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Weekly News Digest

June 22, 2009 — 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.

ebrary Announces Significant Technology Enhancements

ebrary (www.ebrary.com), a provider of digital content products and technologies, announced a number of technology enhancements that are designed to make it quicker and easier to discover, use, and manage information online. It has considerably improved its QuickView Reader, which does not require any software downloads or installations. New features include InfoTools, which networks every word with other online resources; copying; highlighting; annotating; and the ability to turn text into hyperlinks.

Last month, ebrary added printing to QuickView as well as integration with RefWorks and EndNote for easy citation management. Additionally, ebrary has enhanced its bookshelf feature. End users can now email folders containing notes, highlights, hyperlinks, and bookmarks to peers. The company says that its underlying ISIS technology allow it to rapidly build new features and functionality.

Libraries, corporations, and other organizations interested in seeing a demonstration of ebrary's new features can email ebtrain@ebrary.com. Video clips showcasing ebrary's new developments are available at www.ebrary.com.

Source: ebrary

Thomson Reuters Releases EndNote X3 for Windows

The Healthcare & Science business of Thomson Reuters has released a major upgrade to EndNote for Windows, the bibliographic management software used by millions of researchers, librarians, and students worldwide. The company says it includes many new and unique features not available in other bibliographic management programs. EndNote X3, including EndNote Web, is designed to make users more productive. EndNote X3 expands ways to group references and find full text when off campus. Cite While You Write now integrates with OpenOffice.org Writer 3, unveils unique support for chemistry styles, and more (www.endnote.com/02-Whats_New_ENX3.wmv).

Now users can search for and insert citations within OpenOffice.org Writer documents and format bibliographies instantly, just as they can in Apple Pages '09 and Microsoft Word. EndNote X3 now manages multiple bibliographies within a Word document, enabling a paper to have a bibliography at the end of each section, a document, or both. Additionally, EndNote X3 supports composite styles-popular with chemistry journals-that group citations by number and letter.

EndNote X3 increases integration with institutional resources, making it easier to find more full-text articles for references automatically. EndNote X3 employs a new preference for EZProxy, commonly used by researchers and students to access online resources when they are off campus.

EndNote now includes EndNote Web, expanding the work environment for EndNote users and allowing them to choose the best environment-desktop or web-for the task at hand. With EndNote Web, researchers can collect references when they are away from their desks, transfer references between the desktop and the web, and collaborate with colleagues by sharing EndNote groups. EndNote users can also use EndNote Web to organize personal publication lists for ResearcherID (www.researcherid.com), a free online author community, and to view personal citation metrics in ResearcherID, complete with dynamic links to Times Cited detail from ISI Web of Science (www.isiwebofknowledge.com), the Thomson Reuters premiere online platform for citation data.

Other features of the upgrade include the following:

• Users can compare duplicate records side by side for easy review.
• Start EndNote faster: EndNote X3 loads the most popular content files, and users can add files as desired.
• Use more options when compressing EndNote libraries: Choose all references or a selection, with or without file attachments.
• Users can connect and publish with 3,900-plus connection files, 700-plus import files, and 3,700-plus journal styles.

EndNote X3 is designed for Windows XP and Vista. The list price of EndNote X3 is $299.95. Students in North America can purchase EndNote X3 for $115.95 with a valid student ID. For a list of international distributors, go to www.endnote.com. Special upgrade prices are available to owners of previous versions. EndNote X3 is now available from Thomson Reuters, college and university bookstores, and authorized resellers worldwide. EndNote X3 for Mac OS X will ship in summer 2009.

Source: Thomson Reuters

CABI Launches Enhanced Database Platform

CABI (www.cabi.org), a not-for-profit science-based development and information organization, has launched a new version of its database platform CAB Direct (www.cabdirect2.org), incorporating bibliographic databases in the life sciences: CAB Abstracts and Global Health. The new CAB Direct is designed to offer a better experience for students and researchers as they search for important life sciences information. The content on CAB Direct has not changed, but the new design will improve its discoverability, saving researchers time and effort. The new platform has been designed and built by Semantico (www.semantico.com).

