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Weekly News Digest
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January 17, 2019 — 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.
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Wiley Partners With Project DEAL for Open Science Initiatives
Wiley entered a 3-year partnership agreement with Project DEAL, a representative body of nearly 700 German academic institutions, to pilot new publishing models, help German researchers publish OA works through Wiley’s journals, and allow German institutions to retain access to Wiley’s journals back through 1997, all under an annual fee.As part of the agreement, Wiley and Project DEAL will launch three initiatives: the release of a new flagship, interdisciplinary OA journal featuring research from the global scholarly community, the establishment of an open science and author services development group to work on new publishing approaches, and the creation and hosting of a new annual symposium for early-career German researchers to explore ideas about the future of research communications. For more information, read the press release.
U.S. Government Shutdown Affects Research at Federal Agencies
On Jan. 4, Nature published a multi-authored article, “Scientists Despair as US Government Shutdown Drags On.” It notes that the shutdown’s “effects on science have begun to compound, leaving many government researchers weary, worried and demoralized. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has suspended reviews of grant proposals indefinitely, and is likely to delay panels scheduled to judge applications for postdoctoral fellowships in early January. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has taken widely used weather and climate databases offline. And at NASA, the shutdown threatens to disrupt preparations for upcoming spacecraft launches.”There are a few science agencies that remain fully operational: “The National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy are unaffected, because Congress has approved funding for them until 30 September, the end of the 2019 budget year.” In other news, Pew Research Center released a Fact Tank analysis, “The Data Casualties of the Federal Government Shutdown,” by Drew Desilver. It provides “a look at what data are and are not available during the shutdown, from what we’ve been able to find out via agency release schedules and planning documents, third-party calendars, and our own reporting.” The following are two examples: - The Census Bureau has ceased most operations, other than planning for the 2020 count. That means, among other things, no November data on new home sales (which were supposed to come out Dec. 27), construction spending (Jan. 3), manufacturers’ shipments, inventories and orders (Jan. 7) and international trade (Jan. 8).
- The Agriculture Department’smain statistical offices, the National Agricultural Statistics Service and the Economic Research Service, are both closed. That means farmers will not have current data on global supply and demand for farm products, crop and livestock production estimates, and other agricultural economics matters. However, the Agricultural Marketing Service is continuing to provide market-price data for meat, grain, dairy products and other commodities.
For more information, read the Nature article and the Pew Research Center analysis.
Clarivate Analytics Is Merging With Churchill Capital Corp
Clarivate Analytics announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to merge with the Churchill Capital Corp public investment vehicle. According to the blog post, “The combined company will operate as Clarivate and will become publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The transaction implies an initial enterprise value of approximately $4.2 billion with a multiple of approximately 12.5x Clarivate’s estimated 2019 Standalone Adjusted EBITDA before synergies at the time of close.”Churchill’s CEO, Jerre Stead, will become executive chairman of the combined company. “Clarivate’s existing management team, led by CEO Jay Nadler and CFO Richard Hanks, will continue to lead the business,” the blog post notes. Nadler says, in part, “This is an exciting milestone in Clarivate’s evolution that will open a wide range of future growth opportunities for the business and allow us to further invest in the brightest minds, game changing data science, and robust technologies.” For more information, read the blog post.
Jisc Unveils Scheme for Reducing Digital Archive Collection Prices
Jisc announced, “The digital archival collections group purchasing pilot by Jisc is now a fully-fledged scheme thanks to the success of two pilots that saved participating universities a total of £458,000 [about $589,000]. Under the scheme, Jisc Collections works in collaboration with nine publishers to make digital archive collections more affordable for [higher education] organisations.” The publishers are providing 110 primary source digital archival collections among them; they include Brill, De Gruyter, EBSCO Information Services, ProQuest, and Taylor & Francis.“The success of group purchasing lies with the collective buying power of our members driving the discounts they all benefit from based on the total number of purchases per publisher,” says Karen Colbron, digital content manager at Jisc. “Following the successful pilot phase, we’re pleased to offer this acquisition model as an on-going annual service to our members, significantly increasing the number of publishers, products and subject areas covered.” For more information, read the news.
