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Publishing Technology ends year with 50 new publisher contracts

Publishing Technology plc, the largest provider of software and services to the publishing industry, is finishing the year on a positive note by announcing its most successful year to date, having signed contracts with over 50 publishers.

The company closes the year in a strong position, welcoming several significant US academic publishers to its online custom hosting platform, pub2web, including: the American Institute of Physics (AIP), American Society of Microbiology (ASM) and United Nations Publications. Publishing Technology will produce the next generation Scitation site for AIP, work closely with ASM to create the largest resource of microbiology research online and build a custom site for the UN that will become home to 5,300 publications. In addition to this, a further 24 publishers are to host their journal-based content on ingentaconnect.

To accompany the significant gains made by the online division, Publishing Technology expanded into new geographical markets, rolling out its operations into India and launching into China, which culminated in a noteworthy partnership with the China National Publications Import and Export Corporation (CNPIEC). The enterprise side of the business secured new contracts with large and SME publishers alike, including SAGE, and the company’s sales and marketing consultancy, Publishers Communication Group (PCG), partnered with the likes of the Independent Scholarly Publishers Group (ISPG), Adam Matthew Group and American Psychiatric Publishing, taking its annual tally up to an impressive 16 new contracts signed.

George Lossius, CEO at Publishing Technology, commented: “We are delighted with the way the company has performed across every level of the business this year. We have grown our customer base considerably, particularly in the online arena, and as a result now have an increasingly impressive array of publishers on our roster.” He continued: “The company has sought new opportunities in growth markets across the globe and established key partnerships which are paying off as a result. We have many more exciting opportunities in the pipeline for 2012 so are very much looking forward to seeing what the New Year will bring.”

Publishing Technology to build new digital platform for the American Society for Microbiology

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and Publishing Technology plc (LSE: PTO) today announced a partnership to create a next-generation digital platform to host all of the organization’s published authoritative content online.

The new custom-built site, which will be developed on Publishing Technology’s pub2web platform, will house the largest single collection of microbiology research available, including ASM’s journal titles dating back to 1916, its news magazine Microbe, a rapidly expanding image library, 240 book titles and a range of individual reports, articles and videos – all in one single aggregated site.

By maximizing the digital opportunities available, ASM will be able to offer its community of scientists, clinicians, authors and librarians a flexible and user-friendly online experience via pub2web’s semantic technology offering tagging and faceted search. It will enable visitors to search, browse and discover ASM content quickly and effectively. ASM will in turn benefit from a more flexible and sophisticated platform that will allow it to experiment with new business models, new functionality and new formats of delivery.

ASM is a long-standing customer of Publishing Technology sales and marketing consulting firm Publishers Communication Group (PCG), who continue to provide sales representation for the Society’s diverse content around the world.  Additionally, the new ASM site design will be focus-group tested through PCG-conducted market research.

“This strategic partnership expands upon our established relationship with Publishers Communication Group and will completely revamp our online offerings,” said Dr. David Hooper, ASM President. “The new project promises to be cutting edge, allowing our stakeholders to access our entire library with ease.  We look forward to working closely with Publishing Technology to launch the site in the near future.”

”We are delighted to be working with ASM on this exciting project,” said George Lossius, CEO of Publishing Technology.  “By combining the strength of our pub2web platform with the expertise of our marketing and sales consultancy division PCG we are able to provide cutting edge technology plus practical guidance on forecasting content sales, the roll out of new business models and focus groups to ensure that the new platform is tailored to the needs of the microbiology community. With such a diverse range of content sources being made accessible, searchable and discoverable in one single place, the ASM website will become the new online home of all things microbiology.”

Emerald app makes thousands of research articles available on-the-go

Emerald Group Publishing, a leading publisher of global research, has announced the launch of the Emerald app. Providing access to almost 100,000 articles from Emerald journals, the Emerald App also allows users to synch their personal profiles for seamless research workflow and share results through social media for increased dissemination and impact. It is available now for free download from the Apple app store: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/emerald/id479491823?mt=8 

The intuitive interface of the Emerald App focuses on search and browse functions to enable research on-the-go. Subscribers can log into their personal profile to create reading lists, add articles to existing lists and share results with peers via the built-in social networking facilities, such as Twitter and Facebook. Full text is available for subscribed content in an easy-to-read PDF format.

