Originally founded in 1876 in Philadelphia and now headquartered in Chicago, the American Library Association (ALA) is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 64,000 members. The 2004 ALA Midwinter Meeting was held January 9-14 at the San Diego Convention Center. Reminiscent of a grand cruise ship, the San Diego Convention Center is one the country's most modern and technologically sophisticated meeting facilities.

For many years, Thomson ISI has been a major supporter of ALA and its annual meetings. With a strong presence in the exhibit hall, sponsorship of the registrants' name badge holders, a focus group breakfast, a workshop luncheon, and a gala reception, the 2004 Midwinter Meeting was no exception.

 
During the exhibit, Thomson ISI boasted a newly refurbished 20 x 20 Island booth, where information professionals could examine a variety of information solutions, including ISI Web of Knowledge^SM—which facilitates discovery by offering seamless navigation to the highest quality journal, patent and life sciences content, evaluation tools, and the Thomson ISI ResearchSoft bibliographic management products, EndNote 7^®, ProCite^®, Reference Manager^®, RefViz^™ and WriteNote^® 1.6 (www.thomsonisiresearchsoft.com).
 
In additional to the new product upgrades and initiatives, Thomson ISI took the opportunity to announce that the Thomson Corporation had acquired all the publishing assets of Biological Abstracts, Inc. and BIOSIS^® — including the world's largest life sciences abstracting and indexing service. BIOSIS offers both custom and standard information resources designed to fit the information needs of researchers, students, and information professionals worldwide. Under the terms of the acquisition, the BIOSIS information services will become part of Thomson ISI. The board of BIOSIS will continue to support their new mission under the interim name of The J.R.S. Foundation.
 
Thomson ISI also announced that the PsycINFO database is now available through ISI Web of Knowledge. Developed by the American Psychological Association (APA), PsycINFO provides abstracts of psychological literature from the 1870s to present, covering nearly 1,900 journals.
 
To celebrate the integration of the PsycINFO within ISI Web of Knowledge, Thomson ISI staff distributed "Freudian Slippers" to the first 50 attendees who visited the booth each day of the exhibitions. The clever and fun promotion was a big hit with the lucky librarians who received a pair.
 
On Saturday, January 10, Thomson ISI staff held a focus group breakfast, attended by a select group of key customers. The focus group provided an opportunity to hear first hand how the Thomson ISI commitment to delivering the highest quality content—driven by the newest, most reliable technology—can better support librarians, their patrons, and researchers. The ALA Midwinter focus group breakfast was the start of a pilot program, spotlighting product usage and efficiency. Throughout 2004, Thomson ISI will be meeting with customers to ensure responsiveness to their needs by continuing to provide must-have information solutions.
 
On the afternoon of Sunday, January 11, Thomson ISI staff also held a workshop luncheon. With nearly 40 attendees, the workshop entitled, "Back to Basics: Taking our Fundamental Quality into the Open Access Era," provided participants with an overview of the Thomson ISI vision for 2004 and beyond. Jim Testa, Director of Editorial Development, explained the journal selection process and how the process ensures that Thomson ISI only includes the highest-quality scientific literature in the products/services it produces. The journal evaluation and selection (both print and electronic) is conducted on an ongoing basis, with journals being added and deleted as frequently as every two weeks. Nearly two thousand new journals are reviewed annually, but only ten to twelve percent of the journals evaluated are selected. The journals that are covered are monitored continually to ensure that they are maintaining high standards. “Many factors are taken into account when evaluating journals for coverage including the journal's basic publishing standards, its editorial content, the international diversity of its authorship, and the citation data associated with the journal. No one factor is considered in isolation. Instead, the data is combined and interrelated to determine the journal's overall strengths and weaknesses," explained Testa. The basic mission of Thomson ISI is to provide access to the world's most important and influential journals. "Thus, our commitment to quality content also extends to the evaluation and inclusion of Open Access journals. Open Access journals are given the same consideration and undergo the same rigorous selection as journals in electronic and print media. To date, we cover 42 Open Access journals," concluded Testa.
 
Next Jim Pringle, Vice President of Development, outlined the Thomson ISI vision for keeping step with the ever-changing information industry. "Our goal is to provide efficient access to the quality information needed to stay at the forefront of scientific research. Therein, the driving concept behind ISI Web of Knowledge is to provide direct and seamless access to the broadest range of scholarly information from one place. By integrating the most comprehensive content with state-of-the-art technology, ISI Web of Knowledge is the single Web-based environment from which users can access, analyze and manage essential research information," explained Pringle. ISI Web of Knowledge integrates journal literature with patent data, life sciences literature, bibliographic management resources, evaluated Web content, and vital hosted content from CABI Publishing, Food Science and Technology Abstracts^™, INSPEC, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO. Pringle then outlined how the ISI Web of Knowledge platform will continue to be redesigned to support the new generation of scholars in the Open Access Era, by providing enhanced citation navigation and instant communication across new types of literature with currency and citation tools to aid in assessing a journals impact. For an explanation of citations and citation indexing go to: www.isinet.com/essays/citationindexing/1.html. Pringle continued by explaining that "Web of Science^® is the key component of ISI Web of Knowledge, offering unmatched citation depth, multidisciplinary breadth, and the sophistication needed to serve as the foundation for digital library resources." Next, the presentation focused on Century of Science^™—the initiative to provide the research community with access to the world’s most influential scientific research throughout the early part of the 20th century. "Currently,Web of Science coverage extends to 1945. The Century of Science initiative will expand the Web of Science to include bibliographic data from the highest impact scientific literature published between 1944-1900," concluded Pringle.
 
The events hosted by Thomson ISI were not all business. On Saturday night, Thomson ISI sponsored what has arguably become the most anticipated social event at the ALA Midwinter meeting. For several decades, Thomson ISI has treated attending information professionals to a gala reception. This year, nearly 700 guests enjoyed an abundance of delicious food and refreshing beverages against the backdrop of the world-renowned San Diego Zoo.
 
The event was held in the special events section of the zoo, and two large tents were erected to house the party- goers.
 
In addition to enjoying the food, drink, and the opportunity to converse with colleagues, attendees were entertained by the six-member Safari Bush Band. The band delighted guests with a selection of eclectic and upbeat musical sing-a-longs.
 
Additional entertainment was provided by zoo officials who gave attendees an up close view of the more-friendly and docile inhabitants. For the more adventurous, the zoo's reptile house was open for viewing. Upon departing, each guest was handed a ceramic tile to commemorate the 2004 meeting. The tile give-away has become a tradition at the Thomson ISI reception—one that is greatly anticipated.
 
By all accounts, the Thomson ISI reception was again a highlight of the Midwinter Meeting. And, to ensure attending the reception was both enjoyable and convenient, Thomson ISI chartered several buses to shuttle guests to and from the zoo and the convention center.
 
From the exhibits to the workshops and social events, once gain, the ALA Midwinter meeting proved to be a show that businesses like Thomson ISI must continue to support—for the building of relations, sharing of knowledge, and camaraderie.