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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Access to Learning Award
Contributed by: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is currently accepting applications to its annual Access to Learning Award, which recognizes the innovative efforts of public libraries and similar institutions outside the United States to connect people to information and opportunities through free access to computers and the Internet. The award is given by Global Libraries, a special initiative of the foundation's Global Development Program. The recipient of the Access to Learning Award will receive US$1 million. Computers and the Internet are powerful tools that provide opportunities for people to improve their social and economic well-being. Worldwide, just one person in six has access to the Internet. This means that more than five billion people miss out on chances to pursue education and employment, access government services, learn about valuable health information, conduct business online, and exchange information and ideas. The Access to Learning Award encourages new, innovative ways to provide computer and Internet services to people without access, and promotes greater development of public access technology programs around the world. The Access to Learning Award honors innovative organizations that are opening a world of online information to people in need. The foundation's Global Libraries initiative invites applications from libraries and similar organizations outside the United States that have created new ways to offer these key services:
Please note:
Applications for the 2010 Access to Learning Award must be submitted via an online submission process by October 31, 2009. The application form is available only in English and must be completed in English to be eligible for consideration. However, while applications must be submitted in English, the foundation does offer informational brochures in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. You may find these and additional information on eligibility requirements and the process of selection at <http://www.gatesfoundation.org/ATLA>. High Precision and Recall: Focuss.Info as Community-driven Search Engine
Contributed by: The Times (2009) described it as the "$20 billion ... battle for web supremacy". With Google™ as the dominant player in online searches, Microsoft recently launched Bing™, a new search engine that argues it will give more useful search results and is therefore challenging Google supremacy. The vision of improving search results is a good one, because students, researchers and practitioners are increasingly starting their searches on the World Wide Web (WWW). Google, Yahoo!® and Bing are tools for finding general-purpose information where the quantity of information may be seen as more meaningful than the quality. For instance, Google (2008) announced that its search engine was indexing one trillion (1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs, and it is believed that this number will increase significantly in the near future. The number of URLs that are being indexed by generic search engines brings attention to a decade-old issue in computer and information science: relevance of search results. The issue has to do not only with the number of URLs in the search engines' indexes, but because many search engines "have metrics and services to help advertisers improve placement" (Dudek et al., 2007), the focus of attention appears to be on commercial interests rather than on the relevance of search results. Nonetheless, more than ever before the WWW has created new opportunities for tackling the challenges of relevance. These new opportunities are being enabled by Web 2.0 technologies, which assist in the development of a search engine that generates information of high relevance, because it indexes up-to-date and specific information maintained by experts in the same field. The Focuss.Info Initiative (http://www.focuss.info) is a good example of a platform that incorporates a search engine consisting of the Web 2.0 technology known as social bookmarking. The idea behind social bookmarking is that experts can store valuable e-resources (such as links to websites, electronic journal articles and presentations) in a personal bookmark space on the WWW. The essence of Focuss.Info is to share these bookmarked e-resources by the domain-specific search engine: www.focuss.info. Search results from Focuss.Info show high relevance for scholars and professionals, due to higher precision and recall. The experts who are engaged in social bookmarking for the Focuss.Info Initiative consist of librarians, individual practitioners, students and researchers. They have two things in common. Firstly, they all work in the field of global development cooperation, studies and research. Secondly, they save their favorite websites on global development cooperation in their own social bookmark spaces. Aside from the fact that information professionals and librarians, as well as practitioners, students and researchers from the southern and northern hemispheres, participate in the selection, storing and sharing of content, there are also other reasons why the Focuss.Info Initiative is more than a specific search engine: it is itself a social network. Focuss.Info brings learners and information workers together to aggregate their knowledge of valuable e-resources, and because the Initiative is embedding third-party Web 2.0 technologies, costs for development and maintenance are very low in comparison with the size and scale of the Initiative. As a result, the Initiative is able to pro-actively encourage and mobilize partner organizations and individual practitioners from local areas in the Global South. Additionally, it makes it possible for the Global South to take part in knowledge creation and sharing at a new level. It is not the objective of the Focuss.Info Initiative to become a rival of search engines like Google