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Weekly News Digest
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June 18, 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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BioMed Central Agrees to Publish Mutation Research Journal
BioMed Central partnered with the Japanese Environmental Mutagen Society (JEMS) to publish the society’s official journal, Genes and Environment. This open access (OA) publication covers topics such as mutagenesis and anti-mutagenesis, genotoxicity, pharmaceuticals and anticancer agents, water and air pollution, and DNA damage.“A better platform is required to disseminate research information and to share it with scientists globally because great progress is occurring in the field of gene and environment research, especially in Asia. To achieve this, the Japanese Environmental Mutagen Society decided that open access for all articles of the journal would be provided via the major publisher, BioMed Central,” says Takashi Yagi, the journal’s editor-in-chief. For more information, read the press release.
dtSearch Corp. Updates Its Products
dtSearch Corp. released version 7.80 of its product line, which expands the company’s embedded document filters to directly support more types of encrypted PDFs. dtSearch’s products can parse, index, search, display, and extract content from full texts and metadata using developer APIs.Its software development kits (SDKs) include the dtSearch Engine for Windows, .NET, Linux, and Android; OS X is coming soon. The native 64-bit and 32-bit APIs are compatible with .NET, C++, and Java. For more information, read the press release.
The European Commission Investigates Amazon's Ebook Distribution Contracts
The European Commission (EC) initiated a formal antitrust investigation into Amazon’s business practices regarding ebook distribution, according to STM Publishing News. It will focus on specific clauses in Amazon’s contracts that require publishers to tell Amazon about more favorable or alternative terms offered to the company’s competitors, among other stipulations.If the EC determines that these clauses limit competition among ebook distributors, Amazon may be in violation of European Union (EU) antitrust rules. For more information, read the article.
SAGE Announces Two New Journals
SAGE Publications introduced Cardiovascular and Thoracic Open, an international, peer-reviewed, open access (OA) journal for surgeons and other medical professionals working on the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular and thoracic diseases.Additionally, SAGE will begin publishing HAND, the official journal of the American Association for Hand Surgery, in 2016. It covers the research on as well as medical and surgical management of the hand, wrist, and upper extremity within surgical, medical, and therapeutic contexts. For more information, read the press releases.
NIH Plans for the Future of the National Library of Medicine
The National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) director, Francis S. Collins, approved the proposed strategic plan for the National Library of Medicine (NLM). According to NIH’s press release, it “calls for NIH to position the NLM as a unifying force in biomedicine that promotes and accelerates knowledge generation, dissemination and understanding in the United States and internationally.”The report also suggests that the NLM should expand its activities to include research conducted outside NIH. Congress will help NIH implement the infrastructure changes needed to move forward with the plan. For more information, read the press release.
EPA Mapping Tool Identifies Environmental Problem Areas
The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) released EJSCREEN, a high-resolution environmental justice (EJ) mapping and screening tool that helps state and local government officials, researchers, and advocates locate communities facing environmental risks based on nationwide, consistent data.Users can click on any area of the country and access data related to the region’s environmental factors and demographics. The tool is publicly available and includes information for the entire U.S. For more information, read Nextgov’s article.
IGI Global Debuts InfoSci Databases Demo Site
IGI Global launched a new demonstration site that provides exclusive access to the InfoSci e-resources databases. They are updated continuously as IGI Global’s books and journals are printed.Users can access the personalized platform to view full-text PDFs, as well as an XML-powered, full-text search engine with more quickly retrieved results, and spell-check and autocomplete functions. Results can be sorted by relevance, title, and copyright year. For more information, read the press release.
Adam Matthew Completes American History Archive
With the publication of Module II: Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era, Adam Matthew completed its American History, 1493-1945 collection. Module I focused on settlement, commerce, revolution, and reform (1493–1859). The collection is composed of thousands of digital primary source documents from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and includes about 60,000 letters, diaries, maps, pamphlets, printed books, newspapers, and photographs. For more information, read the press release.
SIIA Comments on the Innovation Act
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) released a statement applauding the House Committee on the Judiciary’s approval of H.R.9, aka the Innovation Act, which is designed to decrease patent infringement lawsuits.“Today’s action was an important step forward for patent reform and a positive sign that Congress can get patent litigation abuse legislation passed this year,” says Mark MacCarthy, SIIA’s VP of public policy. “Abusive patent litigation is a significant drain on the American economy and it is doing real harm to innovation in our country. It is increasingly clear that leading members on both sides of the aisle share a desire to find an effective solution that can meet with bipartisan and bicameral approval.” For more information, read the press release.
ARL Explores TDM and Fair Use
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) rolled out “Text and Data Mining and Fair Use in the United States,” which covers the role and usefulness of text and data mining (TDM) and analyzes fair use in regard to TDM when using copyrighted research articles.The report provides examples of cases in which courts upheld TDM as fair use and analyzes four factors for determining fair use. For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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