Daniel Prendergast, Head of Digital at Emerald, comments: “This App is the latest in a series of developments, the aims of which are to improve ways of delivering access to research, build stronger communities around our subject areas, disseminate research and increase its impact.”

The Emerald App is optimized for iPad and compatible with iPhone and iPod touch. It requires iOS 3.0 or later.

Emerald is committed to improving ways of delivering access to research, and works with a range of partners to ensure compliance, discoverability and visibility. In June, Emerald introduced the EPUB format to enable users to access and download content via mobile devices.  It recently introduced its Spanish microsite, providing key messages in Spanish, and plans to add more languages in 2012.

For more information about the Emerald App, visit http://www.emeraldinsight.com/app/index.htm

Springer announces goal-directed competition for original applications using Springer APIs

Springer announces the Springer API (Application Programming Interface) Challenge 2.0, its second competition for original, non-commercial applications using its freely available metadata and content APIs. The Springer API Challenge 1.0 asked participants to develop applications that offer users new ways to find, visualize, and manipulate relevant data drawn from Springer’s large and growing content database. The Springer API Challenge 2.0 is a goal-directed competition to develop more specific solutions using the following APIs:

Springer Metadata API – Provides metadata for over five million online documents (e.g. journal articles, book chapters, protocols). The Challenge 2.0 goal: Develop an application that provides a novel search solution based on an analysis of trends in the metadata.

SpringerImages API – Provides images and related text for over 300,000 free images available on www.SpringerImages.com. The Challenge 2.0 goal: Develop an application that uses image recog-nition to analyze, compare, or search images.

SpringerOpen Access API – Provides metadata, full-text content, and images for over 80,000 open access articles from BioMed Central (www.biomedcentral.com) and SpringerOpen (www.springeropen.com) journals. The Challenge 2.0 goal: Develop an application that uses se-mantic modeling to interpret characteristics of individual full-text documents and/or to analyze relationships among full-text documents.

Mashups of Springer APIs with open sourced (and non-copyrighted) data are encouraged.

Participants may be individuals or teams of up to three members. They must register for a user account with Mashery, a provider of API management services, and apply to Springer for an API key. They are bound by the provisions of the official rules and the Springer API Terms of Use (available at http://dev.springer.com). The completed application must be submitted via email, including a brief description, an indication as to which goal is being addressed, and contact information to SpringerAPIChallenge@springer.com.

Entries must be submitted by 31 May 2012 and will be evaluated by an interdisciplinary panel of judges who will rank them on relevance to the stated goal, creativity and originality, user experience and design, and value and benefit. First, second, and third place winners will be awarded cash prizes of US$ 8,000, US$ 4,000 and US$ 2,000 respectively. The winners will be announced in June 2012.

Wolters Kluwer Health Acquires Leading Open Access STM Journal Publisher in India

Acquisition Gives Wolters Kluwer Health Strong Foothold in Open Access Publishing Business

Wolters Kluwer Health today announced that it has acquired Medknow PVT Ltd., a leading Scientific, Technical & Medical (STM) journal publishing operation headquartered in Mumbai, India and one of the largest open access publishers in the world. The acquisition expands Wolters Kluwer Health’s Medical Research business’ presence in key developing markets and supports its strategy to increase locally written content and incorporate more open access platforms into its business model. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Research is changing in the developing world with clinicians and researchers looking for more access to locally-written content that is peer-reviewed and accessible via open platforms,” said Karen Abramson, President & CEO, Wolters Kluwer Health, Medical Research. “Our acquisition of Medknow aligns with our strategy of continuing to invest in providing the latest, most trusted information to our customers around the world to help them fuel discoveries and enhance patient care.”

Founded in 1997, Medknow has a strong portfolio of more than 155 journals and offers much of its content electronically. The company has strong market share among journals published in India and also has a growing presence in Asia Pacific and the MEA region. In addition to its print and electronic journal content, the company provides an electronic peer-review system for authors and editors, ensuring high quality clinical research. The deal will enable Wolters Kluwer Health to accelerate advances in the open access arena. It also furthers the company’s growth strategy of continued investment in international expansion in key emerging markets across the globe.

