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Weekly News Digest

March 4, 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. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

OCLC and ProQuest Collaborate to Enhance Library Discovery

Once the data exchange is completed, libraries that subscribe to both WorldCat Local and ProQuest Central or that own any ebrary content will be able to discover ProQuest records and access associated content through the WorldCat Local interface. Further, the exchange will enhance the discoverability of catalog records in the Summon service, creating the potential for libraries to view other institutions’ WorldCat holdings information within the Summon experience.

“OCLC member libraries continue to be well served by our long-standing partnership with ProQuest,” said Jay Jordan, OCLC president and CEO. “We are pleased to extend additional value via this new data exchange agreement. Now OCLC member libraries will have deeper access to their ProQuest services through WorldCat Local and those who select Summon will enjoy direct access to WorldCat and OCLC Resource Sharing. Both discovery and delivery for library users will be markedly enhanced.”

ProQuest Central claims to be the largest, multidisciplinary, full-text database available in the market. This resource provides access to 27 of ProQuest’s most highly used databases, with a variety of content types across more than 160 subjects, making this the broadest single research resource in the world.

WorldCat is the world’s largest database of bibliographic information built continuously by OCLC and libraries around the world since 1971. Each record in the WorldCat database contains a bibliographic description of a single item or work and a list of institutions that hold the item. Institutions share these records, using them to create local catalogs, arrange interlibrary loans, and conduct reference work. Since 1971, more than 280 million records have been added to WorldCat, spanning more than 6,000 years of recorded knowledge.

Source: OCLC and ProQuest

Innovative Integrates SkyRiver Operations and Drops OCLC Lawsuit

“With the best interests of the library community in mind, we decided to view a relationship with OCLC as a potential collaboration partner, unclouded by legal issues,” said Kim Massana, Innovative’s CEO. “We are looking forward to competing with OCLC in the market for library technology services, including in the areas of cataloging and library service platforms. At the same time, we are excited to refocus our efforts to engage with OCLC management and our common accounts to help libraries meet the unprecedented information and technology challenges in today’s environment.”

Massana continued, “All of us at Innovative believe that competition in technology services benefits libraries and drives innovation. We have a great product in SkyRiver and anticipate that by putting the whole weight of Innovative behind the development and implementation of the system, we will become an even stronger player in the market for library cataloging services going forward.”

Innovative’s core offering, the Sierra Services Platform, has seen an extraordinary level of adoption across the international library and information community over the last year with more than 320 library systems having so far committed to Sierra, representing more than 1,000 libraries worldwide. Sierra represents a new approach to library technology that provides the extensive functionality required for today’s libraries, while also bringing open architecture to library staff, allowing them to create their own solutions and adapt rapidly to the changing role of their libraries and institutions.

Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO, issued the following statement on the withdrawal of a lawsuit filed in 2010 by Innovative Interfaces and SkyRiver Technology Solutions:

We applaud the decision of the new owners of Innovative Interfaces and SkyRiver Technology Solutions and CEO Kim Massana to withdraw the claims against OCLC. We look forward to possible future engagement with Innovative where it benefits libraries. We work with many library service providers to provide greater value at reduced costs to libraries around the world.

Inclusion, reciprocity, trust, and the highest standard of ethical conduct have guided the OCLC cooperative in the past and will guide us in the future. As always, OCLC’s public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing the rate of rise of library costs remain paramount.

Note: In the spring of 2012, Innovative announced a strategic investment from Huntsman Gay Global Capital, a middle-market private equity firm, and JMI Equity, a growth equity firm focused on investing in growing software, internet, and business services companies. In early 2013, founder Jerry Kline sold his remaining shares in the company to the private equity firms and resigned from the Board of Directors.

Source: Innovative Interfaces, Inc. and OCLC

Readex to Launch Digital Edition of American Pamphlets

Subjects addressed in these hard-to-find pamphlets, which were printed in 49 states between the Jacksonian Era and the dawn of the Jazz Age, include art and entertainment, business and economics, health and medicine, immigrants and ethnic groups, American Indians, slavery and the Civil War, African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, women, and more.

