Bonna Boettcher has been named music librarian at Cornell University Library. Boettcher comes from Bowling Green State University, where she served as Professor, Chair of the Department of Archival Collections and Branches, and Head of the Music Library and Sound Recording Archives. She currently serves as the President of the Music Library Association.
Janice Lachance will now be known as the CEO of SLA (Special Libraries Association); she formerly was executive director. The title change, approved by SLA's Association Office Operations Committee, became effective January 1, but the announcement was delayed until the SLA Leadership Summit, held in Houston, TX, January 18–21. "This role requires increasing interaction and engagement with the top leaders of corporations, universities, government agencies, and other associations," explained SLA president Pam Rollo in a message to SLA leadership. "Having a CEO as the top staff executive for SLA means that doors may often open more easily for us."
Katherine Reagan will assume the title of Ernest L. Stern '56 Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY, for the next five years. She has been a member of the Cornell University Library staff since 1995 and has served as curator of rare books in the library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections since 2000.
Codrescu Keeps Heat on ALA over Cuba
Writer and American Library Association Midwinter Meeting keynoter Andrei Codrescu kept the heat on ALA last week over its stance on Cuba's "independent libraries," penning a syndicated column blasting ALA for declining to recognize "the new Cuban libraries" as real libraries. Codrescu joins syndicated columnist Nat Hentoff, who attacked ALA prior to the 2004 midwinter meeting, even renouncing his Immroth Award in protest. Codrescu also defended his choice to address the Cuba issue as the President Program's keynote speaker. "No ALA organizer told me what to say, and it's a good thing too, because this is still a free country," Codrescu told the LJ Academic Newswire. "I had one amiable telephone conversation with Michael Gorman, President of the ALA, who had the good sense not to ask me what to address." Gorman, however, has said that Codrescu did not deliver the speech he told ALA officials he would deliver.
Despite the blustery headlines, ALA has done a good deal of its own research on the Cuba issue, with ALA members making a number of trips to Cuba since 2000, and joining the International Federation of Library Associations in expressing "deep concern" over the arrest and long prison terms of political dissidents in Cuba in spring 2003 and urged the Cuban Government to respect human rights defined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In declining to draft a resolution, ALA officials have maintained that professional outreach and pressure to remove the embargo are the best ways to effect change in Cuba. In its 2001 report on the issue, an ALA committee found that nature of the "independent libraries" movement in Cuba was "questionable," and suggested that drafting a resolution recognizing them would harm real efforts for a professional exchange. Codrescu called that "twisted" thinking: "The simple truth is that their fellow librarians are in prison for defending the human right to read." Codrescu did not say, however, what he thought the practical effect of an ALA resolution would mean for Cuba's so-called independent libraries. Codrescu visited Cuba in 1997 but did not visit an "independent library." He says he "got the facts" on the Cuba issue from Nat Hentoff and Friends of Cuban Libraries' Robert Kent.
U. of Michigan President Addresses AAP over Google Scan Plan
At last week's meeting of the Association of American Publishers' Professional and Scholarly Publishing division, University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman vigorously defended the university's participation in Google Book Search. The AAP is part of an industry lawsuit suing Google to stop the scanning of in copyright library books. Coleman said the AAP's opposition was why she chose to accept the invitation to address the conference. "I come to you this afternoon not only as the president of the University of Michigan," Coleman said. "I come to you as a publisher. I come to you as a supporter of authors. And, for some here, I come to you as one of your biggest customers." Coleman offered publishers a guarantee: "We will protect all copyrighted materials," she said. "I assure you we understand that providing public access to materials in copyright, particularly those still in print, would be unlawful. Merely because our library possesses a digital copy of a work does not mean we are entitled to, nor will we, ignore the law and distribute it to people to use in ways not authorized by copyright."
So what will the library do with the digital copies provided to it by Google? That has been a major question raised by publishers. "This copy is entirely, and only, for preservation and research." Coleman said. "As for the public domain works, we will use them in every way possible. For in-copyright works, we will make certain that they remain dark until falling into the public domain." Coleman eloquently defended the program, seemingly making it clear that they would not bow to legal pressure from publishers. "We believe this is a legal, ethical, and noble endeavor that will transform our society," she said. "Legal because we believe copyright law allows us the fair use of millions of books that are being digitized. Ethical because the preservation and protection of knowledge is critically important to the betterment of humankind. And noble because this enterprise is right for the time, right for the future, right for the world of publishing, right for all of us."
Copyright Office Issues Orphan Works Report
The U.S. Copyright Office last week released a report analyzing the status of "orphan works," those works for which a copyright owner can't be located. The report factored in about 850 public comments and three days of roundtable discussions held last year, concluding that the "orphan works" problem was indeed a real issue, and proposed a legislative response to easing the issue, which would offer "reasonable compensation" for those owners who turn up. Public Knowledge president Gigi B. Sohn, however, while praising the report, said the recommendation that users of orphan works be required to pay was not a proper solution. "That approach keeps the orphans in the orphanage," Sohn said, explaining that just the possibility of long negotiations or court action over compensation would be enough to deter creators from using orphan works. "There is no way to determine the market value of a work that may have been out of circulation for decades. Creators of new works need more certainty." Public Knowledge recommended that Congress put a "reasonable but low" cap of perhaps $200 per use that the creators of orphan works could claim as damages.
