Month: December 2010

"2010: E-Book Buyer’s Guide to E-Book Privacy"

The EFF has released the "2010: E-Book Buyer's Guide to E-Book Privacy."

Here's an excerpt:

The guide is simply a review of privacy policies, to the extent we've been able to find them, plus additional information we received directly from Adobe and the Internet Archive. We haven't been able to do independent testing to verify how these e-book providers work in practice. Also, in discussing whether individuals are linked to their reading we have only addressed direct ways (i.e. Amazon or Google directly keeps that information in your account information) as opposed to indirect ways that require action from third parties like the ability to use your IP address gathered by logs to subpoena your ISP for your name).

| Digital Scholarship |

Daily Tweets 2010-12-07

Applications Developer at New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is recruiting an Applications Developer (one-year position).

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Digital Project Manager, the Applications Developer:

  • Designs and implements scalable, optimized, database-driven web applications using server- and client-side techniques
  • Works with User Experience Designers to adapt existing and build new software-based solutions to support user experience goals
  • Builds out APIs, data feeds and other ways of interacting with NYPL content beyond web-based interfaces
  • Explores new platforms and architectures for NYPL services and content

| Digital Scholarship |

Harvard University Library System Reorganization

Harvard Provost Steven E. Hyman announced in a letter that Harvard President Faust and the Harvard Corporation have accepted the recommendations of the Library Implementation Work Group for reorganizing the Harvard University Library system.

Here's an excerpt:

The Work Group recommendations, which have been accepted by President Faust and the Harvard Corporation, call for establishing a coordinated management structure for the University's libraries that will balance the need for School-based strategic decisions regarding patron-facing activities with the clear need for a more harmonized approach to the global strategic, administrative, and business processes of our library system. This structural redesign will bring the libraries even closer to curricula across all Schools, allowing librarians to work arm in arm with faculty members to develop course plans that bring into the classroom the best resources that the University can access, from the latest scientific article to a page from Keats' journals. The redesign will also permit cataloging and preservation of materials to be prioritized across the entire collection, and new scholarly materials, which will largely be born in digital formats, to be shared more easily through a sustainable model that would make these materials available for generations of scholars to come.

Read more about it at "Harvard U. Library Restructuring Seeks to Unify High-Tech Services," "Library Administration to Be Redefined" and "Renewing Harvard’s Library System."

| Digital Scholarship |

Web Developer at George Washington University Libraries

The George Washington University Libraries are recruiting a Web Developer.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Responsible for designing and implementing web-enabled strategies to support the goals, objectives and/or functions of George Washington University Libraries, and for providing primary support for new initiatives in web presence, resource discovery, and scholarly communication. The position provides the opportunity to work in a highly collaborative environment on creative and innovative projects within the George Washington University Libraries.

| Digital Scholarship |

New York Law School Law Review Publishes Special Issue about Google Books Lawsuit and Settlement

The New York Law School Law Review has published a special issue containing papers from the NYU Law School's October 2009 D Is for Digitize conference on the Google Books lawsuit and settlement.

Here are the papers:

  • "D Is for Digitize: An Introduction," James Grimmelmann
  • "Google Book Settlement and the Fair Use Counterfactual," Matthew Sag
  • "Fulfulling the Copyright Social Justice Promise: Digitized Textual Information," Lateef Mtima & Steven D. Jamar
  • "Orphan Works and the Google Book Search Settlement: An International Perspective," Bernard Lang
  • "H Is for Harmonization: The Google Book Search Settlement and Orphan Works Legislation in the European Union," Katharina de la Durantaye
  • "Continued DOJ Oversight of the Google Book Search Settlement: Defending Our Public Values and Protecting Competition," Christopher A. Suarez
  • "Digitial + Library: Mass Book Digitization as Collection Inquiry," Mary Murrell
  • "The Why in DIY Book Scanning," Daniel Reetz

| Digital Scholarship |

Daily Tweets 2010-12-06

Open Access Bibliography vs. Transforming Scholarly Communication through Open Access: What’s the Difference?

There are two book-length bibliographies available from Digital Scholarship: Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals and Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography. What's the difference?

Feature Open Access Bibliography Transforming Scholarly Communication
Publication Date 2005 (not updated) 2010 (not updated)
Coverage Fairly comprehensive:
diverse published and unpublished works in English		 Selective: published
works in English, primarily books and journal articles
Number of
References		 Over 1,300 Over 1,100
Paperback? Yes, $45 Yes, $15.95
OA PDF? Yes Yes
OA XHTML? Yes Yes
XHTML Version Search Engine? Yes Yes
Links to Freely Available Works? Yes (live in XHTML) Yes (live in XHTML)
Creative Commons License? Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License		 Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License
Publisher Association of Research Libraries (paperback and OA PDF) and Digital Scholarship (XHTML) Digital Scholarship

| Digital Scholarship |

Memento Project Wins Digital Preservation Award 2010

The Memento Project has won the Digital Preservation Award 2010.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Institute for Conservation and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) are delighted to announce that the Memento Project led by Herbert Van De Sompel and colleagues of Los Alamos National Laboratory and Michael Nelson and colleagues of Old Dominion University, USA, has won the Digital Preservation Award 2010. . . .

