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 | IMLS Awards $28 Million in Librarian Recruitment and Education Grants
The Institute of Museum and Library Services this week announced roughly $28 million in grants to 43 universities, libraries, and library organizations across the country to recruit and educate librarians. The funds, granted under the 2007 Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, will benefit thousands of students at all levels in programs ranging from tuition assistance to "curriculum development, service expectations, job placement, recruitment of non-traditional library students, and support for doctoral candidates to teach library science and research." (Here's the list.)
Inaugurated in 2002, the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program is designed to address a shortage of school library media specialists, library school faculty, and librarians working in underserved communities, as well as to prepare for "an anticipated shortage of library leaders," many of whom are expected to retire in the next 20 years.
Among the grant winners, the largest awards went to programs in Pennsylvania, including the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation, which received a $999,980 grant with a $653,607 match for a master's level program on "community-based librarianship." That program will focus on "increasing minority representation among professional librarians and the number of youth librarians" throughout the city's library system. Mansfield University of Pennsylvania School of Library and Information Technologies received a $997,388 grant plus a matching component of $742,453 for a program to increase the number of school library media specialists across the nation.
In Philadelphia, Drexel University's College of Information Science and Technology landed two hefty awards. One is a $992,100 grant with a $309,376 match for a doctoral-level program to prepare new faculty "in information systems and technologies." The other is a $613,478 grant with a $667,618 match that will, in collaboration with the University of Michigan, Florida State University, and the University of Pittsburgh, "transform the Internet Public Library (IPL) into a fully featured virtual learning laboratory for digital reference."
Emory University (Atlanta, GA), in collaboration with the University of North Texas, landed a $773,336 grant with a $291,158 match to "address the need for professional librarians with contemporary skill sets in north Georgia." The Emory-led project will "recruit, educate, and prepare an Atlanta-based cohort of thirty-five diverse graduate students for library careers with an emphasis on digital knowledge management." Emory director for digital programs Martin Halbert, point man for the project, said the program has been in works for several years, and its need ever more vital with the closing of the state's last accredited library school at Clark Atlanta University in 2005.
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University of Maine, plus Toronto and Cincinnati Public Libraries Join Emory in Scan Alternative
The University of Maine, the Toronto Public Library, and the Cincinnati Public Library are joining Emory University in a plan to use Kirtas scanners to digitize public domain titles in their collections and to sell low-cost copies through BookSurge, the Amazon.com-owned print-on-demand (PoD) service. These are the first organizations to enter into agreements with Kirtas to make their rare-book, public domain collections available to Amazon.com customers. Now, the work is set to begin and feeding books into scanner may be the easiest part of the job.
Emory director for digital programs Martin Halbert told the LJ Academic Newswire this week that committees are being formed to address the specifics of the program, including how to choose what to scan, quality control, costs and, of course, pricing issues. "We just don't know yet. We are currently assessing the workflow," Halbert said.
Those answers may not be simple ones. On joining Google's scan plan, CIC libraries said that it would've cost as much as $60 per book to scan their collections themselves. Other ventures, including Google and the Open Content Alliance, have put that cost much lower, potentially around $10 a book. Surely those figures represent a large discrepancy for libraries planning a scanning project. "I think the cost probably will be a function of quality control," Halbert said, suggesting that, with certain volumes, costs could easily jump closer to $60 per volume.
Meanwhile, as critics of Google's library scan plan parse contract terms and assess the pros and cons of working with the search engine giant, Halbert explained that Emory's plan was not meant as a rebuke to Google or to its library partners. He says neither Emory nor Google approached each other. "The nature of the partnership simply doesn't appeal to us," Halbert said of the Google library partnerships. "We just wanted to stay in control of the scanning process."
The Toronto Public Library will have a great scanning resource nearby to help its efforts: the University of Toronto is already scanning books at a high level as a key partner in the Open Content Alliance. Emory University is also an original member of the Open Content Alliance, though Halbert concedes they library has not been active. That might change in the coming months.
Meanwhile, Lotfi Belkhir, CEO and founder of Kirtas, was happy to characterize his company as offering a viable alternative to Google. "This is the first large-scale digitization initiative that puts the research libraries and universities in full control of their content," Belkhir said, adding that the new initiative with BookSurge, in which libraries could cover their expenses by selling low-cost PoD copies, offers "a sustainable business model."
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| Librarians Descend on Washington, DC for ALA Annual Conference
Are you heading to Washington, DC for the 2007 American Library Association Annual Conference? As you might expect, this year's program is loaded with lobbying, legislation, and DC tours, but also abounds with professional opportunities and a strong slate of programs. And, of course, there's always ALA politics! Council and membership meetings as always are on the agenda. Can't do it all? Check out the ALA preview in the June issue of Library Journal.
Among the top picks for academic librarians:
Collecting for Institutional Repositories: All the News That's Fit To Keep (ALCTS CMDS Sun., June 24, 10:30 a.m.–noon) examines what institutional repositories (IR) should collect, who should solicit and submit items, and how to deal with copyright, all according to some who have done it. Hear from Joseph J. Branin (Ohio State), Susan Gibbons (Univ. of Rochester, NY), Jim Ottaviani (Univ. of Michigan), and George Porter (CalTech).
