ITI Bloggers November 30th, 2005

Just when we thought we had enough acronyms to contend with, enter SUSHI (Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative). And this doesn’t have anything to do with a California roll.

EBSCO Information Services, with members of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), has developed a Web service that allows easy machine-to-machine transfer of journal-level usage. According to Oliver Pesch, EBSCO’s chief strategist of E-Resources, SUSHI will be released as a draft standard for trial use in early 2006 to help libraries harvest and analyze data from Project COUNTER Code of Practice (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources). In a nutshell, libraries were looking for a way to consolidate normalized data for use in collection development decisions. The new Web service can be used with the library’s usage consolidation application to retrieve essential data automatically when needed.

Barbara Brynko
Editor in Chief
Information Today

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ITI Bloggers November 30th, 2005

The latest London Tube map seems to have taken a lesson from yesterday’s keynote speaker, who declared that information was messy. Contrast the “messiness” of the graphic on the cover with the rationality of the map itself. The cover is Weinbergian, the contents Gormanian.

Marydee Ojala
Editor, ONLINE: The Leading Magazine for Information Professionals

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ITI Bloggers November 30th, 2005

I mentioned in a previous post that several companies were back on the exhibit floor. One is conspicuously absent — Factiva . Several people have mentioned how surprised they are that there’s no Factiva presence. In earlier days, Factiva had a prime spot in the front of the exhibition hall. The last two years the company had a smaller stand and moved to the Content Management portion of the hall. A Factiva representative told me last week that they’d decided not to exhibit this year because they had other ways of reaching customers that they felt were more cost-effective.

Although Factiva is not here, the Wall Street Journal is, in its new tabloid-style format. Subscribers to the European edition of the Wall Street Journal are also automatically subscribed to wsj.com and many stories in the printed paper indicate that a fuller version is available online. Subscribers to wsj.com from outside Europe have the same access.

As, of course, do Factiva subscribers.

Marydee Ojala
Editor, ONLINE: The Leading Magazine for Information Professionals

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ITI Bloggers November 29th, 2005

The big media empires are not the only ones who apprarently are worried about their names (see two related posts below).

I still prefer descriptive names, myself, since they are easier to remember and associate than the nonsense words many of the newer companies (and those who want to appear newer) have adopted.

Take Zissor, for example, the Norwegian company that has run a clipping service for many years. CEO Jon Asakskogen (right) told me the company name is exactly what it sounds like, "scissors," as in implements used to clip things out. I get it immediately. Asakskogen calls it "an extremely strong brand." And who could forget it?

Then there are companies that play off a system feature . . .

Since 2000, the company formerly known as InfoTipp (loosely associated with touch-screen technology), switched branding gears by playing off of a distinctive feature of its Content Management software platform.

On every screen of the user interface, explained Peter Aylward, Managing Director, there is a red dot, that when pressed permits the page to be changed.

Once a potential customer understands the premise of the name, it’s fairly easy to remember, don’t you think? (Photo: Shown at the RedDot stand in London is James Tait, RedDot Partner Manager.)

Even companies known by the names of their founders can yet take on post-modern identities in their product branding.

The Raymond Morris Group, purveyor of company financial data, was able to get keenly updated by cleverly rapping the RM signature into the word aRMadillo when it took its products to the Web in the mid-1990s, according to RM’s Theo De Regibus (not shown in the picture but who I bumped into during a "coffee break.")

Ah . . . though it’s somewhat of a stretch, once you get it, it’s easy to make the connection and associate the brand name with the company. In beefing up an image it also doesn’t hurt to have young and very attractive booth staff.

I wish I could say that all the companies here could serve as such good examples of naming and branding.

For a newcomer to this industry, scanning down the list of exhibitors here must be like trying to make sense out of government agency acronymns.

Dick Kaser
ITI V.P., Content
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ITI Bloggers November 29th, 2005

The Thomson companies aren’t the only ones with a new branding strategy. Wolters-Kluwer has a new concept, too.

