LibWorm.com provides a librarian RSS filtering service. Over 1500 RSS librarian sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest headlines from journals and sites in the Academia interest group. http://www.libworm.com/rss/librarianqueries.php Fri, 05 Aug 2011 02:51:02 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/01435121111112907 Abstract: Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the direct and indirect strategies that academic libraries currently use to retain librarians and the levels of satisfaction librarians express about those strategies. Design/methodology/approach – The study consisted of a 23-item survey, administered online to current academic librarians. In total, 895 viable responses were received. Findings – Respondents reported that initiatives related to professional development are the most widely available type. Respondents expressed satisfaction with most of the initiatives available to them and general agreement with positive workplace environment statements; however, administrators were substantially more satisfied than employees in other positions. Few indicated that their libraries had adopted a formal retention program, implying that the reported retention strategies are generally seen as serving another purpose. Research limitations/implications – As little previous research has been conducted on this topic, this study is inherently exploratory. The list of potential retention initiatives studied represented a wide range of strategies suggested by the literature, but it could not be exhaustive, nor can it account for variations in individuals' preferences and priorities. Factors that may contribute to employee retention usually have multiple purposes, making it difficult to state confidently whether retention is their goal. This paper questions whether retention is approached intentionally or incidentally, a worthwhile area for future study. Practical implications – Understanding current retention strategies and librarians' attitudes toward them should help library administrators to plan future retention efforts in a more deliberate way. Originality/value – A number of articles have described the importance of retention and provided advice on encouraging it. ... Mon, 21 Feb 2011 02:05:05 +0100 895884 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/01435121111112880 Abstract: Purpose – This paper intends to throw light on major challenges and opportunities the twenty-first century has brought to librarianship due to the emerging academic culture, and growing use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach – The content is based on the literature, personal communication with national and foreign peers, the writer's 25 years' experience, observation and research in the field of librarianship. Findings – Libraries in developing countries are being significantly affected by the ongoing ICT developments from basic infrastructure to collections to services to needed human resources. All quarters of the community need vision and preparedness to turn challenges into opportunities, and instead of being chaotic make change that is productive for society and themselves. It appeared that the overall growth in librarianship is much better since the dawn of the twenty-first century. Originality/value – The new aspects discussed in the context of Pakistan may provide guidelines for future planning, and growth of professional and libraries. It is assumed that the situation is similar to other developing countries. So, the work will be useful in creating awareness among professionals of other countries. (Source: Library Management : Table of Contents) Mon, 21 Feb 2011 02:05:05 +0100 895882 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/01435121111112871 Abstract: Purpose – This paper aims to report an ongoing investigation of library use at Huddersfield University that has identified a historical correlation between library usage and degree classification. Design/methodology/approach – Three sets of data – use of electronic resources, book loans, and visits to the library – when represented graphically show consistent amounts of no and low use at campus, academic school, degree-type and course level. Combining these findings with data showing academic achievement raises the question: is there a positive correlation between library use and attainment? Findings – Understandably, library usage varies between academic schools and there are often pedagogic reasons for low usage, but it would appear that, in some subjects, students who “read” more, measured in terms of borrowing books and accessing electronic resources, achieve better grades. Research limitations/implications – Further work will focus on undergraduate, fulltime students at the main university campus. Practical implications – It is intended to discover the reasons behind non/low use so as to develop then trial effective interventions for improving the grades of all students, from the bottom up, rather than just supporting those that are already high flyers. The results will inform both library service delivery and university goals concerning the quality of the student learning experience, improving retention and improving the level of final degree award. Originality/value – The paper shows that there are implications for all subjects and all levels of achievement at the university. (Source: Library Management : Table of Contents) Mon, 21 Feb 2011 02:05:05 +0100 895881 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/digizen/~3/vbpnqurgSdM/ Hace ya unas semanas he estado probando Google Chrome y debo decir que se ha convertido en mi navegador por defecto. He estado utilizando FireFox por varios años pero su lentitud y sus “crasheos” continuos me han llevado a migrar a Google Chrome. Seguiré usando a FF pero como navegador secundario. Además de su estabilidad y velocidad, Chrome me ha impresionado por su gran número de extensiones y lo fácil que es instalar y desinstalar las mismas. Comparto una lista de extensiones que son indispensables para el educador 2.0: 1. Diigo: Un complemento esencial para los que usamos el marcador social Diigo. 2. Adblock: Para navegar las páginas web sin anuncios 3. After the Deadline: Excelente corrector gramatical 4. Amplify: Permite cortar partes de una página y bloguear o “tuitear” la misma. 5. Diccionarios RAE: Para buscar  la definición de las palabras que necesite en dos diccionarios  de la Real Academia Española: Diccionario de la Lengua Española y Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas. 6.  Google Quick Scroll: Permite saltar directamente a los temas relevantes de un resultado de búsqueda de Google. 7. Wikipedia Companion: Extensión esencial para los usuarios de Wikipedia   8. Hootsuite Hootlet: Extensión para los usuarios de Hootsuite que facilitar publicación de textos en Twitter y Facebook . 9. Posterous for Chrome: La extensión esencial para usar Posterous desde Chrome 10. Awesome Screenshot: Excelente extensión de los creadores de Diigo para captura toda la pantalla o cualquier porción, anotar con rectángulos, círculos, flechas, líneas y texto, subir y compartir con un clic. 11. Google Reader RSS Subscriber: Permite subscribir un canal de RSS al  Google Reader pulsando un solo botón. 12. Quick Note: Para incluir tus notas relacionadas a determinada página web. También se pueden incluir imágenes. En total estoy usando más de 50 extensiones en Chrome. ... Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:38:20 +0100 895823 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/mZhO2FSWhKA/collaborative-librarianship-volume-2.html Collaborative Librarianship - Volume 2, Number 4, 2010 is now available. The journal is sponsored by: Colorado Academic Library Consortium, Colorado Library Consortium, Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, Regis University, and the University of Denver (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Fri, 31 Dec 2010 11:45:53 +0100 895799 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16356 Library Support Technician / Librarian I (University of Maine, Maine) Library Support Technician: Maine InfoNet and The University of Maine System Libraries invite applications from service-oriented individuals for the position of Library Support Technician / Librarian I.  The Library Support Technician provides technical and customer support for online library services made available through Maine InfoNet, the University of Maine System, and the Maine State Library.  This position provides first level support for various online library services managed through Maine InfoNet, such as the URSUS catalog and University, system and statewide research tools, and the Maine InfoNet Download Library. ... Fri, 31 Dec 2010 05:20:02 +0100 895749 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/if-you-hate-winter-youll-love-these-ihes.html Some students think the best college offers a true winter (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Fri, 31 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895805 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/growing-number-of-college-applicants-will-opt-for-the-gap-year.html College-admission letters are starting to roll in, but a growing number of students will decide instead to take a year off to try out potential careers or broaden their horizons. Gap-year activities range from doing volunteer work or taking classes, to working for pay, traveling or tackling outdoor adventures. There isn't a measure of the number of students who take gap years, but a recent survey of 300,000 first-time freshmen at four-year colleges and universities found 1.2% waited a year to enter college. Burnout from the competitive pressure of high school and a desire "to find out more about themselves," are the top two reasons students take gap years. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Fri, 31 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895804 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/play-is-better-than-study-drilling-for-college-bound-kids.html Parents, educators, psychologists, neuroscientists, and politicians generally fall into one of two camps when it comes to preparing very young children for school: play-based or skills-based. These two kinds of curricula are often pitted against one another as a zero-sum game: If you want to protect your daughter's childhood, so the argument goes, choose a play-based program; but if you want her to get into Harvard, you'd better make sure you're brushing up on the ABC flashcards every night before bed. We think it is quite the reverse. Or, in any case, if you want your child to succeed in college, the play-based curriculum is the way to go. Read more at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/29/christakis.play.children.learning/index.html (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Fri, 31 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895803 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16350 Systems Management (Information Security) Intern (OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., Ohio) OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs.  Tens of thousands of libraries around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.  We are currently seeking candidates for a Systems Management (Information Security) Intern position.  The work location for the assignment will be our Corporate Headquarters in Dublin (Columbus), Ohio. ... Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:20:02 +0100 895654 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16353 Program Manager - Maine Shared Collections Strategy Grant (University of Maine, Maine) Fogler Library, University of Maine, Orono seeks a creative and dynamic librarian for a contingent on funding position, with grant funding for three years. ... Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:20:02 +0100 895653 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16349 Global Product Management Intern (OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., Ohio) OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs.  Tens of thousands of libraries around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.  We are currently seeking candidates for a Global Product Management Intern position.  The work location for the assignment will be our Corporate Headquarters in Dublin (Columbus), Ohio. ... Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:20:02 +0100 895651 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16348 Digital Collection Services Intern (OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., Ohio) OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs.  Tens of thousands of libraries around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.  We are currently seeking candidates for a Digital Collection Services Intern position.  The work location for the assignment will be our Corporate Headquarters in Dublin (Columbus), Ohio. ... Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:20:02 +0100 895649 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16347 CONTENTdm Intern (OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., Washington) OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs.  Tens of thousands of libraries around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.  We are currently seeking candidates for a CONTENTdm Intern position.  The work location for the assignment will be our Seattle, Washington office. The OCLC Diversity and Inclusion Initiative offers internship opportunities designed to provide unique experiences for aspiring college students. ... Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:20:02 +0100 895648 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/30/john-sutherland-top-10-books-about-books From Aristotle to Roland Barthes, the author and commentator gives his analysis of the critics who find the hard answers to simple questions, and offers some improving ideas for new year's readingJohn Sutherland staggers under the title Lord Northcliffe professor emeritus of Modern English Literature at UCL. He has written numerous books on literature and a couple on himself (notably a drunkalog, Last Drink to LA). He has taught, principally, in the UK and America. His next book (out in a week or so) has the self-explanatory title: 50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know. Roll over Dr Johnson.Buy 50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know at the Guardian bookshop"There are only a handful of grand-master literary critics in action at any one time in the English-speaking world. We lost one of our greatest literary critics, Frank Kermode, a few months ago. That leaves, by my count, Christopher Ricks, Terry Eagleton, and Elaine Showalter. Others will have a different pantheon – but if they're honest it will be highly select."The hardest lit-crit is that which asks the simplest questions. What's the difference between a 'story' by Ian McEwan and a 'story' on the front page of the Guardian? What precisely, is 'lost' in translation? Literature 'means' something. But is that meaning located in the author's mind, on the page, or in the reader's mind? Why does literature (unlike, say, the discourses of law or science) cultivate 'ambiguity' – saying many things at the same time?"1. Aristotle, The Poetics (Ingram Bywater translation) The still-most-relevant work of literary criticism, given (as a lecture, probably) around the fourth century BC. Aristotle takes on the biggest/simplest questions of all. ... Thu, 30 Dec 2010 10:36:30 +0100 895642 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/this-student-turns-her-useless-final-projects-into-artwork.html A few weeks ago, you were probably frantically writing papers, studying and finishing projects. Now that finals are over, you are stuck with the sinking feeling that no one will ever read your final paper about environmental activism in the 1960s or watch your business ethics PowerPoint. And the textbooks? You'll either sell them back to a bookstore, or, in the depressingly likely circumstance that next year's professors decide that they are outdated, stuff them in some closet. But fear not. There are ways to turn your finals-related junk into beautiful artwork! Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Thu, 30 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895691 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/ohio-will-grade-teacher-education-programs-.html The state of Ohio adopted a new “report card” earlier this month to judge how effective education programs at public and private universities are at training new teachers. The Ohio Board of Regents has developed 14 standards it will use to analyze the performance of education colleges, and the teachers they produce, beginning in 2011.  Criteria that will be evaluated include: How a university’s graduates score on the state’s new Teacher Performance Assessment, how well the university places teachers in “hard-to-staff” Ohio school districts and how much students learn during a one-year period in a particular teacher’s class.  Read more at: http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4954486 (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Thu, 30 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895690 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/for-profit-stocks-in-slump-while-their-students-are-trapped-in-debt.html Students seeking to move up in life by getting a degree from a for-profit college are being trapped in a growing underclass of education debtors. Only 14 percent of community college students take out loans, compared with 97 percent of for-profit students seeking an associate’s degree. An index (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Thu, 30 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895689 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16337 Dewey Decimal Classification Intern (OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., District of Columbia) OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs. Tens of thousands of libraries around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials. We are currently seeking candidates for a Dewey Decimal Classification Intern position. The work location for the assignment will be the Dewey Editorial Office, Library of Congress, in Washington D.C. ... Thu, 30 Dec 2010 03:20:02 +0100 895577 http://blog.case.edu/orgs/ksl/news/2010/12/29/elsevier_purchase_expands_ohiolink_journal_offerings_by_34_million_articles December 22, 2010 COLUMBUS, OH – Ohio’s college students and researchers will now have access to more than 3.4 million additional articles from Elsevier, a highly regarded publisher in the fields of science and engineering with titles including “The Lancet” and “Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine.” Though OhioLINK member libraries have had access to nearly 2,400 Elsevier journals previously, this collection includes historic backfiles, allowing Ohio’s academic community to search for and cite past works and knowledge. The acquisition of these backfiles has been a top priority for OhioLINK over the last threeyears, culminating in the state Controlling Board’s November 22, 2010, approval of purchase. The deal was officially finished today. “This purchase speaks to the hard work and dedication of the OhioLINK community,” says Eric Fingerhut, Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents. “When it became clear these materials would help accelerate science and engineering research throughout the state, the community came together to put the resources in the hands of the students and faculty who need them.” OhioLINK is a consortium of 89 Ohio colleges and university libraries and the State Library of Ohio, working to bring books, articles, electronic resources and digitalinformation to more than 600,000 students, faculty, and staff across the Buckeye State. Users have access to more than 48 million library items, 12,000 electronic journals and 140 electronic research databases, available 24/7 through their university libraries or online at www.ohiolink.edu. ### Contact: John Magill, Executive Director, OhioLINK, johnm@ohiolink.edu, 614.485.6726 Stacy Brannan, Library Support Services Coordinator, OhioLINK, stacy@ohiolink.edu, 614.485.6730 (Source: KSL News Blog) Thu, 30 Dec 2010 03:15:47 +0100 895612 http://web.docuticker.com/go/docubase/62964 Physician Attitudes towards Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement: Safety Concerns Are Paramount Source:  PLoS ONE The ethical dimensions of pharmacological cognitive enhancement have been widely discussed in academic circles and the popular media, but missing from the conversation have been the perspectives of physicians - key decision makers in the adoption of new [...] (Source: Docuticker) Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:41:00 +0100 895601 http://www.teleread.com/library/scholarly-electronic-publishing-weblog-updated-for-december/ Ariadne, no. 65 (2010): Includes: “Developing Infrastructure for Research Data Management at the University of Oxford,” “Moving Researchers across the eResearch Chasm,” “Trust Me, I’m an Archivist: Experiences with Digital Donors,” and other articles. Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian 29, no. 4 (2010): Includes “Digital Archival Image Collections: Who Are the Users?” and other articles. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 49, no. 1 (2011): Includes “Google Book Search and Metadata,” “Reclassification in Academic Research Libraries: Is It Still Relevant in an E-book World?,” and other articles. Collection Management 36, no. 1 (2011): Includes “Librarian Roles in Institutional Repository Data Set Collecting: Outcomes of a Research Library Task Force” and other articles. First Monday 15, no. 12 (2010): Includes “The Size Distribution of Open Access Publishers: A Problem for Open Access?” and other articles. IFLA Journal 36, no. 4 (2010): Includes “Non-users’ Evaluation of Digital Libraries: A Survey at the Università degli studi di Milano” and other articles. The Journal of Electronic Publishing 13, no. 3 (2010): Includes “Academic Search Engine Spam and Google Scholar’s Resilience against It,” “OA Repositories: The Researchers’ Point of View,” “Traversing the Book of Mpub: An Agile, Web-first Publishing Model,” and other articles. Journal of Scholarly Publishing 42, no. 2 (2011): Includes “Extending ArXiv.org to Achieve Open Peer Review and Publishing,” “Protocols and Challenges to the Creation of a Cross-disciplinary Journal,” and other articles. Krikorian, Gaälle, and Amy Kapczynski, eds. ... Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:35:45 +0100 895609 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ScholarlyElectronicPublishingWeblogrss/~3/eC6Mm0oVw6U/ Ariadne, no. 65 (2010): Includes: "Developing Infrastructure for Research Data Management at the University of Oxford," "Moving Researchers across the eResearch Chasm," "Trust Me, I'm an Archivist: Experiences with Digital Donors," and other articles. Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian 29, no. 4 (2010): Includes "Digital Archival Image Collections: Who Are the Users?" and other articles. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 49, no. 1 (2011): Includes "Google Book Search and Metadata," "Reclassification in Academic Research Libraries: Is It Still Relevant in an E-book World?," and other articles. Collection Management 36, no. 1 (2011): Includes "Librarian Roles in Institutional Repository Data Set Collecting: Outcomes of a Research Library Task Force" and other articles. First Monday 15, no. 12 (2010): Includes "The Size Distribution of Open Access Publishers: A Problem for Open Access?" and other articles. IFLA Journal 36, no. 4 (2010): Includes "Non-users' Evaluation of Digital Libraries: A Survey at the Università degli studi di Milano" and other articles. The Journal of Electronic Publishing 13, no. 3 (2010): Includes "Academic Search Engine Spam and Google Scholar’s Resilience against It," "OA Repositories: The Researchers' Point of View," "Traversing the Book of Mpub: An Agile, Web-first Publishing Model," and other articles. Journal of Scholarly Publishing 42, no. 2 (2011): Includes "Extending ArXiv.org to Achieve Open Peer Review and Publishing," "Protocols and Challenges to the Creation of a Cross-disciplinary Journal," and other articles. Krikorian, Gaälle, and Amy Kapczynski, eds. ... Wed, 29 Dec 2010 19:08:58 +0100 895591 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/29/cutbacks-leavis-english-impact-literary-criticism The end of subsidies and a focus on 'impact'-led research may force literary criticism to reconnect with the public imaginationThe lamentations of English scholars suffering government cutbacks have echoed around the Comment is free and education pages recently. Having three English degrees myself, two of which were free, I feel an instinctive sympathy for this view. But further reflection into the way the subject has changed over the last few decades makes me wonder whether the removal of subsidies, and the introduction of new "impact"-focused research assessments, may not be in the long-term interests of the subject.For most of the past century, prominent academic literary critics – FR Leavis, CS Lewis, Frank Kermode, David Lodge and Terry Eagleton, to name but a few – have sustained animated and original literary debate in the public arena. Some were also novelists, some were prominent media commentators, but all of them published criticism that broke new ground among both academic critics and a wider interested audience. This breadth was crucial in the establishment of English as both a popular and influential discipline. Think of the impact of Leavis in the "two cultures" debate, to select merely the highest-profile example. Yet critics with this profile are now either dead or retired from academic life. Who will maintain the profile of literary criticism?I enrolled as an undergraduate English student at UCL in 1994. How we laughed at the nerds in acrid science labs populated by uncommunicative men with beards, unable to debate their subject in public. Barely 15 years later, there is a much more exciting public debate among scientists than among literary critics. On what topic does Richard Dawkins not have a trenchant opinion?The campus novel genre shows how English studies used to value its public following. ... Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0100 895571 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LawLibrarianBlog/~3/q_cm21Zxrd4/opening-assistant-director-for-faculty-services-univ-of-south-carolina-school-of-law.html The Coleman Karesh Law Library, University of South Carolina School of Law, seeks motivated, experienced candidates for the position of Assistant Director for Faculty Services. The Law Library is an academic research library with the primary goal of supporting the... (Source: Law Librarian Blog) Wed, 29 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895845 http://hurstassociates.blogspot.com/2010/12/wayback-wednesday-digitization-101-2010.html As I do at the end of each year, I want to spent time looking back at the last 12 months with a few lists and more.I see four trends as I scan the horizon:Digitization is no longer an exceptional activity. While digitization is not a normal activity still for many organizations, it is much more mainstream that is was several years ago.  Look around...can you find a workshop on digitization or on scanning?  Yes, they still exist, but they are definitely not as prevalent as they were before.  Those that haven't jumped on the "digitization train" yet are finding themselves left behind.  (I should note that universities are offering courses on digitization, digital libraries, etc., which go into more depth and which are attracting a high number of students. These courses prepare the students for the growing number of digital library positions that are being advertised.) In the same vein, one thing to notice is that digitization is no longer in the news as it has been. It is no longer that shiny object that captures the media's attention.  For a while, Google Book Search kept digitization in the news, but even that story is no longer capturing headlines as the sides work toward an agreement. Digital preservation is where most of the action is in terms of conversations, conference sessions, research, etc.  This is true because we are a digital society and if we cannot ensure long term access to our digital content, we're doomed.  