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November/December 2014
Table of Contents

BitCurator News: 1.0 Release of BitCurator Environment, Establishment of Consortium, and Launch of Disk Image Access Project

Contributed by
Alexandra Chassanoff
BitCurator Access Project Manager
School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
bitcurator [at] gmail.com

The BitCurator project recently (September 25, 2014) released BitCurator 1.0, a free and open-source digital forensics software environment for libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) to acquire and process born-digital materials. The BitCurator environment (built using Ubuntu 14.04LTS) can be installed as a host operating system or run as a virtual machine. Individual software tools, packages, support scripts and documentation are also available. The software release is the culmination of a three-year (2011-2014) collaborative effort between the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland. The project was made possible through two phases of funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The project also launched the BitCurator Consortium (BCC), in collaboration with the Educopia Institute, which serves as the administrative home of the BCC. The Consortium is a community-led membership association that serves as the host and center of administrative, user and community support for the BitCurator environment. Its purpose is to support curation of born-digital materials through the application of open-source digital forensics tools by institutions responsible for such materials. Eleven institutions have already joined the BCC. There are two categories of membership: charter and general. Charter membership remains open until December 31, 2014. To find out more about the BCC, visit http://www.bitcurator.net/bitcurator-consortium/.

Lastly, the BitCurator Access project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and led by a team at SILS at UNC, began on October 1, 2014 and will run until September 30, 2016. BitCurator Access will develop open-source software that supports the provision of access to disk images through three exploratory approaches: (1) setting up a server that holds full disk images and lets end users dynamically walk the directory tree to access the individual folders and files; (2) exporting files and metadata, then loading the files and metadata into a collection access environment for search and navigation; and (3) providing access to disk image content through emulation. The project will focus on technologies that simplify access to raw and forensically packaged disk images, allowing collecting institutions to provide access environments that reflect as closely as possible the original order and environmental context of these materials. BitCurator Access will also develop tools to redact files, file system metadata, and targeted bitstreams within disks or directories.

Knowledge Managers' New Role in Making Open Scholarship Mainstream

Contributed by
Ivo Grigorov
Project Coordinator, European Programmes
Technical University of Denmark (DTU)-Aqua
(http://dk.linkedin.com/in/ivogrigorov/)
ivgr [at] aqua.dtu.dk

Upgrading research to benefit from the promise of the Internet age has many benefits for all involved; yet uptake of Open Science has been slow. Recent developments in national funder policies related to Open Scholarship, and the expected evolution of national Research Excellence Framework (REF) evaluation criteria suggest that the role of knowledge managers remains key in boosting uptake of open practices, while satisfying institutional strategic priorities. This article presents suggestions for enhancing Knowledge Managers' advocacy efforts for uptake of Open Scholarship.

Crack your Institute's Strategy, Elevate the Conversation
Many employees don't understand their own institute's strategy. Consequently, one might be forgiven for thinking that strategic documents are written just for management, full of inaccessible language and jargon. However, if new practices and attitudes are to be introduced, cracking the "strategy code" is essential to figuring out what makes your institute tick.

In simplistic terms, most would care about excellence in research, innovation and education, hoping to recruit the best researchers that will attract the top students, and getting the right mix for a creative environment. Variations on the theme may exist locally, but whatever the priorities are in your institutional strategy, chances are that someone somewhere has already successfully practiced and exploited an "open" aspect of those priorities to measurably contribute to what your institute cares about (see http://ec.europa.eu/research/consultations/science-2.0/background.pdf.

Cracking the strategy code and language helps here, as aspects of "openness" can, and should, be presented using keywords that speak to your organization's management. Wrap up "openness" and its benefits in the words that your management cares about (stated in their own strategy documents), and elevate the conversation from just "Open Data" or "Open Access" to terms like "Open Science", "Open Research" and "Open Scholarship" that cover the entire research cycle. Using blanket terms that are as expansive and as ambitious as those used in strategy documents demonstrates your own strategic thinking on par with that of your audience.

Listen to the Researcher needs & pains
The researchers we are trying to entice with all aspects of Open Research may not care about openness, or may even have formed a negative image due to much bad press. They might, however, very much appreciate the benefits of what the various aspects of Open Scholarship can offer.

So, here is a challenge. Try serving the needs of your institute and the individual researcher without even mentioning "open" in your sales pitch. This is a worthy exercise, but not easy (just count how many times this article fails!). Doing so makes us focus not on what is important to us, but forces us to use keywords that strike at the heart of the problems and needs of your audience, like answering to the requirement of the Research Excellence Frameworks, building a strong profile for tenure, simply raising funds to keep the lab going, and doing so by being able to formulate a competitive proposal that includes societal relevance and offering the potential to strengthen science-society dialogue (see Horizon 2020 Evaluation Criteria, Section 2 Impact at http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/call_ptef/pt/h2020-call-pt-ria-ia_en.pdf).

Become an indispensable service provider
This is particularly pertinent to an average researcher who is trying to juggle publications, students and raising next year's salary. Traditionally, Knowledge Managers and Open Scholarship experts and advocates tend to be relatively isolated from their target audience within a university. We rarely enter the researcher's workflow enough in order to make Open Scholarship the default setting for performing research. Unless, of course, we are seen as an indispensable service, assisting with a recurring difficulty. The recent Horizon 2020 Mandate provides the vehicle to become that indispensable service. Although mandates by themselves have limited power (and this one will be difficult to police!), the difference with the Horizon 2020 mandate is that the application template specifically asks that Knowledge Management be integrated into a proposal business plan, knowledge transfer and communication strategies. The mandate may be part of an EU funding program, but many non-EU countries participate in the research on Societal Challenges, making the mandate even more relevant globally.

