Month: January 2010

Digital Repository Librarian at Cal Poly

The Robert E. Kennedy Library at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo is recruiting a Digital Repository Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad (Requisition #101983):

Under the general supervision of the Director of Information Resources and Archives, this tenure-track position has primary responsibility for the growth, development and maintenance of the library's institutional repository including the full range of work related to program and policy research, evaluation, and analysis. Contributes to digitized archival collections initiatives. The essential components of this position are to maintain and promote digital repository collections and services provided by the Kennedy Library, including developing and securing content, communicating with and providing support to contributors and users, drafting digital repository policies and procedures, working with Library Information Technology and vendor(s) to ensure system functionality, and establishing workflow and other procedures according to best practices and established standards.

Last Call: Tell the White House You Support Open Access by Thursday

The deadline for submitting comments to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's public consultation on public access policy is January 21st.

If you do not want to submit detailed comments, you might consider indicating your support for the comments of one of the below organizations. The easiest way to do so is simply to send an e-mail message to publicaccess@ostp.gov indicating that you support their comments.

If you wish to make detailed comments, either send them to the e-mail address above answering the 9 questions in the Federal Register or make comments at the appropriate OSTP post:

To post comments on the OSTP Blog, you must first register and login.

STM Reacts to Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Report

STM, an international association of around 100 publishers, has issued a press release regarding the recent Report and Recommendations from the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

STM takes issue, however, with some of the other recommendations and goals expressed in the Report. Firstly, while STM supports US agencies in the development of public access policies to the results of research funded by those agencies, we do not agree that the scholarly articles arising from publisher investment and value add fall under this category. Government research grants currently cover the cost of the research only. Government research grants do not cover the costs of publication.

Secondly, while welcoming the consultation and collaboration that has occurred with our industry, STM believes the goal of US agencies in establishing a "global publishing system" is redundant and wasteful and ignores the essentially international nature of STM publishing, which has, without any government assistance anywhere in the world, enabled more access to more people than at any time in history.

Thirdly, if there is to be no compensation for the use of journal mediated content, STM supports the need for embargo periods. There is, however, no evidence whatsoever to support the recommendation that embargo periods of 0 to 12 months could be adopted for "many sciences" without problem. STM is leading a three year experiment part-funded by the European Commission (the PEER Project) to find out the effects of various embargo periods on journals. We strongly encourage such an evidence-based policy investigation in the US as well.

Finally, while STM supports the recommendation that the final published article should be given primacy (the so called VoR or Version of Record) over the proliferation of other imperfect earlier versions, it is through this final version —and the creation and maintenance of their authoritative journals—that STM publishers provide significant added value; to make final published articles (VoRs) free immediately upon publication must involve some mechanism of financial compensation.

Digital Production Librarian at the Claremont Colleges

The Libraries of the Claremont Colleges are recruiting a Digital Production Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Digital Production Librarian for the Claremont University Consortium will work with faculty and staff from the seven Claremont Colleges and librarians on digitization projects for dissemination in the Claremont Colleges Digital Library (CCDL) and manage the full operations of the Digital Production Center including staffing, budget, digital conversion, metadata application, quality controls, production workflows, reports, cost analysis and documentation for training, policies and procedures. This position reports to the Director of Digital Initiatives, Records Management and Archives.

EFF: "12 Trends to Watch in 2010"

Tim Jones has posted "12 Trends to Watch in 2010" in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Deeplinks blog.

Here's an excerpt:

2. Books and Newspapers: .TXT is the new .MP3

Since 2000, the music industry has most spectacularly flailed (and failed) to combat the Net's effect on its business model. Their plans to sue, lock-up and lobby their way out of their problem did nothing to turn the clock back, but did cause serious damage to free speech, innovation and fair use.

These days, the book and newspaper industries are similarly mourning the Internet's effect on their bottom line. In 2009, Rupert Murdoch changed the tone of the debate when he called those who made fair use of his papers' content "thieves". We think 2010 and beyond will see others in the print world attempt to force that view, and break the fair use doctrine by lobbying to change accepted copyright law, challenging it in the courts, or by placing other pressures on intermediaries.

