New & Noteworthy
Article Type: New & Noteworthy From: Library Hi Tech News, Volume 25, Issue 9.
Interactive Art Installation Unveiled at Bennington's Crossett Library
Bennington Bookmarks, a collaborative art installation, was unveiled at an opening reception at Bennington College's Crossett Library in May 2008. Bennington Bookmarks is the product of collaboration between Bennington College visual arts faculty member Robert Ransick, computing faculty member Joe Holt and nine Bennington students in their course The Augmented Library: A Site Specific Installation.
“This is a piece that exists, becomes real, only when people engage with it. I'm very interested in moments that transcend the everyday”, says Ransick. “I'm interested in making pieces that provide opportunities for creative experiences in places where you don't expect it”.
Bennington Bookmarks are gently glowing beacons – conceived, designed and produced by the class – that Crossett Library patrons can attach to books, DVDs and VHS tapes to signal that somebody has left a message about the material. They are a mix of new and old technologies: three-dimensional computer modeled forms containing microcontrollers and LED lights that are attached to books by hand-sewn, embroidered wool felt bookmarks. Patrons can access messages at one of three touch-enabled Bookmark Stations installed in the library. These stations connect to library databases, and, in this way, the installation functions as a dynamic, evolving portrait of the Bennington community over time.
The idea for Bookmarks grew out of the class's year-long inquiry into how technology can enhance, augment or change the dynamics of how people interact with information, space and one another within a library. During the Fall 2007 term, the class studied artistic and design precedents; read a range of texts,from Jorge Luis Borges' The Library of Babel to Adam Greenfield's Everyware;closely examined and mapped library usage; and brainstormed ways to encourage new interactions in the library, focusing on books and our love of them. Bennington Bookmarks was conceived during this time.
“We wanted to make something that would encourage visitors to explore areas of the library they may have overlooked and to share their ideas about what they've read and seen”, Ransick explains.
During the Spring 2008 term, the class produced Bennington Bookmarks. Logistically complex, the project required expertise across design, computer programming, prototyping – even artisan skills such as cabinet-making,sewing and embroidery. The class self-identified individual strengths and interests, which resulted in two teams: one focused on technology and the other on design. Ransick and Holt led the teams.
In this spirit of exchange, the Bookmarks artwork is completely open source and available for anyone to adopt under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Bennington Bookmarks was created with open source tools, including Processing, JRuby and Arduino microcontrollers. They will be releasing all of their source code and instructions in the future.
This project and course was the first initiative of the Crossett Library Fellows Program, launched in 2007 as part of a $275,000 grant the College received from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in support of the library. The purpose of the Fellows Program is to create dialogues and projects that expand the role of the library within the Bennington College community, as well as highlight the importance of libraries in contemporary society. Next year, the Fellows Program will support a project related to commercial publishing and the following year, copyright.
Bennington Bookmarks: http://bookmarks.bennington.edu
Upgraded WebJunction Interface Released
WebJunction, the online learning community for librarians and library staff,has launched a new social and learning experience in close collaboration with partners in 15 state libraries. The new site builds on the repository of helpful content, relevant courses and active discussions that have been the core of WebJunction since 2003.
The new capabilities make it easier for librarians and staff to:
connect with friends, peers and colleagues from across the library community using powerful new social tools such as friends, public profiles, groups,discussions, tagging and recommendations;
create their own content, conversations and spontaneous communities with fast, fun and easy-to-use tools;
learn the skills they need to thrive in their careers with new and more flexible online courses covering general business, technical and library skills,complimented by powerful social and learning management tools that add depth to the experience.
Originally launched five years ago with support from the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation, OCLC and partners from across the library community,WebJunction has grown to over 30,000 registered members and has delivered thousands of courses.
