E-Lert # 255 /Cyberavis no. 255

Friday November 23, 2007 / le vendredi 23 novembre 2007

CARL COMMUNIQUE / COMMUNIQUÉ DE L’ABRC

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) commends Library and Archives Canada (LAC) on initiating a dialogue to develop a Canadian Digital Information Strategy and sees the AloutteCanada Open Digitization Initiative as a valuable precursor. A strategy, backed by an action plan and sustainable funding, is critical if Canada is to ensure that our digital assets are created, used and preserved for future generations; and that Canada has a strong presence in the digital universe. The CARL Response to the Canadian Digital Information Strategy is now available on the CARL web site. [more...]

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L’Association des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada (ABRC) félicite Bibliothèque et Archives Canada (BAC) de son initiation du dialogue pour développer une Stratégie canadienne sur l'information numérique. L’ABRC considère que l’initiative de numérisation ouverte AlouetteCanada présente un précurseur de valeur de la SCIN. Une stratégie, soutenue par un plan d’action et du financement renouvelable, est essentielle pour assurer que notre actif numérisé soit créé, utilisé et préservé pour les générations futures et aussi pour garantir que le Canada ait une forte présence dans l’univers numérisé. La réponse de l’ABRC au sujet de la Stratégie canadienne sur l'information numérique est maintenant disponible sur le site web de l’ABRC. (En anglais; la version en français sera disponible sous peu.) [plus...]

Liberal MP for Ottawa-Vanier Compliments Leslie Weir and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL)
39th Parliament, 2nd Session, Edited Hansard • Number 018
Friday, November 16, 2007

Hon. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.): “Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, also known as CARL, is the leadership organization for the Canadian research library community. The association's members are the 27 major academic research libraries across Canada, plus Library and Archives Canada, the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, known as CISTI, and of course the Library of Parliament. CARL members are the backbone of Canada's intellectual holdings in all disciplines. I congratulate Ms. Leslie Weir, university librarian at the University of Ottawa, my alma mater, on becoming the new president of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries. She is widely admired in her profession as an innovator in providing electronic information to the teaching and research community that the University of Ottawa serves and now her experience will serve other libraries. Once again, congratulations Ms. Weir and long live the Canadian Association of Research Libraries.”

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Déclaration du Député Libéral pour Ottawa-Vanier au sujet de l’ABRC et Leslie Weir
39e Législature, 2e Session, Hansard Révisé • Numéro 018
Table des matières, le vendredi 16 novembre 2007

L'hon. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.): «Monsieur le Président, l'Association des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada, aussi appelée l'ABRC, est le chef de file des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada. Cette association a comme membres les 27 grandes bibliothèques de recherche du Canada ainsi que Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, l'Institut canadien de l'information scientifique et technique, également appelé l'ICIST, ainsi que la Bibliothèque du Parlement. Les membres de l'association constituent l'épine dorsale des ressources intellectuelles du Canada, dans toutes les disciplines. Je félicite Mme Leslie Weir, bibliothécaire de l'Université d'Ottawa, mon alma mater, d'avoir été nommée dernièrement présidente de l'Association des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada. Elle suscite largement l'admiration au sein de sa profession, à titre d'innovatrice dans le domaine de la communication électronique de l'information aux professeurs et aux chercheurs. Son expérience acquise à l'Université d'Ottawa pourra maintenant être utile à d'autres bibliothèques. Encore une fois, félicitations à Mme Weir et longue vie à l'Association des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada. »

NEWS / NOUVELLES

Internet nearing capacity, U.S. study says
CBC News, November 21, 2007

Increasing internet access and new capacity-intensive uses like streaming, interactive videos and shared music files are pushing the system toward gridlock, a U.S. study warns. The report by Nemertes Research said, "Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years." The company is not predicting that the internet will collapse, but it will get very slow. "Overall, transmitting over a saturated broadband link will feel a lot like the bad old days of dial-up: Long pauses between request and response, with some applications just too painful to bother with."
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/11/21/internet-gridlock.html

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) launches the Government of Canada Web Archive
November 20, 2007

