Month: December 2010

Digital Scholarship’s 2010 Publications

Digital Scholarship's 2010 publications are listed below:

Digital Scholarship publications are under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License.

| Digital Scholarship |

Daily Tweets 2010-12-13

NISO Will Make Information Standards Quarterly Open Access in 2011

The National Information Standards Organization has announced that Information Standards Quarterly will become open access in 2011.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"ISQ has undergone a significant transformation over the past three years as it moved from a newsletter to a full-color magazine," states Cynthia Hodgson, NISO Managing Editor. "With the support of a new ISQ Editorial Board and guest content editors, the contributed content has expanded significantly. Our goal with ISQ is to educate and inform our readers on standards, present practical and replicable implementations of standards-based technologies and best practices, and identify areas where standards could help to solve problems."

"ISQ provides a unique perspective with its overlapping interests to the library, publisher, and information systems and services audience," explains Todd Carpenter, NISO Managing Director and Publisher of ISQ. "NISO's Board of Directors strongly believes that providing the information in ISQ via open access will enhance the visibility and reach of the work of our community. We also intend to migrate the archives to open access and convert much of the backfile to electronic format."

The print version of ISQ will still be available by subscription or free to NISO members who opt-in to receive it in print. This approach, combined with the open access of the electronic version, will reduce the environmental impact and costs of print publishing while increasing the accessibility of the magazine to everyone in the NISO community and in related standards and technology arenas.

| Digital Scholarship |

Virginia Commonwealth University Resolution Supporting Open Access Publishing in Tenure Decisions

The Virginia Commonwealth University Faculty Senate has passed a resolution supporting recognition of open access publishing in the tenure process.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Whereas, the faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University are dedicated to achieving the greatest public good by making their research and scholarship as widely available as possible;

Whereas, commercial publishers of scholarly journals have drastically increased subscription prices to many of the journals where VCU faculty now publish their research and scholarship beyond the affordability of many individuals and institutions; and

Whereas, faculty have many options for publishing their research and scholarship in open access journals, hybrid journals, or in open access repositories so that the world can have free access to it if they negotiate to retain their copyright of their work;

Therefore, the Faculty Senate of Virginia Commonwealth University recommends:

VCU Promotion and Tenure committees should recognize that publication and editorial effort in open access, peer-reviewed journals or republication of peer-reviewed articles in an open access repository offers added value and greater public good than scholarship made only available in expensive journal publications.

| Digital Scholarship |

Library Web Developer/Designer at Princeton University Library (Revised)

The Princeton University Library is recruiting a Library Web Developer/Designer.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Web Developer position will help the Library Web Development Manager on specific projects to deliver more library content and services to our users from our web sites. Specific projects may include designing new sites, or using new web services technologies to improve the user experience in discovering, searching, finding, or acquiring library materials and content. Additionally, the position will assist in implementing the Drupal CMS, customizing the interface for the latest version of the OPAC, and creating mobile ready versions of the library web site and catalog. Customization tasks for the new NextGen Discovery system will be a large component of the work. Projects will also likely include implementation of open source code created in other libraries, using various API's made available by Google, OCLC, or Code4Lib members, as well as various library vendors. This position will also be assigned other digital library projects as the need arises. Conducting user-centric usability studies is highly desirable, so experience in this area will be preferred.

| Digital Scholarship |

National Historical Publications and Records Commission Grants

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission has funded 53 grant proposals, including seven digitization projects.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

DIGITIZATION
Grants for digitizing entire archival collections of historical importance.

Georgia State University
Atlanta, GA                                            $90,102
The PATCO Records Digitization Project.
A 20-month project to digitize eight series—approximately 179,000 scans—of  the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) records from the union's national office.

Getty Research Institute
Los Angeles, CA                                  $100,790
Living the American Dream: Housing and Urban Development in Los Angeles, 1936-1997. 
A two year project to digitize and make available online approximately 60,500 images from the Leonard Nadel Papers and the Julius Shulman Photography Archive. 

Library of Virginia
Richmond, VA                                     $150,000
Augusta County, VA, Chancery Records, 1745-1912.
A two year project to digitize the Augusta County Chancery Court records, consisting of 460 cubic feet totally approximately 900,000 images representing 10,437 cases. .

Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY                                $103,979
Lowell Thomas Papers Digitization Project.
A project to digitize 36,164 images, including 8,000 glass plate negatives, 6,500 lantern slides, 13,000 photographic prints, 300 stereopticon cards, 1,800 film negatives, and more items in the Graphic Materials Series in Lowell Thomas Papers, a collection drawn from the works of the 20th century American writer and broadcaster.

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Rutgers, NJ                                            $57,390
Housing Law and Policy Digital Archive.
A project to digitize two collections of materials, totaling 94,000 pages, in the areas of public housing law and urban history.

