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Weekly News Digest
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July 21, 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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LexisNexis' U.K. Company Hopes to Acquire Legal Publisher
LexisNexis U.K. intends to acquire Jordan Publishing Ltd., which is also U.K.-based, after regulatory review and other customary conditions are approved. Jordan Publishing’s titles (such as The Family Court Practice) complement LexisNexis’ portfolio, and LexisNexis’ online solutions will give Jordan Publishing’s customers access to diverse content.“Over the years we have created a very successful and profitable business but we now recognise that new technology is driving fundamental changes in how the business operates and meeting successfully this challenge for our customers and employees will be better provided within a larger entity such as LexisNexis,” says Richard Templeton, chairman of The West of England Trust Ltd., which owns Jordan Publishing. For more information, read the press release.
New Resources Shed Light on Election Spending
The Money, Politics and Transparency initiative—from the Sunlight Foundation, Global Integrity, and the Electoral Integrity Project—introduced a set of resources that show how money plays a role in global election campaigns and political parties. These include a dataset on direct and indirect public funding and a series of case studies that document campaign transparency practices around the world, as well as the Declaration on Political Finance Openness, which is now open for public comment.For more information, read the blog post.
Voting on the Future of SLA
At a special meeting on July 14, 2015, the Special Libraries Association (SLA) board of directors voted to receive the revised version of the consultants’ “Recommendations Report” (login required) that was covered in the NewsBreak “The Future of SLA: A Strategic Framework and Recommendations for Moving Forward.” Receiving the report means the board acknowledges the work done but has taken no action regarding the recommendations. Revisions to the original document, shown in red in this version, are extensive. Some are substantive, based on the 50-plus comments the board received from individual members and from SLA units (chapters and divisions), while others are grammatical.In a second vote, the board accepted the strategic framework, “Road Map for the Future of SLA” (login required), which spells out the seven areas in which change will be implemented. By accepting the report, the board indicates its approval of the content and direction of the document. It will now move forward toward implementing it. Finally, the board voted to task the change consultants, de Stricker Associates and Shamel Information Services, with developing a multiphase implementation plan. This will be done in coordination with SLA staffers and will consider member feedback. With these three votes, SLA hopes to put itself on a path toward regaining its luster, reasserting itself as the foremost association for information professionals, and resolving its identity crisis. —Marydee Ojala
Cheetah Legal Research Platform Debuts
Wolters Kluwer Law & Business announced the official availability of its Cheetah legal research platform. It uses Wolter Kluwer’s content and in-depth expertise to help users access results accurately and quickly. Wolters Kluwer adds and enhances the content on a regular basis, with more than 1.1 million documents in various practice areas already analyzed, enriched, and classified.Features include multi-jurisdictional surveys (Smart Charts) that are available on Cheetah’s dashboard. Additional features include these mentioned in the press release: - Content that can be easily searched using natural language, Boolean connectors, or operators, with advanced search functionality from a single toolbar
- History, work lists and saved items, all of which are all easily accessible directly from the Home page
- Customizable practice area dashboards that enable one-click access to frequently used documents
- Document panels that are easily expanded and collapsed as needed via one-click icons, creating a streamlined reading experience
For more information, read the press release.
ReadCube Indexes Springer Journals, Books, and Proceedings
Springer’s journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings are now available via ReadCube. ReadCube’s Discover service has indexed more than 8 million of Springer’s documents, giving researchers an enhanced reading platform, search functionality, and personalized recommendation feeds, along with hyperlinked in-line citations, annotation tools, clickable author names, altmetrics, and access to supplemental content.For more information, read the press release.
Adam Matthew Will Publish Civil Rights Archive
Adam Matthew announced an agreement with the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans to digitally publish documents from its Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, covering 1943–1970. Materials in this collection include papers and speeches presented at Race Relations Institutes; social surveys and their analyses; correspondence between the center’s prospective participants, applicants, consultants, and lecturers; and images of scrapbooks, photos, and past exhibits.The collection will be published in early 2017 as a complement to Adam Matthews’ African American Communities. For more information, read the press release.
Senate Approves Every Child Achieves Act of 2015
The American Library Association (ALA) shared the news that the U.S. Senate voted to reauthorize and amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), now the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015 (S.1177). This legislation will help keep school libraries open in every state by allowing school districts to use federal funds to develop and foster school library programs. Additionally, it gives states more flexibility in developing accountability systems, deciding the weight of federally required tests, choosing student and school performance measures, and implementing teacher evaluation systems, among other provisions.“Strong and effective school library programs with professional librarians provide students with invaluable access to support, resources and tools. This makes a big difference for students who do not have access to high-speed Internet or books at home. This makes a big difference in student success,” says Sari Feldman, ALA president. For more information, read the press release.
NISO Solicits Comments on New SUSHI-Lite Technical Report
NISO (National Information Standards Organization) opened its draft technical report, “SUSHI-Lite: Deploying SUSHI as a Lightweight Protocol for Exchanging Usage via Web Services,” for public comment through Sept. 30, 2015. This supplement to the SUSHI (Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative) standard proposes a way to exchange COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) statistics—such as usage for single articles or complete reports—using common approaches to web services.“Librarians and publishers are well aware of how critical the SUSHI standard is for communicating measurement of electronic resources,” says Oliver Pesch, co-chair of the SUSHI-Lite Working Group. “However, since SUSHI was originally published by NISO in 2007, there have been numerous changes to the online environments in which we work, such as alternative metrics, the COUNTER Journal Usage Factor, and the rise of institutional repositories and the need to measure their use. There is a need for more lightweight technologies to allow smaller sets of usage to be exchanged in real-time, and the technologies and approaches described in the SUSHI-Lite technical report can support these newer requirements.” For more information, read the press release.
CCC Increases Motion Picture License Participation
Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) added more than 350 producers to its Motion Picture License (MPL), which has performance rights from 1,000-plus global producers, including all of the major Hollywood studios. MPL gives company-wide rights to show copyrighted video content—such as during training sessions and company events—without users having to get permission from individual producers.“An audience is more likely to pay attention to the message and remember it when presentations and training sessions include video. However, in the daily rush to get things done, even well-intentioned employees may unknowingly share copyrighted material, such as movies and TV shows, without permission,” says Emily Sheahan, general manager and executive director at CCC. “With the additional titles now available across many genres, MPL licensees can more easily find the right message to fit their business communications needs.” For more information, read the press release.
Innovative Publishes Report on Libraries and the Web
Innovative released a survey report of 4,000-plus academic library users in the U.K. “We Love the Library, But We Live on the Web: Findings Around How Academic Library Users View Online Resources and Services” shows how patrons interact with library services online and what the challenges are for libraries looking to meet patron expectations.Key findings mentioned in the press release include: - Libraries can meet more needs of their users by including all manner of library resources—including multimedia—in a single, effective discovery source.
- [Libraries should be] providing more direct workflows geared toward electronic research.
- [Libraries should be] empowering users with apps.
- In addition, libraries should seize the opportunity to engage users by surfacing their data on the greater Web.
For more information, read the press release.
Baker & Taylor Finishes Migration to TLC's System
Baker & Taylor completed its migration to The Library Corp.’s (TLC) CARL•X ILS. Since 2001, TLC has hosted Baker & Taylor’s cataloging system, and now the distributor’s 6 million titles (one of the largest collections of bibliographic data in the U.S.) are available via CARL•X’s cataloging features. Baker & Taylor also implemented new functionalities with this upgrade, giving libraries access to more books and digital content more quickly.For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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