The following article was written by Joan K. Lippincott and was published in the January, 2010 (50:1) issue of the Journal of Library Administration. The version linked in this post is a preprint.
Access the Complete Article (11 pages; PDF)
Joan Lippincott is the Associate Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information.
Source: CNI, Journal of Library Administration
A new guide from the UK’s Research Information Network.
Access the Complete Document
A new guide from the Research Information Network focuses on how academic librarians are experiencing and responding to financial cuts in the current economic climate.
Based upon data gathered in the UK and internationally, and focus groups with senior librarians during late 2009, the guide looks at the financial position of libraries, their strategies for dealing with challenging economic circumstances, and the value of libraries.
After a decade of growth in budgets and services, academic librarians now expect a sustained period of cuts over the next three to five years. The scale of these cuts means librarians are having to reconsider the kinds and levels of service they can provide in support of their universities missions.
This guide shows how librarians are responding to the issues of balancing expenditure between information resources and staffing and how they plan to sustain levels of service, as well as developing new services to meet new needs. It demonstrates that library directors need the support of senior managers across the higher education sector, as well as from publishers and other information providers, to help address the challenges, as well as the opportunities, faced.
Michael Jubb, Director of RIN, said:
“Libraries have for long played a central role in the lives of universities, in supporting learning, teaching and research. Like the rest of the higher education sector, they are now facing a renewed and intensified period of financial stringency. This guide outlines the key issues that library directors must address, in cooperation with senior managers in the university and information sectors”.
Source: Research Information Network
Here’s something out of the ordinary from the National Library of Medicine and its Turning the Pages installation.
From NLM:
It’s a novel twist on NLM’s popular online system, Turning The Pages, which allows you to turn the pages of a rare book on your computer screen. Now, users can journey back to pre-book times and “unroll the scroll” or, more specifically, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, the world’s oldest known surgical document. The new offering is at http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/smith/smith.html.
This high-speed scanner changes that, at least if you have the room and tech skills to build one. By using a high-speed camera that shoots at 500 frames per second, lab workers Takashi Nakashima and Yoshihiro Watanabe can scan a 200-page book in under a minute. You just hold the book under the camera and flip through the pages as if shuffling a deck of cards. The camera records the images and uses processing power to turn the odd-shaped pictures into flat, rectangular pages on which regular OCR (optical character recognition) can be performed.
The technique is unlikely to be coming to the home anytime soon (although ripping a book by flipping it in front of your notebook’s webcam would be pretty awesome), but it could certainly speed up large scanning efforts like Google’s book project.
Source: Wired
See Also: Superfast Scanner Lets You Digitize a Book By Rapidly Flipping Pages (IEEE Spectrum)
Some ALA Award News…
Well-known librarian, educator and tireless reading advocate Nancy Pearl has been selected the winner of the 2010 Margaret E. Monroe Library Adult Services Award, an honor administered annually by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA).
The Monroe Award honors a librarian, library and information science researcher or educator who has made a significant contribution to library adult services. Pearl has an extensive career in librarianship and most recently was, until August 2004, the executive director of the Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library. During her time there, she expanded readers’ advisory services beyond the library walls with the establishment of the One Book/One City reading event, which became a model for similar events now held around the country. Since 1993, Pearl has also taught readers’ advisory and genre literature courses at the University of Washington’s ISchool.
In addition to these noteworthy credentials, Pearl has produced thousands of book reviews and bibliographies and has shared her readers’ advisory skills with other librarians through staff education, lectures and presentations across the country. She also continues to share her love of reading with others through her appearances on National Public Radio and her publications, including “Book Lust”, “More Book Lust”, “Book Crush: For Kids and Teens” and her three-part “Now Read This” series. Her next book, “Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds and Dreamers” will be published in September of 2010.
Source: ALA
See Also: Book Lust, Nancy’s Web Site
Three ambitious initiatives to deliver free online access to scholarly monographs were featured at the next installment of the SPARC-ACRL forum, “The ebook transition: Collaborations and innovations behind open-access monographs.” The market-based business model for scholarly monographs, long under pressure due to decreased library purchasing, must now accommodate a transition to ebooks. Many non-profit publishers, including university presses, are actively exploring new publishing models to support scholarly monographs, including open-access distribution and collaborative initiatives with university libraries.
