Olympus Microscopy has announced a partnership with scientific publisher Nature Publishing Group (NPG), UK, to present the 'Nature Reviews Fluorescence Imaging Collection'. This free collection of articles from the portfolio of Nature Reviews journals has been chosen to support cell biologists using microscopy and fluorescent microscopy techniques in their research.

The partnership with NPG is the latest in Olympus's ongoing programme of activities in support of life science research. The Nature Reviews Fluorescence Imaging Collection is a special supplement which focuses on the latest advances in the field of fluorescence imaging.

Written by leading researchers, it covers a broad cross-section of microscopy and fluorescence microscopy applications, from basic cell biology to cancer research, gene knockout studies and drug discovery. Apart from being freely available in a printed supplement, the Nature Reviews Fluorescence Imaging Collection can also be accessed as a Cell Biology Web Focus on the Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology website at www.nature.com.nrm. The collection is available from April 5, 2007.

STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the launch of a new journal, Marine Genomics. The new journal will focus on the advances in the very rapidly expanding field of genomic studies on marine organisms. Prof. Giorgio Bernardi, President of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (Naples Italy), will serve as Editor-in-Chief of the journal, the first issue of which will appear in March 2008.

A quarterly, Marine Genomics will address subjects in the field of aquatic genomics, including population genomics, developmental, functional and comparative genomics. More specific topics will include biogeochemistry; microbial carbon utilisation and metabolic pathways; ecosystem modeling; distribution and phylogenetic characterisation of aquatic organisms; genomics applied to microbial ecology; and tracking of infectious diseases and environmental stress. The journal will also publish reviews and topical special issues.

Prof. William Martin, Group Director at Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf (Germany) will be the Co-Editor of the journal. An International Advisory Board comprising Profs. Rita Colwell (chair), Eric Davidson, Takashi Gojobori and Daniel Hartl, will be actively involved in developing the editorial policy of the journal. International Editorial Board comprising prominent investigators in the field will be in charge of the reviewing procedure.

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Academic publisher Maney Publishing, UK, has announced that it will publish the English Heritage Research Transactions series, previously published by Earthscan/James & James (Science Publishers) Ltd.

This acquisition will further complement Maney's strong archaeology list and will develop its range in the field of conservation. It follows an agreement earlier in the year by which Maney acquired Earthscan's archaeology journals and full heritage book list.

Launched in 1998, the series seeks to bring the latest developments in building conservation research to architects, conservators, scientists, builders, engineers and policy makers. Each volume focuses on a specific material and presents primary findings from pioneering research work carried out by English Heritage. The series also covers case study reports from practical conservation work carried out on the English Heritage estate.

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Online information provider About.com, US, has announced the acquisition of UCompareHealthCare.com (UCHC), a site that provides consumers with access to quality ratings and related information on hospitals, nursing homes, mammography centers, fertility clinics and doctors. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.

Under the deal, UCHC will now be incorporated into About.com Health, one of the Web's leading Health sites that attracts nearly five million unique users every month. Also, UCHC's founder, Mark J. Donnelly, and its staff will now become employees of About.com. Donnelly will report to Marjorie Martin, general manager, About.com Health.

Founded in 2004, UCompareHealthCare.com compiles information from hundreds of sources to serve as the foundation for detailed reports that help consumers make more informed decisions about healthcare providers. The company's free reports help to find, research and compare hospitals, nursing homes and doctors.

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Database publishing company Future Biology Ltd., UK, has announced the first 19 members of its PGBase Scientific Advisory Board. The board, which comprises international experts in the fields of pharmacogenomics and personalised medicine, will provide key commentaries and analysis, and help curate PGBase by providing feedback and guidance on content and functionality issues. PGBase users are also expected to benefit from the board members market and industry perspectives of current and developing issues.

Slated for launch later this year, PGBase is a comprehensive, yet highly focused pharmacogenomics knowledge-base for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical communities. It presents focused, easy-to-read profiles of key companies, diseases, drugs and genes within the fields of pharmacogenomics and personalised medicine. These profiles present a wide range of scientific, intellectual property, regulatory and commercial information that is supported by the inclusion of relevant hand-picked journal articles, patents, clinical trial reports and FDA/EMEA label summaries. In addition, commentary and analysis articles are commissioned from leading experts. PGBase is projected to offer the single largest source of evaluated company/disease/drug/gene profiles and their pharmacogenomic relevance.

PGBase features an intuitive and customisable user-interface and experience, enabling users to track the areas that matter to them, while at the same time offering access to updated information.

Medical news service MedPage Today, US, has announced the appointment of Medscape founder Peter Frishauf to its board of directors.

Frishauf founded three New York City-based medical information companies - F&F Publications in 1975, SCP Communications in 1982, and Medscape in 1995. He served as Medscape's CEO until February 1998, when he became Chairman of its Executive Committee, and was a member of its Board of Directors through its IPO and until its merger with MedicaLogic/Medscape, Inc. in May 2000. MedicaLogic sold Medscape to WebMD in the final days of December 2001, and Frishauf left the enterprise in 2002. SCP was acquired by CMP Healthcare Media in 2004. Frishauf is now an independent consultant.

MedPage Today provides clinicians with the real-time information they need to address their patients' questions and to find out how new developments might impact their clinical practice. It claims to be the only medical news service for physicians that links consumer medical news and the professional medical analysis needed by clinicians.

McDougal Littell, a division of educational publisher Houghton Mifflin Company, US, and Kinetic Books, US, have announced a partnership to help high school students learn physics better. Under the deal, McDougal Littell will exclusively offer Kinetic Books' Conceptual Physics digital textbook and virtual physics labs in its product line. Also, it will develop a print version of the textbook with supplemental materials to create a comprehensive educational solution.

The complete Conceptual Physics programme - which includes digital and print textbooks and virtual physics labs - will be available for implementation during the 2007-08 school year.

Kinetic Books Company creates and publishes Kinetic Textbooks, the next generation of digital curriculum. Its textbooks and virtual labs are currently deployed in hundreds of high schools and tertiary institutions in 40 states and 15 countries. The company's full line of textbooks has been adopted in every state that has gone through a physics text approval process since Kinetic Books introduced its products in 2005. Two of the company's physics textbooks, Principles of Physics and Physics for Scientists and Engineers, have met with the College Board AP course audit requirements.

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Medical information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced the launch of the Integrated Facts & Comparisons software that provides pharmacists with immediate access to essential referential drug data without leaving their workflow. The product was formed by combining data from WK Health's leading drug information resource, Drug Facts and Comparisons, with the Medi-Span integrated software.

Integrated Facts & Comparisons seamlessly integrates monographs into the pharmacy workflow. Pharmacists will no longer be required to login and logout to access drug information. They can bypass searching and multiple clicks, retrieve route-specific drug information, access brand and package-specific content and customise the display of information based on their needs. The product can be linked to multiple drug concepts including National Drug Code (NDC), Medi-Span's Dispensable Drug Identifier (DDID), Medi-Span's Drug Name Identifier (DNID) and Medi-Span's Routed Drug Name Identifier (RDID).

The new product is seen as an ideal companion to Facts & Comparisons 4.0, the electronic library healthcare professionals depend on for complete drug information. Facts & Comparisons 4.0 is accessible via the Internet or available via CD-ROM for intranet or desktop applications.

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Society publisher Blackwell Publishing, UK, and the four Norwegian university libraries of Bergen, Oslo, Tromsø and Trondheim have announced an agreement to renew the libraries' subscriptions to Blackwell journals and the Blackwell journal collections.

The agreement was reached after a meeting between representatives of the libraries and Blackwell in Oslo. The new three-year license will provide the libraries, scholars and students with online access and archival rights to over 770 journals across the sciences, medicine, social sciences and humanities. The four Norwegian university libraries together serve nearly 10,000 researchers and staff in addition to a large number of students.

Online access to electronic resources is an important part of the libraries' service to their users. Several journals move their publishing arrangements to Blackwell each year. The new agreement gives the libraries flexibility in determining which of these transferring journals to add to their license. More than 30 journals have moved their publishing arrangements to Blackwell in 2007.

The libraries had earlier this year rejected the whole package of 778 Blackwell journals because of unacceptable conditions and price increases.

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The British Computer Society (BCS), an industry body and chartered engineering institution for IT, has announced that it has taken over the publishing licence for IT Training, the UK's premier source of IT training news, from Haymarket Media. This addition brings the number of magazines published by the Society to five. Information technology journalist, Helen Boddy, will be the magazine's new in-house editor.

With this acquisition, BCS seeks to create an all-inclusive IT profession of the future, at par with medicine and law. The first BCS-produced IT Training is expected to be published in May, 2007. In addition, the Society is also due to announce a new complementary IT Training e-newsletter, the eighth BCS e-publication, for information technology trainers.

A quarterly publication, IT Training is aimed at IT directors, HR directors and IT training specialists who are responsible for putting together the IT skills strategy for their organisation. Each issue of the magazine contains news and in-depth features that cover everything from e-learning to new technologies.

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Mobile search and content services provider UpSNAP, Inc., US, has announced a partnership with metasearch technology provider MuseGlobal, Inc., US, to offer mobile metasearch. MuseGlobal has created a new search technology that enables UpSNAP customers to gain mobile metasearch access to a vast array of ringtones, on-demand streaming audio and mobile radio.

'Mobile metasearch' has been observed to be the next logical step in the mobile communications industry as it enables users to easily and quickly find the content that they need irrespective of its location. For providers of mobile content, it greatly facilitates users finding their content so as to increase monetisation opportunities.

The Muse technology metasearch capabilities being folded into the UpSNAP experience is projected to help users search for and find mobile content more effectively. It will also give ringtone and wallpaper suppliers and advertisers greater exposure to their prospective customers.

UpSNAP offers a vast library of branded multimedia content and mobile search technology. It delivers mobile content to consumers, including text and audio content from major entertainment companies in sports, news, music and information. MuseGlobal offers search integration and management systems that enable institutions worldwide to build better search products and services. The company works closely with publishers, technology companies and enterprises to build effective custom search solutions for their users.

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Healthcare solutions provider Thomson Healthcare, part of Thomson Corporation, US, has announced the launch of NeoFax neonatal drug dosing content and tools. These will form a consistent infant drug and fluid nutrient dosing resource for clinicians, with alerts, an interaction checker and a patient-specific dosing calculator.

NeoFax contains more than 185 substances as well as a set of clinical decision support modules for patient specific dosing and parenteral nutrition order entry for neonates. It is available in print, PDA and as a web-based application for use in hospital neonatal intensive care units.

NeoFax, recently acquired by The Thomson Corporation, introduced the first neonatal dosing and nutrition manual in 1987. Since then, it has provided clinical reference tools used by physicians, nurses and pharmacists to prescribe, calculate dosing, formulate and administer critical drugs and parenteral nutrition solutions for infants. The new NeoFax application is an online version of the manual which features system wide Intranet functionality with a convenient, easy-to-use web browser interface.

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The International DOI Foundation, UK, and Wanfang Data, an affiliate of the Chinese Ministry of Science & Technology, have announced the launch of a Chinese DOI Registration Agency. Wanfang Data will collaborate with the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC) in the management and development of the DOI Registration Agency.

The agency will focus on the development of a Chinese language platform and gateway for DOI name use. Wanfang Data and ISTIC will offer additional services using the DOI System, building on their well-established position as information integrators. Two initial areas of development will be the development of linking services for Chinese journals, and management of scientific data sets in China. Wanfang Data and ISTIC will collaborate with existing DOI Registration Agencies dealing with these sectors outside China for each of these applications.

It is expected that Wanfang Data and ISTIC will promote DOI name application in China through cooperation with other major Chinese players in the industry. This includes the National Library, CALIS (the major library consortium) and China Science Library. It is also expected that this activity will benefit from related applications such as the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) deployment of Handle System technology. CNNIC is China's domain name registry as operator and administrator of the ".cn" country code top level domain (ccTLD) and Chinese Domain Name (CDN) system.

The Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment (JSTAT) has announced the winners of the 2006 JSTAT Prize for Young Scientist(s). The annual prize for the best paper written by young scientists was awarded to two Brazilian authors - S C Ferreira Jr and S G Alves - for the paper 'Pitfalls in the determination of the universality class of radial clusters' J. Stat. Mech. (2006) P11007.

The paper was unanimously judged as the best of the short-listed papers by the panel of jurors, comprising Scott Kirkpatrick, Giorgio Parisi and Alexander Zamolodchikov. It looks at the self affinity of growing systems with radial symmetry and analyses features of the interface scaling of these clusters through large scale simulations.

The journal has also called for nominations for the 2007 prize. To be eligible for the award, scientists must have had a paper accepted for publication in JSTAT. Also, they should have completed PhD within the past five years at the time of submission. In case a group would like their paper to be considered, all members of the group must fulfill the criterion. All nominations are required to be submitted on or before 31 December 2007.

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Publisher and information services provider Wolters Kluwer, Netherlands, has announced an agreement with Bridgepoint Capital Limited to sell its Education division for a purchase price of € 774 million. The decision follows the September 2006 announcement that the company will begin exploring strategic options for its Education business. The transaction, which is expected to close by June 2007, is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

The agreement includes all of the Wolters Kluwer Education activities. The Education division holds leading positions in primary, secondary, and vocational education in seven European countries, and has annual sales of nearly € 316 million. The Company intends to return nearly € 475 million of the net proceeds to shareholders through a share buy-back program in 2007. The remaining net proceeds will be used to reduce debt and to fund investments in growth opportunities for the company.

Last week, Wolters Kluwer issued a statement that it had into entered exclusive talks with Bridgepoint and mentioned a target selling price of € 750-775 million. Analysts had previously estimated the selling price at about Euro 700 million.

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Medical journal American Medical News (AMNews), published by the American Medical Association (AMA), has announced a partnership with the ReachMD Channel on XM Satellite Radio, a satellite radio service. Under the deal, stories from AMNews will be featured on ReachMD (XM 233), a new channel for medical professionals.

ReachMD will feature four daily segments of exclusive content from AMNews. These will include interviews with physicians quoted in the most recent AMNews articles, including members of the AMA's Board of Trustees, discussing top health issues such as health system reform, Medicare, physician shortages and other professional issues. ReachMD will also provide additional programming and educational opportunities.

AMNews is published 48 times per year and circulates to over 256,000 physicians. The publication is composed of five high-profile sections: Government and Medicine; Professional Issues; Health and Science; Business; and Opinion. In January 2007, the journal was recognised as "Media Brand of the Year" by industry publication Medical Marketing and Media.

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Academic publisher Cambridge University Press (CUP), US, has announced the release of further enhancements to its online journals platform, Cambridge Journals Online (CJO). Major new developments in functionality and design are projected to provide improved access to CUP's collection of over 220 leading academic and practitioner journals in STM, the humanities and social sciences.

Cambridge schedules three major releases of updated functionality each year to develop a flexible, customer-focused service. Some key new developments released in March include a refreshed site design, including specific sections for distinct user groups; new-look journal homepages with additional functionality, including links to the most-read articles; enriched content in the form of editorial blogs and multimedia companions; a new, clearer advanced search interface and a new fielded cite search function for more specific bibliographic queries; an improved range of e-mail or RSS alerting options including notification when an article is published online ahead of print and announcements whenever an article is cited; and the provision of direct links to articles for authors and institutional repositories.

As a not-for-profit publisher, CUP sees itself as uniquely placed to offer a stable publishing environment in a volatile market place. CUP is continuing further research and development to provide new features and further enhancements for CJO.

Scientific publisher Inderscience Publishers, Switzerland, has announced the inaugural issue of the European Journal of International Management (EJIM).

A quarterly publication, EJIM seeks to establish an outlet for scholars interested in a variety of topics in international management in Europe. The journal claims to be the first international journal to focus entirely on developing an understanding of issues in international management theory and practice in the newly expanded European arena including the underrepresented regions of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. Also, it will provide both conceptual and functional implications useful for the further development of research, teaching practices, and managerial techniques.

EJIM will publish original papers, case studies, book reviews, commentaries, and conference notes. Papers are aimed not only at the academic community preoccupied with purely conceptual research, but also at other academics actively involved in transferring theoretical wisdom into actionable knowledge. Special issues on important topics in European international management will also be published periodically. Despite its European orientation, EJIM welcomes authors from all over the world, including North America, Asia, and South-Pacific.

Society publisher Blackwell Publishing, UK, has announced that the platform which hosts Blackwell Reference Online and The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Online has now been certified as providing COUNTER-Compliant usage data. Blackwell Books Online adheres to Release 1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Books and Reference Works.

The usage reports, which are up-to-date and can be accessed any time, show the number of successful section requests by month and title, turnaways by month, and total searches and sessions by month. Blackwell Publishing is the fourth vendor to become compliant with this new Code of Practice, which came into existence in March 2006.

