Tina Chrzastowski has self-archived "Assessing the Value of Ebooks to Academic Libraries and Users" in IDEALS.

Here's an excerpt:

In 2010, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Library agreed to take part in a global study of Elsevier electronic books (ebooks) sponsored by Elsevier Publishing. Ultimately, 129 UIUC faculty and graduate students participated in a logbook study that examined the ebook discovery process, detailed the way in which this group of researchers used ebooks, and queried users on the value they assigned to Elsevier ebooks. Going beyond the Elsevier survey, this study examines the value of ebooks both to UIUC users and to libraries, and it reports on an assessment of the ebook collection at UIUC including cost and use statistics. The results show that UIUC users assigned a high value to Elsevier ebooks for research purposes; this paper also determines that, in the broadest sense and as a collective format, ebooks offer libraries a better economic value than print books (pbooks) when comparing the cost of activities such as processing, circulation, storage and preservation.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

College & Research Libraries has released a preprint of "From Stacks to the Web: The Transformation of Academic Library Collecting" by David W. Lewis.

Here's an excerpt:

The existence of a ubiquitous and cheap worldwide communication’s network that increasingly makes documents easily and freely available will require a transformation of academic library collecting practice. It will be driven by a number of specific developments including: the digitization of content; the development of print repositories; the development of e-readers and print-on-demand publishing; the growth of open access; challenges to establish academic publishing organizations; and the growth of new forms of scholarship based on openness and social productivity. If academic libraries are to be successful, they will need to: deconstruct legacy print collections; move from item-by-item book selection to purchase-on-demand and subscriptions; manage the transition to open access journals; focus on curating unique items; and develop new mechanisms for funding national infrastructure.

| E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

SPARC and the Academic Resources Coalition have released Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success: Research Report, Version 1.0.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Key findings of the project include:

• Approximately half (55%) of all respondents to the survey indicated having or developing library publishing services. Interest in such services varied by institution size, with over three-quarters of ARLs being interested, compared to 30% of Oberlin Group institutions. Most libraries with existing programs anticipated increasing the program's scale or scope in the next year.
• About three-quarters of the programs publish between one and six journals, the majority of which are only distributed electronically and are less than three-years old. About half of the programs publish conference proceedings, technical reports, or monographs; most often electronically, but with some print-on-demand distribution.
• The vast majority of library publishing programs (almost 90%) were launched in order to contribute to change in the scholarly publishing system, supplemented by a variety of other mission-related motivations. The prevalence of mission-driven rationale aligns with the funding sources reported for library publishing programs, including library budget reallocations (97%), temporary funding from the institution (67%), and grant support (57%). However, many respondents expect a greater percentage of future publishing program funding to come from service fees, product revenue, charge-backs, royalties, and other program-generated income.
• Almost two-thirds of the programs collaborate with one or more other campus units—including departmental faculty, university press, and campus computing—and two-thirds collaborate with individuals or organizations outside of the institution. Over half of the respondents expect collaborations to increase in the next year.
• About half of responding institutions centralize management of their publishing activities within one library unit. The number of staff allocated to publishing activities is modest—averaging 2.4 FTE for ARLs and 0.9 FTE for Oberlin Group institutions—with older programs typically being larger. Staff dedicated exclusively to publishing service programs are relatively rare, with responsibility for such services typically fragmented across multiple staff members.
• The perceived relevance of publishing services to the library's mission, and the integration of such services into the library's budget, helps explain the relative lack of emphasis on sustainability planning. Few institutions (15%) have a documented sustainability plan for their publishing services, and only a fifth have evaluated the value or effectiveness of their publishing services.
• The most prevalent journal publishing platforms reported were Open Journal Systems (57%), DSpace (36%), and Berkeley Electronic Press's Digital Commons (25%).

| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals | Digital Scholarship |

Digital Scholarship |

Digital Scholarship has released the E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography. It includes English-language articles, books, editorials, and technical reports that are useful in understanding the broad role of academic libraries in e-science efforts. The scope of this brief selective bibliography is narrow, and it does not cover data curation and research data management issues in libraries in general. Most sources have been published from 2007 through October 18, 2011; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 2007 are also included. The bibliography includes links to freely available versions of included works, such as e-prints and open access articles.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

The Pacific University Libraries and the Robert E. Kennedy Library at California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo have launched the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

A joint publishing partnership between the libraries at Pacific University (Ore.) and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo has announced a new open access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to library-led scholarly communication initiatives, online publishing and digital projects.

The Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication will provide a focused forum for library practitioners to share ideas, strategies, research and pragmatic explorations of library-led initiatives related to such areas as institutional repository and digital collection management, library publishing/hosting services and authors' rights advocacy efforts. As technology, scholarly communication, the economics of publishing, and the roles of libraries all continue to evolve, the work shared in JLSC will inform practices that strengthen librarianship.

Marisa Ramirez (Cal Poly) and Isaac Gilman (Pacific University) will co-edit the journal in collaboration with an editorial board composed of experienced and respected library practitioners.

Founding board members include Allyson Mower (University of Utah), Amy Buckland (McGill University), Ann Lally (University of Washington), Faye Chadwell (Oregon State University), JQ Johnson (University of Oregon), Katherine Johnson (California Institute of Technology), Lisa Schiff (California Digital Library), Michael Boock (Oregon State University), Pamela Bluh (University of Maryland, School of Law), Paul Royster (University of Nebraska), Rebecca Kennison (Columbia University), Sarah Shreeves (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Shawn Martin (University of Pennsylvania), Susan Wells Parham (Georgia Institute of Technology) and Terry Owen (University of Maryland).

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Institutional Repository Bibliography | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Gareth James Johnson has self-archived "Evaluating Repository Annual Metrics for SCONUL" in the Leicester Research Archive.

Here's an excerpt:

This report is a summarisation of the responses to a recent survey of the UKCoRR membership concerning the use of full-text downloads as a repository performance metric within the SCONUL annual statistical survey. It hopes to present a representative snapshot of the current opinions in this area from repository managers.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Institutional Repository Bibliography |

The Columbia University Libraries have adopted an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Columbia University Libraries is joining a growing movement among universities and research institutions to make scholarly research free and available to the public online. The Libraries is among the first departments at the university to adopt an open access resolution, which calls for faculty and other researchers to post their journal articles in online repositories such as Columbia's Academic Commons. In January, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory became the first program at Columbia to adopt an open access resolution.

The resolution for the Libraries, which goes into effect on June 1, 2011, will require librarians and other professional staff members to deposit their published scholarly works into Academic Commons or another repository that makes the work publicly available. By posting articles in an open-access repository, authors are able to make their works freely accessible to anyone in the world with an Internet connection and discoverable via Google Scholar and other search tools, thus promoting a wider dissemination of research and information.

"The Libraries at Columbia have championed open access to research,” James G. Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian, said. "It is appropriate that its professional staff should model this policy and place their works in repositories for wide access and use."

The resolution covers only scholarly journal articles and is not retroactive. There is an opt-out feature built into the resolution, with respect to publishing an article in a journal that insists on exclusivity.  The resolution will also cover Health Sciences Library professional staff.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography |

The Library Copyright Alliance has issued a statement on copyright reform.

Here's an excerpt:

Because of the favorable treatment such activities likely would receive in the courts under sections 107 and 504(c)(2), libraries would support an effort to amend the Copyright Act to benefit libraries only if it offered significant benefits over the status quo. To do so, a proposal must contain at least the following features:

• The non-commercial use (i.e., reproduction, distribution, public performance, public display, or preparation of a derivative work) by a nonprofit library or archives of a work when it possesses a copy of that work in its collection:
  • would not be subject to statutory damages;
  • would not be subject to actual damages if the use ceases when the library or archives receives an objection from the copyright owner of the work; and
  • would be subject to injunctive relief only to the extent that the use continues after the library or archives receives an objection from the copyright owner of the work.
• This limitation on remedies would apply to the employees of the library or archives, as well as to a consortium that includes the library or archives.
• Copyright owner objections would have no effect on a library’s rights under fair use.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

The University of California’s SLASIAC Library Planning Task Force has released the draft University of California Systemwide Library and Scholarly Information Advisory Committee Library Planning Task Force Interim Report.

