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Weekly News Digest
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August 17, 2017 — 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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ACS Reviewer Lab Trains Peer Reviewers
ACS (American Chemical Society) Publications introduced ACS Reviewer Lab, an online course teaching researchers the fundamentals of scholarly peer review. It offers practical instructions and exercises for improving peer-reviewing skills, with six interactive modules on topics such as publishing ethics and how to write a referee report.“Rigorous and trusted peer review is recognized as the cornerstone of the high editorial quality of ACS journals. ACS Publications is dedicated to further enhancing our service to reviewers, editors and authors by creating specialized training resources,” says Sarah Tegen, VP of global editorial and author services for ACS Publications. For more information, read the press release.
AWS Rolls Out Security Service for Personal Data
Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched Amazon Macie, a security service that uses machine learning to discover, classify, and protect customers’ data, such as personally identifiable information and intellectual property. Customers can access dashboards and alerts that show them how this data is being used, and the service continually monitors data access activities for anomalies, risk of unauthorized access, and inadvertent data leaks. Amazon Macie is available now for Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) customers, with support for additional AWS customers coming later this year.For more information, read the press release.
Jeffrey Beall Speaks Out
THE (Times Higher Education) ran an article on Jeffrey Beall, whose Beall’s List of predatory journals was shut down in January 2017. In an interview, he suggests “that some scholarly librarians put their personal feelings about open access before their job, and [they] are ‘betraying’ the academy by not alerting patrons to the problems of predatory publishers.” THE reports that “he felt that ‘someone has to alert people to the weaknesses of it’. His concerns focus on how directly linking publication to profit has led to peer review safeguards being abandoned and consequently the value of measuring an individual’s scholarly output for use in employment and promotion decisions being undermined.”For more information, read the article.
bibliotheca Introduces New Logo
bibliotheca is rebranding as a way to finalize its merger with 3M Library Systems. Its new logo has three red pillars that resemble books and are also an abstract letter M. They stand for “connect, engage, and evolve.” Its new tagline, “transforming libraries,” underlines the company’s goal to transform staff operations and user experiences to allow libraries to connect with people in new ways.“We are now fully established as a new business, while still retaining the best elements from the individual companies. We worked hard to create a branding that represented that to our customers,” says Matthew Bellamy, chief commercial officer of bibliotheca. For more information and to view the new logo, read the press release.
Alexander Street Is Your Ticket to Broadway
Alexander Street is now offering The BroadwayHD Collection, a resource on the performing arts from BroadwayHD, which distributes to libraries around the world exclusively through Alexander Street. The collection features 25 award-winning live Broadway plays and musicals for students and researchers learning about drama, music, dance, and literature.“Particularly for students and researchers in the performing arts, the time and cost of traveling to see these plays and musicals is prohibitive. The BroadwayHD Collection opens up avenues for learning that might otherwise be unavailable,” says Will Whalen, Alexander Street’s director of global content. For more information, read the press release.
Ex Libris Group Updates Summon
Ex Libris Group announced a new release of Summon, which has subject-term searches (subject-term links are now part of Summon results and catalog detail pages), direct access to course reserves from search results (leveraging the integration between Summon and the Alma library services platform), multiple interface enhancements (improved accessibility, options for customization, etc.), and more.For more information, read the press release.
HighWire Press Gives Publishers Origins
HighWire Press launched Origins, a platform that helps publishers develop and maintain multiple journals, giving them end-to-end support. Each journal has an integrated design and tailored feature set so publishers can control content features and capabilities. Publishers can integrate third-party tools, including Crossref and CrossMark.“Publishers want to add features to many titles simultaneously and experiment with individual titles. Origins streamlines implementation, making it simpler for publishers with small or growing programs to launch journals quickly with the control to add innovative features that support strategic goals,” says Dan Filby, HighWire Press’ CEO. For more information, read the press release.
Pew Studies Online Trust Levels
Pew Research Center’s Internet & Tech division released a report, “The Fate of Online Trust in the Next Decade,” which features technologists, scholars, practitioners, strategic thinkers, and other leaders discussing how trust influences people’s relationship to the internet. Many respondents say that “lack of trust will not be a barrier to increased public reliance on the internet. Those who are hopeful that trust will grow expect technical and regulatory change will combat users’ concerns about security and privacy. Those who have doubts about progress say people are inured to risk, addicted to convenience and will not be offered alternatives to online interaction.” Additional results include the following:- 48% believe online trust will be strengthened in the coming decade.
- 28% believe trust will stay the same.
- 24% believe trust will be diminished.
For more information, read the report’s summary.
Internet Archive Offers Community History Archive Funding
The Internet Archive is accepting applications from all types of public libraries looking to create community history web archives composed of local news, blogs, social media, and other platforms. It will offer a funded (by IMLS) multi-year program of continuing education, training, and services for gaining expertise in web archiving, and the approved libraries will each receive the equivalent of $25,000 in web archiving services to build their collections. Applications are due Aug. 25, 2017.For more information, read the blog post.
ODILO Brings Reading Platform to European Schools
The European Commission (EC) chose ODILO to provide its digital reading platform to European schools and universities. EC support allows ODILO to help these institutions implement customized reading plans. They can add interactive features and supplemental materials, as well as measure student progress and reading comprehension.For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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