Blackwell Reference Online is one of the largest academic collections of reference material in the humanities and social sciences to be published online. The product holds almost 300 volumes and 10,000 chapters including Blackwell's Companions and Handbooks series and the entire 12-volume Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management. The content is licensed as a complete collection, or as six essential subject collections: Business and Economics; Philosophy and Religion; Literature and Cultural Studies; Language and Linguistics, Sociology and Psychology; and History.

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Publisher Reed Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the appointment of Mark Popolano as Chief Technology Officer, effective March 26, 2007. He will report directly to Reed Elsevier chief executive Sir Crispin Davis. Popolano will also join the Reed Elsevier Management Committee.

Prior to this, Popolano served as Corporate Senior VP and Global Chief Information Officer at American International Group (AIG), a Fortune 10 insurance organisation.

In a related announcement, the company also announced that Robert Polet has been proposed for election as a Non-Executive Director of Reed Elsevier PLC and as member of the Supervisory Board of Reed Elsevier NV at the respective Annual General Meetings scheduled for April 17 and 18, 2007. Polet will succeed Cees van Lede, who will be retiring after four years of service as non-executive director of Reed Elsevier PLC and member of the Supervisory Board of Reed Elsevier NV.

E-book technology and services firm ebrary, US, together with its authorised reseller, Local Knowledge Online, has announced a partnership with business educational publisher execuGo Media, Canada. Under the deal, corporations will be offered access to a library of more than 300 best-selling business book summaries.

With the ebrary platform, corporate subscribers of execuBooks will now be able to read every title in both print and online format, and grasp the essence of each book, in only 15 minutes. Each week a new business book will be added to ensure that busy executives get the knowledge they need to succeed.

execuGo Media offers solutions that help busy executives quickly and easily learn, train and inspire each other in the workplace. Its business book summaries, turnkey training toolkits and motivational multimedia pool the knowledge of key industry players.

Click here to read the original press release.

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The Lancet, a medical journal of Reed Elsevier, is reportedly facing criticism from physicians across the world, who have urged the journal's publisher to cut its links with weapons sales. The physicians have called on the editors to find another publisher if Reed Elsevier refused to stop hosting arms fairs.

The Lancet editors responded by backing the doctors, calling the situation 'bizarre and untenable.' In its latest edition, the journal has published three pages of protest letters from leading doctors and organisations, including the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Doctors for Iraq and the People's Health Movement. Some scientists have even called for a boycott of all journals published by Reed Elsevier. Editors at the British Medical Journal have also appealed to researchers to stop sending papers to the Lancet as well as other Reed Elsevier titles.

Reed Elsevier, however, sees no conflict in its connections with the scientific and health communities at one end and the legitimate defence industry trade exhibitions at the other. The company has said that while it supported the Lancet editors' right to free speech, it had no plans to stop its involvement with arms fairs.

The Lancet first learned of its publisher's involvement in the arms industry in 2005. At the time, Editor Richard Horton informed the journal's international advisory board, which urged the global publisher to dissociate itself from its arms trade business. Last month, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust withdrew $3.9 million of its investment from the company over this concern, leading to renewed public interest in the issue.

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has announced that it has joined the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) project, an initiative of the International Publishers Association, the World Association of Newspapers and the European Publishers Council. ACAP is developing and piloting a standard system allowing publishers to express digital content access and usage policies in a language that search engines can be programmed to recognise.

By working with leading publishers, search engines and other technical and commercial partners, the ACAP seeks to develop a global, open and flexible standard for the communication of rich information on access and use of content on the Internet. The standard, under development at AAP, will make it possible for publishers to make more content available to users through the search engines, and to continue to innovate in the development of business models for network publishing.

AAP is the national trade association of the US book publishing industry. Its more than 300 members include most of the major commercial publishers in the US, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies - small and large. AAP members publish hardcover and paperback books in various fields, educational materials for the elementary, secondary, postsecondary, and professional markets, scholarly journals, computer software and electronic products and services.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the launch of the 5th edition of Wilderness Medicine, a definitive clinical reference on emergency medicine. Wilderness Medicine explains how to manage everything from frostbite to infection by marine microbes and situations stemming from natural disasters to diverse everyday injuries, such as bites, stings, poisonous plant exposures and animal attacks.

The book is seen as an essential resource for physicians, nurses, paramedics, EMTs, outdoor-enthusiasts and adventure travelers, wilderness expedition leaders, the military, firefighters, search-and-rescuers, explorers in all environments (such as divers, alpinists, backpackers, etc.), and anyone interested in health care issues related to the outdoors. It provides vital, comprehensive treatment information and presents expert detailed guidance on responding to these emergencies, both in the field and within emergency department and hospital settings.

In addition to coverage of topics such as hypothermia, reptile bites, poisonous plant exposures, and other essential wilderness medicine topics, the latest edition also includes new information on volcanic eruptions, extreme sports, wilderness cardiology, aerospace medicine, mental health in the wilderness, and tactical combat casualty care. It also describes how to meet the unique needs of specific patient populations, such as children, women, elders, the disabled, and people with chronic medical conditions.

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The China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) has recently published a moral code for all members in a bid to curtail fraud and misconduct, it has been reported. The code is projected to help create a clean academic environment and promote scientific research and innovation in the nation.

The code bans illegal use, fraud and fabrication in research. Improper economic profit from research and announcement of achievements in the media even before findings are published in academic journals is also prohibited. Scientists have also been forbidden from taking part in profitable adverts under the 'experts' banner.

The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology had announced the establishment of a science ethics committee and a supervision office to stem academic fraud and plagiarism earlier in January 2007. In response, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) had put forward a set of new regulations in February aimed at strengthening scientific honesty and establishing a science ethics committee to supervise scientific research.

Construction information provider McGraw-Hill Construction, part of The McGraw-Hill Companies, US, has announced that GreenSource, a publication devoted to sustainable design and construction, has won the Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Start-Up Publication at the American Business Media's annual Neal Awards event. The company also received two awards for its Engineering News-Record website (http://www.enr.com). ENR.com was honoured with the Best Online Article or Series award as well as the Best Website award in the category for sites with fewer than 100,000 unique visitors per month.

The Jesse H. Neal Awards, which have been called 'the Pulitzer Prize of the business media,' are the industry's most prestigious and sought-after editorial honours. Established in 1955, the Neal Awards recognise and reward editorial excellence in business media publications.

GreenSource is produced by the editors of McGraw-Hill Construction, in partnership with editors at BuildingGreen, Inc. The magazine, launched in 2006, is supported by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) and has a circulation of 42,000. This includes key specifiers and buyers involved in green design and construction including 30,000 members of the USGBC. ENR.com provides news, analysis, commentary and data for construction industry professionals such as contractors, project owners, engineers, architects, government regulators and industry suppliers. The site receives over 90,000 unique visitors a month.

In addition to the awards received, McGraw-Hill Construction's Architectural Record was named as a Neal Award finalist in three categories: Best Web Site, Best Editorials, and Best Department (Architectural Technology).

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Healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, US, has announced the appointment of Elizabeth "Libby" Thompson as Editor-in-Chief of OR Nurse 2007, a new peer-reviewed journal.

With over twenty years of perioperative nursing experience, Libby brings a wealth of practical knowledge to the journal on the latest OR techniques and protocols. She currently serves as a Nursing Education Specialist in the Division of Surgical Services - Department of Nursing at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where she develops competency curriculums and leads educational programmes in perioperative nursing.

A bimonthly publication, OR Nurse 2007 seeks to strengthen the perioperative field through research-supported articles presented in a practical, reader-friendly format. It provides concise, current content to 45,000 perioperative nurses, managers, and directors.

AutoWeek Magazine, a publication of Crain Communications, Inc., US, has announced the appointment of Keith Crain Jr as publisher and Tony Merpi as publishing director. In addition, the company has also named Tony Foster as advertising sales manager.

Crain Jr. joined AutoWeek in June 2005 and was named ad director in April 2006. Earlier, he served as a reporter with Automotive News and was an early member of Crain Communications' corporate New Media department. A 31-year veteran of Crain Communications Inc, Tony Merpi most recently served as publisher of AutoWeek and was named vice president of Crain Communications Inc in 2000.

Tony Foster joined Crain Communications Inc in 1997 as a financial analyst. He most recently served as midwest advertising manager for AutoWeek.

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Informatics and database solutions provider Elsevier MDL, US, has announced a free 30-day evaluation of its latest chemical drawing tool, MDL Draw. The move is aimed at providing researchers with an opportunity to experience the innovative capabilities of MDL Draw, which is claimed to be a superior solution with significant advantages in efficiency, quality and value.

The solution allows scientists to rapidly create images for presentations, reports and scientific papers. It is compatible with MDL ISIS/Draw images and can be used with ISIS applications, allowing researchers to combine MDL Draw with their existing applications and documents.

The tool serves a broad range of scientists. Premier MDL chemical representation supports sophisticated chemistry, and biomolecule drawing allows biochemists to create and import 1- and 3-letter peptides, DNA or RNA. Using the sequence tool, scientists can draw crossing bonds, disulfide bridges and attach side-chain protecting groups. For organisations, MDL Draw Enterprise Edition offers programming flexibility. Developers can easily add MDL Draw as the structure editing and rendering tool for custom applications. MDL Draw offers a flexible add-in capability that enables users to build in and add customised menu items for scientific calculators, property and spectral prediction tools, library enumeration, file format interconversion, including InChi, and name-to-structure converters.

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Information solutions provider Thomson Scientific, US, part of Thomson Corporation, has announced that its ISI Web of Knowledge platform will introduce an entirely new approach to finding, analysing and sharing information.

The new version will be made available to customers this summer, and will seek to address the unique demands and research needs of a diverse, global user community. The redesigned platform is expected to prove easy for novices to navigate, while continuing to provide seasoned users with powerful capabilities.

ISI Web of Knowledge is an integrated, web-based platform that supports all levels of scientific and scholarly research within academic, corporate, government or not-for-profit environments. It delivers easy access to high quality, diversified scholarly information in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities, as well as search and analysis tools that enhance this content. The platform offers users the ability to search the right content and find relevant information - whether that information is found in international journals, open access resources, books, patents, proceedings or web sites.

ISI Web of Knowledge is the platform for many of Thomson Scientific's prominent offerings, such as Web of Science, Essential Science Indicators, Journal Citation Reports and EndNote.

Scientists in the US have reportedly launched a new online journal - Virtual Journal of Nanotechnology Environment, Health & Safety - that provides citations and links to articles on environmental and health effects of nanotechnology.

A monthly publication, the journal is a product of The International Council on Nanotechnology (ICON) and Rice University's Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology. It contains citations and links to articles that have appeared in several traditional journals and that are related to the environment and health impacts of nanotechnology, with a particular emphasis on nanomaterials.

The journal, available at www.icon.rice.edu/virtualjournal.cfm, organises information contained in ICON's EHS Database into a reader-friendly monthly journal format. New features such as rotating guest editorship and a series of Occasional Papers on topics of interest taken from the contents of the database will be included in the future.

At a meeting of key representatives of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the International Publishers Association (IPA), it was agreed that the two organisations will strengthen cooperation at both the global and regional levels. Dr. Kamil Idris, Director General of WIPO, met a 10-member high level delegation of IPA headed by the IPA President, Ana Maria Cabanellas. IPA promotes the interests of book and journal publishers worldwide.

During the meeting, the WIPO chief emphasised on the importance of collaboration between WIPO and the IPA and its member associations in promoting copyright in a way that ensures an environment within which creative and innovative potential can flourish. Dr. Idris said that partnerships with stakeholders like the IPA and its member associations would go a long way in promoting copyright protection for the benefit of economic, social and cultural development. WIPO has recently intensified efforts to measure the impact of the copyright industries on local economies.

It was agreed that WIPO and the IPA would intensify their cooperation activities relating to the organisation of seminars, capacity building on legal and economic aspects of copyright and public awareness. Collaborative efforts to fight piracy, which undermines development and results in lost earnings, lost jobs and lost tax revenues, would also be intensified.

The IPA delegation included Michael Mabe, CEO, Scientific, Technical Medical Publishing Association (STM); Carlo Scollo Lavizzari, STM Special Legal Counsel; Herman P. Spruijt, IPA Vice President; and Allan Adler, VP for Legal and Governmental Affairs, Association of American Publishers.

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Life science news and information provider GenomeWeb LLC, US, has announced the launch of an online newsletter - Biotech Transfer Week. GenomeWeb News journalist Ben Butkus will serve as editor of the newsletter, which claims to be the first online news service to focus on technology transfer in the life sciences.

Published every Monday, Biotech Transfer Week will cover key issues and developments in the commercialisation of academic innovation in biotechnology. The target audience includes executives in tech transfer offices at universities and biomedical research institutions; in- and out-licensing professionals at pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies; IP and patent attorneys; and early-stage investors.

An independent, privately-held online and print publisher GenomeWeb LLC operates one of the largest online news organisations focused on advanced research tools in genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics. It serves a global audience of scientists, technology professionals, and executives who use and develop the latest advanced tools in molecular biology research.

Pricing and market intelligence service provider ICIS Pricing, US, has announced that it has added Russian price assessments to eight of the key European chemical price reports, starting March 23, 2007.

The addition of the new quote follows increasing market growth and demand from the industry wanting to use the assessments for their domestic Russian Business. All of the ICIS pricing Rouble price assessments also include Euro equivalents, for ease of use by the international audience. The polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene reports will now include a spot ex-works Russia assessment. A spot free delivered (FD) Russia assessment will be added to polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and a spot ex-works Russia assessment to Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET Bottle Grade). The solvents reports will have the addition of a spot ex-works Russia assessment to phenol and acetone, and the monoethylene glycol report will now include a spot ex-works Russia assessment.

ICIS, which continues to expand its coverage and reach in the market, has recently added a Russian reporter, Sergei Blagov, to its global team. Blagov will cover the Russian domestic market for ICIS pricing and ICIS news.

Library solutions provider the Ex Libris Group, Israel, has announced that the Université du Québec has selected ALEPH 500 as its new integrated library management system for eight of its academic libraries. The new system will replace the consortium's current home-grown system and will be hosted at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières site.

The new system will be deployed at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, École nationale d'administration publique, and École de technologie supérieure. Nearly 37,000 students and 1,300 professors and researchers are expected to benefit from the new system.

ALEPH's full Unicode support, which provides multidirectional and multiscript text capabilities, is installed at more than 1,700 sites worldwide. Built on an Oracle database, the flexible interfaces allow both public and staff users to interface with the system in their preferred language.

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Information solutions provider Thomson Scientific, US, part of Thomson Corporation, has announced the acquisition of privately-held life sciences data management company Unleashed Informatics Ltd., Canada, for an undisclosed amount. The integration of Unleashed Informatics with Thomson Scientific data, particularly the 8.5 million genetic sequences in the latter's Geneseq database, is expected to enable the company to deliver greater value for research scientists working in biology-driven drug discovery.

Unleashed Informatics is said to possess the largest repository of value-added bioinformatics records. Its subscription-based stable of public and proprietary biological databases includes Biomolecular Interaction Network Database (BIND), Small Molecule Interaction Database (SMID) and the Biomolecular Object Network Database (BOND).

More than 11,000 researchers in over 3,000 organisations worldwide rely on content, tools and analytics from Unleashed Informatics to advance their life sciences investigations. Post deal, Thomson will continue to make complimentary versions of BOND and BIND available to Unleashed Open Access registrants.

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Publisher EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced an alliance with content-on-demand provider Newstex, US, to deliver Newstex Content On Demand and Newstex Blogs On Demand via nearly 100 EBSCO databases to customers worldwide. As part of the agreement, full-text blog content from premier weblogs with historical archives in a wide range of categories including medical, technology, health, economics, environment, art, career, finance, food, law, marketing and more will be made available in online aggregated databases for the first time.

Newstex licenses significant blog content directly from independent bloggers and then takes in each carefully selected blog feed in text format and uses its proprietary NewsRouter technology to scan it in real time. It automatically tags each blog post with company names, stock tickers, key executives and government officials and detailed topical categories.

Each news story and blog post delivered as part of Newstex Blogs On Demand will include Newstex's proprietary PeopleTickering-a system that synthesises metadata from numerous premium sources and quality blogs to create a database of people who make the news.

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The American Chemical Society (ACS) Publications Division, US, has announced an archiving agreement with non-profit electronic archiving service provider Portico, US. ACS now joins a growing body of publishers, currently numbering more than 30 and encompassing over 6,000 titles, who have entrusted Portico to provide a permanent archive of their journal content.

