New & Noteworthy

Citation

Hanson, H. and Stewart-Marshall, Z. (2015), "New & Noteworthy", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 32 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-03-2015-0022

New & Noteworthy

Article Type: New & Noteworthy From: Library Hi Tech News, Volume 32, Issue 3

UNESCO’s open access curriculum for researchers and librarians now online

“Building inclusive Knowledge Societies through information and communication” is one of the key objectives for UNESCO’s medium-term strategy. By adopting this objective, UNESCO Member States have recognized that knowledge plays a key role in economic growth, social development, cultural enrichment and democratic empowerment. This decision of the member states has influenced UNESCO’s open access (OA) program, through which the organization received a unique mandate to work on OA policy issues; bridge knowledge pools on OA across the world; and build capacities to better understand OA.

Within the overall framework of the organization’s strategy on OA, the recent launch of OA curricula for Researchers and Library Schools by UNESCO highlights its efforts for enhancing capacities to deal with OA issues. The carefully designed and developed sets of OA curricula for researchers and library and information professionals are based on two needs assessment surveys and several rounds of face-to-face and online consultations with relevant stakeholders.

These curricula will soon be converted into self-directed e-learning tools, which will enable users to self-assess their knowledge on OA and take a learning pace that is initiated and directed by the learners themselves. UNESCO also aims to strengthen this initiative by translating the OA curricula into several languages that will increase their reach and impact.

The complete set of five OA modules for researchers and four OA modules for library schools is now available online and can be downloaded at the following links:

1. OA for library schools:

• Module 1: Introduction to Open Access – http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002319/231920E.pdf

• Module 2: Open Access Infrastructure – http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002322/232204E.pdf

• Module 3: Resource Optimization – http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002322/232201E.pdf

• Module 4: Interoperability and Retrieval – http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002321/232199E.pdf

2. OA for researchers:

• Module 1: Scholarly Communications – http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002319/231938e.pdf

• Module 2: Concepts of Openness and Open Access – http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002322/232207E.pdf

• Module 3: Intellectual Property Rights – http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002322/232208E.pdf

• Module 4: Research Evaluation Metrics – http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002322/232210E.pdf

• Module 5: Sharing your Work in Open Access – http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002322/232211E.pdf

UNESCO promotes OA, with particular emphasis on scientific information (journal articles, conference papers and datasets of various kinds) emanating from publicly funded research. Working with partners, UNESCO works to improve awareness about the benefits of OA among policymakers, researchers and knowledge managers. Through its global network of field offices, institutes and centers, UNESCO facilitates the development and adoption of OA-enabling policies. In addition, UNESCO engages in global OA debates and cooperates with local, regional and global initiatives in support of OA.

Europeana newspapers project: searching historic newspapers from 23 European countries

As part of the Europeana Newspapers project, The European Library has developed a historic newspapers browser that enables users to perform full-text searches in millions of historic newspaper pages.

“For the first time in history we have the opportunity to do transnational comparative research on the basis of big data!” says Toine Pieters, digital humanities researcher from the University of Utrecht.

The prototype interface has undergone usability testing in Spring 2014. On the basis of the recommendations received, The European Library simplified the search page and made it possible to browse the content by date, newspaper title and geographic map. Before the end of the project, a further usability study will be carried out to test the improvements made. While the amount of content in the browser continues to grow rapidly, one can already explore 1.8 million historic newspaper issues and perform full-text searches across 7 million pages. By the end of January 2015, the browser will contain around 30 million newspaper pages from 25 libraries in 23 European countries. Users will be able to search:

• full text of more than 10 million historic newspaper pages;

• named entity recognition in Dutch, German and French to enable searches of names of people and geographic places; and

• metadata records of over 20 million historic newspaper pages.

“Having access to newspapers from across Europe […] allows us to look for circulation, not only for origins: to study routes rather than roots, to work on what we call transliteratures”, says Amélia Sanz, researcher and professor of comparative literature and cyber culture at Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Moreover, one can explore the historic newspapers as well as millions of other cultural heritage items at Europeana.eu, which recently embedded the historic newspaper viewer. The viewer is also available through The European Library for other cultural heritage institutions to embed in their digital environment.

