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Weekly News Digest
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February 25, 2013 — 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.
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EdX Expands Internationally
EdX, the not-for-profit online learning enterprise founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), announced the international expansion of its X University Consortium with the addition of six new global higher education institutions. The Australian National University (ANU), Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, McGill University and the University of Toronto in Canada, and Rice University in the U.S. are joining the consortium and will use the edX platform to deliver the next generation of online and blended courses. This international expansion enables edX to better achieve its mission of providing world-class courses to everyone, everywhere, and is the natural next step to continue serving the large international student body already using edX on a daily basis.While MOOCs, or massive open online courses, have typically focused on offering a variety of online courses inexpensively or for free, edX’s vision is much larger. EdX is building an open source educational platform and a network of the world’s top universities to improve education both online and on campus while conducting research on how students learn. To date, edX has more than 700,000 individuals on its platform, who account for more than 900,000 course enrollments. Courses offered by institutions on the edX platform provide the same rigor as on-campus classes but are designed to take advantage of the unique features and benefits of online learning environments, including game-like experiences, instant feedback, and cutting-edge virtual laboratories. Through edX, the new X Universities will provide interactive education experiences for students around the world. All that is required of edX students is access to the internet and a desire to learn. By breaking down the barriers of location and cost and enabling the global exchange of information and ideas, edX is changing the foundations of both teaching and learning. The new member institutions will join founding universities MIT and Harvard, as well as the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Texas System, Wellesley College and Georgetown University in the X University Consortium. ANUx, DelftX, EPFLx, McGillX, RiceX, and TorontoX will offer courses on edX beginning in late 2013. All of the courses will be hosted on edX’s open source platform at https://www.edx.org/. Source: EdX
RosettaBooks and ebrary Team Up
RosettaBooks, an independent ebook publisher, and ebrary, a ProQuest business, announced three bundled film and fiction perpetual packages for libraries available from ebrary, which further expands access to trade material in addition to ebrary’s robust offering of scholarly research ebooks.The first bundle focuses on the works of Kurt Vonnegut. The package includes 18 titles led by Slaughter-House Five, Cat’s Cradle, and Player Piano. The second bundle features the works of Arthur C. Clarke. The package includes 35 titles led by 2001: A Space Odyssey, Childhood’s End, and all of this seminal science-fiction writer’s short fiction. The third bundle, “Books Into Film,” consists of 30 books that became well-known films led by A Passage to India, The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, and In the Heat of the Night. Brave New World is a keystone title of the bundle. Libraries that purchase the bundles receive each copy with single-user access, but will have lifetime lending rights to the titles. Source: RosettaBooks
InfoDesk Introduces Newsletter Archive iWidget
InfoDesk developed an innovative Newsletter Archive iWidget, a content integration tool specifically designed to help organizations archive, store, and search their internal newsletters and briefings more easily. The Newsletter Archive iWidget automates internal newsletter archiving and management without taxing company IT resources.The newly released InfoDesk Newsletter Archive iWidget is an easy-to-deploy newsletter archiving tool that can be hosted by InfoDesk or deployed within a customer's own portal, such as SharePoint. The iWidget makes it easy for the HTML newsletters to be published and displayed on either a portal page or a web page. Additionally, each posted newsletter automatically creates an archive link (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.), providing easy access to archived content. Also, since InfoDesk archives the newsletters in the cloud, there is no need for internal IT departments to find a server and build a display mechanism. The Newsletter Archive iWidget is just one of many InfoDesk iWidgets created to help organizations integrate content and facilitate access. Other types of InfoDesk iWidgets include headline news, stock, and search tools. Additionally, InfoDesk provides sophisticated turnkey portal solutions to help clients meet all their content integration needs. To help introduce Newsletter Archive iWidget, InfoDesk is offering complimentary online iWidget demos upon request. Other InfoDesk products include AgencyWatch, a new once-daily government intelligence, news, and media monitoring service designed specifically to meet the information needs of government leaders, and InfoMonitor, a custom daily news and media monitoring services designed to meet the needs of corporate clients, particularly those in the competitive pharmaceutical sector. For more than 12 years, InfoDesk has helped some of the largest multinational corporations, top government agencies, and media companies integrate, deliver, and share large volumes of information more effectively. InfoDesk is based in Tarrytown, N.Y. with offices in London and Washington, D.C. Source: InfoDesk
