Month: January 2012

Senior Product Analyst, OCLC

OCLC is recruiting a Senior Product Analyst.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Senior Product Analyst provides a high level of support and extensive experience in all aspects of the product planning and development process. This role provides detailed information utilized in strategic decision making regarding product development, customer support, positioning, and release. The Senior Product Analyst must be able to successfully collaborate with team members in Sales, Marketing and Development to ensure the effective and efficient execution of product plans. The Senior Product Analyst needs a broad knowledge of systems development, product/project management processes, business analysis, and the ability to network across the OCLC's product and development organizations. The Senior Product Analyst will be overseeing development and support for an e-journal and ebook platform that serves as a core component of OCLC's data architecture.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Part 2: Survey Analysis

OCLC Research has released Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Part 2: Survey Analysis.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In the first report, Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Part 1: Site Reviews, the 21-member RLG Partners Social Metadata Working Group reviewed 76 sites relevant to libraries, archives, and museums that supported such social media features as tagging, comments, reviews, images, videos, ratings, recommendations, lists, links to related articles, etc. In this second report, we analyzed the results from a survey of site managers conducted in October-November 2009. Forty percent of the responses came from outside the United States. The survey focused on the motivations for creating a site, moderation policies, staffing and site management, technologies used, and criteria for assessing success. In our upcoming third report, we provide recommendations on social metadata features most relevant to libraries, archives, and museums as well as the factors contributing to success.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

Department Head, Digital Library Services, Georgia State University Library

The Georgia State University Library is recruiting a Department Head, Digital Library Services.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The department head sets direction for the library's technology environment and services through strategic planning, resource allocation and management, assessment, and policy development. S/he encourages creativity in digital and information technology initiatives that respond to and anticipate user needs and ensures that the library's technology programs, services, and infrastructure are responsive to the academic needs of the Georgia State University community.

| E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography, Version 6

Digital Scholarship has released the Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography, Version 6. It includes selected English-language articles, books, conference papers, technical reports, unpublished e-prints and other scholarly textual sources that are useful in understanding electronic theses and dissertations. Most sources have been published from 2000 through 2011; however, a limited number of earlier key sources are also included. The bibliography includes links to freely available versions of included works. It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

ARL, Johns Hopkins University Libraries, and SPARC Reply to White House RFI on Public Access to Digital Data

The Association of Research Libraries, the Johns Hopkins University Libraries, and SPARC have replied to the White House's Request for Information: Public Access to Digital Data Resulting from Federally Funded Scientific Research.

Here's an excerpt:

Question 1

What specific Federal policies would encourage public access to and the preservation of broadly valuable digital data resulting from federally funded scientific research, to grow the U.S. economy and improve the productivity of the American scientific enterprise?

Comment 1

The most effective Federal policies in this regard would mandate digital data deposit into publicly accessible repositories. In the absence of such policies, there are already cases of digital data which have been lost or remain inaccessible or accessible only with high barriers. While laudable efforts such as the NSF and NIH data management plans move the community in the direction of supporting U.S. economic growth and productivity, the reality is that many researchers continue to strictly interpret the requirement as sharing data based on specific requests or personal provisions. The Federal policy framework should move public access to digital data away from the current idiosyncratic environment to a systematic approach that lowers barriers to data access, discovery, sharing and re-use.

Instead of relying upon individual investigators to interpret and support public access through a point to point network (e.g., researcher provides digital data upon request), Federal policies should ensure that public access can occur through well managed, sustained, preservation archives that enable a legally and policy compliant peer to peer model for sharing. A useful metric for full-fledged public access to digital data is whether someone (or some machine) other than the original data producer can discover, access, interpret and use the digital data without contacting the original data producer.

See also Columbia University Libraries/Information Services' reply and the Creative Commons' reply.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Current News: Twitter Updates for 1/16/12

| Digital Scholarship |

Digital Projects Manager/Processing Archivist at Boston University’s School of Theology Library

Boston University's School of Theology Library is recruiting a Digital Projects Manager/Processing Archivist. Required degree: "Master's Degree, preferably in Library Science or Archives."

