I N   B R I E F

May/June 2017
Table of Contents

Culture In Transit Toolkit

Contributed by
Caroline Catchpole
Digitization Specialist
Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO)
New York, New York, USA
ccatchpole [at] metro.org

In October 2016, the Metropolitan New York Library Council launched the Culture in Transit Toolkit. The Toolkit is the culmination of knowledge gained through the Culture in Transit (CIT) project, a collaborative, 18-month-long project of the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO), the Brooklyn Public Library and Queens Library.

The CIT project aimed to provide an inclusive approach to the digitization of cultural heritage material. Often, the biggest obstacle institutions and communities face with digitization projects are the costs involved. The mobile digitization model seeks to enable preservation grade digitization whilst remaining affordable and adaptable.

At the center of project was the creation of a mobile digitization kit, which could be used at community digitization events at public branch libraries throughout Brooklyn and Queens, and for on-site digitization service at small cultural heritage institutions across METRO's service area in New York City and Westchester County.

Borne out of our experiences and experimentation during the project, the Toolkit is divided into three sections: 'Community', 'Institutions' and 'Equipment'. Along with narrative descriptions in each section, there are numerous project resources available for download and re-use. The contents of the Toolkit are made available under a CC0 1.0 Universal license – anyone is free to reuse any of the material in the Toolkit in any way they choose.

The Equipment section of the Toolkit includes information on all of the components of our mobile scanning kit, our mobile copy-stand and a list of equipment and supplies used for outreach and education at community events. As well as equipment lists for each kit, other resources offered in this section include a master equipment inventory of all equipment that was considered for the project, which details pricing and suppliers, the pros and cons of the item and our recommendations for others who are looking to invest in a mobile digitization service. A list of blog posts we wrote throughout the project that offer honest opinions and reviews of the equipment is included under the Resources heading of the Equipment section.

Outlined in detail in the Community section is all the information needed to organize and execute community digitization events. From planning, event outreach, event overview as well as metrics for assessment, we hope this detailed guide enables others to organize their own community digitization events. Resources shared in the community section offer everything needed to undertake a community digitization event including, an event planning checklist, metadata collection sheet, digitization event workflow and procedure, copyright clearance forms, personal digital archiving brochure and our approach in offering an interactive community history event alongside digitization efforts.

METRO's strand of the project was to assist under-resourced cultural heritage institutions with minimal staff and budgets in digitizing archival and library collections. The Institutions section of the Toolkit documents the onsite digitization service we developed. There is information on selecting project partners, strategies for project tracking, time and workflow management, best practice and standards for digitization metadata and copyright, as well as an in-depth analysis of digitization metrics; the amount and types of materials digitized and time required over the course of project. This final section provides a starting point for others to estimate the time needed for a digitization project and factors that can influence project timelines. Resources for this section include our Partner Interest Form, project checklist, metadata spreadsheet and detailed productivity statistics (available as a downloadable spreadsheet).

Through the CIT project we were able to demonstrate that digitization projects do not have to be costly and exclusive. We hope that the publication of the CIT Toolkit will allow others to replicate our model of mobile digitization in ways applicable to their local needs.

The Culture In Transit project was generously funded by the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation, Knight News Challenge on Libraries.

Library Pipeline: A New, Grassroots Library Organization That Focuses upon Open Access and Innovation

Contributed by
Joshua Finnell
Scholarly Communication/Data Librarian
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM USA

Stacy Konkiel
Director of Research & Education
Altmetric
London, UK

Robin Champieux
Scholarly Communication
Oregon Health & Science University
Portland, OR USA

Bonnie Tijerina
Research Fellow
Data & Society Research Institute
New York, NY USA

In 2015, a collective of librarians launched Library Pipeline, an initiative dedicated to supporting structural change by providing opportunities, funding, and services that improve the library as an institution and librarianship as a profession. Areas of focus for our organization include professional development for librarians, publishing in library and information science (LIS), and innovation in libraries.

To date, Library Pipeline has launched two pilot projects focused upon supporting said structural change: a Green Open Access Working Group, which mobilizes volunteers to increase open access to the LIS literature; and an Innovation in Libraries microgrant, which awards $1,000 monthly to projects that support innovation, diversity, and risk-taking in libraries around the world.

Green Open Access Working Group

Library Pipeline's Publishing in LIS Committee identified increasing open access to library research as a major priority in the group's environmental scan. A small study conducted by Committee organizers found that 90% of journal articles were inaccessible to those without a journal subscription, posing a major challenge to knowledge sharing in the profession.

