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Massachusetts Chooses Baker & Taylor as eBook Platform Partner

Baker & Taylor, the world’s largest distributor of digital and physical books and entertainment products, has been selected by the Massachusetts Library System (MLS) to participate in an innovative six-month pilot project designed to expand access to ebooks for the state’s multi‑type libraries. This pilot project was conceived by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioner’s (MBLC) Statewide Resource Sharing Committee to explore new models of ebooks. Funding for the MA eBook Project is made possible by MLS, in partnership with the MBLC, the pilot libraries and in part, with federal funds provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and administered by the MBLC.

Baker & Taylor is assisting MLS in establishing a statewide shared collection, in which an initial group of 51 participating libraries will access more than 3,000 general interest ebooks using the company’s Axis 360 digital media platform. The pilot program will leverage Baker & Taylor’s digital collection development services, with an eye toward expanding the scope of the shared collection to the nearly 1,700 public, school and academic libraries throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

“We are proud to partner with the Massachusetts Library System to provide the ebook download platform for this important resource sharing endeavor,” said George Coe, President of Baker & Taylor’s Library & Education division. “Hundreds of libraries have found Axis 360 to be a convenient and comprehensive tool for managing their digital collections and enhancing their offerings to patrons. We expect Massachusetts libraries will have the same experience. We look forward to lending our expertise to this project and to working closely with our partners at MLS and participating libraries.”

Axis 360 gives library patrons the ability to borrow and download best-sellers and new release fiction and nonfiction titles in electronic format directly to their devices.

“Massachusetts libraries feel strongly that statewide, ongoing access is critical for some ebooks,” said Greg Pronevitz, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Library System. “Our agreement to purchase content licenses from Baker & Taylor and use their state‑of‑the‑art platforms for acquisitions and circulation will provide access to all member libraries’ patrons. Baker & Taylor will work with the Massachusetts Library System to promote ongoing access.”

Axis 360 is compatible with Windows and Mac PCs and mobile Apple iOS and Android devices, including smartphones and tablets, and dedicated ereading devices. The platform is also integrated with Blio, the multi‑function ereader born from the partnership of the National Federation of the Blind and visionary Ray Kurzweil, to provide an ADA-accessible ebook solution for library patrons.

SAGE partners with leading academic news site The Conversation

SAGE, one of the world’s leading independent and academic publishers, today announced an exciting new partnership with a major online news website, The Conversation, to support access to high quality academic research within the mainstream media.

Originally launched in Australia in 2011 and now their largest independent news site, The Conversation UK, which launched 6 months ago, brings a unique combination of academic rigour and journalistic flair to the world of academic research. Articles published on the site are authored by academics with the help of experienced journalists to ensure research is accurately reflected within the media.

SAGE has championed the importance of social science since its founding in 1965 through the publication of high quality research and pedagogy, through stimulating debate events and partnerships, and through the creation of online communities (www.socialsciencespace.com, www.methodspace.com and Pacific Standard).  This partnership takes this commitment further. As a partner, SAGE will be supporting the important role that The Conversation plays in helping academics to engage directly with the public and increasing the reach, the impact and the public understanding of high quality and influential academic research.

Speaking of the partnership, SAGE’s Global Publishing Director, Ziyad Marar commented:

“Academia and its relationship with the media has been one of those long contested problems. Getting accurate reporting of academic rigour into the public sphere remains one of the key concerns of the academic community, as they work to get their voices heard and engage in debate around key issues.  Since our founding, SAGE has been committed to both enabling informed debate around public policy and to disseminating the work of our authors and editors to best effect. The difficulty of doing so has long been diagnosed, but the Conversation may well have come up with a cure! As such we are delighted to announce this partnership and look forward to seeing their excellent work go from strength to strength.”

Max Landry, Chief Operating Officer, The Conversation, further commented:

“To have the support of SAGE as we move forward is tremendously exciting for everyone at The Conversation. We’re big admirers of the work SAGE does, and see them as a natural partner. I look forward to our teams working closely together.”

