Year: 2012

Modern Language Association Releases "Guidelines for Evaluating Work in Digital Humanities and Digital Media"

The Modern Language Association has released "Guidelines for Evaluating Work in Digital Humanities and Digital Media." This is the first update in 12 years.

Here's an excerpt:

The following guidelines are designed to help departments and faculty members implement effective evaluation procedures for hiring, reappointment, tenure, and promotion. They apply to scholars working with digital media as their subject matter and to those who use digital methods or whose work takes digital form.

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

Current News: Twitter Updates for 4/25/12

| Digital Scholarship |

Head, Information Technology Services at Linda Hall Library

The Linda Hall Library is recruiting a Head, Information Technology Services.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Director of Innovative Technologies and Library Resource Management, the Head of Information Technology Services will manage all aspects of library information technology as deployed or planned at the Library, including information technology systems, networked information delivery, and authentication systems; oversee hardware and software specific to the Library (including web services, financial management, telephone system, network security, and information access and production technologies); and supervise two full-time staff positions.

| Digital Scholarship |

Carol Tenopir Given Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award

Carol Tenopir has been given a Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The new SEC award program was created to honor professors from the SEC with outstanding records in teaching and scholarship. A faculty member in UT's College of Communication and Information, Tenopir is a Chancellor's Professor in the School of Information Sciences and director of the Center for Information and Communication Studies. She also serves as director of research for the college. . . .

Tenopir's teaching and research focus on information access and retrieval, electronic publishing, the information industry, online resources, and the impact of technology on reference librarians and scientists. She was one of the first scholars to study full-text journal article retrieval. She has a doctorate from the University of Illinois, a master's degree from California State University, and a bachelor's degree from Whittier College.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog | Digital Scholarship |

Digital Media Librarian at Florida International University Libraries

The Florida International University Libraries are recruiting a Digital Media Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Working within the department and with colleagues in Green Library (MMC) and Hubert Library (BBC), this librarian will have responsibility to:

  • Acquire, coordinate, and manage video, audio, and image collections.
  • Provide outreach services to the user community.
  • Participate in the university-wide development and implementation of policies related to digital rights management, copyright, and intellectual property standards.
  • Oversee the digitization of legacy media collections for both access and preservation.
  • Participate in the university's development and implementation of streaming media services.

| Digital Scholarship |

MIT Establishes Open Access Working Group in Response to Elsevier’s New Article Posting Policies

MIT has established an Open Access Working Group in response to Elsevier's new article posting policies.

Here's an excerpt from the "New Open Access Working Group Formed: Formulating Response to Elsevier's Policy Change":

The wording [of the Elsevier posting policy] is very unclear; no one is quite sure what a "systematic posting mandate" is. Duke, for one, who has an open access policy very much like ours, has concluded that such policies aren't "mandates" since they allow people to opt out, and hence that they are not covered by the new Elsevier posting policy. But it is clear that Elsevier is trying to do what it can to undermine such policies, and to confuse faculty about what they are and are not allowed to do. Certainly that is the interpretation of the Coalition for Open Access Repositories, who, in their response, "strongly oppose the changes made by Elsevier to its article posting policies" and "join the research community in condemning Elsevier for its recent business practices and lobbying that undermine policies and activities promoting open access to scholarly literature."

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

Internship at Digital Curation Services, University of Virginia Library

The University of Virginia Library's Digital Curation Services department is offering a summer internship opportunity.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University of Virginia Library, a leader in the development of digital library initiatives and infrastructure and recognized for the strength and variety of its special collections, is excited to offer an eight-week summer internship to provide a graduate student with practical experience in both areas.

One of the primary caretakers responsible for the transformation of the Library's rare and unique materials to digital formats, as well as the stewardship of these images, Digital Curation Services, comprised of eight staff members and a dozen student employees, oversees several grants, multiple donor projects, user requests from faculty and students, and its own library collection building practices. In order to increase and create greater awareness of our digitized holdings, DCS is seeking an energetic and savvy individual to assist with grant writing and social media marketing.

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

DuraSpace Gives Automatic DuraCloud Access to Internet2 Members

DuraSpace has given automatic DuraCloud access to Internet2 members.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

DuraSpace and Internet2 announced today at the Spring 2012 Internet2 Member Meeting that Internet2 members now have automatic access to DuraCloud [http://duracloud.org], a trusted service for archiving and managing content in the cloud featuring one-click creation of many copies, in multiple locations with several providers.

DuraCloud is the first Internet2 NET+ community-developed service aimed at meeting the preservation needs of Internet2 members. As the only managed software service that lets organizations archive content across more than one cloud provider, DuraCloud ensures that irreplaceable documents, imagery and videos are always accessible.

