Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) has outlined CleverPath "Information in Action"--its blueprint for enterprise business intelligence. The goal of CleverPath "Information in Action" is to provide decision makers with a more intelligent view of business and market conditions through sophisticated aggregation, analysis and personalization of real-time and historical information. The CleverPath "Information in Action" blueprint is based upon CA's Information Delivery Maturity Model, which identifies four progressive stages in the evolution of information delivery systems. Based on this model, enterprises can pinpoint opportunities for improvements in information access, relevancy, and analysis--which, in turn, can empower managers to make more accurate and reliable business decisions.

In support of its CleverPath "Information in Action" blueprint, CA is delivering a series of products and product enhancements that are designed to enable applications to adapt to changes in business processes and maximize the business value of information. New CleverPath solutions include: CleverPath Portal 4.5--simplified administration and user management; enhanced XML and Web APIs; and major gains in performance and scalability. Version 4.5 incorporates many user customization, convenience, and template enhancements driven by a recent usability study. CleverPath Aion Business Rules Expert 9.5--provides Web services access to business rules both within the CleverPath infrastructure and for direct use in customer applications for simplified standards-based integration. CleverPath Collaboration Option--portlets that provide business collaborative capabilities such as instant messaging, browser content sharing, and audio/video conferencing. CleverPath Advanced Access Control Option--protects enterprise information assets and simplifies access for authorized users by providing authentication and secure single sign-on for internal and external resources and applications. CleverPath Dashboard Option--an integrated development environment to create and deploy executive dashboards that display Key Performance Indicators and other business metrics.

(http://ca.com)

EBSCO Industries, Inc. has executed definitive agreements to acquire the European operations of RoweCom/divine Information Services. This acquisition allows RoweCom/divine Information Services to continue operations in Europe, and particularly in France, where the Tribunal of Commerce of Evry on Monday, February 3, 2003 removed a declaration of suspension of payment that RoweCom filed on January 23, 2003. The acquisition is subject to approval by French anti-trust authorities, and upon validation of the merger of the two companies, EBSCO will proceed to facilitate payment to the publishers for publications provided to customers of RoweCom Europe. Until then, EBSCO is asking publishers to continue to fulfill subscriptions to RoweCom/divine Information Services customers. The majority of the publishers have already expressed their support of this arrangement and confirmed their agreement to fulfill subscriptions.

(http://www.ebscoind.com)

eHelp Corporation has released 1-Step RoboPDF 2.0, software designed to enable anyone to create secure, compact PDF files from any Microsoft Office or Windows application with print functionality. Once created, the PDF documents can be emailed, published on the Web, or included on a CD-ROM. RoboPDF is also available in a free Home Edition for customers seeking an easy PDF creation tool for personal home use. Features of the RoboPDF include: customizable security settings--two levels of encryption, multi-tiered password protection, and a variety of permissions; customizable compression settings--four levels of compression to minimize PDF file size and facilitate the quick transmission of documents; embedded fonts and graphics--preserves the original, intended appearance and layout of documents; PDF stationery, watermarks, and stamping; automatically attach and email PDFs; and batch save, print, and email with RoboPDF Organizer. Pricing for RoboPDF is $49 per license with discounts on higher quantities. RoboPDF is now shipping. RoboPDF Home Edition can be downloaded for free off the RoboPDF Web site.

(http://www.ehelp.com), (http://www.ehelp.com/products/robopdf)

Novartis Pharmaceuticals has selected Jeeves Solutions, a division of AskJeeves, Inc., in an effort to help improve customer usability and service across all 22 of its U.S. product and disease Web sites. Novartis will use JeevesOne, Jeeves Solutions‚ natural language search solution to improve Web site usability and gain insight into the wants and needs of its customers. Novartis Web sites allow customers to ask product-specific questions and receive answers in a useful way. This permits Novartis to customize information that addresses a user's needs, while working within federal regulatory restrictions. Novartis will use JeevesOne to respond to its Web site visitors' questions including general queries about the company and more specific questions about its healthcare products and disease categories. Novartis will also use JeevesOne to shift customers, when appropriate, to its Customer Interaction Center where live operators are available to handle email and phone inquiries. Novartis uses Jeeves Analytics, Jeeves Solutions' customer intelligence tool, to capture and analyze customers‚ questions. Novartis will use this information to measure customer satisfaction and develop corresponding business and marketing strategies for its Web channel.

