|
|
Weekly News Digest
 |
September 22, 2020 — 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.
|
Children's Primary Sources Get the Spotlight at Adam Matthew
Adam Matthew rolled out its newest collection of primary sources, Children’s Literature and Culture, which comes from the holdings of the American Antiquarian Society (with additional material from the Winterthur Library). Researchers and students can use the richly illustrated content—books, pamphlets, sheet music, games, and more—to learn about children’s publishing and the history of books, printing, and illustration, as well as “to explore how American society evolved during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and how this evolution was depicted and personified through literature created for children during the period.” The collection covers the 1820s through the 1920s.For more information, read the news item.
Clarivate Report Shares Buzzworthy New Research Fronts
Clarivate published a global research report, “Identifying Research Fronts in the Web of Science: From Metrics to Meaning,” which features analysis from Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). ISI used “clusters of citations from recently published papers to show the hot and emerging scientific topics that are currently attracting exceptional attention.” The report makes “use of the new and complementary metrics in Research Front data derived from the Web of Science to inform and improve research evaluation and highlight topics with economic and societal impact.”The identification of popular scientific topics is facilitated “by concentrated clusters in the network of citations that link one publication with another. The examination of shared terminology in such clusters may reveal a breakthrough in an existing field or the realization of a novel, possibly cross disciplinary, area of research in the shape of an emerging field. Using a machine learning algorithm for network analysis[,] the report finds the precise location of Research Fronts in the knowledge network and uses science mapping and data visualization to highlight their value by using familiar examples [such as] CRISPR, 2D Materials, and Machine Learning.” For more information, read the press release.
The Librarian of Congress Appoints the Next Register of Copyrights
The U.S. Copyright Office announced the following:Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today that she has appointed Shira Perlmutter as Register of Copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office. ‘I am pleased to announce that Shira Perlmutter will serve as the 14th United States Register of Copyrights,’ said Hayden. ‘Shira brings to this role a deep knowledge of domestic and international copyright law and policy and a background in negotiating international intellectual property agreements. She has experience working with a wide range of stakeholders and finding common ground on complex issues.’ Perlmutter will step into the role of Register of Copyrights in late October and will assume leadership of the organization during its 150th anniversary year. ‘I’m honored to have the opportunity to lead the U.S. Copyright Office during its 150th year,’ said Perlmutter. ‘I look forward to working with Dr. Hayden and [with] the dedicated staff of the Copyright Office on its mission of promoting the creation and dissemination of works of authorship to the benefit of the American public.’ … Perlmutter has served since 2012 as chief policy officer and director for international affairs at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), working in all areas of intellectual property, including copyright. For more information, read the news item.
Clarivate Report Showcases Trends in Indigenous Research
Clarivate rolled out a new regional landscape report, “The State of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Maori and Pacific Peoples Research,” based on data from the Web of Science Core Collection. It highlights “the current trends in indigenous research across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Region. The report looks at the academics, affiliate institutions and regions that are contributing largely to indigenous research and identifies which journals publish this research. It also evaluates how the new Australian and New Zealand Fields of Research (FoR) classifications will perform in structuring indigenous research for assessment.”Findings include the following: - Just over 1% of research produced by authors in the region is directly related to indigenous research.
- Indigenous research has a significantly lower citation impact than global or regional baselines. …
- New Zealand has produced a larger number of research outputs in indigenous research than any individual Australian state. …
- The Universities of Auckland, Sydney and Otago have produced the largest libraries of research by volume and have received more citations for their publications than any other organizations. …
- Under the new Australian and New Zealand Fields of Research (FoR) classifications, the areas of indigenous research most frequently published are Health and Wellbeing, Society and Community and Culture Language and History.
For more information, read the press release.
Kudos Unveils Headline Results From the Bridging the Divide Project
Kudos revealed headline results from its Bridging the Divide project, which “gathered input from researchers, university administrators, funders and others with a role or interest in ensuring that research engages and benefits audiences beyond academia. It was led by Kudos, and sponsored by The International Center for the Study of Research, the American Chemical Society, American Society for Microbiology, Brill Publishers, Karger Publishers and Royal Society of Chemistry.” The study came from “desk research and teleinterviews with a survey of over 10,000 researchers, exploring motivations, responsibilities, target audiences, channels and metrics relating to broader impacts.”Findings include the following: - The majority (95.3% of respondents) want to achieve broader impacts with their work
- The most frequently cited motivations for wanting to achieve broader impacts were a desire to solve real-world problems (65.8%); to make a difference to others (61.9%); and to improve perceptions of the value of research (53.4%)
- Almost three quarters of respondents (73.7%) agreed that the growing focus on broader impacts has resulted in more collaboration between the academic and non-academic sectors, with 77.0% saying this is expected or encouraged by their employer and yet 9% said they are not given enough support in this area
For more information, read the blog post.