This is a wide-open opportunity for Open Scholarship proponents to track down and engage the research secretariats, fund raising offices and European desks at their institutions, and offer concrete advice to applicants on gaining that extra point at proposal evaluation.

With the Horizon 2020 budget steadily increasing over the next 7 years, and simplification of application rules, competition by applicants will only go one way: UP!

Having a new set of experts (you) to advise applicants on how to be more competitive by making research data and knowledge freely accessible to small and medium enterprises (SMEs); perennially archiving and coherently disseminating project results; providing access to citizen scientists etc.; and addressing the researchers' daily struggle in raising funds will result in making you, and Open Scholarship, an essential part of performing research at your institute.

2014 Digital Preservation Training Needs Assessment Survey

Barry Howard
Library of Congress
Washington, DC

(The following is a blog post by Barrie Howard, IT Project Manager at the Library of Congress.)

Last month the Digital Preservation Outreach and Education (DPOE) Program wrapped up the 2014 DPOE Training Needs Assessment Survey in an effort to get a sense of the state of digital preservation practice, and understand more about what capacity exists for organizations and professionals to effectively preserve digital content. This survey is a follow up to a similar survey that was conducted in 2010, and mentioned in a previous blog post.

The 17-question survey was open for seven weeks to relevant organizations and received 436 responses, which is excellent considering summer vacation schedules and survey fatigue. The questions addressed issues like primary function (library, archive, museum, etc.), staff size and responsibilities, collection items, preferred training content and delivery options, and financial support for professional development and training.

Response rates from libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies were similar in 2010 and 2014, with a notable increase in participation from state governments this year. There was good geographic coverage, including responses from organizations in 48 states, DC, and Puerto Rico (see below), and none of the survey questions were skipped by any of the respondents

Figure 1. Geographic coverage of survey respondents

The most significant takeaways are: 1) an overwhelming expression of concern that respondents ensure their digital content is accessible for 10 or more years (84%), and; 2) evidence of a strong commitment to support employee training opportunities (83%). Other important discoveries reveal changes in staff size and configuration over the last four years. There was a marked 6% decrease in staff size at smaller organizations, ranging from 1-50 employees, and a slight 2% drop in staff size at large organizations with over 500 employees. In comparison, medium-size organizations reported a 4% uptick in the staff range of 51-200 and 3% for the 201-500 tier. There was a substantial 13% increase across all organizations in paid full-time or part-time professional staff with practitioner experience, and a 5% drop in organizations reporting no staff at all. These findings suggest positive trends across the digital preservation community, which bode well for the long-term preservation of our collective cultural heritage.

One survey question tackled the issue of what type of digital content is held by each institution. While reformatted material digitized from collections already held has the highest frequency across all respondents (83%), born-digital content created by and for your organization trails close behind (76.4%). Forty-five percent of all respondents reported that their institution had deposited digital materials managed for other individuals or institutions. These results reflect prevailing trends, and it will be interesting to see how things change between now and the next survey.

Figure 2. Types of digital content held by each responding organizations (percentages are a portion of the 436 respondents, and each respondent was allowed to choose multiple types)

The main purpose of the survey was to collect data about the training needs of these organizations, and half a dozen questions were devoted to this task. Interestingly, while online training is trending across many sectors to meet the constraints of reduced travel budgets, the 2014 survey results find that respondents still value intimate, in-person workshops. In-person training often comes at a higher price than online, and the survey attempted to find out how much money an employee would receive annually for training. Not surprisingly, the majority (25%) of respondents didn't know, and equally as important, another 24% reported a modest budget range of $0-$250.

When given the opportunity to be away from their place of employment, respondents preferred half or full-day training sessions over 2-3 days or week-long intensives. They showed a willingness to travel off-site up to a 100-mile radius of their places of work. There was a bias towards training on applicable skills, rather than introductory material on basic concepts, and respondents identified training investments that result in an increased capacity to work with digital objects and metadata management as the most beneficial outcome for their organization.

DPOE currently offers an in-person, train-the-trainer workshop, and is exploring options for extending the workshop Curriculum to include online delivery options for the training modules. These advancements will address some of the issues raised in the survey, and may include regularly scheduled webinars, on-demand videos, and pre- and post-workshop videos. The 2014 survey results will be released in a forthcoming report, which will be made available in November, so keep a watchful eye on the DPOE website and The Signal for the report and subsequent DPOE training materials as they become available.

(Full blog post is available on The Signal: http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2014/10/2014-dpoe-training-needs-assessment-survey/)

Library of Congress Launches 2015 Class of National Digital Stewardship Residency

Contributed by
Susan Manus
Digital Project Coordinator
Library of Congress
Washington, DC
sman [at] loc.gov

The Library of Congress Office of Strategic Initiatives, in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), has announced plans for another class of the National Digital Stewardship Residency program (NDSR) to be held in the Washington, DC area, starting in June, 2015. This will be the fourth class of residents for this program overall — the first in 2013, was held in Washington, DC and the second and third classes, which started in September, 2014 are being held concurrently in New York and Boston.

