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Weekly News Digest

July 29, 2010 — 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.

Wolfram|Alpha Launches Widgets to Share Computable Facts Across the Web

Wolfram|Alpha LLC announced the beta versions of Wolfram|Alpha Widgets and Widget Builder to allow anyone to create and share simple yet powerful web applications using the Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine. This brings the full power of Wolfram|Alpha into a handy widget you can embed right on your website or blog.

A Wolfram|Alpha widget can be built in only a few steps using the drag-and-drop Widget Builder. Widgets can also be personalized, allowing creators to customize the look and feel of the widget as well as the display of the results.

Widgets can be created from any Wolfram|Alpha query. Want to have an app on your blog that calculates the predicted adult height and weight of a child based on his or her current stats? Or how about an app that compares the financial data of two public companies? Or creates a customized nutritional label for any recipe you have? The possibilities are limitless. For more examples of widgets, see the hundreds already in the widget gallery. You can freely take any of the gallery's widgets and embed them on your own blog or website as is or customize them any way you wish: http://developer.wolframalpha.com/widgets/gallery.

Wolfram|Alpha powers the wolframalpha.com website as well as factual results on partner sites like Bing, mobile applications such as the Wolfram|Alpha iPhone and iPad apps, and ebook content for books like The Elements: A Visual Exploration. With today's announcement, anyone can have a widget powered by Wolfram|Alpha.

The beta versions of Wolfram|Alpha Widgets and Widget Builder are available now for free: http://developer.wolframalpha.com/widgets/. Release 1.0 will be available later this year.

Source: Wolfram|Alpha LLC

National Archives Unveils New Federal Register 2.0 Web Site to Mark 75th Anniversary

To mark the 75th anniversary of the Federal Register Act on July 26, 2010, the National Archives Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and the Government Printing Office (GPO) will launch FR 2.0 on FederalRegister.gov. The FR 2.0 web site will be similar to a daily web newspaper, with a clear layout and new tools to guide readers to the most popular topics and relevant documents.

The site will display individual news sections for Money, Environment, World, Science & Technology, Business & Industry, and Health & Public Welfare. FR 2.0 will have greatly improved navigation and search tools and will highlight each agency's significant rules. The new web site takes advantage of social media and integrates seamlessly with Regulations.gov and the Unified Agenda to make it easy for users to submit comments directly into the official e-Rulemaking docket, and view the history of rulemaking activity through a regulatory timeline.

The concept of FR 2.0 originated with Open Government advocates, and was later advanced by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In technology terms, FR 2.0 uses the bulk XML from GPO's Federal Digital System (FDsys) to present regulatory material in new configurations. The applications on the site are built from open source code, which will be returned to the open source community for unrestricted use in other applications. FR 2.0 will be posted as an unofficial prototype on July 26, 2010, on FederalRegister.gov to gather public feedback, and may be approved as an official edition in 2011.

Source: National Archives

U.S. Public Libraries Can Provide High Schools with Free Credo Reference Access

In a new program from Credo Reference, U.S. public libraries that subscribe to Credo General Reference will be able to provide their local public high school(s) with access to the subscription service at no additional cost. Recognizing the increasing burden on public libraries to support the research needs of students at local schools, Credo Reference will be made available to a library's local public high school(s). The students will now have unlimited access to trusted content from Credo's 70+ publishers when it is time to write their research papers, whether they are at school, home, or the local library.

"Public libraries have become a more important community resource than ever before. We are pleased to be able to offer this new program as a way to support public libraries and the schools they serve," commented Mike Sweet, Credo Reference CEO, "and we encourage libraries to take advantage of the offer before the September 30^th deadline."

Founded in 1999, Credo Reference, with offices in Oxford and Boston, has been offering completely customizable reference collections for libraries since 2002. Credo's General Reference services combine extensive content from multiple publishers with unique cross-referencing technology, effortlessly delivering authoritative answers to millions of researchers worldwide. Publisher Collections allow libraries to augment their collection with specific, deep reference content from highly-regarded publishers.

Source: Credo Reference

Food Industry Watch Now Available from EBSCO Publishing

EBSCO Publishing extends its evidence-based information solutions to the food industry with the release of Food Industry Watch. This new resource is a robust executive decision support tool providing the most-current, objective information available on all topics affecting the food industry.

Food Industry Watch is designed specifically to support the information needs of corporate executives in the hospitality, food service, and food production industries. The new resource offers access to more than 200 evidence-based, industry-related reports.

Food Industry Watch has adapted EBSCO's core evidence-based methodology to areas of interest to corporate executives. The evidence-based approach identifies, selects and systematically evaluates pertinent information and creates a synthesis of the best available evidence. EBSCO's experience with evidence-based content includes Sustainability Watch and Corporate Learning Watch as well as the point-of-care resources it provides to hospitals and other medical institutions including the clinical decision support resource DynaMed.

Food Industry Watch may be integrated into corporate portals and Intranets. The EBSCOhost Integration Toolkit allows EBSCO's content to be incorporated into an organization's workflow-providing seamless access to premium content. Food Industry Watch joins a collection of food industry databases available through EBSCO including Food Science Source and FSTA - Food Science & Technology Abstracts.

Source: EBSCO Publishing

Amazon’s Kindle Store Gets 2-Year Exclusive for 20 Modern Classic Titles

Amazon.com, Inc. announced that The Wylie Agency is publishing 20 books from some of literature's most influential authors through its new Odyssey Editions imprint and making them available for sale exclusively in the Kindle Store. This is the first time any of the titles-which include Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man-have been available electronically, and all of the books are exclusive to the Kindle Store for 2 years. Customers can download these books for $9.99 from the Kindle Store and read them anywhere-on their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, PC, Mac, iPad, and Android devices.

The Wylie Agency, in business for more than 30 years, represents many of the greatest names in 20^th and 21^st century literature. Odyssey Editions is the first digitally native literary imprint launch of its kind. Books available in the Kindle Store through Odyssey Editions include modern classics such as Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, John Cheever's The Stories of John Cheever, and four novels from John Updike's Rabbit series. The 20 ebooks published by Odyssey Editions carry a unified new look designed in collaboration with Enhanced Editions.

Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

Ed. Note: Other publishers, including Random House and Macmillan responded negatively to the news of the exclusive deal. Reports indicate that Random House announced it has stopped doing business with Wylie and is disputing Amazon's right to legally sell the titles.

Google Announces Google Apps for Government

Google announced a new edition of Google Apps designed for government, with specific measures to address the policy and security needs of the public sector. Google says Google Apps for Government is the first suite of cloud computing messaging and collaboration applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. General Services Administration.

Google Apps for Government stores Gmail and Calendar data in a segregated system located in the continental U.S., exclusively for its government customers. Other applications will follow in the near future. The suite is a "community cloud"-as defined by the National Institute for Science and Technology-to support the needs of government customers. Google Apps for Government is available now to any federal, state, or local government in the U.S.

Google Apps for Government lets agencies cut IT costs and empower employees. FISMA certification from the federal government attests to the security of the data. All these web-based applications cost $50 per user per year.

Source: Google