New & noteworthy
SPARC Video Contest Showcases Student Views on Information Sharing
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) announced in June 2007 the first SPARC Discovery Awards, a contest that will recognize the best new short videos illustrating the importance of sharing information and ideas. The contest encourages new voices to join the public discussion of information policy in the age of the internet. SPARC expects to sponsor the Discovery Awards annually, as a means of supporting public discussion of critical information issues. The 2007 contest theme is "MindMashup."Mashup is an expression referring to a song, video, Web site or software application that combines content from more than one source.
Contestants are asked to submit videos of 2 min or less that imaginatively show the benefits of bringing down barriers to the free exchange of information. While designed for adoption as a college or high school class assignment, the SPARC Discovery Awards are open to anyone over the age of 13. Submissions will be accepted beginning in mid-July and must be received by 2 December 2007. Winners will be announced in January 2008.
The Winner will receive a cash prize of $1,000 along with a "Sparky Award." Two Runners Up will each receive $500 plus a personalized award certificate. At the discretion of the judges, additional Special Merit Awards may be designated. All the award-winning videos will be publicly screened during the January 2008 American Library Association Midwinter Conference in Philadelphia.
"The YouTube generation has a critical stake in how information can be used and shared on the internet," said SPARC Executive Director Heather Joseph. "The SPARC Discovery Awards provide an outlet for their views and an opportunity for the rest of us to understand their perspectives. We hope these videos will help spark an expanded, informed, and energetic discussion."
SPARC Discovery Awards: www.sparkyawards.org/
SPARC website: www.arl.org/sparc/
LibGuides and LibMarks: Web 2.0 for Library 2.0
Springshare is a new company whose mission is to develop practical,affordable, and useful web 2.0 applications built specifically for libraries and educational institutions. Two current products offered by Springshare are LibMarks, a social bookmarking and tagging application, and LibGuides, a web 2.0 publishing system designed for libraries.
LibMarks is a social bookmarking and tagging application designed for libraries. The system promotes user access to library resources by enabling them to tag and bookmark items from the library catalog, online databases, and the internet. Users can save all their bookmarks online, share lists and links with others, research topics of interest, and discover new and interesting resources available at the library and beyond. The online bookmarks manager enables users to store bookmarks and access them from any computer, any time. The benefits to the user are clear, and the library benefits by increasing user satisfaction,and by adding another information-centric, web 2.0 services to its online offerings. In addition, saving and tagging the library links (catalog items,databases, etc.) increases and encourages their use.
LibGuides is a web 2.0 publishing system that combines the best features of social networks, wikis, bookmarks and blogs into one package designed specifically for libraries. The system helps librarians publish and share information online, while highlighting and promoting library resources and services to the community. Libraries that subscribe to LibGuides get a customized system just for their institution. Then the librarians create content, on any topic, which they can publish and share with others. LibGuides can contain any type of content, including documents, links, podcasts, RSS feeds, videos, etc. Users can participate in interactive polls, rate the links and resources, and post comments. LibGuides is fully integrated with Facebook,and it features widgets – flash components that can be placed inside any page with a simple tag – which enable the distribution of library content and services on social networks, blogs, and courseware applications.
Slaven Zivkovic, an entrepreneur with a history of library innovations,founded Springshare. Zivkovic is a co-founder of Docutek Information Systems,which created the industry's first electronic reserve system, ERes, an also led the development of one of the first virtual reference systems, VRLplus.
Readex Goes Library 2.0 with Crossroads
Readex, a leading publisher of online historical collections, announced in June 2007 that it would release Crossroads: A Community for Students, Teachers and Scholars in December 2007. Utilizing Web 2.0 techniques, this new online service will allow users to organize historical materials, tag and annotate documents and share ideas through commentary and discussion. Offering a host of social bookmarking tools, Crossroads will let users build customized content subsets, comment on primary documents, create hyperlinks to other materials and engage with colleagues around the world.
"By bringing 21st-century tools to the study of the past, Crossroads will help students, teachers and scholars collaborate in revolutionary ways,"said Michelle Harper, Readex Director of Product Management. "Users'annotations will bring valuable context to primary documents, and document tagging will allow online historical materials to be uniquely searchable,rediscovered and shared."
