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Weekly News Digest

July 15, 2021 — 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.

Kanopy Adds Movies From Ava DuVernay's Distribution Company

Library Technology Guides shared the following news from Kanopy:

Kanopy, a company committed to providing access to high-quality films that inspire, educate and entertain, has partnered with ARRAY Releasing to offer a selection of independent films created by storytellers of color and women of all kinds to academic and public libraries worldwide. Founded by the award-winning writer, producer and director Ava DuVernay, ARRAY Releasing aims to represent varied voices and images in cinema. …

‘Over the past decade, ARRAY Releasing has distributed more than 30 films and we are thrilled to partner with Kanopy to bring many of these titles to academic and public libraries around the world,’ said ARRAY President Tilane Jones. ‘Inclusive storytelling is at the core of ARRAY Releasing’s mission and is vital to ensuring audiences of all backgrounds see themselves represented on the big screen.’

Titles include Ayanda, Honeytrap, I Will Follow, Middle of Nowhere, and Out of My Hand.

For more information, read the press release.

Baker & Taylor Rolls Out Diversity Analysis Tool for Library Collections

Baker & Taylor “will offer an analysis solution for libraries to help them discover, manage and report on diversity-related topics. Backed by collectionHQ’s powerful technology, Baker & Taylor’s Diversity Analysis will offer insight and identify opportunities by analyzing a library’s collection against industry-accepted diversity subjects.” The tool will launch in July for Baker & Taylor customers as part of their subscription to collectionHQ. Nonsubscribers can purchase it “as a one-time, obligation-free consultation.” The tool can be used for a single analysis or to manage a collection over time.

Diversity Analysis provides an avenue for the following:

  • Analyzing a library’s fiction and non-fiction collections against industry-accepted diversity topics;
  • Monitoring the supply of diverse content to identify gaps at a system-wide and branch level;
  • Evaluating representation of diverse populations in both print and digital collections;
  • Effectively communicating diversity in a library’s collection to stakeholders in its community; and
  • Suggesting future development lists using a data-driven approach.

For more information, read the press release.

Macmillan and Nevada Library Team Up to Provide Free Dan Rather Ebook

Through a partnership with Macmillan Publishers, Las Vegas-Clark County Library District is making the ebook version of What Unites Us: The Graphic Novel—an adaptation of Dan Rather’s bestselling essay collection—available for free to all Nevada residents through Aug. 27, 2021. Those readers can access the book through the BiblioBoard ebook platform, which also features a digital archive of Rather’s journalism work, as well as ebooks from bestselling independent authors and local self-published authors.

“We are proud to sponsor the availability of this important new graphic novel to all residents of Nevada,” says Kelvin Watson, the library’s executive director. “It has been a pleasure to collaborate with Macmillan on this project as we explore new ways that public libraries and publishers can work together for our mutual benefit, to create a more accessible culture of reading for all.” 

For more information, read the press release.

CCC Debuts New Curriculum and Instruction License

Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) introduced its Annual Copyright License for Curriculum & Instruction, which is designed to help remove copyright barriers faced by U.S. schools, education technology companies, custom publishers, and curriculum developers that are looking to incorporate excerpts of copyrighted content into curriculum materials, whether used for in-person or online instruction. A variety of major publishers are participating, including the Associated Press, Chicago Review Press, Rowman & Littlefield, and Smithsonian Books.

The new license “eases the burden of obtaining individual licenses from individual publishers because it grants the rights to use copyrighted passages and excerpts from a diverse set of publishers offering high-quality, standards-aligned fiction and non-fiction books, magazines, scholarly journals, newspapers, and web content. Schools, districts, and their curriculum providers can then easily incorporate material from these publishers into locally developed [curricula] which can be provided through education technology applications and platforms such as learning management systems.”

For more information, read the press release.

Ex Libris Unveils Mobile App for Promoting Library Content

Ex Libris introduced the Library Mobile app, a “companion to the Ex Libris campusM university app” that “is designed to simplify communication between libraries and patrons and to provide easy smartphone access to library resources.” It “takes into consideration a library user’s academic degree, field of study, and other information that the user has opted to make available to the library, enabling librarians to direct library content and event notifications to those individuals for whom such data would be particularly relevant.” Librarians can use the no-coding-required Creative Studio content builder to customize content for different patron groups.

The app can display “library account information, library hours, a digital student ID, pocket guides, library maps, and reading lists. The app’s seamless integration with the Ex Libris Alma library services platform, Primo and Summon discovery tools, and Leganto course resource list solution provides patrons with on-the-go access to library resources.”

For more information, read the press release.

