Month: June 2010

University Library Systems Manager at Tufts University

University Library Technology Services at Tufts University is recruiting a University Library Systems Manager.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University Library Systems Manager provides technical systems support for the shared technology services of the five Tufts Libraries including primary management and support of the libraries' Innovative Interfaces Millennium server. She/he:

  • Serves as system manager for Solaris, Oracle and Millennium (in collaboration with staff in the University Information Technology department.);
  • Oversees the implementation of new Millennium/Innovative system products under the supervision of the ULTS Director;
  • Works closely with cross-library teams on projects related to the Millennium system;
  • Assists with staff workstation configuration for the Millennium system, in collaboration with IT staff from the individual libraries;
  • Assists with trouble-shooting of all aspects of the library system;

User Behaviour Observational Study: Scholarly Digital Use and Information-Seeking Behaviour in Business and Economics

JISC has released User Behaviour Observational Study: Scholarly Digital Use and Information-Seeking Behaviour in Business and Economics.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The report covers the digital usage and information seeking behaviour of tens of thousands of business/economics/management students, researchers and academic staff. The intention was to inform and provide a context for the small-scale but detailed observational and interview studies undertaken by Middlesex University researchers for a JISC funded User Behaviour Observational Study (Business and Economics). Much of the data were mined from CIBER’s Virtual Scholar research programme and has not been previously published in this form. New data was also obtained from the studies CIBER are currently conducting, especially from the JISC national E-book Observatory project and the RIN funded E-journals study. Log data, the main source of information on usage and information seeking, covers a period of more than five years and the questionnaire data represents more than 5000 people so this probably represents the biggest and most comprehensive usage data set ever assembled on the subject. E-books and e-journals are covered and usage at the three JISC User Behaviour Observational Study case study institutions—LSE, Middlesex and Cranfield, are highlighted A whole variety of analyses are featured including: volume and, patterns of use (in terms of visits and page views), dwell time (session and page times), type of content viewed (PDF, abstracts etc), number of pages viewed in a session, methods of navigating towards content, age of material viewed, and number of searches conducted, names of titles used, user’s organization, age and gender, hardcopy v digital preferences, viewing/reading behaviour.

Library Technology Manager 2 at Los Alamos National Laboratory

The Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library is recruiting a Library Technology Manager 2. Minimum salary: $69,300.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Research Library is seeking a lead for its Digital Library Development Team, a team of application programmers and technically inclined librarians, to provide vision regarding architecture and functionality through both coordination and direct involvement in the development of the technical infrastructure for preservation, management and delivery of scientific and institutional digital content. The incumbent will lead projects aimed at tackling challenges of information interoperability and integration across our large scale and complex digital collection, which includes > 95M bibliographic records, and numerous growing repositories of institutional digital content that align with the LANL national security science mission and build on emergent e-research needs of our community.

Version 78, Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

Version 78 of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography is now available from Digital Scholarship. This selective bibliography presents over 3,750 articles, books, and other digital and printed sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. Where possible, links are provided to works that are freely available on the Internet, including e-prints in disciplinary archives and institutional repositories.

The bibliography has the following sections (revised sections are in italics):

Dedication
1 Economic Issues
2 Electronic Books and Texts
2.1 Case Studies and History
2.2 General Works
2.3 Library Issues
3 Electronic Serials
3.1 Case Studies and History
3.2 Critiques
3.3 Electronic Distribution of Printed Journals
3.4 General Works
3.5 Library Issues
3.6 Research
4 General Works
5 Legal Issues
5.1 Intellectual Property Rights
5.2 License Agreements
6 Library Issues
6.1 Cataloging, Identifiers, Linking, and Metadata
6.2 Digital Libraries
6.3 General Works
6.4 Information Integrity and Preservation
7 New Publishing Models
8 Publisher Issues
8.1 Digital Rights Management and User Authentication
9 Repositories, E-Prints, and OAI
Appendix A. Related Bibliographies
Appendix B. About the Author
Appendix C. SEPB Use Statistics

The Internet Archive’s Open Library Offers E-Book Loans

The Internet Archive's Open Library is now offering e-book loans.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Checking out digital versions of books that are automatically returned after two weeks is as easy as logging onto the Internet Archive’s Open Library site, announced digital librarian and Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle. By integrating this new service, more than seventy thousand current books—best sellers and popular titles—are borrowable by patrons of libraries that subscribe to Overdrive.com's Digital Library Reserve. Additionally, many other books that are not commercially available but are still of interest to library patrons, are available to be borrowed from participating libraries using the same digital technology. . . .

