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I N B R I E F
November/December 2016
Table of Contents
Cobweb: A Collaborative Collection Development Platform for Web Archives
Contributed by
Stephen Abrams1, Andrea Goethals2, and Todd Grappone3
1California Digital Library, 2Harvard Library, 3UCLA Library
Stephen.Abrams [at] ucop.edu; andrea_goethals [at] harvard.edu; grappone [at] library.ucla.edu
The California Digital Library (CDL), Harvard Library, and UCLA Library have been awarded funding by IMLS to create Cobweb, a collaborative collection development platform supporting the creation of comprehensive web archives by coordinating the independent activities of the web archiving community.
The demands of archiving the web in either comprehensive breadth or thematic depth easily exceed the technical and financial capacity of any single institution. In order to ensure that the limited resources of a given archiving program are deployed most effectively, it is important that its curators can know something about the collection development priorities and holdings of other, similarly-engaged institutions. Cobweb, https://github.com/CobwebOrg/cobweb, will meet this need by supporting three key functions: nominating, claiming, and holdings. The nomination function will let curators and stakeholders suggest web sites pertinent to specific thematic areas and provide seed-level descriptive metadata; the claiming function will allow archival programs to indicate an intention to capture some subset of nominated sites; and the holdings function will allow programs to document captured sites along with their collection-level description, structural and temporal scope, preservation policies, and terms of use.
How would Cobweb work? Imagine a fast-moving news event unfolding online via news reports, videos, blogs, and social media. Recognizing the importance of recording this event, a curator immediately creates a new Cobweb project and issues an open call for nominations of relevant web sites. Scholars, subject area specialists, interested members of the public, and event participants themselves quickly respond, contributing to a site list that is more comprehensive than could be created by any one curator or institution. Archiving institutions review the site list and publicly claim responsibility for capturing portions of it that are consistent with local collection development policies and technical capacities. After capture, the institutions' holdings information is updated in Cobweb to disclose the various collections containing newly available content. By distributing the responsibility, more content is captured more quickly with less overall effort than would otherwise be possible.
The International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC), of which all three project partners are members, has organized collaborative collecting relying on a nomination tool from the University of North Texas (UNT) and other ad hoc methods such as spreadsheets and email. While a valuable resource, the UNT tool supports nomination only and does not support other critical collecting activities; in particular, it has no mechanisms for indicating either an institution's collecting intentions or its actual holdings. Archive-It (AIT), the Internet Archive's subscription service, has been used often for cross-institutional projects. However, AIT does not have the legal, managerial, or technical infrastructure to support large-scale, cross-institutional collecting, especially when the collaborating institutions do not already have formal AIT agreements. Nevertheless, Cobweb will leverage the APIs being developed for AIT for the potential retrieval of AIT holdings information, currently comprising over 3,500 collections from 350 institutions.
Cobweb will help libraries and archives make better informed decisions regarding the allocation of their programmatic resources, and promote more effective institutional collaboration and sharing.
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, #LG-70-16-0093-16. The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Bookshare Brings Accessible Ebooks to Leading Libraries
Contributed by
Lisa Waders Verne, PhD
Program Manager: Education, Research & Partnerships
Benetech
Palo Alto, California, USA
lisaw [at] benetech.org
Bookshare, a Benetech initiative, is the world's largest online library for people who are blind, visually impaired or have a physical disability that interferes with reading, such as dyslexia. Bookshare's growing library has over 480,000 accessible ebooks and has delivered more than 10 million ebooks to 425,000 members around the world.
Bookshare partners with leading libraries, including the New York Public Library, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Free Library of Philadelphia and Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services to provide qualified library patrons free and unlimited access to the entire Bookshare collection.
All of Bookshare's ebooks can be used in a wide variety of ways, depending on user need and preference, and on nearly any computer or mobile device. Books can be enlarged on screen and read aloud using high quality text-to-speech voices. In addition, users can hear and see highlighted words on a screen and also read every book with digital braille.
