"Sustainable Free: Lessons Learned from the Launch of a Free Service Supporting Publishing in Art History"

James Shulman has published "Sustainable Free: Lessons Learned from the Launch of a Free Service Supporting Publishing in Art History" in LIBER Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

Hilary Ballon and Mariet Westermann, writing about the struggles of publishing in art history noted that "It is a paradox of the digital revolution that it has never been easier to produce and circulate a reproductive image, and never harder to publish one." If publishing in general is in crisis because of the seismic re-ordering in a digital world, the field of art history is the extreme tail of the spectrum; rights holders are accustomed to licensing image content for limited edition print runs. Given this particularly challenging corner of the publishing work, a project initiated by the Metropolitan Museum offers some hope of a collaborative way forward. What sociological re-engineering enabled progress on this problem? It is possible that there are other lessons here too, that might throw at least streaks of light on other process re-engineering provoked by digital innovation in publishing?

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Director of the Copyright Office at University of Alberta

The University of Alberta is recruiting a Director of the Copyright Office.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting directly to the Vice-Provost (Learning Services) and Chief Librarian, the Director of the Copyright Office will participate in the strategic development of Learning Services which includes the Libraries, Museums and Collections, Bookstore, University Press, and Technology Training Centre, as well as the Copyright Office. The successful candidate will establish mechanisms to assist the university community in complying with copyright laws and best practices in their research and publishing, teaching and use of resources and services.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Library Jobs | Library IT Jobs | Sitemap

"The Social, Political and Legal Aspects of Text and Data Mining (TDM)"

Michelle Brook, Peter Murray-Rust, and Charles Oppenheim have published "The Social, Political and Legal Aspects of Text and Data Mining (TDM)" in D-Lib Magazine.

Here's an excerpt:

The ideas of textual or data mining (TDM) and subsequent analysis go back hundreds if not thousands of years. Originally carried out manually, textual and data analysis has long been a tool which has enabled new insights to be drawn from text corpora. However, for the potential benefits of TDM to be unlocked, a number of non-technological barriers need to be overcome. These include legal uncertainty resulting from complicated copyright, database rights and licensing, the fact that some publishers are not currently embracing the opportunities TDM offers the academic community, and a lack of awareness of TDM among many academics, alongside a skills gap.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Copyright Incentives in the GSU Appeals Court Ruling"

Kevin L. Smith has published "Copyright Incentives in the GSU Appeals Court Ruling" in Library Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

The word "incentive" appears ten times in the ruling issued last month by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in the Georgia State University (GSU) copyright infringement case, but it is slightly unclear in this rather odd opinion just who is the object of the incentive created by copyright.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

System Administrator at University at Albany

The University at Albany is recruiting a System Administrator.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University at Albany Libraries seek to hire an experienced, customer service-oriented Windows and Apple System Administrator. Reporting to the Head of Library Systems, the successful candidate will oversee the installation, administration, development and support of Apple and Windows OS-related servers and applications in the University Libraries. He/she provides training and assistance in individual and group settings.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Library Jobs | Library IT Jobs | Sitemap

UC Shared Print RoadMap for 2014-2018: Recommended Activities to Pursue

The California Digital Library has released UC Shared Print RoadMap for 2014-2018: Recommended Activities to Pursue.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Key projects and policies that our libraries will pursue and explore include:

  • Coordinated print serials archiving to UCs two Regional Library Facilities and a deduplication service
  • A retrospective shared print monographs program
  • Coordinated digitization and print retention of State Documents
  • Disclosure of UC shared print collections in union catalogs such as OCLC WorldCat and PAPR using the OCLC Shared Print Metadata Guidelines
  • Revision of UC Libraries' "persistence policy" to support extramural partnerships
  • Assessing existing shared print policies and projects and making adjustments to them

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Digital Curation News (11/13/2014) #digitalpreservation

Digital Scholarship | Digital Curation News | Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 4

Digital Programs Associate at Cornell University

Cornell University is recruiting a Digital Programs Associate.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Under the direction of the Digital Scholarship Librarian, the Digital Programs Associate will work with a large network of stakeholders across the Cornell University community to successfully manage and execute time-sensitive deliverables for a wide range of exciting digital programs. The successful candidate will be self-directed, enjoy working as a member of large, project-specific teams in a positive and professional manner.

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Open Science Commons

The European Grid Infrastructure has released Open Science Commons.

