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Weekly News Digest
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September 9, 2010 — 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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Introducing the New Look ingentaconnect
Publishing Technology plc has announced that its flagship collection of e-publications, ingentaconnect, now has a re-energized look and feel. The new look ingentaconnect has been designed to optimize the end user experience through improved navigation and content discovery.The new design is the second phase of the platform’s regeneration, with further releases to follow, delivering additional improvements and upgrades to include: a new Publisher Statistics package, integration with an award-winning search engine (Apache Solr), enhanced ahead of print functionality, plus additional content, amounting to 3,600 new titles. Phase one of the enhancements included a release in March 2010, which featured early compliance with Shibboleth 2, as well as RightsConnect integration and improved Open Access support, amongst many other improvements to enhance its user experience. It may look dramatically different, but ingentaconnect still maintains its status as a trusted and established research resource, containing 13,500 scholarly and professional publications from 255 leading international publishers, with 2.5 million unique users per month. ingentaconnect continues to be committed to ensuring visibility of publisher’s content via library technology. partnerships with Summon, Primo Central, and EBSCO Discovery Service guarantee publisher’s content is discoverable via the latest range of library products. While the design represents a significant change to the site there are no changes to the URLs or linking syntax. Link resolvers, bookmarks, and personalization features will all continue to function as before with no action required by readers or librarians. ingentaconnect mobile will make its debut in the fall. Source: Publishing Technology plc
Library of Congress Implements Third Major 2010 Enhancement for THOMAS
THOMAS has undergone its third major enhancement of 2010. Building upon the enhancements made in January and June, the latest enhancements add a mobile-friendly homepage, integrate features from the Library of Congress and Law Library of Congress websites into THOMAS, and add a new portal to state legislature websites.THOMAS now has a mobile-friendly homepage that will display on devices with lower screen resolutions like BlackBerrys. The homepage has also been optimized for iPhones and Droids, leveraging their larger screens to provide complete access to the full version of the THOMAS homepage. The global footer now available on most Library of Congress websites, including the Law Library of Congress website, appears throughout THOMAS. The global footer includes ways to stay connected with the Library including an "All ways to connect" link. In addition to easier access to the Library’s social media, there is a new box to highlight ways to connect with THOMAS and the Law Library of Congress through the In Custodia Legis Blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and iTunes U. A link to State Legislature Websites has been added to the THOMAS homepage. This new page displays a map with links to the legislative bodies for all fifty states, Washington, DC, and U.S. territories. It provides quick access to state legislative websites that are similar to what THOMAS provides on a federal level. Source: Library of Congress
Challenge.gov Prize Platform Invites Citizens to Solve Nation’s Challenges
U.S. chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra and U.S. chief information officer Vivek Kundra have unveiled Challenge.gov, a new online site and digital platform to help mobilize American ingenuity to solve some of our nation’s most pressing challenges. Challenge.gov is an online site where entrepreneurs, innovators, and citizen solvers can compete for prestige and prizes by providing novel solutions to tough national problems, large and small.Challenge.gov features more than 35 challenges posed by more than 15 government agencies. They range from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Game Day Challenge for the university that best reduces and recycles waste at college football games to a $10 million prize, sponsored in part by the Department of Energy, for building vehicles with fuel-efficiencies exceeding 100 miles per gallon. Challenge.gov, spearheaded by the General Services Administration, makes it simple and free for Federal agencies to post rules and resources for challenges; allows anyone interested to submit a solution; and helps manage the selection process. It showcases virtually any kind of government challenge, regardless of that challenge’s technology platform, providing “one stop shopping” for innovators and entrepreneurs looking to compete in government-sponsored challenges. Challenge.gov is the latest milestone in the Administration’s commitment to use prizes and challenges to spur innovation. In his September 2009 Strategy for American Innovation, the President called on agencies to increase their use of tools such as prizes and challenges to promote and harness innovation and solve tough problems. In March 2010, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum to all agency heads affirming the Administration’s commitment to this problem-solving approach and providing a policy and legal framework to guide agencies in using prizes to stimulate innovation to advance their core missions. Source: White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
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Brandi Scardilli
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