New & Noteworthy

Article Type: New & Noteworthy From: Library Hi Tech News, Volume 31, Issue 2

NMC Horizon Report>2014 higher education edition

The New Media Consortium (NMC) and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) jointly released the NMC Horizon Report>2014 Higher Education Edition at a special session at the ELI Annual Meeting 2014. This 11th edition describes annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, an ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in education. Six key trends, six significant challenges, and six emerging technologies are identified across three adoption horizons over the next one to five years, giving campus leaders and practitioners a valuable guide for strategic technology planning. The format of the report is new this year, providing these leaders with more in-depth insight into how the trends and challenges are accelerating and impeding the adoption of educational technology, along with their implications for policy, leadership and practice.

“Campus leaders and practitioners across the world use the report as a springboard for discussion around important trends and challenges,” says Larry Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of the NMC:

Understanding how to better incorporate online learning in face-to-face settings will be critical over the next year, along with the notion that higher education institutions need to define policies around social media use to maximize the potential of these platforms for teaching and learning.

This year’s NMC Horizon Report identifies the Integration of Online, Hybrid, and Collaborative Learning and the Growing Ubiquity of Social Media as fast trends driving changes in higher education over the next one to two years. The Shift from Students as Consumers to Students as Creators and the Rise of Data-Driven Learning and Assessment are mid-range trends expected to accelerate technology use in the next three to five years; and Agile Approaches to Change and the Evolution of Online Learning are long-range trends, positioned at more than five years away.

A number of challenges are acknowledged for presenting barriers to the mainstream use of technology in higher education. Low Digital Fluency of Faculty and Relative Lack of Rewards for Teaching are perceived as solvable challenges – those which we both understand and know how to solve. Competition from New Models of Education and Scaling Teaching Innovations are considered difficult challenges, which are defined as well understood but with solutions that are elusive. Described as wicked challenges are Expanding Access and Keeping Education Relevant, which are complex to define, much less address.

Additionally, the report identifies Flipped Classroom and Learning Analytics as technologies expected to enter mainstream use in the first horizon of one year or less. 3D Printing and Games and Gamification are seen in the second horizon of two to three years; Quantified Self and Virtual Assistants are seen emerging in the third horizon of four to five years.

The subject matter in this report was identified through a qualitative research process designed and conducted by the NMC that engages an international body of experts in education, technology, business, and other fields around a set of research questions designed to surface significant trends and challenges and to identify emerging technologies with a strong likelihood of adoption in higher education. The NMC Horizon Report>2014 Higher Education Edition details the areas in which these experts were in strong agreement.

“With its 2014 edition, the Horizon Report for higher education has taken some important evolutionary steps,” says ELI Director Malcolm Brown:

The report now embeds the six technologies more explicitly in the overall context of higher education, with its expanded section on trends and challenges. The report has always assisted the community in making decisions about technology directions, but now the trends and challenges sections provide additional resources for campus discussions and decision making.

The NMC Horizon Report>2014 Higher Education Edition is available online, free of charge, and is released under a Creative Commons license to facilitate its widespread use, easy duplication, and broad distribution.

View/download the report: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2014-nmc-horizon-report-he-EN.pdf

Research data management, internet identity, library brand recognition: videos from CNI Fall 2013 Meeting

Videos of plenary and project briefing sessions from the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) Fall 2013 membership meeting, held December 9-10, 2013 in Washington, DC, are available from the CNI web site. Among the videos now available.

“A Changing Landscape: Federal Mandates for Public Access to Scholarship, Transitions of Stewardship and Distributed Factual Biography”, the opening plenary by CNI director Clifford Lynch. In this talk, Clifford looks back on the events of 2013, and he discusses CNI’s program for the coming year.

“Digital Natives or Digital Naives? The Role of Skill in Internet Use”, the closing plenary session by Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University. The growing diffusion of information technologies influences people’s life chances and raises questions as to their ability to appropriate digital media for their empowerment. Based on original data, the talk considers disparities in people’s Web use skills and how skills relate to what people do online.