Thus was formed the Green Open Access Working Group (GOAWG), a collection of twenty-nine volunteers who track new research published in forty-three LIS scholarly journals and, when new publications appear, email authors to ask them to self-archive their work according to the publisher's copyright policies. GOAWG volunteers also contact journal editors to voice support for editorial workflow updates that make it clearer to authors what their self-archiving rights are, immediately upon manuscript acceptance. Several prominent LIS journal editors have voiced their support for the GOAWG pilot project.

The GOAWG completed its initial six-month pilot in April 2017. Soon, volunteers expect to issue a report that will detail the rates of self-archiving among authors throughout the pilot, to determine whether the working group's efforts increased access to the LIS literature as expected. In the event that the pilot proves successful, the GOAWG will launch a longer-term volunteer program.

Innovation in Libraries microgrant

After conducting an environmental scan, the Innovation within LIS Committee identified both challenges and opportunities in growing an innovation culture within library and information science that include: funding, infrastructure, diversity and inclusivity. As a corollary, the committee created recommendations for strengthening innovation in each of these areas.

The Innovation in Libraries Awesome Foundation Chapter was created in response to a recommendation for a "many seeds," iterative funding program to incubate and facilitate many small scale experiments in libraries. Incorporating the principles of diversity and inclusivity into its formation, the chapter is purposefully assembled from a global cohort of librarians, with a range of experiences and backgrounds across public, academic, nonprofit, and corporate librarianship.

Each chapter "trustee" makes or directs a monthly personal contribution of $50 USD, an aggregate of $1000 USD, to fund one project per month. To ensure that librarians from all walks of life can serve as trustees, a dedicated and generous group of visionaries donate monthly towards the grant, which sponsored trustees then direct as they see fit towards the projects of the group's choice.

Throughout the pilot period ending September 2017, grant applications are accepted from the first through the fifteenth of each month. Trustees then discuss, vote, and fund one innovative library project that receives the most support in that month.

Through this model, the Innovation in Libraries Awesome Foundation Chapter provides a catalyst for prototyping both technical and non-technical library innovations that embody the principles of diversity, inclusivity, creativity, and risk-taking.

The next grant application deadline is June 15th. Interested applicants can apply on the Awesome Foundation chapter website.

If you are interested in supporting this initiative as either a sponsor or trustee, please email libraries [at] awesomefoundation.org.

Join Library Pipeline

Library Pipeline differs from most professional organizations in LIS in that we do not charge membership fees. Instead, we organize librarians at the grassroots level and expect that our volunteers will dedicate serious time and energy to projects that will change our profession for the better.

If you are interested in getting involved with any of Library Pipeline's initiatives, please volunteer today. We would especially like to hear from volunteers interested in launching projects related to professional development for librarians.

For news and updates on Library Pipeline and any of our projects, you can follow Library Pipeline {@librarypipeline}, the Innovation in Libraries Awesome Foundation Chapter {@AFLibraries}, or the #GOAWG hashtag on Twitter.

The Digital Library Federation Launches a New Interest Group on Government Records Transparency and Accountability

Contributed by
Rachel Mattson
Manager of Special Projects
La MaMa Archives
rachmattson [at] gmail.com

In February 2017 the Digital Library Federation added a new interest group, one focused on Government Records Transparency and Accountability, to its roster. The group emerged amidst a changing national political context marked by, among other things, a rollback of a federal records transparency rules and practices, a fresh wave of popular protest, and renewed conversations on libraryTwitter about the role of information professionals in times of crisis. (You can read the original blog post announcing the formation of this group here.)

An open project designed to encourage conversation and collaboration, the group's immediate agenda is an information-gathering and coalition-building one. What, actually, are the obstacles interfering with state and federal records transparency? To what extent are those obstacles political, and to what extent are they technological, infrastructural, and informational? What strategies, coalitions, or initiatives exist to address these challenges? How might we - as a collective of individuals who work in libraries, archives, and other locations along the information landscape - extend and contribute to these efforts? Can we bring conversations about transparency and accountability into our schools, workplaces, and local professional communities?