“For researchers, such as historians, journalists, fact-checkers and genealogists, Europeana Newspapers will be the most important portal to consult historic newspapers in Europe. A source of great importance in construction”, says Eric Hennekam, archive specialist, member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism of the University of Groningen, VU University Amsterdam and the Flemish Mediacademy.

Historic newspaper content from the following libraries is available and constantly growing: National Library of France, National Library of The Netherlands, Dr Friedrich Teßmann Library, National Library of Estonia, National Library of Finland, National Library of Latvia, National Library of Poland, National Library of Turkey, Austrian National Library, Berlin State Library, State and University Library Hamburg, University Library of Belgrade, National Library of Wales, National Library of Bulgaria, National Library of the Czech Republic, National and University Library in Zagreb, National Library of Belgium, National and University Library of Slovenia, National Library of Portugal, National Library of Romania, National and University Library Iceland, National Library of Spain, National Library of Luxembourg, National Library of Slovakia, National Library of Serbia.

Search historic European newspapers: http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tel4/newspapers

Europeana Newspapers Project: http://www.europeana-newspapers.eu/

Freer and Sackler galleries launch “Open F|S” initiative on January 1, 2015

The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will release their entire collections online on January 1, 2015, providing unprecedented access to one of the world’s most important holdings of Asian and American art. The free public resource – called “Open F|S” – will launch at open.asia.si.edu, allowing anyone to explore and create with the collections, from anywhere in the world. The vast majority of the 40,000 artworks have never before been seen by the public, and more than 90 per cent of the images will be in high resolution and without copyright restrictions for non-commercial use.

The Freer and Sackler galleries are the first Smithsonian and the only Asian art museums to digitize and release their entire collections, and in so doing, join just a handful of museums in the USA. The public is encouraged to use the images for educational, scholarly, artistic and personal projects that will not be marketed, promoted or sold. Enthusiasts are encouraged to provide feedback for “Open F|S” by signing up to become a beta tester for the Freer|Sackler. Beta testers who sign up will receive exclusive hackathon invitations and closed test versions of future “Open F|S” iterations.

In the initial release, each work will be represented by one or more stunningly detailed images at the highest possible resolution, with complex items such as albums and manuscripts showing the most important pages. Future iterations of “Open F|S” will offer additional functionality such as sharing, curation and community-based research. The launch will be accompanied by an infographic visually representing the initiative and collection holdings, and some of the most popular images will be available for download as free mobile backgrounds, desktop wallpapers and social media headers.

Beginning on January 2 with a post by Courtney O’Callaghan, chief digital officer at the Freer and Sackler galleries, museum insiders will share their rarely seen favorites culled from the digital collections in a new “Friday Fave” weekly series on Bento, the museum’s blog.

Responses to frequently asked and anticipated questions are available online, and full legal details are available in the Smithsonian’s terms of use for digital assets.

While “Open F|S” is the galleries’ largest digital initiative to date, it joins other recent projects designed to increase global accessibility. The Freer and Sackler galleries participated in the launch of both Google’s Art Project and the Google’s Cultural Institute’s online exhibition tool. Additionally, the galleries have converted almost 400 full-length performances at the Freer’s Meyer Auditorium by world-renowned musicians into digital format for streaming and download. The Freer|Sackler galleries also boasts several three-dimensional (3D) models on the Smithsonian X 3D Web site – including the “Cosmic Buddha” – and offers the public online exhibitions and free downloadable apps.

Open F|S: http://open.asia.si.edu

Open F|S Frequently Asked Questions: http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/faq/

Digital scholarship centers report and Web resource available from Coalition for Networked Information

An emerging trend that the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) has been highlighting for the past few years is the establishment of digital scholarship centers or labs in universities and colleges. CNI invited participation in a workshop, Digital Scholarship Centers: Trends and Good Practice, to document the current centers and identify good practice, in April 2014, and 24 institutions who had centers up and running responded to the call. Each participating center completed a template describing its mission, a key project, types of staff available and services offered. The workshop included sessions on describing how the center had been established, the types of staff involved, the range of services, links to teaching and learning (as links to research were a given) and organizational issues.

