3/22/2016
CONTACT:
Nicole Engard
(888) 900-8944
klassmates@bywatersolutions.com

Koha Klassmates Adopted in 20 Library Schools Nationwide

ByWater Solutions, an open source community contributor and America's forefront provider of Koha support, announced today that since its roll out six months ago, 20 library schools are now using the Koha Klassmates program nationwide. The Koha Klassmates program is dedicated to providing free hosted Koha installations for library schools in the US for the purposes of teaching and learning about integrated library systems and open source.

The following library schools are using Koha Klassmates in at least one class (many in multiple):

• College of DuPage
• Dominican University
• IUPUI School of Informatics, Dept of Library and Information Science
• Kent State University, SLIS
• Mohawk College
• Plymouth State University
• Red River College
• Robert Gordon University
• Rutgers University
• Texas Woman's University
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• University of Maryland
• University of Missouri-Columbia
• University of Nebraska Omaha
• University of North Texas College of Information
• University of Pitt LIS
• University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science
• University of Washington Information School
• University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Library and Information Studies
• Wayne State University

William Helling, Instructor at IUPUI, spoke of his class's experience with Klassmates so far:

"My LIS graduate course, Library Systems, is going very well, and the Koha library we created is the cornerstone of the class that we build upon every week. Our library is not without blemishes, of course (as in real life!), but it was constructed from the ground up, from nothing."

Brian Rountree, MLIS, Instructor at Red River College spoke of his plans for Klassmates:

“I have found it very helpful to have the students practice using as many different library programs as I can find. It brings ‘real life’ to the classroom activities and assignments. It provides skills they can use when at their practicum sites. It is a bonus when they can say at an interview that they are familiar with certain products."

Nicole C. Engard, Vice President of Community Outreach, commented on the quick success of Klassmates:

"I'm so excited to see so many instructors using Koha in their classes. When I was in library school I didn't have this opportunity and strongly believe that using a full ILS in a classroom setting makes a huge difference when students enter the work force."

About Koha Klassmates:
Koha Klassmates is a service of ByWater Solutions, an open source community contributor and America’s forefront provider of Koha support. This service offers free hosted installations of the Koha Open Source ILS to library school instructors for use in their classrooms. Using this service library school students can learn what it means to use a real ILS before entering the workforce. For more information or to sign up please visit: http://klassmates.us/

About Koha:
Koha is the first open-source Integrated Library System (ILS). In use worldwide, its development is steered by a growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha's impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. It includes modules for circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, serials, reserves, patron management, branch relationships, and more.

Koha's OPAC, circulation, management and self-checkout interfaces are all based on standards-compliant World Wide Web technologies–XHTML, CSS and Javascript–making Koha a truly platform-independent solution. Koha is distributed under the open-source General Public License (GPL). For more information about Koha, please visit: http://koha-community.org/

About ByWater Solutions:
ByWater Solutions is a full service, high quality support and implementation company dedicated to providing libraries with a lower cost, more advanced level of support for their ILS than a traditional proprietary solution can offer. ByWater Solutions has a proven track record in first rate Koha implementation and support with library systems of all sizes. Our highly ranked, comprehensive support is what sets our company apart from any other vendor in the industry. Partnering with ByWater Solutions to support Koha not only lowers the cost of implementing and maintaining an ILS, but more importantly empowers libraries by giving them the flexibility and freedom they deserve. For more information please visit: http://bywatersolutions.com/

IPSWICH, Mass. — March 22, 2016 — Plum™ Analytics, an EBSCO company, is providing an integrated experience to help researchers find grant opportunities to fund their research. PlumX™ Funding Opportunities helps researchers search for available grants, and when used with the PlumX Suite, allows them to analyze the grant opportunities within the context of the impact of their current research.

PlumX Funding Opportunities is designed for anyone involved in research who needs to find grant money to fund their work. Researchers and their supporting institutions can perform customized searches of available research grants, and PlumX Funding Opportunities allows them to save relevant searches for funding opportunities to his/her PlumX Dashboards profile page. When new grants based on those searches become available, they will be automatically embedded in the user’s profile page.

When PlumX Funding Opportunities is integrated with the PlumX Suite, users have an integrated experience in understanding their research, beginning with finding appropriate new grants through tracking the grants they have received, and the research created as a result of the grants. Then PlumX provides the real-time data that describes the impact of the resulting research through altmetrics – all without leaving the platform. The timeliness of these metrics means that the impact of the research can be measured quickly, allowing researchers to target grants that align more closely to their work, without waiting years for citation data.

