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Weekly News Digest
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October 15, 2007 — 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. For other up-to-the-minute news, check out ITI’s Twitter account: @ITINewsBreaks.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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University of Southern California Completes Internet Census
After nearly 3 billion pings in 62 days, researchers at the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute (ISI) completed and plotted a census of the 2.8 billion allocated addresses on the Internet (www.isi.edu/ant/address/index.html). As one of the birthplaces of the Internet, ISI took charge of the effort that is reportedly the first of its kind in more than 2 decades.Thanks go to ISI project leader John Heidemann, who also has an appointment in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering computer science department. A probe, or ping, was sent to "every single assigned address in the entire Internet" from three machines, according to Heidemann. Yuri Pradkin, Heidemann’s ISI collaborator, carried out the mission of sending pings to nearly 3 billion addresses. According to the results, 61 percent of the pings received no response; others received a "do not disturb" or "no information available" response that was most likely due to firewalls blocking the pings. However, millions of sites did respond, and the ISI team started to design a numerical "Internet atlas" that represents a novel census view of the visible Internet. Heidemann said that the only other Internet census that he knew about was done in 1982 when the Internet featured 315 allocated addresses. The census results will be used in a variety of ways, according to Heidemann, to provide data needed to proceed with a new protocol (IPv6) to help deal with the dwindling number of Internet addresses, to address Internet security issues, and to appeal to a collective sense of discovery (much like charting "the far side of the moon," according to Heidemann). The Ant project, which is a research group, led the census that spanned the USC/ISI, the USC and Colorado State University Computer Science departments, the USC Electrical Engineering department, and USC’s Information Technology Services. The Department of Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation also supported the research. Source: University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute
Tool Offers Publishers a Way to Enhance and Build Reader Interest Online
MPS Technologies (www.mpstechnologies.com) recently introduced a new tool called BookStore Discovery that is designed to let publishers make their book content discoverable and accessible to a wide audience. It also allows publishers to retain control of the content and to continue to use the payment process on their Web sites to enhance the user experience and build reader interest online.Ravi Singh, CEO of MPS Technologies, explained that publishers of ebooks today face unique challenges, including keeping pace with technological changes, evolving book formats, maximizing investments, and driving a deeper relationship with their online customers. BookStore Discovery consists of the following four modules: Browse Inside (to let readers browse limited content via the publisher’s site with navigation to the shopping cart and other functionalities just a click away); Search Inside (to let users search for specific terms within the full text of the book); External Search Engine Indexing (to let publishers’ content be discovered from users’ desktops and preferred search engines); and Widget (to give publishers and users the advantage of sharing the ebook with others via blogs and social networking sites). Source: MPS Technologies
Yale University Press Adds Digital Content to OCLC NetLibrary
Yale University Press is now adding digital content to NetLibrary (www.oclc.org), OCLC’s platform for econtent to libraries worldwide. Among notable titles in the Yale collection are Ali Allawi’s The Occupation of Iraq, E. H. Gombrich’s A Little History of the World, the Yale Series of Younger Poets, the Annotated Shakespeare, the Lamar Series in Western History, Yale University Press Health and Wellness series, and others.More than 400 Yale University Press titles are currently available through NetLibrary, and another 200-plus titles will be added after the backlist is digitized. "These titles represent works that promote a greater understanding of our world, and will be of great benefit to users of all libraries, and particularly academic institutions," according to Chip Nilges, vice president of OCLC’s business development. Users now have access to more than 150,000 titles from 400-plus publishers in OCLC NetLibrary’s econtent platform offered through 15,000-plus libraries worldwide. "It’s fitting that as we enter into our second century, we begin to establish partnerships that will help us fulfill our founding mission—to aid in the discovery and dissemination of knowledge—well into the future," said John Donatich, director of Yale University Press. George Parmly Day and his wife, Wilhelmina, founded Yale University Press in 1908. As one of the oldest and largest U.S. university presses, the Yale collection includes books and materials designed to advance scholarly investigation and interdisciplinary inquiry, stimulate public debate, provide education in and out of the classroom, and enhance cultural life. Source: OCLC
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Brandi Scardilli
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