American College of Emergency Physicians to Publish with Wiley

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., today announced a new publishing partnership with the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). From January 2014, Wiley will publish the society’s newsmagazine, ACEP News, which provides the latest in clinical and industry news for emergency physicians throughout the United States.

As the society’s official newsmagazine, ACEP News enjoys the largest circulation of any emergency medicine publication. The title’s breaking news stories, coverage of medical meetings and expert perspectives are read by more than 37,000 emergency physicians, including 32,000 ACEP members. Reflecting the ever-changing needs of emergency physicians, ACEP News will be renamed ACEP Now with a new editorial direction and design, effective with the January 2014 issue.

ACEP Now will be edited by Kevin Klauer, Director of the Center for Emergency Medical Education and the Chief Medical Officer for Emergency Medicine Physicians, Ltd., Canton, Ohio. Dr. Klauer is an assistant clinical professor at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, and he currently serves as ACEP Council Speaker.

Launched as ACEP News in 1981, ACEP Now will contain the latest in emergency medicine research, news and industry issues, along with updates on recent or upcoming society-sponsored programs, activities and educational opportunities.

Wiley will distribute ACEP Now to all members of ACEP, as well as members of the Society of Emergency Medicine Physicians Assistants.

“Our monthly newsmagazine is going through big changes, including the switch to a new publisher, a new design, a new Editorial Advisory Board and a new Medical Editor in Chief,” said Dean Wilkerson, ACEP Executive Director. “When the monthly magazine arrives in mailboxes in January, the new ACEP Now will be a vibrant publication aimed at directly meeting the needs of its readers.”

“We are absolutely thrilled to be in partnership with ACEP to publish ACEP Now,” said Lisa Dionne, Executive Editor & Publisher, Wiley. “We have every confidence that we can meet and exceed ACEP’s publishing goals and continue to evolve the newsmagazine as the society and the specialty move forward.”

For more information about ACEP, please visit www.acep.org

Serials Solutions to Index HBO Kennisbank in the Summon Service

Serials Solutions, a ProQuest business, is working with HBO Kennisbank to index the results of publicly funded research contained in the institutional repositories of Dutch universities in the Summon service. Metadata from the HBO Knowledge Base will be indexed allowing researchers to discover articles, research reports and theses produced by lecturers, teachers and students within the universities alongside their library’s other resources to gather the most relevant information for their projects.

A store of knowledge, the HBO Knowledge Base offers public access to the results of research done by Dutch Universities of Applied Science. The HBO Knowledge Base is part of the HBO Knowledge Infrastructure (HKI) and stimulates the exchange of knowledge between research, education, business and society. The participating universities of applied science work together in the HKI to maximise the visibility and use of research output.

With one of the participating universities, Fontys University of Applied Sciences institutional repository already indexed in the Summon service, Serials Solutions is responding to clients in the region requesting content from the other institutions to be indexed. Making material of the colleges visible and available for sharing and reuse, the HBO Knowledge is an important gateway to the results of research of colleges.

Serials Solutions continues to fulfill its commitment to make the most comprehensive discovery service for researchers around the world with the addition of the HBO Knowledge Base to the Summon service.  With an interface available in 32 languages and dialects, the Summon service makes global content discoverable by scholars worldwide. It applies native-language searching capabilities and language-tuned relevance ranking for 17 languages.

The Summon service is the first and only discovery service based on a single, unified index of content and contains more than 1.4 billion items in which the vast majority of article and book content is full-text searchable.  Used by more than 700 libraries in more than 40 countries, the Summon® discovery service is proven to increase usage of library resources across a library’s collection without bias to format, vendor, or platform. With the introduction of Summon® 2.0 – groundbreaking features and a new, modern interface – the Summon service continues to deliver on its mission to return researchers to the library by providing a user experience that resonates with users familiar with open web search engines. Streamlined navigation and contextual guidance features significantly advance the research experience and provide greater opportunities for librarians to deliver value and scale their services to connect with more users.

