Open access journal PLoS Medicine has placed in the public domain all documents – around 1,500 - released after the intervention of the journal and The New York Times in the Prempro case. The documents are available on the PLoS Medicine website at http://www.plosmedicine.org/static/ghostwriting.action, and are uploaded in the form that PLoS received them from the court.

The documents include internal correspondence, reports and tracking documents relating to interactions between the pharmaceutical company Wyeth and a medical communications firm, to promote Wyeth's hormone drugs. These documents are purported to show in considerable detail a coordinated and carefully monitored campaign of ‘ghostwriting’ by Wyeth and medical writing companies for a number of products marketed by the company.

Ghostwriting involves using medical writers to produce articles that are then nominally authored by an academic not substantially involved in the writing process. This has been condemned as an unacceptable practice by medical journals and editors. Nonetheless, the practice appears to persist. By placing all the documents for scrutiny in the public domain, the editors of PLoS Medicine hope that they will help guide the way to identifying reforms that will eventually stamp ghostwriting out.

In order to make these documents available, PLoS Medicine, represented by public interest law firm Public Justice, and The New York Times intervened in an ongoing court case in which women were suing Wyeth. Wyeth is the manufacturer of Prempro, a hormone replacement therapy.

In an editorial that has been posted on the PLoS Medicine blog, Speaking of Medicine, the journal’s editors declare that this is ‘one of the most compelling expositions ever seen of the systematic manipulation and abuse of scholarly publishing by the pharmaceutical industry and its commercial partners in their attempt to influence the healthcare decisions of physicians and the general public.’ The editors go on to call for action to eradicate ghostwriting, including retraction of papers where ghostwriting or inappropriate involvement of medical writers is found; banning of authors found to have put their names to such papers from any subsequent publication in the journal; and rigorous investigation of such misconduct by the researchers' academic institutions.

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Wiley-Blackwell, the STM and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, Inc, US, will be jointly hosting a Korean Publishing Seminar with the Korean Psychological Association (KPA) as part of its efforts to support and boost the quality and output of the Korean research and scholarly community. Held as part of the KPA’s International Conference on Asia Pacific Psychology in Korea, Wiley-Blackwell expects an audience of young academics and professors, as well as graduate students doing post diploma studies.

The key speaker will be Dr. Yingyi Hong of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Dr Hong serves as the Associate Editor of Asian Journal of Social Psychology.

Wiley-Blackwell has been growing the number of journals published with Korean societies in a bid to boost its profile in this region. It currently publishes 92 top-ranked psychology journals globally – many with prestigious societies including the Society for Research in Child Development, the American School Health Association, the International Association for Applied Psychology, the Japanese Psychological Association, the Japanese Group Dynamics Association and the Asian Association of Social Psychology.

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Custom health communications company StayWell Custom Communications (SCC), a division of MediMedia USA, has announced an exclusive strategic alliance with Self Care Decisions, LLC, a provider of decision-support care guides for consumers via the Internet and mobile applications.

Through this strategic alliance, StayWell Custom Communications will be offering a range of online applications for health care providers and payor organisations designed to guide consumers to the appropriate response to common health care issues. These tools will be offered by SCC in addition to the already impressive collection of solutions currently being used by its hundreds of health care clients. The Self Care Decisions tools, which can be custom branded to the sponsoring client organisation, provide people with decision support and care advice for common health symptoms and minor injuries via the Internet and their handheld devices.

The applications include HouseCalls Symptom Checker, an online decision support and care advice tool; and SymptomMD, an iPhone/iTouch application that puts symptom decision support in a consumer's pocket. The tools provide valuable information to consumers to help them self-manage their own health care, reduce unnecessary office visits, save them time, worry, calls to physicians, and avoid after-hour trips to urgent care facilities.

Clients who use these online tools have the ability to package and brand each solution to their own organisation to make it a totally custom offering. The iPhone/iTouch application can even be programmed to guide consumers to the sponsoring organisation's selected providers for care.

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The US’ National Library of Medicine has announced the introduction of Rapid Research Notes (RRN). Developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of NLM, RRN will be used to archive research made available through online venues for rapid scientific communication. The RRN archive (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/rrn) allows users to access research that is provided through participating publisher programmes designed for immediate communication.

