Category: ARL Libraries

Rice University Releases Travelers in the Middle East Archive

Rice University has released the Travelers in the Middle East Archive under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic License.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

IMEA provides access to:

  • Nearly 1,000 images, including stereocards, postcards and book illustrations
  • More than 150 historical maps representing the Middle East as it was in the 19th and early 20th centuries
  • Interactive geographical information systems (GIS) maps that serve as an interface to the collection and present detailed information about features such as waterways, elevation and populated places
  • Successive editions of classic travel guides and major museum collection catalogues
  • Convenient educational modules that set materials from the collection in historical and geographic context and explore the research process

TIMEA is able to offer seamless access for researchers by providing a common user interface to digital objects housed in three repositories. Texts, historical maps and images reside in DSpace, an open-source digital repository system. Educational research modules are presented within Connexions, an open-content commons and publishing platform for educational materials. TIMEA also uses Google Maps and ESRI’s ArcIMS map server.

Is the End of the Print Journal Near?: New ARL Report Examines This Issue

The Association of Research Libraries has published The E-only Tipping Point for Journals: What’s Ahead in the Print-to-Electronic Transition Zone.

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

The role of the printed journal in the institutional marketplace faces a steep decline in the coming 5 to 10 years. Print journals will exist mainly to address specialized needs, users, or business opportunities. Financial imperatives will draw libraries first—and ultimately publishers also—toward a tipping point where it no longer makes sense to subscribe to or publish printed versions of most journals.

Publishers will be driven to rationalize their investments in declining print revenue streams and to finance investments in e-publishing infrastructure and emerging opportunities. Some will be faster to do so, such as those already straining from the cost burden. Others will be slower, such as those with a self-supporting base of individual subscribers or significant advertising revenue from print.

A new focus will emerge on productivity in scholarly communication. Experiments will explore new business models and new ways of conducting and facilitating research. Along the way, vexing issues such as those surrounding assurance of long-term access to the scholarly record will continue to be sorted out and perhaps even solved.

New York Public Library Makes 600,000 Digital Images Available to Kaltura Users

The New York Public Library has made its collection of 600,000 digital images available for use by Kaltura users. Kaltura is a free, online collaborative video production site.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The New York Public Library and Kaltura, Inc., a pioneer in Collaborative Media, announced today that the organizations have joined forces to further enhance online rich-media collaboration. The New York Public Library's treasure trove of 600,000 digital images can now be incorporated easily into Kaltura's group video projects. The library's digital collection includes a wide range of rare and unique images drawn from its research collections. These range from Civil War photographs and illuminated Medieval manuscripts to historic views of New York City, Yiddish theatre placards and 19th Century restaurant menus. Users can search, preview and add these library images directly from the Kaltura web site (To try it, go to http://www.kaltura.com, click 'start a kaltura').

"Kaltura is a good fit for The New York Public Library as we work to take advantage of the latest technologies and approaches to make our collection freely and widely accessible," said Joshua M. Greenberg, Director of Digital Strategy and Scholarship at The New York Public Library. "We are excited to enable the use of our extensive Digital Gallery of historical images in Kaltura's cutting-edge and innovative application. Working with Kaltura was a natural step in enabling the creative use of these rich materials in the broader online world."

Kaltura enables groups of users to collaborate in the creation of videos and slideshows, similar to the way in which Wiki platforms allow users to collaborate with text. When creating a Kaltura video, users can upload their own videos, photos, audio and animation, can import their previously uploaded material from MySpace, Photobucket or YouTube, or they can access and import rich-media from various public-domain and CreativeCommons sources such as Flickr, CCMixter, Jamendo, and now The New York Public Library. Kaltura aims to team with additional databases and digital resource partners in order to both provide users with the widest array of rich-media, and to provide its resource partners with access to Kaltura's Global Network of users, content, and services that allows unprecedented collaboration around rich-media creation, remixing and distribution.

