SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION ISSUES
A NEWSLETTER FOR THE UIUC COMMUNITY
Issue No. 48
August 1, 2003
Paula Kaufman, University Librarian
Editor
IN
NEW
JERSEY,
PHOENIX MAY NOT RISE WITHOUT A LIBRARY
Library resources may be increasingly virtual, but at least in New Jersey the
physical library remains important. The state of New Jersey has recently
deferred its decision on whether to allow the University of Phoenix (UOP), a
virtual for-profit educational enterprise, to offer degrees in the state, still
citing a number of questions including how the school will provide physical
library resources. UOP has been trying to get a license to grant degrees in New
Jersey for years. However, the school, which offers library resources primarily
via the Internet, has yet to satisfy
New Jersey's
licensing conditions, one of which requires an educational institution to offer
a library containing at least 50,000 volumes. UOP officials meanwhile hope a
deal with New Jersey City University that would allow its students to use that
school's library will suffice. The New Jersey State Commission on Higher
Education deferred its decision until Sept. 26. The UOP enrolls roughly 150,000
students, primarily adult learners, at over 100 "learning centers" around the
country. Library Journal Academic News Wire: July 15, 2003
NEW
WEB GUIDES FOR OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS
The Information Program of the Open Society Institute (OSI), along with SPARC
(the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), recently announced
three new publications for developers and publishers of open access journals.
The Guide to Business Planning for Launching a New Open Access Journal and
the Guide to Business Planning for Converting a Subscription-based Journal to
Open Access were first published in February 2003 and are now available in
updated editions. A new companion volume, Model Business Plan: A Supplemental
Guide for Open Access Journal Developers & Publishers, is also available.
All three publications, which were developed under contract with the SPARC
Consulting Group, are accessible online free of charge for viewing and
downloading from the OSI Web site
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/oajguides/.
DIGITAL SHARING GOES DEEPER
Libraries are collaborative by nature, sharing expertise, staff and ideas.
Shared cataloging is a good example: a cataloger in one library creates a record
about a book for use in a central database rather than just his own system, and
everyone else who contributes to that database can download that record into
their local systems rather than re-doing it themselves. Now librarians are
talking about extending that collaboration and "deep sharing" digital content by
creating a Distributed Online Digital Library. The DODL would depart from the
status quo in terms of function, service, reuse of content and library
interdependency. First, it would allow a common interface for distributed
collections, rather than the widely divergent "looks" of today's linked
collections. Second, and more radically, it would allow both librarians and end
users to download digital master files as malleable objects for local
recombinations. This means they could be enriched with content from librarians
or teachers, specially crafted for particular audiences, and unified in
appearance and function. A user could download, combine, search, annotate and
wrap the results in a seamless digital library mix for others to experience. The
services such deep sharing could provide are staggering, and the economics are
just as attractive. Imagine 30 libraries coordinating to digitize their
collections. Each funds individual parts of the project, but all equally share
in the sum of their efforts. So for the cost of building one digital object and
depositing it in the DODL, each library would gain 30 downloadable objects. As
participation becomes more widespread, the equation becomes even more
compelling. (Educause Review Jul/Aug 2003) ShelfLife, No. 116 (July 24 2003)
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0348.pdf
REPORT SUGGESTS RIAA GAINING ADVANTAGE
Preliminary data from Nielsen/Netratings indicate a sharp drop in activity on
file-sharing networks in the weeks following an announcement from the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) that it would prosecute individual file
traders for copyright
violations. According to Nielson/Netratings, the numbers of visitors to Morpheus
and Kazaa each dropped 15 percent. [This finding conflicts with reports from
Morpheus and Grokster that file-trading activity increased after the
announcement.] Although some of the drop is likely a result of decreased traffic
during the summer months, officials at
Nielson/Netratings believe that the timing and the magnitude of the decline
indicate that the RIAA's warning is having the desired effect of discouraging
illegal file trading. Although companies that distribute file-trading software
dispute this conclusion, most are developing features to try to hide the
identities of individual users. CNET, 14 July 2003 Edupage, July 16, 2003
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-1025684.html
RECORD INDUSTRY TARGETS DePAUL, LOYOLA OVER PIRACY
The music industry has set its sights on alleged music pirates at two universities in Chicago, issuing subpoenas to the schools as a precursor to possible lawsuits.
