Libraries, Collections, & Archives
Project MUSE Books Frontlist Collections For 2022 Now Available
Project Muse/Johns Hopkins, Voting/L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, October 21, 2021
Pricing is available and orders may now be placed for the 2022 frontlist collections of books on Project MUSE. The annual frontlist collections offer libraries the earliest access to newly-published books from the more than 200 university press and related scholarly publishers who participate in MUSE book collections. With the advance purchase of one or more of the 2022 frontlist collections, a library gains access to new titles in the collection(s) immediately upon their release on the MUSE platform, and provides its users with the latest scholarship in a DRM-free, easy to use format. With unlimited simultaneous usage, downloading, and printing, books on MUSE are ideal for both research and classroom needs.
Project MUSE offers annual frontlist collections for a wide variety of humanities and social science subjects, and also by area studies. A Complete Collection is also available, including every newly-released collection book on the platform for the year. Pricing is based upon a guaranteed number of titles expected to be delivered, and is tiered by library type.
University Libraries help preserve Southeastern Conference (SEC) History
Texas A&M University, L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, October 14, 2021
The Texas A&M University Libraries Preservation Unit teamed up with the Southeastern Conference (SEC) to save decades' worth of historical documents related to the athletic conference.
The SEC began working with the University Libraries in 2018 on how to best preserve the conference’s historical records and documents spanning more than nine decades. A team of experts from the University Libraries Preservation Unit traveled to the SEC headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama, to meet with conference officials and assess the collection and determine the best course of action for the preservation efforts. A year later, the Preservation Unit began processing the SEC’s historic records and objects.
Acquisition of Kripke Collection makes IU’s Lilly Library North America’s Dictionary Destination
Indiana University Bloomington Libraries, L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, October 14, 2021
When America’s top dictionary editors and language scholars find themselves at a loss for words, where do they turn? For decades the illustrious Dame of Dictionaries, Madeline Kripke, answered the call. Her stockpile of more than 20,000 linguistic books and ephemera was often referred to as the world’s largest and finest dictionary collection. In fact, Michael Adams, Provost Professor and Chair of the English Department at Indiana University Bloomington, says Kripke spent the last decades of her life dedicated to building the collection and amassed “the most important collection of dictionary and related materials that has ever been curated by anyone.”
Lindsay Rose Russell is the Executive Director of the Dictionary Society of North America as well as an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “I don't think it's possible to overstate the significance or charm of Madeline Kripke's collection: It's not just that it's big or that it contains all kinds of really important dictionaries. It's that, in it, pristine leather-bound volumes of field-defining dictionaries sit next to little-known or heavily-annotated dialect glossaries, tattered broadsides of underworld jargon, and all kinds of other invaluable lexicographical oddities few have heard of or thought to collect,” she points out. “And all of that material has the distinction of having literally lived with the most important dictionary collector of all time.”
Financials, Mergers, and Acquisitions
Book Publishing Revenues Flat at $25.71 Billion For The Year
Association of American Publishers (AAP), Voting Member, News Announcement, October 8, 2021
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today released the StatShot Annual report for calendar year 2020, estimating that the U.S. book publishing industry generated $25.71 billion, a slight decrease of 0.2% from 2019 revenue of $25.77 billion. Consistent with past StatShot reports, book publishing industry revenue has ranged between $25 billion and $26 billion since 2016.
“The 2020 results are remarkable and inspirational for a year that people will long associate with an unprecedented public health crisis, worldwide suffering, and colossal business disruptions,” said AAP President and CEO Maria A. Pallante. “That publishing is resilient is nothing new, but we should nevertheless take a moment to recognize the incredible dedication and innovation of the industry in serving readers and the public interest during such an isolating and confusing time.”
EBSCO Information Services Releases Serials Price Projection Report for 2022
EBSCO Information Services, Voting Member, Press Release, September 30, 2021
The 2022 Serials Price Projection Report from EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is now available. The report projects that the overall effective publisher price increases for academic and academic medical libraries are expected to be (before any currency impact) in the range of three to five percent for individual titles and one to three percent for e-journal packages.
