Explores the History of British Intelligence with Access to Previously Classified Documents

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. – March 23, 2021 – Gale, a Cengage company, is introducing the first module of its new Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence series. Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence, An Intelligence Empire brings together previously classified documents from The U.K. National Archives that offer new viewpoints on the machinery of British intelligence, decolonization and global policy and strategy, including important insight into international politics and diplomacy in the 20th century. Available on the Gale Primary Sources platform, this never-before-digitized collection gives scholars and researchers access to thousands of top secret files that provide historical context on the history of British intelligence. Now researchers can make comparisons and connections, enabling greater understanding of the historical impact Britain’s intelligence agencies have had on the world today. Read Gale’s blog about this new archive: http://bit.ly/3lHXJcp.

“Looking back on the 20th century from an intelligence perspective can help us understand how the geopolitics of the 21st century developed, and how the world as we know it came to be,” said Seth Cayley, vice president of Gale Primary Sources. “By bringing together material from across security and intelligence branches, Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence, An Intelligence Empire will help scholars and researchers delve into the role of intelligence in theory and in practice, while newly declassified pieces offer possibilities of new research and new readings of historical events.”

An Intelligence Empire provides insight into the interests and activities of the British Empire, its allies and enemies through highly secret documents, from the precursors to Room 40 in WWI and WWII networks of subterfuge and resistance, to the geopolitics of the Cold War and beyond.

This vast collection includes top-level memoranda, registered files, correspondence and policy documents from British government agencies and committees working within intelligence and security, including MI5, the Ministry of Defence and the Joint Intelligence Committee. The breadth and depth of the archive makes it a major source for 20th century teaching and learning.

An Intelligence Empire brings together files from five departments:

• The Security Service (MI5): KV 2, KV 3 & KV 4: contains personal, subject and policy files dating from 1917-1978. MI5 handled intelligence gathering within the British Empire and the Commonwealth. The selected subseries of KV 2 holds personal files on subjects of Secret Service enquiries, while KV 3 contains subject files on espionage activities of groups or other intelligence organizations, including the only subject file known to have survived from the First World War period. KV 4 holds section histories and policy files.

• The Ministry of Defence: Communications and Intelligence Records: DEFE 21, DEFE 26, DEFE 28, DEFE 31, DEFE 41, DEFE 44, DEFE 60, DEFE 62, DEFE 63 & DEFE 64: these series include registered files, reports and memoranda of the Directorate of Scientific Intelligence, the Defence Intelligence Staff and the Defence Signals Staff focused on the technical and scientific interests of the British government from the Second World War to the decades of the Cold War and the Atomic Age. The intelligence assessments and reports include those gathered post-war in Allied-occupied Germany, such as interviews with German scientists. With files dating from 1912-2002, these series bring the coverage up to the end of the 20th century, and include defense records on the Falklands, the Middle East, UFO incidents and details of Soviet weapon systems.

• The Special Operations Executive: HS 7 & HS 8: records of the Ministry of Economic Warfare and the Special Operations Executive (SOE), which functioned during WWII to promote sabotage and subversion, and assist resistance groups in enemy occupied territory, famously directed by Winston Churchill to ‘set Europe ablaze!’ Records date from 1935-1988 and include histories and war diaries in HS 7, and headquarters records in HS 8.

• The Colonial Office: Intelligence and Security Departments: Registered Files (ISD Series): CO 1035: this series contains registered files of the Colonial Office relating to the security of British colonies, and intelligence on colonial matters and decolonization, including reports by Security Intelligence Advisors throughout the British Empire, and assessments from the Joint Intelligence Committee. Running from 1954-1966, these files represent a vital piece of the intelligence picture of the global Cold War and decolonization at the end of Empire.

• The Cabinet Office: CAB 56, CAB 121, CAB 176 & CAB 301: the material in these series dates from 1936-1974 and shows how intelligence matters were considered, analyzed and processed through the Cabinet Office. Records from the Joint Intelligence Committee appear alongside Policy and Strategy files from the Special Secret Information Centre, and selected intelligence material from the Cabinet Secretary’s Miscellaneous Papers held in CAB 301.

