Database Marketplace 2005: Shopping for Information
Industry behemoths, niche sellers, and boutique shops compete for library dollars
By Carol Tenopir, Gayle Baker, & William Robinson -- Library Journal, 5/15/2005
Both librarians and end users have more shopping options than ever when it comes to finding information. From small boutiques with specialized products to the one-stop shopping of megastores, the database marketplace of 2005 resembles retail shopping. But some worry that the information marketplace will be subject to the same uncertain market conditions of the retail world, where it's difficult for small stores to compete when megachains come to town.
Wal-Mart or Google?At first only other chains like Sears worried about Wal-Mart. But pretty soon the public started going there for everything—from groceries to consumer electronics—in addition to cheap clothing, and then every store in the vicinity started to worry. Today's general information behemoth is, without doubt, the open web, and the most popular retail outlet is Google. Google first made its impact on other web search engines, quickly becoming the most popular among the competitors, with "to Google" now a common expression. Recently Google introduced Google Scholar, Google Print, Google Maps, and Google Video, making it clear that Google is into every type of information. Since its stated mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," no information provider is safe.
Many in the scholarly information community, including IEEE, CISTI, OCLC, and several university libraries, work directly with Google to ensure that their content is indexed on Google, with pointers to either pay per view web sites (for full text) or to library collections. Abstracting and indexing services that own no original content may have the most to worry about.
Free for readersWal-Mart shoppers expect bargain prices, but they don't expect to get things for free. Information shoppers on the web are expecting not only bargains but, increasingly, free information. A few information providers offer choices to meet this expectation.
SpringerLink's Open Choice and the American Institute of Physics's Author Select services, for example, give authors the choice to pay a fee to have their articles made freely available online. Public Library of Science and BioMed Central continue to publish with an "author pays" open access model. Most publishers allow authors to self-archive their articles, which, when combined with Google Scholar, provides open access to versions of many scholarly articles. Journals on HighWire Press go into open access after a reasonable time. In response to new National Institutes of Health guidelines, the American Chemical Society (ACS) posts the peer-reviewed versions of ACS journal articles on PubMed Central 12 months after publication.
Sometimes it is more convenient or aesthetically pleasing to go to a specialty store if you know the product you want. Offering high-quality, targeted information to a unique niche is one way smaller information providers can compete (and everyone in the information industry is smaller than Google).
Borders or Elsevier?Elsevier continues to make strategic acquisitions, particularly in the STM world. It is now the single largest publisher of scholarly journals and offers many specialty books as well. Like Borders, it concentrates on just a few categories of materials and, like Borders, remains highly used while being accused of either swallowing or dominating the competition.
Scopus, introduced in 2004, provides access to bibliographic information and full-text links to over 14,000 scholarly journals from Elsevier and other science and engineering publishers. Cited reference searching makes Scopus a direct competitor to Thomson's ISI Web of Science (see E-Views and Reviews, LJ 1/05, p. 40ff.). Thomson reorganized, putting Dialog's science, reference, and intellectual property services into Thomson Scientific and Healthcare with ISI and its business products into Thomson Legal & Regulatory. This should provide better customer service and perhaps better integration among Thomson's multitude of products.
Of course, Elsevier and Thomson are not the only large scholarly companies. Kluwer Academic Publisher's merger with Springer-Verlag in 2004 makes it a competitive retailer with over 1200 journal titles and new search software. Smaller but competitive full-text systems include HighWire Press, which continues to add journal titles, and books@Ovid, which works with journals@Ovid to provide full-text access—most notably to medical titles.
Ebook services such as Books24x7, netLibrary, and ebrary are busy adding new titles and better search features. CRC Press offers science and technology ebooks in netBASE, and Knovel's powerful search software turns its technical ebooks into factual databases as well as providing whole books. The boundaries between ebooks and print books may be softening, a trend that began with Amazon's "search inside the book" feature. This year, ebrary's partnership with Booksurge will provide print-on-demand service, and Isaac, its enterprise, server-based technology, promises to create better PDF viewing and integration with internal information. Greenwood plans to introduce Greenwood E-books.
Antiques are boomingWhen you know you want something old and of high quality, it makes sense to go directly to an antiques store, and back files are the antiques of the information industry. Nearly every scholarly publisher has digitized their content back to the beginning, has contracted with a third-party company like JSTOR to do so, or has announced plans to complete their digital archive.
A few notable examples: Thomson Scientific introduced Century of Science with articles and links to full texts back to 1900. Chemical Abstracts Service added records dating back to 1900 to its main database, CA File. H.W. Wilson added a retrospective digital version of Education Index and will add retrospective versions of Book Review Index, Index to Legal Periodicals, and Play Index later this year. Gale's Nineteenth Century Collections Online Project complements its Eighteenth Century Collection. ProQuest digitized more than 39 million pages in 2004 and continues to add back runs of newspapers to ProQuest Historical Newspapers (see InfoTech, LJ 5/1/05, p. 27ff.). Springer introduced the Historical Archive of SpringerLink, with full-text articles from 1843 to 1996. NewsBank worked with the American Antiquarian Society to create collections of early American newspapers, books, and more.
With Google's plans to digitize all of the books in Stanford's and Michigan's libraries and parts of other research library collections, digital antiques stores are becoming mainstream. Users' premature expectation to find all useful information online may be closer than we once thought, although copyright restrictions still apply.
Links and feedsCatalog shoppers were once willing to wait weeks for a delivery. Today, overnight mail seems slow, and information shoppers no longer want to wait even a few minutes. Full-text links are essential, and the creation of these links occupied the time of many systems librarians and publishers this year.
Both Ovid and Bowker added link resolver products—Ovid LinkSolver and Bowker's Ulrich's Resource Linker. CSA's Illumina platform offers more full-text linking and more arts and humanities databases. ProQuest purchased Serials Solutions, one of the leaders in linking and article management.
