Category: ARL Libraries

ARL SPEC Kit: Social Software in Libraries

The Association of Research Libraries has published Social Software in Libraries, SPEC Kit 304. The table of contents and executive summary are freely available.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

This survey was distributed to the 123 ARL member libraries in February 2008. Sixty-four libraries completed the survey by the March 14 deadline for a response rate of 52%. All but three of the responding libraries report that their library staff uses social software (95%) and one of those three plans to begin using social software in the future.

Survey results indicate that the most broadly adopted social software—chat or instant messaging—was also the earliest implemented social software. While one respondent was using instant messaging for reference and another was using chat for internal communication as early as 1998, the earliest use of this type of social software dates back to 1993.

While chat and instant messaging have been in use for several years, use of other types of social software in libraries is very recent. Beyond isolated cases, a steadily increasing number of ARL member libraries began implementing social software in 2005, with the largest rate of adoption being in 2007.

ARL Revamps Scholarly Communication Resources Web Site

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has revamped its FAIR (Freely Available Institute Resources) Web site.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has updated and reconfigured the FAIR (Freely Available Institute Resources) Web site, where faculty and alumni of the ARL/ACRL Institute on Scholarly Communication share outreach and program development tools with the broader community.

FAIR is a component of the Institute on Scholarly Communication, a joint program of ARL and ACRL that promotes the development of library-led outreach on scholarly communication issues. Hundreds of institute alumni form a community that provides peer support and professional sharing of information relating to campus outreach. FAIR’s reconfiguration is part of a larger reorganization and expansion of ARL’s Web pages on scholarly communication.

FAIR currently offers four resource collections:

  • outreach to faculty;
  • program planning and development tools;
  • staff development tools; and
  • a collection of position descriptions with scholarly communication components.

With FAIR’s reconfiguration, the collection of sample position descriptions has been significantly expanded with recent contributions from a range of academic institutions. Position titles range from Copyright Librarian to Digital Repository Coordinator in addition to many titles explicitly including the phrase "scholarly communication."

Dean Krafft Named Cornell University Library’s Chief Technology Strategist

Long-term Cornell employee Dean Krafft has been named as the Cornell University Library's Chief Technology Strategist.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"Dean Krafft brings a wealth of experience to this position, as well as a profound respect for the role research libraries play in the academy," said Anne R. Kenney, Cornell’s Carl A. Kroch University Librarian. "This is a brand new position for the library world, and I can't think of a better person to help us understand its full potential. . . ."

As the chief technology strategist, Krafft will serve on the Library’s senior management team, focusing his efforts on the development of a long-term vision for CUL’s technology future and assessing the IT trends and innovations that impact the Library. He will also serve as an ambassador for collaborative technology initiatives across the University and in national and international efforts.

"The very rapid changes in the information landscape and the needs and workflows of Cornell's faculty, staff and students make these challenging times," Krafft said. "I am very much looking forward to working with the Library staff and the Cornell community to help ensure that the Library remains at the intellectual heart of university life and scholarship."

Before his appointment, Krafft served as the senior research associate and director of information technology and in several positions in the Computer Science Department since 1981. He also received his Master’s and PhD degrees in computer science from Cornell.

Presentations from the 152nd ARL Membership Meeting

ARL has released presentations from its 152nd membership meeting, which was titled "Institutional Strategies Supporting E-Scholarship & Multidisciplinary Research."

Here's a selection of the presentations:

Kate Wittenberg to Leave EPIC (Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia)

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Kate Wittenberg, Director of the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia (EPIC), will leave that post on June 30. Wittenberg says that she was told that Columbia University plans to shut down its electronic publishing operation.

Read more about it at "Is E-Publishing at Columbia U. on the Ropes?"

Cornell University Library and Duke University Press to Collaborate on Project Euclid

The Cornell University Library and Duke University Press have announced that they will collaborate on the future development of Project Euclid.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Effective July 2008, Duke will provide publishing expertise in marketing, sales, and order fulfillment to Project Euclid's participating publishers and institutional subscribers. Duke will work to broaden and deepen Project Euclid's subscriber base, resulting in greater global exposure for 54 journals and a growing number of monographs and conference proceedings. Cornell will continue to provide and support the vital IT infrastructure for Project Euclid and assume responsibility for archiving and preservation activities, ensuring robust and reliable access to the content deposited with Project Euclid for future scholars, researchers, and students.