Here's an excerpt from the ad (tracking code: 7254/A0612):

Responsible for managing and developing the digital collections and processing and maintenance of archival and special collections held by the School of Theology (STH) Library. Take the lead in the development of digitization initiatives and manage the library’s digital collections. Work with the Head Librarian to develop a comprehensive digitization plan for the STH Library. Liaise with School of Theology faculty to identify and develop digital projects relating to faculty research and teaching. Identify and select significant items from the library’s archival collections for digitization. Oversee the preparation of materials for digitization, including the creation of metadata and obtaining copyright permissions. Manage student and/or paraprofessional staff involved in digitization.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

Three New Documents about Creative Commons Licenses for Data

The Creative Commons has released three new documents about the use of its licenses for data: "Data," "Data and CC Licenses," and "CC0 Use for Data."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement by Sarah Hinchliff Pearson:

We have done a lot of thinking about data in the past year. As a result, we have recently published a set of detailed FAQs designed to help explain how CC licenses work with data and databases.

These FAQs are intended to:

  1. alert CC licensors that some uses of their data and databases may not trigger the license conditions,
  2. reiterate to licensees that CC licenses do not restrict them from doing anything they are otherwise permitted to do under the law, and
  3. clear up confusion about how the version 3.0 CC licenses treat sui generis database rights.

| Digital Scholarship's Weblogs and Tweets | Digital Scholarship |

Head of Library Systems at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries are recruiting a Head of Library Systems. Required degree: "ALA accredited master's degree in library or information science, or an advanced degree in a related field."

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Head of Library Systems is responsible for the management of the Library Systems Department, which includes planning, budgeting, and setting policy for information resources in the University Library and for some operations of the Health Sciences Library. The Head of Library Systems directly supervises unit managers responsible for desktop support, application development, and infrastructure architecture and administration and supports staff in the performance of their duties. The individual in this position leads a service-oriented program that researches, develops, and supports advanced information systems for the Library, and ensures excellent operational management of information systems and support of end users. The Head of Library Systems provides leadership in coordinating and defining system requirements and tasks for library-wide projects and initiatives.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

"From Stacks to the Web: The Transformation of Academic Library Collecting"

College & Research Libraries has released a preprint of "From Stacks to the Web: The Transformation of Academic Library Collecting" by David W. Lewis.

Here's an excerpt:

The existence of a ubiquitous and cheap worldwide communication’s network that increasingly makes documents easily and freely available will require a transformation of academic library collecting practice. It will be driven by a number of specific developments including: the digitization of content; the development of print repositories; the development of e-readers and print-on-demand publishing; the growth of open access; challenges to establish academic publishing organizations; and the growth of new forms of scholarship based on openness and social productivity. If academic libraries are to be successful, they will need to: deconstruct legacy print collections; move from item-by-item book selection to purchase-on-demand and subscriptions; manage the transition to open access journals; focus on curating unique items; and develop new mechanisms for funding national infrastructure.

| E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Research Works Act (H.R. 3699) Threatens Open Access to Publicly Funded Research

Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) have introduced the Research Works Act (H.R. 3699), which is aimed at eliminating federal open access policies such as the NIH Public Access Policy. The key passage of the bill states:

No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that—

  1. causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or
  2. requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work.

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has issued a call to action and a draft letter that can be modified and sent to legislators. Here's an excerpt from the call:

Supporters of public access need to speak out against this proposed legislation. We strongly urge you to contact these offices to express your opposition TODAY, or as soon as possible. To support you, draft letter text is available.

Also, don’t miss a key opportunity to express support for the expansion of the NIH public-access policy to other federal science and technology agencies. There are six days left to respond to the White House requests for information (RFI) on public access to scholarly publications and data (http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action/action_access/11-1117.shtml).

Read more about it at "Publishers Applaud 'Research Works Act,' Bipartisan Legislation to End Government Mandates on Private-Sector Scholarly Publishing," "Research Works Act H.R.3699: The Private Publishing Tail Trying to Wag the Public Research Dog, Yet Again," and "Trying to Roll Back the Clock on Open Access: Research Works Act Introduced."

[Regular DigitalKoans posts resume on 1/17/12.]

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |