News from NISO Members
Partnerships
EBSCO Information Services Supports Google’s Campus Activated Subscriber Access (CASA)
EBSCO Information Services, Voting Member, Press Release, May 27, 2020
CASA enables those doing research to access their institution’s scholarly content remotely by providing seamless linking and authentication. Through partnering with Google Scholar, users will be able to authenticate to the EBSCO articles and journals to which they have access. Users can now access this information while working off-campus, making it easier to conduct studies anytime, anywhere. Links to EBSCO content will also be available in Google Scholar, enhancing the user experience.
EBSCO Senior Vice President of Product Management Tim Lull reinforces the importance of accessing EBSCO content whenever and wherever users conduct their research, especially as they work remotely. “As EBSCO continues to improve the user experience, it’s exciting to better enable the research process via Google Scholar by enabling trusted full-text links to scholarly content at EBSCO, and effectively removing barriers to access.”
EarthArXiv Announces New Partnership with California Digital Library to host Earth Sciences Preprint Service
California Digital Library (CDL), L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, May 20, 2020
The Advisory Council of the EarthArXiv preprint service for earth sciences is pleased to announce a partnership with the California Digital Library (CDL) that will support EarthArXiv’s mission, future growth, and long-term sustainability. Core to this partnership will be the transition of EarthArXiv’s preprints server – including public display and submission management – from the Center for Open Science to the eScholarship Publishing program at the CDL.
CDL will host EarthArXiv using Janeway, an open source publishing platform developed by the Centre for Technology and Publishing and the Open Library of Humanities at Birkbeck University of London. EarthArXiv’s Advisory Council will maintain ownership and control over the preprint server, while the eScholarship Publishing team will contribute to the development, support, and maintenance of the Janeway platform.
IEEE and the University of Illinois Begin Open Access Agreement
IEEE, Voting Member, and University of Illinois, L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, May 13, 2020
With this new agreement, researchers will have access to IEEE’s premier collection of journals, conferences, and standards via the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. The university’s authors are also able to publish articles via open access in nearly 200 leading journals and magazines published by IEEE, making them instantly available and free to read by the general public. In today’s environment, it is important for researchers to continue to innovate, and that they are provided with the resources and publishing options they need to do so.
Under the terms of the three-year agreement, the costs of accessing subscription content and the article processing charges (APCs) required to publish in open access journals will be rolled into one amount paid in advance by the university, making the process easier and more convenient for authors. Both the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and Chicago campuses are part of this content agreement.
EBSCO Information Services and Mygrator Partner to Support Libraries Looking to Adopt FOLIO
EBSCO Information Services, Voting Member, Press Release, May 6, 2020
Founded in 2020, Mygrator was formed to meet the FOLIO demand in the Benelux region, specifically Flanders, Netherlands and Luxembourg. Mygrator founders Erwin la Roi and Bart van der Meij have a deep knowledge of project management, implementation and adoption of information systems in the Benelux region. Bart is an experienced management consultant that works with companies to understand their needs. He uses this experience to work with new information communications technology (ICT) environments. Erwin is a process manager and spent many years in the information industry recruiting. He is also experienced in organizing environments and improving process efficiency. By supporting FOLIO libraries, Mygrator will help increase the adoption of FOLIO and provide additional services to customers.
Mygrator Founder, Bart van der Meij says that it’s the company’s vision to support customers that are looking to create their own solutions through open source. “This partnership with EBSCO will allow us to help customers looking to bring new order to their data and information environment by adding knowledge, experience and resources. FOLIO brings this new freedom to the library industry and we are happy to provide interested organizations with options for migrating traditional library systems to FOLIO.”
AENOR and ASTM International Sign Technology Agreement
ASTM International, Voting Member, Press Release, May 6, 2020
Two of the world’s leading standards organizations have signed a commercial technology agreement that aims to expand the reach of their respective standards and related technical documents.
This agreement reflects our shared commitment to using the latest technology platforms to deliver high-quality standards and information solutions to both organizations’ stakeholders,” according to James Thomas, ASTM International’s vice president of sales and marketing.
Infrastructure and Platforms
Silverchair and University of California Press Launch Next Generation Journals Hosting Platform
Silverchair, Voting Member, Press Release, May 11, 2020
As one of the six largest university presses in the United States, and the only one associated with a public institution, UC Press strives to drive progressive change by seeking out and cultivating the brightest minds and giving them a voice, reach, and impact. UC Press publishes a core list of more than 35 high-impact journals across the humanities and social sciences, including Journal of the American Musicological Society, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, The Public Historian, and Case Studies in the Environment, as well as a growing stable of open-access journals including Collabra: Psychology, Civic Sociology, and Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene.
