David Myers, Principal, DMedia Associates, Inc.
Representatives of the 15 companies listed below were each given 5 minutes to describe their new products and services. David Myers, Principal, DMedia Associates, Inc., moderated the session.
Apex CoVantage
Joel Mills described GEMS , a web-based tool for managing editorial workflow tasks. Libraries have started to use it for their projects such as digitization, managing digital content, etc. It can be used to create tasks and split projects across a pool of collaborators. A two-month free trial available by contacting jmills@apexcovantage.com
Artstor
Artstor Shared Shelf is a cloud-based tool for managing digital content across an institution. It supports 25 different file types including audio, video, documents, and images. The user can customize cataloging screens and metadata, and take advantage of existing vocabularies, authorities, and controlled terms, which makes it simple to share content with local users or across the open web.
bepress Digital Commons
Readership statistics are difficult to conceptualize, but because live data is better than static pictures, bepress has added a real-time readership activity map to its Digital Commons platform which shows an institution or library where downloads came from. The map demonstrates the value of the investment by libraries and the value of the library itself and the role it plays in fulfilling its roles in the university. Work is underway to make the maps embeddable and portable.
Bevara Technologies
Because particular formats are not supported on all devices, Bevara has created a small adapter to hook up a universal player for any type of device without the need for a computer or disk drive. With a single click, a user can package files together or extract the data file.
Edward Elgar Publishing
Edward Elgar Publishing has added Research Reviews, authoritative summaries of the seminal “must read” works that have established a field of research to its online platform, Elgaronline. The content is fully searchable and referenced, and the system has tools to help find recommended materials, integrate with library link resolvers and Google Scholar, as well as links to free online resources such as government archives. It can also be exporte to citation management software. For a free trial, contact elgarsales@e-elgar.com.
Gale, Part of Cengage Learning
Researchers want to use resources outside of databases without having to search for them first. Gale is now able to send data to customers in XML format for use in their own programs, APIs, etc., which allows users to find patterns that would not be apparent in a list of results. Libraries can play a key role not only in accessing data for their users, but also in succeeding processes, thus helping researchers manage their projects.
Harvard University Press
The Loeb Classical Library, founded by James Loeb in 1911, now has 520 volumes and is still growing. About five years ago, the Digital Loeb Classical Library was launched. The Library publishes all that is important in Greek and Latin literature in a 2-column format–the original language on left, and English on right. The digital version also provides easier ways of reading the material: a standard reading view and an immersive reading view with only a single language displayed. The data are extensively tagged; one can browse, search, and filter by author, language, period, form, genre, or subject. An easily used Greek keyboard is also available. Users can create “My Loeb’s” and bookmark items, organize, and annotate content in personal digital workspaces that stay with them forever or be transferred to other institutions. Unlimited concurrent access and remote access is also provided.
Ideas Roadshow
How can we best harness modern video technology to create an enhanced pedagogical experience? What does “best” mean? According to the Ideas Roadshow, “best” means “most effectiely”, not just the newest. Some techniques have worked very well for thousands of years, and one of those is conversations, which provide intimacy and motivation for the participants, and highlight interdisciplinarity and connections, fresh new insights and speculations. The Ideas Roadshow is a new multimedia venture that produces long-format videos, eBooks and audio files of conversations with some of the most celebrated thinkers across the arts and sciences. Its content is licensed to libraries and other institutions; individual subscriptions are also available.
IET Digital Library
The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) produces the IET Digital Library, which provides access to about 200,000 research journal articles, 1,300 conference proceedings, and over 6,000 e-book chapters. An open access program across journals and a new multidisciplinary hybrid journal: the Journal of Engineering were recently launched. An engineering and technology reference collection written by engineers for engineers will be published next year. This year, the Healthcare Letters Technology Journal offers free access. The IET Digital Library addresses many of the demands of today’s researchers face. Its open platform lets visitors browse tables of contents, book chapters, etc. Subscribers have full access to PDF copies of articles.
Kudos
Kudos is a set of tools for authors allowing them to explain their research, enrich it with links to relevant resources, share it by social media and online, and measure the results (how many downloads, clickthroughs, and soon citations). Authors thus get global coverage of their work, and see publication metrics. Discocverability is the new challenge. Impact matters, and communication capabilities are increasing. Researchers know their work best. ORCID integration and article level citation data for authors will soon be added to Kudos, and an institutional product under development, allowing institutions to showcase their works. To participate in pilot test, contact david@growkudos.com.
McGraw-Hill Education
McGrow-Hill’s Clinical Access, a clinical decision-support tool consists of 120,000 question and answer pairs to help clinicians answer queries quickly at the bedside. It builds on the strong foundation of McGraw-Hill’s textbooks . Searches are done at the question level so users go directly from the question page to search results. Synonyms and medical abbreviations are recognized. The content was written by medical professionals. If a user cannot find an answer, a new question can be submitted to the experts; a response will be provided within a day or two.
Overleaf
Overleaf is a platform providing modern authoring tools for research and teaching. Science today is a series of global collaboration, which often results in many email files going back and forth between authors, reviewers, publishers, and readers. But this causes problems such as multiple versions of the same document, long email chains passing files around, hours spent formatting and typesetting, maintaining references and citations, and long revision cycles. Overleaf is a collaborative writing platform, in which a single version of a document is accessible by all without the need to email files. It can accommodate the style of any journal. The files live in web browser, which makes life easier for researchers and facilitates publication of the work online. Commenting features for documents in several formats are frequently used by editorial teams at journals. Papers and data files can be submitted directly through the system. So far, it has been used by about 140,000 authors, 2/3 of whom are students.
ProQuest
There has been a new academic emphasis on statistics and data; evidence-based research is now required in many courses. The demand for international and especially sub-national data has increased, and courses on quantitative reasoning and data analysis are now being offered at many institutions. Employers are also expecting new hires to have quantitative skills. Researchers also want to be able to download data that supports an article but they frequently cannot find the data themselves even though they know it is available on the open web. ProQuest has developed the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Country Reports Archive of historical and economic analysis to meet these needs. Initially, there are 72,000 data sets in the archive, containing data on 260 cities. Users can download data and or upload their own and create maps and charts on the fly. Recently, the Statistical Abstracts of the World (like the US product) and Historical Statistic Abstracts of the US were also launched. More international data will be added in 2015 and beyond.
SAGE Publications
SAGE is expanding digital offerings to libraries in business and management as well as creating a streaming video program. The SAGE businesslibrary contains reports written by experienced journalists at a level that students can understand, and contextualized with supporting data. SAGE businesscases contains new business cases, real life, peer reviewed, legitimate authoritative cases. The SAGE video library with streaming video collections for pedagogical and research needs of faculty of students is useful “when someone says something more elegantly than I can”. It will launch in 2015 with videos in education, media, counseling and therapy; other subjects will be added later in the year. Original content from SAGE will be included, such as tutorials and interviews.
Third Iron
Third Iron’s product, BrowZine, displays journals in a newsstand format. Browsing is as important to the research process as searching; people love reading their journals and are now using mobile devices to read journal content available in libraries. BrowZine is an intuitive app for easy use that provides seamless access from anywhere. It provides personalized access and deep connection with library content in a meaningful and unique way that’s complementary to searching. New features include expanded support for 6,000 journals, subject searching, automatic updating of holdings updates, support for iPhones and Androids, and integration with ILL services to access full text, allowing libraries to show journals to readers. Web-based access will be available in 2015, with enhanced tools for libraries.
Don Hawkins
Charleston 2014 Conference Blogger and Against The Grain Columnist