EBSCO releases the Serials Price Projections based on surveys of a wide range of publishers and reviews of historical serials pricing data to assist information professionals as they make budgeting decisions for the renewals season. The Serials Price Projection Report looks at market dynamics highlighting many topics and trends that impact the scholarly information marketplace, including how economic factors influence publisher pricing, library budget challenges, e-journal packages, Open Access (OA), and the non-renewal of print subscriptions.
Partnerships & Collaborations
The Institute of Navigation selects HighWire for Hosting
HighWire Press, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 22, 2021
The Institute of Navigation (ION) and HighWire Press are pleased to announce a three-year partnership. HighWire has been selected to host NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation on its JCORE platform.
First launched in 1945, NAVIGATION is the leading peer-reviewed and indexed scientific journal publishing articles on all areas related to the art and science of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT). Today the Journal has a Journal Impact Factor (JIF) ranking of 2.1. This JIF ranks NAVIGATION in the top ten academic journals in its class.
Oxford University Press announces publishing collaboration with university libraries in Australia and New Zealand
Oxford University Press, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 22, 2021
Oxford University Press and the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) have reached a Read & Publish agreement which will provide online access for employees and students of CAUL institutions to OUP’s full journal collection of 366 peer-reviewed journals. Under the agreement, researchers at participating institutions will also be able to publish their research open access in OUP’s hybrid open access journals.
The agreement starts in 2022 and is OUP's first read and publish deal in Australia and New Zealand. OUP’s journal collection will be available to almost two million faculty, staff, and students at 47 participating universities.
Cadmore Media First Video Platform to Partner with Crossref as Service Provider
Cadmore Media, Inc., and Crossref, Voting Members, News Announcement, October 11, 2021
Cadmore Media is now a registered service provider for Crossref members, working in the spirit of collaboration to support member needs and create best practices for the creation, registration, and display of metadata. As the first platform exclusively devoted to multimedia to collaborate with Crossref, Cadmore hopes to illustrate the importance of DOIs and other metadata in the video publishing process. As CEO Violaine Iglesias notes, “We’ve long been proponents of capturing high-quality and accurate metadata when publishing scholarly video content and streamlining the management of such data is a core competency for us. This new partnership with Crossref is a confirmation of our commitment and we’re excited to share and develop best practices for multimedia metadata with members.”
Jennifer Kemp, Head of Partnerships at Crossref added, “We’re delighted to have Cadmore Media as a Crossref Service Provider. Service Providers are a small group but play a big role in Crossref metadata. Cadmore’s work with the growing body of scholarly audiovisual content will help inform our thinking on metadata for multimedia and I look forward to working with the Cadmore team.”
Product Innovation
Innovative Announces Release of Vega Discover Accessibility Assessment
Innovative Interfaces, Inc., Voting Member, News Announcement, November 5, 2021
Innovative, a ProQuest company and leading global provider of library software, today announced the release of its Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) for Vega Discover. Following the template, the assessment reviewed Vega Discover’s user interface for compliance with all Federal Accessibility Standards (ADA, Section 508, and WCAG 2.1). Vega Discover supports or partially supports all success criteria in the template.
“We increasingly hear from libraries that accessible software is crucial for serving all community members equitably,” said Toni Minick, Vice President of Product Management. “We are committed to our customers and their communities, and we believe that VPATs will become a mandatory requirement for discovery solutions in the future. Adopting compliance now means Innovative will be at the forefront of inclusive design for libraries.”
Springer Nature seeks to reduce language barriers by harnessing technology to offer free auto-translation service of books and manuscripts to all its book authors
Springer Nature, Voting Member, Press Release, October 18, 2021
Springer Nature is now offering researchers the opportunity to have their books and manuscripts auto-translated free of charge.
Following a successful pilot, Springer Nature has now deployed DeepL AI to fill a critical gap and seamlessly integrated auto-translation into its book publishing process. This service will be available for book authors across all disciplines as well as for submitted manuscripts, enabling them to translate their work from multiple languages into English.
Aries Systems Announces the Redesign of its Editorial Manager® and ProduXion Manager® Workflow Solutions
Aries Systems Corporation, Voting Member, Press Release, October 18, 2021
Aries Systems Corporation, a leading technology workflow solutions provider to the scholarly publishing community, announces the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) redesign initiative of its Editorial Manager® and ProduXion Manager® workflow solutions.