and Bing. One of the major forces behind this Initiative is that it makes it possible to promote Web 2.0 technologies to peers. This is of great value, because only when subject experts actively participate by saving their favorite e-resources in dedicated social bookmark spaces will a specific search engine like Focuss.Info become a success in generating high-quality search results as compared with results using generic search engines. ReferenceDudek, D., Mastora, A. and Landoni, M. (2007) Is Google the answer? A study into usability of search engines, Library Review, 56(3). <doi:10.1108/00242530710736000>. In the NewsExcerpts from Recent Press Releases and AnnouncementsShared Shelf: Partnership plans to launch networked image management platformJuly 14, 2009 - "ARTstor, eight partner colleges and universities, and the Society of Architectural Historians have embarked upon a new initiative for the management and sharing of digital images called "Shared Shelf." The institutional partners include Colby College, Cornell University, Harvard University, Middlebury College, New York University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Miami, and Yale University. Harvard and Yale are serving as lead partners. The project intends to make it practical for institutions, large and small, to combine images created by individuals, those held by the institution, and those in ARTstor's database – and to do so without the need for local on-site infrastructure." "Partners are contributing significant staff knowledge and time, in addition to investment funds, and ARTstor is developing the common software platform. The goal is to create an efficient and innovative infrastructure informed by the shared expertise of key participating institutions...." "...With input from a committee of current hosting institutions, as well as from the Shared Shelf partners, design and development of the platform is underway. The new Shared Shelf initiative anticipates a launch – as a fee-based service – by January 2011." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.artstor.org/news/n-html/an-090714-shelf.shtml>. Librarian Salary Survey reports mean librarian salary $58,860, median $54,500 in 2009July 7, 2009 - "Results from the 2009 edition of the "ALA-APA Salary Survey: Librarian - Public and Academic" are available in two ways – immediately for subscribers to the ALA-APA Library Salary Database and in print from the American Library Association (ALA) online store. Analysis of data from more than 1,179 public and academic libraries showed the mean salary for librarians with ALA-accredited master's degrees reported decreased less than 1 percent from 2008, down $100 to $58,860. The median ALA MLS salary was $54,500, 2 percent higher than in 2008, and salaries ranged from $22,000 to $256,800. ALA-APA thanks all the library staff who completed the survey on behalf of their institutions and state data coordinators and ALA state chapter Councilors who alerted libraries." "Published by the American Library Association-Allied Professional Association (ALA-APA) in cooperation with the ALA Office for Research and Statistics, the survey shows aggregated data from more than 17,018 (a 5 percent increase over 2008) individual salaries of ALA MLS librarians. The six librarian positions are directors/deans, associate/assistant directors, department heads, managers of support staff, librarians who do not supervise and beginning librarians. " For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2009/july2009/salsurvey_apa.cfm>. Collaborative Electronic Records Project's Email Preservation Parser Now AvailableJuly 6, 2009 announcement from Riccardo Ferrante, Smithsonian Institution Archives: "The three-year Collaborative Electronic Records Project (CERP) of the Smithsonian Institution Archives and the Rockefeller Archive Center concluded in December 2008. Among the project outcomes, the CERP Email Parser was produced and we are pleased to offer it to the archival and related communities as an open source software tool for the preservation of email accounts. The Email Parser (http://siarchives.si.edu/cerp/parserdownload.htm) migrates an email account and its messages into a single XML file using the Email Account XML Schema developed in collaboration with the North Carolina State Archives and the EMCAP project." "The CERP Email Parser migrates an email account in MBOX format into XML, using the schema to preserve the full body of messages, together with their attachments, and keeps intact the account's internal organization (e.g., an Inbox containing subfolders labeled Policies, Special Events, and Projects). The CERP team successfully preserved email accounts from a variety of applications including Microsoft Outlook, AppleMail, LotusNotes, and Netscape. All email messages retain their full header content, in contrast to some tools produced in earlier research efforts." "The parser runs on a workstation in a virtual machine environment compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and some Unix platforms. CERP testing was limited to the Windows XP environment. The CERP Email Parser is licensed as open source software so that it may be used, supported, and enhanced by all organizations that adopt it." For more information, please see <http://siarchives.si.edu/cerp/parserdownload.htm>. IMLS Report: Libraries are a Vital Community Resource in the Information AgeJuly 1, 2009 - "The character of library services has changed dramatically with the advent of new information technologies, the continuous development of locally-tailored services, and the expectations of the 21st century library user, according to the first analysis of the Grants to States program by the Institute of Museum and Library Service (IMLS). The report, "Catalyst for Change: LSTA Grants to State Program and the Transformation of Libraries Services to the Public," focuses on services provided through the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grants to State Library Agencies, the