CILIP rejects name change and has no confidence in Ed Vaizey

September 23, 2013

CILIP members voted today (21 September) at CILIP’s AGM on three key issues; whether CILIP should change its name, if the proposed membership subscriptions rates for 2014 should be introduced and if the AGM has ‘no confidence’ in Ed Vaizey MP Parliamentary Under Secretary of State with responsibility for public libraries in England.

Members voted in advance by proxy and at the meeting, held at the new Library of Birmingham.

Members voted:

Against changing the organisation name to Information & Library Professionals UK (356 members for, 644 members against, 22 abstained)

In favour of the proposed subscriptions for 2014 (778 members for, 128 members against, 64 abstained)

In favour of the motion expressing ‘no confidence’ in Ed Vaizey MP (669 members for, 200 members against, 103 abstained)

John Dolan, Chair of CILIP Council, said “The AGM is an important opportunity for members to have their say and make decisions. I would like to thank all members that engaged with the issues in advance of the meeting, that cast their votes and came to the AGM in person.

On the name change vote, John said, “A two-thirds majority of votes would have been needed for CILIP to change its name – members have decided, so we won’t change our name. The proposed name change was one part of the rebranding project, which is in turn one part of the broader change programme at CILIP; a change programme to make sure we provide relevant offers to the breadth of the library, information and knowledge professions.

The Defining Our Professional Future consultation in 2010 provided clear direction on the changes and improvements that needed to be made. CILIP has been undergoing fundamental change since then to become a future facing professional body in a really challenging time for members. This has been done in consultation with members, employers and key stakeholders. CILIP Council are committed to this change and to ensuring that there is an awareness of where the profession and the professional body are now, not focusing on the past.

CILIP staff, Council and activists will continue to work together to deliver this change through our new skills offer, increased advocacy profile, new website, and our policy and campaigning activity. The next year is going to see the launch of more developments in professional qualifications, including a Virtual Learning Environment and further online services, all focused on members needs where they are today and on promoting the value of what they do as widely as possible.”

On the vote of ‘no confidence’ in Ed Vaizey MP, John said, “We’ve all seen the pressure on public library services in England and we’re all extremely concerned by them. CILIP has identified through surveys the impact that budget reductions are having on staffing, opening hours and library service budgets – as well as building closures. We gave evidence to the Government’s Select Committee Enquiry on Library Closures. We continue to speak up for professionally delivered public library services in the media. We take a lead role with National Libraries Day, and many members get involved. We are supporting the Speak Up For Libraries coalition, whose members include Unison, Voices for the Library and the Library Campaign. We’re working with Arts Council England on the implications of Envisioning the Public Library of the Future.

We’re supporting public library practitioners through CILIP’s new Public and Mobile Libraries Group, led by practitioners in the public library sector. CILIP members and activists work hard together to promote the value that skilled staff bring to library and information services in all sectors. We want to ensure that the voice of the practitioners doing an excellent job under difficult circumstances is heard strongly. The funding environment is tough. New technology and changes to the way we all access information bring significant opportunities yet to be fully captured by public library providers. That means there’s never been a more important time for us to all advocate our value, and to develop and demonstrate our members’ skills, expertise and professionalism.”

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– See more at: http://www.cilip.org.uk/cilip/news/outcomes-cilip-agm#sthash.af9RKEHs.dpuf

BMJ signs cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabian government to improve healthcare across the region

September 20, 2013

BMJ, one of the world’s leading medical knowledge providers, is delighted to announce a new partnership with the Saudi Arabian government to help improve consistency in healthcare across the region.

BMJ CEO, Tim Brooks, today joined the Saudi Arabian Minster, Dr Mohammed Zamakhshary, to sign an Executive Agreement for Cooperation in Health Learning and Research between the Saudi government and the BMJ.

According to Naturoids, the ceremony took place at the Department of Health headquarters in London along with Under-Secretary of State for Health, Anna Soubry.

The partnership will involve BMJ’s expert teams working closely with the Saudi government to address key healthcare challenges through joint research and knowledge sharing.

The BMJ is a global provider of evidence-based medical knowledge through its online learning, decision support tools and journals. The flagship BMJ is one of the most respected general medical journals in the world with a weekly print circulation of 122,000 and 1.2 million monthly visitors to bmj.com.