Here's a list of higher education Internet2 members.

Read more about it at "Internet2, 16 Major Technology Companies Announce Cloud Service Partnerships to Benefit the Nation's Universities."

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

Digital Services and Institutional Repository Librarian at Boston College Law Library

The Boston College Law Library is recruiting a Digital Services and Institutional Repository Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Associate Law Librarian for Access & Organization, the Digital Services and Institutional Repository Librarian leads the law school in the creation, delivery, preservation and on-going support of digital projects and collections in the broadest sense. This librarian will provide vision and guidance for the law school's digital repository that both responds to the law school community's needs and is aligned with collections and preservation priorities.

The Digital Services and Institutional Repository Librarian manages the law school's digital repository, a Digital Commons-based platform. The person in this position will continue the development of repository policies, procedures and services by staying current on developing technologies, standards, and practices in digital preservation. The Digital Services and Institutional Repository Librarian will engage with faculty and students to secure content and craft new partnerships. The Librarian will create promotional materials, actively advertise Digital Commons to the law school community and further develop the Digital Commons@Boston College Law School repository.

| Digital Scholarship |

Harvard Library Releases over 12 Million Bibliographic Records under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication

The Harvard Library has released over 12 million bibliographic records under the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication license.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Harvard Library announced it is making more than 12 million catalog records from Harvard’s 73 libraries publicly available.

The records contain bibliographic information about books, videos, audio recordings, images, manuscripts, maps, and more. The Harvard Library is making these records available in accordance with its Open Metadata Policy and under a Creative Commons 0 (CC0) public domain license. In addition, the Harvard Library announced its open distribution of metadata from its Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) scholarly article repository under a similar CC0 license.

"The Harvard Library is committed to collaboration and open access. We hope this contribution is one of many steps toward sharing the vital cultural knowledge held by libraries with all," said Mary Lee Kennedy, Senior Associate Provost for the Harvard Library.

| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals: Those wishing to learn more about the open access movement would be well served by turning to Bailey's Open Access Bibliography. . . .This title is a major contribution to the study of the open access movement in general, as well as its emergence in the early twenty-first century. — Mary Aycock, Library Resources and Technical Services 52, no. 3 (2008): 212-213. | Digital Scholarship |

Sr. Systems Programmer Analyst at Johns Hopkins University’s Sheridan Libraries

Johns Hopkins University's Sheridan Libraries are recuiting a Sr. Systems Programmer Analyst.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

  1. Engage in storage system analysis and planning and where appropriate communicate with software/hardware vendors.
  2. Coordinate/manage storage system implementation with vendors.
  3. Support software development and deployment for the JHU Data Management service;
  4. Upgrade operating system software; monitor/manage system performance, backups, and storage allocation;
  5. Integrate and monitor Data Management services across multiple platforms; Provide programming support for optimizing system performance;
  6. Develop procedures and systems to track volume and quality of data transfer, ingest, and integrity.

| Digital Scholarship |

Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Part 3: Recommendations and Readings

OCLC Research has released Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Part 3: Recommendations and Readings.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In the first report, the 21-member 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. The results from a survey of site managers conducted in October-November 2009 were included in the second report. Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives and Museums, Part 3: Recommendations and Readings provides recommendations on social metadata features most relevant to libraries, archives, and museums and an annotated reading list of the literature consulted during this research. Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives and Museums: Executive Summary provides a high-level overview of all three reports. The group's final recommendation is that it is riskier to do nothing and become irrelevant to our user communities than to start using social media features.

Also available: Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives and Museums: Executive Summary."

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Director, Integrated Library Systems at University of Maryland Libraries

The University of Maryland Libraries are recruiting a Director, Integrated Library Systems.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University of Maryland Libraries are seeking a Director for the Integrated Library Systems department, to provide leadership and support to the University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions (USMAI) Library Consortium in the integration, operation and maintenance efforts of the consortium's software and database applications. The ILS Director serves as a senior member of the College Park Libraries Information Technology Division (ITD), reporting to the Associate Dean of Information Technology at the University of Maryland Libraries. Reorganization within the division has created a structure in which the ILS Director will focus efforts to work closely and effectively with the leadership of the USMAI. The incumbent works directly with the Council of Library Directors (CLD) of USMAI and its administrative structure. He/she provides leadership and direct supervision to a professional technical staff. The ILS director will be responsible for developing and managing budgets for approved projects and initiatives of the USMAI. The director will also be responsible for developing annual budgets for the ILS team, for presenting that budget to the CLD and for executing budgets, once they are approved by the CLD.