Readex, a division of NewsBank, inc., has established a leadership position among publishers by creating the digital Archive of Americana, a family of online collections that provides in-depth access to the history, culture and daily life of the United States over more than three centuries. The Archive of Americana features over 1,300 newspaper titles from all 50 states, more than 100,000 books, broadsides and pamphlets, essential collections of US government publications and more. Allowing cross-collection searching, the Archive of Americana offers fully searchable facsimile images, authority-based indexing,bibliographic records and PDF images that can be downloaded and printed.
Readex website: www.newsbankonline.com/readex/
Ingram Digital Group Announces New Service, New Alliance
MyiLibrary and NRC-CISTI Launch New eBook Loans Service
The National Research Council Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI) and MyiLibrary, a leading eBook aggregator, have partnered to launch an innovative new service called eBook Loans, an electronic twist on the traditional library-interlending model. eBook Loans offer instant access to tens of thousands of electronic books from major scholarly publishers,including Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Blackwell and Springer.
Libraries in particular will benefit from the service by reducing the costs associated with processing interlibrary loans, as well as tracking, receiving and returning loaned material. In addition, publishers will benefit from a new channel to market their content, while users gain instant access to the eBook they require. Each loan costs $25, payable online using a credit card. Users are given access to an eBook for 30 days through a URL received in an e-mail immediately after payment has been received. There is no need to return a borrowed eBook because the link expires automatically, and there is no need to worry about lost or damaged books.
To see the new service in action, visit the CISTI Catalogue at http://cat.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/searchand select the "MyiLibrary eBook Loans" link. All MyiLibrary eBooks in the NRC-CISTI Catalogue will display a "Borrow this eBook" button in the detailed record. This button links to the MyiLibrary site, where first-time users will be asked to register.
MyiLibrary, an Ingram Digital Group company, is a global provider of digital content accession, storage, management and delivery services to publishers and other content owners. MyiLibrary specializes in the production of technology solutions for the distribution and hosting of electronic books, journals and other content. MyiLibrary provides e-Book titles from academic, commercial, and governmental publishers throughout the world.
MyiLibrary website: www.myilibrary.com
Ingram Digital Group Announces Alliance with Microsoft Corporation
Ingram Digital Group announced in June 2007 the conclusion of an outsource alliance agreement with Microsoft Corp. where Ingram Digital will provide high-volume scanning and digital file management services for books being uploaded into the newly expanded Live Search Books service. Under the terms of the agreement, Ingram Digital will act as an outsource partner for book scanning, content acquisition, metadata management and ongoing account management for publishers participating in the program. Ingram's services to Microsoft will include the scanning and digitizing of print book content submitted for inclusion in Live Search Books, as well as the management of digital files delivered by participating publishers. In addition to the services being provided to Live Search Books participants, Ingram Digital will also be offering publishers the option of accessing the print and digital distribution capabilities available through the Ingram companies.
James Gray, President and CEO of Ingram Digital Group, commented: "We are not only facilitating the search and discovery of valued book content within Live Search, but our agreement means we can also provide publishers with the option to provide distribution and monetization opportunities through other channels including our own print on demand services from Lightning Source, and our e-book delivery options through Ingram Digital, MyiLibrary and Vital Source Technologies. We plan to expand our offering to include integration with our digital asset management service, CoreSource, in the near future."
Ingram Digital Group is an operating division of Ingram Industries Inc. and provides publishers and other content owners with a comprehensive offering of digital content accession, storage, management and distribution services. Ingram Digital Group along with its group companies MyiLibrary and Vital Source Technologies provides a full-service array of digital solutions and support. The Ingram companies – Ingram Digital, Ingram Book Group and Lightning Source Inc. – provide a broad range of physical and digital services to the industry.
Ingram Digital Group: www.ingram digital.com/
Microsoft Live Search Books: http://books.live.com/
New Digital Resource Sharing Service Lets Libraries Add Free Download Media
A new Web 2.0 program that allows public libraries to publish and share for free digital video, audio books, eBooks, and music with other libraries was demonstrated at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. in June. The first of its kind, OverDrive Community Reserve is a shared collection of locally produced digital content available to thousands of libraries worldwide that are part of the OverDrive network.