Now home to 93,000 journal articles (75% of which are open access), along with 60 monographs and conference proceedings, Project Euclid and its partner publishers will benefit from Duke's commitment to Project Euclid's mission and from the Press's publishing proficiency, reputation for quality consciousness, and university-based value system. Duke's recent initiative to expand its journals publishing program into science, technology and medicine further ensures that together the Cornell Library and Duke University Press will achieve Project Euclid's goal to become a primary destination site for mathematicians and statisticians. . . .

This joint venture was undertaken in cooperation with the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), an alliance of universities, research libraries, and organizations, created by the Association of Research Libraries.

Leadership for Project Euclid will be assumed by management at both Cornell and Duke.

ARL Publishes Research Library Publishing Services: New Options for University Publishing

The Association of Research Libraries has published Research Library Publishing Services: New Options for University Publishing by Karla L. Hahn.

Here's an excerpt from the "Executive Summary":

To foster a deeper understanding of an emerging research library role as publishing service provider, in late 2007 the Association of Research Libraries surveyed its membership to gather data on the publishing services they were providing. Following the survey, publishing program managers at ten institutions participated in semi-structured interviews to delve more deeply into several aspects of service development: the sources and motivations for service launch, the range of publishing services, and relationships with partners.

The survey verified that research libraries are rapidly developing publishing services. By late 2007, 44% of the 80 responding ARL member libraries reported they were delivering publishing services and another 21% were in the process of planning publishing service development. Only 36% of responding institutions were not active in this arena.

These libraries are publishing many kinds of works, but the main focus is journals; 88% of publishing libraries reported publishing journals compared to 79% who publish conference papers and proceedings, and 71% who publish monographs. Established journal titles dominate this emerging publishing sector and are the main drivers of service development, although new titles are also being produced. Although the numbers of titles reported represent a very thin slice of the scholarly publishing pie, the survey respondents work with 265 titles: 131 are established titles, 81 are new titles, and 53 were under development at the time of the survey. On average, these libraries work with 7 or 8 titles with 6 currently available. . . .

Peer reviewed works dominate library publishing programs and editors or acquisitions committees typically maintain their traditional roles in identifying quality content. Libraries often provide technical support for streamlined peer review workflows, but they are not providing peer review itself. The manuscript handling services provided by some publishing programs were a significant attraction to the editors of established publications.

Library publishing program managers report substantial demand for hosting services. Libraries increasingly are positioned to provide at least basic hosting services. Open source software such as the Public Knowledge Project’s Open Journal Systems and DPubs along with new commercial services such as those offered by The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) through Digital Commons allows libraries to support basic journal hosting relatively easily.

Advice and consulting regarding a variety of publishing practices and decisions are perhaps even more popular services. There are pressing demands for information and advice about issues such as moving print publications into electronic publishing, discontinuing print in favor of electronic alternatives, publishing works with limited revenue-generating capability, revenue generation, standards of various sorts, markup and encoding, metadata generation, preservation, contracting with service providers, and copyright management.

Anne Kenney Named Cornell University’s Carl A. Kroch University Librarian

Anne Kenney, Cornell University's interim university librarian since February 2007, has been named the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian of that institution, subject to the approval of the Executive Committee of the Cornell Board of Trustees. Kenney has been an administrator at the Cornell University Library for over 20 years.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"During the course of our search for this pivotal position, it became clear that Anne Kenney's innovative leadership, breadth of knowledge, and national and international reputation make her a superb choice for university librarian," said Cornell Provost Carolyn Martin. "I am pleased that we can continue to benefit from Anne's vision and proven ability to engage the university community as she guides our library system into the future, a future toward which Cornell will continue to lead."

As Cornell university librarian—the chief academic and administrative officer of the university's extensive library system—Kenney will be leading one of the world's largest research libraries, with a total budget of over $50 million, a staff of more than 450 and over 7.5 million volumes. Cornell has 20 constituent libraries located in Ithaca, Geneva (N.Y.), New York City and Doha (Qatar), and it also actively serves scholars around the globe.

"I am honored to be selected as Cornell's 11th university librarian," Kenney said. "Cornell University Library combines international leadership in digital library development with an abiding commitment to traditional scholarly resources. It consistently tops user surveys for the excellence of its services and holdings, ranking as the key campus service by graduating seniors and among the top criteria contributing to faculty work satisfaction. Based on our strengths—first-rate collections, outstanding staff, central campus locations, constituent support—the library is well positioned to address key challenges of the next decade and maintain its preeminent academic place. I can't think of an institution that I would more enjoy leading in this work."

