Library Stuff

“ARL has published Research Library Issues (RLI) no. 280, which features articles on open educational resources (OERs) as an alternative to traditional textbooks, ARL’s e-book licensing effort, and research library trends as shown by the ARL Statistics. A pre-publication version of the article about OERs was released earlier this year.” (via ARL)

“Thanks to a recent $1 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, we will be expanding our TV News Search & Borrow service that enables everyone to search, quote and borrow U.S. television news programs. Launched last September, the service repurposes closed captioning to facilitate deep search and present relevant short-streamed with clips from more than 400,000 news broadcasts dating back to June 2009. We are striving to help inform and engage communities by strengthening the work of journalists, scholars, teachers, librarians, civic organizations and others dedicated to serving public interests.” (via Internet Archive Blogs)

“Seated recently in the special collections room at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology library, Anders Fernstedt raced through an imposing set of yellowing articles and correspondence. Several years ago Mr. Fernstedt, an independent Swedish scholar who is studying the work of the 20th-century philosopher Karl Popper and several of his colleagues, would have scratched out notes and set aside documents for photocopying.” (via NYTimes.com)

“For a long time we’ve wanted to expand our editorial products at Goodreads. Our general newsletter is great, but one of the coolest things we learned as we created the site was how readers around the world bond over a shared love of a particular genre, be it literature from 1900 to WWII, steampunk, or books about sailing. Knowing that, we wanted to provide a newsletter tailored to your passions. Today, I’m pleased to announce that we are launching our first genre-themed newsletter, with the plan to create many more in the future. We started with a voracious group on Goodreads: our YA readers. And we hope you’ll be satisfied!” (via Goodreads)

“A decade ago, Brewster Kahle, philanthropist and founder of the Internet Archive, created the first digital bookmobile: a complete printing press in the back of a car. With a power source, satellite internet connection, printer and binder, the vehicle and its descendants subsequently printed thousands of public-domain books where they were needed most, such as in rural areas without internet connection, including schools and refugee camps across Africa.” (via )

“John Van Horne, 63, who has presided over the Library Company of Philadelphia during nearly three decades of unprecedented digital change, has announced he will retire in May 2014. When Van Horne arrived in 1985, the Library Company, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731, had a Wang word processor. Soon, it acquired a fax machine that used thermal paper. Now the library has created a rich and growing online environment.” (via Philly.com)

“Skip Prichard, an experienced senior executive in the information services market, has been named the next OCLC President and CEO. Mr. Prichard has led multi-national organizations that serve libraries across the full spectrum of library services and content needs. Most recently, he was President and CEO of Ingram Content Group Inc., which provides a broad range of physical and digital services to the book industry. Prior to his service at Ingram, he was President and CEO of ProQuest Information and Learning, a respected global publisher and information provider serving library, education, government and corporate markets with offices around the world.” (via OCLC)

“James L. Hilton, a professor and higher education administrator nationally recognized as an advocate for collaboration between academics and technology, will return to the campus where he began his academic career, as U-Ms dean of libraries and university librarian. Hilton also was appointed as a professor, with tenure, in the School of Information. His appointments were approved Thursday by the Board of Regents and conclude an international search conducted by a search advisory committee.” (via University of Michigan)

“Credo, the industry leader for information skills solutions, today announced that it has launched 12 new and updated Subject and Publisher Collections, adding to the more than 75 collections currently available for perpetual purchase or subscription.” (via Credo Reference)

“A scholarly publisher has issued a warning to Jeffrey Beall, a librarian who writes about what he calls “predatory” practices in the scholarly publishing industry, threatening him with a $1 billion lawsuit for his blog posts criticizing the company. Beall is an academic librarian at the University of Colorado; he writes about the journal industry on his personal blog, Scholarly Open Access. More specifically, Beall identifies and lists journals that he says prey on academics’ need to publish their research. Such companies often charge a “handling fee” that requires authors to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars if a paper is published.” (via NPR)