Product Innovation
News: Wiley's Latest Natural Products Database Release Empowers Drug Discovery and Research
Wiley, Voting Member, Press Release, April 12, 2024
Wiley, one of the world’s largest publishers and a global leader in research and learning, today announced the 2024 release of its Wiley Identifier of Natural Products (AntiBase Library + ChemWindow).
The latest release introduces 37,000 new compounds to the collection in addition to spectra computed using Wiley's proprietary AI technologies.
Wolters Kluwer enters nursing test prep market with launch of Lippincott Ready for NCLEX
Wolters Kluwer, Voting Member, News Announcement, March 28, 2024
To help prepare nursing students for real-world practice, Wolters Kluwer Health today announces the launch of Lippincott Ready for NCLEX®, a complete test prep solution for the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX). The new product marks the organization’s entrance into nursing education testing, with a comprehensive learning solution designed to empower the next generation of nurses.
"By combining deep educational and testing expertise from Lippincott®, NurseTim®, and NurseThink®, we are redefining the nursing education testing market with a one-stop solution for NCLEX success. By adding testing to our quizzing solution, Lippincott PassPoint, our efforts to provide personalized and adaptive learning continue to evolve, aiding students and educators with powerful tools to ensure tomorrow’s nurses are clinically competent and confident when they enter the care setting." Julie Stegman, Vice President, Wolters Kluwer Health Learning & Practice.
Industry Leadership
Sir Roly Keating to step down as Chief Executive of the British Library in April 2025
British Library, L.S.A. Member, Blog Post, April 10, 2024
After 12 years as Chief Executive, Sir Roly Keating has announced that he will step down from the role in April next year.
Sir Roly said: “When I took on this role in 2012 it was always my hope to serve for 12 years and I will reach that milestone in September this year. Being at the helm of the British Library has been – and continues to be – the greatest privilege of my life. The Library is an extraordinary institution, and it is impossible not to feel a daily sense of wonder at the collective dedication, knowledge and passion of its staff, and the sheer scale, depth and quality of its collections. The years I have served here have seen great achievements as well as times of challenge, including a global pandemic and a major cyber attack. Over the next 12 months my priority is to ensure that our recovery programme succeeds in its goal of leaving the Library even stronger and more resilient than it was before – able to serve new communities and new generations of users, and to continue to be a national library that is truly for everyone.”
Under Sir Roly’s leadership, the Library has undergone a transformation in its public impact and its visibility across the UK and internationally. With a focus on openness, creativity and innovation, his tenure has seen the establishment of major new partnerships including the Knowledge Quarter around its London HQ, the Business & IP Centre National Network and the Living Knowledge Network of public and national libraries across the UK.
Open Access, Open Science
Five National Laboratories in the US secure transformative agreements with IOP Publishing driving open access to research
IOP Publishing, Voting Member, News Announcement, April 16, 2024
Five prominent National Laboratories in the United States have secured transformative agreements with IOP Publishing (IOPP), advancing open access (OA) to research at scale. Argonne National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory join a growing number of academic institutions that drive the growth of OA through the adoption of transformative agreements.
Transformative agreements enable researchers affiliated with these research labs to publish their work openly and free of costs, with the institutions covering the associated expenses. This makes it easier for researchers to disseminate their findings openly lifting financial barriers and supporting collaboration within the scientific community.
Knowledge Unlatched Announces Results of 2023 Pledging: Hundreds of new titles to be published Open Access in 2024
Wiley, Voting Member, Press Release, April 10, 2024
Knowledge Unlatched (KU), a Wiley brand, is pleased to share the results of its 2023 pledging round, which ended in December 2023 and saw hundreds of institutions worldwide pledge support for Open Access (OA) book and journal collections offered by KU and its publishing partners.
Overall, about 269 books will be made available OA in 2024. These include 71 frontlist books from the KU Select 2024 SDG Books Collection and 198 books from KU’s various HSS and STEM partner collections. In addition, KU will support the publication of 700 peer-reviewed blog posts, about 9 new scholarly videos focused on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and about 9 new peer-reviewed encyclopedia entries. KU’s 2023 library crowdfunding efforts also contributed to the sustainability of about 52 journals thanks to the successful continuation of 4 Subscribe-to-Open (S2O) partnerships.
New Library Publishing Service + Publication
Indiana University Bloomington Libraries, L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, April 3, 2024
IUB Libraries is excited to announce a new library publishing service and that service’s first publication:
IU Libraries Publishing: Grey Literature is a free, high-quality, open-access publishing service created and managed by Adam Mazel, Digital Publishing Librarian, Scholarly Communication Department. It complements the Libraries’ Journals and Open Educational Resources programs by publishing texts by IU faculty, staff, and students that are not publishable by scholarly or commercial presses but that are nonetheless worthy of the affordances of a publisher. Genres of interest include books, conference proceedings, reports, and companions (digital projects that accompany and extend traditional print publications); especially appealing are texts that use digital affordances, such as multimedia, interactivity, and/or code, data, and data visualizations. Please visit its website to learn more about the Libraries’ new publishing service, including how it publishes manuscripts, what publishing services it offers, and how to publish with it.
