To: ARL Directors
From: Duane Webster
Re: E-News for ARL Directors, December 11, 2007
These news notes are organized by the strategic directions identified in the ARL Strategic Plan: Scholarly Communication; Public Policies Affecting Research Libraries; and Library Roles in Research, Teaching, and Learning. In addition, there is an initial section for Governance and Membership Activities and complementary sections on Diversity, Professional Workforce, and Leadership Development; Library Statistics and Assessment; and Other Items of Interest to ARL Directors.
E-News for ARL Directors is a collaboration of ARL program staff, compiled and edited by Duane Webster (duane@arl.org) and Kaylyn Groves (kaylyn@arl.org).
You are encouraged to route the E-News to your staff and others in your institution.
1. ARL Membership to Convene in Florida, May 20-23, 2008
2. New Study Explores the Print-to-Electronic Journal Transition
3. New Web Resource Rounds Up Information on Authors and Their Rights
4. SERU Featured in D-Lib Magazine
5. ARL Reports Garner Press Attention
6. SPARC-ACRL Forum to Focus on Student Engagement
7. New Paper Analyzes Fair Use and the Courts
9. US Senate to Consider Updating Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
10. US House Considers Reauthorizing HEA with P2P Provisions
11. LC Releases Draft Report on Future of Bibliographic Control
12. Tasini Settlement Stalled by Courts
13. Presidential Records Bill on Hold
14. Award-Winning Videos Highlight Students’ Cutting-Edge Use of Information Technology
15. Einstein’s Protégés Deliver Classroom Support for Learning and Information Skills
17. ARL Selects 2007–09 Diversity Scholars
18. National Diversity in Libraries Conference Issues Call for Programs—Deadline January 31, 2008
19. ARL Statistical Surveys and Publications Update
21. Effective, Sustainable, and Practical Assessment Service Now Available for ARL Members
22. ARL at ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia
ARL President Marianne Gaunt (Rutgers University) will convene the next ARL Membership Meeting May 20–23, 2008. The meeting will be held in the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida, and is being hosted by the University of Miami Libraries. The program theme for the meeting is “Institutional Strategies to Support E-Scholarship and Interdisciplinary Research.” Save the dates. For more information, contact Jaia Barrett jaia@arl.org.
In “The E-only Tipping Point for Journals: What’s Ahead in the Print to Electronic Transition Zone,” Richard K. Johnson and Judy Luther explore the current world of dual-format publishing from the standpoint of both librarians and publishers. The report was commissioned by ARL to provide an assessment of the current transition state, drivers and barriers to change, and offers an outlook for the near term along with recommendations identifying areas where focused attention offers the greatest potential to accelerate the change process. The full report is available at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/Electronic_Transition.pdf.
A new ARL Web page brings together a range of resources—many developed by ARL member libraries—that support author management of copyrights. The page offers general strategies, a range of examples of resources from research libraries, policy statements supporting rights retention, example addenda, and informational resources. The “Authors and Their Rights” page is available from both the scholarly communication and public policies home pages http://www.arl.org/sc/ and http://www.arl.org/pp/.
ARL’s Karla Hahn has written an article on “SERU (Shared Electronic Resource Understanding): Opening Up New Possibilities for Electronic Resource Transactions,” which appears in the November issue of D-Lib Magazine. The article provides context for the SERU project and details the shared understanding approach. Hahn co-chairs the working group developing the SERU best practice for the National Information Standards Organization. The article is online at http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november07/hahn/11hahn.html.
Two recent ARL reports on scholarly communication issues have been featured in the library and higher education press. “The E-only Tipping Point for Journals: What’s Ahead in the Print to Electronic Transition Zone” (see item 2 above) was profiled by Andrew Albanese on LibraryJournal.com, December 7, 2007, http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6510701.html. A special issue of the ARL Bimonthly Report on university publishing was highlighted in University World News, December 9, 2007, http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20071206161940314.
The 16th SPARC-ACRL Forum, at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, will explore “Working with the Facebook Generation: Engaging Student Views on Access to Scholarship.” Graduate students from an array of disciplines and institutions will share their perspectives on and approaches to scholarly communication issues. Joined by librarians whose scholarly communication programs have explicit student-focused components, the grad students will explore the importance of outreach and the potential impact of students as current and future key stakeholders. The forum will also showcase the winners of the first Sparky Award for the best short videos on the value of information sharing. For more information, see http://www.arl.org/sparc/media/07-1204.html.
In a new paper, “Educational Fair Use Today,” Jonathan Band reviews three court cases regarding the application of fair use in the digital environment. Band concludes that the “court decisions concerning fair use should give educators and librarians greater confidence for asserting this important privilege. In all three decisions, the courts permitted extensive copying and display in the commercial context because the uses involved repurposing and recontextualization. The reasoning of these opinions could have far-reaching implications in the educational environment.” The paper is available on the ARL Web site at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/educationalfairusetoday.pdf.
