OCLC has announced that it has launched CONTENTdm hosting services in Australia. Twenty-seven libraries throughout Australia and New Zealand are part of the more than 2,500 libraries, archives, museums and other cultural heritage institutions around the world using OCLC's CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management Software to manage their digital collections and make them available on the web. Of the 27 libraries, 25 are part of the CONTENTdm software 'quick start' programme, which makes each Te Puna member, Amlib, VDX or OCLC WorldShare Management Services user eligible for its own CONTENTdm licence hosted in the OCLC Sydney Data Center at no additional cost.
OCLC recently launched CONTENTdm hosting services for Australia/New Zealand, which enables libraries in the region to have their CONTENTdm collections hosted in the Sydney Data Centre. Using the Sydney Data Centre, these libraries can expect to realise faster response times and better performance. In the past few years, more libraries have switched to CONTENTdm hosting services for operational support rather than allocating their own staff and hardware to run the software on their own servers.
CONTENTdm software makes it possible for libraries to make their digital collections available online quickly for viewing by the public. No matter the format-local history archives, newspapers, books, maps, slide libraries or audio/video-the digital collections are made available to all, according to the company. One-of-a-kind documents are exposed to broader audiences and can be discovered using standard web browsers.
For the Hornsby Shire Library in New South Wales, CONTENTdm 'quick start' has allowed for copies of the famous Ginger Meggs cartoon series to be made available for online public viewing. Hosted on servers in the nearby OCLC Sydney Data Centre, these materials are now reaching a global audience.
In Western Australia, the City of Armadale has made hundreds of historical images accessible online through its customised CONTENTdm website, Picture Armadale. Picture Armadale allows patrons to discover events and to glimpse the faces of those who shaped the City of Armadale and the townships within. One such collection is the Armadale Womens Emergency Corps (AWEC). More than 50 female volunteers were involved in AWEC and trained to perform various support roles during World War II.
In addition to hosting CONTENTdm services, more than a dozen libraries are operating OCLC WorldShare Management Services from the OCLC Sydney Data Centre. The Sydney Data Centre employs state-of-the-art technologies to ensure high levels of performance, reliability, scalability and cost-effectiveness. Key facilities features include high performance Internet services with multiple service providers to ensure efficient routing, fully redundant heating and cooling systems, continuous power from multiple sources, and best of breed security controls and practices.
The Data Centre also enables OCLC to comply with access and data privacy requirements in Australia and New Zealand and adhere to technical standards that promote the cost-effective, worldwide sharing of information across platforms, scripts, languages and cultural materials.
STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the revamping of Mosby's Index, stated to be the most robust journal abstracts and indexing database available for nurses and other healthcare professionals. Offering a broad range of content and search results from more than 3,150 international source titles, Mosby's Index is now in an easier-to-navigate format with more searching power.
Mosby's Index is part of Mosby's Suite, which connects clinicians to authoritative information and powerful technology to provide the resources necessary to consistently provide optimal patient care.
The new Mosby's Index is said to offer a simple, intuitive interface, filters to narrow search results, and easier access to Drug and Disease Subheadings, among other enhancements. It also includes improved timesaving tools such as e-mail alerts, saved searches and the capability to share search results.
Open access publisher BioMed Central, UK, has announced the launch of the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications (ANC). ANC will publish work on pathology and mechanisms of neurological disease using structural, molecular and cellular techniques.
The sister of Acta Neuropathologica, a journal published by Springer with an Impact Factor of 9.32 (2011), ANC will focus on publishing only high quality articles that do not need major revisions. This will allow for fast, continuous open access publication. Both are led by Editor-in-Chief Werner Paulus, a Professor of Neuropathology at University Hospital Münster, Germany.
Included in the launch articles, Lang et. al review the evidence of the α-synuclein pathology of Parkinson's Disease as described by Braak. They discuss the challenges of the Braak Hypothesis, suggesting how Prion-like processes may mediate the pathology progression. In another article, Nagy et. al provide insight into the mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease.
STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the publication of a clinical guide by the European Menopause and Andropause Society (EMAS) in the journal Maturitas. The guide is on endometrial assessment in peri and postmenopausal women with summary recommendations.
The main onus of endometrial assessment is to exclude carcinoma of the endometrium and premalignant endometrial hyperplasia, according to the EMAS guide. Assessment of the endometrium in the absence of bleeding should be limited to women at high risk of endometrial cancer. Transvaginal ultrasound scanning (TVS) is used for initial assessment to be followed by endometrial biopsy to be undertaken as an outpatient procedure if possible. Hysteroscopy allows direct visualisation of the endometrial cavity and any focal lesions. Should results be inconclusive and abnormal or postmenopausal bleeding persist, transvaginal ultrasound should be repeated and hysteroscopy performed.
These and other recommendations presented in the clinical guide, by Eva Dreisler, Lars Grønlund Poulsen and others.
Maturitas is an international multidisciplinary peer reviewed scientific journal of midlife health and beyond, publishing original research, reviews, consensus statements and guidelines. The scope encompasses all aspects of post-reproductive health in both genders ranging from basic science to health and social care.
The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) has introduced a new website, populated with survey data provided by over 4,000 scientists, to showcase connections among research subdisciplines at the interface of chemistry and biology. The development of the resource, part of an initiative designed to showcase the breadth and depth of content that ACS publishes in these areas, reportedly benefited from market research that provided new insights about researchers who work at the nexus of chemistry and biology.
More than a third of the 42 peer-reviewed journals published by the ACS contain research that is biological in nature. They include broad-topic journals such as Biochemistry and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry as well as titles in fields such as chemical biology, molecular pharmaceutics, neuroscience and synthetic biology.
Respondents to the ACS survey affirmed the view that certain traditionally broad areas of research inquiry, such as biochemistry, are becoming increasingly fragmented and hyper-specialised. When asked to identify their area of scientific focus, 46 percent of respondents selected five or more subdisciplines. In addition, findings from in-depth focus groups revealed that 'search and retrieve' content consumption risks stifling innovation, and that researchers seek more cross-discipline exposure.
To help address these concerns, the new website enables readers to select their primary area of interest from a graphical map, see connections to interrelated fields and choose relevant ACS journals that publish research in these areas. Users are encouraged to explore sample content by viewing free issues. The website also features a video highlighting studies by scientists engaged in interdisciplinary research, and a guide that provides a comprehensive overview of writing a scientific manuscript for today's digital age. The guide focuses on enhancing discoverability of published research, and covers topics such as the importance of keywords and visuals, how to leverage social media to reach a broader audience, measuring an article's influence and how to choose the peer-reviewed journal best positioned to reach the author's intended audience.
