Springer

Not too long ago, just making an app made news—especially in the book world, where the utility (and desirability) of book apps was a subject of some debate. As publishers have come to see books as multimedia brands, however, the terms of the debate have shifted, from whether book apps have a place to when. Apps can accomplish many things when executed right—from content enhancement to marketing to fun and games, helping publishers meet audiences where they are and build loyalty to books, brands and authors. Realizing this, a few companies have gotten pretty sophisticated in their, ahem, app-roach, as the following examples show.

In late 2011 Springer Science+Business Media and the European Mathematical Society (EMS) partnered to transform the Encyclopedia of Mathematics (EoM) into an open access wiki for the mathematics community (www.encyclopediaofmath.org). In the first six months since its launch, the site has already attracted more than 500,000 visits.

Nine experts weigh in on scholarly publishing and ebooks:

Suzanne BeDell, managing director, Science and Technology Books, Elsevier:

When we talk about e-books we mean books to be read on devices and e-readers, which all our books are, in all e-book formats. One third of our e-book sales last year came through Amazon but access on the iPad is increasing. Our e-books are also available through the B&N platform on the Nook device and through Google Books too. It requires considerable work and investment to manage and support the different feeds…

In a concerted action, a global group of publishers and publishers' associations achieved an important success in the fight against copyright piracy on the Internet. Overcoming significant technical and legal obstacles, the publishers were able to locate the alleged operators of two high-traffic rogue Web sites, the sharehoster service, www.ifile.it, and the link library, www.library.nu, and to serve judicial cease-and-desist orders to them. These sites have now shut down.

Springer has announced its 50,000th eBook, available on its online platform SpringerLink. This milestone underscores Springer’s position as the largest eBook..

Springer is bringing Open Choice, its hybrid open access option, into line with the fully open access journals published by BioMed Central and SpringerOpen.

New apps from Scholastic Media, Irwin Law and Springer.

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Springer announces the Springer API (Application Programming Interface) Challenge 2.0, its second competition for original, non-commercial applications using its freely available metadata and content APIs. The Springer API Challenge 1.0 asked participants to develop applications that offer users new ways to find, visualize, and manipulate relevant data drawn from Springer’s large and growing content database. The Springer API Challenge 2.0 is a goal-directed competition to develop more specific solutions

Springer Science + Business Media has agreed to purchase Wolters Kluwer's pharmaceuticals-focused marketing and publishing services (MPS) unit.