In April, the group helped organize the first-ever Endangered Data Week (EDW). A new initiative that also emerged in the first few months of 2017, EDW is designed to highlight and provoke discussion about threats to the public availability of federal, state, and local government data. Over the course of one week, 17 universities and 8 professional organizations convened more than 50 events – Twitter chats, data rescue harvests, data storytelling, data-scraping workshops, letter writing meet-ups, and panel discussions. Among those events was a webinar organized by this new Government Records Transparency and Accountability interest group on the subject of the Freedom of Information Act. The webinar featured presentations by Alina Semo and Amy Bennett (of the federal FOIA ombudsman's office) Alex Howard (of the Sunlight Foundation) and Denice Ross (of New America). Participants tuned in from locations across the US, including at viewing parties hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Rice University, Vassar College, the University of Maryland, and the University of Virginia. (An audio recording of that webinar, along with presenters' slides, is available here.)

Members of this new interest group also participated in a recent convening, hosted by the Social Science Research Council, on "Securing Government Social Science/Humanities Data." We spent the day with a diversity of professionals – including representatives from the Association of Research Libraries, the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research, DataRefuge, the Union of Concerned Scientists, History Lab, and other institutions - discussing the landscape of strategies needed to secure ongoing scholarly access to government data.

We look forward to continuing, and deepening, these conversations in the coming months, and we invite you to join us in this effort. The group is open to all regardless of membership in the DLF. We have a new Google Group; we hold open virtual meetings on the third Friday of every month; and we plan to gather in person at the October 2017 Digital Library Federation Forum. (Visit our wiki for additional information, and to see notes and agendas for past and future meetings.)

Note: DLF's groups help practitioners work across institutional lines, and help make the Digital Library Federation an effective and thoughtful agent of change. To learn more about the range of groups hosted by the DLF, please visit the organization's website.

Developing the Potential of Data Extraction in Scholarly Articles for Research Verification

Contributed by
Chris H. J. Hartgerink
Department of Methodology and Statistics
Tilburg University, Netherlands
C.H.J.Hartgerink [at] uvt.nl

Scholarly articles contain much information. Scholarly data, however, are more often unavailable than available (Wicherts et al., 2006; Vanpaemel et al., 2015), even upon request (Krawczyk and Reuben, 2012), and increasingly unavailable over time (Vines et al., 2014). Data on which scholarly articles are based are valuable for various reasons (e.g., for reanalyses to verify or to nuance claims made in the original article).

While the value of data sharing is often recognized (e.g., Lindsay, 2017 and Warren, 2016, but see also Longo and Drazen, 2016), the practice of actually sharing data is limited (e.g., Wicherts et al., 2006; Vanpaemel et al., 2015; Savage and Vickers, 2009), making alternatives valuable. Acquiring (parts of) the original data used to make certain claims is possible with data extraction instead of data sharing. Sharing is author-initiated by definition; data extraction on the other hand is user-initiated.

I see the potential for user-initiated data extraction from figures to improve data availability. Some figures contain raw data points (e.g., scatter plots, funnel plots in meta-analyses), which is information that can be extracted by machine but not by human-eye. Technically, mapping the points of data onto the x-y axes can be both difficult and easy at the same time, depending on the format in which the figure is presented.

Figures can be presented in two formats: bitmap and vector images. Bitmap figures reduce the figure to specific bits of data, which indicate the coloring of each pixel in an image. As a result, enlarging the image reduces quality. Vectors on the other hand use (vectors of) coordinates on an x-y plane to depict shapes. As such, the shapes are mathematically determined and can be scaled to any size without the loss of quality. Figure 1 indicates an example of the quality when magnifying the resolution between bitmaps and vector images.

Figure 1: Example showing the effect of vector graphics versus bitmap graphics. Original from Wikimedia Commons, available under CC BY-SA 3.0

Vector images therefore allow us to determine exactly the coordinates of (overlapping) data points in a figure, which allows us to extract the raw data presented in such figures. In order to do this, vector images need to be extracted from the article, converted to machine-readable code (e.g., XML), and subsequently the data point coordinates need to be mapped to the axes. Figure 2 shows an original scatter plot in vector format alongside the extracted XML, which can be directly used to extract the raw data.

Figure 2: Example of a vector scatter plot (left) and resulting XML (right)
[View enlargement of Figure 2]

In this project, I collaborate with ContentMine to extract data from vector based funnel plots in meta-analyses. To this end, the software norma will be developed to automate data extraction from vector images. I will investigate performance of the software to extract raw data from vectors and report our findings in several months time. I will inspect performance by comparing the extracted values with eye-balled estimates from the figures to see whether they make sense on the scales. If possible, I will also compare these results with data presented in tabular format throughout the article. In the meantime, all steps in this research process are available on GitHub and I welcome feedback, ideas (e.g., other types of vector based figures from which raw data might be extracted), or contributions (e.g., ethical discussions about extracting data that authors did not realize they shared) via the GitHub platform.