CNI has now released its Web resource on Digital Scholarship Centers. The site includes a report of the workshop, the slides associated with presentations given at the workshop and the descriptions of centers contributed by each institution that participated.

Digital Scholarship Centers: Trends and Good Practice: http://www.cni.org/events/cni-workshops/digital-scholarship-centers-cni-workshop/

Ebooks in education: Realizing the vision – new publication from JISC

Ebooks are coming of age in education, as this new collection commissioned by JISC demonstrates.

Case studies, reflecting ebook success stories across the higher and further education sectors, include:

• An innovative app to encourage ebook take-up in a Welsh college.

• A partnership between a library and research center to create open access monographs and midigraphs.

• Several examples of creative negotiations with ebook publishers.

Insight chapters address hot topics in the ebook universe, including:

• The changing world of access to scholarly digital content in the mobile environment.

• The challenges faced by the library as online distance learning moves from margin to mainstream.

• How ebooks have the potential to meet a wide range of accessibility needs.

• Experimentation with ebooks as a shared service.

This collection will provide inspiration and guidance to institutions as they develop projects and services to support students and researchers and will be of interest to library practitioners, publishers, ebook vendors, information professionals, teachers, lecturers and students. JISC, in collaboration with Ubiquity Press, is pleased to be making this publication available open access on a CC-BY license.

Read/download: http://www.ubiquitypress.com/site/books/detail/10/ebooks-in-education/

Monographs and open access: new report from Higher Education Funding Council for England

The Monographs and Open Access Project was set up to consider the place of monographs in the arts, humanities and social science disciplines, and how they fit into the developing world of open access to research. The project was led by Geoffrey Crossick, Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and was commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Evidence to support the project was gathered through a program of consultations, surveys, data-gathering and research activities. The research was supported and shaped by an Expert Reference Group of publishers, academics, librarians, funders, open access experts in the UK and overseas.

The main findings of the report are as follows:

• Monographs are a vitally important and distinctive vehicle for research communication, and must be sustained in any moves to open access. The availability of printed books alongside the open-access versions will be essential.

• Contrary to many perceptions, it would not be appropriate to talk of a crisis of the monograph; this does not mean that monographs are not facing challenges, but the arguments for open access would appear to be for broader and more positive reasons than solving some supposed crisis.

• Open access offers both short- and long-term advantages for monograph publication and use; many of these are bound up with a transition to digital publishing that has not been at the same speed as that for journals.

• There is no single dominant emerging business model for supporting open access publishing of monographs; a range of approaches will coexist for some time, and it is unlikely that any single model will emerge as dominant. Policies will therefore need to be flexible.

HEFCE will consider this report and discuss its policy implications with other research funders including AHRC and ESRC, recognizing that any steps toward policies for open access monographs should be preceded by a thorough process of consultation and engagement.

Read/download the report: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rereports/Year/2015/monographs/Title,101531,en.html

Full report on knowledge unlatched proof-of-concept pilot now available

Cultural Science Journal has published a full report on the Knowledge Unlatched (KU) Pilot project, “Knowledge Unlatched: A Global Library Consortium Model for Funding Open Access Scholarly Books; Full Report on the Proof-of Concept Pilot 2014” The report provides information about the KU proof-of-concept Pilot, which took place between January 2012 and September 2014.

The report comprehensively reviews the KU Proof-of-Concept Pilot Collection, providing detailed analysis of how the Pilot was designed and funded, the process of engaging publishers and libraries in the Pilot, library participation, as well as data on use of the Pilot Collection during its first six months online.

The Pilot involved libraries, publishers, authors, readers and research funders in the process of developing and testing a global library consortium model for supporting open access books.

In total, 297 libraries from 24 countries shared the cost of “unlatching” 28 newly published Humanities and Social Sciences research titles, provided by 13 well-known scholarly publishers. After 24 weeks of the Collection being online, the number of downloads was recorded at 12,763 from 138 countries.

