Welcome to Ringgold’s Winter 2014 Customer Bulletin. We would like to take this opportunity to wish all our customers and colleagues very happy holidays and to say thank you for your support over the last year – and over the last decade. In 2015, Ringgold will mark the 10th anniversary since our founding. We are so grateful to you all for making us an integral part of your business, and we look forward to working with you for many years to come.

In lieu of sending greeting cards this year, we are making a contribution to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières which is at the front line in the fight against the spread of the Ebola virus. Warmest wishes for the holiday season, from all of us here at Ringgold.

Ringgold Gets a New Look – Ringgold.com

We are pleased to announce our new corporate website. Please visit www.ringgold.com to find streamlined access to content and resources for anyone wanting to learn more about our organization or what we do. Some things to check out are:

Identify Case Studies

Our Clients use Identify data to support an amazing diversity of business objectives, including enhancing customer service, applying tiered pricing, and as an authority file for author and researcher affiliations. Read our Case Studies to find out how Taylor & Francis, ORCID, and APPI used Identify data, and get inspired to leverage Identify in new ways at your company.

Access to Ringgold Product Sites

With the advent of our new website, some links have changed. For quick access to your Ringgold services, you can use our new sign in page: www.ringgold.com/sign-in or go to each individual product site. Note these URLs have changed, so please update your bookmarks:

• Identify Database (https://ido.ringgold.com)
• CDO (https://cdo.ringgold.com)
• ProtoView (https://www.protoview.com)

Ringgold User Group Meetings in 2015

Back by popular demand! We are pleased to announce two Ringgold User Group meetings scheduled for the coming year. These meetings give us and our clients a chance to exchange information, share ideas, and inform our strategic direction as we move into our second decade of service. Plan to join us in June at SSP, or in London at ALPSP in September. Formal announcements will be made in the New Year, but let us know if you have suggestions for content and sessions. Email info@ringgold.com with your ideas.

CDO Training Webinars

Start the New Year off with a refresher course on CDO, and begin designing your prospect lists for 2015. Have you got new staff who can use an introductory session, or would you like to learn how to use the CDO to help with your strategic planning and tactical negotiations? Join us on Tuesday January 20. Registration details will be emailed to all CDO clients shortly.

A warm welcome to our newest customers

• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
• American Chemical Society
• Brill
• Classiques Garnier Digital
• Enrich Professional Publishing
• Kogan Page
• Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory/Astrophysics Data System
• Society for Exploration Geophysicists

Ringgold Joins with Copyright Clearance Center to Support RightsLink for Open Access

Open access publishing presents its own set of business challenges, and often at the top of publisher’s lists is the accurate calculation of APCs. Ringgold is excited to partner with the Copyright Clearance Center to help make this process easier: the CCC’s new RightsLink for Open Access service will be using Identify as the institutional authority file to ensure accurate author affiliations, which for many publishers is the first step in APC calculation. Read more here.

ScholarOne to Support Author Affiliation with Identify

The Identify Database will soon be used by ScholarOne Manuscripts to accurately identify the institutional affiliations of authors and reviewers. By eliminating the bulk of free-text entries and referring instead to the authoritative Identify Database of institutions, ScholarOne clients will benefit from greater data accuracy and an accelerated publishing process. Read more here.

Identify Database update

As we approach our 10th year, the Identify Database has exceeded 400,000 records: we now have the most complete hierarchical database of institutions relevant to the scholarly supply chain. This milestone represents a turning point: comprehensive databases grow quickly at inception; afterwards they require vigilance to ensure data is current, standards compliant, and accessible. In 2014 we devoted significant resources to database maintenance and infrastructure, which we will continue into 2015. Click here to read more on the following developments:

• New feature available now: Consortia Penetration Report. Contact us for a demonstration.
• Identify is now fully compliant with the ISO 3166-alpha 2 standard for country codes.
• Athens IDs are now undergoing a complete review, so that Identify includes the most complete and accurate list possible.
• Hierarchies for UK academic institutions have been reviewed using data provided by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).
• Additional plans for 2015 include a new Identify online interface, which will accommodate the display and analysis of the new Identify Facets, as well as more robust reporting features.

New Identify Facets to be Released in March 2015

As many of you know, we have been working to expand institutional metadata in Identify via our Types Project. This new taxonomy is called the Identify Facets, and will be fully integrated with all records in the academic sector. Alpha and beta testing will be conducted over the next two months, and the new data will be released to Identify data feed and API clients in March 2015.

Once released, the Identify Facets will allow you to explore the universe of academia with greater precision. New data elements will include granular subject classifications, educational levels taught, and more. After a period of time, we will evaluate the utility in applying the Facets to other, smaller sectors of the database.

Identify clients will all be notified prior to the official release of the Academic sector Identify Facets. Please do contact us in advance if you have any questions or to request the full schema supporting the new Identify Facets.

Consortium Directory Online update

Library consortia continued to increase in importance in 2014, and our CDO reflects their critical role as part of the market. In recent months we’ve added more than a dozen new licensing consortia to the directory. Three new consortia in India have been added, mirroring the expansion of that country’s emphasis on higher education.
New profiles have also been added from Canada, Kazakhstan, Italy, Spain, and Algeria.

We are continually updating the CDO, but also want to hear from you. If you have a suggestion for a CDO profile, contact us at cdo.support@ringgold.com – our CDO editor Moritz Schick will research it throroughly, and add details to the CDO.

ProtoView: Driving Discovery for Scholarly Works

Ringgold Identify customers may be surprised to learn that their colleagues on the book side of the publisher may be very familiar with us by the name of ProtoView.

For more than 30 years, Book News worked with publishers to create abstracts of their scholarly books to help inform acquisitions librarians and subject selectors. Acquired by Ringgold in 2012, Book News has been relaunched as ProtoView. ProtoView provides abstracts and metadata about new academic titles to the electronic resources used by college libraries. We export our content regularly to ProQuest, Baker & Taylor, Gale/Cengage, EBSCO, and others.If you’d like to receive samples of the abstracts and metadata that ProtoView is already providing for your organization’s scholarly works, or to learn more about how we can help drive discovery of your content, contact us.

Customer Support and Christmas Availability

Ringgold will be closed during 25-26 December and on 1 January. Holiday staffing levels will be maintained through the first week of the New Year. Please send any issues or questions to info@ringgold.com. Emails will be dealt with throughout the holiday period, although customers may not hear from their usual contact.

Identify will be loaded every day except public holidays (December 25-26, and January 1). Validate will be running as usual, except for public holidays (December 25-26, and January 1).

Don’t forget, our customer support website is available 24/7. Find help for all of our products and easy access to user guides, editorial policies and news. Access to online support can be found from within CDO, Identify and Validate. As always, we’re here to help. Let us know if there is any information or training your team may need to get the most out of Ringgold’s services.