Libraries with permissions to digital book, audio, or video content can upload titles for download lending to their local patrons, and now can share the materials with library users worldwide. For example, the Rochester (MN) Public Library received a grant to produce a video to orient and educate Somali immigrants to the features and services of a public library. Now the video has been added to Community Reserve and is available for download as part of their local OverDrive catalog, and is available free for lending by more than 5,000 libraries around the world.
"Adding digital media from OverDrive's Community Reserve to our collection was fast and easy, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to offer more quality download titles for free," said Cynthia Orr, Collection Development Manager for Cleveland Public Library. To see how the Cleveland Public Library is offering these titles please visit: http://dlc.clevnet.org/Community.
"Community Reserve is a great way to get our local institutions and the public involved with the library," said Kim Edson, Head of Readers Services at Rochester Public Library. "In addition to the Somali library video, we sponsored a local youth film contest and posted the top three student films on Community Reserve," she added. These student videos are now available for download by Rochester Public Library patrons at: http://digital.rochesterpubliclibrary.org/Community.
OverDrive is working with metropolitan libraries to upload eBooks, music, and video including author programs, self-help materials, and music from local bands to be added to Community Reserve. OverDrive, through its web-based Digital Library Reserve platform, offers more than 100,000 download popular digital audio book, eBook, music, video, and (coming soon) games & interactive software titles.
Google Books Project Continues to Gain Partners
The national 12-university consortium called the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) announced in early June 2007 a collective agreement to digitize select collections across all its libraries, up to 10 million volumes,as part of the Google Book Search project. The CIC is a consortium of 12 research universities including University of Chicago, University of Illinois,Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Google will have the opportunity to scan some of the most distinctive collections from the CIC's holdings, now over 75 million volumes. The collections are comprehensive and global in scope, such as Northwestern's Africana collection and the University of Chicago's renowned South Asia holdings. The collective library holdings also underscore the Midwest foundation of the CIC universities. Examples of these collections include the University of Minnesota's Scandinavian and forestry collections, Michigan State's extensive holdings in agriculture, Indiana University's folklore collection, and the history and culture of Chicago collection from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Through this agreement, Google will digitally scan and make searchable both public domain and in copyright materials in a manner consistent with copyright law. For books protected by copyright, a search will yield basic information(such as the book's title and author's name), and at most a few lines of text related to the search in addition to information about book purchase or lending. Public domain materials can be viewed, searched or downloaded for printing in their entirety from the Google site. Google will provide the CIC with a digital copy of the public domain materials that are targeted for this project.
Two CIC member universities have pre-existing digitization agreements with Google, the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The new CIC agreement does not affect or supersede those earlier agreements but will complement and extend the digitization already underway. As a part of the agreement, the consortium also will create a first-of-its-kind shared digital repository to collectively archive and manage the full content of public domain works digitized by Google that are held across the CIC libraries. The shared repository will give faculty and students convenient access to a large and diverse online library before housed in separate locations and connected only by online catalogs, inter-library loans policies and reciprocal borrowing agreements. This new collaboration will enable librarians to collectively archive materials over time, and allow scholars to access a vast array of material with searches customized for scholarly activity.
CIC website: www.cic.uiuc.edu/digitalbooks/
Partnership Contributes to New Model for Digital Scholarship
BookSurge, an Amazon group and leader in Print on Demand services, and Kirtas Technologies, a leader in high-quality non-destructive book digitization announced in June 2007 collaboration with universities and public libraries to preserve thousands of rare and inaccessible books from their collections and distribute them via BookSurge's Print-on-Demand service. This collaboration,which will greatly enhance the selection of rare and historic books for sale on Amazon.com and other retail channels, represents a breakthrough approach to digitization and preservation that will ensure the public will have access to these works indefinitely via Print on Demand. This initiative will also help these institutions fund their mission of preserving these vast literary collections by offering revenue source from the sales of content these institutions own or that is in the public domain on Amazon.com. Kirtas will provide economical, nondestructive scanning technology. In addition to providing funding for their ongoing digitization efforts, this collaboration gives libraries and universities complete control over what is being scanned in their collections.