DePaul and Loyola universities confirmed they both have received subpoenas from the Recording Industry Association of America. The subpoenas list the Internet addresses of people who allegedly used the university computer networks to distribute copyrighted music. The schools are being asked to name the students and staff assigned the addresses. The music industry—which in the past has sued Web sites that help illegally distribute copyrighted music files—announced late last month it was targeting individuals using those sites or software to let other users copy files from their digital music libraries. Officials said they are in the process of gathering information on the worst file sharers and plan to file copyright infringement lawsuits by late August.
In response to the subpoenas received at both schools, DePaul officials said they had not been able to identify who was using the computer in question and had not released any information yet to the association. Loyola University turned over the names of two upperclassmen who share a dorm room at Fairfield Hall. They allegedly were sharing large amounts of music. Several hundred people will be sued next month, said Matthew Oppenheim, senior vice president of business and legal affairs at the industry association. http://www.suntimes.com/output/music/cst-nws-music20.html
PRESERVING ANCIENT TREASURES WITH 3D VIRTUAL REALITY
Curators at the Smithsonian Institution estimate that 70% of the wear and tear
on individual objects results from researchers sorting through collections,
hoping to identify objects for further study. The larger the objects, the more
difficult they are to handle, and the more damage incurred. To allow researchers
to search the collections without actually handling objects until they were
certain they had found what they needed, Smithsonian researchers collaborated
with Scotland's Hunterian Museum to establish leading edge practices in the
field of digital imaging for the scientific and cultural heritage sector.
Starting in the mid-1990s, using Apple's QuickTime Virtual Reality software,
researchers stitched together numerous digital images of the same object into a
virtual 3D representation of the object. In later years, they used the QTVR
software to produce controllable morphs. One sequence morphed the Hunterian's
Egyptian mummy back to the tomb and allowed users to "open" the sarcophagus and
"remove" the mummy's bandages to reveal X-rays of its skeleton. Thanks to
increasingly sophisticated software, both physical and virtual gallery visitors
can now "peel back" the layers of an object to examine the internal structure.
The SHADE collaboration has grown past informal skills-sharing activities
between staff at the Smithsonian and the Hunterian, and the goal is to further
develop the potential of emergent technologies for presentation of museum
collections through digital media. SHADE's next phase will be gathering wider
input to the evaluation process, collating that feedback, and disseminating the
results to the museum community. (Archives & Museum Informatics) ShelfLife, No.
115 (July 17 2003)
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2003/papers/devine/devine.html
DIGITAL FACILITATORS EXPAND ACCESS TO PUBLICATIONS
A new type of service provider, the digital facilitator, holds promise for
connecting publishers with the researchers and other scholars who need access to
their documents. Digital facilitators assist publishers in digitizing their
publications for the Web. They may offer additional services, such as hosting
the publishers' digital journal editions, conference proceedings, and
monographs. Importantly, they also offer their clients an abstracts archive of
the primary published documents, making it possible for researchers to run a
fairly thorough subject search without resorting to a commercial database and
all the irrelevant returns that's likely to generate. With the help of a digital
facilitator, a publisher can also easily make all of its publications fully
searchable and available in both Adobe PDF and HTML versions to print
subscribers for a reasonable surcharge. (Information Today Jun 2003) ShelfLife,
No. 115 (July 17 2003)
http://www.infotoday.com/it/jun03/jacso.shtml
MULTISPECTRAL IMAGING MAY UNLOCK LOST TEXTS
The medieval library at Chartres, France, was destroyed in a bombing raid on May
26, 1944, but its historical treasure may be salvageable using the same
multispectral imaging technology that helped decipher burned scrolls unearthed
at the Roman town of Herculaneum, which was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius
in 79 A.D. The
Chartres
manuscripts, many of which dated back to the 12th century, were removed from the
smoldering ruins and preserved, but the effects of carbonization and water
damage have rendered them unreadable. "The beauty of [multispectral imaging] is
that it is not invasive," says
University
of Michigan professor Richard Janko. "It's worth a trial [on the Chartres
texts]. It could do a lot for the study of medieval literature." Multispectral
imaging is widely used by satellites to produce detailed images of the Earth,
but it's now gaining ground as a technique in archeological restoration.