Here's an excerpt:

With this paper, the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) proposes the Open Science Commons as a new approach to digital research, tackling policy challenges and embracing open science as a new paradigm for knowledge creation and collaboration. EGI invites organisations from the research landscape to join it in this journey to develop these concepts, and through them to advance the implementation of the European Research Area.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

IT Programmer at University of North Texas

The University of North Texas is recruiting a IT Programmer .

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Working with the Django Web framework and other open source components, you will contribute to the feature development and upkeep of the content delivery system in use for The Portal to Texas History (http://texashistory.unt.edu/) and related products. In addition, you will provide programming support for our metadata creation and editing systems. You will work collaboratively with other programmers and technologists in the UNT Libraries to address software problems and to add and customize features for our products.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Library Jobs | Library IT Jobs | Sitemap

Public Perceptions of Privacy and Security in the Post-Snowden Era

The Pew Research Center has released Public Perceptions of Privacy and Security in the Post-Snowden Era.

Here's an excerpt:

Privacy evokes a constellation of concepts for Americans-some of them tied to traditional notions of civil liberties and some of them driven by concerns about the surveillance of digital communications and the coming era of "big data." While Americans' associations with the topic of privacy are varied, the majority of adults in a new survey by the Pew Research Center feel that their privacy is being challenged along such core dimensions as the security of their personal information and their ability to retain confidentiality.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Digital Curation News (11/12/2014) #digitalpreservation

Digital Scholarship | Digital Curation News | Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 4

Case Study of a Book Published under a Creative Commons License

Here's a brief case study of how one book under a Creative Commons license evolved and was accessed.

In 2005, the Association of Research Libraries published my book, the Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License. With ARL's agreement, I made an open access PDF available on Digital Scholarship.

In 2006, I converted the book into an open access XHTML website and published the Open Access Bibliography Author Index and the Open Access Bibliography Title Index.

In 2008, I worked with Open Access Directory staff to convert it to wiki format and publish it as the basis for the Bibliography of Open Access.

In 2010, I published Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography as an open access PDF file, an open access XHTML website, and a low-cost paperback. All versions of the bibliography were under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License. This derivative work was an updated version of the Open Access Bibliography that was more narrowly focused on scholarly treatments of open access.

Below are the Digital Scholarship use statistics for the two books as of October 31, 2014. In this analysis, only HTML files or PDF files are counted as "page views"; image files and other supporting website files are excluded. This analysis also excludes spider use.

  • Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals: over 355,000 page views.
  • Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: over 152,000 page views.

That's a total of over 507,000 page views. For the measured time period, about 7.9% of all file requests to Digital Scholarship failed. Consequently, I'll eliminate 7.9% of the above page views and estimate that there were over 466,000 successful page views. This tally does not include any access statistics from ARL or the OAD (nor does it include paperback sales).

If the multi-file HTML versions of the books are eliminated from consideration, the two books still had a total of over 173,000 PDF requests (excluding spider requests), adjusted to an estimated 159,000 plus successful PDF requests.

To put these use statistics in perspective, in 2005, Willis Regier (Director of the University of Illinois Press) estimated that the typical university press book sold between 400 to 800 copies.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Research Programmer for the Research Data Service at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign is recruiting a Research Programmer for the Research Data Service.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

As a member of the Repository Development Team and reporting to the Manager for Repository Development, the Research Programmer will provide design, programming, and technical support for all components of a large-scale, campus-wide, research data repository system.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Library Jobs | Library IT Jobs | Sitemap

Guideline for Preservation Planning: Procedural Model and Implementation (English Translation)

Nestor has released an English translation of version 2.0 of its Guideline for Preservation Planning: Procedural Model and Implementation.