When I want a newspaper, I stop at a newsstand rather than go to a large store. But newspaper reading in this country is declining—better to have news "pushed" at us through the television or the Internet. Newsfeeds, most recently using RSS technology, allow users to receive news from selected web sites or blogs and read them through RSS readers. Information providers that have enabled RSS, including Nature Publishing Group and ProQuest, see RSS feeds as a new way to get customized information to customers and bring users to their web sites. Thomson Dialog's Live News adds a news monitoring service to complement Dialog NewsRoom, and ProQuest's RSS feeds enhance its NewsStand products, including the new Latin American NewsStand. Facts On File News Service offers hourly newsfeeds.
Alerting services from specialized databases aren't new but are of growing interest for desktop delivery of targeted information. AARP will launch AgeLine Alerts this year, and Bowker added Ulrich's Alerts.
The boutique sceneSometimes pampering and service are more important than price or multiple choices. High-service, high-quality niche operations may be the salvation of some segments of the information industry.
Enterprise search solutions that integrate internal and external information with customized taxonomies that reflect the language used in a specific industry are already the hallmark of information companies, such as Factiva, that target the corporate market. Dialog's new version of the DialogLink software promises more postprocessing features, more interfile linking, and Chemical Structure searching. CSA's new Illumina platform includes QuikBib to output bibliographies in popular styles and RefShare to allow users to share their RefWorks databases within their organization. Mainstream information companies are offering software products that help firms integrate internal information, including ProQuest's Digital Commons for institutional repositories and ebrary's Isaac for PDF collections. Ebrary is also developing "eXtend," free XML-based programs to help integrate ebrary content into web sites.
Made to orderThe rise of boutique choices may mark the beginning of the end of big deals that offer all of a company's products in a bundled package. Customized deals for groups of content, such as those offered by JSTOR and others, are becoming the rule rather than the exception. New clusters of products that bring together titles of most interest to special target audiences are offered by many information providers, including Project MUSE, Emerald, and Oxford University Press (OUP). OUP allows libraries to select individual titles within a collection as well.
Information shoppers can also pick just pictures, or curricular materials, or music. H.W. Wilson will launch Art Museum Image Gallery with images cleared for educational use. Science Online from Facts On File is aimed at science curriculum as is Science Resource Center from Gale. OCLC's netLibrary introduced audiobooks. Alexander Street Press is adding music collections and will also add music to its text collections; Naxos Music Library provides access to classical music as well.
The information mallShopping malls present different types of stores under a single roof. Cross-content searching brings disparate information shops together, and cross-content search engines are being built faster than malls in the suburbs. Alexander Street "Conductor" allows searching across music and theater databases and relevant web sources. Thomson Gale's "PowerSearch" searches across Gale's many disparate products. The new version of IEEE Xplore will provide full-text searching of all Xplore content. Xreferplus Unlimited Ready Reference powers cross-searching of the full texts of reference books on multiple subjects.
Libraries are building their own information malls by adding federated searching (or metasearching) to all of the databases they offer. Federated search engines are put forth as part of the major integrated library systems and by software like MuseGlobal and ProQuest's Central Search. Like any megasolution, federated searching loses some of the richness and detail of the original databases in favor of simplified access, but it meets the needs and expectations of many users.
Back office functionalityFinally, retail stores need good accounting and record-keeping. The information industry also requires solid information about itself, while librarians need accurate information about how their product choices are used by their customers. COUNTER standards for usage data were adopted by many information providers this year, and libraries continue to become COUNTER members so they can not only receive COUNTER-compliant usage data but have input on what should be included in the standards. A standard for ebooks and reference books is now ready for review on the COUNTER web site (www.projectcounter.org).
Some companies introduced specialized tools to help librarians better manage collections. Bowker's Book Analysis System, introduced in 2005 to complement Ulrich's Serials Analysis System, will allow more customization branding for the library and better usage statistics.
Many saw it coming, but this year, for the first time, a megastore—the web search engine Google—led the way for information products and services. Some information providers worked with it, while all concentrated on ways to make their products and services stand apart. Better customization, high-quality content, and targeted solutions resulted. Competition creates both threats and opportunities—the threat of being replaced by a big brand name but the opportunity to reach new markets through cooperation.
| Signature Product or Technology | Leading Subject Area | Primary Sales | Acquire/Partner in 2004 | Most Popular Format | Percentage in Full Text | Z39.50 Compatible | Most Popular Pricing Plan | Perpetual Rights | Provides Usage Data | |
| AARP | AgeLine | gerontology | academic | yes | ASCII | <25% | no | flat fee | no or few | no |
| ACLS History E-Book Project | History E-Book Project | history | academic | no | Scanned | >75% | all | potential user | no or few | n/a |
| Ad Fontes | Library of Classic Protestant Texts | religion | academic | yes | HTML | >75% | no | flat fee | no or few | all |
| Alexander Street Press | Semantic indexing | literature | academic | yes | HTML | >75% | under consideration | flat fee | no or few | most |
| Books24x7 | ITPro | technology | academic | yes | HTML | >75% | no | concurrent user | no or few | all |
| Bowker | BooksInPrint.com Professional | bibliography | academic | yes | HTML | <25% | some | potential user | no or few | all |
| CAS | CA Registry databases | chemistry | special | no | n/a | n/a | some | n/a | some | most |
| CQ Press | CQ Press Electronic Library | government | academic | no | HTML | >75% | some | potential user | some | some |
| CSA | CSA Illumina search technology | multidisciplinary | academic | yes | HTML | <25% | all | flat fee | all CSA proprietary databases | all |
| D&B | Million Dollar Database | business | academic | no | HTML | >75% | no | flat fee | no or few | some |
| Mouton De Gruyter | n/a | academic | no | HTML | n/a | n/a | concurrent user | most | n/a | |
| Dialog | Dialog | multidisciplinary | special | yes | HTML | >75% | n/a | flat fee | some | most |
| ebrary | ebrary dynamic content platform | multidisciplinary | academic | yes | >75% | all | flat fee | no or few | all | |
| EBSCO | Business Source Premier | multidisciplinary | academic | yes | varies | all | flat fee | no or few | yes | |
