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Weekly News Digest
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July 2, 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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New GPO App Provides Information on the 114th Congress
The free Mobile Member Guide for the 114th Congress app is now available from the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO). The public can use it to access information on members of the current Congress, including their picture, party affiliation, hometown, home state, and length of service. Users can browse members by last name, state, chamber, or party affiliation.For more information, read the press release.
Innovative Enables Discoverability via Linked Data
Innovative introduced the Output Data for Libhub Service, a solution that simplifies libraries’ publication of linked data records and allows them to easily contribute to the Libhub Initiative. It extracts the records from the database of any Innovative ILS or services platform (such as Sierra, Polaris ILS, Virtua, or Millennium) and formats them in MARC/XML. That ensures Zepheira can translate them into the BIBFRAME vocabulary for discoverability on the web.Libraries can access the service as a one-time full database output with optional monthly updates. For more information, read the press release.
APA Indexes Books and Journals in ReadCube
The American Psychological Association (APA) teamed up with ReadCube to index its scholarly journal and book collections in ReadCube Discover, including all 110 titles in the PsycARTICLES database and more than 65,000 books and book chapters from PsycBOOKS. They are now searchable across ReadCube’s portals and feature deep-indexing, hyperlinked in-line citations, annotations, clickable author names, supplemental content and figures, social sharing, and altmetrics.For more information, read the press release.
Gale Integrates Academic Content With Google for Education
Gale became a certified Google for Education partner and integrated Google tools into its In Context suite of products. Users can log in to their institution’s In Context resource with their Google account and can download, save, and share articles using Google Apps for Education. Gale also agreed to pilot Google’s Classroom share button for making content from third-party websites available in Classroom; it will be added to the In Context products this summer.This integration aims to help educators improve students’ engagement, productivity, and critical thinking, as well as boost collaboration of its users. For more information, read the press release.
Cenveo Publisher Services Provides Forum for STM Publishing Discussions
Cenveo Publisher Services launched the Lunch & Learn series to support the STM publishing community. This interactive series of education programs will bring together thought leaders and publishing executives who will discuss the industry’s innovations, trends, and solutions.“Don’t let anyone tell you there’s no such thing as a free lunch!” says Marianne Calilhanna, Cenveo’s director of marketing and content services. “The one ‘cost’ of this invitation-only event is that participants are required to engage with fellow publishing executives and share their thoughts and lessons learned. We have a great line-up of topics and are accepting ideas from the community for future discussions.” The first lunch, on July 23, 2015, is titled “Launching and Sustaining a New Journal: Publication Models to Consider.” For more information, read the press release.
EBSCO Updates Dissertations Database
EBSCO Information Services expanded its partnership with The H.W. Wilson Foundation to enhance searching for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). The foundation will support the expansion of American Doctoral Dissertations, 1933-1955, a free database that debuted in 2014, to include records of ETDs from 1955 to the present. Researchers can access the documents at opendissertations.com, where content will be continually updated, according to foundation president Harry Regan.“Providing a single access point for decades-worth of scholarship from leading institutions will help raise the profile of these important pieces of work and improve the findability of the information they contain,” he notes. For more information, read the press release.
NISO Releases Recommended Practice on Exchanging Serial Content
NISO (National Information Standards Organization) published a new recommended practice, Protocol for Exchanging Serial Content (PESC). It suggests the best way to manage digital serial content packaging elements to help content providers and content recipients track what was delivered and received.“Many diverse organizations—such as publishers, content aggregators, archives, and indexing services—exchange and work with the heterogeneous digital files that make up serial content,” says Kimberly A. Tryka, co-chair of the NISO PESC Working Group. “Organizations that exchange serial content know that lack of consistency in packaging and describing the items being exchanged leads to frustration and inefficiency. The PESC recommended practice is intended to inform members of the scholarly information community about preferred practices for packaging and exchanging serial content which can enable the creation of better automated processes to receive and manage serial content.” For more information, read the press release.
Thomson Reuters Rolls Out APIs for Elektron
Thomson Reuters Elektron debuted a set of open source APIs—including a broad set of interfaces that are low latency/high performance, simple content-aware, and web-based—that streamline access to Thomson Reuters’ data feeds and services. Developers can use the APIs to find multiple data sources and systems, such as Elektron content delivered by Thomson Reuters Elektron Real Time and the Thomson Reuters Enterprise Platform (TREP).The company plans to support and build on this set of APIs as time goes on. For more information, read the press release.
NSF Provides Funds for Engineering and Computer Science Departments
The National Science Foundation (NSF) directorates for Engineering (ENG), Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), and Education and Human Resources (EHR) granted 5-year, $2 million awards to six undergraduate engineering and computer science departments in universities so they can “enact groundbreaking, scalable and sustainable changes” in their educations.NSF is working to help universities prepare their future engineers and computer scientists with technical core courses, extracurricular professional activities, and transfers for students from 2-year to 4-year colleges. NSF’s awards are also designed to support faculty development, faculty incentives, and inclusive academic cultures. For more information, read the press release.
ProQuest Announces New Version of Intota
ProQuest announced that version 2 of Intota, its cloud-based library services platform, will be available in mid-2016. The company demonstrated the updated version’s functionality at the recent American Library Association (ALA) annual conference.Libraries that sign up to use version 1 now will have access to a special preview of the new features early next year. The features include a next-generation version of ProQuest’s Knowledgebase, and a metadata engine that will help libraries transfer from MARC records to linked data, as well as acquisitions, description and delivery capabilities, and support management for electronic and print collections. For more information, read the press release.
Thieme Chemistry Updates Synthetic Organic Chemistry Resource
Thieme Chemistry rolled out the newest release of its Science of Synthesis (SOS) 4.1, which is a full-text resource for methods and experimental procedures in synthetic organic chemistry. Version 4.1 has additions from the Reference Library and up-to-date Knowledge Updates, totaling about 1,650 printed pages of new material.Additionally, its interface design has enhancements (such as book covers with zoom functionality) and more digital object identifiers (DOIs) linking to the primary literature. For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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