Month: May 2012

Delivering Web to Mobile

JISC has released Delivering Web to Mobile.

Here's an excerpt:

This report looks at the growth of mobile, the state of the Web and gives an overview of approaches to delivering content and services optimised for the mobile context. This includes approaches to Web design for responsive sites, leveraging access to device functions and capabilities and the use of Web technologies to build mobile applications.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010: "This bibliography portal demonstrates that citation lists continue to play a role in research, in spite of the availability of powerful Web and digital library search engines and the near-extinction of print bibliography publishing. Summing Up: Recommended." — J. A. Buczynski, Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries 45, no. 1 (1997): 58. | Digital Scholarship |

Head, University Archives and Co-Director, University Digital Conservancy at University of Minnesota Libraries

The University of Minnesota Libraries are recruiting a Head, University Archives and Co-Director, University Digital Conservancy.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University Archivist has responsibility by University Regents' policy to collect and preserve the record of University activity. . . .

The UDC serves as the institutional digital repository and as a repository for key subject collections. Key responsibilities of the position include engaging with faculty and graduate students as partners in integrating special collections and archival research and methods into the curriculum; actively seeking administrative, college and departmental, and faculty records; developing policies and tools for UDC ingest and setting long-term goals and priorities for preservation and access to digital content; and supervising staff and students. The successful candidate will be deeply engaged in achieving department goals and furthering Libraries' strategic directions; and will contribute to the profession through scholarship and service while working toward continuous appointment.

| Digital Scholarship |

Public Domain: Communia Final Report

The Communia has released the Communia Final Report.

Here's an excerpt:

This Public[3] Report is the outcome of the work of the COMMUNIA Network on the Digital Public Domain (hereinafter "COMMUNIA"). This Report was undertaken to (i) review the activities of COMMUNIA; (ii) investigate the state of the digital public domain in Europe; and (iii) recommend policy strategies for enhancing a healthy public domain and making digital content in Europe more accessible and usable.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog | Digital Scholarship |

Current News: Twitter Updates for 5/9/12

| Digital Scholarship |

Digital Assets Manager at Missouri History Museum

The Missouri History Museum is recruiting a Digital Assets Manager.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Digital Asset Manager is directly responsible for the evaluation, selection, implementation, and management of a digital asset management system as well as the creation and management of the metadata, policies, and procedures related to digital assets. The ultimate goal of this position is to ensure that all records are able to be accessed by staff and the general public.

| Digital Scholarship |

"Orphan Works as Grist for the Data Mill"

Matthew Sag has self-archived "Orphan Works as Grist for the Data Mill" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The phenomenon of library digitization in general, and the digitization of so-called "orphan works" in particular, raises many important copyright law questions. However, as this article explains, correctly understood, there is no orphan works problem for certain kinds of library digitization. . . .

The nonexpressive use of copyrighted works has tremendous potential social value: it makes search engines possible, it provides an important data source for research in computational linguistics, automated translation and natural language processing. And increasingly, the macro-analysis of text is being used in fields such as the study of literature itself. So long as digitization is confined to data processing applications that do not result in infringing expressive or consumptive uses of individual works, there is no orphan works problem because the exclusive rights of the copyright owner are limited to the expressive elements of their works and the expressive uses of their works.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Integrated Library Management Systems Manager at Ohio State University Libraries

The Ohio State University Libraries are recruiting an Integrated Library Management Systems Manager.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The ILMS Manager leads the ILMS Support Team, a service-oriented, team-based unit of the OSU Libraries (OSUL) IT Division. The ILMS Support Team is responsible for providing overall leadership, development, and management for the Libraries' integrated library management system, and associated products including the III WebPAC and OCLC's WorldCat Local@OSU. (The Libraries currently uses the Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (III) Millennium system and will migrate to the III Sierra system in late 2012.) The ILMS Manager reports to the Associate Director for Information Technology and supervises the Catalog Services & Public Services Systems Coordinator.

| Digital Scholarship |

Open Annotation Core Data Model

The Open Annotation Collaboration has released the draft "Open Annotation Core Data Model."