With few legislative days remaining before the end of the year, the US Congress returned the week of December 3 to complete work on 11 appropriations bills, energy and tax legislation, and more. The continuing resolution that is funding the federal government until the FY2008 appropriations bills are completed expires on December 14 and Congress is expected to adjourn prior to the holidays.
With regards to appropriations legislation, a number of strategies are in play. Since the President vetoed the FY2008 Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education Appropriations Bill in November, an omnibus bill is under development that is hoped to be an acceptable compromise between the President’s budget request and the amount of funding proposed by Congress. In addition, work is underway to secure sufficient votes to override another veto if necessary. Of particular interest is a provision that directs the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to strengthen its policy regarding access to federally funded research by requiring, rather than requesting, participation by NIH-funded researchers. The House and Senate hope to bring the omnibus appropriations bill to the floor the week of December 10.
For more information, contact Prue Adler prue@arl.org.
The US Congress is focused on updating surveillance legislation that is set to expire early in 2008. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), enacted in 1978, provides some checks and balances on electronic surveillance by law enforcement for the purposes of national security. A recent but temporary update to FISA in August 2007 greatly expanded the authorities and powers of the Executive Branch; Congress is now seeking to limit these authorities.
On November 15, the House passed the RESTORE Act of 2007 in a vote of 227 to 189. The RESTORE Act provides for court oversight of communications between foreign and domestic surveillance targets and does not include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that aided the administration in conducting warrantless surveillance. Two bills are under consideration in the Senate. Whereas the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence approved legislation that is very similar to the expansive August 2007 law, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary has approved a bill that is narrower in scope and does not include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. The Senate is poised to consider the legislation shortly.
For more information, see http://www.arl.org/pp/pscl/fisa/index.shtml.
A US House of Representatives bill that would reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA)—the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007—includes provisions relating to P2P file sharing. Some of the provisions call upon institutions of higher education that are eligible for financial aid under Title V to “develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-base deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.” EDUCAUSE is encouraging educational institutions to oppose this language and to request that the language be deleted from H.R. 4137. For more information, see http://connect.educause.edu/term_view/P2P+or+File+Sharing.
On November 30, the Library of Congress (LC) Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control released a draft “Report on the Future of Bibliographic Control” for public comment. The working group is charged with examining the role of bibliographic control in the changing IT environment.
Olivia M. A. Madison (Iowa State), Judith Nadler (Chicago), and Brian E. C. Schottlaender (California, San Diego) represented ARL on the LC working group. Public comments on the draft report will be received through December 15. The report is available via http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/.
In an unusual twist to a long-decided case (New York Times v. Tasini), the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit set aside an $18 million settlement between freelance writers and publishers such as the New York Times. In 2001, the US Supreme Court ruled that the reuse of a freelance author’s work on CD-ROMs and in commercial electronic databases without the author’s permission constituted copyright infringement. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit threw out the settlement, primarily on the grounds that the vast majority of the class of authors never registered their works with the Copyright Office. As a consequence, the court lacked substantive jurisdiction to handle approval of the mediation. All of the parties to the mediation are seeking a rehearing. ARL and ALA filed an amicus before the US Supreme Court on this case. For more information, contact Prue Adler prue@arl.org.
Forty groups and organizations, including ARL, wrote to Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) requesting that the Senate have the opportunity to consider the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007. The legislation, S. 886 would nullify Presidential Order 13233 that allows current and former presidents great latitude in withholding presidential records. Provisions in S. 886 would also set procedures for the release of presidential records. Senator Bunning (R-KY) has placed a hold on the legislation so it cannot be considered by unanimous consent. For more information, contact Prue Adler prue@arl.org.
A series of short videos generated by the Digital Ethnography Working Group, under the direction of Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, remind the viewer that students use, share, reshape, and build on information in ways that push universities to keep pace. The award-winning clips, posted on YouTube.com, also provide compelling evidence of an emerging video fluency on our campuses. “The Machine is Us/ing Us” http://youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g and “Information R/evolution” http://youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM consider the arrival of a digital literacy that enables individuals to discover, store, mark-up, transform, collaborate, and produce from the desktop. One sees abundant implications for libraries (where some of the footage is shot). ”A Vision of Students Today” http://youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o summarizes “some of the most important characteristics of students today—how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams….” The viewer is reminded that many learning spaces and pedagogies fail to engage students or intersect with the technology-enabled worlds they inhabit. The videos are provided under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 License.
