Information Today

Turning a New Page in Ebooks

There's no question that ebooks have been an interesting part of the publishing industry for several years now, and no one knows for sure what place in history these electronic innovations will hold -- or if they will just become history. However, Amazon brought renewed attention to ebooks, especially in the consumer market, with its 2007 launch of the Amazon Kindle and, most recently, the February release of the Amazon Kindle 2. The newest Kindle features new functionality, such as the abili...

Thomas Publishing Takes a Digital Spin

Thomas Publishing is now working to maintain its stature in an increasingly online world. They continually invest in research to really understand their marketplace on both the buying side as well as the selling side, says Linda Rigano, executive director of strategic services at Thomas-Net, a division of Thomas Publishing Co. Chuck Richard, Outsell Inc VP and lead analyst, commended ThomasNet on the transition, adding that he often uses the company as a best-practices example when it comes t...

Securing the Mobile Landscape

As the work force becomes more mobile, security becomes a more critical issue from a corporate perspective. While an increasing number of handheld devices have computer-like capabilities, including Internet access and email, the main device to secure is still the laptop, according to John Pescatore, VP and analyst for Gartner Inc. One of the major problems with mobile security is that many laptops being used are actually owned by the corporation or company. Since they're not personal property...

Clickability: A New Web Business Platform

Clickability, an on-demand web content management solution provider, launched Clickability Corporate Solutions in February. The new offering is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform with multichannel and multilanguage capabilities that enable clients to build their brands more effectively as well as connect with their end users online. In today's global marketplace, many organizations have multiple Web sites representing various regions and brands. Clickability's new platform enables client...

Times Publishing Co. Mulls Congressional Quarterly Sale

Letter From the Editor

Tweets On an Otherwise Blank Space

No Stranger Times Than These

The author serves on the faculty senate at Simmons College where they've been hearing about the bond market, the insidious relationship between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the structure of endowment funds over the past few months. Once gossip ceases to revolve around the latest batch of news that makes the academics gasp, she often answers question whether these economic woes will be good for open access or the open content movement. Her students have grown up with access to so much infor...

The Washington Monument Syndrome

No one should be scratching his or her head over the reason why the local library has been looking as if it is Times Square on New Year's Eve lately. People who can no longer afford to buy books, movies, and CDs are borrowing them from the library. And even those who are still reasonably solvent are nervous, squeezing every dollar until the eagle screams. When people decide to economize, it's common for them to drop the cable television subscription and turn off the high speed Internet. Given...

Hipaa Gets New Privacy Rules

There's one famous quote that can certainly apply to Congress: "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made". Congress will often merge a variety of individual bills or proposals Into a single large scale proposal. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which was originally enacted in 1996, was created primarily to make it easier for employees to switch jobs and health insurance plans without risk of being rejected for pre-existing conditions. How...

Imprezzeo: Perfecting the Art of Searching for Images

Imprezzeo, an image-based search technology company that was founded in June 2007, has operations in New York, London, and Sydney, Australia. Imprezzeo launched its beta product in October 2008 with a focus on the enterprise market, including publishers, news organizations, and stock photo libraries. The Imprezzeo solution enables users to search for images by using other images instead of traditional text search functionality. The technology identifies images that match reference images to e...

Information Business Meets Copyright Policy

The presence of a contract irrevocably changes the copyright bargain. It is this axiom that has come into play recently in controversies involving OCLC and Facebook. In November 2008, OCLC introduced a document titled "Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records" to modernize record use and transfer practices for application on the Web, foster new uses of WorldCat data that benefit members and clarify data sharing rights and restrictions. If an OCLC member agrees to the terms and conditio...

Tax-Time Phishing Scams Out to Lure the Unsuspecting

Fraudsters didn't even wait until April this year, when people are more likely to think a message from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is legitimate. It's no surprise that the IRS is a popular target since email scams of all types are on the rise, says Justin Yurek, president of ID Watchdog, Inc in Denver. In 2009, fraudsters have expanded their efforts to blogs, forums, and social networking sites, where they post fraudulent URLs in hopes of leading taxpayers to bogus refunds or tax credi...

Mimosa: A Sharepoint Archive

Mimosa Systems recently announced its next-generation archiving solution for Microsoft Office SharePoint called Mimosa NearPoint for Office SharePoint Server 2007. Microsoft reports that Office SharePoint Server 2007 has experienced a 35% growth year-over-year; 100 million licensed seats have been shipped to 17,000 customers since its start. Mimosa NearPoint for Office SharePoint Server 2007 can turn data repositories into "intelligent" archives with lower storage requirements and fast docume...