Losing digital content could mean losing the data and information that we need to run our governments, businesses, academic institutions, etc.  It could also mean losing our history.If you are not thinking about how to ensure long-term access to your digital content, please begin thinking about it now. You might even make it a New Year's resolution. (Yes, do jump on the digital preservation bandwagon. ... Wed, 29 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895638 http://micheladrien.blogspot.com/2010/12/searchable-database-of-library-value.html The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has created a website for its Value, Outcomes, and Return on Investment of Academic Libraries (Lib-Value) project.It is a three year study funded by the U.S,-based Institute of Museum and Library Services.As part of the project, the ARL has compiled a searchable database of books, book chapters, journal articles, theses and dissertations, reports, presentations, and free websites on the subject of measuring library value:"In addition to works presenting accounts of specific assessment projects, database users will find more general discussions of conceptual approaches to assessing value and return on investment, and descriptions of specific methods for evaluating the positive outcomes of providing a wide variety of resources and services."[Source: Stephen's Lighthouse] (Source: Library Boy) Wed, 29 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895634 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Digitization101/~3/ZBLCRLdWjMs/wayback-wednesday-digitization-101-2010.html As I do at the end of each year, I want to spent time looking back at the last 12 months with a few lists and more.I see four trends as I scan the horizon:Digitization is no longer an exceptional activity. While digitization is not a normal activity still for many organizations, it is much more mainstream that is was several years ago.  Look around...can you find a workshop on digitization or on scanning?  Yes, they still exist, but they are definitely not as prevalent as they were before.  Those that haven't jumped on the "digitization train" yet are finding themselves left behind.  (I should note that universities are offering courses on digitization, digital libraries, etc., which go into more depth and which are attracting a high number of students. These courses prepare the students for the growing number of digital library positions that are being advertised.) In the same vein, one thing to notice is that digitization is no longer in the news as it has been. It is no longer that shiny object that captures the media's attention.  For a while, Google Book Search kept digitization in the news, but even that story is no longer capturing headlines as the sides work toward an agreement. Digital preservation is where most of the action is in terms of conversations, conference sessions, research, etc.  This is true because we are a digital society and if we cannot ensure long term access to our digital content, we're doomed.  Losing digital content could mean losing the data and information that we need to run our governments, businesses, academic institutions, etc.  It could also mean losing our history.If you are not thinking about how to ensure long-term access to your digital content, please begin thinking about it now. You might even make it a New Year's resolution. (Yes, do jump on the digital preservation bandwagon. ... Wed, 29 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895589 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/twelve-notable-higher-education-stories-of-2010.html In chronological order: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Wed, 29 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895504 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/student-creates-scholarship-for-those-with-parents-in-prison.html Among all the weird scholarships out there, nothing exists to help kids who have worked against tremendous odds to get to college despite having a parent locked up in prison. And yes, besides the duck call and potato science ones, there are scholarships based on ethnicity or height or unusual ability. But for this large and largely unsupported population of children - zilch. "My grandmother and I were looking at scholarships and we realized that there was nothing out there for someone like me," she said. So Arrington, who is a commanding, confident senior at Benjamin Banneker High School in Northwest Washington, decided to do something about it. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Wed, 29 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895503 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16327 Access Services Librarian - Kemp Library #2010000318 (East Stroudsburg University -- ESU, Pennsylvania) University seeks an experienced Access Services Librarian to supervise and coordinate the areas of Circulation, ILL, Stacks Maintenance, Reserves, and Document Delivery in the Kemp Library. This is a full-time, nine month, continuing tenure track faculty position within Kemp Library and reports directly to the Library Dean. As part of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), we offer competitive salaries and a comprehensive benefits package. Kemp Library has a staff of 9 Full-time library faculty and 13 staff. The general collection consists of over 564,000 books, serial back-files and government documents in print, and more than 1. ... Wed, 29 Dec 2010 01:20:02 +0100 895386 http://www.lisnews.org/law_librarian_several_ivies_morris_l_cohen_dies From the New York Times: Morris L. Cohen, a book lover who shunned the practice of law because it was too contentious and became one of the nation’s most influential legal librarians, bringing both the Harvard and Yale law libraries into the digital age, died Dec. 18 at his home in New Haven. He was 83. Morris L. Cohen, at the University of Pennsylvania's law library in 1971, went on to be law library director at Harvard and Yale. The cause was leukemia, his wife, Gloria, said. Mr. Cohen had worked at his Uncle Max’s law firm and on his own in Brooklyn in the 1950s before deciding that enough was enough. “He wasn’t cut out for practicing law,” Mrs. Cohen said. “He was not confrontational.” Instead, he would become director of the law libraries at four universities: the former University of Buffalo, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and Yale. He brought to those positions a fascination with legal history — as evidenced in the six-volume Bibliography of Early American Law (1998), which he researched and compiled for 35 years — and with modernizing law libraries. He also brought that fascination to his classes in legal research. (Source: LISNews - Librarian And Information Science News) Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:51:29 +0100 895868 http://lisnews.org/law_librarian_several_ivies_morris_l_cohen_dies From the New York Times: Morris L. Cohen, a book lover who shunned the practice of law because it was too contentious and became one of the nation’s most influential legal librarians, bringing both the Harvard and Yale law libraries into the digital age, died Dec. 18 at his home in New Haven. He was 83. Morris L. Cohen, at the University of Pennsylvania's law library in 1971, went on to be law library director at Harvard and Yale. The cause was leukemia, his wife, Gloria, said. Mr. Cohen had worked at his Uncle Max’s law firm and on his own in Brooklyn in the 1950s before deciding that enough was enough. “He wasn’t cut out for practicing law,” Mrs. Cohen said. “He was not confrontational.” Instead, he would become director of the law libraries at four universities: the former University of Buffalo, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and Yale. He brought to those positions a fascination with legal history — as evidenced in the six-volume Bibliography of Early American Law (1998), which he researched and compiled for 35 years — and with modernizing law libraries. He also brought that fascination to his classes in legal research. (Source: LISNews.org) Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:51:29 +0100 895414 http://www.slis.indiana.edu/careers/view_job_specific.php?job_id=8998 State: Indiana Participate in all aspects of non-MARC descriptive metadata for digital projects within Cataloging Division: project development and planning, implementation, document preparation, training, creation of metadata using standard schemas; serve as non-MARC metadata resource person for Technical Services; provide full-level cataloging for monographs and CD-ROMs, including e-books, in English and West European languages, creating original cataloging records and enhancing cataloging copy. For complete list of responsibilities see: http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=1410. Qualifications: Required: M.L.S. from an ALA-accredited library school; minimum of one year relevant non-MARC metadata experience in an academic or research library system; minimum of one year original monograph cataloging experience in an academic or research library system; evidence of effective planning, implementation, document writing, and training of non-MARC metadata for digital projects; demonstrated working knowledge of cataloging rules, standards, and tools such as AACR2rev, LCRI, DACS, LC classification, and subject headings; demonstrated working knowledge of MARC (books format) and at least one other standard metadata scheme (e.g. TEI, MODS, Dublin Core, EAD). For complete list of qualification see: http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=1410. To apply: Review of applications begins February 1, 2011. Position remains open until filled. Send letter of application, professional vita, names/addresses/telephone numbers of six references to: Jennifer Chaffin, Director of Human Resources, Libraries Human Resources, Herman B Wells Library 201B, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405. Phone: 812-855-8196. Fax: 812-855-2576. E-mail: libpers@indiana.edu. For more information about Indiana University Bloomington go to: http://www.iub.edu. Indiana University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. ... Tue, 28 Dec 2010 14:10:02 +0100 895332 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Davidrothmannet/~3/0vakyHjVjog/ I was bit surprised at the response to my post about Libraries and Transliteracy. As long as I’m spouting off opinions on topics that have little substance other than opinion, I may as well go whole-hog and respond to some of the reponses. Marcus Banks writes: “…David goes too far in his highly conservative defense of the English language…this idea that we need to keep a tight lid on the language, or even that this is possible, is foolhardy.” I’m not attempting to defend the English language.  A beast as powerful as the English language doesn’t need me to defend it. Besides, I happily torture the language when it suits me. I use silly semi-words like ‘geekery’ and ‘libraryfolk.’1 This comment from Marcus, though, underlines a problem I saw in the post shortly after I published it. It isn’t the word, it’s the way the word is used I didn’t intend to say that the word “transliteracy” has no place in the world2, just that I have yet to see libraryfolk using it in a way that adds something previously missing from discussions in librarianship and LIS3. Thus far, it seems to me that the (admittedly cool-sounding) term is thrown around by libraryfolk who (1)admit that they can’t define it, (2)define it so vaguely and variously that it fails to have any coherent meaning, or (3)define it in a way that makes it redundant to a wide assortment of existing terms. What I find baffling is that librarians would use words they cannot define. I had thought (perhaps mistakenly) that librarians tended to be lovably pedantic and semantic nitpickers. I’d like to see some clear indication that libraryfolk are talking about this word for any reason other than novelty or self-promotion. ... Tue, 28 Dec 2010 06:01:26 +0100 895323 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/professional-science-masters-grows-in-popularity-despite-uncertainties.html A curiosity tucked away in a handful of university catalogs a decade ago, the professional science master’s degree is emerging from the shadows at a number of college campuses. The degree combines graduate studies in science or mathematics and business management courses. Advocates of the degree say it will become a fixture at many more universities because it promises to satisfy the work force requirements of increasingly technological economies in the United States and abroad. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Tue, 28 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895336 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/ihes-try-to-figure-out-just-exactly-what-grades-mean.html With college grades creeping ever higher (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Tue, 28 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895335 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/american-students-head-to-japanese-universities-to-learn-manga.html As Japanese universities work harder to attract students to fill their classrooms while the country’s birth rate declines, more are offering degrees in manga and animation. “I like it here because you get totally immersed in the skill training” of manga and animation, Mr. Wood said. “It has turned out to be a lot of fun.” Once they are armed with unique technical and industry knowledge, many international students are eager to gain work experience here upon graduation before heading back home. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Tue, 28 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895334 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16308 University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian (Bridgewater State University, Massachusetts) This is an Exempt Position that falls within the MSCA Union (Massachusetts State College Association). General statement of duties: Lead, manage, and coordinate the Archives and Special Collections unit of the Bridgewater State University library. Specific examples of duties: Manage all phases of activity of the Archives and Special Collections unit based upon the types of materials held, including but not limited to maps, photographs, print, ephemera, and digital objects.  