According to NCBI, creating such an archive has been discussed often by its public advisors, but the recent outbreak of H1N1 influenza provided an increased impetus for the project.

Responding to the call for a means to quickly share research information about H1N1, the Public Library of Science developed PLoS Currents: Influenza, an open-access, online resource for immediate communication and discussion of new scientific data, analyses, and ideas in the area of influenza. In order to make research available as soon as possible, submissions are not peer reviewed in depth, but are screened by a group of leading researchers in the field who decide whether a contribution is suitable. Those judged suitable are immediately posted to the PLoS Currents: Influenza Web site and archived at RRN with a stable ID.

PLoS Currents: Influenza is the first collection to be archived in RRN. NCBI expects the RRN archive to expand over time to include additional collections in other high-interest biomedical fields.

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Information resources and technologies provider ProQuest, US, has announced that Periodicals Archive Online offers three more ways to build a library’s research archive - with the addition of The Spectator to Collection 7, the launch of Collection 8 and the development of five additional years of coverage for journals in Collections 1 to 5. Periodicals Archive Online is a major online journal archive that digitises the backfiles of periodicals in the arts, humanities and social sciences, providing access to the full text of a growing number of titles that have been indexed in its sister database, Periodicals Index Online.

The inclusion of The Spectator in the completed Collection 7 (available from September) makes available exclusively the complete digital backfile, from 1828 to 2000. This weekly publication claims to be the oldest continuously published magazine in the English language and represents an essential resource for researchers, offering a unique record of this period.

Collection 8 targets leading periodicals for inclusion, spanning the arts, humanities and social sciences. The choice of journals is based on their scholarly importance and is informed by recommendations from an international selection of librarians. Journals nominated by publishers and users are also considered. Among the titles in the first release of this collection are: Essays in Arts and Sciences, International Journal on World Peace, Psychiatry and Science and Society.

Developed in response to customer demand, Collection Extensions offer additional years of content, from 1996 to 2000, for journals in Collections 1-5. Collection Extensions 1 and 2 are now available, with Extensions 3-5 to follow in 2010. As well as providing valuable extra content for key publications, the Collection Extensions will extend the coverage of many journals to the point at which coverage often commences in current file services, offering institutions seamless electronic access to numerous complete journal runs.

Over 550 journals are featured in Periodicals Archive Online, representing more than 14 million pages and almost 200 years of scholarship. Libraries receive perpetual rights to content when they purchase PAO collections.

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Library technology solutions provider SirsiDynix, US, has announced that Bilkent University in Turkey has selected SirsiDynix Symphony integrated library system (ILS) and a range of value-added solutions for enhancing library user experience and library staff productivity. Bilkent University will migrate from the BLISS system in the early part of 2010. SirsiDynix is partnering with Turkish-based Informascope to provide local support to the Turkish market.

Symphony incorporates open, industry-standard technologies, offering the library community an impressive list of features and capabilities. These include an open n-tier architecture, software-as-a-service (SaaS) options, powerful search and discovery solutions, comprehensive integrated library management and productivity solutions, Java-based staff clients for all modules, fully documented application programming interfaces (APIs) that support unparalleled customizability and integration, Unicode support, advanced business intelligence and reporting tools, support for API, SIP2 and NCIP and embedded and full Oracle database support. Symphony provides the ability for libraries to operate more efficiently to serve their communities of users.

SirsiDynix provides libraries with the software and services that are critical to managing their operations. In concert with key industry partners, SirsiDynix supports libraries by offering a comprehensive integrated suite of technology solutions that improve the internal productivity of libraries and enhance their capacity to partner with their communities through the provision of state of the art library management systems (LMS) and search and discovery solutions.

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Information resources and technologies provider ProQuest, US, has announced that institutions can now subscribe to the entire bibliographic record of dissertations written in the United Kingdom and Ireland from as far back as 1716, with full abstracts for titles available from 1986 in ‘ProQuest Dissertations and Theses – UK & Ireland’. Originally published by Expert Information’s Index to Theses, these new additions to ProQuest’s dissertations and theses portfolio reflect the scholarly output of some of the world’s leading research universities.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses – UK & Ireland, available as a stand-alone product or an add-on to existing ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, comprises access to the total bibliographic record for all theses produced by UK and Irish universities and claims to be the only complete set available. The database includes complete abstracts from 1986 until the present day.