The success of the Pilot demonstrates demand from stakeholders across the monograph ecosystem for creative new approaches to supporting open access for books. Frances Pinter, Executive Director, said “We’re delighted to be able to share this in-depth review of our Pilot which has shed light on so many fascinating insights into how Open Access for monographs might be achieved. We are very pleased to have this report published by the OA journal Cultural Science. The report comes at a time when the potential for monographs to be both sustainably published and more widely available has been acknowledged. We continue to work with a growing number of interested parties and look forward to more OA developments in the future”.

Read the full report on the Knowledge Unlatched Pilot project:

http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/KU-Full-Pilot-Report-CS.pdf

OdiloPlace digital content marketplace goes live in the USA

ODILO announces the launch of OdiloPlace, their digital content marketplace featuring titles from publishers such as ABDO, Atlantic Publishing, Book View Café, Diversion Books, Encyclopedia Britannica, Enslow Publishers, HarperCollins Publishers, Little Pickle Press, Macmillan, Open Road Media, Prologue, Simon & Schuster, Rowman & Littlefield, Untreed Reads Publishing, Xist Publishing and many others. Additional titles from other big, mid and small publishers are expected soon. ODILO products and services allow libraries to better manage digital content, integrate a mix of content sources and distribute high-quality content to patrons in mere seconds. Unlike other expensive content management systems, ODILO offers flexible and affordable pricing, along with bestselling books in a variety of languages.

OdiloPlace will debut with over 60,000 titles, covering in-demand subjects such as autobiography, biography, business and economics, comics and graphic novels, education, fiction, health and wellness, non-fiction and more. Titles from HarperCollins Publishers are available for 26 lends, and can be renewed afterwards. Titles from Macmillan are available to libraries for two years or 52 lends (whichever comes first). Titles from Simon & Schuster are available for one year. All other titles are available on a perpetual one-user, one-copy license.

With ODILO’s strong presence in Spanish-speaking countries, high-quality Spanish language content from reputable publishers, along with top circulating eBooks from Spain and Latin America libraries, are also part of the catalog. In fact, North American customers will be able to read Spanish bestsellers at the same time as Spanish customers. Through a partnership with Prologue, OdiloPlace customers also have access to eBooks in French, with German, Portuguese and Italian coming soon.

To simplify and streamline the selection and purchase process, OdiloPlace offers library customers several curated collections of popular titles. Competitive pricing allows customers to use their savings for other essential library needs or additional digital content. ODILO is dedicated to providing an open ecosystem where libraries can buy books from the marketplace, along with publishers and digital content providers of their choice (with no technical restrictions). eBooks are compatible with numerous devices, including Android devices, eReaders (Kobo, SONY and NOOK), iPads, iPhones, iPod Touch, Kindle Tablets, Macs, NOOK Tablets, PCs and smartphones. In addition, while the digital content and publisher relations continues to grow, the ODILO system provides essential collection management tools, such as statistic and analytic reports.

ODILO is a privately held Spain- and US-based company dedicated to developing the most innovative and creative solutions for libraries. As one of the leading solutions in Europe and Latin America, ODILO offers a comprehensive product suite for the discovery, management and distribution of library print and digital materials. Currently being used in 43 countries, ODILO defines and designs efficient, user-friendly solutions, serving the needs of public, private, university, school and special interest libraries, while enabling them to transition into the future.

More information about OdiloPlace: http://marketplace.odilo.us

Details on all products and services can be found at: http://www.odilo.us

HarperCollins Publishers announces completion of transition to EPUB 3

HarperCollins Publishers announced in January that it has finalized the implementation of EPUB 3 for its e-book production; all new e-books are now being distributed in EPUB 3 with backward compatibility to EPUB 2. The company has implemented RSuite CMS workflows and EPUB transformation to allow for continuous support of the format. HarperCollins and RSI Content Solutions will contribute the EPUB 3 transformation to the DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) for Publishers open source community so that others may benefit.

“Implementing EPUB 3 enables us to support industry standards while increasing accessibility for the disabled community”, said Leslie Hulse, Vice President of business development. “We look forward to the enhanced benefits this new format will provide readers”.

