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November 25th, 2013
As part of the Libraries ongoing review of databases, the following has been recommended for cancellation by the subject specialist librarians: Warc.
Users will have access to Warc until the current subscription expires on Dec. 31st. Questions or concerns about the cancellation of Stat!Ref should be directed to Rebecca Richardson, Electronic Resources Librarian, at rarichar@purdue.edu.
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Filed under: database, general, MGMTNovember 20th, 2013
As part of the Libraries ongoing review of databases, the following has been recommended for cancellation by the subject specialist librarians: Stat!Ref.
With the removal of some titles from Stat!Ref by their publishers and available alternative access to other titles, Stat!Ref has been cancelled and will no longer be available starting Nov. 25th. Drug information resources can be found at: http://guides.lib.purdue.edu/druginforesources. Access to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) will be available January 2014.
Questions or concerns about the cancellation of Stat!Ref should be directed to Rebecca Richardson, Electronic Resources Librarian, at rarichar@purdue.edu.
November 19th, 2013
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Litigation between Google and the Authors Guild that has been ongoing since 2005 has resulted in a win for Google and university libraries, including Purdue University Libraries. On November 14, 2013, Judge Denny Chin found in favor of Google and dismissed the lawsuit brought against them by the Authors Guild.
The Google Book Project began in 2004 with Google entering into agreements with Harvard, Stanford, University of Michigan, New York Public Library and Oxford to scan books in their libraries. As part of the agreement, participants in the project received a digital copy of the book. Google created a database of the scanned works but only allowed snippets of works still protected by copyright to be viewed. Full text access was only available to works in the public domain. Over the years, many other universities, including Purdue, joined the Google Book Project. To date Google has scanned over twenty million books.
The Authors Guild as the representative for many authors sued Google for copyright infringement. Google has maintained that their scanning and posting of the works was fair use under the U.S. Copyright Act.
Judge Denny Chin agreed with Google. According to the Court, the use of the work was transformative, which is one of the factors considered under fair use. Chin stated that “Google Books digitizes books and transforms expressive text into a comprehensive word index that helps readers, scholars, researchers, and others find books.” Another factor that the Court looked closely at was the market effect and whether or not it was harmed by Google’s actions. Chin determined that the Google Books Project in fact expanded the market for books by helping the public discover books that they would never have known about but for Google. Judge Chin also referred quite extensively to a recent decision in the HathiTrust v. Authors Guild lawsuit in which HathiTrust won on similar fair use principles and application of U.S. Copyright law.
HathiTrust is a partnership of major research universities and libraries that is focused on preserving collections in digital form to allow access to the works for future generations. Both legal victories are recognition that the digital world offers new and exciting opportunities to researchers and scholars and that the copyright law should be applied to new uses of works in a way that is consistent with the built in flexibility of the law and the intent of the Copyright Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
This is a significant victory for libraries as well. In the opinion, Chin noted that Google provides libraries with a digital copy of works that they already own which allow libraries to make lawful uses of the digitized copies consistent with the copyright law. The Court found that such use is fair use and that the libraries would have no liability for copyright infringement. This is good news for many libraries, like Purdue, who have digitization projects either in progress or under consideration. The Google win allows such projects to proceed and provides greater access and research capabilities to not only library collections held at Purdue but to many collections around the world.
Not surprisingly the Authors Guild was not pleased with the decision and have indicated that they will appeal it to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
The University Copyright Office was established in 2000 to advise Purdue University faculty and staff on the application of copyright law in a higher education setting and to provide information on current copyright issues. The Office also provides programs to promote compliance and awareness.
For further information about copyright or to set up an appointment, please contact the office at 765.496.3864 or Donna Ferullo, Director, at ferullo@purdue.edu. The Office is located in Stewart Center, Room 264A.
Source:
Donna Ferullo, JD, MLS, Director, University Copyright Office, Purdue University Libraries, 765-496-3864, Ferullo@purdue.edu
Related Web sites:
Purdue University Libraries University Copyright Office – www.lib.purdue.edu/uco
HathiTrust – www.hathitrust.org
Filed under: faculty_staff, general, Open_Access, press_release, scholcomm
November 15th, 2013
Welcome to Database of the Week. This feature from the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics is intended to give you a brief introduction to a database that you may not know, with only basic information to get you started. Hopefully, you will be tempted to explore this or other databases..
This Week’s Featured Database: Dissertations & Theses, from Proquest.
Find it:www.lib.purdue.edu/parrish, Under the column headed Collections, click on List of Business Databases.
