Mona Couts has been appointed director of the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN), a collaborative organization of Duke University and North Carolina Central University, both located in Durham; North Carolina State University, Raleigh; and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since 1998, Couts had been program officer at TRLN and served as liaison for technology and human resources to the TRLN Executive Committee and Council of Directors. In 2002, she was appointed co-coordinator of TRLN.
Timothy Rogers has been named executive director of NC LIVE, a statewide collaboration of nearly 200 public and academic libraries in North Carolina, effective April 12. For the past seven years, Rogers has worked at the Johnson County Library, Shawnee Mission, KS, most recently as associate director for operations.
Catherine Soehner became the new director of the science libraries at the university library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in December. She came from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she was head of the science and engineering library.
European Commission Issues Report on Scientific Information
Following the bland declaration from publishers issued in Brussels this month, the European Union Commission this week released a cautious report in connection with its just concluded conference on scientific publishing. The 11-page report is intended to signal "the importance of and to launch a policy process on (a) access to and dissemination of scientific information, and (b) strategies for the preservation of scientific information across the Union."
Although much of the report merely summarizes the current information landscape, it seems to indicate that momentum is building in Europe for some sort of action in guaranteeing and preserving public access to government-funded information. "The stakes for the European Community are high," the report notes. "Public authorities fund around one third of European research and therefore have a clear interest in optimizing the scientific information system." Of course, what the commission sees as "optimizing" the system remains at issue. While the report acknowledges that scientific publishers have made "substantial investments in information technologies for online delivery," it cites the open access movement as "an important recent trend."
In perhaps the most important part of the report, the commission sagely acknowledges the important but oft-overlooked issue of preservation. "Long term preservation of digital material is a central problem," states the report, acknowledging "no clear strategies" in place for long term preservation. "Digital information is unstable due to rapid changes of hardware and software, and to the limited lifetime of storage devices." It remains unclear what specific actions might result. "Different stakeholders in these fields have differing views on how to move towards improvements for access, dissemination and preservation," the commission acknowledges, adding that it will "contribute to the debate among stakeholders and policy makers by encouraging experiments," inviting "the European Parliament and Council to debate the relevant issues."
PLoS Board Member Compares Traditional Publishing to Slavery
Attendees at the recent BioMed Central Open Access Colloquium, held February 8 in London saw a multitude of excellent presentations on the state of open access (all of which, in keeping with BMC's principles, remain freely available online). It was Richard Smith, however, CEO of United Healthcare Europe and a board member of open access publisher the Public Library of Science (PLoS), who seems to have stolen the show. His presentation compared traditional publishing to slavery, even featuring an image of a lynching. In his talk, Smith likened traditional publishers to slave traders, academics and their articles to slaves, and open access advocates to abolitionists in an attempt to highlight a moral imperative to offering access to information. "Richard is certainly not alone in taking a human rights-based approach to the issue of restricted access to essential scientific and medical information," wrote Gavin Yamey, PLoS Medicine senior editor, on the PLoS Medicine blog, who called Smith's presentation "provocative."
Others, however, reacting on electronic discussion lists and commenting on PLoS's blogs, simply found the analogy offensive, and said PLoS should be "ashamed" of such rhetoric. "Invoking images of lynching and a man in chains begging for freedom or more likely for his life to make a point about access to information is boorish and cruel," commented one anonymous poster. Publishing consultant Peter Banks, commenting on Yale's Liblicense-L electronic discussion list, called Smith's analogy "repulsive." On the PLoS site, Banks hit Smith even closer to home, pointing out his role as CEO of United Healthcare Europe, "part of the U.S. for-profit insurer," UnitedHealth Care Group. "I don't know how [Smith] reconciles taking such an offensively absolutist stand on access to information, when he apparently doesn't object to working for a company that is a key part of a health-care system in which more than 45 million Americans lack any health coverage," Banks charged. "Access to health information is effectively useless when you have no access to healthcare."
At a time when publishers have sparked fresh outrage over their disclosed consultation with public relations "pit bull" Eric Dezenhall to brainstorm a "media messaging" campaign, open access advocates must now wonder whether Smith's rhetoric represents another extreme. Pioneering open access advocate Stevan Harnad, one of the "abolitionists" according to Smith, believes so. In a short response on Liblicense-l, Harnad distanced himself from Smith's rhetoric. "Pit-bull tactics are a discredit to both sides," he noted. "The slavery/abolition analogy is tasteless and totally unjustified. If OA proponents wish to help OA, let them promote OA rather than vilify publishers."
Atlanta's Woodruff Library Receives $1M for Archive Improvements
Last year, the Robert W. Woodruff library of the Atlanta University Center (AUC) received a remarkable gift: custodianship of a key collection of papers belonging to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. This week, the library received another gift: a $1 million donation from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation to upgrade the Archives & Special Collections wing now housing that collection. The award was made in conjunction with the Woodruff library's 25th anniversary. The donation will clearly benefit the increased number of researchers who will use the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection, which Atlanta city officials, thanks to the help of private donors, rescued from the Sotheby's auction block last year.
The donation is the first major contribution the Woodruff library has received toward a comprehensive building renovation plan. It will help fund physical improvements, such as enhancing the aesthetics of the reading room and staff areas, as well expanding the size of the archival storage facilities. In addition, the Special Collections staff will receive training in current digitization processes, part of a plan to increase access to the library's holdings. The Woodruff Library of the AUC provides collaborative library services for the exclusive benefit of its four member institutions—Clark Atlanta University, the Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College, and Spelman College.
