Roy Tennant user services architect at the California Digital Library, University of California, Oakland, and Library Journal columnist, has a new job. Effective May 14, he will become senior program manager in the RLG Programs unit of OCLC Research and Programs, Mountain View, CA.
Paul Willis dean of the University of South Carolina libraries, will retire June 30. Willis joined the university in 2002 and is credited with increasing the endowments for rare books and special collections, implementing new technology, and expanding and improving student services for the Thomas Cooper Library. Tom McNally, director of the Thomas Cooper Library, will serve as interim dean while a national search is conducted.
David Magier has been appointed Director of the Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research at Columbia University Libraries, an international documentation center for the global human rights movement. In addition to that role, Magier will continue as director of area studies, Columbia University Libraries, a post he has held since 1990.
A Good Deal Spoiled? Did Librarians Prompt Times to Revise its Offer to Students?
Did academic librarians inadvertently sink a deal that would have given students at U.S. colleges and universities free, full online access to the New York Times? Apparently some think so. The Times recently revised its offer to give students free access to archived articles in TimesSelect, instead limiting it to those institutions that already subscribe to databases that carry the Times, such as ProQuest or Lexis-Nexis. The impetus? Some librarians questioned why they paid so much for database access to Times content if the paper was going to give students free access.
"The issue is that we have limited resources," explains Barbara Fister, librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, MN. "We can't afford to buy a boutique version of something that's available in a clunky-but-free version when there are so many other things we should buy that aren't available except through purchase or subscription." Fister said she called ProQuest after the deal was announced and found their representatives were surprised to learn of the Times offer. "All I wanted from ProQuest was to find out what they planned to do, if anything, for libraries that had paid a lot for something that we frankly wouldn't have bought if the contents were going to be free," recalled Fister, adding she felt "really bad" when the response from the Times was to scale back the offer.
The Times response to restrict the offer to students was unfortunate, she conceded, as some critics blamed librarians for spoiling the deal. "The motive seems to be that librarians who have paid for the content through some database service now don't want it given away for free," wrote the Annoyed Librarian. "Students at the handful of colleges who can't afford a database with Times content now won't receive even this little benefit." One commenter at the Chronicle of Higher Education site scolded librarians for standing in the way of the "free flow" of information.
If librarians hadn't raised the issue explicitly, the databases likely would have done so sooner or later, Fister noted, with the same result. She added that the Times response to revise the offer reminded her of the company's handling of the Tasini case, in which the courts ruled that the Times must either pay freelance writers whose work they were selling online without contracts, or remove the articles from their database. The Times argued that pulling the articles would harm the digital historic record, she noted, "but did the Times [pay the writers]?" Fister asks. "No, they yanked tens of thousands of articles from online databases. If preserving the record was so important to the Times, they could have put their money where their principles are."
While Fister acknowledges that newspapers are facing difficulties, especially in reaching the "18-25" demographic, she said the Times's handling of this clearly "has nothing to do with making the news more accessible." But she's willing to take some criticism. "I don't blame people for being confused and even angry at me, though I'd rather they'd blame me and not librarians in general," she told the Newswire. "It did seem as if I was complaining the Times was making something free, and that I wanted an exclusive for my money. That isn't what I meant at all. I would love for it to be free for your students, my students, and, in fact, for everyone."
Call to Librarians: Fight Back Against Disappearing Book Coverage in Newspapers
The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), a 700-plus strong national organization of book reviewers, this week launched a campaign to call attention to the shrinking space in newspapers devoted to book coverage. The campaign comes after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week eliminated the book review position, held by Teresa Weaver, a move that NBCC members note has become all too common. Last week, the Los Angeles Times folded its book review section into an "opinion section," and in the past few years, newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the Dallas Morning News and the free weekly Village Voice have cut their book coverage.
NBCC's Campaign to Save Book Reviews comes while the organization is circulating a petition to keep Weaver's job, which has garnered more then 1000 signatures. During the last week in April and throughout May, NBCC is asking authors, editors, journalists, publishers, and anyone interested in literary culture "to speak out on the value of books and book reviewing." Throughout the campaign, the NBCC's blog, Critical Mass, will also feature Q&As, posts by concerned writers, and "advice on petitioning the media" to assure continued book coverage.
The NBCC's call was furthered yesterday in Scott McLemee's Intellectual Affairs column at InsideHighered.com. McLemee, an NBCC member, addressed "members of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of American University Presses (AAUP)" in a plea for solidarity. McLemee took note of the precarious position of today's newspapers.