Description/focus: Dissertations & Theses provides access to these works from graduate schools around the world.
Try it: Dissertations & Theses is another Proquest database, with the same interface available in their other products. In addition to author, title, and subject, you can search for the degree, department, or advisor. See here for a short video on accessing the database and using the interface and filters.
Why you should know this database: The Dissertations & Theses database covers colleges & universities from around the world and makes them available for immediate download to the denizens of Purdue.
Why you should know this database: Students can easily include dissertations and theses as they research topics for a research paper or for their own graduate research.
Tags: full text, Proquest
Cost: For annual subscription information, contact Mary Dugan.
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Database of the Week comes to you from the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics. If you would like more information about this database, or if you would like a demonstration of it for a class, contact parrlib@purdue.edu. Database of the Week is archived at https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/category/MGMT/. For more Purdue Libraries news, follow us on Twitter (@PurdueLibraries).
Feedback is always welcome. If you would like us to promote your favorite database, send an email to mdugan@purdue.edu.
Filed under: database, events, general, MGMT, RSRCH, scholcommNovember 13th, 2013
WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — Each year students from all disciplines submit abstract proposals in hopes of being accepted to be published as either an article or snapshot in the Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research (JPUR). JPUR showcases the best undergraduate research at Purdue and highlights the student as the author. The first deadline for proposals to be submitted for the 2014 issue is on November 15, 2013 while the final deadline is February 15, 2014. Only abstracts, not full papers, are required for a proposal and submissions may be uploaded through www.jpur.org using a simple three-step process.
JPUR is coordinated and produced through Purdue University Press, a division of Purdue University Libraries. Submissions to JPUR are on a steady rise since the journal debuted in 2011, making acceptance for publication increasingly valuable. Last year, 70 undergraduate authors who had their research published in the 2013 edition of the Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research (JPUR).
“Publishing in JPUR gives students a leg up when it comes to applying for jobs and graduate schools,” said Madison Heslop, a senior in American Studies. Heslop explains that publishing with JPUR makes you a more attractive candidate for a career with research and writing. “It’s a huge advantage if you want to get a higher degree because you already know how the publishing process works.”
Patrick Pawletko, a senior in Civil Engineering also stresses the importance of learning to articulate his work to a general audience and how JPUR enabled him to develop those necessary skills. “Working directly with a writing coach allows the student author to get direct feedback on how to formulate and improve their work,” said Pawletko.
For more information or questions contact Brooke Halteman, JPUR Coordinator at jpur@purdue.edu or visit the JPUR web site at docs.lib.purdue.edu/jpur.
Sources: Brooke Halteman, JPUR Coordinator, jpur@purdue.edu
Charles Watkinson, Purdue Libraries, ctwatkin@purdue.edu, (765) 494-8251
Related web site: docs.lib.purdue.edu/jpur
Filed under: events, general, press_release, scholcomm
November 12th, 2013
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University Libraries will extend hours at three facilities to help students prepare for final exams. During extended hours, Libraries staff will be onsite in these three libraries to assist students and refreshments will be provided.
Starting at 7 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 30, the John W. Hicks Undergraduate Library will stay open 24/7 through 5 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 14. The Siegesmund Engineering Library will remain open 24 hours a day beginning at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 1 through 5 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 14.
The Humanities, Social Science and Education Library will be open as follows:
All other libraries, except the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics, will maintain regular hours from Saturday, Nov. 30 through Saturday, Dec. 14. The Parrish Library will be open extended hours as follows:
For more information go to lib.purdue.edu/hours.
Filed under: events, general, press_release
November 12th, 2013
November is Native American Heritage month and the Purdue University Libraries worked with Felica Ahasteen-Bryant, Director of the Native American Educational and Cultural Center, to create display cases in the following Purdue Libraries to recognize and honor the Native American culture.
Engineering Library
Display focuses on Native engineers, including Mary Golda Ross and John Herrington, and Purdue AISES chapter. A variety of Native artwork is also included. Created by Sandy Galloway.
HSSE Library
Display focuses on the Navajo including Navajo books and artwork. Created by Patrick Whalen.
Physics Library
Display focuses on the universe, specifically Native American legends related to stars and constellations. Created by Becky Hunt
Chemistry Library
Display focuses on sustainable and renewable energy. Includes posters, pictures and articles on current events taking place in Native communities. Created by Becky Hunt.
