News & Events > NewsBreaks Back Index Forward

Weekly News Digest

February 25, 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.

Scribd Launches Platform and iPaper Document Viewer

The primary design goals of iPaper were that it be fast, light, and easy to use. At 100 KB, the iPaper application is reportedly about 1/1,000th the size of Adobe’s Acrobat Reader software, making it a fast way to view documents. Despite the tiny size, iPaper integrates Scribd’s social features, like emailing and embedding, and an elegant security system that allows content owners to protect their work without clumsy DRM solutions. iPaper also builds on the features of PDF, including full-text search, copy/paste functionality, and various view modes and zooms.

The Scribd Platform is a set of tools that allows anyone to bring the iPaper experience to their own websites. The Scribd.com website allows individuals to publish their personal documents in iPaper; the Scribd Platform will allow any website to use iPaper internally. The Scribd Platform gives websites several ways to use iPaper, from the Scribd API for experienced developers to options that require no programming knowledge at all. In fact, using the QuickSwitch tool, users can insert one line of code into the webpage and convert every PDF on the site into an iPaper document in minutes.

Scribd’s iPaper technology also offers users the opportunity to monetize their documents through contextually relevant advertisements. Using Google’s AdSense advertising program, Scribd has successfully integrated AdSense ads in Flash into the iPaper viewer. Scribd doesn’t require users to download software upgrades to enable the service.

Source: Scribd

EBSCO A-to-Z Used for Open Science Directory

Designed to enhance access to these collections by providing direct links to journals and articles in the EBSCO A-to-Z title database, the Open Science Directory offers immediate access to approximately 13,000 scientific journal titles, with an objective of 20,000 titles midway through development. Among the main open access collections in the Open Science Directory are DOAJ, BioMed Central, HighWire Press, and PubMed Central, and special programs HINARI, AGORA, and OARE. INASP-PERI and eJDS will be added in the near future.

The EBSCO A-to-Z locator tool is used by libraries to list all of their e-resources, including ejournals, full-text title databases, publisher packages, and ebooks. The A-to-Z locator tool listing also contains print titles as well as other local resources. EBSCO’s A-to-Z knowledgebase (master title database) represents all major database vendors and publishers, with information on more than 216,000 unique titles from nearly 2,000 databases and ejournal packages.

Source: EBSCO Information Services

Thomson Scientific to Use Collexis’ Knowledge Dashboard in Custom Solution

The Thomson Collexis Dashboard is a custom software and information solution that enables scientists to analyze large numbers of publications concerning a defined topic swiftly and efficiently and filter the essential information. Additionally, it allows researchers to explore existing knowledge concepts and provides proactive suggestions about the direction of research across a topic or by category. It also includes multiple thesauri that allow different points of view on the same data and subject navigation. A time-saving solution for scientists, the Thomson Collexis Dashboard includes summarized information, which reportedly is not to be found in any system currently available, and it provides identification of experts across categories on multiple subsets of the literature instantly—including their relevant social network.

Source: Thomson Scientific

365 Media Announces Real-Time Research Service for Publishers

The service enables a publisher to define a target business entity group—either through the provision of an established database or the selection of specific criteria—and then activate web-based monitoring on that subject to update, enhance, or find relevant information. 365 Media ensures that the right quality standard is maintained by deploying research agents at various parts of the process to check quality, accuracy, and relevancy, feeding statistical analysis back into the system to enable it to improve over time.

The system has already been deployed on a major project commissioned by Experian, and it has been utilized by Nielsen Business Media, McGraw-Hill, and Informa, among others. 365 Media is a privately held information solutions and services firm based in San Mateo, Calif. The company has two divisions: Application Solutions and Information Services. The Information Services Division provides outsourced research and editorial services to business media, marketing, and premium information companies.

Source: 365 Media, Inc.

Northern Light Launches MI Analyst 2.0

MI Analyst 2.0 adds many new "facets" (categories of terms) by which the software can analyze search results, automatically extracting meaning from internal and research documents, licensed secondary research, news stories, and web sources. Joining the previously released facets (Companies, Venture-Funded Companies, IT Technologies, and IT Markets), new and expanded facets include Government Agencies, Industries, Business Issues, and Strategic Scenarios.

Also new in MI Analyst 2.0 is a facility to improve the value of search results based on the proximity of specified terms or phrases to each other and, more importantly, to any of the terms in any of the facets in MI Analyst. With the 2.0 release, MI Analyst expands beyond its roots in the IT sector to the pharmaceutical industry research. New facets relevant to pharmaceuticals include Human Anatomy, Diseases, Drugs, Cells, Cell Receptors, Proteins, Genes, Enzymes, Pharmaceutical Markets, Life Sciences Scenarios, and Research Strategies and Therapeutic Approaches.

MI Analyst is available from Northern Light as an added-value option for SinglePoint enterprise market research portals and as an integrated capability within Analyst Direct, Northern Light’s subscription-based market research search engine. Unlimited enterprisewide access to MI Analyst starts at $48,000 annually.

Source: Northern Light

Thomson Gains Regulatory Clearances for Reuters Acquisition

Thomson and Reuters retain full ownership of the relevant databases, and these undertakings do not affect Thomson’s and Reuters’ ongoing business or capabilities in these areas. The two companies are not required to complete the sales prior to the closing of the acquisition. All regulatory approvals needed to close the transaction have now been obtained. Thomson and Reuters will each now seek shareholder and court approvals. The companies expect the transaction to close the week of April 13, 2008.

The timetable of principal events is expected to be as follows: 

• Mailing/posting of Thomson and Reuters shareholder circulars—expected end of February 
• Thomson Shareholder Meeting (Toronto)—March 26 
• Reuters Shareholder Meeting (London)—March 26 
• Closing of transaction and launch of Thomson Reuters—week of April 13

Source: The Thomson Corp.