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March/April 2011

A New Tool to Increase Use of In-Copyright Works

Contributed by:
Naomi Korn
Project Director, OER IPR Support
naomi@naomikorn.com
and
Neil Witt
Associate Professor, Head of Technology Enhanced Learning
N.Witt@plymouth.ac.uk
University of Plymouth
Plymouth, United Kingdom

The Risk Management Calculator is an important contribution to the toolkit that UK universities and colleges need to use to help them develop and publish OERs (open educational resources). Created by a team of copyright specialists and staff from the Department of Technology Enhanced Learning, at the University of Plymouth in the UK, the intention of the Calculator was initially to help universities and colleges in the UK funded to develop OERs. Specifically, it was designed to help them understand the types of variables that might reduce or raise their levels of risks associated with the release of resources under a Creative Commons Licence, for which permission had not been sought from the rights holders, and then help them make decisions that could potentially reduce their risk when using these works. The most likely type of works that would require the use of the Risk Management Calculator are Orphan Works, creative works still in copyright, for which the rights holders are either unknown or cannot be traced. Orphan Works are a growing problem as shown by a recent study funded by JISC, which revealed that in the UK alone, there are an estimated 50 million Orphan Works across the public sector, with new Orphan Works being created every day (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2009/infromthecold.aspx). Meanwhile, the British Library has estimated that 40% of all creative works are Orphan Works (http://www.bl.uk/ip).

The Calculator provides an INDICATIVE risk level only but demonstrates that, for example, the more open the end use licence is that is selected to make materials accessible and reusable, the greater the potential risk if the appropriate permissions have not been sought. Since the Calculator has been released, it is clear that the tool and the underlying approach has a much broader applicability than just the projects that it was initially developed to support. Certainly, the maturity and recognition of Creative Commons Licences across the globe, and the millions of creative works likely to be Orphan Works, means that this innovative tool has immense potential for helping anyone publishing content, particularly under a Creative Commons Licence, understand the types of risks that might arise if rights have not been cleared.

Think-Tank on the Future of Music Search, Access and Consumption

Contributed by:
Thomas Lidy (Vienna University of Technology), lidy@ifs.tuwien.ac.at
Andreas Rauber (Vienna University of Technology), rauber@ifs.tuwien.ac.at
Pieter van der Linden (Technicolor), Pieter.VanDerLinden@technicolor.com
Jean-Charles Point (JCP-Consult), pointjc@jcp-consult.com

CHORUS+, a European coordinated Action on Audio-visual Search (www.ist-chorus.org) organized a Think-Tank on the Future of Music Search, Access and Consumption at MIDEM 2011, the world's largest music industry trade fair, in Cannes, France, on January 24, 2011. The Think-Tank provided a venue for discussing the current and future challenges of the music industry from a research perspective and was the third one in a series of Think-Tank events organized by CHORUS+. A group of 16 experts predominantly from the music industry were invited to discuss strategies and visions in a closed setting. It focused on the future of the music business in the light of the highly disruptive digital changeover, seen from a technological viewpoint with regard to latest technologies emerging from R&D. It specifically aimed at assessing the role and impact of current and future music search and recommendation technologies and services.

The goal of this Think-Tank was to establish, with selected highly qualified market and technology experts, a consensual understanding of, and outlook on, the future of future musical services; to identify crucial technologies in relation to search; and to outline the map of key enabling technologies in the area. It analyzed current music consumption patterns, emerging services and technologies, and discussed technological gaps in the music industry in terms of search, recommendation and personalization. It further tried to identify the open questions and challenges of the music industry in the coming 10 years.

Gerd Leonhard (mediafuturist.com) opened the Think-Tank with a keynote on the next 3-5 years in the music business. His talk was centered on the disruption of the music industry – or in his words: "a total reset on how things work in music". He foresees four major trends in the next 3-5 years:

Cloud Media
Networked Business Models
Experience Economy
Data Economy

In Gerd's view, "data is the new oil". Sharing is henceforth non-negotiable – and is exploding. To cope, new business models need to be devised. Advertisement appears as an increasingly prevalent means of monetizing content; currently, 75% of content is already being paid for by advertising. Content is not "king" anymore, rather the value is in the context. Collaborative business models are needed to succeed. "Freemium" and flat rate models are encouraged, built around access and streaming instead of download. Before this, Gerd pointed out that legal restrictions need to be resolved and major stakeholders need to rethink their position in order to allow for innovation.

A shift from copyrights towards a public, open, standardized, non-discriminatory, collective and multi-lateral system of usage rights was consequently discussed in detail within the Think-Tank.

The Think-Tank also elaborated on the results of an online survey that had been conducted earlier by the CHORUS+ initiative among stakeholders from all parts of the music industry, including researchers.

As was the case with other recent studies, Youtube was identified by the survey participants as currently the number one music service. Also of interest, iTunes was named after personalized streaming services such as last.fm, Pandora or Spotify and other music streaming services & online radios. The three main criteria for the choice of a music service were:

Availability of music
Simplicity / "Ease of use"
Recommendation

The role of the so-called "long-tail" in music offered at services was discussed, and it was identified as an opportunity for small and independent artists, as users desire new content. However, access to the long-tail has yet to be unlocked. Various recommendation technologies can help there. Both the survey participants and the Think-Tank attendees agreed that the technological building blocks are there already, but there is a lack of integration and up-take. It seems that current business models in the music distribution chain leave no room for technological innovations around search and access. Subscription-based models and bundled services were identified as the future business models that also permit the establishment of fully integrated services.

