Month: January 2008

White Paper on Interoperability between Acquisitions Modules of Integrated Library Systems and Electronic Resource Management Systems

A subcommittee of the Digital Library Federation’s Electronic Resource Management Initiative, Phase II has released White Paper on Interoperability between Acquisitions Modules of Integrated Library Systems and Electronic Resource Management Systems.

Here's an excerpt from the "Executive Summary":

The following white paper investigates interoperability between the acquisitions modules of integrated library systems (ILS) and electronic resource management systems (ERMS). The first section of the paper features four case studies: UCLA, Cornell University, the Tri-College Consortium of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, & Swarthmore Colleges, and the Library of Congress. Each case highlights the library’s institutional environment, consortium considerations, systems architecture (ILS, ERMS, and link resolver), and electronic resource workflows. . . .

The second part of the paper reports on conversations held with product managers and other relevant staff of the leading ERMS. . . .

The paper concludes with a recap of the general value of ILS/ERMS interoperability and some of the more significant barriers to achieving it. Finally, it is proposed that further discussions among stakeholders take place, and that these discussions focus on establishing agreement on a small set of elements for exchange and on the development of standard identifiers.

Podcasts from the CNI Fall 2007 Task Force Meeting

Podcasts are now available from CNI's Fall 2007 Task Force Meeting. Here's a selection:

Goodbye Digital Music DRM, Goodbye RIAA?, and Hello Music Watermarking

SONY BMG has moved beyond experimenting with non-DRM-protected music tracks and indicated that its entire catalog will be available as MP3s from Amazon by the end of the month. SONY BMG is the last of the "big four" music labels to offer MP3s via Amazon (the others are the EMI Group, the Universal Music Group, and the Warner Music Group). Napster has also announced that it will offer MP3s for sale this spring (its subscription service will still use DRM). It would appear that the DRM era for digital music is coming to a close.

Meanwhile, rumors continue to circulate that the RIAA is endangered due to a potential withdrawal of funding from the EMI Group.

The decline of digital music DRM does not mean that the labels have given up the fight to stem the tide of illegal downloads. MP3s from Sony and Universal include "anonymous" watermarks that allow them to be traced as they move through the Internet to provide infringement data for music labels and to potentially allow filtering by ISPs.

Nor does the decline of digital music DRM mean that Hollywood will quickly follow, avoiding the mistakes of the music industry.

Read more about it at "DRM Is Dead, but Watermarks Rise from Its Ashes," "Napster to Sell DRM-Free Downloads," "Sony Joins Other Labels on Amazon MP3 Store," and "Under Pressure from EMI, RIAA Could Disappear."

NIH Public Access Policy Implementation

On an updated Web page and a FAQ, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has explained its implementation of the Public Access Policy required by Division G, Title II, Section 218 of PL 110-161 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008).

Here's an excerpt from the NIH Public Access Policy Web page:

How to Comply

Address Copyright

Make sure that any copyright transfer or other publication agreements allow the article to be submitted to NIH in accordance with the Policy.

Submit Article

Authors may submit an article to the journal of their choice for publication.

  1. If you choose to publish your article in certain journals, you need do nothing further to comply with the submission requirement of the Policy. See http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm for a list of these journals.
  2. For any journal other than one of those in this list, the author must:

    a. Inform the journal that the article is subject to the Public Access Policy when submitting it for publication.

    b. Make sure that any copyright transfer or other publication agreement allows the article to be submitted to NIH in accordance with the Policy. For more information, see the FAQ Whose approval do I need to submit my article to PubMed Central? and consult with your Institution.

    c. Submit the article to NIH, upon acceptance for publication. See the Submission Process for more information.

Cite Article

When citing their NIH-funded articles in NIH applications, proposals or progress reports, authors must include the PubMed Central reference number for each article.

Important Dates

  • April 7, 2008 As of April 7, 2008, all articles arising from NIH funds must be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication.
  • May 25, 2008 As of May 25, 2008, NIH applications, proposals, and progress reports must include the PubMed Central reference number when citing an article that falls under the policy and is authored or co-authored by the investigator, or arose from the investigator’s NIH award. This policy includes applications submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 due date and subsequent due dates.