The Library and Archives of Canada Act received Royal Assent on April 22, 2004, allowing Library and Archives Canada (LAC) to collect and preserve a representative sample of Canadian websites. To meet its new mandate, LAC began to harvest the Web domain of the Federal Government of Canada starting in December 2005. As resources permit, this harvesting activity will be undertaken on a semi-annual basis. The harvested website data is stored in the "Government of Canada Web Archive" (GCWA). Client access to the content of the GCWA is provided through searching full text by keyword, by department name and by URL. Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has implemented this first significant Canadian Web archive through the use of open source tools, developed by the International Internet Preservation Consortium (http://www.netpreserve.org), of which LAC is a member.
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/index-e.html;jsessionid=5DA043CA1BE72461B3F3413920DAEB68#il

Technologie - One Laptop Per Child réussit son défi
Bruno Guglielminetti
Le Devoir, 19 novembre 2007

Il y a deux ans, lors du Sommet mondial sur la société de l'information de Tunis, le professeur Nicholas Negroponte surprenait les participants de la conférence organisée par les Nations Unies avec un nouveau projet de son cru. Sa nouvelle mission, créer un ordinateur portable pour moins de cent dollars et l'offrir gratuitement aux enfants d'âge scolaire dans les pays en voie de développement. Un concept simple, accrocheur, mais qui n'a pas tardé à se complexifier. Deux ans plus tard, presque jour pour jour, l'équipe de l'organisme à but non lucratif One Laptop Per Child a réussi son défi, et les ordinateurs sont maintenant en direction des enfants. Mais, pour y arriver, l'équipe de Negroponte a dû revoir sa stratégie.
http://www.ledevoir.com/2007/11/19/164912.html

Yes, Google is Trying to Take Over the World
Tim Wu
Slate Magazine, November 16, 2007

When Google conquered Internet search in the early 2000s, it was strictly a Web company and faced only Web competitors. Since then it has only rarely ventured out of the friendly confines of the Web world. The 2005 launch of its controversial "book search," which enraged the New York publishing industry, shows what can happen when Google leaves its comfort zone. Now, with its recently announced plans to enter wireless communications, Google is making its deepest foray yet into a foreign territory where its allies are few. Provided that Google has the nerve and resources to try to remake wireless in its image, it'll either prove its greatest triumph or its Waterloo.
http://www.slate.com/id/2178158

Study: Scientists Criticize Attempts to Steer Research
CAUT Bulletin, Volume 54, Number 9, November 2007

Scientists believe government and research councils focus too heavily on economic outcomes of research, according to the findings reported last month by the Institute of Ideas. The study, conducted by the UK-based institute, also revealed divisions among scientists over whether the growth in ethical checks and balances is a good thing. More than 200 researchers responded to the online survey conducted for the institute’s two-day interdisciplinary festival held in London at the end of October. Asked whether the government was taking “too instrumental an approach towards scientific research in general,” some 84 per cent found that it was. Another 62 per cent also rated as “too instrumental” the approach by research councils, compared with universities at 47 per cent.
http://www.cautbulletin.ca/en_article.asp?id=330&section=184

MP Carrie Identifies key Ingredients For Achieving Successful Canadian Innovation
Research Money, Volume 21, Number 17, November 12, 2007

S&T champions, skilled people, focus, partnerships and research excellence are critical if Canada is to successfully compete in a rapidly evolving global economy, says the parliamentary secretary to Industry minister Jim Prentice. Dr Colin Carrie says his government's new S&T Strategy addresses all these issues and more, as it attempts to position Canada for competitive advantage in areas where the nation can be among the world leaders. "With the S&T Strategy, the government is starting to take a look at the big picture to get from a step ‘A', — a human being, a mind — and get it out to a product that gets commercialized. Where is the government's role in that and what kind of resources do you put towards basic science?" says Carrie. "It's something that is very important for us to know, so that industry, our manufacturing sectors, our value-added industries, start to obtain results from the research we're doing at our universities and our colleges"

Failure of Network to Obtain More Funding Points to Weakness in NCE Program’s Ability to Support Social Sciences
Research Money, Volume 21, Number 17, November 12, 2007

The Board of the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network (CLLRNet) will meet to decide on a future course of action following its failure to secure continued funding from the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program. CLLRNet’s failure to obtain a second, seven-year tranche of funding underlines the NCE program’s poor track record of supporting social science-focused research. Since the NCE’s inception in 1989, no social sciences-based NCE has ever remained in the program for the full 14 years – a failure many view as the inability of the NCE to support research in the social sciences.