What’s more, IU Libraries Publishing: Grey Literature has just published its first manuscript, Through the Looking Glass: I. Why Cross-Fertilize?, a book written by Curt Lively, Distinguished Professor of Biology at IU Bloomington, and illustrated by Dr. Zoe Dinges, formerly his mentee in the Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior (EEB) doctoral program in IUB’s Department of Biology and now Food Safety Coordinator and Good Laboratory Practice Study Director at Valent BioSciences. Their monograph investigates a longstanding problem in evolutionary biology: why is there sexual reproduction (as opposed to just cloning oneself)? It aims to help advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and early career researchers of evolutionary ecology see how cross-fertilization is central to many of the major ideas of evolutionary ecology and how important historical context is to the development of research projects, including how real people influenced Curt’s thinking about this fundamental question.
Libraries, Collections & Archives
UC Libraries endorse Joint Statement on the Metadata Rights of Libraries
California Digital Library (CDL), L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, April 11, 2024
On behalf of the UC Libraries, the Council of University Librarians (CoUL) has unanimously approved endorsement of the Joint Statement on the Metadata Rights of Libraries. Released in March 2023 by the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) and the ALA Core Metadata & Collections Section, the statement reads: “The endorsers listed below urge all organizations, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, to uphold libraries’ rights and interests to use, re-use, adapt, aggregate, and share metadata that describes library collections to serve the public interest, without restriction or limitation.”
Catalog records and descriptive metadata are often the product of library employees’ labor and are generally not copyrightable, but their sharing and reuse can be limited by contracts and license agreements in ways that are contrary to library values and norms. Maintaining a wide set of sharing and reuse rights is key to several elements of the UC Libraries’ mission to “provide information resources and services to UC faculty, students, and staff in direct support of the University of California’s teaching, learning, research, patient care, and public service goals.
UBC Library digitizes Indigenous language dictionaries
University of British Columbia, L.S.A. Consortia Member (CRKN), News Announcement, April 9, 2024
As part of an ongoing effort by the UBC Library Digitization Centre and cIRcle, UBC Library is making Indigenous language dictionaries more accessible by digitizing these works and making them available through UBC Open Collections.
“Within the province of British Columbia, there are 32 First Nations languages—eight are severely endangered and 22 are nearly extinct. Language revitalization projects and supports are crucial in redressing the impacts of colonialism, and allowing for communities to have cultural sovereignty,” says Kayla Lar-Son, Acting Head of Xwi7xwa Library. “Within the past few years the number of active Indigenous Language learners grows each year in British Columbia. Providing access to rare materials for community members can aid in the increase of language learners and adheres to the concept of Indigenous data sovereignty as we are now providing access to once hard-to-find materials.
Partnerships & Collaborations
ACS signs new read and publish agreement with University of Puerto Rico - Río Piedras
American Chemical Society (ACS), Voting Member, News Announcement, April 15, 2024
ACS are pleased to announce the commencement of a read and publish agreement with the University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras Campus. The agreement, which runs through December 2025, provides complete reading access to ACS journals as well as open access publishing for affiliated researchers.
“At the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, we are pleased to initiate a transformative agreement with the American Chemical Society”, said Dr. Nancy Abreu-Baez, UPR Rio Piedras Library System Director. “As a high-research institution, it is crucial for our students, professors, and researchers to have access to premier information sources and be equipped with the essential tools for disseminating and advancing knowledge derived from their research endeavors.”
CRKN Signs Read-and-Publish Agreement with Elsevier
Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), Voting/L.S.A. Consortia Member, and Elsevier, Voting Member, Press Release, April 8, 2024
The Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) is pleased to announce that we have signed a new three-year, read-and-publish agreement with Elsevier. As part of CRKN’s commitment to transform access to research, this agreement repurposes funds that CRKN members have traditionally paid in subscription fees for Elsevier journals, to cover open access publishing and full reading access for those same journals.
Corresponding authors at participating member institutions will benefit from unlimited open access publishing in more than 1,800 Elsevier hybrid journals at no cost to the author (i.e., with no article processing charge (APC)). This agreement has the potential to result in the publication of more than 9,000 open access articles by Canadian authors per year throughout its duration. Through this read-and-publish agreement, CRKN members have leveraged their collective negotiating power to support the Canadian research community. By covering the cost of open access publishing in this agreement, CRKN members are unlocking a significant volume of Canadian research publications, while ensuring that research funding can cover researcher needs rather than publishing costs.
Michigan State University Libraries and Taylor & Francis Announce New Open Access Partnership
Michigan State University Libraries, L.S.A. Member, and Taylor & Francis Group, Voting Member, News Announcement, April 8, 2024
Supporting Michigan State University (MSU) Libraries’ mission to promote equal access to information for all, a new transformative agreement will allow MSU researchers to publish open access (OA) articles at no cost to them in 2,500 Taylor & Francis and Routledge journals.
The three-year read-and-publish agreement ensures faculty and students have continued read-access to all Taylor & Francis journals while also supporting hundreds of researchers to choose open access in both hybrid and full OA titles.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Change the subject: Making the library catalog more inclusive
Emory University Library, L.S.A. Member, Blog Post, April 5, 2024
Have you ever wondered how library catalogs, like Emory’s Library Search, are built and maintained? Or how library catalogers decide upon the best terms to describe the books, articles, and other media that you use for your research? This process might seem far removed from your own work; however, it directly impacts the research process.
What we are doing
Recently, Emory Libraries has undertaken a project to revise the display of subject headings in the catalog that have been determined to contain harmful or offensive language.