Cynthia Haven of Stanford News reports, “The first winners of the Stanford Prize for Innovation in Research Libraries are the Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France) and the Miguel de Cervantes Digital Library in Spain. The Stanford Libraries’ new annual award celebrates groundbreaking programs, projects and services for research libraries anywhere in the world. Commendations of merit went to Australia’s Griffith University and the New York Public Library. About two dozen proposals competed for the modest cash prize of $5,000, underwritten by Logitech, that went to each of the winning institutions.” Read more

iSOCO, a Spanish semantic technology company that specializes in helping companies position themselves in the Network Economy, is planning a major international expansion. According to a recent article, iSOCO “has decided to push further afield by opening branches that will enable it to replicate its business strategy in other countries and, above all, extend its experience and knowledge as a creator of technological business solutions for companies and institutions.” Read more

The Bilbao Web Summit, which starts today in Bilbao, Spain, will include a new award known as the DAMA Award. This year the award will be given to Sir Tim Berners-Lee as “recognition for his invention of the Web.” According to the release, “The ceremony will be held during the Cocktail Gala at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao as part of the conclusion of the Web Summit. At that time, the awards committee will also announce the organization of the 2013 award.” Read more

Tecnalia, in Spain, has provided a W3C Semantic Web Case Study on the Aquaring portal on aquatic resources. The portal offers a multilingual semantic search engine, a semantic tag cloud adapted to user context, map, exhibitions, etc. The initial aim was to offer a multilingual and unique access point to a heterogeneous and distributed collection of digital resources. This collection was provided by European expert organizations, keeping in mind the possible future integration into Europeana: the European Digital Library.