Along with the new central site, 15 state libraries launched branded WebJunction portals for libraries and staff in their states. Eleven existing partners migrated their prior sites to the new platform over the past few months: Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records; Connecticut State Library; Illinois State Library; Indiana State Library; State Library of Iowa;State Library of Kansas; Maine State Library; WebJunction Minnesota, a statewide partnership between Metronet, MINITEX and Minnesota State Library Services; New Hampshire State Library; Vermont Department of Libraries and the Washington State Library.
WebJunction has also announced that four new state library portals are launching for the first time: Georgia Public Library Service, the Idaho Commission for Libraries, the State Library of Ohio and Rhode Island Office of Library & Information Services.
To see a complete list of links to WebJunction partner portals, visit www.webjunction.org/partners
University of Ottawa, Endeca Partner to Deliver Bilingual Library Interface
Endeca Technologies, Inc., an information access software company, and The University of Ottawa have announced that The University of Ottawa Library has selected the Endeca® Information Access Platform to serve as the foundation for a new resource-discovery system. The system will support an enhanced user experience across a broad range of information resources.
The University of Ottawa Library will be the first bilingual (French/English)Endeca powered library interface in North America. The new application will take advantage of a range of information access features, including search, Guided Navigation® and Content Spotlighting capabilities and more, to facilitate the discovery of resources from the Library's 4,500,000 items in its holdings in Arts and Sciences, Law and Health Sciences, catalogue, website,Institutional Repository and various other collections and databases. As a result, it will draw together into a single framework a vast array of information that supports the research, teaching and learning activities of the university.
As North America's oldest and largest bilingual university, the University of Ottawa offers a unique setting for cultural interaction and understanding for students from Canada and abroad. The University is committed to providing higher education and research opportunities in both official languages.
The project, slated to start in September 2008, will be the one of the most extensive Endeca projects of its kind in the library space to date.
More information: www.endeca.com/byIndustry/media/libraries.html
Leeds Equity Partners Acquires Ex Libris Group
Ex LibrisTM Group, a leading provider of library automation solutions announced in August 2008 that Leeds Equity Partners had completed the acquisition of the Ex Libris Group. Leeds Equity Partners, LLC, the New York-based private equity firm, manages the largest private equity fund in the USA focused on investments in the education, training and related business services and information industries (“Knowledge Industries”).
“We have been following with great interest the evolution of Ex Libris and its continued success in performance and have identified it as a leader in the library industry and an excellent investment”, explains Robert Bernstein, co-founder of Leeds Equity Partners. “Ex Libris is headed by a strong executive management team guided by a solid short- and long-term product strategy. We have full confidence that, led by this team, Ex Libris will maintain its position as the leading provider of automation solutions to academic, research, and national libraries around the world. Leeds Equity Partners looks forward to accompanying Ex Libris Group in the continued development of the Company and its exceptional suite of solutions”.
“Ex Libris is pleased to become a Leeds Equity portfolio company”,comments Matti Shem Tov, Ex Libris Group president and CEO. “The financial and industry strength that Leeds brings to the company will be invaluable in our continued growth – technological and global. Whereas the Ex Libris corporate structure will remain unaltered, this change in ownership will provide Ex Libris with additional resources for accelerating our current and future product strategies and our plans for international expansion”.
Leeds Equity Partners website: www.leedsequity.com/
Ex Libris website: www.exlibrisgroup.com
Google Launches Chrome
On September 2, Google Inc. launched Google ChromeTM, a new open source browser intended to create a better web experience for users around the world. Available in beta in more than 40 languages, Google Chrome is a new approach to the browser that is based on the simplicity and power that users have come to expect from Google products.
In the early days of the internet, web pages were frequently little more than text. But today the web has evolved into a powerful platform that enables users to collaborate with friends and colleagues through email and other web applications, edit documents, watch videos, listen to music, manage finances and much more.
Google Chrome was designed to make it easy for users to search and navigate the web for the content they are looking for. Chrome includes features to improve the users' experience, including:
A combined search and address bar quickly takes users where they want to go,often in just a few keystrokes.
