up2date

Transmedia

A very interesting article in (on?) Publishing Perspectives looking at Transmedia and publishing, a subject that intrigues me at the same time as I struggle to deal with it as a librarian and selector. I can't help but noticing that in the entire article preservation is never mentioned : Transmedia: A New World of Opportunity for Authors and Publishers.

Transmedia: A New World of Opportunity for Authors and Publishers

"Students’ e-Book Use Has Flatlined Since 2008"

From the Chronical of Higher Ed's Wired Campus :

"Students’ use of electronic books has grown little, if at all, over the past three years, according to international surveys of more than 6,500 college students conducted in 2008 and again this year. The finding, from ebrary’s Global Student E-book Survey, surprised audience members when the survey report was previewed this week at the Charleston Conference, a gathering of librarians, publishers, and e-book vendors. Even so, presenters said they felt confident that the number of e-book users would grow more rapidly over the next six months, and that libraries and colleges must be ready to handle the demand. Other results from the survey showed that while students feel there is a need for both print and e-books, they would opt for the e-book if available. Respondents also said the availability of more titles in their areas of study would help make e-books more suitable for the classroom. A full report on the survey will be available in January."

Proceedings of the ARL Membership Meeting

From INFOdocket (it appears that audio for most of the sessions will be available later) :

“Expanding Capacity and Partnerships in the Digital World.”

The 159th ARL Membership Meeting took place in Washington DC on October 12–13, 2011
Twitter Hashtag: #ARL11fall

Welcoming Remarks

Carol A. Mandel, New York University, and ARL President

Constructing Digital Research Collections

Convener: Deanna Marcum, New York University

Speakers:
Charles J. Henry, Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)
Ed Van Gemert, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive

Van Gemert slides [PDF]
Kahle slides [PDF]

Opening Up Orphan Works

Convener: Lizabeth (Betsy) Wilson, University of Washington

Speakers:
Paul N. Courant, University of Michigan
Sharon E. Farb, University of California, Los Angeles
Jonathan Band, PLLC, Technology Law and Policy

Farb slides [PDF]

Luncheon with Program

Convener: Mary Case, University of Illinois at Chicago
Speaker: R. Michael Tanner, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU)

Briefing from the Task Force on Licensing E-Book Packages

Speaker: Brinley Franklin, University of Connecticut and Chair of ARL Task Force on Licensing E-Book Packages

Franklin slides [PDF]

Concurrent Topical Briefing Sessions

Update of Key Policy Issues Pending Before the Research Library Community

Convener: James F. Williams II, University of Colorado at Boulder and Chair of ARL Influencing Public Policies Steering Committee

Speakers:
Prudence S. Adler, Association of Research Libraries
Jonathan Band, PLLC, Technology Law and Policy
Brandon Butler, Association of Research Libraries

Using Licenses and Contracts as Effective Tools for Scholarship

Convener: Ann J. Wolpert, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Speaker: Jaren D. Wilcoxson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Expanding Capacity and Partnerships Through Authenticity and Trust: The Case of the MetaArchive Cooperative
Convener: H. Carton Rogers, University of Pennsylvania
Speaker: Tyler Walters, Virginia Tech

Walters slides [PDF]

Podcast & 2 Rpts from “The Book Tomorrow: The Future Of The Written Word”

From INFODocket :

UNESCO Sponsored, “The Book Tomorrow: The Future Of The Written Word” Conference
This event took place in Monza, Italy.

Podcast: “Do books have a future?” (via The Guardian)

&

Report: “UNESCO debates the future of the book” (via HeraldScotland.com)

&

Report: “Inky ghosts at the United Nation’s hi-tech book feast” (via The Independent)

 

"Measuring the Pace of Change for Print Monograph Collections"

Preprint in JAL : "The Next Chapter: Measuring the Pace of Change for Print Monograph Collections" by Christopher Stewart. 