Portico seeks to preserve scholarly literature published in electronic form and ensures that these materials remain accessible to future scholars, researchers and students. The Portico archiving agreement complements ACS's participation in the Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe (CLOCKSS) programme, which ACS joined in the spring of 2006. CLOCKSS is a preservation initiative between publishers, libraries and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC).

The world's largest scientific society, the American Chemical Society (ACS) is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. The ACS Publications Division currently publishes 35 leading peer-reviewed journals in the chemical and related sciences, including the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Chemical & Engineering News, the Society's weekly news magazine.

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The UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has announced an agreement with the Research Councils. The new agreement is projected to strengthen cooperation and ensure that the research community has access to improved services, such as increased network bandwidth. Also, the move will ensure that thousands of scientists in Research Council Institutes will have the same access to JISC services as their university-based counterparts.

JISC and the Research Councils already cooperate closely across a wide range of areas, including e-infrastructure, e-Science, the National Grid Service, data curation and access to research outputs.

The new agreement cements the existing relationship, and provides formal representation of the Research Councils on the JISC Board and its networking and research committees. Among the new areas of cooperation covered by the agreement will be support for the network bandwidth needs of the Research Councils. In addition, JISC will now provide the Research Councils with access to all its non-chargeable services, subject to further agreement. A dedicated relationship manager to be based within the JISC Executive will provide a point of contact to help ensure that the Research Councils continue to receive the services they require.

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Construction information provider McGraw-Hill Construction, part of The McGraw-Hill Companies, US, and the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), US, have expanded their partnership. Under the deal, McGraw-Hill Construction will continue to publish AGC's Constructor Magazine, Membership Directory and Service & Supply Guide through March 31, 2010.

McGraw-Hill Construction publishes several design and construction publications, including the Engineering News-Record, Architectural Record, GreenSource and 11 regional publications, with readership of over half a million. Constructor reaches contractors, suppliers and service provider AGC members who perform highway, building, underground, heavy and industrial construction nationwide.

AGC is one of the largest and oldest national construction trade association in the US. More than 13,000 service providers and suppliers are associated with AGC through a nationwide network of chapters.

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International Medical News Group (IMNG), US, an Elsevier company, has announced the appointment of Aaron Wattenberg as Account Manager for Clinical Neurology News.

Wattenberg's experience in the media departments of several major healthcare agencies will prove to be a real asset in his dealings with Elsevier's customers. He most recently served Optimedia.

A monthly publication, Clinical Neurology News reaches more than 16,000 neurologists, child neurologists, neuropathologists, neuroradiologists, IM-neurologists, physician assistants and nurse practitioners. It provides neurological specialists with timely and relevant news and commentary on clinical developments in their fields, and about the impact of health care policy on the specialties.

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Library technology solutions provider SirsiDynix, US, has announced the launch of a new division, SirsiDynix International, to oversee the Company's operations outside North America. The customer support, sales and administrative operations in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East & Africa and Latin America will now be grouped into the SirsiDynix International. Keith Sturges will serve as president of the new division.

In his new position, Sturges will report directly to the SirsiDynix chief executive officer. Sturges has 20 years of global business experience with software and services companies. He most recently served as business unit chief executive officer and corporate chief marketing officer for Misys Healthcare. Earlier, he also served as senior vice president of sales and marketing for two successful start-up companies.

Sturges joins the company as Peter Gethin, SirsiDynix managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa, has decided to retire.

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Information solutions provider Thomson Scientific, US, part of Thomson Corporation, has announced an addition to its coverage of emerging and growing pharmaceutical markets in Asia and the Pacific Rim. The new ASEAN module in the IDRAC database provides comprehensive regulatory information related to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including details of planned harmonisation schemes for its pharmaceutical industry.

IDRAC claims to be recognised by regulatory professionals worldwide as the leading authority in global regulatory intelligence. Updated weekly, it brings together all the information needed to monitor regulatory requirements in 48 countries and regions.

The optional new ASEAN module provides explanatory documents covering the background and objectives of the ASEAN community, its organisation, language, harmonisation process and regulations; and reference texts covering harmonised guidelines, including ASEAN Common Technical Document (CTD) guidelines.

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Publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., US, has announced that it has acquired publishing assets of Anker Publishing Company, Inc., US, an independent publisher of books and periodicals for professionals in higher education.

This acquisition further complements Wiley's higher and adult education programme published under its Jossey-Bass imprint, and adds 50 new book titles and a backlist of 100 titles, as well the quarterly newsletter, Department Chair. The buy expands Wiley's presence in the professional higher education market.

Anker Publishing produces professional development content for faculty and administrators in higher education. Its offerings include materials on creating teaching portfolios, improving teaching practices, and planning for promotion and tenure, as well as resources for department chairs, deans, and other administrators on management, leadership, and change in higher education.

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Journal subscription services provider EBSCO Information Services, US, has announced that its online solution for e-journal management and access, EBSCOhost Electronic Journals Service (EJS), now provides access to over 15,000 e-journals.

EJS is one of a suite of tools and services from EBSCO that simplify acquiring, managing and accessing e-journals and e-journal packages. The extensive features include simplifying and tracking the activation and registration of e-journals, authentication assistance to facilitate both on-campus and remote access to e-journal content and automatic management of e-journal URLs. Libraries can control e-journal registration and manage the coverage data, access rights and license terms of their collection from one centralised location.

In addition, the service also facilitates increased e-resource usage through exposure in EBSCO's E-Journals database and via EBSCOhost SmartLinks, which provides one-click linking from citations in EBSCOhost databases to the full text of subscribed e-journals.

Search technology provider Convera Corporation, US, has announced the launch of SearchMedica France (www.searchmedica.fr), a specialised search engine built for doctors in France. The tool, developed by CMPMedica, Convera and medical experts from Le Quotidien du Médecin, a popular medical daily published by CMPMedica, was unveiled at the MEDEC Conference in Paris.

SearchMedica France provides specialised access to key medical websites, professional journals and clinical resources. The site also enables medical professionals to search CMPMedica's proprietary Vidal database for information on 3,500 pharmaceuticals. Search results are organised by distinct medical categories, which were developed by working closely with doctors in real-life working conditions.

SearchMedica France seeks to expand CMPMedica's vertical search solutions for medical professions and strengthen the SearchMedica brand. CMPMedica has teamed with Convera to launch SearchMedica sites for UK general practitioners as well as US primary care providers and psychiatrists. CMPMedica is looking to develop further search solutions for healthcare professionals in other specialties and countries.

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Publisher Emerald Group Publishing Ltd., UK, has announced the release of Emerald Management First, an online resource that seeks to meet the specific needs of managers in daily business situations. Designed for quick and easy access during everyday work conditions, the online research library is targeted at busy managers who need to make decisions that affect their business.

Emerald Management First features full text access to 11 Emerald journals specifically selected for relevance to the corporate sector, with articles covering topics such as strategy, brand management and maintaining competitive advantage. Also included are over 300 Executive Summaries of best practice advice and applications; over 220 Guru Interviews with leading management thinkers; Management Briefings that delve into popular topics within 10 broad areas of management such as change strategy and diversity; and over 200,000 Emerald Management Reviews that span 400 international management publications and draw out short, critical and objective reviews.

Utilising customisable RSS feeds, monthly e-mail newsletters and a free bimonthly downloadable magazine, Emerald Management First seeks to ensure that managers are constantly kept abreast of the latest information and happenings.

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Non-profit electronic archiving service provider Portico, US, has announced that it will be archiving the journal collection from academic publisher Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (LEA). This inclusion brings the number of titles in the Portico archive to over 6,000.

LEA was acquired by Taylor & Francis in 2006. Under the terms of Portico's agreement with Taylor & Francis in Oct 2006, LEA's entire journal collection, including those under the imprint of The Analytic Press, will be preserved for future students, educators, clinicians, scholars, and researchers.

LEA publishes over one hundred academic, scientific and medical journal titles and nearly two hundred new book titles a year. Its publications circulate to a global audience with a focus on four major areas - psychology, education, communication and communication disorders, and management/organisational studies.

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Global library cooperative OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc., US, has announced the appointment of Karen Calhoun as Vice President, OCLC WorldCat and Metadata Services, effective May 14. The move is part of a reorganisation at OCLC designed to achieve global integration of services provided by one of the world's largest library cooperative.

Prior to this, Calhoun served as Senior Associate University Librarian for Information Technology and Technical Services at Cornell University Library. Active professionally in research and as a speaker, she was principal investigator for The Changing Nature of the Catalog and its Integration with Other Discovery Tools, a Library of Congress-commissioned study on the future of the catalog. The report, released in March 2006, challenged assumptions about the traditional library catalog and proposes new directions for the research library catalog in the digital era. In her new position, she will lead OCLC's efforts to chart a course for the future of cataloging and metadata services.

Many of the records entered into the WorldCat database is coming from outside the US. In the past several years, OCLC has added international files from the National Library of Germany's bibliography, Dutch Union Catalogue, LinkUK, Toronto Public Library, University of Manitoba, University of Gottingen, National Library of Education in Denmark, the National Union Catalog of Poland, and more. OCLC expects to process more than 38 million records from outside the US in 2007.

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Information solutions provider Thomson Scientific, US, part of Thomson Corporation, has announced a 3-year deal with the Austrian Federal Consortium of 19 academic and government institutions. The agreement allows the consortium members to access the ISI Web of Knowledge, a premier research platform for the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities.

The ISI Web of Knowledge provides an advanced gateway to the world's greatest collection of academic and scientific research. Under the deal, most consortium member libraries will gain access to 100 years of groundbreaking scientific research information via Thomson Scientifics' Century of Science.

The Consortium members include most Austrian universities, top Austrian research institutions and the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

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STM publisher Hindawi Publishing Corporation, US, has announced the launch of a new 'Research Letters' series of journals. The journals will be published using an open access publication model. Manuscripts published in these journals will generally be four pages or less in their final published form.

The journals are: Research Letters in Biochemistry; Research Letters in Chemical Engineering; Research Letters in Communications; Research Letters in Ecology; Research Letters in Electronics; Research Letters in Inorganic Chemistry; Research Letters in Materials Science; Research Letters in Nanotechnology; Research Letters in Organic Chemistry; Research Letters in Physical Chemistry; Research Letters in Physics; and Research Letters in Signal Processing.

Further titles will be announced in the next few months. All journals will be funded with 'Article Processing Charges' of Euros 400 per accepted manuscript. Accepted manuscripts shall be published using the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Publisher Emerald Group Publishing Ltd., UK, has announced an agreement with the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), Germany. The agreement, negotiated by the Universitäts-und Stadtbibliothek Köln (USB) and Informationszentrum Sozialwissenschaften (IZ), allows registered users in Germany to access all Emerald journals owned and published between January 1, 1994 and December 31, 2005.

Under the agreement, everyone in Germany can access Emerald content if they are students or faculty of higher education institutions, or are members of an academic library, research institution or governmental institution. Individual access is permitted via usernames and passwords subject to permanent residence in Germany. The licence will cover 339 universities in Germany, and will provide access to Emerald's flagship journals including Management Decision, European Journal of Marketing, Library Hi-Tech, Library Management and Soldering & Surface Mount Technology.

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) is the central public funding organisation responsible for promoting research in Germany. Its activities focus on funding research projects carried out by scientists and academics working at universities or research institutes. Members of the organisation include German universities, non-university research institutions, scientific associations as well as the Academies of Science and Humanities.

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Discover, a monthly magazine which covers science, technology and the future, has launched a newly redesigned website to deliver science news through the latest innovative technology. The newly named discovermagazine.com will feature a video front and centre on its homepage, allowing readers to watch science in action.

The new website seeks to expand an emphasis on exclusive online content, broaden an array of multimedia capabilities with more high impact videos, blogs, podcasts and RSS feeds, and offer new photo galleries. The website relaunch features another direct-to-video element: a recurring contest, 'Science In Two Minutes or Less,' that challenges readers to create videos explaining complex scientific concepts in no more than two minutes.

Discover which was purchased from Disney in 2005, is published by Discover Media LLC. It reports on groundbreaking advances in scientific fields from healthcare to space exploration and everything in between. The journal regularly features innovative and provocative thinkers.

Professors at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) and the University of Munich have released a study on how scientists view online publication. According to the study, though scientists and researchers appreciate the speed by which online journals can distribute findings to the academic world, they fear non-traditional publication can affect their chances of promotion and tenure.

Also, the study shows that academicians are positive about new media opportunities that open access to scientific findings once exclusively available only in expensive journals. Despite these positive attitudes, the study showed that researchers are reluctant to publish their own work in open access outlets. One reason is that 60 percent of those questioned believe online publication impacts promotion and tenure. They are reluctant to publish their own research within those open-access outlets, even though open access publications have higher speed of publication and citation rates. While 51 percent of those questioned said open access publishing is not well-known enough to use it as a medium for publishing their own work, 58 percent see the impact factor of open access publishing as a barrier. In addition, 53 percent think open access publications lack a guarantee of long-term availability of research.

The study was authored by Dr. Rolf Wigand, who holds the Maulden-Entergy Chair at UALR's Department of Information Science within the College of Information Science and Systems Engineering, and Munich Professor Thomas Hess and his colleagues. An article about the research will be featured in the 'Science Scope' section of the next issue of Science magazine.

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The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has announced that members who subscribe to the journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) or the Member Journal Library will now have access to scanned issues of GRL going back to Vol. 1, 1974. This is the first phase of the AGU Digital Library project to digitise all journals to their earliest volume.

The current preview is in the beta stage and does not include linked references or the option for single article sales, which will be available when the library is complete. The AGU Digital Library will include over 60,000 AGU journal articles going back to 1896, followed by over 600 books and 100,000 pages of Eos and its predecessor, Transactions.

The AGU is a worldwide scientific community that seeks to advance, through cooperation in research, the understanding of earth and space for the benefit of humanity.

Energy industry publisher Gulf Publishing Company, US, has announced the appointment of Tiffany Tosh as Senior Marketing Director.

Prior to this, Tosh served Atlantic Communications as Sales and Marketing Director and Director of Offshore Engineer Conferences & Events (OECE), a division of Atlantic. Earlier, she also served PennWell Corporation as Digital Media Manager for the Petroleum Group.

Founded in 1916, Gulf Publishing Company produces and distributes leading journals, industry research, databases, software, publications, conferences and events to meet the needs of the energy industry. The company's suite of products includes technical books, engineering software products, multi-media training products, specialised supplements and more.

STM Publishers can now add their Company to the Knowledgespeak Directory list. You can also update our events calendar, if you are organising an event which may be of interest to the STM publishing community. Also, you can send your company press releases to be included in our news section.

Informatics and database solutions provider Elsevier MDL, US, has announced a collaboration with software and databases provider GeneGo, Inc., US. Under the deal, GeneGo will integrate its databases for systems biology and pathway analysis - MetaCore 4.0 and MetaDrug 4.0 - with MDL's suite of databases via the DiscoveryGate platform.

This partnership seeks to open up new applications for GeneGo's products in medicinal chemistry. This includes high-throughput and high-content screening, hit selection and validation, lead development programs and chemogenomics. Scientists can now use MetaCore and MetaDrug to correlate genomics data and interactions of drug targets with bioactive compounds via pathway analysis while accessing related information on drug safety, pharmacology, biological effects, metabolism, chemical synthesis, chemical sourcing and literature citations provided via DiscoveryGate. This integration will unite the content on DiscoveryGate with genomics and metabolomics information, providing new ways of correlating this information with cheminformatics.

MetaCore is an integrated software suite for functional analysis of experimental data based on a proprietary, manually curated database of human protein-protein, protein-DNA and protein-compound interactions, metabolic and signaling pathways and the effects of bioactive molecules. MetaDrug is a unique systems pharmacology platform designed for evaluation of biological effects of small molecule compounds on the human body. MetaDrug helps to solve such problems as drug's mechanism of action, toxicity and off-target effects, deduced from the structure and any kind of supplementary 'omics' data.

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Publisher and information services provider Wolters Kluwer, Netherlands, has announced plans to sell its Education unit. The decision follows the September 2006 announcement that the company will begin exploring strategic options for its Education business. Though the company has not indicated the likely cost, analysts have estimated the selling price at about Euro 700 million.

As announced earlier, given the strong position of the Education business and its plans for future growth, the management has decided that pursuing a divestment of the Education division is the preferred option since it will provide the business with the best opportunities for future expansion and enhance shareholder value. The unit has about 1,450 employees.

Wolters Kluwer Education holds leading positions in primary, secondary, and vocational education in seven European countries - the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Austria, and Hungary. With its highly respected brands, the business is well-positioned in its markets.

