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 | Cornell University Joins Google Scan Plan
Cornell University this week became the 27th library to join the Google Books Library Project. Under terms of the agreement, Google will digitize up to 500,000 works from Cornell's Mann Library and make them available online using Google Book Search. The deal is for a six-year period, during which Cornell will provide Google with both public domain and copyrighted holdings from its collections. As per Google's policy, if a work has no copyright restrictions the full text will be available for online viewing. For books protected by copyright, users will just get "snippets" and the book's basic information, such as title, publisher and author. Users will also get information about where they can "buy or borrow a book."
Cornell University librarians will work with Google to choose materials. Of note, Google will provide Cornell with a digital copy of each book it scans; those books, Cornell says, will "eventually" be incorporated into the university's own digital library. It was unknown at press time, however, when Cornell would get its library copies. In Google's agreement with the libraries of the Big Twelve, library copies are to be held "in escrow." Section 4.11 of that agreement states that Google will hold the "University Copy" of scanned works, releasing them to the contributing libraries only if the "in-copyright Work becomes public domain;" if the "library party has obtained permission through contractual agreements with copyright holders;" or if "well-established case law exists" that in-copyright works can be copied and held by the libraries without infringing on the rights of a copyright holder.
Mann's collections include some of the materials in biological sciences; natural resources; plant, animal, and environmental sciences; applied economics; management and public policy; human development; textiles and apparel; nutrition and food science. Cornell librarian Anne Kenney said the deal offers Cornell "a significant reduction in the time and effort associated with providing scholarly full-text resources online."
Cornell, meanwhile, is proving to be an equal opportunity scanner, having already entered into a partnership with Google competitor Microsoft to digitize "a significant number" and putting them online through Microsoft's Live Book Search service. That agreement will focus on works in the public domain, and will also provide the library with digital copies of the materials scanned. The library has also partnered with BookSurge, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, to offer print-on-demand (PoD) books from its digitized materials. Currently, 3500 Cornell titles are available for sale by anyone browsing Amazon.com, with than number to increase to more than 6000. Users can order books through Amazon.com, Google BookSearch, or through the Cornell University Library's customized Amazon storefront.
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Indiana U. Libraries, ChaCha Partnership Seeks to Add Human Touch to Web Search
Indiana University (IU) has announced a "strategic alliance" with ChaCha.com, an Indiana company that seeks to add a human touch to the web. Under the agreement, the IU/ChaCha partnership will incorporate the "collective knowledge and experience of the university's library and information technology staff" into ChaCha's new search engine architecture, which seeks to combine "machine-based search" with "skilled human guides." The name ChaCha comes from "cha," the Chinese word for search.
ChaCha's vision of "guided search" will offer instant results like traditional search engines, but will also incorporate human expertise to help users focus on the most relevant information. At IU, librarians, information technology staff, and others will serve as guides, available to help the IU community conduct searches through a live instant message chat interface. When IU students and faculty use the service, IU "guides" will vet and "vote upon the instant search results", constantly improving them, as opposed to having results returned solely according to an algorithm. Guides will also be available for live chat. Under the partnership, IU and ChaCha will collaborate on several projects for the fall semester, and the ChaCha service already powers IU's search portal. Patricia Steele, Ruth Lilly Interim Dean of University Libraries, added that the technology could extend the reach of librarians. "This platform will now help us push our expertise outside the walls of the library to where people are working,' she noted.
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| Springer Releases Full Ebook Survey Results
Springer released the results of its ebook survey this week, and as initially reported in Tuesday's edition of the LJ Academic Newswire, the results show ebooks are gaining serious traction in libraries, offering potentially "enormous advantages" not only to libraries and users, but for publishers as well. The independent study of six large universities' use of Springer's ebook collections was conducted this year by Attfield Dykstra. In addition to the benefits to users (including 24/7 access and multiple use), the survey noted that publishers also can benefit from "creating large, cost-effective packages."
Specifically, librarians commented that ebooks eliminate the need for physical handling and storage, eased space issues, and "nearly eliminated damage or loss concerns." But librarians also noted that ebooks offer librarians something they truly love: better, more meaningful usage statistics, which respondents said aids "decision-making about collection development and budgets."
The survey found that ebooks still come with their share of speed bumps, however. While librarians said ebooks offer great long-term prospects for cost savings, costs associated with the transition to ebooks will likely negate any savings in the short-term. Specifically, librarians cited "inefficient and varied order processes" for different publishers, "time-consuming licensing agreements" and varied access arrangements. Familiarizing users with ebooks and promoting them also represents a significant challenge. "The resources are very expensive, so when we buy them we want them to be used as much as possible," noted one librarian. "So it is the library's responsibility as well to promote these new acquisitions."