Bookshare's accessible library includes a broad range of topics for all age groups and reading interests such as New York Times bestsellers, children's literature, picture books, fiction and nonfiction, scientific and technical journals, periodicals, professional publications, career guides and much more. In addition to English titles, ebooks are offered in other languages, including Spanish.
To learn more about Bookshare visit www.bookshare.org.
To explore partnership opportunities, please contact Lisa Waders Verne at lisaw [at] booksahre.org.
Sugamya Pustakalaya: The Online Library of Accessible Books in India
Contributed by
Prashant Ranjan Verma
Chairman of Sugamya Pustakalaya Committee
Daisy Forum of India
New Delhi, Delhi, India
prashant.rv [at] gmail.com
The Sugamya Pustakalaya is the aggregator of accessible versions of books available in India. This library has been created by DAISY Forum of India to provide access to books to persons with print disabilities. It is poised to become the largest collection of books in accessible formats in India and a one-stop resource for the reading requirements of all those persons who due to blindness, weak eyesight or any other disability cannot read the standard print. The software of Sugamya Pustakalaya is powered by TCS Access Infinity. The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Government of India is a key partner, and the National Talking Book Library is also hosted in Sugamya Pustakalaya platform.
Bookshare, the largest International online library for persons with print disabilities, is also integrated into Sugamya Pustakalaya. All the titles available in the Bookshare library for India can be searched and downloaded through the Sugamya Pustakalaya.
The Sugamya Pustakalaya is providing books primarily in DAISY, EPUB and BRF format. The files downloaded from this online library can be read on computers, mobile phones, tablets and dedicated eBook readers. It will soon implement DAISY online protocol for providing direct download to mobile apps and compatible DAISY hardware players.
The key stakeholders and beneficiaries of Sugamya Pustakalaya are:
- Persons with print disabilities: They get access to this library through any of the DAISY Forum of India member organizations. These individuals are able to log into the website, search for accessible format versions of books created anywhere in the country and download it to start reading.
Persons without print disabilities are not entitled to use the books downloaded from Sugamya Pustakalaya. Sharing or circulation of content downloaded from Sugamya Pustakalaya is prohibited and may lead to legal penalties.
- Organizations producing accessible content: These organizations are able to upload their books collection to the Sugamya Pustakalaya and thereby reach out to the print-disabled across the country. They get access to accessible books produced by all other Sugamya Pustakalaya participants and to a robust mechanism for storing their books and maintaining membership and book distribution data.
- Organizations serving the print impaired, Universities, schools and libraries: These organizations can take up DAISY Forum of India membership to be able to download books from the Sugamya Pustakalaya for their local members/students. They will be able to provide access to an enormous amount of accessible material like never before.
- Publishers: Mainstream publishers can take up membership of DAISY Forum of India and can directly contribute accessible versions of their publications.
These stakeholders are given login accounts on Sugamya Pustakalaya with different privileges. For example, content producers can only upload books whereas persons with print disabilities can only download books. The Sugamya Pustakalaya secretariat supervises the overall process and has the authority to register organizations and publishers.
Anyone can visit the Sugamya Pustakalaya website and view the collection of books. User account details are required only when content is to be downloaded.
For more information see the Getting Started, FAQ and Accessibility Help pages on the Sugamya Pustakalaya website at http://www.sugamyapustakalaya.in.
I N T H E N E W S
Report on Condition of State Library Administrative Agencies Now Available
November 2, 2016 — "The Institute of Museum and Library Services issued the State Library Administrative Agencies Survey: Fiscal Year 2014 report, which provides a view of the condition of state library administrative agencies in the 50 states and the District of Columbia."
"State libraries administer federal funds through the IMLS Grants to States program and play a crucial role in helping libraries within their state meet the demand for content and services by establishing statewide plans for library services, investing in technology and content, and providing support for local programming."
"While the state libraries continued to offer a wide array of library services in 2014, the study results showed a multi-year pattern of decreases in revenues, expenditures, and staffing that coincided with the Great Recession of 2007-2009. The revenue from federal, state, and other sources to state library agencies totaled $1.1 billion in FY 2014, a 17 percent decrease in revenue from FY 2004...."
