2009 – Page 7 – DigitalKoans

European Commission Adopts Communication on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy

The European Commission has adopted a Communication from the Commission: Copyright in the Knowledge Economy.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The European Commission today adopted a Communication on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy aiming to tackle the important cultural and legal challenges of mass-scale digitisation and dissemination of books, in particular of European library collections. The Communication was jointly drawn up by Commissioners Charlie McCreevy and Viviane Reding. Digital libraries such as Europeana ( http//www.europeana.eu ) will provide researchers and consumers across Europe with new ways to gain access to knowledge. For this, however, the EU will need to find a solution for orphan works, whose uncertain copyright status means they often cannot be digitised. Improving the distribution and availability of works for persons with disabilities, particularly the visually impaired, is another cornerstone of the Communication.

On adoption, Commissioners McCreevy and Reding stressed that the debate over the Google Books Settlement in the United States once again has shown that Europe could not afford to be left behind on the digital frontier.

"We must boost Europe as a centre of creativity and innovation. The vast heritage in Europe's libraries cannot be left to languish but must be made accessible to our citizens", Commissioner McCreevy, responsible for the Internal Market, stated.

Commissioner Reding, in charge of Information Society and Media, said: "Important digitisation efforts have already started all around the globe. Europe should seize this opportunity to take the lead, and to ensure that books digitisation takes place on the basis of European copyright law, and in full respect of Europe's cultural diversity. Europe, with its rich cultural heritage, has most to offer and most to win from books digitisation. If we act swiftly, pro-competitive European solutions on books digitisation may well be sooner operational than the solutions presently envisaged under the Google Books Settlement in the United States."

The Communication addresses the actions that the Commission intends to launch: digital preservation and dissemination of scholarly and cultural material and of orphan works, as well as access to knowledge for persons with disabilities. The challenges identified by the Commission today stem from last year’s public consultation on a Green Paper ( IP/08/1156 ), the Commission's High Level Group on Digital Libraries and the experiences gained with Europe's Digital Library Europeana ( IP/09/1257 ).

Internet Archive Launches BookServer

The Internet Archive has launched BookServer.

Here's an excerpt from the home page:

The BookServer is a growing open architecture for vending and lending digital books over the Internet. Built on open catalog and open book formats, the BookServer model allows a wide network of publishers, booksellers, libraries, and even authors to make their catalogs of books available directly to readers through their laptops, phones, netbooks, or dedicated reading devices. BookServer facilitates pay transactions, borrowing books from libraries, and downloading free, publicly accessible books.

Barnes & Noble Announces nook, Its Wireless E-Book Reader

Barnes & Noble has announced nook, its wireless e-book reader, which will go on sale at end of November for $259.00

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

nook features many industry firsts as it is the first Android™-based eBook reader and the first to offer a color touch screen for navigation along with a best-in-class E Ink display for an immersive, enjoyable e-reading experience. For fast connectivity, nook is the first eBook reader to provide, at no additional costs to customers, both 3G wireless access on AT&T's mobile broadband network and access to Wi-Fi for Barnes & Noble in-store browsing and enjoyment. And to help friends share their joy of reading, nook is the first eBook reader to offer digital lending for a wide selection of eBooks. . . .

The centerpiece of Barnes & Noble's strategy to deliver any book, any time, anywhere, nook was created expressly with the reader in mind, with features and functionality to create an immersive, seamless and fun experience:

A Gripping Read, by Design: nook's sleek, minimalist design puts the focus on the content, not the technology, and the combination of color and touch make navigation intuitive and simple. nook feels great in hand and features a contoured, easy-to-hold back. About the size and weight of a paperback book, nook is thin, small and portable. Its best-in-class E Ink Vizplex™ display is easy on the eyes with text as clear and crisp as a printed book. And with no glare or backlight and adjustable text size, you can read comfortably for hours without straining your eyes.

Color Touch for Easy Navigation: The beautiful lower color touch screen offers an immersive experience, inviting you to virtually browse through brilliant cover art, flip through an expansive library, or search using a virtual keyboard. nook presents the controls, navigation and keyboard you need, only when you need them.

Download eBooks Wirelessly: With fast 3G wireless and Wi-Fi access, nook is the most-connected eBook reader. Browse and instantly download eBooks, magazines and newspapers simply and seamlessly on AT&T's 3G wireless network, the nation's fastest, with no set-up required or additional wireless costs. Connect to the complimentary Wi-Fi, provided by the AT&T Wi-Fi network, in Barnes & Noble stores and download at broadband fast speeds.

