Library Data NEWS
Springer announces winners of its fi rst application competition
Springer has chosen the fi rst, second, and third place winners of its API (Application Programming Interface) Challenge 1.0. The challenge was a competition for original, non- commercial applications using Springer metadata and content APIs. The goal was to offer users new ways to fi nd, visualise, and/or manipulate relevant data drawn from Springer’s database. The fi rst prize was awarded to SpringerQuotes, which lets the user search and read the open-
access articles from Springer in a web
application.The second prize was given to KontentLinks, a way of exploring scientifi c content that allows researchers to create meaningful connections between various types of content, share, rate and comment on them, and explore the emerging content webs. JournalSuggest, a website which provides suggested answers to some common questions that researchers have when preparing articles or
grants, took third place. Metadata for more than 4.8 million documents from Springer journals, books and protocols was made available to the participants. They also had access to full-text content, metadata and images for approximately 80,000 open- access articles from BioMed Central and SpringerOpen journals. The winning applications are now freely available to end-users for one year.
Online archive charts birth of modern China
An online archive of 8,000 rare photographs of Chinese life between 1850 and 1950 has been launched through the Visualising China project. The site offers researchers
open access to collections such as Historical Photographs of China (University of Bristol), the Sir Robert Hart Collection (Queen’s University, Belfast) and Joseph Needham’s Photographs of Wartime China (Needham Research Institute, Cambridge), as well as to previously-unseen and private collections and a selected Google Books library of China-related publications. The project, funded by JISC,
Vital Source acquires VPG Integrated Media
Ingram Content Group’s Vital Source business has grown its e-textbook offering with the acquisition of VPG Integrated Media (VPG). VPG develops enhanced e-textbook applications, interactive learning objects and e-whiteboard content, and video, audio, and animation production services for educational publishers. ‘The acquisition of VPG [gives] us the ability to not only deliver but to also enhance publisher content with rich media and interactive applications,’ said Kent Freeman, president of Vital Source Technologies.
is a collaboration between the Web Futures team at the University of Bristol’s Institute for Learning and Research
OCLC and Research Libraries UK survey special collections in UK and Ireland
OCLC Research and Research Libraries UK are working to gather data on special collections in research libraries in the UK and Ireland. The project is similar to a project conducted by OCLC Research in 2009 that gathered data on special collections in the USA and Canada.
The data will be used to
www.researchinformation.info
support decision-making for strategic priorities and collaborative projects. The survey population will include all Research Libraries UK members, as well as OCLC Research Library Partnership institutions in the UK and Ireland. Results of the survey will be published in the second quarter of 2012.
Technology and the Historical Photographs of China team within the Department of Historical Studies.
JISC calls for openly accessible metadata A JISC-funded taskforce is arguing that unlocking the descriptive information about digital content, articles, books and research is the key to making it more useful. According to the taskforce, making all UK metadata openly accessible would make the resources themselves more visible and would make it easier to build innovative new ways for researchers, teachers and students to explore resources. Already, 12 organisations in the UK have signed up to a new set of open metadata principles.
PLoS ONE is new SPARC Innovator
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has named the Public Library of Science’s PLoS ONE as the latest SPARC Innovator. It describes PLoS ONE as ‘blazing a trail in open-access journals, inspiring broader change in scholarly publishing.’ Launched in 2006 by
the San Francisco- and Cambridge-based non-profi t publisher, PLoS ONE is an interdisciplinary journal. Editors and reviewers do not assess the potential importance of the work before publication. Instead, if the research is found solid, the author pays a fl at fee and up it goes on the web.
AUG/SEP 2011 Research Information 5
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