“We look forward to working closely with the Saudi government to deliver bespoke solutions to some of the key healthcare challenges they face,” says Tim Brooks.

“Our extensive knowledge and experience working with governments around the world, including the UK NHS and the Ministry of Health in Brazil, make BMJ the perfect partner to drive the development of high quality, evidence-based healthcare in Saudi Arabia.”

Royal Society of Chemistry acquires MarinLit

September 20, 2013

David James, Executive Director of Strategic Innovation at the Royal Society of Chemistry, said: “We are delighted to announce that we have completed the acquisition of MarinLit.

“Over the last 25 years John Blunt, Murray Munro and their colleagues at the University of Canterbury have developed the leading marine natural product (MNP) database, a powerful tool in support of the varied areas of MNP research and we are very excited to welcome MarinLit into the Royal Society of Chemistry’s portfolio. It makes an excellent strategic fit with our current activities and natural product research.”

The combination of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s natural product content, such as the high impact journal Natural Product Reports, with MarinLit data will further advance the Royal Society of Chemistry’s mission to become the world’s leading chemistry community, helping the world’s researchers access the best chemical information and share the best ideas.

MarinLit addresses a rising challenge for MNP researchers; where is the best place to start your research search? The unique element of MarinLit is that in addition to the usual bibliographic data, the database contains an extensive collection of keywords, trivial names and compound information. All of these terms can be searched for either individually or in various combinations. This provides researchers with the ultimate destination to start their search for any marine natural product research.

Murray Munro, co-founder of MarinLit with John Blunt, said: “We have been on a great journey with MarinLit over the last 25 years. MarinLit has been a passion for us and we have endeavoured to make it the best possible database and research support tool for the MNP chemist.

“John and I both retired and came to the view that it is time for us to pass over the responsibility of MarinLit. A couple of years ago we were approached by the Royal Society of Chemistry – knowing their strengths in developing web-based knowledge delivery systems, we became very comfortable with the prospect of them taking over responsibility for MarinLit.

“We started off distributing the data in MarinLit on floppy discs, we moved to CD Roms and now it is all done by the cloud! Technology has evolved at warp speed but the quality of data held in MarinLit stayed the same, world leading, making it the ultimate destination for researchers to start their search for any marine natural product research.”

David James added: “We are looking forward to working with John and Murray to manage this transition and continue to develop MarinLit’s future. We will continue to support and enhance MarinLit, our first development will be to produce a web based version, which will be ready in early 2014.

“MarinLit has gone from the floppy disc to the cloud and from one partnership to another.”

Thomson Reuters Reveals New Strategies for Navigating Big Data in the Pharmaceutical Industry

September 20, 2013

The IP & Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today released Big Data and the Needs of the Pharma Industry, a whitepaper offering new strategies for managing Big Data, most specifically by using an array of technologies to convert it into more meaningful, accessible Little Data. The paper highlights how the inherently data-driven pharmaceutical industry requires deep, broad information to feed drug R&D, but the way it processes Big Data is unique.

“The Big Data opportunity in pharma means linking a variety of content across silos,” said Tim Miller, vice president of Thomson Reuters Life Sciences. “Thomson Reuters is focused on making that content work at a human level, we use ontologies and analytics to turn Big Data into actionable Little Data.”

The whitepaper addresses the concept that innovation in information processing involves creating environments where data has a relevant and accessible flow. It requires the ability to break down the walls between internal, external, public and commercial content and give customers the tools they need to work across them. Solutions from Thomson Reuters, Accelrys, DataSift, Entagen, and GenoSpace shed light on the burgeoning business of converting Big Data into actionable Little Data.

Thomson Reuters Life Sciences analysts and experts explore the evolution of Big Data in pharma and the industry’s current needs. The findings are based on a recent Thomson Reuters survey conducted with a group of pharmaceutical IT experts to determine the challenges and opportunities Big Data presents. Respondents overwhelmingly agreed that drug discovery and market understanding were the two greatest opportunities for the industry. They also agreed that the biggest challenge of Big Data is its manageability and how to connect data from various internal and external places to feed the innovation process.