When users open a new tab in Google Chrome, they will see a page that includes snapshots of their most-visited sites, recent searches and bookmarks,making it even easier to navigate the web.
In addition, Google Chrome was engineered with a multi-process platform that helps provide users with enhanced stability and security:
Each browser tab operates as a separate process; by isolating tabs, should one tab crash or misbehave, others remain stable and responsive, and users can continue working without having to restart Google Chrome.
Google also built a new JavaScript engine, V8, which not only speeds up today's web applications, but enables a whole new class of web applications that could not exist on today's browsers.
To further advance the openness of the web, Google Chrome is being released as an open source project under the name Chromium. The intent is that Google will help make future browsers better by contributing the underlying technology in Google Chrome to the market, while continuing to develop additional features.
Google Chrome for Mac and Linux users will be available in the coming months.
Google Chrome can be downloaded at: www.google.com/chrome
For more information on the open source project, Chromium: www.chromium.org
Sony Donates e-book Readers to Penn State Study
This fall, Penn State University Libraries and the English Department will begin a yearlong pilot project with student groups using the Sony Reader Digital Book, a portable electronic reading device that can hold books, audio files and other downloaded materials. Sony donated 100 of the devices to the libraries for the project that will test the utility of e-books in a higher education environment. The study will explore the potential of the Sony Readers in a variety of settings, including the libraries' leisure reading program,undergraduate and graduate classrooms, academic research projects and as a service for people with disabilities.
While the Sony Reader Digital Book can hold more than 100 complete electronic books, in addition to personal and work files in formats such as Microsoft Word,Adobe PDF and others, it was originally designed for the broad consumer market,not the academic user community. According to Robin Schulze, head of the Department of English, “We want to be at the front end of this new technology and to help Sony's technology team create a product that will be useful for how our students work with literature”. Schulze and Stuart Selber, associate professor of English and director of composition, will work with undergraduate and graduate students in the Department of English to study how the Sony Readers can be effectively used in a research environment as well as the impact of such devices on the practice and experience of reading itself.
Anne Behler, information literacy librarian, and Binky Lush, database specialist, are heading the libraries' initiatives. During this fall semester,five Sony Readers will be available for borrowing in the Libraries' Course Reserve Reading Room. The readers will be loaded with titles from five categories: best-selling fiction, best-selling nonfiction, science fiction and fantasy, “books that are movies” and award winners. Each reader will have up to 15 books in the selected theme and can be borrowed for a month. As part of this initiative, patrons will have the opportunity to participate in a survey intended to help the libraries and Sony understand how people use the Sony Readers.
Behler said, “The Sony Reader and e-books have the potential to change everything from book acquisitions to the way patrons interact with library collections. It's very exciting for the University Libraries to be at the forefront of this new, largely uncharted territory”.
Behler also will use the Sony Reader in the Libraries' first-year seminar class, which is designed to help freshmen develop key information literacy skills. During the fall semester, Sony Readers will be used in this class to provide access to current materials, with the aim of creating a more dynamic and engaging environment. Later in the academic year other groups will work with the Sony Readers, including Susan Hayya, head of Library Services for People with Disabilities.
Full press release: http://live.psu.edu/story/34333/rss30
University System of Ohio Offers eTextbook Discounts Via Portal
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut announced in August 2008 that the University System of Ohio will offer a discount on electronic books in an agreement with the nation's leading publishers and will reward faculty who find innovative ways to hold down the price of textbooks. The discounts on electronic books and the monetary rewards to faculty members will lead to further savings for students in the future.
The University System of Ohio sponsored a symposium in April 2008 on textbook affordability as part of the stated goal in Chancellor Fingerhut's ten-year strategic plan for higher education to hold down costs for college students who are struggling to afford an education.
Through a partnership with CourseSmart, a provider of electronic textbooks from the six largest commercial publishers in the USA, the University System of Ohio will offer half or more off the print price of the majority of active textbooks from these publishers to students enrolled in public and private colleges and universities and adult learning programs.