Personalization, recommendation and discovery were identified as crucial for music services. Especially context-based recommendation and cross-media recommendation were identified as hot topics (that also leave room for further research). Yet, trust needs to be maintained, either by social recommendations or by providing reasons for particular recommendations to the users.

According to the survey among the opinion leaders from across the music industry, the top 5 key enabling technologies between 2011 and 2020 will be:

Personalized recommendation
Social recommendation
Cloud services
Audio-visual search
Content-based recommendation

Furthermore, usability and simplicity were identified as key factors for the success of a music service. Looking further to the future, survey participants anticipate seamless and personalized services that understand the user's current taste, environment, mood and feelings, and that can create a perfect stream of new music on the fly at any location in the world.

Yet, the biggest challenge has to do with the legal implications, and that challenge needs to be resolved before new services and business models can be introduced into the music business.

The full report of the survey and the Think-Tank is available from www.ist-chorus.org.

Webtracks

Contributed by:
Catherine Jones
Project Manager, Scientific Applications Group
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, United Kingdom
catherine.jones@stfc.ac.uk

Linked data is a topical subject; however, it focuses on the manner in which data should be exposed for linking, and little has been done in this context to actually make these connections. The Webtracks project is developing an approach to address the construction and propagation of linked research data. Building on experiments in previous projects (Claddier, StoreLink), Webtracks will develop a peer-to-peer protocol, named InteRCom, to underpin the construction of a web of linked data and the added value services that will demonstrate the value of this approach.

The project has three objectives: (1) to specify, implement and evaluate the InteRCom Protocol; (2) to develop a practical working scenario involving data repositories, publication repositories, open science notebooks and publishers and (3) to develop aggregation techniques supporting added value services in search and impact analysis.

The InteRCom protocol specification and example implementation will be made available, enabling others to implement and build on this work. We will seek to publish the protocol as a W3C Note and collaborate with other linked data developers to work towards an international standard.

Metrics are likely to remain a crucial aspect of research monitoring for the foreseeable future, despite the drawbacks inherent in the current system. The potential impact of an open protocol that defines connections between objects visible on the open web on the ability to make informed decisions based on usage is therefore great. Webtracks will be one mechanism to potentially change researcher behaviour by enabling citation of non-traditional research outputs and providing a mechanism for the aggregation of those citations, thus demonstrating their value.

Webtracks is a JISC-funded project running from 1 August 2010 to 31 July 2011. The project partners are the University of Southampton and the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

Project Contact Details

Simon Coles (PI), University of Southampton, EPSRC National Crystallography Service, s.j.coles@soton.ac.uk

Brian Matthews (CI), STFC, Scientific Applications Group, brian.matthews@stfc.ac.uk and Cameron Neylon (CI), STFC, ISIS, cameron.neylon@stfc.ac.uk

Catherine Jones (Project Manager), STFC, Scientific Applications Group, catherine.jones@stfc.ac.uk

http://www.e-science.stfc.ac.uk/projects/metadata/webtracks/webtracks--web-scale-link-tracking-11086.html.

Linked Data in the Humanities

Contributed by:
Tobias Blanke
Centre for e-Research
King's College London
London, United Kingdom
tobias.blanke@kcl.ac.uk

DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) is a new European infrastructure for supporting digital research of humanities and arts resources across Europe. DARIAH is currently funded by the European Commission and is in its preparatory phase, which involves designing the infrastructure and building a sound business and governmental model. In early 2011, the construction phase of DARIAH will begin.

As part of the preparatory work, DARIAH has organized several workshops and discussions at conferences to explore methodologies and technologies to support digital research in the arts and humanities. One of these, the DARIAH Linked Data workshop took place in November 2010 in The Hague, and it was a hands-on workshop for discussing and experimenting with the emerging Linked Data paradigms for enabling DARIAH production. The rest of this piece is a report on that workshop.

The first session began with a presentation by Michele Barbera, from the Net7 startup, on MURUCA and its applications in the Digital Humanities. Michele presented his view of the relationship between humanities research and Linked Data and some of the related applications that were built using MURUCA. MURUCA is a platform for publishing Linked Data on the web. Michele described how humanities researchers use it to enhance their TEI-based web publications. Relevant MURUCA services include an image-text link editor and a desktop-based annotation environment using SWickyNotes, which provides direct Desktop access to Linked Data on the web.

The next speaker was Antoine Issac from Europeana. He demonstrated the Cultural Heritage view on Linked Data. Europeana takes a great interest in the use of its resources. Technically, it is not difficult in itself to publish Linked Data, but there is still a shortage of large, convincing use cases. DARIAH and Europeana could work on together to develop some of the needed research use cases. Antoine also reported on the difficulty of convincing some data providers to publish open data.

Jonathan Gray presented on projects of the Open Knowledge Foundation. He stressed that it is important to work closely with users, which is particularly difficult in the arts and humanities because the field is spread across many niche subjects. He then presented the CKAN environment that powers data.gov.uk and its associated humanities communities. CKAN is the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, a registry of open knowledge packages and projects. The community can register open knowledge resources with CKAN and search for them. Finally, Jonathan argued that only with support for such registries can the full potential of open data be realized as those resources are found and reused, producing unexpected results.

