Wellcome Library Partners With ProQuest to Digitize Early European Books

The Wellcome Library has announced a partnership with ProQuest, U.K. to digitize
more than 15,000 volumes from the library’s rare book collection as part of the
Wellcome Digital Library pilot project. The collection will be made available
through ProQuest’s new Early European Books (EEB) database, a sister project to
the Early English Books Online.

EEB will trace the history of printing in continental Europe from its origins up
to 1700. A number of other libraries have already contributed to the project,
including the Kongelige Bibliotek in Copenhagen and the Biblioteca Nazionale
Centrale di Firenze. The Library will contribute its entire collection of
pre-1700 non-English printed books. This includes many rare texts on subjects
ranging from alchemy to zoology.

Unlike other parts of the pilot project, which are being fully funded by the
Wellcome Library, this partnership will involve a significant investment from
ProQuest. In return for access to the collection, ProQuest will make the entire
collection freely available to all U.K.-based users, and to users in the HINARI
group of developing countries. Wellcome Library members will have free access to
the collection from anywhere in the world. In addition, 10% of the collection
will be selected by the Wellcome Library to be made freely available to any user
worldwide via the Wellcome Digital Library portal. As part of the project,
previously uncatalogued (and hence unavailable) material is also being included,
giving the new database complete coverage of the library’s pre-1700 European
holdings.

By partnering with ProQuest, the Wellcome Library hopes that users of its
collection will benefit from the ability to see works in a broader historical
context, and from the development of tools such as text recognition that are
adapted to the challenges of early European printing—benefits that it is
unlikely to be able to replicate, at least in the short term, within its own
digital library.

Source: Wellcome Library

HRD Ministry Asks UGC Not to Implement NET Exemption

New Delhi: Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has prohibited the University Grants Commission (UGC) from taking up requests from the universities to specifically exempt them from the necessary National Eligibility Test (NET) for the appointment of lecturers. As per sources, UGC, through a resolution on February 23 decided to exempt certain universities on specific requests to grant exemptions to appoint the lecturers on the basis of NET.

 

The Ministry in a notification on Tuesday i.e. March 30, 2010, under Section 20 of the UGC Act, described this decision as being opposing to the national policy of education and urged the commission not to implement it. The reason of the ministry issuing the notice to the UGC comes in the wake of complaints being posted on the issue of 'gross violation' by the commission, to allow exemptions to specific individuals from the minimum eligibility criteria, which is NET/ State Level Eligibility Test (SLET) for recruitment, set by the UGC itself. The Section 20 of the UGC Act states that in case there is a dispute, then the decision of the Centre will hold.

 

As per the standards prescribed by the Commission under the M Phil/ PhD Regulations, 2009, those having obtained a PhD degree were deemed to be provided with the exemptions. The UGC was also authorized to provide relaxations, though only for a specific period, with prescribed qualifications in any particular subject in which NET was not being conducted or not enough candidates were available with NET qualification. With no individual application allowed to be entertained, any relaxation if allowed, was ought to have a sound justification and would be allowed for a particular subject to affected universities for a specific period.

 

Further, the HRD Ministry reminded the UGC that it is only after considering the Mungekar Committee report, which reviewed the NET and UGC's recommendations that it had asked the commission to notify that NET/ SLET would be the minimum eligibility conditions for the appointment of lecturers in universities and colleges.

Ref :-

1. http://updates.highereducationinindia.com/2010/hrd-ministry-asks-ugc-not-to-implement-2566.php

2. http://www.indiaedunews.net/Today/UGC_weaned_of_NET_exemption_authority_by_MHRD_11129/

ASTM International partners with Scope for enhancing the findability of its digital library content

,Chennai, India, 07/11/2011: Scope eKnowledge Center (Scope), a leading content
enhancement and knowledge services provider, has been selected by ASTM
International, the globally recognized leader in international standards
development, for its subject matter expert (SME)-curated knowledge mining and
indexing services.
Under the agreement, Scope will be developing a domain-specific, multi-level
taxonomy for the vast array of content within ASTM’s Standards and Engineering
Digital Library (SEDL). With over 1,400 ebooks, 60,000 articles and chapters,
and 12,000 standards, the ASTM Standards and Engineering Digital Library is one
of the world’s most comprehensive engineering resources. Scope will also develop
facets with a taxonomic structure to enable robust cross domain search, as well
as create an expanded list of keywords to be mapped to the taxonomy and facets
accordingly. This content enhancement project aims to provide a more precise
search experience to the Digital Library end users, allow drilled-down
navigation, as well as the ability to conduct effective searches across content
domains.
Scope is known in the industry for its “assisted automation” approach that
blends the use of appropriate technology with subject domain expertise for
scalable, cost effective and high-value results for its clients worldwide. To
execute this project specifically, Scope has developed a team that includes
taxonomy experts and software specialists, as well as an array of domain experts
from the diverse breath of industries served by ASTM.
“I speak for the whole of the Scope team in saying that we are extremely pleased
to be working with an internationally recognized and respected organization such
as ASTM International,” shared Tram Venkatraman, President of Scope. “The
ability to optimize the mix of technology and subject matter expertise is
Scope’s forte. We look forward to leveraging this strength to support ASTM
International’s commitment to the development and dissemination of high- quality
standards and technical information in increasingly diverse fields.”
ASTM’s Director of Product Development and Marketing, David von Glahn, comments,
“We selected Scope’s SME-curated knowledge mining and indexing solution after an
in-depth review of a number of vendor’s proposals to address our content
enhancement goals. We were impressed by Scope’s ability to offer a robust
approach and are confident that the manual curation provided by their subject
matter experts will deliver a significantly improved search experience for our
end users.”