This is the first partnership between a university system and CourseSmart,which will offer nearly all of its digital textbooks at discounts of 50-55 per cent off the new print price list. CourseSmart currently offers more than 4,000 titles, and over time more text books will be included in the program so that the opportunity for student savings will increase. Using the http://textbooks.uso.eduportal, developed by staff at OhioLINK utilizing drupal, students can purchase textbooks from CourseSmart's catalogue. Students will also have the opportunity to save through CourseSmart at campus bookstores participating in the program. The etexbook portal also allows students to search the OhioLINK Central Catalog,the Ebooks Center, and Safari Tech Books to locate texts that have already been acquired.
Through a separate partnership with XanEdu, the national leader in “course packs” (articles, cases, textbook chapters and other copyrighted materials), students will also now have increased access to more digital materials that supplement textbooks.
eTextbook Portal: http://textbooks.uso.edu
CourseSmart website: www.coursesmart.com/
XanEdu website: www.xanedu.com/
University System of Ohio: www.uso.edu
Textbook Affordability Symposium: www.uso.edu/opportunities/textbooks/symposium/index.php
University of Michigan Library Installs Book-Printing Machine
With the installation of a state-of-the-art book-printing machine at one of its libraries, the University of Michigan is offering printed and bound reprints of out-of-copyright books from its digitized collection of nearly 2 million books, as well as thousands of books from the Open Content Alliance and other digital sources.
U-M is the first university library to install the book-printing machine. The Espresso Book Machine, from On Demand Books of New York, produces perfect-bound,high-quality paperback books on demand. A Time Magazine “Best Invention of 2007”, the Espresso Book Machine has been called “the ATM of books”.
“This is a significant moment in the history of book publishing and distribution”, said Paul Courant, dean of libraries at U-M. “As a library, we're stepping beyond the limits of physical space”, he said.“Now, we can produce affordable printed copies of rare and hard to find books. It's a great step toward the democratization of information, getting information to readers when and where they need it”.
Since 1996, U-M Libraries have digitized nearly 2 million books. The University was the first participant in the Google Book Search program, which digitizes books in libraries throughout the world. The book machine, located in the Shapiro Library lobby on U-M's Central Campus, prints out-of-copyright books from the University's digitized collections. At a cost of about $10 per book,the service is available to researchers, students and the public.
The printing process begins with a reader selecting a digitized book from U-M's pre-1923 collection or from another online source, such as the Open Content Alliance. Most books printed prior to the early 1920s can be reprinted without seeking the permission from whoever holds the copyright. Then the file is downloaded to the Espresso Book Machine, where it is formatted, printed and perfect bound with a four-color cover. A finished printed book takes 5-7min,depending on the number of pages.
On its web site, On Demand Books likens the potential impact of the book machine in the twenty-first century to that of the Gutenberg press in the fifteenth-century. Mass production and dissemination of books was a major factor in the rise of critical, independent thinking, leading to a renaissance in the arts and sciences. In the next several years, On Demand Books expects to install Espresso Book Machines in libraries and bookshops around the world. All the machines will be connected by a network, allowing libraries to share and reprint volumes from their collections.
“This print technology will allow the Library to maximum advantage of digital technology”, said U-M's Courant. “Digital and print versions work in tandem, and soon researchers anywhere in the world will be able to browse U-M's digitized holdings, select a book from our out of copyright collections and have the book printed within minutes”.
More information at the Espresso Book Machine: http://ondemandbooks.com/the_ebm.htm
McGill U Library Digitization Strategy to Utilize High-Speed Robotic Scanner
Historic and unique collections of the McGill University Libraries will be accessible for generations thanks to a high-speed robotic scanner made possible through partnership with US-based Kirtas Technologies and Kirtas' Canadian reseller, Ristech.