Lend eBooks to Friends: With nook's breakthrough LendMe™ technology, lend a wide selection of eBooks to friends free of charge, for up to 14 days at a time. Just choose the book you want to share and send it to your friend's nook or iPhone, iPod touch, select BlackBerry® and Motorola smartphones, PC or Mac® with Barnes & Noble eReader software.

A Continuous Reading Experience: With "Reading Now" your virtual bookmark, nook brings you back to the last book you've read, right where you left off. And it works across a range of devices. If you forgot your nook at home, Barnes & Noble's free eReader software on your iPhone, select BlackBerry and Motorola smartphones or laptop lets you pick up where you left off, including annotations. And when you're reunited with your nook again, the Reading Now page will be updated and ready to go.

A Wealth of Content, in the Palm of Your Hand: nook can hold up to 1,500 eBooks and other printed content, and the sky's the limit for your digital library when you use nook's expandable memory slot. A 16GB MicroSD card holds up to 17,500 eBooks.

Portability and Personalization: You can also easily transfer PDF-format documents from your computer to access and read business documents, legal contracts and travel information on your nook. And transfer your photos to create custom screensavers. . . .

Over One Million eBooks, Newspapers and Magazine

As part of nook's introduction, Barnes & Noble has further expanded its wide selection of content to satisfy every reader.

Expanded eBookstore: From fiction to horror and romance to thrillers, with the launch of nook, Barnes & Noble's eBookstore now offers the most eBook titles—over one million—with most bestsellers and new releases for just $9.99.

Your Daily Newspapers on nook: Read your "morning paper" any time, anywhere you go. Barnes & Noble now offers subscriptions to more than 20 newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. Barnes & Noble expects to offer, in digital form, subscriptions to every major U.S. daily.

Read Your Favorite Magazines: As the nation's second largest retailer of magazines, Barnes & Noble is now pleased to offer its customers digital subscriptions. Enjoy reading publications including Forbes, Newsweek and The Nation on your nook, at home or on the go.

Omeka 1.1 Released

Version 1.1 of Omeka has been released. Omeka is a "free and open source collections based web-based publishing platform for scholars, librarians, archivists, museum professionals, educators, and cultural enthusiasts."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In 1.1., users will have more control over their installation through the admin interface, such as:

Toggling more easily between the public site and the item and collection pages by clicking on a new "View on Public Site" link;

Browsing through more than 10 collections;

Managing and upgrading plugins;

Displaying only item fields containing metadata on the public site with a new setting in the theme panel (without needing to edit on the server).

Read more about it at "Release Notes for 1.1."

eScholarship Relaunched with New Services and Enhanced Functionality

The California Digital Library has relaunched eScholarship with new services and enhanced functionality.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Previously known as UC's eScholarship Repository, the new eScholarship offers a robust scholarly publishing platform that enables departments, research units, publishing programs, and individual scholars associated with the University of California to have direct control over the creation and dissemination of the full range of their scholarship.

"Our relaunch of eScholarship reflects the enormous value we see in recasting the institutional repository as an open access publisher," says Catherine Mitchell, Director of the Publishing Group at the California Digital Library. "There is significant need across the University of California campuses for a sustainable infrastructure to support the publication and dissemination of research. In our efforts to respond to this need, we have watched our institutional repository evolve into a dynamic platform for the original publication of scholarly work." . . .

The relaunch of eScholarship brings new opportunities for digital publishing to the University of California and offers substantially improved services for previously supported publication types. Books published in eScholarship are now eligible for a combined digital/print publication service, courtesy of UC Publishing Services (UCPubS), a joint program of UC Press and the California Digital Library. In addition, eScholarship now offers conference lifecycle support, including mechanisms for proposal submission, program display, and the ultimate publication of proceedings.

Much of the site redesign has been focused on improving the quality of access to eScholarship publications. The site is optimized for Google searches; PDFs can be viewed in their entirety without download; and research can be shared easily through third party social networking sites and RSS feeds. Likewise, the ability to locate relevant scholarship within the new site is greatly improved as a result of the implementation of:

a highly developed similar items finder

visual snippets of keywords within documents (KWIC Pics) accessible from the search results page

facets for narrowing search results by UC campus, discipline, and peer review– status

keyword search capability within documents

Google to Launch Google Editions

At the Tools of Change conference, Google's Amanda Edmonds announced the launch of Google Editions by June 2010. In the service, e-books will be able to be accessed using a Web browser. Using Google Editions, customers will be able to purchase e-books from either Google, selected retailers, or publishers.