single largest source of federal funding for the nation's libraries and the only library grants that require state-wide planning. IMLS conducted the study to inform the American public, the Administration, Congress and the library community about the program's contributions." "To address the growing demand for online services, libraries have added computer workstations, increased available bandwidth, and provided training in communities where they are often the sole provider of free access to the Internet. Some State Libraries Agencies are incorporating technology investments into their statewide strategic plans while other states manage such investments on a local or regional basis, according to the new report." "To underscore this state-by-state variability, the report provides a two-page snapshot of immediate challenges, program goals for 2008-2012, and an exemplary project for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The report draws on the December 2008 analysis of 9,000 state program reports from the Grants to States Program between FY 2003 and FY 2006 by Ethel Himmel and Bill Wilson, a library consulting firm, and the annual State Library Agency Surveys collected by the National Center for Education Statistics and IMLS between 1998 and 2007." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/news/2009/070109.shtm>. NISO to Undertake Gap Analysis of ERM-related Data and StandardsJuly 1, 2009 - "NISO is pleased to announce the approval of a new work item to focus on Electronic Resource Management (ERM) Data Standards Review. The proposal for this new work was reviewed and approved by NISO's Business Information Topic Committee which will now create a working group to undertake a review and gap analysis of ERM-related data and standards. Following the analysis, the working group will make recommendations regarding the future of the ERMI data dictionary within the context of the broader electronic resource management landscape, to be delivered in a report to the Business Information Topic Committee and made publicly available." "This project is an outgrowth of the Digital Library Federation's Electronic Resource Management Initiative (ERMI), first begun in 2002. A second phase of the Initiative was completed in late 2008. In follow-up discussions between Todd Carpenter, NISO's Managing Director, and Peter Brantley, Executive Director of DLF, regarding the future of ERMI, NISO agreed to perform a needs assessment with respect to ERMI and broader ERM-related data needs and standards, and to assume any appropriate maintenance responsibilities...." "The analysis will begin with a review of the ERMI data dictionary as it presently exists, and a mapping of ERMI data elements to those within relevant standards-related projects (e.g., CORE, SUSHI, ONIX-PL, etc.). Vendors, libraries using ERM systems, and other identified stakeholders will then be consulted via surveys and/or more in-depth interviews to solicit additional feedback." "The deliverable will be a report for the Business Information Topic Committee highlighting current work that provides solutions for specific areas of ERM use, identifies gaps where work has not been done, and recommends appropriate further work..." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.niso.org/news/pr/view?item_key=03bb22a6899505f48d8e43a45b000bfff0831474>. SLA 2009 Draws Highest Attendance in Six YearsJuly 1, 2009 - "Despite tough economic conditions, sweeping layoffs and shrinking travel and professional development budgets, members of the Special Libraries Association (SLA) turned out in record numbers to participate in the association's 2009 Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO held in Washington, D.C., June 14-17." "The Big News: Alignment Research Points to Needed Name Change for SLA" "The most talked-about topic throughout the conference was SLA's alignment research, an exhaustive examination of the information profession that is bringing clarity and unity to the core identity and value of the profession and the association. For more than two years, SLA has worked with a multidisciplinary team of research and communication professionals to not only help refine the current positioning of the profession in the marketplace, but also to provide a framework for discussing the inherent value in the profession and the association in a clear, compelling and cohesive voice." "Citing the alignment research, which demonstrated that the term 'special librarian' holds little or no perceived value to C-level decision makers and hiring managers, Lachance answered, 'Yes, it is clear that the research is telling us that we need to investigate changing the name of SLA.'" For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.sla.org/content/SLA/pressroom/pressrelease/09pr/pr2913.cfm>. IMLS Awards CLIR $713,000 for Project to Develop Leadership CapacityJune 30 2009 - "The Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded CLIR $713,000 for a project to develop the leadership capacity of librarians at many of the nation's less affluent liberal arts colleges. " "CLIR will partner with the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) to strengthen the information management capabilities of librarians in liberal arts colleges. Special attention will be paid to colleges that serve low-income, minority, and first-generation students, such as those in the Appalachian College Association and the United Negro College Fund, as well as other colleges and universities that serve predominantly minority or low-income students. Also emphasized in the project are liberal arts colleges that are not well connected to the mainstream of American librarianship, including those that are members of the American International Consortium of Academic Libraries." "The three-year project will have three main elements: (1) providing librarians with professional development opportunities through attendance at workshops and leadership institutes; (2) funding the development of new workshops addressing the special needs of small liberal arts colleges; and (3) providing work experience for librarians from less affluent institutions by partnering with better-financed liberal arts colleges." For more information, please see the full press release at <https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:9304.2160346639/rid:b74aa840483808f877d0194b6ca4cd86>. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation renews grant to ALA for public library technology studyJune 30, 2009 - "The American Library Association (ALA) today announced it has received a $2 million, three-year grant renewal from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue the Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study. ALA Office for Research & Statistics Director Denise Davis will remain as project director, and John Carlo Bertot, director of the University of Maryland (UMCP) Center for Library & Information Innovation, will continue to manage the Public Libraries and the Internet survey as part of the study." "The study assesses public access to computers, the Internet and Internet-related services in U.S. public libraries, as well as the impact of library funding changes on connectivity, technology deployment and sustainability. Through integrated quantitative and qualitative research methods, the study gathers information from libraries of all sizes and in every state and from state library agencies." "The study builds on the largest and longest-running study of Internet connectivity in public libraries begun in 1994 by Bertot and Charles R. McClure. The comprehensive 2008-2009 report will be published in September 2009." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2009/june2009/gates_ors.cfm>. IMLS Publishes FY 2007 Public Libraries Survey ReportJune 30, 2009 - "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has issued the Public Libraries Survey (PLS) report for fiscal year 2007. This is the second PLS report released since IMLS was given responsibility for the annual survey, which includes information on population of service areas, service outlets, library collections and services, library staff, and operating revenue and expenditures. New this year IMLS has included trend data (7-10 years) with graphs and maps on selected items. IMLS reports will continue to document these trends during subsequent fiscal years. More than 9,000 libraries were surveyed in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The survey had a 97.6 percent response rate." "The report includes a number of key findings to assist the library community, and policymakers, at the local, state, and national level, in making decisions to better their communities." "The FY 2007 survey is the 20th in the series. On October 1, 2007 responsibility for the PLS was transferred from to IMLS from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), along with the State Library Agencies Survey. The U.S. Census Bureau collects the data under a contract with IMLS. The survey's extraordinary response rate results from the cooperative effort between the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, IMLS, and the Census Bureau." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/news/2009/063009.shtm>. New ALA Web site helps library job seekers succeedJune 29, 2009 - "A new American Library Association (ALA) Web site – Get a Job!, <http://getajob.ala.org> – offers library-job seekers advice, resources, links, best practices and real-life examples. Full of advice for finding a job in the current tough economy, it features information from a range of ALA divisions and units, as well as links to information about general best practices in job seeking." "The ALA accelerated the Web site launch in response to the current urgency of many members' and other library professionals' job searches. The site is a work-in-progress, where library professionals and support staff will find advice on how to use social networking tools in a job search, what to do if you're laid off, budgeting assistance, networking techniques and strategies for researching the economy and jobs in various parts of the United States. " "As it evolves, the site will include information specific to people seeking their first job, mid-career staff and people changing professions. New material and updates will be added regularly, including podcasts." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2009/june2009/getajob_apa.cfm>. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Receives National Digital Newspaper Program Grant AwardJune 29, 2009 announcement from Heather Murphy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library: "The Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has received a $397,000 two-year grant from the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) for its Illinois Digital Newspaper Project. The award will support the digitization of 100,000 pages of historically significant Illinois newspapers dating from 1860 to 1922." "NDNP is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress to provide online access to U.S. newspapers. It is part of the 'We the People' program at NEH designed to promote the study and teaching of American history and culture. The University Library received the grant for Illinois on behalf of a coalition of major cultural heritage institutions in the state, including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Illinois State Library, Chicago History Museum, University of Chicago, Newberry Library, and Chicago Public Library. There are now 22 states participating in the National Digital Newspaper Program. " "...The digitized material will be deposited in Chronicling America, the browsable and searchable repository of historical newspapers digitized through NDNP. Chronicling America was launched in 2007 and currently contains more than 1.1 million pages of U.S. newspapers published between 1880 and 1922." For more information, please contact Heather Murphy at <hmurphy@illinois.edu>. MA Digital