"Over the past several years, the economics of daily newspapers have become much more complicated and many paper owners have felt that their profit margins weren't large enough," he noted. "Coverage of books has been one of the easiest things to cut." He reminded readers that book pages play a "significant role in constituting regional literary communities," even if they do not always bring in the greatest profits. "We have something in common: it is very easy for others to take what we do for granted. As far as most civilians are concerned, printed matter is generated by parthenogenesis, then distributed across the land like the spores of a ripe dandelion," he wrote. "We know better. We do what we can with our shrinking budgets, secure in the knowledge that the work itself is worthwhile, if not always secure in much else."
Gittings Archive Acquired by New York Public Library
A major archive of letters, photos, handbills, manuscripts, publications, and other materials regarding gay and lesbian rights has been donated to the New York Public Library by the late Barbara Gittings, the force behind the American Library Association's (ALA) Gay Task Force (now the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table [GLBTRT]), who died in February, and her life partner, photojournalist and author Kay Tobin Lahusen. The Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs will be placed at the Manuscripts and Archives Division of NYPL's Humanities and Social Sciences Library.
"The collection donated by Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen is a remarkable first-hand chronicle detailing the battles of gays and lesbians to overcome the prejudice and restrictions that were prevalent prior to the activism and protest movements that started in the 1960s," said NYPL president Paul LeClerc in a news release. Gittings's papers include her role in founding in 1958 the East Coast chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first national lesbian organization, and her editorship of the organization's publication, The Ladder. Among other things, her work influenced the American Psychiatric Association's decision to remove homosexuality from a list of mental illnesses. In 2003, Gittings was awarded ALA's highest recognition, an honorary membership, notably for efforts to make gay and lesbian materials more available for library use.
Lahusen's contribution includes photographs documenting gay activism, as well as files and oral histories used in the preparation of her 1972 book The Gay Crusaders (1972). Along with their personal papers and photographs, the couple donated an extensive research collection of print, audiovisual, and other ephemeral materials about gay and lesbian activism in the United States and around the world.
LJAN Newsmaker Interview: Bush Library Blog Founder and Moderator Benjamin Johnson
Without question, blogs have become vital communication tools on campuses—and a good example is the Bush Library Blog, started by Benjamin Johnson, associate professor of history at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas. In December 2006, SMU was named the finalist to land the Bush Library and an accompanying policy institute, but many SMU faculty members have since raised serious questions. The Bush Library Blog has proven a vital place for discussion, garnering as many as 1000 hits per day. The Library Journal Academic Newswire (LJAN) caught up with Johnson to discuss the Bush Library process, his own feelings on the library and policy institute, and the role the blog plays in the discussion at SMU.
LJAN: You started the Bush Library Blog and members of the Methodist Church distributed an online petition. Does this say something about how technology is enabling discussion and debate?
BJ: I moderate and started the blog not only to forward my own views on the subject, but also to expedite a wider discussion, which I think neither the SMU administration nor the elected leadership of the Faculty Senate has wanted. A blog is a comparatively low-labor, wide-distribution way of doing this, and I can't imagine any way offline of accomplishing this. The blog is read by several hundred people a day, sometimes more like 1000, from across the U.S. and multiple other nations, by academics, interested lay people, journalists, congressional staffers, and others. So in some modest sense my experience bears out some of the claims made by Internet boosters about how these new technologies enable communications and networks of information that conventional print sources would not.
How much is the library issue is on the minds of faculty, students, and administrators at SMU?
Well, surely more on the minds of faculty and administrators than students. Our president, R. Gerald Turner, has been after this for years, since Bush was elected, and prominent members of our board are deeply invested. So clearly it's a priority for them. In terms of faculty, the History department has been deeply concerned with this all semester, with a substantial portion spending large amounts of time and energy on this. I suspect that we and Political Science are more invested in it than any other department, which makes sense given that the Library and Institute touch more on our work than on that of other disciplines. But many faculty members from other departments have told me that they consider this the most interesting and dramatic time in their tenure at SMU, so I think that the faculty as a whole is indeed invested in this debate.
In your opinion, is the Bush Library to SMU a done deal? Do faculty members who oppose the library and/or the policy institute have any real ability to block either?
I have absolutely no idea, though the delay in announcing the cementing of a final deal—SMU was named the final finalist in late December—does make me wonder if the deal has run into some kind of hitch. I don't know whether Bush and his circles care about the debate, view it as an embarrassment, or pay any attention at all. In any event, I think that we've done SMU a service by raising the questions that we have, and ensuring that those who have paid attention know that SMU is not a place uniformly populated by slavish devotees of Bush. The faculty of any fine university would have raised the questions that we did.
What are your own thoughts on the Library and the Policy Institute coming to SMU?