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Bridgetech Holdings International Inc., US, has announced that it has added Harvard Health Publications, the publishing division of Harvard Medical School, to its list of esteemed content providers for the development of the largest healthcare web portal in China. The list includes notable academic institutions and NGOs.

Bridgetech focuses on maximising the potential of emerging healthcare products and services in the US and Asian markets. With the addition of Harvard Health Publications the company seeks to provide China with a tremendous scope of reliable sourced information in the area of medical science and treatment.

Harvard Health Publications publishes authoritative health information for the general public in many media on a wide range of health-related topics. Its publications include books, newsletters, special health reports, a syndicated weekly newspaper column, health information published in magazines, and web content.

British medical publication BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, has reportedly called on researchers to boycott rival journal Lancet over its parent company's alleged warmongering.

Reed Elsevier, the publishing group that owns the Lancet, also has an international arms fair division, which holds about 10 arms fairs every year. In 2005, Lancet Editor Richard Horton had written about Reed Elsevier's weapons promotion activities.

Media reports have quoted BMJ representatives as saying that there is a potential conflict of interest in Reed Elsevier's businesses. Reed Elsevier, however, sees no conflict in its connections with the scientific and health communities at one end and the legitimate defence industry trade exhibitions at the other.

Metasearch technology provider MuseGlobal, Inc., US, and educational publisher ABC-CLIO, UK, have announced the release of an XML Gateway Source Package for the latter's America: History and Life and Historical Abstracts.

MuseGlobal has worked in close technical cooperation with ABC-CLIO to establish secure and well-defined connections that will showcase these data services using approved search parameters. Public, academic and school library customers licensing the databases from ABC-CLIO can now expect to enjoy reliable connections that allow for all the benefits of meta- and federated search features while retaining all native search capabilities.

An annotated bibliography, America: History and Life is seen as an important resource for students and scholars studying the history and culture of the US and Canada, from prehistory to the present. Historical Abstracts covers the history of the world (excluding the US and Canada) from 1450 to the present, featuring academic historical journals in over 40 languages published since 1955. Both were recently selected by Choice as an 'Outstanding Academic Title 2006'.

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Text analytics solutions provider TEMIS, US, has won the European Information and Communications Technology Prize 'ICT Prize' thirteenth edition. TEMIS won Europe's most coveted technology prize for Luxid, its cutting-edge Information Discovery software solution serving the Information Intelligence needs of Business Corporations.

The ICT Prize is awarded by the European Commission as part of its efforts to promote Europe's ICT industry and boost growth. The prize covers the converging fields of computer, media and communications.

TEMIS is one of the twenty companies which have been recognised by the jury for innovative and imaginative products and services. Luxid was selected from among 450 candidates from 30 countries by independent leading experts from 16 European countries.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced a renewed partnership with the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS). Under the deal, Elsevier and E-MRS will publish the Symposia of the E-MRS Spring Meeting slated for May 28-June 1, 2007.

The topics covered by the Symposia will be published in Elsevier materials, chemistry and physics journals which include Thin Solid Films and Materials Science and Engineering B.

Elsevier also publishes a series of materials monographs in association with E-MRS. Titles published in this series include Materials Surface Processing by Directed Energy Techniques, Recent Advances in Laser Processing of Materials and Nanotechnology for Microelectronics and Optoelectronics.

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Oxford Journals, a division of Oxford University Press (OUP), UK, has adopted an innovative new data integration system to provide highly flexible support for customer analysis and targeted marketing. The system, provided by UK based DataSalon Ltd, provides a fully-integrated view of customer data across all of the existing databases within Oxford Journals, including subscriptions, registrations, e-commerce, author manuscripts, and email alerts.

DataSalon provides Oxford Journals with a significant advantage in the increasingly competitive area of targeted marketing for academic journals. Marketing staff will now be able to identify relevant customer segments based on any criteria across all of the existing databases; easily identify overlapping contacts appearing in more than one place; and create flexible reports and charts in order to identify key trends and patterns.

The DataSalon system works together with existing databases. All core tools for searching and analysis are generated automatically from the source data itself. This ensures that every available piece of information can be searched and analysed. Also, it avoids the inherent risks of replacing existing systems.

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The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has reportedly published an article in its latest edition raising concerns over whether journal rankings (known as impact factors) are distorting publishing and science. The impact factor is a measure of the citations to papers in scientific journals. What was originally developed as a simple measure of quality has now become a proxy for the importance of a journal to its field.

According to the BMJ report, the popularity of this ranking is distorting the fundamental character of journals, forcing them to focus more and more on citations and less on readers. Concerns include the fact that a bad paper may be cited because of its well-publicised flaws and that a journal's rank is no indication of the quality of individual papers it publishes. The report further states that the trend towards using impact factors to guide decisions on research funding is a matter of concern. The trend has been particularly noticeable in the UK, where universities now prioritise scientific fields that produce research published in the highest impact factor journals, causing substantial damage to the clinical research base.

In an accompanying article, two researchers discuss whether impact factors should be altogether ignored. Gareth Williams of Bristol University sees the measure as fatally flawed and highly damaging to the academic community. On the other hand, Richard Hobbs of Birmingham University thinks that rather than just discarding impact factors one should consider solutions to the associated problems.

Pricing and market intelligence service provider ICIS Pricing, US, has announced the launch of the Asian Biodiesel price report. With this launch, ICIS pricing has completed its biofuels price reporting portfolio in all regions of the world.

The ICIS pricing weekly biodiesel reports covering European and US markets are already widely used in the market as references for settling transaction prices. The Asian biodiesel report, slated for launch on March 21, 2007, will continue to capture the price trend in the industry and the key factors influencing it. It will include FOB southeast Asia prices for biodiesel exports out of the region. In addition, commentary on feedstocks, palm oil and methanol, as well as co-product glycerine, will also be included. The report also updates the status of new plants and projects announced in the Asian region.

ICIS Pricing is an independent pricing and market intelligence service from ICIS, part of Reed Business Information. It provides petrochemical and oil markets with reports published daily, weekly or monthly on more than 120 commodities.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has announced that it has received a record 36,471 international trademark applications in 2006 under the Madrid system for the international registration of trademarks. This represents an 8.6 percent increase as against the figures for 2005.

For the 14th consecutive year, applicants from Germany led the list of top filers, followed by users in France and the USA. China was the most designated country in international trademark applications reflecting increasing levels of trading activity by foreign companies in China. The 'Madrid system' is a user-friendly and cost-effective service that enables individuals and companies to acquire and maintain trademark protection in export markets.

A number of countries experienced significant growth in the number of international trademark filings. Italy, for instance, enjoyed a 25.5 percent increase enabling it to inch from 5th to 4th position in the ranking of top filer countries. Also, a number of developing countries witnessed significant growth in international trademark filings in 2006. This includes the Republic of Korea with 190 applications, Singapore with 161 applications and Morocco with 119 applications. The 25 countries of the European Union together accounted for 23,916 applications in 2006.

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Thieme Publishers, part of STM publisher Thieme Publishing Group, Germany, has announced the release of 'Medicinal Leech Therapy.' Authored by Dr. Andreas Michalsen, Dr. Manfred Roth and Dr. Gustav J. Dobos, the book introduces the basic principles of leech usage in clinical practice while addressing the ever-growing interest in natural health medicine.

The book is projected as a valuable guide for physicians of this therapy. It emphasises on those areas of medicine where scientific studies have already provided evidence of success. In addition, the book also includes case studies of the use of the animal in plastic surgery.

The meticulously researched book presents solid scientific evidence to negate general misconceptions regarding the animals. The chapter covering the indications for this particular therapy, including use for treatment for varicose veins, is expected to convert skeptics.

Journal subscription services provider EBSCO Information Services, US, and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) have announced the winners of the 2007 Community and Junior College Libraries Section (CJCLS) Learning Resources Awards.

David R. Dowell, director of the Library/Learning Resource Center at Cuesta College, has been selected as the 2007 winner of the Learning Resources Leadership Award. The award honours significant achievement in the advocacy of learning resources, as well as leadership in professional organisations that support the missions of community, junior and technical colleges.

The Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities at Spokane Community College has been chosen to receive the 2007 Learning Resources Library Program Achievement Award. The award recognises significant achievement in the development of a unique and innovative learning resources/library programme.

Dowell and the staff of the Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities will each receive a citation and $500 at the forthcoming American Library Association Annual Conference to be held in Washington D.C.

Click here to read the original press release.

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Specialist information provider Informa plc, UK, does not plan any big takeovers this year, although smaller deals are on the company's agenda, it has been reported. The company has nearly quadrupled in size over the past three years after its 2004 merger with scientific publisher Taylor & Francis, and the £768 million takeover of the IIR Dubai events business in 2005.

Informa ended takeover talks with STM publisher Springer Science + Business Media, Germany, in November 2006, claiming that the 630-pence-per share possible offer was too low.

The publisher witnessed a rise in year end pre-tax profits, hikes in dividends, and has also announced a shake-up in the boardroom. It has announced the appointment of Peter Rigby as chairman in the place of Richard Hopper, who is retiring. Also, David Gilbertson has been named chief executive, starting May 2007.

STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that it will add two new Cell Press titles - Cell Host & Microbe and Cell Stem Cell - to its ScienceDirect platform. To mark the launch, access to the first three issues of both journals is complimentary for three months.

The Cell Press collection on ScienceDirect includes leading titles such as Cell and Neuron. The addition of these new titles will further add to the available resources for microbiology and stem cell biology specialists.

Cell Host & Microbe is available on ScienceDirect since March 14, 2007. A monthly publication, the journal is designed to stimulate the exchange of ideas and concepts between scientists studying the microbe and those studying host responses upon microbial invasion.

Cell Stem Cell is the official affiliated journal of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR). The journal will be available on ScienceDirect from June 6, 2007. It seeks to provide a forum for the publication of leading stem cell research and the exchange of ideas between scientists working in the burgeoning field of stem cell biology.

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Academic and professional publisher Sage Publications, US, has signed an agreement with the Orbis Cascade Alliance to provide access to Sage's online journals to member libraries. The majority of the Orbis Cascade Alliance academic institutions in Oregon and Washington State will now have access to over 400 journals complete with backfile to 1999 via Sage Premier.

The peer-reviewed, ISI-ranked journals are available on Sage's platform, SAGE Journals Online, which was recently enhanced with new features and functionality. The three-year contract began on January 1, 2007.

The Orbis Cascade Alliance is a consortium of academic institutions in Oregon and Washington, collaborating to strengthen member libraries to support students, faculty, staff and researchers. Members join together in a bid to enhance services, share information resources and expertise, enrich and preserve collections, and develop library staff to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing information environment.

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Scientific publisher Inderscience Publishers, Switzerland, has announced the inaugural issue of the European Journal of Industrial Engineering (EJIE).

A quarterly publication, EJIE seeks to provide a platform for the dissemination of information, knowledge, and new developments among professionals, academics, researchers, practitioners and policy makers working in the broad field of industrial engineering. The journal will publish the latest developments in all areas of industrial engineering, including information and service industries, ergonomics and safety, quality management as well as business and strategy.

Targeted areas include manufacturing, operations management, product and process design, information systems, business and strategy, and quality management, among others. In order to bridge the gap between theory and practice, the journal will also include applications and case studies. For theoretical papers, their originality and research contributions will be the main factors in the evaluation process.

Health information services provider Healthline Networks, US, has announced the launch of Symptom Search, a search-driven symptom exploration tool. Symptom Search, the latest extension of Healthline's Medically Guided Search platform, seeks to provide consumers with more relevant, accurate and faster results than competing symptom research products.

Symptom Search is fully integrated into Healthline.com, giving health information seekers the ability to research their condition through authoritative, doctor-reviewed articles from medical information publishers worldwide. The application is claimed to be the only Internet symptom tool to use a semantic medical taxonomy - a relational database of over 1 million diseases, symptoms and their synonyms - to examine queries and produce ranked results.

The new product features My Symptoms List, through which consumers can create a personalised combination of symptoms to refine their search results and narrow the list of possible causes. Healthline then ranks Symptom Search results using search algorithms that incorporate substantial current and historical data, input from multiple authoritative medical reference libraries, and oversight from Healthline's team of doctors and nurses. Additional features and benefits of Symptom Search include guided research; search on related symptoms; comprehensiveness; interactive, search driven approach; and quality/confidence.

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The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), US, has announced that it will be offering a free seminar on how society publishers can make the most of book fairs on April 16, 2007. The one hour seminar is part of the London Book Fair seminar programme.

Three publishing professionals will share their experience of how to get the most out of book fairs from three differing perspectives - logistics and representation at book fairs; the sale and licensing of rights; and the presentation of support services such as distribution. The publishing experts addressing the seminar are: Malcolm Clarke, Director, Clarke Associates Limited, Fiona Bennett, Head, Rights and Business Development, Oxford University Press and Kathy Law, New Business Manager, Turpin Distribution Ltd. In addition, there will also be a 15 minutes questions and answers session at the end.

An international trade association for not-for-profit publishers, ALPSP, has nearly 350 members in 36 countries, publishing more than 10,000 journals as well as books, databases and other products and services.

B2B publisher PennWell Corporation, US, has announced that Laser Focus World, a monthly magazine for engineers, researchers, scientists, and technical professionals, has launched a new version of its web site at http://www.laserfocusworld.com/.

The redesign is part of an ongoing strategic effort by Laser Focus World and its parent company, PennWell, to enhance their digital media offerings, and provide subscribers and others interested in the field of photonics and optoelectronics with the most comprehensive information resource available online. The new Laser Focus World web site highlights the breadth and depth of industry resources -- including news, features, e-Newsletters, white papers, Webcasts, new products, and jobs -- available to the magazine's readers and online visitors.

Published since 1965, Laser Focus World is a magazine for engineers, researchers, scientists, and technical professionals providing comprehensive global coverage of optoelectronic technologies, applications, and markets. The magazine reports and analyses the latest developments and trends in technology and business in the optoelectronic and photonics industry.

DocZone.com, Netherlands, has announced the addition of a second data center in Dallas to accommodate the growing number of DocZone customers located in North America.

The new facility, already operational, provides high speed performance coupled with one of the best security models in the industry. Centrally located in North America, the data center is in use by several DocZone.com clients, including Agfa Healthcare and Dominion. DocZone.com also has a data center located in Amsterdam for European customers.

DocZone.com provides the industry's first 'Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)' XML content management platform, including XML authoring, content management, automated workflow, server-based translation memory, and single-source publishing. In addition, it also offers the industry's only guaranteed rapid deployment methodology to bring customers into production within 30 days.

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Search technology provider Convera Corporation, US, has announced an agreement with publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., US. Under the deal, whose financial terms were not disclosed, Convera will develop customised vertical web search applications for Wiley.

Convera has developed a unified product platform that makes sense of vast amounts of information wherever it resides - across multiple data formats, languages and meanings. Based on proprietary technologies that extract relevant results from public and private data, Convera enables professionals to quickly retrieve the exact the information essential for action. The search platform is delivered as a hosted service, software or a bundled hardware and software package. Thousands of government and business professionals across 40 nations rely on these search solutions to power a broad range of mission critical applications.

Earlier this month, Convera announced that it has been named to KMWorld Magazine's list of '100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management'.

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Library technology solutions provider SirsiDynix, US, has announced a new, versatile technology platform, code-named 'Rome'. The new platform seeks to blend the best features from the company's flagship solution suites. Targeted at public, academic, K-12 and special libraries, as well as consortia, the platform will integrate solutions for library/consortia management, the user experience and content management.

Rome is built on the scalable and extensible architecture of the industry-standard SirsiDynix Unicorn Library Management System and will include a set of new solutions created as part of SirsiDynix Horizon 8.0/Corinthian development. The first version, slated for release later this year, will be followed by a subsequent version which will be released in late 2008.

The platform is projected as being much more than a traditional integrated library system. It offers integrated technology building blocks for present day libraries and consortia, including cost-saving software-as-a-service (SaaS) hosted options, the latest portal and search solutions, and new and easy-to-manage web-based library staff software. Also on offer are e-content management and presentation solutions, and a broad suite of library management and productivity solutions.

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Non-profit electronic archiving service provider Portico, US, has announced STM publisher Hindawi Publishing Corporation as its latest publisher participant. This inclusion brings the number of titles in the Portico archive to over 6,000.

Under the deal, Portico will preserve Hindawi's 38 journal titles for future scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students. In addition, the publisher has designated Portico as an official delivery platform for post-cancellation access claims. Also, it will make an annual financial contribution to support Portico's ongoing operations.

Founded in 1997, Hindawi publishes open access journals spanning Engineering, Life Sciences, Mathematics, and Physical Sciences. The publisher claims to be the only OA publisher with fully Open Access journals spanning a wide range of subjects in STM.