Here's an excerpt:

The guideline for preservation planning describes a procedural model for the long-term archiving of digital objects and provides information on possible forms of implementation. It serves above all as a theoretical and practical implementation of the "Preservation Planning" functional unit of the OAIS reference model. Other key concepts introduced in the last 15 years have been included and brought together.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Data Curation Specialist at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign is recruiting a Data Curation Specialist.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Research Data Service seeks innovative, collaborative, and service-oriented professionals for two Data Curation Specialist positions. The candidates will advance the campus' Research Data Service program (http://researchdataservice.illinois.edu) by directly partnering with researchers and units to manage, curate, publish, and archive research data. This is an exciting opportunity to play a pivotal role in enabling world-class, data-driven research.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Library Jobs | Library IT Jobs | Sitemap

"Summary of SHARE Community Meeting, Fall 2014"

ARL has released "Summary of SHARE Community Meeting, Fall 2014."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

On October 13-14, 2014, members of the SHARE community gathered in Crystal City, Virginia, for their first face-to-face meeting. Attendees included more than half the members of the SHARE working groups (communications, technical, repository, and workflow), as well as SHARE Notification Service prototype participants and other stakeholders. The two-day meeting was intended to showcase progress on the Notification Service; identify challenges and opportunities related to the Notification Service prototype; explore future SHARE projects; and delve into ways in which the higher education community can play a proactive role in the stewardship of research. The meeting was convened with the generous support of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

President Obama Releases Net Neutrality Statement

President Obama has issued a statement about net neutrality.

Here's an excerpt:

The FCC is an independent agency, and ultimately this decision is theirs alone. I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online. The rules I am asking for are simple, common-sense steps that reflect the Internet you and I use every day, and that some ISPs already observe. These bright-line rules include:

  • No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player—not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP—gets a fair shot at your business.
  • No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others—through a process often called "throttling"—based on the type of service or your ISP's preferences.
  • Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs—the so-called "last mile"—is not the only place some sites might get special treatment. So, I am also asking the FCC to make full use of the transparency authorities the court recently upheld, and if necessary to apply net neutrality rules to points of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the Internet.
  • No paid prioritization. Simply put: No service should be stuck in a "slow lane" because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet's growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Digital Collections Archivist/Project Manager, Archives of African American Music and Culture at Indiana University Bloomington

Indiana University Bloomington is recruiting a Digital Collections Archivist/Project Manager, Archives of African American Music and Culture.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Working collaboratively with the Director and Head of Collections for the Archives of African American Music and Culture(AAAMC), the Digital Collections Archivist/Project Manager is responsible for planning, implementing and/or supervising digitization projects pertaining to legacy collections, and managing born-digital audio, video, image and text collections. This work involves appraisal and preparation of analog time-based media materials for reformatting; evaluating proposed acquisitions of born-digital collections and developing procedures for the migration, description, and management of files; managing access to digital/online collections; managing digital imaging projects; and assisting with and providing administrative support for AAAMC projects including publications, website development and maintenance, public programming and services.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Library Jobs | Library IT Jobs | Sitemap

"Curation Costs Exchange: Supporting Smarter Investments in Digital Curation"

Sarah Middleton has published "Curation Costs Exchange: Supporting Smarter Investments in Digital Curation" in EDUCAUSE Review.

Here's an excerpt:

A sizeable canon of research exists on cost modeling for digital curation. Although this research typically emphasizes the cost and complexity of digital curation and preservation, it is in many ways preliminary; the tools and methods developed have seen little uptake. Tools to manage and estimate costs, for example, have not been integrated into other digital curation processes or tools. The question is why? To answer it, a consortium of 13 European partners and cost modeling specialists launched the Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation (4C) project.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

HathiTrust Research Center Digital Humanities Specialist at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign is recruiting a HathiTrust Research Center Digital Humanities Specialist.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the English and Digital Humanities Librarian, the Visiting HTRC Digital Humanities Specialist will assist with the development of training and outreach initiatives in support of libraries who wish to start their own HTRC research services as well as researchers working with the Hathi Trust Research Center. Responsibilities will include planning, implementation and continuous design and development of training materials and educational workshops (both face-to-face and remote) and outreach activities in support of the usage of HTRC tools and datasets. The successful candidate will focus on supporting the development of HTRC research services at HathiTrust member institutions, and will collaborate with public services and data services librarians at HathiTrust member institutions on developing support services for digital humanities research with HTRC corpus.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Library Jobs | Library IT Jobs | Sitemap

Digital Curation News (11/10/2014) #digitalpreservation

Digital Scholarship | Digital Curation News | Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 4

Web Management Librarian at University of Houston-Downtown

The University of Houston-Downtown is recruiting a Web Management Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Web Management Librarian manages and develops the library's web site, in its various components, in a manner which allows students and faculty to obtain resources, be it information about the library's policies and services or research content. This position programs additional features and functions into the library's web site. Provides reference service to students, faculty, staff and the public.

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