Nancy Davenport, who is Louis Round Wilson Academy Member at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science, has been nominated by President George W. Bush to serve as a member of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), a statutory body affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration. NHPRC supports a wide range of activities to preserve, publish, and encourage the use of documentary sources. Davenport is the past president of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and served more than 26 years at the Library of Congress.
Ewa Barczyk has been named director of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM) Libraries. Barczyk has served at UWM Libraries as interim director since 2003 and before that in several capacities, including as associate director.
Mayme Clayton, a self-directed collector who compiled one of the country's most substantial collections of black Americana, founding the Western States Black Research and Educational Center, died October 13 at 83. Clayton worked from 1954 to 1971 as a library assistant at the University of California, Los Angeles, before becoming a bookseller and getting her bachelor's degree in history and then her master's in library science, the latter from Goddard College in Vermont. Her collection of some 30,000 items may get professional treatment and organization in the planned, nonprofit Mayme A. Clayton Library, Museum & Cultural Center, located in a 21,000-square-foot former courthouse in Culver City. Significant fundraising is needed for the project.
A Year Later, OCA Members Gather in San Francisco To Take Stock
It's all "catching on," says Internet Archive founder and Open Content Alliance pioneer Brewster Kahle. Last week, on October 20, the first anniversary of the formation of the Open Content Alliance (OCA), 100 delegates from 40 organizations, including the Internet Archive, the University of California, Berkeley, the British Library and the Smithsonian, gathered in San Francisco to assess the efforts of the alliance to date. And if the OCA has failed to make as many headlines as its corporate competitors, it is nevertheless making steady progress with its scanning efforts. Kahle told the LJ Academic Newswire that, one year into the project, the OCA has moved from its "big picture" beginnings to the more nuts and bolt issues. "We now have real knowledge and are sharing it openly on how to support mass scanning from an archive's perspective," Kahle said. "What we have discovered are all the little steps to doing mass digitization. These are bibliographic issues, staging issues. There are books that can't be handled because of fragility, or nonstandard shapes and sizes. We're learning how to deal with these." As the project progresses, member meetings could soon become quarterly events, he said.
After its first year, OCA has now scanned and cataloged over 30,000 books, available on its site. Today, OCA scans about 500 books a day and expects output to increase tenfold by the end of 2007. OCA partners include Yahoo!, the University of California, the British Library, Smithsonian Institution, University of Illinois, Boston Library Consortium, European Archive, O'Reilly Media, Research Library Group, as well as many other academic, technological, non-profit, and government organizations. Perhaps most importantly, Kahle said the OCA discussions honed in on the "open" in the Open Content Alliance. For OCA, the effort is more than a race to scan library book content for a commercial index, but extends to the use of that content. With OCA, "public domain means public domain," Kahle noted. "That was one of the 'aha' moments, that open as we know it may not be open enough and that the digitized public domain must be public domain. Libraries understand this; so does Yahoo." That means, Kahle says, once public domain books are scanned, there are "no restrictions at all on users, and anyone can build any service on top of it." In contrast, he noted, restrictions in some of Google's library partner contracts appear to limit how some library copies of public domain books scanned in Google Book Search can be used by parties outside the library.
Two for One: Emory Lands Rushdie and His Archive
Emory University officials announced this week that Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie will both join the faculty of Emory University as Distinguished Writer in Residence and place his archive at Emory's Woodruff Library. Rushdie will serve a five-year appointment in the English Department, beginning in spring of 2007. According to Emory, he will teach for "at least four weeks, lead a graduate seminar, participate in undergraduate classes, advise students, engage in symposia, and deliver a public lecture." Rushdie's relationship with Emory began in 2004, when he delivered the prestigious Ellmann Lectures, named for the eminent literary scholar Richard Ellmann. Even though Rushdie is under contract to teach for just five years, Steve Enniss, director of the Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library, confirmed that Emory has taken ownership of the Rushdie papers and "they will remain a permanent part of Emory." There was a financial component to the deal, details of which were not made public.