Congressional Research Service Electronic Accessibility Act of 2009 Introduced

Rep. Frank Kratovil and Rep. Leonard Lance have introduced The Congressional Research Service Electronic Accessibility Act of 2009 (HR 3762).

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In an effort to make sure the public has access to the same research reports and analysis Members of Congress use to make decisions, Rep. Frank Kratovil today introduced HR 3762, The Congressional Research Service Electronic Accessibility Act of 2009. This bipartisan legislation, introduced with fellow freshman Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ), would make published Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports available to the public in an effort to increase transparency and help citizens become more informed and engaged advocates.

"Across the country, citizens are deeply and passionately engaged in debates about the future of our country and the significant challenges we face at home and abroad," said Rep. Kratovil. "As the public debate has become increasingly partisan and polarized, it is more important than ever for citizens to have full access to the same neutral, unbiased information that many of us rely on to help us formulate important decisions."

The lawyers, economists, reference librarians, and social, natural, and physical scientists of CRS offer invaluable research and analysis to Members of Congress on all current and emerging issues of national policy. CRS has a responsibility to ensure that Members of the House and Senate have available the best possible information and analysis on which to base the policy decisions.

CRS is governed by requirements for accuracy, objectivity, balance, and nonpartisanship — the very sort of analysis sought and valued by engaged constituents. As a dedicated congressional support agency, CRS is joined by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in providing Congress with information and analysis that is unequaled by any other national legislature. While GAO and CBO reports are already available to the public, CRS reports are not.

"Making taxpayer-funded research available to the American people is good government," said Congressman Leonard Lance (R-NJ). "Our bill will allow for greater transparency and ensure that non-partisan, public policy reports that are prepared with taxpayer funds for members of Congress be available to educators, students, members of the news media and every citizen across the country." "When citizens are engaged and informed, we have a better chance of elevating our national discourse and cutting through the misinformation and spin that threatens progress," said Rep. Kratovil. "We must do everything we can to empower Americans to play an active role in the legislative process."

Two Open Access Policies Adopted: NCAR and University of Salford

The National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Salford have adopted open access policies.

Here's an excerpt from the National Center for Atmospheric Research announcement:

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has passed an Open Access policy that requires that all peer-reviewed research published by its scientists and staff in scientific journals be made publicly available online through its institutional repository. The new policy has been put in place by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the governing body that manages NCAR. A national lab, NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. It has conducted research into the atmospheric sciences since 1960.

UCAR last month formalized the new policy and is developing an institutional repository known as OpenSky, which will include all published studies by NCAR and UCAR researchers in scientific journals. The repository will be free and available to the public, but access to the works it contains will depend upon the policies of their publishers. In support of copyright law and the health of the publishers that support NCAR and UCAR science, all publishing agreements will be honored. OpenSky will be managed by the NCAR Library and is expected to go live in 2010.

Read Peter Suber's take on this policy at "OA Mandate at a US National Lab."

Here's an excerpt from the University of Salford announcement:

The University has announced its intention to implement plans that will make free, easily accessible research knowledge available to a world wide audience via the University of Salford Institutional Repository (USIR) portal. . . .

For the last two years the University has been implementing systems to enable the University's research active staff to deposit their findings and research into the repository.

The University of Salford is pleased to now declare that from the 1st January 2010, it will be implementing a mandatory policy for all research active staff to deposit research information into the repository. This means that as of January 2010, the University of Salford will officially be an Open Access University.

Institutional Repository Bibliography, Version 1

To celebrate Open Access Week, Digital Scholarship is releasing version one of the Institutional Repository Bibliography. This bibliography presents over 620 selected English-language articles, books, and other scholarly textual sources that are useful in understanding institutional repositories. Although institutional repositories intersect with a number of open access and scholarly communication topics, this bibliography only includes works that are primarily about institutional repositories.

Most sources have been published between 2000 and the present; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 2000 are also included. Where possible, links are provided to e-prints in disciplinary archives and institutional repositories.