Plum Analytics President and Co-Founder Andrea Michalek says PlumX Funding Opportunities adds knowledge about the impact and stories of research and value to the workflows of researchers and those who support them. “This is a new way to look for funding opportunities. Using altmetrics helps to determine recent research that is having the most impact. By marrying this knowledge with recent funding opportunities, researchers can achieve higher productivity and success rates in winning grant awards.”

To find more information about PlumX Funding Opportunities and the PlumX Suite, visit the Plum Analytics website: http://www.plumanalytics.com/.

About Plum™ Analytics
Plum Analytics was founded in 2012 to bring modern ways of measuring research impact to individuals and organizations that use, fund, support, perform, publish or analyze research. Plum Analytics provides contemporary information about research impact and gather metrics (often called altmetrics) about research from more than 30 sources (including PLOS, PubMed and YouTube) and categorizes them into Usage, Captures, Mentions, Social Media and Citations. The PlumX Suite is comprised of five products that ensure that information on research output is available to those that fund, perform, support or publish research based on the unique needs of each group. For more information, visit http://www.plumanalytics.com.

About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the leading discovery service provider for libraries worldwide with more than 10,000 discovery customers in over 100 countries. EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) provides each institution with a comprehensive, single search box for its entire collection, offering unparalleled relevance ranking quality and extensive customization. EBSCO is also the preeminent provider of online research content for libraries, including hundreds of research databases, historical archives, point-of-care medical reference, and corporate learning tools serving millions of end users at tens of thousands of institutions. EBSCO is the leading provider of electronic journals & books for libraries, with subscription management for more than 360,000 serials, including more than 57,000 e-journals, as well as online access to more than 800,000 e-books. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: www.ebsco.com. EBSCO Information Services is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a family owned company since 1944.

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For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Vice President of Communications
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebsco.com

Santa Fe, New Mexico – March 21, 2016. Addicts and their self-destructive behavior can be exasperating, confusing, and heartbreaking for families, friends and therapists touched by their loved ones’ journey toward recovery. In 49 Tips and Insights for Understanding Addiction, author Juan Blea urges readers to approach addiction from a place of compassion and love rather than judgment and anger.

This important addition to the recovery toolbox presents valuable information and practical exercises that can assist in understanding the complexities of substance abuse and addiction, as well as treatment and recovery. Blea discusses the inner struggle some addicts face, how our own perceptions of substances inform and guide recovery; and, how compassion can disrupt the shame and anxiety cycles, allowing for a shift to begin to take place.

This educational and inspiring book provides valuable information and practical exercises that can help in understanding not only the development and progression of substance abuse but also treatment and recovery. 49 Tips & Insights for Understanding Addiction is intended for anyone who interacts with addicts, including families, friends, therapists, and addiction specialists.

About the author:

Juan holds a Master’s in Education, is a Licensed Drug and Alcohol Counselor, and a licensed Continuing Education provider. It is his life’s mission to assist others in their healing journey. He is also the author of Butterfly Warrior and Journey to Aztlan, his personal story of overcoming depression. His work has also appeared in a number of journals, most notably in Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul. Juan is a native of Santa Fe.

Juan truly believes people want healthy lives, and that sometimes they don’t know how to achieve that health, especially if they suffer from depression, anxiety, or addiction. 49 Tips & Insights for Understanding Addiction exemplifies Juan’s mission to teach addicts and their loved ones how to cope with the vagaries of substance abuse and help them move closer to healing themselves and their relationships.

49 Tips and Insights for Understanding Addiction; Outskirts Press; ISBN 978-1-47876765-7, 136 pages; paperback, $14.95; January, 2016

For more information, contact Jeanie C. Williams, PenPower Book Marketing Services at info@penpowersf.com or follow the author at jblea1016.wordpress.com

First Collection of the Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity Now Available

Farmington Hills, Mich., March 21, 2016 — Gale, a leading provider of library resources and part of Cengage Learning, has released the first part of Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity, a milestone digital program that brings together the largest collection of primary source content on gender, sexuality and identity. The archives meet a growing interest for content to support research in these disciplines, and represents the diverse content of the Gale Primary Sources program.

“This archive demonstrates the unique content that only Gale is bringing to researchers – it shines a light on the important personal stories that provide a more complete picture of our history,” said Paul Gazzolo, senior vice president and general manager for Gale. “By providing access to this information, we hope that it promotes greater understanding, tolerance and appreciation for individual rights.”

Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity, Part I: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 brings together approximately 1.5 million pages of fully-searchable rare and unique content from microfilm, newsletters, organizational papers, government documents, manuscripts, pamphlets and other types of primary sources. Content is sourced from major gay and lesbian organizations worldwide – the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, GLBT Historical Society and others, and covers social, political, health and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities around the world, including the gay rights movement and the HIV/Aids crisis.

