News from the Field
C&RL News, January 2006
Vol. 67, No. 1
by Stephanie Orphan
SOLINET and partners to evaluate needs of hurricane-affected libraries
In partnership with libraries, state agencies, and libraries throughout the region, SOLINET will perform a two-month evaluation of the libraries impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and, in February 2006, present a set of recommendations for long-term recovery. Partners in the effort include state libraries and archives in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas; Amigos Library Services; the Louisiana Library Network; and other state-based consortia serving impacted libraries. SOLINET will be coordinating evaluation efforts on behalf of other cultural organizations to share information and identify opportunities for joint recovery activity.
HBCU Library Alliance launches redesigned Web site
The HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Library Alliance has redesigned its Web site. The comprehensive site encompasses all of the libraries in the HBCU community and connects HBCU and other librarians with the orientation, goals, and programs of the HBCU Library Alliance. Features of the redesigned site included links to the Web sites of all HBCU libraries; information about the Leadership Program; information on the Digital Project, a joint venture with Cornell University Library, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to lay the foundation for a future collaborative HBCU digital library; and the HBCU Library Alliance blog. Visit the new site at www.hbculibraries.org.
EBSCO named one of EContent magazine’s “Companies that Matter Most”
EBSCO Information Services has been recognized in the fifth annual EContent 100, EContent magazine’s list of the companies that matter most in the digital content industry. The company has appeared in the EContent 100 annually since the inaugural list was published in 2001. EBSCO provides services for the access and management of electronic journals, databases and packages, as well as traditional print subscriptions. EBSCO was listed in the “fee-based info services” category, along with such companies as Factiva, ProQuest Information and Learning, RLG, Springer Science+Business Media, Swets Information Services, and the Thomson Corporation.
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ACRL e-learning opportunities are just a click away ACRL’s WebCT-based e-Learning seminars were developed to provide academic and research librarians with affordable, flexible professional development opportunities. All Users Are Local: Bringing the Library Next Door to the Campus Worldwide (January 30-February 18) Current Copyright Issues Facing Academic Librarians (February 6-28) Assessing Student Learning Outcomes (February 13-March 4) For more information, including a complete list of ACRL e-Learning opportunities, registration fees, and links to online registration forms, visit www.acrl/org/e-learning. |
Thomson Scientific offers citation index of repository content
Thomson Scientific has launched Web Citation Index, a multidisciplinary citation index of scholarly content from institutional and subject-based repositories. The index provides users with citation-based access to preprints, technical reports, dissertations proceedings, and other grey literature. Web Citation Index adds cited reference searching to Web-based documents, allowing researchers to navigate forward, backward, and through the literature to discover related research. Web Citation Index was developed through a collaborative program between Thomson Scientific, NEC Laboratories America, and seven major institutions. Thomson Scientific content editors select only those Web repositories deemed scholarly to ensure that the index delivers only high-quality, relevant content.
Colorado State assists LSU during Katrina recovery
Colorado State University (CSU) has begun sharing its article delivery service, RapidILL, with Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge to help it meet increased demand following Hurricane Katrina. LSU opened its doors to students and faculty from Tulane University, the University of New Orleans, and Xavier University after the institutions were shut down due to damage caused by the storm. This has made it challenging for the library to supply materials needed to meet the research and academic requirements of its new students and faculty. Through CSU’s RapidILL, member university libraries users can receive articles from the holdings of research libraries around the country, directly on their computer. LSU was brought into the Academic and Research Library Pod at “borrower only” status, giving the institution access to materials free of charge from 19 member institutions. The RapidILL article delivery system was developed at CSU in response to campus document delivery needs following a 1997 flood.
Amnesty International USA Archive to be housed at Columbia
Columbia University’s Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research (CHRDR) has been selected as the depository institution for the Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) Archive. The archive is a comprehensive collection of documents representing 40 years of the organization’s research, reporting, and activism in support of human rights. It includes mission reports, case file, oral histories, photographs, videos, DVDs, banners, and other materials. CHRDR archives will be administered by Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
The AIUSA archives are currently being transferred from Norlin Library at the University of Colorado-Boulder, where they have been maintained since 1994 as part of a comprehensive human rights collection, Human Rights Initiative, which is being discontinued. Columbia was selected for its academic focus on international human rights, as well as its libraries strong programs in preservation, digital library development, and electronic publishing.