A cluster of similar battles around user control are also gathering around e-reader products like Kindle and Google Book Search, many of which rewrite the rules for book ownership and privacy wholesale.

So, in 2010, will the printed word step smartly into the digital future, or will it continue to stay stuck in the denial and bargaining phase that dominated digital music's lost decade?

Information Technology Specialist (Systems Analysis) at the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is recruiting an Information Technology Specialist (Systems Analysis). The salary range is $105,211.00-$136,771.00.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

This position is located in the R&D Digital & Web Initiatives Unit, Research & Development, Information Technology Services, Office of Strategic Initiatives. . . .

Installs and maintains Web-based systems and services using Python, Django, Javascript, UNIX, Perl and XML to build web-based applications and design frameworks.

Horizon Report: 2010 Edition

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative and the New Media Consortium have released the Horizon Report: 2010 Edition.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Today, the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) and the New Media Consortium (NMC) released the 2010 Horizon Report, the seventh edition of this annual joint publication. Each year, the Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education and creative expression over the next one to five years.

The report identifies six technologies that are expected "to enter mainstream use in learning-focused organizations." Each of the six is assigned to one of three adoption horizons: one year or less, two to three years, and four to five years. For 2010, mobile computing and open content are identified in the one-year horizon; electronic books and simple augmented reality in the two- to three-year horizon; and gesture-based computing and visual data analysis in the four- to five-year horizon.

The advisory board for the project identified these technologies through comprehensive review, analysis, and discussion of research, articles, papers, and interviews. It then drafted a roster of over 110 candidate technologies, which it gradually refined to the six key technologies appearing in the 2010 report. This year, the advisory board consisted of 47 experts from numerous fields and was more internationally diverse than it has ever been. It included representatives from 10 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Nigeria, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Google D.C. Talk: ACTA—The Global Treaty That Could Reshape the Internet

The Google Public Policy channel has released Google D.C. Talk: ACTA—The Global Treaty That Could Reshape the Internet. ACTA stands for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a very important intellectual property rights treaty that is being secretly negotiated.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The panel will tackle important questions like: Will ACTA preserve the existing balance in intellectual property laws, providing not just enforcement for copyright holders but also appropriate exceptions for technology creators and users? Will it undermine the legal safe harbors that have allowed virtually every Internet service to come into existence? And will it encourage governments to endorse "three strikes" penalties that would take away a user's access to the Internet?

Assistant Dean for Collections and Technology at Western Washington University

The Western Washington University are recruiting an Assistant Dean for Collections and Technology.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Western Washington University Libraries seek a dynamic, innovative, and decisive leader to serve as Assistant Dean for Collections and Technology. The person in this key leadership position will have policy, assessment, and planning responsibilities for Library IT, Collection Development, Cataloging, Acquisitions, and ILL, with a total staff of 25. We are in the early stages of re-visioning our organizational structure, and the Assistant Dean will provide leadership in rethinking past practices in light of new demands and opportunities. We are currently exploring ways to enhance the discovery of resources and information, expand support for digital collections, and improve the management of electronic resources. The successful candidate will be an accomplished leader who is skilled in managing change and building partnerships within the library, across campus, and the greater community.

ALA and ACRL Support Open Access in Comments to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

ALA and ACRL have submitted comments to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) calling for greater open access to federally funded research.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The ALA and ACRL have long believed that ensuring public access to the fruits of federally funded research is a logical, feasible, and widely beneficial goal. They provided information and evidence as the Executive Branch considers expanding public access policies, like that implemented by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to other federal agencies. Specifically, the ALA and ACRL recommend: which agencies should be covered, that policies should be mandatory, that earlier access is better, version and format recommendations, how to keep implementation costs reasonable, and the importance of supporting emerging scholarly practice.