Currently, OpenLibrary.org is making available:

  • More than one million digital versions of older books are now available for free download in a variety of formats.
  • Over 70,000 current digital books to those with a library card from many of the over 11,000 libraries that subscribe to the OverDrive service.
  • Genealogical books from the Boston Public Library.
  • How-to and technical book collection via the Internet Archive.
  • Marine life reference materials from the Marine Biological Laboratory and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
  • Spanish texts from Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala.

Read more about it at "Libraries Have a Novel Idea" and "Small Moves: Open Library Integrates Digital Lending."

Associate Director for Collections, Technical Services, and Scholarly Communications at Ohio State University

The Ohio State University Libraries are recruiting an Associate Director for Collections, Technical Services, and Scholarly Communications.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Associate Director for Collections, Technical Services, and Scholarly Communications provides leadership, vision, and strategic direction for collection development and management, acquisitions and cataloging, and collection access services of the Ohio State University Libraries. This position also has responsibility for scholarly communications initiatives, including the Knowledge Bank digital repository, e-publishing, and policy oversight for collections to be digitized. Reporting to the Director of University Libraries, the Associate Director will manage the evolution of the Libraries' information resources to match the needs and behaviors of users and enhance and promote access to the Libraries’ print and digital collections by Ohio State faculty, students, and staff and by scholars and other researchers worldwide.

OCLC’s Web-Scale Library Management Services Available to Early Adopters on 7/1/10

Early adopters will be able to implement OCLC's Web-Scale Library Management Services starting on 7/1/10.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Beginning July 1, OCLC will work with libraries that are interested and prepared to implement Web-based services for acquisitions and circulation. This will be followed by successive updates for subscription and license management, and cooperative intelligence—analysis and recommendations based on statistics and workflow evaluation among participating libraries. The cloud computing environment and agile development methodology will facilitate incremental updates while minimizing impact to library operations.

Faced with scarce resources, disparate systems and local maintenance issues during a time when demand for library services has never been higher, OCLC members have made it clear that new, innovative responses are needed to meet these challenges. For the past eight months, OCLC has worked with an Advisory Council and six libraries and library groups as pilots for Web-scale management services. These groups have provided advice to OCLC on an overall direction, offered new ideas that were not in the original development plan, and validated strategic positioning for the service. . . .

OCLC Web-scale Management Services offer a next-generation choice for traditional, back-office operations. Moving these functions to the Web alongside cataloging and discovery activities allows libraries to lower the total cost of ownership for management services, automate critical operations, reduce support costs and free resources for high-priority services. It will also allow libraries and industry partners to develop unique and innovative workflow solutions that can then be shared across the profession.

"OCLC is extending our well established metadata management, resource sharing and discovery services to include the back-office management components of acquisitions and circulation which will allow libraries to extend their use of WorldCat for full library management functions and improved workflow,” said Andrew Pace, Executive Director, OCLC Networked Library Services. “This is a natural extension of OCLC’s mission to help libraries share costs and extend the power of cooperation."

Assistant Director for Information Technology at Ohio State University

The Ohio State University Libraries are recruiting an Assistant Director for Information Technology.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Assistant Director for Information Technology provides leadership, vision, and strategic direction for a wide range of digital systems and services of the Ohio State University Libraries. This position has responsibility for the integrated library system; federated search software; deployment of search and discovery services, such as WorldCat Local and other research databases; library web development; a suite of digital publishing and repository tools; and desktop support. The Assistant Director coordinates support for staff and public computing services in the Libraries in conjunction with the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Reporting to the Director of University Libraries, the Assistant Director ensures robust library systems support for new and established technology services that meet the teaching, research and service needs of the university community.

