Publishing Technology plc, a UK-based provider of software and services to the publishing industry, has announced that its flagship collection of e-publications, ingentaconnect, now has a distinct and vibrantly re-energised look and feel. The new design is the second phase of the platform's regeneration, with further releases to follow. Additional improvements and upgrades will include a new Publisher Statistics package, integration with an award winning search engine, enhanced ahead of print functionality, and additional content, amounting to 3600 new titles.

Phase one of the enhancements included a release in March this year which featured early compliance with Shibboleth 2, as well as RightsConnect integration and improved Open Access support, amongst many other improvements to enhance its user experience.

Containing 13,500 scholarly and professional publications from 255 leading international publishers and with 2.5 million unique users per month, ingentaconnect maintains its status as a trusted and established research resource. It continues to be committed to ensuring visibility of publisher's content via library technology. Partnerships with Summon, Primo Central and EBSCO Discovery Service guarantee publisher's content is discoverable via the latest range of library products.

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Digital content products and technologies provider ebrary, US, has announced that its flagship subscription e-book database, Academic Complete, now exceeds 50,000 titles from leading publishers. Academic Complete continues to be the largest multidisciplinary e-book database licensed to libraries throughout the world, under a simultaneous, multi-user access model with continual growth.

Furthermore, ebrary's Academic Complete, Government Complete, Public Library Complete, and College Complete are the only e-book products that enable libraries to upload and integrate their own digital materials such as theses and dissertations, yearbooks, and newspapers with DASH! (Data Sharing, Fast).

Academic Complete includes e-books, reports, maps, and other authoritative titles from publishers including The McGraw-Hill Companies, John Wiley & Sons, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and many others. The selection may be previewed at http://site.ebrary.com/lib/academiccompletetitles.

Academic Complete is an interactive eBook database that covers all academic subject areas. The collection currently includes more than 30,000 titles from more than 220 of the world's leading academic, STM, and professional publishers. The database is available 24/7 through any web-enabled device including the iPad.

Additional key features and benefits of Academic Complete include text-to-speech and other accessibility features; continued collection growth at no extra cost throughout the subscription term; free MARC records; COUNTER-compliant usage statistics; and multiple options for searching, navigating, and browsing.

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Information services provider Atypon Systems, Inc., US, has announced the launch of a refreshed website for US-based non-profit publisher Annual Reviews.

The new website, www.AnnualReviews.org, is powered by Literatum, a platform used by professional and scholarly publishers to manage, deliver and monetise their digital content. It includes innovative features that make it easier for researchers to find principal contributions in their field and stay up to date with new developments. These include the ability to quickly preview an article's figures from tables of contents, search results, and most popular content pages; tag-along navigation that keeps an article's figures, references, and related content visible while moving through the article; and snippets from cited Annual Reviews articles that accompany the references, giving insight into the context of the citations.

Annual Reviews provides the worldwide scientific community with a useful and intelligent synthesis of the primary research literature for a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines. Its publications are among the most highly cited in scientific literature as indexed by the Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

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BioOne, US, a web-based aggregator of research in biological, ecological and environmental sciences, has announced six new titles and their respective not-for-profit publishers to the 2011 BioOne Collections. These new titles are seen to further enhance the company's resource offerings.

Four titles from the National Museum of Natural History, Paris, France, will join the BioOne.2 collection. These include Adansonia, Anthropozoologica, Geodiversitas, and Zoosystema. The American Bryological and Lichenological Society, publisher of The Bryologist, will add their second publication, Evansia, to BioOne.1. The flagship journal of the Netherlands Ornithologists' Union, Ardea, will also join the BioOne.1 collection.

With the January 2011 addition of these new titles, BioOne will be home to 166 total publications, 114 of which are ISI-ranked. Furthermore, 65 of BioOne's titles have their current content available online exclusively through the BioOne platform, and 31 titles are based outside of the US. In addition to its two subscribed collections, BioOne continues to be home to twelve open access publications, freely available to all users and fully integrated with the subscribed titles.

2011 rates for both the BioOne.1 and BioOne.2 collections reflect a price increase of 4 percent over 2010. Institutions subscribing to both collections will receive a 5 percent discount on their BioOne.1 subscription.

Additionally, effective January 2011, Journal of Great Lakes Research, published by the International Association for Great Lakes Research (to Elsevier), will no longer add new content to BioOne. In accordance with both BioOne standard policy and Project Transfer guidelines, all issues previously hosted on BioOne from departing titles will remain accessible to subscribers in perpetuity.

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Information services provider Atypon Systems, Inc., US, has announced that medical and scientific publisher Informa Healthcare is now publishing books on the redesigned informahealthcare.com platform, powered by Atypon's Literatum software.

Literatum is a platform used by professional and scholarly publishers to manage, deliver and monetise their digital content. Publishing organisations such as JSTOR, the American Chemical Society, de Gruyter, and Annual Reviews are using Literatum to provide controlled access to journals, books, reference works, and other types of publications.

Informa Healthcare, a division of Informa plc, publishes authoritative research and analysis as well as up-to-date news for all sectors of the healthcare and life sciences community. The company partnered with Atypon to deliver a single publishing platform for both books and journals. It has now decided to add more than 600 book titles to the 170 journals on informahealthcare.com to allow users to search across content type to easily obtain critical research.

