Who’s Who in America: Historic Retrospective (PDF: 2.2 MB)

Someone in our company’s history was a scrupulous file keeper and to that person we owe much gratitude for the information we found on Who’s Who in America’s 110 year history. Stories, letters of interest and photographs were carefully archived, and in learning much about Who’s Who in America’s history, we were also treated to a lesson in our country’s history.

We hope the following pages provide readers with humor, insight and appreciation for Who’s Who in America. We acknowledge the place Who’s Who in Americahas earned in our culture and we strive to live up to the standards of our founding publisher, editors and those who have taken the helm over our long history.

Source: Marquis Who’s Who

Who’s Who to vet U.S. vets after Tribune report

Who’s Who, the country’s biographical reference standard since its founding in Chicago 110 years ago, spends up to $1.5 million a year checking the educational and work histories submitted by those listed in the volume.

But military decorations? “We never thought anybody would be dumb enough” to lie about those, said Who’s Who publisher Jim Pfister, so Who’s Who never vetted those. Now it will.

Pfister, himself a decorated Vietnam veteran, decided to do so after a Tribune investigation discovered that a third of the medals for valor claimed by hundreds of Who’s Who “biographees” are not supported by their military records. “We will change some of our processes in scrutinizing the awards section,” he said.

See also: Claims of medals amount to stolen valor
See also: Top excuses for unverified medals of valor

Source: Chicago Tribune

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From the announcement:

OCLC and Bibliothèque nationale de France have signed a letter of intent to work cooperatively to add records from the French national library to OCLC’s WorldCat, the world’s largest online resource for finding information in libraries.

Bibliothèque nationale de France and OCLC signed the document during the IFLA World Library and Information Congress: 74th IFLA General Conference and Council in Québec, Canada. Once an agreement is finalized, OCLC anticipates processing an estimated 13.2 million bibliographic records from Bibliothèque nationale de France. Once records are added to WorldCat, they will be more visible and accessible to Web users worldwide.

Source: OCLC

+ Google Gmail, Other Apps, Vulnerable To Attack (Information Week)

+ New York Times Annnounced Campaign Finance API (NY Times)

+ National Cybersecurity Initiative R&D effort launched (Federal Computer Week)

+ GPO Prints and Personalizes Secure Border Crossing Cards for CBP (Government Printing Office; PDF)

+ Economic Uncertainty Spreads to Library Endowments (ALA)

Springer Acquires Open Access Publisher BioMed Central

In a major—if not unexpected—deal, Springer, the world’s second largest publisher of commercial STM (science, technology, and medicine) journals, has acquired pioneering for-profit open access (OA) publisher BioMed Central (BMC). Financial terms were not disclosed.

On the balance sheet, adding BioMed Central would seem to be a very minor deal for Springer; BioMed Central publishes some 193 open access journals with revenues of roughly $24.5 million, while Springer publishes over 1700 journals in addition to 5500 new books annually, with revenues nearly $1.25 billion. It is a significant event in the history of open access publishing, however, as a leading commercial publisher has now expressed confidence in a business model once deemed, at best, experimental, and often called untenable.

“This acquisition reinforces the fact that we see open access publishing as a sustainable part of STM publishing, and not an ideological crusade,” Derk Haank, CEO of Springer Science Business Media, said in a statement, adding that the company’s experience with its version of OA, Springer Open Choice in 2004, has been positive. “This acquisition strengthens Springer’s position in the life sciences and biomedicine,” he said, “and will allow us to offer societies a greater range of publishing options.”

Source: Library Journal

Maker of EndNote Citation Software Sues George Mason U.

Thomson Reuters Inc. sued George Mason University in a Virginia court this month, arguing that a free software tool made by the university makes improper use of the company’s EndNote citation software.

The company’s complaint argues that programmers at George Mason’s Center for History and New Media reverse-engineered EndNote to create a free program called Zotero. The university’s free software is a plug-in for the Firefox Web browser, and it is designed to help scholars store and organize their online research. It has been downloaded more than 1 million times.

Thomson Reuters argues that the latest release of George Mason’s software, which can import files created by EndNote and turn them into files that can be used and shared online using Zotero, “is willfully and intentionally destroying Thomson’s customer base for the EndNote software.” The company seeks $10-million in damages for each year the university has offered the software and to stop the university from distributing versions of Zotero that can convert EndNote files.

