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Weekly News Digest
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March 26, 2015 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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The Libhub Initiative Forms Sponsorship Program
The Libhub Initiative (founded by Zepheira) introduced a sponsorship program to support library visibility on the web, and Atlas Systems, Inc., Innovative, and SirsiDynix have joined as sponsors. They will help libraries explore and uncover ways to better use web-related technologies to meet the needs of patrons, says Eric Miller, Zepheira’s co-founder and president.To sign up for the Libhub Initiative’s sponsorship program, visit its website. For more information, read the press release.
SirsiDynix Complements BLUEcloud LSP With Reading List Tool
SirsiDynix plans to release BLUEcloud Lists, its new reading list tool, later in 2015. It will use a bookmarklet to harvest metadata from web resources and add items to a reading list, which users will be able to publish to SirsiDynix Enterprise so they can request interlibrary loan or purchase for items that aren’t owned by the library.Library staffers will be able to use this tool to create reading lists from a variety of resources, such as the library catalog, scholarly journals, online bookstores, and YouTube. Catalog titles saved to BLUEcloud Lists can be saved to worklists and pushed to other apps in the BLUEcloud LSP. For more information, read the press release.
Disney Movies Are Now Streaming via hoopla digital
hoopla digital made a content licensing agreement with The Walt Disney Studios to bring 100 movies to participating public libraries in the U.S. and Canada. These titles include The Muppet Movie, The Sword in the Stone, and Recess: School’s Out, which patrons can now stream to their smartphones, tablets, and computers.More than 200 other content companies make their media available to hoopla digital. Libraries pay only for what patrons use, and the simultaneous access model allows multiple patrons to view titles at the same time. For more information, read the press release.
ReadCube Gains IOP Publishing Content
Thirty-four of IOP Publishing’s journals are now discoverable via ReadCube’s web, desktop, and mobile platform. More than 200,000 articles from these journals (including the Journal of Physics series) will be enhanced with hyperlinked in-line citations, annotation tools, clickable author names, integrated altmetrics, and other ReadCube-specific features.For more information, read the press release.
IGI Global Starts OA Initiative
IGI Global launched a hybrid open access (OA) initiative for 13 of its journals. Individuals and institutions will have unrestricted access to the selected titles, which include the International Journal of E-Business Research and the International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies.By starting the OA program, the publisher aims to “better serve the academic community and meet the needs of our authors,” according to the press release. For more information, read the press release.
PMOrchestrator Launches Project Management Solution
Management consulting and advisory firm PMOrchestrator introduced PMSOC (Project Management Service on the Cloud), a new solution for delivering program/project management office (PPMO) technology and managed services. PMSOC addresses the need for maximum, cost-effective project management efficiency and outcomes for small and medium businesses with its all-in-one technology, management support, and full and flexible PPMO functionality.Because PMSOC is cloud-based, it doesn’t require on-premises hardware or software infrastructure or maintenance. It is backed by PMOrchestrator’s core competency, the management of transformative systems throughout their life cycles. For more information, read the press release.
StoryCorps App Encourages People to Share Their Life Stories
A free mobile app for recording and sharing oral histories is now available from StoryCorps. Users can download the app from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store and record stories anywhere, anytime.According to Laughing Squid, StoryCorps provides recording booths for people to tell their life stories, and the company makes the recordings available via public platforms such as NPR and animated videos. For more information, read the article.
Gale Gives Students Easier Access to Primary Sources; Starts Arabic Digitization Project
Gale will integrate Gale Artemis: Primary Sources into Cengage Learning’s MindTap elearning platform, which will bring library content directly into students’ learning paths, facilitate collaboration between librarians and faculty members, drive usage of library collections, and position the library closer to classroom engagements.Academic institutions using MindTap and Gale Digital Collections can link the two resources via MindTap’s platform. This will allow instructors to select specific primary sources from Gale Artemis for use in readings, quizzes, projects, and other classroom activities. Students will have access to materials through a single interface so they spend less time searching. Additionally, Gale announced plans for a digitization program of Arabic-language primary sources and reference materials, composed of millions of pages of collections from leading institutions in the Middle East and West. The first collection (of content from the 15th–19th centuries) is titled Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library and will be released in December 2015 as a full-text, searchable online archive. The next two parts of the collection will be released in 2016 and 2017. For more information, read the press releases.
Springer’s SciDetect Software Tracks Down Fake Papers
Springer Science+Business Media and Joseph Fourier University (UJF) teamed up to launch SciDetect, an open source software program for discovering fake scientific papers. It recognizes text that was created with paper generators such as SCIgen, Mathgen, or Physgen and can tell whether an entire document or just parts are fake.“Although software cannot supplant peer reviews and academic evaluation, SciDetect lends publishers an additional hand in the fight against fraud and fake papers,” says UJF’s Cyril Labbé, who worked with Springer on the software. It “can scan large volumes of materials and give publishers further assurance about the reliability and quality of accepted papers.” For more information, read the press release.
CCC and OCLC Team Up for Get It Now Integration
Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) integrated its Get It Now academic solution with OCLC’s WorldShare Interlibrary Loan service. Libraries using WorldShare Interlibrary Loan can use Get It Now to access journal content from more than 130 publishers.“WorldShare ILL automates workflows to save time for library staff, resulting in timely delivery of items to the people who need them,” says Katie Birch, OCLC’s portfolio director of global product management. “The integration simplifies Get It Now document purchases for WorldShare ILL users, and reduces the time needed to respond to user requests.” For more information, read the press release.
The National Science Foundation Recommits to Public Access to Research
The National Science Foundation released its public access plan, “Today’s Data, Tomorrow’s Discoveries,” which is intended to accelerate research results dissemination in order to advance knowledge and “help ensure the nation’s future prosperity,” according to the press release.The plan requires that articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and papers in juried conference proceedings or transactions are deposited in a public access-compliant repository within 1 year of publication. For more information, read the press release.
EBSCO Orbit Debuts With Discovery-Enhancing Apps
EBSCO Information Services rolled out EBSCO Orbit, an online catalog of apps for enhancing the EBSCO discovery experience for library users. Libraries can browse and request nearly 100 apps from this self-service environment that will augment the search experience, highlight content, enhance library interaction, and integrate with third-party environments.All Orbit apps are free and open source for libraries that will implement and maintain software locally. Libraries can choose to have EBSCO manage their apps via a cloud services package for an annual subscription fee. For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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