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In Congress, Universities Narrowly Dodge an Entertainment Industry Bullet
The U.S. Senate has passed an amendment to the Higher Education Reauthorization Act (HERA) that will require university administrations to detail to lawmakers their anti-piracy efforts. Under heavy lobbying from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Senate voted to require all universities to provide detailed information describing "education efforts for students on the potential civil and criminal consequences" for using campus networks to engage in the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material; steps they are taking to "prevent and detect" any unauthorized distribution on their networks; and "campus policies on unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing," including disciplinary actions against violators.
Still, while that amendment clearly represents a foray into new territory, universities dodged a major bullet: a HERA amendment proposed last week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), would have required the 25 universities with the highest numbers of copyright infringement complaints (a list conveniently supplied by the MPAA) to implement "piracy" filters to choke access to peer-to-peer services on campus networks or lose their Title IV government funding. Under heavy pressure from educators, Reid, without explanation, dropped that requirement. The amendment passed 95-0.
In a last-second plea to dump Reid's amendment, EDUCAUSE VP Mark Luker warned supporters that Reid's amendment would make "the Secretary of Education an agent of the entertainment industry" and that the amendment was based on grossly inaccurate, extrapolated numbers would require "targeted colleges and universities" to adopt a "technical solution to illegal file-sharing that does not yet exist." Luker told reporters the amendment passed was "more palatable." Still, with reporting on piracy enforcement now mandated, the MPAA has gained ground, and administrators are questioning what could be next.
In pushing for the amendment, MPAA chairman Dan Glickman claimed that "movie piracy is rampant among college students" and offered some astounding figures. He asserted that piracy costs the U.S. film industry more than $6 billion annually; related "U.S. industries" lose roughly $20.5 billion annually; $5.5 billion in lost U.S. wages;141,000 jobs and $837 million in additional tax revenue. He claimed a whopping 44 percent of the industry's "total loss" was "attributable to campus piracy." Critics have pointed out, however, that the movie industry, largely ineffective in targeting overseas pirates or traffic from private Internet Service Providers, has in campus networks simply found a much easier target to reach.
In testimony Gregory Jackson, VP & CIO, the University of Chicago, told the House Committee on Science and Technology that to require filters on college networks would be costly and ineffective. "When we instead restrict behavior technologically, we get nothing but an arms race we can't win."
Beyond the costs of compliance, the effect on campus of present and future MPAA lobbying may be to chill innovation. "At computer science departments across the country people are doing really exciting research on the most efficient modes of file distribution," explained University of Virginia professor Siva Vaidhyanathan. "But that sort of research is going to be impeded by legislation like this. Students and faculty are going to be looking over their shoulder wondering if they are going to get their university in trouble for coming up with a better idea." The MPAA, he added, is not in the business of education and therefore isn't concerned with such potential effects. "But Congress is, and they should care."
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University of Rochester To Launch Open Letter Publishing House
The University of Rochester has announced the creation of a new international literature publishing house dubbed Open Letter. The press, to be run by Chad Post, former associate editor of the Dalkey Archive Press, will focus on "modern classics and contemporary works of fiction." Beginning in fall 2008, the university said, Open Letter will publish 12 works of international literature a year. "We are focusing on 20th and 21st century literature from around the world—cosmopolitan literature, books that stimulate and provoke readers, and which we hope will be read for generations to come," said Post. He is joined at Open Letter by E.J. Van Lanen, former assistant editor at Ecco, and Nathan Furl, former marketing and production director at Dalkey Archive.
Open Letter's first publication will be Nobody's Home, by the Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic (Thank You for Not Reading, Museum of Unconditional Surrender). The other title on the initial list is Icelandic author Bragi Olafsson's The Pets. The university said that this new publishing venture is one of the key components in its academic programs "designed to train a new generation of literary translators and writers." In addition to publishing trade books, Open Letter will oversee Three Percent, a new web site featuring an international literature blog, reviews of untranslated books, sample translations, and a calendar of grants and prizes for translation.
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Science to Leave JSTOR
The journal Science, the flagship publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), has said it will withdraw from JSTOR, the Mellon-founded online journal archive. According to a report in Inside Higher Ed, it is the first JSTOR member publisher to leave the archive, which has over 900 titles, since the archive's founding in 1994. In a statement, a Science spokesperson told reporters that it was a matter of "strategic planning" and that, in a competitive environment, more scientific societies are "digitizing and controlling" their content: "AAAS shares the belief that it is now time to assume the full responsibility for maintaining a complete electronic archive of its flagship publication."
JSTOR executive director Michael Spinella, executive director of JSTOR, told Inside Higher Ed that he was "disappointed" to lose Science. He noted that, because JSTOR contracts are non-exclusive, Science could have both maintained its own archive and remained in JSTOR, which shares with publishers the fees it collects from subscriber libraries. However, publishers investing significant sums in their own content platforms often want to see traffic and revenues driven to their own sites. The departure recalls Duke University's decision in 2004 to remove 18 of its journals from the Johns Hopkins-based journal archive Project Muse. In an open letter to librarians, Duke UP director Steve Cohn explained that the driving factor was the slow, eventual erosion of subscription revenues for Duke's most popular journals included in Project MUSE once Duke created its own e-journal platform.
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Ray von Dran, 60, Former Dean at Syracuse, Passes Away
Raymond F. von Dran, dean emeritus of Syracuse University's School of Information Studies (iSchool) passed away July 23 in New York City. He was 60. Von Dran served as dean of the iSchool from 1995-2007. In March 2006, he announced his retirement as dean, effective this summer. He had planned to travel with his wife and return to the iSchool as a professor in 2008.
During von Dran's tenure as dean, the number of faculty and students in the iSchool nearly tripled and the school's sponsored research increased five-fold. All seven of the school's research centers were launched under his leadership. Several academic degree programs were instituted. Von Dran was also instrumental in increasing the school's endowment, recently helping to secure the largest gift in the school's 110-year history. Eric F. Spina, SU vice chancellor and provost, praised von Dran personally and professionally, lauding his "visionary leadership." Beyond that, Spina pointed to a national loss, saying von Dran helped lead "the movement among universities to re-invent traditional schools of library and information science as iSchools, designed to focus attention on the pervasive influence of information systems in contemporary life." An online memorial for von Dran is here.
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Best Sellers in Chemistry (13 digit ISBNs only), December 2006–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
- From Alchemy to Chemistry in Picture and Story
Greenberg, Arthur
John Wiley
2007. ISBN 9780471751540. $69.95
- Materials in Eighteenth-Century Science: A Historical Ontology
Klein, Ursula
MIT Press
2007. ISBN 9780262113069. $40.00
- Plutonium: A History of the World's Most Dangerous Element
Bernstein, Jeremy
Joseph Henry Press
2007. ISBN 9780309102964. $27.95
- Hydrogen Bond and the Water Molecule: The Physics and Chemistry of Water, Aqueous and Bio-Media
Marechal, Yves
Elsevier
2007. ISBN 9780444519573. $165.00
- Hawley's Condensed Chemical Dictionary
Lewis, Richard J.
John Wiley
2007. ISBN 9780471768654. $150.00
- Analytical Chemistry: Theoretical and Metrological Fundamentals
Danzer, K.
Springer
2007. ISBN 9783540359883. $99.00
- Chemical Kinetics: From Molecular Structure to Chemical Reactivity
Arnaut, Luis G.
Elsevier
2007. ISBN 9780444521866. $165.00
- Frontiers in Transition Metal-Containing Polymers
Abd-El-Aziz, Alaa S. & Ian Manners
John Wiley
2007. ISBN 9780471730156. $135.00
- Introduction to Computational Chemistry
Jensen, Frank
John Wiley
2007. ISBN 9780470011874. $75.00
- Activation of Small Molecules: Organometallic and Bioinorganic Perspectives
William B. Tolman
Wiley
2006. ISBN 9783527313129. $185.00
- Electron Crystallography of Biological Macromolecules
Glaeser, Robert M., et al.
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 9780195088717. $124.50
- Molecular Aggregation: Structure Analysis and Molecular Simulation of Crystals and Liquids
Gavezzotti, Angelo
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 9780198570806. $130.00
- New Frontiers in Asymmetric Catalysis
Ed. by Koichi Mikami & Mark Lautens
John Wiley
2007. ISBN 9780471680260. $99.95
- Synthesis and Characterization of Glycosides
Brito-Arias, Marco
Springer
2007. ISBN 9780387262512. $99.00
- Liquid Crystals
Khoo, Iam-Choon
John Wiley
2007. ISBN 9780471751533. $135.00
- Fiesers' Reagents for Organic Synthesis; V. 23
Ho, Tse-Lok
John Wiley
2007. ISBN 9780471682431. $135.00
- Self-Doped Conducting Polymers
Freund, Michael S.
John Wiley
2007. ISBN 9780470029695. $135.00
- Palladium in Heterocyclic Chemistry: A Guide for the Synthetic Chemist
Ed. by Jie Jack Li & Gordon Gribble
Elsevier
2007. ISBN 9780080451176. $54.95
- Handbook of Reagents for Organic Synthesis: Reagents for Direct Functionalization of C-H Bonds
Fuchs, Philip L.
John Wiley
2007. ISBN 9780470010228. $150.00
- Organic Reactions; V. 68
Overman, Larry E.
John Wiley
2007. ISBN 9780470098981. $130.00
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