Confessions of a Newshound

In the past, the author's theories on keeping up-to-date mainly focused on the theme of how to do it (ie, what tools to use to keep up effectively). They did not necessarily comprise the types of sites that people should be reading to stay current because that should be left for individuals to decide. He sees breaking news items before the big newspapers put them up on their sites, which is more impressive considering that they have access to the AP raw wire as well. Even more impressive is t...

Box Up Your Files and Move 'Em to the Cloud

Cloud computing refers to a range of services based upon Internet technology. Software as a service, such as Salesforce.com's business applications, is one aspect of cloud computing. This year, the Web is buzzing about the possibility of Google debuting its long-rumored GDrive, a free cloud-storage service taking advantage of Google's vast server capacity. GDrive allows users to access their files from a virtual drive on any computer with an Internet connection. But some smaller companies are...

People Line & the Executive Profile

News Makers

New Conference Joins Iti's Spring Meetings

Nfais: Greeting the Barbarians at the Gate

NFAIS structured its 51st annual conference in late February around the born-digital generation. The conference -- tilled Barbarians at the Gate? The Impact of Digital Natives and Emerging Technologies on the Future of Information Services -- covered the topic from myriad angles, from state-of-the-art technology to search patterns and preferences. These aging Millennials, who have never known life without computers or Web access, march to the beat of a different drummer as they enter the worl...

The Age of Digital Natives: The Miles Conrad Memorial Lecture

The Miles Conrad Award is presented in memory of NFAIS's first president and one of its founders, G. Miles Conrad. This year's Miles Conrad Lecturer was Lynne Brindley, CEO of The British Library. Brindley, the first woman and the first information professional to hold the post, was appointed a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2008 for her service to education. She then identified the following six issues that are challenging libraries today: 1. e-science and e-research, 2. Web 2.0 and...

Smx West 2009: Search Players Are Changing

At the second Search Marketing Expo (SMX) West conference in mid-February at the Santa Clara Convention Center, the head count of more than 1,400 attendees proved to be down slightly from the previous year. However, exhibitor participation remained steady, though several vendors downsized their floor space, including Google. Search marketing is becoming increasingly important as part of the marketing mix. Business was dismal last December, but search queries grew 38% year-over-year. Two keyno...

O'reilly Toc 2009: Books, Reading, and Publishing

O'Reilly Media held its third Tools of Change (TOC) for Publishing conference in February in New York. And just as with the first two TOCs, it emphasized new directions in publishing, particularly book publishing. About 1,000 people attended the event, an uptick of 200 from 2008. Book are now a medium where the reader controls the sequence and pace of accessing the content. Bob Stein, director of the Institute for the Future of the Book, provided his definition of a book: a user-driven media ...

O'reilly: Getting Your Share

Tim O'Reilly took the opportunity to offer a refreshing spin to the recessionary economy during his keynote presentation, Reasons to Be Excited. O'Reilly concentrated on a few of the following topics: 1. People are living in an amazing time. 2. Use social media effectively. 3. People are paying for access to information and not just for advertising. 4. People are reading, and publishers can confer status on people. 5. Curation still matters. 6. People need what information professionals do.

Conferences Around the World

Hulu: The New Premium Content Model

Hulu is a joint venture from News Corp and NBC Universal Inc to provide premium television and movie content over the Web. Hulu has quickly become enormously popular. Hulu has two kinds of content: television shows and movies. These come in two formats: full episodes/movies or short 2- to 3-minute clips that offer memorable scenes or interviews with performers, directors, or producers. Hulu's most appealing content is programming from FOX and NBC. Hulu's movie roster is less attractive than i...

Ebrary Gets New Interface, Features

Nature Publishing Group Rolls Out New Service, Stats, Websites

Ex Libris Group Releases Aleph 20.0, Ex Libris Bx

Elsevier: Synthesizing with Reaxys

Reaxys is the latest Web-based workflow solution designed specifically for synthetic chemistry and a broad range of chemists, from pharmaceutical researchers to students in a task-based learning environment. Martin O'Malley, managing director of corporate markets for Elsevier, calls it a tool with "best-in-class content" that integrates CrossFire Beilstein, CrossFire Gmelin, and Patent Chemistry Database with a world of scientific literature and patents. What sets Reaxys apart from others is ...