Just as Dialog, ISI, and Derwent are now more closely encapsulated by the Thomson Scientific brand (see blog post below), Ovid has now been more closely associated with its parent Wolters-Kluwer.

Ovid’s Connie Hughes explained that in the new branding campaign, a new logo (which replaces Ovid’s own logo) has been introduced for the Wolters-Kluwer enterprises.

With its “multiple images of squares,” she said, the new logo is meant to imply “the unity of the Wolters-Kluwer companies, by encircling them in a wheel graphic.”

Andrew Richardson, Managing Director, International, and Connie Hughes, Director of Marketing and Communications for Ovid, in Ovid’s new look-and-feel stand

In the new stand, largely comprised of draped canvas, photos of Ovid employees are subtly stamped on the suspended backdrops, but as the branding campaign rolls out, images from nature will be used, “instead of people in lab coats sitting at computers” in Ovid’s promotional and corporate materials, said Hughes.

The new stand, with its muted graphic design, premiered at the Frankfurt Book Fair a few weeks ago, but, Hughes said, this is the first time the new look has been shown to the database and search market.

In contast to Thomson’s branding approach, the Wolters-Kluwer parent name is still subservient to the “power brand,” Ovid. And, as a result, if you look for Ovid in the list of exhibitors here, you will still find them under the familiar letter “O”.

Dick Kaser
ITI V.P., Content
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ITI Bloggers November 29th, 2005

Don’t go looking for Dialog in this year’s Online Information show guide. It’s not listed.

And if you follow the ceiling banners for “ISI,” don’t be surprised if you wind up talking about financial conditions in developing nations instead of Web of Science.

There’s nothing wrong with either the program listings or the signage. Both trusted brands have been subsumed by the corporate imprimatur of “Thomson Scientific.”

It goes ditto for Derwent.

In recent years, one would have found the three in separate exhibit stands clustered around a suspended Thomson sign. But this year, the stands have been merged.

No one is officially willing to speculate about what this most recent change means, other than to say it represents a new branding strategy for the Thomson companies.

There is, however, a little unofficial chatter that it could imply more.

Dick Kaser
ITI V.P., Content
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ITI Bloggers November 29th, 2005

Here’s a brief round-up of some vendor announcements. Visit the stands in the exhibit hall to see these new products and check back to the blog and our NewsBreaks for additional information.

Norway-based Ontopia is launching Ontopoly, a new Web-based tool for creating, populating, and managing corporate ontologies—its the latest addition to the Ontopia Knowledge Suite. The company says Ontopoly serves the needs of the people who design the ontology, and also those who provide its content. A free version of Ontopoly will be available for download (at www.ontopia.net) together with an evaluation version of the Omnigator, Ontopia’s Topic Maps.
Visit Ontopia at Stand #40.

Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing (BvDEP) said it will soon offer the option of accessing the ORBIS company database under its MINT interface, which is aimed specifically at end-users and company-wide desktop access. ORBIS contains information on over 15 million companies around the world and brings together data from more than forty specialist providers. BvDEP will be previewing MINT GLOBAL at Online Information. MINT GLOBAL joins MINT UK in the MINT stable, with MINT SPAIN currently under development. MINT UK was launched in 2004.
Visit BvDEP at Stand #136.

Scopus, the citation and abstract database from Elsevier, said that it is now including links to full-text articles in scholarly journals archived by JSTOR. Over 250 of the scholarly journals archived by JSTOR are now accessible via links from Scopus.
Visit Scopus at Stand #70.

FIZ Karlsruhe and CAS, operators of STN International, announced a new version of the STN AnaVist software, which analyses search results from STN files and visualises the information in interactive charts and three-dimensional diagrams. FIZ Karlsruhe also launched a new version of its automatic broker service for document delivery, FIZ AutoDoc, and announced some new content partners for the service.
Visit Stand #226.