The Art of Persuasion: Strategies for Effective Communication with Chief Academic Officers (ACRL President's Program, Mon., June 25, 1:30–3:30 p.m.) examines what chief academic officers need to know about the library, what they expect, and what they need from librarians to make library resource decisions, per Elise B. Jorgens (Coll. of Charleston, SC), Dominic Latorraca (Cty. Coll. of Morris, NJ), William Destler (Univ. of Maryland), and moderator James P. Honan (Harvard Grad. Sch. of Education).
Is the Learning Commons Enough?—Asking the Better Questions (LAMA BES, RUSA RSS. Mon., June 25, 1:30–3:30 p.m.). Now that the Information Commons has been renamed the Learning Commons or something else, like oh, just the "library," this session will explore how technology promises to reveal ways that the commons space can foster "interaction and learning." Hear Scott Bennett (emeritus, Yale), Nancy Schmidt (Univ. of Guelph Lib., Ont.), Stephen Johnson (Pfeiffer Partners Architects), and Mark Valenti (Sextant Group, Pittsburgh).
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| AAUP to Detail "Best of the Best" Books at ALA
For the ninth year, the Association of American University Presses and the University Press Books Committee will sponsor its "Best of the Best" at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington DC. AAUP marketing manager Rachel Weiss Feldman will moderate a panel featuring committee members who will introduce a total of 28 titles from 2007 from AAUP's extensive bibliography, University Press Books Selected for Public and Secondary School Libraries, described as "one of the best free collection tools" available for university press books. According to Feldman, the books discussed will cover a range of disciplines and subject matters including: World War II, current events, graphic arts, Southern cooking, contemporary art, art during the Renaissance, personal memoirs, and earth science. If the discussion of great books isn't enough to fill a room, the AAUP will once again raffle off the complete set of titles discussed at the session. The program will be held on Sunday, June 24, from 1:30–3:30 p.m. at the Convention Center, room 204B.
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Best Sellers in History of Science, November 2006–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
(13-digit ISBNs included in brackets)
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Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
Washington, Harriet
Doubleday
2006. ISBN 0385509936 [9780385509930]. $27.95
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Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver
Allen, Arthur
W.W. Norton
2007. ISBN 0393059111 [9780393059113]. $27.95
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Is Pluto A Planet? A Historical Journey Through The Solar System
Ed. by David A. Weintraub
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691123489 [9780691123486]. $27.95
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Bloodless Revolution: A Cultural History of Vegetarianism from 1600 to Modern Times
Stuart, Tristram
W. W. Norton
2007. ISBN 0393052206 [9780393052206]. $29.95
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Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man
Ed. by Dale Peterson
Houghton Mifflin
2006. ISBN 0395854059 [9780395854051]. $35.00
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Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement
Ed. by Mark Hamilton Lytle
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0195172469 [9780195172461]. $23.00
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Einstein: His Life and Universe
Isaacson, Walter
Simon & Schuster
2007. ISBN 0743264738 [9780743264730]. $32.00
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Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic–And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
Johnson, Steven
Riverhead
2006. ISBN 1594489254 [9781594489259]. $26.95
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Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man
Hough, Susan Elizabeth
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691128073 [9780691128078]. $27.95
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From Clockwork to Crapshoot: A History of Physics
Newton, Roger G.
Belknap Harvard
2007. ISBN 0674023374 [9780674023376]. $29.95
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Big Fleas Have Little Fleas: How Discoveries of Invertebrate Diseases Are Advancing Modern Science
Davidson, Elizabeth W.
University of Arizona Press
2006. ISBN 0816526125 [9780816526123]. $35.00
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Aldo Leopold's Odyssey
Newton, Julianne Lutz
Island Press
2006. ISBN 1597260452 [9781597260459]. $35.00
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American Perceptions of Immigrant and Invasive Species: Strangers on the Land
Coates, Peter A.
University of California Press
2006. ISBN 0520249305 [9780520249301]. $39.95
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Oppenheimer: The Tragic Intellect
Thorpe, Charles
University of Chicago Press
2006. ISBN 0226798453 [9780226798455]. $37.50
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Silent Victories: The History and Practice of Public Health in Twentieth-Century America
Ward, John W.
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0195150694 [9780195150698]. $49.95
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Resistance: The Human Struggle against Infection
Gualde, Norbert
Dana Press
2006. ISBN 1932594000 [9781932594003]. $25.00
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Cult of Pharmacology: How America Became the World's Most Troubled Drug Culture
DeGrandpre, Richard J.
Duke University Press
2006. ISBN 0822338815 [9780822338819]. $24.95
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Darwin's Origin of Species: A Biography
Browne, E.J.
Atlantic Monthly
2007. ISBN 0871139537 [9780871139535]. $20.95
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History of Madness
Foucault, Michel
Routledge
2006. ISBN 0415277019 [9780415277013]. $40.00
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Machine in America: A Social History of Technology
Pursell, Carroll W.
Johns Hopkins University Press
2007. ISBN 0801885787 [9780801885785]. $55.00
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