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Weekly News Digest

October 31, 2011 — 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.

European Commission Recommends Member States Boost Digitization Efforts

In particular, the recommendation invites member states to do the following:

• Put in place solid plans for their investments in digitization and foster public-private partnerships to share the gigantic cost of digitization (recently estimated at €100 billion). The recommendation spells out key principles to ensure that such partnerships are fair and balanced.
• Make available through Europeana 30 million objects by 2015, including all Europe’s masterpieces that are no longer protected by copyright and all material digitized with public funding.
• Get more in-copyright material online by, for example, creating the legal framework conditions enabling large-scale digitization and cross-border accessibility of out-of-commerce works.
• Reinforce their strategies and adapt their legislation to ensure long-term preservation of digital material by, for example, ensuring the material deposited is not protected by technical measures that impede librarians from preserving it.

Source: European Commission

Taylor & Francis Group Opens More Open Access

In 2012, the current iOpenAccess option will be renamed Taylor & Francis Open Select and will continue to give authors and their sponsors the option of making their articles available on open access to all for a publication fee. This initiative has been running since 2006 and currently encompasses 500 titles. In addition, three titles currently available on a subscription basis will be converted to full open access for 2012. The digital archives of these titles will also be made open access.  The titles, Green Chemistry Letters and Reviews, Journal of Biological Dynamics, and Smart and Nano Materials, have author communities with a strong interest in publishing research in an open access model.

Taylor & Francis will also launch Taylor & Francis Open. This initiative will cover all its fully open access titles. One important part of this initiative is a new series of fully open access titles from 2012 in major subject areas. These titles will offer rapid online publication of methodologically sound research subject to peer review. The journals will have article publication fees, with discounts or fee waivers for emergent countries. The initiative will also involve collaboration with leading journals within Taylor & Francis’ existing portfolio, along with support from learned societies and internationally acclaimed editors, ensuring the quality of these titles.

In addition to these broad-spectrum titles, Taylor & Francis also plans the following:

• Launch Journal of Organic Semiconductors on a full open access basis for 2012
• Launch a major new financial economics title on a full open access basis for 2012
• Announce a publishing partnership with an established health and social care full open access title
• Continue its publishing partnership with Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, an established fully open access journal currently published under the Routledge imprint in cooperation with the Royal Society of New Zealand.

David Green, global journals publishing director, sums up Taylor & Francis’ new approaches to open access: “We believe that this content should be widely disseminated and are now exploring various Open Access business models to enable universal access in ways that are sustainable and meet the needs of the research communities we serve. We feel the time is right to increase the scope of our Open Access offerings to sit alongside the cost-effective subscription and licensing options we offer to libraries.  Over the past three years society journals have been partnering with Taylor & Francis Group at the rate of more than one per week, and, if required, we are now able to offer a potential partner a range of Open Access business models where there is real author demand and we can ensure viability and sustainability.”

Source: Taylor & Francis Group

The Wall Street Journal Debuts Ebook Best-Seller List Using Nielsen Data

Since October 2009, Nielsen BookScan has developed fiction, nonfiction, business, and a variety of genre spotlight charts for The Wall Street Journal. Now all major ebook retailers will contribute data for four new charts that will include self-published digital releases, children’s books, and perennials. These combined print and ebook charts for fiction and nonfiction and ebook-only charts for fiction and nonfiction will also include books priced at 99 cents and more.

In September 2010, the Journal expanded its weekend edition to include added coverage of books in a pull-out section, Books, with reviews and features. The new ebook sales list as well as existing best-seller charts, along with the books section, appear within the Review section of WSJ Weekend.

Nielsen BookScan monitors the English-language book industry worldwide, gathering point-of-sale book data from about 12,000 locations across the U.S., representing about 75% of the nation’s book sales. Print-book data providers include all major booksellers and web retailers, as well as food stores (excluding Walmart and Sam’s Club). Ebook data providers include all major ebook retailers.

Source: The Nielsen Co.

Royal Society Guarantees Permanent Free Access to Journal Archive

Professor Uta Frith, F.R.S., chair of the Royal Society library committee, said: “The release of these papers opens a fascinating window on the history of scientific progress over the last few centuries and will be of interest to anybody who wants to understand how science has evolved since the days of the Royal Society’s foundation.”

Treasures in the archive include Isaac Newton’s first published scientific paper, geological work by a young Charles Darwin, and Benjamin Franklin’s celebrated account of his electrical kite experiment.  Some lesser-known gems from the dawn of the scientific revolution include accounts of monstrous calves, grisly tales of students being struck by lightning, and early experiments on to how to cool drinks “without the Help of Snow, Ice, Haile, Wind or Niter, and That at Any Time of the Year.”

The move is being made as part of the Royal Society’s ongoing commitment to open access in scientific publishing. Opening of the archive is being timed to coincide with Open Access Week; it also comes soon after the Royal Society announced its first-ever fully open access journal, Open Biology.

Source: Royal Society

Copyright Clearance Center Adds Licensing App to RightsLink Plus

On the iPad or iPhone, as well as for traditional online environments, RightsLink allows a publication’s customers to conduct licensing transactions of all kinds without ever leaving the rightsholder’s website.

The first installation of the toolkit adds a “get permissions” option within the iPad/iPhone app for CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians. When a reader of an article on the iPad or iPhone version clicks on the share button at the bottom of the app, among the short list of usual options is one offering “Get Permissions.” Clicking that link opens a CCC-branded window tied to the RightsLink service, enabling a full range of options to secure additional rights synchronized with an individual’s account.

“Mobile applications are just the latest digital content platform on which CCC offers licensing,” said Diane Pierson, CCC vice president of marketing. “We are committed to offering licensing solutions wherever and however content is accessed.”

Source: Copyright Clearance Center

Scientific American Archive Digitized From 1845

The 1845–1909 collection chronicles major inventions, including the inventions of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 and the incandescent light bulb by Thomas Edison in 1879. Other highlights include coverage of New York City’s first subway in 1870, a special issue in 1899 dedicated to bicycles and automobiles, and Wilbur Wright’s completion of a 3-mile flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C. In all, the 1845–1909 collection contains more than 75,000 articles.

Site license access to Scientific American’s online archive can be purchased as four collections:

• August 1845–December 1909 (approximately 75,000 articles)
• January 1910–December 1947 (approximately 38,300 articles)
• January 1948–December 1992 (approximately 15,800 articles)
• January 1993–December 2005 (approximately 4,600 articles)

Collections contain content from Scientific American and Scientific American Mind, beginning with its premier issue in December 2004/January 2005, plus all special issues. The articles are available as PDFs.

The Scientific American archive is an integrated part of the Nature.com platform. All users can browse the archive online. The archive is searchable by keyword, author, article title, or DOI for refined results. Alternatively, users can also browse by year and issue.  

Source: Nature Publishing Group