“Internet Identity Update: From Social to Scholar”, a project briefing session from Kenneth Klingenstein (Internet 2). This presentation provides an update on internet identity and its interactions with the research and evaluation community. Several key developments are shared, including Social-to-SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) gateways, scholarly identity, federal initiatives such as National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC), application categories such as research and scholarship, privacy managers, international collaboration platforms, and other topics of interest to the CNI community.

“Library Brand Recognition: Generating Visibility in the Virtual Age”, a project briefing session by Jeremy Frumkin (U. Arizona), Pascal Calarco (U. Waterloo), Oren Beit-Arie (Ex Libris). The library is often an invisible facilitator to digital content: users have access to certain resources thanks to the library’s mediation, but they are often unaware of the library’s key procurement role. The University of Waterloo and Ex Libris are piloting a new approach that enables libraries to brand electronic information resources (articles) to which they broker access. The solution is based on research conducted at the University of Arizona and Oregon State University. This presentation describes the general context and need for libraries to better reflect their value to their users, the proposed solution and branding approach, and the current state of the pilot and initial findings from the University of Waterloo.

“Institutional Research Data Management: Policies, Planning, Services & Surveys”, a project briefing session featuring discussion of university-wide data policy planning by Ricky Erway of OCLC Research, and a presentation by David Fearon (Johns Hopkins U.), and Andrew Sallans (Center for Open Science) on conducting a survey and producing a report on research data management services offered by ARL-member research libraries.

These videos and more from the Fall 2013 Membership Meeting are available at: http://www.cni.org/events/membership-meetings/past-meetings/fall-2013/

IFLA statement on libraries and text and data mining

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has announced the publication of a Statement on Libraries and text and data mining (TDM). The IFLA Governing Board approved the statement on December 4, 2013.

There are vast amounts of information and data being generated every day through government, academic, economic and social activities. TDM has emerged as a significant tool to assist individuals and institutions identify patterns, trends and anomalies in data, and to develop new efficiencies and forms of knowledge.

Because the technological process of TDM involves copying of works in order to extract information from them, TDM is coming into conflict with copyright laws in many parts of the world. In 2011, the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth in the UK recommended the adoption of a copyright exception to facilitate TDM, and highlighted significant benefits offered by text mining and analytics to support innovation and the development of new knowledge.

IFLA believes that legal certainty for TDM can only be achieved by (statutory) exceptions. As an organization committed to the principle of freedom of access to information, and the belief that information should be utilised without restriction in ways vital to the educational and cultural well-being of communities, IFLA believes TDM to be an essential tool to the advancement of learning, and new forms of creation.

The IFLA Statement on TDM is particularly timely. On December 5, 2013, the European Commission announced its public consultation on modernization of copyright rules. Whether TDM should be facilitated by an exception is one question contained within that consultation.

Read/download the statement on libraries and TDM: http://www.ifla.org/publications/ifla-statement-on-text-and-data-mining-2013

4C project submits two major deliverables to the European Commission

The 4C project – Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation – seeks to help organisations across Europe to better understand the costs and benefits that accrue from digital curation and preservation. Ultimately, the project’s results will put organisations in a position to invest more effectively in digital curation and preservation activities. The resulting project will help organisations across Europe to invest more effectively in digital curation and preservation activities by helping them to understand the costs and the benefits that accrue.

In early February, the 4C project submitted two of the project’s deliverables to the European Commission. Deliverable 2.6, Report on Communications Activities, is a review of communications activities over the first 12 month period with a tactical look forward across months 12 through 24.

“As a co-ordinated support action the project relies on effective engagement with stakeholders for the development of useful useable resources which will help clarify the cost of digital curation,” explains Sarah Norris, author of the report and Communications Officer for the 4C Project and DPC:

We are currently tracking over 300 contacts with whom 4C has engaged, so the report is showing a good level of interest and engagement in the project and its deliverables. There is always room for more people to get involved though!

Web statistics show that followers of the project are particularly interested in the new resources coming out of the project, which may be used to support their own digital curation projects. This was especially evidenced by the response to the upload of D3.1 – Evaluation of Cost Models and Needs & Gaps Analysis (MS12 Draft) on the 4C Project web site, which demonstrates an enormous appetite for information in this area. The project team will use these responses, as well as focused consultations to help drive the project and shape its outputs.

