The IP & Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced the expansion of the  Book Citation Index^SM through partnerships with top publishers such as Elsevier, Johns Hopkins University Press and the University of Chicago Press. These publishers, among others, will greatly enhance available content in the Index by adding 10,000 books in 2013, increasing the total to nearly 50,000 books from a variety of commercial, non-profit and university presses worldwide.

The Book Citation Index, available on the world’s premier resource for integrated, multidisciplinary citation research, Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge^SM, connects a library’s most impactful books in its collection to powerful new discovery tools, enabling researchers to quickly and easily identify and access the most relevant books in their field. The Index helps users seamlessly search across books, journals and conference proceedings, to discover potential collaborators and glean useful information.

This significant expansion provides greater visibility to authors making meaningful contributions to their fields and enables scholars to navigate from a new starting point. Researchers will now have a richer, expanded view of research within the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Over the course of 2013, users will gain access to nearly 50,000 books and 1 million chapters linked to related journal articles and proceedings indexed within the Web of Knowledge.

Elsevier, Johns Hopkins University Press, University of Chicago Press, Brill, University of Illinois Press, McGill Queens University Press and the International Monetary Fund will join more than 100 publishers that currently provide content for the Book Citation Index.

Following are statements from some of the industry-leading publishers connected through the Book Citation Index:

·        “Inclusion in the Thomson Reuters Book Citation Index has helped put the unique content of Cambridge University Press further into the international perspective,” said Hannah Perrett, digital director, Academic Group at Cambridge University Press. “It is also an invaluable resource toward providing greater focus to the institutions represented by our team of skilled and knowledgeable authors and researchers.”

·        ‘“Scholarly books are an essential, vibrant part of the academic publishing landscape for humanities and social sciences, and we are proud to have worked with Thomson Reuters to include all our eligible titles from the launch of the Book Citation Index,’” said Alison Jones, digital publishing director, Palgrave Macmillan.  “We are committed to continuing and extending this partnership to ensure up-to-date, accurate information for scholars worldwide as the Index expands.”

·         “We’re happy to partner with Thomson Reuters on expanding this valuable resource to include Wiley Online Library’s online books,” said Antonia Seymour, vice president and director of Scientific, Technical, Medical and Scholarly Books at John Wiley & Sons. “The Book Citation Index will be instrumental in extending the works of our authors on a global scale. The body of academic literature is wide and growing, and it’s a great benefit to users to have a platform that streamlines the availability of Wiley’s high-quality book content.”

“We have been actively working to expand our content, based largely on feedback from our partners and clients, so we can provide researchers with the best resources for their research,” said Gordon Macomber, managing director of Scientific and Scholarly Research at Thomson Reuters. “The world of scholarly and scientific research is vast and varied. Researchers need a reliable tool that enables them to measure the contributions of books in their disciplines and identify collaborative opportunities as efficiently as possible. The addition of these top publishers will enhance those capabilities even further.”

Thomson Reuters Book Citation Index comprises scholarly books, both electronic and print, that present fully referenced articles of original research or reviews of the literature, and has been carefully selected based on well-defined criteria to offer the most significant literature in numerous languages.  Learn more information about the Book Citation Index.

OCLC has signed new agreements with leading publishers around the world to add more e-book metadata to WorldCat, the most comprehensive online database of resources available through libraries worldwide.

This new WorldCat metadata will be integrated into library management workflows using OCLC’s cataloging services and discoverable by users through a variety of library discovery services, including WorldCat Local and WorldCat.org.
“OCLC is always negotiating access to critical content on behalf of the cooperative to ensure access to libraries’ most popular resources,” said Chip Nilges, OCLC Vice President, Business Development. “Our goal is to help OCLC member libraries streamline their e-book workflows, from the identification and cataloging of materials, through circulation, access and de-accessioning of titles from their collections – regardless of their service provider.”
OCLC recently signed agreements with the following e-book providers to add new collections to WorldCat:

• Cambridge University Press, based in the United Kingdom, offers peer-reviewed publishing lists comprising over 45,000 titles that cover academic research and professional development. This list is growing at a rate of over 4,000 ISBNs every year and spans subjects from aesthetics to zoology.
• Chandos Publishing, based in the United Kingdom, is a publisher of library and information science, knowledge management and business information trends, comprising over 300 books. Chandos Publishing books provide the best source of authoritative information for library science and information management professionals and researchers worldwide. The e-book metadata from this publisher will also be made discoverable as a collection through WorldCat Local.
• Edward Elgar Publishing, Ltd., based in the United Kingdom, is a leading international publisher of academic books and journals in economics, finance, business and management, law, environment, public and social policy. The e-book metadata from this publisher will also be made discoverable as a collection through WorldCat Local.
• eLibros, based in Colombia, is a rapidly growing distributor of Spanish-language books to readers all over the world. The subject areas range from literary fiction, tales and novels and books from contemporary Hispanic-American authors, to immortal works from classic authors.
• McGill-Queens University Press, based in Canada, offers more than 2,800 books in print including numerous award-winners and best-sellers. McGill-Queens University Press’ goal is to produce rigorously edited, beautifully produced, intelligent, interesting books.
• Momentum Press, based in the United States, was founded in 2007 and provides the very best information and knowledge on today’s advancements in science, engineering and applied technology.
• Slipdown Mountain Publications, based in the United States, publishes fiction and nonfiction books; their focus is on serving public libraries.
• Society of Exploration Geophysicists, based in the United States, is a not-for-profit organization that promotes the science of applied geophysics and the education of geophysicists.
• Woodhead Publishing Limited, based in the United Kingdom, is an independent international publishing company that covers the areas of food science; technology and nutrition; materials and engineering; textile technology; energy and environmental technology; finance, commodities and investment; mathematics; and biomedicine. The e-book metadata from this publisher will also be made discoverable as a collection through WorldCat Local.
• World Scientific Publishing Co., based in Singapore, is one of the leading scientific publishers in the world, and the largest international scientific publisher in the Asia-Pacific region. World Scientific publishes about 500 new e-book titles per year. The e-book metadata from this publisher will also be made discoverable as a collection through WorldCat Local.

OCLC continues to add new journal, book, database and open access collections to WorldCat. WorldCat offers access to the collective resources of libraries worldwide, including print and electronic forms of books, journals and databases from a variety of publishers and other content providers from around the world; the digital collections of groups like HathiTrust and Google Books; and open access materials, such as the OAIster collection.

Oxford University Press (OUP) today announced it has acquired Nelson Thornes, extending OUP’s range of educational publishing.

OUP, which is a department of the University of Oxford, acquired the publisher from Infinitas Learning, one of Europe’s leading providers of products and services for teaching and learning, for an undisclosed sum.

Nelson Thornes covers a broad range of subject areas with its primary, secondary and vocational teaching resources. Its titles complement OUP’s existing educational publishing list for the UK and international markets, providing teachers and students with some of the highest quality resources in the market.

The company will initially operate as a stand-alone subsidiary of OUP, maintaining its existing branding, Cheltenham office, organization structure, and current staff base.

Richard Hodson, previously International Business Director for OUP’s UK schools and children’s division, has been named as the new Managing Director of Nelson Thornes, replacing Paul Howarth who is moving to a new role within Infinitas Learning.

Nigel Portwood, Chief Executive of Oxford University Press, said: “This is a very exciting moment for OUP. Nelson Thornes has built a wealth of excellent curriculum resources and has a talented and committed workforce. Providing teachers with a breadth of high quality materials and support is central to our educational work at OUP. I believe this acquisition will help us to support teachers in their classrooms to a greater degree than ever before.”

Clive Hay-Smith, Chief Executive, Infinitas Learning, said: “Under Infinitas Learning’s proven stewardship, Nelson Thornes has successfully built on its proud tradition of educational publishing excellence and recent innovation in digital learning and content. We are confident that under OUP’s ownership this exciting journey will continue, to the benefit of our employees, learners, teachers, and parents alike.”

