The FRBR Review Group (IFLA, International Federation of Library Associations) has reviewed the PRESSoo model and has endorsed it as a valid and useful extension of the FRBRoo model.

PRESSoo is devoted to the bibliographic information relating to serials and continuing resources. It has been developed by a working group made up by representatives of both the ISSN International Centre (ISSN IC) and the ISSN Review Group and representatives of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). PRESSoo aims to propose answers to long standing issues with the application of the FRBR family of models to serials and continuing resources.

More on the FRBR Review Group

 

The Initiative was launched in July 2013, with a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, to study, propose, and develop community-based standards or recommended practices for alternative metrics. The White Paper is open for public comment through July 18, 2014.

Two questionnaire-based surveys were carried out by an Indian publishing services company for authors of non-English speaking countries. The first was addressed to East Asian authors, the second was addressed to editors of leading international journals, mainly in Europe and the USA, and published entirely in English. The results obtained from the two questionnaires were compared to provide an interesting schema of the key players in the process of scholarly communication.

Chronology of a plagiarism case and the actions taken to address this problem within the institution concerned.

An interview with Chennai-based information scientist Subbiah Arunachalam about the open access situation in India: difficulties to access the publications for scientists, opportunities of Green/Gold Open Access, threat of the predatory publishers.

The publishing industry is almost unanimous to say that print editions will disappear sooner or later. Ken Anderson analyses the pros and cons of this evolution.

A recently proposed model on open-access publishing has drawn praise for rethinking the roles institutions, libraries and professional organizations play in promoting scholarly communication.

 

How can publishers speed up the reviewing process? In a recent paper, Raj Chetty, Harvard economist and editor of the Journal of Public Economics, decided to experiment on his own journal, testing whether shortened deadlines and cash incentives increased the speed and quality of peer reviews.

To move towards a public Science that is open to all its beneficiaries, the CNRS ( French National Centre for Scientific Research ) has committed to promoting « a better sharing of knowledge » which above all entails improved sharing of scientific and technical information (STI).

Forward-thinking developers participated in Research Libraries UK’s (RLUK) first Linked Open Data (LOD) Hackathon in London in May. The European Library published a series of LOD case studies about early adoption of LOD. Ideas and recommendations were exchanged for making further improvements to data access. The event’s objective was to strengthen expertise and test LOD applicability and its potential to create library solutions.

Published by Facet Publishing, this practical handbook teaches the professionals how to unlock the value of the existing metadata through cleaning, reconciliation, enrichment and linking and how to streamline the process of new metadata creation.

Advocate General Jääskinen proposes to the Court of Justice of the European Union his point of view and a legal solution about copyright and digitised books in libraries. According to him, a Member State may authorise libraries to digitise, without the consent of the rightholders, books they hold in their collection so as to make them available at electronic reading points.

During the Europeana Aggregator Forum (The Hague, 22-23 May), Deputy Director Harry Verwayen has given an overview of the strategic plan and ambitions of the Europeana Foundation going forward to 2020.

Presentation

ABES – the French bibliographic agency for Higher Education – has published a study on developments in shared cataloguing systems. The report discusses ten case studies of shared cataloguing systems and describes scenarios for the French national catalogue SUDOC.

The report (French, summary in English)

On May 21, NISO, the National Information Standards Organization, and the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) co-sponsored a webinar intended to help more “effectively understand and apply usage data ».
The 90-minute webinar provided an opportunity to learn more about current best practices and standards.

IFLA, along with the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and the Technology and Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the University of Washington have prepared a briefing paper which draws UN Member States’ attention to the importance of access to ICTs as a key issue in development and to the ongoing digital divide.