“With a diverse portfolio of journals and stakeholders, including both subscription and OA titles, UC Press needs both a platform partner that can support its growth strategy and a full suite of features that can be easily and quickly configured on a per-journal basis,” said Thane Kerner, Silverchair CEO. “With UC Press’s legacy of innovation, leveraging technology to benefit their author and reader communities, and publishing defining content, they are a perfect fit for the growing number of premier university presses using the Silverchair Platform. Enabling these presses to better disseminate high-impact scholarship is at the heart of Silverchair’s mission, and we welcome UC Press to our community.”
Product Innovation
Celebrating Emerald’s Annual High Usage Awards 2020
Emerald Publishing Group, Voting Member, Press Release, May 21, 2020
The top 20 global academic institutions with the highest number of downloads of Emerald’s eJournal content throughout 2019 have been announced as part of the 10th annual High Usage Awards; celebrating the relationship between Emerald and the winning institutions, whilst also highlighting the global reach and impact of our research.
Laura Ingle, Head of Product and Institutional Marketing at Emerald spoke of the value of the awards, saying “The High Usage Awards provide us with the opportunity to reward the loyalty of our customers, highlighting the value of our relationships with institutions and academics from around the world. Furthermore, they offer us an opportunity to celebrate the global reach and high quality of our research and the work undertaken by all of the authors, editors and peer reviewers.”
UF Becomes First U.S. University to Acquire Cutting-Edge NVIDIA DGX A100 System, Advancing Its Artificial Intelligence Initiative
University of Florida, Voting Member, News Announcement, May 14, 2020
Moving forward on its sweeping vision to transform the future of education through artificial intelligence (AI), the University of Florida is collaborating with technology company NVIDIA to acquire the world’s most advanced AI system to boost the performance of UF’s powerful supercomputer.
UF today announced it will be the country’s first higher education institution to acquire the new NVIDIA DGX™ A100 — the world’s most advanced AI system.
The new systems are scheduled to arrive at UF at the end of May and mark a significant step in the university’s bold initiative to become a national leader in the application of AI, an expansive plan that will elevate UF in research, teaching, and economic development. The initiative includes a commitment from UF to hire 100 faculty members specifically focused on AI, in addition to the 500 new faculty hired across disciplines -- many of whom will integrate AI into their teaching and research. UF is also embarking on a unique plan to infuse AI across academic majors, creating a next generation AI-enabled workforce and democratizing a technology that has the potential to solve some of the globe's most formidable challenges.
Highlights of Updates & Developments: Atla's Key Research Tools on EBSCOhost
Atla, Voting Member, Blog Posting, May 14, 2020
As we enter the virtual conference season for 2020, we wanted to highlight some recent updates and developments with Atla’s key research tools on the EBSCOhost platform: Atla Religion Database® (Atla RDB®), AtlaSerials® (Atlas®), and AtlaSerials PLUS® (Atlas PLUS®). For more than twenty years, Atla and EBSCO have partnered to offer key research tools in religion and theology.
Financials, Mergers, and Acquisitions
Project MUSE Will Freeze Journal Collection Prices for 2021
Johns Hopkins University Press / Project MUSE, Voting Member / L.S.A. Member Press Release, May 27, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted both Project MUSE’s library customers and its participating not-for-profit publishers, along with the rest of the research and education community. After a great deal of consultation with our constituents, in light of the ongoing operational and financial pressures affecting us all, we have made a decision to keep pricing for all our Project MUSE Journal Collections flat for the 2021 calendar year subscription term. There will be no increase in the annual cost for any current customer to renew for the same journal collection for 2021.
MUSE has been an integral part of the scholarly communications ecosystem for 25 years, providing libraries with affordable access to vetted, essential scholarship from our cohort of respected not-for-profit publishers. MUSE’s mission, to support the sustainable dissemination of trusted content, is aligned with those of both our library and publisher communities. By distributing the significant majority of our revenue from library subscriptions directly back to our university-based publishers, we return a great deal of value to the system of scholarship, rather than extracting it. We invest in maintaining a collaborative platform that provides for crucial needs of discoverability and accessibility, complies with major information standards, and offers library-friendly and user-friendly terms.