University of Illinois, Chicago
Chicago, IL                                            $47,099
Chicago: Photographic Images of Change.
A two year project to digitize approximately 30,275 photographs of historic Chicago sites, streets, neighborhoods and buildings contained within the James S. Parker collection (1900-2003) and the Chicago Photographic collection (ca. 1890-1970). 

University of North Texas
Denton, TX                                           $30,509
The Civil War and Reconstruction.
Aone year project to digitize and make available online a group of eight 19th century collections totaling 22,412 pages.  The records span from 1823-1919, but the bulk of the records date from the period of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

| Digital Scholarship |

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 79

Version 79 of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography is now available from Digital Scholarship as an XHTML website with live links to many included works. This selective bibliography includes over 3,880 articles, books, technical reports, and other scholarly textual sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. All included works are in English. It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Changes in This Version

Two new sections have been added in this version: (1) Electronic Books and Texts: Research and (2) General Works: Research (Multiple-Types of Electronic Works).

The bibliography has the following sections (new/revised sections are marked with an asterisk):

Table of Contents

Dedication
1 Economic Issues*
2 Electronic Books and Texts
2.1 Case Studies and History*
2.2 General Works*
2.3 Library Issues*
2.4 Research*
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*
4.1 Research (Multiple-Types of Electronic Works)*
5 Legal Issues
5.1 Digital Copyright*
5.2 License Agreements*
6 Library Issues
6.1 Digital Libraries*
6.2 Digital Preservation*
6.3 General Works*
6.4 Metadata and Linking*
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 following recent Digital Scholarship publications may also be of interest:

  1. Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography, Version 5
  2. Institutional Repository Bibliography, Version 3
  3. Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography (a paperback, a PDF file, and an XHTML website)

See also: Reviews of Digital Scholarship Publications.

Daily Tweets 2010-12-12

Daily Tweets 2010-12-11

Daily Tweets 2010-12-10

Visiting Digital Library Research Programmers (3) at University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign is recruiting three Visiting Digital Library Research Programmers (various position lengths).

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The successful candidates will be appointed to support current digital library grant-funded research projects being conducted at the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center. Appointees will report to the respective grant project’s principal investigators (PIs) and will be members of the University Library's Software Development Group. Specifically, these three positions will support and be funded by the following grant projects:

  • Emblematica Online: Emblem Digitization, The German Emblem Database, and The OpenEmblem Portal (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities)
  • The Institute of Museum and Libraries Digital Collections & Content Project, 2-year extension: Advancing the IMLS DCC to Promote our Collective Cultural Heritage (funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services)
  • The Bamboo Technology Project, Phase I (funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation)
  • The Open Annotation Collaboration, Phase II: Demonstration & Refinement (funding request pending with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation)
  • The National Ethics Resource Center Digital Library (funded by the National Science Foundation)

| Digital Scholarship |

8% of Online Americans Use Twitter

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project has released 8% of Online Americans Use Twitter.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Eight percent of the American adults who use the internet are Twitter users. Some of the groups who are notable for their relatively high levels of Twitter use include:

  • Young adults—Internet users ages 18-29 are significantly more likely to use Twitter than older adults.
  • African-Americans and Latinos—Minority internet users are more than twice as likely to use Twitter as are white internet users.
  • Urbanites—Urban residents are roughly twice as likely to use Twitter as rural dwellers.

| Digital Scholarship |

Head of Web & Emerging Technologies at University of Miami Libraries

The University of Miami Libraries are recruiting a Head of Web & Emerging Technologies.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Under the direction of the Director for Information Management & Systems, the Head of Web & Emerging Technologies provides leadership, direction, and technical expertise in the design, development, and implementation of the Libraries' web presence and promotes user-centered interfaces, technologies, resources, and services designed to enhance the user experience. The Web & Emerging Technologies Department works in close collaboration with Systems and Digital Programs and Scholarship staff, stake-holders and unit-level managers.

| Digital Scholarship |

Presentations from the SPARC 2010 Digital Repositories Meeting

Presentations from the SPARC 2010 Digital Repositories Meeting are now available.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"Reputation management systems," "new spin on Open Access," "stretching knowledge bases," "exposing reality," and "valuing knowledge exchange at the institutional level" were just a few of the ways participants in the SPARC 2010 Digital Repositories Meeting expressed their vision for advancing repository advocacy into the fuller fabric of the Open Access movement. The sentiment is one outcome of the gathering, jointly hosted by SPARC, SPARC Japan/NII, and SPARC Europe, in Baltimore on November 8 & 9, 2010. SPARC has today released summaries, slides, and video from the event.