The whitepaper also includes perspectives of industry leaders who outline new problems and opportunities. They discuss how the use of Thomson Reuters ontologies can effectively convert vast amounts of data into smaller, meaningful content. For example, one organization with which the authors collaborated was DataSift, to analyze the use of social media for drug information sharing, enabling companies to find unmet needs, new adverse events and patient reaction information.

The increased focus on personalized medicine has presented its own obstacles regarding Big Data, as the amount of genomic information increases, along with the storage, management and security of the associated content. In the whitepaper, John Quackenbush, CEO of GenoSpace, an information architecture company focused on genomic medicine, discusses issues of concern in precision medicine and how the transformation of Big Data to Little Data plays a pivotal role in addressing them.

Read the whitepaper: Big Data and the Needs of the Pharma Industry.

Follow Cortellis (@Cortellis) on Twitter for the latest news in drug discovery, development, regulatory, commercialization, forecast and generics intelligence.

Numérique Premium launches customised ebook platform with Publishing Technology

September 20, 2013

Paris-based content aggregator Numérique Premium (a subsidiary of Nouveau Monde editions) has teamed up with Publishing Technology to launch a new, custom-built site for all its ebook content.

Now live on Publishing Technology’s pub2web platform, the Numérique Premium hub is the new home of all of the ebook specialist’s available content – over 1, 500 titles within 14 collections from 30 publishers by the end of 2013.

The revamped site, wholly functional in French and English, provides the academic research community with an improved, user-friendly online experience and advanced options for individual publisher and collection pages. The site also boasts superior and specialised search, browse, faceting and filtering options. Further benefits include:

· Preview features so users can make well-informed decisions prior to accessing ebooks

· Easy upload options, so the site can be updated with new publishers and titles in real time

· Citation service management including BibTEX, EndNote and RefWorks

· Statistical expertise and integrated analytics services

· Improved discoverability via improved site navigation and SEO

An influx of newly-available material will triple the number of publications available worldwide and agile technology now allows institutions to demand bespoke ebook compilations, making Numérique Premium the world-leading digital library of essential classics, monographs and reference works in French History and Social Sciences.

Yannick Dehée, President, Numérique Premium, commented: “In building a custom site for our unique ebook collection, Publishing Technology has provided exemplary service and rapid turnaround. The discoverability and user experience features of pub2web are ideal for our researchers, and the advanced options to personalise every aspect of the site will accommodate both new and existing institutional customers.”

George Lossius, CEO at Publishing Technology, said “We are excited to launch the Numérique Premium portal, our first pub2web site for an ebook specialist. Our platform provided for a smooth migration with immediate benefits and the ability to unify multiple types of content, which is especially important for content aggregators like Numérique Premium.”

Papers 3: Revolutionary research management upgraded

September 19, 2013

Springer Science+Business Media is pleased to announce the release of Papers 3: a completely redesigned version of Papers, the software that revolutionizes how you manage your research and work documents. In addition to a newly designed Papers 3 for Mac, Papers 3 for iOS brings a full workflow solution to mobile devices. Accompanying these two new products, Papers for Windows has been updated to synchronize with iPad and iPhone as well, allowing for portability across all three platforms.

As our body of knowledge grows, discovering content relevant to your field of research and communicating science can be more complex. Papers provides powerful tools to address not only content organization, but also discovery. It is an award-winning and unique workflow solution for your desktop or iOS enabled mobile device (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch). It allows users to find articles using any of its 25+ built-in search engines, import and organize articles and documents according to their preferences, read and annotate articles, enter and format citations in over 600 styles and a wide range of applications such as emails and PowerPoint files, and share articles via social media. This full workplace package supports every step of the research process and makes it stand out from the competition.

Papers is already popular at major institutions and corporations, and is now available as an institutional version, featuring valuable administrator tools. The latest version includes Paper 3 for Mac that has a workflow to help better organize your personal library of research, Dropbox syncing across multiple devices and social media integration. The iOS app has these features alongside added capabilities such as a PDF reader that allows you to highlight and take notes right in your PDF files, search text within the PDF, navigate through the content using your annotations, assign keywords, labels, and organize in collections. Papers 3 is more powerful than ever at extracting meta data for your resources, effortlessly completing the important information for your library entries.

To find out more about Papers visit the website (http://papersapp.com) where you can watch videos which introduce you to the desktop and iOS version of Papers.

