Press Releases & News

TRANSFER update

24 March 2009: UKSG is pleased to announce that 20 publishers have now signed up to its TRANSFER Code of Practice, which provides best practice guidelines and outlines responsibilities to ensure that journal content remains easily accessible in the event of a change of ownership. This means that library and reader access to over 8,000 journals will now be protected in transfers between publisher signatories.

Major signatories to the code include Elsevier, Nature and Wiley, but it is equally appropriate to smaller publishers – those signed up so far include the American Diabetes Association, Earthscan and the Rural Sociological Society. UKSG's objective is to persuade all publishers of the importance and value of endorsing the TRANSFER code.

"Librarians must be increasingly rigorous in assessing the merits of journals and journals packages for renewal or purchase," said Joan Emmet, NERL Program Librarian. "TRANSFER endorsement is a signal that a publisher understands its customers' needs and is committed to providing a good level of service even in complex circumstances. By implementing standards of practice for the treatment of transfer titles, the job of keeping track of these titles becomes easier both for publisher and customer. The publisher who puts the code into practice will help set apart a journal/journals package when we are reviewing our collections."

The TRANSFER Code of Practice was developed by a cross-party working group to resolve problems encountered by subscribers when journals move from one publisher to another. Many critical issues, such as continuity of access during a transfer or perpetual ongoing access to archives, were previously a grey area in journal sale agreements; this resulted in frustration for end users and librarians as key e-journals became temporarily or even permanently unavailable despite licence terms.

"The TRANSFER code has been extensively fine-tuned to balance the interests of its multiple stakeholders," said Ed Pentz, TRANSFER Working Group Chair. "Libraries and their users benefit from minimal disruption during a transfer – and publishers benefit from the simplified workflow and associated reduction in costs of a standardised process. We've also taken great care to protect publishers' competitive interests. The overall success of the Code depends on widespread adoption by publishers so we hope that many more will soon show their support for their customers by signing up."

For more information, and to sign up to the TRANSFER Code, visit

http://www.uksg.org/transfer

For more information, contact:

Ed Pentz, Chair, TRANSFER Working Group

epentz@crossref.org

ProQuest acquires RefWorks

January 18, 2008 (ANN ARBOR, MI) -- ProQuest, a Cambridge Information Group company, has acquired RefWorks LLC, a leading provider of web-based research management, writing and collaboration services for the academic and research communities. Cambridge Information Group has had an ownership position in RefWorks since May 2001. Complete ownership will enable ProQuest to integrate RefWorks into its COS business -- which serves the same market -- creating powerful, single-source networking and management tools for scholars around the world.

"RefWorks has been an important asset for many years. Now, this acquisition allows us to take another step in our larger mission to advance the research process," said Boe Horton, ProQuest Senior Vice President. "In this case, we're reducing barriers to efficient work by giving researchers direct ways to connect with each other and the tools they need to leverage those connections."

Jeff Baer, ProQuest Vice President and General Manager of what is now known as RefWorks/COS, will lead the newly merged group. RefWorks' acclaimed tools -- best known for their ability to help researchers easily gather, manage, store and share all types of information -- are uniquely complementary to COS Scholar Universe. COS Scholar Universe is renowned for its networking capability, which provides direct access to more than 1.4 million active researchers from around the world working in over 200 disciplines. With RefWorks and COS joining forces, researchers will be able to turn to one source for tools that help them identify colleagues with similar research interests around the world, establish alliances and manage joint research projects.

RefWorks CEO Earl Beutler will remain a consultant to support strategic projects from RefWorks/COS. The remaining senior management team of RefWorks will report directly into Mr. Baer. The other RefWorks staff will be combined with the COS staff to create a single, integrated organization.

"We're delighted that the senior management staff that has made RefWorks the standard in academic collaboration tools will now be a part of its future as RefWorks/COS," said Mr. Baer. "We're creating a powerful suite of tools that will drive research forward. It's an exciting road ahead."

Customers of both COS and RefWorks can continue to use their current contact numbers.

Classical Research in the Digital Age

19 March 09: The British Library's Archival Sound Recordings project, supported by JISC, today launches a vital new resource for the exploration of western classical music heritage. Bringing together nearly 1000 historic recordings, this freely available online collection allows researchers to easily compare various interpretations of great composers, tracing the impact of globalisation on performance style and its evolution throughout the early 20th Century.

Available works include:

• Bach – Brandenburg concertos, orchestral suites and solo concertos
• Haydn – Symphonies
• Mozart – Symphonies and concertos
• Beethoven – String quartets, symphonies and concertos
• Brahms – Symphonies, overtures and concertos

Celebrating the success of projects such as Archival Sound Recordings, which hosts this collection, the British Library's Unlocking Audio conference on 16 / 17 March will gather academic researchers, application developers and archivists from around the world to explore emerging practices and technologies that support research using online audio, and to evaluate the implications for tomorrow's listeners.

