Creative Commons License Option for ETDs at the University of Auckland

The University of Auckland now gives students submitting an electronic theses or dissertation the option of putting it under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License.

Read more about it "University of Auckland Embeds CC Licensing" and "Guidelines for Formatting a Digital Thesis."

To Loan an Electronic Article from an Elsevier E-Journal, Print It, Scan It, and Send it with Ariel

Of late, there has been discussion on the Liblicense-L list about how libraries should go about performing interlibrary loan transactions for articles published in licensed e-journals.

Since, in the U.S., print journals are owned, are subject to the "first sale doctrine," and are covered by long-standing CONTU Guidelines, libraries have not had to generally grapple with complex ILL issues for them; however, e-journals from major publishers are licensed, licenses are publisher-specific, and the terms of the license agreements determine if and how ILL can be performed.

Elsevier has clarified for the list how articles from its e-journals should be handled: the article should be printed, and then "mailed, faxed or scanned into Ariel (or a similar system) as means of delivery to the borrowing library." (Ariel is an ILL system that is widely used by libraries to deliver digital copies of documents.)

To recap the Ariel workflow, the digital article should be printed and then it should be digitized for delivery via Ariel.

See the ScienceDirect Interlibrary Loan Policy for more details.

Are Publishers Ready for the JISC/SURF Licence to Publish Author Agreement and Its Principles?

The SURFfoundation has published Acceptance of the JISC/SURF Licence to Publish & accompanying Principles by Traditional Publishers of Journals.

Here's an excerpt from the "Management Survey" section (I have added the link to the Licence to Publish):

In 2006, JISC and SURF drafted several Principles and a model Licence to Publish in order to persuade traditional publishers of journals to move in the direction of Open Access objectives. According to these Principles:

  1. the author merely issues a licence to publish instead of transferring his/her copyright.
  2. the author may freely deposit the publisher-generated PDF files of his/her article in an institutional repository, with an embargo of no longer than 6 months.

To set an example, a model Licence to Publish (hereafter: LtP) was drawn up as well. Yet, using the LtP is not a necessary requirement for meeting the—more important—Open Access objectives of the Principles.

This report presents the results of an enquiry by e-mail among 47 traditional publishers of journals. They were asked whether they would support the Principles and/or the LtP, which had first been explained to them. Two Open Access publishers were also asked for a reaction merely out of interest, since they do not belong to the target group. . .

The results showed that a substantial group of one-third of the contacted publishers conforms to the first aspect of the Principles; they make use of a licence to publish instead of a copyright transfer. Furthermore, the same number of publishers (16) already has a repository policy in place which is compatible with the Principles. Moreover, 7 publishers conform to both aspects and thus they endorse all the Principles. The support for the model LtP developed by SURF and JISC, however was low; no publisher did as yet endorse it.

Scriblio Final Report: Open Source WordPress-Based Online Catalog and CMS

The Scriblio project, which was partially funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has issued "Scriblio MATC Project Final Report." Scriblio is an open source, WordPress-based online catalog and content management system.

Here's an excerpt from the report:

Open source software may be good for the community, but it succeeds because it solves problems for those who use it. For Plymouth, this is an easy question: compared to commercial offerings now available, Scriblio can be said to have saved the University hundreds of thousands of dollars in acquisition, license and support costs. Further, the staff time necessary to develop and support Scriblio for Plymouth’s use is similar to that necessary to support those commercial alternatives. Because ongoing development is limited to the library-specific features not provided by WordPress, the investment required to maintain the software is expected to remain low and Plymouth is likely to continue using and supporting Scriblio as long as it continues to deliver value and solve problems. . . .