MSU Library Receives Largest Donation in its History for Renovation and Relocation of Special Collections
Michigan State University, L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, May 14, 2020
The MSU Library has received the largest single donation in its history, a gift from research scientist Keelung Hong, PhD, in honor of his longtime partner Stephen O. Murray, a sociologist, anthropologist, and independent scholar who graduated from MSU’s James Madison College. Dean of Libraries Joseph A. Salem, Jr. said the donation will be used to renovate space on Three East in the Main Library and to move Special Collections to that floor.
“This gift is a tremendous act of generosity and philanthropy,” Salem said. “The etymological root of philanthropy begins with love, and this is Keelung Hong’s demonstration of love for Stephen Murray, for MSU Libraries, and for research, teaching, and learning. His gift will help us support and protect our collections, and it will help us support research related to issues of diversity and inclusion. We appreciate all that his donation represents.”
The library renovation will include the addition of a dedicated HVAC system and a fire suppression system. The move to Three East will create more storage capacity for Special Collections, provide Special Collections staff with a dedicated processing space, offer more security for the collections, and give Special Collections staff the opportunity to work together in one location. The recently created Special Collections Reading Room and the Special Collections Seminar Room will remain on the first floor of the Main Library.
National Archives Awards $2.9 Million for Historical Records Projects
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Voting Member, Press Release, May 11, 2020
Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero will award 27 grants totaling $2,877,730 to projects in 17 states. The National Archives grants program is carried out with the advice and recommendations of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). A complete list of grants from its May meeting is online.
Nine grants for Archival Projects were awarded, including records of the long-time state photographer of Illinois, employee publications from the Lukens Steel Company in Pennsylvania, LGTBQ+ Music and Theater Collections, a half-million pages of radio scripts from Lowell Thomas, the Rupert Cutler environmental collection at Virginia Tech, archives of the American Jewish Congress, and community archives at the Southeast Asian Digital Archives. Two projects will preserve America’s early legal records: New York’s colonial and early statehood records, and the early legal records of the New Haven (CT) County Court and Superior Court.
Open Access, Open Science
AAP Submits Comments to Administration Concerning Open Access Policy for Peer-Reviewed Journals
Association of American Publishers (AAP), Voting Member, News Announcement, May 7, 2020
The Association of American Publishers has submitted public comments in response to a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Request for Information on “Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications, Data and Code Resulting From Federally Funded Research.”
As a principal point of emphasis, AAP highlights the numerous and critical contributions of both commercial and noncommercial publishers to the objectives of scientific progress and intellectual advancement, driven by their investments in the production, distribution, and long-term stewardship of high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles. These investments propel a vast universe of highly regarded publications—in every conceivable area of medicine, science, and humanities—to people all over the globe.
“Publishers support open science and have been essential to its evolution by developing an ever-increasing array of open access and public access models in the marketplace, as well as tools to enhance the dissemination and impact of publications,” commented AAP’s Matthew Barblan, Vice President, Public Policy. “Through these innovations, publishers are continuously creating options by which researchers can communicate their ideas and discoveries to the world, while also ensuring the accuracy and peer-review that are indispensable to the process.”
More Open Access for CERN Authors With a New Agreement
IOP Publishing, Voting Member, News Announcement, May 7, 2020
CERN’s open-access (OA) share in scientific information gains more ground this year as the Organization signed a notable ‘publish and read’ agreement with IOP Publishing. In practice, this means that all research articles by corresponding authors with a primary or secondary affiliation to CERN, including articles from any experimental collaboration hosted by CERN, can now be published immediately in IOPP journals with no barriers and no article publication charges (APCs), under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). Moreover, the CERN community now has access to all the content in all 121 IOP Journals like the Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics or the Journal of Instrumentation, including the oldest articles.
“The research community at CERN has been at the forefront of developments in scholarly communication – even dating prior to the founding of the world-wide web – reflecting our belief that openness is imperative to the progress of science,” said Alex Kohls, Group Leader Scientific Information Service at CERN. “Since 2014, the SCOAP3 initiative has established immediate open access to published articles as the standard in particle physics, but CERN authors publish also non-HEP content. Therefore, our agreement with IOP Publishing represents another important milestone in our open-access strategy.”
Government Initiatives
ARL Joins Business, Government, Education Leaders in Call for Emergency Funding for Libraries Impacted by COVID-19
Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Voting Member, News Announcement, May 11, 2020
A coalition of business, government, and education leaders are calling on the US Congress to provide emergency aid to libraries impacted by COVID-19 in a letter released today by the American Library Association (ALA).
