James Duncan has been named director of networking and resource sharing, responsible for online services, Colorado Virtual Library, and Ask Colorado. He was assistant director for technology services, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City.
Samantha Hager has been appointed library consultant for the Colorado state publications library. She was government information librarian at the Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston.
For 90thAnniversary NYU Press Gives Itself a "Watershed" Year
New York University (NYU) Press staff began the year by popping champagne corks to celebrate their milestone 90th anniversary. As the year ended, NYU Press director Steve Maikowski told the LJ Academic Newswire, the champagne was flowing again. "Our bottom line improved significantly," Maikowski said, calling FY 2006 a "watershed" year for NYU Press. Overall, sales revenue grew by an impressive nine percent in FY06, breaking the $4 million mark, and unit sales also increased for the first time in several years. "What was also impressive was that the sales increase came more from backlist titles than frontlist titles," Maikowski added, "a very encouraging trend." For the year, NYU Press published 98 new titles, up from 94 in 2005 with growth across the board. The press's trade, academic, and mid-list titles all beat their expected budgets. "We even had a few monographs that had to be reprinted in year one," he says.
Among the most interesting titles the press put out in 2006 was its own "catalog." Part of a major effort to promote the celebration of the Press's 90th anniversary, staffers produced a "Chronology of Great Books 1916–2006," which listed every book published by the press and additional tidbits. And it all started with Google. With an agreement in place to digitize selected titles for Google Book Search, NYU Press decided to "opt-out" of Google's library scan plan, which required the press to submit a list of titles to Google. "We went to a major ARL library database and extracted a preliminary list of all NYU Press titles published since our founding in 1916," Maikowski explained. After ten months of arduous work checking and updating information, including checking press records in the university archives, the "anniversary booklet" was born. After all, he said, it was just too much hard work and good information to be used just to stop Google's library scanning.
The press's strong performance in 2006 offers a hopeful counterpoint to reports in recent years focusing on the tough publishing climate facing university presses. How did they do it? Not overnight, Maikowski says, though he's still not entirely certain what factors beyond the staff's hard work helped most. "I think the whole impact of the used book market may be somewhat cyclical, and we may finally be seeing college bookstores and wholesalers coming back to us finally to purchase our mint copies," he said. The press also significantly reduced or eliminated the practice of remaindering or selling "hurt books," fearing those sales could displace sales of mint copies. The press is likely reaping some benefit from its "Make Information Pay" program. Launched in 2005, that program improved the quality and depth of information in databases on all the press's books in print, Maikowski said, as well as improved the timing and quality of metadata and content feeds to wholesaler, online, and major retail customers. The press also put more titles in its Print-on-Demand program, hoping to bolster "long tail" sales.
The press also continues to enjoy the support of the NYU administration. The University supplies a modest, "though very important," stream of direct financial support, about five percent of annual net sales, as a general operating subsidy. That institutional support, in an age when many university presses have seen their subsidies slashed, offers the press the stability any business needs to grow. "We hope to have the university increase its support of the press in future years as we continue to build our intellectual capital and scholarly reputation," Maikowski said, suggesting the press is poised at the beginning of what could be an impressive growth curve. "With our increased revenues, we significantly improved our overall balance sheet, putting the press in a very healthy overall financial position. We are now able to make new strategic investments."
Cambridge Buys ProQuest Information and Learning Unit
In a blockbuster deal last week, the Cambridge Information Group (CIG) acquired ProQuest's Information & Learning unit (PQIL) for $222 million. That capped an eventful year for ProQuest, which included continued growth in service to libraries but also sprawling accounting troubles. ProQuest officials said initial plans are to combine CIG subsidiary CSA (formerly Cambridge Scientific Abstracts) and PQIL into an "independent, privately held organization" that will oversee both Cambridge's Bethesda, MD, offices and PQIL's Ann Arbor, MI, home base. Martin Kahn will serve as CEO out of Michigan, with current CSA President Matt Dunie continuing in that role.