The finalised Deliverable D3.1, Evaluation of Cost Models and Needs & Gaps Analysis, had previously been released in draft as project milestone MS12. The report elicited the largest number of page views and downloads of all web site deliverables to date, as the project team invited consideration and comment.

The evaluation provides an analysis of existing research related to the economics of digital curation and reports upon the investigation of how well current cost and benefit models meet stakeholders’ needs for calculating and comparing financial information. “We have aimed to point out gaps that need to be bridged between the capabilities of currently available models and tools, and stakeholders’ needs for financial information,” explains Task Leader Ulla Bøgvad Kejser of the KB, the Royal Library Denmark:

These needs have been used to inform an analysis of the previously identified models as well as actions which, if practical and possible, may support the uptake and inform further development of cost benefit models within the digital curation field.

“The report is an important milestone for the 4C Project,” says Project Coordinator Neil Grindley of Jisc:

Drawing from a vast canon of earlier work into curation cost modelling, it embodies the very co-ordination and support action the project aims to provide, as well as informing so many of the activities we have still to complete. We hope that this analysis will be a useful resource for the project and for the community.

The consortium undertaking the 4C Project is made up of 13 European organisations with extensive domain expertise and experience with curation cost modelling issues. The project team includes national libraries and archives, specialist preservation and curation membership organisations, service providers, research departments and SMEs and is coordinated by Jisc.

The full report may be found at in the 4C Project web site’s “Community Resources” Section: http://www.4cproject.eu/community-resources/outputs-and-deliverables

Participants sought for SCAPE survey on preservation monitoring

The Scalable Preservation Environments (SCAPE) Project has launched a new web based consultation and is seeking survey participants to help understand preservation events, threats and opportunities. The survey on preservation monitoring has 30 short questions which should take about 10 minutes to complete.

“Anyone willing to preserve digital content will be aware of events that might constitute a relevant risk. In SCAPE we are developing tools that will allow you to detect risks before they cause any irreversible damage,” explains Luis Faria who is leading the consultation:

We are looking for digital content owners to participate in our online consultation and help us develop tools that would help you to automatically detect problems with your own content, and events that might put it at risk.

The SCAPE project is developing scalable services for planning and execution of institutional preservation strategies on an open source platform that orchestrates semi-automated workflows for large-scale, heterogeneous collections of complex digital objects. SCAPE will enhance the state of the art of digital preservation in three ways: by developing infrastructure and tools for scalable preservation actions; by providing a framework for automated, quality-assured preservation workflows and by integrating these components with a policy-based preservation planning and watch system. These concrete project results will be validated within three large-scale Test beds from diverse application areas.

Anyone interested in preservation of digital content is encouraged to the part of the project and participate now!

Take the survey: http://survey.scape-project.eu/index.php/862812/lang-en

SCAPE home: http://www.scape-project.eu/

Benefits and risks of the PDF/A-3 file format for archival institutions: new report from NDSA

The National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) Standards and Practices Working Group has announced the release of a new NDSA report, “The Benefits and Risks of the PDF/A-3 File Format for Archival Institutions.” This report is the latest in a series of NDSA publications and activities that provide insight on a range of digital stewardship issues.

While a PDF/A-3 file’s primary document is intended to be robust against preservation risks over the very long term, PDF/A-3 does not require that the embedded files be considered archival content, creating a series of potential technical and policy challenges for preserving institutions. The NDSA Standards and Practices Working Group clearly recognized these challenges and felt the community would benefit from an examination of the format and what it means for collecting institutions.

The report, created by a subgroup of the Standards and Practices Working Group, takes a measured look at the costs and benefits of the widespread use of the PDF/A-3 format, especially as it affects content arriving in collecting institutions. It provides background on the technical development of the specification, identifies specific scenarios under which the format might be used and suggests policy prescriptions for collecting institutions to consider.

