up2date

Another cheerful study of link rot

Thanks to LJ infoDOCKET : "Georgetown Law Library Finds 38 Percent of Online Documents Disappear from Web Pages Within Five Years"

Need I say more?

"The [A?] Library of Utopia"

Or would that be an utopian ideal of a library? At any rate, this article by Nicolas Carr from the Technology Review is worth a read for its careful consideration of Google Books, the DPLA and the underlying assumptions and presumptions made by those planning large-scale digital projects. (Thanks to the MIT Libraries Twitter feed.)

I particularly like his "Cliff Notes" :

3 new on-line collections

Thanks to LJ's infoDOCKET :

The New York City Department of Records Launches Database Containing More than 870,000 Digitized Items

"...collection of more than 2.2 million images going back to the mid-1800s, the photographs feature all manner of city oversight — from stately ports and bridges to grisly gangland killings."

Einstein Archives Website

"...a catalog of more than 80,000 Einstein-related documents, and a visual display of 2,000 documents up to the year 1921..."

John Cage Digital Archive

"...Cage fans can celebrate Cage’s centennial curated series of browsable Cage curios; Want to see him play an amplified cacti and plant matter with a feather, review his notes from 1939 or view a 1960 TV performance of “Water Walk”, you can do all that and more on the extensive digital project."

"Let's CC" (creative commons, of course)

From LJ's infoDOCKET :

Let’s CC: An Impressive Search Tool for Creative Commons Licensed Material Releases Open Source Code

Our friend and a frequent infoDOCKET contributor, Matt Weaver has let us know that Creative Commons Korea (CC Korea) has released the source code for their Let’s CC Creative Commons search engine as open source under GPLv3.

If you’re not familiar with Let’s CC, it allows users to search/find only CC licensed material. We think it’s worthy of your attention.

One version of Let’s CC allows users to search with English language keywords while another–as you would expect–offers Korean language search.

Direct to Let’s CC Blog Post

Let’s CC has been popular among Korean users who look for CCL contents, but we also received a lot of support from international users for its simple user interface. This release as open source is also a response to requests from foreign fans of . Thank you very much for your interest, world!

Direct to Let’s CC English Interview/Search

Direct to Let’s CC Korean Interface/Search

See Also: CC Search (via CreativeCommons.org)

New issue : LIBER Quarterly (Vol 21 No 3/4)

(Thanks to LJ infoDOCKET). The articles I thought appeared most intriguing :

An Overview of Research Infrastructures in Europe – and Recommendations to LIBER
Norbert Lossau

Getting to Know Library Users’ Needs — Experimental Ways to User-centred Library Innovation
Karen Harbo, Thomas Vibjerg Hansen

 

James Joyce Published Free on Web

Not without its share of controversy. Thanks to LJ INFOdocket :

The National Library of Ireland has brought forward plans to publish a major collection of James Joyce manuscripts free on the web after a Joycean scholar published the material in editions priced at up to €250. 

It is the first such Joyce collection to be opened to the public in this way.

...

The collection includes notes and early drafts of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, as well as earlier notes by Joyce from between 1903 and 1928. Two of the notebooks include the earliest surviving sets of notes, and there are drafts of nine separate episodes of Ulysses. The handwriting in the manuscripts matches Joyce’s known handwriting from the different periods in his life and includes his use of coloured crayon lines and Xs through certain writing.

Direct: James Joyce Manuscripts Acquired by the NLI Since 2000 Can Now Be Viewed Online

 

Oxford University & Vatican Libraries digitization project

From INFOdocket & The Guardian :

"The Bodleian Libraries ... and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV) said on Thursday they intended to digitize 1.5 million pages of ancient texts and make them freely available online.

The libraries said the digitized collections will centre on three subject areas: Greek manuscripts, 15th-century printed books and Hebrew manuscripts and early printed books."

Ebooks -- practical questions

Barbara Fister in her Library Babel Fish blog at Inside HigherEd articulates nicely some of the unresolved questions regarding ebook usage, in particular as it regards libraries. I particularly appreciate her antipenultimate paragraph :

"So now book publishers want to level the playing field by licensing packages of digital books to libraries. I have no idea where any of this is going, but the notion of actually curating a collection designed around the needs of students enrolled at a particular institution with a locally-developed curriculum is increasingly seeming a quaint custom, and book that aren’t packaged in electronic bundles may have an even harder time finding a place in libraries. Oh, and interlibrary loan may be a thing of the past, too. Many e-book packages don't allow that."

"Ithaka S+R Chemistry Project Now Available"

After all of my posts on the History Project, here's the release of the Ithaka chemistry project (from INFOdocket).

"From the ITHAKA Web Site:

Ithaka S+R is pleased to release the Interim Report on our Chemistry Project, part of the Research Support Services for Scholars program. This follows the release of the Interim Report on our History Project last month.

We hope to engage the community – librarians, research support professionals, scholars, researchers, and funders alike –  in discussions on both projects. Please share your thoughts and experiences with us. We welcome reactions and feedback via the comments section on our project blog."

Libraries = content? access? context?

From the Chronicle's "The Ubiquitous Librarian" blog :

"The (Social) Reader’s Dilemma: Content + Container = Context

...

Yesterday I downloaded The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery, which is a free PDF. ... I’m reading it on my iPad via my Kindle app and everything is fine, right? No! It’s not a Kindle book. It doesn’t allow me take notes, share passages, or sync across devices. Those might not sound like big deals, but they are—or they have become to me. My reading experience is linked to functionality, not just to the content.

So here is this free book, free content, that is essentially useless to me—to the way I want to use it—to the way I work with information. The content is free, but it’s the container I’m willing to pay for. It’s the container that makes the content valuable.

...

And that’s the reader’s dilemma, particularly the research reader. Access is no longer enough. I don’t just want to have the content in a digital format. I need it to live and breed and interact with my other content and with the content of my colleagues. It’s the infrastructure and tools around the content that I am willing to pay for. It’s the platform that will continue to grow and make the content more valuable to me over time. This isn’t about preference, but about performance. It’s about creating context.

I see this as one of the great challenges (or opportunities) for academic libraries over the next decade. The emerging shift is away from access and towards tools. I want to do stuff with my information, not just read it. ..."

"An Annual Bird's Eye View of Libraries' ILS Migration"

From ALA's TechSource :

"If you're in any phase of evaluating your current systems or alternatives, check out [Marshall Breeding's] nifty chart Integrated Library System turnover in 2011 on the Library Technology Guides site. Drawing from data contributed by libraries registered in lib-web-cats, Marshall has presented an aggregate view. Turnover  from previous years and 2012 to date is also available."

Italian library records to be added to WorldCat

From the OCLC press release :

CIPE Italian University Consortium to add 11 million records to WorldCat DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 20 March 2012—OCLC and the CIPE consortium, which comprises 11 university libraries in northern and central Italy, have signed an agreement to load CIPE library records into WorldCat to increase visibility of these Italian collections, and enrich the world's largest resource for discovery of library materials.

 

Free webinar : "Keeping Up: Social Networking and Higher Ed"

From Friends: Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services :

March 23, 2011 at 2:00 pm ET - free to all.

Guests: Our "Keeping Up" panel - Charles Ansorge, Steven Bell, Ilene Frank, Lisa Star, Jane Harris, Beth Dailey, Jane Marcus, and Steve Gilbert

...

Source and Registration Links Available At

[ http://bit.ly/xMFU7u]

CFP for College Library Information on Policy and Practice

From the ACRL Insider blog :

"...College Libraries Section (CLS) is pleased to announce the launch of CLIPP: College Library Information on Policy and Practice, a reconceptualization of ACRL’s CLIPNotes publication series. ... this next generation monographic series will provide richer context and more sophisticated analysis of current trends and issues....

The underlying premise of CLIPP is that libraries across the country are grappling with the same challenges and there is much to be gained by sharing information. ...

Each CLIPP volume will explore an important library issue through a comprehensive literature review, survey data, and best practices documents, which will provide actual solutions created by other colleges and small universities.

Call for Proposals

Any librarian at a college or small university can submit a publication proposal to the CLIPP committee. Any trend or subject of interest to college and small university libraries is a potential topic. Proposal ideas could include:

• The changing nature of collections (e-books, remote storage, weeding policies, etc.)
• Mobile access
• Grant writing
• Staff development
• The place of the library in campus organizational structures

For a full description of the submission and publication process, visit the CLIPP website.

"British University Students Still Crave Print Over eBooks & US: Tablet Ownership, eReading, and Students"

From INFOdocket :

"From a BML Bowker Announcement:

While the majority of the U.K.’s undergraduate students are now using e-books, none are yet relying on them as a primary source of information. Print continues its hold as a key resource for at least two-thirds of students.... The study was conducted in December 2011 and shows significant change since 2003 when BML conducted similar research.

[Clip]

Indeed, the study plots a variety of changes and pace at which they’re occurring. For example, 88 percent of undergraduates still use printed books and lecturer handouts, a decline from 95 percent in 2003. Further, online journals are growing in popularity, with nearly 80 percent of students embracing them, up from 66 percent in 2003.

The study also explores how students are accessing materials. For example, 48 percent of students using printed books obtain them mainly from the library – more than double the amount buying them new or second-hand. Nearly half of those using e-books download them for free, with 38 percent borrowing from the library. Just 9 percent buy ebooks.

...

See Also: New Survey Finds Dramatic Increase in Tablet Ownership Among College Students and High School Seniors in the U.S.  (via Pearson Foundation)

... a new study from the Pearson Foundation reveals that students believe tablets and other mobile devices will transform learning. The Pearson Foundation’s Second Annual Survey on Students and Tablets also finds that tablet ownership among college students and high school seniors has risen dramatically in the last year—ownership has tripled among college students (25% vs. 7% in 2011) and quadrupled among high school seniors (17% vs. 4% in 2011).

