E-Lert # 291 / Cyberavis no. 291
Friday August 22, 2008 / le vendredi 22 août 2008
CARL COMMUNIQUE / COMMUNIQUÉ DE L’ABRC
The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) gave its pre-budget
submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance on August
15, 2008. PDF
/
L’Association des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada (ABRC)
a donné son mémoire pré budgétaire au Comité
des finances de la Chambre des communes le 15 août 2008. PDF
(en anglais)
NEWS / NOUVELLES
Max Planck Society To Fund Publication in Public Library of Science
Journals
Library Journal, August 21, 2008
Germany’s prestigious Max Planck Society (MPS)
this week announced an agreement with the Public Library of Science (PLoS)
to cover the publication fees of MPS-affiliated scientists who wish to publish
in PLoS journals. Under the deal, which applies to articles submitted after
July 1 of this year, MPS will pay the full author processing charges from
MPS’s central funding.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6589480.html?nid=2673#news3
Better access to scientific articles on EU-funded research: European
Commission launches online pilot project
August 20, 2008
The European Commission wants to ensure that the results of the research it funds under the EU's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7) with more than € 50 billion from 2007 - 2013 are disseminated as widely and effectively as possible to guarantee maximum exploitation and impact in the world of researchers and beyond. The Commission launched a pilot project that will give unrestricted online access to EU-funded research results, primarily research articles published in peer reviewed journals, after an embargo period of between 6 and 12 months. The pilot will cover around 20% of the FP7 programme budget in areas such as health, energy, environment, social sciences and information and communication technologies. HTML
PubMed Now Indexes Videos of Experiments and Protocols in Life Sciences
Maria José Viñas
The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 20, 2008
PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine’s online database,
is now indexing videos from The Journal of Visualized Experiments. According
to the publication’s official blog,
JoVE is “the first
video-journal to ever be accepted for publication in PubMed.” The
online, open-access journal publishes videos of experiments and protocols
in the biological and life sciences and offers its video-articles to science
bloggers to illustrate their posts. HTML
Copyright shifts format
Globe and Mail, August 18, 2008
The federal government's current attempt to adapt copyright to the Internet
age, Bill C-61, makes a sound distinction between private copying and distribution,
though further deliberation is needed on where to draw this line. But the
bill should also have taken on the perplexities of "fair dealing"
and "moral rights. Perhaps the Conservatives do not seriously expect
Bill C-61 to pass in this apparently moribund Parliament. Jim Prentice,
the Minister of Industry, has promised a consultation in the fall. It would
have made more sense to do this before the bill was introduced in June.
Even so, House of Commons and Senate committees may also examine it.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080818.ECOPYRIGHT18/TPStory/Comment
Cyber-campagne contre les changements à la Loi sur le droit
d'auteur
La Presse Canadienne, 18 août 2008
Les adversaires des changements projetés par le gouvernement Harper
à la Loi sur le droit d'auteur ont lancé une cyber-campagne
pour combattre le projet de loi controversé. Tous les moyens sont
bons - Facebook, YouTube, Wikipédia, blogues personnels - pour faire
passer leur message. Ils veulent que le gouvernement abandonne son projet
de loi C-61, ou y apporte d'importantes modifications quand le Parlement
reprendra ses travaux, le mois prochain. HTML
Free digital texts begin to challenge costly college textbooks in California
Gale Holland
Los Angeles Times, August 18
The annual college textbook rush starts this month, a time of reckoning
for many students who will struggle to cover eye-popping costs of $128,
$156, even $198 a volume. Caltech economics professor R. Preston McAfee
finds it annoying that students and faculty haven't looked harder for alternatives
to the exorbitant prices. McAfee wrote a well-regarded open-source economics
textbook and gave it away - online. But although the text, released in 2007,
has been adopted at several prestigious colleges, including Harvard and
Claremont-McKenna, it has yet to make a dent in the wider textbook market.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-textbook18-2008aug18,0,5613261,full.story
New Canadian Voice in Digital Rights Issues: Online Rights Canada
| Digital Copyright Canada
August 16, 2008
Online Rights Canada (ORC) launched
in Canada Friday, giving Canadians a new voice in critical technology and
information policy issues. The grassroots organization is jointly supported
by the Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) and
the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
http://news-14.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-canadian-voice-in-digital-rights.html
NRC-CISTI launches NRC Publications Archive initiative
August 15, 2008
The National Research Council's Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical
Information (NRC-CISTI) has announced an initiative to create an NRC Publications
Archive (NPArC). This searchable, web-based archive will provide access
to NRC's record of science and demonstrate the many ways NRC researchers
translate science and technology into value for Canada.