Springer to Offer New Open Access STM Journals

Springer will offer new open access science, technology, and medicine (STM) journals.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Springer is expanding its open access offering to all disciplines. SpringerOpen will cover all disciplines within the science, technology and medicine (STM) fields and will be offered in cooperation with BioMed Central. The entire content of SpringerOpen journals—including research articles, reviews, and editorials—are fully and immediately open access, and are accessible to anyone with an internet connection. No subscription is needed.

"We are seeing an increasing interest from our authors and from funders in all areas for open access publishing options and have responded to a need in the current market," said Wim van der Stelt, EVP Business Development, Springer. "We are happy to serve our authors and editorial boards with the publishing options they want and are also pleased to supply universities, research institutions and our other patrons with the ability to use this content online freely and conveniently."

SpringerOpen journals are e-only journals. Springer is committed to delivering high-quality articles and ensuring rapid publication as with its traditional journals, from online submission systems and in-depth peer review to an efficient, author-friendly production process. The final articles are not only published in a timely manner on Springer's online information platform SpringerLink, but are also distributed to archives such as PubMed Central and to institutional repositories as requested.

SpringerOpen journals are published under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which facilitates the open distribution of copyrighted work. According to this license, Springer will not reserve any exclusive commercial rights. The journals ask the authors to pay an article-processing charge, in accordance with market standards.

EDUCAUSE: 7 Things You Should Know About Net Neutrality

EDUCAUSE has released 7 Things You Should Know About Net Neutrality.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Net neutrality is the principle that broadband Internet providers will handle all network traffic in a nondiscriminatory manner. The Internet was conceived as an "open" service that would operate under "common carrier" regulations, which requires providers to serve any customers who seek their services and to do so "indifferently." The principle was conceived to protect consumers from transportation providers that had a monopoly on transport facilities such as roads or canals and, later, wirelines. In 2005, common carrier requirements for broadband providers were lifted, opening the door to the possibility that providers could discriminate against certain users and certain content. Entities including higher education, public interest groups, and content companies are calling for federal authorities to guarantee net neutrality; many broadband providers oppose new regulations.

Web Services Librarian at University of Miami Libraries

The University of Miami Libraries are continuing to recruit a Web Services Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Director for Information Management and Systems, the Web Services Librarian provides leadership and direction in the design and development of the Libraries’ web presence for all services, content, and interfaces; supervises the Libraries Web Administrator. Works with the Web Administrator to co-chair the Libraries Web Team and convene a Content Managers Group for discussions and dissemination of information; develops and recommends policies, standards, and guidelines for web content development, implementation, and management in collaboration with Library and University stakeholders; oversees usability of all user interfaces and web design, and develops guidelines and assessment strategies to provide a superior experience for all users.; coordinates testing, initiates focus groups, develops reports, and disseminates information to necessary staff; collaborates effectively with Systems and Digital Initiatives staff, stake-holders and unit-level managers to conceptualize and determine technologies and design in the delivery of user-centered library services, incorporating web 2.0 technologies to provide new features and functionality; participates as an ex-officio member of the Libraries’ Student Advisory Group, and attends Education and Outreach Services meetings for informational purposes; works with Instructional Advancement and participates in programming for the Libraries' Faculty Exploratory to support and promote faculty development and the use of technology in teaching and learning; networks, collaborates and actively participates in local, regional, national, or international organizations regarding related issues; represents and promotes the University of Miami Libraries in local, state-wide, regional, national, or international organizations as appropriate ; serves on/participates in Libraries and University organizations, committees, task forces, and teams as appropriate.

Social Science Research Network Tops 37.4 Million Downloads

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) has had over 37.4 million downloads.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

2010 is our 16th year and it is off to a great start. Our eLibrary (http://ssrn.com/search) has delivered over 37.4 million downloads to date and grown to 290,000 documents and 138,000 authors—increases over the last year of 53,000 and 22,000 respectively. Our CiteReader technology, developed with ITX Corp, has captured over 6 million references, 5.7 million footnotes, and close to 3.9 million citation links.

Integrated Library Systems Administrator at University of Richmond

The University of Richmond Library is recruiting an Integrated Library Systems Administrator.