Kenney came to Cornell Library in 1987 and served as associate director for the Department of Preservation and Conservation until 2001. During that time, and from 2002 to 2006 as associate university librarian for instruction, research and information services, she helped spearhead a period of change and growth that has made Cornell Library the envy of its peers for pioneering work in digitization, network access and scholarly publishing. Active in the archival and preservation communities, Kenney is a fellow and past president of the Society of American Archivists. She currently serves on the Social Science Research Council's Committee on Libraries and Archives of Cuba and is a member of Advisory Committee of Portico, a nonprofit digital preservation service. She has served as a commissioner of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (National Archives), the National Science Foundation/European Union Working Group on a Digital Preservation Research Agenda, and was a member of the Clinton/Gore presidential transition team.

Kenney is known internationally for her ground-breaking work in developing standards for digitizing library materials that have been adopted by organizations around the world, including important scholarly archives such as JSTOR. She is the co-author of three award-winning monographs and more than 50 articles and reports. She was the recipient of: Yahoo! en español's award for online "Tutorial de Digitalización de Imágenes" as the best of the year 2002 in the category "Internet y computadoras"; the Society of American Archivists' Best Book Award (Leland Prize) in 1997 and 2000 for books on digital imaging for libraries and archives, and the SAA Preservation Publication Award in 1995 and 2004; and she was the recipient of the 2001 LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology from the American Library Association. More recently, her research in organizational aspects of digital preservation has resulted in publication of influential reports of e-journal archiving and a training program that has had an international impact.

She received her bachelor's degree from Duke University in 1972, a master's degree in history from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1975 and a master's degree in library services in 1979 from the University of Missouri-Columbia. An avid hiker, Kenney scaled Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania this past February.

NYU Libraries and Institute for the Future of the Book Partner to Develop New Digital Scholarly Communication Tools

The New York University Division of Libraries and the Institute for the Future of the Book will work together to develop new digital scholarly communications tools.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"We are constantly watching the unfolding digital landscape for new paths we might want to take," said Carol A. Mandel, dean of the NYU Libraries. "IFB is a thought leader in the future of scholarly communication. We will work together to develop new software and new options that faculty can use to pubish, review, share, and collaborate at NYU and in the larger academic community."

For the past three years, IFB has been researching, prototyping, and sketching out models for how university presses could expand their publishing programs to include digital and networked formats. IFB is best known for its series of "networked book" experiments, which modify popular blogging technologies to create social book formats for the Web. Among these are: "Without Gods" by NYU’s Mitchell Stephens, "The Googlization of Everything" by Siva Vaidhyanathan, "Gamer Theory" by McKenzie Wark (the first fully networked digital monograph), and "Expressive Processing" by Noah Wardrip-Fruin, which is currently undergoing the first blog-based peer review.

Out of these projects, IFB developed CommentPress, an extension for the WordPress blog platform that enables paragraph-level commenting in the margins of a text. IFB is also at work on a powerful open source digital authoring environment called Sophie, the first version of which has just been released.

"We are thrilled to be working with NYU," said IFB Director Bob Stein. "We now have the benefit not only of the Libraries’ first-rate technical support, but also of working with world-class faculty, many of whom are leading innovators in digital scholarly communications."

In an auspicious start to their partnership, NYU Libraries and IFB have been awarded a start-up grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to design a set of networking tools that will serve as the membership system for MediaCommons, an all-electronic scholarly publishing network in the digital humanities that IFB has been instrumental in developing.

Under the agreement, three of IFB’s leaders will serve as visiting scholars at NYU. They are Bob Stein; Ben Vershbow, IFB editorial director; and researcher Dan Visel. They will work with NYU librarians; with the digital library team, headed by James Bullen; and with Monica McCormick, the Libraries’ program officer for digital scholarly publishing.

Read more about it at "Major News: IFB and NYU Libraries to Collaborate."

ARL Preservation Statistics 2005–06 Published

The Association of Research Libraries has released a PDF version of ARL Preservation Statistics 2005–06, which is freely available.

Here's an excerpt from the "Introduction":

Among the significant developments that took place in research libraries in the 1980s was the emergence of preservation programs as distinct administrative units, separately staffed, funded, and administered. There were 66 such programs reported in 1988, as many as 80 reported in recent years, and 77 in 2005-06.