"The ability to change and update pages is one of the web’s greatest advantages but it introduces a sort of structured instability which makes it hard to depend on web pages in the long term. For more than a decade services like the UK Web Archive and the Internet Archive have provided a stable but partial memory of a fragment of the web—but users had no way of linking between current content and earlier versions held by web archives."

"The Memento project resolves this by letting users set a time preference in their browser. The underlying technology then deploys basic, under-used features of the HTTP protocol to direct users to whichever archived copy of a website most closely matches their request." [Richard Ovenden, Chair of the Digital Preservation Coalition]

| Digital Scholarship |

Library Systems Fellow at Harvard University

The Harvard University Library is recruiting a Library Systems Fellow (one-year position).

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Team Leader, Library System Support, and working with a team of OIS specialists, the Library Systems Fellow performs a variety of technical and support duties in the core areas of library staff support and training, system maintenance, troubleshooting, database management, and data loading. This is a paid, fully benefits eligible, one-year position for a recent MLS graduate who is motivated, energetic, support-focused and technology-savvy. The Library Systems Fellow will acquire experience and skills at one of the world’s greatest research libraries, and learn about an array of library systems supporting digital repositories, electronic resources, and other innovative technologies. The Library Systems Fellow will be involved in analyzing Library Systems Support tasks and processes and developing proposals to improve system efficiency and reliability.

| Digital Scholarship |

CERN Signs COPE (Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity)

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has signed the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity. CERN is the fourteenth institution to sign COPE.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

As a publicly and internationally funded research institution, CERN believes everyone should get access to its results without any financial barrier. The most important tool to implement this vision in the high-energy physics community, which CERN embodies, is the SCOAP3 initiative, through which CERN and partners in over twenty countries are working to convert to open access existing high-quality high-energy physics journals. While waiting for SCOAP3 to be operational CERN and leading publishers in the field (the American Physical Society, Elsevier, SISSA, and Springer) have reached agreements to make the scientific publications from the flagship Large Hadron Collider available open access and under a Creative Common license, as suggested by the publication policy of the CERN Physics Department.

| Digital Scholarship |

Scholarly Communication Librarian at Syracuse University

The Syracuse University Library is recruiting a Scholarly Communication Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Syracuse University Library seeks an energetic and visionary librarian who is passionate about the challenges of digital scholarly communication. This librarian will have a deep knowledge of the scholarly process and an avid interest in the future of digital research. A main assignment will be to direct Surface, the university’s new institutional repository/research database at http://surface.syr.edu, with the goal of building it into a model, state-of-the-art online resource. The scholarly communication librarian will develop an understanding of the theory, principles, and evolving practice of scholarly communication in the academy in order to make available, facilitate, and extend the broadest access to resources needed by the Syracuse University community for teaching and learning. This position will bridge the gap between the library and the SU research community by advising, instructing, and advocating for best practices in open access, and digital resources and preservation. This position is part of the library’s Unit for Research, Collections, and Scholarly Communication (RCSC), and will work closely with the associate dean to communicate with faculty and graduate students.

| Digital Scholarship |

2011 IMLS National Leadership Grant Guidelines Released

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has released grant program guidelines for its 2011 National Leadership Grant program.

Here's an excerpt:

Applications for Project or Collaborative Planning Grants may be submitted in the following categories:

  • Advancing Digital Resources: Support the creation, use, presentation, and preservation of significant digital resources as well as the development of tools to enhance access, use, and management of digital assets.
  • Research: Support projects that have the potential to improve museum, archival, and library practice, resource use, programs, and services. Both basic and applied research projects are encouraged.
  • Demonstration: Support projects that produce a replicable model or practice that is usable by other institutions for improving services and performance.
  • Library-Museum Collaboration Grants: Support collaborative projects that address the educational, economic, cultural, and social needs of a community.

Read more about it at "2011 National Leadership Grant Guidelines Now Available."

| Digital Scholarship |

Daily Tweets 2010-12-05

Daily Tweets 2010-12-03

Open Access Principles for Australian Collecting Institutions, Version 1

Opening Australia's Archives has released Open Access Principles for Australian Collecting Institutions, Version 1.

Here's an excerpt:

The internet, digital recording devices and the ready availability of content production software have together drastically changed the creative landscape. As a result, linear models of knowledge and cultural production are rapidly being supplanted by more distributed, collaborative, user-generated and open networking models. Yet Australians wishing to participate in this new digital culture have great difficulty gaining access to quality content from their own culture and history that can be legally and safely reused. This limits our ability to access the full benefits that could be provided by new technologies to fields such as education, the creative industries and business innovation.

The Opening Australia's Archives project aims to address this problem by working with Australia's collecting institutions to increase the public's ability to access and reuse our national collections. Run by the Innovation Law program of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology the project encourages the adoption of open access approaches through coordinated policy, implementation and advocacy initiatives across the collecting sector.

