E-Lert # 356 / Cyberavis no. 356
Friday December18, 2009 / le
vendredi 18 décembre 2009
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NEWS / NOUVELLES
Government of Canada invests in Canadian universities to attract
and retain top researchers
December 16, 2009
The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology),
and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) announced a $59 million investment
for 262 projects in 40 Canadian research institutions, allowing talented
researchers to conduct cutting-edge research in top-notch facilities. This
investment will benefit the work of 351 of the country’s brightest
minds. “Access to modern, cutting-edge equipment and facilities is
imperative to research in the 21st century,” said Dr. Eliot Phillipson,
President and Chief Executive Officer of the CFI. “For more than a
decade, the CFI has provided thousands of world-class researchers with the
tools they need to do their work. Without the right infrastructure, they
quite simply wouldn’t be in Canada.”*
http://www.innovation.ca/en/news?news_id=214
US government looks to expand scientific open access policy
John Timmer
Ars Technica, December 14, 2009
The US government's Office of Science and Technology Policy is hosting
a forum to discuss the expansion of an open access policy, used by
the National Institute of Health, that guarantees all publications derived
from the agency's funding are available to the public within one year. The
initiative is going well beyond a simple consideration of which agencies
to include. Discussions will run into early 2010 (each will have a designated
entry on the OSTP blog), and include
considerations on formatting the materials, how to make them accessible,
and ways of measuring both compliance and the utility of making the
material available to the world.*
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/12/us-government-looks-to-expand-scientific-open-access-policy.ars
Recommandations du groupe de travail sur le libre accès
du GFII
14 décembre 2009
« Le groupe de travail du Groupement français de l’industrie
de l’information (GFII) réunit
des représentants des principaux acteurs économiques concernés
par le libre accès : instituts de recherche, éditeurs,
agrégateurs, plateformes de revues, agences d’abonnements,
bibliothèques universitaires, etc. Ce document présente une
synthèse des recommandations du groupe. »
http://www.gfii.asso.fr/article.php3?id_article=3154
Bill St. Arnaud Steps Down as Chief Research Officer of CANARIE
HPC Wire, December 14, 2009
Canada's Advanced Research and Innovation Network, announced that Bill
St. Arnaud will be stepping down in January 2010, after a 15 year tenure
as Chief Research Officer of CANARIE, to pursue new opportunities in research
and education networks. Bill will pursue new opportunities specifically
those that focus on developing and applying technologies that reduce carbon
emissions to help slow the rate of global warming.*
http://www.hpcwire.com/topic/networks/Bill-St-Arnaud-Steps-Down-as-Chief-Research-Officer-of-CANARIE-79354382.html
France to Digitize Its Own Literary Works
Scott Sayare
The New York Times, December 14, 2009
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged nearly $1.1 billion toward
the scanning of French literary works, audiovisual archives and historical
documents - an announcement that underscores his government’s desire
to maintain control over France’s cultural heritage in an era of mass
digitization. The French National Library announced in August that it was
engaged in discussions with Google over the digitization of its collections,
but provoked an uproar among French officials and the publishing community
and the discussions
were suspended. *
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/world/europe/15france.html?_r=1
Anti-Google lobbyist in NZ
Stuff, December 14, 2009
A Microsoft-funded lobby group visited Wellington to gauge the appetite
for an Asia-Pacific branch that would advocate for improved online competition
in the region. David Wood, Brussels-based legal counsel for the Initiative
for a Competitive Online Marketplace (Icomp), met with Australian and New
Zealand regulators – including the Commerce Commission – and
publishers and advertisers. Google Inc. has allegedly been found to adjust
search results to prominently feature links belonging to commercial partners
and blacklist competitors' results, he says.*
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3155590/Anti-Google-lobbyist-in-NZ
Copyright Owners Fight Plan to Release E-Books for the Blind
David Kravetz
Wired, December 11, 2009
A broad swath of American enterprise ranging from major software makers
to motion picture and music companies are joining forces to oppose a new
international treaty that would make books more accessible to the blind.
Manon Ress, policy analyst at Knowledge
Ecology International, says “This treaty would be the first one
that is not done for the copyright owner, but for the user of the works
- for the blind to make a copyrighted work accessible.” That prospect
doesn’t sit well with American business.*
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/blind_block/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29
Dramatic Growth of Open Access: 2009 early year-end edition
Heather Morrison
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, December 11, 2009
Dramatic growth continues in all aspects of open access, but the story
of the year and especially of the last quarter is a dramatic leap in open
access mandate policies, particularly institutional and departmental policies.