 

ARL Membership Meeting (slides & some audio online)

From the ARL website. The ones that caught my eye (unfortunately no audio for several) :

International STM Journal Market

Developments in International Copyright

Ahead of the Storm: Research Libraries and the Future of the Research University

Shared Print Repositories—Planning and Implementation Phases

Legal Issues in Building 21st-Century Special Collections

 

"Grid, Distributed and Cloud Computing Resources Primer"

If cloud computing stopped being a subject of discussion, I promise I'd stop posting about it. Somehow with the iCloud Apple announcement and the rise of tablet computing, I don't think the topic will go away, though. This is a good overview of the current state of play, which is constantly changing. Europe is trying to work out laws and policies now.

From INFODocket :

Grid, Distributed and Cloud Computing Resources Primer (PDF)

This primer is 30 pages and a .pdf document (245KB) and freely available from the above URL. The primer gives an excellent overview of Cloud Computing along with a comprehensive listing of cloud, grid and distributed computing resources…”

Source: Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A.

Technology Forecasting Literature Review

From INFODocket :

"...All of the sources used to prepare the forecast as well as a few other documents are available.

From JISC:

This report is a summary of technology themes extracted from the major technology forecasting publications from business and other sectors that could conceivably be relevant to the UK higher education system. Around thirty “horizon scanning” publications describing emerging technologies were reviewed and the technology forecasts were then grouped into themes for discussion in this report. The themes are presented in no particular order.

We hope you find this is an easily-digested summary (35 Pages; Word Doc)

This report is a summary of technology themes extracted from the major technology forecasting publications from business and other sectors that could conceivably be relevant to the UK higher education system. We do not attempt to make evaluative comments concerning these trends, and specifically we do not attempt to speculate on the importance of the technologies identified for education.

The work leading to publication comprised three stages: selection of sources, scanning these sources to extract specific emerging technologies and grouping these technologies into themes.

...

For each theme, we provide a brief introductory definition, a short snapshot of relevant technologies and applications in business and the wider world, and its implications to an organisation’s IT and business strategies. We have used ‘Google Insights for Search’ to visualise the trend of interest on each theme or relevant technologies over time (2004 – present); this is for illustrative purposes only. The themes are presented in no particular order.

Access the Literature Review Summary (35 Pages; Word)"

"The Crisis in Research Librarianship"

From the latest JAL :

"The Crisis in Research Librarianship 

Rick Anderson 

^a Scholarly Resources & Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, USA

Article Outline

References

The academic research library, as currently configured, is designed and organized to solve a problem that its patrons no longer perceive: the problem of information scarcity.

When information is scarce, it presents two primary difficulties: first, it is hard to find; second, it is expensive. These may seem like trivial observations, but they go to the heart of a growing crisis in librarianship. The crisis does not stem from the fact that information is now universally cheap and easy to find, and therefore that librarians are no longer needed; on the contrary, some kinds of information (high-quality science publications, for example) are still expensive, and some (including unique documents like manuscripts and grey literature) are still difficult to find. In the face of these and other persistent information problems (such as the difficulty of distinguishing between authoritative and questionable sources), librarians continue to offer valuable help in their roles as brokers and as research guides.

So the problem is not that libraries fail to offer value to their constituents. The crisis stems, instead, from the following three facts:

..."

Podcast from the Harvard Library Innovation Lab

From INFODocket :

From the Library Innovation Lab Blog:

There’s a lot of talk about what the future of publishing looks like. Designers and innovators draw up these artistic visualizations of tablets, touchscreens, and interactive multimedia literature mashups to illustrate the possibilities.

But one designer is thinking a lot more about what is lost in the transition from the physical book to the digital. In fact, his visualizations often flip the script by placing digital literature in the physical context.

James Bridle is an editor, publisher, designer, and innovator. One of his most recent projects was a physical production of the complete changelogs from the Wikipedia entry on the Iraq War. The project amounted to twelve volumes of almost 7,000 pages, including all the changes, discussions, and arguments logged in the process of producing the never-complete Wikipedia article from December 2004 to November 2009.