Ian Hames Joins Credo as Director of International Sales

September 19, 2013

Credo, the industry leader for information skills solutions, today announced that Ian Hames has joined the team as Director of International Sales. He will help the company realize its mission to give all individuals the information skills required for lifelong success by bringing its Literati and Online Reference Service solutions to new customers worldwide.

“At Credo, our ambition to support the library industry drives our everyday activities,” said Mike Sweet, Credo CEO. “This requires a strong team of like-minded individuals; just as our on-staff librarians and educators are key to these goals, we look for passionate sales and management team members, as well. With over 20 years of sales experience and extensive knowledge of the international publishing sector, Ian is a welcome addition to the team. We look forward to leveraging his expertise to support our growing list of customers worldwide.

“I’ve followed Credo since its beginning as a UK-based reference database,” said Ian. “I’ve been particularly intrigued by Credo’s evolution into a company that focuses on knowledge building, problem solving and critical thinking. Though information skills have no boundaries, not every library industry company focuses so intently on helping libraries and their users thrive. I’m thrilled to join this impressive movement.”

Ian’s background in senior sales management includes positions with Ovid, Oxford University Press, Ingram Digital, ebrary and most recently OATS. He is a Modern Languages and Politics graduate from Sheffield City Polytechnic and holds an MBA from Manchester Business School, both in the UK. Based in the United Kingdom, Ian will report to Mike Sweet.

Maney to publish one of the oldest and most respected Belgian medical journals

September 19, 2013

Maney Publishing is pleased to confirm a new partnership with the Belgian Society of Internal Medicine, the Belgian Society for Clinical Biology and the Royal Belgian Society of Clinical Chemistry to publish Acta Clinica Belgica: International Journal of Clinical and Laboratory Medicine from 2014. The journal is in its 68^th year and publishes bimonthly.

Acta Clinica Belgica publishes papers on clinical medicine, clinical chemistry, pathology, and molecular biology. Readership includes physicians, pathologists, pharmacists and physicians working in non-academic and academic hospitals, practicing internal medicine and its subspecialties.

The journal will continue to be edited by Norbert Lameire, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the Medical Faculty of Ghent University, who has served as Editor for the last 16 years. The journal will use Maney’s online submission and peer review system (Editorial Manager) which will enhance the experience of publication for authors, reduce publication times and administration for the editorial staff, and stimulate the submission of more papers for the journal.

Professor Lameire and the President of the Belgian Society of Internal Medicine, Dr. G Moorkens, comment on the new publishing arrangements: “We are very pleased that Acta Clinica Belgica will be published by Maney from 2014. Maney works closely and creatively with professional societies throughout the world, and we admire its expertise and commitment to publishing high quality medical research. Its international reach, online publishing technologies, and experience in the publishing of peer-reviewed journals in healthcare will undoubtedly benefit our journal.”

Mark Simon, Maney’s Publishing Director, welcomes the new partnership: “Acta Clinica Belgica is a very welcome addition to our portfolio of healthcare journals. We look forward to building on its key feature of combining clinical and laboratory medicine which is now being emphasised in its new subtitle. As with all our new journals, we hope to take Acta Clinica Belgica to the next level of international dissemination, online usage, and citation. In the immediate future, it will benefit from Maney Online, the new online platform that we are launching later this year.”

For further information visit www.maneypublishing.com/journals/acb

Cogent – New Open Access publisher aims to build more connected communities

September 18, 2013

Cogent OA – an innovative new Open Access publisher – launched today. Cogent OA is backed by Taylor & Francis Group – a major global publisher with over 200 years experience.

Cogent OA brings a new impetus to Open Access publishing – building on established processes that the research community values, but adding new ideas to create more connected content and communities.

“Open Access is well established in many disciplines now,” said Bryan Vickery, Director at Cogent OA, “and the debate is really accelerating Open Access in the Social Sciences and Humanities”.

Cogent OA will publish original research in diverse fields by creating a series of publications, launching late 2013. Initial titles include:

Cogent Behavioral Sciences
Cogent Biology
Cogent Engineering
Cogent Education
Cogent Arts & Humanities
Cogent Medicine
Cogent Physics

“We’re developing a series of Open Access publications, with authors at the heart of everything we do, to demonstrate the connections both within and across subject areas. We’re excited about the opportunities of building on this open content to enhance article reach and impact. That’s why we’ve launched Cogent OA – to spearhead the next wave of developments in scholarly communications and create interactive and engaged communities around research content,” said Vickery.

