Tune It Up: Creating and Maintaining the Institutional Repository Revolution

The explosion of recent open access repositories and the future desire for global open access to scholarly communication has prompted the need to have more credible resources for new authors. This article highlights some of the areas in which creators need to be informed concerning repositories, including software information, peer-review advocacy, and the need for more literature on mature repositories and how they interact with scholarly communication.

+ Full Paper (PDF; 92 KB)

Source: Nicole Carpenter (via E-LIS)

Spammers mine new ground: Economic crisis, Obama’s election become major drivers of targeted e-mail attacks

Spammers have jumped on the global financial crisis to lure unsuspecting victims into their botnets using the line that “Treasury Secretary Paulsen wants to send you money!” and, in the wake of this week’s election, president-elect Barack Obama also has emerged as bait for other large spam campaigns.

In hours of the closing of polls, online security companies began reporting a rash of e-mails purportedly coming from news organizations or official government sites containing links to speeches, interviews or other election news. The links actually redirect e-mail recipients to malicious code. MX Logic reported seeing more than 1 million of the messages in the first two hours of their appearance, and Sophos said similar messages represented up to 60 percent of all malicious spam seen in its labs on Nov. 5.

Source: Government Computer News

ALSC announces exceptional Web sites for children

The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, has added Web sites this fall to Great Web Sites for Kids (www.ala.org/greatsites), its online resource containing hundreds of links to commendable Web sites for children.

Great Web Sites for Kids (GWS) features links to valuable Web sites of interest to children, organized by subject headings such as animals; literature and languages; mathematics and computers; the arts; and history and biography. There is also a special section with sites of interest to parents, caregivers and teachers, plus an area devoted to sites in Spanish. The ALSC Great Web Sites for Kids Committee maintains and updates the site.

Source: Association for Library Service to Children/ALA

News Briefs

+ 2010 Census Jobs: Apply Now (U.S. Census Bureau)

+ DNS security still a concern (Government Computer News)

+ FDsys Replaces GPO Access in 2009 (SLA Government Information Division)

+ Court Rejects White House on Missing E-mails (National Security Archive)

Under Obama, Web Would Be the Way

Armed with millions of e-mail addresses and a political operation that harnessed the Internet like no campaign before it, Barack Obama will enter the White House with the opportunity to create the first truly “wired” presidency.

Obama aides and allies are preparing a major expansion of the White House communications operation, enabling them to reach out directly to the supporters they have collected over 21 months without having to go through the mainstream media.

Source: Washington Post

News Briefs

+ Salvation Army tries text messages to raise funds (AP, via TBO.com)

+ Web reviews can spur lawsuits (Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel)

+ LibreriaLectorum.com, Largest U.S. Spanish-Language Online Bookstore Exclusively in Spanish, Launches November 17 (Scholastic)

+ San Diego Mayor Proposes Temporary Closing of Seven Libraries (Library Journal)

+ Japan — 284,000 library books stolen / Pilfered texts worth more than 400 mil. yen, local govts say in survey (Daily Yomiuri)

+ Library of Congress Receives the Papers of American Lyricist Howard Ashman (LoC)

Librarians Want to Out-Google Google With a Better Search Engine

Have you ever wished for a personal reference librarian, an information guru to point you to the most reliable sites whenever you search the Web? A new search-engine project aims to simulate something like that. The trick? Weighting search results so that librarians’ picks rise to the top.

Called Reference Extract, the project is being developed by the Online Computer Library Center and the information schools of Syracuse University and the University of Washington. OCLC is an international cooperative that shares resources among more than 69,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories. A $100,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is covering planning costs.

According to the project proposal, the search engine “will be built for maximum credibility by relying on the expertise and credibility judgments of librarians from around the globe.”

Source: Wired Campus/Chronicle of Higher Education

CD-R and DVD-R RW Longevity Research

Optical discs can be convenient media for access and temporary storage. Unfortunately, such media are machine-dependent, so access is contingent on surviving and working hardware and software. Additionally, such media is subject to changing manufacturer standards, as well as deterioration, just like any other material.