Those selected for the program will be recent masters and doctoral level students or graduates from a variety of fields with a strong interest in digital stewardship. (Master's level students must be graduated by the start of the program in June 2015.) The five selected to be 2015 Residents will each be paired with an affiliated host institution for a 12-month program that will provide them with an opportunity to develop, apply, and advance their digital stewardship knowledge and skills in real-world settings. Applications, as well as program requirements, will be available on the NDSR webpage. Resident applications will be accepted starting mid-December, 2014.

In addition to providing great career benefits for the residents, the NDSR program also benefits the institutions involved, as it provides specially trained residents who can focus exclusively on the institution's digital preservation priorities. The first class of residents discussed their experiences in a series of blog posts on The Signal, including a discussion of a symposium organized by the residents, and a year-end summary of the group's accomplishments. (The Signal is the Library's digital preservation blog; regular updates from the current class of residents are posted there as well.)

All of the residents from the inaugural year of the program now have jobs or fellowships in a related field. Erica Titkemeyer, a former Resident who worked at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, now has a position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the Project Director and AV Conservator for the Southern Folklife Collection. Erica said the Residency provided the opportunity to utilize skills gained through her graduate education, and put them to practical use in an on-the-job setting. In this case, she was involved in research and planning for preservation of time-based media art at the Smithsonian. There were also other associated benefits. "I had a number of chances to network within the D.C. area through the Library of Congress, external digital heritage groups, and professional conferences as well," Erica said. "I have to say, I am most extremely grateful for having had a supportive group of fellow residents. The cohort was, and still remains to be a valuable resource for knowledge and guidance."

This residency experience no doubt helped Erica land her new job, one that includes a lot of responsibility for digital library projects. "Currently we are researching options and planning for mass-digitization of the collection, which contains thousands of recordings on legacy formats pertaining to the music and culture of the American South."

George Coulbourne, NDSR Program Manager at the Library of Congress, remarked on the early success of this program. "We are excited with the success of our first class of residents, and look forward to continuing this success with our upcoming program in Washington, DC. The experience gained by the residents along with the tangible benefits for the host institution, will help set the stage for a national residency model in digital preservation that can be replicated in various public and private sector environments."

All NDSR program news and updates, including information about resident selection, host institutions and projects, will be posted to the NDSR webpage, as well as The Signal blog.

Research Data MANTRA

Contributed by
Robin Rice
Data Librarian
EDINA and Data Library, University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
R.Rice [at] ed.ac.uk

The Research Data MANTRA course is an open, online training course that provides instruction in good practice in research data management. It has been crafted for the use of postgraduate students, early career researchers, and also information professionals. It is freely available on the web for anyone to explore in their own time.

There are nine interactive learning units that take up to an hour to complete. Learning objectives include:

Document your data well for yourself and others, learn about metadata standards and cite data properly
Know how to store and transport your data safely and securely (backup and encryption)
Understand legal and ethical requirements for managing data about human subjects; manage intellectual property rights
Understand the benefits of sharing and re-using, preserving and licensing data
Improve your data handling skills in one of four software environments: R, SPSS, NVivo, or ArcGIS.

This fourth release of MANTRA has been revised and systematically updated with new content, videos, reading lists, and interactive quizzes. Three of the data handling tutorials have been rewritten and tested for newer software versions. The release also includes usability improvements.

New content in the online learning modules with the September, 2014 release:

New video interviews
Big Data, Open Government Data and Linked Open Data
Data citation and 'reproducible research'
Safe password practice and more information on encryption tools
Refined information about Data Protection and IPR
Creative Commons 4.0 and CC0 licenses

Each unit takes up to one hour, plus time for further reading and carrying out the data handling exercises. The units contain explanations, descriptions, examples, reflective exercises, and video clips in which academics and PhD students talk about the challenges of managing research data. The data handling tutorials assume some experience with each software environment and provide exercises in PDF along with open datasets to download and work through.

Librarians and other information professionals may benefit from studying MANTRA in small discussion groups. The DIY RDM Training Kit for Librarians contains everything a facilitator needs to lead a self-study group.

MANTRA is maintained by Data Library staff in Information Services, University of Edinburgh. It was originally developed in collaboration with the Institute for Academic Development as part of a Jisc-funded Managing Research Data project (2010-11). The content was developed based on a needs assessment with three postgraduate training programmes at the University of Edinburgh in the fields of geosciences, social and political sciences, and clinical psychology.

Data management skills enable researchers to better organise, document, store and share data, making research more reproducible and preserving it for future use. 16,000 learners in 144 countries used MANTRA last year, which is available without registration from the website. Postgraduate training organisations in the UK, Canada, and Australia have used the Creative Commons (CC-BY) licensed material to create their own training.

New Versions of International Image Interoperability Framework APIs Published

Contributed by
Jon Stroop on behalf of the IIIF Editorial Team¹
jstroop [at] princeton.edu

The International Image Interoperability Framework is pleased to announce the release of the second major versions of its Image and Presentation API specifications.

IIIF is a collaborative effort to produce a community framework for image delivery. Driven and defined by a growing number of national libraries, research libraries and cultural heritage institutions, IIIF aims to:

Give scholars an unprecedented level of uniform and rich access to image-based resources hosted around the world
Define a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) that support interoperability between image repositories
Develop, cultivate and document shared technologies, such as image servers and web clients, that provide a world-class user experience in viewing, comparing, manipulating and annotating images

These releases add functionality based on real world use cases drawn from more than a year of experience with the previous versions and significant input from across the cultural heritage community. The 2.0 APIs also make explicit several assumptions and implementation choices that were sensible but not stated in the previous versions. Detailed change notes are available for both specifications (Image, Presentation).

