I N   B R I E F

January/February 2016
Table of Contents

2nd International Alexandria Workshop

Contributed by
Avishek Anand, Thomas Risse, Wolfgang Nejdl
L3S Research Center
Leibniz Universität Hannever
Hannover, Germany

The second Alexandria Workshop took place at the L3S Research Center on 2-3 November 2015. The workshop was aimed at bringing together communities involved in web archiving, digital preservation, digital humanities and information retrieval to encourage a closer dialogue between researchers from computer science, digital humanities and cultural heritage institutions. It was widely attended by participants from national libraries and the humanities to computer scientists from varying disciplines like Information retrieval, natural language processing, database systems and distributed systems. The workshop, spanning two days, included two keynotes, several research talks, and system demonstrations as well as a panel discussion on shortcomings, research infrastructures, and future directions.

The first keynote, given by Prof. Wolfgang Nejdl from the L3S Research Center, focused on the challenges and solutions surrounding searching and exploring Web archives. Putting in context some of the findings of the BUDDAH project, which underlined the need for combining qualitative and quantitative analysis of archives, he surmised the need for novel and better access methods for Web archives. He argued that better access methods are not only useful for searching archived collections, but are potentially useful for corpus creation, which is a fundamental task for historians and researchers in the humanities. Keyword search, widely studied in the area of information retrieval, is a natural and easier access method but is fraught with uncertainty of keyword generation, especially for advanced search tasks. Also, the intent of the user searching archives is markedly different from the traditional search behavior of end users. To this extent, the keynote talk touched on the recent contributions made in the Alexandria Project, in which he is a principal investigator, towards devising novel retrieval models for such specialized search and exploratory behaviors.

Complementing the need for improved access methods, other talks were targeted towards application-specific usability of Web archives. Ivana Marenzi discussed the possibility of improving usability to improve the user experience when working with web archive collections. Focus was also on exploiting news archives for a variety of tasks ranging from Wikipedia enrichment and event-based ranking, to timeline summarization. Prof. Maarten De Rijk also acknowledged the potential of Web archives was acknowledged in promising results from evolving text collections used in vocabulary shifts over time. Elisabeth Niggemann, from the German National Library, provided insight about how the library is into Web harvesting for focused events and collections. Websites and their content become relevant objects when cited by researchers and thus citations need permanency to ensure validity and reproducibility of research results. However, she expressed concerns about "link rot," which makes links unreliable and transient.

Prof. Niels Brügger from the Digital Media Lab (Aarhus University) gave the second keynote about Web History, Web Archives, and Web Research Infrastructure. He highlighted the challenges faced in setting up such infrastructure and shared experiences about RESAW — A Research Infrastructure for the Study of Archived Web Materials, and NETLAB – An internet research infrastructure within the Danish research infrastructure for the humanities Digital Humanities Lab. Similarly, Thomas Risse also talked about the SoBigData project, which creates a research infrastructure providing an integrated ecosystem for ethic-sensitive social data mining.

In addition to this wide ranging set of talks, there was a demo session showcasing the proof-of-concept systems developed in L3S relating to the topics of interest to the workshop. Finally, the workshop concluded with a panel discussion on the issues that affect archives in general. A key challenge that was identified was legality of openness and data sharing. In the second year of the workshop we saw tangible research results and prototype systems emerging, validating the real potential of Web archives and temporal collections. Although some concerns regarding data sharing, web infrastructures and data persistence still remain, the fact that an interdisciplinary set of researchers could come together and discuss the possibilities, challenges and opportunities made it a success.

A full overview about the Alexandria project can be found on http://alexandria-project.eu/.

Registration Open for 2016 DLF eResearch Network

Contributed by
Bethany Nowviskie
Director, Digital Library Federation
Washington, DC, USA
bnowviskie [at] clir.org

Registration is now underway for the third annual cohort of the Digital Library Federation's eResearch Network.

The DLF eResearch Network is a community of practice focused on implementing research data management services and engaging in shared skill development, networking, and collaboration. Participants join in small institutional teams of up to three people, and the program is conducted wholly online, with optional in-person meet-ups at relevant conferences. DLF's goal in providing the eRN experience is to create a self-reliant, mutually supportive community engaged in continuous learning about RDM, data curation, and e-research support.