ProQuest’s new collection of abstracts and citations to UK and Irish dissertations were published by Expert Information’s Index to Theses. Customers of Index to Theses database now have the option to access this exceptional index via the ProQuest platform, allowing cross-searching with other dissertations from around the world in ProQuest’s PQDT database, as well as other databases.

ProQuest’s PQDT collection comprises the world’s largest repository of dissertations.

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Global library cooperative Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC), US, together with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the American Theological Library Association, has named six librarians chosen to participate in the Jay Jordan IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellowship Program for 2010. The 2010 Jordan IFLA/OCLC Fellows were named at a news conference during the World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Assembly in Milan, Italy.

The Jay Jordan IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellowship Program supports library and information science professionals from countries with developing economies. The programme provides advanced continuing education and exposure to a broad range of issues in information technologies, library operations and global cooperative librarianship. With the selection of the six Fellows for the class of 2010, the programme will have welcomed 50 librarians and information science professionals from 30 countries.

During the five-week programme, which will run from April 10 through May 15, 2010, the Fellows will participate in discussions with library and information science leaders, library visits and professional development activities. Topics and issues explored include information technologies and their impact on libraries, library operations and management, and global cooperative librarianship.

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The Publishing and the Ecology of European Research (PEER), a collaboration between publishers, repositories and the research community, has announced the appointment of teams from Loughborough University and University College London (UCL) for Behavioural and Usage Research. The research teams were selected by the PEER Executive following an open tendering process and assessment by the members of the PEER Research Oversight Group.

The behavioural research will be undertaken by the Department of Information Science and LISU at Loughborough University. The departments will track trends and explain patterns of author and user behaviour in the context of so called Green Open Access; understand the role repositories play for authors in the context of journal publishing; and understand the role repositories play for users in context of accessing journal articles. A baseline report is due in autumn 2009 and will be made available on the PEER website.

The usage research will be undertaken by the UCL based CIBER group, with the objective to determine usage trends at publishers and repositories; understand source and nature of use of deposited manuscripts in repositories; and track trends, develop indicators and explain patterns of usage for repositories and journals.

Both research teams will provide final reports by mid 2011 and will feed into model development to determine whether (and how) traditional publishing systems can co-exist with self-archiving.

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Medical information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that St. Cloud Surgical Center has selected its ProVation EHR software for perioperative documentation and patient charting.

ProVation EHR is an electronic health record designed for busy, cost-conscious Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs). It offers electronic documentation and document imaging for all elements of the patient encounter, from past records to procedure documentation to follow-up care. With ProVation EHR, ASCs have affordable access to a single, patient-centric documentation system that eliminates printing and chart storage costs and streamlines workflow.

St. Cloud Surgical Center is an AAAHC accredited ASC serving patients from across the state of Minnesota, particularly the counties northwest of the Twin Cities Metro area. The center joins a list of more than 600 hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers that have selected ProVation software for procedure documentation and coding.

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Library technology solutions provider SirsiDynix, US, has announced the release of SirsiDynix Horizon 7.5 and Horizon Information Portal (HIP) 3.20. The Horizon integrated library system (ILS) continues to be used by thousands of libraries across the world, according to the company. The latest release claims to support crucial database upgrades and infrastructure improvements to both Horizon and HIP.

Horizon 7.5 provides support for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Sybase ASE 15, giving an upgrade path for Horizon customers running older versions of Microsoft SQL Server and Sybase ASE. HIP has been enhanced to support the latest development environments including Java SE 6, JBoss 4.2.3 and Jetty 6.1.12. These new versions of JBoss and Java also make it possible to take advantage of 64-bit systems, including Microsoft Windows 2008 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0.

According to SirsiDynix, although a major emphasis has been placed on infrastructure improvements for Horizon and HIP, the release also delivers enhancements such as Horizon SIP2 Responder; HIP Search Limit capability; Horizon Floating Collection functionality for consortia; tighter integration of debt collect administrative tools; and over 50 other software improvements.