“The technology made available by Kirtas will allow us to reveal the treasures of McGill Library to the world and enable sophisticated means of resource discovery”, said Janine Schmidt, Trenholme Director of Libraries at McGill. The Library will use a Kirtas APT BookScan 2400RA to digitize its collections in order to support the educational needs of its students and faculty, as well as making the collections available worldwide.
Among the 300,000 titles housed in Rare Books and Special Collections at McGill University Library are collections of art and architecture, Canadiana,history, literature, philosophy (including an outstanding David Hume Collection), travel and exploration, and the history of the book. It is a true discovery library, actively supporting the teaching, learning and research needs of McGill students and faculty from all disciplines, as well as the wider scholarly community.
While the Library was an early adopter of digitizing books – their efforts began in 1996 – until now it has never had the ability to accommodate large-scale, mass digitization of texts from its diverse rare book collections. “Universities and libraries around the world are home to millions of rare books that generations to come should have access to and be able to learn from”, said Kirtas CEO and Founder Lotfi Belkhir. “McGill University's Rare Books and Special Collections is a great example of why Kirtas was founded. I'm delighted we're able to support this important initiative at McGill”.
Once the books are digitized and processed, files will be made available worldwide through the Library's online catalogue and books can be printed on demand through major online retailers such as Amazon.com and Lulu.com.
Kirtas Technologies: www.kirtas.com/
Proquest and Google Partner on Digitizing Newspaper Content
ProQuest announced that it has formed a partnership with Google that has the potential to bring millions of pages of newspaper content to the open web. The program allows web access to archives of both large and small newspapers. Without this initiative, these newspapers might never be digitized. The work of the ProQuest/Google partnership commences immediately and is expected to be ongoing over multiple years.
ProQuest will contribute content to the partnership, and will introduce newspaper publishers nationwide to the program. ProQuest will also supply from its microfilm vault newspaper content that can be delivered effectively in the less formal framework of the open web. The company currently holds more than 10,000 newspaper titles, most of which are pristine master film copies. This high level of microfilm quality allows for the creation of better scanned images, which will ultimately deliver more accurate OCR results for users.
The ProQuest/Google partnership does not impact ProQuest's other digital newspaper offerings such as its Historical Newspapers, which will continue to be strongly developed for use by serious researchers. Users of such products require robust application and search tools provided by the power of the ProQuest platform. The content delivered via Google's platform will be supported with a variety of advertising and e-commerce models that are standard in an open web context.
While ProQuest's film vault will be tapped, the open web model does not replace or diminish ProQuest's commitment to microfilm. “The open web program is about access to content and has no impact on preservation, where microfilm is the `gold standard' ”, said Mr Rod Gauvin. “Microfilm is a technology-neutral format, so no matter the state of future technology,anything preserved on it can be read and stored effectively. It's an essential for preserving local history and culture, as well as the world's scholarship”.
Proquest website: www.proquest.com
University of Texas at Austin Adopts CCC's Annual Copyright License
The University of Texas at Austin is moving to make it easier for faculty and staff to use published materials for a range of educational purposes. The university has signed an agreement with Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) to become the latest – and now the largest – institution to adopt CCC's Annual Copyright License for academic institutions, providing librarians,faculty, copy shop staff and others with pre-approved permission to use content in coursepacks, e-reserves, course management systems, research collaboration and more.
CCC introduced the annual license only last year. Hundreds of publishers have signed on to participate, including many leading book, journal, newspaper and magazine publishers as well as a number of leading university presses. In all,more than 1 million books, scholarly journals, newspapers, magazine and other sources are available for educational use under the license. Participating publishers include Elsevier, Dow Jones, Harvard Business School Publishing and the American Medical Association.
“CCC's license allows us to address workflow efficiencies in a high volume operation”, said Fred Heath, Vice Provost and Director of Libraries, University of Texas at Austin. “It enables us to effectively address the broad spectrum of copyright issues while enabling our faculty to concentrate on classroom instruction”.
In all, more than 30 colleges and universities have adopted CCC's annual license in the limited time it has been available. Others include: Middlebury College, Suffolk University, the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the United States Army Command & Staff College.
