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.