References

I N   T H E   N E W S

Federal Support for Museum and Library Services Assured for FY 2017

May 5, 2017 — "Today, President Donald Trump signed into law a $1.1 trillion spending bill to fund the federal government through the end of September 2017. The legislation includes $231,000,000 for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which is $1,000,000 above the FY 2016 enacted funding."

"The legislation includes increases in funding for the Grants to States program (+$314K), the National Leadership Grants for Libraries program (+$314K), and the National Leadership Grants for Museums program (+$372K). Funding levels for IMLS administration and other programs remain at their current levels...."

"...For a complete appropriations table, please view the IMLS Appropriations Table: FY 15-FY 17 (PDF, 78KB)."

For more information, please see the full press release.

Transactions of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval, the Open Access ISMIR Journal Launched

May 3, 2017 announcement from Fabien Gouyon, President, ISMIR (International Society for Music Information Retrieval ) — "The ISMIR Board is happy to announce the launch of the Transactions of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval (TISMIR), the open-access journal of our community."

"TISMIR (http://tismir.ismir.net) publishes novel scientific research in the field of Music Information Retrieval (MIR), an interdisciplinary research area concerned with processing, analysing, organising and accessing music information. We welcome submissions from a wide range of disciplines, including computer science, musicology, cognitive science, library & information science, machine learning, and electrical engineering."

"TISMIR is established to complement the widely cited ISMIR conference proceedings and provide a vehicle for the dissemination of the highest quality and most substantial scientific research in MIR. TISMIR retains the Open Access model of the ISMIR Conference proceedings, providing rapid access, free of charge, to all journal content. In order to encourage reproducibility of the published research papers, we provide facilities for archiving the software and data used in the research. TISMIR is published in electronic-only format, making it possible to offer very low publication costs to authors' institutions, while ensuring fully open access content."

For more information, please see the full journal web site.

ALA applauds FY2017 budget increase for IMLS, calls on library supporters to defend federal library funding in FY2018 budget

May 2, 2017 — "On Monday congressional negotiators reached agreement on a bill to fund the U.S. government through September. The 'omnibus' bill included $231 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services – a $1 million increase over FY2016."

"...This opportunity to say thanks is also a chance to voice our unequivocal opposition to threats to cut funding in FY2018. Now is the time to show our elected leaders how their constituents in every single congressional district rely on our services...."

For more information, please see the full press release.

ALA gears up for renewed net neutrality fight

April 28, 2017 — "This week Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai announced plans to roll back net neutrality provisions. The Commission issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to begin the process at its May 18 meeting. The American Library Association (ALA) and its divisions are organizing to protect and preserve the open internet."

"Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers (ISPs) should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking specific services or websites. Net neutrality is essential for library and educational institutions to carry out our missions and support freedom of speech, educational achievement, research and economic growth. The internet has become the primary platform for learning, collaboration and interaction among students, faculty, library patrons, local communities and the world...."

"...Librarians and library workers know that even subtle differences in internet transmission speeds can make a great difference in how a user receives, uses and shares digital information."

For more information, please see the full press release.

The Cost-Benefit Advocacy Toolkit: useful tools for digital preservation and advocacy

April 27, 2017 announcement from the Charles Beagrie blog, — "We are pleased to announce that the Cost-Benefit Advocacy Toolkit has been published by Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) and is available for you to use."

"The Toolkit will be of interest to a wide audience in digital preservation."

"You can access the Toolkit and download any components from here...."

"...The major use for the Toolkit will be supporting funding and business cases but elements are likely to be relevant in advocacy to other groups and in supporting broader operational tasks, or learning and teaching."

For more information, please see the full blog posting.

NISO Releases Draft STS: Standards Tag Suite for Public Comment

April 24, 2017 — "The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the release of a draft version of NISO Z39.102-201x, STS: Standards Tag Suite, for public comment. STS provides a common XML format that standards developers, publishers, and distributors can use to publish and exchange full-text content and metadata of standards. It is expected that this 'standard for standards' will be published in the fall as an XML document marked up in the STS standard after comments on the draft version are addressed and it is approved by NISO Voting Members and by ANSI, the American National Standards Institute."

