solutions announced nine new partnerships with e-commerce, online marketing, and specialized analytics vendors.

Choosing and Using a News Alert Service

2004, 127 pp, softbound, ISBN 1-57387-224-5, $79.95

The Skeptical Business Searcher: The Information Advisor's Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites, and Sources

CyberAge Books, 2004, 300 pp, softbound, ISBN 0-910965-66-8, $29.95

News Bytes

Oclc Pica Acquires Fretwell-Downing Informatics

OCLC PICA has acquired Fretwell-Downing Informatics to extend its worldwide network for delivering information to libraries.

Infosecurity Conference and Exhibition

Cyber security experts will present the latest knowledge through seminars, workshops, networking, and product demos. Tom Ridge, former secretary of the federal Department of Homeland Security, will give the opening keynote.

Blackwell Publishing Opens Singapore Office

Blackwell Publishing announced the opening of a new office in Singapore to support customer service, production, and information technology...