The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) has announced the appointment of Michael Keller, Stanford’s University Librarian, as CLIR Senior Presidential Fellow. Keller is also Director of Academic Information Resources, founder and publisher of HighWire Press, and publisher of the Stanford University Press.

Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

During the two-year appointment, which begins August 1, Mr. Keller will undertake a series of studies and reports for CLIR publication. His research will include examining the recommendations of recent cyberinfrastructure reports and exploring how our communities can respond to the complex environment these reports envision, including the role and function of institutional repositories, digital archives, and digital libraries. He will also compose white papers that elucidate new and emerging research methodologies, new models of scholarly publishing, the role of supercomputer
centers in the evolving concept of cyberinfrastructure, and topics specific to rethinking aspects of libraries and academic life. During his tenure as fellow, he will continue to work from Stanford.

The Digital Library Federation and OCLC have released their Registry of Digital Masters Working Group’s Registry of Digital Masters Record Creation Guidelines.

Here is an excerpt from the Purpose section of the document:

By recording materials in the Registry, institutions are signaling the intent to preserve and maintain the accessibility of the described materials over an extended timeframe. This implies that materials were born digital or have been converted to digital form, that the digital objects are stored in professionally managed systems, and that the institution is committed to retain and preserve them. . . .

These guidelines detail which MARC 21 elements should be used to carry Registry-required information. Registry records describe materials that an institution intends to digitize, either from existing paper- and/or microfilm-based materials (“intent to digitize”), as well as born digital materials, and to indicate the standards by which the registered objects have been digitized.

A Registry record also provides information about whether a specific item has already been digitized, and if so, whether the digitization has been done at an adequate level such that another digital copy is not required, what institution is responsible for the digitization, what institution is responsible for the preservation of the digital content, and what specific materials are available.

In this podcast, Gerry Bayne of EDUCAUSE conducts a wide-ranging interview with Peter Brantley, the Executive Director of the Digital Library Federation, at CNI’s 2007 Spring Task Force Meeting.

Digital Collections and Resources at the University of Maryland Libraries has released the second edition of its Best Practices for Digital Collections at UM Libraries.

While these wide-ranging guidelines are primarily intended for the UM Libraries, others may find this 81-page document to be helpful as well.

Position papers from the NSF/JISC Repositories Workshop are now available.

Here’s an excerpt from the Workshop’s Welcome and Themes page:

Here is some background information. A series of recent studies and reports have highlighted the ever-growing importance for all academic fields of data and information in digital formats. Studies have looked at digital information in science and in the humanities; at the role of data in Cyberinfrastructure; at repositories for large-scale digital libraries; and at the challenges of archiving and preservation of digital information. The goal of this workshop is to unite these separate studies. The NSF and JISC share two principal objectives: to develop a road map for research over the next ten years and what to support in the near term.

Here are the position papers:

• Bill Arms: "Repositories for Large-Scale Digital Libraries"
• Fran Berman, Brian E. C. Schottlaender: "The Need for Formalized Trust in Digital Repository Collaborative Infrastructure"
• Laura E. Campbell: "How Digital Technologies Have Changed the Library of Congress: Inside and Outside"
• Sayeed Choudhury: "The Relationship between Data and Scholarly Communication"
• Bas Cordewener: "Institutional Repositories in the Netherlands, a National and International Perspective"
• Gregory Crane: "Repositories, Cyberinfrastructure and the Humanities"
• Linda Frueh: "Access Tools: Bridging Individuals to Information"
• Jerry Goldman and Andrew Gruen: "Complexity and Scale in Audio Archives"
• Babak Hamidzadeh: "Scale: A Repository Challenge"
• Ken Hamma: "Professionally Indisposed to Change"
• Rick Luce: "NSF/JISC Repositories Workshop Position Paper "
• Janet H. Murray: "Genre Creation as Cognition and Collective Knowledge Making"
• Peter Murray-Rust: "Data-Driven Science—A Scientist’s View"
• Michael L. Nelson: "I Don’t Know and I Don’t Care"
• Joyce Ray: "Discussion Group on Individual Users"
• Jürgen Renn: "From Research Challenges of the Humanities to the Epistemic Web (Web 3.0)"
• David Rosenthal: "Engineering Issues in Preserving Large Databases " (PDF)
• Abby Smith: "Thoughts on Scale and Complexity"
• Beth Stewart: "NEH and Digital Humanities"
• Eric F. Van de Velde: "Workshop on Data-Driven Science & Scholarship: Organizations"
• Donald J. Waters: "Doing Much More Than We Have So Far Attempted"

The Bibliothèque Nationale de France has launched a prototype of the European Digital Library (Europeana).

Here’s an excerpt from "France Launches Francophone Digital Library":

Europeana—as the cyber library is named—currently offers access to some 12,000 public domain full-text documents but is set to have by 2010 over 6 million books, movies, photographs and other documents from across the European Union countries. . . .

"We want to make it so that Europe is not entirely abandoned to an American search engine," said Jean-Noël Jeanneney, the head of BNF, according to French press reports.

The "The European Digital Library in 16 Questions" provides further information about the project.

