Member News & Announcements, February IO 2021

Partnerships and Collaborations

Access to Penn State Scholarly Expands Through Two New Agreements

January 29, 2021 -- University Park, PA -- As part of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA), Penn State University Libraries recently entered into two agreements that will help to expand access to scholarly content, promote open access (OA) publishing and increase visibility of Penn State research.

The Cambridge University Press (CUP) OA read and publish journal agreement covers OA publishing charges for Penn State corresponding authors publishing in CUP journals with an OA option, which encompasses 92 percent of the journals in the CUP portfolio. Those articles will be immediately open access on the publisher’s platform. In addition, the agreement expands subscription access for Penn State users to all CUP research journals — currently more than 400 titles — more than doubling the number of CUP research journals Penn State users can access.

The second agreement, the Public Library of Science (PLOS) Community Action Publishing (CAP) pilot agreement, will allow BTAA corresponding authors to publish in PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine without incurring fees. BTAA and PLOS will also collaborate on data, metrics and tools for institutions to evaluate OA publishing agreements.

HighWire partners with Rievent to embed CME learning content within journal articles

January 19, 2021 – Los Gatos, CA – Scholarly publishing technology provider, HighWire, today announced it has extended its partnership with learning software provider Rievent to deliver an enhanced CME experience directly within journal articles. 

Rievent Connect makes it easy to seamlessly embed continuing medical education (CME) content alongside your existing platform or website, rather than redirecting users to a separate application. Through third-party integration with Rievent Connect, HighWire customers can now benefit from in-line course content embedded directly into the related articles. 

IOP Publishing partners with Morressier to introduce a new standard in conference workflows

January 19, 2021 -- Bristol, UK -- IOP Publishing (IOPP), the publishing arm of the Institute of Physics, has partnered with Morressier, provider of virtual conference and content solutions for professional and academic organisations, to enhance the publishing workflow for conference research. The new offering will provide an enhanced user-experience via a streamlined and user-friendly review and submission process, as well as convenient management tools for the hundreds of conference organisers with whom IOPP partners, all within the same platform.

IOPP, which is one of the world’s largest conference proceedings publishers, will leverage Morressier’s powerful conference tools to digitally capture, index and publish an expanded range of content, including proceeding articles, posters, and video presentations. Morressier’s user-friendly content submission process will enable more efficient open access publication to IOPP’s content platform, IOPscience.

PLOS and CRKN Announce Community Action Publishing Deal

January 18, 2021 -- San Francisco, CA and Ottawa, ON — The Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) and the Public Library of Science (PLOS) today announced an agreement for CRKN members to participate in PLOS’ Community Action Publishing (CAP) program, a new collective action publishing model from PLOS, enabling 19 participating CRKN institutions to publish fee-free in PLOS Medicine and PLOS Biology. This model shifts publishing costs from authors to research institutions based on prior publishing history as affiliated with corresponding and contributing authors. The group collectively contributes to the shared cost recovery target and any surplus revenue collected by PLOS is redistributed to members.

“We are delighted to welcome PLOS’ very first Canadian partners to our Community Action Publishing program. Despite a very difficult budget landscape, Canadian institutions’ commitment to community-driven Open Access experimentation remains as strong as ever,” said Sara Rouhi, director of strategic partnerships for PLOS. “As ever, we’re excited to partner with institutions sharing our mission to further equitable and barrier free open reading and publishing.”

Product Announcements

Clarivate Launches Web of Science My Research Assistant Mobile App

January 25, 2021 -- London, U.K. -- Clarivate Plc (NYSE:CCC), a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, today launched Web of Science™ My Research Assistanta mobile-only application that enables scientific researchers to easily search, save and share publication records of the trusted research data in the Web of Science citation index using their mobile devices.

It enables researchers to search the Web of Science citation index and the associated Master Journal List to access an unrivaled breadth of world-class literature records linked to journals rigorously selected for their quality and impact criteria. 

EBSCO Information Services Launches EBSCOed (tm)

January 12, 2021 -- Ipswich, MA -- EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) announces the availability of EBSCOed™ powered by Stacks, a web-based content management system that makes it easy for schools to aggregate and streamline access to their digital resources in an interoperable, personalized experience. Developed in partnership with Publishers’ Warehouse, the central source for textbooks in Alabama, EBSCOed serves as a single, easy-to-use online access point to approved educational resources across the state or within a school district’s community.

With EBSCOed, K-12 schools receive streamlined access to content as approved and determined by the institution, which would include (but is not limited to) subscription resources, proprietary content, licensed materials, textbooks, approved open access content and professional development materials. 

Oxford World’s Classics series available in one digital space for the first time

January 11, 2021 -- Oxford, UK --  Oxford University Press (OUP) is delighted to announce that a large selection of the flagship Oxford World’s Classics (OWC) series is now available online in a single digital resource for the first time.

