President Obama Requests $265,556,000 for IMLS

President Obama has asked Congress for $265,556,000 for the Institute of Museum and Library Services' FY 2010 budget allocation, an increase of $1,453,000 over FY 2009.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The President requested $213,240,000 for the nation’s 123,000 libraries. Of that amount, approximately 80 percent is distributed through the Grants to States program to the State Library Administrative Agencies (SLAAs) in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, and freely associated state, according to a population-based formula. These grants help libraries meet the community needs, use technology to develop new service models and reach underserved populations. Library funding also supports:

  • National Leadership Grants to support creation of new tools, research, models, services, practices, or alliances to shape tomorrow’s libraries;
  • Native American and Native Hawaiian Library Services Grants to support improved access to library services for Native Americans, Alaska Native Villages, and Native Hawaiians; and the
  • Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian grants that build the professional capacity of libraries by improving staff knowledge and skills.

University of Oregon Library Faculty Adopt Open Access Mandate

The University of Oregon Library Faculty have unanimously adopted an open access mandate (thanks to Open Access News).

Here's the open access resolution from the announcement:

The Library Faculty of the University of Oregon are committed to disseminating the fruits of their research and scholarship as widely as possible. In keeping with that commitment, the Faculty adopts the following policy:

Each Library faculty member gives to the University of Oregon nonexclusive permission to use and make available that author's scholarly articles for the purpose of open dissemination. Specifically, each Library faculty member grants a Creative Commons "Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States" license to each of his or her scholarly articles. The license will apply to all scholarly articles written while the person is a member of the Library Faculty except for any articles accepted for publication before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy. The Dean of the Libraries will waive application of the policy for a particular article upon written notification by the author, who informs the UO of the reason.

To facilitate distribution of the scholarly articles, as of the date of publication, each faculty member will make available an electronic copy of the author's final version of the article and full citation at no charge to a designated representative of the Libraries in appropriate formats (such as PDF) specified by the Libraries. After publication, the University of Oregon Libraries will make the scholarly article available to the public in the UO's institutional repository.

In March of this year, the Oregon State University Libraries faculty adopted a Library Faculty Open Access Policy.

DigitalKoans

Digital Repositories Roadmap Review: Towards a Vision for Research and Learning in 2013

JISC has released Digital Repositories Roadmap Review: Towards a Vision for Research and Learning in 2013.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The review is structured into two parts. Firstly it makes a number of recommendations targeted at the JISC Executive. The review then goes on to identify a number of milestones of relevance to the wider community that might act as a measure of progress towards the wider vision of enhanced scholarly communication. Achievement of these milestones would be assisted by JISC through its community work and funding programmes. The review addresses repositories for research outputs, research data and learning materials in separate sections.

DigitalKoans

Library IT Jobs: Web Services Librarian at Golden Gate University

The Golden Gate University Library is recruiting a Web Services Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

As leader of the Library Web Team, this librarian works collegially with others:

  • Coordinates the creation and management of the online content presented on the University Library's Web properties.
  • Analyzes current content, as well as anticipating future content needs, and adjusts web information accordingly.
  • Assesses effectiveness and usability of website; identifies improvements that consider the various needs and learning styles of GGU students and faculty.

DigitalKoans

Open Source OPAC: Blacklight 2.1 Release

The Blacklight 2.1 Release is now available.

Here's an excerpt from the Blacklight Frequently Asked Questions:

Blacklight is an open source OPAC (online public access catalog). That means libraries (or anyone else) can use it to allow people to search and browse their collections online. Blacklight uses Solr to index and search, and it has a highly configurable Ruby on Rails front-end. Currently, Blacklight can index, search, and provide faceted browsing for MARC records and several kinds of XML documents, including TEI, EAD, and GDMS. Blacklight was developed at the University of Virginia Library and is made public under an Apache 2.0 license.

