News
Digital Science takes stake in Peerwith
Technology software company Digital Science has invested in Peerwith – a marketplace for author services, matching academics seeking support for their work with experts who can provide services to increase the impact of the work. Peerwith has some 800 staff
who provide services including editing, translation, illustration and consultancy – as well as helping to build a visible profile through ratings and recommendations. Amsterdam-based Peerwith
has also formed partnerships with leading publishers and societies, offering a white- labelled platform. Current partnerships include Brill, the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS) and Emerald Publishing. Digital Science’s investment is aimed at enabling Peerwith to scale its activities, and to expand its reach to academic institutions, to allow researchers and students to access its author services. Joris van Rossum, Peerwith’s
co-founder and CEO, said: ‘Academics often have difficulties finding highly skilled individuals in specific areas, regularly relying on intermediaries to connect them. Peerwith’s aim is to change these slow processes making them more affordable, transparent and efficient. With investment from Digital Science, we will be able to achieve our goal of becoming the number one marketplace for author services.’ Steve Scott, director of
portfolio development at Digital Science will join the Peerwith supervisory board: ‘The addition of Peerwith to our portfolio enables the support of more comprehensive solutions for authors and researchers. It is already integrated into the authoring tool provided by another of our portfolio companies, Overleaf, and offers an exciting addition to our portfolio of author, publisher and institutional offerings.’
30 Research Information February/March 2017 CUP launches ‘discoverability initiative’
Cambridge University Press has launched an initiative aimed at improving the discoverability of library resources. Library budgets in the UK and elsewhere
have been slashed in recent years, with librarians and information professionals faced with the challenge of making ends meet while still providing a good service. The university press (CUP) says that the biggest source of stress to cataloguers and librarians is unhappy users that cannot find resources within library catalogues and consequently cannot use these resources within publishers’ platforms. CUP has embarked on a project to
improve the discoverability of resources and ensure that the MARC (machine- readable cataloging) records across all ebooks are impeccable. A MARC record is the bibliographic record a library needs for its online catalogues – the online description of a resource, coded according a specific format. Once a MARC record is uploaded in a library catalogue, users are able to find it and have access to the resource described within. Over the last year, CUP has been
through almost all its collections – more than 24,000 titles – and updated or enhanced the metadata according to the requirements of librarians and researchers. It has also added in subject headings where there were none, authorised forms of authors’/editors’ names and series titles, and removed punctuation marks that affected search capabilities. Concetta La Spada, library data analyst
at CUP, said: ‘As a cataloguer myself, I know how frustrating it is to be provided with incomplete metadata and inadequate MARC records. I hope this project will help to make the lives of librarians and cataloguers easier, so they can get on with the work they need to be doing.’ Siobhan Wood, metadata manager at the University of Reading Library, said: ‘We think it is wonderful that Cambridge University Press is now employing an
experienced cataloguer, thus enabling it to significantly improve the quality of its e-book MARC records. We look forward to adding these to our catalogue once they are all available to CUP customers.’ Over the next year, there will be further investment in the project.
l Meanwhile, CUP has appointed Brigitte Shull as senior vice president for academic publishing in the Americas. Shull, formerly vice president of management, business, economics, and political science publishing at Springer Nature, will take up the role in January and report to managing director, academic, Mandy Hill. She will be responsible for the overall management and direction for CUP’s academic business in the Americas. She said: ‘It is a great honour to join Cambridge University Press – a publisher with a prestigious history and a dynamic program. I look forward to working with the New York team to make the most of the opportunities in the Americas.’ Schull started her career in publishing
12 years ago at Pearson Education. She then spent 10 years at Palgrave Macmillan, which saw her progress to editorial director of author and editorial services. Shortly after the merger of Macmillan Science and Scholarly with Springer Science + Business Media, she took on the role of vice president of management, business, economics, and political science publishing at Springer Nature – where she managed an editorial team responsible for a portfolio of more than 1,500 books and journals in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Mandy Hill, said: ‘We are delighted to announce Brigitte’s appointment. Her breadth of experience and passion for publishing are the perfect match for our prestigious academic programme and ambitious brand strategy. In this new role Brigitte will lead the ongoing development of our business in the Americas and be the “voice” of Cambridge in this vital market.’
@researchinfo |
www.researchinformation.info
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