Asset ManagementJune 24, 2009 announcement from Lydia Horstman, King's College London: "The MA in Digital Asset Management at King's College London is jointly taught by the Centre for Computing in the Humanities and the Centre for e-Research. It addresses an increasingly important area of knowledge and skills for those seeking employment in library, archival and curatorial activity, namely the management of digital assets. The programme equips students to work in a variety of professional contexts within the cultural heritage sector and elsewhere wherever digital assets are managed." "We are witnessing rapid growth in the volume and complexity of digital materials, both digitized and born digital, so that the management of these digital assets is now a significant activity. In government, both local and central, and in commerce and industry, more and more of the information created in the normal course of activity is in electronic form, whether as web publications, images, databases, GIS files, data sets, email, or documents in word-processed, spreadsheet or PDF formats. If the full value of these assets to the economy, society and culture is to be realized it is essential that fully trained professionals are available to ensure their management, curation and use. " "The Programme will equip students with the necessary critical and reflective capacities, set within a thorough grounding in the theory and practice of digital curation." For more information, please see the website at <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/depts/cch/pg/madam/>. IMLS Launches "Libraries to the Rescue" Podcast SeriesDiscussions Focus on What Libraries are Doing to Help Citizens Through the Economic Crisis June 24, 2009 - "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the primary source of federal funding for the nation's 123,000 public libraries and 17,500 museums, today announced the launch of the Libraries to the Rescue series of podcast episodes. Library use is on a steady rise and the economic downturn has resulted in even greater need for library services. IMLS introduced Libraries to the Rescue to share with libraries steps that other libraries have taken to help their communities. " "Libraries to the Rescue provides valuable insights from:
"The five episodes cover a range of topics, including how libraries are increasing access to key information through virtual libraries, the importance of broadband access, and new partnerships between libraries and state and federal agencies to help citizens access all types of assistance. The Libraries to the Rescue episodes are short (12-15 minute), digestible audio episodes designed to educate IMLS's library audience." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/news/2009/062409.shtm>. CLIR Receives Grant to Explore Applications for Digital Humanities Research Derived from Intelligence Gathering CommunitiesJune 23, 2009 - "CLIR has received $28,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to investigate the possible relevance of declassified tools developed by the intelligence community to humanistic scholarship. The project builds on CLIR's recent work in two areas: identifying analytical tools that can be shared among investigators; and exploring the research potential of very large, heterogeneous digital collections." "The confluence of digital conversion activities and technological advances allows researchers in the humanities to examine questions that require scale and computational power. Intelligence-gathering agencies are a potentially excellent source for tools, resources, and methodologies that have direct bearing on and applicability to contemporary digital humanities research because of the similarity in the methodological challenges, namely, dealing with diverse source material at a scale that exceeds the capacity of humans...." "...The grant will support a literature search and evaluation of tool findability, a meeting to discuss how scholars might use such tools and how access to the tools could advance humanities scholarship, and publication of results. " For more information, please see the full press release at <https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:9304.2136934399/ Roles of public library technology in supporting E-government highlighted in new issues briefJune 23, 2009 - "In the fourth of a series of reports regarding technology access in U.S. public libraries, the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Research & Statistics (ORS) is highlighting how public library technology supports public access and use of e-government information and resources. The issues brief draws from national data published in the Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study (http://www.ala.org/plinternetfunding)." "U.S. Public Libraries and E-Government Services describes the increased use of online government information and services, the critical role of public libraries in helping provide access and assistance using these resources and the challenges that must be addressed to improve e-government at the local, state and federal level." "'Public libraries often are the only organizations within a community that can help individuals interact with government agencies and access e-government services,' said ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels. 