Partnerships & Collaborations
IEEE Reaches a Transformative Open Access Read and Publish Agreement with Finnish Consortium FinELib
IEEE, Voting Member, Press Release, August 24, 2021
IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for humanity, and FinELib, a consortium of Finnish universities, universities of applied sciences, research institutes, and public libraries, have entered an Open Access Read and Publish agreement. For more information, see https://finelib.fi/iel-agreement.
With this new agreement, researchers and other users at the participating institutions will be able to access IEEE journals, conferences, and standards via the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. The agreement also grants affiliated corresponding authors the opportunity to publish their work open access. Under the terms of the three-year agreement, the costs of accessing subscription content and the article processing charges (APCs) required to publish open access are covered by the license fees paid by consortium members, making the process easier and more convenient for authors.
Growing Demand for Streaming Media Sparks New Initiatives at the University of Maryland Libraries
USMAI Consortium, L.S.A. Member, and ITHAKA/JStor/Portico, Voting Member, News Announcement, August 19, 2021
To meet the growing demand for streaming media in education and research, colleagues at the University of Maryland Libraries have implemented a number of new initiatives to enhance their understanding about the educational need for streaming media and improve related infrastructure and services.
This year, the UMD Libraries will partner with Ithaka S+R, a non-profit research and consulting group, to explore cross-institutional evidence about streaming media licensing terms, learn about faculty members’ perspectives, and collaboratively develop negotiating and collection strategies. In parallel to this work, Ithaka S+R will conduct a US-wide survey and a series of targeted follow-up interviews with collections leaders, to evaluate the competitive landscape of streaming media licensing more broadly.
Wolters Kluwer and the American College of Surgeons announce publishing collaboration
Wolters Kluwer, Voting Member, News Announcement, August 9, 2021
Wolters Kluwer will publish the Journal of the American College of Surgeons (JACS), ACS’s flagship clinical publication and one of the more highly cited surgery journals in the world with an impact factor of 6.113 and ranking 9/270 in the Surgery category, beginning in January 2022.
“We are excited to collaborate with Wolters Kluwer to expand our reach to more surgeons across the globe and deliver the highest quality, practice-changing research through JACS,” said Timothy Eberlein, MD, FACS, JACS Editor-in-Chief. “Wolters Kluwer’s digital solutions and global expertise in medical society publishing will help us reinforce and elevate our publication’s expert status in the field of surgery.”
The Big Ten Academic Alliance supports Fund to Mission from the University of Michigan Press
University of Michigan Library, L.S.A. Member, Blog Post, August 5, 2021
The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) and the University of Michigan Press (UMP) have signed a three-year agreement that provides multi-year support for Fund to Mission from all fifteen member libraries.
Fund to Mission is the Press’s open access monograph model that aligns with its mission and commitment to equity, justice, inclusion, and accessibility. The model demonstrates a return to the origins of the university press movement and moves toward a more open, sustainable infrastructure for the humanities and social sciences. It is one of several programs that university presses are developing to expand the reach of their specialist publications.
Libraries, Collections, and Archives
Portico to preserve Wiley digital collections
ITHAKA/JStor/Portico, Voting Member, News Announcement. August 5, 2021
Beginning in 2021, Portico will preserve Wiley Digital Archives collections to ensure that content will be secure and available into the future. Wiley Digital Archives content will be preserved for ongoing access together with the Wiley journals, book, and Cochrane Library content that is already in Portico.
Wiley Digital Archives restores, digitizes, and catalogs content from academic and scientific societies and universities, making centuries-old, unique primary source content accessible anywhere in the world. Current archives include the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal Anthropological Institute, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Geographical Society.
Calisphere soars past two million digital primary resource items!
California Digital Library (CDL), L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, August 4, 2021
We are delighted to announce that Calisphere now provides access to over two million historical images, texts, recordings, and other primary resources from the state of California’s remarkable digital collections. Explore early maps of the world; photographs from historical newspapers; paintings reflecting periods of cultural significance; personal journals and diaries charting new frontiers; political posters calling for decades of social and political change; and interviews with and oral histories of the citizens of this state. Visit Calisphere to access this openly-available, statewide aggregation of digitized resources from over 300 participating institutions and delve into the stories that have shaped California throughout its history.
We would like to express our gratitude to our partner organizations throughout California–libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other cultural heritage organizations–for their ongoing participation in contributing content that helps shape Calisphere as a valuable public resource for teaching and learning. Learn more about the shared commitments, values, and community practices that guide us and our contributing partner organizations.
Product Innovation & Upgrades
JCORE upgrades to JATS 1.3
HighWire Press, Voting Member, News Announcement, August 20, 2021
HighWire’s journals hosting solution JCORE can now transform XML to industry standard Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) XML version 1.3, the latest version. This means that publishers using the platform can now seamlessly comply with the specifications of this interoperable standard.