ARTICLES

The Future of Reading
Steven Levy
Newsweek, November 26, 2007

Amazon's Jeff Bezos already built a better bookstore. Now he believes he can improve upon one of humankind's most divine creations: the book itself. "Technology," computer pioneer Alan Kay once said, "is anything that was invented after you were born." So it is not surprising, when making mental lists of the most whiz-bangy technological creations in our lives, that we may overlook an object that is superbly designed, wickedly functional, infinitely useful and beloved more passionately than any gadget in a Best Buy: the book. It is a more reliable storage device than a hard disk drive, and it sports a killer user interface. (No instruction manual or "For Dummies" guide needed.) In addition, it is instant-on and requires no batteries. Many people think it is so perfect an invention that it cannot be improved upon, and react with indignation at any implication to the contrary.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983

Principles For Transferring Federal Labs
Ashley O’Sullivan
Research Money, Volume 21, Number 17, November 12, 2007

The Government of Canada recently developed a federal science and technology strategy — Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada's Advantage. Following its creation, the Committee on Federal Laboratory Transfers was established, chaired by Dr Arnold Naimark. The Committee is in the process of identifying up to five transfer opportunities by the end of this year. The strategy outlines four strategic principles: fostering partnerships; promoting world-class excellence; focusing on priorities; and enhancing accountability. According to Treasury Board, the objectives of laboratory transfers are to: increase the impact of federal investments in research; foster research excellence; enhance learning and transfer of knowledge; and, leverage the strengths of government, university and private sector research.

Work on overarching strategy continues as Alberta lays foundation for building a knowledge-based economy
Research Money, Volume 21, Number 17, November 12, 2007

Alberta is moving forward on the implementation of a provincial science and technology (S&T) strategy that aims to take full advantage of the province's resources and knowledge assets by focusing on a select number of key priority areas. Conceived by the Alberta Science and Research Authority (ASRA) and embedded with the concept of "intelligent intervention", the strategy will take on new momentum if recommendations by a recent Task Force on Value-Added and Technology Commercialization are implemented in the next Budget. Alberta is moving forward on the implementation of a provincial science and technology (S&T) strategy that aims to take full advantage of the province's resources and knowledge assets by focusing on a select number of key priority areas. Conceived by the Alberta Science and Research Authority (ASRA) and embedded with the concept of "intelligent intervention", the strategy will take on new momentum if recommendations by a recent Task Force on Value-Added and Technology Commercialization are implemented in the next Budget.

RESOURCES / RESSOURCES

Academic Database Assessment Tool
Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), November 20, 2007

The JISC Academic Database Assessment Tool (ADAT) aims to help libraries to make informed decisions about future subscriptions to bibliographic databases. The site provides access to detailed information and title lists for major bibliographic and full text databases, and key service information for database and eBook content platforms. In each case, the information has been provided directly by the relevant suppliers and is presented here as a resource to assist librarians in their purchasing decisions. The site provides functionality to compare databases automatically. Any combination of databases can be compared in order to generate lists of relevant titles. The site is provided under a Creative Commons license.
http://www.jisc-adat.com/adat/home.pl

Breaking Down Digital Barriers: When and How ICT Interoperability Drives Innovation
Urs Gasser and John Palfrey
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University, Berkman Publication Series, November 2007

Interoperability, like openness, is something that we generally think of as a “good thing” in the context of information and communications technologies (ICTs). One of the reasons why we tend to like interoperability is that we believe it leads to innovation, as well as other positive things like consumer choice, ease of use, and competition. This study is an in-depth analysis of three cases — DRM-protected music, Digital ID, and Mashups in the Web services context. The authors assess a range of views on how interoperability happens, what is optimal in terms of interoperability, how interoperability relates to innovation, and how we ought to approach achieving greater interoperability.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interop/pdfs/interop-breaking-barriers.pdf

Uncovering Hidden Resources: Extending the Coverage of Online Catalogues
Research Information Network, November 2007

