ITI Bloggers November 30th, 2004
As everyone knows Elsevier has taken–perhaps more than–its fair share of heat from the library community. But in all fairness, it has also taken criticism seriously and it has always been very responsive. To say the least, nobody should know better than Elsevier the power of librarians. So when I saw this slogan emblazzoned on a chic black canvas designer tote bag in the Elsevier stand, I had to chuckle.
Yes, indeed, Elsevier does understand librarians. These bags are going to disappear fast.
Dick Kaser
ITI VP, Content
ITI Bloggers November 30th, 2004
The Online Information and Content Management Europe 2004 trade show opened this morning at 10 o’clock sharp.
Here delegates queue up for badges. The final count on the number of exhibitors is 250, according to the show organizers.
Dick Kaser
ITI VP, Content
ITI Bloggers November 30th, 2004
Swets announced this morning that its SwetsWise Subscriptions and SwetsWise Online Content now have interfaces in Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish. Interfaces already exist for English, French, German, and Swedish. Should be good for Swets’ international customer base.
Marydee Ojala
Editor, ONLINE: The Leading Magazine for Information Professionals
www.onlinemag.net
ITI Bloggers November 30th, 2004
Yikes! There’s too much going on around here. There’s the regular sessions, there’s the Academy, there’s Roundtables over lunch, there’s the International Forums, there’s Theatre presentations, and of course, there’s the Exhibition with several hundred exhibitors. How to get the most out of Online Information? What a challenge.
Marydee Ojala
Editor, ONLINE:The Leading Magazine for Information Professionals
www.onlinemag.net
ITI Bloggers November 30th, 2004
Jakob Nielsen, usability guru, reviewed the past 10 years of usability studies to a packed house for the opening session of Online Information. He began by saying that usability was a concept not restricted to Web sites. He specifically mentioned cars and phones. For this audience, he could also have included library catalogs, but that’s a usability horse of another color. Statistics on Web search are interesting. In 1997, only 40% of Web searches succeeded. Today it’s 66%. Nielsen was heartened by this statistic, but some in the audience wished it was higher. He then reviewed the design flaws that the Nielsen Norman Group identified through their testing and compared the ones from 1994 with the situation today. Some remain problems, while others have ceased to be issues for Web designers. Still in the problem category are:
Links that don’t change color
Breaking back buttons
Opening in new browser window
Pop-ups
Looking like advertisements
Violating Web conventions
Vaporous content, non-specific hype
Dense content, non-scannable text
Nielsen sees improvements in download time, decreased use of frames, long videos, cross-platform design, flaws, low relevancy, and frozen layouts.
A new usability flaw is plug-in icons for multimedia.
Nilesen ended his talk with the comment that focusing on simplicity rather than glamour is the answer to usability.
Marydee Ojala
Editor, ONLINE: The Leading Magazine for Information Professionals
www.onlinemag.net
ITI Bloggers November 30th, 2004
Conference Chair Martin White with Jakob Nielsen
Online Information 2004 has just launched with Jakob Nielsen’s keynote, and a registration count of around 800 conference attendees and speakers, according to Martin White, Conference Chair. Watch for a report on what Nielsen had to say in a posting to come soon from Marydee Ojala.
Nancy Garman
Information Today, Inc.
ITI Bloggers November 29th, 2004
Olympia Convention Center
Dick Kaser
ITI VP, Content
ITI Bloggers November 29th, 2004
ITI’s reporting staff in London, (from left): Don Hawkins (covering the conference for Information Today newspaper, read his report in January); Editor of ONLINE Magazine Marydee Ojala, blogging the conference; Jim Ashling, Information Today’s International Columnist (look for his in-depth analysis in the February edition of Information Today); Dick Kaser (yours truly), blogging the exhibition; and Nancy Garman, ITI’s Director of Conference Program Planning, blogging the sessions.
During this evenings’ editorial planning meeting, you couldn’t get a word in edgewise, everyone was so excited about everything there is to do over the next several days.
We were especially vying for who gets to cover which party, but more about that tomorrow night. (It depends on how many invitations we can pick up.)
As you can see from the postings, we are backed up in the States by the very industry-connected Paula Hane, ITI News Bureau Chief, and the aggressive editors at EContent magazine, Michelle Manafy and Kinley Levack.
Cheers, guys.
Dick Kaser
ITI VP Content
ITI Bloggers November 29th, 2004
The Thomson Corp. is using the London event for the official launch of its new integrated research tool for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. The full commercial launch of the much-anticipated Thomson Pharma product isn’t until January 2005, but visitors to the Thomson Scientific booth (starting tomorrow) will be able to see the live product demonstrated. The company said it also plans customer lunches, presentations, seminars, and a gala party to introduce its new information solution, which provides a single interface and gateway to a portfolio of patent, scientific, and financial information products and services from across the range of Thomson-owned businesses.
For details, see the NewsBreak posted today, “Thomson Announces New Pharma Research Tool”: http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb041129-1.shtml
Update: Thomson and Information Holdings Inc. announced that they have received confirmation that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has cleared the proposed acquisition of IHI by Thomson. No conditions were imposed on the acquisition by the DOJ, and Thomson and IHI expect to close the transaction shortly, subject to the customary closing conditions. IHI’s businesses include MicroPatent, Master Data Center, and IDRAC.
Paula J. Hane, ITI News Bureau Chief
www.infotoday.com
ITI Bloggers November 29th, 2004
About half the exhibitors in London have said they will be making a new product announcement during this show. Whether or not all of those intentions materialize is uncertain.
But, for a fact, Information Today is today announcing the release of a comprehensive digital archive of our periodicals, going back in some cases to 1987.
The archive can be searched at our Web site: http://www.iti-infocentral.com/
It’s the first time those outside academic and institutional libraries have had digital access to all of our periodicals.
Our partner in bringing you this resource is Proquest.
For more information, read our joint press release.
Dick Kaser
ITI VP, Content