Numerous customers participated in extensive beta testing of Horizon 7.5 during two separate beta testing phases. Horizon 7.5 was also tested in production at customer sites such as Bellingham-Whatcom County Library Consortium prior to general availability.

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Publisher Taylor & Francis Group (T&F), UK, part of Informa, will publish the Journal of Hydraulic Research and International Journal of River Basin Management on behalf of International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research (IAHR), beginning 2010.

Journal of Hydraulic Research publishes scientific and technical material of broader interest in the areas of theoretical, experimental and computational hydraulics and fluid mechanics in various fields of applications, including rivers, coasts, environment, structures and industrial flows. The journal is edited by Professor Willi Hager at VAW, ETH Zürich with the support of an international Editorial Board.

International Journal of River Basin Management launched in 2003 to provide a cross-sectorial approach encompassing all aspects of river and floodplain management, with a truly global perspective. The journal is edited by Professor Paul Bates at the University of Bristol. It is co-published with IAHS and INBO.

With Taylor & Francis, the journals will see a number of improvements. These include moving the journal to Taylor & Francis' InformaWorld platform, bringing benefits including HTML versions of articles, forward citation linking and online publication of articles ahead of the print issue through iFirst. A Manuscript Central online submission and review systems will also be set for the journals to further speed the peer review process and maximise outreach to international authors. Back issues of Journal of Hydraulic Research from Volume 1 to 38 will be fully digitised and available online.

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Non-profit electronic archiving service provider Portico, US, has announced an agreement with University of Technology Sydney (Australia) Library (UTS Library) to preserve its online collection of 11 e-journals. With this inclusion, over 10,000 e-journals and 27,000 e-books from 77 publishers on behalf of 2,000 societies and associations have now been entrusted to the Portico archive.

Through this agreement with Portico, UTS Library seeks to ensure that the online versions of its journals will be preserved and available for future scholars, researchers, and students. UTS Library has named Portico as a mechanism to fill post-cancellation access claims and has also agreed to make an annual financial contribution to Portico.

UTS Library created UTSeScholarship in 2004, an initiative that provides a secure, stable, digital home for the scholarly output of the University's staff, students, and colleagues with whom they collaborate. UTSeScholarship includes UTSePress, which publishes these scholarly journals as well as books and conference proceedings.

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Knowledge discovery software developer Collexis Holdings, Inc., US, has announced that their life science research portal www.BiomedExperts.com has surpassed the 200,000 registered user mark.

Pre-populated with over 1.8 million Pub-Med-based expert profiles, BiomedExperts allows scientists and researchers to directly connect with and explore their own professional contacts, grow their networks and identify researchers with the expertise needed for future collaborations. Through user-friendly search interfaces, potential research collaborators can share data and collaborate with professionals from more than 1,800 organisations and institutions from 137 countries, totaling more than 30 million connections made through the site.

Collexis develops applications that range from search tools for users' websites to highly sophisticated discovery applications that are utilised by the intelligence community and R&D organisations worldwide. These applications allow users to identify and search for documents, experts, trends or new discoveries that may be hidden in the materials.

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Digital content products and technologies provider ebrary, US, has announced that 14 new publishers have joined its Half-Off Sale, bringing libraries, corporations, and other institutions the best cost savings of the year on full-text e-books. To date, more than 21 publishers have signed up to participate in ebrary’s new programme including Cambridge University Press, Elsevier, IGI Global, Springer, Taylor & Francis and Wiley. Others are expected to sign up shortly.

The most recent publishers to make backlist titles available through ebrary at 50 percent off list price through December 15, 2009, are Brill Academic Publishers; Brookings Institution Press; Channel View Publications/Multilingual Matters; Continuum; Hunter Publishing; M.E. Sharpe, Inc.; National Science Teachers Association; Peterson Institute for International Economics; Smithers Rapra; Temple University Press; Thorogood Publishing; University of Chicago Press; University of Michigan Press; and W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

ebrary offers a growing selection of more than 170,000 digital books, handbooks, reports, maps, journals and other valuable content from over 350 of the world’s leading publishers under flexible subscription, purchase, and usage-based models. Additionally, the company offers e-publishing services for customers to cost-effectively distribute their own PDF content online on ebrary’s servers or their own. With this new initiative, ebrary is offering an opportunity for libraries, corporations, and other organisations to purchase and own authoritative content at discounted rates from an esteemed group of renowned publishers. Simultaneously, the company is providing participating publishers with new revenue opportunities for their backlist selections.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO has announced that from this month onward, the continuing education modules content found in the CINAHL Plus and Nursing Reference Center products are approved by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). This accreditation is claimed to demonstrate CINAHL’s support for professional continuing education opportunities, as the modules are rigorously reviewed by objective standards.