"We strive to provide users with the most comprehensive, enjoyable and user-friendly experience possible when creating their collaborative Kalturas in a fun, safe, and legal environment; The New York Public Library database is a huge addition to resources that we offer, both in terms of its size and the great value that it brings," said Ron Yekutiel, Chairman and CEO of Kaltura.

"Kaltura was built around the principles of openness and sharing with the mission to enhance collaboration and to lower the barriers of participation—it is through partners with a similar vision, like The New York Public Library, that we can achieve our goal of delivering the world's first open platform for peer production of rich media, with the broadest access to rich-media materials, resources and databases," Yekutiel added. "We are truly honored by this collaboration."

Pitt's Libraries and University Press Establish Open Access Book Program

The University of Pittsburgh University Library System and the University of Pittsburgh University Press have established the University of Pittsburgh University Press Digital Editions, which offers free access to digitized versions of print books from the press.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The University of Pittsburgh’s University Library System (ULS) and University Press have formed a partnership to provide digital editions of press titles as part of the library system’s D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program. Thirty-nine books from the Pitt Latin American Series published by the University of Pittsburgh Press are now available online, freely accessible to scholars and students worldwide. Ultimately, most of the Press’ titles older than 2 years will be provided through this open access platform.

For the past decade, the University Library System has been building digital collections on the Web under its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, making available a wide array of historical documents, images and texts which can be browsed by collection and are fully searchable. The addition of the University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions collection marks the newest in an expanding number of digital collaborations between the University Library System and the University Press.

The D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program includes digitized materials drawn from Pitt collections and those of other libraries and cultural institutions in the region, pre-print repositories in several disciplines, the University’s mandatory electronic theses and dissertations program, and electronic journals during the past eight years, sixty separate collections have been digitized and made freely accessible via the World Wide Web. Many of these projects have been carried out with content partners such as Pitt faculty members, other libraries and museums in the area, professional associations, and most recently, with the University of Pittsburgh Press with several professional journals and the new University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions. . . .

More titles will be added to the University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions each month until most of the current scholarly books published by the Press are available both in print and as digital editions. The collection will eventually include titles from the Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies, the Pitt-Konstanz Series in the Philosophy and History of Science, the Pittsburgh Series in Composition, Literacy, and Culture, the Security Continuum: Global Politics in the Modern Age, the History of the Urban Environment, back issues of Cuban Studies, and numerous other scholarly titles in history, political science, philosophy, and cultural studies.

University of Maryland Libraries Digital Collections Launched

The University of Maryland Libraries has launched its Digital Collections repository.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This release marks two and a half years of work in the creation of a repository that serves the teaching and research mission of the University of Maryland Libraries. Many of the objects are digital versions from Maryland's Special Collections (such as A Treasury of World's Fairs Art and Architecture) or are new virtual collections (The Jim Henson Works). Other collections (such as Films@UM) support the teaching mission of the Libraries. This release also marks the integration of electronically available finding aids, ArchivesUM, into the repository architecture, creating a framework for digital objects to be dynamically discovered from finding aids.

The repository is based on the Fedora platform, uses Lucene for indexing, and Helix for streaming video. The repository features almost 2500 digital objects, with new objects added monthly. Object types currently delivered include full text (both TEI and EAD), video, and images. Objects can be discovered within a collection context or via a search across multiple collections. Cross-collection discovery is achieved through a common metadata scheme and controlled vocabulary. This metadata scheme also provides for individual collections to have more granular domain-specific metadata.

An FAQ for the repository is available.

Sara Lowman Named Vice Provost and University Librarian at Rice University

Rice University has named Sara Lowman, former Director of Fondren Library and Interim Vice Provost and University Librarian, as Vice Provost and University Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

As vice provost and university librarian, Lowman will be responsible for providing the overall leadership, strategy, policymaking and fundraising for Fondren Library and its related departments, including Woodson Research Center, Digital Library Initiative, Digital Media Center, Fondren Library Information Technology and Friends of Fondren Library. She will oversee a staff of 120.