Between April and November of each year, eResearch Network members: work with DLF faculty to identify cohort learning objectives; participate in customized curricula and in a series of regularly scheduled webcasts (many featuring guest speakers as well as the experienced practitioners and experts on our faculty); connect at in-person eRN meet-ups; benefit from a personal faculty consultation, tailored to their specific institutional needs; and take advantage of the opportunity to "skill up" and build stronger connections and collaborative partnerships within and beyond the DLF community. Participants stay in touch after each year's program concludes, through DLF-provided frameworks for collaboration and information-sharing, with chances to present outcomes at the annual DLF Forum and other venues, and opportunities to inform and participate in the work of future cohorts.

DLF eRN faculty and guest speakers are drawn from experts in the Digital Library Federation's broad network, active members of previous cohorts, and CLIR/DLF Postdoctoral Fellows in Data Curation (including our postdocs in science and social science data, software curation, and medieval and visual studies data curation), who work with DLF to facilitate the eRN group experience. DLF eRN faculty are also available for an in-depth consultation with each participating institution, to provide cogent advice on planning and implementing research data management services.

The DLF eRN was formerly called the "E-Research Peer Network and Mentoring Group" and is itself a spin-off from an earlier ARL/DLF/Duraspace E-Science Institute. 2014 and 2015 DLF eRN member institutions include: the California Institute of Technology; Montana State University; Northwestern University; Temple University; and the Universities of Arizona, Florida, Illinois - Urbana-Champaign, Manitoba, Nevada - Las Vegas, Richmond, Rochester, and Toronto. DLF is offering radically reduced tuition fees to member organizations in 2016, and so far eight participating institutions have signed up, including: Bucknell College; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Middlebury College; New York University; the Claremont Colleges; and the Universities of California - Berkeley, Iowa, and Pennsylvania—with more expected to join in the new year.

Participants' expressed interests and desired learning outcomes help to shape faculty selection and the content for each year's program, so DLF encourages early sign-up, at: https://www.diglib.org/groups/e-research-network/ Registration will close in early April, 2016.

The Digital Liberal Arts Exchange

Contributed by
Michael Roy
Dean of the Library at Middlebury College and
Director, Digital Liberal Arts Exchange project
Middlebury College
Middlebury, Vermont, USA

Many schools have recently embarked upon initiatives in digital scholarship. Focused largely in the humanities and humanistic social sciences and often anchored in the institution's library, this scholarship emphasizes digital tools, methods, and infrastructure. With these new initiatives come new challenges, such as meeting the growing demand for technical support. Even institutions with well-established programs struggle to keep pace.

The Digital Liberal Arts Exchange is a collection of leaders and practitioners from the field of digital scholarship working to create collaborative solutions to meet the needs of our faculty and students who are engaged in the creation, dissemination, and preservation of digital scholarship. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Digital Liberal Arts Exchange is developing a new model for fostering digital scholarship. Our first steps included a survey to ascertain the state of the field in higher education in the United States. Backed by this data, the Digital Liberal Arts Exchange is reaching out to individuals and organizations who might be interested in participating in this exchange in order to identify those who would like to participate in our pilot project starting in September of 2016. Partners will provide services to and receive assistance from a collaborative network of scholars at a range of institutions.

The Digital Liberal Arts Exchange will support scholars as they seek to engage with digital scholarship and the growing fields producing it. Institutions with no digital experience can interact with a wide variety of expert speakers. Others will receive project scoping, consulting services, and follow-up guidance. The Exchange may even provide hosting services to assist scholars to find the necessary structural support to grow their projects.

We envision the Digital Liberal Arts Exchange as being a community builder, service provider, service consumer, and speaker's bureau. As higher education faces political scrutiny, digital scholarship provides academics a way to interact with the public. Increased interest in digital methods requires additional educational and technological support, which individual institutions may or may not be able to provide. The Digital Liberal Arts Exchange looks to foster collaborative growth of digital scholarship in higher education.

Software Preservation Network

Contributed by
Zach Vowell
California Polytechnic State University
Jessica Meyerson
University of Texas at Austin
j.meyerson [at] austin.utexas.edu

Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Software Preservation Network (SPN) is conceived of as a mechanism for the coordination of existing and potential proprietary, "executable," microcomputing (PEM) software collection efforts, as well as an advocacy vehicle for collective software licensing negotiations. SPN's primary components include a legal framework for cultural heritage software licensing; documentation strategy for coordinated collection of software installation media and associated metadata; and technical infrastructure to support both preservation of and access to software titles. SPN's emphasis is distinctive but complementary to the UNESCO Memory of the World PERSIST project, which is working to address the broader challenge of "sustainability for the information society" by focusing on several key areas, including the development of technical infrastructure in the form of the Software Heritage Platform.