Each Cogent OA title will offer the highest standards of peer review and online presentation. Every article published will be immediately made freely available online, with publication costs covered by an article publishing charge. Cogent OA’s publications are just the beginning – Innovative new services will follow to help join together research ideas, aid discoverability and inspire authors and readers to find unexpected connections.

As part of the Taylor & Francis Group, Cogent OA benefits from the resources and experiences of a major publisher, but otherwise operates autonomously.

“We have assembled a strong independently minded team for the launch of Cogent OA and are providing them with the support and infrastructure they need to re-think Open Access publishing” commented Ian Bannerman, Managing Director of the Journal Division at Taylor & Francis. “This bold initiative will both complement and invigorate the existing strengths of Taylor & Francis Group and I am excited about where this might take us.”

CogentOA.com

ProQuest Named in 2013 InformationWeek 500

September 17, 2013

Ann Arbor-based ProQuest is making its fifth consecutive appearance in the InformationWeek 500, an annual listing of the nation’s most innovative users of business technology. ProQuest is best known for its creation of information and technology solutions that support research. InformationWeek is a premier source of news and analysis of leading-edge products and vendors in the business IT industry. Its InformationWeek 500 list is considered unique among industry rankings for its spotlight on the power of innovation in information technology.

Highlighted in ProQuest’s submission is the company’s revival of the iconic Dialog® corporate information service, making its rich, unique content – about a billion digital documents – accessible for the first time to researchers of all skill levels. Dialog was the world’s first commercial online information service, launched decades in advance of the Internet. Despite its storied past, the service’s search technology was left unchanged during the information revolution. Searching Dialog content required advanced techniques and intensive tutoring, leaving its unique combination of highly sought and informative data inaccessible to a generation of users raised on Google. ProQuest acquired Dialog, invested in its rebirth and delivered a completely rebuilt and widely acclaimed service earlier this year. Now called ProQuest Dialog, it is an intuitive, robust information service that supports businesses that rely on intensive, thorough information searches, such as STM, legal and patent, and pharmaceuticals firms.

“This recognition reinforces our commitment to continuously evolving, challenging the status quo, and taking risks to deliver outstanding research solutions to our customers,” said Rich Belanger, ProQuest CIO. “Innovation is one of the values that defines ProQuest as a company so it is particularly gratifying to be highly ranked among our peers. We take great pride in this honor.”

“The theme of this year’s InformationWeek 500 is digital business. It’s a movement, rooted in data analytics, mobile computing, social networking, and other customer‐focused technologies that are turning companies and industries on their ear,” said InformationWeek Editor In Chief Rob Preston. “Every enterprise is now a digital business—or needs to become one fast. The organizations in our ranking are leading the way.”

InformationWeek identifies and honors the most innovative users of information technology in the U.S. with its annual InformationWeek 500 listing, and also tracks the technology, strategies, investments, and administrative practices of some of the best‐known organizations in the country. Past overall winners include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, PACCAR Inc., The Vanguard Group, CME Group, National Semiconductor, Con‐Way, and Principal Financial Group. Unique among corporate rankings, the InformationWeek 500 spotlights the power of innovation in information technology.

To learn more about ProQuest, visit www.proquest.com. Additional details on the InformationWeek 500 can be found online at www.informationweek.com/iw500/.

Government mistaken in focusing on Gold as route to full open access, says Committee

September 17, 2013

The Government’s commitment to increasing access to published research findings, and its desire to achieve full open access, are welcome, says the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee in a Report published today. However, whilst Gold open access is a desirable ultimate goal, focusing on it during the transition to a fully open access world is a mistake, says the Report.

The Report calls on the Government and RCUK to reconsider their preference for Gold open access during the five year transition period, and give due regard to the evidence of the vital role that Green open access and repositories have to play as the UK moves towards full open access.