Optical discs are made of many layers, and the materials used in these layers change over time, depending on how and when the discs were made and how they age. Depending on susceptibility, wear, and environment, various layers of optical discs may undergo oxidation, hydrolysis or mechanical stress, leading to damage (variously described as “rot” or “pin holes” or “mirroring”, etc.). These and other phenomenon may lead to errors in signal playback, which can be assessed by measuring a disc’s “block error rate” or BLER. The greater the BLER, the greater the loss of information.

The Information Access Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Preservation Directorate at the Library of Congress agreed to perform a detailed investigation of the longevity of recordable Compact Disc (CD) and Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) media. The effort was aimed at estimating the life expectancy of information stored in CD-R, DVD-R and DVD+R, as well as DVD-RW and DVD+RW discs.

Source: Library of Congress (Preservation)

News Briefs

+ Copyright Office Announces Interim Regulation Regarding Section 115; Requests Comments (U.S. Copyright Office)

+ The Library’s National Recording Registry To Be Featured in a Five-Part Series On NPR (Library of Congress)

+ Wireless industry has ideas for Obama (Government Computer News)

+ Library to house Dunkin’ Donuts (FortWayne.com)

+ Lincoln re-election speech to be auctioned in NYC (AP, via Google News)

Library of Congress offers GIS demo

The Library of Congress will kick off Geography Awareness Week Nov. 19 with a demonstration of uses for geospatial information systems from 10:30 a.m. to noon in the Geography and Map Reading Room in the basement of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E. in Washington.

The program’s GIS Day presentations will focus on mapping technology applications to resolve geographic conflict in historic maps and charts. John Hessler, a senior reference librarian in the geography and maps division, will discuss computer modeling and the statistical research that he has been conducting on medieval charts of the Mediterranean Sea from 1250 A.D. to 1600 A.D.

Source: Government Computer News

See also: Library of Congress To Celebrate GIS Day on Nov. 19 (LC press release)

News Briefs

+ Community College Sector Experiencing Severe Budget Challenges (National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges)

+ New iPhones have made cheating easier for students (College Media Network)

+ Update: Hackers launch PDF attacks, exploit just-patched Reader bug (Computerworld)

+ Application Guidelines Now Available for IMLS Museum Grants for African American History and Culture (Institute of Museum and Library Services)

Copyright and the Digital Library

This paper describes the legal and technical issues which bedevil the creation of online libraries, particularly in relation to copyright. It discusses the Google Books settlement of October 2008 and a number of divergent views on its value or problems for libraries.

+ Full Paper (PDF; 120 KB)

Source: Jeffrey J. Irwin (via E-LIS)

News Briefs

+ Yahoo! Inc. and Google Inc. Abandon Their Advertising Agreement (U.S. Department of Justice)

+ Navy enlists Web 2.0 (Government Computer News)

+ Is Google Earth Becoming a Platform for Academic Scholarship? (Wired Campus/Chronicle of Higher Education)

+ FCC Adopts Rules for Unlicensed Use of Television White Spaces (PDF; Federal Communications Commission)

+ Hitwise Ranks Election Traffic To News Sites (TechCrunch)

+ Westlaw China Goes Global (Thomson/West)

FTC Announces First in Series of Hearings on Evolving Intellectual Property Marketplace

The Federal Trade Commission today announced the first of a possible series of public hearings to explore the evolving market for intellectual property (IP). The hearings will be held beginning on December 5, 2008, in Washington, DC. The FTC will examine changes in IP law, patent-related business models, and new learning about the operation of the IP marketplace since the issuance in October 2003 of the Commission report To Promote Innovation: The Proper Balance of Competition and Patent Law and Policy.

An agenda for the hearing is available as a link to this press release. Additional information about the December 5 and subsequent hearings will be available on the website for the hearings, which can be accessed from http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/workshops.shtm.

Source: Federal Trade Commission

Securing Home Office

Never before has so much technology and Internet access been available to the home user. Each year, more and more Americans are working from home. Because so many people now have home offices, the need for security has never been higher. Securing the home office need not be a difficult exercise. There are several considerations that need to be addressed to safely secure the home network from the outside world. The goal of this paper is to address the common vulnerabilities of the average home office and to suggest methods to safely secure it.

+ Full Paper (PDF; 554 KB)