Enhancements include the following:

• An acceleration of the operating speed of the platform and of the return of search results
• MyCABDirect-a personalized area where users can set up email alerts and RSS feeds based on their search results, share information, and save important searches
• Faceted searching-a feature in which users can finely filter information to fit their research needs, based on CABI's indexing terms and metadata
• The capability to view full text at the search results level
• Improved user experience through a more intuitive interface
• Suggestions for spelling variations

The new and improved CAB Direct is fully Shibboleth compliant; it will also abstract snippet views at the search results level, save searches to social bookmarking sites, and provide COUNTER-compliant usage statistics.

Semantico not only contributed design and build to the project, but also user research and testing, and deployment of its new marketing tool, FragR, a fragment editor that allows easier communication via the platform.

CABI also announced that the number of full-text articles available on CAB Direct and all other platforms that host CABI's products has reached 50,000 as part of the total database of approximately 8.5 million bibliographic records.

Source: CABI

New Inmagic Presto 3.1 Compatible With SharePoint

Inmagic, Inc. (www.inmagic.com) introduced Inmagic Presto 3.1, the latest version of the company's Social Knowledge Management platform with new Microsoft SharePoint interoperability capabilities. The compatibility allows users to augment and leverage existing infrastructure and technology investments, extracting additional value from systems already in place. Other new benefits in Presto 3.1 include improved collaboration, information discovery, and content management functionalities driven by customer and market demand. Inmagic Presto 3.1 will be generally available in 3Q 2009.

Presto 3.1 uses Web Parts technology that allows the search parts on the Presto homepage to be embedded and used in a SharePoint deployment. A new Web Services API lets SharePoint communicate with Presto to create, replace, update, and delete records seamlessly. SharePoint often contributes to the creation of disconnected information silos. Now, Presto can be used to bring these silos together, in one location, with a single access portal and search. Presto also complements SharePoint's social functionality with "content centric" social capabilities that are fully searchable and indexable, with built-in controls that can both enable and disable social features for specific user groups.

Source: Inmagic, Inc.

Springer Launches MyCopy Service for Ebook Users

Following the successful completion of the MyCopy pilot project, Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) has extended this ebook service to all academic libraries in the U.S. and Canada that have purchased Springer ebook collections. All registered library patrons will be able to order a softcover copy of a Springer ebook for their personal use by clicking on a button on the Springer platform (www.springerlink.com).

The MyCopy offer is currently valid for more than 11,000 electronic Springer books published since 2005. The new softcover format is branded as a MyCopy book with a color cover and black and white book content. MyCopy books can only be ordered by registered patrons of those academic libraries that have purchased the corresponding ebook collection. The entire ordering and shipping process will be handled by Springer in cooperation with a print-on-demand (POD) provider. All books will be sold at the same price, $24.95. This price includes shipping and handling within the U.S. and Canada.

Thirty selected libraries and other research institutions in the U.S. and Canada took part in the pilot project launched in November 2008. "This project represents a very innovative way in which to look at both publisher and library services for electronic content in the future, and MyCopy is a great value-add to our site license for these eBooks," said Wendy Allen Shelburne, electronic resources librarian at the Library of the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.

Source: Springer Science+Business Media

New Local History Resource From Alexander Street and Arcadia Publishing

Electronic publisher Alexander Street Press (http://alexanderstreet.com) and local history book publisher Arcadia Publishing (www.arcadiapublishing.com) announced the release of Local and Regional History Online: A History of American Life in Images and Texts. The collection includes hundreds of thousands of images and corresponding texts from every region and state in the U.S. and from many areas of Canada. It will grow to contain more than 1 million cross-searchable images, including photographs, postcards, maps, and other primary materials.

The collection is designed to serve many disciplines, showing the personal stories and photos of immigrants, laborers, and newsmakers; documenting the local architecture of homes and businesses; showing images of racism and tolerance; and delivering history as observed in real time. The collection should also prove valuable for public library patrons.

Local and Regional History Online can be browsed online for free at http://lrho.alexanderstreet.com. The collection is available to libraries via subscription or outright purchase of perpetual rights. Libraries can purchase the entire collection or select specific regional subsets. Individuals who are interested in accessing the collection should contact their university or public library for more information or to request trial access. A guided Flash video tour of the collection can be found at http://alexanderstreet.com/video/LRHO/demo.html.

Source: Alexander Street Press