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SIIA announces 8th annual Information Industry summit - 17 Oct 2008
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the trade association for the software and digital information industries, has announced its 8th annual Information Industry Summit. The event, scheduled for January 26-28, 2009, will have senior executives gathering at Cipriani in New York City, to network, strategise about current business challenges, and share their thought leadership on the current business climate. Under the umbrella of its 'Driving the Digital Economy' theme, the Summit will address a variety of critical topics and issues that leaders are facing. The topic will embrace discussions about economic, technological, regulatory and socio-cultural impacts on the digital information industry. Keynotes by industry experts will be one of the Summit's highlights, and include speakers such as Henry Blodget, CEO, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Silicon Alley Insider, Inc; Marjorie Scardino, Chief Executive, Pearson; and Mark Walsh, CEO, GeniusRocket.com. Another highlight of the meeting is SIIA Previews, scheduled for January 26, which will showcase innovation through presentations by CEOs of early-stage digital content and technology firms.
British Library announces new three-year strategy - 17 Oct 2008
The British Library has announced its key strategic priorities for the next three years. The new strategy describes the principal features of a rapidly-evolving research and information landscape, and outlines how the Library plans to further develop existing strengths and seize new opportunities to enhance its proposition to researchers and business. The strategy can be viewed online at www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/strategy0811/index.html. A printed version of the document is also being circulated to a wide range of stakeholders. Over the past three years the Library has developed specialist curatorial expertise along disciplinary lines, focusing on the particular characteristics and needs of researchers according to discipline. This disciplinary focus will continue with the implementation of the Library's content strategy for Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences researchers, and also by developing a content strategy for Science, Technology and Medicine. The British Library's seven strategic priorities of 2008-11 include: capture extensively and store UK digital publications; connect users with content; transform access and preservation for newspapers; support UK research with innovative services and integrated processes; build digital infrastructure; integrate storage and preservation of physical collections; and develop as an organisation. To address the growth of research that cuts across disciplines, the Library will develop an interdisciplinary focus, which will facilitate research in areas ranging from lifelong well-being to migration and population change. To do this, the Library will review the research landscape to identify areas of interdisciplinary growth, and build virtual communities to support and sustain collaborative cross-disciplinary research.
Turkish Government's Scientific and Technological Research council signs three year deal for ISI Web of Knowledge - 17 Oct 2008
The Scientific business of Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that the Turkish Government's Scientific and Technological Research Organization's (TUBITAK) R&D Facility Institute, The Turkish Academic Network and Information Centre (ULAKBIM), has signed a three year contract for the ISI Web of Knowledge platform. The science, social science, and arts and humanities citation indexes on the ISI Web of Knowledge platform will now be available to all Turkish and TR of Cyprus Universities as well as Ministry of Health Training and Research Hospitals to help foster academic advancement. ISI Web of Knowledge is an integrated research platform that delivers access to diversified scholarly information in the sciences, social sciences and arts and humanities, as well as search and analysis tools that enhance this content. It provides 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 websites. The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) was established with a mission to advance science and technology, conduct research and support Turkish researchers. The Turkish Academic Network and Information Centre was founded as a R&D Facility Institute of TÜBİTAK in 1996. ULAKBIM's main objectives have been set as operating a high speed computer network enabling interaction within the institutional elements of the national innovation system, and providing information technology support and information services to academic and research institutes to help scientific production.
Convera to create vertical search site for WK Health's nursing website - 17 Oct 2008
Vertical search services and technologies provider Convera Corporation, US, has announced an agreement with publisher Wolters Kluwer Health, US, to build vertical search engines for the latter's website for nurses at NursingCenter.com. Under the deal, Convera and WK Health will provide vertical search and site search for the online resource to assist in the continuous training for US nursing professionals. The combination of a site search across Wolters Kluwer's proprietary information and nursing best practice alongside a vertical search aggregating authoritative web content is projected to provide a comprehensive information service to the nursing community. WK Health seeks to play a leading role in driving medical excellence. Its products and services are claimed to be used by professionals and organisations in almost every aspect of healthcare and across the world to advance knowledge and its application to improve patient care. Vertical search sites, vertical search toolbars and widgets are increasingly being seen by B2B publishers as a way of extending their brands into the essential workflow of their online communities. Earlier this month, Convera launched vertical search sites for the Journal of Family Practice and Current Psychiatry in conjunction with Dowden Health Media (DHM). Last month, the company announced the launch of search.optics.org (search.optics.org), a vertical search site for the global photonics industry, together with IOP Publishing.