Researchers take multiple images of a manuscript with a special multispectral
camera and the photos are then passed through different filters to produce a set
of images viewed at different wavelengths. The image is then processed to reveal
subtle features on the page, lending definition to the
black-ink-on-black-background typical of a burned document. (BBC News 4 Jul
2003) ShelfLife, No. 115 (July 17 2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3038368.stm
THAT
TIME OF THE YEAR: ELSEVIER UNVEILS ITS PRICE INCREASE
In its now customary letter to librarians, Elsevier this week announced its
average price increase for the coming year. In 2004, the letter said, the
average increase for Elsevier's core journals program will be "approximately
6.5%." The letter stressed that the increase was an average and that some
journal prices may increase more and others less, with the complete 2004 price
list available after August 1 at
www.elsevier.com. In the letter, Elsevier, the world's leading scientific
publisher, also detailed its many enhancements, including the creation of a
digital archive, and the addition of 300 former Harcourt and
Academic Press titles to ScienceDirect, which now offers over 4 million
articles. With the latest announced price increase Elsevier continued its 1999
promise to keep its average annual price increase below double digits.
Unfortunately, with one of the worst budget scenarios in recent memory affecting
academic libraries, an average increase of 6.5 percent still will be tough to
swallow for many institutions. In its recently released PRINCIPLES FOR
ELECTRONIC JOURNALS LICENSES, the North East Research Library (NERL) consortium
said price control was a pressing issue and that prices need to be kept at a
minimum so institutions can weather the current financial crisis with as few
cancellations as possible. NERL, which includes libraries with some of the
nation's larger budgets, such as Harvard and Yale, called for "level pricing for
2004 and increases of no more than 5 percent thereafter." Library Journal
Academic News Wire:
July
17, 2003
DIGITAL DARK AGES WARNING
”Libraries warn of digital dark ages as key websites lost”, appeared in the
London Sunday Herald, July 13, 2003. It warns that the 21st century will be
seen as a cultural dark age unless urgent action is taken to preserve Britain's
electronically published heritage for future generations. Open Access News
7/16/03
http://www.sundayherald.com/35280
CONGRESS CONSIDERS ACTION TO CURTAIL ILLEGAL FILE SHARING
A bill introduced in Congress to curtail online music and video piracy would set jail terms of up to five years, accompanied by fines of as much as $250,000, for uploading a single copyrighted work. The bill is the more dramatic of two currently before the House of Representatives that could affect college students who use file-sharing programs. The Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner Protection and Security Act of 2003, HR 2752, would, among other things, make it a felony to upload a single file of copyrighted material, thereby increasing jail time and fines for offenders. Currently, such violations of copyright are usually considered misdemeanors. Democratic Reps. Howard L. Berman, of California, and John Conyers Jr., of Michigan, introduced the bill.
The other bill—the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2003, HR 2517—would establish an "Internet Use Education Program" in the office of the associate attorney general. The program would educate the public, educational institutions, and corporations about using copyrighted material on the Internet. That bill, introduced last month by Mr. Berman and Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, would direct the Department of Education to help schools and colleges comply with copyright law.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation also would be required to develop a program to discourage copyright infringement. In addition, the bill would permit copyright owners to sue those who pirate material, even if the owners had failed to register their works with the U.S. Copyright Office. http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/07/2003071801t.htm
IT’S NOT ALL ON THE INTERNET…YET
A
common defense of traditional libraries is that they contain large volumes of
information that isn't digitized and not available on the Internet. Well,
perhaps it's just a matter of time. Two companies, 4DigitalBooks and Kirtas,
have created robots that can automatically scan entire books, even turning the
pages between scans. The machines
have vastly increased the speed, with which print collections can be digitized,
and libraries no longer need to ship out collections to offshore sites in order
to digitize them manually; the robots can be brought to the collections instead.
