THREE NEWS ITEMS

 

 Emerald Makes More LIS Articles Available Through Open Access

From Resource Shelf Blog

Emerald Group Publishing Limited is delighted to announce the next batch of articles available in open access as part of its ‘special partnership’ with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). The articles, available to download from www.emeraldinsight.com/tk/iflaoa2013, are published in several of Emerald’s well-respected LIS journals, including Interlending & Document Supply, Library Hi Tech News, Performance Measurement and Metrics, Library Management and Library Review.

This special partnership takes advantage of the Emerald platform to increase the discoverability of research presented at IFLA events.

Google Reader to Retire in July 2013

From Google Blog:

We have just announced on the Official Google Blog that we will soon retire Google Reader (the actual date is July 1, 2013). We know Reader has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go. We’re sad too.

There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience.

To ensure a smooth transition, we’re providing a three-month sunset period so you have sufficient time to find an alternative feed-reading solution. If you want to retain your Reader data, including subscriptions, you can do so through Google Takeout.

 

Digital Public Library of America to Debut April 18-19

The long-planned Digital Public Library of America is set to make its public debut on schedule with a two-day series of events, to be held April 18-19 at the Boston Public Library. DPLA’s Concept Note states that “by adhering to the fundamental principle of free and universal access to knowledge, it will promote education in the broadest sense of the term.  That is, it will function as an online library for students of all ages, from grades K-12 to postdoctoral researchers and anyone seeking self-instruction…Despite our ambitions to include all kinds of cultural products, we are concentrating at first on the written record…but are designing the system such that we can move quickly to other types of materials… In order to lay a solid foundation for its collections to demonstrate whet the project may become …the DPLA will begin with works in the public domain…that have already been digitized.”

DPLA’s next step may hopefully be orphaned books.

 

African Journals Online

 

                AJOL www.ajol.info  proclaims itself to be the world’s largest online collection of African-authored scholarly articles drawn from 400 peer-reviewed journals published in 30 countries.   According to its mission statement: “Mainly due to difficulties accessing them, African-published research papers have been under-utilized, under-valued and under-cited in the international and African research arenas….AJOL is working to change this.”

It is another use of the internet and Open Access Journals such as the Directory of Open Access Journals www.doaj.org  and Latin America’s Scientific Electronic Library Online www.scielo.org to make non-North American /Europe research available to a worldwide audience.

            AJOL is a non-profit company based in South Africa.  It raises funds by charging for downloads for a few magazines so it’s not all Open Access.  Currently it receives 150,000 visits per month from 190 countries.   

            I did a couple of searches on my regular interests.   They used the Google system which allows for Boolean searching and setting time limits.

            The word nanotechnology got 8 pages of listings of relevant articles mostly concerning the use of nano particles to deliver medicine.

            Seven pages of relevant articles showed up for MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems)

            I decided to add the phrase cold fusion found eight pages of listings with I put in cold fusion, but none if I use the “ “mark command.

                 

JSTOR OPENS ITS SELF TO INDIVIDUALS

JSTOR is a major non-profit archive of 1,400 academic journals, some reaching back to the 1600’s. It is now offering free access to large amounts of its material.  Anyone can sign up for a JSTORE account and read up to three articles for free every two weeks.   You cannot print them however unlike paid subscribers who can look at an unlimited number of items. 

                JSTOR was one of first data archives start in 1995. It has since its founding been devoted to the helping libraries, especially research and academic libraries, deal with the constant growth of the number of academic journals in every field.   It was originally funded by the Andrew W. Mellow Foundation and subscriptions.  It is now part of ITHAKA a non-profit organization devoted “to helping the academic community take full advantage of… networking technologies. “  and collecting subscriptions from 7000 institutions in 153 countries.

 In 2011 it began carrying books.  

                When I was working as a reference librarian, I always referred students researching historical, theological, or literately subjects to JSTOR because it had material going back literally centuries.

                The advanced search on this new feature allows you to exclude material you cannot read, and exclude book reviews, which can take up an annoying amount of space in broad searches.