"...The purpose of the survey is to provide state and federal policymakers, researchers, and other interested users with descriptive information about state library administrative agencies. The public use data files are also available on the IMLS website. This is the nineteenth release of the now biennial report since its inception in 1994."
For more information, please see the full press release.
Mellon Foundation and Digital Preservation Coalition Sponsor Formation of Task Force for Email Archives
November 1, 2016 — "The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Digital Preservation Coalition announced the formation of a Task Force on Technical Approaches for Email Archives. The task force is charged with assessing current frameworks, tools, and approaches being taken toward these critical historical sources. Christopher Prom, assistant university archivist/Andrew S. G. Turyn Endowed Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Kate Murray, IT specialist in the Technology Policy Directorate at the Library of Congress, will serve as cochairs of the task force."
"Personal correspondence has long served as an essential primary source for historians and scholars across many humanities and social science disciplines. Archives of correspondence articulate authors' lived experiences. They help future generations understand and learn from history, providing evidence of the functions and activities of governments, businesses, nonprofit organizations, families, and individuals. But today, much of that correspondence is embodied by digital materials, and particularly emails, which have proven themselves far more difficult to gather and preserve in an accessible, approachable format...."
"...The task force on Technical Approaches for Email Archives is charged to examine these issues over the next 12 months. The task force will then prepare a report of its findings, with recommendations for specific actions that archives could take within five years to create, preserve, and provide access to records of electronic correspondence."
"Participants in the task force include experts who are currently employed by Google, Microsoft, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia Universities, University of Manchester (UK), the National Archives and Records Administration, Rockefeller Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Digital Preservation Coalition, The University of Texas at Austin, University of Arizona, University of Michigan, and Artefactual Systems."
For more information, please see the full press release.
WVU receives NEH grant to host publishing institutes
October 26, 2016 — "In the ever-changing publishing landscape, multimedia publications are not without their growing pains."
"Scholars, journal editors and peer-reviewers alike are still relatively new to the process of publishing multimedia-rich work."
"West Virginia University English professor Cheryl Ball is at the forefront of ensuring they receive training to not only edit and publish multimedia-rich scholarship, but preserve it long-term."
"Through a $220,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities' Institute for Advanced Topics in Digital Humanities, Ball is developing digital publishing institutes for authors and editors to experience instruction individually tailored to their own projects...."
"...Separate institutes will be offered for authors and editors to personalize their experience. Both formats will be staffed by instructors with multiple decades of experience in digital media scholarship."
For more information, please see the full press release.
Now Available: DSpace 6.0-API Enhancements and New Features
October 25, 2016 announcement from Tim Donohue, DSpace Tech Lead for DuraSpace — "I would like to formally announce that DSpace 6.0 is now available! DSpace 6 provides significant API enhancements and new features to the DSpace platform."
"DSpace 6 features an enhanced configuration system, enhanced file storage plugins, and new quality control / healthcheck reporting features (via REST API and via email). In addition, DSpace 6 has an eye on the future, with a major Java API refactor that adds support for both UUIDs and Hibernate in our database layer. Like its predecessor, DSpace 6 continues to strive to simplify your upgrade process by automatically updating your database to 6.x compatibility (from any prior DSpace version)...."
"...For a list of all new features in DSpace 6, please see the Release Notes: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC6x/Release+Notes."
MIT task force releases preliminary "Future of Libraries" report
New library proposals meant to enhance "meaningful access to knowledge."
October 24, 2016 — "An MIT task force is releasing a preliminary report featuring a set of proposals aimed at steering MIT's library system toward becoming an 'open global platform' enabling the 'discovery, use, and stewardship of information and knowledge' for future generations."
"The report, based on a year of work since the formation of the task force, contains general recommendations intended to develop 'a global library for a global university,' while strengthening the library system's relationship with the local academic community and public sphere...."