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Digital content products and technologies provider ebrary, US, has announced that it has enhanced its Public Library Complete Pilot Program with more than 800 e-books from AMACOM, Ballantine Books, Bantam Books, Chelsea House, Global Media, and other leading publishers. Public Library Complete now includes a growing selection of over 21,700 multi-user access e-books as well as free access for public high schools, do-it-yourself e-publishing tools, and complimentary marketing services and training.

Additionally, to ensure that ebrary develops the best possible products and technologies for public libraries, and to better understand their needs, the company is creating a new advisory board of public and state librarians. Anyone interested in participating or receiving additional information may email tish.wagner@ebrary.com.

ebrary's Public Library Complete Pilot Program includes a growing collection of over 21,700 full-text e-books from leading publishers such as Random House, Penguin, The McGraw-Hill Companies, and Taylor & Francis in multiple subject areas for schools & studying, career development, fiction, practical life skills, arts & leisure, and more. The programme also provides affordable, subscription-based pricing with simultaneous, multi-user access; free access for local public high schools in the public library's service district; DASH! (Data, Sharing Fast) for uploading, integrating, and sharing searchable databases of government forms, community college programmes, ephemera, special collections, and more; and complimentary marketing services and 24/7 web-based training with a real person.

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Information services provider Atypon Systems, Inc., US, has announced that Canadian Science Publishing, doing business as NRC Research Press, will launch a new publishing platform using the company's Literatum software.

NRC Research Press is a Canada-based scientific publisher, publishing 15 journals in all scientific disciplines. The Press recently became an independent not-for-profit corporation, having previously operated as a division of the National Research Council of Canada, a government entity.

Literatum is a leading platform used by professional and scholarly publishers to manage, deliver and monetise their digital content. Publishing organisations such as JSTOR, the American Chemical Society, de Gruyter, and Annual Reviews are using Literatum to provide controlled access to journals, books, reference works, and other types of publications.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that it is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its online scientific research platform, ScienceDirect. The tenth anniversary also marks the addition of the ten millionth article to the database, which contains full-text articles and book chapters. The ten millionth full-text article added to the database was: Use of Herbal Products and Potential Interactions in Patients With Cardiovascular Diseases, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, authored by A. Tachjian, V. Maria, A. Jahangir from the Division of Cardiovascular Disease, Mayo Clinic, Rochester and the Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, USA.

ScienceDirect became fully operational in 2000 when it surpassed one million articles and launched its backfiles initiative, adding literature published prior to 1994. According to Elsevier, it has since then become the largest and most extensive resource of its kind. The platform was created to help scientists quickly find the most relevant content for their specific research objectives by offering search, reference and discovery tools. Institutions worldwide currently offer ScienceDirect to their faculty and students, with up to twenty articles downloaded per second from the platform. ScienceDirect has more than 100 million outbound links to cited or related articles, as well as links to other scientific databases.

Continuously seeking ways to accelerate research, ScienceDirect underwent a full platform redesign in 2006 focused on navigational improvements. As a result, researchers were able to cut the number of clicks required for some of the most common search activities by 40 – 50 percent, thereby speeding up the knowledge discovery process.

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Digital content products and technologies provider ebrary, US, has announced that all libraries within the City University of New York (CUNY) have subscribed to Academic Complete.

CUNY is a leading urban public university serving more than 480,000 students in New York City. Twenty-three institutions including Baruch College, Hunter College, and City College of New York can now offer students and faculty simultaneous, multi-user access to a growing e-book database with more than 48,400 titles, research tools, and their own digital archives created with DASH! (Data Sharing, Fast), a complimentary, do-it-yourself e-publishing feature of Academic Complete.

Academic Complete is an interactive eBook database that covers all academic subject areas. The collection currently includes more than 30,000 titles from more than 220 of the world's leading academic, STM, and professional publishers. It continues to grow at no additional cost to customers throughout the subscription term. The database is available 24/7 through any web-enabled device including the iPad. Additional key features and benefits of Academic Complete include text-to-speech and other accessibility features; continued collection growth at no extra cost throughout the subscription term; free MARC records; COUNTER-compliant usage statistics; and multiple options for searching, navigating, and browsing.

ebrary will be demonstrating Academic Complete as well as other products and services at the ALA conference, scheduled for June 26-28, 2010, in Washington DC.

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The Association of American University Presses (AAUP) has announced a new benefit programme in partnership with NetGalley, a web-based service that provides tools for publishers to share digital galleys and press kits. In addition to reaching traditional reviewers and media contacts, university presses can use NetGalley to share digital galleys with the international rights market, librarians, booksellers and retailers, bloggers and professors requesting desk copies.

The cost of NetGalley for an AAUP member publisher will depend on the number of titles hosted on the site each month. Regardless of their level of participation, AAUP members are eligible to receive a 10 percent discount off the normal NetGalley monthly subscription rate. Environmental information and solutions provider Island Press is one of the first AAUP members to subscribe.

NetGalley provides the real-time transmission of digital galleys and multimedia press kits. Publishers can also allow readers to request a printed galley. A major benefit of the programme is the opportunity for readers to download secure, searchable, full-colour digital galleys to their desktop or to devices such as the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, or Kobo eReader. For university presses, NetGalley can aid in their desk/exam copy needs by allowing this process to be done faster, at lower cost and with real-time reporting on who is reading a title.

In addition to inviting existing contacts to view galleys, publishers can also list their titles in NetGalley's catalogue and approve requests from NetGalley members. NetGalley offers a range of marketing programmes to reach qualified readers via email, social networking, online trade advertising and at industry events.