University of Illinois Joins Open Content Alliance
The University of Illinois (UI) has joined the Open Content Alliance (OCA), the non-profit organization that now numbers some 60 partners seeking to digitize and make a freely available—and usable—archive of public domain and permissions-cleared books and other materials. The UI Library is the largest public university collection in the world, with more than 10 million volumes and nearly 24 million items, and thus a major score for the OCA and huge boon to its efforts.
According to Betsy Kruger, the UI Library coordinator for digital content creation, the library will focus on four areas of digitization for the OCA this year: Illinois history, culture, and natural resources; U.S. railroad history; rural studies and agriculture; and "a limited amount of content in areas proposed by some of our faculty." By year's end, UI will have digitized and uploaded to OCA about 6000 volumes, all of them in the public domain. They'll be freely available via the library and also the Internet Archive. The OCA homepage already features UI's first contributions: 32 digitized books about Abraham Lincoln.
NYU Libraries Establish Academic Freedom Center
New York University has established the Frederic Ewen Academic Center within its Division of Libraries to sponsor scholarly research and public programs about intellectual freedom. The center resides in NYU's Tamiment Library, an archive devoted to labor history and the history of progressive political movements, which also houses the papers of the center's namesake. Frederic Ewen was one of seven teachers who made headlines for refusing to testify before the Rapp-Coudert Committee, a panel investigating allegations of subversive activities in New York City's public schools and colleges. The Center is funded by a major gift from Herbert Kurz, chairman of the board of the Presidential Life Insurance Company. Carol A. Mandel, dean of the NYU Libraries, said Kurz's gift "expands NYU's capacity to collect and preserve archival, audio, and video materials about academic freedom."
The Center will focus on three main activities: expanding the NYU Libraries' academic freedom collections and facilitating access to them; sponsoring programs that promote a public dialog about the threats to academic freedom; and providing support for scholars and documentary filmmakers so that they can also explore this subject. "By naming this Center after Frederic Ewen," Mandel added, "we remember a man who championed the rights of scholars to teach and write without fear of discrimination." Ewen, a Brooklyn College professor of English literature during the 1930s and 1940s, also refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952 and was subsequently forced to resign from Brooklyn College and blacklisted. In 1988, Brooklyn College formally apologized to Ewen and other professors dismissed during the Cold War years.
Best Sellers in Religion, July 2006–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
(Editor's note: In this week's edition, 13-digit ISBNs are included, listed in parentheses.)
God Delusion
Dawkins, Richard
Houghton Mifflin
2006. ISBN 0618680004 [9780618680009]. $27.00
Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
Collins, Francis S.
Free Press
2006. ISBN 0743286391 [9780743286398]. $26.00
Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam
Wadud, Amina
Oneworld Publications
2006. ISBN 1851684638 [9781851684632]. $24.95
Many Faces of God: Science's 400-Year Quest for Images of the Divine
Campbell, Jeremy
W.W. Norton
2006. ISBN 0393061795. [9780393061796]. $26.95
Buddhist Goddesses of India
Shaw, Miranda Eberle
Princeton University Press
2006. ISBN 0691127581 [9780691127583] $35.00
Truth About Conservative Christians: What They Think and What They Believe
Greeley, Andrew M.
University of Chicago Press
2006. ISBN 0226306623 [9780226306629]. $22.50
Latinos and the New Immigrant Church
Badillo, David A.
Johns Hopkins University Press
2006. ISBN 0801883873 [9780801883873]. $60.00
Letter to a Christian Nation
Harris, Sam
Alfred A. Knopf
2006. ISBN 0307265773. [9780307265777]. $16.95
Islamic Thought: An Introduction
Saeed, Abdullah
Routledge
2006. ISBN 0415364094. [9780415364096]. $26.95
Roman Religion
Warrior, Valerie M.
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521825113. [9780521825115]. $55.00
Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975
Curtis, Edward E.
University of North Carolina Press
2006. ISBN 0807830542. [9780807830543]. $49.95
Islam and the Moral Economy: The Challenge of Capitalism
Tripp, Charles
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521863775. [9780521863773]. $75.00
All Is Change: The Two-Thousand-Year Journey of Buddhism to the West
Sutin, Lawrence
Little, Brown
2006. ISBN 0316741566 [9780316741569]. $25.99
Opening the Doors of Wonder: Reflections on Religious Rites of Passage
Magida, Arthur J.
University of California Press
2006. ISBN 0520245458. [9780520245457]. $24.95
God's Universe
Gingerich, Owen
Belknap/Harvard
2006. ISBN 0674023706 [9780674023703]. $16.95
Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science
Haught, John F.
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521847141. [9780521847148]. $70.00
Nation of Religions: The Politics of Pluralism in Multireligious America
Ed. by Stephen Prothero
University of North Carolina Press
2006. ISBN 0807830526. [9780807830529]. $49.95
Women Shaping Islam: Indonesian Women Reading the Qur'an
Van Doorn-Harder, Pieternella
University of Illinois Press
2006. ISBN 025203077x. [9780252030772]. $75.00
God Hates Fags: The Rhetorics of Religious Violence
Cobb, Michael
New York University Press
2006. ISBN 0814716687. [9780814716687]. $65.00
Engaged Spirituality: Social Change and American Religion
Stanczak, Gregory C.
Rutgers University Press
2006. ISBN 0813538351. [9780813538358]. $69.00
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