Paula T. Kaufman, Juanita J. and Robert E. Simpson Dean of Libraries and University Librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has won the 2010 Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award, which is sponsored by ACRL, ALCTS, LLAMA, and LITA.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Named in honor of one of the pioneers of library automation, the Atkinson Award recognizes an academic librarian who has made significant contributions in the area of library automation or management and has made notable improvements in library services or research. . . .

Kaufman has held a variety of positions over the course of her career. In addition to serving as head of the Business and Economics Library and director of the Library Services group at Columbia University, she was acting head of the East Asian Library in 1982 and acting vice-president for information technology and university librarian from 1987-88. During her tenure at Columbia, Kaufman was involved in the development of the university's Scholarly Information Center, a merger of the library and academic information technology. In 1987, Kaufman resisted the FBI's request to report on the reading habits of Columbia library patrons with last names or accents from "hostile countries." Her actions were instrumental in making the FBI's Library Awareness Program public. Kaufman additionally served as dean of libraries at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville from 1988-99.

In her current position at UIUC, Kaufman has worked with the library faculty and staff to re-envision the future, form new alliances and cultivate an environment of creative problem solving. Under her direction, the library launched a highly successful capital campaign, established a formal preservation and conservation program, led the state of Illinois in digitizing collections, celebrated the library's 11 millionth volume and addressed the issues of how to support scholarship and teaching in the digital age through developing new models to deliver 21st-century services. In 2006, the provost of the University of Illinois tapped Kaufman to serve as the university's interim chief information officer. In this assignment, she increased communication among technology staff and reconnected the information technology department with the rest of the campus through focusing on its service mission.

She has additionally played key roles in governance and policymaking at a number of organizations, including serving on or leading the boards of directors of the Center for Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, the Council of Library and Information Resources, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the Digital Library Federation and the Society for Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.

Kaufman received her AB in Economics from Smith College, MBA from the University of New Haven and MS in Library Service from the School of Library Service at Columbia University.

The Library of Congress has established procedures to release open source software.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"The overall effect will be to clarify and streamline the process for releasing software as open source," said Michelle Springer, a digital initiatives project manager at the Library, "allowing the Library and its partners to more fully participate in the open source development community."

The Library has been especially active in developing tools that support digital preservation processes, including the secure transfer of digital files. This includes the release of a full suite of digital content transfer tools that support the Bagit specification.

These tools marked the first release of Library-authored open source software to a public repository. The tools were first registered on SourceForge in December 2008 and are available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/loc-xferutils/. While Sourceforge was the first external repository to host Library code, other repositories may be used in the future.

Source code originating from the Library may only be distributed as open source if developed by Library staff or under a contract granting the Library the necessary distribution rights. Additionally, the code cannot be based or dependent on any proprietary software and must be releasable without restrictions or cost.

Works created by Library of Congress staff will be designated in the code comments as a work within the public domain. The addition of the public domain notation in the code comments serves the function of letting developers know that section of the code is free for reuse even if the Library's code is incorporated into a software project with a more restrictive license.

Not all software repositories offer the option of a public domain designation. Under those circumstances the Library will apply the most permissive license possible. BSD-style licenses are being used by multiple National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program partners.

M. Sue Baughman has been named Association of Research Libraries Associate Deputy Executive Director.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Baughman is currently Assistant Dean for Organizational Development at the University of Maryland, College Park. She will assume her role at ARL on March 29.

The primary role of the Associate Deputy Executive Director is to promote and facilitate the strategic development of ARL policies and programs. The position carries a mix of responsibilities revolving around issue analysis and program development, strategic positioning and message development, and practical management and coordination accomplished working closely with the ARL Executive Director and Board of Directors.

In her current position, Baughman works with over 200 library staff in every facet of the University of Maryland Libraries. Her duties focus on the development needs of individual staff, teams, and work groups, and the organization as a whole. She understands not only the work staff does and the services they provide but also the interrelationships that are in place across a large organization. This broad perspective has enabled her to be an effective change agent and leader. She has been at the University of Maryland since 1995 serving in a variety of roles including, Manager of McKeldin Library Public Services, Assistant Dean for Organizational Development, and Interim Director of Collection Development and Special Collections.