Accompanying the release of the specifications is a suite of utilities and resources, including reference implementations of all versions of the Image API, collections of valid and intentionally invalid example Presentation API resource descriptions, plus validators for both APIs. Production ready software is available for the full Image API stack, with server implementations in both Loris and IIP Server, and rich client support in the popular Open Seadragon image viewer.

There was a rollout and dissemination event on October 20th, 2014 at the British Library to celebrate this release and engage with the wider community. Feedback, comments and questions are welcomed on the IIIF discussion list.

(The IIIF Editorial Team members are Benjamin Albritton, Michael Appleby, Tom Cramer, Robert Sanderson, Stuart Snydman, Jon Stroop, Simeon Warner)

Open Access Repository Ranking (OARR)

Contributed by
Paul Vierkant and Maxi Kindling
Research Assistants
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Berlin, Germany
info [at] oarr.org

The Open Access Repository Ranking (OARR) lists all German open access repositories according to a metric that evaluates a certain set of criteria that are summarized in categories. This metric is a synthesis of different schemes and studies that survey and describe open access repositories. OARR is based on an open and transparent metric that is developed in cooperation with the open access community.

Since OARR tries to keep track of ever changing technical and political developments in the sphere of open access, the metric is not written in stone and will be updated iteratively. The ranking is planned to be published annually at the Open-Access-Tage conference in September. The preceding January each open access repository that meets the OARR definition will be contacted to submit their data via an online form. This procedure is supposed to minimize the amount of potential errors in indexing by asking the respective repository managers as the most reliable source of information. The OARR team reviews all submissions assuring its quality and validity. To facilitate the completeness of the submitted data, all not existing criteria will be resulting in a score of 0 for the respective criterion.

OARR aims primarily at repository managers and institutions that host, run or plan to build a repository. With OARR, funders and repository managers get an overview of the (technical) developments within the open access repository community. Finally, OARR enables researchers to identify the open access repository that best suits their needs when looking for a proper place to deposit their publications.

For now OARR is a ranking limited to Germany. It is planned to make OARR a global ranking as soon as possible. However, this depends very much on the feedback of professionals from as many countries as possible to make the OARR metric a reliable and truly bottom up global benchmark for open access repositories. It is not yet clear whether the ranking should grow country by country or go directly to global scale, and the project team is open to any ideas.

Open Access Repository Ranking (OARR) is a research project based at the Information Management Department of Professor Peter Schirmbacher at the Berlin School of Library and Information Science (BSLIS), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU Berlin). The team members bring complementary skills to run and develop OARR. As open access advocates, we share a passion to make a difference in the open access community. All of us are either affiliated with BSLIS or Computer and Media Service (CMS) at HU Berlin. OARR cooperates with the Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) at Bielefeld University and is supported by the DINI working group on "Electronic Publishing".

I N T H E N E W S

CrossRef and DataCite Announce New Initiative to Accelerate the Adoption of DOIs for Data Publication and Citation

November 10, 2014 — "CrossRef and DataCite announce new initiative to accelerate the adoption of DOIs for data publication and citation."

"In 2014 DataCite celebrates its fifth year of operation and CrossRef its fifteenth. Together we have registered almost 75 million DOIs. Today the two organisations are committing to accelerate the adoption of DOIs for data publication and citation."

"Data are essential building blocks of scholarship and research in the sciences, medicine, technology, social sciences, and humanities. DataCite and CrossRef will work together to ensure that researchers can seamlessly navigate among all research results including articles and data and to make data a first class, identifiable, referenceable, and citable element in the scholarly record."

"DataCite and CrossRef have agreed to collaborate to:

Enhance the interoperability of their respective systems in order to make it easier for publishers, data centres, libraries and third parties to integrate with the scholarly DOI ecosystem.
Provide comprehensive support for interlinking between articles and data.
Develop open APIs and open source tools to surface citations and other relationships between publications and data sets.
Integrate into their services other existing scholarly communications initiatives such as ORCID and CrossRef's FundRef.
Develop systems, workflows and best practices for using DOIs to reference large, highly granular and dynamic data."

For more information, see the full press release.

NISO Releases Draft Recommended Practice on Exchanging Serial Content for Public Comment

November 4, 2014 — "The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is seeking comments on the draft recommended practice Protocol for Exchanging Serial Content (PESC), NISO RP-23-201x. This Recommended Practice was developed to provide guidance on the best way to manage all of the elements of digital serial content packaging in a manner that aids both the content provider and the content recipient in understanding what has been delivered and received...."

"...'The recommendations in this document describe preferred practices for the packaging and exchange of serial content to enable the automation of processes to receive and manage serial content at scale,' explains Kimberly A. Tryka, Research Data Librarian, National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), and Co-chair of the NISO PESC Working Group. 'By following these practices, organizations can make it clear what content has been transmitted, how it is organized, and what processing is required when a new package is received.'"

"'NISO is soliciting feedback on this draft Recommended Practice from any organization that needs to exchange serial publication information,' states Nettie Lagace, NISO Associate Director for Programs. 'This feedback will be used to make any needed revisions to the document before final publication of the recommendations.'"