The Nursing Reference Center has over 300 CE modules while the CINAHL Plus products have over 100. The continuing education modules are also still approved by IACET, the International Association for Continuing Education and Training.

CINAHL Plus provides indexing for 4,175 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health, with coverage dating as far back as 1937. The database offers access to healthcare books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, educational software, audiovisuals and book chapters, as well as Evidence-Based Care Sheets. Searchable cited references for more than 1,300 journals are also included. Full-text material includes nearly 80 journals plus legal cases, clinical innovations, critical paths, drug records, research instruments and clinical trials.

Nursing Reference Center is projected as a comprehensive reference tool designed to provide relevant clinical resources to nurses and other healthcare professionals, directly at the point-of-care. It provides in-depth content from top publishers covering areas including conditions and diseases, patient education resources, drug information, continuing education, lab and diagnosis detail and best practice guidelines.

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Ripple6, a US-based provider of social media services to brand marketers and publishers, has unveiled Ripple6 OnDemand, a social networking platform that seeks to offer easy implementation, scalability and new monetisation opportunities. With Ripple6 OnDemand, publishers can connect with their audiences and generate incremental revenue by helping brands tap into the power of social networking and community building in a fast, efficient, and cost-effective manner.

Ripple6 OnDemand is projected to offer a full-featured social networking platform that helps publishers unlock the value of their audience and create new revenue streams beyond banner ads and subscription models. The product enables a publisher to create a customised, content-ready site in as little as 24 hours. Content integration is simple, using standard web interfaces; design templates can be easily customised around branding guidelines, according to the company.

The proprietary features of Ripple6 OnDemand include Brand Communities, Social Insights and Ripple Analytics. Brand Communities help marketers connect with consumers and start conversations in a social community environment outside of ads. With Social Insights, publishers can use primary custom research as a means to monetise their audience. Both solutions include Ripple Analytics, which delivers social metrics to help publishers better understand and demonstrate audience value to potential advertisers.

To help publishers get started, Ripple6 offers Smart Start, a programme created to leverage Ripple6 social media expertise and gather insights from real users in a live environment in order to design a successful community. The programme includes the creation of a community and a one-month research project. Smart Start allows publishers to avoid costly redesigns by developing a blueprint for the social network based on user experience and feedback.

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Anthem Media Group (AMG) has announced its acquisition of Ascend Media's Los Angeles-based medical media division for an undisclosed sum. The business-to-business publications that comprise Ascend Media's Allied Healthcare division serve as the authoritative source of information, news, product development and continuing education for professionals in the areas of medical imaging, hearing, respiratory care, physical therapy and rehab, sleep, plastic surgery, aesthetics and more.

Titles included in the acquisition are Clinical Lab Products, Hearing Review, Hearing Review Products, Imaging Economics, Orthodontic Products, Physical Therapy Products, Plastic Surgery Products, Rehab Management, RT for Decision Makers in Respiratory Care, Sleep Review and 24X7 Magazine. Anthem's already impressive roster of publications currently includes regional, national and contract titles. With the addition of the Allied Healthcare titles, it is estimated that the company will produce nearly 6 million total printed copies annually.

Anthem Media Group's Dennis Triola will take on the role of president for the new division, which will be called Allied Media. Larry Lannon, former Ascend division president, will report to Triola, and Ascend Media's Overland Park, Kan.-based Allied employees will move into Anthem's headquarters, located at College Boulevard and Metcalf Avenue.

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Wiley-Blackwell, the STM and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, Inc, US, has announced a publishing partnership with the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. Under the deal, Wiley-Blackwell will publish the latter’s publications - Journal of Bone and Mineral Research (JBMR) and Primer on the Metabolic Bone Diseases and Disorders of Mineral Metabolism.