Elsevier Announces the Launch of Open Access Journal: Urology Case Reports

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the launch of a new open access journal: Urology Case Reports.

Urology Case Reports is a new peer-reviewed, open access journal dedicated to publishing case reports in all areas of adult and pediatric urology.

Surveys of practicing urologists have shown that the time available for them to read journals, medical newspapers and attend lectures for Continuing Medical Education (CME) is diminishing. Some studies note that the average time physicians can realistically spend on furthering their education is 15 minutes per week; what they choose to read during this limited time is now ever more important.

Urology Case Reports acknowledges these time constraints whilst at the same time fulfilling educational needs. Case reports published are short and frequently well illustrated with images that can “speak a thousand words”.

Kate Williamson, Publisher for Urology Case Reports at Elsevier explains: “Many journals in the field of urology no longer publish case reports, but the need for such an outlet remains. Authors want to publish interesting case reports, which can serve as a valuable learning tool for readers. Elsevier is proud to work with Editors Dr. Partin and Dr. Wein to provide this new resource for urologists.”

Dr. Partin added, “A journal like this will greatly improve our ability to share unique, interesting and educational clinical anecdotes.”

The first case report published in Urology Case Reports is now available to read online on ScienceDirect. The article describes a rare neoplasm which poses a therapeutic challenge to urologists who manage patients with this rare disease: “A Case Report of Primary Recurrent Malignant Melanoma of the Urinary Bladder.”

For more information or to submit an article, go to Urology Case Reports: www.journals.elsevier.com/urology-case-reports – See more at: http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/elsevier-announces-the-launch-of-a-new-open-access-journal-urology-case-reports#sthash.uFmjzIRA.dpuf

Google Books Case Dismissed—Victory for Fair Use and Libraries

On November 14, Judge Denny Chin of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the digitization of millions of books from research library collections was a fair use and dismissed the Authors Guild case against Google and its Library Project, saying that the project “advances the progress of the arts and sciences, while maintaining respectful consideration of the rights of authors and other creative individuals, and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright holders.” In his decision, Judge Chin cited a November 2012 amicus brief (PDF)submitted by the Library Copyright Alliance (comprised of the Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association, and the Association of College and Research Libraries). The Authors Guild has stated that they disagree with the decision and plan to appeal.

This ruling examined whether Google’s digitization of copyrighted works constituted fair use under copyright law. Chin cited benefits for librarians, researchers, students, teachers, scholars, data scientists, and underserved populations, such as disabled individuals who cannot read print books or those in remote places without libraries. Carol Pitts Diedrichs, president of ARL, stated, “This decision, along with the decision by Judge Baer in Authors Guild v. HathiTrust, makes clear that fair use permits mass digitization of books for purposes that advance the arts and sciences, such as search, preservation, and access for the print-disabled.”

The District Court ruling bodes well for libraries, scholars, and researchers in the pending appeal of Authors Guild v. HathiTrust. Judge Chin agreed with Judge Baer’s fair use analysis in the HathiTrust case, indicating that the result in the Google case is compatible with theAuthors Guild v. HathiTrust decision and suggesting the possibility of a favorable decision for HathiTrust on appeal.

Google’s book digitization project, the Library Project, started in 2004. The purpose of the digitization project was to create a searchable index of books that would allow key word searching of the collections of major research libraries. Snippets of the books are accessible to the public who would not otherwise have access to the library collections. The company did not acquire permission from copyright holders, and so in 2005, individuals and the Authors Guild sued Google for copyright infringement.

Google currently has a collection of more than 20 million digitized books, mostly out-of-print titles.  While titles are searchable, the Google Books website only returns snippets from the digitized texts, not full texts.

University of Alabama Libraries Join HathiTrust

The University of Alabama has become one of the newest partners of Hathitrust, a partnership of major academic and research libraries collaborating in a digital library initiative to preserve and provide access to the published record in digital form.