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Global library cooperative OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc., US, has announced the acquisition of the TechAtlas technology planning software with a $1.9 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. WebJunction, OCLC's online community where library staff share ideas and use online resources to help them in their work, will further develop this web-based technology management and planning tool. The focus will be on assisting public libraries create E-Rate compliant technology plans.

TechAtlas is a Web-based technology management and planning tool. It provides an environment for small to medium libraries to list their technology assets and use that information as a starting point for building a comprehensive technology plan. For those libraries pursuing E-Rate funding, the technology plan approval process can be automated via TechAtlas. State library coordinators can review and approve individual library technology plans without the need to send e-mail or paper copies back-and-forth. The tool can also be used by libraries that are not interested in obtaining E-Rate reimbursements, but want to take control of their use of technology and build a plan that can serve as a roadmap for future investments and upgrades.

In addition, WebJunction will be providing TechAtlas to libraries participating in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's US Libraries initiative's grant-making efforts. Special TechAtlas features are projected to help these eligible libraries to deliver information to the foundation about their technology infrastructure. They will also assist in grant evaluation, and will provide valuable data to state library agencies on the public access computing "landscape" in their communities.

TechAtlas was originally developed by NPower, a national network of nonprofit organisations, to support a diverse community of non-profit organisations. OCLC will continue to support NPower's community of TechAtlas users while further developing the product as part of WebJunction's services for libraries. OCLC will continue to offer TechAtlas to WebJunction members at no cost.

International Medical News Group (IMNG), US, an Elsevier company, has announced the appointment of Phil Soufleris as Sales Manager, Primary Care.

In his new position, Phil will work exclusively on Family Practice News, Internal Medicine News and the PowerBuy combination of the two newspapers. Prior to this, he served Advanstar's Medical Economics. Sue Fagan, National Account Manager, will report directly to him.

IMNG publishes ten medical newspapers covering news and meetings worldwide for physicians. The Group provides physician specialists with authoritative coverage of medical meetings, breaking medical news and analysis, clinical trial results, updates on drug prescribing, pertinent summaries of clinical guidelines, and perspective and opinion from medicine's thought leaders.

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Media Company Technology Review, Inc., part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US, has announced that Technologyreview.com has been recognised in two categories in the inaugural Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) Digital Awards. The awards were announced at the recently concluded 'Magazines 24/7' digital conference in New York.

The MPA Digital Awards recognise magazine websites that show excellence and innovation across 11 categories. Technologyreview.com was named 1st runner-up for Best Online Video or Video Series. Also, it tied with Forbes.com as 2nd runner-up for Website of the Year in the Business/News category for its authoritative, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on the future of technology.

Published by MIT and online since 1995, technologyreview.com delivers daily news on emerging technologies and their impact to an audience of senior executives, technology innovators, and opinion leaders. The site includes daily original content, news aggregation, authoritative blogs, unique videos, and podcasts.

Health information services provider Healthline Networks, US, has announced that Paul T. Sheils has been elected to the Company's Board of Directors. Experienced in both Fortune 500 and startup companies, Sheils is an established executive in the health information field.

Prior to this, Sheils served as CEO of Aetna Health Information Solutions, Inc. and head of Aetna's eHealth unit, responsible for leveraging Aetna's health content, data and analytics assets to deliver more personalised and engaging online information and decision support tools to Aetna members. He brings with him over 15 years of web-based publishing innovation and consumer healthcare experience.

Healthline Networks offers an innovative approach to meeting the needs of health information seekers. The company's unique consumer healthcare taxonomy powers a suite of intelligent health search, navigation and content services. The company has an extensive network of distribution partnerships with leading medical, healthcare, Internet companies and consumer brands by providing a "Powered by Healthline" search offering to their health-related content areas.

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STM publisher Springer Science+Business Media, Germany, and GMT Communications Partners (GMT), UK, have signed an agreement to acquire Springer's construction information division, B2B Construction. A European independent private equity group, GMT is the owner of Deutsche Holding GmbH (Docu Group), which provides database information and innovative products for the construction industry. Completion of the acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals.

B2B Construction provides business-to-business information and solutions to the construction industry in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Central and Eastern Europe. The unit includes Bauverlag BV GmbH, Springer BauMedien ibau, Springer BauMedien Heinze, BauDatenbank GmbH, BauNetz Online-Dienst GmbH & Co.KG in Germany, as well as Bau-Data GmbH in Austria, Springer Media Czechia s.r.o. in the Czech Republic, Springer Business Media Magyarország Kiadó Kft. in Hungary and Springer Business Media Croatia d.o.o in Croatia. While the publisher will sell the Springer Science+Business Media Schweiz AG in Switzerland, its subsidiary, Media-Daten AG will remain with Springer and will be integrated into Springer's B2B Business, Technology, and Transport division.

Post acquisition, Peter Schmitz, Chief Executive of Docu Group, will become Chief Executive of the enlarged group. Monica Sawhney, currently CFO and COO of Springer B2B Construction, will continue in her position. Stefan Rühling, Executive Vice President of Springer B2B Construction and Managing Director of Springer BauMedien / Bauverlag, has chosen to leave the company after a transition period.

Founded in 2001, Docu Group was built through a series of acquisitions, including Docu AG in Switzerland and Baumarktforschung Deutschland. The Group's eight companies provide complementary specialist business-to-business solutions to the construction industry in Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia.

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SCR Ltd., publisher of the Scholarly Communications Report, has announced the launch of SCR Conference Reports, which will provide in-depth reports on issues raised at conferences. The reports will cover all major conferences worldwide that concern the scholarly communications market.

Each report provides an in depth analysis of the findings of the conference, assesses and analyses each speaker, with emphasis placed on those whose presentations are most relevant, innovative or challenging to the scholarly publishing market.

The reports explore what can be taken away from the conference for publishers, librarians and intermediaries. Each report provides in-depth commentary and discussion of the concepts and developments at hand, with reference to how it may affect the scholarly communications market both immediately and in the future. Whether or not the user is able to attend a conference, the reports are projected to offer him/her a valuable insight into the issues and challenges currently taking place in the industry.

Reports will be e-mailed directly to subscribers. Discounts on a subscription to SCR Conference Reports are available to subscribers of Scholarly Communications Report.

Books enquiry and ordering services provider PubEasy, UK, has announced that academic publisher Oxford University Press (OUP), UK, will become a PubEasy affiliate from April 2007.

Under the initiative, all OUP titles serviced through its UK distribution facilities will be available online to registered booksellers with a PubEasy password for ordering and enquiry needs. Booksellers can freely access to PubEasy at http://register.pubeasy.com and register online. Registered booksellers and distributors can check price and availability, and place orders with OUP round the clock from anywhere over the World Wide Web.

A division of US based bibliographic information provider Bowker, PubEasy offers thousands of publisher imprints and millions of titles to over 16,000 booksellers in 110 countries. Publishers, distributors and wholesalers join PubEasy to get exposure to a large universe of potential clients, while increasing the ease with which those booksellers can conduct business with their suppliers.

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E-book technology and services firm ebrary, US, has announced that it has partnered with a number of leading resellers to distribute its subscription and e-book products to libraries throughout Europe. Joining ebrary's network of global distribution partners are A.B.E. Marketing, Applied Marketing Lda (MARKA), Burgundy Information Services Ltd., Datec-Lavoisier and Kai-Henning Gerlach Books and Online.

The partnerships are expected to provide more libraries the opportunity to see first-hand how they can build and distribute digital content collections with ebrary, as well as benefit from on-site training and support services.

A.B.E. Marketing specialises in the import and distribution of publications from across the globe. The company offers its clients the largest collection of scientific and trade books in Eastern Europe, consisting of more than 140,000 titles from over 300 publishers. A supplier of professional information products, MARKA has evolved from a being a distributor of McGraw-Hill books and magazines to a company that represents all the major editors and content distributors.

As a representative for a number of STM publishers, Burgundy Information Services provides quality products and packages to the global learning community. The company provides the essential link between universities and publishers to create customised content packages for institutions around the world.

Datec is a full-service company that specialises in professional electronic information on CD-ROM and over LANs and the Internet. As a French distributor of databases and e-books, the company now represents more than 350 publishers and aggregators. Kai Henning Gerlach is a Berlin-based specialised boutique for electronic and print resources serving companies, universities and research institutions. Services include support during selection and acquisition process and on-site user training.

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Educational publisher Houghton Mifflin Company, US, has announced the launch of a new division, Houghton Mifflin Learning Technology, in response to customer demand for a seamless, comprehensive print and technology-based learning solution. Houghton Mifflin Learning Technology is projected to become the industry's premier provider of integrated learning tools. Scott Kirkpatrick will serve as president of the new division.

The new division will seek to develop and deliver highly engaging, interactive pre-K-12 solutions that inspire innovation and raise student achievement. With curriculum-based technology products and services in all subject areas, the division looks to provide a powerful, research-proven approach for integrating core and supplemental instruction, intervention, assessment and reporting, professional development, and school-to-home connections.

Houghton Mifflin publishes a comprehensive set of educational solutions, ranging from research-based textbook programmes to instructional technology to standards-based assessments for elementary and secondary schools and colleges. In 2006, Houghton Mifflin merged with Riverdeep, a US-based publisher of branded interactive educational and personal publishing products.

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Scientific publisher Nature Publishing Group (NPG), UK, has announced that its science recruitment service, Naturejobs, has been awarded with the ONREC award for the best Innovative Offline Marketing in the niche job board category. Naturejobs was also finalists in the Innovative Online Marketing category.

The ONREC Innovative Offline Marketing and Innovative Online Marketing Awards recognise the initiative shown by companies to promote their products or services both online as well as offline. Also, it celebrates the best companies within the generalist, niche and suppliers to the industry fields.

Launched in Nov 2006, Naturejobs.com claims to be the first job board specialising in scientific recruitment to offer free online postings.

Click here to read the original press release.

Web-based information services provider Knovel Corporation, US, has announced the appointment of Robert E. Smith and John Dooley as Vice President of Information Technology and Vice President of Sales, respectively. The company also announced the promotion of Delores Meglio to Vice President of Content Management.

Smith most recently served as Director of Enterprise Platform Services and Architecture for Harcourt Assessment, a member of the Reed Elsevier family of companies. His career accomplishments include the alignment of information technology strategy with corporate business objectives, leveraging technology to create competitive advantage, utilising innovation and technology to improve business performance, and capitalising on technology to maximise customer value. John Dooley brings with him 18 years of sales management experience delivering cutting edge state of the art technology. Prior to this, he served as North American Director of Sales for UGS, a Product Lifecycle Management Solutions company.

Delores Meglio has been with Knovel since 2003 as Editorial Director. She has been responsible for negotiating publisher contracts and aggregating content for corporate and academic markets. In her new role, she will be responsible for the entire content process, from strategic development to negotiations to production.

STM Publishers can now add their Company to the Knowledgespeak Directory list. You can also update our events calendar, if you are organising an event which may be of interest to the STM publishing community. Also, you can send your company press releases to be included in our news section.

Publisher EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced that it has recently signed an agreement with the New England Journal of Medicine. Under the deal, EBSCO will make the journal's content available via MEDLINE with Full Text on the EBSCOhost platform. Full-text coverage of the journal will extend back to 1993 (with a 90-day embargo) and will also include embedded image content.

MEDLINE with Full Text is a comprehensive source of full text for medical journals, providing full text for nearly 1,200 journals indexed in MEDLINE. With full-text coverage dating back to 1965, MEDLINE with Full Text is seen to be a definitive research tool for medical literature.

Through a combination of guidance from multiple focus groups and overall customer feedback, EBSCO has successfully implemented several new features within MEDLINE with Full Text. These include an enhanced thesaurus, streamlined search history, and other such improvements designed to make the search experience more intuitive and efficient.

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STM publisher Springer Science+Business Media, Germany, has announced that it will expand its online peer review system, Editorial Manager, to an additional 600 journals over the next two years. The expansion includes software that will automatically link bibliographies of author-submitted manuscripts to PubMed and CrossRef during the peer review process. Author bibliographies will be automatically converted to Springer bibliography formats, and validated XML will be transferred to Springer's journal production system.

The new functionality seeks to reduce the effort required by authors to format manuscripts for publication. Also, it will facilitate the editorial tasks undertaken by reviewers and editors. The linked bibliography offers a suitable way to assess the quality of the authors' citations and to 'drill down' to explore cited literature. The result will be a higher quality authoring, editing, and reviewing experience for the scholarly community, combined with improvements in publication speed and efficiency.

In addition, Springer's journal production division will benefit from the implementation as the system does not require authors to pre-format the manuscript or use expensive citation management software.

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The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), UK, has announced that it has redesigned its corporate web site to better serve the scholarly communications community. Available at http://www.arl.org/sparc, the site has been refined to facilitate access to the multitude of SPARC resources created for libraries, publishers, authors, and the media.

The new website provides one-click access to SPARC's key programme areas such as advocacy, education (publications and resources) and incubation (partners), as well as information on membership, meetings and events, SPARC consulting services, and the organisation itself. Direct links to resources by theme (author rights, journal pricing, open access, open data, public access to research, and repositories) and by audience (libraries, authors, publishers, and the media) are also available.

In addition, new portals for authors and publishers have been added to highlight SPARC's ongoing role in collaborating across stakeholder groups in scholarly publishing. The author page features SPARC's Author Rights initiative as well as other copyright resources, campus and regional copyright leadership, information on the emergence of policies for access to taxpayer-funded research, and links to publishing alternatives. The publisher portal offers easy access to SPARC's existing guides, planning resources, consulting services, and partner programmes as well as links to potentially useful technologies for institutions, societies, or new publishing ventures.

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Global library cooperative, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc., US, has announced that Taiwan has added 202 libraries to the OCLC cooperative as full cataloguing, Governing Members. The Taiwan OCLC Governing Members Consortium libraries have agreed to catalogue all their newly acquired titles using WorldCat, a comprehensive database of items held in libraries across the globe. The WorldCat database is used to catalogue materials and find materials for interlibrary loan. It can be used to search for library materials on the open web via the WorldCat.org service.

The consortium comprises all college and university libraries in Taiwan, libraries of several research institutions, government agencies, corporations, significant public libraries, medical and theological libraries. Taiwan's Ministry of Education has expressed support for the new initiative, including financial aid for the partnership.

Governing Members of OCLC may elect delegates to OCLC Members Council, which supports OCLC's mission by serving as the key discussion forum and communications link between member libraries, regional networks and other partners, and OCLC management.

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Medical communications agency Macmillan Medical Communications (MMC), part of Macmillan Publishers Limited, UK, has announced the appointment of AJ Weigel as Manager of Education and Content Development. He will report directly to John Elduff, Senior VP of Sales.

In his new position, Weigel will be expected to work with his fellow NCP and MMC colleagues to create educational solutions utilising existing and original Nature content. Prior to this, he served Elsevier's MD Consult division where he worked with editorial groups, product development teams, and accredited CME providers in designing and creating educational offerings to monetise clinical content.

Macmillan Medical Communications is a strategic medical communications agency that provides customised products and services for partners in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and biotechnology industries. As part of the Macmillan Group, MMC has exclusive access to some of the world's leading journal content, including journals from NPG, publishers of Nature, the international journal of science, Nature Medicine, the Nature Clinical Practice series of journals and a large number of major medical society titles.

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Academic and professional publisher Sage Publications, US, has announced the inaugural issue of the American Journal of Men's Health (AJMH). The journal, edited by Demetrius J. Porche of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, is projected as an essential resource for frontline care providers and patient educators, policy development specialists, researchers and scholars.

The new quarterly will publish papers from all health, behavioral and social disciplines including medicine, nursing, allied health, public health, health psychology/behavioral medicine, and medical sociology and anthropology. In addition, it will publish original articles, research briefs, editorials, health policy and legislative updates, legal and ethical perspectives, practice guidelines, case reports, media reviews and news regarding upcoming symposia, conferences and other related events. The first issue has published research on testicular cancer as well as prostate cancer affecting 15- to 35-year-old young men, and men over 65 years.

The journal is available electronically on the enhanced Sage Journals Online platform since early March. Institutional subscriptions include Combined (Print and E-access), E-access, or Print Only options. Sage will provide free online access to the first volume (four issues in 2007). Interested institutions can register online at https://online.sagepub.com/cgi/register?registration=FTN01346.

STM Publishers can now add their Company to the Knowledgespeak Directory list. You can also update our events calendar, if you are organising an event which may be of interest to the STM publishing community. Also, you can send your company press releases to be included in our news section.