JBMR is a leading bone journal, publishing papers in all areas of the biology and physiology of bone, hormones that regulate bone and mineral metabolism, and pathophysiology and treatment of disorders of bone and mineral metabolism. First published in 1986, JBMR is the top ranked journal in its specialty, with an impact factor of 6.443, and is among the top 4 percent of all journals included in ISI’s science citation index.

The Primer on the Metabolic Bone Diseases and Disorders of Mineral Metabolism claims to be the most widely circulated comprehensive source of information on bone and mineral diseases. Since its first edition in 1990, the Primer has presented current findings on diagnosis, laboratory evaluation, treatment, clinical presentations, risk factors and bone density characteristics of osteoporosis, primary hyperparathyroidism, Paget’s disease of bone, childhood rickets, renal osteodystrophy and metastatic bone disease.

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Publishing services provider Cadmus Communications, US, a Cenveo company, has announced that it has been awarded a two-year contract extension by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). The deal is to provide a full range of scholarly journal production services including copyediting, composition, content management, and printing for SfN's widely-acclaimed journal The Journal of Neuroscience.

The Journal of Neuroscience is the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience. The Journal publishes papers on a broad range of topics of general interest to those working on the nervous system. SfN is a not-for-profit publisher focused on advancing the understanding of the brain and nervous system.

Cadmus provides end-to-end, integrated graphic communications services to professional publishers, not-for-profit societies, associations, and corporations. The company claims to be the world's largest provider of content management and production services to scientific, technical and medical (STM) publishers. It has been a long-time partner of LWW and welcomes the opportunity to continue to provide web, sheet fed, and digital print services along with domestic and foreign distribution solutions.

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Internet search services provider Google Inc., US, has reportedly partnered with open access publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS), US, to launch an experimental website. The website will look to speed up scientific discovery by allowing researchers to immediately share their findings and ideas about the H1N1 virus with the world's scientific and medical communities.

Harold Varmus, PLoS' chairman, announced the project on Google's official blog, saying a small research community would run the website on Google's Knol online encyclopedia and the research articles would be vetted by expert moderators. The site already features new findings from some outstanding influenza researchers.

The four articles already published on ‘PLoS Currents: Influenza’ cover subjects including the transmission of the virus in the tropics and vaccination strategies. Submissions to PLoS Currents are not peer-reviewed in detail, so the results and conclusions must be regarded as preliminary, according to the organisation.

Google already operates a site called Google Flu Trends that uses search terms the company deems ‘good indicators of flu activity’ to estimate flu activity faster than traditional systems. According to Varmus, PLoS will likely expand the project.

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Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing, US, has released a new resource for corporations looking for information in the areas of business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR). Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Reference Center is projected as a comprehensive full-text database covering all aspects of BC/DR.

The resource claims to be a convenient, expert collection providing full-text coverage of information relevant to many areas that are integral to BC/DR management. This includes business continuity management; business continuity planning; business impact analysis; contingency auditing; continuity of operations planning (COOP); crisis communications; disaster mitigation; emergency preparedness; organisational resiliency; regulatory issues; risk evaluation; and strategic planning.

Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Reference Center includes complete coverage of more than 150 publications—including journals, monographs, magazines, and trade publications— all with a strong focus on BC/DR and related issues. This database also offers tens of thousands of additional related articles, including benchmarks and best practices, selected from thousands of trade and industry publications. These provide examples of BC/DR practices from corporations, medical facilities, government agencies and academic institutions throughout the world. Much of this content is available in a searchable PDF format, making it simple for users to access and utilise. This resource also includes complete full text with images, tables, charts and other graphical content from numerous key titles.

The new EBSCO product is designed to provide users with quick and easy access to vital information. In addition to EBSCOhost access, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Reference Center offers the ability to integrate into corporate intranets and portals.

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Journal Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering, published by non-profit scientific publisher IOP Publishing, UK, is presenting four topical reviews which have been published in the journal so far this year. These articles, available as part of the reviews collection on the journal's website, are currently free to read until December 31, 2011.

Topical reviews are commissioned review articles giving an overview of the current state of research. These have become well-known for their outstanding quality and research value.