For Wolters Kluwer Health customers, the deal means expanded access to medical content in more markets around the world. Medknow’s journals will join an extensive portfolio of nearly 300 practitioner journals, including those which are published by Wolters Kluwer Health’s Lippincott Williams & Wilkins brand and additional journals made available through our society partnerships. There will also be opportunities via Wolters Kluwer Health’s Ovid brand, which is the online source for the latest electronic research information used by the world’s leading universities, academic research libraries, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, among others.

RSC celebrates 170 years of publishing

The Royal Society of Chemistry celebrates 170 years of publishing today with the awarding of a Chemical Landmark plaque at the learned society’s office in Cambridge

The blue plaque will be placed outside the main entrance of Thomas Graham House at the Cambridge science park.

RSC Chief Executive Dr Robert Parker said: “This landmark acknowledges the huge and growing contribution of the RSC to the development of the scientific record for the chemical sciences. 170 years ago in 1841 we published our first 42 articles in the ‘Memoirs of the Chemical Society of London’.

“This year, the International Year of Chemistry, RSC journals will publish 20,419 articles, representing a significant proportion of the highest quality chemical science literature published today. This marks the growth in output of chemistry scholarship and the importance of the RSC in disseminating it, to advance the chemical sciences.”

RSC publishing continues to go from strength to strength. RSC journals’ average impact factor (IF) is 5.4 – over twice that of the average chemistry journal (2.54). 83% of RSC journals listed in the 2011 impact factors report have an IF above 3. No other publisher has such a large proportion of titles at this level.

Of the top 20 journals in the multidisciplinary chemistry category, 25% are from RSC Publishing.

Chemical Landmarks are the Royal Society of Chemistry’s official recognition of historical sites around the UK where important chemical breakthroughs have been made. They are an RSC initiative to commemorate, emphasise and awaken public interest in historic developments in the chemical sciences.

Sites that are awarded Chemical Landmark status have either played a major part in the development of chemical science or have seen a development of chemical science that has made a significant contribution to the health, wealth or quality of life of the nation.

Call for proposals: SPARC Open Access Meeting Innovation Fair

Proposals are now being invited for the SPARC 2012 Open Access Meeting Innovation Fair, where new technologies and strategies will be showcased in engaging, informative, rapid-fire presentations. The Innovation Fair is a highlight to the regular SPARC meeting, now set for the Kansas City Intercontinental Hotel, March 11 through 13, 2012.

The SPARC Open Access meeting expands on the popular SPARC Digital Repositories meetings, hosted biennially since 2004, and will provide a North American-based complement to the popular “Innovations in Scholarly Communication (OAI)” workshop held in Geneva in alternating years. The SPARC meeting will be a regular forum for a full discussion of Open Access as an emerging norm in research and scholarship, and will emphasize collaborative actions that stakeholders can take to effect positive change.

The Innovation Fair invites participants – librarians, technologists, research producers, research funders, publishers, and others – to present, in no more than two minutes, innovative or creative approaches to: use of open content, content discovery, value-added services, impact assessment, commercial and other innovation using open resources, and Open Access advocacy.

For details and to submit a proposal, visit http://www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/oa12. Submissions must be received no later than January 18, 2012.

The Innovation Fair will be held Monday, March 12, in conjunction with the conference-wide reception. Registration for the meeting is required to attend.

Register now. Early bird rates start at $265 for SPARC members and expire January 15, 2012.

Hotel reservations are available for the conference rate of $139 per night and must be made by February 17, 2012.

Sponsorships are available.

For more information, visit the meeting Web site at http://www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/oa12.

Elsevier acquires Ariadne Genomics

Elsevier announced today the acquisition of the business assets of Ariadne Genomics, a provider of pathway analysis tools and linguistic technologies for life science researchers. Ariadne will be integrated with Elsevier’s Corporate Markets division.