Healthcare solutions provider Thomson Healthcare, part of Thomson Corporation, US, has announced a partnership agreement with e-prescribing software vendor DrFirst, Inc., US. Under the deal, Thomson Healthcare will incorporate DrFirst's Rcopia e-prescribing management solution into its own Medication Reconciliation solution. This is expected to help hospital physicians, nurses and staff collect the patient's Home Medication List from both inpatient and outpatient settings, including medications purchased at their local pharmacy or as part of an insurance plan.

Rcopia provides clinicians a more complete picture of the patient's past and present medication history, rather than clinicians having to rely on the patient to remember drug names, strengths and how they are taking those drugs.

Other Rcopia benefits include its ability to save hospitals significant time during the collection and maintenance of accurate medication lists, and ensure a patient's written discharge medications are formulary compliant to accommodate health insurance payment plans.

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Chemical and oil information provider ICIS, part of Reed Business Information, US, has announced the launch of the European Ethylene to Polyethylene monthly report.

ICIS forecasting's methodology forecasts prices by incorporating the output of the index in the forecasting model of each feedstock product (e.g., Propylene, Polypropylene). The price generated by incorporating the Market Sentiment Index is provided separately in the monthly report. The product is the latest product chain from ICIS forecasting. Since June 2006, ICIS forecasting has launched reports for the Polystyrene, Polyethylene, Polypropylene and Phenol-Acetone markets in the US and the Polyethylene, Polypropylene and Para-xylene markets in Asia.

ICIS forecasting is completely independent from ICIS price reporting and is based on statistical analysis of historical assessments plus textual analysis of news files.

Search engine provider WebFeat, US, has announced that the Keystone Library Network (KLN) is implementing a WebFeat Enterprise Edition federated search solution. The service will be implemented across 17 participating libraries, including 14 Pennsylvania State System universities.

The WebFeat Enterprise Edition solution enables users at each library to simultaneously search a group of shared resources provided by KLN in addition to simultaneously searching the individual library's locally subscribed resources. Ten of the KLN libraries' WebFeat systems will be able to simultaneously search over 100 resources each - either from within the library or remotely. Each participating library will customise and brand its WebFeat interface for seamless integration with individual library web pages.

WebFeat Enterprise Edition is a custom configurable, federated search solution that seeks to address the unique needs of multi-library networks looking to implement federated search solutions, including resource compatibility, multi-site authentication, profiling and usage tracking. Member library administrators can easily make changes to their WebFeat systems using the WebFeat Administrative Console. The service is currently used by 16 statewide networks and dozens of smaller networks and consortia, serving thousands of libraries.

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AlphaMed Press, publisher of the internationally renowned journals Stem Cells and The Oncologist, has announced the appointment of George Kendall as Director of operations and business development.

In his new position, George will manage all of AlphaMed's publications, including Stem Cells and The Oncologist. He brings with him ten years experience in scientific and medical publishing management. Most recently he served as Production, Marketing, and Licensing Manager with the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).

AlphaMed Press publishes the internationally renowned journals Stem Cells and The Oncologist. Now in its 25th year, Stem Cells is one of the oldest peer-reviewed monthly journals in the fast-paced area of stem cells and regenerative medicine. The Oncologist, in its 12th year, is a premier peer-reviewed monthly journal dedicated to physicians entrusted with the care of cancer patients.

Medical and healthcare publisher Ascend Media, US, has announced changes in its medical education group including the promotion of five members in the unit's senior management team.

Peter J. Rizzuto and Michael Paulik will share responsibility as Group Presidents of the Ascend Media Medical Communications Group. The group specialises in developing high quality educational programmes in a wide range of disease/therapeutic areas. Keith Hofbeck has been appointed as Managing Director of IMED Communications, a division that provides a full spectrum of professional medical education and communication services.

In addition, Dr. Otto Ratz, who has been with the company since 1997, has been appointed as Managing Director of SynerMed Communications. SynerMed focuses on developing a variety of educational programmes that include web-based learning, webcasts, symposia, advisory boards, newsletters, monographs and other highly educational programmes for physicians, allied healthcare professionals, and patients. Also, Robert Schneider has been appointed Corporate Vice President, Professional Relations and Healthcare Compliance. He joined the company in 1990.

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The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), US, and STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, have announced an agreement to make author manuscripts of articles published in Elsevier and Cell Press journals publicly available six months following final publication. This is effective for articles published after September 1, 2007. Through this agreement, both Elsevier and HHMI seek to make research results freely available to the public and the international scientific community.

Under the initiative, Elsevier will deposit author manuscripts of original research articles, along with an article's supplemental data, of which any HHMI scientist is an author - including HHMI investigators, group leaders and fellows at the Janelia Farm Research Campus, and other institute employees - to PubMed Central (PMC). As part of the agreement, HHMI will pay the global publisher for the depositing service. The institute will make quarterly payments to Elsevier based on the number of articles published. Individual scientists will not be charged.

The agreement comes as the Institute prepares to adopt a new policy that will require HHMI scientists to publish original research articles in journals that allow articles to be made freely accessible through PMC within six months of publication.

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Derycz Scientific, Inc., a US-based provider of services to reuse published content for marketing purposes, has announced the acquisition of a majority interest in printing solutions provider Pools Press, Inc., US. Derycz will integrate Pools with its own reprint service, Reprints Desk. The deal is projected to help Reprints Desk produce high-quality commercial reprints within a short time period and without minimum quantity requirements.

Pools Press specialises in reprints from medical and technical journals, as well as commercial printing including newsletters, catalogues and booklets with a worldwide distribution network. Matthew Sampson will continue to manage the business while working closely with the Reprints Desk staff to expand the business. With the integration of Reprints Desk and Pools, the turn-around on professional reprints is expected to be measured in days instead of weeks while maintaining the quality of commercial reprints expected by the scientific reprint market.

Currently, Pools administers the reprint programmes for CHEST, the official publication of the American College of Chest Physicians. Also, it provides print services for the University of Chicago Press reprints programme. Reprints Desk currently provides reprint service bureaus for the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians and the nursing journals owned and published by Anthony J. Jannetti, Inc. It provides an outsourcing solution from quotes to orders to printing and fulfillment.

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STM publisher Springer, Germany, has announced that it will publish the first three volumes of its new Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science (UTiCS) series in April 2007. The series will cover a wide range of computer science subjects using a modular approach, providing textbooks that cover specific topics in detail. Four to six textbooks are scheduled for release regularly in April and September, every year.

The new UTiCS textbook series seeks to take a fresh, concise and modern approach to computer science, with content written in an appealing style. The series presents in-depth coverage of topics, along with numerous examples, problems and fully worked solutions, making the books suitable for one- or two-semester courses or self study. In addition, they are being issued in sturdy softcover versions in a bid to make them both affordable and durable.

Future UTiCS volumes will focus on programming, database systems, foundations of computing, mathematics, automata and modeling. Instructors can test UTiCS by ordering an inspection copy at springer.com/instructors.

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The Professional and Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) has endorsed the Brussels declaration on STM publishing, a statement by the International Association of STM Publishers, articulating key industry principles.

The declaration was recently issued in the context of the European Commission's Communication on Scientific Information and its Conference on Scientific Publishing in the European Research Area, in Brussels. Until now, the declaration has been endorsed by 42 commercial and non-profit society publishers and ten publishing associations worldwide. The decision to endorse the declaration was made by the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division's 18-member executive council.

The declaration expresses a unified view of the role of the global STM publishing community and the contribution of private sector publishers to science and society. While it takes no position for or against any particular business model, it does caution that an open deposit system of accepted manuscripts, if implemented, would undermine peer review. The signatories support the creation of rights-protected archives that preserve scholarship in perpetuity, and welcome innovative business models that promote economic sustainability, based on a sensible and evidenced-based approach to policymaking.

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Publisher EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has announced the availability of the Points of View Reference Center, a full-text database designed to assist researchers in understanding the full scope of a wide range of controversial subjects.

Points of View Reference Center features a series of full-text essays representing opposing viewpoints on a variety of important issues. It provides hundreds of topics, each with an overview (objective background/description), point (affirmative argument) and counterpoint (opposing argument). Topics covered include affirmative action, cloning, DNA profiling, HIV/AIDS status disclosure, immigration, Iraq, Israel & the Palestinians, Katrina and FEMA response, nuclear proliferation, separation of church and state, standardised testing, stem cell research, tax cuts, voting machines, and more.

Students can use this resource to develop persuasive arguments and essays, better understand controversial issues, and develop analytical thinking skills. The database contains a balance of materials from all viewpoints, including 600 main essays, leading political magazines from both sides of the aisle, newspapers, radio & TV news transcripts, primary source documents and reference books. In addition, it also offers guides pertaining to debate, developing arguments, and writing position papers.

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Academic publisher Maney Publishing, UK, has announced that it will exchange its journals - Chronic Illness and Journal of Endotoxin Research - for Sage Publications' Comparative American Studies.

Both Chronic Illness and Journal of Endotoxin Research are projected to complement Sage's existing portfolio of over 400 academic and professional journals, and enhance significantly its offering in the health and medical market. With this inclusion, Sage's new global portfolio now includes 113 journals across the health sciences.

Maney has published Chronic Illness since 2005, working with a distinguished editorial board to develop the journal's reputation and achieving MEDLINE listing in 2006. The publisher has also enjoyed a successful relationship with IEIIS in publishing the Journal of Endotoxin Research. Comparative American Studies will join Maney's humanities portfolio, extending the publisher's range of existing language and literature collection to cover American studies.

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ICIS insight Asia, a division of chemical and oil information provider ICIS, US, has announced the launch of its fourth Middle East petrochemicals report. Produced each quarter, the ICIS insight Asia report provides an updated and comprehensive guide to the status of major petrochemical projects across the region.

The latest issue examines Polyolefins, styrenics and PVC demand and supply in Turkey, Egypt, Israel and Iran; the challenges facing SABIC as it confronts more competition at home while extending its global reach; the Saudi stock market and its increasing role as a source of project financing; a news summary of all key events over the last quarter; and excel spreadsheets detailing all the olefins and derivatives and aromatics and derivatives projects throughout the region.

The ICIS insight Asia report has been produced in partnership with International eChem - a UK-based petrochemical consultancy with extensive experience in single-client work in the Middle East.

Print and visual communications provider Cenveo, Inc., US, has announced that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of US-based content management and production services provider, Cadmus Communications. When the deal was first announced, the total value of the transaction, including Cenveo's assumption of Cadmus' debt, was estimated at $430 million.

Cenveo is seen as one of North America's leading print and visual communications providers. The company's portfolio of products and services include commercial printing, envelopes, labels, packaging and business documents delivered through a network of production, fulfillment and distribution facilities throughout North America.

Cadmus is one of the largest providers of content management and production services to STM journal publishers. Also, it is the fifth largest periodicals printer in North America, providing end-to-end, integrated graphic communications services to professional publishers, not-for-profit societies and corporations.

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VARBusiness, a biweekly business publication of the CMP Channel Group, US, has announced a new prequalification process for the 13th annual VARBusiness 500 listing.

The VARBusiness 500 is open to all IT solution providers, value-added resellers, systems integrators, independent software vendors, direct marketing resellers, service providers and IT consultants. Final inclusion and ranking on the VARBusiness 500 is based on gross revenue derived from the reselling of IT goods and services. The complete listing of the VARBusiness 500 will be published in the June 11, 2007 issue.

The VARBusiness 500 is the definitive list of the biggest and best solution providers in the North American IT reseller channel. The list ranks leading revenue producers among solution provider organisations in North America and plays a vital role in providing the proper IT strategies and systems to corporations and institutions to help drive business forward. This year, all qualified companies will receive a pre-qualification form via email. The form is also available online at http://varbusiness.com/sections/apps/2007/vb500form.jhtml;
jsessionid=NWYOGTUNELVZOQSNDLPCKHSCJUNN2JVN.

STM Publishers can now add their Company to the Knowledgespeak Directory list. You can also update our events calendar, if you are organising an event which may be of interest to the STM publishing community. Also, you can send your company press releases to be included in our news section.

STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the acquisition of the Beilstein Database through its subsidiary MDL Information Systems GmbH, Germany. With over 320 million experimental properties and facts for compounds and reactions, the Beilstein database is one of the largest factual databases in organic chemistry.

Under the deal, Elsevier will assume ownership and acquire the rights to the Beilstein Database. The global publisher has been involved in both the production and marketing of the Beilstein Database under a partnership agreement since 1998. Since then, it has added or updated nearly 5 million compounds to the database and has helped to build a strong and established customer base in both the corporate pharmaceutical and academic sectors.

The Beilstein database extracts high quality data on compounds and reactions from relevant, peer-reviewed publications. The database covers organic chemistry from 1771 to date, and contains over 9.8 million compounds, 10 million reactions and 320 million experimental data on chemical properties. In addition, it also comprises over 900,000 original author abstracts from 1980-present, as well as pharmacological and ecotoxicological data describing the bioactivity of organic chemicals.

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Information solutions provider Ovid Technologies, US, part of Wolters Kluwer Health, has announced the availability of the BIOSIS Archive and Zoological Record Archive databases.

The BIOSIS Archive covers all aspects of the biological sciences, and includes pioneering work from Nobel laureates as well as original extended abstracts featuring information unavailable at the original time of writing, such as organism name, geographic area, and chemical name. The archive includes nearly 3.5 million bibliographic records digitised from 49 print volumes of Biological Abstracts that were printed between 1926 and 1968.

A leading resource in animal science literature, the Zoological Record Archive comprises 1.5 million indexed and searchable bibliographic records of historical data published in print from 1864-1977. Records cover living, extinct, and fossil species and include every animal name and description included in the print volumes (1-106). Many renowned early pioneers in zoology, including Charles Darwin and Albert Gunther, contributed to these early volumes, and they have been included in this product.

BIOSIS Archive and Zoological Archive are produced by information solutions provider Thomson Scientific, part of Thomson Corporation. Other archive products offered by Ovid include the LWW Journal Legacy Archive, with nearly 1 million journal articles in medicine and nursing; Inspec Archive, comprised of bibliographic records in engineering and physics; the veterinary and agricultural sciences database, CAB Abstracts Archive; and Global Health Archive, with bibliographic information in public health.

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Wiley-VCH, the German subsidiary of publisher John Wiley & Sons, US, has announced the launch of AntiBase 2007, a new comprehensive database designed for researchers and scientists in the fields of organic chemistry, biochemistry, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals. Edited by Hartmut Laatsch of the University of Göttingen, Germany, AntiBase 2007 is available via CD-ROM in the ISIS/Base, ChemFinder, or SciDex formats.

AntiBase identifies unique and potentially useful compounds among microorganisms and higher fungi, including yeasts, ascomycetes, basidiomycetes, and lichens, as well as algae, cyanobacteria, and peptides. Updated annually, the database provides validated data for more than 33,557 compounds. The latest edition features unique functionalities such as structure, substructure, drug activity, and microbial species searches; ISIS/Draw and Chemdraw capabilities; displays that detail the antimicrobial spectra of drugs; searches can also be combined with compound structures or toxicological data; and calculated high-resolution molecular masses.

In addition, AntiBase provides molecular formula and mass; elemental composition; CAS registry number; physico-chemical data; spectroscopic data, including UV, 13C-NMR, IR and mass spectra; pharmacological activity; toxicity; origin and isolation; and references for each compound. For those compounds where no measured spectra are available, the 2007 edition utilises predicted 13C-NMR spectra produced by the spectrum prediction program SpecInfo.

The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), US, and subscription services provider Swets, Netherlands, have announced the signing of the first cross-country consortia agreement for the ALPSP Learned Journals Collection (ALJC). The agreement brings together members of the Anatolian University Libraries Consortium in Turkey, Hellenic Academic Libraries Link (Heal-Link) in Greece, Consorcio de Bibliotecas Universitarias de Catalunya and other institutions in Italy, Portugal and Spain under the Southern European Library Link (SELL).

SELL is a forum where library consortia from participating countries debate the challenges and opportunities associated with the management of e-consortia. This is the first time that this collaboration has extended beyond the forum, providing an agreement that equally benefits members of different consortia across Southern Europe. The move is seen to demonstrate SELL's commitment to provide quality content to its users.

The ALJC is an initiative in which smaller member publishers of ALPSP work together, through Swets, to sell a combined package of their journals to consortia and other large customers. Now entering its fourth year, the ALJC provides a unique way for libraries and consortia to acquire content from 48 highly regarded publishers from a single source. With a total of 627 titles making up the full set and the availability of nine new subject-specific collections, the 2007 ALJC offers a wide range of e-content in an affordable, direct and flexible manner.

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Medical news service MedPage Today, US, has announced that it has secured a $2.1 million venture capital (VC) investment led by Milestone Venture Partners, a VC firm focused on healthcare information and technology-enhanced service businesses. SJF Ventures also participated in the round.

