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Weekly News Digest
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May 9, 2024 — 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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ALA Urges Senators to Support Library Funding and Partners With the League of Women Voters
A spokesperson from ALA’s Public Policy and Advocacy Office shares the following:In April, ALA launched the annual #FundLibraries campaign to have an early impact on the yearlong process of decision making about federal funding for libraries. Through May 10, advocates nationwide are asking U.S. Senators to sign letters of support for library funding in the fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget. ALA is asking Congress for additional funding for two vital federal programs, the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL). These programs are the only sources of dedicated federal funding for the 123,000 public, school, academic, government and special libraries across the nation. Find out if your Senators have signed onto both letters on ALA’s #FundLibraries web page. ALA is encouraging advocates to post about #FundLibraries on social media, tagging elected leaders and inspiring another library supporter to take action. Ask your Senators to sign the two Dear Appropriator letters on the #FundLibraries action page! In addition, ALA announced a partnership with the League of Women Voters as part of its Reader. Voter. Ready. Campaign, which offers voter engagement resources to libraries. “Local libraries and state and local Leagues have long worked together to cohost voter registration, educational programs, and candidate forums. Many libraries promote the League’s online voter information tool, VOTE411.org. The collaboration between the national organizations will expand those connections and generate new resources, including a forthcoming toolkit to support collaboration at the local level,” ALA states. The organizations are co-hosting an openly available webinar on May 29. League of Women Voters and America’s Libraries: Partners to Count On will feature “League members and librarians who already collaborate on a variety of programs and activities,” and participants will “learn how you can team up in your community. We will also share new resources and opportunities for greater collaborative impact in 2024 and beyond.” For more information, read the press release.
eLife Starts a New Podcast Highlighting Scientists From Diverse Backgrounds
eLife launched Community Voices, a new podcast that complements its established podcast on recent research by “shin[ing] a light on the people behind the research. Each [bi-monthly] episode will consist of interviews with academics from all walks of life, as they provide insights into their journeys that have shaped their careers.” The first episode—featuring Emmanuel Boakye, “an eLife Community Ambassador who launched the African Reproducibility Network (AREN) to equip African researchers with the necessary tools to dive into the global open science arena”—is available now. Anyone can listen on the eLife site or via Podbean; eLife plans to expand to other podcast platforms soon.“It is our hope that the podcast will be a source of inspiration and assurance for the wider research community, showing people that they are not alone in their experiences even though they may come from very different backgrounds, and even possibly helping them find support,” says Godwyns Onwuchekwa, eLife’s head of communities. For more information, read the press release.
Springer Nature Shares the Success of Its OA Agreement With German Institutions
“Only a few months after it was signed, almost all German universities and higher education institutions have joined the renewed open access (OA) agreement between the DEAL consortium and Springer Nature,” announced Springer Nature in a press release. “The more than 99 percent participation rate reflects the significant benefits which the previous agreement has delivered for institutions and researchers.” The DEAL agreement has increased engagement in Germany with scientific work from around the world, and vice versa. Between 2018 and 2022, the following occurred:- The amount of freely immediately accessible publications by researchers in Germany has more than quadrupled to 15,000 per year.
- The global download figures for such articles increased by more than five-fold to an average of almost 1,300 per article.
- The number of downloads of subscription content by DEAL participants rose by 53 percent to 18.8 million.
Under the agreement, “researchers from participating institutions [can] publish content in the OA and hybrid Springer, Palgrave and Adis journals as well as in the OA titles of Nature Portfolio and the BMC journals at attractive conditions. They also receive reading access to subscription articles from the entire Springer, Palgrave and Adis portfolio.” For more information, read the press release.
The U.K. Royal Society Adds All of Its Journals to ResearchGate
ResearchGate and the Royal Society expanded their partnership to make all of the Royal Society’s journals available via ResearchGate’s Journal Home platform.“All 10 journals, including open access and subscription journals, now benefit from the enhanced visibility and reach that Journal Home delivers on the ResearchGate platform,” the press release states. “The Royal Society expanded the inclusion of their journals and content to ResearchGate in 2023, making all version-of-record content from participating titles, including newly published articles and backfile content, accessible on the ResearchGate platform.” For more information, read the press release.
Exact Editions Provides a Perpetual Access License Option for British Film Magazine
Exact Editions is now offering “Perpetual Access licences to the complete archive of Sight & Sound, the monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute, stretching back to 1932. Perpetual Access licences are purchased for a one-time fee and guarantee a library access to the archive and upcoming issues from the title in perpetuity, backed up by not-for-profit preservation archive Portico.”The press release continues, “Sight & Sound is an international film magazine that offers a unique insight into film culture past, present and future through covering a broad range of work in its features, interviews and comprehensive reviews section. Digital subscriptions and licences also include access to long-running sister publication Monthly Film Bulletin (1934-1991), making it a fascinating journal of record of the films released in UK cinemas across the decades.” For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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