"The draft recommended practice is open for public comment through December 5, 2014. To download the draft or submit online comments, visit the Protocol for Exchanging Serial Content (PESC) Working Group webpage at: http://www.niso.org/workrooms/pesc/."

For more information, see the full press release.

2014 Archival Technology Medal Awarded to Neil Beagrie

October 30, 2014 — "At a ceremony in Hollywood on 23 October 2014, the Society of Motion Picture and Television EngineersR (SMPTER) awarded the 2014 SMPTE Archival Technology Medal to Neil Beagrie in recognition of his long-term contributions to the research and implementation of strategies and solutions for digital preservation."

"The full citation for the award reads 'Mr. Beagrie played a key role in the development of a collaborative approach to the study and dissemination of knowledge relating to Digital Preservation, Research Data Management, Digital Curation and Data Archives. He was responsible for establishing the Digital Preservation Coalition, with major members from industry, national libraries, broadcasters and archives. In addition, he was responsible for establishing the digital preservation program within Jisc. This program helped to create the Digital Curation Centre, which seeks to actively manage, preserve, and curate digital data throughout the research lifecycle.'"

"William Kilbride, Executive Director of the Digital Preservation Coalition said: 'I am delighted to hear that Neil's work is being recognised with this well-deserved accolade. He is highly regarded among colleagues in the UK and internationally for his calm, approachable manner, his clear advice, and the high standards he sets. These virtues are woven into the fabric of the Digital Preservation Coalition, an organisation which he helped create. I extend congratulations on behalf of all of the DPC's members and staff, and we are honoured that DPC should be associated with this award.'"

For more information, see the full press release.

Improved access to maps from all regions of the world

October 28, 2014 — "Maps from all regions of the world held by Swiss libraries and archives can be accessed via the Kartenportal www.kartenportal.ch. This portal released yesterday has been developed under the leadership of the Zentralbibliothek Zürich (ZB) in order to simplify access to both current maps and those which could not be previously accessed due to copyright restrictions. Until now such maps had to be retrieved in the various traditional library catalogues; this proved to be a time-consuming and cumbersome task."

"This portal enables a simple interactive map search that will retrieve maps from dozens of Swiss map libraries. In addition, there is also a separate directory with information about the various collections involved and their conditions of use. This directory has its own interface providing intuitive access to the at times bewildering collections within the country. There is also a blog with information on current events, specific tips for collectors and general news from the world of maps – both of an historical and of a contemporary nature."

For more information, see the full press release.

ARL Statistics 2012-2013 Published

October 28, 2014 — "ARL has released the ARL Statistics 2012-2013, the latest in a series of annual publications that describe the collections, staffing, expenditures, and service activities of ARL's 125 member libraries. Of these, 115 are university libraries (16 in Canada and 99 in the US); the remaining 10 are public, governmental, and nonprofit research libraries (1 in Canada, 9 in the US)."

"The 2012-2013 ARL Statistics survey utilized a revised questionnaire, which was finalized in 2011-2012 after an extensive review process led by the Task Force on Reviewing the ARL Statistics, the ARL Annual Salary Survey, and the ARL Supplementary Statistics. The revised survey is designed to make the data more useful, relevant, and easy to collect. The new ARL Statistics survey strikes a balance between keeping pace with the rapidly changing environment in research libraries and codifying the evolution of the 21st-century research library...."

"...ARL has collected and published annual statistics for its member libraries since 1961-1962, expanding upon the work of James Gerould, who collected this information first at the University of Minnesota and later at Princeton University. The data he collected, covering the years 1907-1908 through 1961-1962, are now called the Gerould Statistics. The complete data series from 1908 through the present represents the oldest, most comprehensive, continuing library statistical series in North America."

For more information, see the full press release.

Libraries Increasingly Fund Open Access Fees - New study by PCG shows 23% of libraries cover article processing charges for author submissions to OA journals

October 28, 2014 — "Academic libraries are getting ever more involved in the cataloging and funding of Gold Open Access (OA) publications, according to a new survey by industry consultancy, Publishers Communication Group (PCG). Gold Open Access, though generally understood as the freely-accessible, 'author pays' model, may actually be covered by sources such as grant funders, employer subsidies or institutional library budgets, the study confirmed."

"Seeking to bridge the perspectives of PCG's publisher and library customers, the survey of 150 librarians from 30 different countries found that at present, the responsibility for funding article processing charges (APCs) is still more likely to fall on the author (47%) or granting organization (38%) than the institution (24%) or library. However, nearly a quarter of respondents stated that the library does provide funding for APCs, which often comes from existing library materials budget. It was estimated that this cost equates to less than 1% of the budget for traditional subscriptions, with 19% of institutions establishing a ceiling for APCs, typically ranging from $2,000-3,000."

For more information, see the full press release.

NISO Launches Open Discovery Initiative (ODI) Standing Committee

Comments and suggestions welcome for maintenance and promotion of the recommended practice

October 27 2014 — "The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is pleased to announce the next phase for the Open Discovery Initiative, a project that explores community interactions in the realm of indexed discovery services. Following the working group's recommendation to create an ongoing standing committee as outlined in the published recommended practice, Open Discovery Initiative: Promoting Transparency in Discovery (NISO RP-19-2014), NISO has formed a new standing committee reflecting a balance of stakeholders, with member representation from content providers, discovery providers, and libraries. The ODI Standing Committee will promote education about adoption of the ODI Recommended Practice, provide support for content providers and discovery providers during adoption, conduct a forum for ongoing discussion related to all aspects of discovery platforms for all stakeholders, and determine timing for additional actions that were outlined in the recommended practice."