"'Before STS, there were several DTDs used for tagging standard-type information. This variation impeded interoperability across standards and inhibited collaboration between our organizations,' said ASME Director of Publishing Technologies, Robert Wheeler, co-chair of NISO's STS Working Group. ASME joined other associations, standards development organizations, and government entities in creating this new work that builds upon an existing, heavily used standard for journal publishers, ANSI/NISO Z39.96-2015, JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite and the International Organization for Standardization's (ISO) version of STS...."

"...The NISO STS proposed standard is open for public comment from April 24, 2017 to May 24, 2017. The proposed standard, in PDF form, is available from NISO at http://www.niso.org/workrooms/sts/. All input is welcome. To comment, please go to http://www.niso.org/workrooms/sts/ and follow the described steps."

For more information, please see the full press release.

Nominating committee seeks candidates for 2018 [ALA] election

April 19, 2017 — "The Nominating Committee for the 2018 ALA election is soliciting nominees to run on the 2018 spring ballot for the offices of ALA President-elect and Councilor-at-large."

"The Nominating Committee will select two candidates to run for President-elect and no fewer than 50 candidates for the 33 at-large Council seats to be filled in the 2018 spring election."

"The President-elect will serve a three-year term: as President-elect in 2018-19, as President in 2019-20, and as Immediate Past President in 2020-21."

"The Councilors-at-large will serve three-year terms, beginning after the 2018 ALA Annual Conference and ending at the adjournment of the 2021 Annual Conference...."

"...Nominations and forms must be received no later than July 12, 2017."

For more information, please see the full press release.

New project brings major folk song collection to the UK

April 19, 2017 — "A new project to incorporate a pivotal collection into the world's largest online searchable database of folk songs and music has been announced."

"The digitised collection of James Madison Carpenter, which has previously only been accessible by visiting the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, will be added to the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library Digital Archive, thanks to a grant of more than £63,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Follow-on Funding Scheme...."

"...As well as more than 2,000 items of traditional song and 300 folk plays, it contains some items of traditional instrumental music, dance, custom, narrative and children's folklore."

"The project is being delivered by the Elphinstone Institute, the centre for the study of Ethnology, Folklore, and Ethnomusicology at the University of Aberdeen, in partnership with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, which runs the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library and Archive (VWML) at Cecil Sharp House in London."

For more information, please see the full press release.

IMLS Awards $9.7 Million for Librarian Training and for Excellence in the Field

April 18, 2017 — "The Institute of Museum and Library Services today announced 39 grants totaling $9,799,830 to support libraries across the nation. The grants were awarded through the first cycles of the National Leadership Grants for Libraries Program and the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program."

"See the Awarded Grant Search on the IMLS website for a list of grantees and project descriptions...."

"...National Leadership Grants for Libraries support projects that address challenges faced by the library and archive fields and that have the potential to advance library and archival practice with new tools, research findings, models, services, or alliances that can be widely replicated. More than $23 million was requested, and $5,479,503 was awarded for 25 projects. Grantees will provide more than $2 million in cost share."

For more information, please see the full press release.

New [RDN] site features added

April 17, 2017 announcement from Paul Stokes — "You may have noticed we've been making a few changes. Some parts of the site have been restructured (Tools, Services and Resources have been grouped under a new heading and Data Management Plans now have their own section for instance)."

"We've also added some new sections."

For more information, please see the full announcement.

Garcia-Febo Wins 2018-2019 ALA Presidency

April 12, 2017 — "Loida Garcia-Febo, International Library Consultant and President of Information New Wave in Brooklyn, New York, has been elected president-elect of the American Library Association."

"Garcia-Febo received 3,278 votes, while her opponents, Scott Walter, university librarian, DePaul University, Chicago, received 3,209 votes, and Terri Grief, School Librarian at McCracken County High School in Paducah, Kentucky, received 2,636 votes."

"As ALA president, Garcia-Febo will be the chief elected officer for the oldest and largest library association in the world. She will serve as president-elect for one year before stepping into her role as president at the close of the 2018 ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans."

For more information, please see the full press release.

New report chronicles library community's front line battles against fake news, censorship, bigotry

April 10, 2017 — "Today the American Library Association (ALA) released its State of America's Libraries Report, an annual report released during National Library Week, April 9 – 15, that captures usage trends within all types of libraries. The report finds that library workers' expertise continues to play a key role in the transformation of communities through access to services that empower users to navigate our ever-changing digital, social, economic and political society."