"Sara brings deep knowledge, experience and insight of Fondren Library, of Rice and of Rice's extended community, as well as long managerial and leadership experience within Fondren," said Provost Eugene Levy. "These are all attributes that will help Sara, working with her colleagues, move the library and the university forward through the important evolutionary changes that libraries confront in the 21st century." . . .

"The primary role of a university library is to acquire and preserve information and make it available to its user community," said Lowman. "Although technology will change many of the ways that libraries function, this fundamental principle of acquisition, access and preservation remains." . . .

The Digital Library Initiative will play an increasingly important role at Fondren as Rice pursues the V2C goal of becoming a major research university. "We need to digitally preserve the research papers by our faculty and students so that they will be available to future generations," Lowman said. "This is challenging, due to rapidly changing formats." . . .

Lowman came to Rice in 1985 after receiving a master's degree with distinction in library and information science from the University of Iowa.

Starting out as a science reference/collection development librarian at Fondren, Lowman served as coordinator of collection development and online search services, interim co-director of reader services, head of reference, assistant university librarian for public services and associate university librarian before becoming director of Fondren Library in 2000. She has been interim university librarian since Chuck Henry left Rice this past March. . . .

Lowman, who also has a bachelor's in biology with a concentration in Russian studies from Carleton College, has been involved with a number of professional library associations, including serving as president of board of trustees of both the Houston Area Research Libraries and of Amigos Library Services, a library resources consortium. She was a coordinating council member for TexShare, the Texas library resource-sharing network, and served on the ZLOT Project Advisory Board, which focused on developing requirements and planning for a common search and retrieval interface application for the Library of Texas Project through the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

She has held a number of positions with the American Library Association, where she currently serves on the LAMA Building and Equipment Section Committee.

This year Lowman received the Shapiro Award, which recognizes Fondren Library staff members who have developed an innovative library service at Rice or have shown exemplary service to the university.

In addition to acknowledging her work on the recent renovation of Fondren and the library customer service survey, the award committee cited her contributions to the Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic project. Lowman provided a room in Fondren Library to the Graduate Student Association to store and use recording equipment that allows volunteers to read sections of textbooks for the benefit of people who are blind or have a reading disability like dyslexia. Lowman also helped organize and train the circulation staff to monitor access to the room, and she encouraged library staff to volunteer to read for the project.

Paul Courant on Michigan’s Mass Digitization Project with Google

In "On Being in Bed with Google," Paul N. Courant, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries at the University of Michigan, vigorously rebuts arguments against research libraries participating in the Google Books Library Project.

Here's an excerpt:

Since 2005, Siva Vaidhyanathan has been making and refining the argument that libraries should be digitizing their collections independently, without corporate financing or participation, and that those who don’t are failing to uphold their responsibility to the public. "Libraries should not be relinquishing their core duties to private corporations for the sake of expediency."

"Expediency" is a bit of a dirty word. Vaidhyanathan’s phrase suggests that good people don’t do things simply because they are "expedient." But I view large-scale digitization as expeditious. We have a generation of students who will not find valuable scholarly works unless they can find them electronically. At the rate that OCA is digitizing things (and I say the more the merrier and the faster the better) that generation will be dandling great-grandchildren on its knees before these great collections can be found electronically. At Michigan, the entire collection of bound print will be searchable, by anyone in the world, about when children born today start kindergarten.

ARL Publishes Scholarly Communication Education Initiatives SPEC Kit

The Association of Research Libraries has published Scholarly Communication Education Initiatives, SPEC Kit 299. The front matter and Executive Summary are freely available.

Here's an excerpt from the "Executive Summary" of this very interesting SPEC Kit:

The majority of respondents [there were 73] indicated that the leadership for these [scholarly communication] education initiatives comes from within the library. Only 11 (17%) indicated that a group outside of the library plays a leadership role. In 25 cases (39%), leadership is shared by some combination of library SC committee, SC librarian, other library staff member, and outside group or is otherwise distributed across the organization. In most of the remaining cases there is a single leader. Twenty-one institutions reported that this is a library committee, eight that it is a chief SC librarian, three another library staff member, and two a committee outside the library.