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) is the first JCORE publisher to offer the JATS 1.3 download for all of their OA content which includes over 57,000 articles. This option may be attractive to BMJ and other publishers as the ability to download full text in a machine readable format is one of the strong recommendations made by Coalition S within the Plan S Principles and Implementation guidance for publishers.
Controlled Digital Lending to Play a Larger Role in Ex Libris Products
Ex Libris, Inc., Voting Member, Press Release, August 19, 2021
Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is happy to announce the development of new functions that will increase the compatibility of the company’s library software solutions with controlled digital lending. Controlled digital lending (CDL) is a practice that enables libraries to lend a digital copy of a physical resource in a “lend like print” manner—that is, in the same way in which they lend the physical resource itself.
The Controlled Digital Lending by Libraries group has defined three “core principles” of CDL: “A library must own a legal copy of the physical book, either by purchase or gift; the library must maintain an ‘owned to loaned’ ratio, simultaneously lending no more copies than it legally owns; the library must use technical measures to ensure that the digital file cannot be copied or redistributed”.
Wiley Further Advances Spectral Identification with its KnowItAll 2021 Release
John Wiley & Sons, Voting Member, Press Release, August 19, 2021
Wiley, a global leader in research and education, today announced the 2021 release of its KnowItAll and ChemWindow software and spectral databases. This release includes patent pending technology that accelerates mass spectral (MS) analysis, equipping users with insights that may lead to more accurate identification of compounds.
In this release, Wiley expanded KnowItAll’s industry leading IR and Raman capabilities with feature updates that accelerate MS analysis of unknown compounds, including new algorithms, additional file import/export filters, and new options to analyze mass spectra, including MS mixture analysis.
CAS Launches Significant Enhancement to Predictive Retrosynthetic Capabilities in SciFinderⁿ
CAS, a division of American Chemical Society, Voting Member, Press Release, August 17, 2021
CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, today announces significant enhancements to the predictive retrosynthetic capabilities in CAS SciFindern, the premier scientific and most advanced relevance search engine used by researchers worldwide. An order of magnitude increase in the number of literature examples per reaction pathway prediction enhances user understanding and confidence in the predictions. Addition of a material cost threshold leads to practical, commercially viable solution options. A significant milestone in a multi-year development program, the enhanced platform uses state-of-the-art AI technology trained by the most comprehensive CAS Content Collection™ amassed from more than 110 years of chemistry research.
“Obtaining highest-quality results always comes down to having intelligent access to a quality pool of data. Our advantage was the ability to train our state-of-the-art AI technology using the world’s most complete, yet complex chemical data set,” says Tim Wahlberg, Chief Product Officer at CAS. “Our development program has more than doubled the number of rules so that SciFindern can generate a more diverse and comprehensive set of reaction predictions, providing researchers with the confidence of having the most optimal synthesis routes. Our team of Rule Editors regularly modifies, removes, or adjusts the priority of rules so the users are assured of the most comprehensive synthetic route available.”
EBSCO Information Services Introduces Ethnic Diversity Source™
EBSCO Information Services, Voting Member, Press Release, August 17, 2021
In a continuing effort to offer full-text resources that support libraries and collection needs, EBSCO Information Services has released Ethnic Diversity Source™. The new full-text resource is dedicated to covering racial diversity and supports universities and colleges with ethnic studies and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
Ethnic Diversity Source covers culture, social treatment and lived experiences of underrepresented groups across North America, including but not limited to: African Americans, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, European Americans, Jewish Americans, Latinx Americans, Native Americans and Multiracial Americans. The curated resource is comprised of a wide variety of sources including scholarly journals and magazines, primary sources, historical documents, interviews and biographies, as well as robust collections of e-books and videos aligned to represent marginalized populations in North America.
ProQuest One Business is “Sleek and Intuitive,” says Charleston Advisor
ProQuest, Voting Member, Blog Post, August 5, 2021
Charleston Advisor, a renowned source of reviews for information databases and digital resources, has rated ProQuest One Business 4.75 out of 5 in a newly published review.
“The ProQuest One Business interface is sleek and intuitive,” writes librarian Kaci Resau. “Searchability and manipulation of the search functions are easy. The widgets are helpful and intuitive and connect users to related and relevant content.”She adds, “the variety of content users have access to in one product is remarkable.”
Financials, Mergers, and Acquisitions
Clarivate Acquires Bioinfogate, Reinforcing Position as Premier Provider of End-to-End Research Intelligence Solutions for Life Sciences
Clarivate Analytics, Voting Member, Press Release, August 4, 2021
Clarivate Plc (NYSE:CLVT), a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, today announced that it has acquired Bioinfogate, a leading provider of analytics solutions in the life sciences and producer of the OFF-X™ portal. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The Bioinfogate OFF-X™ portal is a cutting-edge safety intelligence solution aimed at empowering pharmaceutical organizations to identify toxicology and safety signals, mitigate safety liabilities and de-risk early-stage assets. It is one of the largest translational safety and toxicity portals, featuring over 1,200,000 safety alerts corresponding to over 23,000 drugs and biologics and more than 15,000 targets of pharmacological interest.