Table of Contents

1 General
2 Country and Regional Institutional Repository Surveys
3 Multiple-Institution Repositories
4 Specific Institutional Repositories
5 Institutional Repository Digital Preservation Issues
6 Institutional Repository Library Issues
7 Institutional Repository Metadata Issues
8 Institutional Repository Open Access Policies
9 Institutional Repository R&D Projects
10 Institutional Repository Research Studies
11 Institutional Repository Software
Appendix A. About the Author

DigitalKoans Break

DigitalKoans postings will resume on 10/19/09.

Digital Videos: Presentations from Access 2009 Conference

Presentations from the Access 2009 Conference are now available. Digital videos and presentation slides (if available) are synched.

Here's a quick selection:

Dan Chudnov, "Repository Development at the Library of Congress"
Cory Doctorow, "Copyright vs Universal Access to All Human Knowledge and Groups Without Cost: The State of Play in the Global Copyfight"
Mark Jordan & Brian Owen, "COPPUL's LOCKSS Private Network / Software Lifecycles & Sustainability: a PKP and reSearcher Update"
Dorthea Salo, "Representing and Managing the Data Deluge"
Roy Tennant, "Inspecting the Elephant: Characterizing the Hathi Trust Collection"

Archivists Toolkit Version 2.0 Released

The Archivists Toolkit version 2.0 has been released.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

New features added to AT 2.0 include:

Revised Digital Object module, so that Digital Object records can be created and managed independent of Resource records.

Tab-delimited Digital Object import

Batch export of Digital Objects

Assessment module

New reports for Digital Object and Assessment modules

Revision of all other reports (Names, Subjects, Accessions, Resources)

Improved stylesheets for EAD to PDF and EAD to HTML outputs

Bug fixes as noted in release notes

Read more about it at "New/Updated Features for AT Release 2.0."

Analyst/Programmer, Digital Library Tools at Indiana University

The Indiana University Digital Library Program is recruiting an Analyst/Programmer, Digital Library Tools.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Participates in the development and management of IU's digital repository system (based on the Fedora open source software platform) and associated software tools for ingestion and delivery of digital content. Designs, evaluates, programs, and implements Web-based software tools supporting access to and ingestion of digital content. Works with other DLP and IU staff to define requirements for tools to support delivery of image, text, audio, video, and data collections; evaluates potential commercial and open-source solutions; designs and tests user interfaces; designs, codes, and tests software; and defines and implements interfaces with other IU systems.

UK's National Institute for Health Research Funds 15% Discount in BioMed Central Publication Fees for Its Researchers

The UK's National Institute for Health Research has inked a Supporter Membership arrangement with BioMed Central that will allow researchers supported by the NIHR and its partners to get a 15% discount on BioMed Central publication fees.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Under the terms of the NIHR's Supporter Membership arrangement, all NHS researchers supported by the NIHR and its partners will benefit from a 15% discount on publication fees when publishing in any of BioMed Central's 200 peer-reviewed open access journals. Researchers are expected to acknowledge NIHR support.

The NIHR is part of the Department of Health, which is a strong advocate of access to the results of research and a partner in the UK PubMed Central open access digital archive project. In 2007 it made a statement confirming official policy in support of open access. http://www.nihr.ac.uk/files/pdfs/OpenAccessPolicyStatement.pdf

With support through the NIHR, researchers already publish hundreds of open access articles each year in BioMed Central’s journals, and Supporter Membership will further encourage open access publication, increasing public access to the results of taxpayer funded research whilst saving money.

The STM Report: An Overview of Scientific and Scholarly Journal Publishing

The International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers has released The STM Report: An Overview of Scientific and Scholarly Journal Publishing.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Annual revenues generated from English-language STM journal publishing are estimated at $8 billion in 2008, up by 6-7% compared to 2007, within a broader STM publishing market worth some $16 billion. About 55% of global STM revenues (including non-journal STM products) come from the USA, 30% from Europe, 10% from Asia/Pacific and 5% from the rest of the world.

Continued growth in output, particularly from China and East Asia, will put further pressure on the system, especially when combined with funders’ desire for greater return on research investments and the pressures on researchers to accelerate the research cycle.

There are approximately 2000 journal publishers globally, and the main English-language trade and professional associations for journal publishers include 657 publishers producing around 11,550 journals—about 50% of the total journal output by title. Of these, 477 publishers (73%) and 2334 journals (20%) are not-for-profit.