"...The task force is continuing to consult widely with the broader MIT community to refine its proposals. The preliminary report is intended to continue that dialogue, and to elicit additional input on the vision and recommendations it contains."
For more information, please see the full press release.
Ingenta launches new Open Access platform
October 20, 2016 — "Ingenta, the leading software provider to the publishing industry, today launches Ingenta Open, a new hosting platform solution and discovery portal designed exclusively for Open Access content."
"With an increasing amount of Open Access content being published, much of which is indexed across a variety of sites or stored away in institutional repositories, Ingenta Open is a new central hub and browsing service for researchers, students and the general public specifically seeking Open Access resources."
"The platform hosts content from all scholarly disciplines and caters for multiple formats, including whole books, chapters, monographs, single articles and entire journals. It will eventually provide access to millions of Open Access articles, whether they are hosted on the platform itself, indexed via third party services such as DOAJ & OAPEN."
"Ingenta Open provides users with access without any registration requirements, while offering a clean and responsive design, a simple interface and an easy-to-use search function."
For more information, please see the full press release.
Provide your input for future NISO publications priorities
October 17, 2016 announcement from NISO — "NISO, the National Information Standards Organization, is undertaking a substantive review of our publications portfolio to determine our best focus and attention in the future. To help us fully understand the broader impacts of the various standards, recommended practices, technical reports, white papers and other documents that NISO has published, we want include as much community input to this process as possible."
"All community members are invited to participate in our publications portfolio survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/niso-portfolio. The survey will be open through November 20...."
"...Your input to this survey, which will solicit your knowledge and attitudes about our varied publications, sorted by type, would be gratefully received. More than one representative from an organization may fill it out, as we recognize that there may be various perspectives represented, and we appreciate these! We anticipate that it will take 20-25 minutes to fill out the survey. You may pause the survey and come back to it at a later time, if you are using the same computer and browser."
"Please feel free to email any questions to nisohq [at] niso.org."
CLIR Receives $2.7 Million for New Program to Preserve Recordings at Risk
October 13, 2016 — "The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) $2,725,000 for a regranting program to digitize 'at risk' audio and audiovisual materials of high scholarly value. The program will run four competitions between January 2017 and September 2018, awarding a total of $2.3 million."
"Audio and audiovisual recordings document vital, irreplaceable aspects of twentieth and twenty-first century life, but substantial proportions of this legacy will be lost because of the fragility and obsolescence of audio and audiovisual media. Digital reformatting is currently the best available solution for ensuring the survival and utility of recorded content in a variety of formats...."
"...To help develop guidelines and criteria for the new regranting program, CLIR will issue a pilot call for proposals, in partnership with the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), in January 2017. The pilot call will focus only on the reformatting of magnetic audio media to be digitized through NEDCC's newly implemented audio preservation service. NEDCC will assist with marketing the call for proposals and work closely with CLIR on advising applicants, but CLIR will convene an independent review panel to assess applications. After the review, CLIR will disburse a total of $150,000, in awards ranging from $5,000 to $25,000, to cover direct costs of audio reformatting services provided by NEDCC."
"Following the initial competition for audio reformatting at NEDCC, CLIR will launch a series of three open competitions, disbursing $2.15 million in funds over two years. Calls for proposals will be issued in June 2017, December 2017, and May 2018. Awards from the open competitions will range from $10,000 to $50,000 and will cover direct costs of preservation reformatting for audio and audiovisual content by eligible institutions working independently or with qualified service providers. To make their determinations, CLIR's review panel will assess the potential scholarly or public impact of proposed projects, the urgency of undertaking those projects, the viability of applicants' plans for long-term preservation, and the overall cost-effectiveness of the proposals."
For more information, please see the full press release.
Libraries and Museums Advance the Digital Humanities: New Grant Opportunity
October 7, 2016 — "Nearly 10 years ago, IMLS partnered with the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to launch the Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant program. Over the last decade, this program has provided seed money to projects that have had a significant impact on the digital tools and services offered by libraries and museums. For example, they have supported work on digital forensics and born digital archival material, crowdsourcing transcription for special collections, exploring computational methods for identifying and describing content, and developing new methods for managing temporal metadata for collections."
