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Weekly News Digest
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February 27, 2018 — 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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The Future of College Bookstores
In “Rethinking College Stores,” Publishers Weekly explores whether independent college bookstores can survive amid the shrinking textbook market and competition from companies such as Barnes & Noble Education and Follett. “IndiCo’s program, the Independent Campus Stores Collaborative, gives colleges and universities the option to allow IndiCo to manage their campus stores or provide custom services. When it was launched at last year’s Camex, there were roughly 2,000 indie stores.” The article continues:Over the past few years, [some] school stores have gone independent, but not all through IndiCo. ‘I’m not sure [the transition] is a complete success,’ said Jim Huang, director of the bookstore at Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pa. ‘There was a lot of skepticism [among faculty] about what we do that’s different’ when the college took over store management in spring 2015 from Follett. Huang said that books are the focus of the revamped store. Currently textbooks account for 40% of sales, with spiritwear and spirit gear another 40%, and 20% of sales generated from other items. … Yet even with those additions to the independent market, the number of independent campus stores continues to drop. Barnes & Noble Education added 700 virtual bookstores and a textbook wholesaling company with its acquisition of MBS last year. It now operates 777 physical bookstores and 706 virtual stores. Read the rest of the article here.
'Libraries Versus Communities of Hate' by the Annoyed Librarian
The Annoyed Librarian published a tirade against people “who want all LGBT-themed books banned from the public library.” The post says the following:There are groups it’s safe for all of us to hate. Fascists, for example. There aren’t really that many fascists in America, but they want to destroy whatever passes for the free society we live in, so we can all hate them for that. And mimes. We can all agree they’re a danger to society, silent but deadly. Otherwise, the vast majority of Americans, including those of whatever group you happen to despise, are peaceable folk who mind their own business and just want to live their lives. And then there are the bigots in Orange City, Iowa, who want to ban LGBT books because they’re ‘pushing an agenda’ ‘counter to those in the faith community.’ 300 people signed a petition to ban the books. That doesn’t sound like many, but it’s about 5% of the population. Think about what it must be like to know that 5% of the people around you hate you so much they wish you didn’t exist and want to erase all mention of people like you from the public record. And then think that they all profess a religion whose main spokesman commanded everyone to love their neighbors as themselves. And then collapse from the hypocrisy overload. For the rest of the post, click here.
Cengage and Chegg Team Up to Provide Free Student Tools
Cengage entered into an exclusive partnership with Chegg to give Cengage Unlimited subscribers free 30-day access to Chegg’s learning services. Beginning in August 2018, students will be able to use Chegg Study (which offers step-by-step solutions to problems in more than 28,000 textbooks and access to a database of more than 13 million expert Q&As), Chegg Math (an AI-based equation solver), and EasyBib Plus (a resource for citing papers correctly and improving sentence structure, grammar, and spelling), as well as receive 60 minutes of one-on-one tutoring from Chegg Tutors’ subject matter experts.For more information, read the press release.
ARL Promotes Fair Use With Shareable Infographic
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) put out a free infographic showing “how fair use advances innovation, creativity, and scholarship, ultimately allowing new knowledge to be created and shared,” according to the press release. The following are among its arguments for fair use:- News reporting can be done more accurately.
- New art can be created and enjoyed.
- Documentary websites can provide digital gateways to history.
- New ways to share information can be created.
- Meaningful commentary can facilitate contributions to new scholarship.
The infographic “is freely available as a PDF to embed on blogs and websites and to print and hand out at events. Share the link, embed the PDF on your site, print copies for your next event, and continue to support and work with your partners on promoting fair use.” For more information, read the press release.
OCLC Unveils Syndeo Collaboration Management System
OCLC launched Syndeo, a suite of services for facilitating library collaborations by supporting cooperative cataloging, resource sharing, and library management services. It “provides improved efficiencies with support for in-region workflows, including authority file management and copy cataloging from more than 400 million records in WorldCat,” giving regional libraries more discoverability when their records are added to WorldCat. Syndeo implements a new infrastructure that reduces maintenance costs. Metadata management services are brought together as part of Syndeo, which can be customized for specific regional groups or national libraries.For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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