Over 35 book publishers have contributed titles focussing on the climate crisis and sustainability to a streamlined virtual showcase hosted on the Exact Editions platform. The showcase will be free and open-access temporarily throughout both the Milan Pre-COP Meeting (30 September - 3 October) and the Glasgow COP26 Meeting (1 -12 November), running alongside other key events and resources.

The initiative is supported by the International Publishers Association (IPA) and Save The Children in their respective missions to spread awareness about the need for urgent combative actions against the climate crisis across society, both for the world of today and future generations. Each participating publisher, the likes of whom include Bloomsbury, Elsevier and Springer Nature, has its own shelf of four titles, which range widely between fiction, non-fiction and children’s books. There is also a separate collection of all the German-language books in the showcase, following a strong response from the German book publishing sector.

Exact Editions’ leading digital archiving technology means each individual book, publisher sub-collection and the complete showcase all benefit from the advanced search function, which enables readers to pinpoint references to specific key terms, topics or authors instantly. Titles can be navigated seamlessly through fully-linked contents pages and a helpful variety of views: single-page; double-page; and thumbnail.

Find out more about the COP26 Showcase here on the Exact Editions blog:

https://exacted.me/BlogVirtualBookShowcaseForClimateChange

Chairman and Co-Founder of Exact Editions, Adam Hodgkin, said: “The ability to effortlessly stream large archives and collections online means the platform is the ideal tool for publishers to project content in support of the COP26 conference. We are proud to champion such an important cause and proud that the wide range of material makes the showcase compelling to people of any age and stage.”

Michiel Kolman, Chair of the IPA Inclusive Publishing and Literacy Committee, commented: “Research has shown that reading has the power to deepen our understanding of key issues. In terms of climate change, both fiction and non-fiction genres help to inform, inspire and ultimately shape a sustainable culture. Publishers are also increasingly taking steps to reduce their own environmental footprints, and this purely digital showcase is indicative of a move to more sustainable initiatives.”

Emma Wagner, Head of Education Policy & Advocacy at Save the Children, remarked: “The showcase is a wonderful resource; the role of children in tackling the climate crisis is crucial and the educational books included in the showcase enable them to simply understand complex issues and tackle them positively as they grow up. We call for more accessible and multilingual resources for children of all ages on climate change to be made available worldwide.”

About Exact Editions:

Exact Editions is a digital publishing company based in London. It is a team of producers, developers and designers that turns periodicals and books into dynamic, user-friendly digital editions. Exact Editions specialises in digitising content, selling subscriptions and providing streaming solutions across web, iOS and Android platforms. Exact Editions are also the innovators of ‘Reading Room’ technology, which enables publishers to provide streaming, time-limited access to digital editions.

We are pleased to announce our newest session of The Library is Open Podcast! This session features an interview with Justin Hoenke. Justin is the Team Leader: Libraries & Community Spaces at Wellington City Council in New Zealand. Justin and Jessie talk about libraries, communities and most importantly kindness.

Listen Now!
https://redcircle.com/shows/the-library-is-open

About Justin Hoenke
Justin is a community focused librarian & manager who believes that when we all respect each other, work together, and have honest communication that we can accomplish the most amazing things. At the Libraries & Community Spaces at Wellington City Council in New Zealand he provides strategic direction and leadership for 2 public libraries and 4 community centers. Justin is also the author of a a regular column titled A Day in the Life of a Librarian in Information Today Magazine. This 9 times/year column is focused on speaking with librarians and others in the information management professional about trends, inspiration, technology, management, and more.

ByWater Solutions, America’s forefront provider of Open Source library technology support, announced today that they will be a sponsor at the 2021 SEFLIN Virtual Conference Libraries the Intersection of Technology & Innovation - Advocating for Dignity in a Digital World. The event will be held virtually on Friday, September 17th from 10:00am - 4:00pm EST.