Emory University, University of Maine, Toronto Public Library, and Cincinnati Public Library are the first organizations to enter into agreements with Kirtas to make their rare-book collections available to a readership that extends far beyond their physical geographies to include an audience of millions of Amazon.com customers. This preservation effort is the only method that allows university and public libraries to preserve books and print them on demand as they are ordered. Participating institutions retain full control over what is digitized, so they now have an economical way to preserve, reproduce and distribute important works that may be disappearing from their shelves. Kirtas is helping to fund this preservation effort by discounting the costs associated with this program for select research universities and public libraries.
Print-on-demand books purchased by Amazon.com customers are available for shipping within hours after they are ordered. Customers who choose overnight shipping can receive their books the next day, often less than 24 h after the order was placed.
"We believe that mass digitization and print-on-demand publishing is an important new model for digital scholarship that is going to revolutionize the management of academic materials," said Martin Halbert, director for digital programs and systems at Emory's Robert W. Woodruff Library. "Information will no longer be lost in the mist of time when books go out of print. This is a way of opening up the past to the future."
Toronto Public Library, North America's largest library, plans to leverage Amazon.com's worldwide reach and Kirtas's unique technology to share historic Canadian material and thousands of other rare works. "This initiative creates an opportunity for libraries to preserve rare works and ensure they'll be available for generations to come," said Linda Mackenzie, director,Research and Reference Libraries, Toronto Public Library.
Kirtas Technologies: www.kirta stech.com/
DataShare Project to Demystify Data
EDINA, a JISC-funded national datacenter based at the Edinburgh University Data Library, is supporting DISC-UK (Data Information Specialists Committee), a national group of data librarians, with a new JISC-funded project called DataShare, exploring ways to help academics share their data over the internet.
Project members will work closely with staff involved with repository management and development at their own institutions to pilot models for depositing research data into institutional repositories. The project will help to demystify complex data in repositories, and assist institutions in overcoming barriers to incorporating research data.
The DataShare project is based on a distributed model in which each partner is responsible for the work on incorporating research data into their own repositories, yet experience, support and knowledge are shared in order to increase levels of success. This builds on the existing informal collaboration of DISC-UK members for improving their data libraries and models of data support at four institutions: Edinburgh, London School of Economics, Oxford, and Southampton. It will also bring academic data libraries in closer contact with e-prints repository managers and develop new forms of cooperation between these distinct groups of information professionals within academic environments. The advantage for the broader community is to provide exemplars for a range of approaches and policies in which to embed the deposit and stewardship of datasets in institutional repositories. Indeed, among the partners there will be exemplars for the three main repository solutions: EPrints, DSpace and Fedora.
Project deliverables include:
Exemplars of the process, pitfalls and successful outcomes of setting up an institutional data repository service at each of the four institutions.
Documentation and open source code for adapting DSpace, Fedora and EPrints repository software for handling datasets.
Toolkits, briefing papers and other outputs to inform UKHE repository community about data management and research support.
Enhancements to partners' IRs including testing for trusted repository status.
Technical watch on e-Research, VREs, Web 2.0 and related developments.
Papers, presentations and online dissemination of collected knowledge.
EDINA website: http://edina.ac.uk
DataShare Project Overview: http://edina.ac.uk/projects/datashare_summary.html
Copyright Clearance Center Announces Annual Copyright License for Academia
Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC) has announced the launch of the Annual Copyright License for academic institutions, a single license that provides faculty and staff with convenient, pre-approved permissions to use content in course management systems, paper and electronic coursepacks, electronic library reserves, research collaboration and more.
Developed in cooperation with several colleges and universities, including charter program member Middlebury College, the Annual Copyright License provides comprehensive, "check-and-go" permission to use content from books,scholarly journals, news and trade magazines and newspapers. Nearly 200 publishers-including Springer, Sage Publications, Nature Publishing, John Wiley& Sons, The New York Times and Princeton University Press-have signed on to the new program and more publishers are joining each week. The license covers single- and multi-campus institutions, including international campuses of US-based colleges and universities.