Enniss was in London this week overseeing final packing of the collection. "The papers will be at Emory early next week," he told the LJ Academic Newswire. "We will work to process the collection as soon as possible given the strong research interest in the collection." He could not estimate when that effort would be completed. A celebrated contemporary writer, Rushdie won Britain's most prestigious literary award, the Booker Prize, for his novel Midnight's Children (1980). He is probably best known worldwide, however, for The Satanic Verses (1988), which not only earned literary accolades but led to a fatwa issued by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, calling for the author's murder. In the ensuing months, Rushdie's Japanese translator was killed, his Italian translator and Norwegian publisher were wounded in attacks, and two bookstores carrying the book were bombed. Rushdie went into hiding. The Rushdie Archive at Emory will include the author's private journals detailing life under the fatwa, as well as "personal correspondence, notebooks, photographs, and manuscripts of all of his writings, including two early unpublished novels."
Underutilization Leads GSA to Close Library; ALA Voices EPA Library Concerns
In another case of a federal agency downsizing library service, the General Services Administration (GSA) closed its in-house library in Washington, DC, on October 1, but in this case, GSA officials say there have been no complaints. "With Internet usage increasing, the utilization rate has diminished," Gail Lovelace, chief human capital officer, told LJ. The agency, which serves other federal agencies, had downsized the library steadily, eventually moving three staffers to other jobs, and hiring outside contractors—once two FTE but eventually just one—to run the 7197-square-foot library. The number of volumes had diminished from 20,000 to 7000. "Some of the content is still valuable," Lovelace said. Some of the materials will be given back to the primary owner, such as legal content going to the general counsel's office. As for online databases the library purchased, Gallery Watch (a legislative tracking service) and EBSCOHost (Newspaper Source & Business Elite), GSA has continued to pay for them but in the next few months will evaluate whether to keep them. Because of that, Lovelace couldn't estimate the overall cost savings.
Meanwhile, in other government library news, Democrats in the House of Representatives have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review the closure and restructuring plan for the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) library system. Some lawmakers are concerned that thousands of documents may be inaccessible during the EPA's conversion to a digital library. GAO officials, however, said the agency couldn't begin the study immediately, citing their workload. The American Library Association's (ALA) Office of Government Relations has issued a statement reiterating its concern over the recent EPA library closures and that Congress will not seek to replace the proposed Bush administration cut of $2 million, which represents 80 percent of the funding for the EPA libraries. Congress will return after the November elections to finish most of the FY07 federal appropriations bills. Further cuts are expected in the 2008 presidential budget for EPA. "Until the American public puts political pressure on Congress to preserve EPA and its important functions as a whole, the likelihood of reopening the EPA libraries and stabilizing the modest library services still available is extremely low," ALA said. "The library closings are a symptom of the even larger threat to the entire agency."
A Snapshot of Business History, Polaroid Archive Donated to Harvard Business School
Harvard officials this week said that the Polaroid Corporation Archive has been donated to the Harvard Business School's Baker Library (HBS). A Petters Group Worldwide company, Polaroid was a historical leader in instant cameras and film. The archive, which will be housed in the library's Historical Collections, includes approximately 1.5 million items dating from the company's founding in 1937 to the present, chronicling the invention of instant photography by Polaroid founder Dr. Edwin H. Land. Artifacts within the collection also include sunglasses, military goggles, 3D glasses, and examples of many of the camera models and accessories Polaroid produced from the early 1950s to the late 1990s. Portions of the collection will be available for research use in mid-2007. The archive also contains a comprehensive set of photographs taken by Polaroid employees and professional photographers from 1937 to the 1990s. Mary Lee Kennedy, executive director of Baker Library, said the gift offers a notable, extraordinary addition to the school's Business Manuscripts Collections.