The Report recommends that:

The Government take an active role in promoting standardisation and compliance across subject and institutional repositories [paragraph 25]
RCUK reinstate and strengthen the immediate deposit mandate in its original policy and improve the monitoring and enforcement of mandated deposit [paragraph 31]
The Government and RCUK revise their policies to place an upper limit of 6 month embargoes on STEM subject research and up to 12 month embargoes for HASS subject research [paragraph 50]
The Government mitigate against the impact on universities of paying Article Processing Charges out of their own reserves [paragraph 64]
If the preference for Gold is maintained, the Government and RCUK should amend their policies so that APCs are only paid to publishers of pure Gold rather than hybrid journals to eliminate the risk of double-dipping [paragraph 77]

Commenting on the Report, Adrian Bailey MP, Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, said:

“In a fully open access world, the benefits of Gold open access may well outweigh those of Green open access. We are not yet in an open access world, however, and the key to the success of open access policy is how we get there.

The Government and RCUK have given insufficient consideration to the transitional period and the vital role of the Green route.

The evidence suggests that the cost of unilaterally adopting Gold open access during a transition period are much higher than those of Green open access.

Current UK open access policy risks incentivising publishers to introduce or increase embargo periods. On the other hand, we saw no evidence that short embargo periods harm subscription publishers.

At a time when the budgets of universities are under great pressure, it is unacceptable that the Government has issued an open access policy that will require considerable subsidy from research budgets in order to both maintain journal subscriptions and cover article processing charges.

It became increasingly evident during the course of our inquiry that some elements of the scholarly publishing market are dysfunctional. The Government’s open access policy risks making the situation worse, causing longer embargoes, restricting access, and inflicting higher costs on UK higher education institutions.”

Amongst the Reports other conclusions and recommendations are:

The Government should work to introduce a reduced VAT rate for e-journals. We do not accept that the Government has done enough to date and urge it to seek a derogation on this point [paragraph 79]
Non-disclosure clauses should not be used in publishing contracts that include the use of public funds. If their use persists, the Government should refer the matter to the Competition Commission [paragraph 80]
BIS must review its consultation processes to ensure that lessons are learned from the lack of involvement of businesses, particularly SMEs, in the formation of open access policy [paragraph 91]

Adrian Bailey said:

The estimated economic benefits of full open access are substantial – the Government has estimated that lack of access to research costs UK Small and Medium Enterprises alone €525m per year. We are not convinced, however, that the Government is doing everything it can to encourage a functional open access market.

The fact that VAT currently applies to e-journals but not to print journals creates a clear disincentive for online access. The Government does not consider it worthwhile to pursue a reduction in VAT with the European Commission. We disagree and urge it to do more.

Non-disclosure clauses severely limit the negotiating power of universities over subscriptions costs. If dialogue does not resolve the problem, the Government should refer the matter to the Competition Commission.

Given the benefits to business of open access, the lack of involvement of the broader business community and particularly SMEs, in the formation of open access policy is regrettable. Lessons must be learned so that this does not happen for future policies.”

EBSCO Releases Two Audiobook Subscription Collections

September 17, 2013

EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) has released two new subscription collections: Audiobook Premier Collection™ and Audiobook Youth Collection™. EBSCO’s audiobook subscription collections allow libraries to subscribe to a growing collection of audiobooks for an annual fee with additional titles added regularly at no additional cost.

These latest audiobook collections from EBSCO include unabridged fiction and non-fiction content from more than 27 leading audio publishers. Titles are delivered to users on an unlimited simultaneous access model.

Audiobook Premier Collection

Audiobook Premier Collection includes nearly 4,000 titles geared toward libraries looking to expand their adult collection. Titles cover a broad range of subject matter to meet various research needs and to provide a broad selection of content for leisure reading. Topics covered in the collection include history, business & economics, religion, psychology, self-help and health & fitness.

Audiobook Youth Collection

Audiobook Youth Collection includes more than 400 titles for children and young adult readers. The titles in this collection are primarily fiction and cover a variety of topics and genres from adventure to mystery, and folklore to science & nature. The collection also includes a selection of Spanish-language titles.

All titles are Apple-device compatible and downloadable to a variety of devices. Users also have the ability to search alongside other EBSCOhost^® content adding magazines, journals and other EBSCOhost resources to their results.

More information about the audiobook collections and other e-book collections available from EBSCO is available at: www.ebscohost.com/ebooks.