First Speaker: Maria Bonn, Director of the Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Libraries.
Second Speaker: Michael Jensen, Director of Strategic Web Communications, National Academies Press (NAP)
These presentations to place at the SPARC -ACRL Forum, (Boston, January 16th, 2010) will likely be of interest to many of you. The entire program runs 90 minutes. The event took place during the ALA 2010 Conference in Boston this news release includes very brief bio (a sentence or two) about each speaker.
Source: SPARC
A very sad day for all libraries and we wish everyone at Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Public the very best. We wonder how many more of these stories (we sure hope not that many but we’re trying to be hopeful) will make news during the next 6-12 months.
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Board of Trustees approved a plan to lay off 148 employees and close 12 library branches in order to absorb a $2 million reduction in funding from Mecklenburg County.
The branches that will close under the plan are: Beatties Ford Road, Belmont Center, Carmel, Checkit Outlet, Cornelius, Hickory Grove, Independence Regional, Mint Hill, Morrison Regional, Myers Park, Scaleybark, and Sugar Creek.
It will take approximately two weeks to complete the closings, with the selected branches closing their doors at the end of the business day on Saturday, April 3.
Much More in the Complete Article
Source: Fox Charlotte (WCCB)
One of America’s premier publishers has joined the ranks of the Gale Virtual Reference Library. ABC-CLIO – along with its imprints Greenwood, Libraries Unlimited and Praeger – have submitted 250 titles to the Gale eBook platform. These additions expand Gale’s existing collection of eBooks from Greenwood and Linworth Publishing, an imprint of Libraries Unlimited, and introduce to the platform resources from ABC-CLIO and Praeger.
The partnership will allow users to now find such titles covering history, humanities and general-interest topics across the secondary and higher education curriculum.
Gale currently has approximately 5,000 titles in the Gale Virtual Reference Library from more than 80 partners.
Source: Gale
In Other News from Gale from Earlier This Week…
OCLC Partners with Gale to Expand Access to Databases Through WorldCat Local
HUD Launches Website to Gather Public Comment on First-Ever LGBT Housing Discrimination Study
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today launched a new website to allow citizens to offer comment on the design of an unprecedented national study that will examine housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. While there have been no national assessments of housing discrimination targeting the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) community, there is a body of evidence suggesting this sort of bias exists.
HUD recently hosted town hall meetings in Chicago, San Francisco and New York City to solicit feedback on how it might approach such ground-breaking research. This ‘online suggestion box‘ is intended to offer the public throughout the U.S. an opportunity to comment on HUD’s study.
…
HUD’s new LGBT website will seek suggestions on how best to execute the study. For example, how would a ‘tester’ signal in a conversation with a landlord that an individual or couple was LGBT? The website is not designed for users to lodge complaints about a particular incident. However, if you believe you have been a victim of housing discrimination, you may file an online complaint, or call HUD’s Housing Discrimination Hotline at 1-800-669-9777.
Source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Video of the three presentations is online.
Three ambitious initiatives to deliver free online access to scholarly monographs were featured at the next installment of the SPARC-ACRL forum, “The ebook transition: Collaborations and innovations behind open-access monographs.” The market-based business model for scholarly monographs, long under pressure due to decreased library purchasing, must now accommodate a transition to ebooks. Many non-profit publishers, including university presses, are actively exploring new publishing models to support scholarly monographs, including open-access distribution and collaborative initiatives with university libraries.
Forum Speakers
First Speaker: Maria Bonn, Director of the Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Libraries.
Second Speaker: Michael Jensen, Director of Strategic Web Communications, National Academies Press (NAP)
These presentations took place at the SPARC-ACRL Forum, (January 16th, 2010). and runs 90 minutes was part of the ALA 2010 Midwinter Conference in Boston. This news release includes very brief bio (a sentence or two) about each presenter.
