Indiana University Gets $2.38 Million Grant from Mellon Foundation for Kuali OLE

Indiana University has been awarded a $2.38 Million Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the Kuali OLE (Open Library Environment) project.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

IU will lead the Kuali OLE (Open Library Environment) project, a partnership of research libraries dedicated to managing increasingly digital resources and collections. Together, these libraries will develop "community source" software that will be made available to libraries worldwide.

Kuali OLE (pronounced Oh-LAY) partners include Indiana University; Florida Consortium (University of Florida representing Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, Rollins College, University of Central Florida, University of Miami, University of South Florida and the Florida Center for Library Automation); Lehigh University; Triangle Research Libraries Network (represented by Duke University and North Carolina State University); University of Chicago; University of Maryland; University of Michigan; and the University of Pennsylvania.

Large academic research libraries such as these manage and provide access to millions of items, using software to track interrelated transactions that range from ordering and paying for items to loaning materials to library patrons.

As the nature of library collections expands to include more digital materials—including leased electronic journals and digitized photograph collections—libraries are increasingly interested in developing management software for these resources, said Interim Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries Carolyn Walters.

"Libraries now create, lease and share digital materials, but the systems in place for cataloging and tracking these items are based on print collections," said Walters. "With this project, we benefit from working together with a community of academic libraries that want to change the way that information is managed in the scholarly environment."

"Research libraries are in dire need of systems that can support the management of research collections for the next-generation scholar," said Robert H. McDonald, executive director for the project and IU's associate dean for library technologies. "This approach demonstrates the best of open-source software development, directed partnership resource needs, and a market of commercial support providers to truly align with the needs of research libraries within the higher education environment."

More than 200 libraries, educational institutions, professional organizations and businesses laid the groundwork for the Kuali OLE project by participating in the original OLE project, a design phase that was supported by an earlier grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by Duke University.

Digital Library Software Engineer at Harvard

The Office for Scholarly Communications at the Harvard University Library is recruiting a Digital Library Software Engineer.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC) oversees the mechanisms by which the fruits of scholarship are communicated within and without the University, with a special aim to increase the availability of the scholarly output of the University and maximize the efficiency with which scholarly materials are made available to members of the Harvard community and beyond. The OSC department of the Harvard University Library (HUL) seeks a programmer/analyst for development and support of the DASH open access digital scholarship repository. This is a unique opportunity to serve as the technical lead on a project to collect and share the University's research with the world. Please Note: This is a one year term appointment with possibility of renewal depending on funding and performance.

Research Data: Unseen Opportunities

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries has released Research Data: Unseen Opportunities.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The purpose of the toolkit is to enable research library directors to raise awareness of the issues of data management with administrators and researchers on campus.

Data are valuable assets that in some cases have an unlimited potential for reuse. The awareness toolkit underscores the need to ensure that research data are managed throughout the data lifecycle so that they are understandable and usable.

"This is a very timely document" says Marnie Swanson (University of Victoria), Chair of the CARL Data Management Sub-Committee. "More than ever, data are a critical component of the research endeavor and this toolkit will help libraries raise awareness in the scholarly community of the importance of data stewardship."

Research Data: Unseen Opportunities provides readers with a general understanding of the current state of research data in Canada and internationally. It is organized into seven sections: The Big Picture; Major Benefits of Data Management; Current Context; Case Studies; Gaps in Data Stewardship in Canada; Data Management Policies in Canada; Responses to Faculty/Administrative Concerns; What Can Be Done on Campus?

Senior Software Infrastructure Engineer at Northwestern University

The Northwestern University Library is recruiting a Senior Software Infrastructure Engineer.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

This position, reporting to the Head of Library Technology Enterprise Systems, works in a highly collaborative environment with library colleagues and external partners on the analysis, design, coding and testing of differently functioning systems in support of the library's enterprise applications. The position also supports digital repository development, digital preservation, metadata, collections and services development to explore, adapt, and implement emerging repository technologies.

National Library of the Netherlands Plans to Digitize All Dutch Books, Newspapers, and Periodicals from 1470

The National Library of the Netherlands has released its Strategic Plan 2010-2013.

In the "Strategic priority 1" section (page 6), the document states that the library intends to ultimately "digitise all Dutch books, newspapers and periodicals from 1470." By 2013, it states that: “10% of all Dutch books, newspapers and periodicals have been digitised (60 million pages by the KB, 13 million by third parties).” (Thanks to ResourceShelf.)