These rapidly shifting trends have made themselves evident in many categories. Preservation expenditures for ARL’s 111 reporting member libraries were $107,937,836 in 2005-06, which reflects an inflation-adjusted increase of 27% since the survey’s revision in 1996-97.3 Total preservation staff increased to just under 1,800 FTEs in 2005-06, 5.4% more than in 2004-05. Level 1 conservation treatment decreased from 2004-05 levels, while the number of items treated at Levels 2 and 3 increased; total conservation has increased by more than 50,000 volumes in the past year, bringing it higher than it has been in the last four years. . . .

Digitizing bound volumes is gradually emerging as a viable preservation option. In 2005-06, 54 ARL libraries reported more than zero bound volumes digitized. The amount of items digitized varies widely, from one volume at the University of Delaware to 25,121 volumes digitized by the University of Florida.

ARL Statistics 2005-06 PDF Published

The Association of Research Libraries has published a freely available PDF version of the ARL Statistics 2005-06.

The "Monograph and Serial Expenditures in ARL Libraries, 1986-2006" graph on page 13 shows that serial expenditures continue their sharp upward climb: there has been a 321% 1986-2006 increase. Serial unit cost, which peaked in 2000, has begun to climb again after a multi-year drop to a 180% increase. Monograph expenditures dropped slightly to a 82% increase, while monograph unit cost rose to a 78% increase.

The Texas Digital Library Repository Is Live

Although there appears to have been no formal public announcement about its roll out, the DSpace-based Texas Digital Library Repository is available.

The TDL Repository contains some initial materials (mainly ETDs and Seventeenth-Century News) from three of the four founding TDL members (Texas A&M University at College Station, Texas Tech University at Lubbock, and the University of Texas at Austin; there are no materials from the University of Houston) as well as from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Using Open Journal Systems, TDL also provides access to the Journal of Digital Information, which is supported by the Texas A&M University Libraries.

The Texas Digital Library Shibboleth Federation has made progress in providing Shibboleth access to TDL for three of the four founding members (the status as of August 2007 was: Texas A&M University at College Station: fully deployed, Texas Tech University at Lubbock: agreement reached, and the University of Texas at Austin: fully deployed; there was no activity at the University of Houston). Progress was also being made for Shibboleth access for Baylor University, Texas State University, and the University of North Texas.

Approaches to Managing and Collecting Born-Digital Literary Materials for Scholarly Use Grant Awarded

The Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, the Emory University Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, and the Harry Ransom Center have been awarded a NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant for studying "Approaches to Managing and Collecting Born-Digital Literary Materials for Scholarly Use."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The project, directed by Matthew Kirschenbaum, Associate Professor of English at the University of Maryland, will involve a series of site visits and planning meetings among personnel working with the born-digital components of three significant collections of literary material: the Salman Rushdie Papers at Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (which includes Rushdie’s laptops), the Michael Joyce Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Deena Larsen Collection at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland. The meetings and site visits will facilitate the preparation of a larger collaborative grant proposal among the three institutions aimed at developing archival tools and best practices for preserving and curating the born-digital documents and records of contemporary literary authorship.

According to Kirschenbaum, "Today nearly all literature is born-digital in the sense that before it is ever printed as a book the text is composed with a word processor, saved on a hard drive or other electronic storage media, and accessed as part of a computer operating system. This new technological fact about writing means that an author working today will not and cannot be studied in the future in the same way as writers of the past, since the basic material evidence of their creative activity—manuscripts and drafts, working notes, correspondence, journals—is, like all textual production, increasingly migrating to the electronic realm. We look forward to the process of examining how to best meet these challenges, balancing the needs of both scholarship and archives in the new textual environment."

Stephen Enniss, Director of the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory, notes "The born-digital archive not only contains enormous data, it also contains enormous potential for literary scholars to pose new questions of the archive not even contemplated in the past." Thomas F. Staley, Director of the Ransom Center, comments "The Ransom Center is very pleased to be part of this vitally important project to explore how we can best preserve and make accessible the map of an author’s creative process in the digital age. This collaborative effort between the Ransom Center, MITH, and Emory will help lead the way in the preservation of born-digital materials and ensure that these materials are available to students and scholars for generations to come." Neil Fraistat, Director of MITH, adds "This project will deepen MITH’s focus on the preservation and analysis of born digital literary artifacts, which is already well established in its work with the Electronic Literature Organization and on an NDIIPP funded project on the preservation of virtual worlds."

A Major Milestone for the University of Michigan Library: One Million Digitized Books

The University of Michigan Library has digitized and made available one million books from its collection.