Hicks Undergraduate Library
The display at the Hicks Undergraduate Library shows a selection of titles available in the media collection that highlight several areas of Native American history, culture, and portrayals in popular film. The corresponding LibGuide has also been updated to reflect recent acquisitions. It can be found here: http://guides.lib.purdue.edu/content.php?pid=434712. Created by Ann O’Donnell.
For a list of events visit the Native American Educational and Cultural Center’s website.
Filed under: CHEM, ENGR, events, general, HSSE, PHYS, UGRLNovember 8th, 2013
(Published Oct. 25 by Ian Chant, Library Journal)
Agricultural research can take seasons to come to fruition, meaning the data researchers gather is voluminous, tracking things like weather patterns and crop yields over years. A failure to establish data standards and sharing practices means that most of these raw figures never make it out of the hands of the researchers who gather them. With new open access standards coming to federally funded research, though, agricultural researchers will need share their data more effectively, and a team of scientists and librarians at Purdue University may have the first blueprint for the field.
The Purdue team was the driving force behind the Smarter Agriculture conference that took place in Washington on October 10. Despite being hampered by a lack of representation from federal agencies due to the government shutdown , the conference brought together attendees from universities, farming concerns, and private enterprise to discuss how to create a system for sharing agricultural data. In large part, said Sylvie Brouder, a Purdue agronomist who’s been working on the problem of data-sharing in agricultural sciences for years, it’s a system that stakeholders will have to build from the ground up.
“Some disciplines are further along the path in sharing data, but agronomists are pretty far behind,” Brouder said. “The idea of making your data shareable is new to the field. We share the synthesized results of experiments in published papers, but not much else, and the result is, we don’t have strong standards and norms for data or metadata in the way other sciences do.”
Getting that data to a point where it’s shareable could not only improve understanding of complicated subject areas, but make study more efficient by taking advantage of work that’s already been done. Raw data from Brouder’s work on water quality, for example, could be used by researchers looking at related topics as well—if only they could access it. “On an hourly basis, I’m collecting data on the flow of water through soil,” said Brouder. “Someone else may want to know the day’s rainfall and the nutrient load that’s taken away by a rain. That person could do that with my data, but that data is not available to them.”
It’s not that most researchers are unwilling to share the information they’ve gathered, Brouder said. When a fellow agricultural scientist calls looking for data, she’s generally more than willing to offer it up. But sharing as a rule, rather than on request, need to become part of the culture of the field. And that will start with students, said Brouder. “We need to start by figuring out how to prepare students for a data-intensive world,” Brouder said.
That’s where Marianne Stowell-Bracke comes in. Stowell-Bracke is Purdue’s Agricultural Sciences Information Specialist, and acts as a liaison between the library and the ag science department. She and her colleague Jake Carlson have been working on ways to make data management part of the agricultural science curriculum, and they’ll start testing two styles of doing so in the spring semester.
On one front, the department will start offering its first data management class to students in the biochemistry major, which at Purdue is under the umbrella of the agricultural sciences department. Previously, hey’d been bringing the subject into classes here and there as visitors, but this approach hasn’t been sufficient to get the concepts to take root.
That’s why they’re trying multiple methods to find what works best. In addition to making a class available, Stowell-Bracke and Carlson will be taking a cohort of graduate students under their wing to teach them how to use best practices to manage their own data, something many haven’t been exposed to previously. “People don’t give their data a thought until something bad happens,” Stowell-Bracke said. “They store everything on their laptop, and leave the laptop on a bus in Madrid.”
The Purdue team is also working to build a model of what a shared, searchable agricultural science database would look like with its recently launched data management tool, the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR). Built on the HubZero platform and operated by Purdue Libraries and the Information Technology department, PURR provides primers on how to manage data, collaborate on projects, and publish data with metadata tags and DOI references for tracking how often and where its cited.
While they have a model to work from and a lot of new interest from farmers, agribusinesses, and academics, there are still obstacles to getting agricultural scientists managing and sharing their data more effectively, not the least of which is the cost involved. “Someone has to pay for this, but it’s unclear who or what the funding model looks like,” said Brouder, who has been surprised by the costs of managing data properly. “One clear outcome we’d like to see is that our funding agencies have an explicit funding line for data management, which we’ve never had before.”
It’s not just funding that’s an issue, though, says Brouder. Agricultural research often involves a wide variety of stakeholders, from university researchers to federal funding agencies like the Department of Agriculture, from individual farmers to agribusiness concerns like Monsanto. Getting them all on the same page about what information should be shared, how it should be made available, and who should have access to it. Independent farmers don’t generally like the idea of having information about their land made common knowledge, said Brouder, while businesses may have concerns about footing the bill for research that could benefit their competitors as well. While many concerns remain about how to address the issue, though, there’s little doubt it needs to be addressed, and soon. The drive toward open access to federally funded research, outlined earlier this year in a memo from the Office of Science and Technology Policy, means that better data management likely won’t be optional for agricultural researchers in the future.