Launched in 2008, HathiTrust has a growing membership currently composed of more than 60 partners. Over the last four years, the partners have contributed more than 10 million volumes to the digital library, digitized from their library collections through a number of means including Google and Internet Archive digitization and in-house initiatives.

More than 3 million of the contributed volumes are in the public domain and freely available on the Web. HathiTrust serves a dual role: First, as a trusted repository it guarantees the long-term preservation of the materials it holds, providing the expert curation and consistent access long associated with research libraries.

Second, as a service for partners and a public good, HathiTrust offers persistent access to the digital collections. This includes viewing, downloading and searching access to public domain volumes, and searching access to volumes still in copyright. Specialized features are also available which facilitate access by persons with print disabilities, and they allow users to gather subsets of the digital library into collections that can be searched and browsed.

“The University of Alabama is the first institution in the state to become a partner of HathiTrust.  Partnership in the HathiTrust will benefit faculty and staff in many ways,” said Dr. Louis A. Pitschmann, dean of libraries. “They will be able to access and download millions of texts which are public-domain and for which HathiTrust has received permissions.

“Users with disabilities are able to access materials in specialized ways. Virtual collections can be created for later use and for research purposes. The Libraries will be able to participate in the shared governance and partner initiatives which will shape future directions in libraries and shared collections.”

OECD chooses TEMIS to semantically structure its Knowledge and Information Management Processe

TEMIS, the leading provider of Semantic Content Enrichment solutions for the Enterprise, announced today that they have won a call for tender issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with their award-winning Semantic Content Enrichment solution Luxid®.

The OECD provides its expertise, data and analysis to its 34 member governments and 100 other countries to help them support sustainable economic growth, boost employment and raise living standards. To fulfill its vision of increased relevance and global presence, the OECD has launched a Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) Program that establishes an integrated framework for managing and delivering information and improving its accessibility and presentation. The KIM framework is intended as the steward of the OECD’s information lifecycle, with a universal knowledge referential at its core facilitating enhanced searching and findability, rationalized content re-use/repurposing processes, and supporting the organisation’s Open Data and Linked Data initiatives.

In this context, the OECD has chosen TEMIS’s flagship Luxid® Content Enrichment Platform to address all Semantic Enrichment stages of the KIM framework. Luxid® will help OECD to consistently enrich document metadata in alignment with its taxonomies and ontologies, providing a genuinely semantic integration layer across heterogeneous document storage and content management components. This semantic layer will both enable new search and browsing methods and improved relevance and accuracy of search results, as well as progressively build an integrated map of OECD knowledge.

“After careful evaluation, the OECD selected TEMIS Luxid® platform as the key technological component to support the transition from content to semantic information”, said Simone Sergi, KIM Senior Program Manager, OECD.

“This mark of trust by OECD represents a new recognition of our ability to address challenges in international organisations. For TEMIS, this is a link between our know-how in the publishing domain and our industrial experience in information systems”, said Fabien Gauthier, Sales Director, Enterprise, TEMIS.

Based on patented and award-winning Natural Language Processing technologies, Luxid® exploits off-the-shelf extractors called Skill Cartridges® to extract targeted information from unstructured content and semantically enrich it with domain-specific metadata. This enables professional publishers to efficiently package and deliver relevant information to their audience, and helps enterprises to intelligently archive, manage, analyze, discover and share increasing volumes of information.

Diane Grob Schmidt elected ACS president-elect for 2014

The members of the American Chemical Society have elected Diane Grob Schmidt, a section head at Procter & Gamble, as ACS president-elect for 2014. During her three-year succession, Schmidt will serve as president of the society in 2015 and immediate past-president in 2016; she will also serve on the board of directors. The society, which publishes C&EN, also elected or reelected four other board directors.

