Weekly News Digest

Infotrieve, Inc. (http://www.infotrieve.com) announced the launch of its new federated search solution, ArticleFinder eXtreme (AFX), which can be integrated into Infotrieve's Virtual Library technology platform, allowing users to simultaneously search their library's holdings, subscription, and public databases. The company said AFX is designed to shorten discovery cycles and deliver cost savings to special libraries by leveraging their existing resources.

AFX features include in-holdings checks to reduce duplicate orders, merging and sorting of results, automated user authentication for multiple databases, saved search queries as alerts, and usage reporting. It also allows for one-click LinkOut access to full-text articles in electronic collections, the exporting of citations directly into bibliographic citation managers ProCite and EndNote, and integrated ordering through Infotrieve's Virtual Library for documents not located in a library's collections.

Source: Infotrieve, Inc.

The Modern Language Association (MLA; http://www.mla.org) announced that it has signed contracts with CSA and ProQuest, which will make the MLA International Bibliography available to subscribers beginning in early 2005. In addition, the Bibliography will continue to be offered on the EBSCO, Gale, and OCLC platforms. It will no longer be available on the Ovid and SilverPlatter platforms.

Ovid had previously announced that the MLA International Bibliography would no longer be offered through Ovid Technologies, but would remain available until no later than July 12, 2005 to subscribers who had renewed prior to July 12 of this year. The MLA and Ovid have agreed to a 2-month extension to allow customers with subscriptions expiring in August and September the opportunity to find a new vendor without interruption of service. Additionally, the bibliography will not be available through SilverPlatter after November 26 of this year, but customers may renew their subscriptions for up to 1 year prior to that date.

Source: The MLA

Oxford Journals, a division of Oxford University Press (OUP), announced that it had signed an agreement for Stanford University's HighWire Press to host its entire journals collection beginning January 2005. HighWire currently hosts the majority of OUP's scientific, technical, and medical (STM) journals. Oxford Journals (http://www.oupjournals.org) publishes more than 180 journals covering a broad range of subject areas, two-thirds of which are published in collaboration with learned societies and other international organizations.

HighWire Press (http://www.highwire.org), a division of the Stanford University Libraries, has produced the online versions of journals and other scholarly content since 1995. HighWire Press claims to host the largest repository of free, full-text, peer-reviewed articles in the world, with more than 750,000 articles freely available online.

In a press release, the partners stated: "The partnership between OUP and HighWire Press represents more than just a business alliance. With the strong common ideals inherent within their 'not-for-profit' statuses, and with both organizations being owned by world-leading academic institutions, the agreement represents a commitment to providing the best online access to leading research at a fair price for all."

Source: Oxford Journals