A & I: RIP? Presentations online

Speakers' presentations from last week's event are now available at:
http://www.jibs.ac.uk/events/workshops/airip/programme.htm

Thanks to all who participated.

British Standards Enhancement Group -November 2009 meeting

There was general agreement that the latest upgrade to the BSOL site was a great improvement. Members of the committee had received very positive feedback from users about enhancements to the site. Especially highlighted were separated keyword and number search that My Downloads now works for academic users. There was general agreement that the new design makes far better use of space on the screen and that the information presented is easier to read. Feedback from CLAUD (Librarians in Higher Education networking to improve library access for disabled users in the South and South-West of England) who act as advisors to JIBS on accessibility issues had also been very positive and their suggestions for further enhancements have been passed to BSI for consideration.
The committee were less happy with the upgrade process. It was felt that communication about the upgrade had been less than clear and messages on the main BSI site had been rather different to information on Twitter. BSI has learned from the experience and, in future, will announce target dates well in advance, even if they come with a “health warning” that they may change. The committee also reported on the problems some users had face with redirection of links and EZproxy that had given some access problems during the first few days of the upgrades operation. This was especially frustrating as both Sheffield Hallam and the Open University had offered free consultancy advice on EZproxy prior to the switchover; this offer had not been taken up. BSI promised in future to take up the offer of advice on authentication issues.
The next phase of development for BSOL will separate the product from the Group website and eShop at a more fundamental architectural level. BSI will also work on search enhancements and create the ability to identify users individually (regardless of their authentication method); this will help in implementation of personalisation features for academic users. There is at the moment no firm timescale for future upgrades and that includes Shibboleth compliance. BSI had decided to change its outsourcing development partner and some concern was expressed by the group that this would further delay any enhancements. However BSI had enhanced its in-house team and they felt that this would lead to significant improvements to the preservation of internal knowledge about the architecture and technology.

BSI has come to an agreement with IHS whereby they will no longer act as a sales agent for BSOL. IHS will still sell BSI content through their web products, but they will no longer act as a sales agent for BSOL.BSI were asked about the Info4Education deal – specifically whether discounts will be maintained. BSI confirmed that the pricing for BSOL will remain the same for the remainder of the deal lifetime (summer 2011) and JISC will be invoiced by BSI accordingly. The BSOL link from within the Info4Education page will be removed (effective 1st January 2010) and subscribers that currently access BSOL in this way will need to create a direct link. BSI Customer Support is on hand to help, where necessary. This has been communicated to JISC and BSI will make sure that messaging from JISC is complete

New NESLi2 SMP brochure is now available

Download the new brochure which contains information on the 2010 NESLi2 SMP offers.

JSTOR launches Arts & Sciences VIII Collection

JSTOR’s Arts & Sciences VIII Collection will include a minimum of one hundred forty (140) titles when it is completed at the end of 2011. This collection extends JSTOR's coverage in disciplines across the social sciences and humanities, with new and expanded focus on art & art history, classical studies, philosophy, language & literature, and music.

More than thirty rare 19th and early 20th century American Art periodicals form part of this collection, including 291, created in 1915 by Alfred Stieglitz and Bradley, His Book from the private press founded by William H. Bradley. Eleven of these periodicals are immediately available in the collection, with the remaining titles available by the second quarter of 2010. JSTOR has prepared a short video (5 minutes) has to give institutions a glimpse into these periodicals.

Read the full announcement

RIP for A&I Services?

JIBS Workshop and debate on the future of abstracting and indexing services was held in Manchester. In the present mood (HE budget cuts) indexing services with little added value could be vulnerable. Overlapping services need rationalising. Indexing needs to be high quality, and abstracts need seamless linking to quality assured fulltext.

Excellent speakers and a frank debate of the issues made the event well worth the trip. Which services have one foot in the grave?

Can clever algorithms meet the differing needs of student essay-writers and doctoral researchers?

Would we prefer our A&I services to carry advertising, as google and facebook do?

Can EndNote with PubMed meet all the needs of a biomedical faculty?

Shibboleth report

Earlier this year the JIBS committee on behalf of the JIBS User Group recently conducted a survey about the implementation of Shibboleth across UK HE/FE & Research sectors. The results of this survey have now been published as a report on the JIBS website.

Thanks to June Hedges (JIBS treasurer) for all her work compiling this report.