Peter Suber has made some helpful comments about the policy implementation in "New FAQ for New NIH Policy" and "Text of the NIH OA Policy."

After Months as a Pay-What-You-Want Download, Radiohead's Album Tops the Charts

After being available for three months as a pay-what-you-want MP3 download, Radiohead's In Rainbows album has topped the charts in the U.S., Canada, France, Japan, and Ireland in CD and vinyl formats.

Read more about it at "Radiohead Finds Sales, Even After Downloads," "Radiohead's 'Rainbows' Hits No. 1," and "Radiohead's Web Album No 1 in US."

Library of Congress Office of Strategic Initiatives' Strategic Plan FY 2008-2013

The Library of Congress Office of Strategic Initiatives has published its Strategic Plan FY 2008-2013. This is a large color PDF file (about 34 MB).

Here are three brief excerpts:

By 2013 we expect to have in place:

  • Increased digital content holdings
  • Capability to produce and receive sustainable digital content from multiple sources
  • A stewardship network of collaborative partners
  • Recommendations on digital content information architecture, preservation and access
  • Recommendations on public policy for digital content preservation and access

Through 2013, we expect to:

  • Increase use and awareness of content and services by target user communities
  • Improve integrated search and discovery
  • Secure delivery of digital content and services
  • Enable multiple ways/methods of access to digital content and services
  • Facilitate integration of the Library’s primary sources into K–12 educational settings
  • and networks

Key outcomes associated with our technology infrastructure objective include:

  • Secured, available and scalable technology infrastructure
  • Defined Library of Congress technical infrastructure for shared tools and services
  • among networked entities
  • Defined future institution-wide architecture and support for a national networked
  • digital information architectural framework
  • Specialized institutional digital media repository services
  • Preserved authentic digital content over time.

Report on Library of Congress/San Diego Supercomputer Center Data Transfer and Storage Tests

The Library of Congress has published Data Center for Library of Congress Digital Holdings: A Pilot Project; Final Report.

Here an excerpt from the "Introduction":

Between May 2006 and October 2007, the Library of Congress (LC) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) conducted data-transfer and storage tests. At the heart of the project was the issue of trust, specifically how the LC could trust SDSC to reliably store several terabytes of the LC’s data. By what means could SDSC prove to the LC that the data was intact, preserved, and well-cared for? What tests could the LC devise, and what metrics could SDSC produce, to guarantee the integrity of their remotely stored data?

The two main objectives of the project were:

  • For SDSC to host LC content reliably and return it intact at the end of the project
  • For LC to be able to remotely access, process, analyze, and manage that content . . . .

Inspired by SDSC’s staggering technological potential, the LC had devised several scenarios for the data tests. But ultimately, as the project progressed, the LC opted to keep its goals simple: data transfer, storage, and file manipulation. In the end, both partners were happy with the project’s success. The project also produced lessons and unexpected results, some of which will have deep implications for all cultural institutions regarding transfer and storage of their digital assets.

AT&T, Microsoft, and NBC: It's Time to Filter the Internet

In "AT&T and Other ISPs May Be Getting Ready to Filter," The New York Times reports that AT&T, Microsoft, and NBC are lining up in support of filtering the Internet to cope with digital copyright infringement problems.

On December 31, 2007, the Australian Telecommunications Minister announced that there would be mandatory Internet filtering for "inappropriate" material, and a posting about that decision, "Australian Filtering Announcement Raises Questions and Ire," provides a good overview of national-level filtering issues.

Read more about it at "Is AT&T Siding With NBC To Get Rid Of Neutrality?"

The RIAA and CD Ripping for Personal Use: Infringement or Not?

Recently, there has been a flurry of articles about the RIAA's stance on the legality of CD ripping for personal use that was triggered by a Washington Post article ("Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use") that was later corrected. The controversy resulted in a debate on National Public Radio between the article's author and RIAA's president (Cary Sherman). In it, Sherman would not say that CD ripping for personal use was legal, but he did say: "Not a single (legal) case has ever been brought (by the RIAA against someone for copying music for personal use)."

Just as the dust seemed to be settling, Wired Blog Network has published "RIAA Believes MP3s Are A Crime: Why This Matters—Updated," takes another look at what the RIAA has said on the issue, and concludes "The RIAA doesn't believe Americans have any right—or Fair Use legal defense—to play copyrighted material on the device and in the format of their choosing."

