The International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) has announced that it is organising a one-day workshop titled Interactive Publications and the Record of Science. Open to both members and non-members, the workshop will be held at Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, on February 8, 2010.
The Web is by nature an interactive environment. Yet online journals are mostly still consistent with their traditional role as a never-changing scholarly record. However, this traditional role is increasingly challenged as browser technologies leap forward, dynamic visualisation and presentation tools proliferate, and primary data are linked to research articles. Publishers, publishing service providers, librarians, editors and authors will participate in this one-day workshop, organised by ICSTI, to survey the most exciting and challenging of the new developments. Also, they will seek to identify the necessary infrastructure for including interactive content within the record of science.
Speakers include representatives from the Nature Publishing Group, National Library of Medicine, Royal Society of Chemistry, International Union of Crystallography, OECD, Concept Web Alliance, SciVee, British Library, CrossRef and Cell Press. Registration will open October 23, 2009.
The European Union launched the EU Bookshop Digital Library at the recently concluded Frankfurt Book Fair. Twelve million scanned pages in more than 110, 000 EU publications are now available free of charge for download in the EU Bookshop Digital Library. The digital library offers all publications edited by the Publications Office on behalf of the EU institutions, agencies and other bodies since 1952.
The Publications Office Digital Library was a response to a growing demand to digitise out-of-print publications. In 2007, the Publications Office launched a PDF-on-demand service, wherein users could request publications to be retrieved from the archives and scanned as needed. The demand was so high that within six months the service was saturated. To better serve the users, it was decided to scan the industrial volumes of the entire archive.
The result – less than two years later – is an electronic library of more than 14 million pages of web-optimised PDFs available to the public free of charge. It consists of the 12 million scanned pages of historic publications and about 2 million pages of recent publications. At the rate of 1600 new publications per year, EU Bookshop is projected as a valuable information source for citizens, journalists, education professionals, students, librarians, publishers, and anybody interested in Europe, in about 50 languages, including the possibility of ordering printed copies.
EU Bookshop content will also be accessible via Europeana, a digitisation project of many prominent national European libraries and archives.
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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that it will showcase the new features it is rolling out for its BrainNavigator research tool at the Society for Neuroscience’s Neuroscience 2009 event in Chicago. Recently adopted by the US’ National Institutes of Health (NIH), BrainNavigator is an online, interactive, 3D software tool that maps images of brain anatomy. It seeks to help neuroscience researchers to save time and improve the quality of their daily research.
BrainNavigator helps locate the position of structures within the brain, similar to a GPS system, making visualisation and communication about scientific findings about the brain easier. After unveiling the prototype version at the Society for Neuroscience’s Neuroscience 2008 tradeshow last November, the version including mouse and rat brains is now available at www.brainnav.com.
The product was developed in collaboration with the Allen Institute for Brain Science and under the editorship of Prof. George Paxinos, Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, Sydney and Charles Watson, Professor of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth and Senior Professorial Research Fellow Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, Sydney. Offering both free and subscription-based content, it is used by NIH and other research institutions. It seeks to offer an easy-to-use online system that allows the institutions to browse, compare and label high-resolution material as well as to create virtual sections from sophisticated 3D models of the brain. Users can also annotate atlas drawings and share their annotations with colleagues.
New features include the ability to export and print 2D and 3D images; ‘Injection Planner’ - a feature that allows users to select a point for injection of an electrode or pharmacological substances via a syringe, and visualise the path for the injection in the 3D model of the brain; and an image overlay function which will allow users to place the atlas drawing over the stained image.
BrainNavigator will be showcased at Elsevier’s booth (#112) at Neuroscience 2009, and hourly demonstrations will be given. Free trials of the product, including new features, will be available beginning November 13, 2009.
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Media industry-focused research and advisory firm Outsell, Inc., US, has released the second annual ‘Library Market Size, Share & Forecast Report’. The report shows that libraries are shifting from content spending to technology spending - digitising collections, acquiring native digital content, and developing digital storage and retrieval systems. As the Google Books Library Project continues, and new vendors scan and package content, further disruptions are afoot, says the report.
The Outsell report sizes and segments the content controlled by the global library market. The analysis covers government, public, academic, school and corporate libraries - physical as well as digital. It projects a reduction in spending from $24.8 billion last year to $24.4 billion in 2011, driven by the economic slowdown. It also covers the market for library content across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Africa-Middle East; content spending by library and information type (scientific, legal, etc.); analysis of key market drivers; and essential actions for content vendors looking to maintain or increase market share.