_Mimas powering knowledge

You can see the new MIMAS logo on the website:

_Mimas Fact Sheet

JISC Collections to acquire Content Complete Ltd

JISC Collections, the organisation which manages the acquisition and provision of digital resources for universities and colleges in the UK, has reached an agreement to acquire Content Complete Ltd, the Oxfordshire-based licensing and negotiations company.

Content Complete was established in 2003 by Albert Prior and Paul Harwood with the aim of supporting organisations involved in licensing scholarly online content. The Company provides an outsourced service, representing clients in direct negotiations with publishers on pricing and licensing issues. Content Complete employs seven staff and has a range of clients in the academic, health and corporate sectors.

Read the full press release.

Business model trials for e-textbooks - eight leading textbook publishers participating

A range of business models for e-textbooks will be evaluated through four different trials at 13 higher education institutions. The trials will involve the participation of eight major textbook publishers and three e-book aggregators, and the overall objective is to identify realistic and sustainable business models.

The trials start this month and, in order to reflect the real live environment as far as possible, they will run until the end of the 2009/10 academic year.


Find out more

The JISC Collections 2009 Annual Conference and AGM

Our annual conference and AGM will be on the 19 November 2009, with the focus on e-books and expectations.

More information

Register your attendance

We hope to see you there.

What future for digital information – order or anarchy? (London, 17th November 2009)

Librarians, information professionals and publishers face major new challenges and opportunities as they meet increasing demand for high-quality digital content. To help them find a way through the digital maze, CILIP has launched a major new conference for all those affected by the impact of this irreversible trend.

The conference programme has been developed by Hazel Woodward, University Librarian and Director of the University Press at Cranfield University, and Lorraine Estelle, Chief Executive Officer of JISC Collections.

More information

RSC Publishing

Royal Society of Chemistry: RSC Publishing recently held its first Librarians Conference. Topics included VAT on e-publications, access to e-content by Schools (teachers and pupils) and the forthcoming new platform and search for RSC e-content.

Look out for new URLs and a beta version in January 2010, when RSC Publishing expect(s) to have a separate website.

http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/ProjectProspect/index.asp

Project Prospect User Guide

Next JIBS workshop: A&I: RIP? (Manchester, 13th November)

The next JIBS user group event and AGM will be held in Manchester on Friday, 13th November 2009. The topic:

A & I: RIP?

As institutional budgets come under increasing pressure, will abstracting and indexing services survive, and do they deserve to?

Services such as Science Direct report that the majority of links to their articles come from Google or Google Scholar. Do our academics, researchers and students simply want Google Scholar attached to a huge PDF dump? If so, why spend valuable funds on anything else?

This JIBS debate will examine the issues and also consider if new services like Summon will challenge Google.

For more information the event and a booking form please see http://www.jibs.ac.uk/events/workshops/airip/programme.htm

The debate and lunch are FREE to members of organisations that are JIBS members and 50 GBP to non members. To find out if your Institution is a member, please see http://www.jibs.ac.uk/aboutus/jibs-members.php

Accessibility for users.

Geraldine Smith, Learning and Teaching Librarian at the Open University, has agreed to be the JIBs disablity advisor. She fulfills this role at the OU as well, and is a member of CLAUD. JIBs met with Geraldine, and Caroline Moughton, chair of CLAUD, in April. As a result of that meeting, TechDis have been approached by CLAUD to discuss some national standards and guidelines for assessment of the accessibility of resources,

Geraldine has created a page on the Open University Library web site, with her accessibility advice for different databases, having tested them with JAWS.
It is an open page as far as the advice is concerned.

http://library.open.ac.uk/help/access/index.cfm?id=7007

MIMAS

MIMAS have a transition of services to new hardware slated for August - October and the MIMAS Marketing Programme envisages the launch of the new MIMAS logo also in October.

Services moving to new hardware include Copac, Zetoc, Landmap, Intute and the Archives Hub.

OvidSP Enhancement Group

We met with Ovid on 25th June. OvidSP Release 2.2 is to be expected in August 2009 with enhanced search and browse for individual journal titles. More filters and limits, which can be applied before or after searching e.g. "current year".

SilverPlatter users e.g. FIAF database, should already know that the ARC server will not be available after this month (June 2009).

Mark Clowes (Leeds) will chair and convene the JIBS Ovid Enhancement Group in future.