| Facts On File | Science Online | multidisciplinary | school | no | HTML | >75% | under consideration | potential user | no or few | all |
| Facts On File News Service | Facts On File World News Digest | multidisciplinary | public | no | HTML | >75% | no | potential user | no or few | all |
| Greenwood Electronic Media | Greenwood Daily Life Online | humanities | public | no | XML | >75% | some | potential user | no or few | all |
| Idea Group | Idea's encyclopedias and handbooks | technology | academic | yes | >75% | under consideration | concurrent user | no or few | under consideration | |
| IEEE | IEEE/IEE Electronic Library | technology | academic | no | >75% | all | flat fee subscription | no or few | all | |
| InfoUSA | ReferenceUSA databases | multidisciplinary | public | yes | ACSII | no | some | flat fee | some | some |
| Ingenta | IngentaConnect | multidisciplinary | academic | no | >75% | under consideration | potential user | some | all | |
| LexisNexis | LexisNexis academic | multidisciplinary | academic | no | HMTL | >75% | no | potential user | some | most |
| Nature Publishing Group | Nature (weekly periodical)] | science | academic | yes | XML | >75% | n/a | included with journal subscriptions | most | all |
| NewsBank | Archive of Americana | history | academic | no | ASCII text + image | >75% | no | library type and size | most | all |
| Ovid Technologies | Ovid LinkSolver | science | academic | n/a | n/a | n/a | some | n/a | n/a | all |
| Oxford University Press | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography | humanities | academic | no | XML | >75% | some | concurrent user | no or few | all |
| Project MUSE | Project MUSE | humanities | academic | yes | HTML | >75% | no | flat fee tiered | most | all |
| ProQuest | ABI/INFORM | humanities | academic | yes | ASCII | >75% | some | concurrent user | some | all |
| Scholastic Library Publishing | Grolier Online | multidisciplinary | school | no | HTML | >75% | under consideration | potential user | no or few | all |
| Snapshots International | Snapshots series | science & technology | special | yes | HTML | n/a | no | flat fee | no or few | all |
| Springer-Verlag | SpringerLink | science | academic | yes | >75% | under consideration | flat fee subscription | most | most | |
| Thomson Gale | InfoTrac | multidisciplinary | n/a | yes | HTML | >75% | some | flat fee subscription | some | all |
| H.W. Wilson | Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature | multidisciplinary | academic | yes | HTML | 26-50% | all | concurrent user | some | all |
| Xrefer | Xreferplus Unlimited | multidisciplinary | academic | yes | XML | >75% | all | flat fee | no or few | all |
| SOURCE LINE: LJ Database Marketplace 2005 Survey | ||||||||||
Company Profiles
AARP
Research Information Center, Washington, DC; 800-424-3410;
www.research.aarp.org/research
AgeLine, AARP's flagship product, covers articles in research, policy, and consumer and professional publications on subjects associated with aging. Thanks to a partnership with ProQuest, it now includes dissertations as well. Other information resources, such as clearinghouses, directories, and statistical resources, are available on the company's web site.
ABC-CLIO
Santa Barbara, CA; 800-368-6868;
www.abc-clio.com
Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life, ABC-CLIO's premier databases, recently logged their ten millionth online user session since their move to the web. The focus in the past years has been on enhancing ABC-CLIO products with links to full-text journals and reviews. The total number of those links now exceeds 230,000.
Accessible Archives, Inc.
Malvern, PA; 866-296-1448;
www.accessible.com
Founded in 1990, Accessible Archives makes historical newspapers in microfilm format available electronically. Its products include Godey's Lady's Book, 1830–1885; The Pennsylvania Genealogical Catalog: Chester County, 1809–1870; and American County Histories to 1900. These were initially available on CD-ROM only but have recently migrated online.
ACLS History E-Book Project
New York; 646-485-5939;
www.historyEbook.org
A collaborative effort among ACLS, eight learned societies, and 60 university presses, the History E-Book Project now boasts over 1000 history titles published between the 1920s and selected by scholars in American, Asian, European, and Middle Eastern history. Each year, some 250 titles will be added to the collection, which has already doubled in size since its launch in 2002. Free MARC records are available for each title.
Ad Fontes, LLC
Alexandria, VA; 866-345-5656;
www.ad-fontes.com
Ad Fontes produces two extensive online libraries for scholars of Western religious history, Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts and Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation, both indexed by highly trained subject specialists. This year the search interface will be enhanced with cross-searching for subscribers to both databases. MARC records will also be available.
Alexander Street Press, LLC
Alexandria, VA; 800-889-5937;
www.alexanderstreetpress.com
Alexander Street Press has recently shown a major commitment to music through several ventures. First it acquired the American Classical Music Library and entered into a partnership with Smithsonian Global Sounds. Then it announced a brand new music collection, African American Song, and also disclosed plans to integrate music into its text collections. In 2004, the press launched several new products, among them Oral History Online, 20th Century North American Drama, and Black Short Fiction. On the horizon are releases of North American Theatre Online, Latin American Women Writers, and American Indian Biographical Database.
American Institute of Physics
Melville, NY; 516-576-2411;
www.aip.org
The American Institute of Physics, an organization composed of ten scholarly and professional societies, has been on a mission to promote the advancement of physics since the 1930s. Today, it hosts the Scitation database, an online home of over 100 journals, as well as the SPIN database of abstracts of physics and astronomy journals. The newly enhanced Scitation interface features user customization options and the ability to download citations in several formats. The institute has recently announced an experimental open access initiative, called Author SelectSM, for three of its journals in 2005 and has made its conference proceedings dating back to January 2000 available online.
American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.
Arlington, VA; 800-368-5777;
www.appi.org
American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. (APPI) produces books, journals, and multimedia on psychiatry, mental health, and behavioral sciences, among them the well-regarded Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed., also known as DSM-IV®. It comes in a PDA format for Palm and Pocket PC, as well as on CD-ROM. APPI also publishes several electronic journals (e.g., American Journal of Psychiatry, Psychiatric News) that may be accessed online through HighWire Press.
American Psychological Association
Washington, DC; 800-374-2721;
www.apa.org
In addition to its two staple databases, PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES, the American Psychological Association (APA) has added a new member to its online family, PsycCRITIQUES, a web-based resource for weekly reviews of new psychology books as well as films from a psychological viewpoint. APA has also gone on record with its concerns about the National Institutes of Health policy for public access to funded research.