The report also references another Outsell study of business information users. This shows a surge in respondents who prefer to start research through their organisations’ intranets - up from 5 percent in 2001, to 25 percent in 2008 - rather than through the open web.
According to Ned May, Director and Lead Analyst at Outsell, who led the research, this shift in searching behaviour means digital libraries and repositories will increasingly become go-to contacts for relevant and easily accessible business information. Libraries will remain vital in driving and managing content to meet this user demand, he emphasises.
Open access publisher BioMed Central, UK, has announced the launch of the Stem Cell Gateway, highlighting the latest articles published in this field across BioMed Central journals. The Gateway complements the publisher’s new journal, Stem Cell Research & Therapy, slated for launch in early 2010.
The Stem Cell Gateway includes research highlights, as well as profiles of authors in the field. It also includes AuthorMapper, an interactive map which enables users to explore based on author locations and to discover wider relationships and find experts in the field.
An international peer-reviewed journal, Stem Cell Research & Therapy seeks to provide a forum for translational research into stem cell therapies. The journal has a special emphasis on basic, translational, and clinical research into stem cell therapeutics, including animal models, and clinical trials. It will publish open access research articles as well as review articles and expert commentary to compliment key papers.
Stem Cell Research & Therapy is now accepting submissions.
TechWeb and O'Reilly Media, Inc., co-producers of Web 2.0 Expo and Web 2.0 Summit, have announced this year's keynotes and new program elements for the Web 2.0 Expo New York event. The event, scheduled for November 16-19, 2009, at the Javits Convention Center, will showcase the latest Web 2.0 business models, development paradigms and design strategies for the builders of the next-generation Web. Keynote speakers include Jay Adelson, Chris Brogan, Caterina Fake, Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Beth Novak and Kevin Rose.
Web 2.0 Expo New York 2009 brings Launch Pad to New York for the first time and adds a series of new sessions to the programme. The event will feature influential keynotes and speakers, detailed workshops, a multi-track conference, an ‘unconference’ programme called Web2Open, a first-time New York Launch Pad start-up programme, a major tradeshow and many rich networking opportunities and events.
Conference tracks include: Landscape & Strategy, Design & User Experience, Social Media, Development, Fundamentals, Web 2.0 at Work, Government 2.0, Mobile, Performance and Analytics. The event targets developers, designers, entrepreneurs, marketers, and business professionals embracing Web 2.0 technologies.
Electronic content delivery solutions provider Impelsys, US, has announced that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has solidified its e-book strategy with iPublishCentral, an electronic content delivery solution used by over 350 publishers worldwide. AAP is a leading society publisher and professional organisation to 600, 000 pediatricians.
Scheduled for launch in early 2010, AAP will initially offer 35 books from its adolescent health, neonatal, infectious disease and primary care collections online for purchase in digital format with a multi-level offering to both individuals and institutions such as libraries, hospitals and medical schools. iPublishCentral is an easy-to-implement, cost-effective, self-service solution that allows publishers to market, distribute and monetise traditional print content through electronic channels.
AAP collections and individual titles will be available by subscription or by per-book purchase, accessible with a single login. Along with member pediatricians, hospitals, libraries, medical schools and health organisations will also have access to AAP’s digital library. While retaining the look and feel of a print book, these e-Books will have enhanced electronic features including search, bookmarking and user personalisation.
AAP and its member authors will also be able to promote their titles using iPublishWidget, a viral marketing tool that enables both publishers and authors to promote and market books on the Internet and social Web sites such as Facebook. iPublishWidget enhances visibility, sustains interest and enables sales conversions for any title. Leading titles such as The Red Book Atlas, a reference for infectious diseases; Berkowitz Pediatrics, a textbook for primary care; and The Pediatric Nutrition Handbook, a guide for the latest evidence-based guidelines on feeding healthy infants and children, will be available for digital download.
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ICSTI to host one-day workshop - Interactive Publications and the Record of Science
EU launches Bookshop Digital Library at Frankfurt Book Fair
Elsevier to unveil BrainNavigator with added features at Neuroscience 2009 event
Libraries shifting spending from content to technology, says Outsell report
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