"'Discovery systems are critical to the research ecosystem,' states Laura Morse, ODI Standing Committee Co-chair and Director, Library Systems, Harvard University. 'Working with content and discovery providers to ensure that all content, whether it is licensed or openly available, can be discovered by library users regardless of the institution's choice of discovery system is core to supporting research, teaching, and learning. The ODI Standing Committee will build on the work of the original ODI Working Group to promote content neutrality and the widespread adoption of all tenets of the recommended practice by discovery service providers, content providers, and libraries.'..."

"...More information about the ODI Standing Committee and the Open Discovery Initiative: Promoting Transparency in Discovery (NISO RP-19-2014) recommended practice are available from the Open Discovery Initiative webpage on the NISO website at: http://www.niso.org/workrooms/odi/. You may join the ODI Interest Group e-mail list at: http://www.niso.org/lists/opendiscovery/. To provide input on promotion, adoption, and maintenance of the recommended practice, send an e-mail to odi [a] niso.org."

For more information, see the full press release.

ALA and ACRL respond to Eleventh Circuit Court's encouraging "fair use" decision in Georgia State University case

October 21, 2014 — "On Friday, [October 17], the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit handed down an important decision in Cambridge University Press et al. v. Carl V. Patton et al. concerning the permissible "fair use" of copyrighted works in electronic reserves for academic courses. Although publishers sought to bar the uncompensated excerpting of copyrighted material for "e-reserves," the court rejected all such arguments and provided new guidance in the Eleventh Circuit for how "fair use" determinations by educators and librarians should best be made. Remanding to the lower court for further proceedings, the court ruled that fair use decisions should be based on a flexible, case-by-case analysis of the four factors of fair use rather than rigid "checklists" or "percentage-based" formulae."

"Courtney Young, president of the American Library Association (ALA), responded to the ruling by issuing the following statement:"

"'The appellate court's decision emphasizes what ALA, the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) and other library associations have always supported–thoughtful analysis of fair use and a rejection of highly restrictive fair use guidelines promoted by many publishers. Critically, this decision confirms the importance of flexible limitations on publisher's rights, such as fair use. Additionally, the appeals court's decision offers important guidance for reevaluating the lower courts' ruling. The court agreed that the non-profit educational nature of the e-reserves service is inherently fair, and that that teachers' and students' needs should be the real measure of any limits on fair use, not any rigid mathematical model. Importantly, the court also acknowledged that educators' use of copyrighted material would be unlikely to harm publishers financially when schools aren't offered the chance to license excerpts of copyrighted work."

"'Moving forward, educational institutions can continue to operate their e-reserve services because the appeals court rejected the publishers' efforts to undermine those e-reserve services. Nonetheless, institutions inside and outside the appeals court's jurisdiction–which includes Georgia, Florida and Alabama–may wish to evaluate and ultimately fine tune their services to align with the appeals court's guidance. In addition, institutions that employ checklists should ensure that the checklists are not applied mechanically.'"

For more information, see the full press release.

Major international associations reaffirm their support for immediate open access to research articles

October 21, 2014 — "On the occasion of Open Access Week, COAR and other international associations are reaffirming their support for immediate open access to research results."

"As organizations committed to the principle that access to information advances discovery, accelerates innovation and improves education, we endorse the policies and practices that enable Open Access – immediate, barrier free access to and reuse of scholarly articles."

"Policies that promote Open Access are increasingly being adopted world wide by research funders, academic institutions and national governments in order to improve the use and value of scholarly research. We fully support such policies and the dual avenues for implementing them: open access repositories and open access journals. These policies play an important role in creating an environment where our collective investments in research can be maximized for the benefit of the public, and for society at large."

"We urge all organizations and individuals that support immediate open access to endorse the statement available here."

For more information, see the full press release.

"Measuring Up: Assessing Use of Digital Repositories and the Resulting Impact" project receives IMLS Grant

October 21, 2014 — "OCLC Research joins Montana State University, the Association of Research Libraries, and the University of New Mexico as partners to examine the difficulties that libraries face in producing accurate reports of the use of their digital repositories through web analytics software and recommend best practices that help improve accuracy and consistency of these reports while also protecting user privacy. The group has received a $500,000 IMLS National Leadership Grant for their "Measuring Up: Assessing Use of Digital Repositories and the Resulting Impact" project, the goal of which is to provide the necessary frameworks, data models, and best practices librarians and archivists need to establish baselines, measure progress, and make informed policy decisions. Additional recommendations will include an assessment framework so that libraries may begin to measure the impact of open access institutional repositories to evaluate digital library performance and enable impact studies on author citation rates and university rankings."

"OCLC Research staff will collaborate with project partners to develop and evaluate new models of institutional repositories that are more visible to Internet search engines and more consistent across collections within and between libraries. Senior Research Scientist Jean Godby and Senior Program Officers Ricky Erway and Roy Tennant will serve on an advisory panel for the project. In addition, Research Support Specialist Jeff Mixter will spend 50% of his time for the next three years designing, developing and testing the models for the project."

For more information, see the full press release.

SPIE Digital Library continues trend with price freeze for 2015

October 21, 2014 — "Subscription prices for the SPIE Digital Library will remain frozen at current levels again next year, in keeping with a trend for steady or lower prices every year since 2009, the publisher has announced."

"'The decision is aligned with the mission of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, to ensure affordable access to its extensive collection of multidisciplinary conference proceedings and journals to the greatest number of researchers, and demonstrates its commitment to address the ongoing budgetary pressures facing libraries,' said SPIE Director of Publications Eric Pepper."

For more information, see the full press release.

IMLS Awards $1.3 for Training and Professional Development Projects

October 16, 2014 — "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) today announced grants and a cooperative agreement totaling $1,373,405 for three projects featuring training and professional development resources that will benefit library, museum, and archives professionals."

"With a $275,000 National Leadership Grant for Museums, the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) in Washington, D.C., will operate a community of practice focused on providing information, training, and support for those who care for collections in the U.S...."

"...Through a cooperative agreement and $698,605 of IMLS funding, Washington State University, Pullman, Wash., will increase the capacity of tribal archives, libraries, and museums (TALMs) to digitize and preserve cultural heritage materials in culturally responsive ways...."

"...With a $399,800 Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant, the Educopia Institute of Atlanta, Ga., in close collaboration with the Center for Creative Leadership and a wide range of leadership training stakeholders from the library, archives, and museum communities, will collaboratively establish a national Nexus Leadership Lab for library, archives, and museum (LAM) leadership training...."

For more information, see the full press release.

Parliamentary archives announces outreach project to commemorate anniversary of the 1265 parliament

October 14, 2014 announcement from Sophia Linehan, 2015 Historic Anniversaries, Communication and Partnerships Manager Houses of Parliament — "The Parliamentary Archives will engage communities across the UK with parliamentary stories that have a local resonance through an outreach project, entitled the De Montfort Project, which will take place between April and December 2015."

"Inspired by the 750th anniversary of the of the Simon de Montfort Parliament in 1265, the De Montfort Project (www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives/demontfortproject/) consists of a series of collaborative projects with regional archive services. The project explores the life and impact of local MPs and Peers on both their local area and at Parliament."

"The archives that Parliament will partner with are: Archives Heritage and Photography at the Library of Birmingham, Glamorgan Archives, Kent History and Library Centre, Norfolk Record Office, and Tyne and Wear Archives. Activities will include an exhibition, educational workshops, research groups and lectures. Results of these activities will be published as case studies on the Parliamentary website."

For more information, contact Sophia Linehan at linehans [at] parliament.uk.

IFRRO launches Value of Copyright campaign to improve level of copyright debate

CopyrightLink.org website unveiled as new online home for information on copyright

October 8, 2014 — "The International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO) has announced the launch of The Value of Copyright, a campaign designed to emphasise the importance of copyright and improve information about the protection of literary and artistic works , primarily in the text and image-based sectors."

"Inaugurating at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the campaign features a website – CopyrightLink.org – as its focal point, which aims to provide a single online access point for international and local information on copyright. The website includes news and events, relevant legislation, useful facts, details on the value of the protection of literary and artistic works, in addition to its usage and importance. It provides information on copyright issues, showcases best practices, hosts a forum for all involved to explain how copyright affects them while giving links to authoritative sources on copyright matters, including legal issues."

"Copyright is a vital source of income for those who create and invest in the content on which the digital economy depends. In addition to the contribution of the exploitation of primary rights through sales and licensing, a survey by PwC in the UK showed that some 25% of authors derive more than 60% of their income from secondary uses of their works, and that UK educational publishers depend on secondary income for some 12% of their earnings, which equates to around 19% of their investment in new works. Information such as this, which effectively highlights the vital role copyright plays in society, is publicly available, and should find its way into the current copyright debate."

For more information, see the full press release.

Open Planets Foundation is becoming the Open Preservation Foundation

October 8, 2014 announcement from Rebecca McGuinness, Community Manager, Open Planets Foundation — "The Open Planets Foundation announced today that it is changing its company name to the Open Preservation Foundation. The name change reflects the foundation's core purpose and vision in the field of digital preservation while retaining its widely-known acronym, OPF...."

"...'We feel it is the right time to change the name', explained Dr. Ross King, Chair of the OPF. 'It aligns with the new 2015-2018 strategy, which will be published in November, and makes it clear what the organisation is about now and its future intent...."

"...The change of name will come in to full effect by mid-November when the new brand and website will be unveiled."

For more information, see http://openpreservation.org/news.

Jisc enables the safe and secure sharing of medical research data

October 2, 2014 — "Jisc is enabling researchers across the UK to safely and securely share health data to progress their research with a collaborative initiative."

"This initiative is showcasing how the UK's research and education network Janet, provided by Jisc, can offer additional controls and safeguards for researchers working with sensitive data."

"Jisc is working in partnership with leading UK universities to support three new initiatives. Rather than each of the research programmes and organisations developing one-off solutions to manage collaborative secure communication and user authentication between partners, Jisc is securing the networks across the organisations so that approved researchers working in one partner organisation can gain access to the data they need wherever it is stored."

For more information, see the full press release.

The Public Knowledge Project and CrossRef Collaborate to Improve Services for Publishers using Open Journal Systems

October 2, 2014 — "CrossRef and the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) are collaborating to help publishers and journals using the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform take better advantage of CrossRef services."

