LinkedIn Will Buy Online-Learning Company for $1.5 Billion; Oxford’s University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO) to Add Content from Two More Presses…; “150 Years After Lincoln Assassination, Massive Online Archive in the Works”; MIT Libraries-Berkman Center Collaboration Receives $35,000 Award From UC Berkeley-Microsoft; New State of America’s Libraries Report finds shift in role of U.S. libraries; HP and Frankfurt Book Fair to host Scientific Publishing Innovation Day in the run up to London Book Fair; Eyeing Amazon, Oyster Launches Ebookstore with All Big Five Publishers; HarperCollins to Bring Back Agency Pricing as Early As Next Week; ProQuest Solutions Named as Finalist for Five SIIA CODiE Awards; Bing Enhances Image Search, Adds Pinterest Collections
LinkedIn Will Buy Online-Learning Company for $1.5 Billion
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports the “LinkedIn announced Thursday it has agreed to acquire the online-learning company lynda.com for $1.5 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports. It is the social-networking giant’s largest acquisition to date, and signals its continued expansion into the education realm. lynda.com offers more than 2,900 courses online, which include video tutorials for various skills…” See also “A Higher Profile” by Paul Fain in Inside Higher Ed
Oxford’s University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO) to Add Content from Two More Presses, Bringing Total to Twenty Presses
Oxford University Press (OUP) is pleased to announce that The University of Minnesota Press will join University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO) in August 2015. The Minnesota Scholarship Online (tentatively called MPSO) site will go live with 389 titles across a broad range of subject areas…
Columbia University Press will also be joining University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO) in November 2015. The Columbia Scholarship Online site will go live with approximately 400 titles across the humanities and social sciences…”
“150 Years After Lincoln Assassination, Massive Online Archive in the Works”
InfoDOCKET reports that “as the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination approaches, a massive digital archive is in the works that will be home to more than 100,000 documents related to the Civil War-era commander-in-chief. The Papers of Abraham Lincoln is a project of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, and it is co-sponsored by the Center for State Policy and Leadership at the University of Illinois Springfield and the Abraham Lincoln Association. The project is dedicated to identifying, imaging, transcribing, annotating, and publishing all documents written by or to Abraham Lincoln during his lifetime…”
MIT Libraries-Berkman Center Collaboration Receives $35,000 Award From UC Berkeley-Microsoft
Also according to InfoDOCKET “an information privacy collaboration between the MIT Libraries Program on Information Science and the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society is one of six projects to receive an award of $35,000 from The Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and Microsoft, culminating in an open government data symposium focused on recent initiatives to release large datasets of government information to the public for analysis and reuse…”
New State of America’s Libraries Report finds shift in role of U.S. libraries
According to the State of America’s Libraries Report released today by the American Library Association (ALA), academic, public and school libraries are experiencing a shift in how they are perceived by their communities and society. No longer just places for books, libraries of all types are viewed as anchors, centers for academic life and research and cherished spaces.
HP and Frankfurt Book Fair to host Scientific Publishing Innovation Day in the run up to London Book Fair
KnowledgeSpeak reports that “HP, in association with the Frankfurt Book Fair and the International Association of STM Publishers, will for the first time host an exclusive half day forum in London for STM (Science, Technical & Medical) publishers, printers and industry thought leaders from around the world. The event will take place right before the London Book Fair on April 13 and highlight how content and technology can best interplay to create new products, services and revenue streams. Participation is free of charge…”
National Institute of Standards and Technology releases ‘Plan for Providing Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research’
KnowledgeSpeak also notes that “The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released on April 3, 2015, a ‘Plan for Providing Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research’. The NIST plan calls for making peer-reviewed scholarly publications and associated data that result from NIST funding publicly accessible. The plan applies to both NIST employees and grantees…”
Eyeing Amazon, Oyster Launches Ebookstore with All Big Five Publishers
Starting today, the ebook subscription service Oyster is no longer just that. Eighteen months after launching publicly, the company unveils an ebookstore offering a la carte titles from all of the Big Five publishers, encompassing all front- and back-list ebooks, including preorders, available everywhere else. Because the new store’s wares are available even to non-subscribers, Oyster moves into direct competition with other leading ebook retailers, not least of all Amazon…”
HarperCollins to Bring Back Agency Pricing as Early As Next Week
According to Book Business Following tense months-long negotiations with Amazon, HarperCollins is reportedly planning to force ebook retailers to adopt agency pricing as early as next week. Publishers Lunch reports that:
Multiple retailers report that Harper has informed them their selling terms will change as of Tuesday, April 14. (The change is actually effective midnight Pacific time, rather than Eastern. Amazon would be among those companies that naturally end their business day on Pacific time.) Harper is requiring retailers to implement all price changes within 24 hours.
ProQuest Solutions Named as Finalist for Five SIIA CODiE Awards
PRNewswire reports that “four of ProQuest’s content and education solutions are finalists for five 2015 SIIA CODiE Awards, presented by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA),… Providing diversity and depth with unique, specialized and curated content are compelling distinctions of ProQuest Dialog and ProQuest History Vault within the aggregated content category. ProQuest Research Companion, an information literacy solution, is a finalist for two education awards, and ProQuest SIRS Issues Researcher is a finalist for the ninth consecutive year.
Bing Enhances Image Search, Adds Pinterest Collections
ResourceShelf reports that “now when you’re searching images on Bing and click a picture, you can scroll or swipe up to buy something that caught your eye, learn more about a historical figure, or find out where you can see stunning landscapes. You’ll see Pinterest collections associated with images you search for, as well as related searches to find more of what you like. For some product images, you’ll see where to buy it. You’ll also see more sizes of the image and pages where you can find more information about it – such as a recipe if it’s a food shot…”