Here's an excerpt:

The Open Annotation Core Data Model specifies an interoperable framework for creating associations between related resources, annotations, using a methodology which conforms to the Architecture of the World Wide Web. Open Annotations can easily be shared between platforms, with sufficient richness of expression to satisfy complex requirements while remaining simple enough to also allow for the most common use cases, such as attaching a piece of text to a single web resource.

An Annotation is considered to be a set of connected resources, including a body and target, and conveys that the body is somehow about the target. The full model supports additional functionality, enabling semantic tagging, embedding content, selecting segments of resources, choosing the appropriate representation of a resource and providing styling hints for consuming clients.

See also the draft “Open Annotation Extension Specification.”

| Research Data Curation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

TACC Launches University of Texas Data Repository with Six Petabytes of Data Storage

The Texas Advanced Computing Center has launched the University of Texas Data Repository.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The much-anticipated University of Texas Data Repository (UTDR) named “Corral” is available to researchers at all 15 University of Texas System institutions, the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin announced today.

The data repository is part of the overall University of Texas Research Cyberinfrastructure (UTRC) project, a $23 million initiative announced in December 2010 to enable world-class research and foster stronger collaborations among researchers in Texas and around the world. The UTRC project ensures that researchers across Texas can effectively use advanced computing capabilities, including high-performance computing for simulation and analysis, high-capacity storage for large digital data collections, and high-bandwidth networking connecting institutions and resources.

As one of the largest online storage systems available to academic researchers in the United States, Corral provides six petabytes of data, which is equal to 50 times the size of the entire collection of DVDs at Netflix. University of Texas System researchers whose data needs outstrip their local capacity are invited to apply for allocations on Corral using the Allocations Request System available through the TACC User Portal.

| Research Data Curation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Director of Digital Initiatives and Technology Strategy at Pepperdine University Libraries

The Pepperdine University Libraries are recruiting a Director of Digital Initiatives and Technology Strategy.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Dean of Libraries, this senior administrative position is responsible for all activities related to digital library infrastructure development and content delivery, including the design and deployment and maintenance of digital repository and publishing platforms and related tool sets, representations of digital content, digital conversion, interoperability of digital platforms, archiving of datasets, and integration of digital resources into learning management systems and into classrooms.

| Digital Scholarship |

Copyright: "IP Watchlist 2011"

Consumers International has released the "IP Watchlist 2011" .

Here's an excerpt:

The Consumers International (CI) IP Watchlist, now in its third year, assesses the fairness of the world's intellectual property (IP) laws and enforcement practices from an important yet under-represented perspective: that of the ordinary consumer. Using a detailed checklist of over 50 criteria, applied to over 20 countries, the Watchlist provides a snapshot of how a number of the world's major IP regimes support, or fail to support, consumers' access to educational, cultural and scientific knowledge.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog | Digital Scholarship |

Persistent Identifiers Interoperability Framework

The Alliance for Permanent Access to the Records of Science Network has released Persistent Identifiers Interoperability Framework.

Here's an excerpt:

This work aims to investigate the interoperability issues between PIs [Persistent Identifiers] and proposes a general Interoperability Framework (IF) as a starting point to design new solutions to support interoperability. . . .

Some notable solutions for identifying digital resources have been proposed in different domains like Libraries, Publishers, Science, and several standards are currently at a mature stage of development (e.g. DOI, Handle, NBN, ARK, Scopus Id, ResearcherId, VIAF, etc.) , but significant weak points still remain making persistent identification a complex problem which involves a large number of stakeholders who sometimes have opposing views on many of the issues that need to be addressed.

Since the PI field is a fragmentary landscape and a unique global identification solution is far from being adopted, the challenge is to establish an IF among the current PI solutions to enable the persistent access, reuse and exchange of information through the use of existing identifiers and associated resources across different systems, locations and services.