View/download the report at: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsa/working_groups/documents/NDSA_PDF_A3_report_final022014.pdf

More information is available on the Signal digital preservation blog: http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2014/02/new-ndsa-report-the-benefits-and-risks-of-the-pdfa-3-file-format-for-archival-institutions/

Europeana releases new version of Europeana open culture app

Europeana, Europe’s digital library, museum and archive, has launched the second version of its free app. “Europeana Open Culture” introduces the public to hand-picked and beautiful collections from 17 of Europe’s top institutions, and allows people to explore, share, download and comment on them. The app is now available for all Apple and Android tablet devices.

Developed by Glimworm, the app provides an easy introduction to the breadth of Europe’s treasures through carefully curated themes: Maps and Plans, Treasures of Art, Treasures of Nature, and Images of the Past. The new version includes over 350,000 images.

Europeana Open Culture presents stunning visual collections from Europeana with large images – great for those smaller details – and a “comment” option that opens up the possibility for dialogue between many people exploring the same images. What’s more, customers can download any item and use it for their own purposes – perhaps as a screensaver, for school work or their own creative activities. They can also link the items to other online resources like Wikipedia for more context and richer information.

Jill Cousins, Europeana Executive Director says:

The response to Europeana Open Culture has been great. The app was downloaded thousands of times and was one of the top free educational apps. We’ve listened to the feedback from our first customers and added new content, new functionality and of course, made the app available for all Android and all Apple tablets.

The 350,000 images available through the app come from collections as diverse as the Estonian Museum of Geology, the Rijksmuseum in The Netherlands and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, UK.

Once the app has been downloaded, users can start exploring by entering a keyword or selecting one of the themes. Tapping a thumbnail brings the image up in full resolution with the options to add and read comments, download images and connect the image to other relevant pages on the web. Users can also add the image to their favourites to create a personal museum, as well as share them on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest.

All images included are either in the public domain or are openly licensed which means they can be used for any purpose, such as a school project, a student thesis, a presentation to a local history society, or on blogs, Wikipedia, or even commercially. What’s more, the code behind the app is open source so developers can get hold of it, use it and experiment with it. Those interested in the code can check the Github repository and provide their feedback to http://api@europeana.eu

Europeana Open Culture on Github: http://https://github.com/europeana/openculture/wiki

Download the app from iTunes: http://bit.ly/140onjg

Download the app from Google Play: http://bit.ly/LMr6YR

Wellcome library’s digital player now freely available

The Wellcome Library’s innovative digital player, the piece of software that is used to “play” digitised content, is now freely available for anyone to download and use.

Developed by Digirati, a design, integration and engineering consultancy, the player can be used to display all types of digital content, including cover-to-cover books, archives, works of art, videos and audio files.

The player responds intelligently to the type of item being viewed. If a digital book is opened, the user can navigate by a thumbnail image of each page, or select a chapter or section of the book, or sometimes multiple volumes. If a video is opened, the option to see thumbnails is replaced by the functionality to pause and scroll through the film.

One of the real strengths of the player is the ability to zoom in on images. This applies to all image content, but works especially well on paintings, posters and other pieces of art. The player also allows users to download items, bookmark images for later and embed the player on users’ web sites. The software been optimised for mobile devices.

Commenting on the release of the player software, Robert Kiley, Head of Digital Services at the Wellcome Library, said:

I am delighted that we have been able to share our player. The player provides a consistent, easy-to-use and enjoyable user experience and by encouraging others to build upon it I hope that it will become the de facto open-source tool for delivering digital content across the cultural heritage sector and beyond.

Tom Crane, Technical Developer at Digirati, added:

We built the player to fit the systems of the Welcome Library and in doing so have built a tool that anyone could adapt to their own organisation’s needs. However, this is just the start. We’re hoping that others will extend the player further, providing modules to play even more types of content.

The software, released under the MIT Open Source licence, can be downloaded from the Wellcome Library GitHub account. From this site users will also be able to download the source code for the Library’s timeline application.

