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Weekly News Digest
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June 25, 2001 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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Data Downlink Changes Name, Introduces Alacra Book
Data Downlink Corp., a privately held global provider of business and financial information, has announced the change of its corporate name and brand identity to Alacra, Inc. (http://www.alacra.com). The company's portfolio of service offerings, which includes the business search engine Portal B and its premium database service .xls, will be packaged as Alacra and will be available to users under that name beginning July 10. According to the press release, the new online search service has far greater functionality in finding and sorting results, puts information together in more meaningful ways, and is easier to use than the Portal B service that launched last year."Our change to Alacra represents much more than a new name," said Steven Goldstein, Alacra's CEO. "Five years since our founding, we have evolved from a mere provider of other publishers' data to a primary source of varied information solutions for more than 500 financial institutions and professional services firms around the world. We have developed tremendous expertise in packaging business information to specifically meet our customers' needs. Our new brand identity reflects this evolution." The company also introduced Alacra Book, a Web-based publishing platform that quickly collects and packages business information from multiple sources into a single Adobe PDF document. Alacra Book is intended for use by investment banks, law firms, consultancies, and other corporations in the daily preparation of Public Information Books (PIB) and other presentations. Accessible via the Internet and a company's intranet, Alacra Book reportedly reduces to fewer than 10 minutes a critical compilation task that had previously required multiple staff hours. Source: Alacra, Inc.
LexisNexis Unveils LexisNexis Current Issues Universe, Upgrades Statistical Universe
LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions has introduced LexisNexis Current Issues Universe (CIU), a Web-based research solution designed to provide students with access to documents that offer multiple perspectives on issues facing today's society. According to the announcement, academic assignments often require students to research an issue from a particular viewpoint or to prepare multi-perspective arguments on current issues. CIU addresses these needs with its Current Issues List, a growing collection of more than 2,000 questions focused on key areas of interest and controversy. Questions are arranged by subject category. Each question in the Current Issues List directs students to relevant, full-text source documents.CIU delivers access to the complete text of documents from more than 8,000 gray literature sources (such as reports, theses, conference proceedings, and official documents), which typically are difficult to locate and acquire. In addition to these sources, a student can also search for relevant editorials, newspaper articles, and public-opinion polls from other LexisNexis databases. CIU provides profiles about issuing organizations to help students detect and understand biases in documents. CIU also offers links to these organizations' Web sites (if available) to help students gather background information about them. CIU will be online in late August and available through subscribing high school, academic, and public libraries. For more information, including pricing, call 800/638-8380 or visit http://www.lexisnexis.com/academic. LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions also announced that in July it will triple the power of LexisNexis Statistical Universe with the release of 100,000 statistical tables in the Research Edition of its PowerTables feature. PowerTables offers unique, table-level indexing to provide focused search results. In addition to the new tables included in the Research Edition, LexisNexis Statistical Universe offers 50,000 in its Base Edition. Source: LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions
netLibrary Launches eBook Tool Kit, Makes Library Integration More Accessible
netLibrary (http://www.netlibrary.com) has announced that all of its library customers will have access to the newly created eBook Tool Kit, a comprehensive Web-based resource that features a host of integration, marketing, and promotional tools designed specifically for and by libraries. The eBook Tool Kit encompasses topics such as how to successfully integrate e-books into the library's OPAC; how to increase usage; and how to develop and implement e-book marketing and PR programs, promotions, or special events. It also serves as a ready training tool that libraries can use with both staff and patrons to familiarize them with the advantages of e-books.netLibrary also announced that it will begin licensing a new specification for library automation system vendors that will allow them to provide direct links from their online public access catalogs to the preview and checkout functions for netLibrary eBooks. A direct link to the My eBooks bookshelf, where library patrons can access previously checked-out e-books, will also be available with this new specification. Source: netLibrary
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Brandi Scardilli
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