TRANSLATE THIS PAGE
EBSCO releases SUSHI 1.0 server - 26 Sep 2006
Subscription services provider EBSCO, US, has announced the release of its updated SUSHI server, SUSHI 1.0, now in production within EBSCOhost Electronic Journals Service (EJS). EBSCO's SUSHI server facilitates automated data retrieval from EJS in compliance with the new NISO standard. The National Information Standards Organisation (NISO) recently released the Z39.93 The Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) Protocol, as a Draft Standard for Trial Use, after a 14-month development cycle. A partner in the development of this NISO standard, EBSCO is one of the first to offer technology compliant with NISO Z39.93. The release is followed by a NISO Managing Electronic Collections Workshop on September 28 in Denver. The workshop, co-presented by Oliver Pesch, SUSHI initiative co-chair, member of NISO's board of directors and EBSCO's chief strategist of e-resources, is aimed at introducing the initiative to a community of stakeholders. More information on the initiative is available at http://www.niso.org/committees/SUSHI/SUSHI_comm.html. SUSHI builds on the work of Project COUNTER by allowing completely automated request and delivery of COUNTER compliant usage reports. As a founding member of Sushi, EBSCO seeks to tap the inherent value of web services and its practical applications for library automation. Sushi allows library staff to gain quick access to usage statistics in a reliable format through Counter.
Global Publishers to launch new initiative to tackle search engines - 26 Sep 2006
A coalition of print media associations have announced plans to launch a global pilot project to avoid clashes between search engines and newspaper, periodical, magazine and book publishers. The new project, called Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP), will take steps to stop search engines from offering publishers content for free. The initiative follows another setback for Google last week after a Belgian court ruled against the company for illegally publishing stories by French-language newspapers. Launched by the European Publishers Council, the initiative is backed by the International Publishers Association (IPA), European Newspapers Association (ENPA) and the World Association of Newspapers. The project will include the creation of new software tags, which will tell search engines crawling the web exactly under what terms content can be used. The new software tagging system will allow individual publishers to set their own terms and conditions depending on their model of business. ACAP, slated for launch later this year, will be presented at the forthcoming Frankfurt Book Fair on October 6, 2006. The World association of Newspapers, EPC and IPA will reportedly run the pilot for a period of 12 months. Click here to read the original press release.
McGraw-Hill to acquire stake in Indian publisher Hurix Systems - 26 Sep 2006
Information services provider McGraw-Hill Companies, US, has reportedly acquired a 15 percent stake in information technology and e-publishing services company Hurix Systems Pvt. Ltd., India. The 15 percent stake will entitle board positions for the company in Hurix. The Indian government's Foreign Investment Promotion Board has allowed Hurix to issue nearly 600,000 shares of the company to McGraw-Hill. The equity participation is expected to boost Hurix's market potential significantly. In addition, it has committed $8 million per year revenue for the next five years for providing software services to McGraw-Hill Companies to enhance the revenues of the new joint venture company. With annual revenue of approximately $6 billion, McGraw-Hill operates in sectors such as education, media and financial services.
Senior academic officers oppose US public access legislation - 26 Sep 2006
Senior academic officers from 10 institutions in the US have expressed their concern on the provisions of a new legislation, called the 'Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006.' These institutions, which collectively make nearly $3 billion in annual research investments, have stated that mandating a six-month public release of journal articles would negatively impact the academic community and the publishers that disseminate their work. The institutions have pointed out that the mandate may force some journals to shift to a publication model, requiring authors to pay for their publications through their Federal grants, thereby diminishing funds available for research. In addition, they fear that the legislation would damage the special relationship between scholarly societies and academic communities. The two are seen to work in partnership to ensure that these communities are sustained and extended, science is advanced, research meets the highest standards, and patient care is enhanced with accurate and timely information. The letter, dated September 22, 2006, was signed by representatives of the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine; University of Chicago; University of Colorado Health Sciences Center; SUNY Upstate Medical University; Children's Memorial Research Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; NYS Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics & Life Sciences; University of Tennessee Health Science Center; University of California; Oregon Health and Sciences University; and the University of Tennessee System.
SPARC in partnership with open source publishing project PKP - 26 Sep 2006
International alliance Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), UK, has announced a partnership with open source publishing initiative, the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) (http://pkp.sfu.ca/). Under the agreement, SPARC will encourage its members and partners to deploy PKP software tools for their publishing activities. The PKP initiative, funded by the Canadian government, is based at the Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, and the Simon Fraser University Library. Since 2001, the PKP has offered free, open source software for the management and publishing of journals and conference proceedings. The software is projected to reduce publishing costs, improve management, enhance indexing and increase access to knowledge. PKP software includes three solutions - Open Journal Systems (OJS), Open Conference Systems (OCS) and PKP Harvester (PKPH). The OJS software, which provides a journal management system to support every stage of the refereed publishing process, is currently used by more than 800 journals. Click here to read the original press release.
Reed Business names Stephen Baker as CEO of Reed Business Search - 26 Sep 2006
B2B information provider Reed Business Information (RBI), US, part of Reed Elsevier Group plc, has announced the appointment of Stephen Baker as CEO of Reed Business Search (RB Search), the company's new B2B search initiative. Prior to this, Baker served Norway based enterprise search technologies provider Fast Search & Transfer, where he was responsible for business development. Earlier, he also served Overture/Yahoo, where he worked on web search commercialisation. RB Search is a new initiative that aims to offer users the best search experience and results for B2B markets. Click here to read the original press release.
Dear Subscribers - 26 Sep 2006
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.
