|
|
Weekly News Digest
 |
June 23, 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.
|
3M Library Systems Updates Self-Checkout Interface
3M Library Systems integrated its 3M SelfCheck QuickConnect Interface with the 3M Cloud Library to give patrons a new, easy way to discover and borrow digital content—the interface now includes the option to provide recommendations for content in the cloud library. Libraries can use the interface to highlight selected titles, and patrons can borrow ebooks from 3M’s SelfCheck kiosk with a single click.The interface can also be integrated with LibraryThing to give libraries more options for using the SelfCheck System. Additionally, libraries using Evanced Solutions’ SignUp or Events to manage their programs can display information about their events on their SelfCheck kiosks. For more information, read the press release.
Smashwords Allows Assetless Ebook Preorders
Smashwords now allows authors and publishers to establish a preorder option for their titles before their final manuscripts and covers are uploaded to the platform. With assetless preorders, Smashwords users can list their titles for preorder from major ebook retailers up to 12 months in advance of the official on-sale date.According to Mark Coker, the company’s founder, “ebooks born as preorders at Smashwords earned more than triple the earnings of books that were simply uploaded the day of release” in the past year. For more information, read the blog post.
ProQuest Debuts Ebook Central in Beta; Expands Primary Source Collections
ProQuest’s new ebook platform, Ebook Central, launched a beta testing program with university libraries in the U.S. U.K., Canada, Germany, and Australia. With the beta program comes new features such as the ability to see which books in search results are available and which are available upon request, options for exporting notes and creating citations for each book, and customizable links to the library’s catalog via the subnavigation menu. The company plans to conclude the program later in 2015.Additionally, ProQuest introduced three new digital primary source collections for its History Vault covering the black freedom struggle of the 20th century, the New Deal and World War II, and critical intelligence efforts during wartime. ProQuest also partnered with the National Security Archive to expand the Digital National Security Archive (DNSA) with CIA Covert Operations II: The Year of Intelligence, 1975. The collection features 1,000 declassified documents that are cross-searchable with other ProQuest content. For more information, read the press releases.
Gale Rolls Out Aviation Archive; Promotes Content via Google Scholar
Gale introduced Evolution of Flight, 1784-1991 to its Smithsonian Collections Online digital archive series. It features images, diaries, correspondence, scrapbooks, government documents, and other primary sources in several languages about the history of aviation. Researchers can access it via the Gale Artemis: Primary Sources platform.In other news, Gale teamed up with Google to index about 2.5 million scholarly documents in Google Scholar and expand what’s indexed by major library discovery services. When searching in Google Scholar, researchers will be able to find content from Gale and its publishing partners, whether as full text or as an abstract (with information on how to access the full-text via library or institutional subscription). “Information access is undergoing a revolution, and Gale is evolving, too. Indexing our content in Google Scholar where students and instructors want to do research is placing library resources directly into user workflow,” says Paul Gazzolo, SVP and general manager for Gale. For more information, read the press releases.
ALA Supports the Digital Learning Equity Act of 2015
The American Library Association (ALA) released a statement supporting the Digital Learning Equity Act of 2015, introduced by Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) as a way to help close the digital divide among K–12 students in the U.S.ALA president Courtney Young says: “Librarians know first-hand that access to broadband and the skills to put it to work are essential for educational opportunity and achievement today. The ‘Digital Learning Equity Act of 2015’ addresses these issues head on for everyone concerned with ensuring our young people have the necessary skills to go on to college and into the workforce. … The demonstration pilots authorized by the bill challenge educators in K12 schools, in libraries, and those who work with youth in other settings to explore new ways to ensure learning does not stop when the school bell rings. ALA also is encouraged by the research requirement so that the impact of investments made under the Act will be truly measured and the best of the best can be replicated in communities across the country. …” For more information, read the press release.
e-Libro Grows Its Premium Collection
e-Libro added 10,000 ebooks to its premium offering from Spanish-language publishers. These titles are available via flexible access models such as subscription, perpetual access, and demand-driven acquisition (DDA). e-Libro also introduced a new ebook subscription in religion and philosophy.The company aims to provide a central solution to librarians for key Spanish-language ebooks and has plans to add more publisher partners regularly. For more information, read the press release.
W3C Announces Approval of MathML Standard
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Information technology group approved the MathML Version 3.0 2nd Edition as an ISO/IEC International Standard. MathML is used in software and development tools for various expressions of math on the web (i.e., visual presentations of formulas and their semantics).“This important scientific standard, which is already widely deployed internationally, can now benefit from additional formal recognition from ISO, IEC and their national member bodies,” says Jeff Jaffe, W3C’s CEO. “The ISO/IEC recognition is expected to increase internationally harmonized adoption of MathML not only by standards bodies, governments and the scientific and academic communities, but also by browser makers, educational publishers and the broader Web community.” For more information, read the press release.
DynaMed Plus Gets Update
EBSCO Health’s DynaMed Plus added evidence-based content from Truven Health Analytics—Micromedex Medication Management and Lab Recommendation resources—to provide clinicians with ways to better inform their prescription decisions, medication management strategies, and treatment decisions based on lab tests. The content includes drug monographs, advisory screenings, IV interactions and lab recommendations, as well as products from Micromedex’s Clinical Knowledge Suite.For more information, read the press release.
Alexander Street Press Updates LGBT Collection
Alexander Street Press augmented its LGBT studies content with updates to LGBT Thought and Culture, which covers the 1960s and earlier. Students can learn about the history of the LGBT movement through nearly 120,000 pages of text and 6,500 archived items from organizations such as ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC (University of Southern California) Libraries and the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University.For more information, read the press release.
Boopsie API Facilitates Comics Distribution
Recorded Books will use Boopsie for Libraries’ AccessILS platform to quickly scale the sales and deployment of iVerse Media’s digital comics and graphic novels and integrate with libraries’ existing ILS. The companies will leverage AccessILS’ vendor-neutral API to distribute Comics Plus: Library Edition. This collection of more than 10,000 titles will be available to public libraries around the world.“The need to integrate with each library system, individually, was a major technical and financial obstacle to scaling distribution of our digital comics catalog to libraries,” says Tony Hodby, iVerse Media’s COO. “Boopsie’s AccessILS solves this problem and enables us to scale rapidly.” For more information, read the press release.
Send correspondence concerning the Weekly News Digest to NewsBreaks Editor
Brandi Scardilli
|