AnthroSource
University of California Press, Berkeley, CA; 510-643-4366;
www.anthrosource.net
Developed by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in partnership with the University of California Press, AnthroSource is an online resource serving the research and professional needs of anthropologists. It provides a complete archive of AAA journals, bulletins, and newsletters, as well as current issues of 11 peer-reviewed AAA journals.
BioMed Central
Current Science Group, London; +44 20 7323 0323;
www.biomedcentral.com
BioMed Central provides free access to over 100 peer-reviewed journals in all fields of the biomedical sciences, ranging from general interest (e.g., Journal of Biology) to an array of specialized, online-only journals (e.g., Journal of Autoimmune Diseases). The People's Archive, which debuted in 2004, is a unique video resource providing scientists and students alike with an opportunity to hear some of the greatest figures in science discuss their work.
BioOne
Amigos Library Services, Dallas; 800-843-8482;
www.bioone.org
This is a collection of over 200 electronic publications from several bioscience societies that produce COUNTER-compliant usage statistics. The new, improved web site features links to science news articles from ScienceDaily, the top ten articles viewed the previous month, plus the ability to search a digital object identifier for a specific journal article. Subscribers also have free access to the CSA BioOneAbstracts and Indexes Database.
Books24x7
Norwood, MA; 781-440-0550;
marketing.books24x7.com
Books24x7 continues to add to its growing platform, which by the end of 2005 should exceed 8000 titles. EngineeringPro, its newest collection, is a compilation of reference books covering a wide range of engineering disciplines, plus general topics relevant to engineering professionals. Other collections include ITPro (information technology), Business (business and management), FinancePro (financial topics), Office Essentials (desktop applications), and ExecSummaries (summaries of top business books). There are plans to introduce an advanced search option in 2005.
R.R. Bowker
New Providence, NJ; 888-269-5372;
www.bowker.com
Bowker's Ulrichsweb.com is now Open-URL compliant, providing access to journals from SPARC, PLoS, BioMed Central, and Directory of Open Access Journals, among additional sources. The company's other key products include Ulrich's Serials Analysis System, allowing librarians to compare their periodicals and serials collections against those of comparable institutions, and Ulrich's Alerts, notifying librarians of what's new in specific subject areas. The very first of its kind, PatronBooksInPrint.com, which debuted in 2004, features the same titles found in BooksInPrint.com but is designed specifically for library patrons.
Brepols Publishers
Turnhout, Belgium; +32 14 44 80 30;
www.brepolis.net
Belgian academic publisher Brepols, which caters primarily to humanities scholars, produces several electronic titles in the field of medieval literature, available online or on CD-ROM. They include the International Medieval Bibliography and International Encyclopaedia for the Middle Ages. The Database of Latin Dictionaries is scheduled for release in 2005.
Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Boston; 617-263-2323;
www.brill.nl
Brill Academic Publishers produces several electronic journals and CD-ROMs of interest to scholars in the classics and religion, including Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Reference Library 1 & 2, Encyclopaedia Judaica, and Catalog of the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Journalism. Brill has reaffirmed its status as the leading provider of information for Islamic studies, thus far largely owing to its Encyclopaedia of Islam, by recently introducing the Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an and, most notably, Index Islamicus.
CAB International (CABI)
Cambridge, MA; 800-528-4841;
www.cabi-publishing.org
CAB International (CABI) produces bibliographic databases, books, primary journals, CD-ROMs, and web resources in the applied life sciences. CABI Abstracts, one of its primary agricultural databases, is available through several vendor platforms, including CABDirect, which is OpenURL compliant. To help aid librarians in their research, the company has added a new "For Librarians" feature to its web site, providing librarians with all manner of assistance.
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service)
Columbus, OH; 800-753-4227;
www.cas.org
Since 1907, CAS has indexed chemistry-related articles from more than 40,000 scientific journals. Under the auspices of its Scientific Century Project, CAS expanded the CA file, its staple database, by adding over 7600 records from ACS journals dating back to 1900. CA and CA Previews now contain some 24 million records. The Registry file has also grown, now comprising entries for almost 25 million organic and inorganic substances, with most of the new substance information coming from patents.
CISTI (Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information)
National Research Council Canada, Ottawa, Ont.; 800-668-1222;
www.nrc.ca/cisti
CISTI remains one of the foremost providers of science, technology, engineering, and medical information. Covering more than 20 million articles in 20,000 journals worldwide, CISTI Source Articles is now OpenURL compliant and able to determine if a user's library has an item. If not, an order form automatically appears on the screen. CISTI also publishes NRC Research Press e-journals, which Google indexes.
Columbia University Press
New York; 800-944-8648;
www.columbia.edu/cu/cup
Columbia University Press e-resources continue to grow in size and potential, most notably Columbia Granger's World of Poetry Online, comprising 63,000 titles to date; Columbia Gazetteer of the World, which now includes more hyperlinks and maps; and The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing, the definitive print and web-based resource for library and information science professionals.
CQ Press
Washington, DC; 866-427-7737;
www.cqpress.com
The CQ Electronic Library remains the flagship of the CQ product line, comprising CQ Researcher, CQ Congress Collection, CQ Supreme Court Collection, CQ Public Affairs Collection, CQ Voting and Elections Collection, CQ Encyclopedia of American Government, CQ Insider, and CQ Weekly. Its special features include the CiteNow! citation builder and the option to search all modules simultaneously. CQ's "Historic Documents" series, published annually since 1972 and comprising 32 volumes of primary sources, is now available online.
CRC Press
Boca Raton, FL; 800-272-7737;
www.crcpress.com
The expanding CRCnetBASE product line consists of several subject-specific databases, covering such disciplines as chemistry, engineering, environmental science, forensics, materials, mathematics, nanotechnology, and neuroscience. The online version of CRC's most notable publication, CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 85th edition, provides new data tables as well as tables omitted from previous editions. MARC records may now be downloaded for all CRC products.