(http://www.jeevessolutions.com/products/index.asp), (http://www.pharma.us.novartis.com)

Chris Mole, Member of Parliament (MP), is championing a new bill to ensure that non-print materials are collected and preserved for future generations of researchers. The Bill is intended to ensure electronic or epublications and other non-print materials are saved as part of the published archive. A campaign to bring the law up-to-date with the current world of publishing has been led by the British Library, on behalf of all the legal deposit libraries and the publisher trade bodies. If the move is successful, new generic legislation will ensure that non-print formats are included within legal deposit - allowing UK businesses and education to benefit from access to the widest possible collections of research material, now and in the future. Since 1911 the six legal deposit libraries have been able to collect copies of all printed material published in the UK. However, an increasing volume of important material is now only published in electronic formats. These fall outside the scope of the 1911 Act and are therefore not comprehensively collected. The most recent study forecasts a massive increase in online publications, including a near quadrupling (from 52,000 to 193,000) in the number of electronic journal issues published in the UK between 2002 and 2005. Non-commercial publications, including the 2.96 million .uk Web sites, add enormously to this number. While some of these Web sites may be deemed ephemeral, others contain important material--for example sites covering the events of 9/11. Non-print materials are also at risk including: publications accessed over the internet, e.g. electronic journals; Web sites; publications on media other than paper, such as microfilm or fiche; and 'hand-held' electronic publications on media such as CD-ROM or DVD.

In January 2000, a voluntary scheme to help extend the National Published Archive was established with Government support. Administered by the Joint Committee on Voluntary Deposit (JCVD)--comprising representatives from the legal deposit libraries and the four main publisher trade bodies--the scheme has already saved many non-print items. However, the legal deposit libraries, the publishers' representatives, and library users now agree that new legislation is necessary to safeguard the future integrity and completeness of the published archive.

A number of other nations have already addressed, or are investigating, the extension of legal deposit. In Germany new legislation has been drafted to cover all types of material whilst a voluntary scheme to obtain online material and Web sites - in operation since March 2002 - has been generally well received by publishers and users alike. In France the government has issued a directive to ensure that the national library will collect all electronic material. Norway and Denmark have similar schemes and are actively collecting digital material in all information carriers, including Web sites. In Finland legislation will be introduced in March 2003 to extend legal deposit to Web sites (current legislation includes other electronic material) while in New Zealand legislation is currently at the Select Committee stage.

(http://www.bl.uk)

Dialog, a Thomson business and a provider of online-based information services and integrated information solutions, has introduced distance learning as part of the company's Graduate Education Program (GEP). Faculty and students in library science programs worldwide can now access distance learning modules at no cost at http://training.dialog.com/gep/distance. Online sessions cover searching basics, database indexing, and advanced business searching on Dialog. Dialog's GEP is a professional development initiative to help prepare future librarians to use online information services in their jobs. The free program offers graduate library schools access to Dialog services and specialized training materials for instruction in online searching. Dialog also uses the Web and video conferencing for live, real-time instruction to students in remote locations.

(http://www.dialog.com), (http://www.thomson.com)

Percussion Software has announced that IDG's InfoWorld Media Group has gone live with a new version of its flagship Web site, InfoWorld.com, based on Percussion's Rhythmyx content management system. By separating content production from delivery, Rhythmyx' publishing architecture not only allows InfoWorld to quickly publish breaking news, but also offers their readers access to the content on the site without experiencing delays. InfoWorld provides in-depth news coverage and evaluation of technology products for Senior IT professionals. Using Rhythmyx to produce content, InfoWorld.com provides news and information more quickly and efficiently, in an effort to enable IT professionals to make fast and intelligent purchasing decisions. Rhythmyx has an engine-based architecture that enables implementers to use graphical interfaces for content production, without relying on coding. Once the content is finalized, Rhythmyx uses its Publishing Services capabilities to publish formatted or unformatted content to any external relational database, regardless of schema, without requiring any coding. In addition, Rhythmyx is a standards-based content management system, relying on industry standards such as Java, XML, XSL, SOAP, HTML, and JavaScript to provide system extensibility. Rhythmyx will be used by 35 to 40 content contributors to the InfoWorld.com site.  InfoWorld will also use the Active Assembly feature that allows InfoWorld editors to adjust content layout graphically without requiring any programming.

(http://www.infoworld.com)

LexisNexis has announced that NITA's Practice Commentaries for the United States Code Service are now available on LexisNexis, in an effort to bring practical analyses of federal statutes to legal professionals. NITA's Practice Commentaries for the United States Code Service help practitioners better interpret the meaning of federal statutes. Headquartered at the University of Notre Dame, NITA is a provider of continuing legal education programs and materials. The authors of the NITA Practice Commentaries are attorneys and every commentary includes first-hand accounts of litigation strategies used by the authors in various cases--strategies that worked (and others that did not).  The commentaries are designed to enable even the newly admitted attorney to understand the intricacies of some of the more-complex sections of the USCS.  In addition to NITA's Practice Commentaries, LexisNexis also delivers more than a dozen other practice-oriented NITA titles, such as "A Practical Guide to Federal Evidence," "Arbitration Advocacy," and "The Effective Deposition: Techniques and Strategies That Work."