The SPN project team chose to focus on PEM software because key project staff are all situated in institutional contexts in which PEM software is the most commonly experienced software need and challenge. However, SPN acknowledges that the full scope of software preservation for cultural heritage and scholarly communication is much broader and includes research software (i.e., science, social science, humanities), institutional software developed in-house, source code, as well as open source executables.

Currently, SPN is wrapping up data collection for the Software Preservation in Cultural Heritage Study. The project team hopes to use the study to establish the need for software preservation among cultural heritage organizations. Qualitative data analysis will be completed in early 2016. The codes the team have developed to use in its analysis are derived from the participatory action research (PAR) literature and notes taken in meetings between staff and potential partners. The selection or rationale behind the selection of each code is well documented by project researchers and will be released as part of the data publication.

Next steps also include application for implementation funding or bridge funding between the planning grant and a longer-term implementation grant for the network. The SPN project team believes the key for a strong implementation funding application will be commitments from organizations interested in participating as implementation partners and demonstrating the ability or willingness to collaborate on roles and responsibilities, expected deliverables, and funding needs.

In August 2016, the Software Preservation Network (SPN) will convene a forum on software preservation in co-location with the Society of American Archivists annual meeting in Atlanta, GA. The forum will be the culmination of the one-year planning and research project funded by under the IMLS National Leadership Grant for Libraries. The forum will solicit community input and build consensus around future steps for a national strategy for software preservation, in an attempt to build on the ~25 year discourse around software preservation by developing an actionable [community] roadmap.

SPN is actively looking for project partners and we encourage readers to review our project documentation here: http://www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/.

Three ways to get involved: 1) Contact us to schedule a chat about your participation in an implementation grant; 2) Use our Contact page to submit a software preservation use case that we can publish on the SPN website and/or 3) Submit a proposal for the August Software Preservation Forum.

Zach Vowell zvowell [at] calpoly.edu
Jessica Meyerson j.meyerson [at] austin.utexas.edu

We look forward to hearing from you!

I N   T H E   N E W S

OCLC Research and ALISE name recipients of 2016 Library and Information Science Research Grants

January 8, 2016 — "OCLC Research and the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) have awarded research grants for five projects to be conducted by 10 researchers. The awards were presented January 7 at the ALISE 2016 Annual Conference Awards Luncheon in Boston, Massachusetts."

• "Iris Xie and Rakesh Babu, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, will investigate universal accessibility of digital libraries with specific work on design of Help mechanisms for blind users...."
• "Abdulhussain Mahdi and Arash Joorabchi, University of Limerick, will pursue the development of an algorithm for automatic mapping of FAST subject headings to their equivalent Wikipedia articles or topic...."
• "Besiki Stvilia, Florida State University, Dong Joon Lee, Texas A&M University, and Shuheng Wu, Queens College, CUNY, will investigate the social aspects of participation in online research identity management systems...."
• "Pengyi Zhang, Peking University, will investigate collaborative sensemaking in online knowledge groups...."
• Denice Adkins and Heather Moulaison Sandy, University of Missouri, will identify ways in which multiple Latino populations use mobile technologies for information-seeking; use social media for information-seeking; and based on that knowledge, create "profiles" for various Latino communities (i.e. rural, urban, established communities, newcomer communities, etc.) that can be used by libraries to tailor their social media and mobile information campaigns....

"OCLC/ALISE Library and Information Science Research Grants support research that advances librarianship and information science, promotes independent research to help librarians integrate new technologies into areas of traditional competence, and contributes to a better understanding of the library environment."

For more details about the grants, see the full press release.

NISO Receives Two Grants To Undertake the Creation of a Framework on Data and Privacy

January 7, 2016 — "The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has received two grants to develop a consensus framework for mitigating and managing the privacy risks related to the collection, preservation, sharing, use, and re-use of research data sets. The grants from both the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation will further advance NISO's existing privacy initiatives on user privacy in library, publisher, and software supplier systems, details of which were published in December 2015."