While greater access to publicly funded research has long been a high priority issue for academic libraries, ACRL President Lori Goetsch, Dean of Libraries at Kansas State University, emphasized that now is the time for public and school librarians to tell their stories.

"What would it mean for members of your community to have better access to scholarly, scientific, and technical articles—paid with their own tax dollars through grants from agencies like NASA or the EPA?" Goetsch said. "How would it help small business owners starting up green technology companies? How would it help enhance teaching and learning in high schools?"

In the past, the ALA and ACRL have supported NIH Public Access Policy and endorsed "The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009" (S. 1373) noting the latter, "reflects ALA policy regarding access to Federal government information by providing for the long-term preservation of, and no-fee public access to, government-sponsored, tax-payer funded published research findings."

The ALA and ACRL encourage all members to consider making comments, no later than January 21, to OSTP as individuals or libraries. More information is available on the OSTP Public Access Policy blog at http://blog.ostp.gov/category/public-access-policy. Comments can also be posted on OSTP’s blog. Comments e-mailed to publicaccess@ostp.gov are also accepted, but may be posted to the blog by the moderator. General comments, addressing any part of the Request for Information, may be submitted. See the full notice Federal Register notice at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-30725.htm for details.

Librarian, Scholarly Communication at University of Massachusetts Medical School

The University of Massachusetts Medical School is recruiting a Librarian, Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Under direction of the head of the Research and Scholarly Communication Services Group this position is responsible for obtaining and managing information for library patrons specifically the research community at the University of Massachusetts Worcester (Medical School Graduate School of Nursing and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences); developing instructional classes on scholarly communication topics; evaluating and selecting electronic and traditional resources to provide information services and support outreach activities; actively develops professional competencies

Report and Recommendations from the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable

The Scholarly Publishing Roundtable has released the Report and Recommendations from the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

An expert panel of librarians, library scientists, publishers, and university academic leaders today called on federal agencies that fund research to develop and implement policies that ensure free public access to the results of the research they fund "as soon as possible after those results have been published in a peer-reviewed journal."

The Scholarly Publishing Roundtable was convened last summer by the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology, in collaboration with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Policymakers asked the group to examine the current state of scholarly publishing and seek consensus recommendations for expanding public access to scholarly journal articles.

The various communities represented in the Roundtable have been working to develop recommendations that would improve public access without curtailing the ability of the scientific publishing industry to publish peer- reviewed scientific articles.

The Roundtable’s recommendations, endorsed in full by the overwhelming majority of the panel (12 out of 14 members), "seek to balance the need for and potential of increased access to scholarly articles with the need to preserve the essential functions of the scholarly publishing enterprise," according to the report. . . .

The Roundtable identified a set of principles viewed as essential to a robust scholarly publishing system, including the need to preserve peer review, the necessity of adaptable publishing business models, the benefits of broader public access, the importance of archiving, and the interoperability of online content.

In addition, the group affirmed the high value of the "version of record" for published articles and of all stakeholders' contributions to sustaining the best possible system of scholarly publishing during a time of tremendous change and innovation.

To implement its core recommendation for public access, the Roundtable recommended the following:

  1. Agencies should work in full and open consultation with all stakeholders, as well as with OSTP, to develop their public access policies. Agencies should establish specific embargo periods between publication and public access.
  2. Policies should be guided by the need to foster interoperability.
  3. Every effort should be made to have the Version of Record as the version to which free access is provided.
  4. Government agencies should extend the reach of their public access policies through voluntary collaborations with non-governmental stakeholders.
  5. Policies should foster innovation in the research and educational use of scholarly publications.
  6. Government public access policies should address the need to resolve the challenges of long-term digital preservation.
  7. OSTP should establish a public access advisory committee to facilitate communication among government and nongovernment stakeholders.

Read more about it at "Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Releases Report and Recommendations" and "Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Releases Report to Congress."

