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Weekly News Digest

October 1, 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.

QFinance Launches—New Online Destination for Financial Content

QFINANCE: The Ultimate Resource is an unprecedented repository of financial content housed in a print 2,200-page reference guide supported by a free online global knowledge bank (www.qfinance.com). The project is being produced by Bloomsbury Publishing, PLC (www.bloomsbury.com) in partnership with the Qatar Financial Center, an arm of the Qatar government responsible for raising the country's profile as a growing international financial hub.

The book and website contain essays by eminent economists and financial experts whose affiliations range from the London School of Economics to Goldman Sachs. More than 300 financial policymakers, Wall Street legends, and educators have contributed commentary to the inaugural edition of QFINANCE, covering every conceivable discipline and topic from asset management and sovereign risk modeling to organizational behavior, bank regulation, and the future of leveraged buyouts.

QFINANCE includes a glossary of 9,000 financial terms, along with 100 key finance ratios and pricing techniques, plus capsule summaries of the most seminal financial and business books and a crib sheet for dozens of prime financial sources, from economic forecasters to government agencies and trade associations. Additional content includes country and sector profiles, finance-related quotations, and nearly 250 practical checklists.

Material is especially geared for working financial practitioners, including CEOs and CFOs, but also risk officers, asset managers, industry analysts, compliance and operations managers, credit analysts, actuaries, and others.

QFINANCE: The Ultimate Resource
Nov. 3, 2009
ISBN #9781849300001
Bloomsbury Publishing
$250; 2,160 pp.

Source: Bloomsbury Publishing, PLC

New Digital Reader From IREX Technologies Makes U.S. Debut

IREX Technologies (www.IREXtechnologies.com) has launched its latest Digital Reader-the IREX DR800SG-in the U.S. It will be sold at Best Buy stores beginning in October for $399.99. The sleek 8.1" reader with 3G technology comes with the Barnes & Noble ebookstore of more than 750,000 titles but offers the opportunity for virtually any publisher or retailer to be included. The DR800SG model, which in the U.S. features partners Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Verizon Wireless, and Qualcomm, is set to be replicated with partners in the U.K. and Europe. The planned launch during 2010 follows the recent establishment of an IREX U.K. office and the recruitment of former Plastic Logic executive David Edgar as U.K. director to bring the model across the Atlantic to the U.K.

Although currently one of the lesser known e-reader manufacturers, IREX has been at the forefront of the industry since it grew out of electronics giant Philips. IREX already retails the world's only "writeable" device for A4 documents, the IREX DR1000. The company works with companies around the world to tailor the device to their specific requirements in sectors including publishing, healthcare, engineering, and law. The company is also involved in projects in the education market across Europe.

NewspaperDirect announced that PressDisplay.com, the largest online newspaper and magazine kiosk (offering 1,100-plus full content digital replicas), is already running on the IREX. NewspaperDirect was an early partner of IREX, announcing in 2008, PressReader for the IREX 1000 series. PressReader is an application that comes pre-installed on the devices, allowing users to download PressDisplay.com's publications to the digital reader, to read at their leisure. The DR800SG provides the same PressReader functionality as the 1000 series, plus full access to the online PressDisplay.com aggregated publication service.

Source: IREX Technologies

ProQuest Launches New Public Health Resource

ProQuest (www.proquest.com) has launched a new resource, ProQuest Public Health, designed to be an ideal starting point for public health information and research. ProQuest Public Health covers a wide range of disciplines, from biological sciences and social sciences to health economics, and brings together disparate resources of core public health literature in a single location for the first time. 

ProQuest Public Health brings together highly sought-after content from journals, news, dissertations, trade publications, reports, and more. It combines core public health literature from more than 800 publications (with more than 500 of these available in full text) and more than 9,000 full-text dissertations. Key titles include American Journal of Public Health, Maternal and Child Health Journal, AIDS Education and Prevention, and The Lancet.

ProQuest Public Health reveals the latest research on breaking topics such as H1N1, disaster preparedness, and childhood obesity and key scholarly research themes such as Biostatistics, Environmental Health Sciences, Epidemiology, Health Services Administration, International Public Health, Maternal & Child Health, and Occupational Safety & Health.