Benefits of CCC's Annual Copyright License include:
Institution-wide coverage under a single agreement.
Improved operational efficiencies, reduced time and administrative costs associated with searching for, obtaining and reconciling copyright permissions.
A uniform set of pre-approved usage rights for paper and electronic coursepacks, course management system postings, classroom handouts, electronic library reserves, research collaboration and administrative and faculty communication.
The Annual Copyright License comes with comprehensive training and implementation support services, and builds on CCC's decades of experience providing licensing solutions to businesses and academic institutions. More than 20 million employees are covered by CCC's Annual Copyright License for corporations, and more than 1,000 colleges and universities across the USA use CCC's pay-per-use licensing services.
More information on the Annual Copyright License is available at: www.copyright.com/academic
OCLC Pilots WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry
OCLC is piloting a new service for libraries that encourages librarians and other interested parties to discover and share information about the copyright status of books. The WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry is a community working together to build a union catalog of copyright evidence based on WorldCat, which contains more than 100 million bibliographic records describing items held in thousands of libraries worldwide. In addition to the WorldCat metadata, the Copyright Evidence Registry uses other data contributed by libraries and other organizations.
Digitization projects continue for books in the public domain, but books whose copyright status is unknown are destined to remain in print and on shelves until their status can be determined. The process to determine copyright status can be lengthy and labor intensive. The goal of the Copyright Evidence Registry is to encourage a cooperative environment to discover, create and share copyright evidence through a collaboratively created and maintained database,using the WorldCat cooperative model to eliminate duplicate efforts.
The Copyright Evidence Registry six-month pilot was launched in July 2008 to test the concept and functionality. Users can search the Copyright Evidence Registry to find information about a book, learn what others have said about its copyright status, and share what they know. During a later stage of the pilot,OCLC will add a feature enabling pilot libraries to create and run automated copyright rules conforming to standards they define for determining copyright status. The rules will help libraries analyze the information available in the Copyright Evidence Registry and form their own conclusions about copyright status.
The WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry Beta can be accessed at: www.worldcat.org/copyrightevidence. Catalogers should feel free to use their OCLC Connexion cataloging authorizations to log in. Others are welcome to create or use their current WorldCat.org authorization. There is a “sandbox” record available to try out the system. OCLC is encouraging feedback on the Copyright Evidence Registry from the library community on the WorldCat.org Web site www.worldcat.org/copyrightevidence/registry/feedback.
IMLS Announces Recipients of National Leadership Grants for 2008
In September 2008 Dr Anne-Imelda Radice, Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), announced the 44 recipients of National Leadership Grants (NLG), totaling $18.2 million. The largest museum and library joint grant program administered by IMLS, NLG support projects that will advance the ability of museums and libraries to preserve culture, heritage, and knowledge while enhancing learning.
This year's NLG recipients will generate new tools, research, models,services, practices and alliances that will positively impact both the awarded institution and the nation. These projects include:
Homework NYC, a set of digital tools that will be produced by the New York Public Library and its partners, the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Borough Public Library, for homework help that will be responsive to young people's information-gathering tendencies, research needs, and expectations.
Steve in Action: Social Tagging Tools and Methods Applied, which builds on the original Steve program and allows users to use social tagging as a way to classify works of art outside the specialized language of art history.
LibX 2.0, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University's extension of its popular LibX program. LibX 2.0 will build a community platform for developing and delivering library services that provides integration into the user's workflow, integrates and combines existing services in new ways,allows for the localization and reuse of these combinations, and deploys immediately with a minimum of special-purpose software.
Project to Develop Solvent-Free Clear Coatings for Metals, headed by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will create a solvent-free, clear coating lacquer system to protect outdoor sculptures from corrosion and degradation.
Voices for the Lake, supported by a partnership between the Lake Champlain Basin Science Center and the Vermont Department of Libraries, will be an online community network of and for the rural populations surrounding Lake Champlain dedicated to improving the health of the lake.