Twenty-one respondents (32%) identified a "Chief SC Librarian" who has primary responsibility for education initiatives. About half of these are at the Assistant/Associate Librarian level. Only three of these librarians (14%) devote 100% of their time to SC initiatives. Most of the chief SC librarians have split appointments and all but a few devote less than 30% of their time to this work. Judging from their titles, they frequently also have responsibility for collections. . . .

It was anticipated that many institutions would not have a chief SC librarian yet would have another librarian who was shouldering the primary SC responsibility. Eighteen respondents (28%) indicated this was the case and 12 identified the position. The survey results showed that, again, this responsibility most frequently is assumed by a collections or science librarian. . . .

The most frequently mentioned effective means to deliver the SC message were one-on-one conversations and presentations. One-on-one interactions, in person or via personal e-mails, were good for reaching individuals such as faculty editors, department heads, or regular faculty members. Presentations were an effective means to reach groups such as graduate students, librarians, and the Faculty Senate Committee on the Library. Many also reported that symposia are effective; several reported that their campuses hold annual symposia. Several listed Web sites as effective tools, without much explanation. Other activities that were mentioned multiple times were marketing campaigns, passage of Senate SC resolutions, and newsletter items. Workshops—both library-sponsored and campus-sponsored—were also an effective means to reach the campus. A number of institutions have found it effective to work through their Faculty Senate Committee on the Library.

The SPEC Kit also highlights the many significant challenges involved in offering a successful scholarly communication program, which must educate library staff about key issues and outreach to university administrators, faculty, graduate students, and other constituencies. I found this to be true at my former employer, the University of Houston Libraries, where I chaired a Scholarly Communications Public Relations Task Force that produced a Transforming Scholarly Communication website and a weblog (although the weblog is still active, the website does not appear to have been updated or enhanced since my departure), organized a Transforming Scholarly Communication Symposium (conceived of as an annual event, but no follow-up is evident), and engaged in other activities.

SPEC Kit readers should make particular note of one issue: support from the library administration. This is a make-or-break issue: if top-level library administrators do not have a strong interest in and adequate understanding of scholarly communication issues as well as a real commitment to foster change, scholarly communication programs are hamstrung, and they become token efforts or die.

Yale Will Work with Microsoft to Digitize 100,000 Books

The Yale University Library and Microsoft will work together to digitize 100,000 English-language out-of-copyright books, which will be made available via Microsoft’s Live Search Books.

Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

The Library and Microsoft have selected Kirtas Technologies to carry out the process based on their proven excellence and state-of-the art equipment. The Library has successfully worked with Kirtas previously, and the company will establish a digitization center in the New Haven area. . . .

The project will maintain rigorous standards established by the Yale Library and Microsoft for the quality and usability of the digital content, and for the safe and careful handling of the physical books. Yale and Microsoft will work together to identify which of the approximately 13 million volumes held by Yale’s 22 libraries will be digitized. Books selected for digitization will remain available for use by students and researchers in their physical form. Digital copies of the books will also be preserved by the Yale Library for use in future academic initiatives and in collaborative scholarly ventures.

ARL Annual Salary Survey 2006–07 Published

The ARL Annual Salary Survey 2006–07 has been published, and it can be purchased from ARL.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The 2006–07 data show that ARL librarians’ salaries outperformed inflation. The combined median professional salary in US and Canadian ARL university libraries was $59,648—a 4.5% increase from the previous year. Over the same period, the Consumer Price Index rose 4.1% in the US and 2.4% in Canada. . . .