"The 22-month project funded by the Mellon Foundation is called "Development of a Consensus Framework for Mitigating the Privacy Risks Related to the Collection, Sharing, and Use of Research Data Sets." A proposed joint NISO-Research Data Alliance (RDA) working group will develop the framework and associated metadata, use cases, and implementation support materials. Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director, will serve as the overall project director and co-chair of the working group. The working group will also be co-chaired by Bonnie Tijerina, a Researcher at the Data & Society Research Institute and founder of the Electronic Resources & Libraries conference. The Working Group Case Statement is currently open and available for comment on the RDA website."

"Work on privacy issues surrounding data sets is related to and will build upon ongoing initiatives at NISO and RDA. The framework will fill a need in the international science, social science, and humanities communities, which often work with human subject research data but lack concrete guidelines as to how to safeguard those data as they are shared, used, and processed. Institutional repositories have too often dealt with the question of privacy in data sets by exclusion rather than management. Not only do repository managers risk incurring significant financial penalties in this process, they also create avoidable barriers to data sharing and reuse."

For more information, see the full press release.

NISO Publishes Updated Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) Standard 1.1

January 7, 2016 — "The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the formal publication of the updated version of JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite 1.1, ANSI/NISO Z39.96-2015. This newly official edition is a revision of ANSI/NISO Z39.96-2012, also known as JATS 1.0, first published in July 2012. The purpose of JATS is to define a suite of XML elements and attributes that describes the content of metadata and journal articles using a common format that enables the exchange of journal content. This Tag Suite thus is intended to preserve intellectual content of journals independent of the form in which the content was originally delivered, and enables an archive to capture structural and semantic components of existing material. In addition, the JATS standard includes three implementations of the suite, called Tag Sets, which are intended to provide models for archiving, publishing, and authoring journal article content."

"'JATS 1.1 continues to build on the success of JATS 1.0, which was itself the successor to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) DTD version 3.0, widely adopted in industry,' comments Jeffrey Beck, NCBI Technical Information Specialist at the National Library of Medicine and Co-chair of the NISO JATS Standing Committee. 'JATS is used to tag thousands of journals worldwide by a wide array of implementers and publishers. And JATS continues to grow,' says Beck. 'The TaxPub extension provides elements for tagging taxonomic treatments in journal articles. BITS is an NLM effort to make a JATS-based book model, and NISO STS is a NISO activity to make a JATS-based standard for Standards based on ISO STS.'"

For more information, see the full press release.

Record Number of Libraries Surpass One Million eBook and Audiobook Checkouts in 2015

Digital book lending continues significant growth, with audiobooks increasing fastest

January 7, 2016 — "2015 was a banner year for libraries with record numbers of readers turning to their local library to borrow and download popular eBooks and audiobooks. OverDrive, the industry leader for digital book lending serving over 90 percent of the nation's libraries, reports that in 2015 readers borrowed more than 169 million digital books. This is an increase of 24 percent over 2014 with a notable surge in audiobooks usage, which achieved a faster growth rate than eBook library borrowing."

"Highlights of record-setting growth from the OverDrive network of lending libraries for 2015 include:"

• Total digital titles borrowed from libraries & schools: 169 million (+24% over 2014)
  • eBook circulation: 125 million (+19% growth over 2014)
  • Digital audiobook circulation: 43 million (+36% growth over 2014)
  • Streaming video circulation (+83% over 2014)
  • Introduced in late 2014, the circulation of digital magazines and newspapers also grew significantly in 2015
• 33 library systems circulated 1 million or greater digital books during 2015
• Reader visits to OverDrive-powered library & school websites: 750 million (+14% increase from 2014)"

"'This past year was a breakthrough year for libraries offering their readers anytime, anywhere access to their digital catalogs,' said Shannon Lichty, Director of Partner Services at OverDrive. 'eBooks and audiobooks are serving more kids, young adults, travelers, students and readers of all genres of books than ever through innovative tools and expanded digital catalogs that our library partners offer.'"

For more information, see the full press release.

Free for All: NYPL Enhances Public Domain Collections For Sharing and Reuse

January 5, 2016 blog posting by Shana Kimball, Manager, Public Programs and Outreach, New York Public Library — "Today we are proud to announce that out-of-copyright materials in NYPL Digital Collections are now available as high-resolution downloads. No permission required, no hoops to jump through: just go forth and reuse!"

"The release of more than 180,000 digitized items represents both a simplification and an enhancement of digital access to a trove of unique and rare materials: a removal of administration fees and processes from public domain content, and also improvements to interfaces – popular and technical – to the digital assets themselves. Online users of the NYPL Digital Collections website will find more prominent download links and filters highlighting restriction-free content; while more technically inclined users will also benefit from updates to the Digital Collections API enabling bulk use and analysis, as well as data exports and utilities posted to NYPL's GitHub account. These changes are intended to facilitate sharing, research and reuse by scholars, artists, educators, technologists, publishers, and Internet users of all kinds. All subsequently digitized public domain collections will be made available in the same way, joining a growing repository of open materials."

For more information, see the full blog posting.

Notice of Funding Opportunities: Second Cycle of Funding for FY 2016 National Leadership Grants for Libraries and Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program

December 21, 2015 — "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announces the Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) for the second cycle of FY 2016 National Leadership Grants for Libraries (NLG) and the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program (LB21). The NLG program will invest in projects that address challenges faced by the library and archive fields and generate results such as new tools, research findings, or models that can be widely used. The LB21 program will support human capital capacity projects for libraries and archives."

"IMLS is offering two opportunities to apply for the FY 2016 NLG and LB21 programs. The NOFOs announce the February 2, 2016 deadline for two-page preliminary proposals. From the preliminary proposals, IMLS will select applicants and invite them to submit full proposals in June. Applicants who were not invited to continue from the first cycle of funding are welcome to submit new preliminary proposals."

"The 2016 NLG and LB21 programs respond to priorities of the National Digital Platform and Learning in Libraries, topics of two 2015 IMLS Focus convenings. Information from the nationally webcasted meetings is available to help inform project development at the following links:

"Each program's NOFO provides additional information about the types of activities that can be funded under these project categories."

For more information, see the full press release.

Berlin 12 Conference Focuses on Proposal to Flip Subscription Journals to Open Access

December 18, 2015 — "On December 8 and 9, 2015, representatives from several regions (Asia, Europe, and North America) met in Berlin, Germany, to discuss a proposal to flip subscription-based journals to open access models. The initiative is being led by the Max Planck Society, the organizer and host of the invitation-only Berlin 12 Open Access Conference. The rationale for the initiative is based on an analysis undertaken by Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL), which found that a flip to open access would be possible at no financial risk, 'maybe even at lower overall costs' to the system."

"The objective of the conference was to build a consensus for an internationally coordinated effort to shift libraries' journal budgets away from subscriptions and towards article processing costs (APCs). The meeting was attended by 96 participants from 19 countries, with several US and Canadian representatives. The major point of discussion was an expression of interest (EOI) that would form the basis for gaining support and moving forward with the initiative. Once published, organizations will be invited to sign the EOI and it will be used to galvanize interest in the initiative around the world."

For more information, see the full press release.

The National Endowment for the Humanities and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Announce New Grants to Bring Back Essential Out-of-Print Books

December 17, 2015 — "The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the largest funders of humanities research in the United States, announced more than $700,000 in new grants today that will give a second life to outstanding out-of-print books in the humanities by turning them into free e-books."

"Under the new Humanities Open Book program, NEH and Mellon are awarding grants totaling roughly $774,000 to publishers to identify great humanities books, secure all appropriate rights, and make them available for free, forever, under a Creative Commons license."

"For centuries, printed books have been the primary written medium for expressing, communicating, and debating ideas in the humanities, which are defined as research and study on topics including history, philosophy, linguistics, and others. However, most scholarly books printed since 1923 are not in the public domain. As a result, today's scholars, teachers, students, and members of the public don't have access to a large swath of knowledge. Modern e-book technology can unlock the potential of these books."

"The grants awarded were selected through a rigorous review process that measured how the digitized books would be of demonstrable intellectual significance and broad interest to current readers."

For more information, see the full press release.

Notice of Funding Opportunity: FY 2016 Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries

December 17, 2015 — "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is accepting applications for Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries. The application deadline is February 1, 2016."

"Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries are small grants that encourage libraries and archives to prototype and evaluate innovations that result in new tools, products, services, or organizational practices. They enable grantees to undertake activities that involve risk and require them to share project results-whether they succeed or fail-to provide valuable information to the library field and help improve the ways that libraries serve their communities."

