Year: 2008

JISC Releases Report on Book Scanners

JISC has released Public Exhibition of Automated Book Scanners Hosted at the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek—Munich 18th-20th June 2008.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Julian Ball, the author of the report, attended an event at the Munich Digitisation Centre (18-10 June 2008) where four vendors exhibited and demonstrated their scanners: Qidenus, Kirtas, Treventus and 4DigitalBooks.

The report lists basic specifications for each scanner, contact details and personal observations on the various products.

The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008 Published

EDUCAUSE has published The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008.

Here's an excerpt:

This 2008 ECAR research study is a longitudinal extension of the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 ECAR studies of students and information technology. The study is based on quantitative data from a spring 2008 survey of 27,317 freshmen and seniors at 90 four-year institutions and eight two-year institutions; student focus groups that included input from 75 students at four institutions; and analysis of qualitative data from 5,877 written responses to open-ended questions. In addition to studying student ownership, experience, behaviors, preferences, and skills with respect to information technologies, the 2008 study also includes a special focus on student participation in social networking sites.

ARL Annual Salary Survey 2007–08 Published

The Association of Research Libraries has published the ARL Annual Salary Survey 2007–08.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The 2007–08 data show that ARL librarians’ salaries outperformed inflation for the fourth consecutive year. The combined median professional salary in US and Canadian ARL university libraries was $61,833—a 3.7% increase from the previous year. Over the same period, the Consumer Price Index rose 2.4% in the US and 2.5% in Canada.

The ARL Annual Salary Survey 2007–08 analyzes salary data from a number of different perspectives, including race, ethnicity, and gender. Minority librarians make up 14.1% of the professional staff in US ARL university libraries; the percentage of minorities in managerial or administrative positions is lower. Women comprise 69.4% of minority staff members.

Gender-based salary differentials persist in ARL libraries in 2007–08. The overall salary for women in the 113 ARL university libraries is 95.4% of that paid to men; this figure compares to 95.7% in 2006–07. While the data show a marked closure of the gender gap in ARL libraries over the long term—in 1980–81, women in ARL libraries were paid roughly 87% of what men were paid—the data also raise the possibility that the closure has peaked, and that a 5% gap between men’s and women’s salaries may persist.

Catherine Mitchell Named as Director, eScholarship Publishing Group at CDL

Catherine Mitchell, Acting Director of the eScholarship Publishing Group at the California Digital Library, has been named as the permanent occupant of that post. In this capacity, Mitchell is responsible for the eScholarship Repository, eScholarship Editions, the Mark Twain Project Online, and other ventures.

In her statement about the appointment, Laine Farley, CDL Interim Executive Director, said:

Catherine has held the position on an interim basis since November 2007. During that time, she has led the group to develop a new services-oriented vision and to launch an ambitious redesign of the eScholarship interface. She was also the project manager for the Mark Twain project which successfully launched last November. Catherine’s dedication, deep understanding of scholarly communication, publishing issues, and professionalism are admired by all of us who work with her.

How Much Will Large Doctoral Universities Have to Pay to Try to Stop Illegal File Sharing?

A new study says that large doctoral institutions could face costs that "easily exceed half a million dollars annually" as they try to clamp down on illegal file sharing in order to comply with Section 488 of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008.

The Campus Computing Project's The Campus Costs of P2P Compliance report details the findings of its July 2008 higher education compliance cost study, which included responses from 321 two-year and four-year institutions.

Read more about it at "The Costs of Policing Campus Networks."

E-Science Talking Points for ARL Deans and Directors

The Association of Research Libraries has released E-Science Talking Points for ARL Deans and Directors.

Here's an excerpt:

The term "e-science" is roughly—though not precisely—synonymous with "Cyberinfrastructure;" where the latter term is prevalent in the United States, e-science predominates in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe. Both terms refer to the use of networked computing technologies to enhance collaboration and innovative methods in research. "e-science," however, has a more specific focus on scientific research, whereas Cyberinfrastructure is more inclusive of fields outside the sciences and engineering, and incorporates greater emphasis on supercomputing resources and innovation.