The final two presentations of the first day showcased DARIAH projects in the Linked Data field. Pierre-Yves Jallud presented the French ADONIS project ISIDORE, which is implementing a combined Linked Data portal to access French arts and humanities and social sciences resources. ISIDORE has been launched in a beta version. In the future, its triple store will contain the combined knowledge of several French web sites and allow interchange of information between these. Phase 1 is completed, which provides unified access as well as standard Linked Data mechanisms such as a SPARQL endpoint and an API. In phase 2, the focus will be more on community work.

In the second DARIAH presentation, Natasa Bulatovic from the Max Planck Digital Library, presented on the current state of services and applications based on eSciDoc and the Fedora-Commons repository. They are used by the Max Planck Society (Germany), National Institute of Material Science (Japan) and a growing community worldwide. Their focus is now set on development of RDF-based repositories and publishing data as Linked Data. A challenge to be further addressed is transforming fulltexts and various formats of research data into Linked Data sets.

On the second day of the DARIAH workshop, participants discussed the Linked Data platforms built by Talis, which were presented by Rob Styles. The workshop concluded with a hands-on session, in which one of the collections of a DARIAH partner archive were transformed into Linked Data statements. Participants were also introduced to the Named Graph approach in Linked Data as one solution for integrating disparate heterogeneous archives, as they are common in digital arts and humanities.

Two follow-on events include another DARIAH workshop focusing on Collective Intelligence and a Europeana workshop, organized by Stefan Gradmann, on the use of resources by arts and humanities researchers.

NISO's 2011 Educational Programs Includes Webinars, Forums, and Free Teleconferences

Contributed by:
Cynthia Hodgson
NISO Technical Editor and Consultant
National Information Standards Organization
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
chodgson@niso.org

The National Information Standards Organization's (NISO's) Education Committee has planned a robust educational program for 2011 that includes monthly webinars, several in-person events, joint webinars with DCMI, and monthly open teleconferences. Focused on standards, best practices, and technologies in the library, publishing, and related information systems and services communities, the programs are excellent for current awareness and to learn about standards and cutting-edge technology.

In-Person:
A one-day forum on Mobile Technologies in Libraries will be held on April 14 in Philadelphia, PA. On June 24 in New Orleans, LA, during the ALA Annual Conference, NISO and BISG will hold the 5th annual Changing Standards Landscape forum, which is free to attend. On October 24-25, a two-day forum will be held in the Washington, DC area on The E-books Environment.

NISO educational forums are routinely praised for their excellent selection of speakers representing a diversity of viewpoints across the scholarly information community and the small size that provides opportunities to network with speakers and other attendees.

Webinars:
NISO webinars are held the second Wednesday of every month, except July, with two-part webinars (on subsequent Wednesdays) scheduled for April, May, and October. Remaining webinar topics from April on are: RFID Systems for Libraries, the Future of ILS, Semantic Web Linking, Managing Physical Storage, Preserving Digital Content, Data Management, New Discovery Tools, and Assessment Metrics. "Buy four and get three free" webinar packages are available. NISO and NASIG members receive discounted rates, as do students.

NISO will be continuing its partnership with the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) in 2011 to offer three webinars on Metadata Harmonization, Linked Data and the Impact on Library Cataloging, and RDA Vocabularies. Anyone registering for all three of the joint webinars can attend NISO's June 8 webinar on Semantic Web Linking for free. NISO and DCMI members get discounted rates to the webinar series and a student rate is available.

All webinars are held from 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. (Eastern time). Webinar registration is by site (access for one computer); many organizations set up displays in training rooms for multiple attendees. Access to the recorded version is available to registrants for one year. Organizations in time zones that aren't conducive to attending the live webinar often use the recorded version.

Over 1,100 sites, with an estimated 3,500 individual attendees, participated in NISO webinars in 2010; many attended multiple webinars. In 2011, NISO began including two free webinar registrations for all Library Standards Alliance (LSA) members and all 14 of the 2011 NISO webinars are included in the new LSA Premier membership level. (Joint DCMI webinars are not included in the free LSA webinar packages.)

Teleconferences:
On the second Monday of each month (except July), NISO holds a free teleconference open to the public from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. (Eastern). The calls are a way to keep the community apprised of NISO's activities and provide an opportunity for participants to give feedback to NISO. Most of the calls are focused on a particular project underway within NISO and the chairs of the relevant working group generally lead the calls. Questions and input are encouraged during the calls. Recordings of most teleconferences are freely available for download from the NISO website following the call.

No registration is necessary. To participate, just call in using the phone number and codes posted on the NISO website at: www.niso.org/news/events/2011/telecon/. The scheduled topic for each call is also posted on this webpage.

More information and registration links for all of the NISO 2011 educational events can be found at: www.niso.org/news/events/2011/.

For information on the Library Standards Alliance memberships that include some or all webinars as a benefit, contact the NISO office at 301-654-2512.

I N T H E N E W S

March/April 2011

Digital Library Federation Launches New Web Site

March 7, 2011 — "The Digital Library Federation (DLF), a program of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), today launched its new Web site at http://www.diglib.org."

