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June 19th, 2012
The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) partners develop innovative technical solution to improve consortial borrowing for users
The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative announced that the winner of the Rethinking Resource Sharing (RRS) 2012 Innovation Award is UBorrow, a project of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC).
This award honors individuals or institutions for changes they have made to improve users’ access to information through resource sharing in their library, consortium, state or country. The CIC was recognized for its innovative contribution to resource sharing during the Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee Program at ALA Annual in Anaheim.
Headquartered in the Midwest, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) is a consortium of the Big Ten member universities plus the University of Chicago. Collectively CIC serves 46,102 faculty and nearly half a million students. The combined collections of the CIC and the Center for Research Libraries contain approximately 90 million volumes.
The CIC UBorrow solution marries the strengths of two different resource sharing systems to create a fast, reliable, cost-effective, scalable and unmediated consortial borrowing service that is relatively quick and easy to implement. The service uses Relais D2D to search CIC library catalogs through Z39.50 and to determine which libraries have available copies, while using OCLC ILLiad (developed by Atlas Systems) to manage the fulfillment of requests.
The addition of Relais D2D to the CIC technology mix allows member libraries to leverage their existing ILS and ILL systems to more effectively meet their user needs, significantly reducing the need for users to recall checked-out material or for libraries to purchase multiple copies. Most importantly, this unmediated consortial borrowing system effectively makes most of the 90 million volumes held in the CIC libraries and the Center for Research Libraries readily available to library users through a single interface with a fast and predictable turnaround time and a generous loan period.
UBorrow is the result of a unique, three-way collaboration among consortia members and resource sharing software developers and an innovative approach to consortial borrowing that had not been accomplished before. http://www.cic.net/Home/Projects/Library/ReciprocalBorrowing/UBorrow.aspx
Funding for the 2012 Innovation Award is provided by Relais International.
The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative is an ad hoc group that advocates for a complete rethinking of the way libraries conduct resource sharing in the context of the global internet revolution and all of the developments that have arisen from that. The group is advocating for a revolution in the way libraries conduct resource sharing. For more information, please visit www.rethinkingresourcesharing.org.
Source: Mary Lehane (mlehane@yorku.ca)
Filed under: generalJune 15th, 2012
Filed under: general, scholcomm
June 12th, 2012
Primary Research Group has published The Survey of Medical and Other Scientific Libraries ISBN 157440-203-X, a major international benchmarking study of scientific libraries from academia, government, private industry and scientific/medical associations.
The report gives detailed data on trends in staffing, budgets, salaries, information literacy efforts, use of vendor supplied info literacy materials, info literacy training requirements, patron training in scholarly collaboration networks, materials spending overall and for books, databases, ebooks, journals and other information vehicles, developments in open access and digital repositories, use of eBook readers and tablet computers, patent information procurement efforts, special collections budgets, special collections digitization, video streaming, use of cloud computing services, use of RFID, barcoding and other inventory tracking technology, binding technology and services, developments in library computer centers and many other factors affecting the operation of medical and other scientific libraries.
Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:
• Just 4.35 percent of the libraries in the sample include training in scholarly collaboration networks such as Vivo or Collexis in its patron education efforts and most of these libraries are in emerging economies.
• Most libraries sampled spent nothing on content for eBook readers but those that did spent a mean of nearly $18,000 in the past year.
• Overall spending on eBook subscriptions rose nearly 20% in 2012-13.
• Traditional print book spending exceeded eBook spending but by a narrowing margin.
• Librarians in institutions with library budgets exceeding $1 million spent more than 8% of their staff time promoting the institutional digital repository.
• Mean spending by the libraries in the sample for information accessed online in the past year was $683,551.
• 8.7% of libraries sampled employ a PHD in the subject area on which the library focuses (apart from library science PHD’s or other degrees related to library or information science).
• More than 62% of government and international organization scientific libraries in the sample considered their information literacy efforts to be minimal at best.
• Only six libraries reported aggregated spending on patent information including use of patent databases, search services and outsourced research and these libraries reported mean spending of $177,750.00.
Data for this 200+ page report is broken out separately for four subject areas: medical libraries, engineering/mathematics/physics libraries, chemicals and energy, and all other scientific libraries. Data is also broken out for various measures of library size, as well as for three country/region areas: 1) USA, 2) Other Developed Economies and 3) Emerging Economies, and also by type of library, ie, higher education, government, private industry, scientific society, etc.
For further information view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.
Filed under: D2C2June 12th, 2012
Digital Scholarship has released the Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works: http://digital-scholarship.org/dcpb/dcb.htm
In a rapidly changing technological environment, the difficult task of ensuring long-term access to digital information is increasingly important. This selective bibliography presents over 650 English-language articles, books, and technical reports that are useful in understanding digital curation and preservation. It covers digital curation and preservation copyright issues, digital formats (e.g., data, media, and e-journals), metadata, models and policies, national and international efforts, projects and institutional implementations, research studies, services, strategies, and digital repository concerns.
Most sources have been published from 2000 through 2011; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 2000 are also included. The bibliography includes links to freely available versions of included works, such as e-prints and open access articles.
The bibliography is available as a paperback and an open access PDF file. All versions of the bibliography are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
For a list of all Digital Scholarship publications, see: http://bit.ly/ffWu9D
Translate (oversatta, oversette, prelozit, traducir, traduire, tradurre, traduzir, or ubersetzen) this message: http://digital-scholarship.org/announce/dcb_en.htm
Filed under: D2C2June 4th, 2012
The draft program for the Seventh International Conference on Open Repositories (OR2012) on July 9-13 2012 is now available at: https://www.conftool.net/or2012/sessions.php
This is provisional and, as such, timings may change. Further details including Pecha Kucha and Repository Fringe sessions, closing keynote, session chairs etc will also be incorporated in the coming days. Please check the website for updates.
