The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has named John P. Wilkin as its new University Librarian and Dean of Libraries.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Wilkin is an associate university librarian at the University of Michigan, where he also leads Michigan's library information technology and publishing divisions, including the University of Michigan Press. He also is the executive director of the HathiTrust Digital Library, an online repository established in 2008 to unite the digitized collections of more than 60 research libraries, including the U. of I.'s, in an effort to preserve the published cultural record.

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The Association of American Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and ARL have released a draft of the Shared Access Research Ecosystem (SHARE) proposal.

Here's an excerpt:

Research universities are long-lived and are mission-driven to generate, make accessible, and preserve over time new knowledge and understanding. Research universities collectively have the assets needed for a national solution for enhanced public access to federally funded research output. As the principal producers of the resources that are to be made publicly available under the new White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)[1] memorandum, and that are critical to the continuing success of higher education in the United States, universities have invested in the infrastructure, tools, and services necessary to provide effective and efficient access to their research and scholarship. The new White House directive provides a compelling reason to integrate higher education's investments to date into a system of cross-institutional digital repositories that will be known as Shared Access Research Ecosystem (SHARE).

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Charles B. Lowry has published "ARL Library Budgets after the Great Recession, 2011-13" in the latest issue of Research Library Issues: A Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC.

Here's an excerpt:

In short, for five years ARL institutions have been in a pattern that departs from the historic expectation of increased funding intended to at least ameliorate the inflation rate for library acquisitions and the cost of operations and personnel. Like acquisitions, administrative budgets have demonstrably suffered more since 2008 than at any time in recent decades. In sum, the downturn of 2008 was followed by a progressive de-funding of library budgets that reflected what was happening in higher education institutions generally. Recent years are best characterized as highly volatile. The trends do not encourage optimism that budgets have turned the corner, and this will have consequences for the teaching and research within higher education and in the market place of scholarly communications internationally.

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John P. Culshaw has been named University Librarian at the University of Iowa.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Culshaw joined the university libraries at CU-Boulder in 1991 as central reference librarian. From 1996 to 2008, he oversaw the libraries' Systems Department, providing leadership and direction for information technology, media, and web services. In 2008 he was appointed associate director for administrative services. His position was renamed senior associate dean of libraries in 2011.

As senior associate dean, Culshaw provides administrative and budgetary leadership for libraries that have an annual budget of $20.9 million and staff in six physical locations.

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Gerald Beasley has been appointed Vice-Provost and Chief Librarian at the University of Alberta.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Concordia University Librarian Gerald Beasley has been appointed vice-provost and chief librarian at the University of Alberta, effective July 1, 2013, for a five-year term. . . . .

Beasley came to Concordia in 2008 from Columbia University, where he was director of the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library. His previous appointments include the positions of head librarian and associate chief curator at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Beasley holds an MA in Library Studies from University College, and an MA and BA in English Language and Literature from Oxford University.

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College & Research Libraries has released an e-print of "Dealing with Data: Science Librarians' Participation in Data Management at Association of Research Libraries Institutions"

Here's an excerpt:

This study, a survey of science librarians at institutions affiliated with the Association of Research Libraries, investigates science librarians' awareness of and involvement in institutional repositories, data repositories, and data management support services at their institutions. The study also explores the roles and responsibilities, both new and traditional, that science librarians have assumed related to data management, and the skills that science librarians believe are necessary to meet the demands of data management work. The results reveal themes of both uncertainty and optimism—uncertainty about the roles of librarians, libraries, and other campus entities; uncertainty about the skills that will be required; but also optimism about applying "traditional" librarian skills to this emerging field of academic librarianship.

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The Association of Research Libraries has released ARL Academic Law Library Statistics 2010-2011 (print: $135; $65 for ARL members; online: $170).

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In 2010-2011, the reporting law libraries held a median of 370,485 volumes, spent a total of $216,677,517, and employed 1,987 FTE staff. Expenditures for materials and staff accounted for the bulk of total expenditures, at approximately 46% for each of the two categories. Respondents reported spending a total of $25,469,277 for electronic materials, or a median of almost 28% of their total materials budgets; this includes a total of $22,185,942 for electronic serials.

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The Association of Research Libraries has released ARL Academic Health Sciences Library Statistics 2010-2011 (print: $135; $65 for ARL members; online: $170).

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In 2010–2011, the reporting health sciences libraries held a median of 217,811 volumes, spent a total of $240,675,218, and employed 1,977 FTE staff. Expenditures for materials and staff accounted for the bulk of total expenditures, at approximately 52% and 38% respectively. Respondents reported spending a total of $101,124,356 for electronic materials, or a median of almost 89% of their total materials budgets; this includes a total of $97,504,002 for electronic serials.

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ARL and Ithaka S+R have released Appraising our Digital Investment: Sustainability of Digitized Special Collections in ARL Libraries .

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The research reveals that understanding the continuing costs for sustaining digital collections is a challenge across libraries. Responsibility is frequently dispersed among departments, and staff time and other costs are rarely allocated expressly to these activities or accounted for project-by-project. Almost universally, libraries are funding this activity out of their base budgets, suggesting that they will continue to need to shift funds from other things in order to support this as a priority.

While libraries are supporting these collections within their operations, the study's findings also reflect concern over sustainability, with librarians citing lack of funding and staff capacity as major challenges to sufficient investment in their digital collections. . . .

The three-part survey, designed with input from the ARL community, was sent to all ARL member libraries in the US and Canada and completed by 89 library directors, a response rate of 70%. In addition to the institutional perspective provided by library directors, library staff responded to other sections to offer insight into activities and costs for all of their institution's digitized collections, and questions about individual projects.

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Ed Van Gemert has been named the Vice Provost for Libraries and University Librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Van Gemert served as deputy director and associate director for public services in the General Library System before assuming interim leadership. He also held the interim role in 2006, while former librarian Ken Frazier served as interim UW-Madison chief information officer. Van Gemert is an active member of the Association of Research Libraries, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the Council of Wisconsin Libraries. He also chairs the Strategic Advisory Board of the HathiTrust, a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to preserve and ensure access to the record of human knowledge. His research interests include organizational management and digital library development.

| Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works (EPUB, PDF, paperback, and XHTML) | Digital Scholarship |

ARL has released the Changing Role of Senior Administrators, SPEC Kit 331.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published Changing Role of Senior Administrators, SPEC Kit 331, which focuses on the professional, administrative, and management positions that report directly to the library director (or, in some ARL member libraries, the position that serves as the representative to the Association), positions that have not been examined by a SPEC survey since 1984. This SPEC Kit explores the responsibilities of these positions, and the skills, qualifications, and competencies necessary for these administrators to successfully lead a transforming 21st-century research library. The publication looks at whether and how position requirements have changed in the past five years, whether the number of direct reports has changed, whether these administrators have assumed new areas of organizational responsibility, and how they acquire the new skills to fulfill those responsibilities.

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The Association of Research Libraries has released the Report of the ARL Joint Task Force on Services to Patrons with Print Disabilities.

Here's an excerpt from:

This ARL task force report highlights emerging and promising strategies to better align research libraries with other institutional and related partners in ensuring accessibility to research resources while fully meeting legal requirements. The report addresses the technological, service, and legal factors relating to a variety of information resources with respect to print disability. These factors resonate closely with the existing research library agenda to make scholarly communication more open, to foster independence among its user base by teaching information literacy, to honor and invest in diversity, as well as to focus on the growing trend toward universal design in instruction.

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