"The site provides a dedicated space for the DLF community, while also serving as a resource and communication hub around important ideas and trends developing in the broader digital library community."

"The Digital Library Federation is a network of libraries and related agencies pioneering innovative uses of information technologies and community expertise to extend collections and services."

For more information, please see the full press release.

A new Virtual Research Environment (VRE) tool called Ojax++ has been launched

March 7, 2011 announcement from Judith Wusteman, University College Dublin — "A new Virtual Research Environment (VRE) tool called Ojax++ was recently launched to the global e-research community that allows scholars to get the most from popular web-based applications."

"Funded by Science Foundation Ireland, under the direction of Dr. Judith Wusteman at the UCD School of Information and Library Studies, Ojax++ enables researchers to use popular online tools, such as GoogleDocs, Delicious, blogging tools and Twitter, as well more research-specific Web 2.0 tools. Ojax++ then aggregates the data from those applications so that, regardless of which web applications researchers use to conduct their research, they can organise their work and collaborate on that work in one place, using Ojax++."

"The tool has been made freely available to the e-research community."

Further details can be found at the OJAX++ project website at http://www.ucd.ie/ojax.

Balisage Student Support Awards

March 6, 2011 announcement from Syd Bauman, Syd_Bauman@Brown.edu — "Students! An inexpensive way to attend a most excellent technical conference!"

"Balisage is the premier international conference on markup languages, technologies, theories, and practice. It is held annually during late summer in Montréal, QC. (But don't take our word for it: try Googling it: http://www.google.com/search?q=markup%20conference.)"

"This year, support for attending Balisage 2011 will be available for some full-time students in the field of markup technologies and related disciplines including Computer Science, Library and Information Science, and Digital Humanities."

"Thanks to our sponsors, award winners will receive full conference registration (including breakfast and lunch), plus other benefits (including reimbursements towards travel and/or accommodations) to the extent we are able to provide it."

"To be eligible, you must be currently enrolled full time in an academic degree program, as documented in your CV. And you must have a demonstrable interest in and commitment to our field."

"Application materials will be accepted in plain text, HTML, or PDF and are due on April 8, 2011."

For more information, please see the full requirements at the the Balisage web site.

Justice Stephen Breyer Swears-in Susan Hildreth as New Director of IMLS

March 2, 2011 — "On February 24, 2011, the Honorable Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, administered a ceremonial oath of office to Susan H. Hildreth, the new Director of the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services before a gathering of library and museum leaders, federal and state officials, national service organizations and congressional staff...."

"...Hildreth http://www.imls.gov/about/leadership.shtm is the fourth Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. She began her career as a branch librarian at the Edison Township Library in New Jersey. She has held several key leadership positions including president of the Public Library Association. Prior to her appointment at IMLS, Susan Hildreth was the city librarian in Seattle for two years. Hildreth also served for five years as California's state librarian. Previously, Hildreth was at the San Francisco Public Library, where she served as deputy director and then city librarian."

"The ceremony coincided with a meeting of the National Museum and Library Services Board held at the agency's Washington, DC office. The board program featured remarks from Sonal Shah, Director for the White House Domestic Policy Council's Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. Ms. Shah spoke about White House innovation initiatives and the role of libraries and museums in helping communities to solve problems."

"IMLS Directors are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for four-year terms. The position alternates between library and museum professionals. Her nomination to her new post was confirmed by the US Senate by unanimous consent on December 22, 2010."

For more information, please see the full press release.

President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology taps dean

March 1, 2011 — "Gary Marchionini, Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been appointed to the health information technology report work group of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology."

"Marchionini, dean of the School of Information and Library Science and Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor in the school, is one of 18 group members. Their task: to synthesize and analyze public comment on a report the council released in December, 'Report to the President Realizing the Full Potential of Health Information Technology to Improve Healthcare for Americans: The Path Forward.'"

"Marchionini specializes in information seeking in electronic environments, human-computer interaction, digital libraries, information design and information policy. His current interests include interfaces that support information seeking and information retrieval; usability of personal health records; multimedia browsing strategies; digital libraries; information architecture; personal identity in cyberspace; and evaluation of interactive media, especially for learning and teaching."

For more information, please see the full press release.

Completed UA Libraries Grant Project Provides Model for Low-Cost Digitization of Cultural Heritage Materials

March 1, 2011 announcement from Jody DeRidder, University of Alabama Libraries — "The University of Alabama Libraries has completed a grant project which demonstrates a model of low-cost digitization and web delivery of manuscript materials. Funded by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the project digitized a large and nationally important manuscript collection related to the emancipation of slaves: the Septimus D. Cabaniss Papers. This digitization grant (NAR10-RD-10033-10) extended for 14 months (ended February 2011), and has provided online access to 46,663 images for less than $1.50 per page: http://acumen.lib.ua.edu/u0003_0000252."

"The model is designed to enable institutions to mass-digitize manuscript collections at a minimal cost, leveraging the extensive series descriptions already available in the collection finding aid to provide search and retrieval. Digitized content for the collection is linked from the finding aid, providing online access to 31.8 linear feet of valuable archival material that otherwise would never be web-available. We have developed software and workflows to support the process and web delivery of material regardless of the current method of finding aid access. More information is available on the grant website: http://www.lib.ua.edu/libraries/hoole/cabaniss...."