Libraries the Intersection of Technology & Innovation - Advocating for Dignity in a Digital World
From metadata to makerspaces librarians are champions for equitable content and access, moving toward dismantling the digital divide. Librarians’ conscious use of technology provides innovative approaches to challenges within our communities. Understanding technology’s role in our world and its impact is imperative for our profession

Keynote Protecting Privacy and Dignity in the Attention Economy by Christine Bannan, Policy counsel - New America's Open Technology Institute

For more information please visit the conference page: https://seflin.org/2021VC/

About SEFLIN
SEFLIN, the Southeast Florida Library Information Network, is a non-profit membership organization of Southeast Florida libraries dedicated to supporting cooperation between all library types in our service area.

The SEFLIN region includes Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties with a service population of over six million.

Founded in 1984, SEFLIN strives to pioneer innovative services that support library staff and library services.

SEFLIN is one of five Multitype Library Cooperatives in Florida.

Mission: Empowering Libraries to Transform Communities

Read more at https://seflin.org/

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.

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

"With this release we're thrilled to help our libraries develop a community translation system that all Aspen libraries can participate in to better serve patrons where English is not their primary language." - Mark Noble

Surprise! We released 21.11 a week early to bring even more enhancements to our Aspen Discovery libraries. This release is focused primarily on these areas:

Developed a community translation system that allows all of Aspen to be translated; and for translation to be shared centrally across all Aspen libraries
Created a more dynamic "My Account" section that more visually presents an overview of the patron's account and even includes personalized title recommendations
Updated the "Materials Request" form to make internal workflows and staff commenting more streamlined when processing these requests
The work we did on languages and translation the last several weeks has been a labor of love, analyzing every piece of text and code to make sure that Aspen Discovery is fully translatable. The enhancements to translations allows Aspen to better serve patrons where English is not their primary language. Furthermore, in the spirit of the open source community, we have developed a way to share translations across Aspen libraries. A central server will host all the translation work done in the community and be available to other libraries, so that libraries can access a variety of languages for their patrons. Beyond sharing translations, this infrastructure opens up future doors for our libraries to share more information like Placards and Browse Categories across the Aspen community.

In the "My Account" section of the patron account, we made the font and design more visually accessible when showing an overview of the patron's checkouts, holds, overdue items, and items ready for checkout. We also gave the ability for libraries to turn off or turn on an image of the the patron's library card and information on card expiration dates. In line with our main goal of Aspen, to maximize patron usage of all library materials, we also included a "Recommended for You" carousel within the patron account. From there, a patron can click through their own personal display of titles, learn more about an item, and even check the item out!

We added additional functions to the Materials Request form so that libraries can choose to turn on internal communication options for their staff to improve workflows. This enables libraries to make staff comments such as deciding to move forward with the request or reason for denying request.

Along with these major improvements, we made dozens of other enhancements to areas like searching and indexing, the Aspen app, permissions, and enhancements specific to each underlying ILS. Find out more about these in the full release notes below. In the next release, our goals are to improve Aspen's geolocation capabilities as well as to continue making updates to the Aspen app.

Read Full Release Notes: https://bywatersolutions.com/news/aspen-discovery-announces-21-11-00-rel...

Watch a Preview of the Release: https://www.youtube.com/embed/hSu6K8cfk8g

About Aspen Discovery
Aspen is a full-featured Discovery System that integrates with e-content and other 3rd party providers, giving your patrons comprehensive access to all of your materials in one place. Aspen combines your library catalog with e-content, digital archives, and enrichment from all major third-party providers improves relevancy and ease of use, provides native reading recommendations, displays all formats of titles within one result (FRBR/record grouping) and much more. Aspen was created to give users an improved experience over other Discovery systems with less of an impact on library budgets. For more information about Aspen please visit https://bywatersolutions.com/projects/aspen-discovery.

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

Extensive user studies and testing in the open-source community lead to the development of the Aspen Discovery app — designed for library users by library users. The Aspen Discovery app provides personalized access to all the rich content available from your library right in the palm of your hands.

Library patrons deserve a better way to discover all the amazing resources that libraries have to offer. The app expands the robust offerings currently available with Aspen Discovery, including an intuitive and visually engaging catalog, user-friendly website builder, and mobile responsive website design, to bring an enhanced library experience to your patrons. Join us as we discuss the future of discovery layers and how Aspen can provide a truly seamless patron and staff experience.

Join us for this one-hour live event on Thursday, October 14th, 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET.

Sign Up Now: https://bit.ly/2WFK7pF