Topics for discussion include:

• Automated melody matching – for finding and comparing music performances
• Computer-aided speech-to-text – helping create fully searchable recordings
• Ways to connect heritage and research collections with users
• Uses of online resources in teaching and research.

Celia Duffy, Head of Research, National Centre for Research in the Performing Arts, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama said: "Digital collections, such as Archival Sound Recordings, have enormous potential for researchers and students. By placing previously inaccessible archives online, they create the potential for new fields of cross-disciplinary research, reflecting the social, cultural, technological and political changes that have shaped contemporary society. In particular, the Classical Music collection provides researchers with the means to easily assess how performance practice has changed over the years and gain fresh insight into familiar works."

Richard Ranft, Head of the British Library Sound Archive said: “Thanks to the support of JISC the Archival Sound Recordings project has unlocked over 36,000 recordings, creating a crucial tool for academic research.

"The Unlocking Audio conference provides us with the perfect opportunity to share lessons learned, discuss best practice solutions and explore innovative methods for online retrieval and delivery with colleagues from around the world, to help us continue to make collections accessible online.”

For further information about the archive visit http://sounds.bl.uk/ and for more information about JISC's digitisation programme visit http://www.jisc.ac.uk .

Polar Research Photos

Today, 4th March 2009, sees more than 20,000 photos from 150 years of polar expeditions available online. These images have been made accessible by the Scott Polar Research Institute, thanks to a digitisation programme funded by JISC.

As part of the preservation programme, negatives, daguerreotypes and lantern slides, which form part of a rich but fragile archive held by the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, are now available to scientists, researchers, scholars and members of the public.

As well as being able to view a range of images, including Herbert Ponting's glass plate negatives from the 1910-13 British Antarctic Expedition, that are so fragile they will never be on public display, visitors to the website will also be able to read extracts from diaries, expedition reports, letters and other personal papers of expedition members.

Polar Explorer Pen Hadow, currently leading the Catlin Arctic Survey which will determine the likely meltdown date of the ice cap, said: “The Freeze Frame archive is invaluable in charting changes in the polar regions. Making the material available to all will help with further research into scientific studies around global warming and climate change.”

Heather Lane, Librarian and Keeper of Collections at the Scott Polar Research Institute, said: “The digitisation of these historic photographs allows the Scott Polar Research Institute's resources to reach a wider learning community than ever before. Without this JISC-funded project we risked losing some of the most fragile of items forever and certainly wouldn't be able to give so many people access to otherwise hidden collections that can further the study of polar environments.”

Alistair Dunning, Digitisation Programme Manager at JISC, added: “This is one of over a dozen JISC-funded projects which aim to take valuable content that is not easily accessible by scholars or other interested parties and make it available to all. Freeze Frame will provide an unparalleled record of the living conditions and scientific findings of the explorers which can be used by learners today studying everything from photography and nutrition to global warming and glaciology.”

A new exhibition, Face to Face, featuring some of the historic photographic portraits discovered during the Freeze Frame project, is currently on a UK tour and opens at Discovery Point, Dundee on 7th March.

Cornell University Library Expands Print-on-Demand Offerings

More than 80,000 Books To Be Offered for Reprint on Amazon.com

ITHACA, N.Y. (Feb. 3, 2009) – Expanding an ongoing partnership with Amazon.com, Cornell University Library is increasing its print-on-demand offerings to more than 80,000 titles.

By the end of 2009, tens of thousands of new books will be added to the approximately 6,000 items in Cornell's collection already available on Amazon. All of the books are in the public domain in the United States, and many are currently out of print.

"Although demand for online access to digital books has been growing, books as artifacts continue to have a real value," said Oya Rieger, associate university librarian for information technologies. "This initiative supports the reading and research patterns of users who prefer the affordances provided by physical books – they support deep reading, underlining and writing comments in the margins. The Web is great for easy access and browsing, but because digital content can sometimes be ephemeral, physical books continue to serve as valuable reference sources on your shelf."

Positive feedback from users helped contribute to the decision to expand the number of titles available. "The publication of this little book adds valuable primary source material for students of the War of 1812. Bravo to Cornell for making it available," one customer wrote. Another said, "Words cannot express how grateful I am that Cornell University saw fit to republish these two papers."

The books that will be added throughout 2009 were digitised with the support of Microsoft over the last two years. These new volumes represent a substantial part of the Library's rare and unique offerings printed before 1923.

They will reflect Cornell's subject strengths, including American history, English literature, astronomy, food and wine, general engineering, the history of science, home economics, hospitality and travel, human sexuality, labor relations, Native American materials, ornithology, veterinary medicine and women's studies.

Collections already available for reprint from Amazon include New York state historical literature, core historical literature in agriculture, historical math monographs and materials related to home economics.

Cornell University Library has been a cutting-edge participant with print-on-demand services and mass digitization initiatives, partnering with multiple outlets to make its collections available to the public. The partnership with Amazon began in 2006, and the Library is currently engaged in a large-scale digitization initiative with Google that will create 500,000 digitised books over the next six years.