Alexander Street Press has made 4 databases available until 30 November:

• Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation
• Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts
• The Karl Barth Digital Library
• Romanticism Redefined: Pickering & Chatto and The Wordsworth Circle

See Electronic Resources Trials page on Camelot for login details (login details are not to be disclosed beyond UC)

Database descriptions (provided by ASP)…

Continue reading Alexander Street Press →

All ProQuest databases will be unavailable for 12 hours from 4pm Sunday 6 November 2011. During this time you may still use the old site for access.

(A link to the old site has been added to the Databases pages)

Deirdre

Taylor & Francis has announced a range of new Open Access journals covering science, social and behavioral sciences and humanities subjects.

In 2012, Taylor & Francis’ current iOpenAccess option will be renamed Taylor & Francis Open Select, and will continue to give authors and their sponsors the option of making their articles available on Open Acess to all for a publication fee. This initiative has been running since 2006 and currently encompasses 500 titles.

Three titles currently available on a subscription basis will be converted to full Open Access for 2012 and their digital archives will also be made Open Access: Green Chemistry Letters and Reviews; Journal of Biological Dynamics; Smart and Nano Materials. These will be part of Taylor & Francis Open, which will cover all fully Open Access titles. The journals will have affordable article publication fees, with discounts or fee waivers for emergent countries. Details of all new fully OA titles, their supporting journals and their editors will be released in the coming weeks.

“Taylor & Francis is committed to producing high-calibre journals that showcase quality global research. We believe that this content should be widely disseminated and are now exploring various Open Access business models to enable universal access in ways that are sustainable and meet the needs of the research communities we serve. We feel the time is right to increase the scope of our Open Access offerings to sit alongside the cost-effective subscription and licensing options we offer to libraries. Over the past three years society journals have been partnering with Taylor & Francis Group at the rate of more than one per week, and, if required, we are now able to offer a potential partner a range of Open Access business models where there is real author demand and we can ensure viability and sustainability”. Dr David Green, Global Journals Publishing Director.

Deirdre

The Royal Society has made content from its journal archives freely available online – papers published more than 70 years ago are now permanently free access.

The Royal Society is the world’s oldest scientific publisher, publishing the first ever peer-reviewed scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, in 1665. Philosophical Transactions had to overcome early setbacks including plague, the Great Fire of London and even the imprisonment of its editor, and is still published today.

“Treasures in the archive include Isaac Newton’s first published scientific paper, geological work by a young Charles Darwin, and Benjamin Franklin’s celebrated account of his electrical kite experiment.  And nestling amongst these illustrious papers, readers willing to delve a little deeper into the archive may find some undiscovered gems from the dawn of the scientific revolution – including accounts of monstrous calves, grisly tales of students being struck by lightning, and early experiments on to how to cool drinks “without the Help of Snow, Ice, Haile, Wind or Niter, and That at Any Time of the Year.”

Opening of the archive is being made as part of the Royal Society’s commitment to open access in scientific publishing. The Royal Society also recently announced its first ever fully open access journal, Open Biology.

Search the Archive

Deirdre

All streaming video collections from Alexander Street Press can now be cross-searched on Academic Video Online.

Access is only provided to our subscribed collections (Counseling and therapy in video, Ethnographic video online) but Academic Video Online will host 13 collections as part of the VAST subscription package. Alexander Street Press now has more than 9,000 videos streaming live, and that number will grow to 22,000+ titles by 2013.

Deirdre

Routledge has launched a website for scholarly research on Olympic and Paralympic studies: Routledge Online Studies on the Olympic and Paralympic Games (ROSO)

“Routledge Online Studies on the Olympic and Paralympic Games (ROSO) launches in beta today, and is a unique learning resource aimed at academics, students, lecturers, researchers, athletes, coaches, journalists, policy-makers and anyone interested in the Games.

Containing over 1,000 published book chapters and articles, blogs, reading lists, case studies and interviews with Olympic and Paralympic experts and athletes including Dame Kelly Holmes, ROSO will release over 40 new journal special issues and several new books devoted to the Games. The site will be regularly updated with new content as it publishes and a selection of material will be made free to access.”

Books and articles are assigned themes including: the media, education, gender, politics, history, governance, management, law, business, ethics, legacies, the environment, athletic performance, security and disability sport. About ROSO

Deirdre

Just a reminder about our patron-driven request eBooks; they can be read online but not downloaded.

We recently updated our profile to exclude a lot of titles that had previously been accessible and, as a result, it is no longer clear which are requestible titles. There is a download button present but when trying to download the eBook the message “You cannot download this book” appears. When this happens, it means that it is a patron-driven title and can only be read online. After 5 minutes reading, you will see the message “Your time browsing this book has elapsed”. If you would like the Library to purchase a copy of this e-book, please click “Yes (place a request)”. At that point, if you request access, we will purchase the eBook and it will subsequently become downloadable.

Records have been added to the Catalogue for these patron-driven titles. However, the records look like our normal purchased titles; there is no indication that they are patron-driven titles (and that they are not downloadable). Please be aware of this if you have users reporting that they can’t download an eBook on EBL.

Deirdre

We have a trial to Video Education Australasia (VEA) until 16 November. VEA is a producer and supplier of educational and training DVDs and offers over 2,500 titles covering a wide range of subjects, suitable for primary, secondary and university level students. vLearn is VEA’s new video streaming system.

Our trial to vLearn provides access to 62 titles. Once logged in, click on the My vLearn Library tab to see the list of 62 Active Videos available to view. vLearn enables you to play videos, share videos with staff and students and integrate videos into LEARN (linking or embedding). Detailed information is available for each video: licence period, price, vLearn Player link and embed script, number of times viewed. Support notes are available for most videos – use the Support Notes tab and do a search.

The Online Preview service offers access to the first few minutes of nearly all videos. More information about what VEA offers is covered in FAQs.

See Electronic Resources Trials page on Camelot for login details (login details are not to be disclosed beyond UC)

Deirdre

The Library has recently added three Informit full text databases to the collection: Informit Health Collection, Informit Humanities & Social Sciences Collection and Informit New Zealand Collection.

• Informit health collection
Content includes research articles, reports and case studies of practical support to anyone studying or working in therapeutic, diagnostic and preventative health roles. Many titles included in the Collection are unavailable elsewhere online, including journals dedicated to specialist and current topics of interest such as ageing and age care, child health and breastfeeding, indigenous health issues, mental health and rehabilitation.

More information and title lists can be found on Informit

• Informit humanities & social sciences collection
Covers agriculture, arts, Asian studies, business, cultural studies, education, history, indigenous studies, law, media, political science, reference, social sciences, science and technology. Content sources include peer reviewed journals, monographs and books, conference proceedings, research papers and reference materials.

More information and title lists can be found on Informit

• Informit New Zealand collection
Provides core research published in, and relating to, New Zealand. This multidisciplinary resource will benefit anyone looking for unique content covering New Zealand culture and society. Subjects covered include art, business, education, environment and conservation, family studies, sociology, Indigenous and Maori peoples, law and music.

More information and title lists can be found on Informit

Access is from the Catalogue or the Databases-I page. Individual titles are in the Catalogue and the Journals page and articles can be found via MultiSearch.

Deirdre