A press release about the launch is also available (in French).

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has given grants to both the Council on Library and Information Resources and the Digital Library Federation.

Here’s an excerpt from the CLIR grant press release:

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) has received a three-year, $2.19 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support general operations. The award will allow CLIR to launch a range of new initiatives in six program areas: cyberinfrastructure, preservation, the next scholar, the emerging library, leadership, and new models. . . .

The breadth of CLIR’s new agenda is represented in six interrelated program areas:

Cyberinfrastructure defines the base technologies of computation and communication, the software programs, and the data-curation and data-preservation programs needed to manage large-scale multimedia data sets, particularly those pertaining to the digital record of our cultural heritage;

Preservation explores sustainable strategies for preserving all media in a complex technological, policy, and economic environment;

The Next Scholar explores and assesses new methodologies, fields of inquiry, strategies for data gathering and collaboration, and modes of communication that are likely to define the next generation of scholars;

The Emerging Library explores and articulates the changing concept of the library with particular focus on its core functions and the consequences for staffing, research and teaching, and economic modeling;

Leadership investigates and defines the skills and expertise needed to administer, inspire, and inform the next generation; and

New Models extrapolates from an array of CLIR’s findings and other related research how academic organizations, institutions, behaviors, and culture may evolve over the coming decade.

Here’s an excerpt from the DLF grant press release:

The Digital Library Federation (DLF) has received an $816,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a project designed to make distributed digital collections easier for scholars to use. The project, DLF Aquifer Development for Interoperability Across Scholarly Repositories: American Social History Online, will implement schemas, data models, and technologies to enable scholars to use digital collections as one in a variety of local environments. . . .

The project will address the difficulty that humanities and social science scholars face in finding and using digital materials located in a variety of environments with a bewildering array of interfaces, access protocols, and usage requirements. DLF Aquifer seeks to provide scholars with consistent access to digital library collections pertaining to nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. social history across institutional boundaries. The collections are in a variety of formats and include maps and photographs from the Library of Congress historical collections; sheet music from the Sam DeVincent Collection of American Sheet Music at Indiana University; and an array of regional collections, such as Michigan County Histories from the University of Michigan and Tennessee Documentary History from the University of Tennessee, that will facilitate cross-regional studies when combined.

By integrating American Social History Online into a variety of local environments, the project will bring the library to the scholar and make distributed collections available through locally supported tools. The project will take two years to develop and implement, from April 2007 to March 2009.

Kostas Saidis has released the Digital Object Prototypes Framework. It is available from the DOPs download page.

Here is an excerpt from the fedora-commons-users announcement:

At a glance, DOPs is a framework for the effective management and manipulation of diverse and heterogeneous digital material, providing repository-independent, type-consistent abstractions of stored digital objects. In DOPs, individual objects are treated as instances of their prototype and, hence, conform to its specifications automatically, regardless of the underlying storage format used to store and encode the objects.

The framework also provides inherent support for collections /sub-collections hierarchies and compound objects, while it allows DL-pertinent services to compose type-specific object behavior effectively. A DO Storage module is also available, which allows one to use the framework atop Fedora (thoroughly tested with Fedora version 2.0).

Here’s a description of the University of Arizona’s new Certificate in Digital Information Management program from their press release. The deadline for scholarship applications and admission to the program starting this summer has just been extended to April 1, 2007.

The University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science and The University of Arizona Office of Continuing Education and Academic Outreach are now accepting applications from students interested in a new post-baccalaureate certificate program in Digital Information Management (DigIn). DigIn will provide hands-on experience and focused instruction for people seeking new careers in or improving their skills and knowledge of digital archives, digital libraries, digital document repositories and other kinds of digital collections.

The explosion of digital information and the growth of on-line digital resources has led to a shortage of individuals with an understanding of the disciplines of libraries, document management and archives who also have the technical knowledge and skills needed to create, manage and support digital information collections. The six-course, 18-credit hour graduate program will provide both new students and working professionals with a balanced mix of content that includes practical applied technology skills along with a foundation in the theory and practice of building and maintaining today’s digital collections. Certificate holders will be well positioned for careers in libraries, archives, local, state and federal government and the private sector.

All coursework is online, so students will not need to take time off work or travel for courses. The program may be completed in 18-30 months and starts each summer with two required courses, Introduction to Applied Technology and Introduction to Digital Collections. The certificate program has been developed in cooperation with The Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records. Major funding for program development comes from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which has also provided funding for a limited number of scholarships.

For more information and to apply, visit the University of Arizona Office of Continuing Education and Academic Outreach website at:
http://ceao.arizona.edu/dist/sirls_welcome.html.

The Association of Research Libraries has published Managing Digitization Activities, SPEC Kit 294. The table of contents and executive summary are freely available.

Here are some highlights from the announcement:

This survey was distributed to the 123 ARL member libraries in February 2006. Sixty-eight libraries (55%) responded to the survey, of which all but two (97%) reported having engaged in digitization activities. Only one respondent reported having begun digitization activities prior to 1992; five other pioneers followed in 1992. From 1994 through 1998 there was a steady increase in the number of libraries beginning digital initiatives; 30 joined the pioneers at the rate of three to six a year. There was a spike of activity at the turn of the millennium that reached a high in 2000, when nine libraries began digital projects. Subsequently, new start-ups have slowed, with only an additional one to five libraries beginning digitization activities each year.