The day when all printed matter is available digitally will probably never come,
but innovations like this will ensure that many more print works will see the
light of day and be available for research throughout the world in years to
come. Libraries will someday lose their "monopoly" on print materials. Their
proper response should be to stop focusing on the print medium as a primary
advantage over the Web, and focus instead on organization, retrieval,
and service. Outsell's e-briefs, July 18, 2003
AMAZON CONSIDERS MAKING TEXT OF BOOKS FREELY SEARCHABLE
Amazon.com says that it is developing a searchable online archive of the full
text of thousands of nonfiction titles on its site. Amazon officials say they
are negotiating with major publishers and reportedly have asked publishing
companies to maintain confidentiality until the expected launch of the program,
perhaps as early as this
fall. The project is assumed to be a competitive move against popular Internet
search engines such as Google and Yahoo. The idea of such an archive is hardly
new, as
librarians know all too well, having assembled numerous electronic databases of
public domain books, such as the
University of Virginia's popular e-book program. But
whether such a model will fly with publishers' frontlists is another matter.
Such a vision was also espoused by Ebrary founder Chris Warnock, who told
Library Journal more than three years ago that he was hoping to use the
Ebrary service to replicate the bookstore--or library—experience, allowing users
to securely, freely browse full-texts, and even copy or download pages for a
fee. Ebrary allows users to browse texts at no cost simply by typing in a word
or phrase. Users can then highlight any sections they wish to download or print
and pay a fee "equivalent to a photocopy fee" set by the publisher. Publishers,
however, still remain skittish about the a la carte sale of their content in
digital formats, whether they sell it themselves or abdicate that role to other
companies such as Ebrary or Amazon. According to publishers, concerns range from
copyright and royalty questions to the as yet undetermined effect on their core
business: selling books. Although publishing executives are characterized as
"guardedly cooperative" with Amazon's plan, reservations clearly remain. Authors
are also voicing their concern over such a plan. Writers Guild president Paul
Aiken—and some publishers—have raised questions about the revenue, or lack
thereof, for anyone besides Amazon under the program. Library Journal Academic
News Wire: July 24, 2003
UNIVERSITY OF UTAH PRESS DIRECTOR: WE'RE HANGING ON
Good news is still scarce from university presses, as a slumping economy and
fundamental changes in the publishing world continue to make university press
publishing an uphill climb. Unfortunately, the bad news is still
prevalent—earlier this week, Jeff Grathwohl, director of the University of Utah
Press, an excellent small scholarly press, highlighted the plight of small
presses. He told the Deseret News that the press is "hanging on by the
skin of our teeth." Grathwohl said the press has experienced its worse year ever
for returns. In addition, other factors, such as the shift to electronic
resources by academic libraries—also experiencing strained budgets—and overall
changes in the bookselling industry are further complicating matters. The
University of Utah Press receives an operating subsidy from the university,
enough to cover salaries for roughly 10 employees, but like many presses must
otherwise survive on its own. Library Journal Academic News Wire: July 24, 2003
GROUP
LOOKS TO UPDATE TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION SYSTEMS
The intellectual capital contained in such traditional knowledge organization
systems as classification schemes and thesauri can be mined for use in newer
forms of knowledge representation that really put computer processing to
work—such as ontologies, topic maps and semantic Web components. But the process
can't happen automatically, say participants in a recent workshop organized by
the Networked Knowledge Organization Systems/Sources (NKOS). The newer tools for
computer-based analysis and reasoning require richer structures, more explicit
relationships, standard syntax to perform decomposition, as well as a good
knowledge of the domain. One solution may be to consider terminology Web
services, particularly as part of knowledge management initiatives. With such
technologies, terminology can be incorporated as a component by various
corporate systems. Still, developers will have to pay careful attention to
standards, including the revision of NISO Z39.19 Standard for Monolingual
Thesauri. The NKOS workshop group (http://nkos.slis.kent.edu)
will pursue such possibilities through a list of follow-on activities, including
developing data exchange/interchange formats in XML/RDF and defining a tool
suite for converting traditional tools into intermediate formats that can
support the development of new semantic tools. (D-Lib Magazine Jul/Aug 2003)
ShelfLife, No. 116 (July 24 2003)
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july03/07inbrief.html#HODGE
U-TEXAS PUTS GUTENBERG BIBLE ON THE WEB
The University of
Texas
has digitized its entire two-volume Gutenberg Bible and posted portions of it on
its library Web site:
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/gutenberg/ . While other
copies of the famed Bible have also gone digital, officials at the university's
Harry
Ransom Center say their copy is the best of the lot, because it was in use in
monasteries in Southern Germany as late as the 1760s, and was heavily annotated
by monks who scratched out some passages and corrected others. Other sections
were highlighted for reading aloud or for use during
Mass.
"Our copy is the most interesting in the world," says head librarian Richard
Oram, and Paul Needham, of
Princeton
University's Scheide Library, agrees: "This is probably the most extensively
annotated and corrected copy surviving. This is a very great treasure." The
digitization project began in June 2002 and the finished product gives Web
viewers 7,000 images of the unique manuscript. (AP 23 Jul 2003) ShelfLife, No.
116 (July 24 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030723/D7SF4NEG0.html
DIGITAL PUBLISHERS COULD TAKE A CUE FROM APPLE ITUNES
Publishing technology expert Andreas Pfeiffer says that digital publishers could
learn a lot from Apple Computer's recent foray into the digital music field. The
runaway success of Apple's iTunes Music Store is all about ownership—when you
purchase an iTunes song you actually own it, and are free to share it with
family members or burn it to a CD to listen to in your car. Contrast this model
with the digital rights management systems that accompany much of the electronic
content available today. Citing the example of the New York Times, whose
electronic issues "expire" after three weeks whether they've been thoroughly
perused or not, Pfeiffer says: "Well, imagine if you bought a book or magazine
and all of a sudden there was an empty space on the shelf with a note: 'Sorry, I
have just expired. You can buy another copy if you would like to finish it.'
The New York Times Electronic Edition is a good example of what is wrong
with digital content today: the publishers are far more concerned with blocking
illegal use than with providing the legitimate user with a pleasant experience.
This is true for many digital rights management systems, and as long as that is
the case, digital content will fail to take off in a major way—and peer-to-peer
file sharing systems such as Kazaa or Morpheus will thrive. Digital content
providers need to think very hard about this. Digital ownership will be a key
aspect of the future of media, especially if publishers want to charge similar
amounts for digital files that they do for physical books and records." (The
Pfeiffer Report
18
Jul 2003) ShelfLife, No. 116 (July 24 2003)
http://www.pfeifferreport.com/trends/ett_digown.html
RIAA
SUBPOENAS GRANDPARENTS, ROOMMATES
Subpoenas recently sent by the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) have cut a
wide swath, targeting roommates and relatives in an effort to stop illegal file
sharing. Those engaged in file-sharing who thought their identities were masked
behind a user name are finding that the RIAA can track down the computers they
are using. Roommates, parents, or other relatives who might have been oblivious
to the fact that their
computers were being used for illegal file trading are now receiving subpoenas
to halt such use. Gordon Pate, who received a subpoena on his daughter's behalf,
said, "There's no way either us or our daughter would do anything we knew to be
illegal. I don't think anybody knew this was illegal, just a way to get some
music." Christopher Caldwell,
a lawyer for the Motion Picture Association of America, thinks the RIAA's
strategy might backfire. He said, "If they end up picking on individuals who are
perceived to be grandmothers or junior high students who have only downloaded in
isolated incidents, they run the risk of a backlash." Washington Post,
24 July 2003
Edupage, July 25, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40853-2003Jul24.html
DAVID LIPMAN TALKS ABOUT PUBMEDCENTRAL AND OPEN ACCESS
Can you imagine scientists trying to do research without GenBank and PubMed? These public databases of sequences and literature citations have become such essential tools for the research scientist that it's hard to imagine life without them. Open Access Now talks to David Lipman, the man behind both of these as well as his latest project – PubMed Central, a digital archive of the full-text biomedical literature that will be a key component of life in the Open Access future. Integrating literature and databases
PubMed and GenBank are services run by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), part of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), based at the US National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. NCBI’s Director David Lipman was there at the beginning, when NCBI began pioneering database integration. “PubMed came out of two streams that merged together,” recalls Lipman. “One was that the NLM had been producing MEDLINE for many years as an electronic index and bibliographic search service for the biomedical and life sciences literature. MEDLINE contained the citation and abstract, with some keywords and indexing terms. It was being made available online, usually by telephone-based access and then via internet as well, for a small fee to recover certain costs. About ten years ago NCBI started producing GenBank and providing some CD-ROM-based services for DNA and protein sequences.” A few years ago discussions about Open Access to the literature led to the creation of PubMed Central. “From the beginning, PubMed Central really had two roles,” says Lipman. “One was to try to increase access to the information and the other was electronic archiving. As electronic journals became more important and digital versions of articles, with more information, started to replace print as the definitive versions, the issue of archiving came up. “For paper journals, archiving was always done by libraries, so it was natural for the NLM to work with publishers to provide digital archiving through PubMed Central. So we started PubMed Central firstly to see if we could get the publishers to provide open access through our system and secondly to provide digital archiving.” http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/2/features/
MEDICAL LIBRARY JOURNAL CHANGES COPYRIGHT POLICY
Starting with the current issue, the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) has adopted a new copyright policy. Here's how T. Scott Plutchak describes it in an accompanying editorial: At their January 2003 meeting, the members of the MLA Board of Directors approved a motion to revise the copyright policy for JMLA. As is the case with most scholarly journals, the JMLA routinely required authors to sign a form transferring all rights to the association. Late last summer, that policy was challenged by several MLA members who pointed out that it was somewhat contradictory that at a time when we, as a profession, were urging the scholars that we serve to pay more attention to preserving their own copyrights, we, as a professional society, were still demanding that our own authors give up those rights. During the fall a new copyright policy was devised that acknowledges that JMLA authors retain the rights to their work. MLA is given the right of first publication and the right to republish the work in whatever fashion the JMLA may be republished in the future (for example, as part of an aggregated database). Individuals wishing to make copies of articles for educational, nonprofit purposes are still entitled to. But the authors are now free to make whatever further use of their work they wish, and, if some other person or entity wants to republish or make some other use of the work in the future, they need to get those permissions directly from the authors. Open Access News 7/25/03
OPEN ACCESS ARCHIVES
Jean-Claude Guédon, Open Access Archives: from scientific plutocracy to the republic of science, IFLA Journal, 29, 2 (2003) pp. 129-140. Excerpt: "The recent history of science has been characterized not only by a transition from science to ‘Big Science’, to use Derek de Solla Price’s terminology, but also by a deep transformation which, in retrospect, threatens to subvert the original values of modern science. Originally, science appeared as an offspring of the ‘Republic of Letters’, and as such, it belonged to a certain elite: the social structure of Europe in the late Renaissance would have made any other arrangement most unlikely. However, inside the scientific playground, elitism gave way to a peer-to-peer mode of behaviour." Open Access News 7/23/03 http://www.ifla.org/V/iflaj/ij-2-2003.pdf Note: Guédon will be speaking at our on-campus Conference on the Future of the Library, October 30.
