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Weekly News Digest
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October 15, 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.
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Open Road Integrated Media Launches Literary Ebooks Service From Leading Author Backlists
Jane Friedman, former president and CEO of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, and film producer Jeffrey Sharp have launched the Open Road Integrated Media (ORIM; www.openroadmedia.com) epublishing company. The multiplatform service includes film, video, and other forms of digital entertainment. Its goal is to create enhanced ebooks of titles from literary giants and new authors.An ORIM ebook will feature both aggregated and originally produced video and audio content, such as author profiles, behind-the-scenes features, and minidocs. A proprietary marketing platform will enable authors to track and refine marketing. The Author Branded Backlist will form the basis for reinvigorating titles as ebooks with premium content. Launch titles include books from William Styron, Pat Conroy, Joseph Heller, and Iris Murdoch. New titles will be born digital in ORIM's Studio division or through a self-publishing division called Discovery. Both Studio and Discovery will have a print-on-demand capability. The company also plans to create co-marketing partnerships with legacy publishing houses for their digital titles. Source: Open Road Integrated Media
AIP Feeds Articles to Apple iPhone, iPod touch
The American Institute of Physics (AIP; www.aip.org), a federation of 10 physical science societies and one of the world's largest publishers of scientific information in the physical sciences, has introduced a mobile e-reader application called iResearch. Physicists, engineers, scientists, and students can now download journal articles from the 12 AIP journals to the leading mobile devices. The app is available at the Apple iTunes store for version 3.0 and higher.In addition to readily accessing AIP content through a Wi-Fi network or cellular connection, iResearch enables users to optionally save files as PDFs on their iPhone or iPod touch for offline viewing. The iResearch app relies on AIP's Scitation C3 platform and centralized repository. To download the application, go to www.apple.com/itunes; for application support, go to http://scitation.aip.org/iphone. Source: American Institute of Physics
Dialog Reaches Out to Unemployed Librarians
Dialog, a ProQuest company, is coming to the aid of information professionals who have lost their jobs in the economic downturn. The company is waiving standard Dialog startup and service fees, offering free Dialindex service, and throwing in a 10% discount on Dialog usage to librarians and information professionals who have recently been laid off. The aim of the program is to help these professionals use Dialog's resources to do job searches, retain and develop their search skills, and even do some independent consulting while they look for full employment. Free access and discounts can be used for up to 12 months.The new program is modeled after a partnership Dialog has with the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP). AIIP members enjoy the same Dialog access and discount features proposed in the new program for unemployed librarians for as long as they are members. Librarians and information professionals who have become unemployed since September 2008 are eligible. Visit www.dialog.com/careers/program_uip to apply for the new program. Source: Dialog
West Opens 30 Legal Titles to Amazon Kindle
With the rise of popularity of electronic book readers, Thomson Reuters' West (www.west.thomson.com) has initiated electronic versions of selected titles from its book collection. The 30 titles were chosen to meet the needs of law students, law school faculty, and legal professionals."We've been fascinated by the shift lawyers and law students in particular are making toward smartphones and electronic book readers," said Mike Suchsland, senior vice president, West. "Customers have responded favorably to our various iPhone and iPod touch apps, so we see this as a natural extension of our advanced media strategy-making key content accessible on a variety of mobile devices, beginning with the platforms from Apple and Amazon." The online version of this press release (www.thomsonreuters.com/content/press_room/tlr/tlr_legal/490791) provides a list of the 30 available titles. To purchase the West titles for the Kindle, West advises users to search for them on www.amazon.com. Source: Thomson Reuters
SPARC Reviews Income Models for Open Access Publishing
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition; www.arl.org/sparc) examines the issue of sustainability for current and prospective open access publishers in a new guide, "Income Models for Open Access: An Overview of Current Practice," by Raym Crow. The guide reviews the use of supply-side revenue streams (such as article processing fees and advertising) and demand-side models (including versioning and use-triggered fees). It provides an overview of income models currently in use to support open access journals, including a description of each model along with examples of the journals currently employing it.As a supporter of publishing models and policy initiatives that broaden access to the peer-reviewed results of research, SPARC recognizes the financial implications for society and other nonprofit publishers. The new SPARC guide aims to support the development of sound open access publishing business models by providing an overview of current practice as well as practical guidance for publishers in evaluating the viability and financial potential of selected income models. The guide recognizes that the needs of individual journals differ and that the right model must take into account not only the publisher's need to cover expenses but also the organization's mission objectives, size, business management resources, and other factors. Heather Joseph, executive director of SPARC, hoped that "this guide will be a critical tool both for publishers exploring new potential sources of income and for libraries weighing where to direct meager library funds." The guide is available free, supplemented by an extensive web resource, at www.arl.org/sparc/publisher/incomemodels. Source: Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
Financial Times Available Through EBSCOhost
Corporations that access The Financial Times (FT) and EBSCOhost databases will now be able view the Financial Times newspaper on the EBSCOhost platform. The agreement between The Financial Times and EBSCO Publishing allows mutual customers to order their subscriptions from FT but access the content via EBSCOhost. This allows for users to cross search content with other EBSCO resources such as Business Source Corporate.EBSCOhost is designed to enable alerting capabilities, information sharing, and easy keyword searching. A relevancy-ranking feature ensures that users will find the most relevant articles, whether from the Financial Times or other business information sources, in one results list. The SmartText search function enables users to find similar articles using a large body of text as the search "term." This technique is particularly useful for searching from one content source to the other. Source: EBSCO Publishing
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Brandi Scardilli
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