Here's an excerpt:

One of the large, labour-intensive challenges is to digitise all the books, periodicals and newspapers that have appeared in the Netherlands. A component of this undertaking is the digitisation of the special pre-1800 collections for which a number of Dutch university libraries and the KB have together drawn up a project plan. In addition, the KB has collected since 1995 born digital publications (publications which are only published in digital form, such as websites, digital periodicals, e-books, etc.). The KB will intensify this undertaking. The KB aims to be able to offer customers all publications with as few restrictions as possible. Naturally the KB does this in close consultation with publishers and right holder organisations.

Institutional Repository Bibliography, Version 2

Version two of the Institutional Repository Bibliography is now available from Digital Scholarship.

The Institutional Repository Bibliography presents over 700 selected English-language articles, books, technical reports, and other scholarly textual sources that are useful in understanding institutional repositories. This version significantly expands coverage of technical reports and adds a search function (Google index update for version two may take a few days).

Most sources have been published between 2000 and the present; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 2000 are also included. Where possible, links are provided to e-prints in disciplinary archives and institutional repositories for published articles. Note that e-prints and published articles may not be identical.

The bibliography has the following sections (revised sections are in italics):

1 General
2 Country and Regional Institutional Repository Surveys
3 Multiple-Institution Repositories
4 Specific Institutional Repositories
5 Institutional Repository Digital Preservation Issues
6 Institutional Repository Library Issues
7 Institutional Repository Metadata Issues
8 Institutional Repository Open Access Policies
9 Institutional Repository R&D Projects
10 Institutional Repository Research Studies
11 Institutional Repository Software
Appendix A. About the Author

The following recent Digital Scholarship publications may also be of interest:

Enhanced Publications: Linking Publications and Research Data in Digital Repositories

The Amsterdam University Press has released the SURF Foundation/DRIVER's Enhanced Publications: Linking Publications and Research Data in Digital Repositories.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The traditional publication will be overhauled by the 'Enhanced Publication.' This is a publication that is enhanced with research data, extra materials, post publication data, and database records. It has an object-based structure with explicit links between the objects. In this book a state-of-the-art overview is given of the structural elements of an Enhanced Publication, as well as publication models, interrelationship and repository issues. The use of Enhanced Publications evokes questions on object models and functionalities. In-depth study is made of these subjects. More practically, a sample is given of datasets in enhanced publications and a demonstrator on how an enhanced publication can be visualised. In the final section, this book deals with long-term preservation issues, linking to the developments of digital repositories that are studied in other books in this series.

Web Services Librarian at University of Miami

The University of Miami Libraries is recruiting a Web Services Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Reporting to the Director for Information Management and Systems, the Web Services Librarian provides leadership and direction in the design and development of the Libraries' web presence for all services, content, and interfaces; supervises the Libraries Web Administrator. Works with the Web Administrator to co-chair the Libraries Web Team and convene a Content Managers Group for discussions and dissemination of information; develops and recommends policies, standards, and guidelines for web content development, implementation, and management in collaboration with Library and University stakeholders; oversees usability of all user interfaces and web design, and develops guidelines and assessment strategies to provide a superior experience for all users.; coordinates testing, initiates focus groups, develops reports, and disseminates information to necessary staff; collaborates effectively with Systems and Digital Initiatives staff, stake-holders and unit-level managers to conceptualize and determine technologies and design in the delivery of user-centered library services, incorporating web 2.0 technologies to provide new features and functionality; participates as an ex-officio member of the Libraries' Student Advisory Group, and attends Education and Outreach Services meetings for informational purposes; works with Instructional Advancement and participates in programming for the Libraries' Faculty Exploratory to support and promote faculty development and the use of technology in teaching and learning; networks, collaborates and actively participates in local, regional, national, or international organizations regarding related issues; represents and promotes the University of Miami Libraries in local, state-wide, regional, national, or international organizations as appropriate ; serves on/participates in Libraries and University organizations, committees, task forces, and teams as appropriate.

Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communications Librarian at University of Idaho

The University of Idaho Library is recruiting a Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communications Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University of Idaho Library invites applications from innovative and service-oriented individuals for the position of Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communications Librarian to lead, develop, and maintain digital collections and services. The Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communications Librarian will work closely and collaboratively with library and university employees to ensure that the University of Idaho Library’s digital initiatives are an integral part of its collections and services. This position will manage and develop a growing collection of digital exhibits, associated web pages, book digitization projects, and work with others on the establishment of an institutional repository. The successful candidate will play a leading role in planning and developing a comprehensive strategy for emerging digital initiatives and projects that support the university’s vision for library services in a land-grant environment.