Opening Australia's Archives: Open Access Principles for Australian Collecting Institutions were prepared in consultation with representatives of the Australian collecting sector commencing with a series of meetings held nationally during 2009. For more information on the meetings, principles and project see the Opening Australia's Archives website.

| Digital Scholarship |

Partnering to Publish: Innovative Roles for Societies, Institutions, Presses, and Libraries Presentations

ARL has released presentations from its Partnering to Publish: Innovative Roles for Societies, Institutions, Presses, and Libraries meeting.

Here's an excerpt:

The Partnering to Publish seminar, jointly sponsored by the Society for Scholarly Publishing and the Association of Research Libraries on November 10, 2010, provided an occasion to learn about current partnerships between librarians and publishers in an environment where traditional roles are changing and to explore new opportunities for cost-effective and innovative joint ventures.

| Digital Scholarship |

Digital Services Librarian at College of Charleston

The College of Charleston Library is recruiting a Digital Services Librarian. Salary range begins at $40,000.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

A member of the Library Systems Department, the Digital Services Librarian assists in the planning and implementation of the digital services at the College of Charleston Libraries. The Digital Services Librarian works closely with the Technical Services department to support and troubleshoot library services related to the following: ILS and catalog maintenance, electronic resource loading and management, remote access, OpenURL configuration, and resource sharing. The Digital Services Librarian is also responsible for maintaining and updating the College of Charleston Libraries' web site and serves as chair of the Web Committee. The Digital Services Librarian collaborates with the Lowcountry Digital Library staff to improve the user interface, test new delivery platforms, and assist with technical issues. The Digital Services Librarian actively participates in College-wide initiatives, committees, and governance, especially as they relate to institutional technology projects. The Digital Services Librarian reports to the Systems Librarian.

| Digital Scholarship |

Open Access in Southern European Countries

Francisca Abad et al. have self-archived Open Access in Southern European Countries in E-LIS.

Here's an excerpt:

In order to move towards common policies for open access to science, experts in each country were asked to provide reports on the situation of open access. We used a common template including three main sections: scientific journals (number, format, quality, subject specialization, type of publishers, type of access, etc.); institutional repositories and harvesters; and policies supporting open access. Common data sources were used as far as possible (Ulrich's directory, OpenDOAR, DOAJ, ROAR, etc.), and were complemented in most cases by directories and other national sources.

Preliminary versions of the national reports were submitted and discussed at a conference held in Granada in May 2010, and served as a starting point for drafting a declaration of principles (the Alhambra Declaration) that aims to foster open access and the involvement of the various actors of the scientific communication process.

The published document contains updated and revised versions of the national reports, along with general conclusions, the Alhambra Declaration, and several appendices which offer more detailed information on journals and repositories in each of the countries. Statistical data included in the reports and in the appendices were updated as of May 2010. As such, this is the temporal reference for tables and figures if no other date is indicated.

| Digital Scholarship |

Daily Tweets 2010-12-02

Web Systems Developer at Montana State Library

The Montana State Library is recruiting a Web Systems Developer. Salary: $48,880-$56,996.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Web Developer is the primary web programmer for the Montana Natural Resource Information System (NRIS), a highly dynamic and technology focused program of the Montana State Library. As a very early adopter of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the Internet, NRIS uses these tools to deliver valuable natural resource data to our patrons both locally and around the world. This position supports the agency’s information sharing mission through the efficient and responsible deployment of web applications and services.

| Digital Scholarship |

Public.Resource.Org Launches Yes We Scan

Public.Resource.Org, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, has launched its Yes We Scan campaign to digitize and make available 300 volumes of the First Series of the Federal Reporter.

Here's an excerpt:

Now, you too can help, by adopting one of the 300 volumes of the First Series of the Federal Reporter, which are all out of copyright. Your tax-deductible contribution of $1200 will pay to double-key 1,000 pages of Federal Appellate Opinions, and copies will be donated to the National Archives and the Government Printing Office.

Your name—and the link of your choice—will be inscribed on the Public Domain Wall of Fame and each case in your adopted volume will be a separate HTML file with a common footer

This volume of American Law was transcribed for use on the Internet through a contribution from [Your Name Here!!]

| Digital Scholarship |

"Selected Internet Resources on Digital Research Data Curation"

Brian Westra et al. have published "Selected Internet Resources on Digital Research Data Curation" in the latest issue of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

In order to present a webliography of reasonable scope and length, the authors focused on resources applicable to the broader topic of digital research data curation as they relate to the natural sciences. Materials primarily or solely devoted to medical informatics, social sciences, and the humanities were not included. However, it should be noted that a number of the resources presented here are also applicable to research data curation in disciplines other than the sciences—for example, data repository software may be as useful to the social scientist as it is to a researcher in ecology. Additional scope specificity, when necessary, is provided in respective section listings below.

| Digital Scholarship |

Presentations from the 2010 Digital Library Federation Fall Forum

Presentations from the 2010 Digital Library Federation Fall Forum are now available.

Here's the major presentations:

| Digital Scholarship |