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Weekly News Digest
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July 26, 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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Thomson Reuters Studies Brexit's Effect on Contractual Disputes
Thomson Reuters’ Legal business finds that the U.K. leaving the European Union (EU) “may result in a substantial minority of businesses changing from having their contractual disputes heard in the UK to being heard in EU courts,” according to the press release. The company’s report on the topic (registration required) notes that “35% of businesses surveyed by Thomson Reuters Legal business said they have already changed contracts so that disputes are heard in EU courts rather than in the UK. … [A]lthough London has historically been a global centre for dispute resolution, Brexit could weaken this position.”For more information, read the press release.
SSRN Debuts MedRN and CompSciRN
Two new SSRN networks for early-stage research-sharing launched: the Medical Research Network (MedRN) and the Computer Science Research Network (CompSciRN). According to the news, “both networks also provide First Look collaborations with journals; MedRN with Preprints with The Lancet and CompSciRN with Journal of Web Semantics.”For more information, read the news.
Dispute With Elsevier Over German OA Articles
Holly Else writes in Nature that Elsevier “stopped thousands of scientists in Germany from reading its recent journal articles, as a row escalates over the cost of a nationwide open-access agreement.” She quotes publishing consultant Joseph Esposito: “Negotiators on both sides in Germany now seem to be waiting for the other to blink, says [Esposito]. The highly public nature of the stand-off means that ‘any deal Elsevier does with them becomes the de facto deal for the entire world,’ he adds.”Else continues, “Elsevier’s move to cut off access to some German researchers also provides a test as to whether the scientists can survive without a subscription deal with the mega-publisher, says Ralf Schimmer, director of scientific information at the Max Planck Digital Library in Munich, Germany. ‘If it comes to hardship and misery, then the negotiators might be forced back to the negotiating table.’” Elsevier did not issue any new comments about the dispute; “instead [it] reiterated a 5 July statement saying it was committed to reaching a deal with the German consortium Projekt Deal, which is brokering an agreement on behalf of hundreds of Germany’s universities and research organizations.” For more information, read the article.
TLC Adds Enhancements to Library-Solution
The Library Corp. (TLC) issued an update to its Library•Solution ILS. Version 5.3.1 builds on the features introduced in version 5.0, including LS2 Cataloging, to offer resources such as an upgraded Fast Add Cataloging and improved item visibility and access rules for libraries with multiple branches, schools, and consortia.The Workspaces feature, which shows a visual representation of a physical work area for cataloging, now has separate areas, Title Space and Item Space. And the On the Fly (OTF) Cataloging feature is now more efficient. For more information, read the news.
PLA Offers Free Family Engagement Toolkit for Libraries
The Public Library Association (PLA) introduced a free promotional toolkit (registration required) that will help libraries raise awareness of family engagement—the responsibility of families, educators, and communities to support children’s learning and development. It serves as a supplement to existing library marketing, fundraising, community relations, and political advocacy work. According to the press release, “The Toolkit offers both strategy and tactics for family engagement advocates, including message points, customizable graphics, promotional ideas, and program examples from IDEABOOK: Libraries for Families, a family engagement publication released in 2017 by PLA and the Global Family Research Project.”For more information, read the press release.
SAGE Introduces OA Journal Gender and the Genome
SAGE partnered with the Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine to publish Gender and the Genome, a peer-reviewed OA journal that “examines ways in which biological sex influences new science of the 21st century, particularly in the areas of technology and human life,” according to the press release.It covers topics such as sex-specific differences in genomic, cellular, tissue, and whole animal function; new life forms that are generated by synthetic biology; and technological advances that improve human functions. Molecular biologists, engineers, ethicists, anthropologists, and legal experts can all participate in the journal’s dialogue about 21st-century technologies. For more information, read the press release.
The Evolving Academic Opinions on Wikipedia
Megan Zahneis writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Academics have traditionally distrusted Wikipedia, citing the inaccuracies that arise from its communally edited design and lamenting students’ tendency to sometimes plagiarize assignments from it.” However, LiAnna Davis, director of programs for Wikipedia’s nonprofit Wiki Education, says that “higher education and Wikipedia don’t seem like such strange bedfellows. … ‘I think it’s a recognition that Wikipedia is embedded within the fabric of learning now,’ she [says].”The article continues: One initiative Davis oversees at Wiki Education aims to forge stronger bonds between Wikipedia and higher education. The Visiting Scholars program, which began in 2015, pairs academics at colleges with experienced Wikipedia editors. Institutions provide the editors with access to academic journals, research databases, and digital collections, which the editors use to write and expand Wikipedia articles on topics of mutual interest. A dozen institutions, including Rutgers University, Brown University, and the University of Pittsburgh, are participating. But while feedback from the participating institutions has been positive, Davis said, some are still skeptical of Wikipedia’s presence in academe. For more information, read the article.
Digital Science Facilitates Access to Full-Text Papers
Digital Science launched Anywhere Access, a cloud-based solution that offers one-click access to millions of full-text scholarly articles. According to the press release, “Integrating with existing library databases and tools, Anywhere Access gives researchers instant visibility and access to eligible content via ‘View PDF’ links that appear within dozens of popular discovery services, including Google Scholar, Pubmed, Dimensions, and Primo, as well as publisher and scholarly networking websites. As a result, users can effortlessly flow between search results and full-text.”For more information, read the press release.
Thousands of ScienceDirect Ebooks Now Available via ProQuest's OASIS
ProQuest’s OASIS (Online Acquisitions and Selection Information System) added 26,000 ebooks from Elsevier’s ScienceDirect platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature. Subjects include the physical sciences, engineering, and the life sciences.“ScienceDirect is used by researchers to make new discoveries that advance science, health and medicine to create a better world,” says Sumita Singh, managing director of reference solutions at Elsevier. “We’re pleased to work with ProQuest and increase the availability of this important content in institutions around the globe.” For more information, read the press release.
W3C Publishes Report About 5G Innovations
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released a report of a May 2018 workshop, W3C Workshop on Web5G: Aligning Evolutions of Network and Web Technologies. “Network Operators, vendors, application developers, content [providers] and standard makers participated in this event which was designed to explore how the Open Web Platform could help drive the adoption of 5G innovations from the applications layer to the network level.“During the two days, participants reviewed opportunities that new emerging innovations and capabilities at the application layers can bring to the 5G network. The workshop concluded with the proposed creation of a task force of participants to explore how the 5G and Web communities might work in a productive and cohesive manner.” For more information, read the news.
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Brandi Scardilli
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