By pre-approving the use of content, the Annual Copyright License saves library staff valuable time and reduces the costs associated with tracking and managing high volumes of individual copyright permission requests.
Benefits of the license include:
Improved operational efficiencies, reduced time and administrative costs associated with searching for, obtaining and reconciling copyright permissions on a pay-per-use basis.
Uniform set of pre-approved usage rights for paper and electronic coursepacks, course management system postings, classroom handouts, electronic library reserves, research collaboration, and administrative and faculty communication.
Broadened awareness of intellectual property on campus.
CCC's new program builds on the company's vast experience in providing text-licensing solutions to businesses and academic institutions. More than 1,000 colleges and universities across the US make use of CCC's licensing services.
For more information: www.copyright.com
NISO Issues Fast-Tracked SERU Draft
Only 9 months after the Shared E-Resource Understanding (SERU) Working Group was first formed, the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has issued a Draft for Trial Use of "SERU: A Shared Electronic Resource Understanding" (SERU version 0.9). The SERU trial period runs from 20 June 2007 through 20 December 2007; the draft is available from: www.niso.org/committees/seru/.
Where applicable for libraries and publishers, SERU could save the time required by formal license agreements that can be burdensome and costly. The document consists of a framework and set of statements that express frequently adopted expectations among academic and other non-profit libraries and scholarly publishers. Libraries and publishers using SERU should reference or link to these common understandings.
To facilitate trial uses of the statement, SERU 0.9 includes guidelines for implementation and the Working Group's website includes new accompanying FAQs to assist users of the statements. A registry of libraries, publishers, and other content providers who wish to announce their interest in using SERU for transactions during the six-month pilot is also available. To join the registry or see the list of current trial participants visit: www.niso.org/committees/seru/registry.html
The Working Group continues to welcome comments on the draft document and encourages their submission to co-chairs Karla Hahn (karla@arl.org) or Judy Luther (judy.luther@informedstrategies.com)or to any other member of the Working Group: www.niso.org/committees/seru/wg.html
Scopus Enhancements
Scopus Launches a New Product for Research Analysis
Scopus, an abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources, announced in May 2007 the launch of their new product Scopus Custom Data. Research agencies, institutions and government bodies will now be able to order customized datasets in XML format for large-scale research performance analysis. It will assist them in making resource allocation and policymaking decisions.
Scopus Custom Data will extract Scopus core records in accordance to each customer's individual specifications, such as date range, subject categories and geographic location. The XML data can then be loaded by customers into their proprietary in-house systems, making it possible for them to run their specific search queries and execute their own analytical techniques; providing the analyst with the freedom to formulate their own reports. Additionally, Scopus Custom Data will enhance the analysis process with its citation matching intrinsic to Scopus. This includes reference matching at 99 per cent precision and 98 per cent recall, making the Scopus citations counts highly reliable.
Scopus Custom Data: http://customdata.scopus.com
Scopus Incorporates the H-Index to Provide Users with a Simple Metric Indicating an Author's Scientific Influence
Scopus announced in April 2007 that the h-index will be incorporated into Scopus soon and will include visual aids to assist in interpreting consistency and relevance. The h-index, considers the publication records of an individual, the number of papers published over n years and the number of citations for each paper. The result is a single number, the "h-index". To provide the user with additional clarity Scopus has included a set of visual aids that present a transparent overview of citation and publication patterns over time; revealing whether the h-index is dependent on a few highly cited papers or that the author's papers have a relatively consistent volume of citations.
Jorge Hirsch, from the University of California, San Diego says, "Citation counts get used for research evaluation in faculty recruiting and promotion, as well as in grant allocations. I am convinced that articles that receive large numbers of citations should be considered as significant in such evaluations,even when they are not published in highly ranked ("high impact")journals. Partly because of my own experience of having difficulty publishing my research in highly ranked journals, I was interested in finding a simple metric that could clearly illustrate research achievement independent of the vagaries associated with publishing. This is why I developed the h-index."
The h-index will be automatically computed for individual authors and for collections of articles selected by the user. The metric quantifies the impact and relevance of an individual scientist's research output by looking at the distribution of citations received by his or her publications and is seen as one of the simplest metrics available for objective analysis.