The investment will be used for news coverage expansion, new product offerings, new distribution and marketing. Milestone Venture Partners will join the MedPage Today board of directors. Peter Frishauf, founder of Medscape, will also join the board.

MedPage Today seeks to be a leading provider of 24/7 real-time breaking medical news for healthcare professionals. Its website assists physicians and other healthcare professionals monitor important new developments by providing concise, timely, and actionable reporting on stories frequently emanating from medical conferences, journal articles, consumer media and FDA announcements. A number of physicians are seen to rely on its peer-reviewed coverage to address their patients' questions and to find out how new developments might affect their patients and medical practices. Physicians and other healthcare professionals may also receive Continuing Medical Education (CME/CE) credits at no cost by completing its educational programmes.

Search technology provider Convera Corporation, US, has announced that it has been named to KMWorld Magazine's list of '100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management'.

Published annually, the KMWorld 100 recognises organisations that have played a role in the creation and evolution of the knowledge management market through consistent innovation of technologies, products and services. The complete list of '100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management' will be published in the March 2007 issue of the magazine and will also be available online at www.kmworld.com.

A publishing unit of Information Today, Inc., KMWorld is a leading information provider serving the knowledge management systems market. KMWorld covers the latest in Content, Document and Knowledge Management and informs more than 50,000 subscribers about the components and processes that together offer solution for improving business performance.

Search engine and online engineering community operator GlobalSpec, US, has announced a partnership with Autodesk, Inc. The partnership seeks to enhance the recently released Autodesk Design Review 2008 software by including on-demand access to GlobalSpec's product and information services.

Autodesk Design Review 2008, the company's advanced DWF-based review and markup tool for project teams, will include seamless access to GlobalSpec search capabilities. Project team members such as manufacturing and quality engineers, production planners, suppliers and customers who use Autodesk Design Review to review CAD drawings will benefit from the advanced content features of SpecSearch, GlobalSpec's search technology.

Autodesk Inventor software users can publish a DWF file and securely share rich design information such as bill of materials, part numbers, manufacturer and other information. By launching an Internet search of GlobalSpec content from within Autodesk Design Review 2008, extended team members such as purchasing agents can leverage this information provided by the Inventor user. This, in turn, is expected to help them make better-informed decisions, and boost product quality, time to market and profitability.

Click here to read the original press release.

STM Publishers can now add their Company to the Knowledgespeak Directory list. You can also update our events calendar, if you are organising an event which may be of interest to the STM publishing community. Also, you can send your company press releases to be included in our news section.

Publisher Wiley-Blackwell, US, has announced the launch of a new open access, freely available peer-reviewed journal - Archives of Drug Information (ADI). The new journal seeks to address requests for transparency voiced by health care practioners, patients, societies, media, and the government to disclose clinical trial information. Dr. C. Michael Stein will serve as Editor.

In addition to results of clinical trials and drug studies, ADI will also publish articles on inconclusive and/or negative clinical trials, early drug development, routine drug-drug interaction, pharmacokinetic studies, and other low-profile areas that are usually overlooked. By providing free access to information that has previously been inaccessible, the journal is projected to become an essential resource for scientists, physicians, patients, and students worldwide. The first articles will be published online April 2007.

While some government and pharmaceutical companies provide repositories to register clinical data and public databases to post clinical trial results, sources for independent publication are very limited. As a result, the findings of many drug development studies and clinical trials remain unpublished. The journal seeks to bridge this gap by publishing data from clinical trials thereby disclosing results promptly to the researcher, clinician and the public. With ADI, it will be possible to freely search every published article to locate specific trials, methods, and experimental results.

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Thomson Scientifics' subscription newsletter Science Watch has announced the 'Hottest' researchers of 2005-2006. Osaka University's Shizuo Akira topped the list for the second consecutive year by authoring seven highly cited papers in the field of Immunology. Besides Akira, Max Tegmark of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the only other researcher making a second consecutive appearance on the list. He earned this position with six papers in the field of Space Science.

The field of Oncology accounted for 10 of the 17 researchers listed. Physics was the second most prominent field with three researchers producing Hot Papers. On the basis of nations, US led the rankings with the appearance of 10 'Hot' researchers named to the list.

Thomson Scientific Hot Papers database identifies a published work as a Hot Paper if it has achieved a rate of citations in scientific journals that is markedly higher than papers of comparable type and age. The researchers named have published the most Hot Papers in the latest two-year period indexed by Thomson Scientific for inclusion in Web of Science.

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The UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has announced that it will fund a partnership between ProQuest CSA and Oxford University Library Services (OULS). The partnership, which seeks to digitise over 65,000 items from the Bodleian Library's John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, was selected from among 49 bids submitted following the JISC's Digitisation Town Meeting in April 2006. The Bodleian Library is housed at Oxford University.

The John Johnson Collection is recognised as one of the most important collections of printed ephemera in the world, and as the most significant single collection of ephemera in the UK. Containing 1.5 million items ranging in date from 1508-1939, it spans the entire range of printing and social history. It contains a high proportion of unique material, which has remained largely hidden to scholars and researchers.

The project will make a selection of materials from the John Johnson Collection available throughout the UK. Investment by the JISC and OULS will cover the costs of digitisation and cataloguing, including conservation costs associated with digitisation, while ProQuest CSA will bear the cost of interface development and long-term sustainability.

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The National Library of New Zealand has announced that it will add nearly 8 million records and the holdings of 275 libraries to WorldCat, one of the richest database and resource for discovery of materials held in libraries worldwide. Web searchers across the globe will now be able to access records of items held in New Zealand libraries via the OCLC WorldCat.org service, or through popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

Beginning July 1, all libraries in New Zealand will have access to the WorldCat database to catalog their library materials and will become Governing Members of OCLC, the world's largest library cooperative. Governing Members benefit from voting representation on the OCLC Members Council.

Many of the records entered into the WorldCat database is coming from outside the US. In the past several years, OCLC has added international files from the National Library of Germany's bibliography, Dutch Union Catalogue, LinkUK, Toronto Public Library, University of Manitoba, University of Gottingen, National Library of Education in Denmark, the National Union Catalog of Poland, and more. OCLC expects to process more than 38 million records from outside the US in 2007.

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Safari Books Online, a US-based joint venture between publishers O'Reilly Media, Inc. and Pearson Technology Group, has announced the addition of instructional video content to its searchable library of over 4,000 technology and business books. With the new video content, subscribers can gain access to a wide range of authenticated information that provides both quick answers to technical questions and in-depth training to develop their skills in their preferred format.

The initial release of 75 titles and nearly 600 hours of video content on Safari Books Online focuses on training for creative professionals and knowledge workers. Most of the initial video content on Safari Books Online is the result of a new partnership with lynda.com, a publisher of web-based educational materials. Other video-content publishers include Peachpit Press, a publisher of graphics, web design and development and digital imaging books whose print content has been available on Safari Books Online since its inception in 2000.

Safari Books Online now includes print and video content from more than 25 technical and business publishers, such as O'Reilly Media, lynda.com, Peachpit Press and Adobe Press. The addition of instructional video content follows other innovations in content delivery beyond books introduced during the past year by Safari Books Online. This includes Rough Cuts, which is part of the company's effort to bring crucial and pre-publication information to its subscribers. Another innovation is Short Cuts, a series of short documents covering technologies that are either too early in their life cycle or too narrowly focused to become the subject of a full-length book.

Market research and data services provider Research and Markets, Ireland, has announced the launch of the report, Corporate Library Benchmarks, 2007 Edition. The report presents a broad range of data. It is categorised by size of parent organisation, type of industry, and also between organisations that have decreased the physical size of their library in recent years as against those that have maintained or increased it. The 130 page report includes data on salaries, budgets, spending for books, directories, magazines and newspapers, journals, online databases, CD-ROM and other information vehicles.

According to the report, online and other electronic information account for over 65 percent of the materials budgets of corporate libraries. They also represent more than 80 percent of the library content expenditures of companies with greater than $5 billion in annual sales. Based on data from 48 major corporate and other business libraries, the 130 page report has more than 250 tables and charts.

Some of the report's findings are: the median number of patron visitors to the physical location of the library was only 13.5; the ratio of librarians to other service personnel was almost 2:1; and only one library in the sample outsourced research functions to researchers or librarians based in developing countries such as India, Russia or China.

Integrated media firm Ziff Davis, US, has announced the promotion of Phil Kramer to Senior Vice President, Internet Sales and Marketing. He will continue to report to Sloan Seymour, President of the Ziff Davis Enterprise Group.

Kramer brings 20 years of sales and marketing experience to the Ziff Davis Enterprise Online Network, a group of 18 market-leading Web properties including eWEEK.com, CIOInsight.com and Baselinemag.com. In his new position, he will continue to strategically incorporate innovative online products, as well as grow revenue for the Enterprise Online Network.

Kramer, who has been with the company since 1992, has been instrumental in integrating the Web Buyer's Guide and several other new products, such as eVideo, podcasts, social networking and blogs, into the online platform. He has held several executive sales and marketing positions within Ziff Davis, most recently serving as Vice President, Internet Sales and Marketing.

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STM Publishers can now add their Company to the Knowledgespeak Directory list. You can also update our events calendar, if you are organising an event which may be of interest to the STM publishing community. Also, you can send your company press releases to be included in our news section.

Informatics and database solutions provider Elsevier MDL, US, has announced significant progress in three of its ongoing initiatives to enhance patent coverage in the structure-searchable MDL Patent Chemistry Database. The MDL Patent Chemistry Database has been up-to-date with the three patent classes of C07 Organic Chemistry, A01N Agrochemicals/Biocides and C09B Dyes. Now, through an aggressive indexing programme, the manual indexing of A61K Pharma patents is also up-to-date.

Due to the enormous increase in published Pharma A61K patents between 2004 and 2006, some of these patents have not been indexed manually (only automatically). An additional intensive programme of increased manual indexing will address these patents in the future. This will have priority over the indexing of non-English-language patents.

Database content has increased by 15 percent since November 2006 through the addition of new compounds and reactions enabled by the automatic reprocessing of back-files with improved indexing software.

The new and improved automatic indexing software used in reprocessing the patent back-files provides better name-to-structure processing and improved analysis of reaction procedure texts in multi-step reactions. In the December 2006 database update, this initiative provided approximately 300,000 additional compounds and 150,000 additional high quality, full reactions. With the current update, MDL Patent Chemistry Database has grown by about 300,000 additional substances and 150,000 full reactions. Approximately 100,000 additional prophetic products are offered as product-half-reactions.

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India's Human Resources Development ministry has recently announced the launch of Sakshat - the nation's one-stop education portal. The ministry has reportedly asked the publishers of reputed science journals to provide a link via Sakshat to provide free access to the journals. Currently, they are available for free only to select students of certain universities, registered under a special scheme of the University Grants Commission.

The initiative will provide all registered users with access to thousands of peer reviewed journals for free. This includes NASA journals as well as international medical journals dealing with the latest research.

EBSCO, a consortium of various international journals, has agreed to provide free service to Sakhat's registered users on a trial basis. Also, the ministry has got the research work of top scientists like CNR Rao, who headed the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, on the website. The work of many other reputed scientists is being uploaded. In addition, the portal provides access to video lectures and a chat facility with a teacher for school students.

STM publisher Springer Science+Business Media, Germany, has announced that it has signed a binding agreement with Dutch publisher PCM Uitgevers. Under the deal, Springer will acquire all outstanding shares of Bohn Stafleu van Loghum BV (BSL) from PCM.

BSL, whose origins date back to 1752, serves the healthcare publishing market in the Netherlands. With its multimedia products, books and journals, it serves healthcare professionals, including general practitioners, specialists, dentists, paramedical staff and nurses as well as mental health and social workers.

The transaction is expected to be completed in mid-March 2007.

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Health and wellness publisher Rodale, Inc., US, has announced a partnership with publisher Pan Macmillan, UK, to form a new book imprint - Rodale UK. The new imprint is projected to further develop and expand Rodale's health and wellness publishing programme in the UK and Commonwealth markets. Terms of the arrangement were not disclosed.

Under the deal, Pan Macmillan will continue to publish successful titles from Rodale Books' US list for the UK and Commonwealth markets. It will also invest in developing and expanding the Rodale UK list, bringing both established authors and developing new talent originating from the UK and the Commonwealth.

Rodale will provide Pan Macmillan with access to its international content database, select marketing assets and other editorial support. While Rodale's internationally renowned magazine properties are not included in the agreement, Pan Macmillan will have the opportunity to publish magazine-branded books with Rodale. Pan Macmillan will also sell foreign language translation rights and co-editions for Rodale UK and Rodale US.

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Publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., US, has announced the appointment of Steve Smith as Senior Vice President, starting May 1, 2007. He succeeds Dr. John Jarvis, who will be retiring after nearly three decades with Wiley.

In his new position, Smith will assume responsibility for the overall direction and leadership of Wiley's businesses in Europe. In addition, he will also retain corporate responsibility for Wiley Asia and Wiley Australia. Dr. Jarvis will continue to provide advice and counsel to Wiley's Leadership Team and the Wiley-Blackwell Leadership Team, as Senior Advisor until he retires on April 30, 2008.

Smith, who has been Wiley Europe's Chief Operating Officer since early 2006, joined Wiley in 1992 to successfully lead its expansion in Asia and assumed corporate responsibility for Wiley Australia in 1998. In 2001, he became responsible for Wiley's UK P/T business, which has grown rapidly through an effective combination of organic growth and acquisitions. Over the past year, he played a leadership role in the Company's acquisition of Blackwell Publishing (Holdings) Ltd. and is currently serving as co-chair of the merger transition team.

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Library solutions provider the Ex Libris Group, Israel, has announced that two new engineering and technology resources - TechXtra and PerX - have been added to the MetaLib Central KnowledgeBase of cross-searchable resources.

PerX-Pilot Engineering Repository XSearch-is a two-year Joint Information Systems Committee Digital Repositories Programme project. It provides subject resource discovery across a series of repositories of interest to the engineering learning and research communities.

An initiative of the Institute for Computer Based Learning (ICBL) and the library at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, TechXtra is an independent service and free source of information in engineering, mathematics, and computing. The service cross-searches 31 engineering, mathematics and computing collections from more than 50 publishers and providers.

The new resources are projected to effectively increase the range of cross-searchable engineering, mathematics, and computing resources in the MetaLib gateway and metasearch system. As with all new cross-search configurations in the MetaLib Central KnowledgeBase (whether added by Ex Libris or by libraries), these configurations are available to libraries at no additional charge.

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STM Publishers can now add their Company to the Knowledgespeak Directory list. You can also update our events calendar, if you are organising an event which may be of interest to the STM publishing community. Also, you can send your company press releases to be included in our news section.

ProQuest CSA, part of Cambridge Information Group, US, has launched a free Library Marketing Toolkit available to public librarians. The new tool is projected to help public librarians meet the challenge of purchasing resources (often on a limited budget) and training patrons with diverse backgrounds on how to use them. Also, the tool helps to create awareness about the existence of the public library and the role it can play in meeting information needs.

The Library Marketing Toolkit combines 'how-to' advice from library marketing expert, speaker and author Beth Dempsey with print and digital marketing collateral designed to boost patron's awareness of their public libraries' online resources. Among the programme's components are: a How-to guide on Marketing Your Library's Online Resources; sample database descriptions that speak 'patron' rather than library language; customisable promotional flyer and advertisement; customisable press release template; and Getting Started Demo, a digital 'ad' that can be downloaded to the library's homepage.

The Library Marketing Toolkit is currently being mailed to public libraries across the US. The materials may also be downloaded from the ProQuest website at http://www.il.proquest.com/division/libraryadvocacy.shtml.

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STM publisher Springer Science+Business Media, Germany, has announced that more than 29,000 Springer titles are now live in Google Book Search. This allows users to easily discover and purchase these titles from local booksellers, online retailers and Springer itself.

Springer has also reported increasing interest in its older titles, partly attributable to its involvement with the Google Book Search programme. Its titles have been viewed as many as one million times in a one-month period through the Google programme. Springer's engineering and computer science books have done particularly well, representing 14 percent and 15 percent, respectively, of the clicks on Google's 'buy this book' link. Springer titles published before 1997 account for 20 percent of all the company's 'buy this book' clicks on Google Book Search.

In addition, 26 percent of users who click on 'buy this book' select the link to Springer's own website, driving additional traffic to the publisher's own online platform.

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Marketing solutions company CMP Technology, US, has announced that it will publish two of its leading channel and enterprise properties -- CRN and Network Computing -- in India, beginning April, 2007. The company will create magazines, websites and email newsletters at editorial operations in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, supported by sales offices in the same cities. The two titles were previously published by Jasubhai Digital Media under license.