“Working with RSuite allowed us to upgrade to an XML-based digital workflow that facilitates more automated e-book production”, said Leslie Padgett, Senior Director, global digital operations. “We are excited to contribute the work we’ve done on the transformation to the DITA for Publishers project so the community can benefit from our team’s good work”.

“The joint team can be proud of the final work product that resulted from our close collaboration”, stated Paul Eisenberg, Director, professional services at RSI Content Solutions. “HarperCollins has demonstrated leadership by contributing the EPUB 3 transform back to the DITA for Publishers community”.

More about RSuite at: http://rsuitecms.com/

National Information Standards Organization publishes revised Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative standard and supporting documentation

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has published a revision to the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) Protocol (ANSI/NISO Z39.93-2014). The SUSHI standard defines an automated request and response model for the harvesting of electronic resource usage data utilizing a Web services framework that can replace the user-mediated collection of usage data reports. It was designed as a generalized protocol extensible to a variety of usage reports. An extension designed specifically to work with COUNTER reports is provided. This new version of the SUSHI standard extends the filter support to allow multiple filters and/or report attributes to be included in the SUSHI Request. Use of these filters and attributes is optional, making the new version backwards compatible with the previous one. Additional documentation supporting SUSHI implementation has been updated including SUSHI schemas, COUNTER schemas, sample reports, selected SUSHI Harvesters tools, and the Server Registry.

“The SUSHI standard was created with the notion of filters; however, the only filter originally provided for was that of the date range for the report”, explains Oliver Pesch, Chief Product Strategist, EBSCO Information Services, and Co-chair of the SUSHI Standing Committee. “With use, a number of cases have surfaced where additional filters and other report attributes would be beneficial. The revised standard allows, for example, filtering by a particular platform for harvesting when a given SUSHI server provides usage for multiple platforms, or specifying that a report exclude items with zero usage to keep the report size smaller”.

“Both the core SUSHI schema and the COUNTER-SUSHI schema have been updated to version 1.7 of SUSHI to match the revised standard”, states Marie Kennedy, Serials & Electronic Resources Librarian, Loyola Marymount University, and Co-chair of the SUSHI Standing Committee. “The SUSHI Standing Committee is also responsible for updating COUNTER-related schemas; the COUNTER-SUSHI schema, the COUNTER schema, and the COUNTER data element values have been updated to support COUNTER Release 4.1. Additionally, the SUSHI website has new sample reports in COUNTER Release 4 formats, updates to some of the SUSHI Harvester tools to allow the user to select ‘4’ as the COUNTER Release, and Server Registry updates to display known COUNTER 4 support”.

“SUSHI has become a widely adopted NISO standard, but continuous maintenance is required to keep it up to date”, said Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director. “The SUSHI Standing Committee actively maintains the standard to address any reported implementation issues or new COUNTER Releases, and to consider feature suggestions. This latest revision is an excellent example of how the Standing Committee has updated the standard to provide requested functionality”.

The revised SUSHI standard and extensive supporting tools and documentation are available on the NISO SUSHI Web site at: http://www.niso.org/workrooms/sushi/

Information standards quarterly themed issues on identity management, licensing of digital content

The September 2014 issue of Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) with a theme of Identity Management is now available on the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) Web site in open access. Identity management is critical to ensuring that licensed or owned electronic content is available to those who have rights to it. Libraries, publishers and content providers are challenged with finding and implementing appropriate standards to implement identity management across platforms and among varied institutions. Guest editor, Andy Dale, CTO Respect Network, has compiled articles that discuss Privacy By Design, OCLC’s vision for identity management, JSON standards and identity management for the Internet of Things.