Source: SPARC-ACRL
Title: A Cross-Disciplinary Study of Journal Literature, 2001 and 2007
34 Pages; PDF.
Author: Li Zhang (Mississippi State University Libraries
Abstract:
This article examines Web resources in research articles from 30 scholarly journals in disciplines across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The purpose of the study is to report the degree to which scholars make use of Web-based resources in the journal literature and to identify Web citation characteristics within different subject areas. The study also explores whether any changes emerged between 2001 and 2007. The examination confirms the finding of previous studies that, even though Web resources are not heavily utilized in journal articles, the number of such resources is increasing. Publicly accessible database repositories and open source software prevail over other Web resources in research communication. The implications for academic libraries are discussed. The study suggests that new strategies need to be developed to manage Web-based information resources.
Accepted: March 18, 2010
Anticipated Publication Date: January 2011
Source: C&RL
Access the Complete Summary (1 Page)
Access the Complete Research Brief (10 Pages; PDF)
The brief contains 15 charts and graphs.
Research Brief, Released 3/18/2009.
Despite the lack of real growth in their budgets in recent years, state library agencies are working strategically to assist library professionals and local libraries to meet patrons’ needs, according to State Library Agency Service Trends: 1999–2008, a new research brief by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Limited resources are being shifted as libraries services are being redefined. Over the past 10 years, for example, real dollar expenditures on statewide database licensing more than doubled, reaching a total of $65.8 million in 2008. These databases provide all library users access to a wide range of online resources, such as reference sources for homework, job search and training tools, and specialized magazines and newspapers. This finding indicates one way that state library agencies are making the most of limited resources.
Library services for hard-to-reach populations, such as services for people in nursing homes, individuals with physical or learning disabilities, assistive technologies and devices, and non-English speakers and migrant workers, declined from a high of $57 million in 2004 to $31.6 million in 2008, according to the study.
[Snip]
An upcoming study, Opportunity for All: How the American Public Benefits from Internet Access at U.S. Libraries, demonstrates that vulnerable populations rely on libraries for Internet access. Among young adults (14-24 years of age) living in households below the federal poverty line, 61 percent used public library computers and Internet for educational purposes. Among seniors (65 and over) living in poverty, 54 percent used public library computers for health or wellness needs. The study, scheduled for release on March 25, was conducted by the University of Washington with support from IMLS and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Access the Complete Summary (1 Page)
Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services
Access the Complete Research Brief (10 Pages; PDF)
The brief contains 15 charts and graphs.
Marci Hoffman, associate director and international and foreign law librarian at University of California Berkeley, has been appointed general editor for AALL’s Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals
Hoffman replaces Thomas H. Reynolds who will retire as general editor on December 31.
Hoffman received her MLIS from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989. She worked as assistant librarian for Farella, Braun + Martel in San Francisco until 1991, when she became an assistant librarian at Boalt Hall and ran Boalt Express.
She served as the foreign, comparative, and international law librarian at the University of Minnesota Law Library from 1993 to 1999 and was the international and foreign law librarian at Georgetown University Law Library until 2003 when she returned to Boalt as the international and foreign law librarian. In 2006, she was appointed associate director of the law library.
In her current position, Hoffman teaches an international and foreign legal research seminar. She has done extensive work with the American Society of International Law and the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library, and is an expert on international and foreign legal research. She has written a number of articles on legal research and teaching, and in 2003 she developed an international law web portal called Electronic Information System for International Law (www.eisil.org).
Hoffman is also the co-author of two books, Hoffman & Rumsey, International and Foreign Legal Research: A Coursebook (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2008) and Hoffman & Berring, International Legal Research in a Nutshell (Thomson/West, 2008).
Source: AALL
The Google Magazine Archive (part of Google Books) continues to expand with complete runs (aka all of the issues) of a publication.
About 10 days ago we posted that 40 years of content from IDG computer publications had been digitized and was now searchable.
Today, via BB we learned that the complete run of Spin, a music and lifestyle magazine, that was published from July, 1985-October, 2009.
You can access the magazine here.
Of course, the content is searchable (search box, top of page) with an advanced interface link to the right of the search button. If you want to limit your search to only “Spin,” place “Spin” in the “Publisher”
box on the advanced interface. Using the basic search box (without the proper syntax) will search the entire Google Books database.