In her career, Baughman has held positions at a variety of types of libraries and library systems and has served on committees of numerous library associations. In all of these positions, she has been committed to finding innovative solutions to challenging problems. Her skills and experiences in leadership, program coordination, and project management will be valuable assets for ARL.

The Association of Research Libraries, EDUCAUSE, Internet2, NYSERNet, and ACUTA have submitted comments to the FCC on preserving open internet broadband industry practices.

Here's an excerpt:

In sum, the availability of low-cost, high-speed, nondiscriminatory Internet services is absolutely essential for colleges, universities, research institutions, and research libraries to achieve their missions in the 21st Century. The adoption of enforceable net neutrality principles will ensure equal access for non-profit voices, encourage competition in the online content and services markets, and preserve the cultural benefits that flow from the Internet’s open, democratic nature. By keeping broadband providers from discriminating against educational content and research, by barring broadband providers from raising artificial price barriers to competition, and by preserving open discourse and debate, net neutrality will preserve the principles that have made the Internet successful and transformative. We urge the Commission to adopt the six principles proposed in the NPRM [Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking] and to adopt meaningful enforcement procedures to ensure that they are implemented.

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville School of Information Sciences has been awarded an IMLS grant to study the value of academic libraries. It will collaborate with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Libraries and the Association of Research Libraries.

Here's an excerpt from the press release :

Carol Tenopir, a professor in the School of Information Sciences, is the lead investigator on the project; Paula Kaufman, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a co-principal investigator; and Martha Kyrillidou, Senior Director for Statistics and Service Quality Programs, is leading the project from ARL.

The three-year grant, entitled "Value, Outcomes, and Return on Investment of Academic Libraries (Lib-Value)," will work to enrich, expand, test, and implement methodologies measuring the return on investment (ROI) in academic libraries.

"There is an increasing need for academic librarians to demonstrate the return on investment and value of the library to the various stakeholders of the institution and to guide library management in the redirection of library funds to important products and services for the future," Tenopir said. Academic libraries actively participate in the many changes in scholarship, such as the move to e-science, collaborative and participatory scholarship, and focus on new materials such as data, multimedia, and born-digital assets. To remain relevant and central to the academic mission in the future, academic librarians need to be able to demonstrate the value that the academic library provides to the campus community using proven methods of measurement that will allow librarians to determine where their efforts should be concentrated and how funding should be allocated.

The results of the study will provide evidence and a set of tested methodologies and tools to help academic librarians demonstrate how the library provides value to its constituents and ROI to its funders, and to measure which products and services are of most value to enhancing the university’s mission. This project will greatly expand upon earlier studies to consider multiple measures of value that the academic library brings to teaching/learning, research, and social/professional/public engagement functions of the academic institution.

To ensure that the process will be rigorous, realistic, and highly visible in the academic library and university community, an experienced team of academic librarians and outstanding researchers bring their leadership, built on many years of experience, to the project. Two well-known researchers in the library field will serve as consultants: Bruce Kingma, an economist at Syracuse University, and Donald W. King, a statistician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill. Additional project participants include: Gayle Baker, Ken Wise, Rachel Fleming-May, Regina Mays, Crystal Sherline, and Andrea Baer at the University of Tennessee; Tina Chrzastowski at the University of Illinois; and Henry Gross, Gary Roebuck, and David Green at ARL.

The Cornell University Library has given about 80,000 digitized public domain books to the Internet Archive.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In an effort to make its materials globally accessible, Cornell University Library is sharing tens of thousands of digitized books with the Internet Archive.

"We have been carefully preserving and storing materials for years, and now we're diversifying the channels for them to be studied and used," said Oya Reiger, associate university librarian for information technologies. "We have the ability to take books to the places where readers are."