Some features, such as development of a hosted solution based on WordPress MU suitable for representing consortia, OAI input and output (including eXtensible Catalog project-specific OAI features), support for additional ILSs, and OpenSearch (and Z39.50) input and output are outside the strict scope of Plymouth’s needs, but would greatly aid adoption of the software and build the community. Softer features, such as the development of reusable sample content and more discussion of best practices in online library services, would also greatly aid the project. Because a rich and active Scriblio community will lower the development costs for all participants, Plymouth is seeking opportunities to begin development on those features and expand the community.

The "Community Conscious Internet Provider" ISP: Utah Wants to Certify Porn-Free ISPs

Under a bill in the Utah legislature (H.B. 407), Utah would certify a qualifying ISPs as a Community Conscious Internet Provider (CCIP). The designation would be renewed annually.

Among other provisions, a CCIP ISP must "prohibit its customers by contract from publishing any prohibited communication"; "remove or prevent access to any prohibited communication published by or accessed using the Internet service provider's service within a reasonable time after the Internet service provider learns of the prohibited communication"; "maintain a record for two years following its allocation of an IP address of the IP address, the date and time of the allocation, and the customer to whom the IP address is allocated"; and "cooperate with any law enforcement agency by providing records sufficient to identify a customer if the law enforcement agency requests the information and supplies reasonable proof that a crime has been committed using the Internet service provider's service."

Prohibited communications are either pornographic (Section 76-10-1203) or harmful to minors (Section 76-10-1206) as determined by Utah law.

Read more about it at "Proposed Utah Bill Would Give Special Designation to ISPs That Block Porn" and "'This ISP Has Been Rated 'G' By the State of Utah'."

Intellectual Property? OK, Let's Tax It as Property

Scientist Dallas Weaver has suggested that if copyright holders want "property" rights then they should be subject to a significant fixed annual tax in order to continue to hold the copyright. This tax would encourage copyright holders to put their works in the public domain.

Read more about it at "Copyright This."

Australian ISP Porn Filter Test Gets Green Light

The Australian government is ready to proceed with testing an ISP Internet filter that aims to eliminate digital pornography. Customers who do not want a filtered Internet connection will need to opt out. Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has said that the government's previous $85 million PC-based filter program, the NetAlert program, had "clearly failed."

Read more about it "ACMA Report Finds Little to Support Conroy's Enthusiasm for ISP Filtering," "Australia Moving Ahead with Plans to Erect ISP Porn Filters," "Net Filter at Test Phase," and "Web Porn Software Filter a Dud."

JHOVE 1.1 Released: Identification, Validation, and Characterization of Digital Objects

Version 1.1 of the open-source JHOVE (JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment) software has been released.

Here's an excerpt from the project home page that describes JHOVE:

JHOVE provides functions to perform format-specific identification, validation, and characterization of digital objects.

  • Format identification is the process of determining the format to which a digital object conforms; in other words, it answers the question: "I have a digital object; what format is it?"
  • Format validation is the process of determining the level of compliance of a digital object to the specification for its purported format, e.g.: "I have an object purportedly of format F; is it? . . . ."
  • Format characterization is the process of determining the format-specific significant properties of an object of a given format, e.g.: "I have an object of format F; what are its salient properties?"

Koninklijke Bibliotheek to Preserve Portico E-Journal Archive

Koninklijke Bibliotheek will preserve a dark copy of Portico's archive of digital journals in its e-Depot service.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Portico and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands (the KB), are pleased to announce they have reached an agreement for an off-line copy of the Portico archive, which exceeds 6 million articles and 60 million files, to be held for safekeeping by the KB. Through its e-Depot program the KB has demonstrated its role in the vanguard of digital preservation. Placing a Portico-owned copy of the archive, in a secure access- and climate-controlled facility operated by the KB is one component of the replication strategy Portico is implementing to ensure the safety and security of the archive upon which a growing, international community relies. This arrangement also illustrates one way in which organizations internationally recognized for their digital preservation obligations and expertise can cooperate to form a strong, supportive network to safely preserve digital materials.

