New category unveiled as III Awards noms open

Organisers of the International Information Industry Awards, held alongside the Online Information show in November, have announced that nominations are now open. And this year there's a new award category as well.

There is a toral of 18 categories on the awards roster, ranging from project and team awards (in academic, business, public sector and scientific environments) through to an individual Lifetime Achievement award.

The awards are presented by a well-known televisual celebrity (in previous years these have included Loyd Grossman, John Suchet and Trevor MacDonald), and have built up a reputation over the years as being an essential highlight of any information professional's calendar.

Product awards range from Best User Experience and Best Customer Service Team through to Best Specialist Search product. This year a new category is being added, Best Product for Libraries. Sponsors for the event include ICC, FreePint, CILIP and the American Psychological Association.

Two awards are also being presented during the show's associated Conference: the Jason Farradane Award will be announced on Tuesday 28 November and the Tony Kent Strix Award the following day. Both are sponsored by Sage Publications.

Blackwell takes full-text in-house

Blackwell Publishing has brought the full-text of its journal content in-house, taking the articles off the IngentaConnect hosting service from January 2007. Full-text article will now be hosted on their own Blackwell Synergy service. IngentaConnect will still feature metadata, including abstracts and tables of contents from Blackwell journals.

Researchers who are not part of subscribing institute and wish to purchase articles on a pay-per-view basis will be directed to IngentaConnect, which will continue to host this e-commerce service for Blackwell.

Blackwell recently concluded a strategic partnership with US medical publisher Le Jacq. Under the terms of the agreement Blackwell will publish the eight peer-reviewed clinical journals the Connecticut based publisher produces, as well as its series of books.

Display links neatly with Grazr

The Outline Processor Markup Language is emerging as a de facto XML-based way of exchanging structured information. It is quite often used for exchanging bookmarks and RSS aggregator feed URLs. Some outliners can also handle OPML.

As the format creeps into our consciousness, a need has arisen for a simple way to present OPML information. Step forward Grazr. In a very short while, this online service has made web-publishing these feeds very simple. Copy the OPML file to a server, collect a really simple bit of HTML code from the Grazr configuration page, and away you go.

Like this:

As you can see, the viewer can be very compact. If you click your way to the IWR blog section, you'll experience the power of the RSS feed element. You can keep drilling, through the headlines to the content itself. Just click on the newspapery icon to the left.

If the information you're reading looks a little cramped, click on the top right hand icon and you get a second, resizeable window, on the information. The adjacent icon gives a choice of 'slider' or 'outline' views.

As a concise way of delivering information, Grazr takes some beating. The narrow sidebar of one of my blogs contains two Grazr panels. One lets visitors see and read my favourite blogs. The other is arguably the world's smallest c.v. - less than five centimetres (2") square.

You will see a reference to OPML Editor in the Grazr example above. This is a free outliner program which you can also use for blogging. Importantly, in this context, the output is pure OPML.

Making information easy at the Google Co-op

The BBC today has a background article on the history of the internet and the debt we all owe Tim Berners-Lee.  Journalist Mark Ward says of internet technology:

"Every surge of interest in the web has been driven by the appearance of tools that make this expression, or a new type of it such as blogging, far easier than before."

He is of course dead right.  One technology I have been looking at closely in the last week is Google Co-op the latest beta from the search engine giants.  Google ranks as a company that has made internet usage easier.  Co-op makes finding good information easier, so far a bane of the internet, and not only that, it harnesses the skills of information literate experts and the co-operative environment created by the likes of Wikipedia and blogging.

No matter what your opinion of Google is, it cannot be denied that they do look for ways to make access to information easier. Google Co-op enables users to create a specialised search area on a topic they are a leading expert in.  As a result information professionals  must get involved and IWR would like to hear from British info pros rolling their sleeves up to co-operate.

National Archives thinks British are ill informed on Domesday

According the National Archives, 2% of the British population think that the Domesday Book is a title from author Dan Brown, he of Da Vinci Code fame.  The headline figure could lead some to believe the masses are un-educated, and I get a sneaky feeling this is the aim of the National Archives media campaign, but the fact that 98% seem to be a little more savvy about history is surely a positive thing.

