April 8, 2013 – Palo Alto, CA, USA – ebrary®, a ProQuest business, is significantly expanding support for corporate and government libraries with two new e-book subscription databases, Military Complete™ and Project Management. The company has also added more than 4,900 new titles to its Government Complete™ collection.

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April 8, 2013 (ANN ARBOR, Mich.) — ProQuest is digitizing more than 15,000 dissertations from premier European universities, providing broad, online access to these works for the first time. Digital discovery of the works from University College London, University of Aberdeen, Cardiff University, University of Leicester, University of Bath and University of Valencia will be through the universities’ institutional repositories (IRs) and in the fourth quarter of 2013, through PQDT Global, a new resource for search and discovery of graduate works in emerging research areas from the world’s top universities.

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Open Access ebook collections are on the rise. One of the newer collections is SciELO (pronounced like the initials C-L-O).  The SciELO ebooks operation began in March of 2012 and officially announced itself to the international community last month.  I interviewed Nicholas Cop, President of Nicholas Cop Consulting and principle consultant of the SciELO program this week.  The interview is in English.  Those needing more information about SciELO in Spanish or Portuguese are asked to visit the website at http://books.scielo.org.

Here is more information about SciELO:

What is SciELO?

SciELO is a Program of the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) that is implemented through the Federal University of São Paulo Foundation (FapUNIFESP). SciELO began in 1998 as an OA academic e-journal operation. Today it is known and respected globally for indexing and publishing peer-reviewed Open Access academic e-journals that promote the advancement of research by facilitating the communication of its results. SciELO’s goals have always been to increase the visibility, access and impact of research from emerging and developing countries. SciELO publishes over 1000 journal titles mainly from Latin America and Caribbean but also including Portugal, Spain and South Africa. Each day an average of over 1M articles are downloaded from the SciELO site. [Read more →]

Good news for ebook discovery.

April 9, 2013 (ANN ARBOR, Mich.) — ProQuest is streamlining research by enabling ebrary® and ProQuest® content to be discovered within a single search experience. Now, researchers can surface e-books side-by-side with relevant reports, videos, journal and newspaper articles and more in one step. The advance in searching comes via linking technology that enables users to navigate seamlessly from search results to the platform that best supports the content they want to explore. [Read more →]

SAGE Publications has just announced the launch of its social science literature review tool, SAGE Navigator. The tool is hosted on the publisher’s well-known SAGE Knowledge ebook platform, which brings together about 2500 SAGE publications, including journals, reference books, handbooks, and monographs originally published by SAGE, as well as titles by SAGE’s imprints CQ Press and Corwin. At launch, SAGE Navigator covers nearly 300 topics and provides researchers with access to the seminal titles within their chosen subject. The tool’s strength topics include Business and Management,  Education, Politics and Sociology. [Read more →]

Mark your calendars. April 18th episode of American Libraries Live will focus on the present and future of ebooks and what their continued popularity means for libraries and librarians everywhere. The interactive (and free) discussion will be moderated by No Shelf Required blogger and ebook expert Sue Polanka and will include contributions from:

• Jamie LaRue, Director of the Douglas County (CO) Libraries and an innovator in making e-books available to patrons.

• Scott Wasinger, Vice President of Sales for eBooks and Audiobooks at EBSCO Publishing, who has been involved with eContent since the early days of commercial e-readers.

The episode will take place on April 18th between 2 and 3 p.m. (Eastern). More information is available here: http://americanlibrarieslive.org/blog/month-al-live-present-and-future-e-books. If you’re unable to attend live, this event will be recorded and available at www.americanlibrarieslive.org shortly after it concludes.

AL Live is the free streaming video broadcast from American Libraries, covering library issues and trends in real time as you interact with hosts via a live chat and get immediate answers to your questions.

 According to the press release just received from Gale (see below), the company plans to bring together more than 130 million pages of its digital humanities content onto one platform. Artemis, the name of the product, will be released in a series of phases over the next few years and will become the world’s largest curated primary source and literary collection.–MR [Read more →]

Media specialists and educators in K-12 institutions in the United States and Canada, this announcement is for you:

Calling All Team Players – Gale and Library Media Connection

Seek Nominations for the 2013 TEAMS Award

Farmington Hills, Mich.,  April 1, 2013 – Gale, part of Cengage Learning, and Library Media Connection magazine are calling all media specialists and educators at K-12 public and private schools in the U.S. and Canada to share their collaboration success stories and submit for the 2013 TEAMS Award – Teachers and Media Specialists Influencing Student Achievement. The TEAMS Award recognizes teacher–media specialist teams in elementary, middle and high school settings for their critical collaboration to promote learning and achievement. Examples of efforts that have been recognized include: a collaborative school-wide project involving the art, music, physical education and computer teachers; a program to improve student research skills using authenticated, credible websites; and an integrating digital curriculum with Google Docs. The three winning teams will each receive a cash award, Gale products, a one-year subscription to Library Media Connection and the Educator’s Professional Bookshelf from Linworth Publishing/Libraries Unlimited. In addition, the winners will be featured in an article in Library Media Connection. Awards will be presented at a special reception held in conjunction with this year’s American Association of School Librarians annual conference.

What:     Gale/Library Media Connection 2013 TEAMS Award honoring teachers and media specialists influencing student achievement through collaboration. The nomination may be submitted by a library media specialist, teacher, principal, student or parent for work done in the 2011-12 or 2012-13 school year. There is no entry fee; however each nomination packet must include six copies of each:

• Completed submission form with appropriate attachments
• One-page letter of recommendation from school’s principal or assistant principal on school letterhead
• Signed release form (available at www.galeschools.com/TEAMS) for each person involved
• Photograph of the collaborating media specialist/teaching team

Who:      All public and private K-12 schools in the U.S. and Canada. Find complete submission information including entry forms and past winners online at www.galeschools.com/TEAMS

When:    All entries must be post-marked by July 1, 2013. Winners will be announced in November 2013 at the American Association of School Librarians annual conference in Hartford, CT.

Why:      Collaboration among teachers and media specialists is critical to promote learning, increase student achievement and help students develop 21st century skills. Gale and Library Media Connection want to honor teacher–librarian teams for their hard work and dedication.

Details:  Please contact Kristina Massari at kristina.massari@cengage.com for more information or with questions about the award.

About Cengage Learning and Gale

Cengage Learning is a leading educational content, software and services company for the academic, professional and library markets worldwide. Gale, part of Cengage Learning, serves the world’s information and education needs through its vast and dynamic content pools, which are used by students and consumers in their libraries, schools and on the Internet. It is best known for the accuracy, breadth and convenience of its data, addressing all types of information needs – from homework help to health questions to business profiles – in a variety of formats. For more information, visit www.cengage.com or www.gale.cengage.com.

About Library Media Connection and Linworth/Libraries Unlimited

Library Media Connection (LMC) delivers the insight, answers and encouragement school librarians need to transform their libraries into thriving hubs for 21st century learning and teaching. From practical inspiration from today’s most innovative practitioners to unbiased, insightful peer reviews that support smart collection development, LMC covers technology, tackles the tough issues of budgeting, staffing, and more. More than a publication, LMC is a community of librarians and leaders. LMC is a publication of Linworth/Libraries Unlimited from the collections of ABC-CLIO. Learn more at www.librarymediaconnection.com.

A colleague forwarded this interesting blog post to me about Flipboard.  The author, Mathew Ingram, discusses Flipboard’s new release features.  He discusses the ability for advertisers and readers to now become publishers.

Here is a snip from the post: 
“Flipboard’s new version is more than just an evolution, it’s a significant departure from what the service was all about. Until now, it has been about making it easy to discover and consume content from multiple sources, but the new features are all about turning readers into publishers — by giving them curation tools like those used by Flipboard’s own editors.”

“The idea that advertisers now have many of the same tools as publishers and traditional media companies do, and that readers and consumers of content also have much more power over that content than they used to, are two pretty inescapable facts about the new media landscape — and Flipboard has just staked a claim to some significant territory on both of those fronts.”

This is very similar to an article I read last week from Mike Shatzkin’s blog, The Shatzkin Files.  In his post on “atomization” he discusses publishing as a function rather than an industry.  It’s a very interesting read.

Credo is moving full steam ahead in 2013.  The following press release highlights several major achievements from this year including the two new Literati products, CODiE awards, and the acquisition of OnlineTutorSolutions.com.  Read on for the details:

April 2, 2013, Boston, Oxford – Credo, the industry leader for information skills solutions, today announced several significant achievements in the first quarter of 2013.   In addition to launching Literati School and Literati Student Athlete, solutions that combine authoritative scholarly content, innovative technologies and customizable services, the company’s Literati Public was recognized with a prestigious SIIA CODiE Award and Literati Academic was nominated for an SIIA CODiE Award as well.

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