DigitalKoans

Proposed Budget Cuts Threaten LSU Press

The Louisiana State University Press is listed in "Louisiana State University System: Preliminary Budget Reduction Proposals" under a $4,100,000 "Cut general fund support to academic support units" item, which says:

This cut will require certain academic support entities to implement new fees for their services or to increase their existing fees to students, faculty, staff, and/or the general public. Because of the nature of some of these entities and their fixed cost of operation, it is very possible they cannot generate the revenue needed and will close. Examples of units that may be impacted as a result of this type of decision are the LSU Museum of Art, Rural Life Museum, Hilltop Arboretum, LSU Press, Southern Review, Louisiana Library Network, Alumni Association and the Fire & Emergency Training Institute.

Read more about it at "Louisiana State U. Press Might Get the Ax."

DigitalKoans

IR Deposit Using Embedded Document Metadata: Deposit Plait: Final Report

JISC has released Deposit Plait: Final Report.

Here's an excerpt:

The aim of the Deposit Plait project was to examine potential for easing the deposit of journal articles into institutional repositories by making use of any metadata embedded within the document properties of the document being deposited. . . .

The first stage of the project was to see how easy it is to extract this metadata. The target file formats that the project worked with were the Open Document Format (as created by OpenOffice), OpenXML (as created by Microsoft Office 2007), and .doc files (as created by version of Microsoft Office from 97 to 2003). There are standard open source software libraries that can extract both standard and custom metadata fields from each of these file forms.

The second stage of the project was to see how easy it is to use extracted metadata as search terms in order to search for a more complete metadata record. In the case where the item being deposited into the repository has been in existence for some time (it is a 'retrospective deposit') then metadata found can be used to perform a search. Different search methods were implemented as examples, including using search APIs, and screen scraping from search services. Whilst the method works fine, there are the normal licensing issues to consider, and whether licences cover the user for this type of metadata re-use.

The project concluded by creating an online demonstration system. In contrast to a normal repository deposit where the user enters metadata, and then uploads a file, this system requires the user to first upload a file. The metadata is extracted, and the user is allowed to choose which (one or more) of the fields to use as the basis of a search. The search is then initiated and matching records returned. The user can then pick and choose fields from the results the 'plait' together their final metadata record.

DigitalKoans

Digital Library Jobs: Digital Technologies Development Librarian at NCSU

The North Carolina State University Libraries are recruiting a Digital Technologies Development Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Digital Technologies Development Librarian provides technical leadership and hands-on programming expertise for digital library projects. She or he identifies emerging technologies that have potential for new and improved library services. Working both independently and in team settings, the incumbent develops new digital library services through an iterative process that emphasizes performance, sustainability, and usability. She or he develops tools that support ongoing data analysis of library services and digital library projects. The Digital Technologies Development Librarian maintains and provides enhancements to existing digital library applications and collaborates closely with Information Technology staff to develop and maintain supporting technology infrastructure. She or he participates in library planning and serves on library-wide committees, task forces, and teams. NCSU librarians are expected to be active professionally and to contribute to developments in the field. Reports to the Associate Head for Digital Library Development.

DigitalKoans

Wolters Kluwer 2009 First-Quarter Update

Wolters Kluwer released its "Wolters Kluwer 2009 First-Quarter Scheduled Trading Update."

Here's an excerpt:

The company continues to see resilience in its first-quarter profitability despite challenging economic conditions in North America and Europe which have impacted the buying decisions of our professional customers. Regardless of these challenges, the professionals we serve continued to demand new and innovative solutions to improve their productivity. We continued to address these needs and as a result revenues from online and software solutions exceeded 50% of total revenues in the quarter. Retention rates on subscription products were largely in line with the prior year, while new subscription sales and sales on transactional products were weak as anticipated at the beginning of the year and from delayed customer purchase decisions. Despite these conditions, the ordinary EBITA margin [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization margin] in the first quarter was in line with the prior year due to earlier cost containment actions, the continued migration of revenues from print to electronic products, the benefits of the Springboard operational excellence program and the contribution of higher margin acquisitions completed in the prior year. First-quarter cash flow was in line with expectations, and integration of prior year acquisitions is on track. The resilient portfolio and strong cash generation continue to support a solid financial position.