More details about the player on the Wellcome Library blog: http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2014/02/open-sourcing-the-library/

Wellcome Library Github account: http://https://github.com/wellcomelibrary/player

VuFind Version 2.2 released

Version 2.2 of the VuFind Open Source discovery software has recently been released. This new release adds several new features as well as further improving the stability and flexibility of the software.

Some key additions:

* new themes using the Bootstrap framework to add responsive design features;

* expanded faceting functionality, which allows users to filter data in more complex ways;

* incorporation of schema.org microdata to improve search engine optimization;

* a tag management module for administrators; and

* improved authentication options, including Central Authentication Service (CAS) support and the ability to allow users to choose from multiple authentication systems.

Additionally, several bug fixes and minor improvements have been incorporated.

Questions about the new release or VuFind in general can be directed to Demian Katz, the lead developer of the project at Villanova University (http://demian.katz@villanova.edu). The software and its documentation may be found at: http://vufind.org

OCLC introduces WorldCat discovery services, new cloud-based applications suite

OCLC is introducing WorldCat Discovery Services, a new suite of cloud-based applications that brings together the FirstSearch and WorldCat Local services. Set to launch in March, the new suite will enable discovery of more than 1.3 billion electronic, digital and physical resources in libraries around the world through a single search of both WorldCat and a central index that represents nearly 2,000 e-content collections. This will make it possible for more than 18,000 FirstSearch libraries to offer a richer discovery experience.

WorldCat Discovery Services will offer library users and staff access to rich, global bibliographic content available only through WorldCat. A central index will enable information seekers from mutually subscribing libraries to search authoritative sources from providers such as EBSCO, Gale and ProQuest. Direct link resolution from citations to full-text resources will be available for libraries with holdings in WorldCat and the WorldCat knowledge base. Resources not available electronically can be delivered through integrated interlibrary loan.

WorldCat Discovery Services will be available to FirstSearch users in March as part of existing subscriptions. FirstSearch will operate in parallel during a year-long transition so libraries can choose when to move to the new service.

New features for FirstSearch subscribers include access to the central index that represents more than a billion articles, e-books and other e-content; a new user interface that adapts automatically to mobile devices; and the ability to manage access to digital collections.

Additional new features provided for libraries that maintain up-to-date holdings in the WorldCat database include direct links to full-text resources to which they subscribe, a built-in A to Z list, and their library’s resources listed first in search results. Libraries that maintain holdings in WorldCat will also continue to benefit from increased visibility of their resources through search engines and other popular web sites where research often begins.

The WorldCat Discovery Services suite also offers subscribers several optional features for a fee, such as real-time availability, group view of available resources, management of course reserves or reading lists, or customized traffic and usage reports.

“WorldCat Discovery Services is an important advancement for our loyal FirstSearch users,” said Andrew K. Pace, Executive Director, OCLC Networked Library Services:

This new suite has been developed and refined based on input and feedback from a 30-member Advisory Group and more than 650 FirstSearch beta test libraries around the world over the past 18 months.

WorldCat Local libraries will also move to WorldCat Discovery Services over the next 18 months. The transition will begin in April with a beta period when WorldCat Local subscribers can begin using the new services and plan transition activities.

WorldCat Discovery Services is OCLC’s second cloud suite. WorldShare Management Services, released in 2011, is a cloud suite of library management applications that is helping libraries reduce library management costs, streamline workflows, and improve access to their collections and services. There are currently more than 180 libraries using WorldShare Management Services and 100 more libraries and library groups in implementation.

More about the new WorldCat Discovery Services suite is on the OCLC web site: http://www.oclc.org/go/en/worldcat-discovery.html

Tablet and E-reader ownership rising: update from pew internet project

A January 2014 survey by the Pew Research Internet Project finds the proportion of Americans who read e-books is growing, but few have completely replaced print books for electronic versions.

The percentage of adults who read an e-book in the past year has risen to 28 percent, up from 23 percent at the end of 2012. At the same time, about seven in ten Americans reported reading a book in print, up four percentage points after a slight dip in 2012, and 14 percent of adults listened to an audiobook.