In general, I'm agnostic on the library. Certainly interesting and important studies of the Bush administration and its policies on such subjects as global climate change and Iraq would be written from its holdings. But it is no substitute for an excellent, broad-based general research library system, which we sorely lack.
I'm very much opposed to the policy institute, which I see as turning over the public face of SMU to an unaccountable partisan institute run by the cronies of one of the most divisive, controversial, and unpopular presidencies in American history. As I and other critics have detailed on the blog and in other venues, the arrangement that SMU appears to be contemplating with the Bush Institute is unprecedented for a mainstream U.S. university. You can go to the blog and see the page "reasons for opposition."Decades from now, historians will surely find the debate captured here useful. Have you thought about arrangements for archiving the blog?
I'm glad that you think that historians will find it useful, I certainly hope so. I have spoken with SMU's archivist and plan to preserve the archive. The technical details are somewhat perplexing. We may save it to a CD, but future generations of computers might not have the software to read it, so we'll also print out every page.
Overall, do you think the discussion generated on the blog has benefited the campus community, perhaps even the nation?
Yes, I fervently believe so. Introspection and debate, which would have been minimal without the efforts of the critics of the Bush Library, Museum, and Institute, are basic values to an academic community. I'm particularly proud of the way that the debate on campus seems to have impacted larger policy debates over such matters as Executive Order 13233, which the House of Representatives has voted to repeal in legislation that was moribund before the SMU debate. I also think that even if the Library and Institute do come to SMU, it is in our best interest to be known not only as the university that hosts them, but also the university where many opposed this and where many harbor deep doubts and suspicion of George W. Bush and his circles.
Best Sellers in Medicine, September 2006–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services (13-digit ISBNs included in brackets)
The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia
Gorsuch, Neil M.
Princeton University Press
2006. ISBN 0691124582 [9780691124582]. $29.95
Merck Index: An Encyclopedia of Chemicals, Drugs and Biologicals
Maryadele J. O'Neil
Merck
2006. ISBN 091191000X [9780911910001]. $125.00
Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver
Allen, Arthur
W.W. Norton
2007. ISBN 0393059111 [9780393059113]. $27.95
Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society
Bessel A. Van Der Kolk
Guilford
2007. ISBN 157230457X [9781572304574]. $35.00
Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
Johnson, Steven
Riverhead Books
2006. ISBN 1594489254 [9781594489259]. $26.95
Big Fleas Have Little Fleas: How Discoveries of Invertebrate Diseases Are Advancing Modern Science
Davidson, Elizabeth W.
University of Arizona Press
2006. ISBN 0816525447 [9780816525447]. $17.95
Bioethics and Women: Across the Lifespan
Mahowald, Mary Briody
Oxford University Press
2006. ISBN 0195176170 [9780195176179]. $39.95
Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s Were Removed From the Western Diet and What We Can Do To Replace Them
Allport, Susan
University of California Press
2006. ISBN 0520242823 [9780520242821]. $22.50
How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and In the Workplace
Blanc, Paul David
University of California Press
2007. ISBN 0520248821 [9780520248823]. $19.95
State of Immunity: The Politics of Vaccination in Twentieth-Century America
Colgrove, James Keith
University of California Press
2006. ISBN 0520247493 [9780520247499]. $39.95
Body Hunters: Testing New Drugs on the World's Poorest Patients
Shah, Sonia
New Press
2006. ISBN 1565849124 [9781565849129]. $24.95
Truth about Health Care: Why Reform Is Not Working In America
Mechanic, David
Rutgers University
2006. ISBN 0813538874 [9780813538877]. $26.95
Psychology of Terrorism
Bruce Bongar
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0195172493 [9780195172492]. $69.50
Are We Ready? Public Health Since 9/11
Rosner, David
University of California Press
2006. ISBN 0520250389 [9780520250383]. $16.95
Epidemic: A Global History of AIDS
Engel, Jonathan
Smithsonian Books
2006. ISBN 0061144886 [9780061144882]. $28.95
Better But Not Well: Mental Health Policy in the United States Since 1950
Frank, Richard G.
Johns Hopkins University Press
2006. ISBN 0801884438 [9780801884436]. $21.95
Politics of AIDS in Africa
Patterson, Amy S.
Lynne Rienner
2006. ISBN 1588264777 [9781588264770]. $19.95
Silent Victories: The History and Practice of Public Health in Twentieth-Century America
John W. Ward
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0195150694 [9780195150698]. $49.95
Bioethics and the Brain
Glannon, Walter
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 019530778x [9780195307788]. $45.00
Resistance: The Human Struggle against Infection
Gualde, Norbert
Dana Press
2006. ISBN 1932594000 [9781932594003]. $25.00
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