Here's an excerpt from "One Million Digitized Books":

One million is a big number, but this is just the beginning. Michigan is on track to digitize its entire collection of over 7.5 million bound volumes by early in the next decade. So far we have only glimpsed the kinds of new and innovative uses that can be made of large bodies of digitized books, and it is thrilling to imagine what will be possible when nearly all the holdings of a leading research library are digitized and searchable from any computer in the world.

The Library of Congress Makes Images Available on Flickr

The Library of Congress has put two collections of digital images on Flickr: 1,600 images from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information and around 1,500 images from the George Grantham Bain News Service. The images can be found at The Library of Congress' Photos.

Regarding copyright, LC says:

Although the Library of Congress does not grant or deny permission to use photos, the Library knows of no copyright restrictions on the publication, distribution, or re-use of these photos. Privacy rights may apply.

See the FAQ for more details.

Library of Congress Office of Strategic Initiatives' Strategic Plan FY 2008-2013

The Library of Congress Office of Strategic Initiatives has published its Strategic Plan FY 2008-2013. This is a large color PDF file (about 34 MB).

Here are three brief excerpts:

By 2013 we expect to have in place:

  • Increased digital content holdings
  • Capability to produce and receive sustainable digital content from multiple sources
  • A stewardship network of collaborative partners
  • Recommendations on digital content information architecture, preservation and access
  • Recommendations on public policy for digital content preservation and access

Through 2013, we expect to:

  • Increase use and awareness of content and services by target user communities
  • Improve integrated search and discovery
  • Secure delivery of digital content and services
  • Enable multiple ways/methods of access to digital content and services
  • Facilitate integration of the Library’s primary sources into K–12 educational settings
  • and networks

Key outcomes associated with our technology infrastructure objective include:

  • Secured, available and scalable technology infrastructure
  • Defined Library of Congress technical infrastructure for shared tools and services
  • among networked entities
  • Defined future institution-wide architecture and support for a national networked
  • digital information architectural framework
  • Specialized institutional digital media repository services
  • Preserved authentic digital content over time.

Report on Library of Congress/San Diego Supercomputer Center Data Transfer and Storage Tests

The Library of Congress has published Data Center for Library of Congress Digital Holdings: A Pilot Project; Final Report.

Here an excerpt from the "Introduction":

Between May 2006 and October 2007, the Library of Congress (LC) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) conducted data-transfer and storage tests. At the heart of the project was the issue of trust, specifically how the LC could trust SDSC to reliably store several terabytes of the LC’s data. By what means could SDSC prove to the LC that the data was intact, preserved, and well-cared for? What tests could the LC devise, and what metrics could SDSC produce, to guarantee the integrity of their remotely stored data?

The two main objectives of the project were:

  • For SDSC to host LC content reliably and return it intact at the end of the project
  • For LC to be able to remotely access, process, analyze, and manage that content . . . .

Inspired by SDSC’s staggering technological potential, the LC had devised several scenarios for the data tests. But ultimately, as the project progressed, the LC opted to keep its goals simple: data transfer, storage, and file manipulation. In the end, both partners were happy with the project’s success. The project also produced lessons and unexpected results, some of which will have deep implications for all cultural institutions regarding transfer and storage of their digital assets.

University of Michigan Libraries Make over 100,000 Records for Digitized Books Available for Harvesting

The University of Michigan Libraries have made over 100,000 metadata records from its MBooks collection available for OAI-PMH harvesting. The records are for digitized books in the public domain.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The University of Michigan Library is pleased to announce that records from our MBooks collection are available for OAI harvesting. The MBooks collection consists of materials digitized by Google in partnership with the University of Michigan.

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/o/oai/oai?verb=Identify

Only records for MBooks available in the public domain are exposed. We have split these into sets containing public domain items according to U.S. copyright law, and public domain items worldwide. There are currently over 100,000 records available for harvesting. We anticipate having 1 million records available when the entire U-M collection has been digitized by Google.

University of Michigan Libraries Release the UMich OAI Toolkit

The University of Michigan Libraries have released the UMich OAI Toolkit.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This toolkit contains both harvester and data provider, both written in Perl. . . .

UMHarvester is a robust tool using LWP for harvesting nigh on every OAI data provider available. It allows for incremental harvesting, has multiple re-try options, and a batch harvest tool (Batch_UMHarvest) that can automatically perform incremental harvesting.

UMProvider relies heavily on libxml (XML::LibXML) and will store the data in nearly any relational database. It functions by harvesting from a database of records, making rights determinations from a separate database, and providing the resulting set of records.

Originally, only the UMHarvester was available from UM's DLXS software site. The UMProvider tool is newly developed and takes the place of our DLXS data provider tool.