If you were around during Spin’s time and feel like reminiscing or want to read what musicians were saying then (some, who are still around today) you’ll have some fun here.
Source: BB, Google Search
In our first post today, we did not mention the databases (or where to find the info) that were a part of today’s OCLC, EBSCO, H.W. Wilson. news.
This post offers questions from an OCLC FAQ that link to info on a web page providing several lists of databases depending on the situation.
The questions are in the same order here as they are on the FAQ blog post.
From the FAQ:
EBSCO has acquired the rights to license a select number of databases that are now available on FirstSearch. These databases are listed below.
OCLC will continue to provide access to these databases on the FirstSearch platform through your current subscription period. At the end of your subscription period, OCLC will no longer provide access on FirstSearch to these databases:
A List of Databases Follows on the OCLC Web Page
Q. Will some of the FirstSearch databases not be continued on the EBSCOhost service after the conclusion of the current subscription period?
All current subscriptions will be honored through their subscription end dates. The following databases will not be supported on EBSCOhost after current subscriptions expire:
A List of Databases Follows on the OCLC Web Page
Is the OCLC FirstSearch service continuing?
Yes, OCLC will continue to offer the FirstSearch platform and service. All databases on the FirstSearch platform to which a library currently subscribes will be available through the end of the subscription period. Going forward, OCLC will continue to offer access to many databases, including WorldCat, the FirstSearch Base Package and several other databases including OAIster, the suite of RLG databases contained in the OCLC Research Collection package, and many other important databases. OCLC plans to discontinue access to databases as noted below. OCLC will continue to offer the H.W. Wilson databases through June 2011. More in the FAQ. The following databases will continue to be available on the FirstSearch platform:
A List of Databases Follows on the OCLC Web Page
The following databases are currently available on the FirstSearch platform. Libraries can renew subscriptions for these databases with OCLC and we will continue to support them through the subscription period. We will update libraries about the timeline for transition of these databases over the next few months.
A List of Databases Follows on the OCLC Web Page
Will the H.W. Wilson databases continue to be offered on the FirstSearch platform?Yes, for subscriptions through June 30, 2011.
A List of Databases Follows on the OCLC Web Page
OCLC will continue to provide access to all FirstSearch H.W. Wilson subscriptions through users’ current subscription periods. Additionally, Wilson will set up library accounts and provide access to the H.W. Wilson databases on the WilsonWeb platform for current FirstSearch subscribers. This dual access on both FirstSearch and WilsonWeb will begin over the next couple of months at no charge. Libraries can renew their H.W. Wilson databases on the FirstSearch database for 2010–2011 for subscriptions that will renew before June 30, 2010. For subscriptions that run through June 30, 2011, the H.W. Wilson databases will be available on both the FirstSearch platform and the WilsonWeb platform. These H.W. Wilson databases will migrate off the FirstSearch service to the WilsonWeb platform in 2011:
The Open Library is the work of George Oates and members of the Internet Archive engineering team and staff.
It’s a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.
1. This is v. 1 of the Reconstructed Site (aka soft launch). Right now, the URL is: http://upstream.openlibrary.org/
2. Works
The previous version of Open Library was only aware of editions of books, or “manifestations” in FRBR-speak. We’re excited to release Works, which helps catch all editions of the same book and collect them all under this one umbrella. Each work also has its own URI too – we’re hoping these propagate.
Note that our representations of Works is imperfect. We’re the first to acknowledge that there are lots of duplicate edition records in Open Library, and these dupes clog up our ability to derive or create works from editions.
3. Subject pages
We wanted to find a way to help people browse the catalog rather than having to know what they’re looking for before they start. So, we’ve gone through a process of breaking down and reconstructing the subject headings on our records, giving each heading a URL, and displaying a whole bunch of data about each heading: works about that subject, publishing history, related subjects, authors who write about it, and publishers who publish in that subject area.
4. Revamped search
We’ve rewritten search from scratch and upgraded to SOLR 1.4. Our ranking is very basic for now, so “relevance” doesn’t mean a lot yet. We can’t wait to improve on it, and in the meantime, you can also sort your searches by the number of editions, when things were published, or filter using facets.