Scopus website: www.info.scopus.com
Scirus Library Partners Program
In May 2007 Scirus, a comprehensive science focused search engine, announced the launch of its Scirus Library Partners program. The new program enables the easy integration of the Scirus search engine with library link resolvers. As a result, librarians can optimize the usage of their holdings and provide researchers with faster access to full text articles. The new program utilizes the OpenURL protocol, which standardizes the transfer of journal metadata. This enables search results in Scirus.com to be automatically cross-referenced with the library holdings of the institution at which researchers are working,resulting in the automatic display of links where the full-text is accessible.
The Scirus product technology team has designed the Scirus Library Partners program in order to make it as easy as possible for librarians and researchers to integrate with Scirus. In order to link their OpenURL resolver into a Scirus search results list, librarians simply visit www.scirus.com/srsapp/librarypartners,supply a base URL and download a cookie script to distribute to their users.
Scirus Library Partners website: www.scirus.com/srsapp/librarypartners
Through Partnership with WebFeat, EBSCO Announces WebFeat Express 3.0
EBSCO has partnered with WebFeat in providing a new series of federated search administration and authentication products. The latest release of WebFeat's Express federated search engine, WebFeat Express 3.0, includes spell-check, as well as integrated Menu Manager and WebFeat Proxy. The WebFeat Express spell-checker joins the Library of Congress and MeSH thesauri already incorporated into the product. WebFeat's spell-checker supports multiple languages, as well as medical, pharmaceutical, legal, botanical, geographical and scientific/engineering specialty dictionaries. Integrated spell-check,thesauri, topical clustering, relevancy ranking and multiple sort options provide WebFeat users with unparalleled results sorting and search refining capabilities.
WebFeat Proxy enables single sign-on for all e-resources accessed through the WebFeat menu, regardless of whether accessed via the WebFeat federated search or through each resource's own native search interface. WebFeat Proxy is a hosted solution, eliminating the hardware and software expense and labor of locally hosted proxy solutions.
WebFeat Menu Manager, a portal management system, enables the setup and maintenance of e-resource menus, including resource selection, subject category configuration, help text and user interface customization. Menu Manager may either be used in concert with the WebFeat Express federated search engine or purchased as an independent electronic resource manager.
WebFeat Enterprise Administration Manager debuts as a multi-library e-resource and federated search administration system. The Enterprise Administrative Console enables administrators to build an unlimited number of independent WebFeat profiles and import configuration settings from parent systems. Profiles can include different database configurations, subject category organization, catalogs, authentication and user interfaces. The Enterprise Administrative Console can be used with multi-library networks or multi-branch library systems.
Webfeat website: www.webfeat.org
Ebsco website: www2.ebsco.com/en-us/Pages/index.aspx
Bowker Acquires Medialab Solutions and Aquabrowser
R.R. Bowker announced in June 2007 that it had acquired Medialab Solutions by Amsterdam, creators of the innovative AquaBrowser Library search and discovery platform that is used by more than 60 million patrons in public libraries throughout the US and Europe. The acquisition represents the alignment of Bowker's collection of bibliographic data with Aquabrowser's user-friendly visual faceted search technology, improving Bowker's ability to deliver new products that enhance the user experience in libraries.
AquaBrowser Library is a platform exclusively dedicated to providing visual faceted search solutions for libraries. The product seamlessly integrates with any major library system, opening up both the library catalog and any other information source. Through Aquabrowser Library, libraries can offer the finest user interface available today, without the need to change anything in the way they work, their existing ILS or OPAC.
Under the acquisition agreement, Medialab Solutions co-founder, Bastiaan Zwaan, his senior management team and staff will all become part of the Bowker family. The company will maintain its offices in Amsterdam, The Netherlands,where operations will continue under Mr Zwaan's leadership.
R.R. Bowker website: www.bowker.com/
Aquabrowser Library website: www.aquabrowser.com/
New Product Offerings from SirsiDynix
SirsiDynix Introduces SirsiDynix Symphony as New Integrated Library System
SirsiDynix has introduced SirsiDynix Symphony, the company's new integrated library system that blends features of SirsiDynix Unicorn and SirsiDynix Horizon 8.0/Corinthian to offer an array of library and consortium management solutions to the library community.