There were about 25,400 active scholarly peer-reviewed journals in early 2009, collectively publishing about 1.5 million articles a year. The number of articles published each year and the number of journals have both grown steadily for over two centuries, by about 3% and 3.5% per year respectively. The reason is the equally persistent growth in the number of researchers, which has also grown at about 3% per year and now stands at between 5.5 and 10 million, depending on definition, although only about 20% of these are repeat authors.

ETD Self-Archiving Tools: ICE-TheOREM Final Report

JISC has released the ICE-TheOREM Final Report.

Here's an excerpt:

ICE-TheOREM was a project which made several important contributions to the repository domain, promoting deposit by integrating the repository with authoring workflows and enhancing open access by prototyping new infrastructure to allow fine-grained embargo management within an institution without impacting on existing open access repository infrastructure.

In the area of scholarly communications workflows, the project produced a complete end-to-end demonstration of eScholarship for word processor users, with tools for authoring, managing and disseminating semantically-rich ETD (Electronic Theses and Dissertations) documents fully integrated with supporting data. This work is focused on theses, as it is well understood that early career researchers are the most likely to lead the charge in new innovations in scholarly publishing and dissemination models.

The authoring tools are built on the ICE content management system, which allows authors to work within a word processing system (as most authors do) with easy-to-use toolbars to structure and format their documents. The ICE system manages both small data files and links to larger data sets. The result is research publications which are available not just as paper-ready PDF files but as fully interactive semantically aware web documents which can be disseminated via repository software such as ePrints, DSpace and Fedora as complete supported web-native and PDF publications.

"Repository Metadata: Approaches and Challenges"

John W. Chapman, David Reynolds, and Sarah L. Shreeves have self-archived "Repository Metadata: Approaches and Challenges" in IDEALS.

Here's an excerpt:

Many institutional repositories have pursued a mixed metadata environment, relying on description by multiple workflows. Strategies may include metadata converted from other systems, metadata elicited from the document creator or manager, and metadata created by library or repository staff. Additional editing or proofing may or may not occur. The mixed environment brings challenges of creation, management, and access. In this article, repository efforts at three major universities are discussed. All three repositories run on the DSpace software package, and the opportunities and limitations of that system will be examined. The authors discuss local strategies in light of current thinking on metadata creation, user behavior, and the aggregation of heterogeneous metadata. The contrasts between the mission of each repository effort will show the importance of local customization, while the experience of all three institutions forms the basis for recommendations on strategies of benefit to a wide range of librarians and repository planners.

Manager, GALILEO Knowledge Repository at Georgia Tech

The Georgia Tech Library and Information Center is recruiting a Manager, GALILEO Knowledge Repository (three-year position).

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Galileo Knowledge Repository (GKR) Manager is a repository professional responsible for the daily project management and overall development of the GKR as a service in Georgia. It is a three-year, IMLS-funded position residing at the Georgia Tech Library and Information Center, reporting to its Associate Director for Technology and Resource Services. The Manager will work closely with the grant project PIs (2), the liaisons at each partner institution (6), and the GKR committees. S/he will perform promotion and outreach activities as well as train and advise institutions with hosted IRs on metadata standards, submission to DSpace, copyright issues, and identifying and creating digital content. Partner training sessions will be conducted by the GKR Manager, with assistance by members of the GKR committees; they will be conducted virtually and onsite at the partner institutions. The GKR Manager also will provide guidance to the GKR Content Submission Service. These activities will be targeted at groups of partner institutions' faculty, librarians, and archivists at the seven GKR partner sites. The Manager will be a resource and lead the training program offered to others involved or interested in statewide and consortial IR initiatives. S/he will serve on the GKR committees — Steering, Technical, Content and Metadata, Outreach and Evaluation, and the Symposium and Workshop Committee. The GKR Manager will chair the Symposium and Workshop committee.

Columbia University Libraries and Cornell University Library Awarded Grant for 2CUL Partnership

The Columbia University Libraries and the Cornell University Library have received a grant to fund their 2CUL partnership project.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $385,000 to the libraries at Columbia University in New York City and Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., to support the development of an innovative partnership dubbed "2CUL." This new relationship has the potential to become the most expansive collaboration to date between major research libraries.

Starting this fall, Cornell and Columbia will plan significant partnerships in collaborative collection development, acquisitions and processing. The two universities will form a separate service entity to facilitate the collaboration. Ithaka, a not-for-profit organization that assists research libraries and the academic community to leverage advancing information technologies, will provide project management and assist in the planning. Initial work will focus on several global collecting areas, as well as collaborative funding and support of technical infrastructure in various areas.