“Ariadne Genomics’ pathway analysis tools and linguistic technologies integrate research findings from across multiple content sources providing a deeper understanding of biological pathways and disease progression. These improve research outcomes and productivity for life science researchers by delivering new insights for potential interventions, therapies and cures,” said Alexander van Boetzelaer, Managing Director of Elsevier Corporate Markets. “Ariadne brings to Elsevier an information offering in the biology domain and a passionate and dedicated team of life science professionals. Ariadne’s team and offerings are a powerful complement to our chemistry, pre-clinical and clinical workflow solutions.”

Ariadne’s flagship product Pathway Studio is widely used by pharmaceutical, agriculture and academic institutions to provide molecular analyses of disease areas and disease progression. Pathway Studio is an integrated data mining and visualization solution that organizes relevant facts and relationships from large document collections of genes, proteins, cell processes and diseases. The tool, powered by Ariadne’s MedScan® technology, enables visualization of biological relationships spanning biomedical literature and supports the interpretation of experimental results utilizing domain-specific ontologies, taxonomies and dictionaries.

“As a customer of both providers, I am excited to learn that Ariadne Genomics and Elsevier have joined,” said Dr. Jonathan Usuka, Director of Global Business Planning at Celgene, a multinational biopharmaceutical company. “Pathway Studio provides essential support to our immunological studies. As part of Elsevier, there is the potential to deliver even more value to our researchers.”

Ariadne’s CEO, Ilya Mazo, said of the acquisition, “With our integration into Elsevier, we look forward to strengthening our ability to serve biological researchers in scientific communities through further development of Pathway Studio, fortified with Elsevier’s content, and complementing Elsevier’s leadership role across biomedical disciplines.”

Ariadne is headquartered in Rockville, Maryland. Financial details of the acquisition are not being disclosed.

BISG announces new Policy Statement on Best Practices for Identifying Digital Products

The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) announced today the publication of a new Policy Statement detailing best practices for assigning ISBNs to digital products. Developed over the past 18 months within BISG’s Identification Committee, BISG Policy Statement POL-1101 addresses the critical need to reduce product identification confusion in the market place in order to provide the best possible consumer-level purchasing experience.

BISG encourages all member companies and other industry stakeholders to download the Policy Statement online at http://www.bisg.org/what-we-do-cat-4-policy-statements.php and work toward adopting the suggested guidelines as soon as practical, with a target for new product introductions of no later than March 2012. The best practices are applicable to content intended for distribution to the general public in North America, but could be applied elsewhere as well.The Policy Statement has been endorsed by BookNet Canada, a not-for-profit agency dedicated to innovation in the Canadian book supply chain, the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), where content publishers, libraries, and software developers turn for information industry standards that allow them to work together, and IBPA, the Independent Book Publishers Association.

In the spring of 2010, BISG’s Identification Committee created a Working Group to research and gather data around the practice of assigning identifiers to digital content throughout the US supply chain. “The specific mandate of the Working Group was to gather a true picture of how the US book supply chain was handling ISBN assignments, and then formulate best practice recommendations based on this pragmatic understanding,” said Angela Bole, BISG’s Deputy Executive Director. “Around 60 unique individuals and 40 unique companies participated in the effort. It was a truly collaborative learning process.”

Noted Phil Madans, Director of Publishing Standards and Practices for Hachette Book Group and Chair of the Committee in charge of developing the Policy Statement, “It was quite a challenge to bring some measure of consistency and clarity to what our research revealed to be so chaotic and confused that some even reported thinking ISBN assignment should be optional–a ‘nice to have’. This, clearly, would not work.”

The full Policy Statement includes level-setting definitions for Physical Book, Digital Book and Consumer as well as general rules of ISBN assignment and particular best practices for identifying digital products in the supply network. In addition, the Statement includes eight examples intended to provide guidance on how to assign ISBNs to Digital Books in real life situations based on specific use cases.

“Thanks to the members of BISG’s Identification Committee, who gave generously of their time and expertise, we were able to deliver a set of practical recommendations supported by real world examples and applications,” said Mr. Madans. “As Digital Books are still evolving, we intend to continue to refine and supplement the recommendations over time, building up a practical, fluid guide to how Digital Books should be identified.”
 