ALA Report: The Condition of U.S. Libraries: Trends, 1999-2009

ALA has released The Condition of U.S. Libraries: Trends, 1999-2009.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

At every turn, news reports and research indicate fairly dramatic changes in U.S. library funding, services and staffing – most occurring in the last 18 months. According to a new report prepared by the American Library Association (ALA), libraries of all types are feeling the pinch of the economic downturn while managing sky-high use.

Compiled from a broad range of available sources, The Condition of Libraries: 1999-2009 presents U.S. economic trends (2009), and summarizes trends in public, school and academic libraries across several library measures, including expenditures, staffing and services. The report also highlights trends in services provided to libraries by library cooperatives and consortia.

“This report was prepared to inform and assist library leaders as they plan in these very difficult times,” said ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels. “It succinctly brings together diverse strands of data from the past decade to provide a useful benchmark for the library community and its advocates.”

As communities and academic campuses develop future fiscal plans, it is clear that all types of libraries are visibly hard hit. In a fall 2009 report prepared by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 34 states had reported cuts to higher education, which impacts academic libraries; and 25 states had cut funding to K-12, which impacts school libraries. Total state budget shortfalls for fiscal year 2010 are $178 billion, and FY2011 are estimated to be roughly the same.

Public libraries also have been affected. While the full impact of the economic downturn remains fluid and the data challenging to assemble, what is known is that flat funding has been an obstacle—perhaps even a chronic problem—for many libraries this entire decade. Confirming evidence from a 2006 ALA study of public library funding, a 2009 survey conducted as part of the Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study revealed a worsening of funding – about 20 percent reported flat funding continuing in FY2010 and a majority reported budget reductions. Of those with budget cuts, about 20 percent reported 5-to-10 percent reductions in FY2010 from FY2009.

Library trends include. . .

College and University Libraries

  • While student enrollment at colleges and universities has declined since 2004, library use continues to increase. During a typical week in 2008, academic libraries reported more than 20.3 million visits, up from 18.7 million in 2006. They also provided more than 498,000 informational services to groups attended by more than 8.9 million students and faculty, up from 471,000 sessions attended by 8.3 million in 2006;
  • In fall 2008, 72 percent of academic libraries reported providing library reference service by e-mail or the Web, about the same as in 2006; and
  • Operating expenditures rose modestly during the period 2002 to 2008.

Systems Librarian/Library Technology Manager at Illinois Institute of Technology

The Paul V. Galvin Library at the Illinois Institute of Technology is recruiting a Systems Librarian/Library Technology Manager.

Here's an excerpt from ad:

Design, implement, and manage a broad range of information technology-based systems and services for the Galvin Library, three branch libraries, and IIT Archives. Collaborate with library staff on the development of technology-supported services in support of teaching, learning, and research.

Director, Integrated Library Systems at University of Southern California

The University of Southern California Libraries are recruiting a Director, Integrated Library Systems.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Director, Integrated Library Systems (ILS) provides leadership in the planning, implementation, and management of the USC Libraries’ core library information systems and software such as the ILS and related systems such as open URL resolvers and electronic resources management systems, ensuring that these services support the USC Libraries Strategic Plan. The Director, ILS supervises the ILS unit and works collaboratively with library personnel and campus users to identify, recommend, implement, test and maintain software and provide user and operational support for library systems. The Director is also responsible for identifying gaps in service and recommending enhancements and improvements to address these areas. . . .

Reporting to the Associate Dean with responsibility for technology, the Director, ILS manages the ILS unit and has responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the ILS (SirsiDynix Unicorn/Symphony) and will assume a leadership role in envisioning and defining services and/or improvements that could be provided by the ILS. The Director, ILS works closely with the Director of Technical Services and Director of the Digital Library and consults with Library administrators and colleagues to establish priorities within the department for maintenance, software upgrades and other enhancements; administers, directs, and reviews ILS systems; assesses internal and external user needs, participates in the strategic planning process and identifies new services and/or improvements for ILS users in consultation with Public Services and Technical Services personnel; supervises technical staff responsible for the functions of library systems; serves as the technical liaison to the ILS managers in USC’s Law Library and Health Sciences Libraries; tracks projects and ensures that new services, upgrades and enhancements approved by the Dean’s Cabinet are implemented in a timely fashion and tested prior to release; defines and refines processes and procedures related to the ILS unit and its interaction with users of the ILS system both internal and external to the USC Libraries; develops and manages the budget for the ILS unit and ensures that services offered by the ILS unit meet users expectations for cost and timeliness.