DigitalKoans

Library IT Jobs: Web Services Librarian at Tulane University

The Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University is recruiting a Web Services Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The Web Services Librarian is an innovative and service-oriented librarian who takes overall responsibility for the Library’s main website, including oversight of content and design; plans future redesigns and innovations to the site; engages in usability testing and other assessments of the website; and coordinates and facilitates the development of access to web content and services from library departments. The librarian works closely with a Web Steering Committee comprised of representatives from units around the library, and supervises a full-time web programmer. This librarian also coordinates digitization projects library-wide, setting standards for the creation of content and metadata, and represents the library to other groups around campus and the region engaged in the creation of digital collections. Reporting to the Director of Public Services, the librarian shares reference duties with other librarians and participates in the library’s instruction program. The librarian may also participate in collection development.

DigitalKoans

European Parliament Vote Requires Judicial Ruling Before Alleged Internet Copyright Violators Can Be Disconnected

The European Parliament has approved an amendment to its Telecoms Package that requires a judicial ruling before alleged Internet copyright violators can be disconnected from the network.

Here's the amendment:

No restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end-users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities, notably in accordance with Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union on freedom of expression and information, save when public security is threatened in which case the ruling may be subsequent.

Read more about it at "Euro-MPs Stick to Their Guns on Three-Strikes Court Permission," "European Parliament Smacks Down France on Three Strikes Law," and "European Parliament Votes in Favour of Internet Freedom."

DigitalKoans

Library IT Jobs: Library Technology Management and Services Librarian at Texas Tech University

The Texas Tech University Libraries are recruiting a Library Technology Management and Services Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

Exemplifies collaborative, productive, and results-oriented work performance, attitude, and ethics with minimal supervision in a team-oriented environment. Conducts library technology research, enabling interpretive development and evolution of library technology services, resources, and processes. Plans, collaborates, and otherwise participates in LTMS faculty outreach activities to develop beneficial technology partnerships. Collaborates with the Library Communications and Marketing Office and the LTMS Teams on Library technology marketing initiatives, programs, and associated activities. Serves as a member on (or as a technology resource to) library committees, teams, and task forces as appropriate. Supports, sustains, and interdependently fulfills the LTMS Research and Development (R&D) Team Charge. May provide up to 5% of working time in a tier 3 consulting role toward day-to-day support and maintenance of technology systems and services. May serve as a mentor, coach, trainer, or instructor within the University Library or the LTMS department. May serve, in a rotational manner, as the Lead of the R&D Team. Serves the University Library Mission, Vision, and Values in alignment with the Library Strategic Plan. Follows established University policies and procedures. Reports to the R&D Team Lead. Supports and sustains the Library’s administrative leadership.

DigitalKoans

Informed P2P User Act Hearing

On 3/5/2009, Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) introduced the Informed P2P User Act. The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection of the Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on the bill today.

Here's an excerpt from Marc Rotenberg's testimony (Rotenberg is the Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center):

In the consideration of this bill, it is important to understand that P2P programs are used for a wide variety of function from the sharing of music to Internet-based telephony as well as scientific research. Even the military makes use of P2P networks. The technique is also important in countries where Internet censorship is a threat.

In the most generic sense, a P2P network is a technical description, much like saying a telephone network or the Internet. It is no intrinsic application, other than architecture that allows nodes to exchange information equally with other nodes in the network. Some Internet scholars have observed that this architecture reflects the collaboration among individuals that has helped spur the growth of the Internet. Professor Yochai Benkler refers to this as "Commons Based Peer Production."

No doubt part of the bill aims to discourage the use of file sharing techniques that may infringe copyright as well as making users vulnerable to certain types of inadvertent file sharing. But there is some risk that the bill would also discourage the use of file sharing techniques that do not raise such concerns. More generally, it appears to be posting a warning sign on a very wide variety of applications that most likely have little to do with the sponsor’s concern.

Read more about it at "H.R. 1319 Wants You to Know When You're Sharing Files, but Will Drown You in Pop-Ups" and "P2P Bill Could Regulate Web Browsers, FTP Clients."