"The collaboration involves an institutional arrangement between CrossRef and PKP, and new software features. Features include an improved CrossRef plugin for OJS that will automate Digital Object Identifier (DOI) deposits, as well as plans to create new tools for extracting references from submissions. To facilitate CrossRef membership, PKP has also become a CrossRef Sponsoring Entity, which will allow OJS-based publishers to join CrossRef through PKP...."

"...Journals and publishers that use OJS and that already have established a direct relationship with CrossRef, or those that have an interest in becoming members through PKP, may take advantage of the enhanced features in the new CrossRef plugin by upgrading to OJS 2.4.5. And starting now, eligible journals can apply for a PKP-sponsored CrossRef membership for free DOI support. See PKP's CrossRef page for more information."

For more information, see the full press release.

New IMLS Funding to Support the Digital Public Library of America

September 30, 2014 — "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced today a $999,485 grant to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) for a major expansion of its infrastructure. The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America's libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America's heritage, to the efforts and data of science. DPLA aims to expand this crucial realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used."

"This IMLS award builds on a 2012 IMLS grant to DPLA http://www.idevmail.net/link.aspx?l=7&d=73&mid=333844&m=2321. With new funding DPLA will pursue a major expansion of its service hubs network. The goal is to at least double the number of DPLA service hubs and to use IMLS support to encourage other funders to make DPLA service hubs available to all institutions in every state in the union."

For more information, see the full press release.

De Gruyter Open converts eight subscription journals to Open Access megajournals

September 29, 2014 — "Starting with volume 2015, De Gruyter Open will publish a group of eight Central European Journals now distributed in subscription model by Springer and turn them to Open Access. This is a move unprecedented for a group of STM journals, being supplemented by three new launches in the humanities."

"'The key motivation for this change was to build strong megajournals in all STM fields' says Dr. Sven Fund, CEO of De Gruyter. 'Our major advantage is that we build them on the basis of a group of journals that have been published for over a decade. They have rigorous peer review, high rejection rates and have earned good impact factors'. Sven Fund adds: 'The overwhelming support from the editorial boards, the increasing demand to publish research in Open Access and above all, the mandates of the funding institutions all make a strong case in favor of Open Access'."

"The publication of the Central European Journals began twelve years ago by the Polish company Versita, which was acquired and subsequently renamed by De Gruyter. Each of the journals covers one broad discipline. The journals have Nobel Prize laureates among their editorial board members and authors, such as Frank Wilczek, Elias J. Corey, Martin Karplus, Roald Hoffman, and Timothy Hunt."

For more information, see the full press release.

Call for Applications for Five IMLS Museum Grant Programs for FY 2015

September 26, 2014 — "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is accepting applications in all of its museum grant programs. The application deadline for each of these programs is December 1, 2014. For more information about these notices of funding opportunities, including instructions for completing applications, contacts, and webinar access information, click on any of the following links.

"IMLS staff members are available by phone and email to discuss general issues relating to these funding programs."

For more information, see the full press release.

National Records of Scotland Publishes its Digital Preservation Strategy

September 22, 2014 — "National Records of Scotland today publishes its Digital Preservation Strategy (411 KB, PDF). This document sets out the key elements of a five-year digital preservation programme which will allow NRS to establish a fully-functioning, sustainable digital repository that encompasses policies and procedures for reliable, controlled access to secure archival digital records."

For more information, see the full press release.

Results from OCLC Research International Linked Data Survey for Implementers Now Available

September 19, 2014 — "OCLC Research conducted an international linked data survey for implementers between 7 July and 15 August 2014 to learn details of specific projects or services that format metadata as linked data and/or make subsequent uses of it. This was an exploratory survey prompted by the OCLC Research Library Partners Metadata Managers Focus Group, who are excited by the potential of linked data applications to make new, valuable uses of existing metadata and wanted to learn from the experiences in the libraries/archives/museums community what is possible to do and how to go about it."

"Key results from the survey include:

The two main reasons why survey respondents implement linked data projects and services are to enhance their own data by consuming linked data from other sources and provide a richer experience for users.
The four linked data resources that are consumed the most by respondents are id.loc.gov, DBpedia, GeoNames and VIAF.
The two main reasons why the linked data projects/services publish linked data are to expose their data to a larger audience on the Web and to demonstrate what could be done with their datasets as linked data.
The four largest linked data datasets (with more than 1 billion triples) reported are WorldCat.org, WorldCat.org Works, Europeana and The European Library.
Much of the advice offered by implementers centered around preparations and project management."

For more information, see the full press release.

Federal Grants of $30 Million Awarded to Support Museums across the U.S.

September 18, 2014 — "Today, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced new grants for 211 museum projects, totaling $25,576,662, through its highly competitive Museums for America and National Leadership Grants for Museums programs."

"This brings total IMLS support for museum services in 2014 to $30,062,585 for 263 projects. Museums of all types benefit from this funding – art museums, science centers, aquariums, children's museums, and history museums among them. A list of recipients is available on the IMLS website...."

",,,IMLS museum grants support a wide variety of projects, including exhibits; onsite and offsite arts and education programming; projects to digitize collections; partnerships to reach underserved neighborhoods and to address community needs; projects for people with disabilities and underserved populations; conservation of threatened or fragile collections, including living collections in zoos and botanical gardens; creative physical spaces for hands-on learning; internships; makerspaces and STEM-based learning projects; and much more."

For more information, see the full press release.