Source: Wired Campus (Chronicle of Higher Education)

From the article:

The records of millions of British emigrants who sailed Canada in search of a new life are now available online through The records of millions of British emigrants who sailed Canada in search of a new life are now available online through Ancestry.co.uk.

The Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935, the originals of which are held by the Library and Archives Canada, contain over seven million names..

Source: vnunet.com

FTC Challenges Reed Elsevier’s Proposed $4.1 Billion Acquisition of ChoicePoint, Inc.

The Federal Trade Commission today issued a complaint charging that Reed Elsevier Inc.’s (Reed Elsevier) proposed $4.1 billion acquisition of ChoicePoint Inc. (ChoicePoint) would be anticompetitive and in violation of the antitrust laws, as it would combine the two largest providers of electronic public record services to U.S. law enforcement customers.

To eliminate the anticompetitive effects of the proposed acquisition, the FTC will require Reed Elsevier to divest assets related to ChoicePoint’s AutoTrackXP and Consolidated Lead Evaluation and Reporting (CLEAR) electronic public records services to Thomson Reuters Legal Inc., within 15 days after the proposed acquisition is consummated.

Through its LexisNexis division, Reed Elsevier provides electronic public records services to law enforcement customers in direct competition with ChoicePoint’s AutoTrackXP and recently, ChoicePoint’s CLEAR, a new and advanced electronic public records service. Together, the two firms account for over 80 percent of the approximately $60 million U.S. market for the sale of electronic public records services to law enforcement customers.

+ In the Matter of Reed Elsevier NV, a corporation; Reed Elsevier PLC, a public limited company; Reed Elsevier Group plc, a public limited company; Reed Elsevier Inc., a corporation; ChoicePoint Inc., a corporation; ChoicePoint Services Inc., a corporation; and ChoicePoint Government Services LLC, a limited liability company

Source: Federal Trade Commission

From the announcement:
OCLC and Recorded Books have signed an agreement under which Recorded Books eAudiobooks will continue to be available to libraries through NetLibrary, OCLC’s platform for eContent.

Under the agreement, OCLC and Recorded Books will market Recorded Books eAudiobooks in North America and other regions around the world.  OCLC and Recorded Books will continue to offer eAudiobook subscriptions and will work together to deliver new products and packages to meet the needs of individual libraries and library groups.

OCLC and Recorded Books settled a contract dispute in November 2007 and agreed at that time that OCLC would market Recorded Books eAudiobooks through August 2008 and service contracts through August 2009.  The new agreement extends and expands the partnership.
(more…)

From the article by Paula Hane:

Last fall I wrote about several social networking/collaboration projects from Elsevier—2collab and Scirus Topic Pages (http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbReader.asp?ArticleId=40102). The initiatives were designed to support academic library communities and their researchers with advanced “Research 2.0″ tools. The resources created social spaces in which researchers could work together. These tools offer platforms for shared knowledge to be leveraged for information discovery and evaluation.

Since then, I’ve seen greatly increased activity in this space, with new initiatives popping up in a number of arenas, many related to scientific collaboration, others to more general research organization and networking. Some of the tools emphasize organizing and managing references—an online extension of a software tool such as EndNote. Others emphasize collaborative knowledge sharing.

Source: Info Today

Carol Tenopir writes:

The biggest industry news this summer was the announcement that ProQuest had acquired Dialog from Thomson Reuters. Dialog was beginning to look like an unwelcome stepchild as new strategies by Thomson Reuters were moving the firm away from traditional databases and library markets. ProQuest, by contrast, has a solid foundation in both areas and has been aggressively building with new acquisitions and products.

Source: Library Journal

From the article:

WorldCat is enriched by the contribution of national library catalogs from more than 30 countries. Three new pages on the OCLC Web site—including a timeline and map—highlight national library participation in the OCLC global cooperative.

Source: OCLC Abstracts

Once the new open-source browser goes online it will be available at: http://www.google.com/chrome.

Update: Google Chrome is now available.

See Also: First Test of Google’s New Browser (via WSJ)

See Also: Is there anything original in Google Chrome? (via The Guardian)

See Also: Searching With Google Chrome & Omnibox (via SEL)

Emergency Preparedness: Earthquake Response and Recovery

Earthquakes can damage collections in many ways. Tips and links from the Library’s Preservation Directorate.

Source: LC