The world of ed-tech is ramping up another notch, and getting a lot more open in the process: educational publishing giant Elsevieris in advanced talks to buy Mendeley, a London/New York-based provider of a platform for academics to share research and collaborate with each other via a social network. TechCrunch understands from sources close to the companies that the deal is underway and should close this quarter, possibly by the end of February — all things being equal — and will be in the region of $100 million. The news comes at a pretty busy time for Mendeley: it has also closed a recent round of funding — value undisclosed but thought to be under $10 million — with investors including Access Industries, Passion Capital, Tom Glocer(Ex-CEO Thomson Reuters), and UK-based Andurance Ventures.

Prior to today, the company had only publicly disclosed a raise of $2 million from Passion’s Stefan Glaenzer, Alex Zubillaga and Ambient Sound Investments.

Elsevier was contacted for comment and a spokesperson had this to say:

“Elsevier often looks at acquiring companies that could improve our customer offering and add value.  Some we end up acquiring, most we do not. In all cases, as I’m sure you understand it’s never good to address speculative questions, regardless if they’re on target or not, and we’ll take the same approach here.”

Mendeley, meanwhile, did not confirm nor deny the news: “We don’t comment on rumors,” Mendeley’s CEO and co-founder Victor Henning told TechCrunch.

TechCrunch also understands that there had been others approaching Mendeley, including Thompson Reuters and Nature Publishing, a division of Macmillan, owned by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group — “effectively, the other big players in the world that Mendeley is disrupting,” said TC’s source.

To continue reading the TechCrunch report click here

Expanded Partnership Will Provide a New Home for the e-Duke Books Scholarly Collection for a Seamless Research Experience across Books and Journals

Duke University Press and HighWire Press are pleased to announce a major expansion of their partnership to include the e-Duke Books Scholarly Collection. Beginning with the 2014 collection, e-Duke Books, an annual collection of at least 100 new electronic books published by Duke University Press as well as more than 1,500 backlist titles, will move to HighWire’s Open Platform and the newly developed Folio e-book solution.

With the launch of the e-Duke Books Scholarly Collection on HighWire, Duke University Press’s readers and library subscribers will benefit from HighWire’s long record of innovation and reliability. The integrated platform will connect users with content more effectively by incorporating searching across all of Duke’s publications—not only e-books but their highly ranked journals as well.

“HighWire has been a fabulous partner for us, ever since we moved our electronic journals in the humanities and social sciences, including the e-Duke Journals Scholarly Collections, to their platform in 2005,” said Steve Cohn, Director of Duke University Press. “Above all, we are very much looking forward to having our books and our journals on a single platform, where we can provide a seamless research experience to users and offer a variety of collections to libraries that include both book and journal content together. We think that’s the way the world of scholarly publishing needs to be moving, and we think HighWire will be the ideal collaborator for helping us move in that direction with integrity and creativity.”

Key features of the e-Duke Books collection on Folio will include a device-friendly reading experience, viewable in PDF and mobile-optimized e-reader formats; toll-free inter-content access to cited material also hosted by HighWire, including journal articles from Duke, Oxford University Press, and SAGE Publications; and increased content granularity for better discovery, sharing, and navigating.

“The HighWire Open Platform provides Duke University Press with flexible options to deliver reader experiences that are appropriate for their content,” said Tom Rump, Managing Director at HighWire. “Our e-book solutions enhance the versatility of the platform, offering Duke and others the opportunity to integrate their multiple content types – books, journals, figures, data, etc. – in one highly discoverable service.”

All e-Duke Books Scholarly Collection content will be available on the new platform in December 2013. The current 2013 collection will be unaffected by this change and will continue to be hosted by ebrary® through the end of this year. Throughout 2013, e-Duke Books customers will receive frequent communications to ensure a smooth and timely transition. Additional library transition resources, including a growing list of FAQs, are now available at dukeupress.edu/e-duke-books-platform-transition-resources.

For more information about the platform transition, please contact Duke University Press Customer Service at edukebooks@dukeupress.edu.