SirsiDynix Symphony is the culmination of Project Rome, which SirsiDynix announced in March 2007 as part of the company's strategy to create a single,holistic library technology platform. The announcement was made during the American Library Association 2007 Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. in June.
SirsiDynix Symphony incorporates open, industry-standard technologies,offering the library community features and capabilities including: a service-oriented architecture (SOA), software-as-a-service (SaaS) options, power library "user experience" portal and search solutions, comprehensive integrated library management and productivity solutions, Java-based staff clients for all modules, fully documented application programming interfaces(APIs), Unicode support, advanced business intelligence and reporting tools,support for SIP2 and NCIP and support for the Oracle relational database management system.
SirsiDynix Symphony also includes new features, functions and modules,including Books by Mail, Collection Exchange, new portal capabilities and Web-based staff clients. A full suite of professional services –implementation, training, support, data and consulting – is also available with the system.
The first release of SirsiDynix Symphony is planned for the fourth quarter of 2007.
More about Symphony: www.sirsidynix.com/Solutions/Products/integratedsystems.php
SirsiDynix Releases New Version of Enterprise Portal Solution
Also during the American Library Association 2007 Annual Conference,SirsiDynix has announced the release of SirsiDynix Enterprise Portal Solution(EPS) version 2.2.
With the Enterprise Portal Solution's integrated interface, a library's catalog, databases, RSS feeds, virtual reference, calendars, library news and general information, as well as other library resources and services, are all available in one, easy-to-use online environment. And with the ability to integrate Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and discussion boards, EPS provides a platform for users to interact with staff and others. EPS is browser-based,allowing users to access resources from anywhere at any time.
The latest version of EPS contains enhanced standardized features, such as a picture library module, which allows users to navigate a library catalog via images rather than search terms; call number categorization for search results,referred to as "You Found Titles in Categories;" a best seller and recommended reading list feature; a reserves room for browsing reserves information; a most popular content module, which displays most checked out items by author, title and subject; and cross reference support.
New features in EPS 2.2 include the following:
Spell checker with a "Did You Mean" feature
Support for federated searching via Central Search
Native z39.50 search
Improved OPAC holdings capabilities for users and staff
Ability for multiple libraries on one instance to display their own branding, library information and OPAC defaults
More about EPS 2.2: www.sirsidynix.com/Solutions/Products/portalsearch.php
OCLC Acquires OCLC PICA In-Full
OCLC, the library cooperative, has acquired the remaining shares of OCLC PICA Group B.V., the European-based library and information systems supplier, to become the sole shareholder of the organization. OCLC acquired 60 per cent of the Pica organization in 2000. Today's purchase of the remaining 40 per cent in OCLC PICA completes the acquisition of shares. Rein van Charldorp will remain in his current position as Managing Director of OCLC PICA. Cooperation between OCLC and PICA began in 1977 when the organizations began sharing data. OCLC acquired a majority of Pica shares in 2000, which led to the formation of OCLC PICA in 2002.
Earlier this year, OCLC reorganized its management structure to achieve global integration of services and to establish teams comprising staff from various geographic locations. "Completing the acquisition of OCLC PICA will help facilitate the deployment of OCLC library services worldwide," said Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO. "This is the next logical step in a process that has fostered tremendous cooperation between Stichting Pica and OCLC over the past seven years. OCLC and OCLC PICA will be better positioned to deliver a network of integrated global, regional and local services to libraries worldwide."
OCLC Website: www.oclc.org
OCLC PICA website: www.oclcpica.org
WebJunction Awarded Grant to Enhance Web Site Services for Library Community
WebJunction, the online community for library staff to meet to share ideas,solve problems and do online coursework, has been awarded a grant from the Bill& Melinda Gates Foundation to replace software, enhance site functionality and provide for long-term sustainability of services to benefit the library community.