In the president-elect race, no candidate had a majority of members’ first-choice votes. Because Charles E. Kolb Jr., president and chief executive officer at Aerodyne Research, received the fewest first-choice votes, the second-choice votes of members who preferred Kolb were added to the first-choice votes for G. Bryan Balazs, an associate program leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Schmidt, per ACS Bylaws. That gave Schmidt 42% of the total votes for president-elect, compared with 35% for Balazs and 23% for Kolb. Schmidt was a petition candidate, having secured more than 800 nominations to add her name to the ballot.

“It is a great honor to be elected to represent members and serve ACS,” says Schmidt. Being chosen as president-elect is “exciting, electric, and a chance of a lifetime.”

During her term in office, Schmidt plans to focus on working “to create an atmosphere that encourages growth and the addition of U.S. jobs,” she says. “Advocating for improved and sustained funding of the chemical enterprise is now more critical than ever to reignite America’s commitment to science and technology.”

Schmidt received an A.B. in chemistry from University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, and an M.S. in organic chemistry from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, before earning a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Cincinnati in 1981. That same year, she joined Procter & Gamble.

Among her many honors, Schmidt received the Henry A. Hill Award from the ACS Division of Professional Relations in 2012 and was named an ACS Fellow in 2011.

In other ACS election results, George M. Bodner, the Arthur Kelly Distinguished Professor of Chemical Education and an engineering faculty member at Purdue University, won reelection as District II director for a three-year term. He defeated Alan A. Hazari, director of chemistry labs and lecturer at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

For the District IV director position, Rigoberto Hernandez, a professor of chemistry at Georgia Institute of Technology, defeated incumbent Larry K. Krannich, a professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.

In elections for at-large director, Dorothy J. Phillips, a retired Waters Corp. marketing director, and Kathleen M. Schulz, president of Business Results, secured the two open seats. They will join four other current at-large directors.

Phillips and Schulz defeated Susan B. Butts, an independent consultant, and Thom H. Dunning Jr., director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and a professor and the Distinguished Chair for Research Excellence in Chemistry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Only ACS members in a given district vote for that district’s director. And only voting councilors can submit a ballot for director-at-large. Out of 486 councilors eligible to vote, ACS received 382 valid ballots for director-at-large. Voter participation for president-elect was about the same as last year, totaling nearly 14% of eligible voters, defined as ACS members in good standing who joined the society no later than August.

Additional information about the winners can be found in the candidates’ statements (C&EN, Sept. 16, page 36).

ORCID announces changes in member agreements and new authentication-only API

As part of ORCID’s one-year anniversary, we have reviewed our member agreements to incorporate feedback received from the community.  We are pleased to report a number of changes we hope will encourage responsible use of ORCID identifiers and streamline the membership and integration process, including an Authentication-only API that does not require membership.  More details are available on our Membership and Subscriptions webpage.

Authentication Only API

Over the past year, a number of groups, including BioShare and GEN2PHEN, have been requesting that ORCID provide fee-free, public access to the authentication component of the ORCID service.  This is of particular concern for those groups that are not legal entities—such as grant funded consortia—and cannot sign a member agreement.  We have also found that a number of organizations are “integrating” ORCID identifiers by providing a type-in field for users.  This presents a significant data quality issue, allowing typographical and other errors to enter into databases, putting us right back where we started before ORCID identifiers were rolled out. My personal plea:  please do not collect any ORCID iDs using type-in fields!!  In March 2014, ORCID will be providing an authentication-only API that does not require membership. This API can be used, for example, in a workflow in which users are asked to log into their ORCID account (or create one) as one step in a data deposit workflow, and then their ORCID iD is returned to the deposit system in a computer-to-computer interaction.  Using this API means we know the iD exists and we know it belongs to the user.

Trusted Party and Creator Categories Simplify Member Agreements

Now that we have a better sense of how organizations are using the ORCID Member API, we have determined that splitting member agreements into “Trusted Party” and “Creator” license options will help streamline the membership sign-up process. Those organizations that want to be able to request access from record holders to write to ORCID records and read limited access data may now sign a Trusted Party license that removes indemnity provisions.  Those organizations that wish to create ORCID records for their employees and affiliates will find that the new Creator agreement includes a narrowed, reciprocal indemnity clause with a cap. Both new license agreements have reciprocal liability caps and limited damages. Existing members may elect to keep their current agreements or sign the new version upon renewal.

