|
|
Weekly News Digest
 |
September 24, 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.
|
JSTOR Opens Journals to More Researchers
JSTOR recently launched the JPASS service to reach scholars outside traditional institutions. JPASS grants individual users access to 1,500 journals from JSTOR’s digital library for a monthly or annual subscription fee.Researchers who are not affiliated with a university or other academic institution can purchase a JPASS subscription to read unlimited journal issues online (except current issues from the past 3–5 years), and download 10 articles per month using a MyJSTOR account assigned upon JPASS registration. MyJSTOR also has options for setting up alerts for search terms or journals and saving and exporting citations. Users can save article downloads, which are accessible even after a JPASS subscription expires. “JPASS is for everyone who needs affordable … high-quality, trusted research—whether for a few days at a time or on a regular basis,” according to Jennifer Farthing, the leader of individual access initiatives for JSTOR. JPASS users “include independent scholars, writers, business people, adjunct faculty, and life-long learners, among others.” JSTOR launched the JPASS initiative in response to users who wanted to do more on JSTOR, she says. Source: JSTOR
Adam Matthew to Digitize American History Archive
Adam Matthew signed an agreement with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, a nonprofit organization that promotes historical study, to digitize and publish an expansive archive of American historical documents from the Gilder Lehrman Collection (GLC).The GLC highlights sources dating from 1493 to the 20th century that trace the political, social, and economic history of the U.S. Adam Matthew will digitize about 50,000 of the GLC’s primary sources, including letters, diaries, maps, books, newspapers, and photos. The first part (sources from 1493 to 1859) of the two-part archive will debut in late 2014. Source: Adam Matthew
Thomson Reuters and 4DD Tackle Big Data
Thomson Reuters and 4DD Software agreed to a yearlong partnership that allows their customers to manage Big Data. Now, customers have a way of dealing with large volumes of information and can control multiple ecosystems of data.Government agencies, banks, academic institutions, large law firms, and other Thomson Reuters customers can form patterns using key data and see the complete picture of their research, as well as get real-time information to help them in decision making. 4DD also helps customers compare data sets and translates digital records across companies during acquisitions. “Our customers have more than enough data at their disposal,” noted James Powell, Thomson Reuters CTO in a statement. “The issue is that relevant sets of data couldn’t be combined or compared. With 4DD, we can ask each data set in its own language what we want from it, and we can move results down a pipeline, culling out the unnecessary and irrelevant. The flexible federated technology at the heart of 4DD solves a critical business problem for our customers and for us.” Using 4DD tools, Thomson Reuters creates apps that can infuse data with business logic and can integrate data with new information from outside sources or Thomson Reuters products. 4DD compares, analyzes, and sorts the data and translates it into multiple languages. The partnership benefits both companies: Thomson Reuters pays for new product development on 4DD’s technology platform and offers help with technology processes while reducing loads on 4DD’s servers; 4DD’s technology platform helps Thomson Reuters manage its large, disparate data and provides interactivity for the company’s proprietary data sets. Source: Thomson Reuters
LibLime Introduces Koha 4.16
LibLime, a division of Progressive Technology Federal Systems, Inc., recently released LibLime Koha 4.16 to the public after completing alpha and beta testing. This enhanced version of its web-based, open source ILS software was created using input from LibLime library partners, many of whom sponsored features in version 4.16.Librarians use Koha to manage a range of services including circulation policies, book clubs, holds in OPAC, and self-checkout interfaces. The updated version’s Solr search engine is also open source and provides features such as full-text search, faceted search, and database integration. Additional functionality for version 4.16 is itemized on the Koha website. Libraries that are unable to access version 4.16 immediately can schedule production upgrades with LibLime, which is already working on the next version, 4.18, that will include a fines/fees module, among other enhancements. Source: LibLime
Accessible Archives Adds More Weekly News to Collection
Accessible Archives, Inc. announced that Part III of Frank Leslie’s Weekly, a 16-page newspaper published 1855–1922, has been added to its digital collection.The third segment of the fully searchable, high-resolution page images from Frank Leslie’s Weekly highlight the era between 1862 and 1866. Research institutions can subscribe to this resource for insight into the Civil War as well as daily life during that time. The newspapers include text, illustrations (16–32 per issue), charts, and maps that focus on federal government policies, family life, and European reactions to the war. Other sections include fiction (stories and poems), recipes, travel, and fashion. The collection, which has 14 sections that are currently under development, can be purchased separately. Source: Accessible Archives, Inc.
Labguru Launches Mobile App for Scientists
Labguru, a flagship product of BioData Ltd., released a free mobile app that builds on its research and lab management software. Life science researchers who are on-the-go can now plan, record, and share lab information with colleagues while they are away from their lab benches.“Labguru Mobile puts your lab in your pocket, so whenever or wherever an idea hits or a question arises, your data, plans, and labmates are right at hand,” says Jonathan Gross, founder and CTO of BioData Ltd. Available on iTunes and the Google Play store, the app has four functions designed to help scientists conduct experiments: It finds and catalogs items in a user’s lab storage locations, records images to link to research projects, manages orders and inventory using the shopping list, and retrieves protocols for experiments that integrate results into a user’s Labguru account. Labguru plans to roll out updates in the near future, including automatic syncs of data files from instruments to cloud storage; it will also align the mobile app more closely with the existing iPad app. Source: Labguru
Thomson Reuters Expands Risk Solutions
Thomson Reuters added Countries of Risk for Legal Entities to its portfolio of risk and regulation solutions. This new solution helps financial institutions manage their risk and regulatory reporting requirements, while measuring a company’s security exposure to more than one country at a time.StarMine, a division of Thomson Reuters that offers investment research tools and analytics, uses its algorithm to power Countries of Risks, along with Thomson Reuters’ business data and gross domestic product data from the International Monetary Fund. “In today’s complex and interconnected world, firms need the ability to measure and report risk in investment portfolios as it relates to issuing entities, sectors, asset classes, and countries,” says Tim Lind, global head of middle office at Thomson Reuters. “Our new Countries of Risks offering addresses this critical need by providing the linkage between entities, securities, and different dimensions of risk.” Thomson Reuters’ goal is to connect the global financial community using its Entity Risk suite of solutions, which have more than 1 million records on business entities (filings and reports on companies and their subsidiaries, joint ventures, and affiliates) from 150-plus countries. “Entity data is central to analyzing your exposure and untangling the complex dimensions of modern business entities which may have hundreds of subsidiaries spanning multiple regions, geographies and activities,” according to the Entity Risk website. Source: Thomson Reuters
OverDrive Adds Penguin Ebooks to Offerings
OverDrive Marketplace is once again offering Penguin ebooks: More than 17,000 titles are now available for purchase in a one-copy/one-user lending model for a 1-year term. Prices for backlist titles range from $5.99 to $9.99, while frontlist titles cost as much as $18.99.Penguin Group (now Penguin Random House) pulled its ebooks from the OverDrive catalog about 2 years ago, according to a post at Digital Book World. There are some restrictions to the new agreement: The ebooks are only available in the U.S. now, and Kindle users will have to load ebooks onto their devices via USB; there isn’t a direct download. OverDrive collection development specialists are available to help member libraries create recommended lists from the Penguin catalog. Source: OverDrive
Send correspondence concerning the Weekly News Digest to NewsBreaks Editor
Brandi Scardilli
|