DigitalKoans

Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Draft for Review

A near-final draft of the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) has been made available for error-checking review.

Here's an excerpt:

This document is a technical Recommendation for use in developing a broader consensus on what is required for an archive to provide permanent, or indefinite long-term, preservation of digital information.

This Recommendation establishes a common framework of terms and concepts which comprise an Open Archival Information System (OAIS). It allows existing and future archives to be more meaningfully compared and contrasted. It provides a basis for further standardization within an archival context and it should promote greater vendor awareness of, and support of, archival requirements.

DigitalKoans

JISC Project: Lifespan Initiative for the Research and Data Archive Repository

JISC's Lifespan Initiative for the Research and Data Archive Repository project started on 4/1/09.

Here's an excerpt from the project Web page:

The Lifespan Collection (www.lifespancollection.org.uk) represents an existing and unique research data set, which includes around 3,400 hours of audio-taped interviews, scorings and quantitative computerised data, capturing the lifetime experience of over 500 individuals. The outcomes of this project will be presented in terms of both a report on the processes and best-practice solutions for preserving and digitalising the data, including the creation of processes of submission of, and accessibility to, current and future critical datasets that ensure compliance with data security, copyright legislation, licensing, and associated audit functions. One or more detailed case studies will be produced that will not only inform the future development of this project but will act as illustrative examples for use by other similar start-up projects. This will lay the ground work for an exemplar implementation of the tools and solutions already delivered by JISC and other institutions.

DigitalKoans

OAI-PMH: MOAI Server 1.0 Released

Infrae has released the MOAI Server 1.0, an open source OAI-PMH application.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

MOAI is an open access server platform for institutional repositories. The server aggregates content from disparate sources, transforms it, stores it in a database, and (re)publishes the content, in one or many OAI feeds. Each feed has its own configuration.

The server has a flexible system for combining records into sets and uses these sets in the feed configuration. MOAI also comes with a simple yet flexible authentication scheme that can easily be customized. Besides providing authentication for the feeds, the authentication also controls access to the assets.

MOAI is a standalone system that can be used in combination with any repository software that comes with an OAI feed such as Fedora Commons, EPrints or DSpace. It can also be used directly with an SQL database or just a folder of XML file. . . .

MOAI has the ability to:

  • Harvest data from different kinds of sources
  • Serve many OAI feeds from one MOAI Server, each with their own configuration
  • Turn metadata values into OAI sets on the fly, creating new collections
  • Use OAI sets to filter records shown in a feed, configurable for each feed
  • Work easily with relational data (e.g. if an author changes, the publication should also change)
  • Provide simple and robust authentication through integration with the Apache webserver
  • Serve assets through Apache while still using configurable authentication rules

DigitalKoans

University of Calgary Becomes Beta Development Partner for Summon Unified Discovery Service

The University of Calgary has become a beta development partner for Serials Solutions' Summon unified discovery service.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Serials Solutions, a business unit of ProQuest, has added University of Calgary as a beta development partner for the Summon™ unified discovery service. A variety of new content providers, including BMJ, an international peer-reviewed medical journal and subsidiary of the British Medical Association have also signed onto the Summon™ service. BMJ joins nearly 100 content providers along with key partners ProQuest and Gale–aggregators representing more than 4,700 publishers.

The Summon™ service is a pioneer in creating Google-like searching of the full breadth of content found in library collections. In the case of University of Calgary, library archives and museum collections will be integrated too, enabling users to find books and videos, e-resources at the article level, as well as manuscripts and artifacts, all from a simple, obvious starting point.

"We are a unique cultural institution supporting research, a museum, a university press, along with archives and special collections," said Tom Hickerson, Vice Provost and University Librarian, Libraries and Cultural Resources, at University of Calgary. "We've been actively searching for ways to provide integrated access to the diversity of our resources, enhancing discovery of an entirely new spectrum of information. I'm optimistic that the Summon service is the mechanism that can do that."

