DigitalKoans

The ARL Annual Salary Survey 2006–07 has been published, and it can be purchased from ARL.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The 2006–07 data show that ARL librarians’ salaries outperformed inflation. The combined median professional salary in US and Canadian ARL university libraries was $59,648—a 4.5% increase from the previous year. Over the same period, the Consumer Price Index rose 4.1% in the US and 2.4% in Canada. . . .

Gender-based salary differentials persist in ARL libraries in 2006–07. The overall salary for women in the 113 ARL university libraries is 95.7% of that paid to men; this figure compares to 95.5% in 2005–06. While the data show a marked closure of the gender gap in ARL libraries over the long term—in 1980–81, women in ARL libraries were paid roughly 87% of what men were paid—the data also raise the possibility that the closure has peaked, and that a 5% gap between men’s and women’s salaries may persist.

Google has released an alpha release of its open-source OCRopus optical character recognition software. The C++/Python software was developed under Ubuntu 7.10, and it initially supports Linux x86 and x86/64.

Read a review of the release at "Hands on with Google's OCRopus Open-Source Scanning Software."

In a list of Sen. James Inhofe's top contributors for the 2001-2006 Senate election cycle, Opensecrets.Org identifies Reed Elsevier Inc. as his 11th largest contributor, with $13,250 in contributions. Opensecrets.Org notes:

The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Before he withdrew them, Sen. Inhofe was the sponsor of two amendments” to delete or weaken the NIH Open Access Mandate in the FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill.

Opensecrets.Org also provides summary information about Reed Elsevier's 2006 lobbying activity, which includes a chart showing 1998-2007 totals.

Peter Suber reports that Sen. James Inhofe withdrew his amendments to the FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill that would have deleted or weakened the NIH open access mandate, and that the bill has passed the Senate with the mandate intact.

The House and Senate bills will be reconciled in the fall, and President Bush should receive the final bill by year's end. It is anticipated that President Bush will veto the bill; however, the mandate's strong showing during Congressional deliberations should help ensure its future passage in post-veto legislation.

Here's an excerpt from "Defying President Bush, Senate Passes Spending Bill for Health and Education Programs" (subscription required for full access):

The president has threatened to veto the measure over what he has called "irresponsible and excessive" spending. It would take a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to override a veto. The Senate, which approved the bill 75 to 19, apparently could muster that margin, but the House might not. It passed its version of the bill in July by a vote of 276 to 140, 14 votes shy of the two-thirds mark.

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has issued a press release about the legislative victory.

Read more about it at "More on Inhofe" and "OA Mandate at NIH Passes the Senate."

JISC's eBank UK project, which is now in phase three, has released A Study of Curation and Preservation Issues in the eCrystals Data Repository and Proposed Federation, which addresses key issues related to the establishment of the eCrystals Federation.

Here's an excerpt from "eBank Phase 3: Transitioning to the eCrystals Federation" that explains the overall project:

This project will progress the establishment of a global Federation of data repositories for crystallography by performing a scoping study into the feasibility of constructing a network of data repositories: the eCrystals Federation. The Federation approach is presented as an innovative domain model to promote Open Access to data more widely and to facilitate take-up.

It builds on the work of the eBank project, and has links to Repository for the Laboratory (R4L), SPECTRa and SMART Tea projects in chemistry. The Federation will contribute to the development of a digital repository e-infrastructure for research and will inform the Repository Support Project. . . .

In Phase 3, partners will assess organisational issues and promote advocacy, examine interoperability associated with research workflow and data deposit, harmonise the metadata application profiles from repositories operating on different platforms (EPrints, DSpace & ReciprocalNet), investigate aggregation issues arising from harvesting metadata from repositories situated within the information environments developed in other countries (EU, USA & Australia) and scope the issues of the Federation of institutional archives interoperating with an international subject archive (IUCr).

The Library of Congress, the British Library, Library and Archives Canada, and the National Library of Australia have agreed to coordinate their implementation of RDA: Resource Description and Access.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

These national libraries, together with representatives from professional library associations in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, are members of the Committee of Principals which oversees the work of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA, which is responsible for developing RDA. . . .

RDA addresses the needs of the future by providing a flexible framework for describing all types of resources of interest to libraries. RDA guidelines will be easy and efficient to use, as well as compatible with internationally established principles, models and standards. In addition, RDA will maintain continuity with the past, as data created using RDA will be compatible with existing records in online library catalogs.

The libraries plan to implement RDA by the end of 2009. To ensure a smooth transition to RDA, the four national libraries will work together where possible on implementation matters such as training, documentation and any national application decisions. Regular updates will be issued by the group to keep the library communities in their countries informed on RDA implementation progress and policy decisions.

The International Music Score Library Project, which offered music scores that were in the public domain in Canada, has been forced to remove all scores because it can not afford to comply with the terms of a second cease and desist letter from Universal Edition. The publisher's letter indicated that some scores were still under copyright in Europe, where the term of protection is 20 years longer than in Canada, and that some unidentified works were still under Canadian copyright.

The IMSLP Website remains, but it now consists only of a lengthy open letter and discussion forums.

Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, commented in a posting on the case:

In this particular case, UE demanded that the site use IP addresses to filter out non-Canadian users, arguing that failing to do so infringes both European and Canadian copyright law. It is hard to see how this is true given that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that sites such as IMSLP are entitled to presume that they are being used in a lawful manner and therefore would not rise to the level of authorizing infringement. The site was operating lawfully in Canada and there is no positive obligation in the law to block out non-Canadians.

As for a European infringement, if UE is correct, then the public domain becomes an offline concept, since posting works online would immediately result in the longest single copyright term applying on a global basis. That can't possibly be right. Canada has chosen a copyright term that complies with its international obligations and attempts to import longer terms - as is the case here - should not only be rejected but treated as copyright misuse.

Read more about it in "European Copyright Law Used to Threaten Canadian Public Domain Site" and "Music Score Library Goes Off-Line after Cease and Desist Warning."

Brewster Kahle's "Libraries Going Open" document provides some details on where the Internet Archive and the Open Content Alliance are going with projects involving mass digitization of microfilm, mass digitization of journals, ILL of scanned out-of-print books, scanning books on demand, and other areas.