(http://www.lexis.com)

Analyst firm Probe Research suggests that the deployment of new billing systems will be a key factor in driving the success of wireless data services. Currently in the U.S., most users pay a fee to their wireless operator for access to data services and then generally pay again per minute, regardless of the value or volume of the content downloaded. While this method is accepted because of its relative ease for existing billing systems, Probe suggests it is not a good long-term strategy because it is not suitable for the end customer. Liz McPhillips, a Probe analyst, suggests that the key to financial viability for carriers may lie as much in their ability to deploy wireless data-specific billing systems as in the need to manage the business and technology issues. Because there's a lot of uncertainty regarding which applications will be popular among users, McPhillips recommends against mobile operators building out networks to support specific applications. Rather, she supports the need to build extremely flexible and scalable infrastructures and then run applications as needed.

(http://www.proberesearch.com)

Artesia Technologies, Inc. has announced the integration of its TEAMS digital asset management solution with the EMC Centera solution, a content addressed storage (CAS) system designed exclusively for fixed content. The Artesia-EMC Centera integration enables users to draw upon EMC Centera's online access to fixed content in conjunction with Artesia's functionality for managing and repurposing all types of digital content. Through this enhanced online access to fixed content, organizations can reduce the operational costs associated with duplicating and delivering required media, while also improving their time-to-market and customer service capabilities.  

The integration with Centera also reinforces Artesia's ability to repurpose assets across multiple iterations addressing distinct market needs. Specifically, this approach ensures that a final version of the asset can now be stored within Centera, where content authentication processes eliminate the chance that it can be overwritten or modified. The seamless operation of this integrated system is enabled by a unique identifier, which is stored within Artesia's TEAMS as part of the asset's core metadata, and automatically directs users to the stored asset available within Centera.      

(http://www.artesia.com), (http://www.emc.com)

Dialog, a Thomson business and a provider of online-based information services and integrated information solutions, has added images to the TRADEMARKSCAN files from Finland (File 679), and Sweden (File 675) available through the Dialog-branded family of online services. Dialog's portfolio of trademark files from Scandinavia, as with those from elsewhere around the world, are used by legal professionals, researchers, competitive intelligence specialists, marketing managers, and others to research and track intellectual property issues. TRADEMARKSCAN File 675 (Sweden) contains valid applications and registrations since 1885, plus unpublished applications and inactive unpublished and published trademarks since 1987. More than 77,000 trademarks, representing one-third of the file, now have associated images. TRADEMARKSCAN File 679 (Finland) contains valid applications and registrations published since 1891, plus inactive, unpublished and published trademarks since 1995. About 36,000 trademarks now have associated images, out of the file's total of approximately 120,000 trademarks. Additionally, all European trademark databases, as well as the International Register database of trademark information published by the World Intellectual Property Organization, are now updated on a weekly schedule.

(http://www.dialog.com), (http://www.thomson.com)

The Center for e-Service at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business and Rockbridge Associates, Inc. co-sponsored the recently released 2002 National Technology Readiness Survey (NTRS). The survey, conducted in December 2002, found that employees with Web access at both the office and at home, spend an average of 3.7 hours per week engaged in personal online activities while on the job, but they spend more time--an average of 5.9 hours per week--using the Internet at home, for work-related purposes. 85% of survey participants with online Web access at work admitted using the Internet on the job for personal purposes. The survey found that workers who do not have Internet access at home spend more time doing personal Web business at work-- an average of 6.5 hours per week compared to the 3.7 hours per week spent online by those who do have home access. Charles Colby, president of Rockbridge Associates, Inc. predicts that the amount of personal Internet use at work will decrease as high-speed Internet access becomes more common in homes. Other findings include: 18% of adult Internet users conducted a transaction on a federal government Web site during the previous 12 months, up from the 11% reported in 2001; 22% of adult Internet users checked account information with a telephone, gas, or electric company, up from 13% in 2001; 20% of adult Internet users paid a credit card bill online, up from 15% in 2001; and 23% of adult Internet users paid a bill, other than a credit card, online, up from 16% in 2001. The 2002 National Technology Readiness Survey results, including detailed tables, can be viewed online at www.rhsmith.umd.edu/ntrs2002.

(http://www.rockresearch.com)