Image Management Software Descriptions from TASI Survey

TASI (Technical Advisory Service for Images) has published descriptions of information management software resulting from a vendor survey (e.g., see the Greenstone description). TASI notes: "The information has been provided by the system developer/vendor in answer to TASI's survey, but has not been independently verified."

TASI recommends that readers consult Systems for Managing Image Collections and Choosing a System for Managing your Image Collection as background for evaluating the survey responses.

UK May Make CD Ripping for Legal in Some Cases

Did you know that ripping MP3 files from CDs was illegal in the UK? The good news (for a change) is that Lord Triesman, Minister for Intellectual Property, has initiated an IP reform consultation that may result in making CD ripping legal for distance education, personal use, parody, and preservation purposes.

Read more about it at "Proposal to Make CD Copying Legal," "UK Issues Public Consultation on More Flexible Copyright," "U.K. Looks to Relax Restrictive Copyright Laws," and "UK Wants to Make CD Rips Legal (at Last)."

STARGATE Report Investigates Issues with Software to Support Harvesting for Publishers without OAI-PMH-compliant Repositories

The JISC-funded extension of the STARGATE project has released the STARGATE Extension Final Report.

Here's an excerpt from the original STARGATE project page that explains its goals:

The Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR) at of Strathclyde set out to implement a low-tech solution to OAI-based disclosure for small publishers. Their STARGATE project was based on the 'static repositories' model for using OAI-PMH . . . Instead of building an OAI-compliant repository, a publisher builds a static repository, effectively an XML file of the relevant metadata on an accessible server. A separate static repository gateway handles the technical aspects of making the metadata available for harvesting, i.e. the complexity is shifted away from the publisher.

Here's an excerpt from the report's "Executive Summary":

The extension has produced a functional branded gateway that the publishing community can use to explore the use of static repositories. It will be maintained for the next year. The gateway is available at http://stargate.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/gateway/.

The project concludes that although functional the software is not suitable for deployment by a novice user. It is also effectively still in at the beta stage of development and it has only been used in a limited number of settings.

The project further suggests that the creation and maintenance of gateway(s) within the publishing community may be more suitably carried out in the same way that DOI and Purl provision is offered through a third-party service provider willing to work with developing open source software. Any deployment of a gateway by JISC to support wider participation in static repositories should also engage with the gateway software developers.

Digital Asset Management Database Released: DAM Built on FileMaker Pro

Museums and the Online Archive of California (MOAC) has released the IMLS-funded Digital Asset Management Database (DAMD), a digital asset management system.

Here's an excerpt from the MOAC homepage:

Building on previous successful work in the areas of standards and online collections access, the new MOAC software tool, the Digital Asset Management Database (DAMD), has been developed as both a utilitarian tool and as a test case for exploring more general issues of content sharing and community tool development. This tool has two primary functions that can be used together or separately: it provides basic digital asset management for simple to complex media objects and it easily transforms collections information into an extensible variety of standards-based XML formats, such as METS and OAI, to allow even small organizations without technical staff to share their collections broadly and participate in building a national network of culture. DAMD was developed as an "open solution," built on FileMaker Pro software (8.5 or above) because of the broad base of installed users of FileMaker in the museum and arts communities. DAMD is available for free to cultural organizations. The tool, and its unique export/transform functions (detailed in the documentation), are open-ended, allowing organizations to customize the tool for themselves or the community to improve the tool for all.

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog Update (1/9/08)

The latest update of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (SEPW) is now available, which provides information about new works related to scholarly electronic publishing, such as books, journal articles, magazine articles, technical reports, and white papers.

Especially interesting are: "Assessment of Self-Archiving in Institutional Repositories: Across Disciplines"; "Copyright and Research: A Different Perspective"; "The Cost Profiles of Alternative Approaches to Journal Publishing"; "Data, Disciplines, and Scholarly Publishing"; "Discovering Books: OCA & GBS Retrospective"; In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law; "Open Access in 2007"; "An Open Access Mandate for the NIH"; and "The Rutgers Workflow Management System: Migrating a Digital Object Management Utility to Open Source."

Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video

American University's Center for Social Media has released Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video, which examines fair use issues in user-created digital videos. See the announcement for links to videos used in the report.

Here's an excerpt from the "Next Steps" section:

The effervescence of this moment at the dawn of participatory media should not be mistaken for triviality. The practices of today’s online creators are harbingers of a far more interactive media era. Today’s makers—feckless, impudent, brash, and extravagant as they often are—in fact are the pioneers of an emerging media economy and society. Recognition of the importance of fair use, within the copyright law toolkit for cultural creation, is both prudent and forward-looking for those concerned with maintaining an open society.

Machine Services for Metadata Discovery and Aggregation—metadata+ Report

JISC has released Machine Services for Metadata Discovery and Aggregation—metadata+.

Here's an excerpt from the Executive Summary:

The main aim of the project is to develop an interoperability demonstrator to explore the technical aspects of providing a service-oriented infrastructure to facilitate metadata discovery and aggregation. The project developed a test bed that exposes metadata through standard search and linking protocols. Metadata mapping work was undertaken to enable the test bed to provide search response in multiple metadata schemas that are widely used in digital library and e-learning.

The core of the test bed consists of an open source digital repository—Fedora. Off-the-shelf, the repository provides web services for metadata searching and substantial content management and security features particularly suitable for real-life use scenarios. Since the search protocol considered in this project requires additional features that are not available from the repository, modifications to the repository source code were made. The modifications also involve incorporating the metadata mapping requirement such that search responses from different metadata formats can be facilitated.

A basic demonstrator (project website) has been created to exemplify how the search protocol can be used for discovering and aggregating metadata, as well as presenting them in coherent formats relevant to the intended presentation contexts. The metadata sources include publisher and digital libraries providing both bibliographic and user-generated (enrichment) metadata such as reviews and recommendations. In addition, the project demonstrated a novel use of the search protocol to dynamically create e-learning content packages, digital library metadata collection and news feeds.

Several digital libraries initiatives have evaluated the test bed infrastructure for real use scenarios. These libraries are an extended form of the test bed demonstrator and provide relevant facilities such metadata wiki (editor) and annotation services for gauging enrichment metadata (review, rating and recommendation) from users. They will continue the objectives of this project particularly on improving the test bed infrastructure and exploring the aggregated use of enrichment metadata, to enable the academic and research user communities to add values to bibliographic metadata from the publishers and libraries communities.

Wikia Search Debuts to Pundits’ Criticism

An alpha version of Wikia's open source Wikia Search has gone public, but the consensus seems to be that this user-tuned search engine has a long way to go to compete with the likes of Google.

Read more about it at "Jimmy Wales Argues That His Wikia Needs More Time," "Wiki Citizens Taking on a New Area: Searching," "Wikia Launching Human-Powered Search," "Wikia Search Alpha Preview Leaves Much to Be Desired," "Wikia Search Is A Complete Letdown," and"Wikia Search—Miles Behind the Competition."

Sony BMG, Last of the Big Music Labels to Use DRM, Drops It for Some Albums

According to "Sony BMG to Sell DRM-Free Music Downloads through Stores," Sony BMG will join EMI, Vivendi's Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group in offering DRM-free MP3 tracks. Initially, this will be for a small number of albums, and it will require that buyers purchase a card at a retail store. In 2005, Sony BMG was embroiled in a major controversy about its use of DRM software.

Read more about it at "Digital Music: 2007 Year in Review," "Labels See New Online Music Options," "Sony BMG Cautiously Exploring DRM-Free Future," and "Sony BMG Plans to Drop DRM."

PublicDomainReprints.org Turns Digital Public Domain Books into Printed Books

PublicDomainReprints.org is offering an experimental service that allows users to convert about 1.7 million digital public domain books in the Internet Archive, Google Book Search, or the Universal Digital Library into printed books using the Lulu print-on-demand service.

Source: "Converting Google Book PDFs to Actual Books."

Institutional Repositories, Tout de Suite

Institutional Repositories, Tout de Suite, the latest Digital Scholarship publication, is designed to give the reader a very quick introduction to key aspects of institutional repositories and to foster further exploration of this topic through liberal use of relevant references to online documents and links to pertinent websites. It is under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License, and it can be freely used for any noncommercial purpose in accordance with the license.