To tackle this challenge this work provides a Reference Model to support PI Domains (PID) in providing their PI-resource associations with a shared semantic model, enabling new services to discover new relationships and make inferences on digital resources.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Open Access: Interagency Public Access Coordination: A Report to Congress on the Coordination of Policies Related to the Dissemination and Long-Term Stewardship of the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research

The Executive Office of the President's National Science and Technology Council has released Interagency Public Access Coordination: A Report to Congress on the Coordination of Policies Related to the Dissemination and Long-Term Stewardship of the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research.

Here's an excerpt:

To summarize, the Administration been working on issues related to the management of and access to the results of federally funded scientific research. In accordance with ACRA, OSTP established the Task Force on Public Access to Scholarly Publications and re-chartered the Interagency Working Group on Digital Data under the NSTC CoS. Those groups are evaluating objectives for increasing access to and improving the management of the results of federally funded scientific research.

Three RFI's have been issued, two on public access to scholarly publications and one on the management of digital data. Responses to those RFIs are being analyzed now, but initial results show strong public support for increasing access to scholarly publications describing the results of federally funded research and for improving scientific data management and access. The NSTC groups are continuing to consider the public comments received from the RFIs and how they should be incorporated into the objectives required by ACRA. Once they have finalized their decisions, the objectives of all three groups will be combined and presented to the CoS. There, agency leadership will consider implementation options. In addition, the CoS will help prioritize the remaining responsibilities as described in ACRA Section 103 including further public consultation and international outreach necessary for developing agency-specific policies.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This bibliography is recommended for everyone interested in open access publishing." — M. Blobaum, Journal of the Medical Library Association 100, no. 1 (2012): 73. | Digital Scholarship |

"Scientific Utopia: I. Opening Scientific Communication"

Brian A. Nosek and Yoav Bar-Anan have self-archived "Scientific Utopia: I. Opening Scientific Communication" in arXiv.org.

Here's an excerpt:

Existing norms for scientific communication are rooted in anachronistic practices of bygone eras, making them needlessly inefficient. We outline a path that moves away from the existing model of scientific communication to improve the efficiency in meeting the purpose of public science—knowledge accumulation. We call for six changes: (1) full embrace of digital communication, (2) open access to all published research, (3) disentangling publication from evaluation, (4) breaking the "one article, one journal" model with a grading system for evaluation and diversified dissemination outlets, (5) publishing peer review, and, (6) allowing open, continuous peer review. We address conceptual and practical barriers to change, and provide examples showing how the suggested practices are being used already. The critical barriers to change are not technical or financial; they are social. While scientists guard the status quo, they also have the power to change it.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010: "SEP [Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography] is compiled with utter professionalism. It reminds me of the work of the best artisans who know not only every item that leaves their workshops, but each component used to create them—providing the ideal quality control." — Péter Jacsó ONLINE 27, no. 3 (2003): 73-76. | Digital Scholarship |

Current News: Twitter Updates for 5/7/12

| Digital Scholarship |

Digital Programs Archivist at University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center

The University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center is recruiting a Digital Programs Archivist.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Digital Programs Archivist will continue to evolve the AHC's electronic records program by developing, implementing, and executing processes enabling effective acquisition, appraisal, ingest, preservation, and management of born-digital archival collections. This position works closely with a variety of stakeholders, including Libraries, IT, donors, and archivists in other AHC departments (including University Archives). The Digital Programs Archivist will manage a very active mass digitization program, and provide leadership in the creation and delivery of digital content to meet the needs of the AHC's patrons and preservation priorities. This includes digitization of text, image, audio, and video formats.

| Digital Scholarship |

"Abandoning the Orphans: An Open Access Approach to Hostage Works"