"Google Book Search and the Future of Books in Cyberspace"

Pamela Samuelson has self-archived "Google Book Search and the Future of Books in Cyberspace" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The Google Book Search (GBS) initiative once promised to test the bounds of fair use, as the company started scanning millions of in-copyright books from the collections of major research libraries. The initial goal of this scanning was to make indexes of the books’ contents and to provide short snippets of book contents in response to pertinent search queries. The Authors Guild and five trade publishers sued Google in the fall of 2005 charging that this scanning activity was copyright infringement. Google defended by claiming fair use. Rather than litigating this important issue, however, the parties devised a radical plan to restructure the market for digital books, which was announced on October 28, 2008, by means of a class action settlement of the lawsuits. Approval of this settlement would give Google—and Google alone—a license to commercialize all out-of-print books and to make up to 20 per cent of their contents available in response to search queries (unless rights holders expressly forbade this).

This article discusses the glowingly optimistic predictions about the future of books in cyberspace promulgated by proponents of the GBS settlement and contrasts them with six categories of serious reservations that have emerged about the settlement. These more pessimistic views of GBS are reflected in the hundreds objections and numerous amicus curiae briefs filed with the court responsible for determining whether to approve the settlement. GBS poses risks for publishers, academic authors and libraries, professional writers, and readers as well as for competition and innovation in several markets and for the cultural ecology of knowledge. Serious concerns have also been expressed about the GBS settlement as an abuse of the class action process because it usurps legislative prerogatives. The article considers what might happen to the future of books in cyberspace if the GBS deal is not approved and recommends that regardless of whether the GBS settlement is approved, a consortium of research libraries ought to develop a digital database of books from their collections that would enhance access to books without posing the many risks to the public interest that the GBS deal has created

University of Tennessee, Knoxville Gets IMLS Grant to Study Value of Academic Libraries

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville School of Information Sciences has been awarded an IMLS grant to study the value of academic libraries. It will collaborate with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Libraries and the Association of Research Libraries.

Here's an excerpt from the press release :

Carol Tenopir, a professor in the School of Information Sciences, is the lead investigator on the project; Paula Kaufman, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a co-principal investigator; and Martha Kyrillidou, Senior Director for Statistics and Service Quality Programs, is leading the project from ARL.

The three-year grant, entitled "Value, Outcomes, and Return on Investment of Academic Libraries (Lib-Value)," will work to enrich, expand, test, and implement methodologies measuring the return on investment (ROI) in academic libraries.

"There is an increasing need for academic librarians to demonstrate the return on investment and value of the library to the various stakeholders of the institution and to guide library management in the redirection of library funds to important products and services for the future," Tenopir said. Academic libraries actively participate in the many changes in scholarship, such as the move to e-science, collaborative and participatory scholarship, and focus on new materials such as data, multimedia, and born-digital assets. To remain relevant and central to the academic mission in the future, academic librarians need to be able to demonstrate the value that the academic library provides to the campus community using proven methods of measurement that will allow librarians to determine where their efforts should be concentrated and how funding should be allocated.

The results of the study will provide evidence and a set of tested methodologies and tools to help academic librarians demonstrate how the library provides value to its constituents and ROI to its funders, and to measure which products and services are of most value to enhancing the university’s mission. This project will greatly expand upon earlier studies to consider multiple measures of value that the academic library brings to teaching/learning, research, and social/professional/public engagement functions of the academic institution.