Among the contents of this issue:

• Privacy by Design and the Online Library Environment, by Dan Blum

• From the Library of Congress to the Library of Me, by Don Hamparian

• The Intention Publishing Economy: When Patrons Take Charge, by Doc Searls

• A JSON-Based Identity Protocol Suite, by Michael B. Jones

• Pre-Standards Initiatives: Bibliographic Roadmap and Altmetrics, by Nettie Lagace

• Linked Content Coalition Sets Ten Targets for a Digital Future

• W3C Provides Best Practices for Linked Data

• BISG Issues Revised and Updated Guide to Identifiers

• Standards in development, September 30, 2014

• Download the full issue and individual articles at: http://www.niso.org/publications/isq/2014/v26no3

• The Winter 2014 issue of ISQ is focused on the topic of Licensing of Digital Content. Digital content licensing has been a complex – and contentious – issue since the advent of the first e-journal. While much understanding and experience have been gained since then, greater diversity in types of e-content and technology advances continuously add new challenges to licensing. This issue of ISQ discusses the current state of e-content licensing, standards and tools to aid in the licensing process, and two projects aimed at improving rights management and providing an alternative to standard licenses.

• Ann Shumelda Okerson provides her Reflections on Library Licensing, describing both the advances that have occurred in digital content licensing over the past decade and the remaining and new challenges that we need to address.

• David Martin authors a standard spotlight on the ONIX for Publication Licenses specification from EDItEUR. While this standard has been around for over five years, several recent developments may help make its adoption finally take off.

• The Linked Content Coalition (LCC) is a relatively new project created by a global consortium of standards bodies and registries. While not explicitly about licensing, the identifiers and metadata related to usage rights that LCC expounds in its Framework are critical to the ability for machines to manage, distribute and display rights and licensing information. Todd Carpenter discusses how the group aims to make it possible to manage and access online rights information seamlessly across all types of media.

• NISO’s Shared Electronic Resource Understanding (SERU) recommended practice, presented as an alternative to a formal licensing negotiation, was updated in 2012 to expand its use beyond e-journals. Adam Chesler and Anne McKee review in SERU: Six Years and Still Going Strong, how this approach continues to grow in use.

• Winter 2014 issue of ISQ: http://www.niso.org/publications/isq/2014/v26no4/

• ISQ is available in open access in electronic format on the NISO Web site. Both the entire issue on Licensing of Digital Content and the individual articles may be freely downloaded. Print copies of ISQ are available by subscription and as print on demand. For more information and to access the free electronic version, visit: http://www.niso.org/publications/isq

Global open knowledgebase (GOKb) receives Mellon funding for second phase

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $333,000 to North Carolina State University to support the second phase of the development of the Global Open Knowledgebase (GOKb), an open source project that promises to significantly enhance how libraries manage their electronic journals and books.

Designed and implemented by the Kuali OLE founding partners and JISC Collections of the UK with initial funding from the Mellon Foundation, GOKb is a pioneering knowledge base of metadata that describes e-books and e-journals, the models that publishers use to sell them, and the ways that libraries and their users can access them.

GOKb’s data will be made publicly available under a Creative Commons CC0 license so that the tool can be used by anyone and integrated into any system or service, whether commercial or open source. As a service to learning communities globally, it will be freely available to libraries, academic publishers, library service providers and the public through a Web-based interface and application program interfaces (APIs).

GOKb is designed to be a part of the Kuali Open Library Environment (Kuali OLE), the first library management system designed by and for academic and research libraries. NC State and the NCSU Libraries serve as lead institution for GOKb development. GOKb will also be adopted by Knowledge Base+, an electronic resources management service provided by JISC Collections.

Phase 2 work funded by the Mellon grant will run through December 2015 and will enable further development of the knowledge base; recruitment of library and vendor partnerships; and expansion into key areas such as e-book management, description of open-access resources and linked data.

Phase 1 of the GOKb project is now available for public preview through the GOKb Web application. The preview showcases the latest version of the GOKb software and contains representative seed data that describe organizations, packages, titles, holdings and templates for licensing. Libraries and publishers are invited to use the GOKb preview to search and browse metadata, export package information and experiment with the system’s API and co-referencing service. The GOKb team is very interested in receiving comments and suggestions from users as they explore the tool.

At this stage of development, the GOKb development group is also especially interested in working with new partners in both the library and the vendor communities. New library partners will be critical to making this community-managed resource increasingly valuable for academic libraries around the globe. Academic publishers who contribute data at this stage of GOKb development will benefit from a tool that is driven by an engaged, knowledgeable community of librarians who will be continually contributing valuable enhancements to data about publishers’ products.