Elsevier journal Vaccine brings out special supplement on influenza - 17 Oct 2008
Journal Vaccine, published by STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, recently released a supplement dedicated to influenza vaccines. The publication, released during an influenza conference organised by the European Scientific Working Group on influenza (ESWI), provides a comprehensive overview on influenza vaccines and was supported by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA). The Vaccine supplement focuses entirely on new developments in the area of human influenza vaccines, by bringing together key experts from many of the relevant disciplines in this field. In their editorial, Marie Paule Kieny and Keiji Fukuda of the World Health Organization (WHO) specifically address the pandemic influenza vaccine challenge and stress that an efficient response at the outset of an influenza pandemic will depend on the robust global surveillance systems implemented by the WHO's Global Influenza Surveillance Network. The 3rd European Influenza Conference in Portugal was organised by ESWI and had a scientific programme including every aspect of influenza prevention, control and treatment. Beyond the science, the conference also offered sessions and workshops for governmental representatives and opinion leaders in healthcare.
BMJ Group deploys Publishing Technology's Information Commerce Software - 17 Oct 2008
Publishing-specific software solutions provider Publishing Technology, UK, has announced that it has been selected by the BMJ Group to implement its Information Commerce Software (ICS). The software is seen to support more flexible content licensing and better control over access and authentication. The BMJ Group, which publishes the British Medical Journal, had previously been using an internally developed system that was constraining product development, and that needed a major technology refresh to serve projected future needs. It sought a system that could manage content across its many websites, facilitate new product development, increasingly enable the personalisation of its products and integrate its back office systems. Following a comprehensive evaluation process and an exhaustive study to assess the system's ability to accommodate various business use cases, BMJ Group selected Publishing Technology's ICS. According to the company, ICS solution's modular architecture fragments its functionality into individual capabilities that can be readily repurposed and combined to meet specific publisher needs. The software is projected to give publishers the dexterity to capitalise on market trends by providing tools that can quickly and easily create new business models, product bundles or targeted marketing campaigns. ICS is designed specifically for the marketing and sale of digital assets. It enables users to quickly build and deploy flexible business models, tailored to meet the needs of users' specific subscriber bases. ICS monitors the performance of business models, and allows changes to them without affecting the performance or stability of the rest of the site. As new markets and customer segments emerge, the tool can be leveraged to test the assumptions underpinning new models before actually implementing them. From the perspective of controlling costs, the ICS platform is designed to be used by non-technical staff. Content can be added or changed without relying on IT resource.
Safari Books Online announces significant enhancements to its services - 17 Oct 2008
Safari Books Online, a US-based e-reference joint venture between publishers O'Reilly Media, Inc. and Pearson Technology Group, has announced significant enhancements to its services. The latest version of Safari includes the availability of full book downloads within Safari's library and gives companies the ability to instantaneously sign up small workgroups on Safari Books Online. Both upgrades enable Safari to fully meet the needs of enterprise and individual subscribers. Safari Books Online's self-service feature for small workgroups is an easy-to-navigate function that allows small workgroups to sign themselves up as a workgroup. It makes it possible for small workgroups to initiate and administer their own accounts and manage their members, giving their members immediate access to the valuable information within the Safari library. Safari has also made full book downloads available to all subscribers who have Safari Library accounts. Subscribers can now search across thousands of technical and business books to pinpoint needed information in a matter of seconds and then download and read entire books in PDF format. Prior to this release, users could only download chapters.
Dear Subscribers - 17 Oct 2008
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.