"...Usability testing was included in the grant project, and preliminary results indicate that this method of web delivery is as learnable for novices as access to the digitized materials via item-level descriptions. In addition, provision of web delivery of manuscript content via the finding aid provides the much-needed context preferred by experienced researchers."

University of Cambridge and OCLC Research Collaborate on Open Metadata Project

February 24, 2011 — "OCLC Research and the University of Cambridge will jointly conduct a six-month, JISC-funded investigation into the value of making collection metadata openly available in a sustainable manner."

"The COMET (Cambridge OPen METadata) project will release a sub-set of bibliographic data from Cambridge University Library catalogs as linked data in multiple formats. This activity will test a number of technologies and methodologies for releasing open bibliographic data including XML, RDF, SPARQL, and JSON."

"To enhance linking options, records will be enriched using two OCLC Research services to assign FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) and VIAF (Virtual International Authority File) headings. This will allow for effective information retrieval and semantic interoperability."

For more information, please see the full press release.

SLA Launches 'Future Ready 365' Blog

February 22, 2011 — "'There's no way to sugar-coat-it,' 2011 Special Libraries Association (SLA) President Cindy Romaine writes in the inaugural post of theFuture Ready 365 blog, an initiative to focus every corner of the association on readying itself for the future. 'The upheavals in the library and information industry due to economic turmoil, technological developments, and shifting user expectations have made some fundamental library services irrelevant. However, I'm convinced that amongst ourselves, we have the ideas, insight, and knowledge to create our desired future.'"

"Launched on the first day of Romaine's term as president, SLA aspires to see 365 posts throughout 2011 from 365 authors, focusing on how information professionals are a resilient, adaptive, and 'future ready' workforce. Contributions are anticipated from all corners of the association's community that are interested in its success – members, vendors, partners, and users."

"Less than two months into the project the effort is paying off.Future Ready 365 has already seen posts from former SLA presidents, board members, industry partners, and just today, Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist of Apple and author of Enchanted decided to join the discussion: 'Today, there's probably more knowledge than ever, and it's more accessible than ever, but the reinvented research librarian holds the key for using digital resources in the most effective manner....'"

"For the full scoop of future ready ideas SLA's community is serving up, read the blog at http://futureready365.sla.org/."

Building a New Framework: Vocational Education for Digital Curators

February 16, 2011 — "Work has begun on Digital Curator Vocational Education Europe (DigCurV), a new project funded by the European Commission's Leonardo da Vinci programme to establish a framework for vocational education and training in digital curation which was launched in January."

"Europe's digital sector has seen strong growth in recent years. The rapid pace of development in the information technology sector has presented both challenges and opportunities to cultural institutions responsible for managing digital collections and their long-term preservation. One of the challenges faced by institutions has been in recruiting staff with skills in the field of digital curation."

"This thirty-month project will identify, analyse and profile existing training opportunities, survey training needs in the sector to identify the key skills and competences required of digital curators. It will establish a curriculum framework from which training can be developed in future. The curriculum will be tested and evaluated by stakeholders during the project."

"DigCurV brings together organisations from Europe, Canada and the USA with a strong track record of international work in the field of digital libraries and digital preservation. The partners include the iSchool at the University of Toronto (Canada); Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale (Italy); Goettingen State and University Library (Germany); HATII (UK); MDR Partners (UK); Trinity College Dublin, the Long Room Hub (Ireland) and Vilnius University Library (Lithuania)."

"The network of associated partners includes the Digital Preservation Coalition (UK), Institute of Museum and Library Services (USA), the nestor qualification consortium (Germany) and is open to new members."

(The above is the entire press release rather than an excerpt.)

Online Data Management Planning Tool Helps Researchers Meet Funding Requirements

February 15, 2011 — "A group of major research institutions is partnering to develop a flexible online tool to help researchers generate data management plans. This effort is in response to demands from funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), that researchers plan for managing their research data."

"The partners in this project include the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of California Curation Center (UC3) at the California Digital Library, the UCLA Library, the UCSD Libraries, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Virginia Library, DataONE, and the United Kingdom's Digital Curation Centre (DCC)."

"The tool for generating data management plans (DMP) will be based on DMP Online, a software tool developed by the DCC and designed to accommodate different funder requirements; this function will be tested by tailoring it to the requirements of U.S.research funding agencies and the institutions they fund. It will be publicly available, allowing researchers at all institutions to initiate a data management plan quickly and provide answers to various data management questions relating to their research, such as how data will be documented throughout the research project and made available for public use and potential secondary uses, how data quality will be assured, data backup procedures, and preservation plans. The tool will make the entire process easier, less expensive, and more consistent in moving research data management forward at the national and international levels. It will also aid institutions in identifying associated costs and in future resource planning. The new version of the DMP is expected to be available within the next several months."

For more information, please see the full press release.

U.S. Libraries Work with Teens to Safely Use, Navigate Technologies

Texting, gaming, social networking sites areas of focus

February 15, 2011 announcement from Macey Morales, ALA — "As teens access the Internet through mobile phones, computers and laptops and gaming devices, public and school libraries from coast to coast are hosting technological workshops and events to assist teens with becoming safe and ethical users of social networks and technology. The programs are part of national Teen Tech Week, March 6 - 12."