Researchers now expect to have online access to library catalogues. However, many of the resources held in UK libraries are not catalogued at all, or are not covered by online catalogues. Such resources are increasingly likely to be overlooked or ignored by researchers, whatever their potential value for research. UK librarians have therefore devoted considerable efforts to tackling the backlog of uncatalogued material in their collections, and converting to digital and online form catalogues that were originally available only in printed or card catalogue format (termed ‘retro conversion’). The study shows significant progress: librarians estimate that 50% of material in their research collections is now covered by online catalogues, compared with 31% five years ago. Nevertheless, much more remains to be done before all the significant material held in UK libraries that may be of value to researchers can be readily traced through online catalogues.
http://www.rin.ac.uk/catalogue-coverage

Battle of Ideas survey report: What are the barriers to science in the 21st Century?
Tony Gilland
Institute of Ideas

Tony Blair described himself as ‘born-again’ on the subject and Gordon Brown, while still Chancellor, opened up the coffers. However, the money available to scientific research seems to come at a price. Scientists are increasingly expected to fulfill demands that are less about the pursuit of knowledge than the instrumental benefits – and potential ethical perils – of their research. Today’s scientists are expected to keep one eye on the ‘knowledge transfer’ potential of their work and another on possible risks. Questions about the likely benefits for the economy, healthcare or the environment are high on funding bodies’ minds, as are questions about the likelihood of ‘success’.
http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/documents/Science_Survey_Report.pdf

The Internet Singularity, Delayed: Why Limits in Internet Capacity Will Stifle Innovation on the Web
Nemertes Research

In this study, Nemertes performed an independent in-depth analysis of Internet and IP infrastructure (capacity) and current and projected traffic (demand) with the goal of understanding how each has changed over time, and determining if there will ever be a point at which demand exceeds capacity. To assess infrastructure capacity, the authors reviewed details of carrier expenditures and vendor revenues, and compared these against market research studies. To compute demand, the study took a unique approach: Instead of modeling user behavior based on measuring the application portfolios that users had currently deployed, and projecting deployment of those applications in future, researchers looked directly at how user consumption of available bandwidth has changed over time.
http://www.nemertes.com/internet_singularity_delayed_why_limits_internet_capacity_will_stifle_innovation_web?#

EVENTS / ÉVÉNEMENTS

DSpace: Building a Foundation for Evolution and Revolution
Cosponsored by University of Toronto Libraries, Resource Centre for Academic and Technology and Knowledge Media Design Institute
Toronto, Ontario, November 27, 2007, 11 am to 12:30 pm

In the last several years, the amount of digital content created has exploded and the Internet is now becoming an enabling technology to share and reuse this content. The DSpace platform needs to continuously evolve to handle the ever-increasing amount and different types of content, and satisfy the needs of a broad set of users across the community. The presentation will discuss how the newly formed DSpace Foundation will direct the efforts to broaden the capabilities of DSpace over the coming year, and highlight new and unique applications for managing digital content emerging in the DSpace community. Please RSVP to anna.santeramo@utoronto.ca by November 23rd as space is limited. The session will also be webcast and archived by the Ontario Council of University Libraries at: http://connect.scholarsportal.info/dspace/. Sign in as a guest.

TIC et réussite, ça clique
Association pour les applications pédagogiques de l’ordinateur au postsecondaire (APOP)
Colloque en ligne

L’Association pour les applications pédagogiques de l’ordinateur au postsecondaire (APOP) tiendra un colloque annuel en ligne les 9 et 10 janvier 2008. Qu’apportent les TIC et comment peuvent-elles faire la différence dans un processus d’accès à la réussite? Le colloque de l’APOP vise à accueillir des réflexions, des propositions et des pistes de solution pouvant aider les enseignants dans leur pratique pédagogique.
http://www.apop.cace.qc.ca/

The New Information Order: Its Culture, Content and Economy
2008 National Federation of Science Abstracting and Indexing Services (NFAIS) Annual Conference and 50th Anniversary Gala
Philadelphia, PA, February 24-26, 2008

A New Information Order is emerging user-centric, technology-driven, and with a global economic infrastructure that is a work-in-process. Virtual communities abound. Their techno-literate inhabitants seek information, communicate and collaborate in ways that are shaping new forms of content and defining a new information culture. The conference will take a look at how the rapid adoption of information technology is creating a user-centric, technology-driven society with its own unique culture, value propositions, behavior and economy, and will highlight the opportunities for all information providers – publishers, librarians and educators - to adapt their products, services and business practices to this new society.
http://www.nfais.org/events/event_details.cfm?id=44