The Royal Society, UK's autonomous scientific academy, has hit back at its critics who recently alleged that the society was taking a negative stance on open access. In a statement released recently, the society has denied taking a negative stance on open access, clarifying that it was only concerned about achieving open access without affecting quality, peer review and accessibility of scientific literature.
A recent letter signed by 46 fellows of the society, including five Nobel laureates, opposed the academy for its November 24 position statement on open access agreements. The letter had accused the society of placing its own interests as a publisher of a scholarly journal ahead of interests of science.
According to society officials, the letter was written by OA journal publisher, BioMed Central. The OA publisher has also confessed to have helped coordinating the letter but refused to brand it as a BioMed initiative. In the process, BioMed Central has also named another open access publisher, the Public Library of Science, to have helped BioMed Central design the letter.
The Society clarified that it was not in support of policies that may affect academic communication by undermining the traditional subscription model of publishing before exploring other feasible long term options. It stated that if researchers are allowed to access final versions of journal papers from repositories in large numbers, they might not subscribe for these journals.
Leading abstract and indexing database, Scopus, has announced that it has bagged the International Information Industry Award for best Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) Information Product. Scopus accepted the award jointly with its development partners, Hilda Nassar of the American University of Beirut and David Price of Oxford University.
Launched in November 2004, Scopus has attained exceptional growth and recognition with more than 1,000 corporate and library customers across the globe. Designed and developed with more than 300 international librarians and users, this database includes abstracts and references from more than 14,000 titles from 4,000 distinct publishers. It is one of the leading abstract and citation database on scientific, technological, medical and social science research information.
Scopus recently launched the Content Selection Committee, an autonomous external committee of researchers and librarians to steer content selection and future management. Apart from this, it also announced integrations with RefWorks and CrossFire Beilstein and also added full-text links in JSTOR.
The International Information Awards recognises the achievements of information professionals, content management projects, vendors and information teams of the information industry globally.
B2B publisher and digital media firm Canon Communications LLC, US, has named Erik Swain and Sherrie Conroy as editors-in-chief of its journal, Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry (MD&DI). Both Swain and Conroy in recent years have played significant roles in shaping the editorial direction of the journal.
Swain has been part of the MD&DI team for over two years. He joined the company as senior editor of Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging News in 1998. Prior to this, he served two New Jersey-based newspapers as reporter. Conroy has served Canon for the past 10 years. Apart from her new role, she will continue to serve two other Canon publications, Compliance Engineering and Medical Electronics Manufacturing, as editor.
Canon's biggest and oldest publication, MD&DI features information on regulatory developments, technical issues and news and analysis influencing the medical devices industry.
Enterprise content management (ECM) solutions provider Hummingbird Ltd., Canada, has announced that it has been included in EContent magazine's fifth annual "EContent 100" list of companies that "matter most" in the digital content industry. The company was selected under the "Content Management" category for Hummingbird Enterprise, its integrated ECM platform, which has been enhanced by the addition of a web content management (WCM) solution from RedDot Solutions.
Apart from facilitating the management of business content, Hummingbird Enterprise helps user organisations install content solutions that trim costs while mitigating risk. Hummingbird offers fully interoperable modular applications that enable customers to develop an ECM solution to meet their evolving information needs cost-effectively.
The 2005 EContent 100 list appears in the December 2005 issue of EContent magazine and can be accessed online at www.econtentmag.com. The magazine covers the digital content industry with research articles, news and analysis of content related issues.
Library services provider EBSCO Information Services, US, has announced the expansion of its Web-based ordering and management services for corporations, to cover the United Kingdom, Germany and France, under a new name EBSCO Information MarketPlaceSM (EIM).
MarketPlace allows users to choose from thousands of journals, magazines and newspaper titles and place orders through a secure online site. MarketPlace offers two versions, firstly a desktop solution that provides direct order access, multiple payment options, reporting capability and order approval controls. The second version includes an e-procurement solution for Oracle®, SAP and Ariba® systems where payment can be made through credit card, corporate purchasing card or invoicing. Multiple languages (English, French and German) and multiple currencies (US Dollar, British Pound and Euro) are also available.
With this launch, EBSCO now offers two different solutions customised to meet niche needs of corporate customers.
EBSCO upholds a title database of over 300,000 title listings and serves over 78,000 publishers internationally. Specific divisions serve academic, biomedical, government, public, school and special libraries and corporations.
Information service provider, the McGraw-Hill Companies, US, has recently announced the appointment of Glenn S. Goldberg, as president of its Information and Media Services (IMS) business. Goldberg replaces Scott Marden, who has opted out to pursue new avenues.
Goldberg was the senior vice president of Corporate Affairs and assistant to the chairman, president and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies since 1998. He joined the corporation in 1990 and has held several posts in the organisation since then.
The Information and Media Services division includes business information leaders in the defence, energy, construction and aviation industries. It also includes esteemed business information and media properties such as BusinessWeek, J.D. Power and Associates and ABC-affiliated televisions stations in Denver, San Diego, Indianapolis and Bakersfield.
Mr. Goldberg also serves on the Board of Directors of the New York State Business Council, Hartley House, The Constitution Works and the Brockport College Foundation.
Library services provider EBSCO Information Services, US, has announced the release of the latest version of LinkSource, its full-featured, OpenURL link resolver. LinkSource has been totally upgraded using the most recent web technologies to facilitate high performance and scalability.
A key enhancement is the tight integration of LinkSource with EBSCO A-to-Z and the A-to-Z knowledge base. The integration enables LinkSource to take advantage of library holdings that have already been configured through EBSCO A-to-Z. This gives LinkSource access to over 100,000 titles from more than 900 packages and databases. EBSCO's editorial team, comprising a number of librarians, constantly verifies and modifies the A-to-Z knowledge base data to ensure quality.
Another enhancement in the new version of LinkSource is simplified administration. Most of the work is taken out of configuration, as full-text links are automatically added to a customer's LinkSource menu. Further, the LinkSource administration module includes a user-friendly Collection Editor feature to simplify the process of adding other links. Users have various options to organise links and control the way they are presented.
NetLibrary, the e-content platform of global library cooperative OCLC, Inc., US, has announced the addition of the 100,000th full-text e-book to its catalogue. Over 20,000 new titles were included in 2005 alone. The service offers a collection of e-journals, e-books, e-audiobooks and specialty databases to scholarly, public, special and school libraries.
The NetLibrary platform pools content from over 400 publishers and makes it accessible to 13,000 libraries across the globe. The titles are included in WorldCat, a meta search engine for online catalogues of libraries worldwide. This allows all OCLC member libraries to access the metadata for these titles. The service frequently updates its catalogue to better meet the digital content demands of libraries. The catalogue includes IT publications, reference books, business resources as well as fiction.
The 100,000th title added by NetLibrary is Growth and Empowerment, Making Development Happen by Nicholas Stern, Jean-Jacques Dethier and F. Halsey Rogers, published by The MIT Press.
