New Connotea Software Supports Institutional Repositories

(PRWEB) March 12, 2006

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) has released new software which enables institutional repositories running EPrints to integrate with the social bookmarking services Connotea and del.icio.us. This latest innovation allows content within institutional repositories to be bookmarked, tagged, and linked to related content. The work behind this development was funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) as part of their PALS Metadata and Interoperability Projects 2 program.

Once installed in a repository, the software will enable users to bookmark documents in that repository using their Connotea or del.icio.us account, assigning their own tags and without leaving the web page. They can also see what tags have already been assigned to the document they are viewing in the repository and click on links to related content, either within the same repository or elsewhere on the web.

If bookmarked in Connotea, the bibliographic metadata for the institutional repository item can be automatically imported. Connotea already does this for items bookmarked from several other sources, including Nature, PubMed, Science, Blackwell Synergy, Wiley Interscience and Amazon.

Recognizing the importance of the content within institutional repositories, this new functionality will allow such content to be integrated and linked with the wider scientific literature.

See http://www.connotea.org/taggingtool for more information.

About Connotea and NPG

Connotea is a free online information management service for researchers and clinicians developed by NPG. It allows users to store their web links online, enabling them to be accessed from any web browser, and to organize them using individually chosen tags. The site also allows users to share their links with others and discover links to new publications or other resources relevant to their interests.

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, dedicated to serving the academic, professional scientific and medical communities. NPG's flagship title, Nature, is the world's most highly-cited weekly multidisciplinary journal and was first published in 1869. Other publications and services include the Nature research journals, Nature Reviews, Nature Clinical Practice, a range of prestigious academic journals, including society-owned publications, news content and scientific career information from Naturejobs.

NPG is a global company, with headquarters in London and offices in New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Tokyo, Paris, Munich, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Gurgaon and Basingstoke. For more information, please go to http://www.nature.com.

About JISC

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is a joint committee of the UK further and higher education funding bodies and is responsible for supporting the innovative use of information and communication technology (ICT) to support learning, teaching, and research. It is best known for providing the JANET network, a range of support, content and advisory services, and a portfolio of high-quality resources. Information about JISC, its services and programs can be found at http://www.jisc.ac.uk, or contact Philip Pothen on +44 (0)20 7848 2935 / +44 (0)7887 564 006.

The aim of the PALS Metadata and Interoperability initiative is to facilitate collaboration between the HE/FE and publishing communities and develop practical solutions for metadata and interoperability.

Contact details:

Ben Lund

Connotea Product Development Manager

T: +44 (0)20 7843 4766

Links:

http://www.connotea.org
http://del.icio.us/
http://www.jisc.ac.uk
http://www.nature.com

This press release is also available at http://www.nature.com/press_releases/pr100306.doc.

For all NPG press releases, go to http://www.nature.com/press_releases.html.

###