New & Exclusive Search Capabilities!

With the release of this archive comes a host of new search capabilities for teaching and researching that are exclusive to the series:

• Browse Collection: available from each collection, this feature enables researchers to browse a complete list of files in the order they were arranged by The National Archives. This not only provides a ‘bird’s-eye view,’ of the entire collection, but is also a quick and easy access point to specific documents. This feature is also an effective teaching tool that instructors can use to teach students how an archival collection is organized and how to navigate it for researching.

• Manuscript Number Sort Search: users can sort their search results list by manuscript number, which is the order a collection was arranged in by the source library. This recreates/simulates the experience of working through the physical collection in the source library.

• Special Advanced Search Options: gives users the ability to limit a search by: 1). creation date, 2). declassified date, 3). government department, 4). classification level and 5). regional focus. These search options were built to support the specialized nature of the government documents in this archive, enabling researchers to differentiate between when a document was created versus when it was declassified by the U.K. government.

The Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence series is available on the Gale Primary Sources platform, enabling cross-archival searching to help users make new connections across topics. For those looking to explore even deeper insights, the series is also available through the Gale Digital Scholar Lab. This allows researchers to apply natural language processing tools to raw text data (OCR) from the collections or Gale Primary Sources archives and perform textual analysis on large corpora of historical texts. Now researchers can analyze and explore historical text more interactively, generating new research insights and content sets not previously possible.

To request a trial, visit the Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence webpage: http://bit.ly/2Qntewz.

About Cengage and Gale
Cengage, an education technology company serving millions of learners in 165 countries, advances the way students learn through quality, digital experiences. The company currently serves the K-12, higher education, professional, library, English language teaching and workforce training markets worldwide. Gale, a Cengage company, provides libraries with original and curated content, as well as the modern research tools and technology that are crucial in connecting libraries to learning, and learners to libraries. For more than 60 years, Gale has partnered with libraries around the world to empower the discovery of knowledge and insights – where, when and how people need it. Gale has 500 employees globally with its main operations in Farmington Hills, Michigan. For more information, please visit www.gale.com.

Follow Gale on:
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• Gale blog - https://blog.gale.com/
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ByWater Solutions, America’s forefront provider of Open Source library technology support, announced that Christian Witness Theological Seminary in San Jose, CA is now live on Koha!

ByWater completed the transition of hosting the library's 35,000 plus bibs and is providing ongoing support services to the library. The library's customized Koha OPAC can be viewed at cwts.bywatersolutions.com

Jessica Zairo of ByWater Solutions recently commented on their migration, "The Christian Witness Seminary team was already using Koha so this was not new to them but we are so glad they chose ByWater for hosting and support. We're always happy to take the workload of Koha upgrades and server maintenance off of library staff so that they can dedicate even more time to their amazing communities!"

About Christian Witness Theological Seminary
In 1978, Christian Witness Theological Seminary (CWTS) was approved as a private post-secondary educational institution in the State of California. In 1984, CWTS was authorized by the California Superintendent of Public Instruction to confer bachelor and master degrees. Currently it is registered under the Bureau of Private Post Secondary Education in the State of California with permission to train professional Christian workers.

Read more at https://www.cwts.edu/mission/

About ByWater Solutions
ByWater Solutions is a full service, high-quality Open Source support and implementation company dedicated to providing libraries with a lower cost, more advanced level of support for their systems than a traditional proprietary solution can offer. ByWater Solutions has a proven track record in the first-rate implementation and support services with library systems of all sizes for the Koha ILS, Aspen Discovery, Folio LSP, Coral ERM, and Libki PC Management.

Our highly ranked, comprehensive support is what sets our company apart from any other vendor in the industry. Partnering with ByWater Solutions not only lowers the cost of implementation and maintenance of OSS but more importantly empowers libraries by giving them the flexibility and freedom they deserve. For more information please visit https://bywatersolutions.com.

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, HTML5, 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.