The SPARC digital repositories meetings have played an integral part in advancing the potential of open online repositories to expand the dissemination of scholarship and transform scholarly communication. First held in 2004, the meeting is regularly hosted in the UK or Europe, Japan, and North America, draws hundreds of participants from around the globe, and has helped set the stage for key developments over the past six years. This time, participants indicated the need for a broader meeting and discussion, which highlight repositories in the full Open Access context.

"Repositories are core components of the Open Access movement," said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC. "They’re deeply integrated with policy moves and at the forefront of managing Open Access to materials above and beyond the scholarly literature—not to mention author rights management and other aspects. It just makes sense that conversations about repository advocacy take place alongside moves to create policies. SPARC's next biennial meeting, in 2012, will aim to meet this need, and we look forward to working with our members to figure out the best approach."

The 2010 meeting set forth to explore four key trends: Repository-based publishing strategies, Global repository networks, Open data, and Making the case for financial sustainability. These panel discussions were supplemented with an Innovation Fair, where new technologies, strategies, and approaches were highlighted, and a Sponsor Showcase.

| Digital Scholarship |

Daily Tweets 2010-12-09

ALA Issues Urgent Call to Action about Museum and Library Services Act

ALA has issued a urgent call to action about the reauthorization of the Museum and Library Services Act.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Please call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be transferred to your representative’s office. Tell their staffs that passing S. 3984, the Museum and Library Services Act (MLSA), is imperative to ensuring libraries can continue providing critical resources to their constituents, particularly in this tough economy. Specifically highlighting programs or resources your library provides to the member’s constituents will make your message stronger.

MLSA will ensure that the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds are secured and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is equipped to lead America’s libraries. This bill received bipartisan support from both Senate Republicans and Democrats, especially Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), who is a longtime supporter of libraries in this country. Other Senate sponsors of this bill include Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Susan Collins (R-ME), Michael Enzi (R-WY), and Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Jon Tester (D-MT). To access the full text of this bill, click here.

The U.S. Senate passed MLSA Reauthorization under unanimous consent late Tuesday night, bringing the bill one step closer to reauthorization before the end of the 111th Congress.

MLSA has moved to the U.S. House of Representatives where it must receive a vote before the end of the calendar year. Please call your representative and urge him or her to press House leadership for a vote on the Senate-passed version of MLSA and to support the bill.

| Digital Scholarship |

Digital Preservation: Major PRONOM Update

The US National Archives has announced that PRONOM has been significantly updated.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The National Archives has contributed to the update of a groundbreaking system—made available online today—that supports long-term preservation of and access to electronic records. The "new and improved" version of this "PRONOM" system was developed in partnership with the National Archives of the United Kingdom and the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

PRONOM is a web-based public technical registry of more than 750 different digital file formats that enables digital archivists, records managers and the public to precisely identify and confirm digital file formats. This identification is the first step to ensuring long-term electronic file preservation by enabling the identification of those file formats that are in danger of becoming obsolete. . . .

Technology from the National Archives contributed to a 25% increase in the number of entries in the PRONOM database, greatly enhancing PRONOM's range. "The National Archives is proud to share these technologies and contribute to PRONOM. Providing sustained access to valuable digital information is essential to preserving both our nation's records, and valuable digital assets worldwide" said NCAST Director, Kenneth Thibodeau. "The electronic records of the U.S. Government must be preserved for future generations, just as traditional paper and parchment records were preserved for us."

| Digital Scholarship |

Web Administrator at Douglas County Libraries

The Douglas County Libraries are recruiting a Web Administrator.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Douglas County Libraries is looking for a key player for our IT and Web Administration team. The Web Administrator is responsible for the design, implementation, coordination and maintenance of the district’s Internet and Intranet sites, in support of the district’s strategic goals. You will manage and oversee the Library Web Team. You will communicate with designated content providers to identify needs and expectations for the development, growth and expansion of our web services. We are implementing many new and exciting technology and web administration initiatives. Are you a pioneering change agent poised to challenge us and lead us into the future? If so, read on! Major work duties will also include: • Designs and maintains library and library catalog web pages. • Maintains existing, and develops new, web applications and software tools. • Supports the Drupal Content Management System. Co-administers and assists in maintenance of our Drupal content management system (CMS) for library employees. • Works with all library departments as well as end users in developing and maintaining the library catalog, websites, and any new web interfaces. • Works with external partners and vendors to provide access and resolve issues with electronic resources and services. • Keeps current with trends and issues relating to web and library technologies. • Maintains currency with cutting edge Web and mobile technologies, software, tools, and solutions. Participates in evaluation and assessment efforts.

| Digital Scholarship |

A Standards-based, Open and Privacy-aware Social Web

The W3C Incubator Group has released A Standards-based, Open and Privacy-aware Social Web.