The misguided 2% probably can't be blamed too much, Mr Brown and his fictional work have dominated publishing headlines of late.  We do live in a nation steeped in history and culture, and world awash with news and information, surely the National Archives can forgive a small minority for getting the odd headline and historical fact confused?

Criticisms of the National Archives aside, the government organisation should be applauded for putting one of the most important documents in our national history online.  Academics, information professionals and researchers across the country are now freed from having to travel to London each time they need to access this seminal record.

Commissioned in 1085 by William I the Norman conquerer who won the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the Domesday Book was voted the nation's finest treasure in 2005.

Information researchers will be able to search by place names and see an index of entries by town, city or village. There's also a revenue generator in it for the National Archives, which no doubt invested heavily in the digitisation project, whereby users can purchase a copy of a page featuring the place name they are researching.

Not only should the National Archives be applauded for its commitment to digitising such an important work, but as a government body, it clearly has some commercial awareness.  History has never been so popular. In a recent discussion with Thomson Gale and universities IWR has learnt that academics and students are embracing history with vigour. The shelves of book shops continually sport new Popular History books, and they sell.  Television too is quick to adopt a trend and history continues to fill air time.  The National Archives recognises this and has done well to release such as massive project at an important time.

The biggest test now for the National Archives will be to ensure the website can sustain the pressure of millions of people logging on to visit the site and bringing it crashing down, as has plagued recent census sites.

 

EC seeks content consultation

Viviane Reding, the European Commission's Information Society and Media Commissioner wants online content producers across Europe to inform her how the market should take shape and the challenges it faces. 

Reding has launched Content Online in Europe's Single Market, a consultation process which she hopes will furnish her with the information she needs to stimulate growth in the European digital content market. Currently the market is worth 8% of Europe's GDP, but the market is expected to triple by 2008.

Reding wants members of the content community to inform her of the economic and regulatory barriers the industry faces, how Europeans fare compared to the rest of the world in terms of competition and do we need progress in digital rights management.

Reding is looking at content produced in the corporate, as well entertainment markets, including films, music and games.

Transformation continues apace at Wolters Kluwer

Transformation continues to be the order of the day at Dutch publishing and information services company Wolters Kluwer, although half-yearly results have not quite reached analysts expectations.

Revenues for the six months to 30 June 2006 were €1,770 million, a 12 per cent increase over the first half of 2005 (€1,580 million).

The company recorded a 13 per cent yr-on-yr increase in product development spending (€126 million), while structural cost savings increased 23% to €58 million. It said it had strong free cash flow in the first half of €79 million, compared with €23 million in H1 2005.

Chairman of the executive board, Nancy McKinstry, a US national who has headed the company's five year transformation and restructuring programme, was characteristically upbeat.

"With half-year results in line with our expectations, plus strong organic growth in the Corporate & Financial Services division and Tax and Accounting unit, and steady cost and process improvements, we continue to benefit from the strategic roadmap we set in place two and a half years ago," she said.

"Innovative electronic products and software, solid acquisitions, and strong market knowledge are driving our transformation and delivering greater value for our customers, and therefore our shareholders. As we move into the next two quarters, we are confident that we are on track to achieve the objectives of our three-year strategy."

Wolters Kluwer experienced variable fortunes in its five divisions, with growth driven by acquisitions in its Health division (Pharma Solutions acquired NDCHealth in August 2005) and its Tax, Accounting & Legal division, which serves the North American market.

It said its Legal Tax and Regulatory Europe division had made "steady progress" with Italy, Spain and Central Europe performing well, "boosted by investments in online and electronic products and strong online revenue growth".

Restructuring and cost-savings in its more established European territories has produced benefits, it said. "The effects of restructuring in the Netherlands and Belgium show positive results, with restructuring in the UK still underway."

Financial press response was initially muted, with Reuters saying it had missed analysts forecasts and Hemscott reporting "Q2 EBITA pre-ex shy of expectations" .