Here's a description of e-Depot from its home page:

The e-Depot is a digital archiving environment that ensures long-term access to digital objects which would otherwise be threatened by rapidly evolving software and hardware platforms as well as media decay. It is the dedicated archiving environment for the KB’s national electronic deposit collection. In addition, it will include the Dutch web archive and digitised master images. In line with the international nature of information provision, the KB has extended its e-Depot services to publishers worldwide. The e-Depot is supported by sustained research and development efforts geared towards maintaining the integrity of stored digital objects.

Here's a description of Portico from its "About Portico" page:

Portico began as the Electronic-Archiving Initiative launched by JSTOR in 2002 with a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to build upon The Foundation's seminal E-Journal Archiving Program. The charge of the Electronic-Archiving Initiative was to build a sustainable electronic-archiving model, and for more than two years, project staff worked on the development of necessary technology and engaged in extensive discussions with publishers and libraries to craft an approach that balances the needs of publishers and libraries while generating sufficient funding for the archive. In 2004, the Electronic-Archiving Initiative became a part of Ithaka Harbors, Inc., a non-profit organization with a mission to accelerate the productive uses of information technologies for the benefit of higher education around the world. Building upon extensive input gathered from commercial and not-for-profit publishers and guidance offered from libraries at a range of small, medium and large academic libraries, an electronic archiving service, known as Portico, was developed. Portico was launched in 2005 with additional support from JSTOR, Ithaka, The Library of Congress, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Why Digital Copyright and Net Neutrality Should Matter to Open Access Advocates

It is highly unlikely that open access would have emerged if the Internet did not exist. The Internet makes the low-cost worldwide distribution of e-prints and other digital documents through institutional and disciplinary repositories possible, and it significantly lowers the cost of publishing, which makes open access journals possible. Open access in a print-only or proprietary network environment would require significant subsidies. The relative cost of providing open access on the Internet is trivial.

It would be a mistake to assume that the Internet will remain as we know it. With the rise of digital media, powerful interests in the music and film/television industries have become alarmed about file sharing of their content, and they have lobbied legislatures across the globe to stop it through restrictive copyright legislation and technological measures.

Since open access doesn't deal with popular music, film, or television, why should open access advocates care? The answer is simple: restrictive measures are unlikely to make fine-grained distinctions about content. New copyright measures won't exempt scholarly material, and new Internet traffic shaping or filtering technologies won't either.

Open access materials won't be limited to simple text documents forever: digital media and data sets will become increasingly important. These files can be large and increase network load. Digital media files may include excerpts from third-party copyrighted material, which are utilized under fair use provisions. Will filtering and traffic shaping technologies exclude them or will they be the inadvertent victims of systems designed for an entirely different purpose?

Even simple text documents will be governed by restrictive copyright laws and subject to potential copyright filtering mechanisms.

For example, the Tennessee State Senate is considering a bill (SB 3974) that would require every higher education institution to "thoroughly analyze its computer network, including its local area and internal networks, to determine whether it is being used to transmit copyrighted works" and to "take affirmative steps, including the implementation of effective technology-based deterrents, to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the school's computer and network resources, including over local area and internal networks."

You'll note that the bill says "transmit copyrighted works" not "transmit digital music and video works." Does this mean that every digital work, including e-prints and e-books, must be scanned and cleared for copyright compliance? That is unlikely to be the real intent of the bill, but, if passed, it will be the letter of the law. Why couldn't academic publishers insist that digital articles and books be vetted as well?

Net neutrality and digital copyright legislation are issues that should be of concern to open access advocates. To ignore them is to potentially win the battle, but lose the war, blind-sided by developments that will ensnare open access materials in legal and technological traps.

Comcast's P2P Traffic Management Practices Probed at FCC Hearing

Comcast's peer-to-peer traffic management practices were probed at an FCC hearing at the Harvard Law School as it answered tough questions from the FCC and squared off against net neutrality advocates.