| Digital Scholarship |

Harvard: "Faculty Advisory Council Memorandum on Journal Pricing: Major Periodical Subscriptions Cannot Be Sustained"

Harvard University's Faculty Advisory Council on the Library has issued "Faculty Advisory Council Memorandum on Journal Pricing: Major Periodical Subscriptions Cannot Be Sustained"

Here's an excerpt:

Since the Library now must change its subscriptions and since faculty and graduate students are chief users, please consider the following options open to faculty and students (F) and the Library (L), state other options you think viable, and communicate your views:

1. Make sure that all of your own papers are accessible by submitting them to DASH in accordance with the faculty-initiated open-access policies (F).

2. Consider submitting articles to open-access journals, or to ones that have reasonable, sustainable subscription costs; move prestige to open access (F).

3. If on the editorial board of a journal involved, determine if it can be published as open access material, or independently from publishers that practice pricing described above. If not, consider resigning (F).

4. Contact professional organizations to raise these issues (F).

5. Encourage professional associations to take control of scholarly literature in their field or shift the management of their e-journals to library-friendly organizations (F).

6. Encourage colleagues to consider and to discuss these or other options (F).

7. Sign contracts that unbundle subscriptions and concentrate on higher-use journals (L).

8. Move journals to a sustainable pay per use system, (L).

9. Insist on subscription contracts in which the terms can be made public (L).

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This work gives an outstanding overview of scholarship relating to the growing Open Access movement." — George Machovec, The Charleston Advisor 12, no. 2 (2010): 3. | Digital Scholarship |

Library Fellow for Scholarly Publishing and Licensing at MIT Libraries

The MIT Libraries are recruiting a Library Fellow for Scholarly Publishing and Licensing.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Program Manager, Office of Scholarly Publishing and Licensing (OSPL), this position will work with staff within the Libraries as well as the wider MIT community. Activities include:

  • Contribution to the work of the OSPL in the areas of copyright advocacy, intellectual property, open access, and rights retention;
  • Participation in building a repository collection of open access papers under the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy;
  • Examination and reporting on the effectiveness and impact of the Policy in the context of faculty publishing practices and publisher policies;
  • Contribution to implementing the next generation technical infrastructure for managing open access workflows.

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

"Citing Patterns in Open Access Journals: A Study of D-Lib Magazine"

Moin Ahmad and Mohammad Nazim have self-archived "Citing Patterns in Open Access Journals: A Study of D-Lib Magazine" in E-LIS.

Here's an excerpt:

The study was intended to investigate the pattern of citing references of research articles published in D-Lib Magazine during 2002-2008. A total of 4775 citations were collected from 295 articles published during the period. Articles classified as editorial materials, power point slides, book reviews, columns, reports and news items were excluded. References all articles were collected and Microsoft Office Excel 2007 was used for analyses. The aspects analysed focus on year-wise distribution of articles and cited references, types of documents cited, country and language of cited documents, file format and domain of cited references, etc.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Library Fellow for Digital Curation and Preservation at MIT Libraries

The MIT Libraries are recruiting a Library Fellow for Digital Curation and Preservation.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Head of Curation and Preservation Services, the activities of this position will span the full life-cycle of digital content management through collaboration with the Institute Archives and Special Collections, Specialized Content and Services, and structured interactions with other key units of the MIT Libraries. Activities include:

  • Engagement in a range of activities related to the long-term management of digital content types (e.g., video, web content, architectural or other design documentation, geospatial), including the development of principles of good practice, development of selection criteria, determination of archival storage rules, and definition of digital object packaging;
  • Contribution to monitoring prevailing community standards and practice for curation and preservation to enhance and extend life-cycle practice at the MIT Libraries;
  • Development of outreach materials and guides to raise awareness about the benefits and challenges of curation and preservation;
  • Initiation of an experiment to address a specific curation or preservation need.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

University of Illinois at Chicago Library Faculty Approve Open Access Policy

The University of Illinois at Chicago Library faculty have approved an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

"An open access policy ensures the broadest possible access to the fruits of research and scholarship, and important goal of academic research libraries. We hope this action by the Library faculty will serve as a model to other college faculties at UIC," said University Librarian Mary Case.

The policy requires Library faculty to grant UIC a non-exclusive license to make copies of their articles available publicly in the UIC's open access institutional repository, INDIGO. The policy also encourages faculty to retain the copyright to their work. . . .