This new venture initially provides institutional users with easy access to 300 works, ranging from eighteenth century dramas and essays to core Victorian novels, complete with up-to-date supplementary materials. The new online version of OWC is designed with users in mind: easy-to-use search and browse tools allow researchers, lecturers, and students to pinpoint the material they need. Integrated sharing and social media tools also make it easy for readers to distribute precise content with colleagues and students, facilitating seminar discussions and essay ideas.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Wiley Announces Acquisition of Hindawi

January 5, 2021 -- Hoboken, NJ -- John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (NYSE:JWA) (NYSE:JWB) today announced the acquisition of Hindawi Limited, an innovator in open access (OA) publishing and one of the world's fastest growing scientific research publishers, for a total purchase price of $298 million. The acquisition of Hindawi significantly increases Wiley’s position as a global leader in research by adding quality, scale and growth to the company’s open access publishing program.

Open access is a rapidly growing scholarly publishing model that allows peer-reviewed articles to be read and shared immediately, making important research broadly available. As a leader in open access publishing, Hindawi has played a critical role in advancing gold open access, an OA model in which validated articles are made immediately available for reading and re-use following the payment of a publication fee.

Science and Technology Policy

ACS Applauds Biden-Harris White House Science Team Announcement 

January 19, 2021 -- Washington, DC -- The American Chemical Society (ACS) welcomes the announcement last week of the incoming administration’s science team. ACS supports the move by President-elect Joe Biden to elevate the role of the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), who also serves as the presidential science advisor, to a Cabinet-level position for the first time in history.

“ACS applauds and welcomes the elevation of OSTP to a cabinet-level agency. This elevation, plus the appointment of stellar scientists and policy experts within OSTP, underscores the importance President-elect Biden and his incoming administration place on science,” says Glenn S. Ruskin, vice president of External Affairs & Communications at ACS. “We urge quick Senate confirmation of Eric Lander, Ph.D., as OSTP director.”

Awards

Proquest Syndetics Unbound Wins 2021 Library Works Platinum Award

January 14, 2021 -- Ann Arbor, MI -- The library catalog enrichment service from ProQuest and LibraryThing, claimed a platinum award in LibraryWorks’ seventh annual Modern Library Awards (MLAs).

This is the first time that Syndetics Unbound has been entered for an MLA, and we are thrilled to have been chosen for this award.

Jenny Newman, publisher and MLA program manager, said, “It’s hardly a surprise that Syndetics Unbound scored so well. They’ve been at the forefront of the industry since their company entered the market in 2016.”

The MLAs recognize the top products and services in the library industry. They’re judged by those with direct experience with the products or services in their institution, ensuring an unbiased rating.

Leadership Announcements

AIP Publishing Names Penelope Lewis Chief Publishing Officer

January 21, 2021 -- Melville, NY -- AIP Publishing announced today that Penelope Lewis, PhD., will join the organization as its Chief Publishing Officer. Lewis will take on responsibility for AIP Publishing’s diverse portfolio of highly respected journals, books, and other products aimed at advancing the work of the global physical science community.

“We look forward to having a leader with Penelope’s range join our dynamic team,” said Alix Vance, CEO. “She has diverse strengths — in partnerships, product development, market-facing strategy and services, and editorial portfolio development — as well as a superb scientific background.”

Lewis joins AIP Publishing from the American Chemical Society (ACS) where she is Chief Scientist, Strategic Planning and Analysis in the ACS Publications Division.

Collections and Preservation

New Princeton University Library Program Provides Princeton Students, Faculty and Staff Opportunities to Curate Digital Collections.

January 6, 2021 -- Princeton, NJ -- Princeton University Library’s (PUL) digital repository houses over 130,000 digitized items from the Library’s unique and rare collections. Curated Collections, a new program at PUL led by Reference Professional for Special Collections Emma Sarconi, provides the Princeton community opportunities to curate these digital items into online exhibits, add detail and narrative, and contextualize them within a larger theme. 

PUL’s digital repository contains material from a range of special collections, from rare books to graphic arts, the Princeton University Archives, children’s books and literature from the Cotsen collection, and Western Americana. Each curated collection should surround a particular theme, be that genre, subject, time period, or other, and consist of 10 to 15 digitized items. 

NEH, UK Grants Fund AI Transcription Project (University of Texas Libraries)

January 4, 2021 -- Austin, TX -- Game-changing innovations that use artificial intelligence (AI) tools will improve access to Indigenous and Spanish colonial archives. “Unlocking the Colonial Archive: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for Indigenous and Spanish American Historical Collections” is a collaborative project led by LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections at The University of Texas at Austin, the Digital Humanities Hub at Lancaster University, and Liverpool John Moores University. The project will transform “unreadable” digitized Indigenous and Spanish colonial archives into data that will be accessible to a broad spectrum of researchers and the public.