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Consultation on Open Access

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) public consultation on public access policy completed phase three on January 7, 2010.

Here's an excerpt from "Phase III Wrap-Up":

We sincerely thank every one of you for taking the time to provide such valuable commentary on this topic. As previously mentioned, due to the busy holiday season we will be re-opening the forum for a two-week bonus session beginning immediately. In this final session we will be soliciting comments on all the topics discussed in the three previous phases, and may periodically ask during the course of these two weeks that participants focus on a few key issues that we feel warrant additional attention. . . .

Once again thank you to all who participated; your comments and suggestions are genuinely appreciated. Now, for those of you who have been caught up with the holidays or have simply procrastinated, please take some time to share your thoughts as we extend this public forum through January 21th.

Here are the main discussion pages for the three phases:

Alliance for Taxpayer Access Call to Action about White House Open Access RFI

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has issued a call to action about the OSTP open access RFI.

Here's the press release:

CALL TO ACTION: Let the White House know you support public access to public funded research

Last week, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a Request for Information (RFI) inviting input on "enhancing public access to archived publications resulting from research funded by federal science and technology agencies." SPARC is pleased that the Administration, as part of its Transparency and Open Government initiative, is looking at public access as an opportunity to stimulate scientific and technological innovation and competitiveness.

All are urged to respond to this pivotal opportunity, as individuals and on behalf of institutions and organizations, NO LATER than January 7, 2010. Your input will be critical in helping the administration to form a deep and balanced view of stakeholders’ interest in ensuring public access to publicly funded research.

This RFI will be active for only 30 days, from December 10, 2009 to January 7, 2010. Respondents are invited to comment online through the Public Access Policy blog at http://blog.ostp.gov/category/public-access-policy, where the discussion will center on a single theme for each of three ten-day periods.

December 10 – 20: Implementation

December 21 – 31: Features and technology

January 1 – 7: Management

Email comments will also be accepted, but will still be posted to the blog by the moderator. General comments may also be submitted. See the full Federal Register notice at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-29322.htm for details.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss, please contact SPARC, representing the Alliance for Taxpayer Access.

Heather Joseph, Executive Director
heather [at] arl [dot] org

Jennifer McLennan, Director of Communications
jennifer [at] arl [dot] org

We'll look forward to talking with you, and to working with you on this tremendous opportunity for higher education and American public.

Note: To post comments on the OSTP blog, you must register and login. There are also registration and login links on the sidebar of the Archive for the Public Access Policy OSTP blog category at the bottom right and on the OSTP blog home page in the same location. The current discussion post is "Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research: Implementation." As noted in the Federal Register announcement, comments can also be e-mailed to publicaccess@ostp.gov.

Read more about the OSTP RFI at "Obama Administration Potentially a Strong Voice in Open Access Debate" and "Obama's Open Government Plan Includes Open Access for Research Publications."

12/22/09 Update: The current discussion post is "Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research: Features and Technology." Comments are entered at this post.

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog Update (12/16/09)

The latest update of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (SEPW) is now available. It provides information about new works related to scholarly electronic publishing, such as books, e-prints, journal articles, magazine articles, technical reports, and white papers.

Especially interesting are: "Dublin Core Metadata Semantics: An Analysis of the Perspectives of Information Professionals," "Enhancing Scientific Communication through Aggregated Publications Environments," "How to Publish Data Using Overlay Journals: The OJIMS Project," "Increasing the Productivity of Interactions between Subject and Institutional Repositories," "Open Access and the Google Book Settlement" and "SCOAP3 and Open Access."

JISC Repositories and Preservation Programme: Final Evaluation Report

JISC has released JISC Repositories and Preservation Programme: Final Evaluation Report.

Here's an excerpt:

This report provides an evaluation of the JISC Repositories and Preservation Programme (RPP) as it reached its conclusion. The Repositories and Preservation Programme was a £14m investment in Higher Education repository and digital content infrastructure running between April 2006 and March 2009. The programme funded a wide range of initiatives to support the development of digital repositories and related activities. The programme was established in order to achieve a number of benefits for the JISC community and related stakeholders.

The aim of this report is to draw together various data sources and provide a high level evaluation of the JISC Repositories and Preservation Programme. The Repositories and Preservation Programme team has taken a benefit led approach to the evaluation of the programme based around the Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) methodology. Twenty one benefits were identified and developed to reflect what the programme sought to achieve. The purpose of the final evaluation was to ascertain whether the benefits had been achieved or are likely to be achieved due to the work of the programme. Data for the evaluation was drawn from a variety of sources.