The Indian edition of CRN, part of a network of 17 editions worldwide, will be published bi-weekly. CRN will offer Indian solution providers and valued added resellers the crucial information and analysis they need to drive their company's revenues. Network Computing, currently available in 6 countries, is projected to help India's technology leaders implement their business strategies. In India Network Computing will be published monthly.

This is the first step in CMP Technology's entry into India. The company seeks to build a full suite of media products including face-to-face events, websites and publications -- all created by local editors and our international reporting staff for India.

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Palgrave Macmillan, the academic and professional publishing division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, UK, has announced a partnership with the International Monetary Fund. Under the deal, Palgrave Macmillan will publish IMF Staff Papers, on behalf of the IMF. IMF Staff Papers is one of the leading international economics and finance peer-reviewed research journals and has been published since 1950.

The first volume to be published by Palgrave Macmillan will be Volume 54, beginning in April 2007. The editorial operation of IMF Staff Papers will continue unchanged. All contributions will be subject to rigorous peer-review and assessment.

Palgrave Macmillan's extensive experience of journals publishing is expected to bring immediate benefits to the journal, which will now be available online in both PDF and full-text HTML format. Readers, authors and librarians will be able experience faster, more consistent and comprehensive access to content with this advanced online availability and web functionality.

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Publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., US, has announced Hormel Foods Corporation as the winner of the 6th Annual Food Quality Award.

Hormel was recognised for its outstanding achievements in food safety investments and its commitment to assuring quality products. A multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer-branded meat and food products, Hormel's products are sold to retail, foodservice, and wholesale operations under many well-established trademarks, such as Always Tender, Dinty Moore, Jennie-O Turkey Store, Light & Lean, and Spam.

Sponsored by DuPont Qualicon and presented by Food Quality Magazine, the Food Quality Award honours food companies that have demonstrated success in protecting consumer health, improving consumer satisfaction, and safeguarding the North American food supply. A panel of judges will select the winner after reviewing entries submitted by self-nominated companies. The award will be presented at a special event during the Food Safety & Security Summit, to be held at the Washington, D.C., Convention Center from March 6-8, 2007.

Web-based information services provider Knovel Corporation, US, has announced that David Shaffer will join Knovel as Chairman of its Board of Directors.

Shaffer retired as COO of Thomson Corporation at the end of 2006 where he led vital initiatives focused on leveraging assets and driving operational effectiveness across the enterprise. Also, he sat on the Thomson Corporation Board of Directors. He brings with him years of experience in managing companies that have successfully delivered high value information and productivity solutions to end users.

Knovel is re-organising engineering functions and its management team to ensure that the right resources and expertise are focused on the development of the new Knovel platform. The new platform will address how engineers work to create, gather, and use information.

Publisher Emerald Group Publishing Ltd., UK, and the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), a global membership organisation, seek to celebrate excellence in research by sponsoring the 2007 Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards.

Award-winning entries will receive a cash prize of € 1,500 (or currency equivalent), a certificate and an offer of publication in the sponsoring journal, as a full paper, or as an executive summary/research note, at the discretion of the Editor(s). Prizes will be awarded to the winners, and a number of highly commended awards will also bestowed, in categories such as marketing strategy; leadership and organization development; operations and production management; real estate management; knowledge management; and others.

The Awards are open to those who have completed and satisfied examination requirements for a Doctoral award, or will do so, between 1 June 2005 and 1 October 2007, and have not applied previously for one of these Awards. The last date for receipt of applications is 1 October 2007.

STM Publishers can now add their Company to the Knowledgespeak Directory list. You can also update our events calendar, if you are organising an event which may be of interest to the STM publishing community. Also, you can send your company press releases to be included in our news section.

Scientific publisher Nature Publishing Group (NPG), UK, has announced the launch of Nature Network (http://network.nature.com), a new free online networking website for scientists worldwide. The Web 2.0 toolkit is projected to help scientists everywhere to meet like-minded researchers, hold online discussions, showcase their work via personal homepages, share information with groups (open or private) and tag content. Participation is free to all, requiring little more than nature.com registration.

In addition, Nature Network also features local hubs, offering all the global tools plus area news, features, blogs, jobs and events. The first local site is Nature Network Boston (http://network.nature.com/boston), trialed in beta over the past eight months, and now rolling out major new features alongside the global platform. Nature Network Boston seeks to support, celebrate and connect scientists in the city. It offers a wide editorial coverage of local research and researchers, bloggers, a calendar of local lectures, seminars and conferences and listings of Boston-area jobs for scientists.

The second hub, Nature Network London (http://network.nature.com/london) is scheduled for March 2007. It will offer all the global networking tools, as well as daily commissioned, contributed and curated content, London bloggers, professional and public events listings and the best of London's science jobs.

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Publisher Wiley-Blackwell, US, and the International Communication Association (ICA), US, have announced that journal article abstracts for ICA's four journals will now be available online in French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and English, beginning with the first issues of 2007. The ICA's journals are the first in the field of communication to offer this service to its readers.

Wiley-Blackwell will launch the ICA translation initiative with the January issue of Human Communication Research at www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/hcre. Other ICA journals providing translated journal article abstracts online include the Journal of Communication, Communication Theory, and Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

The ICA is an academic association for scholars interested in the study, teaching, and application of all aspects of human and mediated communication. With over 4,000 members, the association has been promoting and supporting the scholarly study of communications for over 50 years. Offering translated abstracts aligns with the associations' appreciation of the wide professional and geographical distribution of its membership. For individuals whose first language is not English, the translations will allow for a quicker assessment as to whether an article is of sufficient interest to have it translated or expend the additional effort to read the original in English.

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Academic and professional publisher Sage Publications, US, has announced that SAGE Reference's new Encyclopedia of Health and Aging presents the latest research and ready-to-use facts on health and aging worldwide. More than 200 entries seek to capture not only the field's latest research findings, but also the conceptual developments guiding research, practice and policy.

Written by a cross-disciplinary team of experts, the encyclopedia examines biological, psychological, social and economic aspects of health and aging, with heavy emphasis on geriatric syndromes and the common diseases of aging. Landmark studies and important programmes such as Social Security, Meals-on-Wheels, and Medicaid/Medicare have also been discussed.

SAGE's Encyclopedia of Health and Aging is seen as a significant resource for gerontology and health researchers, media members, policymakers, healthcare advocates, and practitioners in the fields of medicine, nursing epidemiology, public health and health services.

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A Gainesville copy shop owner accused for a second time of making illegal copies of published materials and selling them to students at the University of Florida has agreed to an out-of-court settlement with six publishers.

Roberts has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum representing unpaid royalties and damages, settling the case in which he was alleged to have sold copyrighted materials without authorisation. This is the second copyright infringement lawsuit filed against him. In May 2003, he settled a suit that had been brought against him by Elsevier, Inc., John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in October 2002.

The most recent suit against Roberts was filed in February 2006, by Elsevier, Inc., Pearson Education, Inc., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., SAGE Publications, Inc., Harvard Business School Publishing and Blackwell Publishing, Inc. The publishers alleged that Custom Copies, which also did business as Orange and Blue Textbooks, routinely duplicated and distributed copyrighted materials in the form of print coursepacks without obtaining copyright permission from the publishers.

Search engine provider WebFeat, US, has announced the launch of version 2.1 of WebFeat Express, claimed to be the first automated federated search engine for libraries. The product enables libraries to configure their WebFeat federated search engines in minutes using the latest release of the WebFeat Administrative Console (WAC).

Using the WAC, librarians can easily select databases for inclusion in their WebFeat system, as well as their own library catalogue and remote user authentication. WAC now automatically configures the library's WebFeat system-performing any required handshake with the library's content providers. Libraries may obtain access to WAC to configure their own WebFeat Express system for evaluation at http://webfeat.org/products/nohassle_trial.asp.

The latest release of the WebFeat Administrative Console offers a variety of new features. In addition to the ability to quickly and easily manage database menus, subject categories and authentication, WAC provides administrators with a toolkit to customise and brand user interfaces. These include a choice of search and results interfaces that can easily be branded with logos and library colours. They also offer the ability to paste custom library HTML headers, footers and menu bars to seamlessly integrate WebFeat interfaces with existing library web pages. WebFeat Express 'Quicksearch' search boxes may also be pasted into any library webpage for further integration.

WebFeat Express is powered by the company's patented federated search technology and supports over 6,000 databases, enabling it to search virtually any searchable database or catalogue. WebFeat enables library patrons to search any or all of a library's electronic resources from a single intuitive interface. WebFeat is also compatible with all standard authentication protocols, enabling library administrators to easily configure authentication for in-library and remote users.

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CINF, the Division of Chemical Information of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the German chemistry information centre FIZ CHEMIE Berlin have called for nominations from young scientists for the CINF-FIZ Scholarship for Scientific Excellence. Funded by FIZ CHEMIE Berlin, the CINF scholarship programme is designed to reward graduate and postdoctoral students in chemical information and related sciences for scientific excellence and to foster their involvement in CINF.

Three scholarships valued at $ 1,000 each will be given out at the 234th ACS National Meeting in Boston, on August 19 - 23, 2007. Winners will be chosen based on contents, presentation and relevance of the poster.

Applicants should be enrolled at a certified college or university, and are required to present a poster during the Sci-Mix session at the National Meeting. The contents shall reflect upon the young researchers work and describe research in the field of chemoinformatics and related sciences.

All abstracts for the posters should be submitted electronically via ACS' Online Abstract Submittal System at http://oasys.acs.org/acs/234nm/cinf/papers/index.cgi before April 2, 2007. Additionally, a 2,000-word long abstract describing the work to be presented has to be sent in electronic form to Guenter Grethe, Chair of the selection committee, by June 15, 2007.

Content management and publishing solutions firm Really Strategies, Inc., US, has announced that the company's executive vice president and chief architect, Lisa Bos, has recently been elected to IDEAlliance's Board of Directors.

IDEAlliance is a not-for-profit membership organisation that has been developing, educating, and validating best practices in publishing and information technology for 40 years. IDEAlliance offers its members an inside track into how the publishing and content-driven supply chain can be exploited to respond to both traditional and emerging pressures to reduce cost, increase the top line, and develop new lines of business.

Founded in 2000, Really Strategies provides content solutions and services to publishers, media companies and other content-centric companies. From content creation to delivery, Really Strategies seeks to bring strategy, content and technology together to analyse, architect and implement appropriate tools and technologies.

Publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., US, has announced the re-launch of the American Journal of Hematology, the first-ever redesign since it was launched more than 30 years ago. The re-launch coincides with the appointment of Dr. Carlo Brugnara, Director of the Hematology Laboratory at Children's Hospital, Boston, as Editor-in-Chief. Also in 2007, the journal will introduce new editorial features, an updated cover and interior design, and an expanded editorial aims and scope.

Dr. Brugnara will assume his editorial responsibilities beginning with the March 2007 issue. In his new position, he will oversee the inauguration of an annual Young Investigator's Award in December 2007; open access to selected archival content; shortened review times for manuscript submissions; and complimentary two-month subscriptions for Fellows in hematology.

The March 2007 issue will feature a new cover design, followed by a new manuscript style by mid-year. In addition, the re-launched journal will have a more internationally-focused editorial board reflecting its mission to publish the best research in hematology from worldwide.

Available both in print and online via Wiley's online publishing platform, Wiley InterScience, the journal provides broad coverage of experimental and clinical features of blood diseases in humans and in animal models of human disease. It publishes original contributions in non-malignant and malignant hematological diseases including clinical and basic studies in hemostasis and thrombosis, immunology, blood banking, and stem cell biology.

Academic publisher Maney Publishing, UK, has announced an agreement with medical database provider Scientific Institute for Medical Information and Documentation SA (SIMID), Switzerland. Under the deal, all full-text articles from the publisher's medical journals will be inserted into the SIMID database. With this move, both parties seek to increase their market share in Europe as medical information providers.

The SIMID database contains summaries of medical articles published in scientific journals, from publishers with whom SIMID has a contractual relationship. Physicians and patients can quickly and easily find articles through the database on the Internet. By including Maney Publishing' medical collection, SIMID seeks to enlarge its database and become the SIMID Medical Scientific Online Library.

The difference between the SIMID database and other databases (libraries) is that the full-text articles can be instantly downloaded. The interested physician or patient does not have to go to another website to retrieve the article, but can do this directly.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced a partnership with SSIMED, a US-based provider of electronic health records (EHR) and physician software and services. Under the deal, Elsevier's clinical decision support content will be offered via SSIMED's EHR application, EMRge.

The deal is projected to help SSIMED deliver relevant clinical decision support content organised around the clinical workflow using patient information directly from EMRge. Its customers will now be able to seamlessly access the latest evidence-based clinical information and medical reference information from Elsevier.

SSIMED will provide two offerings from Elsevier's clinical decision support content. The first, integrated evidence-based point of care content, powered by FIRST Consult, is continuously updated to offer information on evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of a variety of disease categories. Secondly, SSIMED will offer the integrated medical referential content, powered by MD Consult, allowing users to seamlessly search and access clinical information and reference books, full-text articles from professional journals and practice guidelines.

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Chemical and oil information provider ICIS, part of Reed Business Information, US, has announced the launch of the Asia Propylene to Polypropylene monthly report.

ICIS forecasting's methodology forecasts prices by incorporating the output of the index in the forecasting model of each feedstock product (e.g., Propylene, Polypropylene). The price generated by incorporating the Market Sentiment Index is provided separately in the monthly report. This is the eighth product chain included in ICIS forecasting. Since June 2006, ICIS forecasting has launched reports for the Polystyrene, Polyethylene, Polypropylene and Phenol-Acetone markets in the US and the Polyethylene and Para-xylene markets in Asia. The monthly Ethylene to Polyethylene product chain covering the European market will also be launched shortly.

ICIS forecasting is completely independent from ICIS price reporting and is based on statistical analysis of historical assessments plus textual analysis of news files.

Mobile and web-based clinical applications provider Epocrates, Inc., US, has announced the launch of two new mobile applications - ICD-9/CPT reference and a medical dictionary. The move is part of an ongoing effort to provide healthcare professionals with valuable clinical information at the point of care.

The ICD-9/CPT reference helps clinicians quickly identify procedural and diagnostic billing codes. The Epocrates Medical Dictionary allows healthcare professionals to quickly access medical terms and eponyms on their mobile devices. It incorporates content from Stedman's Medical Dictionary 28th Edition into a user-friendly format that utilises significantly less memory than many other reference applications.

The new products are also available as part of Epocrates Essentials Deluxe, which combines all of Epocrates' premium drug, disease and diagnostic information into a single suite.

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Medical news service MedPage Today, US, has announced that it has been selected for inclusion in Thomson Scientific's Current Web Contents, a database of searchable scholarly websites accessible to millions of researchers.

MedPage Today provides clinicians with the real-time information they need to address their patient's questions and to find out how new developments might impact their clinical practice. It claims to be the only medical news service for physicians that links consumer medical news and the professional medical analysis needed by clinicians. To receive a standardised descriptive record in the Current Web Contents database, the service underwent a comprehensive and rigorous evaluation process by the Thomson Scientific web content editors based on specialised criteria such as authority, accuracy, currency, navigation/design, and quality of writing.

Thomson Scientific, part of The Thomson Corporation, is a leading global provider of multidisciplinary information solutions to the world's research and development communities and academic institutions. Its Current Web Contents product provides links to carefully selected websites, enabling cross-content searching of multiple resources including virtual libraries, home pages of research organisations and professional associations, and government publications.

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The Association of American University Presses (AAUP) has released a statement outlining the association's perspective on open access. The association hopes to help steer the debate towards productive solutions that will best serve the entire scholarly community.

Until recently, the debate has centered on one type of scholarly literature, STM journal articles, and one particular definition, entirely free-to-user, of 'open access'. According to AAUP, the conversation should expand to address the different creation and distribution needs of scholarly literature in all fields and formats, including monographs, and to consider a variety of models for providing open access. All of these entail risks and benefits to the entire system of scholarly communications that are not yet fully understood.

The AAUP avers that non-profit scholarly publishers have an obligation to confront the economic, legal, technological and philosophical challenges to the existing system. Many AAUP members have begun experimenting with varieties of open access that seek to balance the mission of scholarly exchange with its costs. The AAUP and its member presses have welcomed the opportunity to participate with all willing partners to expand and strengthen scholarly communications, to serve the mission and to improve the system for all.

The complete statement is online at http://aaupnet.org/aboutup/issues/oa/statement.pdf.

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STM Publishers can now add their Company to the Knowledgespeak Directory list. You can also update our events calendar, if you are organising an event which may be of interest to the STM publishing community. Also, you can send your company press releases to be included in our news section.