"All of these projects directly inform and support IMLS's commitment to improve the National Digital Platform for libraries and museums. The National Digital Platform is the combination of software applications, social and technical infrastructure, and staff expertise that provide digital content, collections, and related services to users in the US. Through grants at a variety of levels across its programs, IMLS has funded a number of projects that contribute to digital humanities work at libraries. This funding has supported projects that capture and mine social media data, convene scholars and other specialists in planning digital collections projects, expand librarians' expertise in data mining, and other related projects...."
"...Full proposals for this program are due January 11, 2017 (for projects beginning September 2017). Applicants will submit their proposals to NEH, but if they have any questions regarding IMLS involvement, they may contact either Trevor Owens (tjowens [at] imls.gov or Emily Reynolds (ereynolds [at] imls.gov."
For more information, please see the full press release.
New grants program will fund six community-led projects
Selected from a field of thirteen applications, the projects focus on software, offline outreach, and research
October 7, 2016 blog posting by By Alex Wang and Marti Johnson, Wikimedia Foundation — "We are excited to announce the successful grantees from the first round of the Wikimedia Foundation's new Project Grants program."
"Project Grants support individuals, groups and organizations to implement new experiments and proven ideas, whether focused on building a new tool or gadget, organizing a better process on your wiki, researching an important issue, coordinating an editathon series or providing other support for community-building."
"The Project Grants committee will score three rounds of grant proposals this fiscal year year according to specified selection criteria. The original pilot was to accept proposals quarterly, but this schedule is proving to be too compressed, especially considering the upcoming Movement Strategy work. We have also found that the new Rapid Grants program, which has a rolling submission deadline, is fulfilling a large part of the community's funding needs. We are continuing to assess the new grants programs and how they meet the needs of the community and align with Foundation's resources and capacity."
For more information, please see the full blog posting.
IMLS and COSLA Announce Project to Develop Public Library Data and Outcomes Action Plan
"Measures that Matter" seeks broad input to improve ability to tell public library value through data
October 7, 2016 — "The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) have begun a project to examine, evaluate, and map the landscape of public library data collection in the United States. The Measures that Matter project will develop a Library Data and Outcomes Action Plan with key library stakeholder groups for a more coordinated approach to the collection of public library data nationally. The project's ultimate goal is to effect a framework within which outcomes, outputs, and indicators can be drawn upon to consistently and effectively demonstrate the role, value, and impact of public libraries."
"Thousands of public libraries diligently contribute to data collection efforts each year. While the value of data collection to measure library impact is broadly recognized, concerns have emerged about the proliferation of surveys in recent years. There is a lack of coordination between collecting organizations, resulting in a greater burden for local libraries, duplication of efforts, and uncertainty about the sustainability and long-term access to data."
"'Measures that Matter' is a first step aimed at building bridges between data collection activities of various organizations. It will engage broadly with the library field and promote a greater understanding of the issues related to library data. And it will help ensure that data collected reflects the 21st century library."
For more information, please see the full press release.
XSEDE allocations awarded to 155 research teams across U.S.
October 5, 2016 — "XSEDE has awarded more than $16M worth of compute resources to 155 research projects. This is the first cohort of allocations awardees after the announcement of a 5-year renewal of XSEDE by the National Science Foundation to expand access to the nation's cyberinfrastructure ecosystem."
"Through these allocations, research teams gain access to digital scholarship resources and guidance from experts across the country to help achieve their research objectives in a wide range of domains. XSEDE-allocated resources and services include, specifically, time on supercomputers, data storage and Extended Collaborative Support Service (ECSS) help. Most research teams located at a U.S.-based institution – be they in academia, government or industry – and publishing the results openly are eligible to submit allocations requests to XSEDE...."
"...Most research teams in any field based in the United States can submit an allocation request for XSEDE resources to help further their work in open research. Work done with the help of XSEDE resources has included research in agriculture, molecular dynamics, and meteorology. Additionally, XSEDE helped with production of the results from 2016's LIGO discovery of gravitational waves, research that led to changes in the way trading is done on Wall Street, and an investigation into the history of the lives of black women."