CSA
Bethesda, MD; 800-843-7751;
www.csa.com
CSA continues to expand its offerings by launching new products, such as Illumina, which provides access to over 100 CSA databases, or by acquiring titles from other vendors, such as the Public Affairs Information Service from OCLC or full-text titles from Sage Publications. New titles in the humanities include MLA, Philosopher's Index, and Design and Applied Arts Index and forthcoming in 2005 are Bibliography of the History of Art, FRANCIS, and PsycBOOKS. Those subscribing to RefWorks, a service allowing users to create their own database of references, will soon be able to share their RefWorks databases with others in the same institution thanks to the addition of a new feature, RefShare.
D&B
Short Hills, NJ; 800-234-3867;
www.dnb.com
D&B offers four major electronic business information products: Million Dollar Database, Key Business Ratios, Harris InfoSource, and Hoover's Online. It also produces Family Tree Finder, a corporate structure research tool giving users access to a global database of more than 18.5 million businesses.
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin, Germany; +49 30 26005 140;
www.degruyter.de
Mouton de Gruyter is one of the few publishers in Europe producing high-profile CD-ROMs associated with linguistics, including Handbook of Varieties of English, The Mouton Introduction to Historical Linguistics of German, and Atlas of North American English.
Marcel Dekker, Inc.
New York; 800-228-1160;
www.marceldekker.com
Best known for publishing STM content, Marcel Dekker continues to digitize its print list by making hundreds of its titles available in Adobe ebook format, downloadable directly from its web site. It also produces several online databases, among them Encyclopedia of Animal Science, Encyclopedia of Dietary Supplements, and Encyclopedia of Optical Engineering.
The Dialog Corporation
Cary, NC; 800-3DIALOG;
www.dialog.com
Dialog consists of two entities within Thomson: science, reference, and intellectual property services are aligned with Thomson Scientific & Healthcare, and business information and current awareness are aligned with Thomson Legal & Regulatory. The company offers search solutions on a variety of platforms, including the Internet, an institution's intranet, or a desktop PC. Forthcoming in 2005 is an upgrade to DialogLink, which will make the full text of the New York Times dating back to 1980 available in Dialog NewsRoom and other Dialog services, and the launch of Dialog Live News.
ebrary, Inc.
Palo Alto, CA; 650-475-8700;
www.ebrary.com
In 2004 ebrary collections grew by 60 percent while its customer base grew by 63 percent. Its 60,000-plus titles are available either through large collections based on subject, library type, and customer, or custom collections, allowing title-by-title selections. The vendor also introduced two new tools last year: ebrary eXtend™, which allows libraries to integrate ebrary content into their web sites, and "Isaac," a server-based technology that aids institutions in managing and sharing collections of PDF documents.
EBSCO Publishing
Ipswich, MA; 800-653-2726;
www.epnet.com
The EBSCOhost platform has grown with the inclusion of several new databases: Catholic Periodical and Literature Index, PAIS, Internet and Personal Computing Abstracts, and PsycExtra. The company also put out two brand new products—Hospitality & Tourism Index, a combination of three collections, and Computer Science Index, covering over 500 books and periodicals dating back to the 1950s—in addition to acquiring three databases: CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, and Natural Pharmacist. EBSCO recently partnered with NISC to produce GLBT Life, a database covering gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender studies.
Elsevier
New York; 888-437-4636;
www.elsevier.com
After two long years of development and collaboration with researchers and librarians, Elsevier unveiled Scopus in 2004. It is the single largest database in the sciences and engineering, comprising 14,000 titles going as far back as the 1960s. Scopus provides cited references for items published during the past ten years and links to the records for cited references, as well as to full-text articles, if subscriptions exist. Scirus, Elsevier's free scientific search engine, will begin indexing articles on crystallography from the International Union of Crystallography and articles from the American Institute of Physics.
Emerald (North America)
Cambridge, MA; 44 1274 785040;
www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald publishes a wide range of journals. Its product line includes Emerald Fulltext, which collects 100 Emerald journals in subjects like management, marketing, librarianship, and engineering, and four other databases: International Civil Engineering Abstracts, Computer Abstracts International Database, Computer & Communications Security Abstracts, and Current Awareness Abstracts. The company recently announced EmeraldManagementXtra, an online, full-text collection of peer-reviewed management journals that incorporates case studies, literature reviews, book reviews, and interviews. The company web site has also been revamped to serve librarians and other customers better.
Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
Princeton, NJ; 800-369-0166;
www.factiva.com
Factiva now provides complete full-text access to the top ten newspapers in the United States, including New York Times content dating to 1980. Other newspapers include Monterey County Herald, el Nuevo Herald, Sacramento Bee, and Modesto Bee. Starting in March 2005, Factiva business news and information is available to law firms through LexisNexis.
Facts On File, Inc.
New York; 800-322-8755;
www.factsonfile.com
Following in the footsteps of American History Online, Facts On File's Literary Reference Online, introduced to school and public libraries in 2005, provides content culled from the publisher's numerous print literary resources. Other noteworthy products include Ferguson's Career Guidance Center, Curriculum Resource Center, Science Online, World Atlas, and History Databases Center.
Facts On File News Services
New York; 800-363-7976;
www.facts.com
The Reference Suite @ FACTS.com, which covers news and current issues, comprises The Facts On File World News Digest, Issues & Controversies On File, Today's Science On File, and The World Almanac Reference Database. The databases are updated weekly and provide hourly newsfeeds. Facts for Learning is a new online subscription service for elementary school students created by Weekly Reader, Gareth Stevens, Inc., Facts On File News Services, and World Almanac.
GeoLytics, Inc.
East Brunswick, NJ; 800-577-6717;
www.geolytics.com
GeoLytics's mission is to make U.S. Census data (going back to 1970) accessible and easy to use. Available on CD-ROM (and possibly on DVD in the future), its census datasets have mapping software.
Greenwood Electronic Media
Westport, CT; 800-225-5800;
www.gem.greenwood.com
Greenwood Electronic Media produces online sourcebooks and enhanced versions of print titles, available for a one-time payment plus annual hosting fee. Its databases are available on a subscription basis and include ARBAOnline, Daily Life Online (DLO), Horn Book Guide Online, Index to Current Urban Documents, and Studies in Irish Literature. This year will mark the launch of the Greenwood E-books platform, an electronic collection of over 3000 Greenwood titles, and the addition of the first module to DLO, Culture and Customs Around the World, which may be purchased separately or integrated within DLO.