Though e-books are rising in popularity, print remains the foundation of Americans’ reading habits. Most people who read e-books also read print books, and just 4 percent of readers are “e-book only.” Audiobook listeners have the most diverse reading habits overall, while fewer print readers consume books in other formats.

Overall, 76 percent of adults read a book in some format over the previous 12 months. The typical American adult read or listened to five books in the past year, and the average for all adults was 12 books. Neither the mean nor median number of books read has changed significantly over the past few years.

The January 2014 survey, conducted just after the 2013 holiday gift-giving season, produced evidence that e-book reading devices are spreading through the population. Some 42 percent of adults now own tablet computers, up from 34 percent in September. And the number of adults who own an e-book reading device like a Kindle or Nook reader jumped from 24 percent in September to 32 percent after the holidays.

Overall, 50 percent of Americans now have a dedicated handheld device – either a tablet computer like an iPad, or an e-reader such as a Kindle or Nook – for reading e-content. That figure has grown from 43 percent of adults who had either of those devices in September.

Read/download the full report: http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/01/16/e-reading-rises-as-device-ownership-jumps/

Knowledge unlatched: enabling open access for scholarly books

Knowledge Unlatched has announced the launch of its Pilot Collection, the first step in creating a sustainable route to open access for large numbers of scholarly books. Knowledge Unlatched is a collaborative, not-for-profit initiative based in London. By working with libraries, publishers, researcher funders, and foundations, Knowledge Unlatched seeks to make scholarly books freely available to readers on an open access license, while retaining the best aspects of the existing publishing system. The initiative enables libraries to work together to reach a sustainable open future for specialist academic books.

If at least 200 libraries from around the world sign up for the pilot collection by February 28, 2014, 28 new Humanities and Social Sciences books will be made free for anyone in the world to read on an Open Access basis.

The Knowledge Unlatched Pilot Collection includes 28 new books from 13 recognized scholarly publishers: Amsterdam University Press, Bloomsbury Academic, Brill, Cambridge University Press, De Gruyter, Duke University Press, Edinburgh University Press, Liverpool University Press, Manchester University Press, Purdue University Press, Rutgers University Press, Temple University Press and University of Michigan Press.

Knowledge Unlatched is inviting libraries to pledge a capped maximum of US$1,680 to “unlatch” the collection. This works out to an average of US$60 for each book. If more than 200 libraries sign up for the collection, the amount paid by each library will be adjusted down. For example, if 300 libraries sign up the average for each book becomes just US$40.

The Knowledge Unlatched model is based on libraries from around the world sharing the payment of a single “Title Fee” to publishers, in return for books being made available as a fully downloadable PDF via OAPEN on a CC-BY-NC or CC-BY-NC-ND license immediately upon publication. Because the Title Fee is a fixed amount, as more libraries participate, the per-library cost of “unlatching” each title declines.

Publishers have agreed to recognize additional format purchases by participating libraries as a contribution towards the cost of unlatching the Collection.

Libraries that participate in the pilot will receive a Knowledge Unlatched membership fee waiver until January 2016, usage data on the collection, and will have the right to participate in Knowledge Unlatched governance through a Collections Committee and a Library Steering Committee.

Knowledge Unlatched is also planning to establish a joint forum that brings together libraries and publishers in early 2014.

Libraries can pledge their interest at: http://collections.knowledgeunlatched.org/

The collection can be viewed at: http://collections.knowledgeunlatched.org/collection-participate-1/

In related news, Knowledge Unlatched and Portico have entered into an agreement to preserve Knowledge Unlatched’s Pilot Collection of Open Access e-books in the Portico Archive.

“Portico is excited to partner with Knowledge Unlatched for its Pilot,” stated Kate Wittenberg, Managing Director, Portico. “I am pleased that preservation is a critical part of this initiative and that we are able to provide an important service.”

“We want to assure libraries that this content will be available to researchers and students for the long term,” stated Frances Pinter, Executive Director, Knowledge Unlatched. “To that end, we are delighted to offer preservation of these books in Portico.”

