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Tuesday, June 30th, 1998 Media Cynic | Forum | Advertising | Classifieds | Jobs UMI to Create World's Largest Digital Archive of Written Works UMI, a Bell & Howell Company, announced at the American Library Association Annual Conference its plan to create the world's largest digital collection of printed works when it unlocks the doors to 500 years of information by scanning the contents of its vast microform collection. That collection contains hundreds of thousands of books, newspapers, periodicals and other materials stored in three temperature-controlled vaults at the company's headquarters in Ann Arbor, Mich. UMI is calling this massive conversion from microform to electronic format the Digital Vault Initiative. Through the Digital Vault Initiative, library patrons will be able to log on to ProQuest Direct, UMI's online service, and search the company's entire collection -- from 15th-century literature to 19th-century newspapers to the current week's business publications. Scanning of the 5.5 billion page images began in May and will continue over the course of several years. "Our goal is to become more than just purveyors of information," said Joseph Reynolds, president and CEO of UMI. "The Digital Vault Initiative will allow UMI to take the content of our enormous vault of information and place it directly into the context of an individual's research or studies via ProQuest Direct." The first phase of the Digital Vault Initiative will focus on UMI's collection of early English literature, including nearly every English-language book published from the invention of printing in 1475 to 1700. This collection, begun in 1938 as UMI's first microfilm project, includes such works as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Culpeper's The English Physician and Shakespeare's renowned First Folio edition of 1623. "We're taking better advantage of the Web-enabled world in which we live," Reynolds said. "Imagine researching the Civil War or the Apollo moon landing and finding firsthand accounts of events and reading news stories from a wide variety of resources -- all from a single search. ZDNet Unveils 'Technology Portal' Home Page Ziff-Davis unveiled a new "technology portal" design for ZDNet's home page that provides Web users with one-click access to the site's computing channels and services. "Millions of people turn to ZDNet every month to take action on what they learn and interact with each other," said Dan Farber, vice president and editor-in-chief of ZDNet. "We have more than 20 channels and services, and hundreds of thousands of pages of high-quality content generated by Ziff- Davis' worldwide media network. The new portal home page effectively surfaces the wealth of ZDNet content and place it at users' fingertips." GoodNoise and peermusic Establish Strategic Partnership GoodNoise Corporation and peermusic announced a strategic partnership. Under the terms of the agreement, peermusic will, on an exclusive basis, administer the music publishing rights of the artists represented by GoodNoise Corporation's publishing division. In connection with the agreement, peermusic has taken a minority position in GoodNoise and Ralph Peer, II, 54, chairman and CEO of peermusic, has joined the GoodNoise board of directors. The announcement was made in conjunction with the unveiling of GoodNoise Corporation, a record company with a primary focus on the Internet as a platform for the sale and electronic distribution of music. GoodNoise was founded earlier this year by a unique group of entrepreneurs from the technology and music industries. "Clearly the future of the music business is being profoundly affected by the Internet," said Peer. "The management team at GoodNoise understands how the business is changing and is building a company that will be uniquely positioned to succeed. We are pleased to establish a relationship with a company that is pioneering a new market." "As a new company, GoodNoise is thrilled to partner with one of the most respected individuals and companies in the industry," said Bob Kohn, founder and chairman of GoodNoise. "With this relationship, our artists will benefit from the worldwide infrastructure of peermusic. GoodNoise as a whole will benefit from the strategic guidance of Ralph Peer as part of our board of directors." As part of the company's long-term strategy, GoodNoise has created its own publishing company and plans to acquire the publishing rights to some of the artists in its repertoire. As a result of the strategic relationship, peermusic will administer these rights worldwide through its n etwork of publishing companies. In July, GoodNoise plans to announce its lineup of initial artists and begin selling downloadable recordings on the company's website at http://www.goodnoise.com. The GoodNoise website also features an alternative rock radio station and music news. Northern Light and Billboard Launch Music Search BPI Communications Inc., publisher of Billboard, and Northern Light Technology, LLC, announced the creation of a music information research engine. The Billboard Music Search is accessible by clicking on the Music Information Search icon on the Billboard website. This new service allows visitors to access content from BPI entertainment publications, articles from Northern Light's research library and other music websites. Visitors to the site can search on any music-related subject, and narrow their search by source, date or document type. Searchers can choose to exclude personal pages or limit their search to specific document types such as press releases or job listings. The partnership also adds the BPI Entertainment News Wire, which includes articles and other features from Billboard, Musician, Music & Media, Amusement Business, The Hollywood Reporter, Back Stage and other BPI publications to Northern Light's Special Collection research library. "Northern Light has combined its powerful Web directory with its authority as the most comprehensive content aggregator anywhere," said John Morgan, BPI's vice president of electronic media. "The result is a music resource on the Web that filters out the junk and consistently fetches the treasures." Media General Completes Newspaper Acquisition Media General announced the completion of the acquisition of the Hickory Daily Record (N.C.). The Hickory Daily Record has a circulation of approximately 19,000 both daily and Sunday and further augments Media General's presence in northwestern North Carolina where the company already owns daily and weekly newspapers with 159,000 daily and 160,000 weekly circulation. Robert E. MacPherson will serve as interim publisher at Hickory, the company said. MacPherson currently is vice president and business manager of the Virginia-Western Region of Media General's publishing division. "The Hickory Daily Record will complement our other northwestern North Carolina publications," said J. Stewart Bryan III, chairman and chief executive officer of Media General. "The newspaper serves a market that is growing. It also fits nicely with our concept of clustering our daily and weekly newspapers, to provide improved and expanded regional news products for readers and advertisers alike," Bryan said. CPG Announces Release of New Publication Consolidated Publishing Group, Inc. announced the release of Network Marketing Magazine, a product of a joint venture between Success Multimedia Holdings, Inc., publishers of Success Magazine and CPG, publishers of Upline magazine. Approximately 185,000 copies of Network Marketing Magazine are now available at newsstands, various bookstores and other outlets. It is an 88 page four-color glossy publication, geared specifically at the Network Marketing industry. "As network marketing continues to grow around the globe, more and more attention is being focused on our industry", stated CPG CEO Ridgely Goldsborough. "Similar four-color glossy publications catered specifically toward our Industry have proven extremely successful in a number of other countries around the world. We expect no less from Network Marketing Magazine." Creative Musicians Coalition Launches MusicDiscoveries.com The Creative Musicians Coalition (CMC), a musicians' trade organization representing 500 members from 22 countries, has launched MusicDiscoveries.Com. The site interfaces real world events with internet activities to aid music connoisseurs in their search for new music discoveries. Ronald Wallace, CMC's founder and avid music lover says "I often felt discovering new music was a tedious process. I'd be turned on by a tune, enthralled by performance or encouraged by a review, but the search to further the experience was tiresome. It seemed that music connoisseurs would appreciate having a place to nurture new discoveries -- an entire encounter rather than a piece-by-piece pursuit. So we brought together our friends, limbered our fingers and set out to code a solution. We call it MusicDiscoveries.Com." Click here to return to the homepage of The Write NewsTM Click here to subscribe to our free weekly email newsletter.  www.writenews.com Copyright © 1997-2007 by Writers Write, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