Technical Support

Support terms for current and new Basic and Premium members have been clarified to ensure quality technical support while controlling costs. Basic members receive support for one set of client credentials, email support and integrated user acceptance testing for up to four releases or major updates per year.  Premium members receive monthly usage reports, support for up to five sets of client credentials, priority queue for help desk requests, and user acceptance testing for an unlimited number of releases per year.

National Memberships 

New information regarding national member entry-level and country-wide agreements are now available on the ORCID membership page.

Determining the best membership or subscription for your organization

Still wondering what membership type is right for your organization?  See the figure below.  More details are available on our membership page in Chinese, English, French and Spanish.

 

EBSCO Introduces RIPM e-Library of Music Periodicals™ — Offering Rare Collection of Full-Text Music Journals

RIPM e-Library of Music Periodicals™ is now available from EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO). RIPM e-Library of Music Periodicals is a collection of rare primary source documents offering music researchers access to a special selection of full text music journals unavailable elsewhere.

The first installment of this collection includes 150,000 pages from 25 music journals dealing with musical life in world capitals: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Bilbao, Brussels, Budapest, Lisbon, Madrid, Milan, New York, Prague, Paris, St. Petersburg and Warsaw. The collection also contains several monumental journals including Musical America until 1922, Le Guide musical (Brussels, 1855-1919), the Neue Berliner Musikzeitung (Berlin 1847-1896) and several early musicology periodicals. Future titles will include those focusing on instruments, genres, musicology’s early periodicals, music education and jazz, with others combining both musical and non musical content, such as theatrical and general arts journals. New titles will be added on a regular basis.

With RIPM e-Library of Music Periodicals, music researchers will gain access to a unique collection of periodicals not covered in RIPM Retrospective Index and RIPM Online Archive of Music Periodicals. Libraries that subscribe to RIPM Online Archive of Music Periodicals in calendar years 2013 and 2014 will receive the RIPM e-Library of Music Periodicals at no additional cost for two subscription years. The e-Library is one part of a suite of full-text music journals offered by RIPM.

The RIPM e-Library of Music Periodicals brings the total number of full-text publications available in RIPM to nearly 150 journals, adding almost 40 percent new full-text content to those titles in the RIPM Online Archive.

insentia and TEMIS Join Forces to bring value to Enterprise Contents.

By becoming TEMIS’ premier partner in Switzerland, insentia reinforces its Enterprise Content Management activities and now provides Luxid®, the flagship platform which received the CODiE Award 2013 for Best Semantic Solution. Embedded within a content management system, it powers more efficient categorization, search and analysis processes.

Based on patented and award-winning natural language processing technologies, Luxid® Content Enrichment Platform meets the needs of organizations to better structure, manage and exploit their unstructured content. Luxid® is a powerful and flexible solution which identifies and automatically extracts relevant information from documents. Stored as metadata, they reveal the intimate nature of informational assets and help organizations to optimize the efficiency and performance of their enterprise content management.

As a renowned integrator on the Swiss market, insentia will provide its customers with integration services of the Luxid® platform within flagship Enterprise Content Management solutions. Insentia supports its customers throughout their projects, whether it be for functional and technical consulting, architecture design, development, deployment and/or training

“Our new partnership with TEMIS is an opportunity to provide our customers with an innovative and value-added solution that once integrated to their enterprise content management systems, enables finer-grained content identification and processing, smarter search, information access and routing and helps automate document and business workflows”, said Hervé Stalder, ECM Director at insentia.

“We are very careful in selecting partners”, added Michael Domanski, Alliance and Channel Manager at TEMIS. “insentia’s deep experience as an ECM solutions integrator and its independence from any specific technology platform was a decisive factor in the choice of our sole partner in Switzerland.”

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