ProQuest Provides Full Rolling Stone Archive

ProQuest announced that it is now offering 50-plus years of Rolling Stone, noting, “The archive of one of the most legendary and influential consumer magazines in history is now available and easily accessible online for the first time to academic institutions and libraries globally through ProQuest.”

The digital issues feature full-color images, full pages of the content, article-level indexing, searchable text, and the ability to search alongside other ProQuest resources. The archive provides “anytime, anywhere access to the entire publication’s backfile from 1967 to today. A key resource and guide to understanding the history of music, film, television, entertainment and popular culture, Rolling Stone is synonymous with culture and social relevance with its pulse on politics, social issues and the most significant countercultural movements of recent history,” according to the press release.

For more information, read the press release.

'Happy Birthday to the eBook!' by Todd A. Carpenter

Todd A. Carpenter, NISO’s executive director, writes the following for The Scholarly Kitchen:

Fifty years ago, on July 4, 1971, Michael S. Hart, a computer scientist at the University of Illinois, was given … access to the ARPANET. He was also given the freedom to do whatever he wanted with his ‘spare time’ on the network. … [He] typed up the text of a copy of the Declaration of Independence he had been given earlier that day at a grocery store and sought to distribute the file. He initially thought to email the file to everyone on the network (he narrowly missed being a pioneer in spam!), but the system prevented him from doing so. Instead, Hart posted the text file on the network and thereby launched what was to become Project Gutenberg. …

Certainly, Hart wasn’t the first to conceive of digital content, nor was he the first to post files for people to read. The difference was that he posted files for the pleasure of reading and for the value of sharing knowledge, not because it had a purpose per se. What he posted wasn’t a report, or data tables, or defense analysis, which were the primary purpose of the ARPANET at the time. Sharing content that most people could easily get access to in print form, wasn’t perceived as a valuable activity to anyone other than Hart. …

While [today] content might not be as freely available as Hart envisioned, the implications of the small file he posted just over 50 years ago continue to reverberate through the ages.

For more information, read the blog post.

BiblioCommons Adds New Public Library Partners

BiblioCommons announced new public library partners from the U.S. and Canada that joined in Q2 2021. They include Yuma County (Ariz.) Library District, the Ontario Library Consortium, and Westerville (Ohio) Public Library. According to the press release, “BiblioCommons will work closely with the new partners to help transform their online library services into more engaging and rewarding experiences.” They are all using either the Symphony or the Sierra ILS and will now have access to BiblioCommons’ products.

Yuma County Library District will get a complete refresh of its catalog and website and is subscribing to BiblioCore, BiblioWeb, BiblioEvents, and BiblioApps. Ontario Library Consortium libraries will use BiblioCore and BiblioCloudRecords. Westerville Public Library is subscribing to BiblioCore, BiblioWeb, and BiblioEvents.

For more information, read the press release.

IFLA's Africa Section Plans Webinar on Fake News and the Library

The IFLA Africa Section is hosting a webinar, Fake News Disruptions on Media—Library Convergence: Critical Reflections, on July 30, 2021. The speakers will be Alexander Madanha Rusero (lecturer of international relations, politics, and journalism at Africa University), Hellen Amunga (lecturer in the department of library and information science at the University of Nairobi), and Collence Chisita (a researcher, editor, author, and lecturer in the information sciences).

For more information, visit the webpage.

Clarivate Enhances the Web of Science

Clarivate launched an updated version of the Web of Science, which has new features and a redesigned user interface. The updates include the following:
  • The Web of Science Author Impact Beamplots—A new visualization tool that showcases the range of a researcher’s publication and citation impact in a single data exhibit. …
  • Enriched Cited References (Beta)—Selected journals now feature a new visualization tool which helps researchers navigate cited references by time, proximity, location and number of citations. …
  • Funding data—Every publication linked to a funded project now features additional information such as Award Date, Total Award Amount, Primary Investigator and more. …
  • Share a search query—It is now possible to copy a search query in the Web of Science, making it easier to share searches directly with other researchers and supporting collaboration.
  • Export Citation Report—Streamlined data export workflow so users may export up to 1,000 records at one time, saving them time and simplifying complex data pulling.
  • Article recommendations—A new feature to encourage serendipitous discovery, helping researchers uncover papers that they might not have found with their search strategy.

In addition, the Web of Science is now “designed to support a range of future developments, including personalized home pages, author alerts and article-level metrics. It works in tandem with My Research Assistant, the mobile application that enables scientific researchers to easily search, save and share Web of Science publication records using their mobile devices.”

For more information, read the press release.



Send correspondence concerning the Weekly News Digest to NewsBreaks Editor Brandi Scardilli
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