"Researchers interested in the types of compute resources available through an XSEDE allocation can find an updated list of various types of supercomputers and clusters, and their specifications, here: https://www.xsede.org/resources/overview."
For more information, please see the full press release.
OCLC and Internet Archive work together to ensure future sustainability of Persistent URLs
September 27, 2016 — "OCLC and Internet Archive today announced the results of a year-long cooperative effort to ensure the future sustainability of purl.org. The organizations have worked together to build a new sustainable service hosted by Internet Archive that will manage persistent URLs and sub-domain redirections for purl.org, purl.com, purl.info and purl.net."
"Since its introduction by OCLC in 1995, purl.org has become a key part of the Web, providing a source of Persistent URLs (PURLs) that redirect users to the correct hosting location for documents, data and websites as they change over time...."
"...All previous PURL definitions have been transferred to Internet Archive and can continue to be maintained by their owners through a new web-based interface located at http://www.archive.org/services/purl. Continued sustainability, a new modern administration interface, and the removal or redirection of invalid URLs to a historical snapshot are significant improvements that both organizations welcome in this new service."
For more information, please see the full press release.
IMLS Announces $2.2 Million for New STEMeX Grant Initiative
Four Recipients Will Lead Projects Examining STEM Programs for Children and Families
September 26, 2016 — "As part of a new effort to help create a foundation for increasing STEM learning in museum and library programs, the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced today that three universities and a museum will receive awards totaling $2,218,264 through its STEMeX grant initiative."
"The program sought proposals for design-based research projects to study public programs delivered by STEM experts to children, ages 6-10, and their families in museum and library settings. Response from the field was overwhelming, with IMLS receiving 37 applications requesting $29 million...."
"...The four recipients are:
- High Desert Museum, Bend, Oregon
- George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
- Loyola University of Chicago, Illinois
- Pennsylvania State University"
For more information, please see the full press release.
2016-2017 Class of National Digital Stewardship Residents Selected
September 21, 2016 — "The Library of Congress, in conjunction with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, has named five members to the 2016-2017 class of the National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR) program. The 12-month program begins in late September 2016."
"The NDSR program offers recent master's-degree graduates and doctoral candidates in specialized fields-library science, information science, museum studies, archival studies and related technology-the opportunity to gain valuable professional experience in digital preservation. Residents will start the program with digital stewardship workshops at the Library of Congress, followed by specialized project work at one of five host institutions in the greater Washington, D.C. region. The projects will allow them to acquire hands-on knowledge and skills regarding collection, selection, management, long-term preservation and accessibility of digital assets."
"George Coulbourne, chief of Internship and Fellowship Programs at the Library of Congress, announced that the five residents and their host institutions for 2016-2017 are:
- Meredith Broadway of Dallas, Texas
- Joseph Carrano of Middlebury, Connecticut
- Elizabeth England of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Amy Gay of Binghamton, New York
- Megan Potterbusch of Nashville, Tennessee"
For more information, please see the full press release.
Launch of Research Data Services and Deep Blue Data
September 20, 2016 — "The University of Michigan Library is launching a suite of services as well as a repository that will support researchers throughout all phases of the research data lifecycle, which includes planning, creation, organization, sharing and preservation."
"This coordinated approach to research data is critical to maximizing the benefits of the $1.3 billion that U-M researchers expend annually, and to ensuring compliance with the growing number of data management and sharing mandates applied by government and other funders...."
"...There are more than 50 librarians, informationists, and staff working on this initiative, with expertise ranging from the creation of data management plans, metadata schematics, publication, visualization, and preservation."
"Deep Blue Data is an expansion of Deep Blue, the university's institutional repository which was established in 2006 and currently holds more than 110,000 deposits."
For more information, please see the full press release.
ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels announces retirement
September 20, 2016 — "American Library Association Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels announced today that he will retire in July 2017."