"The term 'fake news' is recent, but the skills needed to evaluate information are not. Librarians provide users with expertise and the training needed to evaluate the quality of information in all formats. The report shows that the library community continues to share best practices to help fuel efforts to combat disinformation. With the massive increase in the amount of digital content, libraries are ramping up efforts to make sure that children and teens are well-equipped to evaluate the sources, content and intended message of all types of media."

"Libraries of all types play a vital role in supporting early childhood literacy, computer training and workforce development. In addition, they provide a safe place for everyone, reflecting and serving the diversity of their communities in their collections, programs and services."

"The report documents the library community's proactive support of its core values, which include equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as its response to actions of the new administration that threaten to undermine the nation's progress towards cultural unity."

For more information, please see the full press release.

How we know what we know: The Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) helps unlock millions of connections between scholarly research

The Wikimedia Foundation and more than 60 other organizations and scholarly publishers announce the I4OC initiative, making scholarly citation data freely available for anyone to access and reuse.

April 6, 2017 blog posting by Dario Taraborelli, Wikimedia Foundation — "The Wikimedia Foundation, in collaboration with 29 publishers and a network of organizations, including the Public Library of Science (PLOS), the Internet Archive, Mozilla, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and many others, announced the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC), which aims to make citation data freely available for anyone to access."

"Scholarly publishers deposit the bibliographic record and raw metadata for their publications to Crossref. Thanks to a growing list of publishers participating in I4OC, reference metadata for nearly 15 million scholarly papers in Crossref's database will become available to the public without copyright restriction.1 This data includes bibliographic information (like the title of a paper, its author(s), and publication date), machine readable identifiers like DOIs (Digital Object Identifier, a common way to identify scholarly works), as well as data on how papers reference one another. It will help draw connections within scientific research, find and surface relevant information, and enrich knowledge in places like Wikipedia and Wikidata."

"Unlike scholarly articles, citation data are not subject to copyright in the same way that articles themselves may be. Citation data typically rest in the public domain – free for anyone to access. Until recently, however, much of the citation data in the scientific research world has been difficult to find, surface, and access. 'It is a scandal,' wrote David Shotton in Nature in 2013, 'that reference lists from journal articles – core elements of scholarly communication that permit the attribution of credit and integrate our independent research endeavours –are not readily and freely available.'"

"Before the I4OC started, publishers releasing references in the open accounted for just 1% of the publications registered with Crossref. As of the launch of the I4OC initiative, more than 40% of this data has become freely available."

For more information, please see the full blog posting.

Policy Brief on Documentary Heritage launched at British Library

April 3, 2017 — "The UK National Commission for UNESCO's Policy Brief on UNESCO's Recommendation on Documentary Heritage was launched at a well-attended event at the British Library on 3 April."

"Organised in collaboration with UNESCO's Memory of the World UK Programme and the Digital Preservation Coalition, the event provided an opportunity to learn more about the challenges and rewards of effective digital preservation at a time when the UK knowledge economy and cultural memory is becoming more focused on digital content."

"The Recommendation on Documentary Heritage is a valuable advocacy and communication tool in the effort to preserve, and ensure continued access to, documentary heritage; including in digital form. The Brief outlines how this recommendation relates specifically to the UK, providing a framework for action for UK stakeholders. The Brief stresses that implementing the Recommendation will require raising awareness of the issues and opportunities relating to digital heritage, and creating the capacity and culture to enable digital preservation to take route in all aspects of society. It will also require extensive collaboration between government, regulators, business, research bodies and memory institutions."

For more information, please see the full press release.

University of Illinois Archives Awarded NEH Grant to Digitize "The Cybernetics Thought Collective"

March 31, 2017 — "The University of Illinois Archives has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to develop a prototype web-portal and analysis-engine to provide access to archival material related to the development of the iconic, multi-disciplinary field of cybernetics."

"The grant is part of the NEH's Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Foundations program. The project, entitled 'The Cybernetics Thought Collective: A History of Science and Technology Portal Project,' is a collaborative effort among several academic units at the University of Illinois (U of I) and three other institutions that also maintain archival records vital to the exploration of cybernetic history: the British Library, the American Philosophical Society, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to supporting the development of a web-portal and analysis-engine, the award will enable the multi-institutional team to begin digitizing some of the archival records related to the pioneering work of U of I Electrical Engineering Professor Heinz von Foerster and his fellow cyberneticians W. Ross Ashby (also a former U of I Electrical Engineering faculty member), Warren S. McCulloch, and Norbert Wiener...."