Grey House Publishing
Millerton, NY; 518-789-8700;
www.greyhouse.com
Grey House specializes in producing print, CD-ROM, and online directories in business, statistics, demographics, health, and education. Its longest-running annual publication remains the Directory of Mail Order Catalogs.
HarpWeek
Reston, VA; 703-264-9862;
www.harpweek.com
HarpWeek continues to create free sites of interest to educators, including one on the Presidential elections from 1860 to 1912. It provides the full text of Harper's Weekly from 1857 to 1912. Its content has now been thoroughly indexed, and several educational features have been added. The newest of these are about the creation of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. The site also features a Cartoon of the Day from Harper's Weekly.
HighWire Press
Palo Alto, CA;
highwire.stanford.edu
Recipient of the 2003 Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers Award for "Service to Not-for-Profit Publishing," Stanford University's HighWire partners with scholarly societies, university presses, and publishers to provide access to nearly 800 full-text journals. It also provides free access to articles from 224 full-text journals. This year the press will host the full-text journals from Oxford University Press.
Idea Group, Inc.
Hershey, PA; 717-533-8845;
www.idea-group.com
Idea Group's InfoSci-Online is a collection of full-text publications covering topics in information science, management, and technology. It has been expanded to include 3500 book chapters, 500-plus journal articles, 270 case studies, and 1000-plus conference papers.
IEEE (Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers)
Piscataway, NJ; 800-701-4333;
www.ieee.org
The IEEE Xplore interface, which provides access to IEEE journals, proceedings, and standards, will be upgraded in 2005 with enhanced searching capabilities. Journal articles accepted but not yet published will be available online and found by linking to "Accepted for Future Publication" when browsing by title. IEEE has also requested that a task force be formed for further study of the NIH plan for "Enhanced Access to NIH Research."
Infotrieve
Los Angeles; 800-422-4633;
www.infotrieve.com
Infotrieve is a global provider of content management technology and information services for the life sciences and other R&D-intensive industries that pioneer scientific, technical, and medical breakthroughs. In August 2004, the company introduced its new federated search engine, ArticleFinder eXtreme (AFX), designed to work with Infotrieve's Virtual Library, a technology platform for customized document delivery for institutions. It also released a new version of its Ariel software, acquired from RLG, which facilitates document delivery via the web.
InfoUSA, Inc.
Omaha; 800-321-0869;
www.infousa.com
ReferenceUSA, InfoUSA's premier product, provides information on businesses and residents compiled from telephone directories, annual reports, government data, Chamber of Commerce information, and National Change of Address updates. It currently covers over 14 million U.S. businesses, 200 million U.S. residents, 1.2 million Canadian businesses, and 12 million Canadian residents. A new online product, FindUSA, lists cellular phone numbers, past addresses and phone numbers, and other information.
Ingenta, Inc.
Cambridge, MA; 800-296-2221;
www.ingentaconnect.com
Ingenta provides access to 20,000 publications, including 6000 in full text. A new interface, IngentaConnect, scheduled for implementation in 2005, combines Ingenta's fax and full-text online titles with COUNTER-compliant usage statistics. Coinciding with the launch, Ingenta is offering libraries the chance to select an IngentaConnect Premium service package with further enhancements, such as library branding, more advanced COUNTER statistics, the ability to limit searches to subscribed titles, and more.
InteLex Corporation
Charlottesville, VA; 434-970-2286;
www.nlx.com
InteLex produces Past Masters®, a collection of full-text humanities databases in CD-ROM and web format. The largest collections are in philosophy and the letters, diaries, and notebooks of noted figures in English literature. The newest collection, Women Writers, includes the correspondence, journals, and primary works of important female writers.
JSTOR
New York; 212-358-6400;
www.jstor.org
JSTOR now provides electronic access to the back files of 457 scholarly journals from 272 publishers. The journals are available in five multidisciplinary (e.g., Arts and Sciences I, II, III, IV) and six subject-specific collections (e.g., Business, Language & Literature). JSTOR is currently initiating agreements with major libraries for full paper archives of these titles, which will serve as backup to the electronic files when content needs to be rescanned.
Knovel Corporation
Norwich, NY; 866-303-3336;
www.knovel.com
Knovel produces interactive components of technical handbooks targeted at scientists and engineers. Its complete collection includes over 500 titles from over 40 publishers (among them Elsevier and Wiley); 450,000 pages of text, growing by 15,000 pages a month; and 20 million data records, growing by one million records a month. Recently the company launched two new chemical spectra databases—Chemical Structure Search and Spectra Viewer—and announced plans to improve the interface by adding wild cards, truncation, and a revised ranking system.
LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions
Bethesda, MD; 800-638-8380;
www.lexisnexis.com/academic
LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions publishes reference and research collections in history and the social sciences. In early 2005 it unveiled a free online resource called LexisNexis U.S. Politics & World News, which provides news about the current administration. Work continues on the digitization of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set (the first installment was released last year). In addition, the search interface for LexisNexis Congressional will be simplified and rereleased later in the year.
Mergent, Inc.
New York; 888-411-0893;
www.mergent.com
Mergent was named Industry Week's key information provider to companies in its annual list of the world's 1000 largest manufacturing companies. Its flagship database, Mergent Online, provides information on 15,000 U.S. companies and 20,000 international corporations in 100 countries, listing such specifics as their financial statements, annual reports, subsidiaries, and more. The database was nominated for a 2004 Codie Award in the category of Best Online Business News or Information Service last year and is again among the finalists for 2005.
National Journal Group Inc.
Washington, DC; 202-739-8400;
www.nationaljournal.com
National Journal Group publishes magazines, newsletters, books, and directories for anyone with a professional interest in politics, policy, and government. Policy Central, National Journal's comprehensive suite of online resources in those fields, is comprised of several National Journal online services: National Journal, Congress Daily, The Hotline, Technology Daily, Government Executive, and American Healthline.