Serving the multidisciplinary materials community through original contributions to modelling methods and applications, the journal publishes research papers covering topics including electronics structure and atomic level properties of materials, microstructural level phenomena and continuum-level modelling of materials. The journal particularly welcomes papers treating simulation related to the interpretation of experimental observations and linking synergistically theory and experiment.

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The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has announced the appointment of M. Luisa Simpson, an attorney with a strong background in intellectual property, trade law, and technology policy, as Executive Director, International Copyright Enforcement and Trade Policy. Simpson, who officially joins AAP on August 24, succeeds Patricia Judd who left AAP this summer to accept a teaching fellowship and pursue a career in academia.

Simpson comes to AAP from the Entertainment Software Association where, as Senior Counsel for Intellectual Property Policy, she has been responsible for developing and guiding the video game industry association’s work in the area of copyright and trade policy. As a working member of the International Intellectual Property Alliance, she knows the issues and individuals with whom she will continue to interact on behalf of AAP and its members.

The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the US book publishing industry. Its more than 300 members include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies. The protection of intellectual property rights in all media, the defense of intellectual freedom, and the promotion of reading and literacy are among the Association’s primary concerns.

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The latest edition of blogspeak is now online. Featured are Jason Hoyt (Who is killing science on the Web? Publishers or Scientists?); Philip Davis (Pubget: Time-saver or Content Aggregator?); Kent Anderson (Two Stories from the Management Trap); and pubconvict (Book Returnability). A service of Knowledgespeak.com, Blogspeak includes blog posts relevant to the publishing industry, particularly STM publishing. Subscribers are invited to participate in the latest edition of blogspeak Here

The UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has announced a £10 million funding for the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). The funds will be used for a significant increase in the Institute's data storage and handling capacity.

The move marks the UK’s first substantial commitment to the emerging pan-European science project. It is seen as the first step in developing the existing data resources and IT infrastructure of EMBL-EBI towards its planned role as the central hub of the emerging European Life-Science Infrastructure for Biological Information (ELIXIR). It is expected that the investment will place the UK at the forefront of the multinational initiative. The total cost of establishing ELIXIR is estimated at over £200 million.

ELIXIR is an initiative involving 32 partners from 13 countries aimed at establishing a sustainably funded infrastructure for biological information in Europe. It will support life science research and its applications to medicine, agriculture and food security, the environment, the bio-industries and society. The UK's involvement in ELIXIR is supported by BBSRC, MRC, NERC and the Wellcome Trust.

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Global library cooperative Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC), US, has announced four new agreements signed with European national libraries and affiliated institutions. The agreements are seen to significantly increase the coverage of records in WorldCat and the visibility of libraries in WorldCat.org within the Europe and Middle East regions. The latest agreements, in Denmark, Switzerland, Slovenia and Israel, are expected to show that libraries from around the globe are responding very positively to the opportunity that WorldCat offers to streamline workflows and increase visibility in WorldCat.org. A global destination web site for libraries, WorldCat.org seeks to surface to a worldwide community the collections they hold and the services they deliver.

In Denmark, OCLC and DanskBibliotekCenter (DBC) have agreed to load the Danish National Union Catalogue (DanBib) with holdings into WorldCat. DBC is responsible for providing the Danish national digital infrastructure as well as managing its national union catalogue. The agreement is the result of a year-long pilot coordinated with the Danish Agency for Libraries and Media (DALM), the governmental administrative and advisory body responsible for public and research libraries. The pilot took place with the participation of academic and public libraries from across Denmark and will add about 10 million Danish records in WorldCat. In addition, a connection between WorldCat.org and bibliotek.dk will be orchestrated. Bibliotek.dk is a national service managed by DBC to enable Danish citizens to request and receive items from any library in Denmark, free-of-charge via the web.

In Switzerland, OCLC and the Informationsverbund Deutschschweiz (IDS) have signed an agreement to load the records from the five IDS consortia to WorldCat. IDS, which also includes the National Libraries of Luxembourg and Liechtenstein in their number, will be loading about 10 million bibliographic records and 16 million holdings records. It is looking to get a higher visibility for the libraries of Switzerland through WorldCat.org as well as gaining access to the 130 million records in WorldCat for cataloguing purposes.