Lydia Pallas Loren has self-archived "Abandoning the Orphans: An Open Access Approach to Hostage Works" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Metaphors shape how we approach challenging legal issues. Reorienting the metaphor from "orphans" to "hostages" illuminates the real problem with copyright owners that cannot be located: lock-up of expressive works. Solving the hostage work problem requires creating protections for those who act as "special forces" and free the hostages. If an entity is not negligent in gathering and disclosing information that identifies a work as a "hostage work" and that entity provides an open access copy of the work together with the hostage freeing information, then that entity should be immune from monetary liability for infringement. Copyright owners should retain the ability to obtain injunctive relief to either correct inaccurate status or owner information, or obtain removal of the digital copy of the work from an open access database. This injunctive power would translate into an enforceable obligation of open access providers to update inaccurate information and remove works inappropriately designated as hostage works. For derivative work creators, courts should freely apply equitable doctrines to prevent inappropriate injunctive relief and limit the ability of later re-surfacing copyright owners to sue derivative work creators.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

MacKenzie Smith Named as University Librarian at UC Davis Library

MacKenzie Smith has been named as the new University Librarian at the University of California, Davis Library.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

MacKenzie Smith, an academic research library leader specializing in information technology and digital knowledge management, has been chosen to lead the University Library at the University of California, Davis.

She will officially assume her new post as university librarian on June 1.

"I am extremely pleased that Ms. Smith will be joining us shortly," said Ralph Hexter, provost and executive vice chancellor at UC Davis."Her expertise and vision will help us transform the library into an academic hub that promotes the innovative use of digital information resources in discovery and learning for the future." The university librarian reports to the provost. . . .

Smith, who now lives in Berkeley, has helped lead technology strategy for libraries at MIT and Harvard University. Most recently research director for MIT Libraries from 2011-2012, she led cutting-edge research projects in digital libraries and archives; Web applications for scholarly communication; and digital data curation in support of e-science.

As associate director for technology at the MIT Libraries from 2002 to 2011, Smith oversaw the libraries' technology operations and strategic planning. She led the development of an open source software platform for digital archives and created a digital library research program on applied technology for libraries and archives.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

Persistent Digital Archives and Library System: Final Project Report to the Library of Congress, April 19, 2012

The PeDALS project has released Persistent Digital Archives and Library System: Final Project Report to the Library of Congress, April 19, 2012 .

Here's an excerpt:

The Persistent Digital Archives and Library System (PeDALS) research project was funded by the Library of Congress' National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program as part of its Preserving State Government Information initiative. The project explored the development of a curatorial rationale to support an automated workflow to process collections of digital publications and records, specifically using Microsoft BizTalk Server middleware to manage the collections and rules-based processes for their ingest. PeDALS also examined the practicality of Stanford University's LOCKSS, or Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe, storage networks as an effective and inexpensive method of distributed preservation. In addition to those technical goals, PeDALS worked at building a community of shared practice among its partner states in the hopes that shared software development and best practices would foster a system that could be applied to a variety of repositories.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Current News: Twitter Updates for 5/6/12

  • Judge to Decide Fate of Authors Guild Class Action against Google, http://bit.ly/IwybVZ
  • Public Access to Publicly-funded Research (David Willetts, UK Minister of State for Universities and Science), http://bit.ly/IwyCQe
  • Open, Free Access to Academic Research? This Will Be a Seismic Shift (David Willetts), http://bit.ly/JpQ3lx
  • Congress Unplugged! Set the Default to Open. (Heather Joseph, SPARC, Digital Audio), http://bit.ly/JHOVrp
  • Our Annotated HTML Video Player: Free and Open Source, http://bit.ly/IDClz9

| Digital Scholarship |

Metadata Coordinator at University of Houston Libraries

The University of Houston Libraries are recruiting a Metadata Coordinator.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Head of Metadata and Bibliographic Services, the successful candidate will work closely with the Digital Services and Special Collections Departments to provide leadership and support in metadata creation, maintenance and enhancement for digital resources. This incumbent will also develop approaches to ensure the quality and consistency of metadata in core library systems; translate metadata among different formats and integrate metadata from a variety of sources; be responsible for exploring, evaluating and recommending alternative metadata and emerging technologies that can be applied in the libraries' broader discovery environment; participate in reviewing, developing and implementing metadata application policies and procedures; lead projects, workflow design and training involving metadata and use of metadata in digital repositories and other discovery systems; assist in loading or batch loading of electronic theses and dissertations into the library catalog; keep current with trends, innovations and best practices affecting library metadata and digital collections.

| Digital Scholarship |

"Data Citation and Publication by NERC’s Environmental Data Centres"

Sarah Callaghan, Roy Lowry, and David Walton have published "Data Citation and Publication by NERC's Environmental Data Centres" in the latest issue of Ariadne.