[Clip]

Digital readership has continued to grow since last year’s survey. Seventy percent of college students have read a digital text, compared to 62% in 2011, and the majority of students now prefer digital to print. Almost six in 10 college students prefer digital over print when reading books for fun (57%) or textbooks for class (58%). This is a reversal from last year, when more college students preferred print over digital; this trend also holds true among high school seniors.

The survey reveals that more students are reading digital books, and that a majority of college students (63%) and high school seniors (69%) believe that tablets will effectively replace textbooks within the next five years.

Direct to News Release, Summary, and Full Report"

 

“Value and Benefits of Text Mining”

From INFOdocket :

A new report from the JISC. ...

From a News Release/Summary:

A new JISC report shows that text mining ... has huge potential benefits for the UK economy and knowledge base, but its use is being held back by copyright law and other barriers.

...

The report identifies a number of barriers that we need to overcome to make best use of text mining tools in the future. Firstly, text mining is a complex technical process that requires skilled staff; secondly it requires unrestricted access to information sources; thirdly copyright can be a barrier.

The report authors conclude that more work needs to be undertaken to raise awareness of the potential benefits and value of text mining to UK further and higher education.

From the Introduction of the Report

The global research community generates over 1.5 million new scholarly articles per annum. As the recent Hargreaves report into ‘Digital Opportunity: A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth’ highlighted, text mining and analytics of this scholarly literature and other digitised text affords a real opportunity to support innovation and the development of new knowledge. However, current UK copyright laws are restricting this use of text mining. To remedy this, Hargreaves proposes an exception to support text mining and analytics for non-commercial research.

In order to be ‘mined’, text must be accessed, copied, analysed, annotated and related to existing information and understanding. Even if the user has access rights to the material, making annotated copies can be illegal under current copyright law without the permission of the copyright holder.

Direct to Full Text Report (HTML) ||| PDF Version (32 pages; PDF)

"History Project Interim Report: Support Challenges" [including libraries]

3d(? I'm loosing count) part of the Ithaka report. The section that really caught my eye was the part about libraries and librarians :

"Expertise and skill building
“[We are] willing to contemplate a variety of futures for the library.”

Interviews with research support professionals from libraries often discussed the challenges of transforming a staff of professionals who have filled traditional library roles, and preparing staff to take on new roles within their organizations. ... In some cases, exposure and a degree of “literacy” in digital humanities is the end goal, and service models will rely on librarians to act as referrers within the organization – connecting faculty to the research support professionals on campus who can best meet their needs. In some cases, librarians are redefining their roles and assuming positions in library-initiated centers. In these cases a good deal of professional development is typically invested, or, opportunities for new hires are pursued. Organizations with any of these staffing structures are facing the challenges of managing an evolving staff with widely varied skill sets, and new service models that may be unique within the library.

Outreach

Some library-based research support professionals feel a disconnect from faculty research and publication work flows. Many continue to struggle to maintain an understanding of evolving faculty research practices. ...

Research support professionals expressed a clear need for more information and a deeper understanding of faculty research and scholarship practices in order to increase outreach effectively and expand services to meet new needs. ...

For those centers based in libraries, it was widely acknowledged that collaboration with faculty is key to success of a new service model. One interviewee indicated that this was more important than the facility – there is no guarantee that “if you build it they will come."

new British Library Sounds website

From the announcement :

"Launched today, the new British Library Sounds website at http://sounds.bl.uk lets you listen for free to 50,000 tracks of music, spoken words and environmental sounds. Listeners at licensed UK universities and colleges may additionally download tracks for their research."

"Historians and Social Media"

Historians are certainly being studied recently (see the 2 previous posts re the Ithaka report). The latest, from INFOdocket :

"Academic Networking 2.0: Historians and Social Media

by Michael D. Hattem, PhD Student, Yale University

...

From the Article

For many, upwardly mobile interactions are only a small part of their social media activities. Facebook and Twitter are also used to connect with peers and colleagues and tap into or create various types of supportive communities. Katrina Gulliver, one of the most-followed historians on Twitter, coined the hashtag #twitterstorians just over two years ago in an effort to make it easier to connect with fellow historians on the social network. Similarly, historians, and other academics, are increasingly using pre-defined hashtags, such as #AHA2012, that are added to the end of a Twitter post to identify them in search results and to create a backchannel at academic conferences. Participants tweet about panels they have attended, conversations they have had, or their overall impressions of the conference, while others can run a search of the hashtag on Twitter and find all the posts about a specific conference.

Direct to Complete Article"

"More Than 10 Million Digitized Newspaper Pages Coming to Europeana"

This could be exciting!

From INFOdocket :

From LIBER:

A group of 17 European partner institutions have joined forces in the “European Newspapers” project and will, over the next 3 years, provide more than 10 million newspaper pages to the EUROPEANA service.

The European Newspapers project (funded under EC’s CIP 2007 – 2013) aims at the aggregation and refinement of newspapers for The European Library and Europeana.

[Clip]

Each library participating in the project will distribute digitized newspapers and full-texts free of any legal restrictions to Europeana. There will be a special focus on newspapers published during the First World War, thus providing a meaningful addition to the resources aggregated by the current Europeana 1914-1918 project.

Additional Details in the Complete Announcement