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enTourage Systems, Inc., the US-based developer of a dualbook branded 'enTourage eDGe', has announced a partnership with publisher F.A. Davis to upgrade its e-book store with additional titles. The enTourage eDGe seeks to bridge multiple technologies into one device. With its hinged E-Ink and LCD screens, the device is designed to offer users the functionalities of an e-reader, tablet netbook, notepad and audio/video player and recorder in one unit. It also aims to provide the ability to leverage these tools to further engage and manipulate content.

Partnering with F.A. Davis is expected to allow enTourage Systems to provide students, educators and professionals the content they need with nearly 100 titles in the nursing, medicine and health sciences.

In addition to the content from F.A. Davis, enTourage Systems e-book store includes over 200,000 trade titles, e-textbooks, major magazines, newspapers and periodicals, as well as over one million free public domain books digitised by Google. The e-book store is projected as a key component to the enTourage Systems portfolio, providing a controlled user experience that also includes document back-up and sharing between devices.

The company's eDGe dualbook consists of two screens. A 9.7'' E-Ink screen lets users read e-books apart from taking notes and drawing diagrams. The other half, a Wi-Fi-enabled LCD screen for web browsing, also allows video viewing and Microsoft Office document editing and creating. The product is equipped with microphones, a camera and speakers.

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Digital content products and technologies provider ebrary, US, has announced a new pilot programme called Public Library Complete Pilot Program. The initiative seeks to combine more than 20,000 e-books from various publishers under a simultaneous, multi-user access subscription model; free access for local public high schools; do-it-yourself e-publishing tools; and complimentary marketing services. With this initiative, the company seeks to help public libraries address the growing needs of school students, job seekers and other library patrons.

Public libraries are seen as an important resource for local schools that have been hit hard in terms of materials budgets. They also serve as career counselors, helping unemployed patrons find work and others build their careers. Furthermore, public libraries are often the only place where patrons who do not own computers can gain access to government forms and other critical information. ebrary's Public Library Complete Pilot Program aims to give public libraries a helping hand to address these and other community needs.

Public libraries, systems, and consortia are invited to a breakfast focus group at ALA Annual, where ebrary will discuss the pilot programme in greater detail. It will also solicit input on trends, future business models for electronic content, challenges and other matters pertaining to the public library community. The session will be held on June 27 at the Four Points Sheraton in Washington DC.

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Digital media services company LibreDigital Inc, US, has announced that it has closed an $8.1 million Series C funding round led by new investor S3 Ventures with participation from existing investors Adams Capital Management and Triangle Peak Partners. The company's other key investors include HarperCollins Publishers, The New York Times Company and Noro-Moseley Partners.

The new capital infusion will be used by LibreDigital to expand e-book services for publishers looking to capitalise on the unprecedented demand for e-books, which is being driven by the release of new devices like the Apple iPad. In addition to being a top Apple e-book aggregator, LibreDigital also powers the delivery of content to other digital devices and marketplaces, including Barnes & Noble NOOK, Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, Google Editions and many more.

LibreDigital enables publishers, distributors and device manufacturers to securely market and deliver content across an expanding number of digital channels, including e-readers, tablets, smart phones, social networks and online stores. The company offers solutions designed to deliver digital books, newspapers and magazines in the highest quality format possible.

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OverDrive, a US-based distributor of e-books, audiobooks and digital content, has announced that it will release a series of applications that will combine e-books, audiobooks and interactive and multimedia content into one user-friendly application. The apps will be available for both mobile and desktop operating systems, including Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry. End users are expected to benefit from a single software solution for all OverDrive-supplied content, as well as on-the-go access to e-books from OverDrive-powered library and retail catalogues.

Android devices will be the first to experience OverDrive's app with integrated e-book reading features. The app will enable wireless downloads of premium, copy-protected e-books, as well as enhanced accessibility and usability features such as text-to-speech. This and other mobile apps are being developed under a licence agreement with Adobe and using the Adobe Reader Mobile 9 SDK. All OverDrive apps will support EPUB, PDF and e-book content protection functionality, including library lending and expiration.

For a preview of the OverDrive e-book apps, as well as other service enhancements, interested parties can visit booth 3258 at BookExpo America, May 26-27, in New York City. The company will also exhibit in the IDPF Digital Book Zone, booth 2323, at BEA.

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Spanish publishers Planeta, Random House Mondadori and Santillana, together with Roca Editorial, Wolters Kluwer, and Edicions 62, have reportedly launched a new e-book platform, Libranda. Libranda will offer one of the biggest selections of e-books in Spanish and Catalán. It will act as a digital distributor with no direct-to-consumer sales.

Libranda will offer its e-books in ePub format, limited by user and territory with Adobe DRM. Default settings will allow readers who buy e-books to download each title on up to 6 PCs and 6 mobile devices, though individual publishers will be able to set stricter limits if they wish. The platform will distribute books from prestigious independents Anagrama, Salamandra and Maeva. Libranda has also deals in place to roll out in June with major chain retailers. Participating publishers have the option of negotiating their own retailer discounts individually. As of now, there are no plans to provide e-books to libraries.

The launch of Libranda comes two weeks before Book Expo America in New York. In one of the first events of the Global Market Forum on May 25, 2010, Planeta CEO Jesus Badenes will join Larry Bennett from Baker & Taylor and Patricia Arancibia from BN.com to talk about the e-book markets in Spain and the US.