Texas Professor Convicted of Theft from Glenn Gould Collection
An Austin (TX) Community College professor was convicted in New York this week for criminal possession of items belonging to the legendary Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. Authorities say the items included a page with Gould's signature written 18 times, rough drafts of musical compositions, and some doodles, which Moore is accused of stealing from the Canadian Library and Archives in Ottawa while doing research in the late 1980s. She maintained at trial that the items were gifts from the collection's curator. Despite the conviction, Moore's lawyer, Shane Michael Brooks, told the Associated Press the verdict was "a huge victory" because it cleared her of the most serious charge of larceny. Moore remains free on $5000 bail and is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 13. Moore's thefts were detected after she sold some of the Gould items to a New York dealer in 2004. Canadian library officials called the items "national treasures."
Free LJ Subscriptions for Library School Students
That's right, free! We are pleased to offer a free one-year subscription to Library Journal to all library students in the United States (sorry, Canada). No strings attached, no hidden fees, nothing but a full year of Library Journal delivered straight to your door. All you need is a valid student ID. Sign up at: http://www.libraryjournal.com/contents/pdf/studentform.pdf.
Best Sellers in Latin American History, March 2006–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
Guatemaltecas: The Women's Movement, 1986-2003
Berger, Susan A.
University of Texas Press
2006. ISBN 0292709447. $40.00
Simon Bolivar: A Life
Lynch, John
Yale University Press
2006. ISBN 0300110626. $35.00
Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940
Ed. by May Kay Vaughan
Duke University Press
2006. ISBN 082233657x. $84.95
Performing Women and Modern Literary Culture in Latin America: Intervening Acts
Unruh, Vicky
University of Texas Press
2006. ISBN 0292709455. $45.00
Seeking Refuge: Central American Migration to Mexico, the United States, and Canada
Garcia, Maria Cristina
University of California Press
2006. ISBN 0520247000. $50.00
Maya Tropical Forest: People, Parks, & Ancient Cities
Nations, James D.
University of Texas Press
2006. ISBN 0292712820. $60.00
Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba
Moore, Robin
University of California Press
2006. ISBN 0520247108. $60.00
Water and Ritual: The Rise and Fall of Classic Maya Rulers
Lucero, Lisa Joyce
University of Texas Press
2006. ISBN 0292709994. $45.00
Vodou Nation: Haitian Art Music and Cultural Nationalism
Largey, Michael
University Of Chicago Press
2006. ISBN 0226468631. $60.00
Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae
Manuel, Peter Lamarche
Temple University Press
2006. ISBN 1592134629. $74.50
From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz
Fernandez, Raul A.
University of California Press
2006. ISBN 0520247078. $50.00
Ladinos with Ladinos, Indians with Indians: Land, Labor, and Regional Ethnic Conflict in the Making of Guatemala
Reeves, Rene
Stanford University Press
2006. ISBN 0804752133. $55.00
Writing Rumba: The Afrocubanista Movement in Poetry
Arnedo-Gomez, Miguel
University of Virginia Press
2006. ISBN 081392541X. $55.00
Cinemachismo: Masculinities and Sexuality in Mexican Film
Mora, Sergio De La
University of Texas Press
2006. ISBN 0292712960. $55.00
Between Legitimacy and Violence: A History of Colombia, 1875-2002
Palacios, Marco
Trans. by Richard Stoller
Duke University Press
2006. ISBN 0822337541. $79.95
Politics of Sentiment: Imagining and Remembering Guayaquil
Benavides, O. Hugo
University of Texas Press
2006. ISBN 0292712898. $50.00
Fulgencio Batista; V. 1: From Revolutionary to Strongman
Argote-Freyre, Frank
Rutgers University Press
2006. ISBN 0813537010. $29.95
Inordinate Eye: New World Baroque and Latin American Fiction
Zamora, Lois Parkinson
University of Chicago Press
2006. ISBN 0226978567. $49.00
Visions of the Emerald City: Modernity, Tradition, and the Formation of Porfirian
Oaxaca, Mexico
Overmyer-Velazquez, Mark
Duke University Press
2006. ISBN 0822337770. $79.95
Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: Converging Paths?
Daniel, G. Reginald
Penn State University Press
2006. ISBN 0271028831. $55.00
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