'As more and more government information and services are becoming only available online, there is an urgent need for governments to collaborate with public libraries to provide e-government services that best meet community needs.'" For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2009/june2009/egovbrief_ors.cfm>. New DoD Report Looks At Measuring Cyber Security and Information Assurance (CS/IA)June 22, 2009 - "The Information Assurance Technology Analysis Center (IATAC) has just published Measuring Cyber Security and Information Assurance: A State of the Art Report (SOAR). This SOAR was written by IATAC Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and provides a broad picture of the current state of cyber security and information assurance (CS/IA), as well as, a comprehensive look at the progress made in the CS/IA measurement discipline over the last nine years since IATAC published its IA Metrics Critical Review and Technology Assessment (CR/TA) Report in 2000." "The intended audience of the IA Metrics SOAR is the Department of Defense (DoD) and US Government research and development community, senior DoD officials, as well as government and industry IA practitioners." "Measuring Cyber Security and Information Assurance assesses the current 'state of the art' in CS/IA measurement to facilitate further research into this subject. Progress has been made, but much remains to be done to achieve the goal of real-time, accurate CS/IA measurement. Enabling such measurement would make it possible to understand, improve, and predict the state of CS/IA." For more information, please see <http://iac.dtic.mil/iatac/reports.jsp#SOAR>. All Back Issues of Cataloging Service Bulletin Now Available Free OnlineJune 22, 2009, announcement from Peter Seligman, Library of Congress: "All 123 issues of Cataloging Service Bulletin (CSB) are now available at no cost at <http://www.loc.gov/cds/PDFdownloads/csb>." "CSB is a quarterly bulletin that includes current, new, and revised information about Library of Congress (LC) cataloging and classification practices and policies. CSB lists revised AACR2 rules, LC Rule Interpretations, changes to the ALA/LC Romanization tables, changes to the LC Subject Headings, and includes 'Cataloging Publication News' and 'News of Cataloging Projects,' and more." "CSB Issue 1 (summer 1978) through the current issue 123 (Spring 2009) can be accessed directly from the Library of Congress's Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) website. The entire 31 years of CSB are made available by LC as a free service to the worldwide library community. The issues are also available and searchable in Cataloger's Desktop, http://www.loc.gov/cds/desktop, CDS's web-based service that contains the most widely used cataloging documentation resources in an integrated, online system." "The Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) of the Library of Congress packages, distributes, and markets the Library's cataloging records and cataloging-related publications, tools, and resources. Catalogers within the Library of Congress and in libraries around the world rely on the standards and technical publications distributed by CDS to organize their collections for effective access." Scientific American forms consumer media division of Nature Publishing GroupJune 22, 2009 - "This week the Scientific American team will join their Nature Publishing Group (NPG) colleagues in the existing NPG offices in Varick Street, New York City. The office move marks a major step in the integration of two of Macmillan Publishers' most dynamic publishing units. Scientific American will form the heart of a new consumer media division at NPG." "NPG and Scientific American are being brought together into a single business, reporting to NPG Managing Director Steven Inchcoombe. The two iconic brands of Nature and Scientific American will position NPG to be the most authoritative and comprehensive science media group, spanning from consumer to scholar, from high school student to researcher." "Scientific American will continue to be published independently, retain its editorial and brand identity and continue to serve its target audience and advertisers. 'Drawing on NPG's resources will enable Scientific American to maximize the potential of its strong brand in a consumer media landscape that is changing dramatically,' continued Inchcoombe. 'For NPG, the move brings opportunities to strengthen and diversify its offering, particularly in the US where Scientific American enjoys a strong brand position.' Common suppliers and systems will provide efficiencies for both businesses." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.nature.com/press_releases/scientificamerican.html>. Nature Publishing Group allows data- and text-mining on self-archived manuscriptsJune 18, 2009 - "Nature Publishing Group (NPG) will explicitly permit academic reuse of archived author manuscripts. Head of Content Licensing David Hoole announced the development today at the OAI6 meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. Researchers can now data-mine and text-mine author manuscripts from NPG journals archived in PubMed Central and other academic repositories." "Under NPG's terms of reuse, users may view, print, copy, download and text and data-mine the content for the purposes of academic research. Re-use should only be for academic purposes, commercial reuse is not permitted. Full conditions are available on nature.com." "The re-use permissions apply to author manuscripts, of articles published in NPG's journals, which have been archived in PubMed Central, UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) and other institutional and subject repositories. The terms were developed in consultation with the Wellcome Trust, the leading biomedical research charity." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.nature.com/press_releases/archiving.html>. IDF partners in EuropeanaJune 17, 2009 - "The International DOI Foundation (IDF) has joined the European Commission's Europeana v1.0 Thematic Partner Network. The goal for Europeana is to make European information resources easier to use in an online environment. It will combine multicultural and multilingual environments with technological advances and new business models. This project is the successor network to the EC-funded EDLnet thematic network which created the EDL (European Digital Library) Foundation and the Europeana prototype of 4 million digital items." "IDF will participate in the network to offer technical and infrastructure advice on identifiers, metadata and related issues. Europeana Version 1.0 is being developed and will launch in 2010 with links to over 10 million digital objects." For more information, please see <http://www.doi.org/news/DOINewsJun09.html#3>. IMLS Awards More Than $20 Million in Librarian Recruitment and Education GrantsJune 17, 2009 - "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) today awarded 33 institutions Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grants totaling $20.4 million. With these grants, library students and staff will assist very young children in achieving early literacy; support libraries in rural communities; increase the number of school library media specialists; create more librarians with a specialty in government information services; increase diversity in the library workforce; and strengthen the workforce to better meet the needs of users of all types of libraries. To see a list of awardees and descriptions of how they intend to use their grants, please click here http://www.imls.gov/news/2009/061709b_list.shtm." "...Since its inception in 2002, the program has funded the education and training of 3,220 Master's students, 186 doctoral students, 1,256 pre-professionals, and 26,206 continuing education students. The program also supports grants for research related to library education and library staffing needs, curriculum development, and continuing education and training." "The next deadline for the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program is December 15, 2009. For more information, click here http://www.imls.gov/applicants/grants/21centuryLibrarian.shtm." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/news/2009/061709b.shtm>. Harvard Graduate School of Education Votes Open Access PolicyJune 16, 2009 - "he faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) voted overwhelmingly at its last faculty meeting to allow the university to make all faculty members' scholarly articles publicly available online. The resolution makes HGSE the fourth of Harvard's 10 schools to endorse open access to faculty research publications. The Faculties of Arts and Sciences, the Harvard Law School, and the Harvard Kennedy School all passed similar policies in recent months...." "...As a result of the resolution, HGSE faculty will now provide their scholarly articles to the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication for deposit in an open access digital repository that is currently under development. When the repository launches later this year, the contents will be freely available to the public, unless an author chooses to embargo or block access. The policy makes rights sharing with publishers and self-archiving the default, while allowing faculty to waive Harvard's license on a case-by-case basis, at the author's discretion." For more information, please see <http://www.gse.harvard.edu/blog/news_features_releases/2009/06/ JumpBox Delivers 2-minute Install of the DSpace Open Source Repository SoftwareJune 16, 2009 - "JumpBox, publisher of virtual appliances that provide the easiest way to trial, develop, and deploy Open Source applications, today announced the availability of the JumpBox for DSpace. This addition marks the fiftieth JumpBox in its growing catalogue of time-saving virtual appliances for Open Source software." "DSpace is an open source application that enables organizations to manage, share and preserve their research output. The software is primarily used by academia and cultural heritage institutions that want to share their research output and ensure the content persists over time. The DSpace application was created through a collaboration between MIT and HP Labs, and is now used by over 500 organizations around the world. DSpace supports all forms of digital media including, images, audio, movies, text and other rich media." "'Consistent with our goal of helping people be more productive with Open Source software, we're thrilled to be able to make this JumpBox available as a free resource for the DSpace community and to support the DSpace project and its principles.' says Kimbro Staken, CEO of JumpBox Inc." For more information, please see <http://www.jumpbox.com/>. Building Britain's Digital Future: [UK] Government Unveils Action Plan for the Digital EconomyJune 16, 2009 - "The Digital Britain White Paper, published today, sets out the importance of the Digital Economy to the nation's economic future, and how it will drive future industrial capability and competitiveness." "It comprehensively makes the case that the United Kingdom's communications infrastructure and increased Digital Participation are key to building a 21st century knowledge economy, and must be considered essential objectives if we are to become world-leaders, and reap the benefits of this rapidly transforming sector. " "The Prime Minister said: 'Digital Britain is about giving the country the tools to succeed and lead the way in the economy of the future.'" For more information, please see the full press release at <http://pressitt.com/public/files/2009/06/16/124/DBnewsrelease.pdf>. Major content metadata vocabularies to be mappedJune 15, 2009 - "Work is under way to create an extensive and authoritative mapping of vocabularies from major content metadata standards, creating a downloadable tool to support interoperability across communities. " "The work is an expansion of the existing RDA/ONIX Framework into a comprehensive vocabulary of resource relators and categories, which will be a superset of those used in major standards from the publisher/producer, education and bibliographic/heritage communities (CIDOC CRM; DCMI; DDEX; DOI; FRBR; MARC21; LOM; ONIX; RDA – see reference section below for details). " "The resulting tool will be known as the Vocabulary Mapping Framework (VMF)." "The new vocabulary is not intended as a replacement for any existing standards, but as an aid to interoperability, whether automatic or human-mediated. The expanded Framework will include mappings of terms from code lists or allowed value sets in the existing standards to the RDA/ONIX vocabulary, enabling the computation