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Weekly News Digest

October 7, 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. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

Sony Announces Inaugural Participants in Reader Library Program

Components of the Reader Library Program include:

• An in-house training session for participating library staff developed by Sony. This in-person session, will cover digital reading formats, an overview of sources for digital materials, and training on Sony’s Reader digital reading devices.
• Sony’s Reader digital reading devices for use by library staff. Educational materials and informational bookmarks to provide patrons background on digital reading devices and eBook borrowing programs.
• Bi-annual update sessions designed to keep participating libraries and their staff current with latest developments in digital reading content, format, and devices.

All of the libraries are members of the OverDrive network, a distribution network of 11,000 libraries worldwide. To find a library near you that offers ebooks, go to sonysearch.overdrive.com.

Sony is also providing digital reading assistance to libraries beyond the inaugural participants in the Reader Library Program. Libraries not currently participating will have access to further program information, details on applying for it, free ebook training videos, and printable collateral for them to use in educating their patrons at www.sony.com/libraryprogram. Libraries with additional questions regarding the program can contact program managers at libraryprogram@am.sony.com.

Source: Sony Electronics

H.W. Wilson Database Content Included in EBSCO Discovery Service

Whether accessing these databases via EBSCOhost, directly from Wilson (via WilsonWeb) or from another vendor, those customers who rely on EBSCO Discovery Service to bring more value and usage to their collections will see this value extended to the Wilson databases to which they subscribe.

Wilson joins a list of publishers and other content partners who are taking part in EDS to bring more visibility to their content, such as the British Library, Baker & Taylor, NewsBank, Readex, LexisNexis, Alexander Street Press, and Web of Science (for mutual customers). With more partners such as Wilson, the end result is a huge win for EDS customers and their end users as more and more of a library’s collection becomes available through powerful searching components—deep indexing, abstracts, and full text.

EBSCO Discovery Service creates a unified, customized index of an institution’s information resources, and an easy, yet powerful means of accessing all of that content from a single search box—searching made even more powerful because of the quality of metadata and depth and breadth of coverage.

The EDS Base Index forms the foundation upon which each EDS subscribing library builds out its custom collection. Beginning with the Base Index, each institution extends the reach of EDS by adding appropriate resources including its catalog, institutional repositories, EBSCOhost and other databases, and additional content sources to which it subscribes. It is this combination that allows a single, comprehensive, custom solution for discovering the value of any library’s collection.

The EDS Base Index is comprised of metadata from the world’s foremost information providers. At present, the EDS Base Index represents content from approximately 20,000 providers in addition to metadata from another 70,000 book publishers. Although constantly growing, the EDS Base Index currently provides metadata for nearly 50,000 magazines and journals, approximately 825,000 CDs and DVDs, nearly six million books, more than 100 million newspaper articles, more than 20,000 conference proceedings, and hundreds of thousands of additional information sources.

Source: EBSCO Publishing

Gale Announces Biography in Context

Biography in Context includes the following features:

• Read Speaker text-to-speech technology, available on every page, is an ideal option for struggling readers and the visually impaired
• Document translator allows students to translate any document into French, Spanish, Japanese, German, Italian, Portuguese, simplified Chinese, and Korean
• The addition of Lives & Perspectives Collection, giving Biography in Context more than 600,000 biographies on more than 525,000 influential people
• Topic overviews combine with multiple media assets (images, video, podcasts) and authoritative reference content to deliver information, in context, through one comprehensive web-like portal page
• “Expert Picks”, including reference documents, podcasts, primary sources, and magazine and journal articles, that are selected by subject matter experts to guide users in exploring topics at a deeper level
• “Factbox,” providing a quick overview of topic highlights, consistent with open web alternatives
• Related topics and web links aiding discovery of similar content
• Content organized by type (reference, news, magazine, primary sources and more) to support the needs of general information seekers and those who wish to conduct more extensive research

Based on the Gale Resource Centers, Biography in Context joins Student Resources, Opposing Viewpoints, Science, U.S. History, World History, and Canada in Context products, which were released in July. Existing Resource Center subscribers will receive these new products as an upgrade at no additional cost. 

Source: Gale

New Solution from Dow Jones for Management Consultants

Dow Jones Consultant includes:

• News from 28,000 trusted sources that helps consultants identify new business opportunities and potential new clients
• Exclusive access to the editorial viewpoint of Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, providing the intelligence consultants need to ensure their advice is timely, targeted, and insightful
• Information about emerging business, economic, and technology trends and risks for clients and projects, with exclusive industry-relevant company fundamentals, news, and analysis
• In-depth information on more than 18 million companies and 30 industries
• Relationship mapping technology to connect consultants with more than 36 million executives to significantly expand their professional networks and uncover new business opportunities

The information in Dow Jones Consultant can be filtered by practice area, industry, region, and company to help firms cut through information overload and get just the information they need. The newsletters or dashboard are available via the web, mobile device, or company intranet and can be customized and integrated directly into the applications consultants use every day.

Source: Dow Jones & Co.

ebrary Offers Free Breast Cancer Searchable Information Center

ebrary’s Breast Cancer Searchable Information Center features a range of authoritative fact sheets, posters, and other materials from government agencies such as the National Cancer Institute, National Breast Cancer Coalition Fund, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Office of Women's Health, and other authoritative sources.  

The site was created using DASH! (Data Sharing, Fast), ebrary’s do-it-yourself e-publishing tool which is included with many of the company’s e-book products and services. Organizations that wish to contribute information to ebrary’s Breast Cancer Searchable Information Center may receive a complimentary DASH! account to upload and integrate their documents, provided they have copyrights.

“Breast cancer strikes over 1.3 million women around the globe each year and is the leading cause of cancer death in women, according to the American Cancer Society,” said Christopher Warnock, CEO of ebrary. “We hope that by using our technology to make some of the most important information contained within government documents more discoverable, and by making DASH! available to others who wish to contribute relevant materials, we can provide a helpful resource for anyone who needs information on this prevalent disease.”

ebrary’s Breast Cancer Searchable Information Center is just one of a growing number of open access collections created by ebrary staff and customers. For a listing of additional databases visit http://www.ebrary.com/corp/accessCollections.jsp.

Source: ebrary

Copyright Clearance Center Expands Partner Program

CCC works with application vendors, publishing platform providers, and content aggregators to provide mutual customers with easy-to-use rights licensing and advisory tools within their applications’ workflow. This is enabled through CCC’s Web Services, which provide automated access to CCC’s rich rights licensing database for the purpose of search, pricing, and ordering of copyright permissions. The partner program has recently been expanded to include opportunities for business and academic associations, consortia, and workflow enablers to improve the value of their own products and services by including licensing capabilities.

Pubget, the search engine for life science PDFs, has launched a “Get Permissions” feature across its article pages, making one-click access to copyright licenses possible from the Pubget research platform, extending Pubget’s copyright compliance efforts. Permissions now offered through Pubget include rights to post to course management systems, re-publish in journals or books, present at conferences, or make other commercial uses of the PDFs delivered through Pubget.

Study.Net, a web-based learning resource designed to accelerate and enhance the educational experience for students and professors around the world, now allows users to obtain copyright permissions when a professor or staff member uploads digital scans of copyrighted content into Study.Net-based courses.

For more information about CCC’s partner program and CCC’s Web Services, visit www.copyright.com/partners.

Source: Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.