Here's an excerpt from the ad (position number: 501284):

The Integrated Library Systems Administrator is a service-oriented position responsible for managing all aspects of ILS and discovery layer technology in the libraries and for integrating ILS and discovery layer technology into the libraries services and workflows. The Integrated Library Systems Administrator collaborates with relevant library and IS units in long-term strategic planning for the ongoing development of digital technologies, evaluating the implications of adopting new technologies and how they can be leveraged to move liberal arts college libraries forward.

A Future for Our Digital Memory (2): Strategic Agenda 2010-2013 for Long-Term Access to Digital Resources

The Netherlands Coalition for Digital Preservation has released A Future for Our Digital Memory (2): Strategic Agenda 2010-2013 for Long-Term Access to Digital Resources

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The document proposes a dual-axis approach: on the one hand collaboration within domains and information chains must be strengthened. This process is to be facilitated by so-called network leaders: the National Archives for public records, the KB, National Library of the Netherlands, for scholarly publications, Data Archiving and Networked Services for research data and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision for media. A fifth network leader for cultural heritage institutions such as museums, is yet to be announced. The NCDD itself is to facilitate cross-domain cooperation and knowledge exchanges.

See also A Future for Our Digital Memory (1): Permanent Access to Information in the Netherlands.

"Open Access to the Scientific Journal Literature: Situation 2009"

Bo-Christer Björk et al. have published "Open Access to the Scientific Journal Literature: Situation 2009" in PLoS ONE.

Here's an excerpt:

Methodology/Principal Findings

The proportion of peer reviewed scholarly journal articles, which are available openly in full text on the web, was studied using a random sample of 1837 titles and a web search engine. Of articles published in 2008, 8.5% were freely available at the publishers' sites. For an additional 11.9% free manuscript versions could be found using search engines, making the overall OA percentage 20.4%. Chemistry (13%) had the lowest overall share of OA, Earth Sciences (33%) the highest. In medicine, biochemistry and chemistry publishing in OA journals was more common. In all other fields author-posted manuscript copies dominated the picture.

Conclusions/Significance

The results show that OA already has a significant positive impact on the availability of the scientific journal literature and that there are big differences between scientific disciplines in the uptake. Due to the lack of awareness of OA-publishing among scientists in most fields outside physics, the results should be of general interest to all scholars. The results should also interest academic publishers, who need to take into account OA in their business strategies and copyright policies, as well as research funders, who like the NIH are starting to require OA availability of results from research projects they fund. The method and search tools developed also offer a good basis for more in-depth studies as well as longitudinal studies.

Product Manager, Web-Scale Management Services at OCLC

OCLC is recruiting a Product Manager, Web-Scale Management Services.

Here's an excerpt from ad:

The Product manager, WMS, is responsible for developing and managing a suite of cloud-based workflow management services available to libraries. The product under development includes circulation, acquisitions, subscription and licensed resource management and reporting.

The Product Manager, WMS, needs a broad knowledge of virtually all aspects of library workflow—including technical services, access and delivery services, patron management, and system administration—as it is performed on any number of systems, such as the ILS, ERM system, or other library automation software packages. Strong knowledge of other business process systems, such as Blackboard, PeopleSoft, and 3M, is also a plus.

This knowledge should include an understanding of the library automation marketplace, library open source software development, and librarian and patron workflow tools. The product manager will serve as the primary analyst for building unique offering in the library management system space.

"Rebooting the CS Publication Process"

Dan S. Wallach, Associate Professor at Rice University's Department of Computer Science, has made an eprint of "Rebooting the CS Publication Process" available.

Here's an excerpt:

Many computer science academics have been grousing about failures in our publication process. This paper catalogs many of the specific complaints that are raised and proposes some radical new solutions based on the assumption that, by eliminating physical paper entirely and going with a centralized system to manage papers, we can rethink the entire process: paper submission, revision and publication. Furthermore, having all of the metadata standardized and easily available, ranking algorithms can be easily conceived to aid in tenure cases and departmental rankings.

Digital Library Software Engineer at Arizona State University

Digital Antiquity in Arizona State University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is recruiting a Digital Library Software Engineer. Salary: $60,000-$80,000.