"...Cybernetics emerged during World War II as the science of communication and control systems used to build automatic antiaircraft systems, but gradually became a vehicle through which scientists, engineers, humanists, and social scientists studied the complexities of communication and self-organizing systems. Cybernetics is generally regarded as one of the most influential scientific movements of the 20th century. At a time when postwar science had become highly compartmentalized, cybernetics epitomized the interdisciplinarity that has become emblematic of innovative research in the modern era."

For more information, please see the full press release.

ALA and ACRL join higher education, library groups to urge FCC and Congress to uphold net neutrality

March 30, 2017 — "The American Library Association (ALA) and Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) continue the fight for an open Internet for all. ALA and ACRL joined 8 other higher education and library organizations representing over a hundred thousand colleges, universities, and libraries nationwide in sending a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai, Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael O'Rielly as well as Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Representatives Greg Walden (R-OR) and Frank Pallone (D-NJ) articulating Net Neutrality Principles that should form the basis of any review of the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order."

"'America's libraries collect, create, curate, and disseminate essential information to the public over the Internet, and enable our users to build and distribute their own digital content and applications,' said ALA President Julie Todaro. 'Network neutrality is essential to ensuring open and nondiscriminatory access to information for all. The American Library Association is proud to stand with other education and learning organizations in outlining core principles for preserving the open Internet as a vital platform for free speech, innovation, and civic engagement.'"

"As providers of free information, Internet access, training, and technology tools, libraries are leaders in creating, fostering, using, extending, and maximizing the potential of the Internet for research, education, teaching and learning, and the public good. When access to information is unequal, the library and its staff cannot do its part in protecting intellectual freedom."

"The signatories of today's letter are extremely concerned that, absent sufficient protections, Internet providers have incentives to block or degrade (e.g., arbitrarily slow) certain Internet traffic, or prioritize certain services, while relegating access to information, learning, and other public services to the 'slow lane.'"

For more information, please see the full press release.

CLIR and Jisc Announce Partnership to Enhance Digital Services for Libraries and Research

March 29, 2017 — "The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and Jisc today announced a partnership to advance programs of mutual interest for academic communities on both sides of the Atlantic."

"Jisc, the UK's higher, further education and skills sectors' organization for digital services and solutions, and CLIR, a US-based community-building, research, and leadership organization serving academic and cultural institutions, will explore trans-national collaboration around the development of digital libraries and research data repositories. The partnership will also focus on the professional development needs of their sectors, and shared services that could reduce costs, create greater efficiencies and better serve the academic research community."

"...The two organizations have agreed to work toward the following shared goals:

• advance skills and expertise relating to digital proficiency to help achieve the possibilities of modern digital empowerment for current and subsequent generations
• promote the highest quality of content and connectivity for digitally based education programs, inculcating best practices and sharing of the most effective, robust tools and applications
• promote the development of a coherent, well-managed digital environment in support of innovative teaching and research, facilitating communities of learning and practice, and stressing the interrelatedness of all electronic-based academic efforts"

For more information, please see the full press release.

Sixteen Funders Announce Worldwide Winners of the 2017 T-AP Digging into Data Challenge

March 29, 2017 — "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and fifteen other funders from around the world today jointly announced awards of approximately 9.2 million U.S. dollars to international teams investigating how large-scale computational techniques may be applied to answering research questions in the humanities and social sciences. These teams will be pursuing research in numerous areas, including musicology, economics, linguistics, political science and history. Collectively, this work is critical for establishing and defining the digital infrastructure needs of research libraries."

"Each of the fourteen winning teams is composed of researchers from multiple scholarly and scientific disciplines, working collaboratively to demonstrate how cutting-edge big data techniques can be used to investigate a wide range of research questions across the humanities and social sciences. Since its inception in 2009, the Digging into Data Challenge program has helped spark exciting new research avenues for the humanities and social sciences using computational techniques. Libraries have been, and continue to be, essential partners in establishing the tools and services that enable these projects."

For more information, please see the full press release.

Thirty Museums and Libraries Named Finalists for 2017 National Medal Award

March 20, 2017 — "The Institute of Museum and Library Services today announced 30 finalists for the 2017 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. The National Medal is the nation's highest honor given to museums and libraries for service to the community. For 23 years, the award has celebrated institutions that demonstrate extraordinary and innovative approaches to public service and are making a difference for individuals, families and communities."

