Member News & Announcements, November IO 2020
News from NISO Members
Leadership
Faye A. Chadwell Named Dean of Penn State University Libraries
Penn State University, L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, October 27, 2020
Penn State has announced that Faye A. Chadwell, professor and Donald and Delpha Campbell University Librarian at Oregon State University, has been named dean of University Libraries and Scholarly Communications, effective March 1, 2021.
Chadwell will succeed Dean Barbara Dewey, who has extended her retirement to the end of December. Diane Zabel, Benzak Business Librarian and head of the Schreyer Business Library, has been named interim dean by Nick Jones, executive vice president and provost of the University.
Partnerships
Elsevier Signs Collaboration to Develop Novel Prediction Tool to Reduce Drug Development Safety Risk
Elsevier, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 22, 2020
Elsevier, a global information analytics business specializing in science and health, today announced its collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Novartis to develop a safety margin risk assessment prediction tool, largely using PharmaPendium data.
The FDA estimates more than 106,000 people die every year due to adverse drug reactions (ADRs); in the U.S. alone, the cost to the medical care system is an estimated $200 billion per year. Unanticipated drug safety concerns often stem from off-target drug activity and are a major cause for drug attrition during drug development, including many post-market drug withdrawals. The new solution from Elsevier and Novartis is expected to enable the most comprehensive target profiling and clinical interpretation due to the combination of deep scientific data curation and technological expertise. Mitigating safety liabilities early on in drug development helps to select promising candidates early, optimize drug design and avoid late stage failures.
Key to predicting the clinical significance of potential off-target toxicity is the estimation of the drug safety margin for a specific target. To generate safety margin estimates for a broad set of targets, researchers need the context of clinical data from marketed and withdrawn drugs. They also need to navigate the challenges of identifying reliable test systems that can lead to proper translational safety assessment. Performing this today requires researchers to manually mine literature and regulatory documents for drug safety and pharmacokinetic data, which is laborious, and thus limits the number of targets for which safety margin estimates are made.
German institutions to benefit from first Transformative Agreement for Nature
Springer Nature, Voting Member, Press Release, October 20, 2020
Springer Nature and the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) have agreed an approach that will deliver the first ever transformative agreement (TA) for Nature and Nature-branded journals. Building on the nationwide Projekt DEAL agreement concluded last January for Springer Nature journals, the commercial framework agreed with MPDL will now be offered to German institutions, in time for a January 2021 start.
The transformative agreement, which will run for four years, enables authors affiliated with participating institutions to publish their research articles accepted for publication in Nature and Nature-branded research journals immediately open access at no cost to them. Participating institutions will also gain read access to the complete Nature portfolio, including Nature Review titles and all forthcoming Nature-branded journals.
OCLC signs agreements with publishers and other content providers worldwide
OCLC, Voting Member, Press Release, October 14, 2020
OCLC has signed agreements with leading publishers and other content providers around the world to add metadata for high-quality electronic and print books, journals, databases, and other learning materials that will make their content discoverable through WorldCat Discovery.
“OCLC is committed to providing access to a wide range of authoritative publications and educational materials through libraries to support faculty, students and other information seekers around the globe,” said Suzanne Kemperman, OCLC Director, Business Development and Publisher Relations. “We will continue to expand our partnerships with international organizations that offer valuable content in all disciplines that researchers need, and library users want.”
CAS and MoA Technology embed chemical substance data into novel herbicide R&D workflow
American Chemical Society (ACS), Voting Member, Press Release, October 13, 2020
CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society that specializes in scientific information solutions, and MoA Technology, an innovator in herbicide R&D and related technology, today announced an agreement to embed chemical substance data from the CAS REGISTRY®, as well as related reference and property information, directly into MoA’s R&D workflow via an application programming interface (API). This agreement ensures MoA researchers have access to the most relevant, actionable chemical substance data within their daily workflow to quickly assess activity, enhancing productivity and expediting innovation.