Insight into Digital Preservation of Research Output in Europe

PARSE.Insight (INSIGHT into issues of Permanent Access to the Records of Science in Europe) has released Insight into Digital Preservation of Research Output in Europe.

Here's an excerpt:

This report . . . describes the results of the surveys conducted by PARSE.Insight to gain insight into research in Europe. Major surveys were held within three stake-holder domains: research, publishing and data management. In total, almost 2,000 people responded; they provided us with interesting insights in the current state of affairs in digital preservation of digital research data (including publications), the outlook of data preservation, data sharing, roles & responsibilities of stakeholders in research and funding of research.

Cornell Gives about 80,000 Digitized Public Domain Books to Internet Archive

The Cornell University Library has given about 80,000 digitized public domain books to the Internet Archive.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In an effort to make its materials globally accessible, Cornell University Library is sharing tens of thousands of digitized books with the Internet Archive.

"We have been carefully preserving and storing materials for years, and now we're diversifying the channels for them to be studied and used," said Oya Reiger, associate university librarian for information technologies. "We have the ability to take books to the places where readers are."

The new collaboration repurposes nearly 80,000 books that the Library has already digitized in-house or through its partnership with Microsoft and Kirtas Technologies. All the books are in the public domain, printed before 1923 mainly in the United States. They cover a host of subject areas, including American history, English literature, astronomy, food and wine, general engineering, the history of science, home economics, hospitality and travel, labor relations, Native American materials, ornithology, veterinary medicine and women's studies. . . .

"Expanding access to knowledge is one of the Library's core principles, and we are excited to participate in the open-access vision of the Internet Archive," said Anne R. Kenney, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian.

The collaboration with Internet Archive is another step in Cornell University Library's cutting-edge participation in mass digitization initiatives. Earlier this year, the Library announced an expanded print-on-demand partnership with Amazon.com that allows readers to pay for reprinting of books on an individual basis.

"The Internet Archive is proud to process and host the books from Cornell — these collections are priceless," said Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive. "We are happy that Microsoft put no restrictions on the scanned public domain books and Cornell is encouraging maximum readership and research use."

Performing a simple search for one of Cornell University Library's digitized books now brings up both a copy on Amazon and a free online copy on the Internet Archive.

Version 77, Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

Version 77 of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography is now available from Digital Scholarship. This selective bibliography presents over 3,620 articles, books, and other digital and printed sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. Where possible, links are provided to works that are freely available on the Internet, including e-prints in disciplinary archives and institutional repositories.

The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography: 2008 Annual Edition is available as a paperback book and as a Kindle e-book.

The bibliography has the following sections (revised sections are in italics):

Dedication
1 Economic Issues
2 Electronic Books and Texts
2.1 Case Studies and History
2.2 General Works
2.3 Library Issues
3 Electronic Serials
3.1 Case Studies and History
3.2 Critiques
3.3 Electronic Distribution of Printed Journals
3.4 General Works
3.5 Library Issues
3.6 Research
4 General Works
5 Legal Issues
5.1 Intellectual Property Rights
5.2 License Agreements
6 Library Issues
6.1 Cataloging, Identifiers, Linking, and Metadata
6.2 Digital Libraries
6.3 General Works
6.4 Information Integrity and Preservation
7 New Publishing Models
8 Publisher Issues
8.1 Digital Rights Management and User Authentication
9 Repositories, E-Prints, and OAI
Appendix A. Related Bibliographies
Appendix B. About the Author
Appendix C. SEPB Use Statistics

Head of Library Systems at Florida State University

The Florida State University Library is recruiting a Head of Library Systems.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Responsible for the maintenance and development of information technology in the University Libraries including over 20 servers and over 600 networked staff and public workstations and associated equipment across three facilities. The position heads the unit supporting the local and remote library information technology services provided to a large public research university and reports to the Associate Director for Technology.

Columbia University Joins Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity

Columbia University Libraries/Information Services have joined the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Columbia University has joined several leading institutions of higher learning in a commitment to a Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity. Other signatories to the compact are Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California at Berkeley.

The compact commits signatories to the timely establishment of mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication fees for open access journal articles authored by researchers without alternative funding. The effort around the compact arose as a result of discussions within the university community about providing sustainable, efficient, and effective business models for journal publishing. "The growth of this new strategy for support for high quality scholarly communication in the expanding number of open access journals requires our participation and support," said Jim Neal, Columbia's Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian.