"'The 2017 National Medal Finalists represent the leading museums and libraries that serve as catalysts for change in their communities,' said Dr. Kathryn K. Matthew, director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. 'It is our honor to recognize 30 notable institutions for their commitment to providing programs and services that improve the lives of individuals, families and communities. We salute them and their valuable work in providing educational opportunities to their community and celebrate the power libraries and museums can have across the country.'"

"IMLS is encouraging those who have visited finalist libraries and museums to share their story on the IMLS Facebook page as a way to further honor their work in their respective communities. To Share Your Story, please visit http://www.facebook.com/USIMLS."

For more information, please see the full press release.

JHOVE 1.16 released

March 16, 2017 announcement from Becky McGuinness, Open Preservation Foundation — "The latest version of JHOVE is now available to download. JHOVE is an open source file format identification, validation and characterisation tool for digital preservation."

"JHOVE 1.16 contains fixes and better handling of files in the PDF and WAV modules."

"Other improvements include:

• Using string constants for PDF module, XML module, and HTML module error messages
• Added PDF and WAV test files submitted by community during JHOVE hack day
• JHOVE Maven artefacts made available on Maven Central in addition to OPF Artifactory
• Improved error reporting for Travis test failures
• Improvements to GitHub pages website
• Consistency and formatting improvements for README.md, RELEASENOTES.md and pom.xml"

"About JHOVE (http://jhove.openpreservation.org/):
JHOVE (JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment) is an extensible software framework for performing format identification, validation, and characterisation of digital objects. JHOVE is maintained by the Open Preservation Foundation with development effort guided by the JHOVE Product Board."

For more information, please contact Becky MGuinness becky [at] openpreservation.org.

Institute of Museum and Library Services Issues Statement on the President's Proposed FY 18 Budget

March 16, 2017 — "Institute of Museum and Library Services Director Dr. Kathryn K. Matthew released the following statement on the President's proposed FY 2018 budget, which includes elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services."

"Since its inception 20 years ago, the Institute of Museum and Library Services has provided critical support enabling museums and libraries across the country to make a tremendous difference in their communities. The institutions we serve provide vital resources that contribute significantly to Americans' economic development, education, health, and well-being whether by facilitating family learning and catalyzing community change or stimulating economic development through job training and skills development. Our agency's support enables museums and libraries to offer learning experiences for students and families, as well as to increase care for, and access to, the nation's collections that are entrusted to museums and libraries by the public."

"We've invested in rural and smaller communities by supporting basic infrastructure and by developing libraries as local community hubs for broadband connectivity and digital literacy training – helping many residents gain job-related skills and, in many cases, find employment. In summary, our grants and programs support libraries and museums as essential contributors to improving Americans' quality of life."

"More than $214 million of our $230 million FY 2016 enacted budget targets museums and libraries directly through our grant programs. This includes $155 million for library services to every state and territory in the country through a population-based formula grant program."

"As Congress now begins its work on the FY 2018 budget, our agency will continue to work closely with the Office of Management and Budget. More importantly, we will continue to remain steadfast in our work on behalf of the millions of Americans touched by the services of libraries and museums each day."

This press release may be found here.

ASERL Endorses Keeper's Registry Statement

March 16, 2017 — "At its recent Membership Meeting, members of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) unanimously endorsed the 'Working Together to Ensure the Future of the Digital Scholarly Record' statement proffered by the Keepers Registry. The statement sets out a series of recommended activities, research libraries, publishers, and national libraries can undertake to support archiving and preservation initiatives. The statement represents the consensus of preservation specialists, archivists, librarians and technologists who met in Paris in June 2016."

"Please see http://bit.ly/2aZyWjV for the full text of the Keepers Registry statement, published in four languages."

"'ASERL members and other libraries around the globe have developed amazing print and electronic collections to further teaching, research, and learning,' commented Carrie Cooper, ASERL's Board President and Dean of University Libraries at the College of William and Mary. 'The Keeper's Registry statement outlines clear steps libraries and other partners can and should undertake to ensure these materials remain useful into the future. We are excited to be working under the Keepers Registry banner on these efforts.'"

"To further these efforts within its membership, ASERL is recruiting a Visiting Program Officer (VPO) position to launch a new Special Collections Interest Group within the Association, including taking initial steps to foster the activities described in the Keeper's Registry statement. The VPO post is expected to begin on or about July 1, 2017 as a 12-month appointment."

For more information, please see the full press release.

Copyright © 2017 Corporation for National Research Initiatives