Aries Systems is committed to delivering continuous product improvement and innovation to best meet the needs of our customers. The UX/UI redesign initiative is driven by Aries’ dedication to delivering excellence and is in direct response to valued user feedback and evolving design and accessibility standards. These exciting new enhancements will focus on modernizing the look and feel of Aries’ Editorial Manager (EM) and ProduXion Manager (PM) solutions while simplifying and improving the user experience by implementing design best practices. The redesign initiative will create a more valuable, user-centric, and responsive platform for all EM and PM users.
Search engine could help researchers scour internet for privacy documents
Penn State University Libraries, L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, October 13, 2021
A search engine that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to “read” through millions of online documents could help privacy researchers find ones that are related to online privacy. The researchers who designed the search engine suggest it could be an important tool for researchers trying to find ways to design a safer internet.
In a study, the researchers said that the search engine, which they dubbed PrivaSeer, uses a type of AI called natural language processing — NLP — to identify online privacy documents, such as privacy policies, terms of service agreements, cookie policies, privacy bills and laws, regulatory guidelines and other related texts on the web.
Oxford and Cambridge Universities Choose Ex Libris RapidILL Interlibrary Loan Service to Improve ILL Speed and Collaboration
Ex Libris, Inc., Voting Member, Press Release, October 11, 2021
Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is pleased to announce that the libraries at two renowned institutions in the United Kingdom—the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge—have adopted the Ex Libris RapidILL™ interlibrary loan service. With this acquisition, the universities have also become members of the global RapidILL community, opening their collections to institutions in the UK and around the world.
As an interlibrary loan system built around a community of reciprocal users, RapidILL has an outstanding request fulfillment rate of 95% and an average delivery time of less than 12 hours. Institutions using RapidILL not only enjoy greater access to other collections but also increase the visibility of their own collections. Improving the efficiency of interlibrary loan services supports the advancement of research and makes teaching more effective, both on campus and remotely.
Infrastructure and Platforms
Scholars Worldwide Gain Access to Mechanical Engineering-Related PhD Dissertations from Renowned Hungarian Technical University
ProQuest, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 20, 2021
The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) has included its graduate works in the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global™ database, the leading source of emerging research from universities around the world.
The ProQuest database will include existing and future PhD full text-dissertations from this 240-year-old institution. These works will be accessible by ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global users globally and will be broadly discoverable via citations in major subject indexes and Google Scholar, giving BME’s authors more visibility and recognition for their research output.
Two Nigerian Institutions Contribute Graduate Works to the ProQuest® Dissertations & Theses Global™ Database
ProQuest, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 7, 2021
Two Nigerian higher-education institutions – University of Abuja and the Center for Bioethics and Research (CBR) – will include their graduate research in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global™, the largest curated database of theses and dissertations in the world.
Dissertations and theses from University of Abuja and CBR are now accessible by ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global users globally and will be broadly discoverable via citations in major subject indexes and Google Scholar, giving authors greater visibility and recognition for their research output. More than 4 million researchers at 3,100 universities will have access to content authored by graduates of these leading Nigerian institutions.
Policies & Procedures
Author name change policy introduced at AIP Publishing
AIP Publishing, LLC, Voting Member, News Announcement, October 12, 2021
AIP Publishing (AIPP) is pleased to announce a new policy to support authors who change their names. Anyone who has published an article on Scitation can now request a name change, privately and for any reason, so that they will continue to receive proper credit for their work.
“People change their names to reflect their gender identities, marital statuses, and religious conversions. Given the pivotal role of publications in academic and research careers, authors need to be able modify their scholarly records. AIP Publishing is proud to join the ranks of leading publishers in offering a simple, discrete solution as a definitive step to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the physical sciences,” said Alix Vance, AIP Publishing CEO.
Open Access, Open Science
The University of Kansas to Trial Open-Access Publishing Agreement with Frontiers
University of Kansas Libraries, L.S.A. Member, Blog Post, October 7, 2021
As part of the University of Kansas’ support in making research more widely available, KU Libraries have agreed to an institutional membership trial agreement with Frontiers, enabling KU and KU Med-affiliated corresponding authors to benefit from a 7.5% membership discount on article processing charges (APCs) in any of Frontiers’ journals until the end of September 2022 (reference date is the article acceptance date).
In addition to the discount, insights into institutional activity will be included in data reports to be made available directly to University of Kansas Libraries.