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Digital media content provider MediaNet, US, has announced the launch of a comprehensive eBook catalogue and product offering. The advanced MN Open platform will now support the integration of eBooks using an intuitive API that has been widely adopted by over 100 application developers, web publishers and online retailers for music offerings.

MediaNet will make available a broad catalogue of eBooks including the most popular titles that are available through major physical and online book sellers. These eBooks will initially be offered in the Adobe ePub and PDF formats which are compatible with a wide variety of devices including PC, Mac, Sony Reader, Nook and new entrants such as the Plastic Logic Que. Additional formats will be introduced as needed.

Currently there are applications available in the marketplace that will allow for compatibility with the ‘iDevices’ including the iPhone and iPad. Web publishers and application developers can access MediaNet’s eBook service through an API built on top of MediaNet’s enterprise class content delivery platform. MediaNet’s API provides complete control over the user experience, functionality, e-commerce and content catalogue. Online retailers can rapidly implement more advanced browsing, discovery, and purchase options under their own brand.

In May 2010, MediaNet will make available its popular suite of Web Components for the eBooks offering. With no coding required and a quick time to market, Web Components allow anyone to place dynamically displayed eBook content anywhere on the Web. This offers a contextually rich experience with eBooks content presented to end users in a relevant manner when they are most interested in an author or subject and likely to transact.

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Digital content products and technologies provider ebrary, US, has announced that it has added significant capabilities to QuickView. QuickView enables end-users to instantly view documents in many of the leading web browsers and even works on the iPhone.

ebrary customers worldwide can now discover information within e-books and other authoritative documents without having to download or install software. Enhancements to QuickView include ability to customise InfoTools, which turns every word into a portal to additional information, with online resources of the customer’s choice; print an entire chapter at a time (up to session limits); choice of four citation preferences; navigate to the previous or next page by double-clicking on the document; ability to select text and navigate throughout documents by finger swiping on the iPad and iPhone; and enable RefWorks, EndNote or both at the institution level.

Additionally, end-users can easily share ebrary citations with peers at other institutions. Anyone who clicks on the URL to an ebrary title will be automatically directed to the same document in their library’s ebrary collection (if available).

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Journal subscription services provider Swets, Netherlands, has announced that its eBook procurement portal has been fully integrated into SwetsWise and is now available to all customers. The eBooks procurement portal allows users to purchase both individual titles and eBook collections.

SwetsWise now provides the capability to browse, acquire and manage all eBook purchases through the same interface in which they manage their print and electronic journal subscriptions. Users can compare and contrast the different pricing and purchase models available from different providers. The procurement features included seek to provide customers with a single source for purchasing eBooks and a means to select the desired access route to their acquired content, be it by publishers directly or through an aggregator.

SwetsWise facilitates the essential interaction with publishers needed to ensure the timely delivery of subscriptions in the format information users and knowledge workers require. Its comprehensive eBook catalogue already contains about 300,000 titles, from more than 1000 publishers, with the number rapidly increasing daily. Titles and packages from some of the world’s leading aggregators are available to order.

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The University of Michigan Library’s Scholarly Publishing Office recently added 576 new backlist titles to the ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) online collection. This brings the total number of available titles in HEB to 2,790. The works represent more than two dozen disciplines and subject areas, including performance studies, sociology, literary criticism, and the history of the book.

ACLS Humanities E-Book database is a subscription-based, full-text collection of important scholarly works in all areas of the humanities, peer-reviewed and selected for inclusion by twenty different learned societies. The backlist titles are produced from printed books, and can be viewed as page images, OCR'd text, or PDFs. Frontlist titles are born-digital, fully-encoded texts that may include multi-media functionality such as images, audio, or video.

The Scholarly Publishing Office at the University of Michigan Library has been working with scholars to improve publishing since 2001. SPO publishes a broad range of material of interest to scholars in many fields. It works with scholars to design affordable and sustainable publishing solutions.

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Global library cooperative Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC), US, and electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing, US, have signed an agreement. Under the deal, EBSCO will purchase the assets of the OCLC NetLibrary Division and the rights to license a select number of vendor-owned databases currently available through the OCLC FirstSearch service. The purchase includes the NetLibrary eBook and eAudiobook platform as well as operations and infrastructure in Boulder, Colorado.

NetLibrary eBook content and eAudiobook subscriptions will continue to be available on the NetLibrary platform. EBSCO plans to provide access to the NetLibrary e-books content on EBSCOhost, an e-content platform, in a bid to create a comprehensive integrated e-books and database service. NetLibrary e-books will also continue to be accessible through WorldCat.org.

OCLC purchased the assets of NetLibrary in 2002 from bankruptcy in a bid to protect libraries’ investments in e-book content purchases, and to explore the potential of e-books for libraries during the early days of the web. OCLC members and publisher partners pioneered new e-book platforms, new purchase and licensing models and built a global shared e-book service for tens of thousands of libraries worldwide. OCLC has partnered with EBSCO to ensure wider access to the e-book resources of libraries.

All NetLibrary e-books purchased by libraries will be placed in a dark archive—the OCLC eBook Archive—at least through March 2013. The latest agreement with EBSCO is projected to ensure that all NetLibrary e-books purchased by libraries continue to be secure.