[Clip]

The Harvard Library Innovation Lab’s very own David Weinberger spoke with James by Skype about his work for the first ever episode of Library Lab/The Podcast.

The complete blog post includes a link to the 23:59 podcast.

Ithaka S+R Library Survey 2010: Insights From U.S. Academic Library Directors

From the post to the libraryassessment.info site :

" ... Library Survey 2010: Insights From U.S. Academic Library Directors, ... is now available from our website at http://bit.ly/eBdWYd. The Library Survey aims to help academic libraries and other members of the higher education community understand the changing role of the library and how to adapt strategically to an increasingly digital environment. This survey focuses on strategies that directors are pursuing for their libraries, the management of library collections, the development of new digital collections, and the creation of new services to meet changing user needs. Our Library Survey complements our Faculty Survey 2009...

Over the course of this month, we will be conducting several webinars to explore our findings and discuss their implications:

· Wednesday, April 13th, 12:00 – 1:00 pm (EDT) Ithaka S+R Library Survey 2010: Academic Library Services and Strategy

· Wednesday, April 20th, 12:00-1:00 pm (EDT) Ithaka S+R Library Survey 2010: Academic Library Collections

· Wednesday, April 27, 2011 9AM EDT / 2PM GMT Ithaka S+R Library Survey 2010: Perspectives for Non-U.S. Academic Libraries”

Please consider joining us for one or more of these webinars – like the report, they are freely available for all interested individuals."

"knowledge stocks" vs. "knowledge flows"

An interesting post from Lorcan Dempsey focussing on the change in the way that libraries serve patrons and the role of the library in the scholarly community. The paragraph that most caught my eye, citing the book the Power of Pull by John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison :

"The authors discuss the shift from managing 'knowledge stocks' to participating in 'knowledge flows' as patterns of work and interaction change in a network environment. I was particularly struck by their discussion of information overload.

It's not so much about finding which information is most valuable, as many of those who fret about information overload would have it. Improving return on attention is more about finding and connecting with people who have the knowledge you need, particularly the tacit knowledge about how to do new things. The danger is that we all get so busy assimilating explicit knowledge that we have no time to connect with people and build the relationships through which tacit knowledge flows. We get so busy reading about steampunk, or brewing, or building networks, that we don't actually find and connect with and learn from the people who are doing it. It's not so much information that we need as knowledge. And knowledge means people.

..."

So, can people mean librarians? Where do libraries fit in, if we agree with the proposition?

write-up of the 1st DPLA workshop

From American Libraries "Inside Scoop," written by by Molly Raphael :

"Leaders of academic and research libraries gathered last fall to begin the planning for the initiative, and reached out more broadly to the library and information communities for the gathering in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Even so, the participants were predominantly from large research institutions....

This workshop was organized to explore the “content and scope” for DPLA, one of several threads to be undertaken. A full overview and summary of the daylong workshop can be found on the DPLA wiki...."

2011 new Horizon report pbd

This year's report is out, and has been commented on in the Chronicle already.

"The service turn"

From Lorcan Dempsey's blog, an essay on his perceived turn away from distinctive collections to the services that make such collections accesible, and those that support the users of those collections.

"A while ago I spent some time looking through the institution profiles collected by ARL. One of the themes I noticed was the 'service turn', where libraries were looking at the quality of their services in support of research and learning as important markers of distinction, more important, maybe, than the collections which have loomed so large in historic ARL assessment of libraries."

draft "provocative statements"

Taiga is back, with a new set of "provocative statements: on the Taiga blog. There will be a discussion of them at ALA Midwinter -- although we could always have our own.

 

 

future of info. commons in an age of mobile devices?

From the Chron.'s Wired Campus :

If Libraries Remove Computers, Will Anyone Come?

By Jeff Young

If iPads and other new mobile computers catch on, libraries might not need to offer rooms full of computers for students to do their research, writing, and Facebooking. But if that happens, will students have any reason left to visit the library?