"The funding range is from $10,000 to $25,000, and there are no matching requirements. Projects must begin on October 1, November 1, or December 1, 2016. Click here for program guidelines and more information about the funding opportunity."

For more information, see the full press release.

Special Information Standards Quarterly Issue on the Evolution of Bibliographic Data Exchange Published by NISO

December 16, 2015 — "The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the publication of a special themed issue of Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) on the topic of the Evolution of Bibliographic Data Exchange. Libraries are in the midst of moving away from AACR2 and MARC 21 to the new world of the semantic web, linked data, FRBR, and RDA. As noted by Ted Fons, Executive Director, Data Services & WorldCat Quality at OCLC and the guest content editor for this ISQ issue, "the success of the web as a research tool has dramatically changed the library's role in the exposure of library catalogs....The rise of new metadata initiatives reflects the need to respond to this change and to increase our effectiveness in the exchange and management of library metadata." Fons has gathered together in the Winter 2013 issue of ISQ a set of thoughtful and informative articles about the work that is underway in this bibliographic data evolution."

"ISQ is available in open access in electronic format on the NISO website. Both the entire Winter 2013 Evolution of Bibliographic Data Exchange issue and the individual articles may be freely downloaded. Print copies are available by subscription and as print on demand. For more information and to access the free electronic version, visit: http://www.niso.org/publications/isq."

For more information, see the full press release.

National Endowment for the Humanities Announces $434,864 for "Common Heritage" Community History Projects

December 16, 2015 — "The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced $423,464 in grants to 38 cultural organizations to bring historical records and artifacts currently hidden in family attics and basements across the country and make them digitally available to the wider public and for posterity."

"These are the first awards made under NEH's new Common Heritage grant program, which was created in April 2015 as part of The Common Good: The Humanities in the Public Square, an agency-wide initiative that seeks to enhance the role of the humanities in civic life."

"Common Heritage grants will allow historical societies, libraries, archives, museums, colleges and other local institutions to host 'digitization days' encouraging members of the public to share materials important to their family or community histories, such as photographs, artifacts, family letters, and works of art."

"These items will be digitized, along with descriptive information and context provided by the community attendees. With the owner's permission, the digitized materials will be made publicly available through the institution's online collections. Contributors will receive a free digital copy of their items to take home, along with the original materials."

For more information, see the full press release.

NISO Releases a Set of Principles to Address Privacy of User Data in Library, Content-Provider, and Software-Supplier Systems

December 14, 2015 — "The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has published a set of consensus principles for the library, content-provider and software-provider communities to address privacy issues related to the use of library and library-related systems. This set of principles developed over the past 8 months focus on balancing the expectations library users have regarding their intellectual freedoms and their privacy with the operational needs of systems providers."

"The NISO Privacy Principles, available at http://www.niso.org/topics/tl/patron_privacy/, set forth a core set of guidelines by which libraries, systems providers and publishers can foster respect for patron privacy throughout their operations. The Principles outline at a high level basic concepts and areas which need to be addressed to support a greater understanding for and respect of privacy-related concerns in systems development, deployment, and user interactions. The twelve principles covered in the document address the following topics: Shared Privacy Responsibilities; Transparency and Facilitating Privacy Awareness; Security; Data Collection and Use; Anonymization; Options and Informed Consent; Sharing Data with Others; Notification of Privacy Policies and Practices; Supporting Anonymous Use; Access to One's Own User Data; Continuous Improvement and Accountability."

For more information, see the full press release.

Library, Higher Education Groups Urge US Congress to Support Open Internet Order

December 10, 2015 — "The American Library Association (ALA), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and EDUCAUSE sent a joint letter (PDF) on December 4, 2015, to US Congressional leaders, asking them to oppose the inclusion of any language in the current Omnibus Appropriations bill that would undermine the authority of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to enforce its Open Internet Order protecting net neutrality. The Open Internet Order, which became effective in June, prohibits blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization of content on the Internet."

"In the letter, the organizations note the importance of net neutrality:"

"ALA, ARL, and EDUCAUSE believe that preserving an open Internet is essential to our nation's educational achievement, freedom of speech, and economic growth. The open Internet has become a cornerstone of the educational, academic, and computer services that libraries and higher education offer to students, teachers, and the general public. Libraries and higher education institutions are prolific producers of Internet content. We rely upon the public availability of open, affordable Internet access for school homework assignments, distance learning classes, e-government services, licensed databases, job-training videos, medical and scientific research, and many other essential services. It is vital that the Internet remains a network neutral environment so that libraries and higher education institutions have the freedom to create and provide innovative information services that are central to the growth and development of our democratic culture."