The grant, for $12.6 million over four years, will allow OCLC to replace and add software – including a new learning management system, content management system and portal software – that will provide added functionality and flexibility for WebJunction members and community partners. The grant will also provide support needed to help WebJunction become self-sustaining within OCLC by improving its current revenue-generating services and creating new services that will assist libraries of all types. The sustainability of WebJunction is essential to its mission to help libraries thrive in changing and challenging technological environments today, and into the future.
Introduced in 2003, the WebJunction community continues to grow rapidly and now includes more than 29,000 registered members, and a growing number of partner organizations. In its first four years, WebJunction has hosted more than 300,000 unique visitors to the site. Many planned site enhancements are a response to user feedback and studies of the WebJunction.org site, and many are the result of the growth and popularity of the site.
For more information on WebJunction, visit: www.webjunction.org.
Updated Report on Spam from Pew Internet Project
Spam continues to plague the internet as more Americans than ever say they are getting more spam than in the past. But while American internet users report increasing volumes of spam, they also indicate that they are less bothered by it than before.
Users have become more sophisticated about dealing with spam; fully 71 per cent of email users use filters offered by their email provider or employer to block spam. Users also report less exposure to pornographic spam, which to many people is the most offensive type of unsolicited email. Spam has not become a significant deterrent to the use of email, as some observers speculated it might when unsolicited email first began flooding users" inboxes several years ago. But it continues to degrade the integrity of email. Some 55 per cent of email users say they have lost trust in email because of spam. These are the highlights of a phone survey about spam that was conducted between 15 February and 7 March 2007, among a nationally representative sample of 2,200 American adults.
Despite increased volumes of spam for some people, American internet users seem somewhat less bothered by spam than before. The Pew Internet & American Life Project first began tracking users' behavior and attitudes toward spam in June 2003. At that time, when the survey first asked internet users how spam affected their life on the internet, 25 per cent of users said spam was a big problem for them. Three and a half years later, the percentage of users who say spam is a big problem has dropped to 18 per cent.
The other side of the spam story, however, is that spam continues to take a toll on the integrity of email. In 2003, over half of email users, 52 per cent,said that spam has made them less trusting of email in general. That sensibility is largely unchanged. In 2004, 62 per cent of email users said spam made them less trusting of email, 53 per cent agreed in 2005, and 55 per cent agree now.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a nonprofit, non-partisan initiative of the Pew Research Center that explores the impact of the Internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care, and civic/political life.
Full text of the Spam 2007 report: www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Spam_May_2007.pdf
Biodiversity Heritage Library is Live and Freely Available
Ten major natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries, and research institutions have joined to form the Biodiversity Heritage Library Project. The group is developing a strategy and operational plan to digitize the published literature of biodiversity held in their respective collections. This literature will be available through a global "biodiversity commons."
Participating institutions:
American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY)
The Field Museum (Chicago, IL)
Harvard University Botany Libraries (Cambridge, MA)
Harvard University, Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology(Cambridge, MA)
Marine Biological Laboratory / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Woods Hole, MA)
Missouri Botanical Garden (St. Louis, MO)
Natural History Museum (London, UK)
The New York Botanical Garden (New York, NY)
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Richmond, UK)
Smithsonian Institution Libraries (Washington, DC)
The participating libraries have over two million volumes of biodiversity literature collected over 200 years to support the work of scientists,researchers, and students in their home institutions and throughout the world. The 10 member libraries of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) members now have over 1.124 million pages of key taxonomic literature available on the web.
The BHL will provide basic, discipline-specific, important content for immediate research and for multiple bioinformatics initiatives. Web-based access to these collections will provide a substantial benefit to people living and working in the developing world – whether scientists or policymakers. The Biodiversity Heritage Library Project will actively seek to incorporate data and content from other digitization projects.
This material will be available for open access and responsible use as a part of a global Biodiversity Commons. We will work with the global taxonomic community, rights holders, and other interested parties to ensure that this legacy literature is available to all.
For more information see the presentations that were made on June 25th at the Smithsonian Institute which provide an overview of the project: http://biodiversitylibrary.blogspot.com/2007/06/bhl-sil-presentation.html
The Biodiversity Heritage Library website: www.biodiversitylibrary.org/