MoA Technology, which was spun out of Oxford University in 2017 and received Series A funding in 2019, is focused on overcoming the global agriculture challenge posed by herbicide-resistant weeds with safe and effective new compounds showing activity based on novel modes of action. “Lack of innovation in agricultural herbicides over many years has created a dire situation for farmers and the environment,” notes Dr. Shuji Hachisu, Chief Technology Officer at MoA. “We are partnering with CAS because our evaluation demonstrated that integrating their unique scientist-curated substance data collection with our novel AI-driven, in-vivo high-throughput screening platform greatly enhances our ability to accurately prioritize compounds most likely to have herbicide activity from an untapped chemical space with minimal off-target effects. As a result, our screening is much more focused and cost effective, allowing us to deliver new solutions faster to help farmers while reducing the environmental impact of agriculture.”
EBSCO information Services Partners with Three Institutions to Develop Analytics Platform
EBSCO Information Services, Voting Member, and University of Denver University Libraries, L.S.A. Member, Press Release, October 12, 2020
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) will partner with University of Denver, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Chalmers University of Technology to develop a next-generation analytics platform. The platform will combine and streamline data sets from library and campus systems, allowing library staff to demonstrate a library’s impact while making informed decisions on collections and services.
Features within the analytics platform will include self-service data discovery, customizable dashboards, extensive data sources and real-time data connections. The platform will be extensible to non-library data sources and offer automated data feeds with import/export capabilities.
University of Denver, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Chalmers University of Technology will examine data, construct data pipelines and validate dashboards to aid in the development of the analytics platform. A second cohort will be added to test data pipelines, extend the data sources covered and provide additional feedback on the dashboards.
Research Efforts
Clarivate Global Research Report Calls for Shared Responsibility in Upholding Research Integrity Through Data, Tech and Open Research
Clarivate Analytics, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 21, 2020
Clarivate Plc (NYSE:CCC), a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, today released a report, “Research Integrity: Understanding our shared responsibility for a sustainable scholarly ecosystem”. Recent analysis from the Institute for Scientific Information™ at Clarivate has found that research malpractice is becoming more prevalent and sophisticated, threatening the value and long-term sustainability of scientific literature. It highlights the urgent need for all research stakeholders to agree a code of ethics and action, working collaboratively and decisively to protect research integrity amidst a rapidly evolving ecosystem.
The report exposes the range of tactics used to subvert research integrity, as well as the most susceptible points in the research cycle. It also outlines the shared responsibilities of those involved in the process – including funders, institutions and publishers – emphasizing the crucial role of collaboration and calling for community guidelines around ethics and actions, especially in terms of research assessment and incentivisation. Finally, the report analyzes how the research community can use technology, data, and analytics to uphold the principles of research integrity, highlighting six major areas for improvement.
Wiley’s Open Science Ambassador Program Encourages Scientific Collaboration
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Voting Member, Press Release, October 20, 2020
John Wiley and Sons Inc. (NYSE:JWa) (NYSE:JWb), a leader in research and education, today introduced its Open Science Ambassador Program. The program acknowledges and supports Chinese thought leaders around the world who embrace open science principles and encourage a free exchange of ideas and collaboration within their communities.
The research landscape is quickly evolving to embrace increased openness, reproducibility and accountability. Fueled by new technologies and collaboration tools, open science will quicken the pace and reliability of scientific knowledge.
“At Wiley, we believe a more open future will accelerate the pace of discovery, which is why we are prioritizing programs like the Open Science Ambassador Program,” said Judy Verses, Executive Vice President of Research at Wiley. “The scholarly research community is calling for increased openness and transparency in publishing, and we encourage others to join us in transforming the research publishing industry around the world.”
Open Access, Open Science
Full-Text HTML articles now available on medRxiv
Highwire Press, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 19, 2020
We are pleased to announce that from October 19, 2020, onwards, full-text HTML articles will be available to all readers of medRxiv.
medRxiv, the preprint server for health sciences, is a collaboration between founding organizations Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, BMJ, and Yale University, and designed upon HighWire technology. Building on the success of its sister site bioRxiv (which this weekend celebrated publication of its 100,000th preprint) medRxiv launched at the end of June 2019 and has seen rapid growth in both submissions and page views during 2020. The content is free to read and researchers around the world can submit manuscripts without charge. An international group of senior scientists and clinicians assists the management team in ensuring that posted papers fulfill the server’s submission requirements.
By facilitating early dissemination of new findings, medRxiv has played a pivotal role in accelerating research during the COVID-19 pandemic. The provision of full-text HTML for all articles aligns medRxiv with bioRxiv and permits easier reading on mobile devices. A repository of the articles’ XML will be made available for text-and-data mining in the near future. A variety of resources, including APIs and feeds, are already available for sharing metadata.