ProQuest Public Health is cross-searchable with other ProQuest databases, including ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source, ProQuest Hospital Collection, and ProQuest Health and Medical Complete.

Source: ProQuest

Sony Store to Offer Ebook Self-Publishing Tool

Sony announced relationships with ebook distributors Author Solutions (www.authorsolutions.com) and Smashwords (www.smashwords.com) to offer a self-publishing tool for the Sony online store. Established publishers as well as independent authors and smaller publishers can access Sony's newly relaunched Publisher Portal (http://ebookstore.sony.com/publishers). This portal serves as an easy way for larger publishers who may not already have a relationship with Sony to get in touch; it also provides a way for individual authors or publishers with just a handful of titles to work with market-proven solution providers to publish books and make them available on Sony's eBook store.

New authors can select a self-publishing path to get their work published and ready for sale on Sony's eBook Store in as little as 10 days. As Sony completes the conversion of its eBook store to the industry-standard EPUB format, Smashwords and Authors Solution will expand the offer to all existing Author Solutions and Smashwords authors to get their titles up on the Sony site.

Author Solutions and Smashwords will offer authors the option to publish content in the EPUB format, the International Digital Publishing Forum's (IDPF) XML-based standard format for reflowable digital books and publications. EPUB has gained acceptance among major trade book publishers with dozens of publishers already producing the majority of their ebooks using the standard.

Source: Sony

IBM Lotus Connections Adds Social Networking Features

IBM announced Lotus Connections 2.5, which offers an expanded set of social software tools and capabilities for enterprise collaboration that brings popular features like microblogging from the home into the business environment. New features include enhanced community features such as options to add activities, blogs, wikis, and file-sharing services, as well as improvements to the community user interface that shows statistics on popular discussion topics and user activity. Additional new features include microblogging, message boards on user profiles, web-based file sharing, and support for iPhone and Nokia S60 mobile devices.

The new wiki service allows designated users to create, view, edit, and contribute to content that is uploaded to the intranet-style collaborative website. As many people may be editing a single page, the wiki has automatic versioning and a "show changes" view so that users can easily view the latest versions and edits.

The Profiles service is enhanced with a microblogging feature that allows users to post status updates on tasks they are working on. This enables users within their professional network to see what they are working on and offer comments. A new message board feature offers a place on a user's profile page where colleagues can post messages and comment on status updates. The combination of the message board and microblogging capabilities provides a simple and easy way for people to maintain active connections to their colleagues.

Lotus Connections 2.5 is available now in 25 languages. For more information, visit www.ibm.com/lotus/connections or view a demo at www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrxNSUxonjw.

Source: IBM

Glassdoor.com Offers Free Access to Career Resources for Libraries

Glassdoor.com is a career and workplace community where anyone can find and anonymously share salary details about specific jobs for specific employers or company and interview reviews describing life on the inside of an employer-all for free. What sets it apart is that all the information comes from the people who know these companies best- either the employees who work there or the candidates who have interviewed there.

Normally, Glassdoor.com requires users to post their own anonymous information to gain free access, but through its Library Partnership Program, it now offers library patrons and students free access without having to post anything. As an added benefit, once a library has added Glassdoor.com as a free resource, the company will send the library free Glassdoor.com bookmarks that provide tips for patrons on how to use Glassdoor.com as part of their job searches. Libraries can add Glassdoor.com either as an online database or as an internet link. Instructions are available at www.glassdoor.com/about/forLibraries_input.htm.

Career centers may request similar free access. Students with an .edu email address may also request individual free access without having to post anything by sending an email to students@glassdoor.com.

Glassdoor.com recently unveiled a new feature section of its blog titled the Clearview Collection (listed as "Recent Guest Bloggers"), consisting of a panel of recognized and respected career and workplace experts, who are providing perspectives and advice on a wide range of subjects and issues related to jobs, career management, and employment. Members of the Clearview Collection include human resources, recruiting, management, and employment professionals who have approximately 100 years of combined experience.

Source: Glassdoor.com