JISC has released a brochure and two digital videos related to its Libraries of the Future campaign:

• Libraries of the Future brochure
• Library of the Future debate (video)
• Libraries of the Future documentary (video)

Presentations from the CNI Spring 2009 Task Force Meeting are now available.

• David S.H. Rosenthal's "How Are We Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Documents?" (video)
• Plenaries
• Project Briefings
• Closing Plenary Session

The University of Arizona's School of Information Resources and Library Science has received a grant of over $900,000 from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services for its Digital Information Management (DigIn) online graduate certificate program. The grant will primarily be used to fund scholarships.

Here's the press release:

The DigIn curriculum combines intensive, hands-on technology learning with a thorough grounding in the theoretical principles needed to manage large and complex digital collections.

The program takes a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach to managing digital information and is designed to support a wide range of career paths, especially involving libraries, museums, archives, and records management.

Graduate certificates are increasingly being recognized as a means for professionals with advanced degrees to update their knowledge and skills. DigIn also offers a path for those with undergraduate degrees who are interested in digital collections but who may not yet be ready to commit to a full degree program.

The grant will also greatly boost DigIn's mission to foster disciplinary, institutional, geographic, and cultural diversity in the management of digital collections and services.

Thus, DigIn strongly encourages scholarship applicants representing historically underserved institutions, regions, and communities, as well as students expressing interest in working with digital collections in culturally diverse settings.

DigIn is now accepting applications for admission and financial aid for the Fall 2009 semester. The application deadline has just been extended to July 10.

Late applications will be accepted, though Fall admission cannot be guaranteed once the July 10 deadline has passed. Late applicants will also be considered for admission in the Spring 2010 semester.

The program is delivered entirely online and does not require students to reside in or travel to Tucson. Students generally complete the certificate in 4-6 semesters (15-27 months).

DigIn was founded in 2007 with major funding from Institute of Museum and Library Services, the primary source of federal support for the nation?s 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas.

Our current partners also include the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Sedona Conference.

Additional details on the program including course descriptions, admissions requirements and application forms may be found on the program website:

digin.arizona.edu

Prospective applicants are also welcome to contact the DigIn staff at:

digin@email.arizona.edu

Read more about it at "SIRLS Earns Federal Grant to Train More Tech Savvy Librarians ."

The University of Arizona's School of Information Resources and Library Science's Digital Information Management Certificate program is accepting Fall 2009 applications until 7/1/09.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

DigIn combines intensive, hands-on technology learning and a strong grounding in the theoretical principles needed to manage large-scale digital collections in a fast-changing environment. The program supports a wide range of professional careers involving digital collections, including but not limited to libraries, archives, and museums.

Graduate certificates are increasingly being recognized as a means for information professionals with advanced degrees to enhance their knowledge and technology skills. DigIn is also open to professionals who are new to the field and who may be considering a masters-level education in the future.

The program is delivered 100% online and has no residency requirements. Students generally complete the certificate in four or six semesters (15 months or 27 months).

A beta release of the EmeraldView front-end to the Greenstone digital library software is near completion. The current code is available via a Subversion checkout. A demo is available.

Here's an excerpt from the project home page:

We are aiming to solve several key weaknesses of the stock front-end:

• Greenstone's cryptic URLs of unusual size are a fail for user comprehensibility, search engine crawlers, bookmarking, etc. . .
• Though extensive customization of the display is possible, there are some stopping points where modification of the C++ source is required.
• The customization that is supported is via a system of micro-templates referred to as macros. This system is so heavily nested and cross-referenced that it is very difficult to conceptualize how any given page is generated.

Presentations from the Digital Library Federation Spring Forum 2009 are now available.

Here's a quick selection:

• HathiTrust: Building the Organization, Building Services
• Repository Interoperability and Preservation: The Hub and Spoke Framework
• TIPR: Toward Interoperable Preservation Repositories
• Whose Stuff Is It, Anyway? A Study of Copyright Statements on DLF-Member Digital Library Collections

The DLF Aquifer Metadata Working Group has released Advancing the State of the Art in Distributed Digital Libraries: Accomplishments of and Lessons Learned from the Digital Library Federation Aquifer Metadata Working Group.