IOP Publishing signs DORA affirming its commitment to raising standards in research evaluation
IOP Publishing, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 19, 2020
IOP Publishing (IOPP) has signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) as part of its commitment to support more equitable, inclusive approaches to research evaluation in line with open science practices.
DORA was developed in 2012 during the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco. Its principles highlight a need to assess research on its own merit by seeking to ensure that the quality and impact are ‘measured accurately and evaluated wisely’.
Wiley launches Flagship interdisciplinary Open Access Journal Natural Sciences
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Voting Member, Press Release, October 13, 2020
John Wiley and Sons Inc. (NYSE:JWA) (NYSE:JWB) today announced the launch of its new premier open access journal, Natural Sciences. The journal, which fully embraces open research principles, is one of the mutual initiatives agreed to by Projekt DEAL and Wiley.
“Since the beginning of our partnership with Projekt DEAL, we’ve continued to find innovative ways to expand open research publishing practices across the globe,” said Judy Verses, Executive Vice President of Research at Wiley. “We are pleased to celebrate another DEAL milestone with the launch of Natural Sciences—a fully open research, interdisciplinary journal that broadens Wiley’s open access portfolio of 170 fully open access journals and more than 1,400 hybrid journals.”
Helmed by leading scientists in the fields of biology, chemistry and physics, the journal publishes top-tier research from the global community spanning these subjects and their interfaces, as well as related fields such as engineering and biomedical research. Its strong focus on interdisciplinarity is reflected by the publication of highlight articles, which will put the research articles into context for researchers from adjacent fields.
Preserving Open Access and other at-risk scholarly content
ITHAKA/JSTOR/Portico, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 13, 2020
Recent research has demonstrated that dozens of online-only Open Access journals are no longer available, while hundreds of others are inactive and at risk of being lost. Important scholarship may be lost to future generations of researchers if there is no preservation plan in place.
At Portico, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to preserve the scholarly record, we work with publishers and libraries to ensure that academic content remains accessible and usable for the long term. Currently, we are preserving more than 5,000 Open Access journals from 309 publishers. We have triggered and provide public access to 114 OA journals that are no longer available through other digital platforms. This content remains available to everyone on an Open Access basis after being triggered on Portico.
It is not only Open Access content that is vulnerable. We have also focused efforts on the “long tail” of publishers that publish ten or fewer titles, and we are currently preserving content from more than 400 small publishers. In addition, we have broad international coverage; Portico is preserving scholarship from publishers in 74 countries. Search our full list of 800+ participating publishers.
Free collection of coronavirus research sees 1.7 Million Downloads
Cambridge University Press, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 14, 2020
A free, online collection of coronavirus research from Cambridge University Press has proved hugely popular, with around 1.7 million articles downloaded in the eight months to September.
The collection was launched in January when COVID-19 – then still unnamed and known as novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV – was first declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation.
What began as a modest collection of 70 book chapters and journal articles has now grown to include well over 1,000, with more being added all the time.
The speed of its growth is partly driven by the Press’s decision to adapt its publishing process for articles relating to Coronavirus. Currently, about 90 per cent of accepted manuscripts are published within 48 hours of receipt and almost 60 per cent within 24 hours.
Free Access to Digital Collections through new Jisc and JSTOR collaboration
ITHAKA/JSTOR/Portico, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 6, 2020
Not-for-profit ITHAKA, JSTOR’s parent organization, and the UK education and technology not-for-profit Jisc have agreed to a pioneering initiative that will allow institutions to make their digital special collections freely available to millions of researchers, faculties, and students around the globe.
The partnership gives UK higher education institutions the opportunity to add their digitized content to JSTOR’s Open Community Collections program, which enables libraries, museums, and cultural organizations around the world to bring together their materials, creating an unparalleled free resource for teaching and research.
Stephen Brooks, Jisc’s digital content product manager, says: “We are delighted to have struck this agreement with JSTOR at a time when digital content is more important than ever for research, teaching and learning. The Open Community Collections initiative provides an opportunity to leverage institutions’ own digitized collections through JSTOR, which is one of the most widely used scholarly platforms in the world.”