Drafted by the Scholarly Communication Committee, the policy also exhibits flexibility toward faculty pursuing tenure. The committee, understanding the importance for such faculty to publish in peer-reviewed journals that can require an author to sign over copyright to publish, will grant case-by-case waivers. When a faculty member must sign over copyright, he or she is encouraged to deposit a draft of their article in the UIC open access institutional repository, noted [Sandra] De Groote.

| 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 |

Newspaper Digitization Project Librarian at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Library

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Library is recruiting a Newspaper Digitization Project Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Library seeks a knowledgeable, resourceful, and collaborative individual for the position of Newspaper Digitization Project Librarian. The Project Librarian will coordinate activities for the proposed, multi-year grant project, North Carolina Newspapers. In this project, the University Library will lead a collaborative effort with the North Carolina State Archives to digitize approximately 150 reels of microfilmed North Carolina newspapers in their entirety and make them available through the Library of Congress's Chronicling America website (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/).

Under the supervision of the grant's principal investigator at the University Library, the Project Librarian will coordinate the day-to-day operations of the North Carolina Newspapers project. The Newspaper Digitization Project Librarian will work to ensure microfilm selected for the project meets required technical specifications, and will prepare metadata on newspaper titles and reels selected for digitization. The Project Librarian will also create and maintain a database to track the movement of microfilm and digital files, and will oversee review of digital files received from digitization vendor.

| Digital Scholarship |

LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) Awarded Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant

The LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) program has been awarded a two-year grant by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"LOCKSS was originally developed to preserve academic e-journals exactly as they were presented on publisher websites," according to Victoria Reich, Executive Director and co-founder of the LOCKSS Program. "At that time, most content was static, but with new technologies such as Web 2.0 and HTML 5, published content is increasingly dynamic and interactive. This makes long-term preservation much more challenging."

The Mellon Foundation grant will enable LOCKSS to develop new techniques for collecting dynamic digital content from modern publishing platforms, and ensuring its long-term preservation. Incorporating these techniques into future versions of the award winning, open-source LOCKSS digital preservation software will benefit the entire academic community.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Applications Analyst at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Library

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Library is recruiting an Applications Analyst.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

As a member of the Web Unit in the University Library's Systems Department, the Applications Analyst provides applications programming, Web development expertise, and technical support for the UNC Library. The primary purpose of this position is to work with content creators to meaningfully express their content in a content management system (CMS). In doing so, they will support staff in the creation and organization of information to effectively present tools, services, and information on the web.

Additionally, the Applications Analyst will perform development work on new and existing projects using a variety of programming and markup languages and other tools, including XHTML, CSS, XML, Perl, PHP, Python, JavaScript, and RDBMSs.

| Digital Scholarship |

Current News: Twitter Updates for 4/18/2012

| Digital Scholarship |

Senior Web Development and User Experience Technician at Queen’s University Library

The Queen's University Library is recruiting a Senior Web Development and User Experience Technician.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Within the framework of established policies, regulations and procedures, in consultation with the Systems Coordinator, the Division Head of Discovery Systems and other Discovery Systems staff, the incumbent provides technical expertise and support for the Library's web presence. Duties include development of new web applications and maintenance and enhancement of existing web applications from simple to complex; ensuring the smooth operation of designated Library web software systems (eg. Drupal, WordPress, DokuWiki, and in-house web applications) with appropriate documentation, back-up, maintenance and upgrades; diagnosis, research and troubleshooting of problems with the Library's web presence, escalating issues as necessary, and documenting solutions; exploring new web software systems; providing user support for web systems; assisting in development of web analytics tracking reports and in implementing analytics and usability driven web page modifications; providing back-up for other senior Discovery Systems technicians in the areas of user support, database administration, and user support.

| Digital Scholarship |

Rice University Faculty Senate Approves Open Access Policy

According to a tweet today by Geneva Henry, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Scholarship at Rice University’s Fondren Library, Rice University’s Faculty Senate has approved an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt from the Rice University Open-Access Mandate Position Paper (2/12/2012):

To assist Rice in distributing the scholarly publications, as of the date of publication, each faculty member will make available an electronic copy of his or her final version of the publication at no charge to a representative designated by the Provost's Office in an appropriate format (such as PDF) specified by the Provost's Office. The Provost's Office will make the scholarly publication available to the public in an open-access repository, the Rice Digital Scholarship Archive. Upon request, the scholarly publication will not be made available to the public for an agreed upon embargo period.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This work gives an outstanding overview of scholarship relating to the growing Open Access movement." — George Machovec, The Charleston Advisor 12, no. 2 (2010): 3. | Digital Scholarship |