For More Information
Jessica Zairo
Director of Library Sales & Outreach
ByWater Solutions
bywatersolutions.com
Phone:(888)900-8944

FOLIO Project Members Have Elected Their First Community Council
~ The New Community Council Will Oversee Governance Changes for the FOLIO Project ~

PHILADELPHIA — March 23, 2021 — The results are in. The FOLIO project has held project-wide elections for the first time to initiate FOLIO’s new Community Council. The Community Council’s role is to foster a healthy and productive community ecosystem of sustainable collaboration for the FOLIO project. Among the responsibilities of the Community Council are to ensure a strong community by onboarding new members to the FOLIO project and making sure that the community is collaborative and inclusive.

The new council represents both new and previous member organizations/institutions and individuals. The following community members have been voted onto the inaugural FOLIO Community Council:

Kathleen Berry, University of Massachusetts/Five Colleges
Rachel Besara, Missouri State University
Tom Cramer, Stanford University
Mike Gorrell, Index Data
Dracine Hodges, Duke University
Ian Ibbotson, Knowledge Integration
Harry Kaplanian, EBSCO Information Services
Kirstin Kemner-Heek, GBV|VZG
Marko Knepper, University Library Mainz
Keven Liu, Shanghai Library
Boaz Nadav Manes, Lehigh University
Maike Osters, hbz
Leander Seige, Leipzig University
Paula Sullenger, Texas A&M University
Simeon Warner, Cornell University
Simeon Warner from Cornell University says the project is at an important point as an increasing number of sites go live and librarians around the world are introduced to the platform. “As we communicate the work of the FOLIO community in creating this new library service platform, we are also looking toward what’s next. Those who have implemented FOLIO have unique perspectives to share as we work to ensure the long-term sustainability of the project and the community, and to help new member institutions of all sizes join.”

Maike Osters is the FOLIO Project Lead at hbz Cologne and Head of hbz’s Library Management Department. She says this new governance model will help all members shape the project. “As we onboard new members, it is important to make sure we are open but that we also reach out to organizations that would be a good fit to innovate off the FOLIO platform. Our task in the future will be to establish a strong FOLIO Community to ensure a stable and ongoing development of FOLIO, so that we can offer libraries an alternative to the traditional ILS.”

The new governance model is designed to grow with the project as sites around the world implement the FOLIO platform, and as libraries and organizations innovate off the platform. The changing governance model will allow the open source project to be even more open.

The Community Council will coordinate closely with the Product Council and the Technical Council. One of the first tasks the Community Council will manage will be an election for new members of these other councils, expected in May.

About FOLIO
FOLIO is a collaborative effort among libraries, vendors, developers and consortia that leverages open source technology and a community-based effort to redefine library services and innovate based on library futures. By building on what libraries need and by leveraging library expertise as well as vendor capacity and velocity, FOLIO is designed to move libraries forward, build on the services they provide and redefine the role libraries play within their institution. FOLIO also levels the playing field and makes open source technology available to all institutions regardless of size or staffing. FOLIO brings vendors together to innovate and host services for customers and introduces open source as a service to libraries. To sign up to participate or receive more information, go to www.folio.org.

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For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Media Relations, FOLIO
978-223-0438
kathleen@folio.org

Duluth, Ga., March 23, 2021: Equinox Open Library Initiative is pleased to announce the launch of equinoxEDU, a comprehensive education program focused on open source technologies for libraries, archives, museums, and cultural institutions.

“We are excited to be offering a new suite of educational services to meet the needs of open source library communities,” said Angela Kilsdonk, product and education manager at Equinox. “This past year has seen increased demand for online and asynchronous education programs and we look forward to engaging with our library community members and partners on these new platforms.”

The equinoxEDU program includes: the Spotlight webinar series, educational Workshops, and an accompanying Resource Library. The equinoxEDU: Spotlight webinars will be presented monthly and include Q&A with subject experts. The first equinoxEDU: Spotlight session in February provided an overview of new feature highlights in the Evergreen ILS 3.6 release. Recordings of equinoxEDU: Spotlight sessions will be available on-demand as part of the equinoxEDU: Resource Library.