Production Release of Object Reuse and Exchange Specifications

The Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE) project has released the first production version of its Object Reuse and Exchange specifications.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

These standards provide the foundation for applications and services that can visualize, preserve, transfer, summarize, and improve access to the aggregations that people use in their daily Web interaction: including multiple page Web documents, multiple format documents in institutional repositories, scholarly data sets, and online photo and music collections. The OAI-ORE standards leverage the core Web architecture and concepts emerging from related efforts including the semantic web, linked data, and Atom syndication. As a result, they integrate both with the emerging machine-readable web, Web 2.0, and the future evolution of networked information. . . .

The documents in the release describe a data model to introduce aggregations as resources with URIs on the web. They also detail the machine-readable descriptions of aggregations expressed in the popular Atom syndication format, in RDF/XML, and RDFa.

Institutional Repositories: Strategies for the Present and the Future

A preprint of "Institutional Repositories: Strategies for the Present and the Future," written by Jean-Gabriel Bankier, Connie Foster, and Glen Wiley, is now available. Bankier is the President of the Berkeley Electronic Press, Foster is the Head of the Department of Library Technical Services at the Western Kentucky University Libraries, and Wiley is Metadata Librarian at the Cornell University Library.

University of Michigan Library Will Use Creative Commons Licenses for Its Works

The University of Michigan Library has announced that it will use Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial licenses for works that it creates for which the Regents of the University of Michigan hold the copyrights.

Here's an except from the press release:

University Librarian Paul Courant said, "Using Creative Commons licenses is another way the University Library can act on its commitment to the public good. By marking our copyrighted content as available for reuse, we offer the University community and the public a rich set of educational resources free from traditional permissions barriers." . . .

All original copyrighted material that is created by Library staff and in which the copyright belongs to the Regents of the University of Michigan will be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial license. This includes bibliographies, research guides, lesson plans, and other resources. For some samples of the kinds of excellent resources that will now be available for adaptation and re-use, see our many Library Research Guides http://www.lib.umich.edu/guides/, the Usability Studies produced by the Library's Usability Working Group http://www.lib.umich.edu/usability/projects/projects.html, or the tutorials for using spatial and numeric data http://www.lib.umich.edu/nsds/spatial_tutorials/.

The Library has begun attaching Creative Commons licenses to content throughout its website, but some pages do not include the license code yet. The licenses will be fully integrated into the Library's new website design, scheduled for release in Fall 2008.

Welcome to the Filtered Internet: No Opt-Out for Australians

Australia's Plan for Cyber-Safety will not offer an Internet filtering opt-out. Rather, Australians will have to choose between two filtered options: one blocks inappropriate content for children, the other "illegal" content.

Read more about it at "Australians Censor the Internet," "Australia Continues Down the Slippery Slope of Censorship. . . 'For The Children,' of Course," and "No Opt-Out of Filtered Internet."

Nix to Remix: YouTube Acts on Takedown Notices from Networks about McCain Campaign Videos

YouTube has immediately acted on takedown notices from networks such as CBS and Fox News about McCain campaign videos, removing the allegedly infringing videos. The campaign has sent a protest letter to YouTube regarding the takedowns.

Here's an excerpt:

Numerous times during the course of the campaign, our advertisements or web videos have been the subject of DMCA takedown notices regarding uses that are clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine. The uses at issue have been the inclusion of fewer than ten seconds of footage from news broadcasts in campaign ads or videos, as a basis for commentary on the issues presented in the news reports, or on the reports themselves.

Regarding the letter, Gigi Sohn, President of Public Knowledge, said:

It is ironic that the McCain/Palin campaign sent its letter to YouTube complaining about that company’s take-down procedures on the same day that President Bush signed the Pro-IP Act, which is yet another bill written by the big media companies that adds yet more imbalance to our copyright laws.