"The 2011 theme for Teen Tech Week is Mix and Mash @ your library, which focuses on encouraging teens to use library resources to express their creativity by developing their own unique online content and safely sharing it by using online collaborative tools."

"According to a 2010 study conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than 4 in 5 (82 percent) of online teens ages 14-17 use online social networks, while 86 percent of teen social network users post comments to a photo or video, page or wall."

"Although teens are adept at visiting social network sites, downloading their favorite songs or instant messaging with their friends, the majority lack critical thinking skills and do not fully understand the privacy risks found on social networks, or have the ability to evaluate whether Web content is accurate."

UCLA Professor Christine Borgman to Receive Paul Evan Peters Award

February 14, 2011 — "The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and EDUCAUSE are pleased to announce that Christine L. Borgman, Professor and Presidential Chair in Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has been named the 2011 recipient of the Paul Evan Peters Award. The award recognizes notable, lasting achievements in the creation and innovative use of information resources and services that advance scholarship and intellectual productivity through communication networks."

"Named for CNI's founding director, the award will be presented during the CNI Membership Meeting in San Diego, CA to be held April 4-5, 2011, where Borgman will deliver the Paul Evan Peters Memorial Lecture. Previous award recipients include Daniel Atkins (2008), Paul Ginsparg (2006), Brewster Kahle (2004), Vinton Cerf (2002), and Tim Berners-Lee (2000)."

"One facet of Borgman's work that was particularly compelling for the award committee was her wide-ranging research interests, which focus 'not only on the new technologies, but, just as importantly, on the underlying social and policy changes that she describes as profound and having lasting effects on the future scholarly environment,' noted committee member Nancy Eaton of Pennsylvania State University."

For more information, please see the full press release.

President Requests $242,605,000 for Institute of Museum and Library Services

February 14, 2011 — "President Obama has requested $242,605,000 for fiscal year 2012 for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)."

"'Rapid societal shifts are challenging museums and libraries to reinvent themselves. With this budget, IMLS is rigorously examining all of its grant programs, research, and leadership initiatives to ensure that every dollar is helping libraries and museums meet this challenge,' said Susan Hildreth, director of IMLS. 'In a world where the ability to access and use information is essential to competitiveness, IMLS must help frontline institutions use new technology, adapt services to meet the needs of today's information seekers, and work in partnership with a host of community organizations.'"

"The years ahead will be critical ones for the nation's libraries and museums; strategic leadership is needed to shape programs and services to most effectively meet community needs."

For more information, please see the full press release.

ScienceCinema Gives You Searchable Videos from the U.S. Department of Energy

February 8, 2011 — "Scientific videos highlighting the most exciting research and development sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are now available through ScienceCinema. The multimedia search tool was launched today as part of a one-day workshop, 'Multimedia and Visualization Innovations for Science,' jointly hosted by Microsoft and the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI), held in Redmond, Washington."

"ScienceCinema uses innovative, state-of-the-art audio indexing and speech recognition technology from Microsoft Research to allow users to quickly find video files produced by the DOE National Laboratories and other DOE research facilities. When users search for specific scientific words and phrases of interest to them, precise snippets of the video where the specific search term was spoken will appear along with a timeline. Users can then select a snippet or a segment along the timeline to begin playing the video at the exact point in the video where the words were spoken. The timeline is synced with transcripts of the targeted portion of video."

"It is anticipated that scientific videos, animations, interactive visualizations, and other multimedia will become an increasingly prominent form of scientific communications. ScienceCinema was produced, in part, as a proof of concept to demonstrate the value of speech recognition in the complex vocabulary of science. While the launch of the video database will include an initial 1,000 hours of content, it will continue to grow as new DOE R&D-related videos are produced."

For more information, please see the full press release.

5 Million Manuscripts, Films and Texts for Europeana

February 3, 2011 — "Work begins this week to add over 5 million digital objects, ranging from Spanish civil war photographs and handwritten letters from philosopher Immanuel Kant, to Europeana from 19 of Europes leading research and university libraries."

"The project is called Europeana Libraries and it will put many of these treasures online for the first time. It will also add extensive collections from Google Books, theses, dissertations and open-access journal articles to the 15 million items amassed in Europeana to date. Providers include some of Europes most prestigious universities and research institutes, including the University of Oxfords Bodleian Library, Trinity College Dublin and Lund University."

"The assembled objects span centuries of European history. Manuscripts from Serbia date back as far as 1206 and relate to the Ottoman Empires European territories. Written in Arabic, Ottoman Turkish and Persian, they are being digitised by the University Library of Belgrade. There will also be significant film additions. Footage of talks from 10 Nobel prize winners will be contributed by the University of Vienna and the Wellcome Trust Library in London will add 900 clips from medical science films produced over the past 100 years."

For more information, please see the full press release.

Wiley announces the launch of Wiley Open Access

February 2, 2011, announcement from Karen Halliday, Wiley-Blackwell — "Wiley announces the launch of Wiley Open Access, a new publishing program of open access journals. The first journals will launch shortly, publishing primary, peer-reviewed research in a range of broad-based subject disciplines in the life and biomedical sciences, including neuroscience, microbiology, ecology and evolution."

"Wiley Open Access will provide authors wishing to publish their research outcomes in an open access journal with a range of new high quality publications which meet the requirements of funding organizations and institutions where these apply...."

