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Weekly News Digest

October 17, 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.

SAGE to Publish Language and Linguistics Journal

SAGE will publish one English-language and one Chinese-language issue in January, each with different original content. The agreement is for six issues per year, with English versions in April, July, and October, and another Chinese issue in July.

Language and Linguistics highlights theoretical language and linguistics study of the East Asia and the Pacific regions (including Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, Austroasiatic, and Altaic languages) focusing on the common biological, mathematical, and cultural roots of language for an international audience. According to SAGE, the publication is the first journal in the Social Science Citation Index to have both Chinese- and English-language versions.

The Institute of Linguistics is one of the 31 research institutes of academia in Sinica, Taiwan. It is an interdisciplinary research center with 18 full-time researchers specializing in historical linguistics, structural analysis, semantic theory, corpus and computational linguistics, and cognitive language processes of both well-documented and endangered languages.

“In SAGE, we found a publisher with a strong international reach and an in-depth understanding both of the value and unique nature of our research. We believe this partnership with SAGE will enable us to enhance the development of research within the field of language and linguistics,” says Chiu-yu Tseng, director of the Institute of Linguistics.

Source: SAGE Publications

EBSCO Introduces 15 New Ebook Subject Sets

The new subject sets are available in addition to collections of frontlist titles from EBSCO’s collection development team. They join EBSCO’s platform of 400,000 ebooks and audiobooks available to libraries.

Titles do not overlap across subject sets or from year to year, which means librarians won’t accidentally purchase the same title twice as part of two separate sets.

The 15 new subject sets, all up-to-date for 2013, are as follows:

• Sports Medicine and Physical Therapy
• Diseases & Conditions
• Aging & Gerontology
• Pharmaceutical Science
• Mental Health
• Social Work
• Business
• Legal
• Women’s Medicine/OB-GYN
• Music
• Self-Help
• World Religions
• Classic Fiction
• Photography
• American History

Source: EBSCO Information Services

Oxford Online Updates Its Digital Shelves

OSEO also uploaded The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser in three volumes (in the Renaissance Poetry and Renaissance Prose sections), and the Clarendon Edition of Leviathan (in Early 17th Century Prose). Andrew Zurcher’s blog entry, “Timely and Untimely Works,” describes the new titles in detail.

These titles join other critical editions of original works by classic humanities writers in the OSEO database, which now numbers more than 25,000 works. Search options include browsing (by author, work, or print edition) or XML-based advanced search (in specific content such as stage directions in the plays).

Institutions around the world can subscribe annually to the database, while individuals can purchase 3-month or 12-month subscriptions.

Source: Oxford Scholarly Editions Online

ByWater Solutions Integrates OverDrive and Koha

Eight of ByWater Solutions’ library partners will work with the open source support community on the project, which uses OverDrive Integration Development to integrate search results from a library’s OverDrive ebook collection directly into its online catalog’s search results. ByWater Solutions will debut the integration in its release of Koha 3.14 later this year.

“We find that libraries worldwide are in need of a more integrated product for their e-resources and this development is the first step in that direction for Koha,” says Brendan Gallagher, ByWater Solutions’ CEO. According to the website, the company’s next step will be integration with other ebook vendors so that Koha can become “a more unified catalog for e-resources.”

ByWater Solutions is one of the largest Koha service providers worldwide and has more than 450 library partners. For more information, view the video tutorial.

Source: ByWater Solutions

Scirus Says Goodbye

Scirus is set to retire in early 2014. An official retirement date will be posted here as soon as it is determined.

To ensure a smooth transition, we are informing you now so that you have sufficient time to find an alternative search solution for science-specific content.

Thank you for being a devoted user of Scirus. We have enjoyed serving you.

Scirus is a science-specific research service with more than 575 million indexed items, including journal content, scientists’ webpages, institutional repositories, and patents. Users can restrict searches by subject area, author, journal, article, or date range. There is also an Advanced Search option.

To reflect the science field’s visionary, ever-changing nature, Scirus took its name from a prophet in Pausanias’ Description of Greece. According to the website, “The Scirus search engine will pro-actively support your role as a seer.”

Elsevier has not yet made its own announcement about the service’s retirement.

Source: Scirus

HighWire Press Debuts Folio for Ebooks

Folio is accessible to publishers of any size and scales to each publisher’s needs. Duke University Press’ e-Duke Books Scholarly Collection of humanities and social sciences ebooks will transition 100-plus new and more than 1,500 backlist titles to Folio beginning in December 2013. HighWire already hosts Duke’s journal content.

“With HighWire’s Folio, Duke University Press brings our e-books and journals together in one platform, allowing readers to pursue related content more seamlessly,” says Allison Belan, assistant director for digital publishing at Duke University Press. Including these ebooks on HighWire “will make them discoverable to anyone on the web and will eventually allow us to sell directly to consumers,” according to Michael McCullough, Duke University Press’ sales manager.

Folio users can search inside ebooks, access social sharing features, and search for books and journals on the same platform. Folio is also optimized for mobile devices. Librarians using Folio will have consolidated administration tools and enhanced functionality, according to Duke’s News page.

HighWire continues to add features, content, and functionality to Folio as it prepares for its official December 2013 launch.

Source: HighWire Press