Over the past year, institutional mandates (as recorded on ROARMAP)
more than tripled, from 25 to 79.*
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2009/12/dramatic-growth-of-open-access-december.html
Wellcome Arabic manuscripts
November 2009
The Wellcome Library, Bibliotheca
Alexandrina, and King’s
College London, have formed a partnership to create a free searchable
online catalogue of 500 Islamic manuscripts in the Wellcome
Library. The partners will design a cataloguing system to
create and manage descriptive metadata for Asian manuscripts, including
adapting the ENRICH TEI metadata
schema ; catalogue the manuscripts using this tool; create cover-to-cover,
high quality digital photographs of the manuscripts; and build a website
to enable sophisticated access to the metadata and its associated digital
images.
http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/arabicproject.html
ARTICLES
Tim Johnson
University Affairs, December 7, 2009 (From January 2010 issue)
With such devices as the Kindle now available in Canada, e-textbooks are
poised to replace traditional paper books. After years of false starts and
years of hearing experts herald the advent of a new era, it appears that
the day of the electronic textbook has finally arrived, but that depends
on who you ask. Electronic textbooks have become much more sophisticated
and user-friendly in recent years. Despite these technological and environmental
advantages, however, a number of concerns remain. Surprisingly, perhaps
the biggest stumbling block has been a reluctance on the part of students
to adapt and use e-textbooks.*
http://www.universityaffairs.ca/electronic-textbooks-set-to-take-over.aspx
Search engine use behaviour of students and faculty: User perceptions
and implications for future research
Oya Y. Rieger
First Monday, Volume 14, Number 12, December 7, 2009
Rieger examines faculty and students’ use of Web search engines for
learning, teaching, and research. She explores the academic tasks supported
by search engine use to investigate whether students’ and scholars’
practices vary in their use patterns, and also investigate the satisfaction
levels with search outcomes and trust in search engines in supporting specific
tasks. This study is based on triangulating three data–gathering methods,
including a Web–based survey, interviews, and search log reviews in
order to demonstrate how each methodology exhibits a unique strength in
collecting information about different dimensions of search behavior and
perceptions.*
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2716/2385
Effective Mentoring
Shin Freedman
IFLA Journal, Volume 35, Number 2, 2009
Effective mentoring is essential to the growth and success of the
profession in all types of libraries. Freedman discusses
various approaches to fostering mentoring activities among early career
librarians, mid-career transitional librarians, and non-professional library
workers. *
http://archive.ifla.org/V/iflaj/IFLA-Journal-2-2009.pdf
Global Library Statistics
Simon Ellis et al
IFLA Journal, Volume 35, Number 2, 2009
The IFLA Section on Statistics and Evaluation, the UNESCO Institute
for Statistics and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
committee TC 46 SC 8 ‘Quality – statistics and performance evaluation’
have joined forces in order to develop reliable data about libraries and
their services worldwide. The goal is that these statistics should be collected
regularly on a national basis, so that there will be reliable and internationally
comparable data of library services and library use.*
http://archive.ifla.org/V/iflaj/IFLA-Journal-2-2009.pdf
Governance and Recordkeeping Around the World
Library and Archives Canada, December 2009, vol. 3, no. 4 –
“Cloud Computing”
Governance and Recordkeeping Around the World highlights issues pertaining
to government and recordkeeping practices in the public and private sectors.
Some of the items in the December issue: United Kingdom, Legislation
delay 'threatening digital heritage' – The delay in enacting
the Legal Deposit Libraries Act has meant that libraries, such as the British
Library and the National Library of Scotland, have not been able to collect
online and digital material, creating gaps in the archives. / NARA
[U.S.] reports progress on Electronic Records Archive - The Electronic
Records Archives (ERA) digitizes existing government paper records and by
2011 the plan is to make the use of ERA as a records storage device mandatory
for all Federal agencies. / Obama administration wants help
archiving social media - The Obama administration plans to hire
a contractor to help archive the increasing amount of data that qualifies
as presidential records that are published on publicly accessible Web and
social networking sites. / Cloud-based email and archives creates
security concerns – [U.S.] Government agencies are outsourcing
email security and archiving to the “cloud”, which are online
environments managed by third parties, but can face various security hazards
according to some computer specialists.
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/007001/f2/007001-091100-e.pdf
Europe vs. Google: The Next Chapter
Bruce Crumley
Time Magazine, December 11, 2009
Internet giant Google, valued at more than $185 billion and boasting millions
of users, may not be a match for French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He warned
Google he would not allow France to be "stripped" of its literary
heritage, an apparent reference to Google's enormous book-digitizing project.
"We won't let ourselves be stripped of our heritage to the benefit
of a big company, no matter how friendly, big or American it is," Sarkozy
said during a round-table discussion in eastern France.*
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1946920,00.html
Google est-il un monstre?