The following excerpt starts on page 6 of the 12-page Policy Statement:

“Separate ISBNs should be assigned to all unique Digital Books for ordering, listing, delivery and sales tracking purposes. In general, there are three major factors that determine the need to assign unique ISBNs to Digital Books.

— Content
If two digital books are created, one an exact textual reproduction of a Physical Book and the other an enhanced version that includes video, audio, etc., then the two Digital Books are unique and different products, and each requires a unique ISBN.

— Format
If an EPUB format, a PDF format and a Mobi format (among others) are created, each format should be assigned a unique ISBN. This is similar to creating a hardcover and paperback edition of a Physical Book and should follow the same rules regarding ISBN assignment.

(Note: When the application of DRM software is part of the transaction with the Consumer (as frequently happens in the US) it does not constitute the creation of a new format as the term is being used in this Policy Statement. In this case, DRM is not a format: it is a wrapper around a product. An EPUB file with DRM software applied is still an EPUB file, a PDF file with DRM applied is still a PDF file. In this case, DRM is not part of the product, it is part of the transaction. An ISBN is a product identifier, not a transaction identifier.)

— Usage Rights
If a Digital Book is made available with different usage rights in different markets (e.g. adjusting the usage settings so that printing is allowed in the version going to the education market, but not in the version going to the retail market), each version should be assigned a unique ISBN.

(Note: As described in the note under ‘Format’ above, usage rights specifically applied to a publisher’s Digital Book using DRM software, such as Adobe Digital Editions or Apple FairPlay, as part of the transaction between the vendor and the Consumer does not fall into the above category and does not require the assignment of a unique ISBN.)”

MarkLogic Names John Shap as Executive Vice President of WorldWide Sales

MarkLogic Corporation, the company empowering organizations to make high stakes decisions on Big Data in real time, today announced that John Shap has joined the company as executive vice president of worldwide sales. In this role Shap will oversee MarkLogic’s global sales strategy and demand generation. Shap brings more than 25 years experience leading enterprise software companies and selling products and services to major corporations in retail, financial services, healthcare, media, retail, and other verticals. He has an exceptional and proven track record for sales growth, generating new business, opening new markets, and building strong, scalable teams in the U.S. and internationally.

“We are pleased to welcome someone of John’s caliber to MarkLogic where he will lead a team that is integral to our global sales expansion and growth,” said Ken Bado, president and CEO, MarkLogic. “As MarkLogic eyes opening up the Asia-Pacific market and further accelerating our growth in the U.S. and Europe, John gives us the necessary leadership to execute on all cylinders. He is a proven industry veteran and his arrival enhances not only our executive team, but our ability to capitalize on the incredible market opportunity in Big Data.”

Shap has held a number of executive leadership positions with companies that include Hyperion Solutions, Siebel Systems, SPSS Inc., and Chordiant Software. At SPSS (acquired by IBM), he was part of the team that drove top-line growth with a 5X increase in market capitalization. This increase was widely attributed to sales execution and operating efficiencies under Shap’s direction.

“I am joining MarkLogic at a very exciting time – right when the company has established itself as a market leader in Big Data Applications,” said Shap. “My job is to continue that leadership with an aggressive growth strategy in key markets worldwide. MarkLogic technology is revolutionizing the database industry – we offer a database capable of handling all data, at any volume, and in any structure. The prospect of working for such a forward-looking company with superior technology and hundreds of happy customers made the decision to join the MarkLogic team an easy one.”

Shap holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English from Northern Illinois University.

EBSCO Publishing and OpenEdition in deal to bring OA content in humanities and social sciences to EDS