ALA President, CSU Fresno Dean Michael Gorman Will Retire
After a career spanning 50 years, dating back to his work as a page, Michael Gorman, dean of Library Services at California State University, Fresno, and current ALA president, has announced he will retire early next year. Gorman, dean since 1988, will continue to direct library operations through December 2006, then take administrative leave before officially retiring after the academic year in summer 2007. It is quite a way for Gorman to go out—with construction having begun on a $91 million new library project that Gorman has fought for, and as ALA president.
CSU officials said Gorman would remain as a consultant on the construction of the new Madden Library, set to open in 2008. Gorman's first library job was at the Hampstead [London] Public Library as a "junior assistant." He has also taught at library schools in the UK and in the United States, including the University of California, Los Angeles, and made revising library education a major plank in his ALA presidential platform. His book "Our Enduring Values" (2000) won ALA's 2001 Highsmith Award for the best book on librarianship.
Google Defends Its China Launch; Students Protest At UC, Stanford
On its corporate blog and in the media, Google is defending its decision to censor itself as a condition of doing business in China, but critics are also becoming more vocal. "Eventually I came to the conclusion that more information is better, even if it is not as full as we would like to see," Google co-founder Sergey Brin told Reuters. "The practical matter is that over the last couple of years Google in China was censored--not by us but by the government," Brin added. Meanwhile, students protested at the University of California and at Stanford University, where Kai-Fu Lee, Google's president in China, spoke. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, students chanted "shame on Google" and "Google, don't be evil."
In his remarks, Lee echoed Brin's remarks in Switzerland, saying Google had to make a "difficult decision." "On its blog, the company posted a statement it recently submitted to a Congressional subcommittee detailing its program. Google officials said establishing a local presence in China was the only way to provide better service, as Chinese efforts to censor the site have rendered it often unusable. "We are not happy about governmental restrictions on access to information, and we hope that over time everyone in the world will come to enjoy full access to information. Information and communication technology," read the statement "We believe that our continued engagement with China is the best (and perhaps only) way for Google to help bring the tremendous benefits of universal information access to all our users there."
Best Sellers in Physics, January–December 2005, as compiled by YBP Library Services
Plows, Plagues, And Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate
Ruddiman, W. F.
Princeton U. Press
2005. ISBN 0691121648. $24.95
It's About Time: Understanding Einstein's Relativity
Mermin, N. David
Princeton U. Press
2005. ISBN 0691122016. $29.95
Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes
Emanuel, Kerry A.
Oxford U. Press
2005. ISBN 0195149416. $45.00
Einstein on Race and Racism
Jerome, Fred
Rutgers U. Press
2005. ISBN 0813536170. $23.95
The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer: and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race
McMillan, Priscilla Johnson
Viking
2005. ISBN 0670034223. $25.95
Knowing: The Nature of Physical Law
Munowitz, M.
Oxford U. Press
2005. ISBN 0195167376. $35.00
The Theory of Almost Everything: The Standard Model, the Unsung Triumph of Modern Physics
Oerter, Robert
Prentice Hall
2006. ISBN 0132366789. $24.95
Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions
Randall, Lisa
Ecco
2005. ISBN 0060531088. $27.95
Environmental Change: Key Issues and Alternative Approaches
Oldfield, Frank
Cambridge U. Press
2005. ISBN 0521829364. $120.00
Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design
Susskind, Leonard
Little, Brown
2006. ISBN 0316155799. $24.95
Thin Ice: Unlocking the Secrets of Climate in the World's Highest Mountains
Bowen, Mark
Henry Holt
2005. ISBN 0805064435. $30.00
Worlds of Flow: A History of Hydrodynamics from the Bernoullis to Prandtl
Darrigol, Olivier
Oxford U. Press
2005. ISBN 0198568436. $74.50
Ozone Depletion and Climate Change: Constructing a Global Response
Hoffman, Matthew J.
State U. of New York Press
2005. ISBN 079146525x. $81.50
Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance
Gosnell, Mariana
Alfred A. Knopf
2005. ISBN 0679426086. $30.00
Thermodynamics: A Dynamical Systems Approach
Haddad, Wassim M.
Princeton U. Press
2005. ISBN 0691123276. $49.50
Weighing the World: The Quest to Measure the Earth
Danson, Edwin
Oxford U. Press
2006. ISBN 0195181697. $29.95
Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos
Chaisson, Eric
Columbia U. Press
2006. ISBN 0231135602. $34.50
Electromagnetic Processes
Gould, Robert J.
Princeton U. Press
2006. ISBN 0691124434. $89.50
Quantum Wells, Wires and Dots: Theoretical and Computational Physics of Semiconductor Nanostructures
Harrison, Paul
John Wiley
2005. ISBN 0470010797. $150.00
Pauli's Exclusion Principle: The Origin and Validation of a Scientific Principle
Massimi, Michela
Cambridge U. Press
2005. ISBN 0521839114. $75.00
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