2CUL — pronounced "too cool" — stands for the acronyms of both Columbia University Library and Cornell University Library. The partnership is not a merger, and the two libraries remain separate institutions.

"2CUL represents a new, radical form of collaboration that pairs two leading research libraries in a voluntary, equal partnership," said James G. Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University. "Columbia University Libraries and Cornell University Library are committed to developing an enduring and transformative partnership that will enable us to achieve greater efficiencies and effectiveness and to address new challenges through combined forces."

"2CUL will ameliorate the impact of budget cuts while building our librarie' ability to innovate," said Anne R. Kenney, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian at Cornell University. "This partnership is predicated on Cornell and Columbia’s shared commitment to reinvigorate our libraries in response to and in anticipation of changes in digital access, interdisciplinary research and scholarly communication. It also allows us to provide the best possible experience for our users."

Over the next two years, 2CUL will explore ways to improve the quality of collections and services offered to campus constituencies, redirect resources to emerging needs, and make each institution more competitive in securing government and foundation support. The relationship could also provide a new blueprint for broad, non-exclusive partnerships between other academic libraries and other parts of the academy.

Yale University Library Gets Two Grants to Digitize Middle Eastern Materials

The Yale University Library has been awarded two grants totaling $890,000 to digitize Middle Eastern materials.

Here's an excerpt from "Yale Digitizes Documents":

The Yale University Library has received a $650,000 four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to digitize Syrian and Palestinian government records, and a $240,000 joint grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Joint Information Systems Committee to digitize Middle Eastern scholarly materials, according to a press release Thursday. The library will use advanced technology to translate the digitized text into searchable text, which will be available online.

Librarians and Archivists at York University Libraries Adopt Open Access Policy

Librarians and archivists at the York University Libraries have adopted an open access policy. (Thanks to Confessions of a Science Librarian.)

Here's an excerpt from the policy:

Academic librarians and archivists at York University commit to making the best possible effort to publish in venues providing unrestricted public access to their works. They will endeavour to secure the right to self-archive their published materials, and will deposit these works in YorkSpace.

The York University academic librarian and archivist complement grant York University Libraries the non-exclusive right to make their scholarly publications accessible through self-archiving in the YorkSpace institutional repository subject to copyright restrictions. . . .

This policy applies to all scholarly and professional work produced as a member of York University academic staff produced as of the date of the adoption of this policy. Retrospective deposit is encouraged. Co-authored works should be included with the permission of the other author(s). Examples of works include:

Scholarly and professional articles

Substantive presentations, including slides and text

Books/book chapters

Reports

Substantive pedagogical materials such as online tutorials

Works should be deposited in YorkSpace as soon as is possible, recognizing that some publishers may impose an embargo period. This policy is effective as of 01/10/2009 and will be assessed a year after implementation.

Digital Archivist, Digital Curation Services at University of Virginia

The University of Virginia Library is recruiting a Digital Archivist, Digital Curation Services (two-year position).

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University of Virginia Library seeks a talented and dynamic individual to serve as Digital Archivist to a two-year grant funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This position will provide key leadership to a cohort of digital archivists from partner institutions (national and international) on this exciting initiative entitled: Born Digital Collections: An Inter-Institutional Model for Stewardship (AIMS). Reporting to the Director of Digital Curation Services, this position will provide the methodology and integration of archival practices to an ever-growing corpus of materials used by scholars, authors, and other notables: namely, born digital content. This is a collaborative project that will require the coordination of complex activities across several other institutions. The Digital Archivist will participate in the creation of a best practices manual for archivists and stewards of born-digital collections. This is an exciting opportunity to work at the crossroads of special collections materials and new technologies.

Harvard College Library and the National Library of China to Digitize 51,500-Volume Chinese Rare Book Collection

The Harvard College Library and the National Library of China will collaborate to digitize and make freely available the 51,500-volume Chinese rare book collection of Harvard-Yenching Library.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Among the largest cooperative projects of its kind ever undertaken between China and US libraries, the project will digitize Harvard-Yenching Library's entire 51,500-volume Chinese rare book collection. One of the libraries which make up the Harvard College Library system, Harvard-Yenching is the largest university library for East Asian research in the Western world. When completed, the project will have a transformative affect on scholarship involving rare Chinese texts, Harvard-Yenching Librarian James Cheng predicted. . . .