Content from the French open access publishing platform openedition.org (OpenEdition) will be searchable through EBSCO Discovery Service™ from EBSCO Publishing. OpenEdition is made up of three community publishing platforms dedicated to the humanities and social sciences. The complementary platforms represent a complete electronic publishing system dedicated to promoting research and open access publishing of tens of thousands of scientific papers.
OpenEdition is an initiative of the Centre for open electronic publishing—Centre pour ľédition électronique ouverte (Cléo)—based in Marseille, Paris and Lisbon, Portugal. Cléo is a laboratory involving the CNRS (the National Centre for Science Research), the University of Provence, the EHESS (the Graduate School of Social Sciences) and the University of Avignon. OpenEdition is the umbrella portal for Revues.org, Hypotheses.org and Calenda.
  • Revues.org is a Web platform for more than 300 journals and book series in the humanities and social sciences that is open to publishers, research units and organizations looking to publish quality full-text material online.
  • Calenda is the largest European scientific calendar for the humanities and social sciences. Published since 2000, Calenda includes announcements of nearly 16,000 scientific events.
  • Hypotheses.org  is a platform hosting more than 200 scholarly blogs. The research blogs offer a quick and easy way to report research—a blog-like way to chronicle the work on a given topic.

OpenEdition joins a growing list of publishers and other content partners that are taking part in EDS to bring more visibility to their content. Partners include the world’s largest scholarly journal & book publishers including Elsevier, Wiley Blackwell, Springer Science & Business Media, Taylor & Francis Informa, Sage Publications, and thousands of others. Partners also include content providers, such as LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters (Web of Science), JSTOR, ARTstor, Credo Reference, Oxford University Press, World Book, ABC-CLIO, and many others.

The EDS Base Index represents content from approximately 20,000 providers (and growing) in addition to metadata from another 70,000 book publishers, representing far more content providers and publishers than any other discovery service.
EBSCO Discovery Service creates a unified, customized index of an institution’s information resources, and an easy, yet powerful means of accessing all of that content from a single search box—searching made even more powerful because of the quality of metadata and depth and breadth of coverage.
EBSCO Discovery Service is quickly becoming the discovery selection for many libraries (www.ebscohost.com/discovery/eds-news), and an obvious partner for content providers. Because the service builds on the foundation provided by the EBSCOhost® platform, libraries gain a full user experience for discovering their collections/OPAC—which is not typical in the discovery space. Further still, in the many universities and other libraries where EBSCOhost is the most-used platform for premium research, users are not asked to change their pathways or habits for searching. There’s simply more to discover on the familiar EBSCOhost platform, and the same can be said for library administrators who can leverage their previous work with EBSCOadmin™.

Kindle Direct Publishing now available for the Amazon.es Kindle Store

Amazon.es today announced that authors and publishers are now able to make their books available in the Amazon.es Kindle Store (www.amazon.es/kindle) using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) (http://kdp.amazon.es). Authors and publishers can utilize the new Spanish-language KDP website to make their books available in Spain and more than 100 countries worldwide, while continuing to own the rights to their books. The popular 70% royalty option, which allows independent authors and publishers worldwide to make more money on books sold to Kindle customers in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Austria, France and Italy, is now also available for books sold in Spain.

Kindle Direct Publishing is a fast, free and easy way for authors and publishers to make their books available to Kindle customers in Spain and around the world via Kindle and on free Kindle reading apps for iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac and Android-based devices. The new Spanish-language KDP website is also a convenient way for authors and publishers in many Latin American countries to publish their books to Kindle.

Award-winning author and journalist Rosa Montero will offer three books exclusively in the Spanish Kindle Store, which were published using KDP: “La vida desnuda,” “Entrevistas” and “Lo mejor de Rosa Montero.”

“E-books and direct online sales by writers are revolutionary,” said Rosa Montero. “Programs like KDP, where I’m publishing three titles, allows everyone — beginners or famous writers — to publish under the same conditions, quickly and with control of their work. It also subverts the rules that dictate a book must sink without a trace in two months. It’s almost a miracle.”

“Authors and publishers can now reach more readers by using Kindle Direct Publishing to make their books available to customers in the new Amazon.es Kindle Store, as well as customers all over the world,” said Gordon Willoughby, Director, EU Kindle. “Authors in many countries have already seen tremendous success with KDP and we’re excited to bring the program to Spanish authors and publishers.”

The Amazon.es Kindle Store also launched today, offering customers a vast selection of over 22,000 Spanish-language Kindle books, including the most best sellers in Spain with 20 of the Top 30 El Cultural fiction and non-fiction best sellers, the largest selection of digital Catalan, Basque and Galician books — and over a thousand free classics in Spanish.

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