Month: October 2008

American Anthropologist and Anthropology News Freely Available after 35-Year Embargo Period

The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association has announced that access to American Anthropologist and Anthropology News will be free for "personal, educational and other non-commercial uses after a thirty-five year period."

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Starting in 2009, content published from 1888 to 1973, will be available through AnthroSource, the premier online resource serving the research, teaching, and professional needs of anthropologists. Previously, this information was only available via AAA association membership, subscription or on a so-called "pay per view" basis. . . .

The initiative, which will be re-evaluated by internal AAA committees in the next year (the Committee on Scientific Publication as advised by the Committee for the Future of Electronic Publishing), may be expanded in the future.

CERN’s Grid: 100,000 Processors at 140 Scientific Institutions

The Worldwide Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid consortium’s grid is ready to process an anticipated 15 million gigabytes per year of data from the collider. It’s composed of 100,000 processors distributed among 140 scientific institutions.

Read more about it at “CERN Officially Unveils Its Grid: 100,000 Processors, 15 Petabytes a Year” and “The Grid Powers Up to Save Lives and Seek the God Particle.”

NISO Holds Final Thought Leader Meeting on Research Data

NISO (the National Information Standards Organization) has held its final Thought Leader meeting on the topic of research data. A short summary of the meeting is available at “NISO Brings Together Data Thought Leaders.”

Earlier this year, NISO held Thought Leader meetings on institutional repositories, digital library and collections, and e-learning and course management systems. Final reports are available for the institutional repositories and digital library and collections meetings.

Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative Website Launched

The Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative has launched its Website.

Here's a summary from the home page:

This site is a collaborative effort by federal agencies formed as a group in 2007 to define common guidelines, methods, and practices to digitize historical content in a sustainable manner. Recognizing that the effort would require specialized expertise, two separate working groups were formed with the possibility that more tightly focused groups might be necessary as the work progressed. The Federal Agencies Still Image Digitization Working Group will concentrate its efforts on image content such as books, manuscripts, maps, and photographic prints and negatives. The Federal Agencies Audio-Visual Working Group is focusing its work on sound, video, and motion picture film.

CARL DSpace Users Reluctant to Upgrade to 1.5

The Relog Experiment reports that, at a Canadian Association of Research Libraries meeting on institutional repositories at Access 2008, most attending libraries that used DSpace were reluctant to upgrade to 1.5 and were not using Manakin.

Here's an except that explains their reservations:

  • customizations made to DSpace 1.4 will take a lot of programming time to move over to 1.5
  • certain plug-ins and enhancements that are in heavy use in 1.4 have not yet been made available for 1.5
  • administrators are evaluating other platforms and are not willing to invest the time in upgrading to 1.5 if they end up switching platforms
  • programmers are hard to find, train and retain

Open Knowledge Foundation Virtual Meeting on Open Textbooks

The Open Knowledge Foundation has held a virtual meeting on open textbooks. Textbook Revolution, a directory of free textbooks organized by subject and copyright statement/open license type, was launched to coincide with the meeting. Future virtual meetings will be held on a monthly basis.

Read more about it at "After the Open Textbook Virtual Meeting" and "OKFN Virtual Meeting."

Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future

Noted copyright freedom fighter and science fiction author Cory Doctorow has released a free version of Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future under a Creative Commons U.S. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. Doctorow is also a major contributor to the Boing Boing Weblog.

Academic Publishing Developments: Bloomsbury Academic and AAUP's Tizra Deal

In "2 New Digital Models Promise Academic Publishing for Profit," Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Jennifer Howard overviews two interesting developments in academic publishing: (1) the new Bloomsbury Academic imprint, which offers free access to books in PDF form under Creative Commons licenses (as well as print-on-demand versions), and (2) the Association of American University Presses' deal to give its members lower-cost access to Tizra's Publisher, a publishing e-commerce platform.

Internet Radio: Saved by the Bill? Congress Passes Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008

Internet radio stations, hard-pressed by high royalty rates established by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board, may get relief if the President signs the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008, which was passed by the House and Senate. The bill permits webcasters and copyright holders to negotiate royalty rates directly without government approval.

Read more about it at "Congress Acts, Sort of Saves Internet Radio"; "Senate OKs Web Radio Bill, Sends to President"; and "Senate Passes Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008."

Grant Award: Improving Student Learning of Advanced Digital Technologies in an Online Laboratory

The University of Arizona's School of Information Resources and Library Science has been awarded a $539,686 grant (matching: $327,615) by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to fund its three-year "Improving Student Learning of Advanced Digital Technologies in an Online Laboratory: A Research Approach" project.

Here's an excerpt from "Library Students to Get 'Leading-Edge' Training Thanks to Federal Grant":

The UA school's partners are the UA Libraries, UA University Information and Technology Services, the Harvard University Herbaria and the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

Each of the partner institutions will provide SIRLS with information that then will be recorded and catalogued, then developed into databases—with SIRLS students responsible for these tasks. So, instead of simply having Web sites that simulate the work they would be doing as professionals, the students will have the actual software and other tools to perform more complex work.

SIRLS will use VMWare Lab Manager software—which is quite popular in industry—as the program’s platform to build a virtual online laboratory. "This grant gives us the infrastructure we need to really let us create practical and realistic exercises for students," said Botticelli, also the co-principal investigator on the grant.

Cox Communications Temporarily Suspends Internet Service to Customers Who Receive Takedown Notices

TorrentFreak reports that Cox Communications is temporarily suspending Internet service to customers who receive takedown notices. Cox also has a "three-strikes" policy that permanently disconnects service to customers who have received three takedown notices.

Read more about it at "Cox Disconnects Alleged Pirates from the Internet."

Will the Orphan Works Act Die a "Quiet Death" in the House?

Wired reports that the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008, which passed the Senate, will languish in the House due to pressing economic legislation. (See ARL's "Orphan Works Legislation" briefing for background information.)

You can contact your Congressional representatives to support the bill using ALA's Take Action page for the bill.

Read more about it at "'Orphan Works' Copyright Law Dies Quiet Death."