http://www.researchinformation.info/news/news_story.php?news_id=361
Taylor & Francis to deposit NIH-funded articles into PubMed
Central
August 15, 2008
Academic publisher Taylor & Francis, UK, has announced that it will
deposit into PubMed Central (PMC) author manuscripts on behalf of Taylor
& Francis, Routledge and Psychology Press authors reporting NIH funded
research. This service is offered as part of Taylor & Francis’
new 2008 deposit agreement with the NIH.
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/iopenaccess_nih.asp
ARTICLES
Fair dealing missing under rules of new copyright law
Rory McGreal
Edmonton Journal, August 19, 2008
The new proposed federal copyright legislation Bill C-61 is creating controversy
across Canada. Rather than pursuing the infringers, the proposed new Bill
C-61 will have profound negative effects on researchers and educators as
well as the general public, preventing them from exercising their historical
rights. We need to balance these rights rather than skew them in one direction.
Schools, colleges and universities have an interest in protecting copyright
as creators of intellectual and creative content and also in fair dealing
as researchers and teachers.
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/opinion/story.html?id=3422a65e-6b34-4b41-b9fe-8308b9775e4b
Will Colleges Friend Facebook?
Andy Guess
Inside Higher Ed, August 19, 2008
As colleges have worked over the years to solidify their Web 2.0 presence
and reach out to students where they’re most likely to congregate
online, there’s often a glaring omission from their overall Internet
strategies: social networks. That’s not so much an oversight as a
hesitation, with many institutions still debating whether to adopt social
networking capabilities of their own or grit their teeth and take the plunge
into Facebook, with all the messiness and potential privacy concerns that
implies.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/08/19/facebook
A Network for Graduate Students
John Fischman
The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 15, 2008
The Graduate Junction "does
not aim to be a social-networking site," says Mr. Colgate, a graduate
student in chemistry at the University of Durham, in Britain. It is intended
to solve a problem facing early-career researchers: They can't find others
who share their academic interests.
http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i49/49a01001.htm
reCAPTCHA: Human-Based Character Recognition via Web Security Measures
Luis von Ahn et al
Science, August 14, 2008
CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and
Humans Apart) are widespread security measures in the World Wide Web that
prevent automated programs from abusing online services. They do so by asking
humans to perform a task that computers cannot yet perform, such as deciphering
distorted characters. This paper explored whether such human effort can
be channeled into a useful purpose: helping to digitize old printed material
by asking users to decipher scanned words from books that computerized optical
character recognition (OCR) failed to recognize. This method can be used
to transcribe text with word accuracy over 99%, matching the guarantee of
professional human transcribers.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1160379v1.pdf
Library and Archives Canada: Towards a Trusted Digital Repository
Pam Armstrong
Proceedings from the World Library and Information Congress: 74th IFLA General
Conference and Council, 10-14 August 2008, Quebec, Canada
The Library and Archives Canada, legislated to be the enduring memory of
the nation, is committed to becoming a Trusted Digital Repository, to provide
reliable and long term access to the digital documentary heritage of Canada.
Library and Archives Canada is working collaboratively with the Government
of Canada, Canadian publishers, Canadian digital initiatives and the international
domain. This paper provides a corporate overview of the development of the
institution’s digital preservation infrastructure, an external view
of collaboration with creators and national partners and a national strategic
view of the implementation of a network of trusted digital repositories.