ACLS HISTORY E-BOOK PROJECT PROVING THAT E-BOOKS REALLY ARE THE FUTURE
The e-book has had a rough couple of years. While a long list of commercial
e-book ventures have flopped amid high expectations, the American Council of
Learned
Societies (ACLS) History E-Book Project has been quietly making progress. The
ACLS History E-Book Project launched in September of 2002 with 500 e-books. In
September 2003, it will add 275 more titles; ACLS plans to add approximately 250
books annually to the collection, as well as 85 completely new "born digital"
electronic titles. The project is supported by site licenses from library
customers; as of this week, a respectable 141 subscriptions had signed since the
launch—well on the way to the 200
subscriptions needed by June 2004 to fulfill conditions of the project's 5-year,
$3 million Mellon Foundation grant. Project directors Ron Musto and Eileen
Gardiner told the LJ Academic Newswire that the project needs to eventually
garner between 600-800 subscriptions to reach sustainability. They are confident
they'll meet that goal, as historians become not just comfortable with
electronic formats, but also embrace the expanded possibilities of e-books.
Indeed, Musto and Gardiner say that the ACLS is very
happy with the results thus far and that the project will continue after its
initial grant expires. A combination of bridge funding, subscription income, and
perhaps another grant will fund the ongoing operation. Collaboration has been
key to the early success of the project. The ACLS initiative counts academic
librarians, as well as eight
learned societies and a select group of university presses among its
collaborators. Library Journal Academic News Wire: July 31, 2003
HISTORIANS MAKE THEIR OWN HISTORY BY EMBRACING E-BOOKS
Although librarians have witnessed a quick ascent in the demand for electronic
journals, e-books have lagged far behind. But since starting the ACLS History
E-Book Project
three years ago, project directors Ron Musto and Eileen Gardiner say they have
seen significant progress. When the project first began, alongside the
Gutenberg-e History
Monograph project of
Columbia
University and Princeton historian Robert Darnton, the thought was that
electronic publishing could help save the monograph. Years later, that
thinking has now been adjusted. Rather than save the monograph, it appears the
e-book is poised to replace it. "In e-publishing the classic image of the
monograph
falls apart," explained Musto. The idea of the monograph, a single copy of an
expensive, static book, is slowly being replaced, he said, by the notion of a
"database" of cross-
searchable, highly enhanced works that offer clear advantages, such as links to
source documents and multiple, remote user access. Researchers and students, who
generally use portions of monographs for their work, are finding that e-books
better support much of their current behavior and offer much promise for
expanding the way scholarship is communicated. Unlike the previous unsuccessful
commercial e-book
ventures, which jumped into the marketplace with exuberance and speculation, the
ACLS history e-book project has taken a more sober tack. The project is not a
publisher, but a publishing partner utilizing a wide array of expertise to
pioneer the e-book through the myriad technological, business, and cultural
issues that have stymied other e-book ventures thus far. At once, the project
aims to encourage authors to plan and write e-books, help presses by
streamlining production processes and reducing costs,
and encourage libraries to embrace history e-books in their collections. The
project is also addressing thornier issues, such as developing an archiving plan
for long-term
access and assuring that e-books are properly reviewed and promoted within the
profession. Refreshingly, another of the project's stated goals is push fair use
in the digital realm. Where many digital ventures use rights management to limit
copying and printing, such is not the case with the ACLS project. The ACLS is
also actively pushing the acceptance of e-books for hiring, tenure, promotion,
and related professional concerns. For more information on the ACLS History
E-Book Project, visit
http://www.historyebook.org/ Library Journal Academic News Wire: July 31,
2003
SHARED FACILITIES, HERITAGE TOPICS OF CLIR REPORTS
Two new reports from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)
examine shared print repositories and digital cultural heritage initiatives.
DEVELOPING PRINT
REPOSITORIES: MODELS FOR SHARED PRESERVATION AND ACCESS documents the growth
and achievements of shared repositories while also pointing to the potential
they hold
for collaborative management and preservation of collections of high research
value but infrequent use. The report suggests which practices, policies, and
programs
best foster the equitable sharing of the costs of collection care. It identifies
which practices and organizational and financial structures best support the
integration of cooperative collection development and preservation efforts. Such
cooperative arrangements do more than solve problems caused by a shortage of
real estate on
campus. The full report is available at
www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub117abst.html.
