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Weekly News Digest
October 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. For other up-to-the-minute news, check out ITI’s Twitter account: @ITINewsBreaks. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

Thomson Reuters Makes Offer to Acquire Breakingviews

Thomson Reuters (www.thomsonreuters.com) confirmed that it has made a formal offer to acquire a global financial insight commentary business, Breakingviews (www.breakingviews.com). This offer (for an undisclosed sum) has been accepted by Breakingviews' directors, who are unanimously recommending the offer to their shareholders. The transaction is expected to be complete within 8 weeks.

Breakingviews will be managed by the Reuters news organization. The acquisition is designed to further enhance and build upon Reuters own fast-growing global commentary service. In 2008 Reuters established an international commentary team, which has become a highly valued part of Reuters' global, multimedia news and information offering.

The combined Reuters Breakingviews commentary team will operate under the Breakingviews brand. The separate stand-alone brand will allow Reuters to continue to ensure that there remains a clear distinction between the organization's news service and commentary offering. Breakingviews will continue to represent the commentary and opinion of the author, while Reuters reporting will continue to represent the traditional sourced news and analysis that has been its staple for more than 150 years.

The combined Reuters Breakingviews commentary service will be made exclusively available to Thomson Reuters premium desktop clients immediately following the closing of the transaction. Thomson Reuters also intends to build on Breakingviews' syndication relationships with many of the world's leading newspapers.

Source: Thomson Reuters

RefWorks-COS Enhances Its COS Funding Opportunities Service

"Increased competition in the research funding market and growing emphasis on global research and collaboration, combined with fewer human resources at research organizations means that COS Funding Opportunities needs to be even more efficient and effective for our customers," says Colleen Stempien, RefWorks-COS' executive director of operations.

The changes were made to the version of COS Funding Opportunities that is available on its native platform (www.cos.com). This version is used primarily by research administrators, research managers, and faculty and staff of research organizations, such as university research departments.

Launched in 1997, COS Funding Opportunities today has more than 26,000 records of available grants from more than 11,500 sponsors for researchers the world over. With nearly 500 subscribing organizations in 89 countries, it covers 80% of the world's leading research institutions.

Source: RefWorks-COS

OCLC Initiates Metadata Services for Publishers

"OCLC Metadata Services for Publishers provides added value to libraries and publishers by enhancing and delivering data that can work in multiple contexts and systems," says Renee Register, global product manager, OCLC cataloging and metadata services. "It is crucial to the future of cataloging to find collaborative ways to take advantage of publisher ONIX metadata, and this new service allows us to store, enhance and normalize the metadata for the benefit of both library and publishing communities."

OCLC enrichment of title metadata saves publishers time and resources by streamlining internal workflows and reducing in-house intellectual work and manipulation of title metadata. OCLC also provides validation, authentication, and standardization of publisher data for use by various partners (vendors, aggregators, booksellers) to increase the marketability of publisher ONIX title metadata throughout the publisher supply chain.

OCLC Contract Cataloging for Publishers is another service that creates MARC records using publishers' electronic title data as a starting point. OCLC offers cataloging solutions for publishers and vendors that need to provide MARC records to libraries.

Source: OCLC

PASCAL and FRANCIS Now Available via EBSCOhost

EBSCO Publishing (www.ebscohost.com) and Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (INIST-CNRS; http://international.inist.fr) have signed an agreement making two INIST-CNRS databases available on EBSCOhost. PASCAL is a multilingual, multidisciplinary database covering science, technology, and medicine. FRANCIS is a multidisciplinary database providing humanities and social sciences coverage.

The agreement provides for extensive backfile coverage for both PASCAL and FRANCIS. PASCAL content is available dating from 1984 and FRANCIS content is available dating from 1972. EBSCO will be the first provider to offer FRANCIS archives dating from 1972 to 1984-previously, FRANCIS was only available from 1984 to the present.

PASCAL offers extensive bibliographic indexing for more than 13 million records. The database provides coverage of science, technology, and medicine with special emphasis on European content. Source documents include journal articles, books, conference proceedings, dissertations, books, patents, and reports. The trilingual indexing available in PASCAL allows keyword searching in French, English, and Spanish, regardless of the original language of the article.

FRANCIS offers extensive bibliographic indexing for more than 2.5 million records with subject headings available in English and French. FRANCIS provides multilingual resourcing (additional indexing in Spanish for specific content) and covers more than 2,300 periodicals.

Source: EBSCO Publishing

New Network for Chinese Researchers

With a goal of reducing the barriers separating Chinese researchers from their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe, Anianet announced the launch of the Anianet professional network (www.anianet.com). Tens of thousands of Chinese scientists, professors, and other scholarly professionals are currently conducting vital, groundbreaking work. Anianet integrates these Chinese intellectuals into the international community by providing a platform to create free English-language profiles detailing their professional accomplishments in a format that is optimized for a Western audience, as well as by providing vital information detailing Western grants, research partnerships, jobs, fellowships, meetings, publications, and other opportunities. In short, Anianet provides Chinese researchers with a "western base of operations" for the first time.

One of the most substantial problems within the research community today is the divide separating Chinese and Western scholars. While the number of Chinese scholars is exploding both in absolute terms and as a percentage of authors in high-impact scientific journals, Chinese researchers find it difficult to make their interests and expertise known to Western colleagues. More than 80% are not very satisfied with the visibility of their research and writing among their European and American colleagues. An equal number would like to be more knowledgeable about Western research trends and opportunities. Anianet provides a bridge to this burgeoning market. Anianet launched in preview mode late this summer, and already, thousands of Chinese scholars-in fields ranging from architectural design to zoology-have created Anianet profiles.

Source: Anianet

Springer Launches TheNeuroNetwork.com

Members may create searchable profiles with their research interests and publications; upload poster presentations, images, and videos; post questions and start discussions on new research; form and join public or private groups based on their interests or geographical location; post and search job listings; start a blog; and view, post, and RSVP to upcoming meetings.

Members may also create profiles for their organizations, institutes, societies, or even their labs. Such profiles may be used to post meetings, news, links to articles, press releases, or calls for papers. The website will also provide original content in the form of interviews with researchers; it is looking for live bloggers for upcoming meetings.

Source: Springer