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla74/papers/084-Armstrong-en.pdf
Crown Copyright and the Privatization of Information
Chabriol Colebatch
Proceedings from the World Library and Information Congress: 74th IFLA General
Conference and Council, 10-14 August 2008, Quebec, Canada
Information is more accessible today than ever before. With the growth
of the internet and developments such as Open Access publishing, Creative
Commons licensing and Open Courseware, seemingly limitless amounts of information
are available for immediate, free and often unrestricted use. In this context,
the continued existence and enforcement of Crown copyright is both incongruous
and inappropriate. Found mainly in Commonwealth countries, Crown copyright
is a special form of copyright that gives governments rights to restrict
reproduction and dissemination of government materials.
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla74/papers/087-Colebatch-en.pdf
RESOURCES / RESSOURCES
No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century
Council on Library and Information Resources, August 2008
This new title from CLIR, No Brief Candle: Reconceiving the Research Library
for the 21st Century, is composed of a series of provocative essays, the
proceedings of a lively and informed symposium earlier this year in Washington,
and a set of recommendations extrapolated from both. While several of the
subject headings are familiar—scholarly communication, peer review,
preservation of data, and e-science—the conclusions and recommendations
are not. The consensus derived from these efforts was unambiguous in calling
for more aggressive intervention to better structure and manage the challenges
we face.
http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub142/pub142.pdf
Social Software in Libraries: SPEC Kit 304 Published by ARL
August 19, 2008
While a growing number of libraries have adopted social software as a way
to further interact with library patrons and library staff, many things
are unclear about the use of social software in ARL member libraries. This
SPEC survey was designed to discover how many libraries and library staff
are using social software and for what purposes, how those activities are
organized and managed, and the benefits and challenges of using social software,
among other questions.
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/spec304web.pdf
Publisher-Author Agreements and the NIH Public Access Policy
August 15, 2008
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released "PubMed Central
Deposit and Author Rights: Agreements between 12 Publishers and the Authors
Subject to the NIH Public Access Policy." To help authors make informed
choices about their rights, the report compares how the agreements of 12
publishers permit authors to meet the requirements of the recently revised
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy and share their
works while they are under embargo.
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/grillot-pubmed.pdf
Reaching Out: A Fascinating Look Into the Libraries of Canada and
Quebec
August 8, 2008
Reaching out - Innovations in Canadian libraries is the result of a call
for contributions made in September 2006 to all the country's libraries
by Mme Lise Bissonnette, chief executive officer of Bibliotheque et Archives
nationales du Quebec, and Mr. Ian E. Wilson, Librarian and Archivist of
Canada. The 40 projects, selected from the 150 entries, come from all kinds
of libaries. They highlight how these libraries attract new users, respond
to the specific needs of the communities they serve, develop their virtual
presence and multiply remote services or set up user-friendly premises to
make users want to take advantage of their library. HTML
An Evaluation and horizon scan of the current library management systems
and related systems landscape for UK higher education
Veronica Adamson et al
JISC & SCONUL Library Management Systems Study, March 2008
This is a period of uncertainty and change for HE libraries in terms of
institutional priorities, user perceptions, globalization of services and
communities and new technologies. Users expect ease of discovery, workflow
and delivery influenced by major web companies such as Google and Amazon
and Web2.0. In this context, JISC is working towards an Information Environment
for learning, teaching and research, involving deep integration of services
and resources within the personal, institutional, national and global landscape.
As central service providers, HE libraries are raising questions about the
role, interoperability and value of their systems.
http://www.sconul.ac.uk/news/lms_report/lmsstudy/lmsstudy.pdf
EVENTS / ÉVÉNEMENTS
The Oxford eResearch Conference 2008
Oxford, United Kingdom, September 11-13, 2008
This multi-disciplinary, international conference on e-Research being organized
by a consortium of research projects in association with the journal Information
Communication and Society (iCS). The conference seeks to stimulate and inform
multi-disciplinary research on the development, use and implications of
information and communication technologies (ICTs), like the Internet, in
shaping research across the disciplines. It will bring together research
from key e-Research projects from around the world examining the role of
the Internet, Web and the Grid in research.
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/eresearch08/
Access 2008
Hamilton, Ontario, October 1-4, 2008
Access is Canada’s premier library technology conference that focuses
on issues relating to technology planning, development, challenges and solutions.
Some of the topics covered this year are: customized web applications and
search interfaces; open source software; library catalogue innovations;
digitization projects; institutional repositories.
http://access2008.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca/