Global Open Knowledge base (GOKb): https://gokb.kuali.org/gokb/

GOKb public preview: http://gokb.org/preview

OCLC and the British library offer new option for document delivery

OCLC and the British Library now offer a new option for fast, flexible purchase from the British Library Document Supply Service that enables library staff to confirm the availability of required documents before placing an order, and provides a wide range of choices for delivery and price.

Rather than sending OCLC WorldShare Interlibrary Loan requests without knowing whether the British Library can supply the required items, the new option makes clear whether an item is held in advance of ordering – and also whether a digital delivery option is available that will reduce delivery times to as little as several minutes.

The new purchase option also simplifies library procedures related to copyright compliance and document fee payments. All document fees include copyright payments, so purchasing libraries do not need to take additional steps to ensure copyright compliance. In addition, libraries may continue to use OCLC’s Interlibrary Loan Fee Management (IFM) service to pay for their purchases. IFM reconciles resource sharing charges and payments through a library’s monthly OCLC invoice to eliminate invoices and check writing for individual transactions.

Libraries with existing British Library accounts will continue to receive the differential pricing that accompanies their accounts.

“OCLC’s partnership with the British Library makes it possible for WorldShare ILL libraries to quickly determine if documents are available, and have them delivered to users – sometimes within minutes”, said Katie Birch, OCLC Portfolio Director, Global Product Management. “These expanded options for interlibrary loan and document delivery will save library staff time and effort, and will deliver greater value for library users”.

Users of the ILLiad resource sharing service may also benefit from the new purchase workflow through the use of an ILLiad add-on available at: http://oc.lc/bladdon

Details about how to purchase British Library Document Supply Service (BLDSS) documents from WorldShare ILL are provided in the reference guide at: http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/support/worldshare-ill/documentation/WorldShare-ILL-BLDSS.pdf

A new partnership: California Digital Library, University of California libraries and Internet archive’s archive-it service

The California Digital Library (CDL) and the University of California (UC) Libraries are partnering with Internet Archive’s Archive-It Service. In the coming year, CDL’s Web Archiving Service (WAS) collections and all core infrastructure activities, i.e. crawling, indexing, search, display and storage, will be transferred to Archive-It. The CDL remains committed to Web archiving as a fundamental component of its mission to support the acquisition, preservation and dissemination of content. This new partnership will allow the CDL to meet its mission and goals more efficiently and effectively and provide a robust solution for our stakeholders.

Rosalie Lack, Web Archiving Coordinator at the UC Curation Center, writes on the CDL Web site, “Eight years after the release of WAS, we found ourselves at a critical juncture”. The constantly changing and ever-increasing complexity of the web poses significant challenges to the current Web archiving toolset and requires frequent upgrades to stay ahead. It became clear that there was a significant opportunity cost to maintaining WAS, which would not leave us with the capacity to develop new added-value Web archiving services, such as tools for researchers, computational analysis of aggregated archival corpora or work toward integrating Web archives with other format types.

“In 2014, the CDL held a series of meetings with peer institutions to investigate the possibility of collaborating on web archiving solutions. We ultimately came to the conclusion that running the core web archiving infrastructure is not the best use of our limited resources. Instead, enlisting the services of Archive-It was the most efficient solution because it will permit the CDL and its partners to reallocate their local resources to activities through which they can uniquely add stakeholder value to the baseline function provided by Archive-It.”

The CDL is currently exploring opportunities with Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UCLA and others to work closely with Archive-It to create an expanded roster of added-value tools and services. CDL’s goals are to define technical needs as well as the organizational structure that can ensure creation of new tools and services and make them broadly available across the community.

More at the CDL Web site: http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2015/01/14/

Issue 27 of the Code4Lib Journal has been published

Issue 27 of the Code4Lib Journal, the first issue of 2015, was published in January, and offers a variety of articles for those interested in the intersection of libraries, technology, and the future.