The new collaboration repurposes nearly 80,000 books that the Library has already digitized in-house or through its partnership with Microsoft and Kirtas Technologies. All the books are in the public domain, printed before 1923 mainly in the United States. They cover a host of subject areas, including American history, English literature, astronomy, food and wine, general engineering, the history of science, home economics, hospitality and travel, labor relations, Native American materials, ornithology, veterinary medicine and women's studies. . . .

"Expanding access to knowledge is one of the Library's core principles, and we are excited to participate in the open-access vision of the Internet Archive," said Anne R. Kenney, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian.

The collaboration with Internet Archive is another step in Cornell University Library's cutting-edge participation in mass digitization initiatives. Earlier this year, the Library announced an expanded print-on-demand partnership with Amazon.com that allows readers to pay for reprinting of books on an individual basis.

"The Internet Archive is proud to process and host the books from Cornell — these collections are priceless," said Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive. "We are happy that Microsoft put no restrictions on the scanned public domain books and Cornell is encouraging maximum readership and research use."

Performing a simple search for one of Cornell University Library's digitized books now brings up both a copy on Amazon and a free online copy on the Internet Archive.

Helen Shenton, Head of Collection Care for the British Library, has been named Deputy Director of the Harvard University Library.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In 2002, she became the first overall head of collection care for the British Library (BL), where her purview encompasses conservation, preservation, training and research, collection storage, and security for 150 million items, ranging from the Magna Carta to 300 terabytes of digital material. She co-founded the BL's first comprehensive digital preservation team, and she led an innovative collection-management strategic "strand" known as the "Life Cycle" program.

With eleven years of experience on the BL's senior leadership team, Shenton is steeped in collection management, information technology, human resources, and new building projects. She masterminded the BL's new world-class Centre for Conservation and is heavily involved with the BL’s new high-density, low-oxygen robotic depository 190 miles from London, into which a half-mile of stock is currently being transferred per day.

Shenton studied English Literature at University College London and trained at the London College of Printing and with the arts and crafts book conservator Roger Powell. She joined the British Library in 1998 after 14 years in the conservation department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, where she was responsible for the textiles, paper, paintings, photography, and book disciplines.

She also honed her management skills at the Harvard Business School's Executive Strategy Program this summer.

"I do not underestimate the enormity of the challenges ahead," she says, "but I am very excited at the prospect of joining Harvard University Library at such a key moment to help make the library and information provision even better for students and faculty now and in the future."

Shenton will arrive at Harvard early in 2010.

Data tables for the ARL Annual Salary Survey 2009-2010 are now available (XLS file).

The Association of Research Libraries has released ARL Academic Law Library Statistics 2007-2008 (print version also available).

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published the ARL Academic Law Library Statistics 2007-2008, which presents data that describe collections, expenditures, personnel, and services in 75 law libraries at ARL member institutions throughout North America.

In 2007-2008, the reporting law libraries held a median of 345,935 volumes, spent a total of $215,630,657 and employed 2,129 FTE staff. Expenditures for materials and staff accounted for the bulk of total expenditures, at 47% and 45% respectively. Respondents reported spending a total of $20,345,053 for electronic materials (this was 22% of their total materials budgets); this includes a total of $17,200,532 for electronic serials.

See also ARL Law Statistics Tables 2007-08 (XLS file).

The Association of Research Libraries has released ARL Academic Health Sciences Library Statistics 2007-2008 (print version also available).

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published the ARL Academic Health Sciences Library Statistics 2007-2008, which presents data that describe collections, expenditures, personnel, and services in 64 medical libraries at ARL member institutions throughout North America.

In 2007-2008, the reporting health sciences libraries held a median of 240,955 volumes, spent a total of $240,019,298 and employed 2,304 FTE staff. Expenditures for materials and staff accounted for the bulk of total expenditures, at 49% and 42% respectively. Respondents reported spending a total of $81,986,136 for electronic materials, or an average of 76% of their total materials budgets; this includes a total of $76,921,558 for electronic serials.

See also ARL Health Sciences Statistics Tables 2007-08 (XLS file).