The goal of the Summon™ service is to not only bring the user back to the library as the starting place for research, but to also provide a channel for greater return on the library's content investment. The role of the beta partners is to ensure the service is tracking against those goals, providing feedback from the field. University of Calgary librarians, archivists and curators will initially test and use the Summon™ service. Then, they will move it to an open beta in May, getting feedback from faculty and student users. Other partners who are already testing include Dartmouth College, Oklahoma State University, University of Sydney, University of Liverpool and Western Michigan University

DigitalKoans

Library of Congress Makes ID.LOC.GOV Authorities and Vocabularies Service Publicly Available

The Library of Congress has made its ID.LOC.GOV authorities and vocabularies service publicly available.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Library of Congress has opened its ID.LOC.GOV web service, Authorities and Vocabularies, with the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) as the initial offering. The primary goal of this service is to enable machines to programmatically access data at the Library of Congress but the web interface also provides simple user access. We view this service as a step toward exposing and interconnecting vocabulary and thesaurus data via URLs. For LCSH, we are fortunate to have been able to link terms to a similar service provided in Europe for RAMEAU, a French subject heading vocabulary closely coordinated with LCSH.

DigitalKoans

Preprint: “Where There’s a Will There’s a Way?: Survey of Academic Librarian Attitudes about Open Access”

College & Research Libraries has made a preprint of "Where There’s a Will There’s a Way?: Survey of Academic Librarian Attitudes about Open Access" available. (C&RL preprints are only available prior to publication.)

Here's an excerpt:

Academic libraries are becoming increasingly involved in scholarly communication through work with institutional repositories and other open access models. While academic librarians are being encouraged to promote these new models, their opinions about open access have not been documented. This article reports on the results of a national survey conducted in the summer of 2006 of academic librarians' attitudes toward open access principles and related behaviors. While attitude responses were largely positive, there were differences in levels of support related to respondents' job descriptions and funding of open access activities. Surveyed librarians appear to be more comfortable with tasks that translate traditionally held responsibilities, such as educating others, to the open access environment. Most significant is the discrepancy between stated support of library involvement in open access initiatives and significantly lacking action toward this end. The results offer insight into how open access proponents may better focus their advocacy efforts.

DigitalKoans

Digital Videos from Columbia’s Scholarly Communication Program’s Research without Borders 2008-2009 Program

A complete set of digital videos from Columbia University's Scholarly Communication Program's "Research without Borders" 2008-2009 program is now available.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The inaugural year of Research without Borders featured speakers at the forefront of the open access movement as well as experts in scholarly publishing, information policy, and copyright law. Harvard Professor Stuart Shieber kicked off the series in the fall semester, tracing the development of Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Open Access Policy. The second panel, with Marian Hollingsworth from Thomson Reuters, Jevin West of Eigenfactor.org, and Johan Bollen of the MESUR project, debated the controversial Impact Factor, a metric of scholarly journals' prominence. Helen Tartar and Sanford Thatcher, leaders of Fordham and Penn State University Presses, respectively, joined Columbia Libraries' Ree DeDonato for the third event, which focused on the future of scholarly monographs.

The spring semester opened with a discussion on the benefits of open science with Bora Zivkovic of the Public Library of Science, Jean-Claude Bradley of Drexel University, and Barry Canton of OpenWetWare and Ginkgo BioWorks. In March, UCLA's Christine Borgman, author of Scholarship in the Digital Age (2007), spoke to a packed room on information infrastructure and policy. The final event explored the implications of copyright trends for research, featuring SPARC's Heather Joseph, Michael Carroll of Washington Law School at American University, and Kenneth Crews of the Columbia University Copyright Advisory Office.

The Research Without Borders series will continue in the 2009-10 academic year with six new events on topics including scholarly blogging, open data, and open-access business models. Stay connected to the Program by following ScholarlyComm at http://twitter.com/ScholarlyComm, by joining the Scholarly Communication Program Facebook group, and through the iTunesU page. For more information on the Program and the series, please email Kathryn Pope at kp2002@columbia.edu, or visit http://scholcomm.columbia.edu.

DigitalKoans