For the “do-it-yourself”-ers:

• Digital forensics on a shoestring: a case study from the University of Victoria, by John Durno and Jerry Trofimchuck

• Homegrown WorldCat Reclamation: utilizing OCLC’s WorldCat Metadata API to Reconcile your Library Holdings, by Sarah Johnston

• Using Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics to track DSpace metadata fields as custom dimensions, by Suzanna Conrad

For those interested in workflows and best practices:

• Using SemanticScuttle for managing lists of recommended resources on a library website, by Tomasz Neugebauer, Pamela Carson, and Stephen Krujelskis

• Training the Next Generation of Open Source Developers: A Case Study of the OSU Libraries & Press’ Technology Training Program, by Evviva Weinraub Lajoie, Trey Terrell, and Mike Eaton

And for those interested in how things just work:

• Communication Between Devices in the Viola Document Delivery System, by Theodor Tolstoy

• Query Translation in Europeana, by Péter Király

• Code4Lib Journal, Issue 27: http://journal.code4lib.org/issues/issues/issue27

Wild Wisconsin Winter Web Conference 2015 program materials available

The Wild Wisconsin Winter Web Conference is a state-wide virtual conference developed by the Nicolet Federated Library System and supported by 14 other library systems in Wisconsin. Program materials from this year’s conference, held on January 21 and 22, 2015, are now available on the conference Web site.

Recordings, slides and handouts (if applicable) of all ten webinars are available, including:

• Look First: Creating Exceptional Patron Experiences – Erica Reynolds, Team Member, BiblioCommons, Shawnee, Kansas.

• Tablet-Slinging Librarians: Using Tablets to Improve Customer Service – Leah Kulikowski, Assistant Branch Manager, Lexington Park Library, Lexington Park, Maryland.

• What You Need to Know About Library Technology – Roy Tennant, Senior Program Officer, OCLC Research, San Mateo, California.

• Six Essential Skills for One-on-One Tech Instruction – Crystal Schimpf, Training Consultant, Kixal LLC, Berkeley, California.

http://www.wildwiscwinterweb.com/recordings-slides-hand-outs.html

ICV partners announces acquisition of SirsiDynix

ICV Partners, a leading investment firm, has announced the acquisition of SirsiDynix, a leading provider of technology solutions to libraries around the world, from Vista Equity Partners.

“We are 110 per cent supportive of the direction the company has charted, and are thrilled that we’re now in a position to provide our full support as SirsiDynix looks to accelerate the delivery of their key initiatives”, said Willie Woods, President of ICV Partners. “We are committed to the SirsiDynix team as they continue to innovate products like BLUEcloud, ensuring their customers have access to the best library automation products in the world”.

“Our focus will remain exactly as we’ve communicated it this past year”, said Bill Davison, CEO of SirsiDynix. “Building and delivering the BLUEcloud Library Services Platform remains our top priority and our fixed commitment to the entire customer base, both Horizon and Symphony. As a management team, we’re very encouraged by the support and guidance we’ve received from ICV Partners during due diligence and as we’ve established the BLUEcloud vision to deploy the necessary resources to make it happen. The value that ICV brings to this process is already apparent to us, and will soon be apparent to our current and future customers”.

Davison said that the SirsiDynix management team will remain intact and that they look forward to working with ICV Partners as they embark on the next phase of company growth. “We have an incredibly experienced team of executives and employees who understand the products that libraries need, and the know how to build, deliver and support them”.

Vista will maintain a minority equity position in the company. “We continue to be extremely excited about the ongoing strength of the SirsiDynix business and believe they are uniquely positioned to provide innovative market-leading library management solutions”, said Robert F. Smith, Chairman and CEO of Vista.

The change in SirsiDynix’s ownership structure brings the opportunity to revise the board of directors and increase employee ownership. “We’ll be looking for industry veterans to join our board and help the company further its mission to create the best user experience for our customers and their communities”, Davison said. “In addition to a new board structure, we’re also implementing broader employee participation in the ownership of the company. We feel confident that these changes will create additional value for customers, opportunity for employees, and reinforce SirsiDynix’s leadership in the industry”.

Full press release: http://www.sirsidynix.com/press/icv-partners-announces-acquisition-of-sirsidynix