Read more about it at "Comcast, Net Neutrality Advocates Clash at FCC Hearing," "Comcast Slams Critics, Denies Blocking BitTorrent," "FCC Chief Grills Comcast on BitTorrent Blocking," "FCC Head Says Action Possible on Web Limits," and"Net Neutrality Hearing: When Is an Internet Traffic Delay O.K.?"

Tennessee State Senate Bill Would Force Universities to Stop Copyright Infringement

The Tennessee State Senate is considering a bill (SB 3974) that would require every higher education institution to "thoroughly analyze its computer network, including its local area and internal networks, to determine whether it is being used to transmit copyrighted works" and to "take affirmative steps, including the implementation of effective technology-based deterrents, to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the school's computer and network resources, including over local area and internal networks."

Read more about it at "Tennessee Eyes Bill to Make Colleges Stop Online File Sharing" and "Tennessee Legislation Would Turn Schools into Copyright Cops."

A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects, Version 1.5

The Software Freedom Law Center has published version 1.5 of A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The guide, written by members of SFLC's staff, covers a variety of legal topics and their practical application to free software development. These topics include copyrights and licensing, organizational structure, patents, and trademarks.

Digital Library Federation ILS and Discovery Systems Draft Report

The Digital Library Federation's ILS and Discovery Systems working group has issued a Draft Recommendation investigating issues related to integrated library system and discovery system integration.

Here's an excerpt from the "Introduction":

This document is the (DRAFT) report of that group. It gives technical recommendations for integrating the ILS with external discovery applications. This report includes

  • A summary of a survey of the needs and discovery applications implemented and desired by libraries in DLF (and other similar libraries).
  • A high-level summary of specific abstract functions that discovery applications need to be able to invoke on ILS's and/or their data to support desired discovery applications, as well as outgoing services from ILS software to other applications.
  • Recommendations for concrete bindings for these functions (i.e. specific protocols, APIs, data standards, etc.) that can be used with future and/or existing ILS's. Producing a complete concrete binding and reference implementation is beyond the scope of this small, short-term group; but we hope to provide sufficient requirements and details that others can produce appropriate bindings and implementations.
  • Practical recommendations to encourage libraries, ILS developers, and discovery application developers to expeditiously integrate discovery systems with the ILS and other sources of bibliographic metadata.

Repository Presentations from the DataShare Project

The DataShare project has released two recent presentations about its activities: "Data Documentation Initiative (DDI)" and "Guidelines and Tools for Repository Planning and Assessment." A recent briefing paper, The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) and Institutional Repositories, is also available.

Here's a description of the DataShare project from its home page:

DISC-UK DataShare, led by EDINA, arises from an existing UK consortium of data support professionals working in departments and academic libraries in universities (Data Information Specialists Committee-UK), and builds on an international network with a tradition of data sharing and data archiving dating back to the 1960s in the social sciences. By working together across four universities and internally with colleagues already engaged in managing open access repositories for e-prints, this partnership will introduce and test a new model of data sharing and archiving to UK research institutions. By supporting academics within the four partner institutions who wish to share datasets on which written research outputs are based, this network of institution-based data repositories develops a niche model for deposit of 'orphaned datasets' currently filled neither by centralised subject-domain data archives/centres/grids nor by e-print based institutional repositories (IRs).

Indiana University Libraries Publish Open Access Journal

The Indiana University Libraries have announced that they are publishing Museum Anthropology Review in partnership with Editor Jason Baird Jackson, associate professor in the IU Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology.

Here's a description of the journal from its Submission Information page:

Museum Anthropology Review (MAR) is an open access journal whose purpose is the wide dissemination of articles, reviews, essays, obituaries and other content advancing the field of material culture and museum studies, broadly conceived.

Read more about it at "Editorial: Museum Anthropology Review Joins IUScholarWorks at the Indiana University Bloomington Libraries, Switches to Open Journal Systems" and "IU Bloomington Libraries Publish Their First Electronic Journal, Showcasing Faculty Partnerships."