Nolwenn Le Blevennec
Le Journal du Dimanche, 29 novembre 2009
« Les industriels de la presse et de l'édition sont en
guerre contre le moteur de recherche. Ils l’accusent de piller leurs
contenus. Des solutions s'ébauchent. Cette fois-ci, Rupert Murdoch
a tranché. Il ne veut plus voir les articles du Wall Street Journal
américain ou du Times britannique, deux fleurons de son groupe de
médias News Corporation, diffusés gratuitement sur le service
de Google Actualités. »
http://www.lejdd.fr/Medias/Internet/Actualite/Google-est-il-un-monstre-154228/
The Effect of the Global Economic Recession on Canada’s Creative Economy
in 2009
The Conference Board of Canada, November 2009
This report presents the findings of an analysis conducted by The Conference
Board of Canada to determine the direct effects of the global recession
on the performance of the culture sector of Canada’s economy in 2009.
This economic analysis is part of a larger study commissioned by the Cultural
Human Resource Council to assess the human resource issues facing Canada’s
culture sector. Canada’s culture sector is not immune to the effects
of the global recession. Indeed, the analysis presented in this report suggests
that the culture sector of Canada’s economy will be hit harder by
the global recession than the overall Canadian economy.
http://www.culturalhrc.ca/research/CHRC_Impact_Report-en.pdf
Position sur le droit d’auteur pour le milieu des bibliothèques
canadiennes
Olivier Charbonneau et Francis Farley-Chevrier
ASTED, septembre 2009
« La Loi sur le droit d’auteur édicte un régime
où le créateur détient des droits exclusifs pour l'exploitation
commerciale d’une oeuvre littéraire, dramatique, musicale ou
artistique. Ces droits peuvent êtres transférés à
un tiers, comme un éditeur ou une compagnie de production. Ce régime
est essentiel pour assurer un marché : le monopole économique
permet l'émergence d'un effet de rareté en maintenant le contrôle
sur l’exploitation ou la reproduction de l’oeuvre. Ce régime
est efficace et il serait difficile de le remettre en question. Par contre,
si le monopole conféré au titulaire du droit d'auteur est
absolu ou autrement renforcé, il en résulte un scénario
où les titulaires peuvent invoquer des impératifs économiques
pour bloquer toutes sortes d'utilisations, même si l'effet sur l'exploitation
de l'oeuvre est douteux, voire inexistant. C’est pourquoi la Loi sur
le droit d’auteur édicte des droits d’utilisation équitable,
exceptions au droit d’auteur »
http://www.asted.org/_uploadedcontent/medias/content_1884_1430.pdf
RESOURCES / RESSOURCES
Documents for a Digital Democracy: A Model for the Federal Depository
Library Program in the 21st CenturyRoger C. Schonfeld & Ross Housewright
Ithaka S+R, December 17, 2009
Schonfeld and Housewright examined the [U.S] Federal Library Depository
Program’s (FDLP) essential role in distributing, providing access
to, and preserving government documents. The authors also analyzed how the
transition from print government information to digital affects the Program’s
long-term approach and sustainability. Commissioned by the Association of
Research Libraries (ARL) and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies
(COSLA), the report articulates urgently-needed policies and procedures
to ensure long-term no-fee public access to government information. Schonfeld
and Housewright interviewed nearly 90 individuals, including librarians
from 40 institutions, in order to understand a broad range of perspectives
on the pressures facing the FDLP.*
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/documents-for-a-digital-democracy.pdf
Open Access Concept Map
Laura Briggs (University of Alberta), 2009
This resource succinctly defines OA, and maps out the main characteristics
of Open Access – namely motivations for supporting OA, variations
of providing OA through journals, access by way of institutional repositories,
and different approaches to the latter as well. The Concept map is
available in two formats – PDF
and HTML.
The links are live in the HTML version.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~lbriggs1/briggs/openaccess.html
Systems of Innovation
Luc Soete et al
UNU-MERIT Working Paper, December 2009
Focusing on the emergence of the concept of innovation systems, Soete et
al review the literature on national innovation systems. The paper reviews
the historical origins of the concept reviewing its historical origins and
its three main flavours (associated with the “founding theories”).
