March 28, 2012
Analyzing scholarly usage data from researchers worldwide, Hot Articles identifies the most popular publications in major subject areas
Jerusalem, Israel—March 28, 2012. Ex Libris® Group, a world leader in the provision of library technology solutions, is pleased to announce the release of bX Hot Articles, a service that is part of the recently launched bX usage-based suite of services from Ex Libris. Updated monthly, Hot Articles identifies the 10 articles that researchers have selected the most in each discipline in recent weeks, as well as the 10 most popular articles overall. The service is free for noncommercial use.
Leading the way for scholarly exploration, bX Hot Articles helps users discover information that others have found helpful. And because the service is based on usage data that is gathered without regard to publisher, platform, or institution, Hot Articles provides an objective picture of current global scholarly discourse.
In addition to online formats—HTML (tile), XML, JSON, RSS, and Atom—the Hot Articles service is available as a mobile application for Android devices and shortly for iPhone. More than 450 institutions are already providing their users with full-text links from the Hot Articles mobile apps, which can be downloaded for free from online stores and from the Ex Libris Web site. For more information, see the bX Hot Articles Web site.
bX Hot Articles was implemented and tested by a number of early adopters, including Harvard University and the University of Iowa in the United States, Denmark’s Aalborg University, Charles University in Prague in the Czech Republic, and Korea’s Seoul National University.
Michael Zach, a tester at Charles University in Prague, commented: ”This new bX service has the potential to enlarge the horizons of our users’ research. By presenting the ”hottest” topics in a user’s discipline and other subject areas, it encourages researchers to experiment with new perspectives or simply to become more curious. We love the fact that it is also available as a mobile app linking the users to our electronic material.”
Testing the service for the University of Iowa, Dottie Persson noted, ”We found Hot Articles to be a great addition to our subject guides. It allows students to encounter content that is in their general area of interest but slightly outside of the topics they typically study or the journals they most regularly read.”
”Exploring the potential of usage data for services that extend the traditional library offerings is one of our focus areas,” remarked David Beychok, vice president of discovery and delivery solutions at Ex Libris. ”The bX Hot Article service is one of the outcomes, and we provide it free of charge to the community of researchers. The response from librarians and users in the few months that Hot Articles has been available for testing has been extremely positive. We will continue to experiment and introduce more services that leverage scholarly usage data.”
About Ex Libris
Ex Libris is a leading provider of automation solutions for academic, national, and research libraries. Offering the only comprehensive product suite for electronic, digital, and print materials, Ex Libris provides efficient, user-friendly products that serve the needs of libraries today and will facilitate their transition into the future. Ex Libris maintains an impressive customer base consisting of thousands of sites in more than 80 countries on six continents.
Dedicated to developing creative solutions in close collaboration with customers, Ex Libris enables libraries to maximize productivity and efficiency and, at the same time, greatly enhance the user experience. By empowering users to discover and obtain the information they need, libraries ensure their position as the bridge to knowledge.
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