To ensure that the process will be rigorous, realistic, and highly visible in the academic library and university community, an experienced team of academic librarians and outstanding researchers bring their leadership, built on many years of experience, to the project. Two well-known researchers in the library field will serve as consultants: Bruce Kingma, an economist at Syracuse University, and Donald W. King, a statistician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill. Additional project participants include: Gayle Baker, Ken Wise, Rachel Fleming-May, Regina Mays, Crystal Sherline, and Andrea Baer at the University of Tennessee; Tina Chrzastowski at the University of Illinois; and Henry Gross, Gary Roebuck, and David Green at ARL.

Digital Programs Archivist at University of North Carolina at Charlotte

The J. Murrey Atkins Library at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte is recruiting a Digital Programs Archivist.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Responsibilities:

  • Collaborate in planning, creating, and managing digital collections
    • Implement quality control procedures
    • Prioritize and coordinate digital production
    • Investigate, plan, and manage format conversions and migration
    • Investigate and provide leadership in the implementation of appropriate metadata standards
  • Maintain and expand web applications on the Special Collections Website using standards-compliant markup, emerging web technologies, and best practices.
  • Collaborate in the planning, development, and implementation of electronic records preservation and access, particularly for University Archives related collections and manuscript collections
  • Provide leadership in defining preservation and access protocols for born-digital materials
  • Identify and collaborate with technical partners in Library Systems, UNC Charlotte ITS, and the College of Computing and Informatics to design and implement creative applications for access and preservation

A Landscape Study of Shared Infrastructure Services in the Australian Academic Sector

JISC has released A Landscape Study of Shared Infrastructure Services in the Australian Academic Sector.

Here's an excerpt:

In parallel with these investments, it has become evident that users in the higher education and academic sectors in Australia are choosing to use main stream Web 2.0 technologies in their daily work activities. However there is limited knowledge about who is using which Web 2.0 technologies and for what purposes. Moreover there is little information about why specific tools and services are chosen when institutional or nationally-funded services are available. JISC recently funded a study in the UK to investigate the adoption of Web 2.0 services by the higher education and academic sectors. The aim of this report is to survey the situation in Australia and hence enable comparisons with the UK. This survey therefore focuses on the current and active users of Web 2.0 tools and services in Australian Higher Education institutions and aims to identify what they are using and why.

Although the UK leads Australia in the development of collaborative eResearch services, the results of the survey indicate that the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in the higher education sector in Australia is not significantly dissimilar to the situation in the UK. Users prefer to use Web-based services that are already adopted by the wider community and that are free, robust, simple to sign on to, and easy to install and use. Examples include: FaceBook, YouTube, Skype and Twitter. Although the most active use of Web 2.0 has been by early adopters (people who are not afraid to try out new tools, experiment with them and promote them to colleagues and peers), this situation is changing as more Web 2.0 technologies are becoming broadly adopted by mainstream users. Because Australia has not had the same level of investment in cyberinfrastructure and lags behind the UK in the development of services, it has been able to take advantage of services developed in the UK and USA (e.g., RoMEO, Shibboleth) – as well as the recent explosion of free, open source Web 2.0 technologies. In some ways, this delayed investment has been an advantage because there is not an established pool of services that is being superseded by commercial and open source Web 2.0 technologies.

See also the related report: Shared Infrastructure Services Landscape Study: A Survey of the Use of Web 2.0 Tools and Services in the UK HE Sector.

Project Manager Library Digital Programs at Johns Hopkins University

The Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University are recruiting a Project Manager Library Digital Programs (position duration is until July 31, 2014 with the possibility of extension).

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The project manager is responsible for managing project communications, tasks, timelines, resources, fundraising, and grants for the Data Conservancy (DC), a $20 million project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Project Manager will reports directly to the Executive Director of the Data Conservancy and will be authorized to act on the Executive Director’s behalf when necessary.

White House OSTP Asks for Additional Comments on Open Access until Jan. 21st

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has requested additional comments about its public consultation on public access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Many of you expressed a desire for more time to engage in the Public Access Policy Forum post-holidays. We heard you! While Phase III ended on January 7th, we have launched a two-week bonus period for all of you who signed off for the holidays. Therefore, all three phases of the Forum will remain open through January 21st.