The notion of innovation systems filling a need for providing a broader
basis for innovation policy is discussed. The paper concludes with some
perspectives on the future of innovation systems.*
http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2009/wp2009-062.pdf
21st Century Cities in Canada: The Geography of Innovation
David A. Wolfe
The Conference Board of Canada, December 2009
David A. Wolfe, Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto,
summarizes key insights and findings of a multi-year national study on urban
industrial clusters. Wolfe delineates the innovation dynamic, based on in-depth
analysis of the experiences of 15 Canadian cities, and sheds new light on
the role of cities as the dominant sites of economic activity—the
places where leading-edge innovation generates new ideas, new products,
and new industries.*
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/documents.aspx?did=3311
PARSE.Insight: INSIGHT into issues of Permanent Access to the Records
of Science in Europe
Tom Kuipers and Jeffrey van der Hoeven
PARSE.Insight and EU:Seventh Framwork Programme, December 2009
Kuipers and van der Hoeven describe the results of the surveys conducted
by PARSE.Insight to gain insight into research practices in Europe. Stake-holders
representing research, publishing and data management were surveyed. Nearly
2,000 people responded providing interesting insights in the current state
of affairs in digital preservation of digital research data (including publications),
the outlook of data preservation, data sharing, roles and responsibilities
of stakeholders in research and the funding of research.*
http://www.parse-insight.eu/downloads/PARSE-Insight_D3-4_SurveyReport_final_hq.pdf
JISC Repositories and Preservation Programme: Final Evaluation
report
Pete Dalton and Angela Conyers, 2009
This report provides an evaluation of the JISC Repositories and Preservation
Programme (RPP) as it reached its conclusion. The programme funded a wide
range of initiatives to support the development of digital repositories
and related activities for the benefit of the JISC community and related
stakeholders.*
http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/435/
La diffusion des technologies de l'information et de la communication
dans la société française
Régis Bigot et Patricia Croutte
Rapport réalisé à la demande du Conseil général
de l’industrie, de l’énergie et des technologies,
(Ministère de l’Economie, de l’industrie et de l’emploi)
et de l’Autorité de régulation des communications électroniques
et des postes, novembre 2009
« Ce rapport présente l’analyse des questions relatives
à la diffusion, à l’usage et à l’image
des nouvelles technologies en France. Ces questions ont été
insérées par le CGIET et par l’ARCEP, dans la vague
de juin 2009 de l’enquête du CREDOC sur les « Conditions
de vie et les Aspirations des Français ». Ce document se présente
en quatre parties : la première concerne la téléphonie,
fixe comme mobile ; la deuxième a trait à l’ordinateur
et à Internet ; la troisième s’intéresse aux
different modes d’accès à la télévision.
La dernière partie fait le point sur les inégalités
de diffusion des TIC (le fossé numérique) et sur la complémentarité
existant entre les différents équipements. »
http://www.arcep.fr/uploads/tx_gspublication/etude-credoc-2009-111209.pdf
CIBER
University College London
CIBER is policy-led, consumer-driven, interdisciplinary and independent
organization that seeks to inform by countering idle speculation and uninformed
opinion with the facts. Its expertise lies in the mapping, monitoring and
evaluating of digital information systems, platforms, services, roll-outs
and environments, using robust, big picture and innovative research methods,
especially deep log analysis. Some recent reports include: The economic
downturn and libraries; CIBER National Observatory e-Books reports; Journal
Publishing Ethics.*
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/research/ciber/
Developing undergraduate research and inquiry
Mick Healey and Alan Jenkins
The Higher Education Academy, June 2009
Mick Healey and Alan Jenkins discuss undergraduates’ engagement in
research and inquiry, and the potential implications of this in a wide variety
of HE practice in a range of contexts (disciplinary, institutional, and
national). They suggest a fundamental conceptual shift from the notion of
students as a passive audience for the research output of individual academics,
to the idea of students as active stakeholders in a research community in
which their experience of research within the core curriculum mirrors that
of their lecturers.*
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/publications/DevelopingUndergraduate_Final.pdf
EVENTS / ÉVÉNEMENTS
Porto, Portugal , March 18 – 21, 2010
The IADIS e-Society 2010 conference addresses the major issues of interest to information professionals, and covers both the technical as well as the non-technical aspects of the Information Society. Some areas of interest are: eSociety and the digital divide, eBusiness, eLearning, new media and eSociety, digital services in eSociety, eGovernment /eGovernance, eHealth, information systems, and information management. The call for proposals closes January 8, 2010.*
http://www.esociety-conf.org/
LOEX of the West 2010 – Call for Proposals
Calgary, Alberta, June 10-12, 2010
The conference encourages wide exploration to consider new resources, reach
new users and break new ground in physical and virtual territories. Organizers
are looking for sessions that exemplify good pedagogy engaging participants
in active learning experiences. Participants will have the opportunity
to stretch their minds with hands-on, brains-on activities and lively discussions
to spark ideas for innovative practice. This gathering of individuals passionate
about teaching and learning will explore challenges and solutions, provide
thoughtful feedback on works in progress, and consider new directions for
information literacy.*
http://library.mtroyal.ca/lotw/?page_id=7
*Text adapted from source / Texte adapté de la source