Available for all types of libraries, Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity will support research and instruction in queer history and activism, psychology, sociology, health, political science, policy studies, human rights, gender studies and more. Parts Two and Three are in the planning stages with the product’s Advisory Board.

For more information on Gale’s Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity, please visit gale.com or view the short video here.

For questions or reviewer access, please contact Kristina Massari at kristina.massari@cengage.com.

About Cengage Learning and Gale

Cengage Learning is a leading educational content, technology, and services company for the higher education and K-12, professional and library markets worldwide. Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, has been a global provider of research resources for libraries and businesses for more than 60 years. Gale is passionate about supporting the continued innovation and evolution of libraries by providing the content, tools, and services libraries need to promote information discovery, enable learning, and support economic, cultural, and intellectual growth in their communities. For more information, visit www.cengage.com or www.gale.cengage.com.

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Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America by Bruce Berlin

Berlin starkly exposes Big Money’s increasing control of our government and calls for a grassroots, nonpartisan, nationwide Democracy Movement to fix our broken political system and revive democracy in America.

(Santa Fe, New Mexico, March 21, 2016) Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America is a call to the American people to focus the nation’s attention on a very critical issue: the United States is becoming a plutocracy run by and for the very wealthy. Part I of the book examines the country’s broken political system caused by this emerging plutocracy. Part II explores how the American people can fix this broken system and create a truly representative democracy.

Berlin defines Big Money as the power of vast sums of money to influence the outcome of elections and the formation of public policy to favor special interests. Part I of the book begins by declaring that the great political challenge of our time is: Can the American people eliminate Big Money’s control over their government before the United States becomes a full-blown plutocracy? While admitting this is a daunting task, Berlin explains that America’s history provides numerous examples of people joining together and forming grassroots movements that have made very significant advancements against great odds.

Part I continues with an in-depth examination of how Big Money and corporate America control our government through huge campaign contributions and massive lobbying efforts. Berlin illustrates in great detail how this extreme influence results in incredible damage to our country as well as to millions of Americans. Consequently, he describes the means by which the oil industry’s power over the government led to the Iraq War that resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives and trillions of dollars. In another example, the author explains how Wall Street’s grip on our government resulted in the Great Recession of 2008 and tremendous harm to a great many Americans. The section concludes by asserting that the United States is at a pivotal time in its history. Will the country succumb to the power of Big Money, or will the people rise up and reclaim their right to a self-governing democracy?

Part II of the book offers a step-by-step process for Americans to come together, break Big Money’s grip, and build a political system that will work for everyone. First, Berlin notes the various elements of grassroots actions that are currently available for the formation of a Democracy Movement. He then considers the obstacles to developing a mass movement and the methods for overcoming them. From there, Berlin offers a six-point program for fixing our political system. Moreover, he shows that the movement is already underway. Finally, the book warns that the American people cannot expect a new president, whether it’s Trump, Bush, Clinton or Sanders, to save our democracy. Berlin concludes that “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” That is, only a broad-based, nonpartisan, grassroots movement consisting of Democrats, Republicans and Independent; conservatives, moderates and liberals, can break Big Money’s grip and revive democracy in America.

“A brilliant analysis of where we are and where we need to go. Read this book!”
—Thom Hartmann, author and talk radio show host

A retired, public sector attorney, Bruce Berlin has devoted himself to social justice concerns for over forty-five years. He has worked on issues from the improvement of conditions for county jail inmates to the diversification of Los Alamos National Laboratory to the advancement of U.S.-Soviet relations. Berlin is the founder and former executive director of The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution, a nonprofit organization that developed broad-based, bipartisan approaches to a variety of national policy issues from security in the nuclear age to economic development and diversification. Berlin was awarded a Jennings Randolph Peace Fellowship from the United States Institute of Peace in 1988 to produce a dialogue exploring paths to a Nicaraguan peace agreement between representatives of the warring factions and US ambassadors to Central America. A co-founder and state coordinator of the New Mexico Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, he directed a lobbying effort resulting in the state legislature’s passage of a resolution supporting a US-Soviet nuclear weapons freeze. Berlin graduated from Cornell University with a major in government and the New York University School of Law. A father and Buddhist meditator, he lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is his first book.

Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America by Bruce Berlin
Paperback: ISBN: 978-0-9966232-0-9, 160 pp., $14.95
E-Book, ISBN: 978-0-9966232-1-6, $8.95160 pages
Publication Date: February 2016
Publisher: Our Time Books
www.breakingbigmoneysgrip.com
Current Affairs/Politics Non-Fiction
Distribution: Baker & Taylor

Press Contact:

PenPower Book Marketing Services
Jeanie C. Williams, Director
info@penpowersf.com
505.395.4540