"...Wiley Open Access journals will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. A publication fee will be payable by authors on acceptance of their articles. Wiley will introduce a range of new payment schemes to enable academic and research institutions, funders, societies, and corporations to actively support their researchers and members who wish to publish in Wiley Open Access journals."

For more information, please see the full press release, which can be downloaded from the Wiley site.

Signature of the framework agreement for the digitization and online exploitation of out of print French books of the 20th century

February 1, 2011 — "Frédéric Mitterrand, Ministry for Culture and Communication, René Ricol, Commissioner-General of investment attached to the Prime Minister, Bruno Racine, President of the National Library of France, Antoine Gallimard, President of the French Publishers Association (Syndicat national de l'Edition, SNE) Jean-Claude Bologne, President of the French Society of Literary Authors (Société des Gens de Lettres, SGDL) have signed a framework agreement reflecting the will to give new life, through digitization, to copyrighted out of print books of the 20th century. The aim is to digitize and make available for sale online, a corpus of 500 000 books within five years."

"This agreement, fruit of the past year's reflection and cooperation, enables the project to be taken one step further with the launching of a detailed feasibility study within the coming months. It stresses in particular the fact that digitized books through 'Investments for the future' will be exploited by means of a common management guaranteeing publishers and authors, equally, a fair remuneration in line with intellectual property rights. As a result, copyrights law will be modified."

"Digitization will rely on the legal deposit collections stored at the National Library of France. The latter will be entitled to possess a digital copy for its own use. The website Gallica (http://gallica.bnf.fr/) will display the complete enriched bibliographical records, provide a possibility to access excerpts and redirect users towards online retailers in order to buy a digital copy."

"The state financial support will be provided within the framework of the program 'Development of the digital economy'. This €4.5bn scheme is one of the main components of the €35bn mobilized by the government for the 'Investments for the future'. This includes €750m earmarked for the development of new ways of promoting and digitizing cultural, educational or scientific content."

(The above is the entire press release rather than an excerpt.)

Demonstration Web Service for FAST Geographic Headings Now Available

January 26, 2011 — "The Web service underlying the MapFAST map demo is now available for public use. Developers can use this Web service to develop their own applications to discover FAST headings near a geographic coordinate location."

"MapFAST is a mashup prototype that uses a Google Maps interface to present FAST geographic authority records. The prototype presents a different way to look at subject access to bibliographic records. It also demonstrates a strength of the subject faceting approach of FAST over coordinated subject headings."

"The map interface allows for simple selection of a location, and displays information from the FAST authority record along with links to enter the location directly as a search into either WorldCat.org or Google Books."

For more information, please see the full press release.

NPG launches a nature.com iPad app

January 24, 2011 — "Nature Publishing Group (NPG) today unveils the nature.com Reader for iPad. Users of the iPad application (app) can view all news content from Nature and article abstracts from Nature, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Physics, Nature Reviews Microbiology, Nature Reviews Genetics and Nature Communications free of charge. The nature.com iPad app is available free to download from the iTunes App Store (http://itunes.com/apps/naturecomreader)."

For more information, please go to http://www.nature.com/.

Mellon Foundation grant will help Cuban Theater Digital Archive improve technical infrastructure

January 21, 2011 — "The University of Miami Libraries and the College of Arts and Sciences have received a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to rebuild the technical and organizational infrastructure for the Cuban Theater Digital Archive (CTDA), a unique digital collection of Cuban theater resources...."

"...CTDA was established by Lillian Manzor, associate professor of modern languages and literatures and Latin American studies, and the UM Libraries as the result of a 2005 Digital Library Fellowship. The initiative's purpose is threefold: It is a resource for teaching, learning, and research in Cuban theater and performance as well as in related fields; a community repository for important Cuban theatrical materials; and a forum to foster scholarly communication in this field."

"As such, the CTDA participates in a virtual culture that allows for communication and exchange to take place between communities that are socially and geographically separated. The Digital Archive includes materials digitized and filmed in Cuba as well as resources and information related to Cuban theater in the Diaspora, with a special focus on theater produced by the Cuban community in the United States."

For more information, please see the full press release.

Europeana's Strategic Plan published

January 19, 2011 — "Europeana's Strategic Plan 2011-2015, has been published by the Europeana Foundation. The Plan comes as a timely response to last weeks report from the Comit des Sages which recommended a clear vision and planfor the further development of Europeana."

"The Strategic Plan outlines the approach Europeana will take in the changing information landscape. In the next few years, one specific focus for Europeana will be on enhancing the users experience. It will give users access to cultural heritage content wherever they are and whenever they want it, making it available through APIs and search widgets, in teaching resources, on blogs, college sites and social networks. Europeana will also explore new ways of actively engaging users in the development of the site and making creative reuse of its content."

For more information, please see the full press release.

CENDI Presents 2011 Meritorious Service Award

January 17, 2011 — "Dr. Walter Warnick, Director of the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), and Vakare Valaitis, Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), have been honored with the 2010 CENDI Meritorious Service Award, which was presented January 6, 2011, in Arlington, Virginia. CENDI is an interagency consortium of senior scientific and technical information (STI) managers from 14 U.S. federal agencies which represents over 97% of the federal research and development budget. CENDI's Meritorious Service Award recognizes an individual or team for making 'a noteworthy contribution to CENDI and to federal interagency cooperation through its events, publications, administration, or outreach.' This year, the organization presented two awards, one for exemplary service at the operations level, and a second award to honor a long and productive leadership role."