Planning for Northwest-Wide Access to Digitized Primary Sources, a planning grant that will support the second stage of the Orbis Cascade Alliance's Northwest Digital Archives database, which will determine solutions to specific problems that are currently impeding the development of sustainable digital programs.
A Copyright Management Review System, to be developed by the University of Michigan to increase the reliability of copyright status determinations of books published in the USA from 1923 to 1963, and to help create a point of collaboration for other institutions.
The next deadline for the NLG program is February 1, 2009.
NLG recipients list: www.imls.gov/news/2008/091008a_list.shtm
IMLS NLG 209 Grant Submission Information: www.imls.gov/applicants/grants/nationalLeadership.shtm
Presentations from Repository Fringe 2008 Now Available
Those interested in the likely future development of repositories may be interested in the streamed video presentations from the Repository Fringe conference which are now freely available at www.repositoryfringe.org. Many of the Powerpoint presentations are also available from the site.
Repository Fringe 2008 was held on the 31st of August and the 1st of September, funded by JISC and hosted by the University of Edinburgh, and saw researchers exchange ideas on the best way this data might be collected, stored and made accessible. The keynote presentation was given by Dorothea Salo(Wisconsin) and focused on the failure of the “build it and they will come”approach to institutional repository provision. Other presentations took up the theme of radically rethinking the repository idea.
Repository Fringe website: www.repositoryfringe.org
Cloud Computing, Search Engine Use: New Reports from PEW Internet Project
Almost half of all internet users now use search engines on a typical day,according to data collected in May 2008 by the PEW Internet and American Life Project. The percentage of internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of just under one-half (49 per cent). With this increase, the number of those using a search engine on a typical day is pulling ever closer to the 60 per cent of internet users who use email, arguably the internet's all-time killer app, on a typical day.
According to a data memo released by PEW in August, those who are using search engines on an average day are more likely to be socially upscale, with at least some college education and incomes over $50,000 per year. They are more likely to be internet users with at least six years of online experience and to have their homes wired for fast internet connections. Younger internet users are more likely than older users to search on a typical day. Men are more likely than women to search on a typical day.
Search engine use: www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Search_Aug08.pdf
Another data memo released in September reports that some 69 per cent of online Americans use webmail services, store data online, or use software programs such as word processing applications whose functionality is located on the web. In doing so, these users are making use of “cloud computing”,an emerging architecture by which data and applications reside in cyberspace,allowing users to access them through any web-connected device.
Online users who take advantage of “cloud” applications say they like the convenience of having access to data and applications from any web-connected device. At the same time, however, they express high levels of concerns about storing personal data online when presented with scenarios about possible uses of their data by companies providing cloud services. “Even as large numbers of users turn to ‘cloud computing’ applications,many may lack a full understanding of possible consequences of storing personal data online”, said John B. Horrigan, Associate Director of the PEW Internet and American Life Project and author of the report. “These findings give consumers, the technology community, and policymakers a chance to discuss the trade offs between convenience and privacy and figure out where there are needs for education to improve public understanding”.
Below is a rundown of the share of internet users who have done a select set of online activities that involve storing data online or accessing applications in cyberspace.
56 per cent of internet users use webmail services such as Hotmail, Gmail,or Yahoo! Mail.
34 per cent store personal photos online.
29 per cent use online applications such as Google Documents or Adobe Photoshop Express.
7 per cent store personal videos online.
5 per cent pay to store computer files online.
5 per cent back up hard drive to an online site.
Overall, 69 per cent of online users have done at least one of these six activities, with 40 per cent of internet users having done at least two of them.