Here's an excerpt:

The Social Web is a set of relationships that link together people over the Web. The Web is an universal and open space of information where every item of interest can be identified with a URI. While the best known current social networking sites on the Web limit themselves to relationships between people with accounts on a single site, the Social Web should extend across the entire Web. Just as people can call each other no matter which telephone provider they belong to, just as email allows people to send messages to each other irrespective of their e-mail provider, and just as the Web allows links to any website, so the Social Web should allow people to create networks of relationships across the entire Web, while giving people the ability to control their own privacy and data. The standards that enable this should be open and royalty-free. We present a framework for understanding the Social Web and the relevant standards (from both within and outside the W3C) in this report, and conclude by proposing a strategy for making the Social Web a "first-class citizen" of the Web.

| Digital Scholarship |

Daily Tweets 2010-12-08

A Copyright Office for the 21st Century: Recommendations to the New Register of Copyrights

Public Knowledge has released A Copyright Office for the 21st Century: Recommendations to the New Register of Copyrights .

Here's an excerpt:

First and foremost, the next Register of Copyrights should prioritize updating the copyright registration system so that it can meet the demands of modern copyright. There is no reason why, in an era of interconnected computers and sophisticated digital imaging, the registry should have long processing delays, be incomplete, not include visual works, and not be searchable from any Internet-accessible device. A complete copyright registry that takes full advantage of digital technology will reduce costs for copyright holders, those engaging in searches, and taxpayers. Importantly, a complete and widely accessibly registry will help to ensure that those seeking to make use of copyrighted works can more easily find and compensate their owners.

Second, the next Register of Copyrights must recognize that copyright policymaking is no longer a sleepy backwater followed by a handful of copyright holders and their lawyers. Thanks largely to the clash of an overwhelmingly pre-VCR copyright law with digital technology, the length and terms of copyright law have become a matter of public debate. Moreover, ubiquitous computers and Internet access have made just about everyone a creator with a stake in copyright policymaking. Thus, the Copyright Office should take its cue from other government agencies and reach out affirmatively to various stakeholder groups and the public at large – not only to inform them of what the Copyright Office is doing, but also to seek their participation in policymaking.

The increased interest, and the public’s stake, in copyright policymaking also make it essential that the Copyright Office follow the Obama Administration’s goal of a more open and transparent government. At a minimum, this means that the Copyright Office must reveal who is meeting with their staff and why.

Finally, this paper recommends that Congress limit the term of the Register of Copyrights to no more than 10 years. Term limits make political appointees more accountable and reduce the possibility of capture by one or more existing stakeholder groups.

| Digital Scholarship |

Submission Fees—A Tool in the Transition to Open Access?

The Knowledge Exchange has released Submission Fees—A Tool in the Transition to Open Access?

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The general conclusion of the report bearing the title "Submission Fees—A Tool in the Transition to Open Access?," written by Mark Ware, is that there are benefits to publishers in certain cases to switch to a model in which an author pays a fee when submitting an article. Especially journals with a high rejection rate might be interested in combining submission fees with article processing charges in order to make the transition to open access easier. In certain disciplines, notably economic and finance journals and in some areas of the experimental life sciences, submission fees are already common.

| Digital Scholarship |

Digital Library Applications Programmer at University of California, Santa Cruz

The University of California, Santa Cruz Library is recruiting a Digital Library Applications Programmer (grant funded through 03/31/2012).

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University of California, Santa Cruz Campus will make available digital collections on a cutting-edge website. This website will provide access to Grateful Dead Archive materials and tools to facilitate public contributions to the archive. This project will enable the university to convert a significant part of a traditional archive to digital form and make it available online while simultaneously experimenting with the impact of fostering, creating, and curatorship of a large, socially constructed archive. The website will support discovery, delivery, use and construction of the Grateful Dead Archive for a broad range of users including the general public and the academic research community. The position will contribute to the development of open source software Omeka (http://omeka.org/) developed by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Enhancement of the software will include improving social metadata capacity, permissions and rights consent for contributed digital content, and migration (export and import) of metadata and data between collection management software/social sharing sites and Omeka, as well as applications, servers and repositories supporting access, content management and digital preservation. Lastly, the position will also support the installation, configuration and management of applications and servers supporting the website.

Under general supervision and reporting to the Grateful Dead Project Manager, this position designs and develops code to enhance applications and installs, configures and manages server, storage and networking hardware. Work is performed using PHP, MySQL, Javascript, XML software and XSLT stylesheets. Position interacts with University Library staff in Special Collections and Digital Initiatives to gather requirements, write specifications, develop code enhancing existing or creating new Omeka plug-ins, testing code and perform quality assurance to evaluate code against original requirements. Position works closely with University Library Information Technology Services (ITS) staff to manage applications and servers (development, staging and production) in a LAMP environment supporting the website including Omeka, CONTENTdm, WordPress and Drupal software and migrate metadata and data between applications, servers and digital preservation repositories.

| Digital Scholarship |