The six-year project will be done in two three-year phases. The first phase, beginning in January 2010, will digitize books from the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, which date from about 960 AD to 1644. The second phase, starting in January 2013, will digitize books from the Qing Dynasty, which date from 1644 until 1795. The collection includes materials which cover an extensive range of subjects, including history, philosophy, drama, belles letters and classics.

All of the rare books will have to be examined carefully to identify those that are fragile, damaged, or are sewn in a way that hides text along the binding margin. To determine which volumes may need conservation treatment, project manager Sharon Li-Shiuan Yang, head of access services at Harvard-Yenching Library, and her team will receive training in basic condition assessment from the Weissman Preservation Center, which treats Harvard's rare library materials. Items needing repair will be sent to the Weissman for treatment by conservators before being digitized.

The digitization work will be performed by HCL Imaging Services group in its state-of-the-art lab in Widener Library, where staff members have been working to design new equipment and workflows in preparation for the huge project, said Imaging Services head Bill Comstock.

The scale of the project will present HCL and the National Library of China with many organizational and technical challenges," Comstock said. "We look forward to partnering with NLC staff, led by Dr. Zhi-geng Wang, the Director of the NLC's Department for Digital Resources and Services, to build innovative new tools and procedures that will make our work on this and other projects more robust and efficient."

University of Michigan Press Partners with HathiTrust to Provide Free Access to Over 1,000 Books

The University of Michigan Press is working with HathiTrust Digital Library to provide free access to over 1,000 books by the end of 2009.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Launched in 2008, HathiTrust is a digital preservation repository and research management tool for the world's great research libraries, focused on providing scholars in the digital age with the largest collection of electronic research material this side of Google Book Search and large-scale, full-text searching and archiving tools to manage it.

"Presses have had online previews and PDFs of sample chapters, tables of contents, and sometimes entire books on their Web sites for years," said Phil Pochoda, director of the U-M Press. "The HathiTrust partnership is something entirely new that takes into account the actual pursuit of broad dissemination of scholarly information.

"Security restrictions are in place to protect the integrity of the product, but with HathiTrust, a full view of the material is there. It's searchable and it's available to anyone with access. If you want to either search for or happen to come across Michigan Press books, you can look through them onscreen anywhere, anytime."

In keeping with the U-M's leadership role in the use of digitization and print-on-demand technology, U-M Press seeks to push the boundaries of the rapidly changing publishing world to position its resources where many different kinds of audiences can find them, Pochoda said.

Utilizing the latest technology, readers and researchers will find multiple ways to find what they are looking for. HathiTrust links to the U-M Press site allow for fast online purchasing.

In addition to a partnership with HathiTrust, content on Amazon and hundreds of U-M Press books in Google Book Search (in which the U-M Library was one of the original participants), U-M Press has had a "Look Inside" feature on its own book Web pages for several years.

With text search ability powered by Google, the "Look Inside" feature on the U-M Press Web site is another tool for viewing each title without damaging the integrity of the product. It currently contains thousands of table-of-contents and sample chapter views, with more than 100 complete titles available for full viewing and hundreds more complete titles planned for full view by the end of 2009.

Income Models for Open Access: An Overview of Current Practice

SPARC has released Income Models for Open Access: An Overview of Current Practice.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"Who pays for Open Access?" is a key question faced by publishers, authors, and libraries as awareness and interest in free, immediate, online access to scholarly research increases. SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) examines the issue of sustainability for current and prospective open-access publishers in a timely new guide, "Income models for Open Access: An overview of current practice," by Raym Crow.

"Income models for Open Access: An overview of current practice" examines the use of supply-side revenue streams (such as article processing fees, advertising) and demand-side models (including versioning, use-triggered fees). The guide provides an overview of income models currently in use to support open-access journals, including a description of each model along with examples of journals currently employing it. . . .

Developing a sound business model is a critical concern for all publishers and the process can be especially challenging for those considering open-access distribution. The guide recognizes that the needs of individual journals differ, and that publishers will apply a variety of income models to support open-access distribution. The right model must take into account not only the publisher's need to cover expenses, but also the organization's mission objectives, size, business management resources, and other factors. . . .

"Income models for Open Access: An overview of current practice" is available for free to read or download online. The guide is supplemented by an extensive Web resource, which invites community discussion on models described as well as contributions related to new and other models. The resource is online at http://www.arl.org/sparc/publisher/incomemodels/.