“Pamphlets were used as a relatively inexpensive way to distribute diverse opinions and wide-ranging information to a large number of people,” says David Lincove, professor of History, Political Science, Public Affairs & Philosophy librarian at Ohio State University. “This new digital collection of thousands of searchable pamphlets will appeal to a broad audience interested in American political, social, educational, religious, and cultural history between 1820 and 1922. Students and researchers will find an enormous amount of unique and eclectic material related to ideas, events, institutions, and people of the time.”

This large collection will be fully integrated into America’s Historical Imprints for seamless searching with Early American Imprints, Series I and II, 1639-1819; American Broadsides and Ephemera: From the American Antiquarian Society; and Afro-Americana, 1535-1922: From the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Source: Readex

History of Science, Technology and Medicine Now Available from EBSCO Publishing

Formerly available via First Search from OCLC, History of Science, Technology and Medicine integrates four bibliographies: Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science, Current Bibliography in the History of Technology, Bibliografia Italiana di Storia della Scienza, and Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, making it the definitive international database for the history of science, technology, and medicine. The database includes more than 350,000 records including journal articles, conference proceedings, books, dissertations, serials, and maps.

History of Science, Technology and Medicine supplies users with material from periodicals and books since 1975. Many areas integral to the history of science, technology, and medicine are covered including, but not limited to, biological sciences, computer and information sciences, engineering, geography, mathematics, medicine, neurosciences, pharmacy, physics, psychiatry, public health, and technology.

Source: EBSCO Publishing

ASIS&T Changes Its Name, Enhances Its Global Mission

When 2012 ASIS&T president Diane H. Sonnenwald, in collaboration with 2011 president Linda C. Smith, 2013 president Andrew Dillon, and 2014 president Harry Bruce, called for a membership vote on the name change issue, she said, “The word American in our name often makes it difficult for individuals outside the United States to receive recognition for belonging to and participating in ASIS&T. It also fails to recognize the important contributions members outside the United States make to our association and to our discipline.’

In addition, Sonnenwald noted that increasing international participation in ASIS&T will provide additional opportunities for all members to learn from and share expertise and knowledge with colleagues who have different expertise and knowledge.

Currently 18% of ASIS&T members reside outside the U.S. in 52 different countries. At the recent 75th anniversary ASIS&T Annual Meeting, attendees came from 25 countries, with 22% from countries other than the U.S. In addition, ASIS&T runs successful international conferences, notably the annual European Information Architecture Summit, and will hold its 2013 Annual Meeting in Montreal, Canada.

Source: ASIS&T

Note: ITI is the publisher of the ASIS&T Monograph Series, a leading series of print and digital books for scholars, students, and practitioners in the broad field of information science and technology.

EBSCO and Oxford University Press Extend Partnership

University Press Scholarship Online provides more than 10,000 titles in 24 subject areas from 10 leading university presses. Content includes a balance of classic works of scholarship along with newly published works. The valuable resource also includes book-level and chapter-level records.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography offers more than 50,000 biographies written by named, specialist authors. The dictionary is the national record of men and women who have shaped British history and culture, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century and is overseen by academic editors at Oxford University, U.K., and published by Oxford University Press.

The new agreement between EBSCO and OUP allows EDS users to search University Press Scholarship Online and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, while mutual customers may further extend their search to access the full text on the Oxford site. Oxford University Press customers may use an EDS CustomLink already created in EBSCOadmin to access full text on the Oxford site.

The EDS Base Index represents content from about 20,000 providers (and growing), which accounts for more than 350,000 publications from the world’s top publishers and information providers. However, because EDS is a custom solution, the complete index to materials for any given customer may be expanded greatly beyond the coverage referenced for the Base Index.

Source: EBSCO Publishing