Use of cloud computing applications: www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Cloud.Memo.pdf
Ithaka Releases White Paper on the Digital Transformation of Higher Education
Since 2000, Ithaka, an independent not-for-profit organization with a mission to accelerate the productive uses of information technologies for the benefit of higher education worldwide, has conducted surveys of faculty members to determine their attitudes related to online resources, electronic archiving,teaching and learning, and related subjects. In 2006, for the first time, the survey results offer extensive comparison with the attitudes and perspectives of academic librarians on the perceived roles of the library and librarian on campuses; the impact of transitioning to electronic material on library practices; the place of digital repositories in the campus information-services landscape; and the future plans of academic libraries. Librarians surveyed include both directors and collection development leaders from a wide variety of four-year academic institutions across the USA.
An in-depth white paper, Ithaka's 2006 Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation in Higher Education, details the findings and provides analysis and recommendations based on these studies. Some of the findings that have proved to be of greatest interest have focused on these topics:
Attitudes towards the possibility of a transition away from print format,both for scholarly journals and monographs.
Perceptions of libraries and their value, including specific library functions, and how these perceptions are changing.
Preferences in research practices, including disciplinary differences and changes over time.
Attitudes towards archiving of both print and electronic resources.
Preferences that lead authors to choose among scholarly journals in which to publish their articles, as well as attitudes towards digital repositories.
Ithaka white paper: www.ithaka.org/research/faculty-and-librarian-surveys
LITA's ITAL Launches New Pilot Blog
Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL), LITA's peer-reviewed quarterly journal, has launched a new blog called ITALica. This blog is a pilot. The editorial board of LITA's ITAL would like to create an environment in which readers can discuss each issue of ITAL. They will ask the authors of the articles to monitor the discussion for a period of time after publication so that readers have a chance to interact with them, too.
For the June 2008 issue, they started with a single article – Jennifer Bowen's Metadata to Support Next-Generation Library Resource Discover: Lessons from the eXtensible Catalog, Phase 1. If there is sufficient interest among their readers, they will open discussion for the entire September 2008 issue when it is published. While online access to current issues of ITAL are restricted to LITA members, participation on the blog is open to everyone.
ITALica blog: http://ital-ica.blogspot.com/
Release 3 of COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and Databases Published
The final version of Release 3 of the Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources (COUNTER) Code of Practice for Journals and Databases has now been published on the COUNTER website. The deadline date for implementation of this Release is 31 August 2009, giving vendors a full year to meet its specifications. After this date only those vendors compliant with Release 3 will be considered COUNTER compliant.
The main objectives of Release 3 are: to improve further the reliability of the COUNTER usage reports by incorporating new protocols designed to mitigate the potentially inflationary effects on usage statistics of federated search engines, internet robots, crawlers, etc; to provide tools that will facilitate the consolidation, management and analysis of the COUNTER usage statistics; to improve the COUNTER usage reports for library consortia; and to improve the reporting of the usage of journal archives.
The key new features in Release 3 are:
Incorporation of the Standardised Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative(SUSHI) protocol into the COUNTER Code of Practice.
New reports that enable vendors who provide journal archives as a separate acquisition from the current journals to meet the requirement that the usage of such archives must be reported separately.
New library consortium usage reports. The advent of the SUSHI protocol greatly facilitates the handling of large volumes of usage data, which is a particular advantage for consortial reporting. For this reason COUNTER has developed two new reports for library consortia that are specified only in XML format.
A new optional additional report; Journal/Book Report 1: Number of successful full-text item requests by month and title, specified in XML only,will allow vendors that provide online journals and books on the same platform to report usage of both categories of product in a single COUNTER report.
A new protocol that allows federated searches to be isolated from dedicated searches of single databases or services.
New protocols that require activity generated by internet robots and crawlers, as well as by LOCKSS and similar caches, to be excluded from the COUNTER reports.
COUNTER is a multi-agency initiative whose objective is to develop a set of internationally accepted, extendible Codes of Practice that will allow the usage of online information products and services to be measured more consistently. COUNTER is actively supported by the international community of librarians,intermediaries, publishers and vendors, and by their professional organizations.
Release 3: www.projectcounter.org/code_practice.html
Project COUNTER home page: www.projectcounter.org