National Library of Medicine (NLM)
Bethesda, MD; 888-FIND-NLM;
www.nlm.nih.gov
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is well known for MEDLINE/PubMed, the premier online database for biomedical journals. It also produces MedlinePlus, a health database for consumers, as well as databases associated with environmental concerns, such as the Household Products Database, Haz-Map, and TOXNET. In addition, NLM manages PubMed Central, a free archive of peer-reviewed biomedical literature.
National Women's Health Information Center
Annandale, VA; 703-560-6598;
www.4woman.gov
This government organization's web site is a gateway to an array of women's health information resources. It allows users to download women's health-related material developed by the Department of Health and Human Services, other federal agencies, and private sector resources.
Nature Publishing Group
New York; 888-331-6288;
www.naturereference.com
The Nature Publishing Group recently sold its Encyclopedia of Life Sciences and other reference publications to Wiley and will now focus on its electronic journal collections. The plan to separate print from online in its subscription options for institutions and FTE count will be a factor in its pricing scheme. The vendor also hosts natureevents.com, a free science events database.
Naxos Music Library
Naxos of America, Inc., Franklin, TN; 615-771-9393;
www.naxos.com
The Naxos Music Library, introduced in summer 2004 at the Music Library Association meeting, provides 75,000 tracks in streamed audio format from 5000 recordings. Content includes the full spectrum of the classical repertoire as well as jazz, New Age, and world music and comes from the Naxos classical music recording label or is licensed from other labels.
NewsBank, Inc.
Naples, FL; 800-762-8182;
www.newsbank.com
NewsBank, known for its collection of newspapers, now offers access to approximately 1300 U.S. and international titles. Its Readex subsidiary recently launched the new Archive of Americana Collection, consisting of four components: U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817-1861), Early American Newspapers (1690–1876), Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans (1639–1800), and Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801–1819). Future additions to the archive will include American State Papers (1789–1838) and American Broadsides and Ephemera.
NISC (National Information
Services Corporation) Baltimore; 410-243-0797;
www.nisc.com
NISC, the producer of unique databases and CD-ROMs, is currently working with EBSCO to produce GLBT Life, an online resource for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender studies. Its newest product, Africa-Wide: NiPAD, is a conglomeration of two other NISC databases, African Studies and South African Studies. In addition to hosting its own databases, NISC hosts products from other producers, including the Bibliography of the History of Art.
OCLC
Dublin, OH; 800-858-5878;
www.oclc.org
In early 2005, OCLC and Yahoo! introduced a cobranded toolbar for MS Internet Explorer, with quick access to a subset of Open WorldCat and the Yahoo! search engine as well as other OCLC databases. Now a permanent program, Open WorldCat is in the beta version of Google Scholar. netLibrary introduced a new Audiobooks program in late 2004 and now comprises 80,000 titles from over 500 publishers. Additionally, Philosopher's Index and a new database of electronic books created from WorldCat were added to FirstSearch.
Otherdays.com
County Wicklow, Ireland; +353-1-2040372;
www.otherdays.com
Otherdays.com provides a wealth of information to anyone researching Irish ancestors. It produces several online databases associated with census, name reports, gravestone inscriptions, birth, deaths, marriages, land, property, and more.
Ovid Technologies, Inc.
New York; 800-950-2035;
www.ovid.com
Ovid recently introduced Books@Ovid, a large collection of ebooks in the field of medicine. The company has become actively involved in the OpenURL movement by developing Ovid LinkSolver, its own OpenURL link resolver. It also developed Portal Advantage Service to assist publishers, societies, etc., in creating their own portal. Usage statistics from the SilverPlatter platform are already COUNTER compliant; those from the Ovid platform will be enhanced and COUNTER compliant in 2005.
Oxford University Press
New York; 212-726-6000;
www.oxfordonline.com
The Oxford Digital Reference Shelf, introduced in early 2005, complements Oxford Reference Online, offering a mixture of classic and newer reference titles, among them Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt and International Encyclopedia of Dance. Like all other Oxford products, it is OpenURL compliant and makes available several subscription options for librarians. The 60-volume Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was released in both print and online formats in late 2004 and was awarded the 2005 Dartmouth Medal from the American Library Association's Reference and User Services Association.
Paratext. Inc.
Sterling, VA; 703-318-0285;
www.paratext.com
Paratext's Reference Universe is a database of the indexes and/or tables of contents of over 3000 print and electronic reference titles from 250 publishers. It links to a library's own catalog as well as directly to full-text resources from vendors like ABC-CLIO, Oxford University Press, and Gale. The 19th-Century Masterfile will soon be augmented with the Catalogue of Scientific Papers, 1800–1900 of the Royal Society (Great Britain), A.L.A. Portrait Index, and Congressional Record 1789–1925.
Project MUSE
Baltimore; 410-516-6989;
muse.jhu.edu
Nearly 250 humanities and social sciences journals from over 40 publishers comprise the online collection of Project MUSE, which has been COUNTER compliant since 2004. As part of a mutual linking project with JSTOR, the collection links to back issues from a selection of 25 journal titles available in both resources. New pricing models have gone into effect for academic institutions and are based upon size and usage. Two new collections, Basic Research Collection and Basic Undergraduate Collection, have also been announced, as well as plans to expand MUSE with additional journals from seven new publishers.
ProQuest
Ann Arbor, MI; 800-521-0600;
www.proquest.com
ProQuest's focus has lately been on newspapers, adding the Boston Globe and Atlanta Journal-Constitutionto its growing collection of Historical Newspapers. The vendor also introduced several new efforts: a Latin American version of ProQuest Newsstand; a print-on-demand service that allows librarians to print newspapers on their own printers, called ProQuest NewspaperDirect; and a federated searching tool called Central Search. In addition, owing to its recent expansion, ProQuest Digital Dissertations is now ProQuest Digital Dissertations & Theses.
Questel*Orbit
McLean, VA; 703-873-4700;
www.questel.orbit.com
Questel*Orbit reestablished its leadership role in intellectual property information by launching a couple of new productivity tools in 2004: PatentExaminer assists patent attorneys, engineers, and search professionals working together on patents while PatReader scans a patent for relevant information, extracts it, and creates a report about it.