Here's an excerpt from the ad (job id: 24530):

Digital Antiquity seeks a creative and innovative Software Engineer to assist in the development of a national digital repository for archaeological documents and data. Digital Antiquity is a national, multi-institutional effort funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and based at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. This exciting initiative provides an excellent career opportunity in software development and is a unique, real-world opportunity to develop research tools that will transform archaeology with cutting-edge technology.

Digital Antiquity's repository, tDAR (The Digital Archaeological Record) is built using common J2EE and open-source components including: Struts 2, Hibernate, Spring, Postgres, and JQuery.

Google Granted Safe Harbor Protection in Viacom v. YouTube Billion Dollar Lawsuit

Judge Louis Stanton of the United States District Court Southern District of New York has granted Google and YouTube's motion for a summary judgment in Viacom v. YouTube based on "safe harbor" protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s 17 U.S.C. § 512(c).

Here's an excerpt from "YouTube Wins Summary Judgment in Viacom DMCA Lawsuit" by EFF's Kurt Opsahl:

The wealth of legislative history and precedent visible in this opinion shows just how uncontroversial the decision is. An online host is only liable if it doesn't take down specific instances of infringement it actually knows about. That's been well established, as have the principles that the host doesn't have a duty to actively monitor everything on the site, or that the online service can do more than merely store works. If the parties involved here had been a small video blogger and a local bulletin board, this case would have attracted almost no media attention, because it's not breaking any new legal ground. The amount of attention—the reason this is a big deal—is really due to the size of the companies and the numbers at stake. The only new ground that could have been broken would have been if the judge had deviated from the history of the statute and the ever-lengthening line of precedent that reaches just the same conclusion.

Read more about it at "Google Defeats Viacom's $1 Billion YouTube Suit," "How the YouTube-Viacom Ruling Will Set the Web Free," and "Judge Sides with Google in Viacom Video Suit."

ALA: "Copyright Update—June 2010"

The ALA Office of Government Relations has released "Copyright Update—June 2010."

Here's an excerpt:

Rep. Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, introduced The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 801) on February 3, 2009. Unfortunately, this not-so-new bill seeking to amend copyright code and create a new category of copyrighted work differs only in the bill number assigned from its predecessor in the 110th Congress (H.R. 6845) that ultimately died in the House Judiciary Committee.

Just as in the last Congress, H.R. 801 negates or reverses the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy currently in place, rolling back hard-fought progress on public access to taxpayer-funded NIH research on the Internet. The bill would effectively reverse the NIH Public Access Policy, as well as make it impossible for other federal agencies to put similar policies into place. Library advocates should continue to express to their members of Congress they strongly oppose H.R. 801, as it seeks to amend copyright law and reverse the NIH Public Access Policy.

Web Developer at the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County

The Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton Count is recruiting a Web Developer. Salary: $48,505.60-$69,763.20.

Here's an excerpt from the ad (tracking code: 113-133):

  • Works cooperatively with Internet Site Coordinator, Graphics designers and other web developer to complete projects and provide ongoing maintenance of Library web resources.
  • Participates in the evaluation, selection, and implementation of third-party products (e.g. Google Analytics, Google Search Appliance, subscription databases, etc.). Must find ways to make these products work in the Library’s environment and together. Test and, if appropriate, modify code to ensure that third-party products work with each upgrade.
  • Defines performance criteria for systems and verifies that these criteria are met.
  • Develops ongoing customer relationships working independently across all levels of the organization.
  • Writes status reports, problem reports, procedures, system documentation, etc.

Librarian (Systems and Technology) at Foothill-De Anza Community College District

The Foothill-De Anza Community College District is recruiting a Librarian (Systems and Technology). Salary: $57,904-$95,099.

Here's an excerpt from the ad (Job #: 11-009):

Develop and coordinate a long-range plan for the library's systems, hardware, and software. Manage the integrated library system (SIRSI) and other library systems such as EZproxy, GoPrint, and library self checkout. Coordinate desktop management and academic computer lab technology. Provide technical support, problem solving, and staff training in these areas. Serve as a liaison with campus and district technology personnel on initiatives and projects that impact library operations. Collaborate with library faculty and staff in investigating leading-edge technologies, testing software, and recommending and implementing appropriate systems in support of library services. Provide reference and course-related library instruction. Participate in collection development.