Filed under: general, Open_Access, press_release, RSRCH, scholcomm
November 7th, 2013
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The College of Agriculture, with support from Purdue University Libraries, is seeking to recruit graduate students in the College of Agriculture for a semester-long pilot data literacy program to be offered in spring of 2014 with some limited follow-up in the fall. The course will teach graduate students the knowledge and skills they need to be successful professionals in their discipline. Accepted students will receive a stipend of $1,500 for participating in this program. Applications are due by Nov. 18th at 5 p.m.
Research in agriculture and related fields is growing more and more dependent on the application of data. Emerging research professionals and data producers need to understand how to manage, organize, describe, disseminate and archive their data sets for themselves and others.
In addition to teaching current trends and thinking in managing, organizing, sharing and curating research data, students will actively participate in shaping the program to address real world challenges and issues they face in developing and working with research data sets. Participants will be applying what they learn to their own data sets as a part of the program.
Through offering this pilot, the Libraries and the College of Agriculture will develop a better understanding of the issues with data that are universally relevant across departments and experience in teaching the knowledge and skills needed for students to address these issues. This cohort of students will benefit from receiving intense, hands-on training in managing their own data. One of the goals for the program is to create a community of students knowledgeable with data management and curation issues who will then be able to spread awareness and best practices of data management with fellow students and others in their own labs.
Students will be able to improve their current data processes through taking this course by working with research data they are already using.
The application process:
Space in this program is limited. The pilot program can only accept 5 to 10 graduate students from the College of Agriculture. Students will be selected through an application process. Although PhD students are preferred, the course is open to both PhD and Masters level students provided that they meet the criteria listed below. A $1,500 stipend Applications are due November 18th, 2013 by 5 p.m.
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Sources:
Jake Carlson, Associate Professor of Library Science / Data Services Specialist, can be reached at: jakecarlson@purdue.edu
Marianne Stowell Bracke, Associate Professor of Library Science / Agricultural Information Specialist, can be reached at: mbracke@purdue.edu
Related web site:
http://wwww.lib.purdue.edu
Filed under: D2C2, faculty_staff, general, press_release, RSRCH, scholcomm
November 7th, 2013
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The College of Agriculture, with support from Purdue University Libraries, is seeking to recruit graduate students in the College of Agriculture for a semester-long pilot data literacy program to be offered in spring of 2014 with some limited follow-up in the fall. The course will teach graduate students the knowledge and skills they need to be successful professionals in their discipline. Accepted students will receive a stipend of $1,500 for participating in this program. Applications are due by Nov. 18th at 5 p.m.
Research in agriculture and related fields is growing more and more dependent on the application of data. Emerging research professionals and data producers need to understand how to manage, organize, describe, disseminate and archive their data sets for themselves and others.
In addition to teaching current trends and thinking in managing, organizing, sharing and curating research data, students will actively participate in shaping the program to address real world challenges and issues they face in developing and working with research data sets. Participants will be applying what they learn to their own data sets as a part of the program.
Through offering this pilot, the Libraries and the College of Agriculture will develop a better understanding of the issues with data that are universally relevant across departments and experience in teaching the knowledge and skills needed for students to address these issues. This cohort of students will benefit from receiving intense, hands-on training in managing their own data. One of the goals for the program is to create a community of students knowledgeable with data management and curation issues who will then be able to spread awareness and best practices of data management with fellow students and others in their own labs.
Students will be able to improve their current data processes through taking this course by working with research data they are already using.
The application process:
Space in this program is limited. The pilot program can only accept 5 to 10 graduate students from the College of Agriculture. Students will be selected through an application process. Although PhD students are preferred, the course is open to both PhD and Masters level students provided that they meet the criteria listed below. A $1,500 stipend Applications are due November 18th, 2013 by 5 p.m.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Sources:
Jake Carlson, Associate Professor of Library Science / Data Services Specialist, can be reached at: jakecarlson@purdue.edu
Marianne Stowell Bracke, Associate Professor of Library Science / Agricultural Information Specialist, can be reached at: mbracke@purdue.edu
Related web site:
http://wwww.lib.purdue.edu
Filed under: D2C2, faculty_staff, general, press_release, RSRCH, scholcomm