Online
Joy Cadwallader, Aberystwyth University (Aberystwyth Online User Group). Please send your submissions for the next edition to jrc@aber.ac.uk
BBC WorldWide: BBC Motion Gallery
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/
BBC Motion Gallery have entered a partnership with Mochila, permitting the global syndication of more than 60 hours of video clips using an ad-supported payment model. Mochila, who specialise in syndicating commercial Web content, provide a searchable bank of text, image and video content to registered users, which they can build into existing Web pages using Mochila's suite of customizable widgets. The BBC will receive a percentage of advertising revenue, in return for providing the content for free. The agreement comprises approximately 800 individual short clips. Ebrary
http://www.ebrary.com/
Titles in the Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO) product are now available for subscription on the ebrary platform, following a new partnership between the OUP and ebrary. Purchasing will be available direct through ebrary or through ebrary's other distributors, including Blackwell and YBP, with list price savings on any OUP ebooks. The OSO range includes scholarly texts in the Social Sciences, Humanities, Mathematics and Biology.
Emerald
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/
Emerald have acquired parts of Elsevier's Social Sciences serials, series and books programme. The new range comprises over 500 new book series and serials in areas such as the environment, language and linguistics, politics, sociology and psychology and represents a significant enhancement to their current collection of 200 journals in business, management and information science.
Harvard University
http://www.harvard.edu/
In a ground-breaking move the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Harvard University have approved a motion to mandate the deposit of faculty research in an open-access repository managed by the library, to be made freely available online. Authors would retain their copyrights instead of signing them over exclusively to journal publishers, but articles could still be published in journals if they complied with the institutional repository's rights. An opt-out provision for authors is also available.
JISC
http://www.jisc.ac.uk
Following an invitation for proposals from and subsequent negotiations with interested publishers in 2007, JISC Collections has launched the NESLi2 SMP (NESLi2 for Small and Medium sized Publishers). Over 400 journals from 15 publishers will now become available for subscription by universities, colleges and research councils at specially negotiated prices. The journals will be available under some of the licensing conditions within the existing NESLi2 model licence, thus allowing academics to make use of excerpts of journal content in VLEs, reading lists and other teaching materials.
OCLC
http://www.oclc.org/
The bibliographic records for the National Library of China will be added to OCLC WorldCat, starting this year, with a possible 1.5 million records being developed and converted to display Chinese characters. OCLC opened a Beijing office in 2007, and sees the move as improving cultural understanding as well as enhancing the content of WorldCat.
OVID
http://www.ovid.com/
The National Library for Health (NLH) has awarded a national contract to OVID to provide electronic access to medical, healthcare and nursing information. A three-year agreement beginning in April permits NHS institutions in England to license ebooks, e-journals and databases from OVID at preferential rates. OVID partners the NLH in their development of the Search 2.0 federated search for the NHS, using the OVID API and Web Services. OVID will also supply access to six major medical databases (AMED, BNI, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and HMIC) for National Health Service hospitals and other healthcare facilities in England.
Oxford University: The Great War Archive
http://www.thegreatwararchive.org/
Researchers at Oxford University are assembling a digital archive of memories of World War I, called “The Great War Archive”. A three-month search has been undertaken, inviting members of the public to look at home for written items such as letters, diaries and poems as well as photos, film and sound recordings and other artifacts, for digital submission. The intention is to preserve these experiences before they are lost. The collection, to be launched on the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day (11th November 2008), will be freely available online. Funded by JISC, the project builds on prior projects including the “First World War Poetry Digital Archive” (April 2007) and the “Virtual Seminars for Teaching Literature” (1996-8).
ProQuest
http://www.proquest.com/
ProQuest has acquired WebFeat, and plans to merge it with Serial Solutions to produce a combine federated search product for 2009. The individual federated search engines will be supported until then.
A further partnership between JISC and ProQuest has resulted in an agreement to make the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers 1901-2004 freely available online to staff and students in UK universities and colleges. Following their previous agreement for academic access to the C19 House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, this essential resource consists of 9.5 million pages in 187,809 papers.
ProQuest have added the Irish Times and the Weekly Irish Times to its Historical Newspapers collection. The Irish Times will be available from 1859 to 2007 and the entire run of the Weekly Irish Times (1865-1950) will also be available.
Sixty-five volumes of poetry from Faber and Faber are being added to Literature Online as part of an extended agreement. Works include the poetry of Auden and Larkin, and a translation of Beowulf by Seamus Heaney.
Reed Elsevier
http://www.reed-elsevier.com/
The abstract and citation database Scopus has added 600 titles to its database of 17,000 peer-reviewed titles. The selections were made following a call for suggestions to the Scopus Content Selection and Advisory Board, comprising scientists, researchers and subject librarians. A third of those suggested were chosen from the subject areas Central & South American, and Social Science.
Reed Elsevier are to acquire ChoicePoint, a US firm that collects, analyzes and sells access to personal information about consumers, for $4.1 billion. ChoicePoint has a controversial past, with federal investigations, a stock-trading probe of its two top executives and a major breach in data privacy. ChoicePoint will be combined with the LexisNexis risk group.
Reed Elsevier are to sell Reed Business Information (RBI), which publishes New Scientist, Variety, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly and may be worth £1.3 billion, stating that the division does not fit with its increasingly subscription-based services.
Thomson Scientific
http://scientific.thomson.com/
Thomson Scientific have launched ScienceWatch.com, “tracking trends and performance in basic research”. This freely available online resource provides commentary previously found in In-Cites and ESI Special Topics, plus the current issue of Science Watch and additional data, analysis and interviews. Features include “Fast-breaking Papers”, “Hot Topics” and “Rising Stars”. The existing subscription service to Science Watch continues to provide updated, searchable data on thousands of highly cited papers on the Hot Papers CD and the print edition of Science Watch.
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