"Fiels has led ALA since 2002, making him one of the longest-serving executive directors in the Association's history...."
"...ALA President Julie B. Todaro and the other officers have been working with Fiels to ensure a smooth transition and expect the selection process for the next executive director to take through next summer. 'Over the next couple of weeks, I will be providing everyone with an update on the process by which the Board will work with Council, membership, and staff to select our next executive director. We will keep everyone well informed as we move ahead,' Fiels said."
For more information, please see the full press release.
NIST Grants Take Regional Approach to Solve National Cybersecurity Challenge
September 20, 2016 — "The U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded grants totaling nearly $1 million for five projects that are taking a community approach to addressing the nation's shortage of skilled cybersecurity employees. The NIST-led National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), a partnership between government, academia and the private sector, will oversee the grants as part of its mission to support cybersecurity education, training and workforce development...."
"...A 2015 analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Stanford University's Peninsula Press found that there were more than 209,000 open cybersecurity positions (link is external) in the United States, and the number of job postings had risen 74 percent in the previous five years."
"NIST will fund five nonprofit organizations to establish partnerships to increase the pipeline of students pursuing cybersecurity careers, help more Americans attain the skills they need for well-paying jobs in cybersecurity, and support local economic development to stimulate job growth. The partnerships will align the workforce needs of local business and nonprofit organizations with the learning objectives of the NICE Workforce Framework."
"The Regional Alliances and Multistakeholder Partnerships to Stimulate Cybersecurity and Workforce Development, or RAMPS, projects will run for 15 months. By design, they align with the NICE objective of facilitating state and regional consortia to address local cybersecurity workforce needs."
For more information, please see the full press release.
Now streaming: Newly discovered film at Indiana University aids Library of Congress in restoring landmark production
September 19, 2016 — "An intern's summer discovery at IU Libraries' Moving Image Archive will influence a one-of-a-kind restoration."
"Imagine the Ovoid Theater at the 1964 New York World's Fair. Situated in the IBM pavilion, it floats dozens of feet over visitors' heads. Inside, it is configured with 22 multi-sized screens where visitors experience 'Think,' a landmark production by Ray and Charles Eames."
"Now, more than 50 years later, a newly discovered home movie in the Edward and Naomi Feil Collection at IU Libraries' Moving Image Archive is helping the Library of Congress bring "Think" back to life...."
"...A digitized version now streams online, thanks to the weeks of effort by staff and interns such as Anen. Reflecting on his time with the Feil Collection Anen said, 'Inventorying the films was a fascinating and moving experience for me, not only as a media archivist but as a human. I had the chance to examine the artistic process of a filmmaker whose passion for cinema burned so hot that even his home life seemed like a film set.'..."
"...IU Libraries' Moving Image Archive is one of the largest and most comprehensive film collections held by an American academic library, with more than 100,000 items spanning eight decades of film production."
For more information, please see the full press release.
The Lilead Project Receives IMLS Grant to Expand Fellows Program
September 8, 2016 — "The University of Maryland's College of Information Studies, Maryland's iSchool, has received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to support a second cohort of 25 Lilead Fellows and create the Lilead Leaders program. Awarded as part of the 2016 Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian program, the iSchool will partner with the Darden College of Education at Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA) to carry out the expanded program."
"Applications for the Lilead Fellows Program will open in January 2017. Like their predecessors, the second cohort of library supervisors will receive professional development (PD) to help them tackle challenging and pressing issues in their districts and work toward transformational change to support student success. The Lilead Project team also will develop a series of professional education courses designed for school library leaders across the country. The Lilead Leaders Program will be available to individuals at building and district levels who seek to be activists and advocates for school libraries. The short, online courses for school library leaders will focus on strengths-based leadership, transformational change, effective communication strategies, and evidence-based practice...."
"...The application process for the Lilead Fellows and the Lilead Leaders Programs will be announced at the 2017 American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in January. For more information about the application process and updates about the Program, visit http://lileadproject.org."
For more information, please see the full press release.
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