In today's scholarly publishing environment, financial strain is motivating libraries to seek means other than traditional subscription journals for providing access to intellectual content. OA journals offer such an alternative, while providing the same services common to scholarly journals such as management of the peer-review process, filtering, production, and distribution.

Following from the compact commitment, Columbia University Libraries/Information Services is establishing a fund to help support Columbia faculty, staff, and students who wish to publish in OA journals. The Libraries are currently formulating policy and eligibility requirements for the fund, which will be administered by the Scholarly Communication Program, based at the Center for Digital Research and Scholarship (CDRS). CDRS currently offers free and for-cost publishing services for Columbia-based scholarly journals, and specializes in support for open access publications.

Springer Science+Business Media Sold to EQT and GIC

Springer Science+Business Media has been sold to EQT and GIC.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Board of Directors of Springer Science+Business Media (Springer Group), composed of Springer executives and representatives of Cinven and Candover, have agreed to accept an offer from and have signed a sales agreement with a partnership of EQT, a private equity investor based in Sweden, and GIC, a Singapore-based co-investor, for all shares of the Springer Group. The Springer Group is the world’s second largest scientific, technical and medical (STM) publisher and a leader in the digitalization of scientific information.

Furthermore, EQT and GIC have agreed to inject new equity into the Springer Group, to strengthen its balance sheet and decrease the overall cost of funding. A refinancing agreement with a syndicate of banks will give the Springer Group medium-term stability by removing imminent potential refinancing issues.

The acquisition is subject to examination and approval by European, US and national competition authorities. This process is expected to be finished by mid to late January or early February 2010.

Derk Haank, Springer’s CEO, said, “The Springer Executive Management Team has had constructive and collegial discussions with EQT. I am confident that this marks the beginning of a new exciting and successful chapter for us and for our new partners at EQT and GIC. The sale will allow us to move our ambitious and ongoing 'e' strategy forward, and to invest more heavily for our stakeholder’s benefit – this is the best solution for the company, our employees and shareholders.”

Read more about it at "Springer Group, Second-Leading STM Publisher, Sold by/to Private Equity Firms" and "Springer Publishing Group Sold for €100m ."

Helen Shenton Named Deputy Director of the Harvard University Library

Helen Shenton, Head of Collection Care for the British Library, has been named Deputy Director of the Harvard University Library.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In 2002, she became the first overall head of collection care for the British Library (BL), where her purview encompasses conservation, preservation, training and research, collection storage, and security for 150 million items, ranging from the Magna Carta to 300 terabytes of digital material. She co-founded the BL's first comprehensive digital preservation team, and she led an innovative collection-management strategic "strand" known as the "Life Cycle" program.

With eleven years of experience on the BL's senior leadership team, Shenton is steeped in collection management, information technology, human resources, and new building projects. She masterminded the BL's new world-class Centre for Conservation and is heavily involved with the BL’s new high-density, low-oxygen robotic depository 190 miles from London, into which a half-mile of stock is currently being transferred per day.

Shenton studied English Literature at University College London and trained at the London College of Printing and with the arts and crafts book conservator Roger Powell. She joined the British Library in 1998 after 14 years in the conservation department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, where she was responsible for the textiles, paper, paintings, photography, and book disciplines.

She also honed her management skills at the Harvard Business School's Executive Strategy Program this summer.

"I do not underestimate the enormity of the challenges ahead," she says, "but I am very excited at the prospect of joining Harvard University Library at such a key moment to help make the library and information provision even better for students and faculty now and in the future."

Shenton will arrive at Harvard early in 2010.

OSTP Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research

Diane DiEuliis, Assistant Director, Life Sciences, Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Robynn Sturm, U.S. Assistant Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Office of Science and Technology Policy, have posted "Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research: Implementation" on the OSTP Blog.

Note: To post comments on the OSTP Blog, you must register and login. There are registration and login links on the sidebar of the blog home page at the bottom right (these links are not on individual blog postings).

Here's an excerpt from the post:

Yesterday we announced the launch of the Public Access Forum, sponsored by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Beginning with today's post, we look forward to a productive online discussion.

One of our nation's most important assets is the trove of data produced by federally funded scientists and published in scholarly journals. The question that this Forum will address is: To what extent and under what circumstances should such research articles—funded by taxpayers but with value added by scholarly publishers—be made freely available on the Internet?