In "A Conversation with Kristin Antelman," Brett Bonfield has interviews Kristin Antelman, Associate Director for the Digital Library at the North Carolina State University Libraries about the Taiga Forum (a group for Assistant/Associate University Librarians and Assistant/Associate Directors), its controversial 2009 Provocative Statements, and other topics.

Here's an excerpt:

[Bonfield] Is there anything we could do to that would keep us from being at the mercy of Google and the major publishers? . . . .

[Antelman] Scholarly publishers, operating in an increasingly consolidated market, will continue to raise prices beyond inflation and restrict libraries through complex big deal licenses. They do have us at their mercy. Open access may be the eventual solution (and I think it is) but, in the interim, the detrimental impacts of their dominance (smaller market for monographs, for instance) will continue to be significant. One thing libraries can do—and many have done—is never again enter into big deals, where flexibility is traded for cost savings. Another thing libraries can do is to be less fixated on collecting for posterity. Scholarly work is increasingly preserved beyond our walls: a significant percentage of the best articles are already openly available on the web (and this segment is growing), while another significant percentage is made openly available by publishers after an embargo period. Libraries, collectively, will have to be less dogmatic about licensing (and replicating) complete and official versions of the STM (scientific/technical/medical) literature. At risk are two dimensions of our mission that have historically (and justifiably) defined us as research libraries: developing collections of significant breadth to meet the needs of all our constituents and maintaining the capacity to invest in new services.

Richard Wallis has posted a digital audio interview with Peter Brantley, the Internet Archive's new Director, on Panlibus.

Here's an excerpt from the post:

In this conversation we look back over the last couple of years at the DLF [Digital Library Federation] and then forward in to his new challenge and opportunity at the Internet Archive.

We go on to discuss his thoughts and plans to make it easy to identify books and information and their locations in a way that is currently not possible with the processes and protocols we use today.

On July 1, 2009, the Digital Library Federation will be merged into the Council on Library and Information Resources as one of its programs.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

With the merger, DLF's current members will become "charter sponsors" of the DLF program at CLIR. CLIR will hire a program officer to lead DLF initiatives. CLIR will continue to convene forums and will also convene special thematic sessions, with a goal of more in-depth exploration of collaborative activities.

A transition committee drawn from the CLIR and DLF boards will guide the initial stages of the merger; the DLF Board will also nominate two members to serve on the CLIR Board. The new members' terms will start in July; they will run for three years and are subject to renewal. . . .

In recommending the merger, the Review Committee cited a maturing of the digital landscape, as well as the economic efficiencies of consolidating the two organizations and the potential added value of leveraging the programmatic strengths of each.

The University of Arizona's Digital Information Management (DigIn) Certificate program is accepting applications for admissions and financial aid for Summer 2009 until April 15.

Penn State's Digital Library Infrastructure unit and HP are collaborating to test the use of the eXtensible Access Method interface standard for mass data storage. (Thanks to ResourceShelf.)

Here's an excerpt from "Penn State Launches Digital Library Archive Initiative with HP":

[Mark] Saussure and his team have recently been collaborating with HP to test digital tools that can be used across all of Penn State's many repository platforms. Primary among these tools is eXtensible Access Method (XAM), a new interface standard created by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) that is expected to help the University cohesively manage and provide access to its diverse digital library collections, electronic record archives, e-science and e-research data repositories.

"We're talking about hundreds of terabytes to petabytes of information from many sources,” said Saussure. XAM is the digital glue that brings all these data repositories together.

As part of its collaboration with HP, Penn State aims to develop a "tiered" electronic storage architecture to meet data discovery, corporate governance and regulatory compliance requirements for many years to come. The approach is part of the SNIA initiative to seek innovative applications for XAM through the efforts of global companies such as HP, EMC and Sun Microsystems. The initiative encourages universities, businesses and institutions to collaborate with one another to use the power of XAM to better manage the exploding demand for online storage.

Read more about it at "XAM and Penn State's Use of HP's Integrated Archive Platform."