Papers of Ella T. Grasso, Connecticut’s first woman governor, open to public at Mt. Holyoke
The Ella T. Grasso papers, housed at the Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections, have been processed and are now open to the public. Grasso, an alumnnus of Mt. Holyoke, was the first woman governor of Connecticut and the first woman governor elected in her own right (1974). She was reelected in 1978 but resigned from office in 1980 due to illness. Grasso also served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1970 to 1974; the bulk of the documents in the collection date from those years. The collection provides primary sources on veteran affairs, the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon’s impeachment, family planning and birth control, and education legislation.
Springer partners with the Association for Educational Communications and Technology
The Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) and Springer have announced a new partnership to publish two journals in the field of education. As of 2006, Springer has taken on the role of publisher and exclusive distributor of Educational Technology Research and Development and Tech Trends. The number of issues of Educational Technology Research and Development will increase from four to six per year.
Info lit colloquium creates Alexandria Proclamation
As a follow up to the first International Information Literacy Meeting of Experts held in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 2003, a High Level Colloquium on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning was held at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt on November 6-9, 2005. Building on the 2003 report, “The Prague Declaration: Towards an Information Literate Society,” 30 participants from 17 countries representing 6 major geographic regions were invited to assess the progress and opportunities for implementation of the report’s recommendations.
One result of the meeting was “The Alexandria Proclamation on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning.” The document is available on the IFLA Web site at www.ifla.org/III/wsis/BeaconInfSoc.html. The full report on the Alexandria colloquium, with a set of detailed recommendations, will be available in February.
Swets completes SUSHI testing
Working as part of the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI), Swets Information Services has successfully completed integration tests of its Electronic Resource Management statistics with Innovative Interfaces and Ex Libris. The statistics transferred in these tests were all compliant with the internationally recognized
COUNTER format. SUSHI is an initiative created by the National Information Standards Organization that aims to solve the challenge of how librarians can track usage of online content. Its goal is to provide a protocol that will enable libraries to retrieve and analyze statistics from multiple content providers in a standard data container.
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Correction In the December 2005 issue of C&RL News, Rob Withers was inadvertently listed as sole author of the article “Something wiki this way comes.” The article was also coauthored by Kris Buell, help desk coordinator, and Rob Casson, computing and information services specialist, of Miami University. The editors regret the error. |
Penn State Libraries reach out to rugby teams
As part of Penn State Rugby’s Academic Support Program, rugby players at the university were each recently connected with his or her own resource librarian. The support program seeks to access and make the best use of resources on campus for the women’s and men’s rugby teams, which works well with the libraries goal to “enhance the user’s experience with the Libraries by becoming a more user-centered and responsive organization.”
Innovative launches new OPAC platform
Innovative Interfaces is launching a new online public access platform, WebPAC Pro, which is being offered as an option to all Millennium customers free of charge as part of the 2006 Millennium release. WebPAC Pro offers improved information retrieval using RightResult search technology and enhanced display functionality, which includes more opportunities for customization of content and features. Highlights include campus integration functionality and advanced RSS tools.
Docutek ERes integrates with Copyright Clearance Center
Docutek ERes, the electronic reserves system of SirsiDynix, now features a seamless integration with Copyright Clearance Center’s rights licensing database. The new release allows users to quickly search, obtain, and modify permission when posting materials on reserve without leaving Docutek ERes.
Readex and Dartmouth partner to digitize congressional holdings
Readex, a publisher of online historical collections, is partnering with Dartmouth College Library to digitize directly from its holdings of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set and American State Papers, rather than from microform editions. The digital editions are part of the Readex Archive of Americana, a Web-based family of historical collections containing books, broadsides, newspapers, and government publications. They feature extensive indexing and bibliographic records. The Dartmouth holdings are being scanned with multiple APT Bookscan 1200 machines from Kirtas Technologies to ensure accurate full-color, high-resolution images.
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ACRL/ARL to hold first Institute for Scholarly Communication: July 12-16, 2006 ACRL and the Association for Research Libraries (ARL) are jointly sponsoring the Institute for Scholarly Communication as an immersive learning experience to prepare participants as local experts within their libraries and equip them with tools for developing campus outreach strategies. The institute will be held July 12–14, 2006, at the University of California-Los Angeles. Participants in this 2.5 day immersion program will become fluent with scholarly communication issues and trends so that they are positioned to educate others on their library staff, engage in campus communications programs and other advocacy efforts, and work collaboratively with other participants to begin developing an outreach plan for their campus. Participants will work with experts in the field to understand how to better engage faculty at their institution around the crisis in the system of scholarly communication. They will also learn about the emergence of new models for scholarly communication as well as strategies for creating systemic change. These will include: • Faculty activism (e.g., editorial board control, author rights, copyright management, and self-archiving) Who should apply? Application and registration |