The Forum is set to run through Jan. 7, 2010, during which time we will focus sequentially on three broad themes (you can access the full schedule here). In the first phase of this forum (Dec. 10th-20th) we want to focus on the topic of Implementation. Among the questions we'd like to have you, the public and various stakeholders, consider are:

  • Who should enact public access policies? Many agencies fund research the results of which ultimately appear in scholarly journals. The National Institutes of Health requires that research funded by its grants be made available to the public online at no charge within 12 months after publication. Which other Federal agencies may be good candidates to adopt public access policies? Are there objective reasons why some should promulgate public access policies and others not? What criteria are appropriate to consider when an agency weighs the potential costs (including administrative and management burdens) and benefits of increased public access?
  • How should a public access policy be designed?
  1. Timing. At what point in time should peer-reviewed papers be made public via a public access policy relative to the date a publisher releases the final version? Are there empirical data to support an optimal length of time? Different fields of science advance at different rates—a factor that can influence the short- and long-term value of new findings to scientists, publishers and others. Should the delay period be the same or vary across disciplines? If it should vary, what should be the minimum or maximum length of time between publication and public release for various disciplines? Should the delay period be the same or vary for levels of access (e.g. final peer reviewed manuscript or final published article, access under fair use versus alternative license)?
  2. Version. What version of the paper should be made public under a public access policy (e.g., the author's peer-reviewed manuscript or the final published version)? What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of different versions of a scientific paper?
  3. Mandatory v. Voluntary. The NIH mandatory policy was enacted after a voluntary policy at the agency failed to generate high levels of participation. Are there other approaches to increasing participation that would have advantages over mandatory participation?
  4. Other. What other structural characteristics of a public access policy ought to be taken into account to best accommodate the needs and interests of authors, primary and secondary publishers, libraries, universities, the federal government, users of scientific literature and the public?

We invite your comments and in particular encourage you to be specific in your thoughts and proposals, providing empirical data and specific supporting examples whenever possible so this discussion can generate maximum practical value. You may want to start by reading a more complete description of this issue as it appeared in the Federal Register.

How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers

The Global Information Industry Center at UCSD has released How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day. A zettabyte is 10 to the 21st power bytes, a million million gigabytes. These estimates are from an analysis of more than 20 different sources of information, from very old (newspapers and books) to very new (portable computer games, satellite radio, and Internet video). Information at work is not included. . . .

Hours of information consumption grew at 2.6 percent per year from 1980 to 2008, due to a combination of population growth and increasing hours per capita, from 7.4 to 11.8. More surprising is that information consumption in bytes increased at only 5.4 percent per year. Yet the capacity to process data has been driven by Moore's Law, rising at least 30 percent per year. One reason for the slow growth in bytes is that color TV changed little over that period. High-definition TV is increasing the number of bytes in TV programs, but slowly.

The traditional media of radio and TV still dominate our consumption per day, with a total of 60 percent of the hours. In total, more than three-quarters of U.S. households' information time is spent with non-computer sources.

Despite this, computers have had major effects on some aspects of information consumption. In the past, information consumption was overwhelmingly passive, with telephone being the only interactive medium. Thanks to computers, a full third of words and more than half of bytes are now received interactively. Reading, which was in decline due to the growth of television, tripled from 1980 to 2008, because it is the overwhelmingly preferred way to receive words on the Internet.

Repository Librarian at UNC-CH

The University of North Carolina Libraries are recruiting a Repository Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is seeking a motivated, self-starter with excellent task management and communication skills to serve as Repository Librarian for the Carolina Digital Repository (CDR), the University's institutional and digital preservation repository. The CDR manages and ensures continuing access to digital content of enduring value produced or maintained at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is a University-wide service in support of persistent access to Carolina's digital scholarship and heritage. The CDR provides a set of services to help Carolina community members manage and secure their digital content, and make this content discoverable online to designated communities, as well as the mechanisms for digital content to be collected, organized, stored, searched, linked, read, distributed, indexed, and preserved.

Reporting to the Head of the Library Systems Office, the Repository Librarian will be responsible for supporting UNC faculty, students, and staff with information, training, and assistance in depositing digital materials into the CDR, and for working with the CDR Steering Committee and with policy, programming, and other staff to define and implement repository policies, workflows, and capabilities. The Repository Librarian will have lead responsibility for ensuring that CDR programs align with the needs of the UNC community and that UNC faculty, students, and staff are aware of and know how to utilize CDR services.