At the University of Arizona, the library collaborates with other student-support centers on campus to facilitate critical skills development for undergraduates. The critical agent in this program is a trained student preceptor, or Einstein’s Protégé. The Einstein’s Protégés Program advertises to faculty that “too few students seek help even when they begin to realize that the skills and attitudes they left high school with are not enabling them to meet your expectations.” The service inserts the Protégé into an academic course to assist students with acquiring and practicing critical competencies. Protégés complete a preparatory course in which the library provides information and research skills training in a curriculum that also includes preparation for critical thinking, group dynamics, listening, reading, writing, and effective oral communication. In a closing marketing note to faculty, the service suggests: “By integrating skills development in your course, you are creating a supportive environment where students can develop and immediately apply these competencies.” For more information, see http://teachingteams.arizona.edu/ep/index.htm.
Over 35 breakout sessions were held at the 2007 CNI Fall Task Force Meeting, December 10–11, 2007, in Washington DC. The sessions covered a wide array of topics, including digital humanities centers, digital preservation issues, topics in scholarly communications and social networking, and data management. A complete list of sessions, as well as links to abstracts, is available at http://www.cni.org/tfms/2007b.fall/project.html. Also featured at the meeting was a presentation of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Awards for Technology Collaboration by Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, and CNI Executive Director Clifford Lynch’s overview of CNI’s 2007-8 Program Plan (now available at http://www.cni.org/program/). Timo Hannay, Publishing Director of Nature.com of the Nature Publishing Group, delivered the closing plenary address, “Current Experiments & Future Directions in Scholarly Communication.” See http://www.cni.org/tfms/2007b.fall for more details.
Following the Task Force Meeting, CNI is co-sponsoring the 3rd International Digital Curation Conference, “Curating Our Digital Scientific Heritage: A Global Collaborative Challenge.” A program can be found at http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/dcc-2007. Separate fee and registration is required.
Clifford Lynch delivered the opening keynote, “Scholarly Literature as an Object of Computation: Implications for Libraries, Publishers, Authors,” at the 27th Annual Charleston Conference on November 8, 2007. Joan Lippincott, CNI Associate Executive Director, gave a keynote address at the First International m-libraries Conference, held November 13–14, 2007, at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK.
The ARL Diversity Initiatives Working Group has selected 24 MLS students from underrepresented groups to participate in the 2007–09 Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce. The 2007–09 Diversity Scholars are:
Jason K. Alston, North Carolina Central UniversityFor more information, see http://www.arl.org/news/pr/diversity-scholars-9nov07.shtml.
Jordan C. Andrade, Florida State University
RaShauna N. Brannon, North Carolina Central University
Lisa Chow, Pratt Institute
Michael S. Creedon, Syracuse University
Freeman D. Culver III, University of Alabama
Natalia de Roock, University of Arizona
George E. Gottschalk, University of Oklahoma
Janice M. Gould, University of Arizona
Yi Jin, University of California, Los Angeles
Marcellaus A. Joiner, North Carolina Central University
Loretta Lewis, Louisiana State University
Lin Li, University of Toronto
Mari Nakahara, Catholic University of America
Ja’Nean Palacios, San Jose State University
Daryl Payton, North Carolina Central University
Angel L. Roman, Pratt Institute
Kristal E. Sergent, University of Oklahoma
Manju Tanwar, University of South Carolina
Christina K. Thach, Indiana University
Lianne V. Valerio, University of Texas at Austin
Dawn M. Waller, Drexel University
Steven A. Ward, Catholic University of America
Jiguang Zheng, University of Alberta
The National Diversity in Libraries Conference (NDLC) program committee is accepting program proposals for the 2008 conference, “Spectrum of the Future.” Program proposals should reflect the conference theme and address issues of diversity in all areas of library services and in the professional workforce that delivers such services. Proposals will be accepted electronically at http://kla-itrt.org/conf/ through the deadline of Thursday, January 31, 2008.
The conference will be held October 1–4, 2008, in Louisville, Kentucky, in conjunction with the Kentucky Library Association, Kentucky School Media Association, and the Southeastern Library Association joint conference. The NDLC is supported by the University of Kentucky Libraries, University of Louisville Libraries, University of Kentucky School of Library and Information Science, and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Diversity Initiatives.
For more information, see http://www.arl.org/news/pr/ndlc-call-programs-5nov07.shtml.
The status of the ARL statistical surveys and publications is as follows:
ARL Annual Salary Survey 2007–08: Data collection is almost complete. Preliminary tables will be issued in the coming days. Please respond to our queries for clarifying data issues as soon as possible so we can finalize the data collection.
ARL Statistics 2006–07: A fully updated platform for the collection and delivery of the data was launched with the mailing of the new ARL Statistics survey forms 2006–07. The mailing was sent to ARL member libraries and it is also available on the Web at http://www.arl.org/stats/annualsurveys/arlstats/07statmail.shtml. A series of in-person workshops were led by ARL’s Julia Blixrud with two remaining workshops to take place: December 17 in Kingston, Ontario, sponsored by Queen’s University and December 18 in New York City, sponsored by Columbia University. A taped webcast offered on December 4 is also available at http://www.arl.org/arldocs/stats/statsevents/stats_webcast/120407ARL_final.html.
