David Gillikin has been appointed chief of the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) bibliographic services division, under the division of library operations. He headed NLM's MEDLARS Management Section since 2003, involved in the evolution of MEDLINE and usability and accessibility of databases. Before coming to NLM, Gillikin worked at HighWire Press, where he was a technical manager and headed its journal production department.
Zeth Lietzau has been appointed associate director of the Library Research Service (LRS) at the Colorado State Library. Lietzau served as research analyst of LRS since 2003 while working as information services librarian at the Belmar Library of Jefferson County Public Library, Lakewood, CO, since October 2004; both positions were part-time. His new position is full time.
Catherine Quinlan has been appointed dean of the University of Southern California (USC) Libraries, Los Angeles, effective August 1. Quinlan will come to USC after more than a decade at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, where she served concurrently as university librarian and managing director of the university's Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Her appointment follows an international search that drew approximately 55 candidates.
Early Reviews: Historian Criticizes Google Book Search Quality
How history will judge Google Book Search remains an open question, but one historian has offered a pretty harsh assessment of its current efforts. "Over the past three months, I spent a fair amount of time on [Google Book Search] as part of a research project on the early history of the profession," historian and assistant director for research and publications for the American Historical Association, (AHA) Robert Townsend, writes on the AHA blog. "And from a researcher's point of view, I have to say the results were deeply disconcerting." As a user, a publisher, and a scholar studying the work of historians, Townsend has a strong base from which to judge Google's efforts, and warns that the project is "piling mistake upon mistake with little evidence of basic quality control."
His main concern: Google's haste, which seems to be outstripping not only the company's ability to control quality but also the technology needed to "extract" the information being scanned. "I find it increasingly hard to believe that Google can add tens of thousands of additional books each month to the information pile—many containing basic mistakes in content and metadata—and the information results will actually grow better over time," he writes. "What particularly troubles me is the likelihood that these problems will just be compounded."
Townsend argues that Google Book Search falls short in three, broad categories: poor scanning, poor metadata, and peculiar copyright restrictions. He cites examples of double-scanned or unreadable pages. One volume of History Teacher's Magazine, he notes, was incorrectly labeled as Social Studies, the name the magazine eventually took in 1934, and was listed as published in 1953, though the volume was apparently published in 1917. These problems are exacerbated by Google's copyright policies, he adds, which currently lock away some public domain materials, including government information, and put other works on the wrong side of the 1923 public domain cutoff. "While taking an expansive view of copyright for recent works," he observes, "[Google] has taken a very narrow view about books that actually are in the public domain."
Not all commenters on Townsend's post seem worried, with some defending Google's efforts to push things along in a lively dialogue. Townsend notes the program's lofty goals hold promise and says he can understand Google's financial motivation to keep "scooping up" market share. "But I am not sure why the rest of us should share the company's sense of haste," he writes. "Surely the libraries providing the content, and anyone else who cares about a rich digital environment, need to worry about the potential costs of creating a universal library that is filled with mistakes and an impenetrable smog of information. Shouldn't we ponder the costs to history if the real libraries take error-filled digital versions of particular books and bury the originals in a dark archive, or the dumpster?"
New Concerns Raised About Dismantling of EPA Libraries
The chairmen of four U.S. House of Representatives Committees have asked Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson to assure them by tomorrow, May 4, that the agency is not disposing of library materials before it consults with Congress and otherwise requested a status updated on EPA libraries. Those signing signed the letter were Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), Chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology; Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce; Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; and Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), Chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Johnson on January 12 agreed to a 90-day moratorium on disposal of materials, but the process apparently resumed in April.
The EPA has ordered its libraries to "disperse or dispose of their…contents," according to memos released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a steady critic of EPA's actions in reorganizing and downsizing its library system. EPA issued "interim" policies on April 10 concerning not just those dispersals but also placing all EPA libraries under Molly O'Neill, the chief information officer; a political appointee. PEER pointed to a memo of concern regarding EPA's plan from Office of Enforcement and Compliance (OECA), which asked for the opportunity to review and comment on dispersal protocols, emphasized the importance of "uninterrupted timely response to OECA information needs," and pointed out that the library's plan has unspecified associated costs, including digitization of documents and interlibrary loan service.
In Memoriam: Robert Warner, Sixth Archivist of the United States
On Tuesday, April 24, Robert M. Warner, sixth Archivist of the United States, died after a long battle with cancer. Warner served as Archivist of the United States from 1980 through 1985, and led the agency during its transformation from a division of the General Services Administration (GSA) from an independent executive agency, a significant, "permanent legacy," noted Allen Weinstein, current Archivist of the United States. "Every single employee working here today is grateful to those who contributed to the fight for our independence and particularly to Dr. Warner who led that fight," he said. "The strides we have made in the last 22 years could not have been achieved without independence."
Upon taking the helm, Warner began a four-year effort for independence, which was won on October 19, 1984, when President Ronald Reagan signed legislation that removed the National Archives from GSA and renamed the agency the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Among those supporting the effort was the American Library Association (ALA). After leaving the National Archives, Warner returned to the University of Michigan, where he taught in the History Department and the School of Information and Library Studies. He served as dean of the School of Information from 1985 to 1992. He also served as president of the Society of American Archivists (SAA), and sat on the boards of the SAA and the American Historical Association (AHA). In 2005, NARA dedicated the Robert M. Warner Research Center in its newly renovated downtown location in his honor. "Being Archivist of the United States," he told the assembled at the dedication ceremony, "was the greatest opportunity I ever had or will have."