Beginning in May, the equinoxEDU: Workshop series will be introduced as a premium offering providing an in-depth look at distinct features and functionality of open source library technologies and present best practices on implementing and using these technologies. The equinoxEDU: Workshop sessions will be instructor-led training events and will include skill-building activities and downloadable resources.

The equinoxEDU: Resource Library will serve as a central repository for equinoxEDU content, from on-demand video tutorials and pre-recorded equinoxEDU: Spotlight webinars, to self-paced learning materials and resource guides. Offerings in the equinoxEDU: Resource Library will be freely available online.

For updates, subscribe to the equinoxEDU mailing list (http://eepurl.com/htAKcD) and follow Equinox Open Library Initiative on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

About Equinox Open Library Initiative
Equinox Open Library Initiative Inc. is a 501(c)3 company engaging in literary, charitable, and educational endeavors serving libraries and knowledge institutions. As the successor to Equinox Software, Inc., Equinox Open Library Initiative builds upon a decade of exceptional service and technical expertise, providing consulting services, development, hosting, training, and support for Evergreen ILS, Koha ILS, and other open source library software. As a non-profit organization, Equinox is committed to providing innovative open source library solutions to libraries of all sizes and types. To learn more, please visit https://www.equinoxinitiative.org/.

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More than 1,000 libraries are now participating in OCLC’s new Express digital delivery program that facilitates exceptionally fast turnaround times using smart fulfillment enhancements to OCLC resource sharing services.

Designed to simplify and save, the Express program is for libraries that consistently deliver articles and other digital resources within 18 hours or less through OCLC’s WorldShare Interlibrary Loan (ILL) network. As part of the program, these libraries can leverage the OCLC ILL services they already use—Tipasa, ILLiad, or WorldShare ILL—to provide the fastest service possible at no extra charge.

Libraries selected for the Express program have demonstrated a commitment to service, are recognized as exemplary suppliers, and have consistently met or exceeded set delivery expectations. Express is a cooperative program; libraries in the group receive the same fast resource sharing service that they provide.

“After all of the adversity of the past year, it’s very encouraging to see OCLC rolling out its Express program,” said Patrick Shannon, Head, Interlibrary Services, UC Berkeley Library. “UC Berkeley’s ILL staff will be active and enthusiastic participants, supporting the research of our own patrons and scholars worldwide.”

The Express program is one example of how smart fulfillment enhancements can speed up delivery. Smart fulfillment enhancements across all OCLC resource sharing services are designed to help libraries successfully meet the high expectations of information users.

“Today’s sophisticated information seekers expect the resources they need to be available anytime, anywhere, and delivered quickly,” said Mary Sauer-Games, OCLC Vice President, Global Product Management. “Our ongoing smart fulfillment enhancements along with new delivery capabilities are taking OCLC resource sharing services to another level of speed and library customer satisfaction.”

Smart fulfillment functionality weighs policy data, lending history, licensing agreements, and format preferences to present resources that are available locally, regionally, and around the world. Then, it automatically predicts and selects which libraries will deliver the fastest based on historical data.

Smart fulfillment enhancements include:

• Automated request manager ensures people get what they need fast. Libraries configure the service to process requests for electronic and physical materials automatically; they don’t have to touch every transaction but still retain control.

• Smart lender strings optimize turnaround time by automatically predicting and selecting which libraries will deliver the fastest based on historical data. Built-in load balancing ensures no individual library has more requests than its staff can handle.

• Real-time availability knows when and where a physical item is available to ensure libraries can deliver the needed item with the speed users want.

• Dynamic group functionality identifies and manages groups of libraries that meet specific criteria, like 18-hour or less turnaround or free lending in their region.

“The OCLC resource sharing network links together the largest community of libraries in the world,” said Peter Collins, OCLC Director of Resource Sharing. “By using data on the network, we are able to automate tasks, select the best suppliers, and predict the time to fill. At a time when budgets are under pressure, OCLC resource sharing systems and services can help libraries save staff time, increase speed of delivery, and exceed customer expectations.”

Learn more about OCLC’s vision for the Library on-demand and ongoing smart fulfillment enhancements on the website.