EBSCO will provide OCLC MARC records for applicable e-books to libraries free of charge and will ensure continued visibility of these collections in WorldCat.org. EBSCO also plans to maintain the e-books content purchase model and additionally explore e-books subscription options. Thousands of libraries also subscribe to Recorded Books eAudiobooks on the NetLibrary platform. This service will continue as EBSCO and Recorded Books will partner to provide access and new eAudiobook content on the NetLibrary platform.

EBSCO has also purchased the rights to license certain vendor-owned databases that are currently available via FirstSearch. Existing FirstSearch subscribers will continue to receive access to these databases on the FirstSearch service through the end of their current subscriptions. EBSCOhost access to these databases will be activated to run in parallel with FirstSearch access for the remainder of the current subscription.

OCLC will continue to deliver library content via the FirstSearch platform. The WorldCat database, the WorldCat base package of databases and databases of primarily library owned content will continue to be offered through both FirstSearch and WorldCat.org.

Moving forward, OCLC plans to concentrate new development resources on enhancing and expanding WorldCat services and developing new services to streamline and lower costs of library management workflows.

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Publishing-specific software solutions provider Publishing Technology plc, UK, has announced the latest release of IngentaConnect, its flagship collection of e-publications. Ingentaconnect now includes Shibboleth 2 integration in anticipation of the forthcoming industry-compliant deadline of June 30th. Compliance with Shibboleth 2, a standards based, open source software package for user authentication, is the latest in several advances made to ensure the platform remains future-proof for its publishers and its users.

IngentaConnect's compliance with the latest Shibboleth standard is enabled via OpenAthens SP, which also supports authentication for prior versions of Shibboleth to ensure continued access for those who have not yet applied for the newest standard and also other new technologies as the develop.

In addition to Shibboleth 2, other enhancements include Open Access support to more clearly identify free and Open Access content to users, improved visibility of purchase and download options. The release also includes integration with RightsConnect from the Copyright Clearance Center. A 'More about this publication? / More like this' feature shares additional information with readers, such as editorial board details and highlights related articles as recommendations, potentially driving more usage and revenue opportunities for hosted publishers.

In a related announcement, IngentaConnect has announced that three new clients have selected its online publishing package. Content from St Antony's International Review (STAIR), Northwestern University Press and Sense Publishers will all soon feature on IngentaConnect. Also, Content from City University of New York and Firenze University Press is now available.

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Scientific publisher CRC Press, US, part of the Taylor & Francis Group, has announced a partnership with publishing software provider Atypon to launch CRCnetBASE 2.0. The new web platform utilises Atypon’s software to combine all CRCnetBASE e-book content onto one website.

New features include individual book and chapter purchases, the ability to search across all disciplines, and built-in institutional account management. Users will now be able to access the entire CRCnetBASE catalogue of online content from one website, allowing them to conduct searches across multiple disciplines. Institutional account management tools have also been integrated within the new platform. Registered library administrators can view their IP ranges, add additional administrators, download COUNTER usage reports, and personalise their institutions site directly from their user account. Academic and corporate subscribers will continue to receive IP recognition access to CRCnetBASE.com with additional options for Athens and Shibboleth logins.

CRCnetBASE offers subscription and purchase access to over 6,000 scientific and technical e-books spanning 40 disciplines. Annual subscriptions and perpetual subscriptions are available for institutional, corporate, and academic customers.

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Library solutions provider Ex Libris Group, Israel, and digital content services provider Ingram Digital, US, have announced an agreement to make e-book content available through Ingram’s e-content aggregation platform, MyiLibrary. MyiLibrary e-book content will now be available to library users through the full suite of Ex Libris discovery products - Primo Central mega-aggregate of scholarly e-content, the SFX OpenURL link resolver and the MetaLib gateway and metasearch solution.

Libraries will benefit from the collaboration between Ingram and Ex Libris by having one search and discovery tool that can access the vast and comprehensive e-content catalogue of MyiLibrary, and by significantly increasing the breadth and depth of publisher content that libraries can make available to their patrons.

MyiLibrary is a fast-growing online e-content solution that currently includes hundreds of thousands of titles covering all major disciplines. Ingram Digital is the latest of the rapidly expanding group of aggregators who have chosen to make their content accessible to library users via Primo Central - a centralised index comprising data harvested from primary and secondary publishers and aggregators.

Ingram will provide metadata for all its MyiLibrary e-book titles for indexing in Primo Central. With Primo Central, users simultaneously search locally managed collections and global e-content and receive search results that are blended into a single relevance-ranked list. Primo Central is now undergoing beta testing by 14 Primo Central partner libraries around the world, and will be available to the more than 250 Primo customers and 1500 MetaLib customers in mid-2010.

Ex Libris will also use the MyiLibrary metadata to enhance the SFX OpenURL link resolver KnowledgeBase. SFX is used by over 1800 institutions in more than 50 countries. Released in 2001 as the first software of its kind, SFX offers a wealth of features that go far beyond basic link resolver functionality, including a comprehensive KnowledgeBase; an A-Z list; and CitationLinker, Collection Analysis, and Statistics modules.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) has agreed to acquire the complete ScienceDirect eBooks collections for 2008, 2009 and 2010. Libraries and patrons in CIC member institutions will now be able to access over 1,300 titles across 18 science, technical and medical subject areas.

CIC member institutions include Indiana University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. By providing access to the ScienceDirect eBooks collection, member patrons will gain access to the library as well as a powerful search and browse capability. Users will also be able to access instant links to relevant journal articles and innovative knowledge discovery features such as the NextBio Ontology-based semantic search tool.