ARL Statistics 2005–06: Publication is in production.
ARL Preservation Statistics, 2005–06: Data collection and verification have been completed; publication is in production.
ARL Academic Health Sciences Library Statistics 2005–06: Published.
ARL Academic Law Library Statistics 2005–06: Published.
LibQUAL+® encourages past and present participants to volunteer at the LibQUAL+® booth during the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia in January. This is a good way to share survey experience or research with other participants. If you are interested in volunteering at the LibQUAL+® booth (#1753), please send an e-mail listing your available hours to libqual@arl.org.
The 2007 LibQUAL+® survey cycle closed on December 9. Hong Kong Polytechnic University received a record number of over 5,700 completed surveys implementing the Chinese (Traditional) version of the survey. We would like to thank the 44 ARL libraries that participated in 2007 and look forward to seeing additional libraries on board next year and beyond. The 2008 LibQUAL+® registration and survey preferences sections are now open. The rest of the survey steps will open on January 15, 2008. Registration for 2008 survey implementation will close at the end of August. Plans are underway to add three new languages to the system: Japanese, Spanish, and Welsh.
For more information, see http://www.libqual.org/.
ARL libraries are invited to express interest in participating in the Effective, Sustainable, and Practical Library Assessment service for 2008, led by Visiting Program Officers Steve Hiller (University of Washington Libraries) and Jim Self (University of Virginia Library) with Martha Kyrillidou (ARL). The service aims to assist libraries in developing effective, sustainable, and practical assessment programs that demonstrate the libraries’ contributions to teaching, learning, and research. The program benefits those who are:
• starting an assessment program;
• prioritizing assessment activities;
• using assessment and usage data to improve services and resources;
• establishing benchmarks;
• performance standards and cost analysis;
• participating (or have participated) in LibQUAL+®;
• preparing for institutional regional accreditation within the next few years;
• moving assessment from project-based to ongoing and sustainable;
• developing an organizational “culture of assessment”; or
• evaluating current assessment efforts and needs.
The service involves a site visit to each participating library, a report to each library with recommendations on practical and sustainable assessment, and follow-up assistance in implementing the recommendations.
Steve and Jim bring extensive experience and knowledge from their own libraries, which are well known for their assessment programs, as well as from assessment evaluation visits to 30 libraries since 2005. ARL brings a strong commitment and support for library assessment programs and services. The cost for participation is $3,500 plus travel expenses for the two project leaders. Libraries interested in participating should contact Martha Kyrillidou martha@arl.org.
ARL, LibQUAL+®, and SPARC are hosting several events at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia in January, including staffing booth #1753 in the Philadelphia Convention Center. For a detailed scheduled, visit http://www.arl.org/events/arlala/index.shtml.
ARL: A Bimonthly Report, no. 252/253 (June/August 2007) Special double issue on university publishing. http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/br/br252-253.shtml
ARL Academic Health Sciences Library Statistics 2005-06 Mark Young and Martha Kyrillidou, comps. and eds. 2007 * ISBN 1-59407-782-7 * 52 pages http://www.arl.org/stats/annualsurveys/med/
ARL Academic Law Library Statistics 2005-06 Mark Young and Martha Kyrillidou, comps. and eds. 2007 * ISBN 1-59407-780-0 * 52 pages http://www.arl.org/stats/annualsurveys/law/
ARL Annual Salary Survey 2006–07 Martha Kyrillidou and Mark Young, comps. and eds. 2007 * ISBN 1-59407-788-6 * 114 pages http://www.arl.org/stats/annualsurveys/salary/sal0607.shtml
SPEC Kit 300, Open Access Resources Anna K. Hood • September 2007 • ISBN 1-59407-793-2 • 140 pp. http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/spec300web.pdf
SPEC Kit 301, Liaison Services Susan Logue, John Ballestro, Andrea Imre, and Julie Arendt • October 2007 • ISBN 1-59407-794-0 • 172 pp. http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/spec301web.pdf
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded grants totaling $1,598,800 to 127 libraries, municipalities, and arts, culture, higher education, and science organizations to host “Big Read” celebrations of 16 classic novels from January through June 2008. Two ARL institutions were among the grantees:
Auburn, with Marion-Perry County Public Library, novel: To Kill a Mockingbird
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, novel: The Death of Ivan Ilyich
DEW 12/11/07
Duane Webster
Executive Director
Association of Research Libraries
21 Dupont Circle
Washington DC 20036
v: (202) 296-2296
fax: (202) 872-0884
cell: (202) 251-4431
e-mail: duane@arl.org