Maintain a regular and convenient service schedule for public access to the collections. Plan, coordinate, and direct staff activities and work flows in the unit. ... Mon, 27 Dec 2010 23:20:01 +0100 895233 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16311 Professor and Director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media (University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island) The University of Rhode Island (www.uri.edu) is the state’s largest university, with an enrollment of about 13,000 undergraduates and 3,000 graduate students on four campuses.  With nationally and internationally renowned faculty engaged in a broad range of research, teaching and outreach activities, URI is a land grant, sea grant and urban grant institution.  The University’s 1,200 acre main campus is located in Kingston, about 30 miles south of Providence and six miles from the coast. ... Mon, 27 Dec 2010 23:20:01 +0100 895231 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16314 Library Director (SUNY College at Oneonta, New York) (Director of Libraries) The SUNY College at Oneonta invites applications for the Director of Milne Library. The College seeks a dynamic and creative individual to provide strategic leadership for vibrant and visible student-centered library services. This full-time, 12-month, management/confidential position reports to the Vice President for Academic Affairs. SUNY Oneonta is one of 13 colleges of arts and sciences within the SUNY system. The College has a student body of approximately 5,800 and is noted for the academic achievement and commitment to community service of its students, an outstanding faculty, excellent facilities in technology, and a first-class library. ... Mon, 27 Dec 2010 23:20:01 +0100 895229 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16310 Librarian (Santa Barbara City College, California) Commencing Fall 2011, a full-time, tenure-track Librarian position will be available in the Santa Barbara City College Luria Library. We are seeking applicants who are creative and innovative, and who can participate in a team environment with a commitment to service excellence, student success, and diversity in the performance of job duties. For a list of responsibilities for this position, see faculty position description at www.sbcc.edu/policies/index.php?sec=1458. Salary: $53,668-$89,668, plus an earned doctoral bonus of $2,683. Starting salary is commensurate with academic preparation and experience. Each full-time employee participates in a "cafeteria style" Health & Welfare Benefits Program. ... Mon, 27 Dec 2010 23:20:01 +0100 895228 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16307 Director of the University Library (Norwich University, Vermont) Norwich University invites applications for the position of Director of the University Library.  The Director is the chief academic and administrative officer of the Kreitzberg Library, including the University Archives, with responsibility for coordinating programs, scholarship, and service activities.  The mission of Kreitzberg Library is to develop and provide the information resources, services, and environment that support Norwich University's academic and administrative goals.  The Kreitzberg Library assumes an important role as the provider and preserver of institutional heritage and memory and as a resource for all those with an interest in Norwich University history. ... Mon, 27 Dec 2010 23:20:01 +0100 895226 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16305 Cataloging Coordinator/Metadata Librarian (University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Wisconsin) Institution: University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point Deadline: Screening begins February 14, 2011 and continues until position is filled. The University Library seeks an experienced and forward-thinking Cataloging Coordinator/Metadata Librarian to provide leadership in the creation and maintenance of metadata for the Library’s systems, including its online catalog and digitization projects. The incumbent will have overall responsibilities for management of and quality control in the Cataloging Department and will work collaboratively with the other faculty cataloger to set priorities, allocate resources, and develop and implement plans, policies and practices within the department. ... Mon, 27 Dec 2010 23:20:01 +0100 895224 http://web.resourceshelf.com/go/resourceblog/62922 From an ARL Announcement: The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is pleased to announce that a website for "Value, Outcomes, and Return on Investment of Academic Libraries (Lib-Value)," a three-year project funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), is now available at  http://libvalue.cci.utk.edu/ . A [...] (Source: ResourceShelf) Mon, 27 Dec 2010 17:23:00 +0100 895282 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.education.web4lib/17248 Antoinette, I may be biased, because I am the CEO of Boopsie, Inc. However, we have mobilized around 100 libraries (public and academic) this past year with custom apps. Here is a link to some recent customers: http://www.boopsie2.com/libraries_clients.html And here is a link to a press release showing that mobilizing the catalog isn't the only thing you need to do in an application (we work with all major ILS systems), but the key is also to mobilize the other content of the library - which is where most of the use is seen. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/11/prweb4787284.htm We've seen about 10 million queries come thru the mobile apps - so they are clearly being used quite a bit. We're happy to answer any questions. Email libraries-VJQNKLXSQs9BDgjK7y7TUQ< at >public.gmane.org Cheers, Greg On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 1:40 PM, Antoinette Turner < Antoinette.Turner-8NuUmYHGo9es7h9kiGOq9je48wsgrGvP< at >public.gmane.org> wrote: (Source: gmane.education.web4lib) Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895300 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/they-know-its-not-good-but-students-still-use-their-phones-during-class.html College students use cell phones in class, despite knowing that it adversely affects their concentration, according to a study conducted at the University of New Hampshire. In a university-wide study, student researchers at the UNH Whittemore School of Business and Economics found student cell phone users check their phones an average of one to five times during class. About half of students (51 percent) say that cell phone use in class affects their ability to concentrate and the amount of information that they receive during class (52 percent). Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895164 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/discounted-tattoos-earn-osu-football-players-suspensions.html What started out as a trip to a Columbus tattoo parlor by a couple of football players has created all sorts of mayhem for star quarterback Terrelle Pryor and Ohio State. Pryor and four teammates were suspended Thursday by the NCAA for the first five games of next season for selling championship rings, jerseys and awards. They also received improper benefits – from up to two years ago – from the tattoo parlor and its owner. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895163 http://www.newrambler.net/lisdom/451 High on Arrival by Mackenzie Phillips — I actually had little notion of or interest in Mackenzie Phillips, but I love drug addict memoirs, so I picked this up when it rotated through the library. It comes with the special added bonus of being an incest memoir. It may well not be up your alley. [reread] The Door Into Summer by Robert Heinlein — It’s possible that I reread this book too often. But not probable. Nobody’s Girl by Antonya Nelson — I ran across this in our collection and picked it up because I used to love a song of the same name sung by Bonnie Raitt. When I read the blurb and discovered this was about a young woman from the Chicago suburbs who decides to move to a small desert town in New Mexico, I figured I’d better read it. It took me a long time to get through it, but it was pretty good, though not really similar to my own experience except in feeling. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times by Thomas Hauser — For our Wyoming Humanities Council book discussion series of biographies of American cultural icons. I ended up spending a lot of time talking about the history of the civil rights movement and its various strands and bringing in a whole stack of books, which just goes to show I guess that one’s extracurricular collecting habits do eventually play some role. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen — I love Franzen’s essays most of all, but I liked this quite well — perhaps even better than The Corrections. Despite what you may have read about it plot-summary-wise, it’s really a novel about falling in love and out of love and trying to figure out how to differentiate who you are from who you want to be. [reread] The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley — When in danger or in doubt, reread. [reread] The Rooms of Heaven by Mary Allen — Reread shortly after I accepted my new job. ... Sun, 26 Dec 2010 17:18:44 +0100 895631 http://invisibleweblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/journal-of-informetrics.html The first issue of the Journal of Informetrics in 2011 was published. These are some of the research papers in this issue:PrestigeRank: A new evaluation method for papers and journals,Approaches to understanding and measuring interdisciplinary scientific research(IDR): A review of the literature,On the definition of forward and backward citation generations, Towards a new crown indicator: Some theoretical considerations, The measurement of low- and high-impact in citation distributions, Structured evaluation of the scientific output of academic research groups by recent h-based indicators, Bibliometric rankings of journals based on Impact Factors: An axiomatic approach, Indicators of the interdisciplinarity of journals: Diversity, centrality, and citations,The effects and their stability of field normalization baseline on relative performance with respect to citation impact: A case study of 20 natural science departments,How and where the TeraGrid supercomputing infrastructure benefits science, High- and low-impact citation measures: Empirical applications, An approach for detecting, quantifying, and visualizing the evolution of a research field: A practical application to the Fuzzy Sets Theory field, Gender differences in peer reviews of grant applications: A substantive-methodological synergy in support of the null hypothesis model, A proposal for a First-Citation-Speed-Index, Scientific collaboration and endorsement: Network analysis of co-authorship and citation networks, Are researchers that collaborate more at the international level top performers? An investigation on the Italian university system. (Source: The Invisible Web Weblog) Sun, 26 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895020 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/26/booktrust-funding-cut-pullman-motion Philip Pullman and Sir Andrew Motion round on decision to slash £13m government grant to the Booktrust charityLeading writers today rounded on the government for its "repugnant, foolish and pointlessly destructive" decision to axe all funding for a free book scheme that benefits 3.3 million youngsters a year.Children's author Philip Pullman attacked the move as an "unforgivable disgrace", while the former poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion described the cut as "an act of gross cultural vandalism".These uncompromising views were echoed by Viv Bird, chief executive of the Booktrust charity, who said she was "astounded and appalled" when told all government support for their work was going to be scrapped. "There was no dialogue. It was completely devastating," she said.The Booktrust charity runs several programmes that together provide free books for children from the age of nine months until their first term of secondary school when they are 11, and is widely admired by teachers, parents and authors.They began as a pilot project in 1992 but were awarded government funding in 2004 to become universal. But 10 days ago – despite having previously offered to take a 20% funding cut – the charity was told it was to lose 100% of its £13m-a-year government grant.The literary world has reacted with horror and has begun a campaign that has echoes of the one launched against the decision of the education secretary, Michael Gove, to axe funding for school sport, a plan revealed in the Observer. In fact, the decision to end Booktrust's funding is thought to have been taken to finance the education secretary's eventual U-turn on sport, which saw much of the threatened £162m cash for school sport partnerships restored.The reaction by authors to Gove's latest move has been furious. "It's like seeing someone smashing aside a butterfly with the back of their hand: wanton destruction," said Pullman. ... Sat, 25 Dec 2010 19:08:02 +0100 895005 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/arlisnap/~3/tlqUoFBX0bI/ Clemson University: Emery A. Gunnin Architecture Library The Gunnin Architecture Library includes 45,000+ books, 220+ journals and magazines, and 2,200+ media titles. (tags: architecture libraries academic) Filed under: delicious (Source: [ArLiSNAP]) Sat, 25 Dec 2010 17:20:07 +0100 895520 http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/dec/24/literary-holiday-destinations From a beat cafe in San Francisco to Robert Louis Stevenson's burial ground, Been there readers share the muse – the top two tips win a Sony ReaderUSWINNING TIP 1: Caffe Trieste, San FranciscoHaving paid homage to City Lights Bookshop and the Beat Museum, a stroll in the North Beach area must include a visit to Caffe Trieste. This cafe boasts the vestiges of the Beat generation, giving the traveller the opportunity to sip a wonderful espresso and taste some of the best pies and pastries in San Francisco, surrounded by pictures of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg among others. Being here is a true literary experience. The picturesque coloured marble tables and the wooden chairs are still those that one can spot in the old pictures of the place, in which poets are shown sitting and chatting amiably. But the most amazing experience is that, not only can one taste real Italian flavours here, but today you can still be surrounded by those very poets in the black and white pictures on the walls. Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been a habitué for years and Jack Hirschman, the amazing "red poet", can be found sitting, reading the local newspaper and enjoying a double espresso almost every day.• 601 Vallejo St, San Francisco, +1 415 392 6739, caffetrieste.comAlessandraBava FranceWINNING TIP 2: Le Passe Muraille sculpture, ParisThis is a sculpture of a man emerging from a wall. It is a homage to the short story Le Passe Muraille (The Man Who Could Walk Through Walls), written in 1943 by Marcel Aymé. It tells the story of an ordinary man, Dutilleul, who, one day at the age of 42, suddenly discovers he "has the remarkable gift of being able to pass through walls with perfect ease". What begins as a novelty that gives him pleasure ends up pushing Dutilleul toward more sinister pursuits. Aymé was not a native of Paris although many of his novellas are based in and around the Montmartre neighbourhood where this sculpture can be found. ... Fri, 24 Dec 2010 11:58:00 +0100 894801 http://www.slaw.ca/2010/12/24/just-plain-wrong/ Clements (Litigation Guardian of) v. Clements, 2010 BCCA 581 - right result, bad reasons. A sub-text to the case is the manner in which the panel used a hot-off-the press article in a law review to explain and justify its analysis and conclusion, introducing and setting up the manner in which it intended to use the article this way: [54] The question of when it will be appropriate to resort to the material-contribution test discussed in Resurfice Corp. has been the subject of some appellate consideration and considerable academic writing. In my view, the answer to this question is fully and articulately set out in a paper by Professor Erik S. Knutsen entitled “Clarifying Causation in Tort”, found at (2010), 33 Dal. L.J. 153. Professor Knutsen’s view, with which I agree, is that a judge can resort to the material-contribution test in only two situations: what he refers to as ones involving circular causation and dependency causation. In all other cases, causation must be determined on the but-for test. The panel is right that there has been “considerable academic writing”. I’ve written some of it. (Some might accuse me of much of it, certainly more words than most, but that’s true only about the Canadian writing.) It’s my view that not much of it - the academic writing, that is – agrees with the contents of Prof. Knutsen’s article. The substance of the disagreement is an issue for another day. What isn’t is the fact that there is substantive disagreement but there’s no acknowledgement of that in the reasons.  The panel is also right that there has been “some appellate consideration”. Unfortunately, with the exception of a recent contribution from the Alberta Court of Appeal, all of what is useful appellate consideration is in decisions of the British Columbia Court of Appeal. ... Fri, 24 Dec 2010 11:09:49 +0100 895182 http://invisibleweblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/reading-and-writing-practice.html This week I had two workshops for two different groups of students about academic writing. At the end of these workshops I asked them to do the following practices to enhance their writing skills. 1. Bibliographic Practice: Make a list of 10 well known textbooks in your subject, with their full bibliographic information. Please make sure to include the latest versions of these books in your list. Then have a look at their table of contents and compare their contents and structures.2. Paraphrasing: Read a recent well cited or hot paper in your subject and write a few paragraphs, or preferably 2 or 3 pages, about it in your own language. Please use simple words and write simple and short sentences. 3. Browsing: Go to the library and browse the recent issues of the main journals in your area of study. Read the paper titles and have a quick look at abstracts. Alternatively, you can browse their websites. In this stage you do not need to read the thoroughly. 4. Free Writing: Select a topic and write about it in 10 to 15 minutes. It can be about anything that you may like. Do not worry about spelling and grammar while you are writing. Just keep writing for 10 to 15 minutes without any uncertainty and hesitation. Then leave it for a day and come back to it later on. Then edit and expand it several times. You will be amazed how much you will have to say.5. Purposeful Reading: Select a recent paper written by a successful author in your area of study. Then read it while trying to inspire by the style of writing in that paper.6. Evaluation Practice: Select a few recent papers and evaluate and compare them in terms of their structure. You can use the criteria that I mentioned in the workshop.7. Abstract Evaluation: Read a number of abstracts and try to sort them based on their usefulness in providing you with enough information about the main documents. 8. ... Fri, 24 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895021 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/cornells-president-offers-ideas-for-how-to-control-college-costs.html The long, contentious, and often self-interested debate on whether higher education is becoming too expensive has become even more strident since the Great Recession. Is there really a "crisis" in college costs? Are colleges to blame? So what can be done to control college costs? The recession we are experiencing is not a normal, cyclical "blip" on an ever-upward revenue curve. It is unlike anything that most of us have ever experienced, and it will be with us for some time. Consequently, we in higher education have to make some fundamental changes in the way we do business. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Fri, 24 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894811 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/how-do-college-kids-rate-six-weeks-of-winter-break.html Most working adults don't get much official time off during the holidays—the Explainer, for instance, is only released into the wild on Christmas and New Year's Day. But students get tons of vacation time—some college breaks last as long as six weeks. How'd these kids get so lucky? They can thank the stagflation and energy crisis of the Carter era, mostly.  in the 1970s, when many academic institutions found themselves in dire fiscal straits, administrators realized that if they altered the calendar, they could reduce spending. By starting the term during late summer and by shutting their doors for a month or more over the winter holidays, they saved significantly on heating costs at a time when oil prices where cripplingly high. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Fri, 24 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894810 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/phd-degrees-are-just-not-worth-it.html Whining PhD students are nothing new, but there seem to be genuine problems with the system that produces research doctorates (the practical “professional doctorates” in fields such as law, business and medicine have a more obvious value). There is an oversupply of PhDs. Although a doctorate is designed as training for a job in academia, the number of PhD positions is unrelated to the number of job openings. Meanwhile, business leaders complain about shortages of high-level skills, suggesting PhDs are not teaching the right things. The fiercest critics compare research doctorates to Ponzi or pyramid schemes. Read more at: http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223 (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Fri, 24 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894809 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/quality-uk-ihes-at-affordable-tuition-cost-attracts-us-students.html The population of US undergraduates at United Kingdom schools has spiked 30 percent in five years, to 3,560 in the 2008-09 academic year, the most recent figure available from Britain’s Higher Education Statistics Agency. It is a trend driven by price, prestige, and — in the case of St. Andrews — a prince. The small community of collegiate expatriates is populated heavily with students from the New York-Washington corridor and California, British higher education officials say. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Fri, 24 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894808 http://nnlm.gov/gmr/blog/2010/12/23/happy-holidays-to-all-our-members-and-friends/ The holiday preparations look especially bright and appealing this year, perhaps in contrast to the blanketing of snow that we have enjoyed so far this winter. Economic reports for retail are improving, with expenditures five percent above what they were at this time last year. The positive trend for holiday shopping is good news for consumers and the businesses that cater to their wants and needs. Unfortunately, such a positive view cannot be transferred to the current economic state of affairs affecting health sciences and hospital libraries in the GMR, especially in our publicly funded institutions.  Revenue shortfalls at the state and local level are having a significant impact on staffing and accessibility of information resources at our member organizations. In addition to position elimination, ongoing hiring freezes, and non–renewal of licenses and subscriptions, institutions are showing the strain by reorganizing and combining libraries and their constituent units and by repurposing space for non-library, revenue-producing functions.  Such strategies reduce the accessibility of information resources.  For example, when the ILL unit is combined with its general university counterpart, the importance of using DOCLINE for transacting ILL and of keeping SERHOLD records up-to-date to facilitate DOCLINE may diminish.  When library stacks are repurposed for patient or student functions, legacy print collections may be the first to go to free up space for these new functions. The GMR is attempting to take a proactive stance to soften the long-term impact of reduced budgets on our membership. The E-licensing Working Group of the Regional Advisory Council (RAC), in collaboration with the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services serving as agent for consortial licensing by hospital and smaller academic libraries, identified two candidates for selection in 2010. ... Thu, 23 Dec 2010 21:13:24 +0100 894952 http://www.lisnews.org/alaskan_collection_now_without_home Streaming radio from Public Radio in Sitka, Alaska: In the three years since Sheldon Jackson College, founded originally as a Tribal College has closed, there’s been much attention directed on the efforts of the trustees to settle the school’s debts while leaving something behind for some future institution. That legacy will not include a library. Earlier this year SJ’s trustees announced that a transaction was underway to sell the Stratton Library to the state for just over $2-million. The building will join the Sheldon Jackson Museum next door and become part of the state museum system. But only the building is going to the state. The future of the collections inside is a longer story. Local librarians have been working hard to redistribute the most valuable items in the Stratton collection. Earlier this month (December 2010) the public had the unusual opportunity to buy books right off the shelf. “I don’t want to disrespect the collection, because it’s a phenomenal collection. But it’s a collection without a home.” (Source: LISNews - Librarian And Information Science News) Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:00:20 +0100 894876 http://lisnews.org/alaskan_collection_now_without_home Streaming radio from Public Radio in Sitka, Alaska: In the three years since Sheldon Jackson College, founded originally as a Tribal College has closed, there’s been much attention directed on the efforts of the trustees to settle the school’s debts while leaving something behind for some future institution. That legacy will not include a library. Earlier this year SJ’s trustees announced that a transaction was underway to sell the Stratton Library to the state for just over $2-million. The building will join the Sheldon Jackson Museum next door and become part of the state museum system. But only the building is going to the state. The future of the collections inside is a longer story. Local librarians have been working hard to redistribute the most valuable items in the Stratton collection. Earlier this month (December 2010) the public had the unusual opportunity to buy books right off the shelf. “I don’t want to disrespect the collection, because it’s a phenomenal collection. But it’s a collection without a home.” (Source: LISNews.org) Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:00:20 +0100 894657 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Hangingtogetherorg/~3/yGDwyqcaazU/ The Cloud Library project (see the exposition that follows for a quick reductive overview of the idea) got a lot of attention and had a big impact in the research library community this past year. My colleague, Constance Malpas, is the principal intellectual engine driving this effort. She’s shaped the opportunities, divined the evidence to support first steps and generally been a tireless participant in the discussions and action planning that have sprung up around this opportunity. She’s busy now finalizing a report which will be available in January, 2011. We’ll blog about its release. What’s the idea? In the same way that cloud computing offers resources and applications on demand without the user having to operate and own the underlying assets, the cloud library project posited that it is now possible for academic libraries to rely on access to needed book and journal assets rather than manage them as locally-resident and managed physical items. The entry point for exploring this possibility was to reconsider the relation between a library’s physical book collection, off-site storage repositories, and emerging digital text aggregations. Could a library change its local print inventory by relying on supply of a digital version of the text from a digital aggregator and offer a print volume when necessary through an arrangement with an existing storage facility(ies)? We found willing exemplars of each player - New York University as a customer, ReCAP as a storage facility willing to supply and the Hathi Trust as a digital text aggregator willing to offer access to an electronic version of the book. Constance examined the overlap between NYU’s collection, the holdings of ReCAP and the rapidly growing database of digital texts being built by the Hathi Trust from the digital copies received by participants in the Google Books Library Project and other digital copies of books. ... Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:18:33 +0100 895037 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ouseful/~3/b1wlWhviXhw/ Last week, I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation to attend the Texts and Literacy in the Digital Age: Assessing the future of scholarly communication at the Dutch National Library in Den Haag (a trip that ended up turning into a weekend break in Amsterdam when my flight was cancelled…) The presentation can be found here and embedded below, if your feed reader supports it: One thing I have tried to do is annotate each slide with a short piece of discursive text relating to the slide. I need to find a way of linearising slide shows prepared this way to see if I can find a way of generating blog posts from them, which is a task for next year… The presentation draws heavily on Martin Belam’s news:rewired presentation from 2009 (The tyranny of chronology), as I try to tease out some of the structural issues that face the presentation of news media in an online networked age, and constrast (or complement) them with issues faced by scholoarly publishing. One of the things I hope to mull over more next year, and maybe communicate in a more principled way rather than via occasional blog posts and tweets, are the ways in which news media and academia can work together to put the news into some sort of deeper context, and maybe even into a learning (resource) context… (Source: OUseful Info) Thu, 23 Dec 2010 12:26:49 +0100 895050 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/malaysia-plans-educity-as-a-world-recognized-hub-of-higher-education.html At the southern tip of the Malaysian peninsula, just across a strait from Singapore and in the middle of a new metropolis rising from the flat, green landscape, workers are constructing what officials hope will be a hub for higher education. EduCity is spread over 123 hectares, or 305 acres. It will be the base for at least seven institutions of higher learning. The purpose of EduCity is to offer world-class universities. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Thu, 23 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894655 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/muslim-students-at-catholic-colleges-creates-some-cultural-conflict.html In the past few years, enrollment of Muslim students such as Shabnan has spiked at Catholic campuses across the country. Last year, Catholic colleges had an even higher percentage of Muslim students than the average four-year institution in the United States, according to the Higher Education Research Institute. The influx has astonished and sometimes befuddled administrators. Some Catholic campuses are creating prayer rooms for new Muslim students and hiring Islamic chaplains to minister to them. Others are unsure how to adapt. Muslim students say they enroll at Catholic schools for many of the same reasons as their classmates: attractive campuses, appealing professors and academic programs that fit their interests. But there is also a spiritual attraction to the values that overlap the two faiths. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Thu, 23 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894654 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/when-others-are-cutting-language-programs-they-introduce-advanced-swahili.html  Indiana University (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Thu, 23 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894653 http://www.lisnews.org/twelve_theses_libraries_and_librarians Tuesday, 16 February 2010 Twelve theses on libraries and librarians Anna and Evan have posted on libraries; and someone else has posted stunning pictures of the world's most beautiful libraries. All of which prompted me to draw up the following theses: 1. The library is the most solid and enduring item in the whole apparatus of intellectual life. In time our academic fads and fashions, our schools of thought and indeed entire disciplines, will pass soundlessly into the abyss of history. But the library endures – in fact it grows only stronger, driving its roots down ever deeper while the wreckage of history piles up around it. The library’s sheer material presence testifies to its ontological priority in intellectual life: ideas are fickle and intangible, they occupy no fixed location, but the library fills space and time with an imposing materiality. It is the mind’s anchor holding fast beneath the storms and currents of time. (Source: LISNews - Librarian And Information Science News) Thu, 23 Dec 2010 03:51:25 +0100 894881 http://lisnews.org/twelve_theses_libraries_and_librarians Tuesday, 16 February 2010 Twelve theses on libraries and librarians Anna and Evan have posted on libraries; and someone else has posted stunning pictures of the world's most beautiful libraries. All of which prompted me to draw up the following theses: 1. The library is the most solid and enduring item in the whole apparatus of intellectual life. In time our academic fads and fashions, our schools of thought and indeed entire disciplines, will pass soundlessly into the abyss of history. But the library endures – in fact it grows only stronger, driving its roots down ever deeper while the wreckage of history piles up around it. The library’s sheer material presence testifies to its ontological priority in intellectual life: ideas are fickle and intangible, they occupy no fixed location, but the library fills space and time with an imposing materiality. It is the mind’s anchor holding fast beneath the storms and currents of time. (Source: LISNews.org) Thu, 23 Dec 2010 03:51:25 +0100 894662 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16302 Head, Knowledge Access Design and Development (New York University, New York) New York University Libraries The head of this newly conceived department will lead a service-focused team in designing, implementing, and assessing an array of metadata-reliant processes and other strategies for enabling intellectual access to the research resources in all formats of the NYU Division of Libraries. ... Thu, 23 Dec 2010 02:10:01 +0100 894476 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16297 Director of Library Services (Lenoir-Rhyne University, North Carolina) The Carl A. Rudisill  Library of Lenoir-Rhyne  University seeks applications for its Director of Library Services. The successful candidate must be able to begin appointment on or around June 1, 2011. The appointment is continuing, subject to annual review. The position reports directly to the University Provost and carries faculty status, including privileges associated with Faculty Assembly.  Additional information on the library may be viewed at:  http://library.lr. ... Thu, 23 Dec 2010 02:10:01 +0100 894475 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16298 Digital Archivist (University of Virginia, Virginia) The University of Virginia Library seeks a talented and dynamic individual to serve as Digital Archivist. This is a permanent full time position that will work with born digital archives and materials as well as participate in an exciting initiative entitled: Born Digital Collections: An Inter-Institutional Model for Stewardship (AIMS). Reporting to the Director of Digital Curation Services, this position will carry out the goals and objectives of AIMS as well as the application and integration of archival practices to an ever-growing corpus of materials used by scholars, authors, and other notables: namely, born digital content. ... Thu, 23 Dec 2010 02:10:01 +0100 894474 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16300 Assistant Director of Residential Life (University of Illinois, Illinois) Focus: Academic Programs Undergraduate Residence Halls, Department of Residential Life, University Housing Our staff makes our halls a home. We, the staff of the Department of Residential Life, have a vision for our work, "Learning, Growing, Mattering: for every person, on every floor, in every community." The Assistant Director for Academic Programs directly supervises the staff of our eight (8) Living Learning Communities as well as our Residence Hall Library System. ... Thu, 23 Dec 2010 02:10:01 +0100 894473 http://libraryjuicepress.com/blog/?p=2672 Google has added a feature to its advanced search form that allows you to filter results by reading level or add information about a page’s reading level to the information in the results. Reading level is indicated as “basic,” “intermediate,” or “advanced.” Like most of what goes on underneath the Google hood, we aren’t given much information about how reading level is computed. I am constitutionally against anything that could be construed as “dumbing down,” but I have to confess that I find this feature interesting. Working with first-year students in an academic library I often find myself wishing that we had a way to search bibliographic databases that would provide scholarly acceptable content that the students were actually able to comprehend. Something like this technology could be used in a bibliographic database, although I am sure its application in a reference setting would be potentially awkward and intellectual freedom issues would emerge. In checking out this feature, I noticed that Google’s advanced search page includes some additions that I would have to call welcome and surprising from a librarian’s standpoint. If you haven’t looked at it for a while you should check it out (including the collapsed features at the bottom). (Source: Library Juice) Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:07:14 +0100 895080 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/a-informacao/~3/bTs54xEhU28/avancando-para-tras.html Fonte: O Globo. Data: 19/12/2010. Roberto Feith* Diretor da Objetiva escreve sobre o rumo que a nova lei de direitos autorais pode tomar *Roberto Feith é jornalista e empresário do setor editorial A proposta do Ministério da Cultura para uma nova Lei do Direito Autoral é uma tentativa de reformar o que não está quebrado. Ela é fruto de uma arrogância bem intencionada; os arquitetos da proposta são movidos por uma vontade genuína de melhorar o mundo e tomados pela convicção de que sabem, melhor do que ninguém, como fazer isto. Lembram os arquitetos da finada Lei da Informática; o contexto era diferente, mas os responsáveis pelos dois projetos têm em comum a convicção que sabem como corrigir os “erros” da sociedade. O resultado, num e outro caso, são projetos de lei confusos, autoritários e retrógrados. O projeto do Minc é confuso porque trata de forma igual setores com dinâmicas distintas. Na vida real, complexa e multifacetada, o mundo da música é diferente do mundo do livro, que é diferente do mundo do cinema, que é diferente do mundo das artes plásticas. Os idealizadores do novo projeto de lei, no seu furor regulatório, atropelaram este fato singelo e indiscutível. O projeto é autoritário porque cria a figura sem precedente da “licença não voluntária”. Esta terminologia opaca quer dizer que, quando entender que há motivo, o governo poderá declarar nulas as disposições do autor sobre sua obra. Mas quem determinaria quando “há motivos”? Não se preocupe, esta medida de última instância ficaria em mãos qualificadas: nada menos do que o presidente da República. Este é um aspecto inusitado da proposta, pois nem o mais ingênuo dos mortais poderá pensar que o presidente vai tratar desta questão. Na verdade, se aprovada a proposta do Minc, o presidente delegará este poder ao órgão que geralmente trata do tema — o próprio Minc. ... Wed, 22 Dec 2010 17:58:00 +0100 894575 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BabyBoomerLibrarian/~3/wlMwfZeH2VA/posting-for-visiting-assistant.html INDIANA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES-BLOOMINGTON Metadata/Cataloging Librarian Visiting Assistant Librarian (Two Year, Non-Tenure Track Appointment) The IU Bloomington Libraries are seeking an innovative and service oriented individual for the position of Metadata/Cataloging Librarian at the Indiana University Bloomington Libraries. This is a two-year, full-time, non-tenure track appointment in the Libraries' Technical Services Department. Founded in 1820, Indiana University-Bloomington has grown from a small state seminary into the flagship campus of a great public university with over 42,000 students and almost 3,000 faculty. Innovation, creativity, and academic freedom are hallmarks of IU Bloomington and its world-class contributions in research and the arts. The Indiana University Bloomington Libraries (http://www.libraries.iub.edu) are among the leading academic research library systems in North America, having recently been named the top university library by the Association of College and Research Libraries. The IUB Libraries provide strong collections, quality service and instructional programs, and leadership in the application of information technologies. The collections support every academic discipline on campus and include more than 6.6 million books, journals, maps, films, and audio/visual materials in over 900 languages. Users can access more than 400 databases, 43,000 electronic journals, and 224,000 electronic books, as well as locally developed digital content. The IUB Libraries are active members of regional and national associations and consortia including the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Digital Library Federation (DLF), and is a founding member of HathiTrust, a shared digital repository. IU is the principal investigator for Kuali Open Library Environment (OLÉ) and is working with academic library partners to develop a next generation open source library management system. ... Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:10:00 +0100 894502 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ouseful/~3/CsLaTMVW30I/ Lots of deleted stuff I might have regretted posting… (I also apologise in advance for what some might take to be the self-aggrandising nature of this post…) Anyway, that’s all as maybe… One of the ideas I started trying to develop in preparing the promotion case was the notion of “influence”, and how online, network based activities might result in payoff for someone else, through being influenced, that could in part trickle back through some sort of recognised acknowledgement, or feed forward into a payoff that makes the academic or host institution more productive. So here are a handful of examples from the last week or so that provide anecdotal evidence about the influence and reach of posts appearing on OUseful.info: I flashed up on screen a post from Tony Hirst’s OUseful blog where he confessed to ‘hassling’ Simon Rogers over the formats of some of the information in the Guardian Datastore. Tony’s contributions are fantastically useful, and the team have now changed some of their workflows to try and include more universal identifiers. On datasets with country lists, for example, they now aim to provide the two letter ISO country code in order to get around confusion when comparing datasets that might feature Burma or Myanmar for example. - news:rewired – “Reader-centred journalism” [C]hanged some of their workflows… right… so that might make it easier for others, such as academics stooping so low as to use news media published data rather than “original” sources in their own work. Or it might mean that folk who are not academics putting the data to work because it’s now easier for them to do so, and getting real value out of it. ... Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:34:25 +0100 895051 http://www.lisjobs.com/jobs/item.asp?ID=43850 Assistant Director Academic Programs (Source: Combined Library Job Postings - Lisjobs.com and Library Job Postings on the Internet) Wed, 22 Dec 2010 06:01:00 +0100 894905 http://invisibleweblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/collnet-2011.html Seventh International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics (WIS) & Twelfth COLLNET Meeting will take place 20-23 September, 2011, at Istanbul Bilgi University. According to the conference call for paper: the broad focus of the conference is on collaboration and communication in science and technology; science policy; quantitative aspects of science of science; and combination and integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches in study of scientific practices. Theoretical, methodological and applied aspects of the conference can be listed as follows:Emerging issues in scientometrics / informetrics /webometrics and history of science,Impact and role of open access and digital libraries on patterns of collaborations and sciences,Science policy and collaboration,Collaboration studies for science & society,Collaboration, knowledge management & industrial partnership,Collaborative bridge between academic research and industry,Methods for collaboration studies,Visualization techniques in collaboration studies,Quantitative analysis of S&T innovations,Informetrics laws and distributions, mathematical models of communication or collaboration,Nature and growth of science and of collaboration in science and its relation with technological output,Collaboration in science and in technology from both quantitative and qualitative points of view,Evaluation indicators for scientific productivity and other science related practices. (Source: The Invisible Web Weblog) Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 895023 http://olc7.ohiolink.edu/whatsnew/archives/000398.html KnowItNow Academic, the online service that answers your questions and provides expert research help from librarians at participating OhioLINK libraries, will be open from 9am to 5pm, Monday, December 20th through Wednesday, December 22nd. They will be closed from Thursday,... (Source: What's New At OhioLINK) Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894710 http://librarychronicles.blogspot.com/2010_12_01_archive.html#4398753814320435374 If a computer program can determine the general mood of the market and make resource allocating decisions based on those determinations, then what the hell do I need this invisible hand for? Math-loving traders are using powerful computers to speed-read news reports, editorials, company Web sites, blog posts and even Twitter messages — and then letting the machines decide what it all means for the markets.The development goes far beyond standard digital fare like most-read and e-mailed lists. In some cases, the computers are actually parsing writers’ words, sentence structure, even the odd emoticon. A wink and a smile — ;) — for instance, just might mean things are looking up for the markets. Then, often without human intervention, the programs are interpreting that news and trading on it. Don't look now, but I think Wall Street may have finally killed God. The God of the free market anyway. We are told the actual God was killed years and years ago by either Elvis' hips or the sale of K&B to Rite Aid but scholars continue to debate this. Meanwhile the Market God has been replaced by what appears to be a matrix of spam bots tweeting at one another all day and night. Just remember that Phase 3 is profit.Some of these programs hardly seem like rocket science. Working with academics at Columbia University and the University of Notre Dame, Dow Jones compiled a dictionary of about 3,700 words that can signal changes in sentiment. Feel-good words include obvious ones like “ingenuity,” “strength” and “winner.” Feel-bad ones include “litigious,” “colludes” and “risk.”The software typically identifies the subject of a story and then examines the actual words. The programs are written to recognize the meaning of words and phrases in context, like distinguishing between “terribly,” “good” and “terribly good.” I am horrifically pleased to read this. ... Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894585 http://rabid-librarian.blogspot.com/2010/12/cool-graphs-of-verbal-vs-mathematical.html Verbal vs. mathematical aptitude in academics Worst verbal? Accounting and social work majors Worst math/quantitative? Social work majors Worst reading? Social work majors Doesn't sound great for that profession. Philosophy majors do well in all three categories. I was a history and sociology major with the honours programme (which was essentially a 'Great Books' curriculum that was in addition to other classes--I added a classical civilisation with a Judaic studies minor after I actually received my BA. Sadly, I was one class short of a linguistics major. (Damn phonological analysis, which was never taught when I could take it.) So I was an social sciences/humanities geek. When I took the GRE my intended major was history.)) Like the analysis for history, my quantitative was about average (somewhere in the upper 500s--that was 21 years ago and I have no idea where my original scores are) and my verbal high (somewhere in the upper 600s or lower 700s, I think). What I sucked majorly in was the special subject test for history of all things, because it had a lot of art history. I have since rectified that deficit. I wonder how'd I do these days? I think my brain is turning somewhat to mush. I need to exercise it more. (Source: The Rabid Librarian's Ravings in the Wind) Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894549 http://hurstassociates.blogspot.com/2010/12/when-students-work-intersects-with.html This blog post reflects my opinion and not the opinion of any organization that I am associated with.  I look forward to comments on this, especially from those who deal with copyright, ethics or academic integrity.Recently, I spoke to someone who had been hired to write papers for a university student. I knew that there were services available that would either resell older student papers or connect a student to someone who will write their papers for them, but I never expected to interact with someone who had participated in this industry.You will wonder if the person felt that the work had been wrong.  I didn't ask that that exact question, but sensed that earning money trumped that concern.  In reality, it is the student who would get into trouble if it was discovered that the work was not his/her own and not the person who has been hired to do the work.This is a topic that is discussed in the news on occasion (e.g., Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 12, 2010 and Nov. 22, 2010 which call these writers "shadow scholars"). In the past few days, I've talked about this with a few colleagues/friends and concerns regarding copyright, integrity and ethics have arose, as well as detection.  That had led me to writing this blog post in order to share some thoughts on this more publicly.Areas of Concerns:Copyright - One person's immediate reaction was that there was a copyright violation; however, I would argue that paper was a work-for-hire.  In this case, the writer has been paid to write the paper for the student, and the copyright becomes owned by the student.  Therefore, there isn't a copyright violation.Integrity - One concern is that the student is not representing his/her abilities honestly.  This means that the grade for the work does not reflect what the student can honestly do, nor does it mean that the professor has a correct impression of the student's abilities. ... Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894527 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Digitization101/~3/9tCVLN5ONV8/when-students-work-intersects-with.html This blog post reflects my opinion and not the opinion of any organization that I am associated with.  I look forward to comments on this, especially from those who deal with copyright, ethics or academic integrity.Recently, I spoke to someone who had been hired to write papers for a university student. I knew that there were services available that would either resell older student papers or connect a student to someone who will write their papers for them, but I never expected to interact with someone who had participated in this industry.You will wonder if the person felt that the work had been wrong.  I didn't ask that that exact question, but sensed that earning money trumped that concern.  In reality, it is the student who would get into trouble if it was discovered that the work was not his/her own and not the person who has been hired to do the work.This is a topic that is discussed in the news on occasion (e.g., Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 12, 2010 and Nov. 22, 2010 which call these writers "shadow scholars"). In the past few days, I've talked about this with a few colleagues/friends and concerns regarding copyright, integrity and ethics have arose, as well as detection.  That had led me to writing this blog post in order to share some thoughts on this more publicly.Areas of Concerns:Copyright - One person's immediate reaction was that there was a copyright violation; however, I would argue that paper was a work-for-hire.  In this case, the writer has been paid to write the paper for the student, and the copyright becomes owned by the student.  Therefore, there isn't a copyright violation.Integrity - One concern is that the student is not representing his/her abilities honestly.  This means that the grade for the work does not reflect what the student can honestly do, nor does it mean that the professor has a correct impression of the student's abilities. ... Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894495 http://acrlog.org/2010/12/22/incorporating-failure-into-library-instruction/ Failure is what’s getting a fair amount of attention right now, especially when the conversation turns to learning. I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as a growing consensus, but I’m hearing and reading more about the importance of allowing students to learn through authentic practice, what some call experiential learning, that puts them into situations where they can succeed or fail – and learn by doing so themselves or from the experiences of their fellow students. Educators have known for many years that students have better learning experiences when there is a hands-on component which enables them to learn through their own mistakes and by coming to their own conclusions; what then need is less lecturing and demonstration. Think back to the days when the vast majority of trades were learned through apprenticeships. It was all about having authentic practice, and learning from one’s own mistakes. One good example that promotes the value of failure for learning is a TED Talk by Diana Laufenberg on the topic of “How to Learn? From Mistakes.” In this talk Laufenberg, who is a teacher at a progressive school in Philadelphia, describes how she creates projects that promote constructivism in the classroom. Traditional education, as she describes it, is focused entirely on getting things right – and never being wrong. How do you get an A grade? You always give the right answers on tests. The problem associated with test taking is that it rarely results in real learning (a permanent change in behavior/thinking). I really like the point that the traditional methods are based on a world of information scarcity when you had to sit in a classroom to have an expert pour it into your head. In a world of information abundance, the answers and possibilities are all around contemporary students. They know how to find it. ... Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894419 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/counseling-services-struggle-to-meet-demands-of-the-seriously-mentally-ill-students.html Stony Brook is typical of American colleges and universities these days, where national surveys show that nearly half of the students who visit counseling centers are coping with serious mental illness, more than double the rate a decade ago. More students take psychiatric medication, and there are more emergencies requiring immediate action. The need to help this troubled population has forced campus mental health (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894400 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/grateful-dead-archive-at-santa-cruz-near-top-of-wasteful-projects-list.html Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is not grateful for the University of California-Santa Cruz's digital archive of Deadhead memorabilia. The archive, which contains thousands of Grateful Dead-related pictures, documents and paraphernalia, was completed with the help of a $615,000 federal grant -- and comes in at No. 4 on Coburn's list of the most wasteful government spending projects of 2010 (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894399 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/fish-on-conservatives-and-liberals-in-higher-education.html A new book I received in the same week.“Academic Freedom in the Post-9/11 Era” (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894398 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/adderall-abuse-a-growing-campus-problem.html Last school year, two UW-Madison journalism students walked into a campus library with a mission: See how fast they could score some Adderall, a popular prescription “smart drug” that users say improves their ability to study. They were good to go in 56 seconds. Experts say such easy access and casual acceptance is increasingly common on campuses, including UW-Madison, where students coping with academic demands are turning to illicit use of Adderall and other stimulants. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894397 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/12/elite-ihes-re-think-rotc-after-repeal-of-dont-ask-dont-tell.html The Senate vote to repeal the 17-year old “don’t ask, don’t tell (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 894396 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16287 Research/Information Literacy Librarian (Washington College, Maryland) Washington College invites applications for the position of Research and Information Literacy Librarian. The College seeks an enthusiastic and motivated librarian who can provide leadership in research and information literacy instruction. The successful candidate must be experienced in providing research services at the academic level, information literacy instruction and design, assessment in student learning, demonstrated ability in creating web-based instructional tools, and have earned a Masters degree from an ALA accredited program. For more information, please go to: http://hr.washcoll.edu/ (Source: Latest ALA Job Listings) Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:05:02 +0100 894265 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16281 Librarian - Reference (North Orange County Community College District, California) Job #FCF711 Tenure-track position, 100% contract. STARTING DATE August 10, 2011   MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS Master’s degree in library science or library and information science; OR Valid California teaching credential authorizing service in a community college in the appropriate subject matter area; OR The equivalent.  Equivalent qualifications may include related education, training, employment and professional experience that would be equal to the required degree(s) and experience in the field as determined by the District Equivalency Committee. All degrees and course work used to satisfy the required minimum qualifications must be from accredited postsecondary institutions (see www.nocccd. ... Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:05:02 +0100 894260 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16289 Librarian (Technical Services) (Saddleback College, California) Full-Time Tenure Track JOB OPENING ID# 1721/3789 CLOSING DATE:  APRIL 1, 2011 PLEASE NOTE: In order to be considered for this opening, you must apply through the District website at https://jobs.socccd.edu EXPERIENCE REQUIRED Minimum of two (2) years post-graduate experience in an academic library (preferably community college) planning and managing library automation systems and technical services. ... Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:05:02 +0100 894259 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=16282 Archivist for Digital Development and University Records (Ball State University, Indiana)   Professional position available immediately.  Major responsibility:  engage in acquisition, processing, preservation, digitization, promotion, and use of the unit’s collections, programs, and services; contribute to the formulation, development, management, and promotion of the University Libraries’ digital projects and repositories in the ongoing transition from print to a predominately digital environment. ... Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:05:02 +0100 894257 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TameTheWeb/~3/-9Wsb8wf7eM/ I contributed my final post as a regular author this week at ALA TechSource. I must say it makes me a bit emotional but it’s time to move on to focus on other things. I thought I take this chance to point back to some of my favorite posts from the last 5 years of writing at TechSource. One of my favorite things to do was a “back and forth” interview/discussion style post. Here are some of the best of the best: John Blyberg: On the L2 Train | Information Experience Michael Casey: Where Do We Begin? | Better Library Services for More People Robert Doyle (Illinois Library Association) Michael Edson (Smithsonian Institution) Michael Golrick | Stacey Greenwell | Christopher Harris | Cliff Landis And some of my FAVORITE solo posts: November 2005: Do Libraries Matter: On Library & Librarian 2.0 The library encourages the heart. As we reach out to users, we must remember all of the folks we serve. To me, Library 2.0 will be a meeting place, online or in the physical world, where my emotional needs will be fulfilled through entertainment, information, and the ability to create my own stuff to contribute to the ocean of content out there – the Long Tail if you will. Librarian 2.0, then, will be available to guide me and teach me to use the systems provided by the library to do just that. As Abram said, librarians will provide clarification: Librarians need to position themselves and the library to help with finding the answers to: how? and why?” February 2006: Are You Dreaming? That’s where dreaming comes in. Have you had the chance to dream at your library job? Have you had the chance to stop for a minute in the buzz buzz of your routine and think about the future? Are you encouraged to innovate? If not, then I urge you to do so. And I urge library administrators to encourage dreaming on the job. ... Tue, 21 Dec 2010 22:57:37 +0100 894289 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/zrDWouFjyok/lib-value-website-now-available.html The Association of Research Libraries has announced that a website for "Value, Outcomes, and Return on Investment of Academic Libraries (Lib-Value)," a three-year project funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), is now available (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:17:40 +0100 894275 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/21/racism-caste-isabel-wilkerson Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns helps to reframe the debate about the relationship between race and casteOne of 2010's most feted books has been The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, a powerful history of the 20th-century migration of African-American families from America's deeply segregated south. Epic in the scale of its hurt and hope, it tells the largely untold story of a people fleeing a society of segregation and lynchings to start more fulfilling lives in Chicago, New York and the west coast. In these anonymous sprawls, racial prejudice may have been alive and well in people's heads but the crucial difference was that it wasn't sanctioned by policy and pulpit.I watched the Pulitzer prize-winning Wilkerson talk on television about her book and was struck by the number of times and the deliberation with which she used the term "caste system" to describe the purist infrastructure of Jim Crow country, whose codes were as repugnant as the pollution laws of untouchable India. I phoned her at Boston University and she confirmed something that, strangely enough, has escaped reviewer attention: nowhere in the 622-page book does the word "racism" occur. Wilkerson even did a word search to make sure it wasn't there."Racism is such a divisive, loaded word that it has become shorthand for all kinds of things," she explained. "Using the term 'caste system' not only forces readers to challenge notions of how race and class play out in the US, it also places an ethnic equation in a larger historical structure. I prefer caste system because I believe it better characterises the larger forces at work. It focuses on structure rather than emotion, it answers so many questions about the behaviour of people at all levels of the caste system and explains why those perceived to benefit from it will work so hard to maintain it, and why those at the bottom of it would be driven to do whatever it takes to escape it. ... Tue, 21 Dec 2010 15:34:38 +0100 894248 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/S7X0hYDMCbU/fair-use-challenges-in-academic-and.html The Association of Research Libraries has announced the release of Fair Use Challenges in Academic and Research Libraries, a report that summarizes research into the current application of fair use and other copyright exemptions to meet the missions of U.S. academic and research libraries. The research was conducted in partnership with the Center for Social Media and the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University. In dozens of interviews with veteran research and academic librarians, the researchers learned how copyright law comes into play as interviewees performed core library functions (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:11:56 +0100 894276 http://www.slis.indiana.edu/careers/view_job_specific.php?job_id=8979 State: Indiana Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) Helmke Library (http://lib.ipfw.edu) seeks an experienced, innovative, and energetic leader to work closely with librarians, library staff, faculty, students, administrators, and the community to continue to develop the library's initiatives to integrate information literacy programs across the curriculum, provide expert information and research services, expand digital initiatives, build physical and electronic collections, and conceptualize the future of academic library public services within a rapidly changing information landscape. Interviews will be conducted for a 12-month, tenure-track position to begin July 1, 2011. Responsibilities Reporting to the Dean of Helmke Library, the Head of Public Services provides leadership in managing library services and programs to support teaching, learning and research at IPFW. Specific responsibilities include: • Coordinating and supervising the Information and Instruction Services unit within a team environment • Coordinating between other public access service units such as the Service Desk and Document Delivery Services • Promoting collaboration and effective working relationships with IPFW Learning Commons partners in developing, implementing and assessing an integrated approach to student academic success at IPFW • Expanding partnerships with faculty to integrate and assess information literacy competencies across the curriculum • Empowering staff, encouraging innovation, and embracing new technologies that enhance instruction, learning, and research • Engaging the university community with digital scholarship and scholarly communication issues • Developing strategic directions for the library’s Information and Instruction Services unit Qualifications: An A.L.A.-accredited master's degree in library or information science is required. An additional graduate degree is preferred. ... Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:30:02 +0100 894156 http://www.slis.indiana.edu/careers/view_job_specific.php?job_id=8980 State: Indiana Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) Walter E. Helmke Library (http://www.lib.ipfw.edu) seeks an energetic, knowledgeable, and collaborative individual to work independently and in a team environment to provide high-quality, innovative, and effective information and instructional services and programs to a diverse university community. Librarian will provide liaison services to the Richard T. Doermer School of Business, Public and Environmental Affairs, and Labor Studies. Interviews will be conducted for a 12-month, tenure-track position to begin July 1, 2011. Responsibilities: Successful candidate will contribute substantially to the library's initiatives to integrate information literacy programs across the curriculum, provide expert information and research services, expand digital initiatives, build physical and electronic collections, and conceptualize the future of academic library public services within a rapidly changing information landscape. As part of the IPFW Learning Commons team, will promote collaboration and effective working relationships with IPFW Learning Commons’ partners in developing, implementing, and assessing an integrated approach to student academic success at IPFW. Within liaison-area assignments, is responsible for providing research-consulting services; developing innovative information services and programs; teaching and assessing information literacy competencies in partnership with faculty; developing outreach activities for students and faculty; evaluating, selecting, and using printed and electronic resources; and contributing to IPFW's digital initiatives. Other duties may be assigned. Qualifications: An A.L.A.-accredited master's degree in library or information science is required. Preference given to candidates with experience in academic library settings, especially liaison-area assignments. ... Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:30:02 +0100 894155