Gender-based salary differentials persist in ARL libraries in 2006–07. The overall salary for women in the 113 ARL university libraries is 95.7% of that paid to men; this figure compares to 95.5% in 2005–06. While the data show a marked closure of the gender gap in ARL libraries over the long term—in 1980–81, women in ARL libraries were paid roughly 87% of what men were paid—the data also raise the possibility that the closure has peaked, and that a 5% gap between men’s and women’s salaries may persist.

Patricia Steele to Continue as Interim Dean of Indiana University Libraries

Indiana University President Michael McRobbie has announced that Patricia A. Steele, who has been the Interim Dean of the Indiana University Libraries since 2005, will continue in that role for up to two years.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"The recent search for the Dean of the Libraries did not result in the identification of a successor who is better positioned than Pat to move forward with new library initiatives," said McRobbie. "Hence, I asked Pat to continue her appointment, effective immediately.

"I appreciate the leadership and hard work that have characterized Pat's tenure as interim dean, and Provost Karen Hanson and I look forward to working with her in the months ahead," McRobbie added.

McRobbie, who said that a new search would begin later this academic year, noted that Steele had moved the libraries forward since 2005 in advancing scholarly communications initiatives, planning for facilities and engaging an assessment of technical services operations. He expects that she will continue to build upon library planning and initiatives already in place and continue to advance IUB Libraries with the extension of her appointment, he said.

ARL Changes Public Ranking Methodology

Beginning with the 2005–06 report, ARL is using an Expenditures-Focused Index instead of its traditional Membership Criteria Index in public ranking reports. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published the "Index of Expenditures at University Research Libraries, 2005-6" (requires subscription).

Here's an excerpt from the ARL Index page:

Starting with 2005–06 data, ARL is calculating an Expenditures-Focused Index as an alternative to the ARL Membership Criteria Index. The Expenditures-Focused Index replaces the public availability of the ARL Membership Criteria Index. The Expenditures-Focused Index is highly correlated with the Membership Criteria Index and less affected by changes in the collections variables. The methodology behind this new index is described by Bruce Thompson in his October 2006 paper, "Some Alternative Quantitative Library Activity Descriptions/Statistics that Supplement the ARL Logarithmic Index."

What's in Your Wallet? Three Librarian Salary Surveys

Three surveys of librarian salaries have been recently published.

The Association of Research Libraries has published the ARL Annual Salary Survey 2006-07. PDF and Excel versions are freely available.

ALA has published the 2007 editions of the ALA-APA Salary Survey: Librarian—Public and Academic and the ALA-APA Salary Survey: Non-MLS—Public and Academic. Various priced access options are available.

Here's an excerpt from the ALA press release:

Analysis of data from more than 800 public and academic libraries showed the mean salary for librarians with ALA-accredited Master’s Degrees increased 2.8 percent from 2006, up $1,550 to $57,809. The median ALA MLS salary was $53,000. Salaries ranged from $22,048 to $225,000.

For the first time the non-MLS salary survey data, including 62 non-MLS positions, reported salaries for staff employed as librarians but who do not have ALA-accredited Master’s Degrees in Library Science. Non-MLS salaries ranged $10,712 to $143,700.

University of Minnesota Launches the Digital Conservancy

The University of Minnesota has launched its institutional repository, the Digital Conservancy. It utilizes DSpace.

Here's a description from the University Digital Conservancy FAQ page:

The University Digital Conservancy is a program of the University of Minnesota, administered by the University Libraries. The program provides stewardship, reliable long-term open access, and broad dissemination of the digital scholarly and administrative works of University of Minnesota faculty, departments, centers and offices. Materials in the Conservancy are freely available online to the University community and to the public.

Here are selected web pages about the Digital Conservancy:

Cornell Joins Google Books Library Project

The Cornell University Library has joined the Google Books Library Project.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Google will digitize up to 500,000 works from Cornell University Library and make them available online using Google Book Search. As a result, materials from the library’s exceptional collections will be easily accessible to students, scholars and people worldwide, supporting the library’s long-standing commitment to make its collections broadly available.