Infrastructure and Platforms
CAS and Pistoia Alliance launch Pistoia Alliance Chemical Safety Library platform to Improve Laboratory Safety
American Chemical Society (ACS), Voting Member, Press Release, October 19, 2020
CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society specializing in scientific information solutions, and the Pistoia Alliance, a global non-profit that works to lower barriers to innovation in life science and healthcare R&D, today announced the launch of a new Pistoia Alliance Chemical Safety Library platform. This resource aims to mitigate the serious risks researchers working with potentially hazardous chemicals face due to unanticipated chemical reaction outcomes by enabling scientists to access and share hazardous reaction information drawn from real-life laboratory experiences. The new open access platform, developed and hosted by CAS, supports industry efforts to increase the safety of workers in the lab by facilitating data sharing across the global chemical enterprise. “We have a duty to ensure the health and safety of researchers dedicating their lives to delivering breakthrough innovations,” said Carmen Nitsche, General Manager Cambridge Crystallography Data Centre and Chair, Chemical Safety Library Advisory Panel, “The Chemical Safety Library fulfils an important need and adds a key component to our safety toolbox.”
The enhancement of this unique resource, originally launched by the Pistoia Alliance as a prototype in 2017, was made possible through a partnership between the Pistoia Alliance and CAS announced earlier this year. “CAS is committed to empowering researchers with the information they need to be successful in each phase of the innovation journey, and supporting laboratory safety is a crucial part of that,” said CAS President Manuel Guzman. “We are proud to contribute our technology capabilities and expertise in scientific information management to develop and grow this critical resource that has tremendous potential to eliminate repeat incidents by making this critical information more widely and readily available.”
PLOS Accesses Dimensions on Google Cloud’s BigQuery
Public Library of Science (PLoS), Voting Member, Press Release. October 13, 2020
Digital Science and PLOS are pleased to announce an agreement which will provide PLOS, the leading Open Access (OA) publisher with access to Dimensions on BigQuery. Dimensions is a comprehensive database that covers the full research and innovation lifecycle. BigQuery, Google Cloud’s serverless and secure multi-cloud data warehouse, enables PLOS to analyse the full metadata of Dimensions and use it to inform strategy and decision-making across the organization.
This follows the recent Digital Science partnership with Google Cloud, which was designed to remove barriers to data access, analysis and visualization for organizations across the research and innovation ecosystem. In today’s environment, stakeholders in the research and innovation ecosystem are seeking to make better, evidence-based decisions. To do this, they need greater access to contextual information, while at the same time protecting the security of their own data.
Dimensions is a research information platform which has been developed to provide a comprehensive view on the research process and activities – going beyond publications and citations. While covering 112 million publications with 1.2 billion citations, Dimensions also interlinks data from $1.8 trillion of funded grants, 583,000 clinical trials, 40 million patents, 453k policy documents and 1.5 million datasets.
NSF Grant takes AGU’s data and Publishing Practices to the next level
American Geophysical Union (AGU), Voting Member, News Announcement, October 23, 2020
I’m proud to announce AGU has received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) building on our work around open data sharing in the Earth, space and environmental sciences. Under this grant, AGU, working with several key partners, will further these data practices and help ensure that NSF Earth science data are publicly accessible, linked to publications and grants, and credited. This work will serve as a model for linking information across funders, data repositories and publishers, and improving public access to research outputs. All knowledge and practices will be openly shared.
AGU has been working with hundreds of repositories, publishers, and other partners across the international data and geoscience community to adopt and implement the Enabling FAIR Data Commitment Statement. Under this commitment publishers, repositories, researchers and others have agreed to adopt a set of best practices around data and software sharing, use of appropriate, trusted repositories and including citations in papers. Data and software citations allow for automated linking to the paper, author and funder, and supports credit to the creator.
Scholarship
AIP Publishing Implements ORCID reviewer recognition service
AIP Publishing LLC and ORCID, Inc,. Voting Members, News Announcement, October, 15, 2020
AIP Publishing is pleased to announce that reviewers of AIP Publishing journal articles can now record their efforts through ORCID.
Peer review is at the heart of the scholarly publication process, but because it is traditionally “blind” – meaning the author does not know who the reviewer is – it is difficult for reviewers to receive credit for their work. Through this integration with ORCID, reviewers of AIP Publishing journals will now be able to record when they complete a review for a journal, while maintaining strict confidentiality as to which article they’ve reviewed.