PQIL president Skip Prichard will leave the company, but plans to stay on through the transition. PQIL's brands include Chadwyck-Healey, UMI, Micromedia ProQuest, and Serials Solutions. CIG's companies include CSA, R.R. Bowker, RefWorks, and Corporate Educational Services, owner of Sotheby's Institute of Art. It also is the largest shareholder of mapping systems company Navtech, Inc. which powers Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and others. Prichard told LJ Academic Newswire that PQIL and CIG were a good fit, and said he was "privileged to have led PQIL through a difficult period."
The sale came just as ProQuest stock plunged 27 percent last week after company officials said its accounting problems may be more pervasive than originally thought. According to the Ann Arbor News, ProQuest now says it may have overstated earnings by as much as $171 million to $196 million, double the company's original $80 million to $100 million estimate. Despite ProQuest's accounting issues, however, the company has remained reliable for its library customers, and has released a steady stream of new products and initiatives in 2006, including a significant enhancement to its search platform called "One Click Searching," which allows searches from the ProQuest platform to return full text results from across all of a library's database holdings.
SPARC Launches in Japan
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) announced this week that it has officially launched SPARC Japan. SPARC Japan is supported by more than 600 university libraries affiliated with library associations, including those of national, private, and prefectural/municipal university libraries. As an authorized SPARC affiliate in Japan, SPARC Japan aims to encourage "improved access to Japanese research and support expanded institutional and scholarly community roles in, and control over, the scholarly communication process."
SPARC Japan is supported by the Tokyo-based National Institute of Informatics (NII), a national research institute that unites Japanese academic librarians, scholars, researchers, universities, and learned societies to support initiatives that improve scholarly communications in Japan. SPARC Director Heather Joseph said the creation of SPARC Japan highlights the "growing worldwide momentum" behind SPARC's mission. Jun Adachi, SPARC Japan director and professor at NII, said that the effort will focus on facilitating "the enhancement of Japanese university libraries' open access institutional repositories."
Some SMU Faculty Protest Against Pursuit of Bush Library
A federal judge this month may have helped pave the way for the proposed Bush Library at Southern Methodist University (SMU), but among SMU faculty it appears that the jury is still out. Last week, members of SMU's Perkins School of Theology penned a strongly-worded letter to R. Gerald Turner, president of the Board of Trustees, urging SMU to "rescind SMU's pursuit" of the Bush presidential library.
The letter pins its argument against the library sharply on opposition to President George W. Bush's policies, which they deem "ethically egregious," including: "degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of global warming, flagrant disregard for international treaties, alienation of long-term U.S. allies, environmental predation, shameful disrespect for gay persons and their rights, a pre-emptive war based on false and misleading premises, and a host of other erosions of respect for the global human community." The Perkins faculty also protested against SMU cashing in on the Bush library, noting that the school would "financially profit on the backs of hard-working Americans who feel squashed by policies they've now rejected at the polls," and from a name and legacy that "globally is associated with suffering, death, and political bad faith."
Burger Urges EPA to Stop Library Closures
Stepping up the fight over the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) library closures, American Library Association (ALA) President Leslie Burger offered some forceful comments in a recent speech to the EPA's National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. On December 14, Burger told the committee that the agency has disregarded the tenets of librarianship, offering "no outreach to the EPA Library User community," and said that the library closures will lead to the loss of valuable information given the dispersal of materials and the slow process of digitization. Thus far three regional EPA libraries have closed (Chicago, Dallas, and Kansas City, KS) as have the Prevention, Pesticides & Toxic Substances (OPPTS) and headquarters libraries in Washington, DC. The regional library in New York City is expected to close on January 2. The closings were initiated "under the guise of a proposed $2 million budget cut," Burger said, noting that the agency asserted in a December 11 teleconference the closings would be mitigated by digitization, which would bring access to a "broader audience."