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is pleased to have signed this letter to Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY), House Speaker Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Schumer (D-NY), and House Minority Leader McCarthy (R-CA) in support of COVID-19 relief for US libraries. ARL’s members, and all libraries, are facing significant financial challenges. Federal funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is essential for crucial library services to renew our economy and to stabilize the research enterprise. ARL will continue to advocate for research library funding to support the faculty, students, and broader communities who depend on research libraries.
Scholarly Review
eLife Launches Service to Peer Review Preprints on bioRxiv
eLife Sciences Publications Ltd, Voting Member, Press Release, May 13, 2020
eLife is pleased to announce today the launch of Preprint Review, which brings high-quality peer review to the preprint server bioRxiv.
Preprint Review offers authors who have embraced the speed and efficiency of sharing their research as preprints the opportunity to have eLife review their work directly on bioRxiv and simultaneously considered for publication in the journal.
“The explosion of COVID-related papers on bioRxiv and medRxiv demonstrates the important role preprints can have in accelerating science,” says Michael Eisen, Editor-in-Chief of eLife. “But it also highlights how urgently we need a fast and effective system to help readers navigate and assess the reliability of new reports.”
IOP Publishing Unveils Co-Review Policy
IOP Publishing, Voting Member, News Announcement, May 7, 2020
IOP Publishing (IOPP) has introduced a formal co-review policy, to help early-career researchers gain experience in peer review while ensuring they get credit for the work they contribute.
A co-reviewer is a researcher – often early in their career – who reviews a paper with a more senior (invited) reviewer.
For junior researchers, this can mean their contribution goes unrecognised – a recent survey found that nearly 80 per cent per cent of early-career researchers had undertaken peer review with their mentors, but received no credit.
IOPP’s new policy aims to solve this by trialling the formal co-review process on the journals Nano Express, Journal of Optics and Journal of Physics D. Reviewers will be offered the chance to ‘delegate with co-review’, with the co-reviewer being formally invited to review the manuscript and receive official recognition for their work.
Online Literacy and Learning
Delta Think Launches Education Practice and Names Lori Carlin Chief Commercial Officer
Delta Think, Inc., Voting Member, News Announcement, May 13, 2020
Delta Think is pleased to launch a new Education Practice, headed by Partner Bonnie Gruber. The new Practice will be focused on helping organizations reimagine educational and learning offerings and programs for a virtual environment. Collaborating with Delta Think to support the new practice is Diane Harnish. Diane comes to Delta Think with more than 30 years of experience in the scholarly publishing and higher education markets, where she has worked extensively to develop and execute growth-oriented market, product, and commercial strategies. Diane has held numerous executive-level positions with leading publishing and educational organizations, including Wolters Kluwer and Informa.
“This is clearly a time of change in education and learning,” said Ms. Gruber. “Necessity is the mother of invention, and we know our clients seek opportunities to reimagine programs, content, and services for a changing environment. With Diane’s help, we hope to provide the expertise our clients need to build and implement strategies to address immediate concerns while also positioning them to serve their educational mission well into the future.”
Knowledge Management
IOP Publishing Brings the International Quantum Science Community Together Virtually
IOP Publishing, Voting Member, News Announcement, May 13, 2020
IOP Publishing and the Institute of Physics, in partnership with the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), will host their first virtual Quantum conference in October 2020. Bringing together early career and established researchers from industry, academia and government worldwide, Quantum 2020 will represent some of the most cutting-edge directions in quantum science and technology today.
Held over four days from Monday 19 to Thursday 22 October 2020, talks and discussion panels featuring leading experts in the field will be livestreamed. Attendees will exchange knowledge and collaborate on the latest research and emerging areas of interest in quantum communications, sensing, computing and technology in industry. In addition, the conference will feature a virtual poster session where researchers can present and discuss their work with peers.
Libraries and Archives
ARL, CNI, EDUCAUSE Release “Stewarding the Scholarly and Cultural Record,” Fourth Installment of Emerging Technologies Report
Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Voting Member, News Announcement, May 27, 2020
The fourth installment of Mapping the Current Landscape of Research Library Engagement with Emerging Technologies in Research and Learning explores several of the emerging technologies that pose new challenges and offer new solutions to managing digital content throughout its life cycle. The section released today addresses the library’s role in advancing open research and publishing practices, reinforcing integrity and trust in the scholarly and cultural record, and preserving the evolving scholarly and cultural record.