The primary factor that influenced the start up of digitization activities was the availability of grant funding (39 responses or 59%). Other factors that influenced the commencement of these activities were the addition of new staff with related skills (50%), staff receiving training (44%), the decision to use digitization as a preservation option (42%), and the availability of gift monies (29%). . . . .

Only four libraries reported that their digitization activities are solely ongoing functions; the great majority (60 or 91%) reported that their digitization efforts are a combination of ongoing library functions and discrete, finite projects.

Matt Pasiewicz and CNI have made available digital audio interviews with a number of prominent attendees at the CNI Fall (2005) and Spring (2006) Task Force meetings.

• "An Interview with ALA’s Rick Weingarten"
• "An Interview with ARL’s Duane Webster"
• "An Interview with ArtStor’s James Shulman"
• "An Interview with ASU’s Rob Spindler"
• "An interview with Carnegie Mellon’s Denise Troll Covey"
• "An Interview with CNI’s Cliff Lynch"
• "An Interview with Cornell’s Paul Ginsparg"
• "An Interview with DLF’s Executive Director, David Seaman"
• "An Interview with EPIC’s Kate Wittenberg"
• "An Interview with GMU’s Roy Rosenzweig"
• "An Interview with Indiana’s Brad Wheeler"
• "An Interview with Ithaka’s Kevin Guthrie"
• "An Interview with Georgetown’s Marjory Blumenthal"
• "An Interview with Johns Hopkins University’s Sayeed Choudhury"
• "An interview with Joyce Ray of IMLS"
• "An Interview with LOC’s Bill LeFurgy"
• "An Interview with Microsoft’s Tony Hey"
• "An Interview with MIT’s MacKenzie Smith"
• "An interview with NITLE’s Bryan Alexander and Michael Richwalsky"
• "An interview with NCSU’s Kristin Antelmann"
• "An Interview with Northwestern’s Jerry Goldman"
• "An Interview with NYPL’s Barbara Taranto"
• "An Interview with NYU’s Howard Besser"
• "An interview with Penn State’s Nancy Eaton"
• "An Interview with Purdue’s James Mullins"
• "An Interview with Purdue’s Jim Bottum"
• "An Interview with Rice’s Charles Henry"
• "An Interview with RLG’s James Michalko"
• "An Interview with RLG’s Merrilee Proffitt"
• "An Interview with Ron Larsen About I-Schools"
• "An Interview with SPARC’s Heather Joseph"
• "An Interview with Steve Wheatley, VP of ACLS"
• "An Interview with Susan Perry at CNI’s 2005 Fall Task Force Meeting"
• "An Interview with Tara McPherson About the Vectors Journal"
• "An Interview with the Internet Archive’s Brewster Kahle"
• "An Interview with the Internet Scout Project’s Rachael Bower"
• "An Interview with the National Research Council of Canada’s Glen Newton"
• "An interview with the Mellon Foundation’s Don Waters"
• "An Interview with the Mellon Foundation’s Ira Fuchs"
• "An Interview with the University of California’s Terry Ryan and Luc Declerck"
• "An Interview with the University of Minnesota’s Eric Celeste"
• "An Interview with the University of Minnesota’s Joseph Konstan about GroupLens"
• "An Interview with the University of Rochester’s Susan Gibbons"
• "An Interview with the University of Tennessee’s Barbara Dewey and Julie Little"
• "An Interview with University of Texas at Austin’s Fred Heath"
• "An Interview with UNC’s José-Marie Griffiths"
• "An Interview with Wayne State’s Jeffrey Trzeciak"

Emory’s Woodruff Library has a streaming video e-reserves service. Here are a few quotes:

Material to be digitized must be owned either by the library or by the person requesting the digitization. We will not digitize any third-party copies, recordings, or transfers, including personal recordings of television broadcasts or rentals. If you would like to digitize material that is not owned either by you or by the library, please contact us and we will attempt to purchase it for the library’s collection. . . .

We will digitize video and compress it into a streaming video format that is accessible via a link posted in ReservesDirect for the duration of the semester. Our current streaming formats of choice are Real and QuickTime. Real and quicktime video players may be downloaded freely from the web. . . . We will optimize the stream for a reasonably wide cross-section of those who are likely to view it. . . .

As with other materials that are digitized and placed on ReservesDirect, we will place a copyright notice at the beginning of all video we digitize. All digitized materials will be retained and archived solely by us. . . .

We will digitize up to 20% total of a commercially produced video or film. . . .

Since all video submitted is for use in an instructional context, we anticipate that all materials submitted will follow guidelines for what is appropriate for display in a classroom setting. Therefore we will not judge or censor materials submitted to us for digitization. However, if a challenge concerning the appropriateness of materials is submitted to us, we reserve the right to restrict access to digitized materials at any time while we review the challenge and make a decision on whether to continue access to the material.