“Research libraries today are integral partners in the academic enterprise through their support of research, teaching and learning. They also serve a public good by enhancing access to the works of the world's best minds,” said Interim University Librarian Anne R. Kenney. “As a major research library, Cornell University Library is pleased to join its peer institutions in this partnership with Google. The outcome of this relationship is a significant reduction in the time and effort associated with providing scholarly full-text resources online.”

Materials from Mann Library, one of 20 member libraries that comprise Cornell University Library, will be digitized as part of the agreement. Mann’s collections include some of the following subject areas: biological sciences, natural resources, plant, animal and environmental sciences, applied economics, management and public policy, human development, textiles and apparel, nutrition and food science.. . .

Cornell is the 27th institution to join the Google Book Search Library Project, which digitizes books from major libraries and makes it possible for Internet users to search their collections online. Over the next six years, Cornell will provide Google with public domain and copyrighted holdings from its collections. If a work has no copyright restrictions, the full text will be available for online viewing. For books protected by copyright, users will just get the basic background (such as the book’s title and the author’s name), at most a few lines of text related to their search and information about where they can buy or borrow a book. Cornell University Library will work with Google to choose materials that complement the contributions of the project’s other partners. In addition to making the materials available through its online search service, Google will also provide Cornell with a digital copy of all the materials scanned, which will eventually be incorporated into the university’s own digital library.

BioMed Central Replies to Yale

On Sunday, DigitalKoans reported that Yale had canceled its BioMed Central membership. Today, BioMed Central has replied to the Yale posting about that decision.

Here's an excerpt from the BioMed Central posting:

The main concern expressed in the library's announcement is that the amount payable to cover the cost of publications by Yale researchers in BioMed Central's journals has increased significantly, year on year. Looking at the rapid growth of BioMed Central's journals, it is not difficult to see why that is the case. BioMed Central's success means that more and more researchers (from Yale and elsewhere) are submitting to our journals each year.


An increase in the number of open access articles being submitted and going on to be published does lead to an increase in the total cost of the open access publishing service provided by BioMed Central, but the cost per article published in BioMed Central's journals represents excellent value compared to other publishers.

The Yale library announcement notes that it paid $31,625 to cover the cost of publication in BioMed Central's journals by their authors in 2006, and that the anticipated cost in 2007 will be higher. But to put this into context, according to the Association of Research Library statistics, Yale spent more than $7m on serial subscriptions. Nonetheless, we do recognize that library budgets are very tight and that supporting the rapid growth of open access publishing out of library budgets alone may not be possible. . . .

If library budgets were the only source of funding to cover the cost of open access publication, this would be a significant obstacle. Fortunately, however, there are other sources of funding that are helping to accelerate the transition to open access. . . .

The Wellcome Trust report estimated that on average the cost associated with publishing a peer-reviewed research article is less than $3000, and further estimated that this represented only 1-2% of the typical investment by a funder in carrying out the research that led to the article. It is not surprising therefore, that major biomedical research funders such as NIH and HHMI now encourage open access publication, and are willing to provide financial support for it. BioMed Central's list of biomedical funder open access policies provides further information.

Authors may, of course, pay articles from their own grant funds, and around half of articles published in BioMed Central journals are indeed paid for in this way. However, relying on authors to pay for the cost of open access publication themselves puts open access journals at a significant disadvantage compared to traditional journals, which are supported centrally through library budgets, and so are often perceived to be 'free' by authors.

That is why BioMed Central introduced its institutional membership scheme, which allows institutions to centrally support the dissemination of open access research in the same way that they centrally support subscription journals, thereby creating a 'level playing field'.

In order to ensure that funding of open access publication is sustainable, we have encouraged institutions to set aside a small fraction of the indirect funding contribution that they receive from funders to create a central open access fund.

Over the last several months, BioMed Central has hosted workshops on the issue of sustainable funding for open access at the UK's Association of Research Manager's and Administrators annual conference and at the Medical Library Association's meeting in Philadelphia [see report]. Further such workshops are planned.