Thomson Scientific and FIZ Karlsruhe announced that the enhanced version of Thomson’s Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) will be available on STN International in1Q 2006. The file is being re-designed to accommodate the requirements of the International Patent Classification (IPC), Version 8, which enters into force
Jan. 1, 2006. The enhanced version of DWPI will also be available on Thomson’s Dialog online service in 1Q 2006.
Visit Stand #226 (FIZ Karlsruhe) and Stand #248 (Thomson Scientific)

Paula J. Hane
ITI’s News Bureau Chief
www.infotoday.com
phane {at} infotoday(.)com

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ITI Bloggers November 29th, 2005

In keeping with the spirit of the season, Emerald’s Christmas Fairy, Christina Tattersall dispensed goodie bags to show goers in London today.

Emerald is the publisher of professional literature in the fields of management and library services.

In her day job, Christina notes, she is a Product Trainer for Emerald.

Dick Kaser
ITI V.P., Content
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ITI Bloggers November 29th, 2005

[Inset Photo] Jack Abuhoft, CEO, Innodata-Isogen accepts the EContent 100 Award from Tom Hogan, Sr., CEO, Information Today [Photo Right] Walter McQuilan, EContent’s Sales Manger, shows Innodata’s CEO Abuhoft the award write-up for Innodata Isogen in the EContent 100 issue

We count 29 other EContent 100 Award Winners in London this week, all of whom received their awards today:

Alacra, Alfresco, Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS),CSA, D&B, Day Software,
EBSCO Industries, EMC Software, eMeta,Endeca Technologies,Factiva,
Fast Search & Transfer, Google,Ingenta,Knovel Corporation, MarkLogic, Mediasurface,Microsoft,Moreover Technologies,OCLC, Ovid Technologies,
ProQuest Information and Learning, Questel•Orbit, Reed Elsevier Group, Springer Science+Business Media,Swets Information Services,The Thomson Corporation, Vivísimo,and Xrefer.

Where are the other 70 EC100 Award Winners this week?

And oops. Correction: Make that 71. Factiva is not here, after all.

Dick Kaser
ITI V.P., Content
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ITI Bloggers November 29th, 2005

There couldn’t have been a greater contrast between David Weinberger’s keynote address and one immediately following by ALA President, Michael Gorman. While Weinberger paced up and down the platform, gesturing and occasionally shouting in his enthusiasm for a new order (or rather, a lack of order), in another room, Gorman sat quietly at the desk, spoke calmly and deliberately, without a PowerPoint presentation, espousing his opinion that the function of the library remains the same as it always has: the preservation of human knowledge. In addition, to assist users find the information they want and, given the failure of the US education system, to look after the health of users’ literary skills.

Speaking purely personally and not on behalf of the ALA, Gorman said, “Digitisation, particularly Google Print is a mistake. It is a waste of money to digitise material that nobody uses.” Further, he does not like at all the idea that readers should be able dip into works that can only be fully understood when read completely and sequentially.

Gorman also criticised Google’s name change from Google Print to Google Book Search. He believes that library catalogs are perfectly adequate for book searches and Amazon is fine for book purchases.

The remainder of the panel, two librarians and a Google spokesman, didn’t share these views. Elisabeth Niggemann, die Deutsche Bibliothek is keen to grow the body of digital content whether by corporations or through government funding as exemplified by The European Library project. (More on the European Library will appear in the January Information Today International Column).

Glenda Myers from the University of Witwatersrand was generous, even overflowing, in her praise of Google, saying that in her remote and poorer part of the world, Google was opening access to literature that could never have been provided before.

Google’s John Lewis Needham pointed out three factors about Google that change everything to do with search that none of the earlier speakers had mentioned: the price (free), the speed (fast) and the age of the Google user and Google developer communities (20 to 30).

Looks to me that the score at the end of round one is: New Order 3, Tradition 1.

Jim Ashling
Ashling Consulting
jashling {at} aol(.)com
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