Rare Baseball Volumes Returned to UIU-C; Google Lacks Library Links; and more

Libraries don't always like to reveal thefts of their treasures, but the library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign lost two bound volumes of U.S. baseball history so rare that a public announcement was deemed appropriate December 5—and two days later reaped results. It was nearly a year since the library had definitive control of the two folio-sized bound volumes of Collyer's Eye, which had been available as circulating copies in the main stacks, open to staff, faculty, graduate students, and researchers with courtesy cards. "It was something we had really not understood was as scarce as it is," Karen Schmidt, associate university librarian for collections, told the LJ Academic Newswire. The premier baseball tabloid of its time, it was first to highlight the "Black Sox" scandal. In the scandal, which prompted a "Say It Ain't So, Joe" plea from a small boy to "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, eight White Sox players allegedly threw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.

The missing volumes, 6-9 and 10-11, published in 1920-1921 and 1924-1926, respectively, were discovered missing after the White Sox won the World Series in October and researchers began inquiring into the team's history, said Schmidt. UIU-C, the largest public university library in the world, has the most complete run of issues of Collyer's Eye (published 1915–1944), with only the Library of Congress holding some volumes. At about 9 p.m. on December 6—the same day numerous media outlets reported the losses—the missing volumes appeared on a table in the main library's second-floor reference room. "This is really unbelievable good luck," said Schmidt, who noted that the volumes seemed "a bit worse for wear, but in general, in reasonable condition." Since the discovery of the losses, the remaining copies were moved to the non-circulating stacks in the Illinois Historical Survey Library. So, were the missing volumes, 14 inches by 20 inches and marked with the library ownership stamp, actually stolen? "We really don't know," Schmidt said. A fingerprint test would damage the volumes, so, said Krystal Fitzpatrick, the assistant university chief of police, the case is closed. Now, Schmidt said, UIU-C aims to acquire the first three years of Collyer's Eye, the only volumes it lacks.

Librarians and library users alike are starting to use Google Book Search (formerly Google Print) the way they use Google—and are now mining information from books. But does Google Book Search let its users easily find a library version of a book? Not unless the book is out of copyright, and Google doesn't yet explain that. The third question in the Google Book Search FAQ reads as follows: "What is the 'Find it in a Library' link?" The answer: "When you click on 'Find it in a Library' we send you to the OCLC Worldcat where you can enter your zip code and find a local library that has the book."

The reality is more complicated and less impressive. The "Find it in a Library" link only appears on books that Google has scanned from libraries, in the Library Project, not the much larger (as of now) collection of current books submitted for scanning by publishers. So, for example, someone searching on "Abu Ghraib" will get links to buy a current book from its publisher, from Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, BookSense.com, and Google's own comparison-shopping engine Froogle. Those using the advanced search feature to find works in the public domain, published before 1923, will see a "Find this book in a library" link.

Google spokesman Nate Tyler told the LJ Academic Newswire, "Currently the links shows on books that we scanned from the library, which are, generally speaking, public domain books. We are not showing this link on books that are part of the publisher program, but we may do so in the future." Why the delay: "I guess that we're trying to create a tool for publishers to sell more books online." Should the FAQ be revised? "We can try to clarify that," Tyler said. "This product is still under development." Commented Chip Nilges, OCLC's VP for new services, "Google is working with us to place 'find in a library' links on all books digitized from library collections, and we're glad to have this placement, which complements the link from every monograph indexed in Google Scholar to Open WorldCat and the collection of 3.4 million Open WorldCat records in the Google main index." He added, "We'd of course like them to appear on every book in the Google Book Search program," but said that it was Google's call. OCLC publishes a standard linking syntax for Open WorldCat that anyone can use to embed a link to the "find in a library" service.

The University of Michigan has become the most ambitious participant in Google's digitization project, and the university library's Google point man, John Price Wilkin, is on the board of directors of the Michigan Library Consortium (MLC), which has more than 650 libraries of all types. So perhaps it's not surprising that the MLC Board has adopted a resolution supporting Google's digitization project. "We didn't want to sit on the sidelines anymore," board chair Christine Berro said in a statement. "Our board wants the world to know that there are libraries who support Google and who believe that Google Book Search will have a positive effect on libraries' abilities to provide information to our communities."

The resolution cites the no-cost searching of digitized materials while protecting the rights of copyright holders (an issue some copyright holders would dispute); the free software, hardware, and personnel Google has provided for the digitization project; and the prospect that the work of libraries will be "dramatically enhanced by the Google Book Search project and other such endeavors."

Despite the expenditure of some £130 million ($225 million) in public money on creating digital content since the mid-1990s, the projects have been unstructured, piecemeal, and fragmented—and about to be upstaged by Google effort to digitize library books, according to a new UK report. The report, commissioned by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and CURL (Consortium of Research Libraries in the British Isles) and based on research undertaken at Loughborough University, recommends a new task force to coordinate national efforts, avoiding duplication and gaps. The report also recommends that user needs be better understood, especially in areas like science and the social sciences.

"This is the first attempt from a national perspective to stand back and look at what we have achieved over the last ten years in the digitization field," commented Stuart Dempster, JISC's digitization program manager. "While the report points to the work that needs to be done, it also highlights the importance of digitized resources to a range of sectors, including education and research." Added Jean Sykes, librarian and director of IT services at the London School of Economics and chair of the JISC digitization working group, "Some excellent digital materials have been created in the last ten years and many information seekers are already benefiting from them. But now it is time to pull things together."

Students using the Robert Woodruff Library at the Atlanta University Center, which once required students to show their student ID upon entering the building, now need to show identification only after 6 p.m. According to a report in the Clark Atlantic University Panther, students are divided on the change, with some emphasizing security and others highlighting comfort. "It was a hassle for us to show our ID. It took too much time," one student told the publication. Another said, "I know a student who was robbed at gunpoint going to her car… Anybody can walk into our library, and anything can happen. If they were checking before, they definitely shouldn't stop now." For the library's perspective, Gale McClenney, associate director of technology access services, said, "We want our students to feel welcomed when they come in." She said libraries elsewhere had managed to achieve security and customer service without having to check IDs. In an incident last year, a student—who has since transferred—clashed with security officers after she refused to show her ID and then refused to leave.