of "best fit" mappings between any pairing of standards." For more information, please see the full project announcement at <http://www.doi.org/news/VMF_project_announcement_090615.pdf>. WorldWideScience.org: China's Participation Expands Access to Global ScienceJune 10, 2009 - "Government officials today formalized the addition of the People's Republic of China as the most recent member of the WorldWideScience Alliance. The signing ceremony was held in Ottawa, Canada. The addition of the Chinese database, from the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, means that WorldWideScience.org, the global science gateway, now searches science and technology research and development results from 80 percent of the world's population. The multilateral WorldWideScience Alliance was established in June 2008 to govern this rapidly growing online gateway to international scientific research information." "WorldWideScience.org uses federated search engine technology to provide a single point of Internet search and retrieval for vast quantities of geographically-dispersed science and technology information - information which is generally not accessible to conventional search engines. The growth of WorldWideScience.org, since its prototype debut in 2007 has been dramatic, rapidly evolving from 10 countries to 56 countries and 375 million pages of science information today...." "...WorldWideScience.org was conceived and developed by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), which is within the Office of Science. The addition of China and this key Chinese scientific database marks a major milestone in the progress of WorldWideScience toward becoming a truly global knowledge resource for accelerating scientific breakthroughs." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://www.osti.gov/news/pressreleases/2009/june/wws_alliance.shtml>. Open Access publication can save the Netherlands up to 133 million eurosJune 10 2009 - "If every scientific and scholarly article were publicly available, it would save the Netherlands EUR 133 million a year. That figure is given by the Australian economist Prof. John Houghton in a study that SURFfoundation presented today to the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. " "At the moment, research universities and 'universities of applied sciences' [hogescholen] pay millions of euros every year for access to scientific and scholarly publications. Businesses, smaller hogescholen, and other organisations often cannot afford the expensive licences needed for access. If the 'Open Access' model were to be applied globally, there would be increased access to research results for both researchers and the public at large." "The report concludes that the advantages would not just be in the long term; in the transitional phase too, more open access to research results would have positive effects." For more information, please contact Annette Peet, SURF Foundation, <peet@surf.nl>. IMLS Grants Highlighted at Open Repositories ConferenceJune 8, 2009 - "Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grantees showcased innovative repository-based projects at the Fourth International Open Repositories Conference (OR2009) in Atlanta May 18-21. The meeting focuses on open-source repository platforms to manage and archive digital data from a variety of environments (education, research, science, cultural heritage) and contexts (national, regional, institutional, project, lab, personal). Ultimately, the goal of these repositories is to support the creation and management of digital content, to enable its use and re-use, to interconnect information, and to ensure its long-term preservation and archiving." For more information about the presenters, please see the full press release at <http://www.imls.gov/news/2009/060809.shtm>. University of Arizona Digital Information Certificate ProgramJune 5, 2009 - "The University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science is pleased to announce that openings are available in the school's graduate certificate program in Digital Information Management (DigIn), and that scholarships are available for students entering the program in Fall 2009." "DigIn combines intensive, hands-on technology learning and a strong grounding in the theoretical principles needed to manage large-scale digital collections in a fast-changing environment. The program supports a wide range of professional careers involving digital collections, including but not limited to libraries, archives, and museums." "DigIn was developed in cooperation with the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records and the University of Arizona Outreach College. Major funding for the program comes from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which has also provided scholarship funding." For more information, please see the program website: <http://digin.arizona.edu>. HighWire expands program for books and reference works, taking an integrated platform approachMay 27, 2009 - "HighWire Press announced today a marked increase in the growth of its books program, with over 30 new titles launched online so far this year and hundreds more scheduled through 2009 and early 2010." "...The quantity of books and reference works going live or planning to launch with HighWire has increased significantly in recent years as publishers are seeking greater integration between journals and other online content." "...In addition to over 100 books, reference works, and other non-journal content sites, HighWire hosts the definitive editions of over 1200 full text journals in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences and humanities, as well as cross-content products for niche markets that combine content from many different sources." For more information, please see the full press release at <http://highwire.stanford.edu/inthepress/stories/HWexpandsBooks.pdf>. Copyright 2009 © Corporation for National Research InitiativesTop |
Contents doi:10.1045/july2009-inbrief |