How the costs of maintaining the technology will add up also remains an unknown. Respondents, however, said they believed that there will be "a far-reaching transition" to ebooks over another five to ten years, although researchers in some disciplines, such as the Sciences, will make this transition more rapidly.
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| St. Ambrose University Renames Library
In a special meeting of the St. Ambrose University Board of Directors (Davenport, IA), the board voted to remove the late Bishop Gerald O'Keefe's name from the St. Ambrose Library. The decision came after an ad hoc committee recommended that the board investigate a request to remove O'Keefe's name because of the bishop's "failure to take the necessary precautions to protect children from clergy sexual abuse that occurred during his tenure as bishop of the Davenport Diocese." The board determined that the request was justified.
"While a very difficult decision," St. Ambrose officials stated, "the board felt it was the right thing to do for the university, as well as a step taken in the spirit of promoting healing within the diocese and, in a larger sense, for all victims of abuse." The library will be referred to as the St. Ambrose University Library until the board determines the appropriate course of action for a renaming. O'Keefe headed the Davenport Roman Catholic diocese from 1966 to 1993. He died in April 2000 at age 82. The library was named for him when it opened in 1996. According to an article in the Quad Cities Online, the Davenport diocese was accused of covering up the abuse during O'Keefe's tenure, and has since settled 43 lawsuits against priests for about $10 million.
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Best Sellers in Environmental Studies (13 digit ISBNs in brackets), December 2006–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
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Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can't Predict the Future
Pilkey, Orrin H.
Columbia University Press
2007. ISBN 0231132123 [9780231132121]. $29.95
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Lives per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction
Tamminen, Terry
Island Press
2006. ISBN 1597261017 [9781597261012]. $24.95
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Tinkerer's Accomplice: How Design Emerges From Life Itself
Turner, J. Scott
Harvard University Press
2007. ISBN 0674023536 [9780674023536]. $27.95
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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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Great Lead Water Pipe Disaster
Troesken, Werner
MIT Press
2006. ISBN 0262201674 [9780262201674]. $29.95
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Energy for the 21st Century: A Comprehensive Guide to Conventional and Alternative Sources
Nersesian, Roy L.
M. E. Sharpe
2007. ISBN 0765613239 [9780765613233]. $94.95
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Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social Justice Challenge to the Environmental Movement
Ed. by Ronald Sandler and Phaedra C. Pezzullo
MIT Press
2007. ISBN 0262195526 [9780262195522]. $62.00
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Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations
Montgomery, David R.
University of California Press
2007. ISBN 0520248708 [9780520248700]. $24.95
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Biodiversity Planning and Design: Sustainable Practices
Ahern, Jack, et al.
Island Press
2006. ISBN 1597261084 [9781597261081]. $50.00
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Last Forest: The Amazon in the Age of Globalization
London, Mark
Random House
2007. ISBN 0679643052 [9780679643050]. $25.95
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Urban Whale: North Atlantic Right Whales at the Crossroads
Scott D. Kraus
Harvard University Press
2007. ISBN 0674023277 [9780674023277]. $55.00
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Recurring Dark Ages: Ecological Stress, Climate Changes, and System Transformation
Chew, Sing C.
Altamira
2007. ISBN 0759104514 [9780759104518}. $80.00
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Sixth Extinction: Journey Among the Lost and Left Behind
Glavin, Terry
St. Martin's Press
2006. ISBN 0312362315 [9780312362317]. $24.95
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Wars in the Woods: The Rise of Ecological Forestry in America
Hays, Samuel P.
University of Pittsburgh Press
2007. ISBN 082294328x [9780822943280]. $60.00
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This Land, This Nation: Conservation, Rural America, and the New Deal
Phillips, Sarah T.
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521852706 [9780521852708]. $75.00
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Gaia's Revenge: Climate Change and Humanity's Loss
Liotta, P.H.
Praeger
2007. ISBN 0275987973 [9780275987978]. $49.95
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Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water
Snitow, Alan
Jossey-Bass
2007. ISBN 0787984582 [9780787984588]. $27.95
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Saving Nature's Legacy: Origins of the Idea of Biological Diversity
Farnham, Timothy J.
Yale University Press
2007. ISBN 0300120052 [9780300120059]. $45.00
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Improving State of the World: Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet
Goklany, Indur M.
Cato Institute
2007. ISBN 1930865996 [9781930865990]. $29.95
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Connectivity Conservation
Kevin R. Crooks
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521857066 [9780521857062]. $160.00
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