As a reminder delegates can register for OR 2012 via the conference electronic payment system (http://or2012.ed.ac.uk/registration/). The early booking rate of £295 is available until June 11, 2012 with a full-price rate of £350 thereafter. There is also a day rate of £115.
Delegates can also register for the workshops on Monday and Tuesday at www.or2012.eventbrite.com. Please note that the workshops are free but you will need the EDN number from your receipt from the conference electronic payment system to register for the workshops.
Accommodation is booked separately –http://or2012.ed.ac.uk/delegates/accommodation/
Additional information about the conference is provided on the OR2012 website – http://or2012.ed.ac.uk/
Filed under: D2C2June 1st, 2012
Filed under: D2C2May 30th, 2012
Filed under: generalMay 30th, 2012
Filed under: CHEM, general, PSET, SPECMay 29th, 2012
Special Track on Metadata & Semantics for Open Access Repositories, Research Information Systems and Infrastructures (http://mtsr2012.uca.es/track_open_access.php) Part of the Sixth International Conference on Metadata and Semantic Research (MTSR’12) 28-30 November 2012 – Cádiz, Spain (http://mtsr2012.uca.es/)
IMPORTANT DATES
• 20 July 2012: Paper submission (PDF File formatted in Springer LNCS style)
• 1 September 2012: Acceptance (or rejection) notification
• 15 September 2012: Camera-ready, revised version of accepted papers
• 28-30 November 2012: MTSR’12 at University of Cadiz
AIM
The aim of the Special Track on Metadata & Semantics for Open Access Repositories, Research Information Systems and Infrastructures is to serve as a discussion forum for experts to present recent results and experiences, establish liaisons with other groups, and reflect on the state-of-the-art of metadata and semantic aspects of open access repositories, research information systems and data management in research infrastructures.
SCOPE
Handling metadata and semantics is an issue of increasing significance in open access repositories and research information systems (the commonly known as CRIS). Furthermore, research infrastructures of various disciplines need to manage vast amount of data sets that are produced on a daily basis and need rich and high quality metadata to assist in storing, discovering, processing, preserving and re-using them.
Taming the complexity of metadata and semantics in open access repositories, CRIS and research infrastructures is a major challenge and the subject of intense ongoing activities worldwide. The impact of these efforts can be very significant, including aspects like semantic interoperability among systems, reduced cost of information exchange and integration, availability of advanced mechanisms for discovery, navigation and preservation, wide re-use of data and services across disciplines and availability of high quality, reliable value-added services.
SUBMISSIONS
Interested authors can submit either full papers (12 pages) or short papers (6 pages) reporting on either mature or ongoing research.
Papers should be original and not previously submitted to other venues. Submission will be available through the EasyChair submission system https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=mtsr2012.
If you haven’t an EasyChair account yet, you’ll be asked to create it before you can access the MTSR’12 page.
SELECTION OF BEST PAPERS TO BE INCLUDED IN:
The submissions to the Special Track will be reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee. Accepted papers will be published in the book of MTSR’12 proceedings by Springer (CCIS Series http://www.springer.com/computer?SGWID=0-146-6-466612-0).
ABOUT MTSR’12
The 6th International Conference on Metadata and Semantics Research (MTSR’12) will be hosted by the University of Cadiz in Spain from 28th to 30th November, 2012. MTSR’12 targets researchers and practitioners from the fields of metadata and semantics research as well as applications of the semantic web and related technologies.
May 29th, 2012
8th International Digital Curation Conference 2013 (IDCC13)
14-16 January 2013
Mövenpick Hotel, Amsterdam, Netherlands
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IDCC brings together those who create and manage data and information, those who use it and those who research and teach about curation processes. Our view of ‘data’ is a broad one – video games and virtual worlds are of just as much interest as data from laboratory instruments or field observation. Whether the information originates in the arts, humanities, social or experimental sciences the issues faced are cross-disciplinary. Digital curators maintain, preserve, and add value to digital information throughout its life, reducing threats to its long-term value, mitigating the risk of digital obsolescence, and enhancing the potential for reuse for all purposes. If you are a curator, if you teach or train future curators, or if you depend on them for your work, IDCC is for you. www.dcc.ac.uk/events/idcc13
Call for Papers
The IDCC11 Programme Committee invites submissions to the 8th International Digital Curation Conference that reflect our conference theme. Our theme recognizes that in recent years there has been an explosion in the amount of data available, whether from tweets to blogs, data from sensors through to “citizen science,” government data, health and genome data and social survey data. Technology allows us to treat as ‘data’ content which would not once have merited the term – recordings of speech or song, video of dance or theatre or animal behavior – and to treat as quantitative what once could only be qualitative. There are challenges in finding data and making it findable, in the ability to use it effectively, to take and understand data, to process, to analyze and extract value from data, to visualize data and then to communicate the stories behind it.
This process is now being termed data science. It is being used across sectors to describe a wide range of data activities in the commercial, government and academic sectors dealing with information whose primary purpose is often not research-related. Activities are not discipline-specific; in fact data science is being described in some quarters as a new discipline.
The Call for Papers including a list of topics can be found at: www.dcc.ac.uk/events/idcc13/call-papers
Submissions will be accepted from 4 June 2012
Sent on behalf of IDCC13 Programme Committee Co-chaired by Kevin Ashley – Director of the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), Liz Lyon – Associate Director of the DCC and Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)
Filed under: D2C2