U. of Texas Acquires New Material for Beckett Archive
The University of Texas at Austin this week announced that the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center has acquired an archive of materials related to Nobel Prize-winning writer Samuel Beckett. The archive was purchased for an undisclosed price from Beckett's editor at Grove Press, Richard Seaver, and includes correspondence and hand-corrected manuscripts, typescripts, and galley proofs. Included are about 60 letters from Beckett to Seaver, covering the years 1953 to 1973, on subjects ranging from publication to translations, Beckett's final edits to performances and films of his plays, and details of the author's travels and friendships.
The materials will supplement the Ransom Center's existing Beckett archive, a substantial group of Beckett books and manuscripts, which it acquired in 1958. In addition to correspondence and manuscripts, the newly acquired materials include corrected and typescripts for a number of Beckett's works, including his first novel in French, Mercier et Camier.
You've Got Subpoena! Entertainment Industry Setting Sights on Campus Networks
College and university network administrators, get ready: the entertainment industry is ratcheting up its anti-piracy efforts, and your campus networks are its new focus. This week, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) said it handed over to Congress "at their request" a list of the 25 campuses receiving the most notices of copyright infringement during the last quarter of 2006. In what sounds like a preamble to a legislative effort, the MPAA told lawmakers that major U.S. motion picture studios lose "more than $6 billion to piracy worldwide every year" and attributed over $500 million in domestic losses annually to college students. The letter comes on the heels of a March 8 House Judiciary Committee subcommittee hearing on piracy on campus networks. At that hearing, lawmakers stressed that more needed to be done to combat the infringement on college campuses and to better educate students about copyright.
"College campuses today harbor some of the swiftest computer networks in the country, which unfortunately has led to a situation where piracy is taking place around the clock," MPAA chairman Dan Glickman told lawmakers. The MPAA letter to Congress comes on the heels of the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) list of the top 25 schools to which it has sent the most "DMCA takedown notices." Number one: Ohio University, which received more than 1200 notices. Last week Ohio University reacted by banning peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic on its network. A notice to the campus reflected a chilling effect on technology: "Although P2P file-sharing can sometimes be used for legitimate reasons, any use of P2P software on the campus network may result in Internet access being disabled under this new policy." Individuals who wish to use P2P software for legitimate purposes now must "discuss their needs with the IT Service Desk."
Most recently, the RIAA has begun a more controversial tactic of sending "settlement letters" to university administrators, asking they pass the letters along to students associated with IP addresses it accuses of infringement. The letters offer the students a chance to settle "at a discount" (all major credit cards accepted) or face a federal lawsuit for $750 per infringement. Critics have called that effort an attempt to intimidate students and to short-circuit the legal system, since it is usually more costly for students to defend themselves in court, even if innocent, than to simply pay up.
Best Sellers in U.S. History, September 2006–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services (13-digit ISBNs included in brackets)
Dangerous Nation
Kagan, Robert
Alfred A. Knopf
2006. ISBN 0375411054 [9780375411052]. $30.00
Declaration of Independence: A Global History
Armitage, David
Harvard University Press
2007. ISBN 0674022823 [9780674022829]. $23.95
Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery
Warsh, David
W.W. Norton
2006. ISBN 0393059960 [9780393059960]. $27.95
From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Economic Justice
Jackson, Thomas F.
University of Pennsylvania Press
2007. ISBN 0812239695 [9780812239690]. $39.95
George Gershwin: His Life and Work
Pollack, Howard
University of California Press
2006. ISBN 0520248643 [9780520248649]. $39.95
LBJ: Architect of American Ambition
Woods, Randall Bennett
Free Press
2006. ISBN 0684834588 [9780684834580]. $35.00
Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
Roberts, Gene
Alfred A. Knopf
2006. ISBN 0679403817 [9780679403814]. $30.00
Slavery and the Commerce Power: How the Struggle against the Interstate Slave Trade Led To the Civil War
Lightner, David L.
Yale University Press
2006. ISBN 0300114702 [9780300114706]. $45.00
ACLU: The American Civil Liberties Union & the Making of Modern Liberalism, 1930-1960
Kutulas, Judy
University of North Carolina Press
2006. ISBN 0807830364 [9780807830369]. $35.00
Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War
Lemann, Nicholas
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2006. ISBN 0374248559 [9780374248550]. $24.00
Nixon in China: The Week That Changed the World
MacMillan, Margaret Olwen
Viking Canada
2006. ISBN 0670044768 [9780670044764]. $38.31
Mysteries of Sex: Tracing Women and Men through American History
Ed. By Mary P. Ryan
University of North Carolina Press
2006. ISBN 0807830623 [9780807830628]. $37.50
Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush
Smith, Gary Scott
Oxford University Press
2006. ISBN 0195300602 [9780195300604]. $35.00
Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War
Beisner, Robert L.
Oxford University Press
2006. ISBN 0195045785 [9780195045789]. $35.00
Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell
DeYoung, Karen
Alfred A. Knopf
2006. ISBN 1400041708 [9781400041701]. $28.95
Executing the Constitution: Putting the President Back into the Constitution
Christopher S. Kelley
State University of New York
2006. ISBN 0791467279 [9780791467275]. $75.00
Reflections on Constitutional Law
Anastaplo, George
University Press of Kentucky
2006. ISBN 0813191564 [9780813191560]. $24.95
There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975
Sokol, Jason
Alfred A Knopf
2006. ISBN 0307263568 [9780307263568]. $27.95
Transforming America: Politics and Culture During the Reagan Years
Collins, Robert
Columbia University Press
2006. ISBN 0231124007 [9780231124003]. $29.50
Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend
Nelson, Scott Reynolds
Oxford University Press
2006. ISBN 0195300106 [9780195300109]. $25.00
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