Digital cultural heritage initiatives are proliferating. They include
organizations or programs that create digital products for use in the cultural
or educational community
or that address issues integral to the promotion of cultural heritage. Many of
them have produced valuable resources for research and teaching. Support remains
dependent on external funding, which puts many programs at risk in the current
economic downturn. The CLIR commissioned a survey of 33 North American-based
digital cultural heritage initiatives. Survey findings and recommendations are
reported in A SURVEY OF DIGITAL
CULTURAL HERITAGE INITIATIVES AND THEIR SUSTAINABILITY CONCERNS. That report
is available at
www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub118abst.html. Library Journal Academic News
Wire:
July
31, 2003
GUIDELINES FOR DIGITAL PRESERVATION
UNESCO may soon join the cause of preserving our digital heritage. A Draft
Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage was positively received
during a recent session of UNESCO's Executive Board. While the charter focuses
on advocacy and public policy issues, the accompanying guidelines present
practical principles for technical decisions throughout the life cycle of a wide
range of digital materials. The guidelines, which might be useful for anyone
working on digital collections, point out that not all digital materials need to
be kept, only those that are judged to have ongoing value. Digital preservation
will happen only if organizations and individuals accept responsibility for it.
The process must address threats to all layers of the digital object—physical,
logical, conceptual and essential. Digital materials cannot be said to be
preserved if access is lost; the purpose is to maintain the ability to present
the essential elements of authentic digital materials. While comprehensive and
reliable preservation programs are highly desirable, they may not always be
achievable. Where necessary, it is usually better to take non-comprehensive and
non-reliable action than no action at all. Managers should recognize that there
are complex issues involved. It is important to do no harm. Managers should seek
to understand the whole process and the objectives that eventually need to be
achieved and avoid steps that will jeopardize later preservation action. (RLG
DigiNews 15 June 2003) ShelfLife, No. 117 (July 31 2003)
http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews7-3.html#feature3
NEW
WEB CRAWLERS GET SPECIFIC
With
all the Web's frustrations, users must remember that the sport and science of
surfing is still in its infancy. Author and Professor C. Lee Giles, Ph.D., says
one step in the evolution of search tools is the emerging trend toward
personalization. Some day, he says, search engines may be so individualized that
users will be able to design their own directories, based on personal needs and
interests. Until then, Giles has created a practical short-term solution called
the niche search engine, designed to meet the needs of a group of people with
similar interests, such as members of a profession. By limiting its crawling to
a specific subject area, the niche engine can burrow deeper, providing more
consistently useful information. One example is the computer- and information
science-specific CiteSeer.org, which crawls the growing body of technical
literature and ignores everything else. Because the amount of information it
finds relevant is relatively small, it can offer users important features that
generic engines can't. Its success has prompted the launch of eBizSearch.org, a
niche engine for practitioners and students of e-business, built on the same
software platform that powers CiteSeer. Look for more subject-specific engines
in the future, he says. (Penn State Research May 2003) ShelfLife, No. 117 (July
31 2003)
http://www.rps.psu.edu/0305/search.html
FUTURE TOOLS WILL TRANSFORM SEARCH PROCESS
Cindy Hill, president of the Special Libraries Association, sees visualization
of information as one of the most important tools that will transform the
Internet for users over the next 10 years: "So that when you do a search on any
of the search engines and you come up with hundreds of thousands of hits—to help
with that, I think that the mapping technology—where it visualizes— like a map,
a geography, and it points to where the big bulges of information are. That is
the future. You can also look at the outlying information too using mapping." In
addition, Hill sees speech recognition and a wireless interface transforming the
process of searching the Internet. "I think that we are going to be able to have
a screen in front of our face. Walk along and ask questions and there pops up
the answer." (FreePint) ShelfLife, No. 117 (July
31 2003)
The scholarly communications are also available on line at http://www.library.uiuc.edu/administration/news.htm