CIC chose to acquire the eBooks collections based on evidence gathered from increasing patron adoption of retrospective content from the HathiTrust Digital Archive as well as robust uptake of current publisher content from a variety of sources. A careful analysis of current ebook usage among consortium member institutions was conducted last year, and participating schools found that when they worked together to make a critical mass of content accessible, it was immediately noticed and used by faculty and students.

Later this year, ScienceDirect will partner with selected libraries from CIC to conduct joint usage studies to better understand the value of these ebooks in driving world-class research, teaching and learning. Findings from this study will be shared with the global library and research community.

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Digital content products and technologies provider ebrary, US, has announced the availability of a new Software as a Service (SaaS) feature - Title Preview. The feature is projected to enable publishers, aggregators, corporations and other users to effectively market their digital content and increase leads.

Title Preview seeks to help organisations quickly and cost effectively create digital content products and distribute them directly to the markets of their choice. It offers features and benefits such as ebrary marketing services to assist with generating and tracking leads; customised landing page created by ebrary’s designer; ability to specify number of viewable pages; multiple searching options – simple and advanced; browse by topic; personal bookshelves to store titles of interest and email selections to peers; usage reports and statistics; and other ebrary interface features including InfoTools.

ebrary will be showcasing Title Preview and its other products and services at a number of upcoming events, including Online Information, December 1-3, 2009, in London (stand #600), and ALA Midwinter, January 15-18, 2010, in Boston (booth #1800).

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Digital content products and technologies provider ebrary, US, has announced that it has expanded its Library Center to include complimentary e-books for knowledge managers. The new Library & KM Center now features a growing selection of more than 140 titles from leading publishers along with tools that make it easy to find, use, and manage information online. Interested parties can register online at http:// tinyurl.com/librarykmcenterpr to gain access to the new Library Center.

ebrary offers corporations and government organisations a number of integrated products and services including full-text e-book, handbooks, manuals and other trusted content in key business and engineering subject areas. The company also offers content hosting services, which turn corporate PDF documents of any type into searchable and highly interactive databases. All ebrary products and services feature powerful research capabilities including InfoTools, which turns every word into a portal to additional knowledge within the organisation and on the web.

Additionally, ebrary’s products and services can easily be integrated within corporate intranets. The company will be demonstrating its full suite of content products and technologies at KM World, November 17-19, in San Jose California (Booth #121).

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Ovid, part of Wolters Kluwer Health, has announced a new licensing agreement with the Royal Society of Chemistry, a UK-based professional association and publisher of books, journals, and databases in the chemical sciences. Under the deal, Ovid will provide seamless online access to 46 of its ebooks on the OvidSP platform. As a leading aggregator of online scientific information, Ovid works with more than 150 international and society publishers.

All 46 books are the latest editions and have been published between 2006 and 2008. They will be available as annual subscriptions or as one-time purchases for perpetual access on Books@Ovid, OvidSP’s leading ebooks platform. All books are scheduled to be available on OvidSP by the end of October. The inclusion of these titles further strengthens Ovid’s offerings in biological chemistry, drug discovery, toxicology, food science, and energy and environmental science.

Books@Ovid offers a streamlined, efficient ebook search experience for novice and experienced online scholarly searchers. Users can search books simultaneously with their other online resources, and flexible search, results management, and workflow tools make online research fast and easy. With the addition of books from the Royal Society of Chemistry, Books@Ovid now offers access to over 2,500 books from the world’s premium publishers. In addition to the Royal Society of Chemistry, Ovid’s portfolio of ebooks publishing partners now totals ten. Additional partners include Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (Ovid’s sister company within Wolters Kluwer Health), Oxford University Press, Springer Science + Business Media, McGraw-Hill, and Jones & Bartlett.

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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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Global library cooperative OCLC has announced that its e-book and e-audiobook service, NetLibrary, now offers more than 200,000 eBooks and over 13,000 eAudiobooks from over 550 publishers in a variety of subject areas and disciplines. NetLibrary claims to be the first eContent provider to offer academic, public, special and school library users access to more than 200,000 eBook titles. Its multilingual eBooks include reference, business, computer science and information technology titles and more from the world's leading publishers of scholarly, trade, STM and reference eContent.

NetLibrary offers comprehensive collections in all core subject areas including humanities, physical sciences, technology, medicine and literature. Libraries can choose from tens of thousands of front-list and best-selling trade titles; ready reference materials including encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories and handbooks; and resources for students, teachers and faculty. NetLibrary also offers services and tools to help libraries streamline acquisitions, integrate eBooks into an integrated library system, and facilitate discovery of collections.

NetLibrary eAudiobooks integrate seamlessly with a library's existing NetLibrary eBook collections, providing library users with a single point of access. With increasing worldwide demand for electronic content, NetLibrary continues to enhance and expand its catalogue by partnering with pre-eminent publishers. In recent months, NetLibrary has added content from publishers such as American Psychiatric Publishing, Harvard University Press, McGraw-Hill Education Europe, Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, The Institution of Engineering and Technology, and more.

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Digital content products and technologies provider ebrary, US, has announced a new service called On-Demand Libraries, targeted at CRM (customer relationship management) and other Software as a Service (SaaS) providers. The service is projected to help SaaS providers show greater value to their customers, while offering end-users trusted information and tools they need to do their jobs more efficiently.

