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Cengage Learning Introduces New ‘MindTap’ Personal Learning Experience
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by Paula J. Hane
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MindTap is a new personalized program of digital products and services that engages students with interactivity while also offering students and instructors choice in content, platform, devices, and learning tools. Cengage Learning, a provider of learning and research solutions for the academic, professional, and library markets, introduced the new service at the recent TED conference, which showcases the best in technology and "ideas worth spreading." Cengage claims MindTap goes beyond ebooks, digital supplements, course delivery platforms, or learning management systems (LMS); it is the first in a new category that Cengage calls Personal Learning Experiences (PLEs).
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Dialog Delivers More Data and Features
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by Marydee Ojala
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When ProQuest decided to create a new platform for its Dialog subsidiary, it spent 2 years on development, consulted more than 6,000 subscribers, and planned for a gradual roll-out rather than a total, jarring, all at once makeover. The new platform launched in August 2010 with 14 pharmaceutical and biomedical databases included. For a full account of the initial launch, see "The New ProQuest Dialog and What's Next" by Amelia Kassel in the January 2011 issue of Searcher.
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Organizations Support Free Online Access to CRS Reports
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More than 30 organizations concerned with government openness and accountability, including ALA, ARL, and SLA, sent a letter to the U.S. Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, urging him to appoint a director of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) who will work with Congress to provide online free public access to the unclassified, nonconfidential, taxpayer-funded reports produced by CRS.
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Reuters Powers New Services for Science, Legal, Tax, and Accounting Pros
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Thomson Reuters is launching a suite of news products designed for the information needs of professionals in the legal, tax and accounting, and science markets. It will combine Reuters news with the content of products such as Westlaw and Checkpoint.
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Two University Press Ebook Initiatives Announce Merger
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Project MUSE Editions (PME) and the University Press e-book Consortium (UPeC) joined forces. The result of this merger—the University Press Content Consortium (UPCC)—will launch Jan. 1, 2012. The partnership allows ebooks from an anticipated 60 to 70 university presses and nonprofit scholarly presses—representing as many as 30,000 frontlist and backlist titles—to be discovered and searched in an integrated environment with content from nearly 500 journals currently on MUSE.
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Search Quality, Content Farms, and Conspiracy Theories
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by Paula J. Hane
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The blogosphere and media outlets have been abuzz lately with reports of low-quality search results from the major search engines. It started in December 2010 with a New York Times, story about an unscrupulous merchant whose bad treatment of customers and negative reviews pushed the site to prominence in Google searches. In response to the flap that arose, Google quickly addressed this with changes to its search algorithms. Since then, there have been a New York Times expose of J.C. Penney's SEO practices ("The Dirty Little Secrets of Search") and Google's subsequent changes to its algorithm, Google's assertion that Microsoft Bing was copying Google search results, Google's banning of spam from low-quality sites and so-called "content farms," and even a conspiracy theory about which company was launching a negative publicity campaign against Google. This has indeed been a wild and crazy time.
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If you regularly read blogs, add these to your reader:
ITI Books Blog – booksblog.infotoday.com – news, observations, and commentary from the authors, editors, and publishers of Information Today, Inc.'s many book offerings.
ITI Conference Blog – libconf.com – covering ITI's library conferences worldwide.
Library Stuff – librarystuff.net – the library blog dedicated to resources for keeping current and professional development, written by Steven M. Cohen.
InfoToday Europe Blog – infotodayeurope.com – The latest news, analysis and opinion on the information industry in Europe and the UK.
Business of Video blog – blog.streamingmedia.com – Daily posts about the online video industry, business trends and analysis, market data, and research as well as the online video business models in the media and entertainment, broadcast, publishing, advertising and enterprise industries.
destinationCRM Blog – destinationcrmblog.com – a blog from the editors of CRM magazine, dedicated to providing Customer Relationship Management information in a timely manner to connect decision makers and providers.
SpeechTech Blog – speechtechblog.com – updates on speech technology and its applications in daily life. Covers everything from ASR to VUI, with lots of links, threads, and even a few pictures thrown in for good measure.
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Paula Hane's New Chapter
Effective June 1, Paula J. Hane is giving up her assignment as News Bureau Chief at Information Today, Inc. (ITI), where she was engaged to provide editorial direction to the ITI NewsBreaks service hosted on infotoday.com. She also wrote for Information Today and the Cyberskeptic’s Guide to Internet Research. She has been associated with the company for 16½ years and was previously the Editor of Database magazine for Online, Inc. She will continue to accept freelance editorial and writing assignments.
The responsibility for producing news commentaries and in-depth analyses for the infotoday.com website will be integrated into the workflow of the Information Today newspaper, with Barbara Brynko as Editor-in-Chief/Editorial Director. Assisting Barbara will be Brandi Scardilli as Managing Editor.
Vendors should continue to send information industry and product news items to Information Today: Barbara Brynko (Editor-in-Chief/Editorial Director) at bbrynko@infotoday.com. Library technology news should continue to be sent to Computers in Libraries magazine at cilnews@infotoday.com. As always, freelance writers are encouraged to submit story ideas directly to the editors.
We wish Paula success in her new ventures and thank her for her many years of great work as News Bureau Chief at ITI. Paula can be reached at paulajeanhane@gmail.com.
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