In Slovenia, OCLC have finalised an agreement to load 3 million records later this year with IZUM, an organisation which represents the interests of over 380 academic, public and other libraries. IZUM is engaged in the development and operation of the COBISS (Co-operative Online Bibliographic System and Services), which represents the core of the library information system along with shared cataloguing and other library automation applications in Slovenia. IZUM also provides users with free access to different foreign databases and services, including OCLC FirstSearch.

And finally in Israel, Malmad, a consortium of over 30 academic institutions, has just secured as part of its OCLC cataloguing subscription a complete retrospective batch load of holdings data into WorldCat. This is projected to ensure that all holdings will be visible through OCLC Connexion, OCLC FirstSearch and WorldCat Resource Sharing.

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Electronic content delivery solutions provider Impelsys, US, has announced that the American Medical Association (AMA) has launched an e-book portal using iPublishCentral, its self-service e-publishing platform. iPublishCentral enables publishers to market, distribute and monetise traditional print content through electronic channels.

For instance, the e-book version of Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, sixth edition, contains clarifications and corrections that were not defined until after the book published. The AMA has recently reprinted the book and is using this opportunity to introduce its existing customer base to the electronic version. Direct purchasers can currently receive a two-year subscription to the downloadable e-book as a replacement offer for the reprinted publication. iPublishCentral allows a migration path to a planned suite of e-products that will be available on Impelsys’ iPlatform in the future.

By going online with iPublishCentral, the AMA seeks to provide its members the flexibility and benefit of accessing AMA-published content from anywhere.

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The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has announced a partnership with academic publisher Palgrave Macmillan to publish the journal BioSocieties, starting March 2010.

A quarterly publication, BioSocieties explores the social, ethical and policy implications of developments in the life sciences and biomedicine. The journal explores the most important points of exchange and dialogue that need to occur, and are occurring, between life scientists and social scientists in this biotechnological age. It examines the substantive contributions that social scientists can make to understanding the ever increasing role of the biomedical research in our everyday lives. Also, it demonstrates how social science analysis makes a difference to research, policy and practice.

Palgrave Macmillan, the academic publishing division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, will take over publishing duties from Cambridge University Press from Volume Five in March 2010. The editorial operation of BioSocieties will continue unchanged.

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Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced the immediate availability of EndNote X3 for Mac OS X - the bibliographic management software that includes EndNote Web and is used by millions of researchers, librarians and students worldwide. EndNote X3 claims to increase productivity for researchers by delivering new ways to group references and find full text when off campus, expanding AppleScript support for key EndNote tasks, offering new composite styles popular with chemistry journals, and more.

EndNote X3 expands the existing AppleScripts so users can enhance searches as well as add references to groups. AppleScripts can also match existing EndNote references with local PDF files through the use of DOI and PMCID unique identifier data. EndNote X3 provides a detailed dictionary and documentation to help users automate these repetitive tasks and more. It offers more ways to format bibliographies, including the ability to manage multiple bibliographies within a Word document. Now a paper can have a bibliography at the end of each section, at the end of the document, or both. Additionally, EndNote X3 supports composite styles - popular with chemistry journals - that group citations by number and letter.

EndNote X3 users can now create groups containing both Custom and Smart Groups, providing more options for viewing and organising their references. The main and sub-groups can be re-arranged at any time with a simple drag-and-drop action.

Other features of the upgrade include comparing duplicate records side-by-side for easy review; start EndNote faster; use more options when compressing EndNote libraries; and connect and publish with over 3,900 connection files, more than 700 Import files and over 3,700 journal styles.

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Medical information provider Wolters Kluwer Health (WK Health), US, has announced that it has appointed Reid Sherline as Vice President of e-Strategy of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins' digital learning and reference solutions for medical and allied health professionals.

Sherline brings to WK Health over fifteen years of experience in developing digital product and learning solutions. He was most recently Senior Vice President of Digital Media for the education unit of Macmillan Publishing Inc. Under his leadership, Macmillan Publishing acquired, developed and launched more than 1,000 e-learning products in 16 disciplines.

In his new position, Sherline will be responsible for creating, implementing and directing LWW's online businesses and associated products and services. With a thorough understanding of customers, competition and overall market needs, he will lead new initiatives for revenue growth and increased market share.

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