With On-Demand Libraries, SaaS providers can package their services with custom and branded collections of relevant e-books and other materials from publishers valued at tens of thousands of dollars. ebrary offers CRM software providers a selection of digital content in subjects ranging from sales & marketing to finance, human resources, business and leadership. The company also offers content complementary to many SaaS providers to vertical markets such as medical, legal and government. ebrary’s selection may be previewed at http://site.ebrary.com/lib/corptitles/home.action.

Additionally, SaaS providers may seamlessly integrate their own manuals, whitepapers, reports, or any document in PDF with their On-Demand Library, which features tools for efficiently finding, using and managing information online.

ebrary offers a selection of more than 170,000 digital books, handbooks, reports, maps, journals and other content from over 350 publishers across the world 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.

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Sony has signed agreements with publishing houses Smashwords and Authors Solutions that will permit e-books published or distributed by the two companies to be sold through the Sony eBook Store. Together with Sony, these companies will give independent authors and small publishers the opportunity to offer content through the eBook Store.

Established publishers as well as independent authors and smaller publishers can now access Sony’s newly re-launched Publisher Portal. This portal serves as an easy way for larger publishers who may not already have a relationship with Sony to get in touch. Also, it provides a way for individual authors or publishers with just a handful of titles to work with market-proven solution providers to publish books and make them available on Sony’s eBook store.

As Sony completes the conversion of its eBook store to the industry-standard EPUB format, Smashwords and Authors Solution will expand the offer to all existing Author Solutions and Smashwords authors to get their titles up on the Sony site. Author Solutions and Smashwords will offer authors the option to publish content in the EPUB format, the International Digital Publishing Forum’s (IDPF) XML-based standard format for reflowable digital books and publications. EPUB has gained acceptance among major trade book publishers with dozens of publishers already producing the majority of their eBooks using the standard. Sony recently announced that the company is transitioning its content library to the EPUB format.

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Electronic content delivery solutions provider Impelsys, US, has announced a strategic partnership with Audiomedia Production (AP), an audio production vendor to leading educational and trade publishers. The deal is to offer audio content for Impelsys’ VirtualPages. VirtualPages is a reader that quickly and cost-effectively converts print into electronic editions. Publishers can now have a single-vendor solution for all eBook production needs.

Together, Impelsys and AP enable the VirtualPages Talking eBook. Impelsys’ VirtualPages technology plus AP’s audio content transforms standard printed books into virtual electronic books that offer a variety of illustrative and audio features such as narration, individually clickable words and read-along colour-coding of words. Some other features include user customisation features to turn on/off the text highlights and/or audio Page flip feature; zoom in and zoom out; thumbnail view; jump to page; and links to Word Glossary 'Email to friend' option.

Impelsys and AP plan to continue to enhance the eBook experience, push technological limits and lead the direction in which the electronic publishing industry is headed. With a partnership like this in place, publishers and other industry affiliates will be able to take advantage of production and management cost savings by working with one vendor to implement a complete online strategy and offer a more attractive eBook production solution to clients.

Impelsys also offers a self-service electronic content delivery platform called iPublishCentral. iPublishCentral allows publishers of any size to make content available for sale online and promote their brands and titles across the Web through viral marketing. With minimal to no cost, publishers can transition content online and can offer readers a high-resolution digital reading experience with viewing/previewing, buying, renting and promotional capabilities through iPublishCentral, iPublishWidget and ViewInside.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that nearly 250 health sciences titles published and/or publishing in 2009 and 2010 will be launched in October. These new eBook collections cover clinical content in clinical medicine, veterinary medicine, and health professions. Elsevier will make these titles available electronically through ScienceDirect, its online scientific research platform. These new eBook collections follow the May release of titles published from 2000 to 2008, bringing the total Health Sciences eBooks on ScienceDirect to more than 870 titles.

Elsevier’s Health Sciences books are published under the imprints W.B. Saunders, Mosby, Churchill Livingstone, and Hanley & Belfus, publishers with a rich medical and health science publishing heritage dating back to 1688. The inclusion of these books on ScienceDirect will allow even more researchers across the world to access these valuable content resources.

Until May of this year, Elsevier’s medical and health sciences book titles had only been available through MD Consult for clinical practitioners and medical education; Evolve eBooks for health professions education; and Veterinary Consult for veterinary medicine education. The thousands of authors represented in the Elsevier medical and health sciences collections on ScienceDirect can now enjoy greater market visibility, increasing the potential for research collaboration and recognition.

The addition of the Elsevier Health Sciences 2009 and 2010 eBook Collections follows the successful launch of over 600 Health Sciences titles published from 2000 to 2008. These titles further contribute to the evolution of the ScienceDirect platform into a comprehensive and complete source of global scientific knowledge.

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British Library, the national library of the UK, has announced plans to extend its ‘New Ways of Reading’ display to encourage users to investigate new reading technology from the moment it is released. Under the initiative, the library is showcasing the Bloomsbury Library Online, a new service which allows readers to borrow e-books from their public libraries. Also, three new e-reader devices are on display. These include the COOL-ER reader and Sony’s ‘Pocket’ and ‘Touch’ Reader devices - not available in shops until September 10.

With the arrival of services such as the Bloomsbury Library Online - being showcased on the upper ground floor of the British Library from September 3 – readers will soon be able to view electronic content at their local library and remotely via Internet enabled devices. Run by Bloomsbury Publishing, this online service provides access to shelves of popular material by theme.