More information at: http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/

Libraries and publishers collaborate on Project Euclid site redesign

Project Euclid is a not-for-profit online publishing service that provides access to journals, monographs, and conference proceedings in the fields of theoretical and applied mathematics and statistics. Its mission is to advance scholarly communication in these fields and it is designed to address the unique needs of low-cost independent and society journals. Through a collaborative partnership arrangement, these publishers join forces and participate in an online presence with advanced functionality, without sacrificing their intellectual or economic independence or commitment to low subscription prices. Full-text searching, reference linking, interoperability through the Open Archives Initiative, and long-term retention of data are all important components of the project. The end result is a vibrant online information community for independent and society journals.

In January 2014 Project Euclid announced the launch of a fully redesigned platform at projecteuclid.org. Its new web site is uniquely designed to meet the research needs of mathematicians and statisticians, and it combines rich functionality with a beautiful, easy-to-use interface. New features include improved searching, citation exports, publisher landing pages, mobile optimization, print-on-demand purchasing, customized e-mail alerts, and access indicators for all content.

“We wanted to create a more engaging and robust user experience without losing the clean aesthetic and straightforward usability Project Euclid is known for,” says Steve Cohn, director of Duke University Press. “We are absolutely delighted by the results and pleased at how well Cornell University Library and Duke University Press worked together to redesign and further improve Project Euclid.”

The new site implements a powerful new faceted search tool that allows users to navigate over 1.7 million pages of scholarship more efficiently. By applying filters to search results, users can progressively refine their searches, focusing on the content most related to their subject areas. Additionally, users can sign up to receive e-mail alerts when new scholarship is published in their areas of interest.

“It has been especially rewarding to see how recent library research into the search and discovery experience has contributed to the new Project Euclid web site,” says Anne R. Kenney, Cornell’s Carl A. Kroch University Librarian. “The new platform is a wonderful example of libraries and publishers leveraging their respective strengths to build effective tools for scholars.”

The Project Euclid redesign meets the changing needs of researchers, who now confront an overload of content on multiple devices. The new site makes it easier to find and access high-quality, curated scholarship, and its responsive design optimizes the site for working and reading on mobile devices. Symbols and formulas are rendered beautifully with MathJax, an open-source JavaScript display engine for mathematics, and users can quickly and easily export or download citations to e-mail or reference management systems.

Project Euclid home: http://projecteuclid.org/

More on the Project Euclid site design: http://projecteuclid.org/help

Weave: journal of library user experience issues call for papers

Weave is a peer-reviewed, open access, web-based publication featuring articles on user experience design for librarians and professionals in related fields. The Weave editorial board consists of recognized experts in the field of library UX, and Weave’s editorial philosophy is to strive for a balance between theoretical and practical topics.

As the importance of digital services begins to rival that of collections, library user experience is taking a more central role than ever. While new jobs are being created for User Experience librarians and some departments are being renamed “User Experience” teams, there is still no comprehensive, rigorous publication for library UX professionals to share with and learn from their colleagues. Weave is intended to fill that gap. Weave helps practitioners and theorists come together to make libraries better.

The editors of Weave are looking for two kinds of work:

1. Full length, scholarly articles of relevance to UX in libraries. Weave is interested in publishing innovative and cutting edge research, practical applications and their implications, and ideas and speculation about future directions for UX. Interested writers should review the instructions for authors (http://ojs.scholarlypublishing.org/index.php/weave/about/submissions#authorGuidelines) before submitting articles online.

2. The Dialog Box, a new kind of review section. Weave’s Dialog Box aims to extend beyond the traditional book review section and feature critical dialog not only with books but with other media that set the boundaries of library user experience. Because Weave aims to encourage creativity, the submission requirements are flexible. But all Dialog Box features will start from and engage an existing “artifact” relevant to library UX. Interested writers should review the Dialog Box submission requirements (http://ojs.scholarlypublishing.org/index.php/weave/about/submissions#dialogbox) before sending pitches to http://dialogs@weaveux.org

Unless otherwise noted, all content in Weave UX is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) in order to allow for the greatest possible dissemination of our authors’ work. If this license would prevent you from publishing in Weave, then please contact the editors at: http://hello@weaveux.org

Weave: http://weaveux.org/