ProQuest Integrates OASIS and Alma for Simplified Print Book Orders
ProQuest’s OASIS (Online Acquisitions and Selection Information System) platform is now integrated with the Ex Libris Alma library services platform. Alma customers can use OASIS to search, check prices, and order from a selection of 38 million print books from directly within the Alma interface. According to the press release, “This ‘Check Availability and Pricing’ API is the latest step in the integration of OASIS and Alma, reflecting ProQuest’s ongoing commitment to improve library workflows after the company’s acquisition of Ex Libris in 2015.”Additionally, “ProQuest also recently developed a ‘Real-Time Acquisition’ API, a connection between OASIS and Alma primarily designed for selections and acquisitions librarians who often work in OASIS. This API instantly sends orders to Alma once an order is placed in OASIS.” For more information, read the press release.
ARL Plans 2019 Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) announced that Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week 2019 will be held Feb. 25–March 1. ARL notes, “While fair use and fair dealing are employed on a daily basis by students, faculty, librarians, journalists, and all users of copyrighted material, Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week is a time to promote and discuss the opportunities presented, celebrate successful stories, and explain the doctrines.”Suggestions for participating in the week include writing a blog post, publishing an op-ed, hosting a live panel, creating a video, and writing to your member(s) of Congress. Use #fairuseweek on Twitter and tag @fairuseweek. A selection of resources is available at fairuseweek.org/resources. For more information, read the news.
TLC Rolls Out Updates to Library-Solution
The Library Corp. (TLC) upgraded its Library•Solution to version 5.4.1. According to TLC, “This new release includes many features in the ILS, most noteworthy the ease of use with batch editing in cataloging. Batch editing has been simplified by making titles and items editable with a drop-down menu for TLC’s web-based, award winning software, LS2 Cataloging.”Additionally, new holdings and record views allow librarians to compare records, and the LS2 Launch Page enables the addition of a custom message to display for staffers. “Moreover, libraries that order items and have used TLC’s LS2 Cataloging to create temporary holdings can use a new import feature to update temporary information with permanent, vendor supplied, holding information.” For more information, read the news.
Institution of Civil Engineers Adds Content to Yewno Discover
All books and journals published by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) are now discoverable via the Yewno Discover platform. ICE content explores leading research, expert advice, and best practices in the civil engineering and construction fields. Yewno Discover, which maps semantic connections among concepts, can now surface parts of ICE books and articles that could be undiscoverable by other environments.For more information, read the press release.
NISO Plans Working Group for Content Migration Recommended Practice
Voting members of NISO (National Information Standards Organization) approved a new project, Recommended Practices Around Content Platform Migrations. It is geared to anyone who deals with online content platforms and wants to improve communication between stakeholders before, during, and after migrations. Those with experience in content migration are encouraged to join NISO’s working group for creating the Recommended Practice for publishers, vendors, and libraries.“A migration that is well-planned, communicated and coordinated with customers and well-executed will deliver content on a new platform with no broken links or loss of functionality, no interruption of access and no loss of customer information,” says Kimberly Steinle, a co-sponsor of the project proposal. “The deliverables from this working group will raise awareness and fill gaps, creating smoother experiences for customers and end users alike.” For more information, read the press release.
Springer Nature and The Open University Introduce a Computer Science Ontology
Springer Nature partnered with the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) of The Open University to launch a comprehensive Computer Science Ontology (CSO), which is the largest taxonomy of research topics in computer science available. It has information about 14,000 research topics and is produced automatically, meaning it can be regularly updated from a variety of computer science publications.A broad range of communities that work with scholarly data can access it for free through the CSO Portal. According to the press release, “The CSO currently supports a variety of tools and research prototypes for classifying and recommending research publications, making sense of research dynamics, modelling the evolution of research communities, and forecasting research trends.” For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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