However, Burger said, many scientists, EPA staff, and librarians dispute that contention. "Without more information about the EPA's digitization project, we cannot assess whether they are digitizing the most appropriate materials, whether there is appropriate metadata or cataloguing to make sure that people can access the digitized materials," she said. "EPA also claims to have been following ALA guidelines in its reorganization of holdings. While we would be pleased to meet with EPA to discuss digitization plans for the EPA network of libraries, EPA has not contacted ALA at any point in this reorganization process." Burger urged the council to recommend to the administrator that the EPA halt all library closures, meet with stakeholders, stop dispersing and dumping any library materials, stabilize and inventory stored collections, and reinstate library professionals, a position supported by Congressional Democrats.
Last Edition of the LJ Academic Newswire for 2006
From the staff here at Library Journal we wish you a happy and safe holiday season. We thank you for making 2006 a great year for us. The Newswire will return on January 4, 2007.
Best Sellers in Education, May 2006–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach
Noddings, Nel
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521851882. $30.00
When Sex Goes to School: Warring Views on Sex—And Sex Education—Since the Sixties
Luker, Kristin
W.W. Norton
2006. ISBN 0393060896. $25.95
Enriching the Brain: How to Maximize Every Learner's Potential
Jensen, Eric
Jossey-Bass
2006. ISBN 0787975478. $24.95
Academic Freedom at the Dawn of a New Century: How Terrorism, Governments, and Culture Wars Impact Free Speech
Ed. by Evan Gertsmann
Stanford University Press
2006. ISBN 0804754446. $50.00
Powerful Teacher Education: Lessons from Exemplary Programs
Darling-Hammond, Linda
Jossey-Bass
2006. 0787972738. $32.00
Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children
Hirsch, E.D.
Houghton Mifflin
2006. ISBN 0618657312. $22.00
Learning to Stand & Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America's Republic
Kelley, Mary
University of North Carolina Press
2006. ISBN 080783064x. $39.95
Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons
Gardner, Howard
Basic Books
2006. ISBN 0465047688. $19.95
Science Education and Student Diversity: Synthesis and Research Agenda
Lee, Okhee
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521859611. $65.00
Building Blocks: Making Children Successful In the Early Years of School
Maeroff, Gene I.
Palgrave Macmillan
2006. ISBN 1403969949. $24.95
Unfinished Business: Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Our Schools
Ed. by Pedro A. Noguera
Jossey-Bass
2006. ISBN 0787972754. $24.95
Era of Education: The Presidents and the Schools, 1965-2001
McAndrews, Lawrence J.
University of Illinois Press
2006. ISBN 025203080x. $45.00
Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences
Ed. by R. Keith Sawyer
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521845548. $120.00
Integrating Educational Systems for Successful Reform in Diverse Contexts
Datnow, Amanda, et al.
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521857562. $70.00
Working Memory and Education
Ed. by Susan J. Pickering
Elsevier Academic Press
2006. ISBN 0125544650. $69.95
Why We Vote: How Schools and Communities Shape Our Civic Life
Campbell, David E.
Princeton University Press
2006. ISBN 0691125252. $39.50
Chicana/Latina Education in Everyday Life: Feminista Perspectives on Pedagogy and Epistemology
Ed. by Dolores Delgado Bernal
State University of New York Press
2006. ISBN 0791468054. $89.50
No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005
McGuinn, Patrick J.
University Press of Kansas
2006. ISBN 0700614427. $40.00
Laptops and Literacy: Learning In the Wireless Classroom
Warschauer, Mark.
Teachers College Press
2006. ISBN 0807747270. $63.00
School Crime and Juvenile Justice
Lawrence, Richard
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0195172906. $32.00
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Learning Gardens New York's GreenBranches program links the library to the street.
Green Picks: LBD May 2007 Want to reduce your library's carbon footprint? Join the Cradle-to-Cradle revolution. Helen Milling shares the green products her firm is using.