In this way, by helping research funders, administrators, VPs of research and librarians to work together to provide sustainable funding channels for open access, we aim to "provide a viable long-term revenue base built upon logical and scalable options", as called for in statement fromYale's library. . . .

We look forward to working with librarians and research administrators at Yale to develop a solution that will make it as easy as possible for Yale's researchers to continue publish their open access research articles in BioMed Central's journals.

Yale Cancels BioMed Central Membership

Except for current submissions, Yale’s Cushing/Whitney Medical and Kline Science Libraries have stopped funding author fees for Yale faculty who publish papers in BioMed Central journals. According to ARL statistics, the Yale spent $7,705,342 on serials in 2005-06, which raises the question: If Yale can’t afford to support BioMed Central, what academic library can?

Here’s an excerpt from the Yale posting:

The libraries’ BioMedCentral membership represented an opportunity to test the technical feasibility and the business model of this OA publisher. While the technology proved acceptable, the business model failed to provide a viable long-term revenue base built upon logical and scalable options. Instead, BioMedCentral has asked libraries for larger and larger contributions to subsidize their activities. Starting with 2005, BioMed Central page charges cost the libraries $4,658, comparable to a single biomedicine journal subscription. The cost of page charges for 2006 then jumped to $31,625. The page charges have continued to soar in 2007 with the libraries charged $29,635 through June 2007, with $34,965 in potential additional page charges in submission.

As we deal with unprecedented increases in electronic resources, we have had to make hard choices about which resources to keep. At this point we can no longer afford to support the BioMedCentral model.

(Thanks to Open Access News.)

ACRL/ARL Regional Institute on Scholarly Communication

The ACRL/ARL Regional Institute on Scholarly Communication, to be held December 5-7, 2007 at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is accepting applicants starting August 1, 2007. Enrollment is limited to 100 participants, and it is competitive. The application deadline is September 14, 2007.

Here's an excerpt from the Institute's Web page:

The Association of Research Libraries and Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) are pleased to announce a regional Institute for Scholarly Communication in Illinois sponsored by the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois. The Institute is an immersive learning experience to prepare participants as local experts within their libraries and equip them with tools for developing campus outreach strategies. As a participant in this 2.5 day immersion program, you will become fluent with scholarly communication issues and trends so that you are positioned to educate others on your library staff, engage in campus communications programs and other advocacy efforts, and work collaboratively with other participants to begin developing an outreach plan for your campus.

Participants will work with experts in the field to understand how to better engage faculty at their institution around the crisis in the systems of scholarly communication. You will also learn about the emergence of new models for scholarly communication as well as strategies for creating systemic change. These will include:

  • Faculty activism (e.g. editorial board control, author rights, copyright management, and self-archiving)
  • New publishing models
  • Digital repositories
  • Legislative and policy advocacy

The goal is to help participants prepare a program plan that is customized for their institution. To achieve this goal you will prepare an environmental scan before the institute, engage in a series of active learning experiences during the event, and write an outreach program plan for implementation at your home institution. . . .

Institutions and participants from Illinois will receive preferred consideration; however, space will also be reserved from those outside of Illinois. The institute sponsor is seeking participation from a wide range of academic libraries from community colleges to large research institutions. Team applications are encouraged (up to three participants from a campus), particularly for larger institutions, although individual applications will also be considered. Recognizing the challenges smaller institutions face in participating in the institute and the value of their contributions to outreach efforts, small institutions will not be penalized in the selection process if they are able to fund only individual participants rather than teams.

ARL’s Library Brown-Bag Lunch Series: Issues in Scholarly Communication

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released a series of discussion guides for academic librarians to use with faculty. The guides are under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States license.

Here’s an excerpt from the guides’ web page:

This series of Discussion Leader’s Guides can serve as a starting point for a single discussion or for a series of conversations. Each guide offers prework and discussion questions along with resources that provide further background for the discussion leader of an hour-long session.