Ebsco Enhancement Group Minutes

The minutes of the last Ebsco enhancement group which met in May can be found on the jibs web site at
http://www.jibs.ac.uk/resources/EBSCO/minutes.htm

Database accessibility issues

A couple of resources to note

CLAUD: "Librarians in Higher Education networking to improve library access for disabled users in the South and South-West of England"
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/claud/intro.html
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/claud/events-res.html

Open University Library
http://library.open.ac.uk/help/access/index.cfm?id=7007
This page provides suggestions for overcoming known accessibility issues with some of the databases ... The instructions mainly relate to screen readers with some information for keyboard only users. Resources were tested using JAWS and Internet Explorer 6 ...

JIBS User Group Workshop on Management Data in HE Libraries

The JIBS User Group are pleased to announce the details of their next event:

JIBS Workshop on Management Data in Higher Education Libraries

Date & Venue: June 1 2009, School of Oriental and African Studies, London

This one day workshop will consider the issues surrounding the management of usage data in HE with particular reference to electronic resources. Presenting a number of views from different stakeholders in the use data business, the workshop will highlight both the challenges and benefits of data provision, collection and interpretation from the point of view of each of these stakeholders. Discussion groups throughout the workshop will give delegates the opportunity to share experiences, reflect on the views of the stakeholders, and together suggest some ways in which we can move forward.

To view the programme and book a place, please see here:

http://www.jibs.ac.uk/events/workshops/mgmtdata/programme.htm

Beilstein and Gmelin via Reaxys

Reaxys is Elsevier's new Web-based workflow solution for scientists in chemistry and related disciplines based on the combined content of Beilstein, Gmelin and the Patent Chemistry Database. Reaxys provides unlimited institutional access to a superior source of validated experimental reaction and substance data together with intelligent and intuitive ranking and filtering, analysis and an industry-leading synthesis planning tool. If your research is in synthetic chemistry, drug research, catalysts, or material science: Reaxys helps you in optimizing synthesis planning, reaction searches and finding and analyzing substance data. To
get more information and subscribe to our Reaxys newsletter please go to: http://www.info.reaxys.com/. CrossFire users, as well as completely new users, will immediately see the advantages of Reaxys.

The Elsevier A&G sales force will be responsible for the sales of Reaxys. Currently, the Elsevier Sales organization is being expanded to include Product Sales Managers with a unique understanding of your specific needs. Preliminary discussions have already begun with JISC, and we look forward to sharing more information with you regarding the transition to Reaxys in
the very near future.

We appreciate your feedback and will keep you up-to-date on further developments. We look forward to continuing to work with the JIBS-user group in the development and rollout of Reaxys and appreciate your valued input.

Encourage chemists at your R&D departments to find out more about Reaxys, give feedback or sign-up for the newsletter at http://www.info.reaxys.com/.

Best regards
Eva Seip
Marketing Manager
Email: e.seip@elsevier.com

A powerpoint presentation is available at:

http://www.jibs.ac.uk/resources/MDL/docs/Reaxys20090309.pdf


Posted on behalf of Eva Seip by Linda Humphreys

OvidSP searchterm highlighting

Expected this month a further enhancement to OvidSP.

"... improving the accuracy of highlighting in OvidSP for both Basic Search as well as Advanced Search. Only specific search terms used will be highlighted; these will be highlighted in yellow. Expanded terms will be highlighted in red."

The next release of OvidSP will be live at the end of March!

Customizable Search Fields – Display frequently used fields in a new MyFields tab-you no longer have to select them each time you perform a search since OvidSP will remember them each time you log in. Easily add or remove all other fields-now located in a Show All tab-based on your preferences.

Limit-to-Star-Ranking – Limit searches to generate results with a specific ranking, such as five or four stars. Remember-ranking denotes relevancy; five stars indicate the highest relevancy.

Limit Date to Last – This new “rolling limit”, i.e., “Limit to Last 3 Years”, will allow users to generate the latest results of a given time period, so they can easily identify the most current information.

Set up to receive AutoAlerts on a quarterly basis.

You will be able to select “current” (i.e., “Limit to 2006-Current”), rather than a specific year, as your end date ...

Clin-eguide customers only – You will find a new link from the main search page of all search modes directly to the Clin-eguide homepage.

downtime in JIBS website 27-29 March

BUCS engineering work over the
weekend 27th - 29th March (http://www.bath.ac.uk/bucs/news/news_0020.html)
means that the jibs website (www.jibs.ac.uk) will be unavailable

CrossFire and Reaxys

The current CrossFire Beilstein and Gmelin agreement which your institution has signed is due to terminate on 31 October 2009. You may also have heard something about a new product from Elsevier called Reaxys.

