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Thursday, November 17, 2011
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NISO Launches Open Discovery Initiative
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by Marshall Breeding
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In the last 2 years, momentum has been building for a new genre of discovery services based on centralized indexes. Beginning with Summon from Serials Solutions, launched in July 2009, followed by EBSCO Discovery Service, Primo Central from Ex Libris, and OCLC's WorldCat Local, these services depend on massive indexes populated with content representing each component of a library's collection. As these index-based search products become strategic tools in which libraries make major investments, it is important to identify best practices and develop appropriate standards. The Open Discovery Initiative addresses several areas of interest in the arena of index-based discovery tools, including transparency of the content of the indexes, consistent terms and vocabularies, and standard mechanisms for transferring content from publishers to discovery service providers.
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Alexander Street Press Introduces Academic Video Store
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Alexander Street Press announced the launch of the Academic Video Store with more than 1,400 individual video titles covering a broad range of subjects. Many of the titles have won prestigious awards—Emmys, Oscars, CINE Golden Eagle Awards—and are already frequently used in classrooms across the country. Now, for the first time, they are available in streaming format. The store is expected to grow to more than 7,500 titles by the end of 2012.
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New Resources From NoveList to Connect Library Patrons to Services
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NoveList, a division of EBSCO Publishing, added more resources for librarians looking for information to help patrons and to publicize their programs. The NoveList website and a corresponding Facebook page have been designed to help librarians connect their patrons to more books and more library services.
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Socialtext 5.0 Now More Accessible and Sociable
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Socialtext, an enterprise social software provider, announced that it will soon be launching new features and enhancements for Socialtext 5.0. Significant features—Native Mobile Applications for iPhone, iPad, and BlackBerry and Twitter Integration—will extend the Socialtext 5.0 platform enabling easy access to key features of Socialtext's enterprise social software platform including, Signals, People, as well as powerful search functionality.
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EPUB 3 Becomes Final IDPF Specification—Poised to Unleash an Econtent Revolution
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by Paula J. Hane
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If you think that developments in ebooks and the e-reading experience have been hitting at a fast pace, get ready for it to get really exciting. A new specification has been approved that should accelerate the progress toward richer experiences. On Oct. 11, 2011, at Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) announced the completion of a major revision to EPUB, which has become the global standard interchange and delivery format for ebooks and other digital publications. The IDPF membership unanimously voted to elevate EPUB 3 to a final IDPF Recommended Specification, which is publicly available at http://idpf.org/epub/30.
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