The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) has announced the finalists for its annual CODiE awards. Included among the categories are several having to do with reference databases, and the finalists this year include offerings from Thomson Gale (including Science Resource Center and Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center), ABC-Clio (United States at War: Understanding Conflict and Society), and Oxford University Press (Oxford African American Studies Center).
Two interesting tidbits to report on today. First up is an announcement being made by Google regarding their “Google Apps” product. It appears they are going to roll the various offerings into one umbrella here and, in effect, put themselves in a position to more seriously challenge Microsoft’s Office product line. The popular blog known as TechCrunch has a good article about this.
Next up is an article in the New York Times about a decision by the history department at the University of Middlebury to stop allowing students to cite Wikipedia in their papers or exams. The decision grew in part out of a recent incident in which numerous students in an Asian history course cited the same incorrect “fact” about the Jesuits supporting the Shimabara Rebellion in seventeenth-century Japan.
I’m enjoying a brief vacation in Fort Lauderdale this weekend. While the weather is cool by South Florida standards (highs in the upper 60s and lower 70s), it’s still quite pleasant.
I couldn’t pass up the chance to link to this fascinating blog post about all the huge education companies that are on the sales block. Reed Elsevier is the latest to throw its hat into the ring, and the blogger muses on how this might affect the impending sale of the Thomson Learning division.
This article from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation states that the sale of the Thomson Learning division by its corporate parent will be “likely to a private equity investor.” This view has not changed since the news of the sale was first announced a few weeks ago, and it adds further weight to the notion that very little will change in the ongoing operations of Gale (just one among many companies of Thomson Learning) after the sale. Many of our freelancers have been justifiably concerned about the sale, but the repeated indications about the likely buyer should alleviate the trepidation.
The RUSA division of the American Library Association has released its list of “Outstanding Reference Sources” for 2007. Routledge (3 titles), ABC-Clio (2 titles), M.E. Sharpe (2 titles), and Oxford (2 titles) are all well represented on the list, while Thomson Gale received one nod, via its Macmillan imprint (to go along with its Dartmouth Medal winner). Sage, Salem, Facts On File, and Berkshire, among others, were shut out. None of our own titles made it on the list.
The 2nd edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica, just published by Thomson Gale, has won the Dartmouth Medal, the most prestigious award in reference publishing. Here is the Gale press release about the award, and here is the dedicated website for the title. The 22-volume set carries a list price for libraries of $1,995.