We would like to tell you about Elsevier's plans for CrossFire and its successor product, Reaxys.
1. In January Elsevier released Reaxys, a new purely web-based application for organic and inorganic chemists and related scientists. Reaxys is based on the combined content of the Beilstein, Gmelin and Patent Chemistry databases. It will provide all of the functionality of CrossFire and more. For further information please see http://info.reaxys.com

2. CrossFire will be supported by Elsevier until the end of 2010. Elsevier, JISC Collections and Mimas are in discussions about an extension of the current CrossFire Agreement, and of the Mimas CrossFire service, until end-December 2010. We hope to have further information for your institution about this extension in the near future.

3. Elsevier are currently discussing academic pricing and an agreement for Reaxys with JISC Collections. The Mimas and the JIBS User Group will be evaluating Reaxys and we will pass on feedback to you. Reaxys will be available for trial by your institution - please look out for further details which will be circulated in the near future.

Posted on behalf of Sean Dunne, MIMAS

RAE, REF, Evidence Ltd

As you may have seen in the Times Higher

http://www.evidence.co.uk/index.php?page=24&ArticleID=148

22 Jan 2009 - THE: Jonathan Adams, director of Evidence, responds to comments over the recent Company changes


"Jonathan Adams, director of Evidence Ltd., notes that the recent acquisition of the company by Thomson Reuters creates no issues of conflict of interest with regards to the HEFCE REF Pilot. Evidence, he says, is 'developing different methods of constructing bibliometric indicators for the REF, which will be put to REF expert advisory groups' and not comparing citation databases."

Zoe Corbyn, 'Conflict of interest warning over Evidence sale' THE (22 January 2009, p. 8)

You are the REF

Evidence Ltd and ResearchResearch have created a simulation of post-2008 metrics

You are the REF (Research Excellence Framework)

"Everyone's talking about metrics, but how would they work in reality? You are the REF lets you get a feel for the implications. The new REF will be used to allocate research funds for universities and colleges from 2010 and HEFCE has said that the quality metrics it has in mind are research income, citations and PhDs. But how would these be measured, and which would be most important? There's no definitive answer yet. But You are the REF let's you play with the options ...

http://youaretheref.researchresearch.com/

OvidSP Boolean

The NOT operator is provided in OvidSP, under MultiField Search dropdown menu, and can be included in Search Statements, but the users in our enhancement group, last November, were evenly divided on whether a "NOT" button should be provided alongside the present: AND, OR

I would be interested to hear/read more views on making the NOT options more conspicuous for OvidSP end-users.

SilverPlatter retirement

SilverPlatter

There are a few databases which are not migrating to OvidSP, including EINECS Plus, Chem-Bank, OSH-ROM, and RPS e-PIC

Date for retirement of the SilverPlatter platform has not been set, but I expect something mid-year to be announced soon.

Springer Advisory Summit

Springer invited a number of UK academic librarians to spend the day sharing views. A briefing on company strategy was followed by candid discussions e.g. taking eBooks to complete adoption, licensing, Open Access and Author Pays. Launching innovative products and purchase decision-making in our present financial climate could put publishers in a hard place?

Over two centuries of British Periodicals available free to universities, colleges and research councils in the UK

British Periodicals Collections I and II, which is now available free of charge to colleges, universities and research councils in the UK. JISC Collections’ purchase of the archive on behalf of these institutions means they can enjoy free access via ProQuest’s web platform to nearly 500 periodicals, which represents over 250 years of content that covers the arts, the built environment, humanities and social sciences.

This Collection has been purchased by JISC Collections on behalf of the UK academic community and is part of JISC Collections' UK National Academic Archive. Find out more about how this archive can be used in Higher and Further Education.

Find out more about British Periodicals Collections I and II

The Burney Collection of 17th and 18th Century Newspapers – free and available online

The largest single online collection of English news media from the 17th and 18th centuries – the Burney Collection - is now available free of charge for the first time to Higher and Further Education institutions and Research Councils across the UK.

The Burney Collection offers unique insights into two centuries of history through access to over 1,270 newsbooks, newspapers, pamphlets and a variety of other news materials published in England, Ireland and Scotland, plus papers from British colonies in the Americas and Asia.

Digitised through a partnership between the National Science Foundation and the British Library, and then developed and hosted online by Gale/Cengage Learning, the digital version of the Burney Collection has been purchased in perpetuity by JISC Collections on behalf of the UK academic and research community at a national level following an open and transparent procurement process.

Find out more about the Burney Collection