Cambridge Journals celebrates success with free online access

Cambridge Journals is celebrating recent achievements by making all its online
journals content from 2009 and 2010 free for six weeks.
Cambridge has enjoyed accelerating success in recent years with increasing
numbers of journals published, improved impact factors and multiple enhancements
made to Cambridge Journals Online (CJO). Usage has significantly increased with
the digitisation of new and archive content, and more people are now able to
access Cambridge Journals than ever before. Currently over 1.3 million articles
are downloaded from CJO every month.
To celebrate these successes, and to reach out to new customers, Cambridge
Journals has announced that it is making all online content published during
2009 and 2010 free between 15th July and 30th August 2011.
During the trial, the Cambridge Journals team will also be looking for feedback
to help shape the future of the service. The Cambridge Journals Online (CJO)
website is continually developing, informed by consultation with key customers
in the academic and library communities. Users will be encouraged to give their
feedback on CJO and content, to ensure the service keeps on developing according
to their needs.
Simon Ross, Global Director of Cambridge Journals, says: “Cambridge Journals
forms one of the most important bodies of academic research material available
in the world today, and we have recently seen massive growth in the number of
people using and accessing our journals. We are celebrating this success with
our loyal customers, and providing new customers with an opportunity to see what
Cambridge Journals have to offer. We encourage anyone with an interest in
serious academic research to go onto CJO and have a look around.”
To access the free articles, go to: http://journals.cambridge.org/

Now, Gujarati encyclopaedia, lexicon on your mobile phone

 A vast Gujarati language resource will soon be available on a mobile
phone application. The group developing the application has already put online
the Bhagawat Gomandal ( Gujarati encyclopedia) and the Gujarati Lexicon, a
language compendium that has scores of tools like translator and thesaurus.
The group will make all those services available on the mobile phone application
so that they can be used on the go.
Features like Gujarati dictionaries, proverbs, and idioms will be available on
the application without any charge. "One can solve Gujarati crosswords, take
quick quizzes and play games on all new-age smart phones," said Ashok Karania,
the facilitator of the Gujarati Lexicon. "The application will be helpful to the
new generation, especially the NRGs. The project is now in its last phase and we
will make it available in three months."
Karania said the application could be used on mobile devices, smart phones,
tablets, and smart TVs. "The Gujarati Lexicon team has ensured that Gujarati
language tools and technologies are compliant with the latest trends," he said.
The team faced many challenges during its mission. "The biggest challenge was to
make the service compatible with all mobile devices," Karania said. "We had to
rearrange the database of the lexicon, which contains millions of words."
The Gujarati Lexicon team is working on other interesting projects as well.
After digitizing Gujarat Vidyapith's Sarth Dictionary and Bhagwad Gomandal,
Gujarati Lexicon presented Lok Kosh - a dictionary recording popular words in
current usage. The team is also working on specialized dictionaries for medical
and legal disciplines.
Gujarati Lexicon aims to preserve, popularize and develop Gujarati language
through the power of information technology.
Source | Times of India | 18 July 2011

New Journal: The Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

New Journal: The Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication
A joint publishing partnership between the libraries at Pacific University (OR) and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (CA) has announced a new open access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to library-led scholarly communication initiatives, online publishing and digital projects.
The Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication will provide a focused forum for library practitioners to share ideas, strategies, research and pragmatic explorations of library-led initiatives related to such areas as institutional repository and digital collection management, library publishing/hosting services and authors’ rights advocacy efforts. As technology, scholarly communication, the economics of publishing, and the roles of libraries all continue to evolve, the work shared in JLSC will inform practices that strengthen librarianship.

World eBook Fair – 6.5 million ebooks available through August 4th

The World eBook Fair runs from July 4 through August 4, 2011. Their goal is to provide Free public access for a month to 6.5 Million eBooks.  Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive are both contributing organizations and will be presenting a number of items in other media this year, including music, movies and artwork, even dance choreography.  The collections include light and heavy reading materials, more reference books, scientific items, etc., and about 50,000 music entries in addition to the 12,000 that debuted last year.

All are welcome to join the World Public Library as well for an annual membership of $8.95 per year.  Members can download a selection of about 2,000,000 PDF eBooks.

Source | http://www.libraries.wright.edu/

E-books may inhibit student comprehension: studies

E-books may be the wave of the future, but it seems members of Generation Y — you know, the digital generation — still prefer their books in print, and find some aspects of e-reading to be clunky.

Researchers at the University of California and the California Digital Library recently released results of a survey that found a majority of students (58%) now use e-books, but most still prefer print formats. Of the 2,400 survey respondents who indicated a preference, 49% say they prefer print books, 34% prefer e-books, and 17% had no preference or described a preference that is usage-dependent.


Source | http://www.cdlib.org/

j gate

J-Gate has a set a global record and continues to maintain this record as
the single largest gateway for access journal literature from 25,000+
e-Journals in English language. The 25,000th title - BMIF Journal
(Mathematics, Informatics, Physics Series - Bulletin of PG University of
Ploiesti) - was added last month. This is a peer-reviewed journal published
from Romania since 60 years, by the PG University Ploiesti Publishing House.
The publisher has now made available six year's content (2006 onwards) of
the journal for open access.
The current total of J-Gate journal listing is 25,150 journals and 223 lakhs
articles covering all disciplines. J-Gate is updated daily.
Informatics takes pride in the fact that it has developed the world's
largest e-Journal database. J-Gate is available in seven subsets and in
customizable version for any library or group of libraries.
For more information about J-Gate, please contact:
Ms. Naveena H Acharya
Coordinator POI
Email: naveena.acharya@informindia.co.in
Phone: (080) 4038 7777 Extn: 1010