We also noticed directly below the search box is box to limit your search to only e-books.
5. Cavets to be Aware Of:
The API, The Data, The Data
Odds & Ends
+ Of course, you can search the catalog but they also suggest browsing by subjects.
+ You can add books by completing a simple form.
+ Follow the Open Web Team on Twitter and/or an e-mail discussion focusing on librarianship.
Stats
+ 20 Million Records So Far That’s it for now. We’re going to take it for a spin and report back.
+ Goal: “A Web Page for Every Book Published”
Another acquisition in the library world and this one will see EBSCO becomes an audiobook and eBook provider with acquisition of NetLibrary.
OCLC and EBSCO Publishing have announced that EBSCO has acquired the NetLibrary Division. The purchase includes the NetLibrary eBook and eAudiobook platform as well as operations and infrastructure in Boulder, Colorado. As eBooks become mainstream components of a library’s eContent collections, there is increasing value to libraries to be able to integrate eBook acquisitions and delivery with other electronic databases and eJournals. EBSCO will maintain and enhance the NetLibrary platform and will also work to integrate NetLibrary eBooks into the EBSCOhost platform. There will be no interruption in service to libraries.
The other news concerns FirstSearch. OCLC no longer wants to be a reseller of vendor-owned databases.
Therefore we will transfer or discontinue sale of the vendor-owned databases on FirstSearch when subscriptions have ended. We will instead increase our focus for both FirstSearch and WorldCat.org on providing libraries with access to a rich set of library-owned content and increasing visibility and access to the full scope of a library’s collection. We will work with libraries, publishers and other information providers to expand WorldCat.org as a comprehensive platform for eContent.
So, what about the vendor-owned databases?
As a part of this migration, EBSCO has acquired the rights to license a select number of vendor-owned databases that we currently offer on FirstSearch. Our long-term relationship with H.W. Wilson is also changing as we will work together to transition from reselling Wilson databases on FirstSearch to indexing Wilson databases in WorldCat Local over the coming months. There will be no interruption in service to libraries.
More Resources:
+ Letter to OCLC Members, Signed by CEO Jay Jordan
More detail on what was discussed above including:
Securing libraries’ investments in NetLibrary eBook collections is a critical element of the agreement. All NetLibrary eBooks purchased by libraries will be placed in a dark archive, the OCLC eBook Archive. EBSCO will continue to place all new NetLibrary eBooks purchased by libraries into the OCLC archive at least through March 2013.
Discoverability of your eBook collections through WorldCat.org will continue with your future NetLibrary eBook purchases. Today, records for more than 2.2 million eBooks are available through WorldCat.org and EBSCO will continue to offer OCLC MARC records free of charge to libraries for NetLibrary eBooks.
…proceeds from the sale of the NetLibrary assets will be invested both in advancing future member services and in current operations so that we can hold the line on prices. OCLC will hold prices flat in the U.S. on all WorldCat and WorldCat platform services for a second consecutive year—through June 2011.
Back in 2000, the Queens County Clerk’s office began a project to make digital images of selected records. When the enormous advantages over microfiche or microfilm became apparent, the office began imaging all of its records, not just judicial Orders and Judgments.
“At first I resisted the idea,” [Queens County Clerk Gloria] D’Amico admitted at the meeting, “but I’m glad you talked me into it,” she added, nodding in the direction of her staff.
It turns out that Queens is within striking distance of “digitizing” the last of its archived paper records before the existing contract expires, which will leave the other four counties to get help with their archives.
Currently, the county staffs are handling the new paperwork as it comes in – a mind boggling 20 million images a year in Queens alone.
Source: Queens Courier
See Also: Queens Public Library Currently Digitizing Some of Its Oldest Holdings, Collection Will Go Online in Spring
Source: YourNabe.com
Subscribe to the
ResourceShelf
Newsletter »
Also check out DocuTicker, a compendium of 'grey literature' (reports published by government agencies, think tanks, research institutes and other public interest groups) available for free on the web.
You are currently browsing the archives for the Search News category.