In hopes that you will continue to build and respond to the thoughtful comments of your peers, we ask you to visit the Public Access Policy Forum portion of our blog to see all relevant posts and submit your comments in the appropriate forum:

In addition, be sure to check out the many comments and proposals submitted to our publicaccess@ostp.gov inbox, to which you are also welcome to submit comments or documents. Some comments are just text; some have links to documents that have been submitted.

Indiana University Gets $2.38 Million Grant from Mellon Foundation for Kuali OLE

Indiana University has been awarded a $2.38 Million Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the Kuali OLE (Open Library Environment) project.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

IU will lead the Kuali OLE (Open Library Environment) project, a partnership of research libraries dedicated to managing increasingly digital resources and collections. Together, these libraries will develop "community source" software that will be made available to libraries worldwide.

Kuali OLE (pronounced Oh-LAY) partners include Indiana University; Florida Consortium (University of Florida representing Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, Rollins College, University of Central Florida, University of Miami, University of South Florida and the Florida Center for Library Automation); Lehigh University; Triangle Research Libraries Network (represented by Duke University and North Carolina State University); University of Chicago; University of Maryland; University of Michigan; and the University of Pennsylvania.

Large academic research libraries such as these manage and provide access to millions of items, using software to track interrelated transactions that range from ordering and paying for items to loaning materials to library patrons.

As the nature of library collections expands to include more digital materials—including leased electronic journals and digitized photograph collections—libraries are increasingly interested in developing management software for these resources, said Interim Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries Carolyn Walters.

"Libraries now create, lease and share digital materials, but the systems in place for cataloging and tracking these items are based on print collections," said Walters. "With this project, we benefit from working together with a community of academic libraries that want to change the way that information is managed in the scholarly environment."

"Research libraries are in dire need of systems that can support the management of research collections for the next-generation scholar," said Robert H. McDonald, executive director for the project and IU's associate dean for library technologies. "This approach demonstrates the best of open-source software development, directed partnership resource needs, and a market of commercial support providers to truly align with the needs of research libraries within the higher education environment."

More than 200 libraries, educational institutions, professional organizations and businesses laid the groundwork for the Kuali OLE project by participating in the original OLE project, a design phase that was supported by an earlier grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by Duke University.

Digital Library Software Engineer at Harvard

The Office for Scholarly Communications at the Harvard University Library is recruiting a Digital Library Software Engineer.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC) oversees the mechanisms by which the fruits of scholarship are communicated within and without the University, with a special aim to increase the availability of the scholarly output of the University and maximize the efficiency with which scholarly materials are made available to members of the Harvard community and beyond. The OSC department of the Harvard University Library (HUL) seeks a programmer/analyst for development and support of the DASH open access digital scholarship repository. This is a unique opportunity to serve as the technical lead on a project to collect and share the University's research with the world. Please Note: This is a one year term appointment with possibility of renewal depending on funding and performance.

Research Data: Unseen Opportunities

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries has released Research Data: Unseen Opportunities.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The purpose of the toolkit is to enable research library directors to raise awareness of the issues of data management with administrators and researchers on campus.

Data are valuable assets that in some cases have an unlimited potential for reuse. The awareness toolkit underscores the need to ensure that research data are managed throughout the data lifecycle so that they are understandable and usable.

"This is a very timely document" says Marnie Swanson (University of Victoria), Chair of the CARL Data Management Sub-Committee. "More than ever, data are a critical component of the research endeavor and this toolkit will help libraries raise awareness in the scholarly community of the importance of data stewardship."

Research Data: Unseen Opportunities provides readers with a general understanding of the current state of research data in Canada and internationally. It is organized into seven sections: The Big Picture; Major Benefits of Data Management; Current Context; Case Studies; Gaps in Data Stewardship in Canada; Data Management Policies in Canada; Responses to Faculty/Administrative Concerns; What Can Be Done on Campus?