CCC Introduces Open Access Workflow Services
Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) launched Open Access Workflow Services, “a comprehensive consulting practice providing strategic Open Access (OA) and Transformative Agreement workflow support to publishers, funders, institutions and other key stakeholders in the scholarly communications ecosystem.” It will help publishers and their partners with strategies that do the following:- Accelerate progress across OA stakeholders …
- Advance organizational objectives …
- Improve workflow design …
- Analyze and optimize metadata …
- Understand next steps through reporting and business analysis …
For more information, read the press release.
The IET Plans Blockchain-Focused OA Journal
The IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) unveiled a new gold OA multidisciplinary journal titled IET Blockchain. The first issue will publish in January 2021, and submissions are currently being accepted. The journal “aims to attract original research and survey articles dedicated to theories, methodologies and tools for the design, implementation and operation of blockchain technologies.”“We’re honoured to serve as the Founding Editors-in-Chief of this new journal and look forward to making it the leading outlet for the blockchain research community,” says co-editor-in-chief Erwu Liu, in reference to co-editor-in-chief My T. Thai. “With the efforts and contributions from researchers around the world, we expect IET Blockchain to become one of the top places to publish cutting-edge research and latest achievements, to promote multi-disciplinary, unbounded digital innovations of the blockchain technology.” For more information, read the press release.
BiblioCommons Adds Android Option for BiblioApps
BiblioCommons introduced BiblioApps for Android devices to aid public libraries in patron engagement. Already available for iOS devices, BiblioApps provides a way to promote “the library’s collections, staff lists, and events to increase the public library’s use—both online and in person. Leveraging the best-in-class search, discovery, and account management experience of BiblioCore, BiblioApps includes leading search relevancy, FRBRised results, and title record displays, getting patrons to their next great read faster.”For a demo of both the Android and iOS versions of BiblioApps, register for BiblioCommons’ Oct. 6 webinar here. For more information, read the press release.
OCLC and LIBER Develop Discussion Series on Open Science
OCLC teamed up with LIBER (Association of European Research Libraries) to launch a discussion series (i.e., webinars and discussion groups) centered on open science that will run from Sept. 24 to Nov. 5. “The series, based on the LIBER Open Science Roadmap, will help guide research libraries in envisioning the support infrastructure for Open Science (OS) and their role at local, national, and global levels.” The first webinar will feature LIBER’s overview of its road map. Discussion groups will cover topics such as scholarly publishing and research infrastructures.For more information, read the press release.
'What James Daunt Did and Did Not Say About Barnes & Noble's Future' by Mike Shatzkin
Mike Shatzkin writes the following on his The Idea Logical Company blog:In what has to be considered a bit of a coup, BISG Executive Director Brian O’Leary scored a lengthy interview with B&N head James Daunt as the feature of BISG’s annual meeting which took place on September 11. Daunt had a lot to say about his plans for change at B&N, including more diversity in what the stores stock which will be a by-product of more power for individual store managers. What publishers undoubtedly took note of were Daunt’s announced notion to lighten up on initial buys and depend more on rapid replenishment to keep books that move in stock. He seemed to expect the rapid resupply that requires to continue to come from B&N’s own warehouse infrastructure, a system of support built during a more expansionist time. So you can scratch (at least temporarily) one idea I had for restoring their financial health, which would have been to dismantle that costly infrastructure and accept a bit of a margin cut (but probably better service, I’d reckon) by depending on Ingram for resupply. … And if Barnes & Noble sees any inherent advantage in having an online complement to their store presence, such as a ‘buy online, pick up in store’ or ‘buy in store, have delivered by post’ capability offer, Daunt did not to choose to mention them in this conversation (although the store pick up capability has been talked about [by] him in the past and curbside pick-up has been featured during the pandemic). If B&N sees any threat from Amazon expanding its physical store footprint with much smaller stores, that also wasn’t mentioned. In fact, Daunt’s hopes (you couldn’t call them ‘plans’) for the Nook got a lot more airtime than the zero allocated to dot com sales. This despite the fact that dedicated reading systems started out in service to dedicated devices. Dedicated devices have been superseded by multi-function devices. There is no real discernible point or competitive advantage to the Nook reading system. These realities were not acknowledged in the dialogue. For more information, read the blog post.
Send correspondence concerning the Weekly News Digest to NewsBreaks Editor
Brandi Scardilli
|