Here's an excerpt:

Based on estimates developed by staff, the Task Force anticipates that:

• As a result of the combined effects of the obligation to fully fund the retirement system and to absorb a cut of $500 million to $1 billion in State funding, the libraries may experience budget reductions of as much as $52 million, or 21 percent of their current budget base, over the next six years. To put this into perspective, this cut is greater than the total library budget of any single UC campus, and roughly equivalent to the budgets of three of our mid-sized campuses, all AAU members.
• As a result of ongoing increases in the prices charged by publishers for scholarly material in both print and digital formats, the libraries will likely lose the equivalent of $17 million in buying power over the same period. This is equivalent to the current library materials budgets of two mid-sized campuses, and means a reduction in the systemwide acquisition rate of about 200,000 items per year.
• Existing library facilities will run out of space for new materials over the next 5-7 years (some are already at capacity) even as demand increases for extended hours and services and technologically well-equipped and flexible learning environments in the libraries’ prime campus locations.

Read more about it at "UC Libraries Must Increase Sharing to Weather Cuts."

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

The OCLC Research Library Partnership will launch on 7/1/11.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The OCLC Research Library Partnership is a new entity that will replace the RLG Partnership on 1 July 2011 and is a locus for OCLC's increased support of the research library community. It is an organization born out of the successful merger of RLG and OCLC in 2006, when expert staff from the two organizations were blended into one team with a combined effort directed toward supporting research libraries and archives. The merger created a venue where affiliated institutions could collectively identify, analyze, prioritize and design scalable solutions to shared information challenges. . . .

OCLC recognizes the valuable contribution that research libraries play in the cooperative and wants to provide a specific venue for engagement around shared issues. This venue is the OCLC Research Library Partnership, and it represents OCLC's renewed commitment to the research library community. OCLC's increased investment in the Partnership enables a significant reduction in the annual Partnership dues, which will, in turn, enable a greater range of institutions to participate in the Partnership in the future.

Read more about it at "Introducing the OCLC Research Library Partnership" and "OCLC Research Library Partnership Frequently Asked Questions."

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

James G. Neal has published "Prospects for Systemic Change across Academic Libraries" in the latest issue of the EDUCAUSE Review.

Here's an excerpt:

Similarly, we must raise the question of why the overwhelming majority of academic libraries in the United States continue to maintain a full suite of technical services operations. The acquisition, management, cataloging, preservation, and digitization of library resources—the mass-production aspects of library work—should be integrated into a network of regional service agencies. This would enable efficiencies and quality that may not be achievable on the local level. But more important, doing so would release staff resources to be focused more aggressively and productively on working with the user and on partnering in the learning and research work of the campus.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Ithaka S+R has released the Ithaka S+R Library Survey 2010: Insights from U.S. Academic Library Directors.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Ithaka S+R, a not-for-profit strategic consulting and research service for the academic and cultural heritage community, released today its Library Survey 2010: Insights from U.S. Academic Library Directors, offering a strategic analysis on the state of the library to help library leadership plan for the future. Over 200 library administrators from U.S. based four year colleges and institutions weighed in on issues related to the strategies they are pursuing for their libraries, the management of library collections, the development of new digital collections, and the creation of new services to meet changing user needs. . . .

The survey findings indicated that there is a consensus on key strategic issues, including the clear shift away from print to digital journals and the prioritization of teaching and instruction as core library functions. But, some findings suggest broad divergences not only among library directors but also among library directors and faculty members, as made evident through a comparison with data from the Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey 2009.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 |