As well as demonstrating how content is being made available, the Library has added new hardware to its e-reader display. On August 26, Sony launched its two latest editions to the Sony Reader family at the Library. These allow users exclusive access to these two new models, now part of the display, before they are released in the shops on September 10. Easy to navigate with a single hand and small enough to fit in a jacket pocket, the Reader Pocket Edition is claimed to be ideal for commuters. The new models from Sony are joined by the ultra-light, user friendly COOL-ER Reader, designed by small British firm Interead. Offered in a range of colours, Interead has created a dedicated e-bookshop for the devices to make the upload process as simple as possible and bring e-readers to the non-technologically inclined masses.

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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 American Psychological Association (APA) has announced the release of APA Books E-Collections, a new way for institutions to purchase, own and provide access to APA scholarly and professional book content. APA Books E-Collections also offer the first in-year availability of APA's current copyright year book content in electronic format.

APA Books E-Collections comprise individual annual compilations of APA-published scholarly and professional book content grouped by copyright year, and are available for years 2001 through 2009. Coverage includes all APA scholarly and professional books with the exception of APA Style products, Magination Press children's titles, APA LifeTools trade book titles, encyclopedias, and other reference publications. All APA Books E-Collections provide electronic access to the full-text of each book and are delivered on APA PsycNET, APA's proprietary search platform.

APA now provides a choice of access models for electronic access to APA scholarly and professional books, enabling institutions the flexibility to choose the best model for their specific needs.

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John Smith & Son, an academic and professional bookselling chain in the UK, has released results of a study proving market demand for e-textbooks and confirming their value as a new revenue stream for publishers. The programme is powered by VitalSource, an interactive e-textbook platform offered by Ingram Digital, an Ingram content company focused on solutions for digital content management, distribution and promotion.

E-textbooks were sold using various sales models, with bundled print and e-textbooks proving more successful than e-textbooks sold as a discounted point-of-sale add-on or as a single full-price product. Not only were e-textbook sales strong in the first semester, but these encouraging sales have continued into the second semester, it has been observed.

The study also revealed that titles available digitally realised a decrease in used textbook sales. Used textbook sales force publishers to compete with their own material, leading to more frequent new editions and, subsequent higher costs for printed textbooks. Titles available digitally realised as much as a 68 percent decrease in sales of their used, printed counterparts in a year-to-year comparison.

John Smith's chose VitalSource for its ability to support multiple formats, flexible digital rights management and interactive features such as the ability to search within text, highlight in the book, copy and paste sections as needed and the ability to share notes with classmates and professors. After a successful pilot in 2007, the programme was expanded for the 2008 autumn semester, with almost 100 of John Smith's bestselling textbook titles available in digital and print.

Online publishing solutions provider Semantico Ltd., UK, has announced a redesign of its service offering around the introduction of 'rapid' versions of its online publishing platform, Semantico Information Publishing Platform (SIPP), and its identity and access management system, Semantico Access Management System (SAMS). The new rapid offering is projected to enable dramatically shortened implementation times and lower cost without sacrifice of quality. The move is expected to better meet the needs of publishers struggling to fund the development of their online offerings in the current financial climate. The company is also introducing a number of 'crunch-buster' service additions alongside its core offering.

Semantico, a developer of high-end custom digital publishing solutions, is now additionally offering lower entry points for its richly-featured publishing solutions, and faster time-to-market.

The basis of the rapid offering is a streamlined, 'Pareto principle' implementation which is seen to provide the vast majority of the functionality publishers look for in an online publishing platform and a clear upgrade path. SIPP is now offered in three versions - SIPP Rapid, SIPP Rapid+, SIPP Classic. All three come bundled with the corresponding version of SAMS (SAMS Rapid, SAMS Rapid+ or SAMS Classic), providing a fully integrated access management solution.

Each version offers an upgrade path allowing additional functionality and enhancements to be added at a later date. SAMS is also offered in all three versions as a stand-alone solution, which can be easily integrated with an existing publishing platform using SAMS Gatekeeper.

Digital content services provider Ingram Digital, US, has announced a significant increase in the student and faculty adoption of VitalSource, its interactive e-textbook platform. In January 2009, the platform saw more than a 600 percent rise over the same period in 2008.

VitalSource allows publishers to reach out to emerging digital markets while also protecting their content from illegal use and piracy. The interactive format allows users to search, highlight and annotate their texts. VitalSource-powered e-books can be downloaded to a user's PC or Mac, making them accessible anywhere, anytime - even when the user is no longer connected to the Internet. The VitalSource Bookshelf application stores, indexes and displays the e-books and functions as a virtual meeting place for readers to trade notes, tips and techniques.

Bookshelf, an interactive e-book reader, is claimed to experience continued exponential growth as e-books are increasingly adopted by the higher education community. After adding 100,000 new users over the course of its first 10 years, the number of users has tripled since June, surpassing 300,000 users in January 2009. In January alone, 44,453 users downloaded Bookshelf.

The Bookshelf platform enables social networking in the classroom by allowing students and faculty to share their notes with each other - another feature seen to be contributing to its rapid adoption. In January 2009, over 3 million notes and highlights were shared. Professors are also choosing to share their notes with students.

The latest version of the platform, Bookshelf 5.1, incorporates changes based upon feedback from users. It features faster search capabilities, cited as the most valuable feature by students, as well as improved print functions and enhanced organising and downloading capabilities.