Omeka 0.9.0 Released: Software for Digital Collections and Exhibits

Version 0.9.0 of Omeka has been released.

Here's an excerpt from the About page that describes Omeka:

Omeka is a web platform for publishing collections and exhibitions online. Designed for cultural institutions, enthusiasts, and educators, Omeka is easy to install and modify and facilitates community-building around collections and exhibits. It is designed with non-IT specialists in mind, allowing users to focus on content rather than programming.

Omeka will come loaded with the following features:

  • Dublin Core metadata structure and standards-based design that is fully accessible and interoperable
  • Professional-looking exhibit sites that showcase collections without hiring outside designers
  • Theme-switching for changing the look and feel of an exhibit in a few clicks
  • Plug-ins for geolocation, bi-lingual sites, and a host of other possibilities
  • Web 2.0 Technologies, including:
    • Tagging: Allow users to add keywords to items in a collection or exhibit
    • Blogging: Keep in touch with users through timely postings about collections and events
    • Syndicating: Update your users about your content with RSS feeds

Read more about it at "Introducing Omeka" and "New Tool for Online Collections."

JPEG 2000—A Practical Digital Preservation Standard?

The Digital Preservation Coalition has published JPEG 2000—A Practical Digital Preservation Standard?.

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

With JPEG 2000, an application can access and decode only as much of the compressed image as needed to perform the task at hand. This means a viewer, for example, can open a gigapixel image almost instantly by retrieving and decompressing a low resolution, display-sized image from the JPEG 2000 codestream.

JPEG 2000 also improves a user’s ability to interact with an image. The zoom, pan, and rotate operations that users increasingly expect in networked image systems are performed dynamically by accessing and decompressing just those parts of the JPEG 2000 codestream containing the compressed image data for the region of interest. The JPEG 2000 data can be either converted to JPEG and delivered for viewing with a standard image browser or delivered to a native JPEG 2000 viewer using the JPIP client-server protocol, developed to support the JPEG 2000 feature set.

Using a single JPEG 2000 master to satisfy user requests for dynamic viewing reduces storage costs and management overhead by eliminating the need to maintain multiple derivatives in a repository.

Beyond image access and distribution, JPEG 2000 is being used increasingly as a repository and archival image format. What is remarkable is that many repositories are storing “visually lossless” JPEG 2000 files: the compression is lossy and irreversible but the artefacts are not noticeable and do not interfere with the performance of applications. Compared to uncompressed TIFF, visually lossless JPEG 2000 compression can reduce the amount of storage by an order of magnitude or more.

TRLN (Triangle Research Libraries Network) Members Join the Open Content Alliance

TRLN (Triangle Research Libraries Network) has announced that its member libraries (Duke University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) have joined the Open Content Alliance.

Here's an excerpt from "TRLN Member Libraries Join Open Content Alliance":

In the first year, UNC Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University will each convert 2,700 public domain books into high-resolution, downloadable, reusable digital files that can be indexed locally and by any web search engine. UNC Chapel Hill and NCSU will start by each hosting one state-of-the-art Scribe machine provided by the Internet Archive to scan the materials at a cost of just 10 cents per page. Each university library will focus on historic collection strengths, such as plant and animal sciences, engineering and physical science at NCSU and social sciences and humanities at UNC-Chapel Hill. Duke University will also contribute select content for digitization during the first year of the collaborative project.

Double Trouble: New Application Strips DRM from Music Files

DRM nemesis DVD Jon (Jon Lech Johansen) has released doubleTwist, a user-friendly application that strips DRM from digital music files.

Read more about it at "doubleTwist Makes DRM-Stripping, Sharing Easy as Pie," "'DVD Jon' Frees Your Media with DoubleTwist," and "Free Your Media With DoubleTwist, a DRM Stripping App Anyone Can Use."