"Dr. Warnick received the award for his long-standing history of service to and support of CENDI. CENDI recognized Warnick's 'aggressive effort to capitalize on technological advances in the information age to provide state-of-the-art products and services.' The Science.gov initiative, CENDI's flagship interagency project, was championed by Warnick's leadership and vision. Science.gov directly benefits the DOE community, intergovernmental and international partners, academia, and the general public."

"CENDI recognized Valaitis for her outstanding services as Multi-agency Coordinator. As the liaison between CENDI principals/alternates and task groups, Valaitis' innovation and can-do attitude has engendered interest in and commitment to CENDI in operations staff. Because of her enthusiasm, passion, and dedication to CENDI activities, she has earned the reputation of being a rich resource and a valuable asset to the CENDI community."

"The CENDI Secretariat is headquartered in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. CENDI is managed by Information International Associates, Inc., under the direction of Bonnie C. Carroll. More information about CENDI can be found at www.cendi.gov."

PREMIS version 2.1 is now available

January 11, 2011 announcement from Rebecca Guenther, Network Development & MARC Standards Office, Library of Congres — "The PREMIS Editorial Committee is pleased to announce the availability of the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata version 2.1. Since the publication of version 2.0, implementation of PREMIS has increased substantially and experience using the specification has resulted in the need for additional revisions. The current revision includes corrections of errors, clarifications of some semantic units, changes for consistency, and the addition of a few semantic units that resulted from requests to the PREMIS Editorial Committee. This revision is considered non-substantial in that there are not major changes that affect existing PREMIS descriptions, so is an incremental version 2.1. Both the full data dictionary and the schema are revised."

"The revised data dictionary and schema are available at: http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis."

ACM launches a new version of the ACM Digital Library for computing professionals

January 11, 2011 — "ACM has released a new version of the ACM Digital Library http://portal.acm.org, making it the most comprehensive database of computing literature in the world. Building on the breadth and depth of this renowned repository of digital knowledge, the new site simplifies usability, extends connections, and expands content with a wide range of new tools and features. More than 1.5 million users have access to ACM's Digital Library, a readership representing individuals and institutions from over 190 countries worldwide who download some 13-15 million full text resources annually."

"New features in the DL enable users to browse efficiently by author, publication type, ACM Special Interest Group (SIG), and conference venue."

"The new DL also integrates extensive visualization technology that captures details of the more than 150 international conferences and symposia associated with ACM. Among these advances are multidimensional geographic maps that display the expanding global nature of ACM events. The redesigned format also lists conferences alphabetically and chronologically, and links to access the published proceedings of each event as well as authors, acceptance rates, and downloads of presented papers, tables of content, abstracts, source material, and a history of the conference."

For more information, please contact Virginia Gold 626-0505vgold@acm.org.

Digital Agenda: "Comité des Sages" calls for a "New Renaissance" by bringing Europe's cultural heritage online

January 10, 2011 — "The report of the Comité des Sages (high-level reflection group) on Digitisation of Europe's cultural heritage was delivered today to Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, and Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner responsible for Education and Culture. The report urges EU Member States to step up their efforts to put online the collections held in all their libraries, archives and museums. It stresses the benefits of making Europe's culture and knowledge more easily accessible. It also points to the potential economic benefits of digitisation, including through public-private partnerships, for the development of innovative services in sectors like tourism, research and education. The report endorses the Digital Agenda's objective of strengthening Europe's digital library Europeana and suggests solutions for making works covered by copyright available online. The Comité des Sages on Digitisation comprises Maurice Lévy, Elisabeth Niggemann and Jacques de Decker (see IP/10/456). The report's recommendations will feed into the Commission's broader strategy, under the Digital Agenda for Europe, to help cultural institutions make the transition towards the digital age."

"The recommendations of the 'Comité des sages' will feed into the Commission's broader strategy, under the Digital Agenda for Europe to help cultural institutions make the transition towards the digital age and to search for new and effective business models that accelerate digitisation while allowing fair remuneration for rights holders where necessary (see IP/10/581, MEMO/10/199 and MEMO/10/200). The recommendations will also be useful for the Commission's plan to develop a sustainable funding model for Europeana by 2012."

"Today europeana.eu already offers access to more than 15 million digitised books, maps, photographs, film clips, paintings and musical extracts, but this is only a fraction of works held by Europe's cultural institutions (see IP/10/1524). Most digitised materials are older works in the public domain, to avoid potential litigation for works covered by copyright."

For more information, please see the full press release.

MacArthur Foundation funds 'Reference Extract' to draw on librarians' expertise and add credibility to Web search experience

January 6, 2011 — "The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded $350,000 to fund researchers and developers from OCLC, the information schools of Syracuse University and the University of Washington and Zepheira LLC to continue work creating a more credible Web search experience based on the unique expertise, services and input from librarians."

"The goal of the Reference Extract project is to make it easy to find credible information in the digital age. Researchers and developers are expected to have initial analysis and models of this 'credibility engine' to share in early 2011."

For more information, please see the full press release.