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Weekly News Digest

May 14, 2012 — 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.

Cengage Learning and Blackboard Introduce Digital Content Integration

The integration, which creates a simpler and more intuitive user experience, allows for single sign-on, embedded activity links and gradebook synchronization for Cengage Learning’s MindTap platform, as well as single-sign on and placement of embedded links at the activity level for CourseMate products—all through the Blackboard Learn platform.

The integration is made possible through Cengage Learning's standards-based, web-services architecture—MindLinks—and the Blackboard Building Blocks program which leverages the open APIs of the Blackboard Learn platform. For all CourseMate titles, the integration includes the ability to directly link within Blackboard Learn to individual assets, including student activities and the ebook.

Blackboard is part of the Cengage Learning MindShare Alliance Partner Program and Cengage Learning is a Blackboard Strategic Partner in the Blackboard Partnerships Program.

Source: Cengage Learning and Blackboard

Wolper to Distribute Gale Products to Special Library Market

“We are always looking for new and convenient options to provide our customers and potential customers with access to our products,” said Frank Menchaca, executive vice president and publisher, Gale. “Through this agreement with Wolper, customers can now easily access key Gale resources and combine multiple vendor subscriptions through one source.”

Through this agreement, Wolper will be able to offer special library customers access to thousands of Gale titles and customizable subscription products, such as the following:

• Infotrac Custom Journals—provides access to Gale’s online full-text periodical collection. Customers can select only the periodicals most appropriate for their institution and can manipulate the search interface and functionality—important features for institutions serving populations with unique, discipline-specific reference needs.
• Gale Directory Library—an online source for authoritative directories on companies, publishers, associations, and more with state-of-the-art search and export features.
• Business and Company Resource Center (soon to be known as Business Insights: Essentials)—a comprehensive, single-source database for accurate, up-to-date and in-depth business, company and industry information. Users can access business case studies, investment data, timely statistics, real time financials and more, as well as Gale proprietary titles including Market Share Reporter and Business Rankings Annual.
• RDS Business Suite—an online subscription service of highly focused full-text coverage of company and industry news, competitive intelligence, management practices, and market research information. Includes more than 1,400 worldwide business sources and thousands of tables with strategic data.
• Health and Wellness Resource Center—provides access to thousands of full-text medical journals, periodicals, reference works, multimedia and more. For researchers at all levels, this resource provides authoritative information on the full range of health-related issues, from current disease and disorder information to in-depth coverage of alternative medical practices.

Source: Gale 

Ex Libris Announces the Launch of Rosetta 3.0

Highlights of the new version include the following:

• Collection Management module: This new module enables each institution to organize and manage collections in the most effective way for the institution’s specific requirements. With version 3, collections can contain a number of subcollections, each with its own descriptive metadata record and access rights policy. With Rosetta’s flexible approach to collection management, digital objects can belong to more than one collection. To learn more about the Collection Management technology, read the Ex Libris white paper Collection Support in Rosetta.
• Advanced search: In version 3.0, new search capabilities enable Rosetta to index all metadata elements associated with digital objects, enabling users to search these elements. Many more attributes are displayed by default with the search results, and users can select specific attributes to be displayed.
• Redesigned user interface: The user interface has received a comprehensive makeover to help Rosetta users achieve their goals more rapidly and easily.
• Format library updates: Rosetta’s format library enables institutions to maintain the most appropriate and advanced format for each item in their Rosetta system. Up to now, updates were installed through the periodic synchronization of each local format library with the global format library. In Rosetta 3, regularly issued service packs will contain the updates for the local format library.

“Version 3.0 demonstrates our commitment to meeting the needs of academic and research institutions,” commented Bar Weinstein, vice president of resource management solutions at Ex Libris. “Originally envisioned as a preservation solution primarily for cultural heritage organizations, national libraries, and archives, Rosetta has become the solution of choice for leading academic institutions worldwide. This version is the outcome of our close collaboration with the flourishing Rosetta community to identify the essential features for enhancing the product.”

For an overview of Rosetta, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7cCD6HtamI.

Source: Ex Libris Group

Mendeley Institutional Edition Powered by Swets Goes Live

“The success and continued rapid growth of Mendeley to date has already delivered a fantastic new tool for researchers,” said David Main, CEO at Swets, “This new service delivered by libraries gives an premium service to researchers and gives libraries the connection to researchers and their activities that they need in this digital world.”

Speaking of the launch, Victor Henning, managing director of Mendeley, said, “With our cloud based tool, librarians will have a deeper visibility and understanding of their own content use and the impact of their research output. Mendeley Institutional Edition helps provide this and we’re delighted to be working with Swets to open up and increase the visibility of this data. In addition, it will help them build private collaborative groups for their students, researchers, and professors to network and share their knowledge.”

Source: Swets

IFLA Releases Background Paper on E-Lending

The paper attempts to:

• Provide an overview of the issues relating to ebooks in libraries
• Summarize the current positions of publishers in both the scholarly publishing and trade publishing sectors
• Summarize the differences in the way that academic/research libraries and public libraries address the issue of digital collections
• Address the legal context for e-lending and library principles that must be upheld in any suitable models
• Provide a detailed legal analysis of e-lending

The e-lending environment is changing rapidly, and the paper will be reassessed in the coming months in light of any significant developments. Revisions of the paper may take place in light of any assessment.

IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) continues to work in this area and has been liaising with EBLIDA (European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations), the ALA (American Library Association), and others as it seeks to understand the implications for the delivery of high-quality library services in the 21st century. Considering just how important any developments in this area are for libraries around the world, IFLA encourages interested individuals or institutions to share experiences, information, or reports with the e-lending working group. Any information can be sent to Stuart Hamilton, director of policy and advocacy, at IFLA HQ:stuart.hamilton@ifla.org

Source: IFLA

EBSCO Publishing Releases Two New Digital Archive Databases

Gateway to America: The People, Places, and Organizations of 19^th-Century New York is a diverse collection of historical directories, yearbooks, registers, member lists, organization reports, guidebooks, primary source documents and publications, and name rich sources from the New-York Historical Society. This unique collection, which includes historical maps, advertisements, and vital records, presents a history of the people and organizations of New York from the late 18th through the early 20th centuries. As New York was the country’s focal point of industry, trade, commerce, and immigration, this collection features materials chronicling this gateway to the U.S. during this influential historical time period.

Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books from the New-York Historical Society contains more than 30,000 pages of handwritten, historically valuable material from 1748 to 1817. Orderly Books were the controlling document of the day-to-day life in the military, most notably during the Revolutionary War. They once numbered in the hundreds of thousands and only a fraction of that number still exist. This material is fully transcribed and fully searchable while viewing the handwritten documents. Detailing accounts of troops' daily life, Orderly Books contain important historical information, such as the names of unit members, troop movements, court-martial proceedings, quantities of supplies, relevant acts from Congress, the general state of morale, and other information important to the respective units. Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books provide valuable information about the important and mundane activities of soldiers’ lives and are essential sources for researchers.

EBSCO provides access via its Digital Archives Viewer. The viewer brings content alive and allows users to explore, manipulate, collect, and export content. The unique functionality of the Digital Archives Viewer enables it to reproduce the best aspects of the physical library research experience while incorporating the advances in modern digital technology.

Source: EBSCO Publishing