...

The trend in the last few years was to add more computers to the library, creating spaces often called "information commons." And during that time, visits to the library have increased greatly. "I think the key to our current success has been the computers," Mr. Mathews says on his blog.

...

Envisioning Research Library Futures

From the ResourceShelf :

From ARL: Envisioning Research Library Futures: A Scenario Thinking Project

From the ARL Document

As research library leaders confront turbulent times, they sorely need new tools to facilitate thinking about the future of the institution and to foster dialogue within the community. ARL’s new project seeks to envision library futures and will engage the Association’s member community in looking decades out at the situations that will confront research libraries. At the heart of this work will be the creation of a set of future scenarios and a toolkit to facilitate research library leaders in their planning and decision making.

[Snip]

ARL’s scenarios will consist of high-level descriptions of a small number of potential future states. These scenarios will capture broad environmental drivers affecting research libraries.

[Snip]

The collective wisdom of the research library community will be one of the main sources of information the project will leverage in generating the scenarios. In addition, the perspectives of outside experts and key stakeholders will be engaged systematically.

Two Other Library-Focused Scenario Projects are Mentioned and Linked:

+ UK: Towards the Academic Library of the Future

+ Australia: Bookends Scenarios Project (Public Libraries)

Access the Complete ARL Document

Source: Association of Research Libraries

The Future of Research and the Research Library

From the ResourceShelf:

Report: The Future of Research and the Research Library

Panlibus has an excellent summary of the recently published, “The Future of Research and the Research Library,” report from the Denmark’s Electronic Research Library (DEFF).

Sarah Bartlett writes,

It’s ambitious [the report]. Very ambitious. It’s also universal in its scope – only occasionally delving into Denmark-specific structures and scenarios.

Essentially, the report seeks to answer the following questions:

+ Does the research library have a future?

+ What future roles are open to the research library?

+ Would a roadmap be useful?

[Snip]

By and large, this isn’t an easy read. It’s highly theoretical and enormously broad as I’ve said. However, the report does present a very digestible history of the research library. Space constraints preclude even an attempt to do this justice, but what I will say is that it clarified in my mind many unanswered questions about how precisely the research library model has been disrupted.

[Snip]

The other interesting thing about the historical narrative of this report is that it presents a degree of historical continuum in the relationship between the research library and more focused problem-driven innovative activities in the broader economy.

Again, Bartlett’s summary post on Panlibus is nothing short of “in-depth” and we’ve selected only a few paragraphs.

The full text of the complete report is available online.

Access “The Future of Research and the Research Library” (70 pages; PDF) here.

From the Executive Summary:

The research library has several types of users and usage. Some are directly aware of the functions of the library, but increasingly libraries have users that are not aware of the functions of the library. The researcher reading papers in an e-journal, access to which is provided by a library, is not necessarily noticing the essential function of the library. Indirect usage is also important when a function is performed based essentially on knowledge and information provided through the available services of a research library.

Sources: Panlibus, Denmark’s Electronic Research Library (DEFF).

(free) streaming keynote speeches from "Tools of Change for Publishing" conf.

The ones that caught my eye (from the list of keynotes on the conf. website) :

Frances Pinter, Bloomsbury Academic Publisher

1:35pm Wednesday, 02/24/2010

Rethinking The Role and Funding of Academic Book Publishing

Ramy Habeeb, Kotobarabia Director

2:10pm Wednesday, 02/24/2010

1,001 Arabian Rights: Digital Publishing and Its Role in Exposing Non-English Languages

Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive Digital Librarian, Director and Co-Founder

5:10pm Tuesday, 02/23/2010

A Future for Books: BookServer

Ray Kurzweil, Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. CEO, K-NFB Reading Technology (creator of the Blio e-reader)

7:00pm Tuesday, 02/23/2010

A Conversation with Ray Kurzweil and Tim O'Reilly