Read more about it at "McCain Campaign Feels DMCA Sting," "McCain Letter Shows Imbalance in Copyright Law," and "McCain/Palin Campaign Angry over Bogus DMCA Takedowns."

President Bush Signs PRO-IP Copyright Bill

President Bush has signed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (PRO-IP Act). In addition to strengthening infringement penalties, the bill creates an Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator position (commonly known as the "Copyright Czar") in the Office of the President.

Read more about it at "Bush Signs RIAA-backed Intellectual-Property Law," "President Bush Approves 'Copyright Czar' Bill," and "Stacking Penalties upon Penalties (PRO-IP Passes Senate)."

It's Open Access Day, Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association Launches

It's Open Access Day, and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association has officially been launched.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, OASPA, announces its official launch today in conjunction with an OA Day celebration hosted by the Wellcome Trust in London. The mission of OASPA is to support and represent the interests of Open Access (OA) journals publishers globally in all scientific, technical, and scholarly disciplines through an exchange of information, setting of industry standards, advancing business and publishing models, advocating for gold OA journals publishing, education and the promotion of innovation.

From having first emerged as a new publishing model over a decade ago, OA publishing has become an embedded feature of the scholarly publishing landscape: The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) lists over 3500 peer-reviewed journals; a growing number of professional organizations offer OA publications; university libraries increasingly support OA publishing services; funding organizations support and encourage OA publishing; and a long tail of independent editorial teams and societies now publish their titles OA. Professional OA publishers such as BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science (PLoS) have been in business for over five years, while some scientist/scholar publishers (editorial teams operating independently of a professional publisher) have published their OA journals for a decade or more. Moreover, a number of traditional publishing houses are now engaging in Open Access activities, the recent acquisition of BioMed Central by Springer and the SAGE-Hindawi partnership being two cases in point. By bringing together those who share an interest in developing appropriate business models, tools and standards to support OA journals publishing, it is hoped that success in these areas can be achieved more quickly to the benefit of not only OASPA members, but more importantly, for the scholarly community that OA publishers serve.

Membership in OASPA is open to both scholar publishers and professional publishing organizations, including university presses and for profit and non-profit organizations. Members are expected to demonstrate a genuine interest in OA journals publishing by having signed either the Berlin or Budapest Declarations and must publish at least one full OA journal. Other individuals and organizations who support OA journals publishing or who are interested in exploring opportunities are also welcome. Membership criteria and an application form can be found on the OASPA website, www.oaspa.org.

The founding members of OASPA represent a broad spectrum of OA publishers and include: BioMed Central, Co-Action Publishing, Copernicus, Hindawi Publishing Corporation, Journal of Medical Internet Research (Gunther Eysenbach), Medical Education Online (David Solomon), the Public Library of Science (PLoS), SAGE, SPARC Europe and Utrecht University Library (Igitur). Representatives from each of these publishers will form an interim board until a first General Meeting is held during 2009.

Scholarly Publishing Practice, Third Survey 2008: Academic Journal Publishers' Policies and Practices in Online Publishing

ALPSP has released Scholarly Publishing Practice, Third Survey 2008: Academic Journal Publishers' Policies and Practices in Online Publishing. It is available for purchase by non-ALPSP members.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Key findings include:

  • Publishers—especially large publishers and commercial publishers are launching new journals at a higher rate than in 2005.
  • The growth trajectory of online availability has been steady since 2003. There is still some difference between the disciplines, with 96.1% of STM and 86.5% of arts, humanities and social science titles accessible online.
  • Pricing models are just as complex and varied as they were in 2005. Most publishers use a variety of means to establish prices. It is notable that fewer publishers are providing online access free with print and instead are offering online-only subscriptions.
  • Open access advocacy has clearly had an effect on publishers' thinking. The proportion of publishers offering optional open access to authors has grown from 9% in 2005 to 30% in 2008. However, the take-up of the author pays open access option is exceedingly low.
  • Licensing terms have become more generous, as publishers have become more comfortable with the use of digital content, including allowing use in Virtual Learning Environments and repurposing to create learning objects.
  • Publishers' practice on authors' rights is changing. Fewer publishers now require authors to transfer copyright to the publisher and will instead accept a licence to publish.
  • The growth of institutional and subject based repositories has prompted a rethink on authors' rights to post their articles on the web. Large publishers have relaxed prohibitions on posting pre-prints, but have imposed embargoes on the final accepted version.
  • Publishers are at different stages of development in their implementation of Web 2.0 technologies, with 20% enabling collaborative tagging and between 10% and 15% implementing forums, blogs and podcasts for a journal.

PEER Project to Examine Large-Scale "Green" Open Access Impacts

The PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) project will examine "the effects of the large-scale, systematic depositing of authors' final peer-reviewed manuscripts . . . on reader access, author visibility, and journal viability, as well as on the broader ecology of European research." The project will conclude in 2011.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The aim of PEER is to build a substantial body of evidence, by developing an 'observatory' to monitor the effects of systematic archiving over time. Participating publishers will collectively contribute 300 journals to the project and supporting research studies will address issues such as:

  • How large-scale archiving will affect journal viability
  • Whether it increases access
  • How it will affect the broader ecology of European research
  • Which factors influence the readiness to deposit in institutional and disciplinary repositories and what the associated costs might be
  • Models to illustrate how traditional publishing systems can coexist with self-archiving

The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), the European Science Foundation, Gottingen State and University Library, the Max Planck Society and INRIA will collaborate on PEER, supported by the SURF Foundation and University of Bielefeld, which will contribute the expertise of the EU-funded DRIVER project.

Committee on Institutional Cooperation and University of California Launch HathiTrust, Shared Digital Repository

The Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the University of California System's university libraries have launched the HathiTrust, a shared digital repository.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

A group of the nation’s largest research libraries are collaborating to create a repository of their vast digital collections, including millions of books, organizers announced today. These holdings will be archived and preserved in a single repository called the HathiTrust. Materials in the public domain will be available for reading online. . . .

Launched jointly by the 12-university consortium known as the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) and the 11 university libraries of the University of California system, the HathiTrust leverages the time-honored commitment to preservation and access to information that university libraries have valued for centuries. UC’s participation will be coordinated by the California Digital Library (CDL), which brings its deep and innovative experience in digital curation and online scholarship to the HathiTrust.

"This effort combines the expertise and resources of some of the nation’s foremost research libraries and holds even greater promise as it seeks to grow beyond the initial partners," says John Wilkin, associate university librarian of the University of Michigan and the newly named executive director of HathiTrust. Hathi (pronounced hah-TEE), the Hindi word for elephant incorporated into the repository’s name, underscores the immensity of this undertaking, Wilkin says. Elephants also evoke memory, wisdom, and strength.

As of today, HathiTrust contains more than 2 million volumes and approximately ¾ of a billion pages, about 16 percent of which are in the public domain. Public domain materials will be available for reading online. Materials protected by copyright, although not available for reading online, are given the full range of digital archiving services, thereby offering member libraries a reliable means to preserve their collections. Organizers also expect to use those materials in the research and development of the Trust.

Volumes are added to the repository daily, and content will grow rapidly as the University of California, CIC member libraries, and other prospective partners contribute their digitized content. Also today, the founding partners announce that the University of Virginia is joining the initiative.

Each of the founding partners brings extensive and highly regarded expertise in the areas of information technology, digital libraries, and project management to this endeavor. Creation of the HathiTrust supports the digitization efforts of the CIC and the University of California, each of which has entered into collective agreements with Google to digitize portions of the collections of their libraries, more than 10 million volumes in total, as part of the Google Book Search project. Materials digitized through other means will also be made available through HathiTrust.

Read more about it at "University Libraries in Google Project to Offer Backup Digital Library."