Using the discussion guides, library leaders can launch a program quickly without requiring special expertise on the topics. A brown-bag series could be initiated by a library director, a group of staff, or by any staff person with an interest in the scholarly communication system. The only requirements are the willingness to organize the gatherings and facilitate each meeting’s discussion.

CIC’s Digitization Contract with Google

Library Journal Academic Newswire has published a must-read article ("Questions Emerge as Terms of the CIC/Google Deal Become Public") about the Committee on Institutional Cooperation’s Google Book Search Library Project contract.

The article includes quotes from Peter Brantley, Digital Library Federation Executive Director, from his "Monetizing Libraries" posting about the contract (another must-read piece).

Here’s an excerpt from Brantley’s posting:

In other words—pretty much, unless Google ceases business operations, or there is a legal ruling or agreement with publishers that expressly permits these institutions (excepting Michigan and Wisconsin which have contracts of precedence) to receive digitized copies of In-Copyright material, it will be held in escrow until such time as it becomes public domain.

That could be a long wait. . . .

In an article early this year in The New Yorker, "Google’s Moon Shot," Jeffrey Toobin discusses possible outcomes of the antagonism this project has generated between Google and publishers. Paramount among them, in his mind, is a settlement. . . .

A settlement between Google and publishers would create a barrier to entry in part because the current litigation would not be resolved through court decision; any new entrant would be faced with the unresolved legal issues and required to re-enter the settlement process on their own terms. That, beyond the costs of mass digitization itself, is likely to deter almost any other actor in the market.

Nontraditional Professionals in Research Libraries

There is an interesting article by Stanley Wilder in the "Careers" section of the February 23, 2007 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education ("The New Library Professional").

Using 2005 data, he notes that 23% of the professionals in ARL libraries are in nontraditional positions (e.g., development, human resources, and IT), and 39% of under-35 professionals are in these type of positions. In this under-35 group, 24% of nontraditional professionals earn $54,000 (or more). Forty-seven percent of under-35 computer professionals make $50,000 or more. (Needless to say, traditional librarians have not done as well salary-wise, leading to equity concerns.) The number of professionals who do not have an MLS has skyrocketed by 142% since 1985.

I wonder if there are significant differences in this trend by ARL library rank, with it being stronger at more larger, more affluent libraries or at libraries in private institutions.

My own experience during the last 20 years or so at a small public ARL library was that it was a constant struggle to get approval for new computer professional positions; to be able to recruit at salaries that, while not truly competitive, were at least not laughable; to upgrade existing positions so that they more adequately reflected job duties and marketplace values; and to retain staff. This was more difficult for non-MLS professionals than for MLS professionals.

More than once I, as an Assistant Dean/Director of Systems, had to take direct responsibility for Web support because of lengthy recruitment difficulties, including one two-year stretch where I did 100% of all Web support work in addition to my normal duties (I also ran the branch libraries for one year of that period). As an Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development, I had no staff and no prospect of getting any.

At some research libraries, non-MLS professionals may find that they have no career path or a short one. Taking computer professionals as an example, the issue is how far up the hierarchy can non-MLS professionals go before they hit the "must have an accredited MLS" ceiling? Can they become unit heads, department heads, ADs, or Deans/Directors? The answer may vary by library. Another issue is, generous salaries aside, are nontraditional professionals treated as second-class citizens in other ways than advancement (e.g., they may not be given the same level of support for professional travel and activities, especially if MLS librarians have faculty or faculty-like status and are adequately supported in their efforts to move up the academic ranks). Given that 39% of under-35 professionals are in nontraditional jobs, these are important issues to address, especially if Boomer librarians manage to retire en masse as some predict. It would not be a pretty sight to have Boomers heading out the door just as younger nontraditional librarians bump their heads on the MLS ceiling and start considering other career options.

This is a liminal period for research libraries, and, to a significant degree, nontraditional staff will determine their future success.

Source: Wilder, Stanley. "The New Library Professional." The Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 February 2007, C1, C4.