What's Happening In Technology Sectors

• 04/01/09

:: NEWS

DIGITIZING RARE BOOKS FOR SALE. Book digitization vendor Kirtas Technologies has announced a partnership with the University of Pennsylvania Libraries to make more than 200,000 rare, out-of-copyright, and out-of-print books available for research and purchase. Using existing information drawn from Penn's catalog records, Kirtas is able to offer the books for sale through its own retail site, KirtasBooks.com, before the books are digitized. Customers will be able to search for a desired title, and when it's found, place a "digitize for me" request. The desired book will be pulled from Penn's shelves, digitized, processed by Kirtas for optimal reading and printing, and a newly-printed copy will be shipped to the initiator. Or, the customer can purchase access to an online-only version of the book. The Penn Libraries will earn income on the book orders.

EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION RESOURCE. CDW-G has launched the Mass Notification Toolkit, a website providing guidance on implementation, marketing, and sign-up challenges associated with the deployment of mass notification systems. Aimed at local governments, K-12 schools, and higher education institutions, the Mass Notification Toolkit builds upon CDW-G's 2008 study, This Is a Test-- This Is Only a Test: Updating America's Emergency Alert Infrastructure, which found that one-third of US residents have no knowledge of or experience with their local emergency notification program.

MOODLE-GOOGLE INTEGRATION. Moodle partner Moodlerooms has teamed up with Google to develop an integration that allows Moodle users to access Google Apps Education Edition from within the Moodle environment, using a single sign-on. "A school need only load its users into Moodle, and the integration will automatically load these users into its Google Apps Education Edition, providing users with web-based e-mail, document authoring, spreadsheets, presentations, and sites, all integrated with the online learning platform," explains Michael Penny, managing director for Moodlerooms' West Coast office. Read more here.

COMMUNITY PORTAL. SAP has launched the SAP University Alliances Community, an interactive web portal that delivers the latest academic resources for bringing SAP software, knowledge, and skills into university classrooms. The site features a career resource center, faculty club, student union, library, classrooms, and other facilities in a virtual community setting. Each area presents higher education content supplied by SAP and community participants, including course lectures, case studies, exercises, demonstrations, videos, thought leadership forums, and community blogs.

MOBILE READING. On-demand digital library Safari Books Online has optimized its content for the top mobile devices in the US, making it possible for users to read while on the go. According to the company, 81 percent of Safari Books Online customers use their mobile devices to read reference books and other personal development content. Mobile users now can utilize search, bookmarking, and favorites functions, and subscribers can use preset access keys to activate or launch a variety of functions.

LECTURE CAPTURE ALLIANCE. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a provider of teaching and learning solutions for higher ed, and class capture vendor Tegrity have joined forces to distribute the Tegrity Campus 2.0 lecture capture solution. The alliance demonstrates McGraw-Hill's commitment to providing services and products that increase students' effectiveness in achieving their educational goals, according to a joint statement from the companies.

SPECIAL DELIVERY. Crestron's RoomView remote help desk and resource management software now integrates emergency broadcasting. Critical information can be selectively routed to any device on the network that supports dynamic text, such as an interactive whiteboard, projector, display, or touchpanel. With a few clicks, targeted messages can be issued to a single room, group of rooms, or an entire campus.