Here's an excerpt:

NERC and their environmental data centres want to ensure that the archived datasets are first-class scientific objects, and that the researchers responsible for creating them receive appropriate recognition for their efforts. NERC have set up the Science Information Strategy (SIS) to provide the framework for NERC to work more closely and effectively with its scientific communities in delivering data and information management services. . . .

The NERC SIS Data Citation and Publication Project aims to create a way of promoting access to data, while simultaneously providing the data creators with full academic credit for their efforts. We are therefore developing a mechanism for the formal citation of datasets held in the NERC data centres, and are working with academic journal publishers to develop a method for the peer review and formal publication of datasets.

| Research Data Curation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Academic Technology and Rich Media Librarian at North Carolina State University Libraries

The North Carolina State University Libraries are recruiting an Academic Technology and Rich Media Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The NCSU Libraries invites applications and nominations for the position of Academic Technology and Rich Media Librarian to join the Libraries' Information Technology Department (21 staff plus student assistants). The NCSU Libraries is working to make available advanced technologies that support university teaching and research. With the opening of the James B. Hunt Jr. Library, the IT department will provide technical and infrastructure support for new advanced technology spaces including the Creativity Studio, the Teaching and Visualization Lab, the Gaming Lab, the Immersion Theater, and media production studios. Major technologies include large-scale display, visualization, ultra-HD imagery, multi-touch computing, gaming, streaming media, classroom capture, communication technologies, collaborative software, and cloud computing.

| Digital Scholarship |

"REDDNET and Digital Preservation in the Open Cloud: Research at Texas Tech University Libraries on Long-Term Archival Storage"

James Brewer, Tracy Popp, and Joy Perrin have published "REDDNET and Digital Preservation in the Open Cloud: Research at Texas Tech University Libraries on Long-Term Archival Storage" in the latest issue of the Journal of Digital Information.

Here's an excerpt:

In open cloud systems users can develop their own software and data management, control access, and purchase their own hardware while running securely in the cloud environment. . . . It is in this context that REDDnet (Research and Education Data Depot network) is presented as the place where the Texas Tech University (TTU) Libraries have been conducting research on long-term digital archival storage. The REDDnet network by year's end will be at 1.2 petabytes (PB) with an additional 1.4 PB for a related project. . . additionally there are over 200 TB of tape storage. These numbers exclude any disk space which TTU will be purchasing during the year. National Science Foundation (NSF) funding covering REDDnet and CMS-HI was in excess of $850,000 with $850,000 earmarked toward REDDnet. In the terminology we used above, REDDnet is an open cloud system that invited TTU Libraries to participate. This means that we run software which fits the REDDnet structure. We are beginning to complete the final design of our system, and starting to move into the first stages of construction. And we have made a decision to move forward and purchase one-half petabyte of disk storage in the initial phase. The concerns, deliberations and testing are presented here along with our initial approach.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010: "If you're looking for a reading list that will keep you busy from now until the end of time, this is your one-stop shop for all things digital preservation." — "Digital Preservation Reading List," Preservation Services at Dartmouth College weblog, February 21, 2012. | Digital Scholarship |

Head, Libraries Systems at University of Manitoba Libraries

The University of Manitoba Libraries are recruiting a Head, Libraries Systems.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Responsible for the installation, operation and maintenance of the Libraries' computer systems including the local integrated library system (ILS), the discovery layer, the inter-library loan system, the electronic reserves system, the Libraries' authentication systems, the subject guides system, the OpenURL resolver, the electronic resources management system and the virtual reference system.

| Digital Scholarship |