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Weekly News Digest
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January 22, 2007 — 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. For other up-to-the-minute news, check out ITI’s Twitter account: @ITINewsBreaks.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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UK PubMed Central Launched
Based on a model currently used by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), UK PubMed Central (UKPMC; www.ukpmc.ac.uk) has launched to provide free access to a permanent online archive of peer-reviewed research papers in the medical and life sciences. A group of nine U.K. research organizations, led by the Wellcome Trust, awarded the contract to develop UKPMC to a partnership between The British Library, The University of Manchester, and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) last July.Many members of this funding group now require that articles describing the results of the research they support are made available in UKPMC with the aim of maximizing its impact. The UKPMC service is designed to ensure that articles resulting from research paid for by any member of the funding consortium are freely available to everybody, fully searchable, and extensively linked to other online resources. Initially UKPMC mirrors the U.S.-based PubMed Central database (hosted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information at NIH; www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov). The British Library will run the service, promote it to researchers, as well as offer support for those who want to include their research papers in UKPMC. The University of Manchester will host the service—on servers based at MIMAS (Manchester Information & Associated Services)—and will support the process of engaging with higher-education users. EBI, which is part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), will contribute its biomedical domain knowledge and state-of-the-art text-mining tools to integrate the research literature with the underlying bioinformatics databases. The UKPMC funding group consists of the Arthritis Research Campaign, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, the Association of Medical Research Charities, the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Executive Health Department, the Department of Health, the Joint Information Systems Committee, the Medical Research Council, and the Wellcome Trust. Source: The British Library
Readex Adds More Historical Newspapers to Archive
Readex (www.readex.com), a division of NewsBank, announced that in May 2007, it will begin adding two new series of fully searchable newspapers to its ongoing America's Historical Newspapers archive. Complementing three previously launched series, the two new collections—Early American Newspapers, Series 4, 1756-1922 and Early American Newspapers, Series 5, 1777-1922—will add more than 200 new titles. The five collections will surpass 1,300 titles. The two new series feature U.S. titles of great historical significance and offer regional weeklies and dailies from across the nation.The company's stated goal is to create the single most comprehensive resource of historical American newspapers. The collections are based on authoritative bibliographies and were selected by a distinguished academic advisory board. Readex has partnered with the American Antiquarian Society, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and more than 90 other institutions to create its newspaper archive. The company recently made changes to the interface of America's Historical Newspapers and said it plans to build on those changes by increasing search efficiency and by allowing researchers to sort results in new and more meaningful ways. Future series will expand the coverage of America's Historical Newspapers beyond 1922 to provide what the company said will be unprecedented coverage from 1690 to 1980. Source: Readex
HarperCollins Publishers Partners with LibreDigital
HarperCollins Publishers (www.harpercollins.com) and LibreDigital (www.libredigital.com), a division of NewsStand, Inc. (www.newsstand.com), announced a partnership to create, market, and operate digital services for publishers. As part of the agreement, the two companies will share technology and resources that are designed to help bring more book content online with comprehensive control. HarperCollins also announced that it has made a strategic investment in NewsStand and that Brian Murray, the group president of HarperCollins, will join the NewsStand board of directors.Through the alliance, HarperCollins and LibreDigital will offer publishers an end-to-end solution of digital services in discrete, modular segments including digital typesetting, production, digital warehousing, Internet distribution, and online marketing. Publishers can select a combination of HarperCollins proprietary electronic typesetting and digital workflow tools with LibreDigital's proprietary digitization, digital warehousing, and Internet display and distribution technologies. This modular approach enables publishers to start with the right set of services and to adjust as business needs change. HarperCollins and LibreDigital will co-promote the solution, which will be available to publishers through LibreDigital's worldwide sales force. HarperCollins and NewsStand entered into an initial multiyear arrangement in 2006 as part of HarperCollins' broader digital strategy to protect authors' works and to create a digital library of content for marketing purposes. LibreDigital is the Austin, Texas-based technology company that developed the platform for HarperCollins' Browse Inside feature, which enables readers to search and preview book content online in its "true format," while preserving copyrights for publishers. To date, HarperCollins has digitized more than 10,000 books and has enabled the Browse Inside application for several thousands. These appear on HarperCollins Web sites and author sites. Source: HarperCollins Publishers and LibreDigital
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Brandi Scardilli
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