InfoTech Briefs: 3M/Vocera, Serials Solutions, ProQuest, Credo
RSSPartnerships, product enhancements, and added personnel
Michael Rogers -- Library Journal, 05/19/2009
- 3M and Vocera strike “strategic sales and marketing alliance”
- Serials Solutions® KnowledgeWorks enhanced
- ProQuest products available through Dialog
- Credo Reference adds three to corporate advisory board
3M and Vocera have struck a “strategic sales and marketing alliance aimed at expanding the adoption of the Vocera Communication system in the library market.” The Vocera system is a wireless communication platform that provides instant voice communication through a combination of intelligent system software and hands-free wearable communication badges that run over a wireless network. Under the terms of the deal, 3M Library Systems will become the exclusive reseller of the Vocera platform to U.S. libraries.
Serials Solutions has added “a series of medical resource enhancements” to Serials Solutions® KnowledgeWorks™, including the addition of more than a million National Library of Medicine (NLM) ebook MARC records and Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) data to KnowledgeWorks, as well as a new feature supporting the PubMed LinkOut service within the 360 Link OpenURL link resolver. The KnowledgeWorks e-resource knowledgebase now includes 1.2 million NLM ebook MARC records, which will be included as part of the Serials Solutions 360 MARC Updates ebooks service. Serials Solutions will include MeSH data within KnowledgeWorks. MeSH data will be added as a “subject browse” option within the 360 Core A-to-Z list before the end of 2009. Additionally, as an enhancement to the 360 Link OpenURL link resolver, the vendor has begun to provide XML holdings data to PubMed LinkOut to enable libraries to connect patrons from PubMed citations to full text anywhere in a library’s collection. This is a free service available to 360 subscribers.
A variety of ProQuest products can now be purchased through Dialog’s sales contacts through a new arrangement making Dialog the exclusive sales agent of ProQuest products to corporate customers. The new initiative will focus on the ProQuest products “most complementary to Dialog information products,” including Professional ProQuest Central, Dissertations & Theses, CSA Illustrata, ProQuest Pharma Collection, and Medical Evidence Matters.
Credo Reference has expanded its corporate advisory board with the addition of three “prestigious leaders of the world of reference.” Sheila Corral, head of the Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, England; Erin McKean, CEO for Wordnik, an online dictionary; and Ray Lester, editor-in-chief, New Walford Guide to Reference Resources, a multivolume work reviewing top reference resources. Lester previously was head of Library and Information Services at the Natural History Museum, London.