Research Libraries Group (RLG)
Mountain View, CA; 800-537-7546;
www.rlg.org
In the last couple of years, RLG's focus has been on migrating databases to its new systems. It released RedLightGreen, a free web version of the RLG catalog designed for web users, especially college students, and it also announced the forthcoming release of TROVE.NET, a collection of unrestricted digital images from RLG Cultural Materials.
Safari Tech Books Online
Sebastopol, CA; 800-775-7330;
www.safaribooksonline.com
Safari offers over 1300 full-text ebooks from Microsoft, Addison-Wesley Professional, Cisco Press, and others. Its flagship service, Safari Tech Books Online, comprises ebooks in applied science, business, computer science, and IT management. It offers extensive searching and allows subscribers to customize holdings as user needs change. The company will also partner with Pearson Education in SafariX Textbooks Online™, a digital textbook program, to offer web versions of textbooks at a substantial discount.
Scholastic Library Publishing
Danbury, CT; 888-326-6546;
www.scholasticlibrary.com
Grolier Online remains Scholastic's key electronic product. Primarily marketed to school libraries, the resource consists of seven databases: The New Book of Knowledge®, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia™, Encyclopedia Americana®, La Nueva Encyclopedia Cumbre, The New Book of Popular Science, Lands and Peoples, and America the Beautiful. The majority of these are ADA compliant.
Snapshots International, Ltd.
London, England; +44 20 7829 8408;
www.snapdata.com
Snapshots International produces international market research reports for the academic market. Its reports cover several markets in 30 countries. In 2004 the vendor introduced a Global Panorama series, a collection of regional and global industry overviews.
SourceOECD
Washington, DC; 202-785-6323;
www.sourceoecd.com
SourceOECD delivers the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's books, periodicals, and statistics, including over 1500 ebooks in English and close to 1000 in French, with coverage going back to 1998. Its new platform, designed by Ingenta, features COUNTER-compliant usage statistics, persistent URLs, increased speed, and improved navigation. Over 200 new books are added to the platform each year.
Springer-Verlag
New York; 800-SPRINGER;
link.springer-ny.com
The merger of Kluwer Academic Publishers with Springer-Verlag resulted in adding KluwerOnline journals to the SpringerLink online service in early 2005. The combined file of 1200 peer-reviewed journals makes this one of the largest collections of full-text STM journals. Nonsubscribers may obtain articles in SpringerLink on a pay per view basis. Springer also announced its Open Choice program, which will allow authors to make their journal articles available to the public for a fee.
Standard & Poor's
New York; 212-438-2000;
www.standardandpoors.com
Standard & Poor's, a division of McGraw-Hill, is one of the premier providers of investment and financial information. Its leading library product, NetAdvantage, provides online access to several titles, including Industry Surveys, Global Industry Surveys, Stock Reports, Corporation Records, The Register of Corporations, Directors and Executives, The Outlook,and Mutual Fund Reports.
Thomson Gale
Farmington Hills, MI; 800-877-4253;
www.galegroup.com
Thomson Gale's new interface, with improved navigation and searching, is now used with the InfoTrac products, Gale Virtual Reference Library, and Thomson Gale ebooks. It will be phased into other products in 2005 and 2006. The Nineteenth Century Collections Online, announced last year, will complement Eighteenth Century Collections Online. The company acquired several products, among them Roth databases, PoemFinder, LitFinder, and StoryFinder, and has started distributing the World Biographical Information System Online from K.G. Saur and Social Science Electronic Data Library from Sociometrics.
Thomson ISI
Philadelphia; 800-336-4474;
www.isinet.com
Thomson Scientific, the parent of Thomson ISI, manages several product lines, including ISI Web of Knowledge and other associated ISI products; Derwent patent files; and ISI ResearchSoft bibliographic management software. The new "Century of Science" initiative features articles dating back to 1900, with links to the full text of over 10,000 journals. RefVia, from ISI ResearchSoft, is a new visualization tool that analyzes search results.
Wiley InterScience
Hoboken, NJ; 800-825-7550;
www3.interscience.wiley.com
Launched in 1997 and currently catering to over 12 million users worldwide, Wiley InterScience provides web-based access to 1000 journals and other reference resources. The platform has grown during the past year, now comprising two new back file collections in chemistry and neuroscience as well as some major Wiley titles, e.g., Cancer Handbook and Dictionary of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. Recent Wiley acquisitions include The Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, previously published by Nature Publishing Group, and The Cochrane Library, a healthcare database.
H.W. Wilson Co.
Bronx, NY; 800-367-6700;
www.hwwilson.com
While its focus remains on building online retrospective collections—among them Education Index Retrospective, Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective, and Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective—H.W. Wilson has also begun covering open access journals, adding 46 to Education Full Text. Book Review Retrospective and Art Museum Image Gallery are scheduled for release in summer 2005. The Play Index will go online in 2006.
World Bank Publications
Herndon, VA; 800-645-7247;
www.worldbank.org/online
World Bank Online Resources comprises three database products: The World Bank e-Library, consisting of over 3400 books, reports, and research papers; World Development Indicators Online, a database of 590-plus indicators for several countries and country groups; and Global Development Finance Online, providing data on external debt and financial flow for 135 countries.
Xrefer, Inc.
Boston; 866-426-2654;
www.xrefer.com
First introduced in December 2001, the Xreferplus platform now includes approximatlely 200 titles from 42 leading reference publishers, with more coming. It is known for its unique visualization tool, Research Mapper, which displays search results and their connections in an interactive format. Subscription plans are customizable and flexible, allowing substitutions as user needs evolve. The company has recently announced a partnership with Thomson Gale to distribute Xreferplus in the United States through the Gale Reference Library.
| Author Information |
| Carol Tenopir (ctenopir@utk.edu) is Professor, School of Information Sciences (SIS), University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), and LJ's Online Databases columnist; Gayle Baker (gsbaker@utk.edu) is Electronic Services Coordinator, UTK Libraries; and William Robinson (wrobins1@utk.edu) is Associate Professor, SIS, UTK |
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