For more information, see the full press release.

ALA, BISG announce results of new joint study on print, digital library usage

December 3, 2015 — "The American Library Association (ALA) and the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) have released the results of their first joint research initiative, 'Digital Content in Public Libraries: What Do Patrons Think?' Library patrons were asked about preferences for print or digital formats, collection assessment, preferred devices and other issues that affect the use and distribution of published content in public libraries. The study will serve as a tool to furthering the understanding of the e-book marketplace...."

"...The study shows that library patrons enjoy the variety of information resources, in both print and digital form. Borrowing print books is the most cited reason to visit a public library. Public library patrons cited computer use, Wi-Fi access and attending programs as other reasons for visiting. Also 23 percent of responding patrons borrow up to 10 e-books in a year, as there is a growing demand for access to a greater selection of e-books...."

"...Survey results are available as an executive summary (free to BISG and ALA members), or in a complete 85-page PDF report, compiled by Jim Milliot of Publishers Weekly. Online orders are accepted at Digital Content in Public Libraries. ALA organizational members should email info6bisg.com for a special discount code."

For more information, see the full press release.

Should there be a right to be forgotten?

November 30, 2015 — "Personal blogs, arrest records, explicit photos and business critiques are now typically published forever. Should individuals have the right to have links to certain personal information removed from web search results? The European Union decided that the answer is yes—but should the United States adopt comparable public policy?"

"The American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) will examine this important topic during a Saturday, January 9 panel discussion that will be held at 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. at ALA's Midwinter Conference at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center."

"Expert speakers include Gail Slater, vice president, legal and regulatory policy, Internet Association, which represents the leading Internet companies, and James G. Neal, university librarian emeritus, Columbia University, member of the board of trustees, Freedom to Read Foundation, and a member of ALA's executive board. The session will be moderated by Alan S. Inouye, director of ALA's OITP."

"The 'right to be forgotten' (RTBF) refers to an individual's right to compel a search engine service to have a process for removing links to certain personal information from search results involving his or her name."

For more information, see the full press release.

University of Sheffield to use OCLC Sustainable Collection Services to manage print resources

November 30, 2015 — "The University of Sheffield is the first institution in the UK to select OCLC Sustainable Collection Services (SCS), the analysis tools and services that will help the University Library make more informed decisions about managing its print resources."

"The University of Sheffield will use the SCS GreenGlass Web-based application to better understand its physical collections, protect rare materials and help better manage low-use materials...."

"...GreenGlass is a leading solution used by more than 200 libraries to analyze monographs, provide data to support informed decision-making, help free up physical space and reduce the cost of managing local print collections. In January 2015, OCLC acquired SCS to strengthen shared print efforts and expand the power and reach of SCS tools and services...."

"...OCLC is also working with Research Libraries UK (RLUK), which represents 38 leading research libraries in the UK and Ireland, on a project to help meet strategic objectives for shared collection management. More about this work is at http://www.rluk.ac.uk/about-us/blog/category/oclc."

For more information, see the full press release.

ARL Leadership Fellows 2016-2017 Selected

November 28, 2015 — "The Association of Research Libraries has selected 28 individuals to participate in the 2016-2017 Leadership Fellows program. This executive leadership program facilitates the development of future senior-level leaders in large research libraries and archives. In response to a continued need to develop future leaders of ARL member institutions, this program is designed to build on self-assessment and reflection and to explore a personal/professional area of interest in the context of a group setting. During the course of the program, each fellow will construct a learning plan; engage in a customized, immersive experience to shadow a library director; participate in three weeklong institutes hosted by sponsoring ARL institutions; participate in online synchronous sessions; and attend semiannual Association Meetings."

"This sixth offering of the program is being designed by Association staff in collaboration with the Leadership Fellows Advisory Group and the directors of the three sponsor libraries: University of Alberta, Colorado State University, and Duke University. The program begins in January 2016 and runs through April 2017."

For more information, see the full press release.

Copyright © 2016 Corporation for National Research Initiatives