“We are grateful to all our reviewers who give so generously of their time and expertise to help authors improve their manuscripts and help editors decide if an article should be published,” noted Jason Wilde, chief publishing officer of AIP Publishing. “The ORCID reviewer recognition service allows us to recognize the invaluable contribution that reviewers make to our publishing enterprise and give credit where it’s due.”
Reviewers can get credit for their activity with a simple click of a button within their regular reviewer workflow. The corresponding record in their ORCID profile will indicate the specific journal they reviewed for without revealing the manuscript title or authors names. The ability to claim a reviewer record has been implemented across the AIP Publishing journal portfolio, including publishing partner titles that use the PXP manuscript tracking system.
Product Innovation
Innovative Offers New Mobile App for Public Libraries
Proquest, Voting Member, Press Release, October 13, 2020
Innovative, a ProQuest company and leading global provider of library software, today announced the release of its new Innovative Mobile product, which puts the power of Sierra and Polaris into patrons’ hands worldwide.
The new mobile app is focused on public libraries and consortia and is customized for each site, with branding and the look and feel designed by the library. Innovative Mobile offers full access to the library catalog and allows patrons to search and find both physical and electronic library materials.
Online Literacy and Learning
New Course from ACS Publications provides lessons in reducing the spread of viruses
American Chemical Society (ACS), Voting Member, Press Release, October 5, 2020
The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) has developed a course to give professionals the tools they need to reduce the spread of viruses in their workplaces. “Chemistry in Practice: Reduce the Spread of Viruses” will contain a variety of modules useful for anyone navigating the newly complex topic of shared public spaces and was designed specifically to support institutions in educating employees returning to in-person work.
The course contains seven 15- to 20-minute modules on how viruses spread, how disinfectants work, how masks and other personal protective equipment provide protection, how vaccines work and more. The course also contains a risk-assessment calculator, tip sheets and a self-assessment capstone module. Each module was designed and reviewed by a panel of five leading experts in the fields of infectious disease, medicinal chemistry and healthcare.
“Everyone in society has experienced some effect from COVID-19. Connecting the fundamental chemical principles of infectious disease to personal actions, such as wearing a mask or handwashing, ensures professionals and the public understand the rationale for government recommendations,” says Poonum Satish Korpe, M.D., infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University. “This will hopefully provide professionals with increased confidence as they return to work, including being more prepared for future virus outbreaks.”disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University. “This will hopefully provide professionals with increased confidence as they return to work, including being more prepared for future virus outbreaks.”
Libraries and Archives
The New York Public Library Acquires Arthur Miller’s Personal Study Library
New York Public Library, L.S.A. Member, Press Release, October 16, 2020
The New York Public Library has acquired by gift, and through the generosity of his family, Arthur Miller's collection of his published plays, books, translations, anthologies, and other publications relating to his work in various editions, comprising 692 volumes in total.
Along with editions of his writings in English, the acquisition includes an extensive collection of translations into many European languages, plus Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and others. Several are inscribed with his name and other occasional annotations.
Miller’s collection also contains essays, theatrical analysis and commentary, audio cassettes, magazines, and other ephemera, spanning the years 1928 - 2012. Also represented are a small number of works by other authors, among which four scripts by playwright Harold Pinter are of particular note.
Carnegie Mellon Libraries Use Computer Vision to Explore Archival Photo Collections
Carnegie Mellon University, L.S.A. Member, Blog Posting, October 5, 2020
Computer-Aided Metadata generation for Photo archives Initiative (CAMPI), was inspired by a request from the CMU Marketing and Communications team, which regularly works with the University Archives to source images for online and print materials.
A MarCom staff member contacted the Archives in June to request images for an email to incoming students. They were seeking early images of the Computation Center, which housed the University’s first computer – an IBM 650 that arrived in 1956. While the Archives has a number of photos identified as the Computation Center, the earliest were from the late 1960s.
“We know, from experience, that our photo collection is not fully inventoried, and there are images with incorrect descriptions,” said University Archivist Julia Corrin. “I was interested in a tool that would let me to see if I could identify any earlier photos of the Computation Center space or find other images that were improperly labeled.”