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Weekly News Digest

February 7, 2008 — 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.

Columbia University Collaborates With Microsoft on Digitization Project

Columbia University and Microsoft are partners in the Open Content Alliance, along with the Boston Library Consortium, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Toronto among others. The alliance, which has made open access a core component of its mission, is scanning only out-of-copyright materials.

Columbia University Libraries is playing a key role in book selection and in setting quality standards for the digitized materials. Microsoft will digitize selected portions of the libraries’ collections of American history, literature, and humanities works with the specific areas to be decided mutually by Microsoft and Columbia during the early phase of the project. Microsoft will give the library high-quality digital images of all the materials, allowing the library to provide worldwide access through its own digital library and to share the content with noncommercial academic initiatives and nonprofit organizations.

Note: In December 2007, Columbia University joined the Google Book Search Library Project (www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/news/libraries/2007/2007-12-13.google.html).

Source: Columbia University

New WilsonWeb CX Edition Helps Users Mine Data

Enhancements include the following: 

• New ‘frameless’ interface: Provides quicker loading and easier integration into websites that use frames. 
• Enhanced layout and graphics: Clearer screens and more accessible tools, for quicker, more intuitive searching. New looks for Biography Reference Bank, Art Museum Image Gallery, Current Issues: Reference Shelf Plus, and Current Issues in Health offer more immediate access to essential information, better navigation, and suggestions for related searches. 
• Navigational improvements: New Full Text, Full Text PDF, Peer-Reviewed, Bios/Obits, and Image tabs in results let you isolate those records at a click. A new Find box on the results page lets users launch new searches direct from the results screen, with the option to search within results or revise their search completely. 
• Expanded ‘Suggested Subjects’: New location on the left of the results screen makes space for more suggestions. 
• New simplified Print, Email, Save, and Export functions: Accessible right from the article record. Print, Email, and Save functions now capture not just the citation but also any available full text, saving a step. 
• New easy-to-use Search History screen: Combine searches, create email Alerts, and save searches for later retrieval direct from the Search History screen. 
• Full-text translations: Electronic conversion of articles into Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, and Russian.

Source: The H.W. Wilson Company

Hoover’s Launches Business Networking Tool

Hoover’s Connect has only been available in Beta on Hoover’s free site. It is now also available to Hoover’s subscribers. Hoover’s Connect is designed to provide an effective, nonintrusive way for its users to connect to a person through someone the prospect may already have a strong relationship with and who is therefore best suited to make that introduction.

Hoover’s Connect is easy to use. When the user goes to a particular Hoover’s company record and clicks the "Connect" button, various referral paths appear that highlight the strongest path within that user’s network. The service allows users to build their networks actively (by inviting colleagues to join) as well as passively (through an Outlook plug-in that applies unique social networking algorithms to automatically rate relationship strength).

The company says that what distinguishes Hoover’s Connect from other professional business networking tools is its ability to identify users’ strongest relationships by evaluating their Outlook systems such as email and calendars. The service then assesses the strength of those connections and rates them accordingly, all while maintaining customer privacy. Hoover’s Connect lets users evaluate in advance the potential of a particular networking opportunity and tailor communications accordingly, ultimately enhancing the success of online relationship building.

For a demonstration of how Hoover’s Connect works, click here:
http://cdn.hoovers.com/images/i/landingpgs/cs95/vph_new_main.html.

Note: Visible Path supplies the Relationship Manager feature in ExecRelate by LexisNexis (http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbReader.asp?ArticleId=37079). Visible Path also offers a free service for individuals at its website. According to a Hoover’s representative, the company will "continue to offer VisiblePath’s Professional product free to individuals. Users can sign up at www.visiblepath.com, www.hooversconnet.com, or at any of our partner websites for this product. We also plan to continue to support networks distributed by our partners, including LexisNexis." 

Source: Hoover’s, Inc.

MuseGlobal to Collaborate for News Delivery

Built using the Muse Content Machine, MuseGlobal’s powerful content integration platform, News Hound and Blog Hound enable organizations to build and deliver the most up-to-date information services to their internal and external audiences. With News Hound and Blog Hound, organizations can do the following: 

• Create custom feeds from both structured and unstructured news sources including search engines, subscription databases, media outlets, and web mining applications 
• Access up-to-date content instantly with query-based searches and alert feeds 
• Migrate and deliver information seamlessly into third-party or custom applications 
• Generate new revenue streams from company-owned and syndicated content

Unlike traditional search engines, News Hound and Blog Hound enable real-time analysis and results rankings, integrated results from multiple search engines, and a single, centralized-interface and administrative system. On the back end, MuseGlobal’s core technologies integrate seamlessly with any platform and enable simple installation and administration of connections to content services.

Source: MuseGlobal, Inc.

CS Odessa’s ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.3 Creates Visual eBooks

Visual eBook is an electronic book where all the information is presented as a mind map rather than text paragraphs. Each page of a Visual eBook is a mind map that is grouped by chapters and paragraphs like in a text book. Visual eBook is a great solution for preparing learning materials within academic and business environments.

ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.3 provides everything that users need to create Visual eBooks. The software features a comprehensive visual mapping toolset that gives customers the ability to create multipage maps with hyperlinks to other mind maps as well as a PDF export that creates multipage documents and preserves all of the links between maps and topics. Visual eBook creation guide can be found at www.conceptdraw.com/pg?id=mm_5.3_press-ebook.

The update to ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.3 is free for all registered users of ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.x. ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5 is available at the price of $199 for the professional edition and $119 for the personal edition. Founded in 1993, Computer Systems Odessa supplies cross-platform productivity tools and graphics technologies to professional and corporate users. With headquarters in Odessa, Ukraine and an office in San Jose, Calif., CS Odessa sells products through resellers in more than 25 countries.

Source: Computer Systems Odessa Corp.

Emerald Group Acquires Social Science Titles From Elsevier

Cathy Mostyn, director of acquisitions at Emerald, says, "This is the most significant acquisition in Emerald’s history, which provides us with an opportunity to consolidate our position as the world’s leading publisher of management research and to diversify into new areas such as the environment, language and linguistics, politics and policy, psychology and sociology. This is an exciting new venture for the company as we move into book publishing for the first time."

Source: Emerald Group Publishing Limited