EBSCO Publishing Releases CINAHL Complete
EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO) announced that CINAHL, the research tool for nursing and allied health literature, has boosted its content with the introduction of CINAHL Complete. The database will offer 71% more full-text journals than are available in CINAHLPlus with Full Text.CINAHL Complete is the most comprehensive set of nursing and allied health indexing with full text for nursing and allied health professionals, students, educators, and researchers. With full-text coverage dating from 1937, this authoritative file contains full text for more than 1,300 journals, many with no embargos, and more than 1,460 journals with searchable cited references. Additionally, there is deep full text for many important titles with no embargoes, such as titles from the American Diabetes Association. Available only from EBSCO, CINAHL Complete is also compatible with the point-of-care tool, Nursing Reference Center. For more information, visit www.ebscohost.com/nursing/products/cinahl-databases/cinahl-complete. Source: EBSCO Publishing
IFLA Launches Resources for eLending in Libraries
IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) launched a new set of resources relating to ebooks and libraries. Providing access to ebooks is one of the most pressing issues facing libraries right now. Public libraries, in particular, are dealing with implications of rapidly changing business and access models. IFLA had previously issued a background paper on eLending in April 2012. In October 2012, IFLA commissioned an independent consultant, Civic Agenda, to prepare a "thinkpiece" to inform discussion at a meeting of experts from the library and publishing sector. This meeting took place over 3 days at IFLA headquarters in The Hague in November 2012. The recently released "IFLA Principles for Library eLending" report is the outcome of the meeting, and the contribution of the experts in The Hague was crucial to their drafting. The document was endorsed by the IFLA Governing Board in February 2013. The ‘thinkpiece’ is a standalone document, and is not IFLA policy.At the site, there are links to existing campaigns on ebooks and further details on how to get involved in IFLA’s work on the issue. The plan is to build on these resources during 2013 and expand the amount of information available. IFLA will hold a 1-day program on ebooks in libraries at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) in Singapore in August 2013. Source: IFLA
NoveList Select's ILS Partnerships Now Include Evergreen
NoveList, a division of EBSCO Publishing, is announcing a new ILS integration with NoveList Select, its catalog enrichment resource. NoveList Select is now integrated into the Evergreen ILS from Equinox Software, Inc. This is designed to enable more libraries to make their library catalog a robust tool full of rich information for readers.At a recent Evergreen developer Hackfest event sponsored by Equinox Software, Inc., Equinox developers created code for a new feature in the master code of Evergreen that makes it easy to turn NoveList Select on and requires no additional development time for libraries. This new feature enables mutual customers to enhance their catalog so it becomes a tool for readers to discover great books. Vice president of NoveList Duncan Smith says this implementation with Evergreen is part of a continuing effort to improve the accessibility of NoveList’s reader focused content. “We are committed to working with as many partners as necessary to make NoveList Select a successful tool for all libraries. This collaboration is another step to help libraries transform their catalogs into a place where readers can discover great books.” NoveList Select is the catalog enrichment component of NoveList readers’ advisory resources. This component pulls NoveList content into a library’s catalog. NoveList Select makes reading recommendations, series information, book discussion guides, Goodreads ratings and reviews, library newsletters and events available to library patrons from within the catalog record. NoveList Select works with many major vendors and systems to ensure the content is seamlessly integrated into a library’s catalog. A list of ILS systems that NoveList Select is already integrated with is available at www.ebscohost.com/novelist/our-products/novelist-select-ils. Source: NoveList
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Brandi Scardilli
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